Sheemie had nodded energetically. Then: “Sai?”

Aunt Cord glowered at him. The vertical line on her forehead had been very prominent that day.

“Why you all wropped up in cobwebbies, sai?”

“Get out of here, ye impudent cull!” Aunt Cord cried. She had a good loud voice when she wanted to use it, and Sheemie jumped back from her in alarm. When she was sure he was headed back down the High Street toward town and had no intention of returning to their gate and hanging about in hopes of a tip, Aunt Cord had turned to Susan.

“Get those in some water before they wilt, Miss Oh So Young and Pretty, and don’t go mooning about, wondering who yer secret admirer might be.”

Then Aunt Cord had smiled. A real smile. What hurt Susan the most, confused her the most, was that her aunt was no cradle-story ogre, no witch like Rhea of the Coos. There was no monster here, only a maiden lady with some few social pretensions, a love of gold and silver, and a tear of being turned out, penniless, into the world.

“For folks such as us, Susie-pie,” she said, speaking with a terrible heavy kindness,” ’tis best to stick to our housework and leave dreams to them as can afford them.”

5

She had been sure the flowers were from Will, and she was right. His note was written in a hand which was clear and passing fair.

Dear Susan Delgado,

I spoke out of turn the other night, and cry your pardon. May I see you and speak to you? It must be private. This is a matter of importance. If you will see me, get a message to the boy who brings this. He is safe.

Will Dearborn

A matter of importance. Underlined. She felt a strong desire to know what was so important to him, and cautioned herself against doing anything foolish. Perhaps he was smitten with her… and if so, whose fault was that? Who had talked to him, ridden his horse, showed him her legs in a flashy carnival dismount? Who had put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him?

Her cheeks and forehead burned at the thought of that, and another hot ring seemed to go slipping down her body. She wasn’t sure she regretted the kiss, but it had been a mistake, regrets or no regrets. Seeing him again now would be a worse one.

Yet she wanted to see him, and knew in her deepest heart that she was ready to set her anger at him aside. But there was the promise she had made.

The wretched promise.

That night she lay sleepless, tossing about in her bed, first thinking it would be better, more dignified, just to keep her silence, then composing mental notes anyway-some haughty, some cold, some with a lace-edge of flirtation.

When she heard the midnight bell ring, passing the old day out and calling the new one in, she decided enough was enough. She’d thrown herself from her bed, gone to her door, opened it, and thrust her head out into the hall. When she heard Aunt Cord’s flutelike snores, she had closed her door again, crossed to her little desk by the window, and lit her lamp. She took one of her sheets of parchment paper from the top drawer, tore it in half (in Hambry, the only crime greater than wasting paper was wasting threaded stockline), and then wrote quickly, sensing that the slightest hesitation might condemn her to more hours of indecision. With no salutation and no signature, her response took only a breath to write:

I may not see you. ’Twould not be proper.

She had folded it small, blew out her lamp, and returned to bed with the note safely tucked under her pillow. She was asleep in two minutes. The following day, when the marketing took her to town, she had gone by the Travellers’ Rest, which, at eleven in the morning, had all the charm of something which has died badly at the side of the road.

The saloon’s door-yard was a beaten dirt square bisected by a long hitching rail with a watering trough beneath. Sheemie was trundling a wheelbarrow along the rail, picking up last night’s horse-droppings with a shovel. He was wearing a comical pink sombrero, and singing “Golden Slippers.” Susan doubted if many of the Rest’s patrons would wake up feeling as well as Sheemie obviously did this morning… so who, when you came right down to it, was more soft-headed?

She looked around to make sure no one was paying heed to her, then went over to Sheemie and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked frightened at first, and Susan didn’t blame him-according to the stories she’d been hearing, Jonas’s friend Depape had almost killed the poor kid for spilling a drink on his boots.

Then Sheemie recognized her. “Hello, Susan Delgado from out there by the edge of town,” he said companionably. “It’s a good day I wish you, sai.”

He bowed-an amusing imitation of the Inner Baronies bow favored by his three new friends. Smiling, she dropped him a bit of curtsey (wearing jeans, she had to pretend at the skirt-holding part, but women in Mejis got used to curtseying in pretend skirts).

“See my flowers, sai?” he asked, and pointed toward the unpainted side of the Rest. What she saw touched her deeply: a line of mixed blue and white silkflowers growing along the base of the building. They looked both brave and pathetic, flurrying there in the faint morning breeze with the bald, turd-littered yard before them and the splintery public house behind them.

“Rid you grow those, Sheemie?”

“Aye, so I did. And Mr. Arthur Heath of Gilead has promised me yellow ones.”

“I’ve never seen yellow silkflowers.”

“Noey-no, me neither, but Mr. Arthur Heath says they have them in Gilead.” He looked at Susan solemnly, the shovel held in his hands as a soldier would hold a gun or spear at port arms. “Mr. Arthur Heath saved my life. I’d do anything for him.”

“Would you, Sheemie?” she asked, touched.

“Also, he has a lookout! It’s a bird’s head! And when he talks to it, tendy-pretend, do I laugh? Aye, fit to split!”

She looked around again to make sure no one was watching (save for the carved totems across the street), then removed her note, folded small, from her jeans pocket.

“Would you give this to Mr. Dearborn for me? He’s also your friend, is he not?”

“Will? Aye!” He took the note and put it carefully into his own pocket.

“And tell no one.”

“Shhhhh!” he agreed, and put a finger to his lips. His eyes had been amusingly round beneath the ridiculous pink lady’s straw he wore. “Like when I brought you the flowers. Hushaboo!”

“That’s right, hushaboo. Fare ye well, Sheemie.”

“And you, Susan Delgado.”

He went back to his cleanup operations. Susan had stood watching him for a moment, feeling uneasy and out of sorts with herself. Now that the note was successfully passed, she felt an urge to ask Sheemie to give it back, to scratch out what she had written, and promise to meet him. If only to see his steady blue eyes again, looking into her face.

Then Jonas’s other friend, the one with the cloak, came sauntering out of the mercantile. She was sure he didn’t see her-his head was down and he was rolling a cigarette-but she had no intention of pressing her luck. Reynolds talked to Jonas, and Jonas talked-all too much!-to Aunt Cord. If Aunt Cord heard she had been passing the time of day with the boy who had brought her the flowers, there were apt to be questions. Ones she didn’t want to answer.