by Zina Abbott
Nissa
The Widows of Wildcat Ridge
Western Historical Romance
Zina Abbott
Copyright © 2018 by Robyn Echols writing as Zina Abbott
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
Cover by Charlene Raddon, www.silversagebookcovers.com
Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my husband, Dinnie R. Echols, who, during his career, worked to cut tunnels through mountains. Although he was not a miner, but worked in engineering road construction, he faced many of the dangers present to miners anywhere, and during any period of time, of having the earth collapse on him. Fortunately, unlike the fictional characters in this series (although the conditions described are based on true historical events) who worked in more dangerous conditions and under management less concerned for the health and safety of its workers, in this day and time safety laws have been put into place, and he completed his work assignments in the tunnels safely.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A special thank you goes to Charlene Raddon for organizing and coordinating this The Widows of Wildcat Ridge. It was a wild ride at first, but had evolved into an exciting series to which I am pleased to contribute. She also provided all our beautiful covers through her book cover business, Silver Sage Book Covers.
I wish to thank the other authors in the series for their insight, suggestions and support as we worked together to develop the fictional town of Wildcat Ridge and its fictional inhabitants. They have been an inspiration.
I also wish to thank Linda Carroll-Bradd of Lustre Editing for copy-editing this book to help it be as error-free as possible. Any errors you find are those of the author. I appreciate receiving a private message regarding any grammatical, punctuation or spelling errors so that I may correct them. My contact information is at the end of the book.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Disclaimer
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Thank you for reading Nissa
Other Zina Abbott Books
About Zina Abbott
Prologue
Chapter One
Wildcat Ridge, Utah
May, 1884
N
issa straightened from bending over the wringer hooked to the tub of cold water she used for the final rinse of the sheets and arched her back. She picked up the clean sheets now piled in a basket ready for hanging and set it on the floor of the wide covered porch of the laundry building. She yanked the felt slouch hat that had once belonged to her late husband, James Stillwell, from her head and used the back of her other hand to sweep aside the stray locks of her auburn hair. Damp with perspiration, they remained plastered to her forehead after working with the first rinse which involved boiling water to kill any nits and flea eggs hotel guests might have inadvertently left on the sheets and towels.
Even though her hands were damp, she tucked the loose ends into the neckerchief she wore under the hat to hold her hair out of her face she knew bore evidence of her Scottish ancestry. Not long after she started her laundry business, her pale freckles once again darkened to resemble those which had graced her childhood face. She sighed with relief at the prospect of being almost finished with the sheets and towels for the Ridge Hotel once they were hung and dried.
Nissa fanned her face with the hat. The brim was wider than the derby hats her husband favored once he caught the mine owner’s notice and began to rise in prominence at the mine. Those hats she refused to keep, if for no other reason than what they represented. As much as she had wished to offer them, and her late husband’s good clothes to the mercantile to resell with her share of the proceeds to go against her bill there, she had left them in the house. They were part of his “estate,” such as it was. She knew her husband owed money to the bank for the fancy furniture he had purchased for the parlor and dining room. She kept the hat her husband used before they traveled from western Nevada to Wildcat Ridge to have something to protect her skin from the sun while she worked out of doors washing laundry where the light helped her find the stains that needed extra soap and scrubbing. Once the weather turned cold, and she moved her operation back inside the laundry shed, she would need to rely on lamplight and what little sunlight came through the single small window for that. However, in warm weather, she preferred direct sunlight to check for spots, even though it reddened and freckled her skin.
Nissa knew before she started her laundry business it would not be a lucrative venture. Since Mortimer Crane, owner of the Gold King Mine, decided to not reopen the mine after the disaster, what relatively few miners who survived had already moved on to other mines—some of them to his new mine in Clear Creek. With the miners gone from Wildcat Ridge, there was hardly any call for laundry to be done. Most of the widows in town washed their own clothes and linens. Only a few, like Hester Fugit, the former mayor’s wife who now filled the post of mayor, still sent her laundry out. However, Nissa could not earn a living on what came from a middle-aged widow with no children living at home and the few others who brought their dirty laundry to her.
Nissa looked over at the clothes from the newspaper editor, Duncan Moon, better known as Dinky. He was another one of her customers, when he sobered up enough to realize he needed to do something about getting clean shirts and underclothing. The sight, along with the stench of body odor and vomit, prompted her to wince. It would not be a pleasant load to wash, but it would bring in some cash money to buy food and essentials for her little family.
One term of service Nissa had insisted upon from the start was she only accepted cash payment. She advised all her customers they would not receive their cleaned clothes or linens until after they paid for her work. She could not afford to carry accounts, not with the three of them to feed. The one exception was the hotel laundry. Since the hotel had closed its dining room, and the few rooms rented hardly generated enough dirty sheets and towels to be washed, what work she did for the Ridge Hotel barely paid for her rent for her “home” which consisted of the laundry shed and the yard full of roped lines for drying clothes.
“Nissa, honey, ah missed y’all at the meeting. Ah thought y’all planned to come to hear what Mayor Fugit had to say to all the widows.”
Upon hearing the soft voice with its Southern accent of her landlady, Nissa turned and offered a warm smile to Diantha Ames,
the owner of the Ridge Hotel and the laundry building she rented. Diantha had been raised as a Southern lady to behave graciously and to never raise her voice to others.
In the short time Nissa had rented from Diantha, she wondered how the woman would ever earn enough income from running her hotel and the side property on which the laundry building had been constructed. She was far too generous to her customers, and especially to Nissa and the children. Nissa’s official home consisted of the shed of pine with its gaps between the square-cut logs which, when several feet of snow layered the ground as it still had at the time Nissa first moved there, hardly held the heat in, even with the wood stove burning a full flame to provide hot water for laundry. However, Diantha insisted she and the children sleep inside and use the now-vacant cook’s room behind the kitchen in the back left-hand side of the better-built building. The room boasted a door to the outside, as well as one that opened into the kitchen from which the heat of the cook stove adequately kept both rooms warm. In addition to the door between the rear cook’s room and kitchen, doors in the kitchen led to the dining room in front of the building, Diantha’s sitting room to the right, and the outside door to the left. Since she knew Diantha’s late husband designed the room, Nissa often wondered how he managed to pay for so many doors, knobs and locks.
Diantha also insisted Nissa share the common kitchen which had once been used to prepare breakfast and supper for the hotel’s guests, but now only served as a kitchen for Diantha. As much as she felt grateful for her landlady’s sharing, Nissa felt the lack of having her own home.
Seeing Diantha suddenly jarred Nissa’s awareness of her surroundings. She twisted her too-thin body as she frantically searched the hotel grounds. “Jamie and Molly. They’re gone! I was so focused on finishing these sheets I lost track of them.”
Seven-year-old Jamie, with his brown hair like his father and green eyes from her, behaved like a typical active little boy, although he acted out his grief over his father’s loss in ways that at times drove Nissa to distraction. In contrast, four-year-old Molly, a chubbier copy of Nissa, had retreated into herself and grown increasingly quieter as she struggled to understand the disappearance of her father and the changes in the family’s circumstances. She constantly sought approval, as if she was afraid if she misbehaved, her mother would also leave. Nissa knew she must do whatever it took to keep these two children healthy and with her. She had suffered the loss of her firstborn daughter at birth, and the boy that came after Molly had miscarried four months early. Jamie and Molly were all that remained of any family she knew of, immediate and extended.
Nissa tossed the hat on the bench next to her tub of rinse water and snatched the scarf off her head as she turned towards the street. “Excuse me, Diantha. I have to find them.”
Diantha reached out her hand to stop Nissa as she spoke in a reassuring voice. “They’re just fine, Nissa. They were playing by the edge of the vegetable garden, and I invited them into the kitchen to each have a cup of milk and a cookie from those left from last night.”
Nissa’s shoulders sagged with relief, and her face pinked with embarrassment. She knew the cookies were left over from those Diantha had baked and offered as an evening treat for her few hotel guests. She hated accepting charity. She often wondered if Diantha kept an eye on the food supplies Nissa stored on a shelf in the hotel kitchen pantry. She suspected her landlady knew Nissa struggled to provide enough for her children to not go hungry. Even then, their diet consisted of inexpensive basics. She often went without full meals herself in order for the children to have enough.
“Thank you, Diantha, but you didn’t have to do that.”
“I know, but I wanted to. I have so little opportunity to be around children, I enjoy spending time with yours.”
Nissa turned away at the wistful expression that came over Diantha’s face. Although, like her, Diantha was wed young as part of an arranged marriage, Nissa knew she had never been able to have children of her own.
“You never answered my question, Nissa. We missed you at the widows’ meeting today. If you were worried about finishing these sheets, you could have asked me to help you with them so you could have gone.”
“I appreciate that, Diantha, but I didn’t want to go. You know I’m not welcome by most of those women. Besides, I had no one to watch the children. I’m sure they didn’t need my two underfoot.”
“I would have helped you with the children, Nissa. Besides, why ever would you think the ladies would not have been welcoming? You are also one of the widows affected by this disaster.”
Nissa eyed the wash tub, now empty of sheets and towels. She wiggled her fingers in the diminished suds. She decided the water still felt warm enough to wash Dinky Moon’s clothes, especially since she might need to give them a double wash. She clapped her hat back on her head, gathered together the light-colored articles, and dumped them into the tub.
“My situation isn’t the same as you other women, Diantha. Most of you live in town. Your husbands worked in businesses in town. You have homes you want to keep. On the other hand, my husband was a mine supervisor. We lived in a house closer to the mine—one that Mr. Crane provided us as part of my husband’s compensation.”
Nissa grabbed a wooden paddle which she plunged into the water to dampen all the clothes. She stepped back as the foul miasma that drifted up from the tub hit her in the face. She turned to Diantha with a wry smile. “You don’t see that fine, two-story house up on the hill near the mine anymore, do you? My husband was barely cold in the ground, and I had not yet started seeing where our finances stood when Mr. Crane showed up on my doorstep to tell me I needed to be out by the end of that week. He claimed he needed to dismantle the house and move it up to his mine by Clear Creek for his mine supervisor up there.” Nissa stared off into the distance, her expression wistful. “Even if he kept the mine open here, he would have wanted the house for the new supervisor. I suppose I knew once I heard James was gone I would have to move. I hoped Mr. Crane would have had the decency to at least give me to the end of the month to make arrangements for me and the children.”
Nissa turned to Diantha, who looked at the floor.
“The man doesn’t have a compassionate bone in his body.” Diantha shook her head. “The tales some of the widows shared today—oh, my.”
Nissa turned back to her task. “No, he’s not compassionate or anything else commendable. And if I thought then he might show a little consideration to the widow of a man who worked hard to make his mine a success and with whom he spent a great deal of time, I quickly learned I was mistaken. I am so grateful you allowed me to live and work here, Diantha. You are one of the few people in this town who own your property and don’t rent the land or buildings from him. I quickly learned I didn’t have the means to leave Wildcat Ridge like so many women did, but I would have gone to great lengths to keep myself out of Mortimer Crane’s reach.”
Diantha’s voice remained soft and non-accusatory. “You could have gone to Hester Fugit to ask for funds to return to family. You know she used some of the money left over from the donations to help many of the miners’ widows return to their home towns.”
Nissa turned and shook her head. “That would not have worked for me. I have no one close still living. My ma died having my baby brother, and Pa never remarried. I think the reason my pa was eager to marry me off to James while I was so young was because he knew he wasn’t going to live much longer. I have nowhere to go.” She shrugged and turned back to her scrubbing. “Maybe I’m too proud and didn’t want to take charity. Maybe a part of me knew I’d be better off here. I know where everything is in Wildcat Ridge. Maybe I am afraid I might find myself in a strange city with no money, no prospects and two children to take care of.”
Neither woman spoke for several seconds. Nissa broke the silence. “Be grateful, Diantha, your husband left you a business. I know you are struggling, but at least you own the land and the hotel. If you and these women are successful in turning
this town around, you’ll have a place to live, even if you never become wealthy.”
“Yes, I am fortunate my husband managed to buy the land outright with the funds we brought from Georgia. However, that doesn’t mean Mr. Crane doesn’t try to cause me trouble.” Diantha issued a shuddering sigh. “He’s quick to point out my lack of experience running an enterprise like this hotel. I think he wants it gone so there is no competition for his Crane Hotel. Plus, he’s hinted he wants…other things.”
Nissa sniffed. Using her paddle, she attacked Dinky Moon’s shirts and unmentionables in her tub like they were a badger threatening to take off her leg rather than clothes that needed cleaning. “He should move that hotel of his over by his new mine like he’s trying to do all the other buildings in town he owns. Then there would be no issue of competition with your hotel. If necessary, because the town remains small, you could take in more regular boarders and not worry about what he’s up to.”
“Yes, the few boarders I have are what keep me going.” Diantha stepped around to face Nissa. “That is why you should have come today, Nissa. I never hear one bad word said about you. No matter what your husband’s position was before…before our world as we knew it changed. They recognize you share the same circumstance as the rest of us. I know they would have wanted you there.”
Nissa stilled the paddle, and her body slumped. “I don’t know, Diantha. My husband was in so thick with Mr. Crane, I think they would think of him—and me—in the same light as they do that scoundrel. I know the men didn’t like my husband as a supervisor because he wasn’t always very nice to them.”
He wasn’t always very nice to me or the children.
Nissa shoved her thoughts and hurt aside and continued speaking to Diantha. “I’m sure the men told their wives. You put that together with James ordering me to not associate with the wives of the miners or the women in town, and there’s no reason for them to feel inclined to socialize with me now. Since he didn’t want to go to church, he always found reasons for me to not take the children. I don’t feel as sure as you they would forgive and forget.”
