Beauty From Ashes

by Lynnette Bonner

  “Sir.” Wash returned his greeting with a nod.

  “Anyone hurt?”

  Joe shook his head. “We’re all fine. You catch them all?”

  Reagan nodded. “I think so. Rounded up four men. Know for a fact one works for Hunt. Know why they were shooting at you?”

  Joe swept a hand of weariness over his face. He filled Reagan in on as much as he knew of the story.

  “Liora and this girl, Tess, witnessed a murder?”

  Joe nodded. “Apparently a…patron accused Tess of stealing from him, but when it was proven untrue, Hunt shot the man. They said there was a whole crowd of witnesses.”

  Reagan studied the last rays of sunlight disappearing through the trees. “Well, it’s too late to ride out there tonight. And chances are that one of the four men we’ve just captured was there.”

  “Was one of the men you arrested named Pike?”

  The men turned to find Liora huddled into her shawl on the front porch. A ferocious determination glittered in her eyes.

  Joe offered the question to Reagan with a look.

  Reagan nodded. “Pike was one of them, yes.”

  Liora trembled visibly. “He’s the one John told to deal with the body.”

  Reagan met Joe’s gaze. “All right. We’ll start with him, then. Maybe we can get him to give us some information beyond the reason why he was here shooting up the place. Meet me in town mid-morning? That will give me some time to question them. Then we can ride out to Sixty-Five?”

  Joe gave him a nod.

  Reagan tipped his hat to Liora and then reined his horse around toward town. “Till then.” He kicked his big black into a canter, Wash following in his wake.

  When the doctor had left the evening before, Aurora had turned back to find Ma’s eyes open and fixed right on her. For one moment. hope pushed aside everything she knew to be real. She hurried forward and took Ma’s hand, kneeling by the cot. “Ma! You feeling better?”

  Ma gave a weak nod. But Aurora knew it was only for show. With a trembling hand, Ma reached up to smooth her hair back from her face. “My…beautiful…girl…” The words were so weak they barely carried sound and Aurora leaned closer so she wouldn’t miss a word. “So kind and generous.” Ma’s lips thinned into a smile. “I’m sorry to be leaving you so soon.”

  Aurora blinked hard to hold back the tears. “Hush, Ma. I’m going to be fine.”

  “I’ve done everything I could to keep you from the life.”

  Aurora knew exactly what life Ma meant. “I know, Ma. Don’t worry about me, please. You just rest.”

  But Ma was already shaking her head and lifting a weak finger to shush her. “Lis…ten. Whoring will…kill you, baby girl. Run. Hide. Don’t let him find you.”

  Aurora had no doubt who her mother meant she should hide from. But where would she go? John Hunt had people everywhere. And Ma owed him a lot of money. He would chase her down and drag her back.

  Ma’s strength flagged but she gestured insistently toward the small trunk that contained the only possessions they’d retained of her father’s. Everything else, they’d had to sell after he’d died in a logging accident. One of the mules in his team had balked at a snake on the roadway and sent the entire wagonload of logs into the ditch, taking Papa with it. He’d been crushed instantly. That had been three years ago mid-winter. Aurora had been a gangly girl of fourteen. Ma had tried to find work, but John Hunt had liked her looks and he’d forbidden anyone in the camp from giving her a job or selling them a wagon or a horse. In the middle of winter, they hadn’t dared try to leave without a wagon for cover. In the end, Ma had no choice but to go to work for John.

  And Aurora wouldn’t either.

  But she did as Ma wanted and pulled the trunk closer to the bed, opening the lid. Her heart lurched at the sight of Papa’s violin case lying on the tray inside. Her hand traced over the smoothness of the hard case. How many times had she wanted to pluck the strings, to hear the bow sing a sweet note along a tight string? But Ma had forbidden her to play it after the accident. It reminded her too much of Papa, she’d said.

  Ma’s hand trembled when she motioned that Aurora should lift the inset tray of the trunk.

  Aurora set the tray to one side, watching Ma carefully to see what might be in the trunk that she wanted Aurora to pay attention to.

  Ma motioned to a stack of clothes in one corner. “Been sa…ving…these.” Her breaths were coming in short shallow puffs now.

  “Ma, you need to rest. We can do this later.”

  Ma gave a firm shake of her head. “No. Just…” She motioned emphatically that Aurora should lift the stack.

  Torn between forcing her to rest and upsetting her by refusing to do as she asked, Aurora gave in and reached for the clothes. “These?” She lifted the top item. A man’s shirt, but likely too small for any man she knew.

  Ma nodded and seemed to relax back into her pillow a bit. “For you.”

  Aurora frowned. She held the shirt up to herself. It was exactly the right size, but why would Ma think she would need a man’s shirt? The next item in the stack was a pair of denim pants, complete with brass studs, just like Papa used to wear for work. Again, cut down to Aurora’s size. Two more shirts, and a pair of Sunday-go-to-meeting pants were also in the stack. These she recognized and a realization suddenly hit Aurora. None of Papa’s clothes remained in the trunk. Ma had taken all of Papa’s things and cut them down so that they would fit her. A frown pinched at her brow. The question remained. Why?

  Her gaze settled on Ma.

  Ma struggled to inhale, then wheezed. “You run!”

  Aurora understood then what Ma’s intentions for her were, and a thought struck her. “Did you know you was dying?”

  “Were…dying.”

  Aurora couldn’t help a teary-eyed smile. Even with her last breaths, Ma expended energy to correct her grammar. “Yes, ma’am. Did you know you were dying?”

  Air rattled at the back of Ma’s throat. She nodded.

  Aurora’s tears blurred her vision. “You should have told me, Ma.”

  Ma shook her head and squeezed Aurora’s hand. “Not…your burden…to bear, love.”

  Aurora clutched Ma’s dry, wrinkled hand between her own. “Life’s not fair, Ma.” A sob escaped her.

  “Shhhh,” Ma soothed. “Can’t go back. Only…forward.” Her hand tightened around Aurora’s and she gave it a little shake, drawing Aurora’s attention to her once more.

  Aurora dashed at her tears so she could see better.

  Ma lifted one hand to touch Aurora’s braid. “Razor’s in…the trunk.”

  Aurora’s eyes widened. Surely she didn’t mean…

  Ma’s next word cut through the space between them, sharper, more agitated. “Run!”

  Aurora nodded. “Yes, Ma. I’ll run, I promise.”

  “Before…the weather…turns.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” In fact, Aurora knew that if she were to escape John Hunt she would need to run even before news of Ma’s death spread through the camp.

  Relief seemed to sap the last of Ma’s strength because her hand fell back to the coverlet and her whole body seemed to sink into the thin tick on the cot. Her eyes fell closed.

  Aurora wept long into the night, alternating between listening to Ma’s rattling breaths and rising to wipe the death foam from her lips. Ma coughed and sputtered, and Aurora patiently helped her turn on her side so some of the liquid slowly drowning her could drain away. In the wee hours, Ma grew too weak to even do that, and despair over her inability to relieve Ma’s suffering collapsed Aurora to her knees. She shoved the knuckle of her first finger into her mouth and bit down hard to keep from screaming her anguish to the entire camp. Aurora curled into a ball on the floor beside the cot and buried her weeping into her fist and the crook of one arm. And just as dawn washed the sky with pink, the torturous wheezing stopped. Ma breathed no more.

  Aurora lay quietly for a few more minutes. Waiting. Half hoping Ma would breathe a
gain, half hoping she finally lay at rest. The silence was soon penetrated by the sound of the camp coming to life. Ma was indeed gone.

  Aurora’s stomach rumbled loudly, bringing with it a pang of hunger that reminded her she needed food. Yet there was none in the shanty.

  Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she studied Ma’s still form, a numb sensation wedging indecision between the twin needs of escaping to freedom and seeing Ma safely to her final resting place. If Pike or even Mr. Hunt, himself, found out about Ma’s passing, her chance to run would be snuffed out before it had even begun. After several moments of weighing her options, she decided on a compromise. She would run, but not before she had washed and prepared Ma for her grave.

  With the wooden hairbrush, she combed out Ma’s long brown locks and braided them into careful plaits that she then wrapped around her head like a crown. She washed and dressed her in her Sunday best dress, which Aurora hadn’t actually seen her wear since she’d been forced to go to work for Hunt. She tried to put on Ma’s pert black boots, but had to give up because she couldn’t get them over her heels. She settled for covering her feet with a pair of the warm woolen socks they had knitted for each other last Christmas.

  Aurora had just stepped back to take one final look, when a knock sounded on the door. She spun to face it, feeling her eyes go wide.

  “Aurora? ‘S me, darlin’. Joanie Pence.”

  Aurora gritted her teeth. Joanie was almost as bad as either of the men. Everyone in the camp knew that she was John Hunt’s eyes and ears. She couldn’t know that Ma had passed, or she would go straight to Mr. Hunt with the news. But neither could Aurora not answer the door, for the woman would take that as a sign that something was amiss.

  Aurora scrambled to her feet and cracked open the door, doing nothing to disguise the fact that she’d spent a good portion of the night crying, but also not allowing Joanie a good look into the shanty’s interior.

  Joanie’s face pulled into a forced expression of sympathy. “Aw, look at ya, poor dear. A corpse warmed over’d have more color. Bad news from the doc yesterday, then?” She craned to see into the interior behind Aurora.

  Aurora pulled the door tighter against her shoulder and nodded. “Doc says it’s a contagion. Ma must have caught it from a john. Doc says she only has about a week, and that I likely have it too and should stay away from the rest of the camp.”

  Joanie’s eyes widened and she took a large step back, then another. She lifted her arm to cover her nose and mouth. “That so? Well, I’m right sorry to hear it!” With that, she scrambled off as though the angel of death himself were chasing her.

  Aurora clicked the door shut and glanced around. She’d bought herself some time, maybe a day, before someone came back around to check on her, or they conferred with Doc and found out she’d made the story up. But she needed that time to get her head start. There was not a moment to waste.

  Picking up the scissors, she paused before the small hand-mirror that Ma had hung from the shanty’s central post. The small mother-of-pearl backed mirror had been a gift to Ma from Papa on their wedding day. That thought drew her eyes past her dark braid to the corner of the room. She fingered her plait for a moment while she studied the still form on the bed.

  The lump in her chest threatened to take her to her knees, a hot burning mass that bade her to scream her pain to the world. Instead, she stuffed it further down inside and purposefully turned her attention to cutting her hair. It took several hacks with the scissors to sever the braid at the base of her neck. But she didn’t stop there. If she was going to don a disguise, she would go all out. She snipped away bits until her hair was as close cropped as she could make it on all sides with just a bit more length on top. The way Papa had worn his hair before he passed. And, with surprise, Aurora noted that a good deal of him now stared back at her from the mirror. She had Ma’s pale green eyes and upturned nose. But it was Papa’s broad forehead and blunt chin that showed up so well now that her hair had been cut. One finger drifted up to touch her reflection and the cold press of the glass brought her back to the present. She needed to hurry.

  The pile of hair would give away her plan to anyone who entered the shanty, so she carefully swept it up and dropped it in the fire, ribbon and all.

  Her next task was to don the men’s clothing and boots. The britches felt foreign and stiff. Confining and much too revealing. But she tried to see herself as others would. Skinny as she was from the lack of food they’d had in recent months, her curves were minimal. Still, she needed to do something about them. She tugged off the shirt and used one of Ma’s head scarves to bind her breasts as flat as she could. This time, when she tugged the shirt back into place, she felt more satisfied with her presentation. There wasn’t much she could do about her small waist or hips.

  At the fireplace, she took up a piece of charcoal that had fallen to the edge. A few smudges around her eyes, made them look a bit more sunken. Some streaks near her mouth would hopefully draw people’s attention to them instead of to her full lips that looked anything but masculine.

  She tilted the mirror this way and that, studying herself, and finally put it back on its hook. Anyone who had known her well, would likely still recognize her, but hopefully the disguise would trick those who had only seen her in passing. She wished she could take the mirror with her as a memento, but a boy wouldn’t pack around such a thing, so it would have to stay. As would Papa’s violin. John Hunt could sell them to cover Ma’s debt. The violin on its own was worth far more than Ma owed.

  Gathering up the rest of the clothes Ma had cut down for her, she tied them into a bandana.

  And then it was time to leave.

  A sob clogged her throat as she looked once more to where Ma lay so still and pale. Her skin had turned rather gray and Aurora spun away, wishing she hadn’t taken that last look.

  In her hurry to get out of the shanty, she almost used the front door, but right before she yanked it open, she froze, heart pounding. If she went out the front, anyone who saw her leaving would immediately recognize her. The back of the shanty had a loose board that she could push through. The gap was small but she could fit through it. And it would release her into the cascading branches of the tall lilac that grew at the back of their shanty.

  She shoved the bandana of clothes out first and then, giving a careful look, wriggled out after it. All around her the sounds of the camp continued as though the world had not come to an end just now. Up on the road, she could hear the men talking loudly as they climbed aboard the wagons that would take them out to their logging sites for the day.

  Dawn had seeped away to a barely perceptible pink against a vibrant blue sky.

  Snatching up the bandana, Aurora sprinted toward the back edge of the camp. If she could just make it to the forest beyond, she would figure out what to do next. But she hadn’t gone more than twenty paces when a craggy voice called for her attention. “You there! Boy! What you doin’ runnin’ around back ’ere?”

  Aurora froze. She recognized the voice as that of the elderly Mr. Whitehall. She’d forgotten about him. And about Mr. Heath’s program that kept the boys of the camp employed from dawn to dusk.

  “Shirkin’ your duties, no doubt.” The man grumbled as he ambled closer.

  Mr. Whitehall had always been nothing but kind to her, but was known to be a bit hard on the camp’s boys. On more than one occasion, he’d confided in her that all boys really needed was a man with a good firm hand to shape them into men.

  Heart in her throat, she turned to face him. This would be a good test of her disguise. “No sir. I don’t actually live here.”

  “Nonsense! Don’t give me that. What you doin’ in camp at this time of mornin’ for if’n you don’t live here?” The white-whiskered man didn’t even blink at her appearance. Of course, he was known to be more than half blind. Before Aurora could take another step, Mr. Whitehall had her firmly by her upper arm. “Hmmm. Scrawny one, ain’t ye? Well, no mind. A few days of h
ard work and good food will put some meat on your bones and maybe even teach ye not to prevaricate.” Without ceremony, he hauled her toward the center of camp.

  Aurora lost her grip on her bandana and her bundle of clothes tumbled to the ground and rolled a few turns, but the man didn’t seem to notice and wouldn’t release her arm so she could go back for it. “My things,” she protested.

  “They’ll still be there when you get done with work. Your folks must be new to these parts, eh?”

  Aurora opened her mouth, but he barreled ahead before she could even utter a sound.

  “Your pap working for old Heath? Or is your mam one of that snake Hunt’s women? Never mind.” He waved a hand that indicated he didn’t really care about the answers to any of the questions he hadn’t let her answer. “I’m old man Whitehall—leastwise that’s what all the lads call me—and I’m in charge of the boys about camp by day. We’ve got wood to stock and I dare say you wouldn’t turn down some breakfast, hmmm lad? Skin and bones is all that’s on ye. Skin and bones.”

  Aurora would have fled when he released her at the meal tent that sat at the center of camp, but the mention of food presented too much temptation. Her stomach was so empty it didn’t even rumble. It just ached and pleaded.

  Mr. Whitehall pushed her none too gently through the slit in the canvas. She’d seen the tent every day, but had only ever entered on the days she and Ma served the thin porridge that was part of the boys’ pay. To keep the boys in his camps from raising too much mischief during the day while their parents were off to work, Mr. Heath put them to work for themselves from very young ages. Even boys eight to ten years old were strong enough to gather wood for fires and older boys laid walkways or hacked back brush that threatened to encroach on the camp. Two cents a day was given to each boy who worked. And it was Mr. Whitehall’s job to make sure they all worked.

  He shoved her onto a bench at the closest table. “Sit. You’ll eat. Then I’ll show you what your job will be for this week.”

  Aurora despaired of escape. And other boys in the room were eyeing her like fresh meat ready to be tenderized. She squirmed in her seat and tried not to lick her lips when one of the matrons—Mrs. Rojas—clunked a bowl before her. She kept her eyes averted from the woman, the wife of Camp Sixty-Five’s foreman. But the woman hardly gave her a glance. The porridge was plain—no sugar or butter—but it easily took the prize as the best thing Aurora had tasted in a long time, and a cup of sweet milk, fresh from the cow, accompanied it. She savored her bites slowly, washing each one down with a sip of the milk.