“I brought you something from the city.” Nate pulled a paper parcel from his jacket and held it out to her. “For you and the kid,” he said, and Sarah accepted it.
“Is it a Christmas present?” she asked shyly.
“It’s near Christmas, ain’t it? Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Sarah started to tuck it away in a pocket of her cloak.
“Open it.”
“It’s a Christmas present.”
“Hell. No, it ain’t. It’s just a present present. Open it.”
Sarah peeled back the brown paper; there was crinkly white confectioner’s paper inside and she tore it open.
Nate laughed at the look on her face.
“What are they?” she asked. The package contained flat, withered, orange-brown circles, their edges curling up all around.
“Eat one.”
She took one out gingerly. Nate pinched two from the package and popped one in his mouth; the other he gave to Wolf. The little boy nibbled an edge off and chewed contentedly. “Candy,” he said to Sarah.
“You know what these are, kid?” Wolf looked suspiciously up at his father. “These are dried ears. They cut them off little Indian boys and dry them out in the sun. They dry up sweet as anything.” Wolf put his hands over his ears and hid his face in Sarah’s cape.
“Stop it,” Sarah said. “You’re scaring him.”
Nate bridled at the uncharacteristic authority in her voice. “Don’t be a crybaby,” he snapped at the boy. “Nobody likes a scaredycat.” Wolf buried his face deeper in the folds of the cloak. Nate bent over, his hands on his knees. “Come on now, I was just teasing. What’s the matter, can’t you take a little teasing? Them’s just dried apricots is all. Little bitty pieces of dried fruit.” The child refused to be cajoled. “Come on, kid, you want a horseback ride? I’ll give you a horseback ride.” Wolf was not proof against the temptation of a ride on horseback, and came out from behind Sarah to be lifted into the saddle, where he gazed happily around, delighted with his new vantage point, his short legs sticking out to the sides.
“You warm enough?” Nate asked Sarah after a minute.
“Yes.”
“Don’t talk much, do you?”
“No.”
“Cat got your tongue?”
“No.”
Nate let the conversation rest for a while before he tried again. “I mean no disrespect, but you’re a fine-looking girl.” Sarah blushed and he smiled at the red in her cheeks. “I’ve a mind to ask if I can come calling another time.”
“I’m married.”
Nate snorted. “Mrs. Ebbitt, ain’t it?”
“Yes. Mrs. Sam Ebbitt.”
“I don’t recall seeing a Mr. Ebbitt.”
Sarah said nothing.
“He run out on you?”
“No,” she almost whispered.
“Well, it ain’t natural, a young, good-looking girl like you living holed up with an old-maid schoolteacher. Nobody to talk to. Nobody to look pretty for. It ain’t the way the Lord intended. A pretty little gal like you-”
“We’ve got to be getting home,” Sarah burst out. She darted back and pulled Wolf from the saddle, her fear of the animal forgotten. “We’re going home now,” she explained to the startled child. “Thank you for the ride, Mr. Weldrick.” Wolf was big for a three-year-old, but Sarah picked him up, carrying him awkwardly across her chest.
Nate started after her. “Here! Let me take you home.”
“No!”
Lugging a protesting Wolf, Sarah ran from him.
Imogene left school just after four o’clock; she had stayed late, working on a fitted wool coat of soft robin’s-egg blue-Sarah’s Christmas present. Mac had donated two white rabbit pelts to line the hood and cuffs.
Columns of smoke rose from chimneys all over town, particles of soot and ash catching the thin sunlight. Above the railroad station, black smoke billowed from engines coaling up for the haul over the mountains. Walking quickly to keep warm, Imogene passed through the quiet residential neighborhood and across Virginia Street to the railroad station.
“I’m expecting a parcel from Philadelphia,” she said to the clerk. “Books.” Tired of waiting the many months it often took for books to arrive after ordering, Imogene had taken to sending William Utterback lists of materials she needed. He bought them for her in Philadelphia and sent them out. If Kate felt that the school could use them, Imogene was reimbursed; if not, she paid for them out of her own pocket.
The books had arrived in two big boxes. Imogene pulled one over the counter and cut it open with a single-bladed jackknife she took from her purse. There was a letter from Mr. Utterback inside; she took it out, then tied up the box again and lifted it experimentally. “I can’t carry both by myself. Is there someone here who can help me?” she asked the clerk on duty.
“It’s an off time; I’m the only one here. I can’t leave or I’d do it myself.” The clerk leaned on the counter and sucked his teeth thoughtfully. “Might try over to the Wells Fargo. Judge Curler’s got an errand boy over there not good for much.”
Imogene thanked him and sat down to read her letter before walking the short distance to the Wells Fargo office.
3 November 1877
Dear Imogene,
Here are the books thee ordered but for The Old Curiosity Shop. I shall keep looking and send it when I can. Mrs. Utterback is in as good health as our years will allow, and sends her best.
Kevin Ramsey has remarried, to quite a nice girl, Mrs. Utterback says, and is moving west to Illinois to be a farmer. It will be a better life for Mary Beth’s child.
I have news of an old friend of thine, Mr. Aiken. He left Philadelphia with Friend Oakes’s cashbox and the hired girl-the young woman was just turned fourteen and a very slow thinker. The girl is back now, heavy with child; he left her just outside of New Orleans. No one has heard from Mr. Aiken.
I hope that this finds thee well and content, and that the books are all in order.
Peace,
William Utterback
Imogene folded the letter and put it in her purse. “I’ll be back for my parcels,” she informed the clerk.
She proceeded to the Wells Fargo office. Judge Curler sat at an oversized desk behind a railing, steel-rimmed glasses pinched on the end of his nose, poring over a pile of receipts. By the woodstove lounged an ungainly fellow in his early twenties, his pimpled cheeks covered with fine, sparse hair. He was thick without any evidence of strength, the flesh heavy and slack. A second desk in the back was empty but for a sign reading R. JENSEN. DIZABLE & DENNING. In one corner stood a telegraph apparatus.
The judge looked up as Imogene opened the door. “What can I do for you?” He removed his glasses and laid them carefully beside the book he was working on.
“The clerk at the railroad station said you had a boy here who might be able to carry some parcels home for me. It’s not far.”
“Harland!”
The young man toasting his feet swung his chair around.
“This is Harland Maydley, ma’am. He’ll get your things home for you. Harland, make yourself useful for a change; give this lady a hand with her boxes.”
Harland pushed himself laboriously from his chair and pulled on his coat with a lethargy that bordered on insolence.
Imogene walked quickly, with long clean strides, and Harland Maydley, with his shorter legs, had to skip every few steps to keep up.
“You’re Miss Grelznik, ain’t you? Teacher up to the school?”
“I’m Miss Grelznik.”
“Mac McMurphy told me when I pointed you out once. That girl your daughter?”
“No.” Imogene closed her mouth behind the word with a finality that would have daunted even an only slightly more sensitive individual.
“She’s a looker, in a hoity-toity kind of way,” Harland went on.