The front door opened. Charlotte didn’t bother to look up when a familiar clomp of boots entered the room. They crossed the room and stopped near her.
“Could you help me, please?” Reuben stood before Charlotte, carrying a wooden trunk. “That is, if it’s not much trouble.”
“Help you?” He seemed to have no difficulty carrying the trunk.
“These are…were…my ma’s things.” His gaze dropped from her face to what he held. “Some things I want to keep, but I…I found a few things you might like.”
Charlotte swallowed hard. She couldn’t imagine having to complete such a task, didn’t even want to think of it. To do so alone, with years of regret piled high…
“Of course I’ll help.” Her gentle tone surprised her. “Set the trunk beside the stove, and I’ll put the kettle on for tea. It’s cold outside.”
“Thank you.” Reuben deposited the trunk on the rag rug and sat on the chair across from Charlotte’s.
She went to the much warmer kitchen and stoked the fire in the cookstove to a snappy blaze, then filled the kettle with water from the sink pump. Reuben’s mere presence and humble request made her head reel, much more than James did.
Reuben needed a friend. Any romantic entanglements would only complicate matters further. Besides, Charlotte couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t run again. She returned to the sitting room where Reuben knelt before the open trunk.
She found a spot on the rug next to him and lifted a simple gown and matching shirtwaist from the trunk. “What do you want to do with the dresses?”
Their gazes locked. In the harsh afternoon light, the scar on Reuben’s face seemed deeper than usual. Instead of the sadness she’d seen since their reunion, she glimpsed a spark of hope in Reuben’s eyes.
“You can have them. I mean, you and your ma might find them useful.” Reuben turned his attention to the trunk’s contents.
Charlotte folded the clothing and set it to the side. In the next layer of trunk items she found a rather large packet of brown paper tied with twine. “What’s this?”
“Open it.”
She untied the packet and unfolded the paper. A gown of soft silk, more than thirty years out of style, tumbled onto her lap. “Oh, it must be your ma’s wedding gown.”
“You can keep it if you want to. I know it’s not the style ladies wear now, but maybe you can make something else from it. I don’t know, but the fabric looks fine.” Reuben rubbed his forehead and opened another paper packet, this one containing several daguerreotypes.
“Your ma and pa. And”—Charlotte smiled—“you and your brothers. So long ago…” Her eyes smarted as she wondered what had happened to the other Wilson boys.
“We were still in knickers.” Reuben smiled, and Charlotte wished she could see that expression on his face more often. “I think I was all of fourteen. Benjamin was a baby.”
His voice cut short, and Charlotte heard the sorrow in his tone. “Where are they, Reuben?”
“I don’t know. I’ve written to—to the place where we left Benjamin. Never heard anything.” Reuben put the daguerreo-types back into the packet and retied the string. “We were stupid, thinking we’d never get caught or that no one had wised up to what we were doing. And Benjamin? Benjamin thought we were having fun adventures without him.”
Reuben settled to a seated position on the rug, and Charlotte forced herself to be quiet long enough for him to continue.
“He followed us, the little coot.” Reuben shook his head. “We didn’t know until it was too late. And we didn’t want to risk leading a trail home to Ma.”
“So you split up.”
“Yeah. It wasn’t supposed to be for long. Then months turned into years somehow.” Reuben held up a pocket watch and let it spin on its chain. “Time moved fast.”
Charlotte’s heart surged with compassion. She couldn’t imagine being alone in the world and knowing that somewhere out there she had kin. She placed her hand on Reuben’s arm. “I want to help you. I’ll write letters, do whatever we can to find them.”
He covered her hand with one of his. “Thank you, Charlie. That means a lot to me.”
“We’re old friends. I suppose that hasn’t changed.”
Reuben picked up her right hand and turned it so the palm faced upward. He moved the cuff of her dress up a few inches, exposing her forearm. The simple action made her face burn. “Do you remember?”
“I never forgot.” Charlotte wanted to weep out the sorrow of the lost years between them. Lord, we can’t go back.
She stared at the faint scar from long ago when she and the Wilson brothers pledged to be blood kin to the bitter end. Back then she had no idea what that would mean. And now she had no idea if her heart was up to the challenge.
Chapter 4
The wind sliced through Reuben’s thin and threadbare coat as he walked along the boardwalk in Raider’s Crossing early Saturday evening. His stomach ached after enjoying an early supper in town. He’d bought a new horse, too. While in town he’d met a few more people, and the name Wilson meant little to them—other than wasn’t that the older woman who had passed on sometime back? Then when they found out it was his ma, their tone changed. No questions asked, either. He supposed not everyone knew of his prodigal state.
Reuben shivered and turned down the side street to the livery. He paused once out of the wind. A warmer coat would be nice. Reverend Mann, though, had said he ought not to spend money on frivolous things like a new coat, not after how he’d squandered money in the past. To atone for this sin, Reuben waited awhile longer. He wondered when God would think it was long enough. Maybe he’d ask Reverend Toms. Reuben had no Bible, but he sure paid attention to the preaching, and Reverend Toms seemed to know the Book well.
A voice drifted down the side street and into Reuben’s ears.
“Yessir, that pretty little Charlotte Jeffers comes with a fine package if I marry her.”
Reuben curled his hands into fists at the sight of the dapper young man talking and laughing with other spit ’n’ polished lads.
“You know her pa’s going to throw in that old Wilson parcel.”
His friend chuckled. “I tried to come courtin’ once, but she’s as cold as Raider’s Pond in December.”
Charlie’s suitor clapped his friend on the back, and the men paused at the end of the alley with their backs to him.
“Well, my friend, the ice is beginning to thaw. I’m sure of it. If I have my way, she’ll be begging her daddy to let her marry me. You know she’s three years older than me?”
“She don’t look long in the tooth.”
The suitor—James, was it?—strutted like a rooster. “Nor the rest of her, either. People will pay good money for that land, and they’re going to be paying it to me once it’s mine.”
Reuben turned and walked to the livery before he punched a wall or, worse, planted a fist into James’s face. The man had practically sold Charlotte’s dowry before he’d even married her. James had no knowledge of how to treat a lady, either.
Reuben had a right to buy that land, intended dowry or no. Soon he could make Sam Jeffers an offer. And wouldn’t that throw a kink in James’s spokes? He grinned at the thought.
Something didn’t set right with Reuben about James. The man’s expression reminded him of the sort of fellow who marked cards and hid his pistol under the table.
The warmth of the livery made up for Reuben’s coat, and the scent of straw and animal swirled around him. Reuben went to the stall where his new mount, a roan mare named Checkers, waited. She had wise eyes and looked strong. One day she’d make a fine cutting horse. He’d need to get some cattle first, though.
“Come for your horse, have you?” Mac, the liveryman, stood holding a pitchfork at the end of the aisle.
“That I have, and I thank you for the saddle.” After settling the matter of payment, Reuben swung up onto the horse’s back and rode out feeling a mite taller—and not because of the mount.
He had arrived in Raider’s Crossing by stage with nothing but the clothes on his back and a small sack of sundries. His pa’s words came to him. You take a trip one step at a time and build a life one day at a time. He remembered not understanding their humble beginnings when they arrived in Wyoming Territory. He wanted the riches Pa had promised, and right away.
Reuben wondered if his dissatisfaction had led him astray. The old memories accompanied him back to the Jeffers farm as he rode Checkers along the trail out of town.
“Tell me about life on the trail,” Charlotte ventured while she and Reuben sat in the parlor that evening. Ma and Pa remained in the kitchen, their soft after-supper conversation taking place as it had every night for many years. Reuben had missed supper, and Charlotte in turn had missed him. When he arrived after she put away the last clean dish, her stomach gave a lurch at his presence.
Now Charlotte knitted, or tried to knit, while Reuben sat across from her and kept her yarn from tangling. At least that was what he said he was doing.
“I don’t like talking about those days.” Reuben remained focused on the yarn. His eyelids drooped. Pa said Reuben put in a full day’s work. Why, then, would he be here in the evening when he could be settling down in the bunkhouse for a well-deserved rest? Charlotte didn’t want to think he meant to spend time with her.
“I’m sorry. I often wondered where you’d gone.” She cast another loop of yarn over the needle and paused. “I’d ride out on Belle, hoping to see you coming over the ridge to our place.” Her throat burned. She reworked her stitch. The blanket she was knitting for a new mother at church would never take shape at this rate.
“Well, we ended up in Texas and left Benjamin there with a…friend.” Reuben set the mass of yarn on his lap. “Then I headed up to Colorado, got caught selling stolen horses.” His face flushed.
“How—how long were you in jail?”
“Eighteen months.” He cleared his throat. “The first time.” The expression on Reuben’s face made her think the yarn had turned into a pile of snakes on his lap.
“But you were sorry, weren’t you?”
“The first time I was sorry I got caught.” Reuben clutched the yarn as if it were a lariat.
“Why did you do it?” Charlotte’s eyes burned. The Wilsons, she remembered, were not wealthy people, but neither were they destitute.
“The money and the challenge.” Reuben sighed. “Money just ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. It goes too fast and makes people do crazy things only to lose it again. And challenges? Well, I could have found some better ones than stealing horses.”
Charlotte didn’t know what to say to the serious man who sat across from her. His shoulders slumped as if they bore a great weight.
“Reuben, I’m sorry you walked such a long road.” She bit her lip. “But I’m glad you’re home again.”
“I’d like to say I’m glad, too.” He held her gaze.
“Are you going to ask me what I’ve done these past years?” Charlotte tried to lighten the conversation.
“I can see you’ve grown up.”
“Of course. What a feat that would be, to remain exactly as I was when you left.” She smiled at him. There was so much she wanted to tell him—why she had never married, why in the last year she’d still looked for him when out riding Belle.
“I’m glad you’re not the same. But I figured you’d be settled down with a family by now and have a posse of kids.”
“Well, you can see I’m not. And I don’t.” Charlotte hadn’t intended the words to sound so cold and brittle, but the ripe old age of thirty was two short years away.
“That young man coming around—do you think he’s honorable?”
What a question. Charlotte could only say that James was polite, had some polish from schooling, and didn’t seem to mind that she was a few years older than he was. Other possible suitors had no doubt been rebuffed by her deliberate disinterest.
“He has never led me to believe he isn’t.” At that her face flamed, but she dared not tell him about James’s attempt to kiss her.
“I see.” Reuben’s stare bored into her.
“I’m not getting younger.” She hadn’t expected to be defending herself, although clearly Reuben enjoyed the focus being off him.
“I still care about you, and I don’t want you hurt.” The tender expression on his face surprised her.
“That means a lot to me. I still…” Charlotte swallowed hard. This conversation was not at all turning out as she’d hoped. A brief getting-to-know-you-once-again, not unspoken revelations of the heart.
Reuben leaned forward. “I have something I feel I ought to tell you—only I’m not sure you’ll like it.”
Her heart felt as if it had leapt into her throat. “You’re not leaving again?” Here she was, come full circle as she knew she would. At first she wanted him to go, but now…
Reuben shook his head. “It’s about James.”
Charlotte scooted her chair a bit closer. “What?”
A flush swept over Reuben’s face. “I don’t want to be accused of tale-bearing, but…just…be careful about him, okay?”
He was close enough now that she could see flecks of gold in his green eyes. She wanted to make him smile, to see them twinkle as they once did. Reuben’s beard was making an appearance, and Charlotte wanted to touch the stubbly growth on his jaw.
“All right.”
Reuben stood and reached for his hat. “Promise me. Be careful, Charlie. Wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove.”
Her head swam, and she sat back. James. Reuben had said something about James and being careful. But right about now what she wanted was for Reuben to kiss her, and James was the furthest thing from her mind.
Charlotte nodded mutely and watched as Reuben went into the kitchen. She tossed her knitting onto the floor.
Reuben stoked the embers in the bunkhouse stove and tried to coax some warmth into the old room. Mr. and Mrs. Jeffers had offered him their son’s bedroom in the main house, but Reuben didn’t think it was proper. He wasn’t accustomed to living under a family’s roof, not for a long time. In jail you did what you were told when you were told. The idea of being in the outside world, doing what you wanted when you wanted—well, it was hard getting used to.
“Lord, I still need Your help. I’m not sure how to behave among upright people,” Reuben muttered as he folded his change of clothes. He placed them in the small trunk he had bought on a trip to town.
Had he done the right thing in telling Charlotte to be careful about James? Reuben dared not repeat the words James had used, soiled with their double meanings. He did know he would protect Charlotte, even if it meant losing her.
Reuben stared out the lone window across the stockyard and at the Jeffers home glowing with warm rectangles of light.
Losing her. He chuckled to himself. He had given up all rights to claim her heart when he rode away all those years ago. No matter what Reverend Mann thought, some things a fellow still couldn’t make up for.
Chapter 5
Reuben clutched the receipt for his bank deposit, his heart pounding all the while. Now his money was safe in an account. He glanced about the lobby, but the other customers seemed to be minding their own business, even Mrs. Booth in the corner. Carved wood and iron bars proclaimed security. The bars also reminded him of days gone by, years lost and wasted. Not anymore if he could help it.
No, if God could, and would, help him. Reverend Mann would caution him in that singsong voice of his to take heed not to succumb to greed. God would help him pay if he truly showed repentance for his ways. Reuben hoped he had shown just that. Repentance.
He reread the piece of paper in his hand as he started for the front doors. If he kept all his new earnings for himself, the amount would have been larger. Paying back those whom he’d stolen from helped ease his conscience along the way.
Reuben collided with a short, squat man in a bowler hat. The man’s head was tucked low against t
he blast of cold air that followed him into the bank. A sack fell from his hands. Paper money and coins scattered, the paper floating on air before settling on the floor.
“Oh, pardon me,” Reuben said. “I wasn’t paying attention.” He bent to help gather some of the money.
“No harm done.” The man squatted and scraped some coins onto his palm. “I was in a hurry, not paying attention myself.”
“I think that’s all of it.” Reuben straightened.
The man stood, as well, and extended his right hand. “Howard Woodward, Raider’s Crossing News.”
“Oh, you run the newspaper. I’m”—Reuben shook the man’s smooth hand—“I’m Reuben Wilson. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise. And next time I’ll watch my step.”
“And I will, too.” They exchanged nods, and Reuben wondered if the man’s words held a double meaning. He brushed off the idea like a pesky fly and pushed through the bank doors to come face-to-face with James, also on his way into the establishment. James gave him nothing but a glance.
Reuben tugged the collar of his coat more tightly around his neck and pocketed his receipt. The ice-tinged air bit into him, and Reuben shivered where Checkers stood tied outside the bank. He needed to hurry before the freezing rain began to fall, but he had to make one more stop first.
“Too bad we haven’t seen any of the other Wilson boys,” Pa remarked while he stabled the animals for the night after returning from town.
“It’s sad, Pa.” Charlotte paused while brushing Belle’s warm flank. “I wish we could do something to help Reuben.” The wind had already picked up outside with the promise of another ice storm. Charlotte wanted spring to come and breathe new life across the land.
“God can make something out of nothing. He knows exactly where those boys are. Even now their ma’s prayers are at heaven’s throne. Perhaps she’s visiting there awhile, too.” Pa leaned over the stall door. “I didn’t want to worry you, but I ran into Howard Woodward today at the mercantile. He was asking about Reuben.”
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