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“The cooking?” While money was not abundant in the Prescott household with all that was spent on their parents’ respective crusades, the family had never been without a cook and a maid.
Amelia nodded firmly. “I don’t know why not. I have two good hands and a brain in my head. It can’t be that hard to learn. We’ll start by going into town and picking up some supplies.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Morgan said, shaking his head.
There seemed to be no way to lock up the cabin, so they merely shut the door, saddled up their horses and rode away, leaving everything unprotected, as appeared to be the custom in this strange land. They headed back across the beautiful meadow, then followed the twisting path into town. Amelia’s spirits rose as they went. It felt good to be doing something, to have a purpose. Parker would feel better, too, she decided, when she told him that she was going to leave him alone to his mining operations and that she would take care of having a clean house and a nice hot meal ready for him each day. Perhaps if she made him happy enough, he would agree to give up his trips to town.
When they reached the main street, she told Morgan, “I’m going to send a wire to Mother and Father letting them know that we’ll be heading back in six weeks. I don’t know exactly how I’ll explain the delay, but I’ll think of something. In the meantime, I’d like you to look for Parker.”
Morgan frowned as he tied their mounts to the rail in front of the telegraph office. “I don’t like leaving you alone, Missy. And, anyway, where am I supposed to find that wild brother of yours?”
Amelia shrugged. “I believe he mentioned an establishment called the Lucky Horseshoe.”
Morgan’s frown deepened. “Now, Missy, you know very well that I haven’t been inside a saloon these past twenty years.”
Amelia bit her lip. “I didn’t say you had to drink anything, Morgan. Just fetch him out of there. Tell him I want to talk with him.”
“I don’t know…”
Amelia gave him a gentle shove. “Go on with you. I’ll send my wire and then meet the two of you at the general store.”
His big boots shuffling against the fine dust of the street, Morgan headed down the row of saloons toward a large building at one end that sported an awning and a shellacked sign painted with an upside-down horseshoe.
Tinny piano music drifted out through the saloon’s wide-open door. Morgan took a deep breath, set his shoulders and walked in.
Gambling tables covered with green felt filled over half of the large, smoky room. Clustered next to the bar were a few smaller tables just for drinking. Most were empty. A busty woman with bright yellow hair sat on a stool next to the bar, her crossed legs revealing the grimy ruffles of at least three petticoats.
Morgan paused at the door and squinted through the smoke at the gambling tables.
“Hey, big fella,” the woman at the bar called to him. “Wanna buy me a drink?”
He walked slowly toward her, politely removing his hat as he went. “I’m just here looking for a friend, ma’am.”
“I can be right friendly when I want to be, Samson.” Her eyelashes were crusted with kohl. Close up she looked much older than she had from the door. There was no welcome in her eyes to match her words.
“Ah…the name’s Morgan, ma’am. Morgan Jones. But I really just came to find a fellow name of Parker Prescott. Would you know him, by any chance?”
She smiled. “Parker’s a regular. And a right pretty boy he is, too.” The thickened lashes fluttered up and down. “But I prefer the strong silent type, don’t ya know. So how’s about that drink?”
Morgan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Ah…have you seen Parker around here this afternoon?”
The woman leaned back against the bar and turned her head to call to the bartender at the far end. “Roscoe, this fellow here doesn’t want to have a drink with me.”
The words were slurred, and as she swung around she teetered for a moment at the edge of the stool. Morgan put out a hand to steady her.
“No sampling of the merchandise,” said a voice behind him. “If you want Stella’s company, you’d better buy a drink.”
Morgan turned around. The man in back of him was a middle-aged man, elegantly dressed with a bright silk vest that stretched over a banker’s paunch. His cheeks were slightly flabby and his hands looked soft. He had thinning hair that he’d greased and pulled over to one side. Normally Morgan would have brushed off such a man like a bread crumb on a tablecloth, but there was something in the fellow’s expression that gave him pause. The man smiled and stood politely awaiting Morgan’s answer. His steel-colored eyes held a deadly expression that matched the deadliness of the longbarreled Colt Special tucked into his belt.
“I don’t drink, sir,” Morgan said softly.
The man’s smile grew broader. “Well, now. That’s a strange thing to say for a man standing in the middle of a saloon. Or did you think this was the Ladies’ Aid Society?”
Morgan held his temper. “I’m just looking for Parker Prescott.”
The man hesitated for a minute, then seemed to make a decision. He clapped Morgan on the back and said heartily, “Any friend of Parker’s is welcome here, my good fellow. I take it you’re new in town.”
Reluctantly Morgan introduced himself.
“I’m Jim Driscoll. Big Jim, most folks call me.” He patted a hand on his stomach and laughed. He pushed the woman roughly off the stool. “Go on upstairs and get some coffee to sober up, Stella,” he told her. “How’re you supposed to last out the night when you’re sotted before sunset?”
She stumbled away from the bar and headed toward the stairs at the end of the room. Driscoll indicated the seat she had vacated. “Sit down, Jones. The first one’s on the house for a new customer.”
Morgan didn’t move. “Thank you for the offer, Mr. Driscoll, but as I said before, I don’t drink. If Parker’s not here, I’ll just be moving along.”
“Something wrong with our liquor, man?” Two cowboys, one with two Smith & Wessons holstered in a double gunbelt and one with a Colt Peacemaker stuffed into his pants, had quietly come up along either side of Driscoll. Morgan took a step backward but found himself up against the long bar. “I’m not here for trouble,” he said, holding out his empty hands.
“It looks like Mr. Jones’s backbone doesn’t quite match up to the rest of his size,” Driscoll said with a sneer.
Morgan dropped his hands and tried to move around the three men. Before he could take a second step, the man with the gunbelt had cleared leather. Slowly he pulled back the hammer of the big gun, cocked it and pointed it at Morgan’s chest.
Morgan froze in place. A rivulet of sweat made its way along his temple. Driscoll was still smiling. Chairs scraped and the piano music across the room slowed, then stopped altogether.
A man at one of the gaming tables rose to his feet and sauntered toward the group at the bar. “What seems to be the problem here, Driscoll?” Gabe Hatch asked in an even voice.
The smile dropped off Driscoll’s face as he turned toward the newcomer. “Go on back to your game, Hatch. This is a private matter.”
Gabe ignored him and kept on coming, stopping just behind the cowboy with the drawn gun. His hands were at his sides, fingers slightly spread.
“Mr. Jones is a friend of mine, gentlemen,” Gabe said. “And he’s new in town. I wouldn’t want to see him get into any kind of trouble.”
The man with the Peacemaker still tucked in his belt said, “Your friend thinks he’s too good to have a drink with Big Jim here.”
“I told you to stay out of it, Hatch,” Driscoll said, turning around to face Gabe.
“And I told you that Morgan’s a friend of mine.” He had no visible weapon, but he flexed his fingers and had the look of a man ready to take action.
He and Driscoll locked gazes for a tense moment. Finally the saloon owner shrugged and said, “Tell your friend he’d better be more sociable the next time he comes around here.” He gave a curt nod to the man holding the gun, who immediately uncocked it and slipped it back into its holster. Then he pushed past Gabe and walked away.
Gabe gripped Morgan’s shoulder. The big man was shaken by the encounter, and Gabe didn’t blame him. Deuce Connors had gotten his nickname from those two sidearms of his, and he handled them as slickly as anyone in Deadwood. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Parker’s not around. He must be over at Mattie’s.”
Connors and the other gunman kept their eyes on them as they walked toward the door. “Friendly town,” Morgan said dryly when they were out on the street.
“Yeah, well, most of the people are all right. Driscoll’s just gotten too swelled for his britches. He’s got the biggest saloon in town and owns most of those rentals up there.” He pointed up the canyon wall to a section of tin-roofed shacks built practically on top of each other. “Charges sky-high rents for miserable huts that a pig would think twice about sleeping in. But there are so many danged fools arriving every day determined to strike it rich that he can set any price he wants.”
Morgan spat into the dust as if trying to rid himself of the taste of Big Jim Driscoll. “He won’t have my patronage again, that’s for darn sure.”
Gabe started down the street. “I’ll walk with you to Mattie’s,” he said. “I wouldn’t choose the Lucky Horseshoe myself except that it has the richest games in town. If you want to talk real money, you’ve got to be a customer of Big Jim.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Gabe asked, “Why are you looking for Parker?”
“His sister wants him. It seems she’s determined to make a happy home for him up there at the mine. She’s over at the store right now buying soap and brooms and what all. Says she’s going to clean things up.”
Gabe chuckled. “Well, now, that should be interesting.”
* * *
By the time an evasive Parker and an even more evasive Morgan had joined Amelia at the general store, she had finished making her purchases. She stood impatiently, surrounded by bundles and feeling a little self-conscious. The storekeeper didn’t seem to mind having a strange woman planted in the middle of his store, tapping her foot and looking around restlessly.
Parker had refused to offer much in the way of an explanation for the delay, though he claimed to be pleased that she had found a project with which to occupy herself and agreed to return to the cabin with them. All in all, the trip to town had brought back Amelia’s headache, and she decided to postpone her cleaning venture until the next day.
It proved to be a wise decision, since she awoke the next morning with a clear head and a renewed determination to make the best of her stay in the West. Even the weather seemed resolved to put on its best face. It was a brilliant, cloudless day. The stream sparkled like liquid diamonds and the valley beyond looked green and inviting. Amelia thought for a moment of taking a short ride across the meadow before she started her work, but firmly pushed the idea away. Her first task was to do laundry, and since she had never in her life washed so much as a handkerchief, she figured she’d better get an early start.
Parker was on his best behavior, evidently as determined as she that their six weeks would be pleasant. He agreed without fuss that Morgan should stop working on the mine long enough to help her fill the washtub they had cut from a barrel and haul water up to the new copper boiler she’d purchased in town.
Once she had her system set up, Amelia told Morgan that he could go back to helping Parker. She would handle things from here on. What could be that difficult about boiling and rinsing clothes?
Feeling a touch of that independence Parker had boasted about, she prepared the first batch. She remembered that Meggie, the Irishwoman who came in once a week to supervise the laundry at the Prescott household, always put the light-colored things together, particularly the more delicate…unmentionables. As she started to choose items from the pile that Parker had gathered for her the previous evening, it dampened her enthusiasm a bit to discover that it wasn’t only Parker’s house that hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. But she persisted and added some things of Morgan’s and her own until the boiler was chock-full. She ladled out a spoonful of soap. She had no idea how much to use nor how long the things should boil, but it didn’t seem that such considerations should matter. After all, she had been the star pupil at Miss Longworth’s Female Academy four years running. How hard could it be to do a little laundry?
Gabe gave his horse free rein across the last flat stretch of meadow. Yesterday he had resisted the urge to walk with Parker and Morgan to see Amelia. Her refusal to dine with him had made it fairly clear that she was not interested in cultivating their acquaintance. But this morning he’d found himself mounting up to ride out to the mine with absolutely no excuse whatsoever except the beauty of one of the last hot days of summer. Amelia Prescott might not want to see him, but she’d left him with a bur under his saddle that had to get combed out…or at least scratched a bit.
Parker and Morgan were upstream at the far end of the digs, so Gabe hitched his horse, untied a paperwrapped package from the back of his saddle and headed for the little cabin. The paper contained a slab of salt pork. Not the most romantic of offerings, but he knew the state of Parker’s larder and figured that by now the lad’s Eastern visitors could be getting pretty hungry. They weren’t used to living on scrawny rabbits and scavenged wild vegetables like the more veteran miners up and down the Black Hills.
He couldn’t hear any noise from inside the cabin. Perhaps Amelia was upriver with her brother. Tentatively he pushed open the door and looked inside. He couldn’t decide whether the scene that met his eyes was comical or tragic. Amelia sat next to a large tub with her legs stuck straight out in front of her. The dirt floor underneath her had turned into a giant mud puddle that had splattered her light blue dress with polka dots of mud. She was surrounded by soaked, muddy articles of clothing. The water in the tub was black. A copper boiler lay on its side by the fire, more clothes tumbling out of it onto the ground. Amelia held one item in her hands and was viewing it with an expression of mourning.
She turned when the door opened. “Oh, fine,” she said. “Now my day is complete.”
“You’re glad to see me, I take it,” Gabe answered. The comical was winning out over the tragic, but he kept his expression neutral.
“What do you want, Mr. Hatch?”
Gabe looked around the room. “I…ah…heard you were determined to clean this place up.”
“Mr. Hatch,” she said in a slow, deliberate tone, “I’m sure your business is with my brother. He’s up the hill somewhere with Morgan. Please go find them and leave me alone. I am, as you can see, very busy.”
Her voice was a strong contrast to the forlorn picture she presented. No one would say that little Amelia Prescott lacked pluck. “Can I help?” he asked mildly.
Her chin came up another degree. “I’m doing just fine, thank you.” When he continued watching her with a sympathetic look in his eyes, she added, “Except…except…”
Finally there was the slightest tremor in her voice. He moved closer, just to the edge of the ring of mud, and crouched down. “Except what?” he asked gently.
She pulled her bottom lip through her teeth. Her mouth was full and red, Gabe noted idly. Ripened.
She lifted the soggy piece of clothing from her lap, then let it drop with a sodden splash. With an intake of breath that could have been close to a sob, she said, “This was my only nightgown.”
Gabe glanced at the garment. It appeared to be made plainly of a serviceable white cotton. What had been white cotton. “Are you having trouble getting it clean?”
She shook her head. “It’s ruined. Look.”
He leaned close as she picked it up once again. The entire piece was covered with sticky black globs.
“What water did you use?”
She looked confused. “Well, just…water. From the stream.”
“Ah.” He stood and walked through the mud to pick up the fallen boiler. Then he began dumping the dirty clothes back into it. “The streams around here are full of minerals. See how the clothes have turned yellow?”
He spoke calmly, as if to a child, and gave Amelia time to compose herself. She picked at one of the little black balls. “Will these ever come off?” she asked.
“Perhaps. With patience. But the way to start would be to wash everything again. Doesn’t your brother have a rain barrel?”
She gave a forlorn shrug.
“You need fresh water and lots of soap. How much did you use?”
She cupped her hand to indicate the size of the spoonful. The skin of her palm was bright red.
“You’ve burned yourself!”
She quickly turned her hand over, but he reached for it and gently spread her fingers out. “It’s nothing,” she said.
“Didn’t you pour cold water over the clothes before you took them out of the boiler?” She didn’t answer. He dropped her hand with a shake of his head, then collected the soiled nightgown from her lap. It appeared to have fared worse than most of the other garments. “Whenever you have to use river water, you need to use a lot of soap.”
“I didn’t think it would make any difference.”
He smiled at her. “It’s not quite the same as turning on a faucet over a washtub back home, is it?”
“Mr. Hatch, I have never in my life turned on a faucet over a washtub.”
Her expression had regained some of the defensive haughtiness he had found so intriguing the other day. He liked it better than the sadness he had seen in her eyes when he came in, which had put an uncomfortable soft spot in the middle of his gut.
“Well, then, you can learn from the beginning.” He reached out his hand. After a slight hesitation, she took it and let him pull her up out of the dirt. “We’ll start by moving this operation out of Mudville, here. There’s a nice grassy bank behind the cabin that will do just fine.”
By late afternoon it was done. Gabe’s brisk manner and gentle jokes had helped Amelia overcome her initial embarrassment at seeing him, his white ruffled shirt rolled up to his elbows, scrubbing away at her most personal items of clothing. She’d never in her life seen a man do laundry, but Gabe seemed to think it nothing extraordinary. A few of the garments had been beyond remedy, including her nightgown. Sadly she’d crumpled it into a ball with the other ruined things and tucked them away in the corner of the cupboard to use as rags.
She sat back against the little hill bank and surveyed the results of their efforts. Freshly cleaned clothes, now only slightly yellowed, flapped in the breeze from the clotheslines Gabe had strung between three small trees in the back of the cabin. The boiler had been dried and put away in the cabin and the barrel washtub was emptied and lying on the ground bottom up.
She was glad that Parker and Morgan had taken their lunches with them this morning and had not returned to the house at midday. She didn’t think she could bear having them see the mess she had made. They would be home soon, though, and hungry as usual. She didn’t have an ounce of energy left to prepare a meal, and she had no idea what they were going to eat. The squirrel stew was gone, and neither Parker nor Morgan had been out to catch anything else. Remember stores? she thought to herself. Stores where you bought food in boxes and cans? Restaurants? Restaurants where you sat at tables covered with snowy linen and fine china and were served course after elegant course by a discreetly hovering waiter?
“Now what’s the problem?” Gabe interrupted her thoughts.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You look gloomy again. The laundry’s done. The floor inside has almost dried. The only thing left to do is get you cleaned up,” he added, gesturing to her now completely filthy dress.
She felt her cheeks color. She couldn’t believe she was sitting on the bank, her dress wet and clinging to her in what must be a most indecent way, her skirt pulled up inches above her ankles and her feet bare, since she had abandoned her soggy shoes halfway through the afternoon. She must look like the worst kind of hoyden. “I am a sight,” she said ruefully.
“Yes, you are,” he agreed easily, his eyes bright as they roamed the length of her.
