by Tess LeSue
“Oh, you darling love.” Mrs. Tilly was welling up in sympathy. “How insensitive of me! I’m sure your people are looking after the lad, but I know how a mother feels.”
Georgiana just wanted the whole moment to end. She didn’t want comfort or fuss—it didn’t do any good. She just wanted to get on with the whole ordeal: get the husband, pack the wagon, and get on the trail. The sooner she got on the trail, the sooner she could reach her son. Crying solved nothing at all.
“How were the children today?” she asked, desperately trying to change the subject as she blotted her eyes.
“Energetic.” Mrs. Tilly didn’t quite meet Georgiana’s gaze.
Georgiana stood. “I should get them out of your way. It’s getting late.”
“Oh no!” Mrs. Tilly looked a touch panicked. “Finish your tea first. And have one of the tarts; the children helped make them. They’re with Becky; they’re fine, no need to worry.”
“I really should feed them.”
“They had some tarts less than an hour ago.” When Georgiana didn’t sit, Mrs. Tilly got to her feet too. She was looking a trifle anxious, Georgiana thought. Her stomach sank. Oh dear. What had the children done now?
There was a clanging sound from the back of the house. Georgiana saw Mrs. Tilly flinch.
“Now, don’t be too mad at them!” Mrs. Tilly cautioned. There was the sound of something breaking, and Georgiana turned on her heel and made for the kitchen. “They’re high-spirited boys!”
The devils looked up with wide-eyed innocence as she threw open the door to the kitchen. Their faces were white with flour. Even her daughter, Susannah, the sensible one, was covered in powder from head to foot.
“Mama!” two-year-old Wilby shouted, holding out his pudgy hand. Pasty white sludge oozed between his fingers. “Glue!”
“Oh my.”
The white sludge was everywhere: dripping from the wall sconces, blobbed on the bench tops, splattered across the windows.
“Well,” she said, aiming for calmness, “aren’t you all very clever, discovering the recipe for glue.”
“Glue!” Wilby shouted again, before shoving his hand in his mouth.
“William Bee! Don’t eat that!” Georgiana pulled his hand from his mouth and got glue and slobber all over her glove. She eyed it distastefully. Mothering really was a messy business. This was only her second month without a nanny, and she had to admit, she was struggling.
“He can eat it,” one of the twins (Phineas?) said impatiently. “It’s just flour and water.”
Georgiana cleared her throat.
“It’s really Becky’s fault,” Mrs. Tilly said quickly in defense of the children.
“My fault!” The girl was outraged. She popped up from in front of the stove, which she’d clearly been scrubbing vigorously. She was a mix of soot and glue. “How is this my fault?”
“I told you to watch them,” Mrs. Tilly scolded. “You know what they’re like.”
Georgiana blanched. If she’d been a better mother, this never would have happened. You know what they’re like. Wild. And running wilder every day. They certainly hadn’t been like this when Mrs. Wyndham, the nanny, was still around.
Georgiana bit her lip. What would Mrs. Wyndham do in this situation?
“How was I to know they’d make glue while my back was turned?” Becky complained.
This never would have happened if Mrs. Wyndham had been here, that was the whole problem.
“Well, your back shouldn’t have been turned. Don’t think I don’t know where you were. I saw Fancy Pat’s horse tethered up outside. And I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that you’re throwing good after bad, consorting with the likes of him. Your poor parents must be rolling over in their graves.”
“His name’s Pierre,” Becky said, sounding more outraged by the minute. “It’s French.”
“Now, now,” Georgiana interrupted, still striving for calmness as she surreptitiously looked around for something to wipe her slobbery glove on. “It’s hardly Becky’s fault.” She turned a stern look on her children. Only Susannah had the good grace to look shamefaced.
“They promised me they’d clean it up before you came in, Mrs. Smith,” Mrs. Tilly said hurriedly. “And really, there’s no harm done.”
“See,” the other twin said. (Was it Philip? Surely, a good mother would be able to tell them apart?) “She doesn’t mind.”
Georgiana shot him a black look. “My dear Mrs. Tilly . . . and Becky . . . ” It was proving difficult to keep her voice even. “The children and I would like to take you to supper to make this up to you. Please. If you’d like to go and freshen up . . . ” She cleared her throat dubiously as she took in Becky’s filthy face. “The children and I will get your kitchen in order. And then we’ll all go out for a nice meal.” Georgiana peeled off her slobbery glove.
“Oh no!” Mrs. Tilly sounded scandalized. “I can’t let a lady like you scrub my kitchen.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Georgiana said grimly, “I won’t be the one doing the scrubbing.”
“You don’t need to. Becky can—”
“Becky can get scrubbed up for tea in no time,” Becky said quickly, cutting Mrs. Tilly off mid-sentence. She wriggled out of her apron and hung it on the back of the kitchen door on her way out.
“Please, Mrs. Tilly.” Georgiana tried to smile at her. “It would be our pleasure.”
Mrs. Tilly looked dubious but nodded and retreated. She paused at the door. “They were perfect angels for most of the day,” she said weakly.
“Were you?” Georgiana asked once the door swung closed.
“We’re perfect angels now,” Phin said, rolling his eyes. “We’re only not angels if you don’t like glue.”
“Indeed.” Georgiana felt ill as she looked at the paste smeared in lumps all over the kitchen. “How does one clean glue?”
“Vinegar,” came a muffled voice from behind the kitchen door.
“Thank you, Mrs. Tilly! We’ll see you in an hour for supper!”
There was a pause, and then they heard footsteps retreating down the hall.
“We could let Wilby lick it all up,” Philip suggested.
To Georgiana’s dismay, Wilby didn’t look entirely unhappy at the prospect.
“Listen,” she said, thinking fast, “if you can get this place clean by the time they come downstairs for supper, I’ll buy you rock candy from Cavil’s Mercantile in the morning.”
“How much rock candy?”
“More than you deserve. And if you don’t get it clean, I’ll tell Mrs. Bulfinch that you’ll help her wash her unmentionables tomorrow. It’s laundry day at the hotel.”
“You wouldn’t!”
Of course she wouldn’t. And of course Mrs. Bulfinch wouldn’t either. But the twins didn’t need to know that. “Just test me.”
Maybe parenting wasn’t so hard. She watched as they hurried to grabs mops and buckets. The children were the only good things Leonard had ever done in his life, she thought fondly, as she watched the curly dark heads bent over the concoction of vinegar and water they were brewing in the sink. They were working the water pump madly. With any luck, they could clean up the mess without destroying Mrs. Tilly’s kitchen. Georgiana tugged off her other glove and set to work helping them. She didn’t have much experience scrubbing kitchens or . . . well, anything. But now that her trust fund was exhausted and they had no more money for servants, she guessed she’d just have to learn.
2
“DID YOU GET a room?” Matt asked when Deathrider joined him out the front of Cavil’s Mercantile.
Deathrider looked like his name personified. His skin was waxy, and his eyes had the unfocused stare of someone who was using up all his energy just staying upright. He still hadn’t recovered from the gunshot wound he’d sustained back in Kearney. “No bed
s,” he grunted.
“What do you mean, no beds?”
“The man at the saloon said there are no beds.”
Matt felt like punching something. This was because Deathrider was an Indian. He knew it. This last month had been the most hellish month of his life. He’d been holding on to the idea that things would get easier once they got to Independence, but so far that just wasn’t the case.
Matt unbuckled his saddlebags. His old gray donkey, Fernando, gave a cranky hee-haw. Matt pulled his ears absently and then hefted the saddlebags over his shoulder. He was bone-tired from the trail, and the last thing he needed was trouble finding a bed. “C’mon,” he growled.
“Sam!” he bellowed as he pushed into the dark saloon. “What’s this I hear about you not having a bed for me?”
“Well, look who it is,” the bartender said. He spat tobacco juice at a spittoon so full it made a wet sloshing sound as the stream hit. “You’re late. You said you’d be here by the end of March.”
Matt always stayed at the Lucky Star when he was in town. Mostly because it was the only place that didn’t run whores. Matt didn’t like whores. They made him uncomfortable. And he didn’t want to stay in a bunkhouse; he wanted his own room, away from other people. Matt didn’t care much for people.
“I had a room for you at the end of March,” Sam told him.
“We got held up.”
Matt saw the way Sam’s eyes slid over Deathrider.
“We?” There was another slosh as Sam spat his juice.
“This is my . . . brother.” Matt was still getting used to the lie. “He said you don’t have room for us.”
Sam shrugged. “I don’t. I ain’t in the business of keeping rooms empty when there’s money to be made. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a gold rush on.”
Matt grunted. He’d more than heard; he’d had a busy few months at the end of last year finding the fools lost on the Siskiyou Trail from Oregon down to California.
“They’re piled four deep up there,” Sam told him, jerking his head at his rooms upstairs. “And you’ll find it’s the same everywhere. Town’s bursting at the seams. On the upside, you should do a roaring trade putting together your train this year.”
This would be the fifth year in a row Matt was taking a train on the trail. As always, he was dreading it. He didn’t know why he did it to himself, except he was good at it and he couldn’t think of much else he would rather be doing. It paid well, but Matt didn’t really need or want the money. He’d sort of just fallen into it when his brother Luke had given it up; it was either stay home and be a third wheel in the house with his brother and his new wife, or find something else to do. He’d tried running cattle with his brother Tom for a while, but he found he hated cows even more than he hated people, if such a thing was possible. At least with the wagon trains he got to ride out by himself. The people tended to stay in a neat clump and not have to be herded the way cows did. But they complained a lot more than cows did.
“Are you telling me there ain’t a single bed in town?” Matt felt more than ever like punching something. He didn’t fancy another night sleeping out rough.
“’Fraid so. I can sell you a drink though.”
“I bet you could,” Matt said sourly. But there wasn’t much daylight left, and they needed to find a room.
“The Grand Hotel probably still has space,” Sam said grudgingly. “That woman charges a fortune, and people get mighty pinchy about their pennies when they’re heading west. It’s an expensive business as it is, without paying through the nose for a bed.”
Matt grunted his thanks, and they headed back out into the street. He didn’t want to spend a fortune on a goddamn room. But he also didn’t want to sleep another night on the ground. He’d been looking forward to cleaning up and enjoying a decent mattress. Damn it. He could wring Sam’s neck.
You’re just tired. It’s what he told the emigrants on the trail when they got low, and there were many points on the trail when people got low. It’s nothing a decent feed and a good night’s sleep won’t improve. It was good advice, advice Matt’s father used to give them when they were boys. Matt had been pretty young when his father had died, but he’d never forgotten those words. It was true. When life got to you, it was always best to put your worries aside until you’d eaten and slept. Problems had a way of looking bigger when you were tired and hungry. Especially when you had to pay a goddamn ransom for somewhere to rest.
“Looks like we’re headed for the Grand Hotel,” he grunted. It was a mark of how low Deathrider was feeling himself that he didn’t protest.
“You wait here,” he told Deathrider shortly, pointing at their animals, which were still tethered across the street from the hotel. “Let me deal with this. You give people the terrors.”
Deathrider didn’t protest. It was true.
It had been a hell of a month. Matt rubbed his face as he headed for the fancy hotel. A hell of a year so far. At some point, Deathrider’s notoriety had snowballed, and it had become a sport to hunt him. They’d run into a mess of trouble back in Fort Kearny, and Deathrider had taken a bullet. They’d laid low until he was well enough to travel again, and by then word was getting around that Deathrider, aka the Plague of the West, had been killed. Matt had bullied his friend into using the gossip to his advantage; they’d dressed him as a white man and passed him off as Matt’s brother Tom. Everywhere they stopped, Matt had spread the gossip about the Plague of the West’s demise. He only hoped the story would get picked up by one of those wretched dime novelists. A book about Deathrider’s death would set them both free.
* * *
• • •
THE GRAND HOTEL was a three-story brick slab with pretensions of grandeur. There were white columns all along the length of the porch and wicker furniture for people to take their ease. A couple of scrappy hickory trees grew out the front, and there were dusty-looking rosebushes by the stairs. Lanterns were burning along the brick wall of the porch, and light fell through the windows in warm pools. But for all its grand pretensions, the rawness of the town clung to the hotel too; it looked hastily built, and the stairs were slightly askew. They creaked under Matt’s boots as he climbed them. The place was busy. Matt hadn’t seen so many freshly scrubbed and suited men outside of a church. They were sprawled in the wicker furniture and clumped along the railing, talking in low voices. They all looked as though they were waiting for something. Or someone.
Matt hoped it wasn’t him.
“Best wipe your boots.” The advice came from a scrawny-looking fellow who was sitting in the rocker closest to the door. He had an elaborate waxed mustache, which barely seemed to move when he spoke. It sat as stiff as a pencil. He peered at Matt over a pair of pince-nez. “Mrs. Bulfinch is rather particular about her floors. She hates dust.”
“She’s living in the wrong place, then.” Matt wasn’t much for conversation at the best of times, and now certainly wasn’t the best of times. He wiped his boots on the mat. It didn’t seem to do much good. The dirt was baked on.
“By the look of you, I’d hazard a guess you’re fresh in from the frontier!”
Matt grunted.
“My girls and I are headed west ourselves.”
“That so?” Matt ducked through the front door before the man could continue. The fellow didn’t seem daunted; in fact, he followed Matt inside.
Into what could only be described as a man’s worst nightmare. Matt had never seen anything like it. The place was too pink to be believed. The wallpaper was flocked pink on pink, the rugs were pink, and the lampshades were frosted pink glass. All of it a dusty, grayish pink that made Matt think of faded roses. Even the air smelled pink.
He didn’t like it.
There was a small brass bell on a doily-shrouded desk and a prissily lettered sign: “Please ring for attention.” He rang it, trying to breathe t
hrough his mouth so he wouldn’t have to take in the smell. It was like a graveyard for roses.
“Where are you from, Mr. . . . ?”
Matt rang the bell harder.
“My name is Pierre LeFoy,” the man said brightly, holding out his hand for Matt to shake. Matt didn’t shake it. He just kept ringing the bell. The sign was clearly inaccurate—no attention was forthcoming. Unless you counted the attention he was getting from the skinny little man with the French name.
When Matt didn’t shake his hand, LeFoy awkwardly let it drop. “Are you here to answer Mrs. Smith’s advertisement?”
“No,” Matt said shortly. He gave up on the bell and instead bellowed up the stairs, “Is anyone in?”
“Me neither. But I think we may be the only ones. It’s been quite a parade today.”
“Listen,” Matt sighed, “I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. . . . LeFoy, was it?”
The man nodded.
“My brother and I have been in the saddle for eleven days straight. I haven’t had a hot meal in almost a week, and I haven’t slept in a bed in God knows how long. I ain’t had a good day, and I ain’t in a good temper. So I’m not the best person to be talking to right now.”
Mr. LeFoy looked taken aback. But only for a moment. Then he took the bell from Matt’s hand and put it back on the desk. “Our landlady is hard of hearing. You’d need to be clanging that right next to her ear for her to hear it. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll see if I can find her for you; she’s probably in the kitchen preparing for the evening meal. Which is served promptly at seven. I recommend avoiding it at all costs, as she is a terrible cook.” LeFoy gave him a sympathetic smile. “If you fancy a hot meal, I can recommend Gillette’s cookhouse. I’ll be taking my girls there for supper in about half an hour and would be more than happy to show you the way.”
“Uh . . . thanks.” Matt watched as the dapper little man disappeared through a door under the stairs.
He braced his arms on the desk and closed his eyes. He wanted this day to be over.
