“Mr. Weldrick thinks you don’t like him. Do you?” Sarah asked.

Imogene spooned their dinner onto the waiting plates. “I don’t think he’s a good father,” she replied carefully. “But mostly I suppose I don’t care for him because he makes you so unhappy.”

“Mr. Weldrick’s nice to me,” Sarah protested.

“Yes and no.”

Sarah waited.

“He’s pleasant and complimentary,” Imogene continued, “and he seems to care for you, after his fashion. But since we’ve moved to this house you have come so far. I remember those first months at the Broken Promise-you are so much stronger now, more sure of yourself. Mr. Weldrick takes that away from you.”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said, suddenly tired. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

Imogene looked up at the hollow sound of her voice-the confusion, the depression. “Demonstratum est,” she said.

Before Sarah could reply there came a sound of bells, of pots and pans crashing together in the icy air, of shouting and the beating of makeshift drums. Faint at first, a long way off, then growing louder, the din swelled as the noisemakers came up Virginia Street to the river. Hooting and wild laughter cut through the winter night.

Grabbing wraps, the two women stepped outside, leaving their supper to grow cold. Addie Glass was on her back porch, a heavy dressing gown thrown over her bed clothes. She was carrying a lantern.

“Miss Grelznik, Mrs. Ebbitt-I was just coming to fetch you,” she called excitedly, waving them over. “I thought, being so new to the West, you maybe hadn’t seen a charivari.” The lantern cast ample light and they hurried over the snow.

Addie led them through the dim corridors of her house and into the front parlor. “It’s better if it’s dark,” Addie said when they reached the bay window overlooking the street, and blew out the lantern. In its last light her weathered face looked as rosy as a young girl’s, and her eyes shone. “They’ll be by in a few minutes. I remember my charivari like it was yesterday. Rupert was the drunkest of all.” She laughed at her memories. “My Rupert was the sweetest drunk in the state. He loved everybody. If I’d come late, he would’ve married the best man.”

Across the water, the first dancing lights came into view, and individual voices could sometimes be distinguished from the general tumult.

“They’re grander here than anywhere,” the old lady said. “The Chinese sell fireworks beforehand.”

The parade of torches and lanterns snaked like a dragon along the road following the river. Snatches of song floated out across the water. Addie Glass leaned forward and opened the window. “Never mind the cold,” she said. “Look, there’s the bride and groom.”

Pushed along at the dragon’s head, a buckboard covered in homemade decorations carried the newlyweds. Running alongside the groom were the loudest merrymakers, whistling and banging spoons and pails against the wagon. The bride, all in white, her veil falling off, clung to the seat, radiant even across the width of the Truckee. The buckboard was pulled by a mass of men in lieu of horses. Those too tired or too drunk would stagger away to be replaced by fresh pullers.

“Look at them!” Addie said. “Just look at them! That’s the way it ought to be.”

Entranced, Sarah watched the torches weaving and dipping through the night like winter fireflies, mirrored by running reflections on the river’s surface.

“Like it should be,” she murmured.

Throughout the spring and summer, Nate came to call on Sarah, and though she showed little pleasure at his attentions, she always received him. For Wolf’s sake, she said.

Imogene would sniff and purse her lips and say nothing.

25

ELMS AND OAKS WERE FROSTBITTEN TO RED AND GOLD, AND THE warm yellow autumn leaves of the cottonwood trees lined the streets. Imogene stepped out of the stationer’s and heard a train whistle in the distance. “Most trains will be carrying Bishop Whitaker girls,” she said to herself. “They’ll be trickling in all week.” The thought brought a smile.

A gust of wind fluttered her shawl. She looked to the west, where the tips of stormclouds were visible beyond the mountain peak. As Imogene watched, the front grew and darkened. She hurried along the boardwalk.

McMurphy was lounging against the side of the stable across the street from the Wells Fargo office, his back against the sun-warmed wood. He jerked his hatbrim as she approached. “Afternoon, Miss Grelznik.”

“I haven’t seen you since August, Mac. Have you gone back to prospecting?” Imogene asked.

“No, ma’am, I got put up from stablehand to swamper. I been mostly on the run to Pyramid and Round Hole.”

“What does a swamper do?”

“This one reads.” He pulled a yellowed magazine out of his hip pocket, showing off to his teacher. The cover featured a cowboy and several dozen Indians. “I’m reading right now.” He tapped the magazine.

“After a fashion,” Imogene said dryly.

Mac laughed and folded the cowboy book back into his pocket. “What I do is ride along on the stage and see to the livestock, changing teams, hitching, unhitching, and feeding and whatnot. We’ve got horses at every stop, pretty near.”

Lightning flashed to the west, a great forked tongue licking down the mountain side. Half a minute later the rumble of thunder reached their ears.

Mac sniffed the air. “Whoo-ee! We ain’t long for it now.”

“It looks as if I’d best be going.” Imogene pushed her hatpins in. “Congratulations on your new position, Mac.”

“I hope you’re not thinking to go home,” Mac winked.

“Why not?” Imogene asked.

“Not more’n twenty minutes ago, Nate come by. He was slicked up and pomaded till a skunk wouldn’t have him. I asked him if he was going courting. He said, ‘Not today I ain’t. Today I’m going asking.’ He wasn’t just beating his gums, neither, he meant to do it. Figured he could talk little Mrs. Ebbitt around if they was alone. She’s a docile little gal. Maybe you want to hole up over to the office for a while, let them kids do their lovemaking. The judge’s got the stove going.”

Sarah was behind the house on the path, collecting colorful sprigs of leaves, when she heard Nate’s claybank on the drive. She stood poised for an instant like a doe ready to run, her basket of branches under her arm. Gusts heavily scented with the coming rain blew fire-colored leaves around her skirts.

Nate rapped smartly on the door. There was no answer and he opened it partway. “Anybody home?” Silence. He closed it and came around the end of the house. “Hello! Guess you didn’t hear my hullabaloo. I figured you might be to the outhouse.”

Sarah blushed. “I was collecting leaves, Mr. Weldrick.” She showed him her basket.

“Be your last chance, this storm blowing up’s going to pound them off.” He walked with her back to the house. In the closeness of the living room the smell of his pomade was overpowering. Sarah started to open a window and then stopped, embarrassed.

Nate grinned. “Guess I’m pretty ripe, ain’t I? I told the barber I was calling on a lady and he got kind of heavy-handed with the stinkum.”

Sarah smiled. She looked at the clock over the bookcase.

“You expecting Miss Grelznik home anytime soon?”

Sarah dropped her eyes. “Not for another hour or two.”

“Where’s the kid?”

“He was cranky. I think he was feeling a little peaked, so I put him to bed.”

Nate absorbed this information, nodding. “I’ll get right down to what I come about. I been calling pretty regular these past months, haven’t I?” He looked at Sarah. “You’ll give me that?”

“Yes, that’s so. You come to see Wolf.”

“You know that ain’t it; I come calling on you. You know that the same as you know I’m sitting here.”