Chapter 31

 

Peggy had not remembered the distance nor the time it would take to get from the Ponderosa to the favoured place on the Running D. she tried to remind herself that it was no longer known by that name but to her it would always be her home, the place where she had started her life, always to be known as the Running D. She had found it quaintly odd that so many still referred to it as the Dayton ranch,when on that first day she had made enquiries about it. The way people had said ‘Oh you mean the Dayton ranch.’ had created a sense of all being well in her world, she was coming home. Of course, logic reminded her that was not so, even though she still didn’t know what it was currently called called… she had only ever heard the Cartwrights refer to it as the Greigson’s place.

 

Now here she was overlooking the view of the river, and she slid from the saddle and took the reins in order to lead her horse down the sloping hillside to the green of the shrubs that lined the rivers edge.

 

She could feel the warmth of the sun through her clothes, making her feel secure and safe, helping her to slip back into the memories of the times she had spent with her father here. She could not remember if Laura had ever come to share those times, but here she had ran as a toddler, fallen and been picked up and cuddled by her father. Then an older child he had shown how to swim, taughther to skim stones and to tickle fish if she were to lay on her stomach on the big flat stone that hung over the water.

 

There it was, just as it always had been in the past and she released a deep sigh as though if it had been possible for her to step back in time she would gladly have done so. But the thought came with a sense of unease, after all the past had been nothing but a quagmire of misadventures and misery, and why was she now hankering after the brief stolen moments of pleasure and joy she had shared with her father when he had been more often absent from home than present there.

 

Perhaps because these occasions had been rare, perhaps that was what made them so precious. She left the reins of the horse tied around the limb of a stunted tree and walked to the large slab of stone and stepped onto it.

 

“You are on Greigson property you know?”

 

The voice cut through her thoughts so abruptly that she stumbled in mid=step and had she not been able to control herself could have ended up in the water. As it was she felt embarrassed and rather stupid as she turned to face Abel Greigson who was leaning on the pommel of his saddle as though amused at seeing her discomfort.

 

“I know” she snapped, and scowled at him, the shadow of her hat casting her face in darkness for which she was glad as it would conceal her blushes. “But I didn’t think you would mind my coming, after all, I was here first.”

 

He pulled a face, one of mockery, teasing and not unpleasant, “Really, now what exactly do you mean by that, Miss Dayton?”

 

“I mean – that this is my birth place, all of this – and just because you own it now doesn’t mean I can’t come here -”

 

“As and when you fancy, huh?” he shook his head “No, sorry, Miss Dayton, it doesn’t work like that… whether you were born here or not, the land no longer belongs to you, and you are trespassing, and usually I shoot trespassers.”

 

He straightened his back and put his hand on his rifle, and glared down his nose at her.

 

“You do not!” she snapped back and strode away from the stone and up the hillside to snatch at the reins of her horse, “Don’t be so ridiculous.”

 

“Well, take it as a warning this one time, Miss Dayton. We don’t take kindly to people wandering around our land, for whatever reason they may give..”

 

“I never gave you any reason for my being here.” she replied defensively.

 

“No, you didn’t, but whatever reason it was, you could have come to the house and asked permission, at the very least I would have expected a fine lady like yourself to have taken that into consideration.” he grimaced, a comical downturn of the mouth “Of course, I’m not too sure Pa would have allowed it even then.”

 

“Oh I suppose he would have shot me there and then, would he? Right on his doorstep?” she tilted her chin and tossed her head, and pulled her horse away from the tree to give herself room to mount up into the saddle.

 

“No telling with my Pa. He can be a mite ornery at times.”

 

She glanced at him and frowned, then smiled, one of her bright smiles that made her eyes twinkle “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

 

He gave the very slightest shake of the head and watched as she walked her horse up the hillside towards him, his eyes looked her up and down and he nodded then “Need a hand to mount up?”

 

“I do not…” she retorted with a sniff of the nose and her head high.

 

He shrugged and sat back into the saddle to watch her, “I’m going to the dance tonight at the town hall.”

 

“So you said the other day…I’m not.”

 

“So you said the other day.” he gave an exaggerated sigh, “Still, doesn’t matter now, I have another young lady to take instead.”

 

“Well, how nice for you, I hope she enjoys herself.”

 

“Are you sure you don’t need a hand to get up into that saddle?”

 

“I can mount up without any help from you, Mr Greigson.”

 

He nodded and shrugged again, then turned his horse’s head before he paused “What was so special about this place?” he asked and turned to look at her as she stopped her attempt to mount up, to look bleakly back to the river and blinked rapidly. He wondered if he saw tears in her eyes or was mistaken, but she turned her face away from his scrutiny and said quietly that it had special memories for her, and she needed to see it.

 

He didn’t ask her any more questions but touched the brim of his hat and with a nudge of his heels upon his horses side was soon riding away from her. She watched him go and then mounted the horse, turned its head and made her way back to the Ponderosa. It was too bad, she told herself, that he had ridden up, too bad that he had spoiled her private moments of fond memories of times past, too bad that everything he said had irritated and annoyed her.

……….

 

Sofia found the tombstone of the baby hidden beneath the drooping heads of spring flowers, and speckled by petals from the blossoms of the trees. She made a posy and placed it on the stone and then went in search of the other that would, she knew, be close by.

 

She could hardly remember her grandmother Abigail, but a dim memory of the old lady’s funeral still lingered in the cobwebs of her mind. She stopped at the tombstone and even though she couldn’t read all the words engraved she did know the word Abigail because there was a girl in the same class as her who was called by that name, and the letters were familiar to her now. Another posy of flowers was placed by the modest stone and then, without another thought about either of those sleeping beneath the soil, she ran off to play.

 

To be a child and without understanding of death was to be free, Olivia thought as she watched her daughter running through the trees. Without the understanding there was no fear, and if one could live without fear then life was one borne of innocence and freedom. She too had brought flowers for the graves, the little one whom she had never known and the old lady whom she had loved. She paused to think over memories and prayers at each of the locations before placing her flowers beside the posy Sofia had already placed, and then, head bowed as though her thoughts weighed her down, she returned to the house.

 

Marcy was preparing the meal so she helped in the little kitchen with Nathaniel and Sofia happily playing in the yard. The sounds of their laughter, the shouting too and fro between them slipped into the room and mingled with the sounds of Philip and Anna. The little ones were kept secure in their play pen in the yard, close to the door of the house, happily and contentedly watching their cousins at play.

 

She had told Marcy about Adam meeting with Katherine and her friend had listened attentively and concluded that the woman was more to be pitied than blamed, even though what she had done was wrong. She gently reminded Olivia that Katherine had attempted to make redress when Adam, Luke and Hoss were going to take Sofia home from Bodie.

 

“There is a lot to redeem her,” Marcy said quietly, “Although I still do not understand why she is here.”

 

“I just don’t want Sofia to meet her again, not until – well – until she can handle it. Do you think I am being too protective? Do you think I should go and see Katherine and talk things over with her, explain how things can’t be how she wants them to be?”

 

“How do you know what she really wants them to be?” Marcy had replied as she put the pastry over the apples, it would be a fine apple pie for later and she carefully trimmed off the surplus to make it neater, before dredging on some sugar and then putting it swiftly into the oven.

 

“That’s just it, I don’t know what she wants and perhaps, in all honesty, neither does she. It’s all well and good saying something, but when she sees Sofia again, will her good intentions fall by the wayside? Will she let her emotions get the better of whatever it is she has planned.” Olivia dusted her hands free of flour and swept up the apple peelings into a pile to be put in the bucket for the chickens.

 

Marcy sighed and shook her head “Perhaps we should talk this over when Luke comes in.”

 

Olivia said nothing more. As far as she was concerned the matter was more to do with herself and Adam, and until her husband returned from his camping trip with Reuben she was feeling adrift like a little boat in a very big sea. Perhaps Luke would be able to give some sound advice, after all, he was a little more removed from the situation emotionally then she or Adam, and she knew how emotions could cloud common sense. Also Luke knew Katherine, and the Royales, he could well give her some clearer idea of what kind of person Katherine really was, and how best to deal with her now.

………………

 

Katherine Royale, whom we shall refer to as Elizabeth for now, set out her dresses upon the bed. She had brought only a few of the beautiful clothes she had owned when living in Bodie, after all, a modest quiet townswoman,which she had decided she would be when arriving in Virginia Cty, would certainly not have possessed the lavish and expensive garments she had owned then.

 

No, an assistant librarian would dress with a certain decorum and dignity, and she eyed her dresses with a careful scrutiny.

 

One by one she held them against her as she turned this way and that in front of the mirror. At the same time she thought over Miss Tyndale’s obvious disapproval of the dance, the association. Was she, Assistant Librarian as she was, being a little forward in attending? Were there rules drawn up by Society that said Librarians should not partake of parties, dances, socialising?

 

What kind of dress would Miss Tyndale approve of from the few that Elizabeth had to choose from? Why had Mr Greigson invited her anyway and what on earth had possessed her to accept? She didn’t know him, nor did he have any idea of who she was, and surely such an impulsive action could only bode ill?

 

She made her choice, a soft dove grey dress with an almost Puritanical white collar and cuffs, relieved by a pretty brooch which she pinned to the left of her shoulder. If it was an impulse he regretted then he would not come for her, and if he didn’t come for her then she would undress and go to bed early, with a book. It was as easy as that – or was it?

 

She pulled on her shoes, pretty shoes that she had always loved, and which gave her a sense of confidence, along with the knowledge that beneath her plain grey dress she was wearing the rather expensive silk undergarments and stockings she had bought from Miss Ridleys Emporium. It made her smile to think about them … and then she realised it was rather like her life now, plain dowdy Elizabeth Godfrey pretending not to be pretty and wealthy Katherine Royale.

 

She pinched her cheeks to get colour into them, and bit her lips to redden them, and twirled ringlets of hair around her ringers. Then she picked up her favourite hand embroidered shawl and wrapped it around her; she was ready, all she needed now was her escort.

 

Then, even as she was thinking it, there came the knock on the door …she drew in her breath, straightened her shoulders and walked forwards to welcome her escort.

 

 

 

Chapter 32

 

Joseph Cartwright always felt a surge of excitement whenever he approached his home after a few days absence. His love for Mary Ann, and his children, filled his heart to such an extent that sometimes he was surprised at just how much emotion was packed inside that small frail vessel. Even as he pushed open the door he was calling her name, “Mary Ann. Mary Ann. I’m home…”

 

His voice caught an echo, but he cast aside his hat and pushed open the other door into the big room where she was already hurrying towards him, a smile on her face, eyes wide and dark with joy and her arms open to receive him into her embrace.

 

“Oh Joe, I’m so glad you’re home..I’m so …oh…what happened to your arm?” she didn’t hug him but stepped back to view her husband anxiously, looking from the sling to his face and back again to the sling.

 

“I broke it. Nothing too serious. It’ll mend.” he passed it off glibly, and caught her by the wrist with his free hand and swung her into his arms, holding her against his chest and kissing her lovely face with with such ardour that she was left breathless. “I’ve missed you so much,” he sighed “You can‘t imagine what it’s been like listening to Hoss snoring, sleeping on rocks …” he didn’t mention the comfortable bed in Willow’s home, the good food she had provided, what was the point? After all it hadn’t diminished his longing to be home, to be with his little wife.

 

“Poor Joe.” she murmured and leaned in to kiss him again only to be interrupted by Daniel whooping down the stairs with a toy train under one arm and calling out to his father.

 

“Hey, how’s my handsome boy?” Joe laughed and squatted down so that he could catch the lad with his hand and swing him into a rough hug “And where’s your sister?”

 

“Hopefully asleep, as this scamp should be …” Mary Ann laughed and watched as her husband raised Daniel up in the crook of his arm and stood up, “Be gentle Daniel, poor Daddy has a hurt arm.”

 

Daniel’s face looked sad, and he looked at the sling and shook his head “Poor Daddy.”

 

They walked together into the large airy kitchen where Joe pulled out a chair and sat down, the boy on his lap and a smile on his face, love beaming from his eyes and he caught at her hand as she passed him to make coffee and something for their supper.

 

“I love you, Mary Ann. Every time I go away I think I miss you more…” and he kissed her fingers and looked up into her face with what he hoped was a romantic look of yearning and love.

 

She leaned down and bestowed upon his upturned face a kiss before returning to the task of preparing supper. Daniel turned to Joe and asked what had happened to the ‘poorly arm’.

 

Joe laughed, and shrugged “I feel a bit stupid to admit it, but I fell over my own feet chasing a three year old around the yard.”

 

“Nathaniel?” Mary Ann queried, pausing in filling the kettle and looking at him with a puzzled expression.

 

“No, not Nathaniel.” he grinned, “Hoss and I found the rustlers, turned out they were some old adversaries of ours from way back…do you remember me ever telling you about the Hoags’ and how wild they were?” he frowned slightly, thinking back to that time, “One of them was meaner than a rattlesnake, shot Adam clean off his horse, and when he got his just desserts the old woman – Grandma Hoag – sort of laid siege to the Ponderosa. We had kind of taken care of one of her grandchildren, a girl, Willow. “

 

“I remember …your father often refers to it as a classic eye for an eye situation. Didn’t you kill the girl’s father?”

 

“Yes.” Joe sighed and looked at his son, who was watching the expressions on his father’s face and drinking in every word. “I did. By accident not by design. Willow was wild though. Anyway, the upshot of it all was that Pa gave them some land, enough for them to settle and be happy with …”

 

“And they’re your rustlers?” she said sitting down beside him and reaching for his hand which she held loosely in her own, in her lap.

 

“Turns out some of Granma Hoags grandchildren have inherited some of their ways of helping themselves first and if they got away with it, helping themselves some more. Anyway, it’s all settled now.”

 

“And your arm?” she coaxed.

 

“Willow married and has children, well, so have some others…it’s quite a thriving community really. I was playing chase with the kids and fell over my own feet, crashed into a water trough, then a huge sow pig came out of nowhere and attacked me, thought I was going to harm her piglets I guess. I managed to avoid her but in doing so rolled onto my arm, and it broke.”

 

She shook her head, laughed a little and leaned forward to kiss him again “Oh Joe, it could only happen to you.”

 

“That old sow had her beady eyes on me all the time we were there…if I could have taken a few rashers from her hide I would have gladly done so.” and he laughed along with her, and Daniel, unsure of what exactly to say, laughed along with them.

 

“Time for you to go back to bed, young man.” Mary Ann said and plucked the child from her husband’s arms and said “Say goodnight to daddy…”

 

Joe sighed and relaxed, how good to be home. He half closed his eyes and wondered how Hoss was getting on, knew for sure that he was going to get a lot of fussing and of course, Pa would be pleased to know he was right about the rustling but wrong about who the rustlers could have been, that would make him laugh, of course.

 

He noticed for the first time the papers on the table, and casually shuffled them towards him having recognised his wife’s handwriting. Neat calligraphy which always made him smile as his writing was always anything but neat… several phrases were underlined, some scratched out with tiny writing written in amendment above them. He frowned and read through the pages and when he heard her coming into the room he looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face.

 

“What’s this, sweetheart?” he held the papers in his hand and showed them to her, “What’s it all about?”

 

“Have you read it?” she replied, going to the stove to make the coffee. A tiny throb of anxiety began to beat at her temples and her heart beat skipped and went a mite faster.

 

“Yes.” his voice was sterner, no laughter now, and she poured the coffee into their cups and walked to the table to set them down, then pulled out her chair to sit down.

 

“Then you know what it is about…” her grey eyes looked into his hazel green and noticed just how green was in them, “It’s for the Meeting next Saturday.”

 

“The Meeting?” his voice sounded hollow, he looked puzzled “What Meeting?”

 

“Don’t you remember ? I told you about it before you left, we – that is, Peggy and I – want to hold a Meeting at the Town Hall about the Rights for Votes for Women. You said you thought it was a good idea…”

 

“No, I don’t think I did….” he replied tersely.

 

You did, Joe. You said it would blow the cobwebs away and some men needed a good shaking up.”

 

“Sure, I said that..but I didn’t say it was a good idea.” he frowned, perhaps he had, she wouldn’t lie to him but he couldn’t for the life of him remember agreeing to it, not a definite, ‘yes, sure, go ahead.’

 

“Joe, if I hadn’t thought I had your backing about this Meeting I would not have gone ahead and arranged it. That’s my speech. Peggy’s going to open a question and answer debate afterwards and Lucy ..”

 

“Lucy?” His eyes widened and his always expressive eyebrows almost shot off his forehead.

 

“Lucy Garston. She wants to be a part of the Meeting, she said she would do the concluding talk.” she frowned and looked down at her hands “The least you could do is read it…”

 

She spoke quietly, softly, hoping he wouldn’t be angry but not sure whether he would or not. He leaned back and put the papers down, “I read enough while you were taking Danny up…”

 

“But read it all, Joe. Tell me what you think?”

 

He sighed, bowed his head and frowned while he tried to gather his thoughts, “Mary Ann, I don’t think you should do this. I just don’t think Virginia City or even Nevada, is ready for this kind of talk.”

 

“That’s not the impression you gave me when we talked about it before…” she said, her voice sharper than usual, and her cheeks reddening. “You gave me the impression that you were in agreement with it, that it was good, that you felt it was unfair for women to be oppressed….”

 

“Do you feel oppressed? Is that the impression you’re going to give to the townsfolk -that you’re oppressed?” he stabbed his forefinger on the paper, his voice becoming higher as it always did when he was angry or irritated, “What exactly do you think this kind of speech will achieve, Mary Ann? At the very least you’ll make yourselves a joke, at the worst you’ll create a revolt.”

 

“I think you’re over re-acting.” she snapped back, getting to her feet “And it isn’t fair, Joe, you haven’t even read through the whole speech yet, and you gave me – made me think – that you had given me your blessing on what I believe to be a good cause.”

 

“Look, Mary Ann, I have listened to you talking about women’s rights for years now, and I agree it isn’t fair … but there’s a lot of unfairness in this world, and a lot of things that need to be put to rights without all this -”

 

“Nonsense? You were going to say nonsense, weren’t you?” she said, her hands balled into fists and her cheeks red, the grey eyes nearly black with anger.

 

“I was trying to think of an alternative word.” he growled standing up to face her, his hazel eyes blazing green.

 

“I think you’re being very small minded, Joseph Cartwright. You’re as bad as those men who picked a fight with your Pa and Adam just because I put up a few posters in town.”

 

“You did WHAT? My Pa and Adam …What did you say?”

 

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, “I’m going to bed. Make your own supper.”

 

“Mary Ann. Come back here. Tell me what happened to Pa and Adam?” he yelled as she walked quickly from the room, but the door slammed behind her and he was left on his own with the two cups of coffee going cold on the table.

………………..

 

“And that old sow, she never took her beady eyes off Joe all the time we was there.” Hoss chuckled and enjoyed hearing their laughter, his Pa, Hester and Peggy, listening and hanging onto every word. He wiped his eyes, for the picture of that old sow and his brother rolling under the water trough to avoid her was still very vivid in his mind. “So, that’s the end of the story really. Oh, met up with Adam and Reuben on the way home. They were at Frenchman’s creek.”

 

“Frenchman’s Creek…” Ben raised his eyebrows, “Well, as good a place as any I suppose, but the water’s mighty cold thereabouts.”

 

“Yeah, you could say that again. Reuben was not quite blue, but his teeth were chattering.” he grinned and dipped his spoon into the stew, blew on it to cool it a little and smiled over at his wife who was looking at him with a besotted look on her face.

 

Peggy smiled as she looked about her and noticed that look on Hester’s face. Dear, uncomplicated unworldly Hester….so content with her lot. And Ben, chuckling away, puffing at his pipe, happy with the status quo, everything under control, not a ripple to spoil his comfortable life.

 

It had never occurred to Peggy to ask Hester about her life prior to marrying Hoss and becoming part of the Ponderosa regime. She knew nothing about Hester Buchanan, daughter to a wealthy Banker in New York, wife to an idealistic young journalist who had gone to chronicle the war between states and never returned. She didn’t know and had no idea of the social strata that had been Hester’s before marriage to Mark James, and how her world had been overturned by that marriage…out of her social class, and suddenly a widow.

 

What would she know about the struggles of a young widow, childless and suddenly friendless? Unworldly? Perhaps yes, because life in the whirlwind of New York wealth had been very worldly, and it had been Hester’s by right of birth and wealth, and then..it had spat her out. What did Peggy know about true love? That this lovely woman had met Hoss, and given him her broken heart to tenderly restore to full working order. Of course they were in love, but unworldly…they created their own world, but it didn’t leave reality out of it.

 

“Hey, Pa, what you been a-doing of? Hannah told me you and Adam got ‘beat up’ in town?”

 

Peggy sighed, and frowned. Of course he had spent his first half hour tucking his girls up in bed and telling them stories. She had heard their giggles, their whispers as he sat beside their beds, she had heard the beds creaking as he had leaned upon them, and chuckled at the things they told him. Now here it was, the cat was out of the bag, so to speak.

 

So Ben told Hoss of the ‘adventure’ they had had in town, and Hoss had laughed, thinking it a great joke. He then looked at Peggy, his blue eyes twinkling, “You sure stirred up a hornets nest, Miss Peggy. You going to go through with this Meeting?”

 

“Yes, of course we are….Mary Ann and Lucy…”

 

“Lucy?” Hoss frowned, and Hester said quickly “Lucy Garston has become a crusader as well.” and that had elicited another guffaw of laughter from the big man who then commented that Mrs Garston must be spitting feathers.

 

“It isn’t a joke, Hoss.” Peggy said quietly, “We want to make a success of this, make men think that there need to be changes and women should be given more respect.”

 

Hoss sighed and wiped his mouth on his napkin, he glanced at Ben who was puffing out smoke rings “Seems to me that women do have respect…”

 

“Your women may do, but a lot of women don’t.”

 

“You think getting them the legal right to vote will change things?” Hoss asked, his brow crinkling and the blue eyes sober and serious now.

 

“Why not?” Peggy replied, her face flushing slightly, “Women work as hard as men, sometimes harder…they have brains, they deserve the right to a good education.”

 

“Sure I agree with all that, Miss Peggy. I would like for my girls to be able to go to college same as Erik and no fuss about it because they was women, but …it’s a lot more involved than that, ain’t it?”

 

“Only with you men…seems men have to complicate everything with their arguments.” Peggy scowled, her mouth tightened and for a moment both Ben and Hoss were reminded of Frank Dayton when he was on one of his drunken rants.

 

“No, it ain’t that…it’s just that it – well – it ain’t just signing a piece of paper, that’s the problem. “

 

She narrowed her eyes and looked at him “What do you mean?”

 

“Well, guess what I’m meaning is that life is as it is, men are men, and women are women. You ain’t going to change that, are ya?”

 

She looked at him, looked at Hester and Ben and then shook her head, “You don’t know what I mean.”

 

With a sigh she got to her feet, said she was needing her bed and made her excuses. Three pairs of eyes watched her as she mounted the stairs…Ben sat with his pipe in his big hand and his dark eyes wondering why little Peggy was always so angry, Hoss looking confused and wondering why little Peggy didn’t understand what he was meaning and Hester thinking that she would be glad when Peggy packed her bags and left the Ponderosa.

………………

 

In their bedroom Mary Ann sat in front of the mirror and looked at her reflection. She knew, in the back of her mind, that Joe would not be so easy to convince about the Meeting, about her speech. It was all well and good to ‘pat the little woman on the head and say ‘there there’ ‘good idea’’ but when words became re-inforced by action then they retreated back to the old ways, the man’s way of thinking, the fear, Peggy had said, of their losing control.

 

And now she was frightened, not the knee knocking fear of facing a mob, or seeing a spider, but the fear of losing something she treasured, the peace and harmony of her home. She was a home builder, a nester, a woman who loved home and hearth. She adored Joe, and her children. She didn’t want anything ugly to come between them. Peggy and Lucy had assured her that wanting rights for women was not ugly, but it was when it caused angry words between her and Joe.

 

She loosened her hair from it’s ribbons and clasps and began to bush through the curls, something she did when she was agitated, like that time when there was that fuss between her and Joe over Little Moon’s return to his life. Oh she didn’t want that to reoccur. It had caused wounds that had now thankfully healed over…but what if now they were to re-open and fester.

 

The door opened and Joe came in, very gently he took the brush from her fingers and tenderly brushed down through her thick curls. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head and glanced up to catch her eyes in the reflection of them both in the mirror.

 

“You know I love you,?” he said quietly.

 

“I love you too, you know I do, don’t you?”

 

“I don’t want you to be hurt. I don’t want you to be involved in anything that will harm you, us, our children…”

 

“How can it?” she whispered and turned to wards him, “As long as we have our love?”

 

“Adam used to quote something ..about casting the wind and reaping the whirlwind…I’m just afraid that that is what you will be doing if you give that speech on Saturday, and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to keep you safe, to protect you…”

 

“Joe, it’s only a speech … in Virginia City, with people we know…” she whispered and when he bowed his head she raised her face to kiss him, “It’ll be alright…what could possibly go wrong.?”

……………………………….

 

“Mommy … I left the music box at home…”

 

“Well, it’s better to have left it there, it could have got broken and it really isn’t yours to take wherever you want…here, get into bed, quickly now…”

 

Sofia frowned “But what if I have a bad dream again…and there’s no music.”

 

“You won’t have a bad dream tonight, you’re nice and cosy at Uncle Luke’s and Aunt Marcy’s. Why should you have a bad dream?”

 

Olivia smiled as she asked the question, dreading a response that she may not have an answer for, but Sofia nodded and looked thoughtful and then slipped between the covers and settled down. Hugs and kisses and the reassurance that she was sleeping in a much more comfortable bed that her brother was, which made Sofia giggle.

 

Luke and Marcy were seated by the small fire when Olivia joined them. He looked at her and smiled “Is she alright?”

 

“Yes, just fretting because she had left Adams musical box at home. She’s grown to depend on it if she has a bad dream.” Olivia smoothed out her skirt and sat down, then looked over at Luke who was gazing rather thoughtfully into the fire, “What are you thinking, Luke?”

 

“Nothing really…”

 

“Yes, you are…what is it?”

 

He frowned before looking into her face and leaning more towards her, “Don’t you think you could be pandering to her a little too much? All children have bad dreams, but you’ve almost trained her to anticipate them so she can play her music box. Do you think its about time you told her to try and sleep through.”

 

Marcy looked rather anxiously at Luke “That’s rather hard, Luke, Sofia needs that music to help her through the night.”

 

“She thinks she does….” Luke replied sternly and then he sighed and stood up, to look at the two women who were wondering what he was about to say next “Perhaps it may be a good idea to talk to Sofia about what is going on, tell her about Katherine being here, explain it all so that she realises that there is nothing to be afraid of…” he looked pointedly at Olivia then “And nothing for you to be afraid of, either. You can’t live your life worrying about bumping into the Assistant Librarian for the rest of your life.”

 

Chapter 33

 

Abel Greigson gently wrapped Elizabeth’s shawl around her shoulders before going to collect his hat and gun belt and rejoining her at the door. He placed a gentle hand on her elbow and ushered her forwards out into the street and then slowly made their way to the Albierno’s Boarding House. Neither spoke for some time although both glanced occasionally upwards to the sky in order to be yet again awed by its splendour. Beyond as a back drop to the picture the dark shadow of Sun Mountain loomed, cutting a swathe of black through the pattern of the stars.

 

“Thank you for this evening, Mr Greigson.” she said eventually, her footsteps slowing as they neared the Boarding House, “I have so enjoyed it. To be honest, I never thought I would find so much pleasure in a dance again, it has been such a long time since I went to one.”

 

“Really? I would have thought you would have enjoyed such occasions often. Nor would I have thought you ever short of escorts.” he replied gallantly, and he smiled down at her and his eyes, she could just about see in the darkness, crinkled with his smile.

 

“No. The last time I went to such a party was before my fiance went on manoeuvres. We had such plans…” her voice trailed off. Was it five or six years ago? At the Fort to celebrate her engagement and her father had ordered all the officers and their wives to be in attendance. Luke Dent had been there too….she could remember him standing by the door as though longing to disappear as soon as he could, after all, he wasn’t an officer, just an army scout. She had danced with her fiance and they had talked about their future, their marriage and neither of them had realised that a little someone was already beginning her own life nestled in softness of Katherine’s womb.

 

So long since she had enjoyed dancing, music and laughter. That was what being free was all about, what being Elizabeth Godfrey meant to her. Abel put his hand on her elbow again and led her across the road. The sounds of others leaving the Town Hall ebbed and flowed around them; people going to their homes, full of chatter, laughter, the remnants of a pleasant evening gathered up and kept close so that they didn’t lose any precious moment of it before the next day dawned and the reality of life began again.

 

“I enjoyed it.” Abel said quietly, “Thank you for agreeing to come., for trusting me enough to let me take you.”

 

She frowned at that remark, and wondered if in fact she had been lacking in propriety in accepting his invitation when she really knew nothing about him at all. She cleared her throat,

 

“I wouldn’t normally have accepted a stranger’s invitation.” she said quickly, “It was just that I was distressed and you seemed rather like a knight coming to my rescue.” she smiled quickly, “I didn’t really know how to refuse as it seemed fate had thrown you in my direction.”

 

“Kismet.” he said and laughed.

 

“Why did you ask me?” she paused now, and as there was a bench seat near she sat down, wrapping her shawl closer, “Apart from seeing that I was distressed, I mean. After all, it does seem a strange thing to have done…”

 

“Mmm,” he frowned very slightly and sat down beside her, dangling his hat between his fingers, “Well, to be honest I don’t often attend dances or any of these social arrangements. I’m a busy man, and my father doesn’t approve of my being away from home..” he laughed then “that makes it sound like I am still a little boy tied to his reins, but it isn’t like that, he’s very fixed in his ways, and since mother died has been almost fearful of being alone. He’s a tough old man really, works hard, and can’t seem to realise that I need to get some freedom.”

 

“Don’t you get away at all?” she asked, curious about such a cloistered life for such a virile strong young man.

 

“Oh yes, but I prefer my own company, always have done. I like to ride round our territory and observe the natural things of life…. The heavens at night, the animals …” he paused “I don’t really need the two legged kind in my life, they tend to upset the balance if you know what I mean.”

 

“No, not exactly.” Elizabeth frowned, “Don’t you – have you never had a woman in your life?”

 

“Once, but it ended badly. My ways didn’t suit her and – “ he shrugged, “it happens I guess.”

 

“What else do you do, Mr Greigson, apart from work all day long and go for night sojourns to observe the stars?”

 

He glanced at her quickly, unsure as to whether or not she was mocking him but her face was serious as she looked into his, he turned away and shrugged,

 

“I like to read. Sometimes I sit under the stars with a camp fire and read …that’s how I came to see you, in the library. I have to keep replenishing my supply of reading material and saw you a few days ago. I thought you looked…quite lovely…being among books suits you.”

 

She did laugh then, but not at him, more at the picture he had conjured up of her in the library. Then she sighed “I’ve led a solitary life too. Since my fiance died I just seemed to shut down inside myself, so much happened that was miserable and I just trailed around with my parents.” she paused and darted a glance at him.

 

Momentarily she was tempted to tell him what had happened with the Cartwrights, with little Sofia, but decided not to do so as she liked him, was even now feeling an affection for him, and was afraid that by saying something he would draw away, disgusted and appalled.

 

“My mother was a very strong character, you see. She dictated the terms and I just slipped into a pattern of obeying her. I see now that I was wrong, very wrong. I should have stood my ground and left home, made my own way, but after what had happened I was very ill, a brain fever, it left me without confidence ..and what I did have left my mother was slowly eroding. “

 

“But you are free from her now…”

 

“Oh yes, definitely. She died … and cruel as it is to admit it, I felt – freedom – at last…”

 

He nodded and reached out for her hand, but she didn’t allow him to take hold of her, not even the tips of her fingers. Instead they sat side by side, in silence. After a little while he turned to her and smiled again,

 

“We are rather kindred spirits then, aren’t we? Living our solitary lives …”

 

“Yes, it would seem so. “ she looked at him again, her eyes met his and even in the darkness she could see that they were gentle and kindly.

 

When he reached for her hand this time,, she let him take hold and grip it tightly in his own, before he released it back into her lap, as though he had caught a little trapped bird and had set it free.

 

“I need to get you back…but I hope, Miss Godfrey, that you will let me take you out again one day. A picnic perhaps…there are some wonderful views on my land that I could show you.” and for some reason a picture of the flat rock and the rivers edge where he had met Peggy earlier that day flashed into his mind.

 

“I would like that, thank you.” she rose to her feet, and pulled her shawl tighter as though protecting herself from her feelings, and his, by doing so.

 

“When will you be free from work again?” he stood by her side, a little too close perhaps but she didn’t mind, it made her feel somehow, protected.

 

“Wednesday afternoon.”

 

“Then I’ll meet you here and take you to one of my favourite places…if that is all right with you?”

 

She nodded and thought it would be wonderful. Her new life was unfolding so well, if it were not for Luke and Adam Cartwright it would have been perfect.

……………

 

Mary Ann found it difficult to sleep that night, she lay awake with her eyes fixed on the shadows on the ceiling and wondered what to do about the Meeting, about her feelings for equal rights for women, about her marriage. She felt as though she were drowning in self doubt.

 

By her side Joe was restless. He found it difficult to get comfortable with his arm as it was, and every so often he would wake up with a start as though unsure as to where exactly he was, then he would sigh deeply and fall back to sleep. His snoring assuring Mary Ann that whatever had happened wasn’t going to disturb him. In a way she found that really annoying.

……………….

 

Sofia lay in the bed by her mother’s side. She felt safe and happy, and having woken up for no reason at all she lay very quiet to think over the day. She could hear Nathaniel’s little snorts and snores as he slept in the bed under the eaves in the corner of the room.

 

She could remember sleeping here before, and Reuben would sleep in the bed that Nathaniel occupied now. She had been much smaller of course and she could remember only snatches of that time and probably not in the right order. She could recall her old Grandma Abigail sleeping in the room across the landing, and how she would snore, and sometimes get up during the night and walk around the house, opening doors and sometimes calling out “Is anyone there?” in what Sofia thought of as a shivery voice. She knew the old lady was not well, Mommy had explained that almost every day when something untoward would happen as a result of Granma’s forgetfulness.

 

Sofia sighed and relaxed, snuggled in closer to Olivia. The twins slept in the room where Abigail had had her bed, and Uncle Luke and Aunt Marcy slept in the room where Mom had been and once, there had been a man sleeping in her bed and that man had been Adam…her daddy Adam, but he hadn’t been daddy then. She thought about that for a moment and remembered that he had been ill, and that she had gone into the room and even sat on the bed with him and they had talked about – she frowned, well, that didn’t really matter except that she knew that she liked him and felt safe.

 

Thinking about him now made her feel safe, and being with Mommy in the bed made her feel safer. It was a good feeling although she couldn’t remember now what she had been actually fearful of…she reached for Clarabelle and hugged her close. Her eyes closed and slowly she fell back to sleep.

 

Olivia relaxed once she heard her daughter’s breathing deepen as she fell into sleep. She had been awake for some time with thoughts chasing through her head about so many things that she wondered if she were going mad. She had talked things over with Luke and Marcy before going to bed, and now she wondered if that had been a bad idea as it churned all her emotions up again.

 

She turned onto her side and looked at her daughters profile, just about discernible in the shadows. The tip tilted nose, the pale cheeks and the rosy lips framed by the milk white blonde hair that was a feature of the Dent family, although she already saw that Sofia’s would darken over time. She was a pretty child, with all the promise of growing into a beautiful young woman.

 

Looking at her now, in the shadows, Olivia wondered what life would be like for her children…for Reuben as well as Sofia and Nathaniel. With the town leaking people like blood from a torn artery she wondered if indeed Virginia City would exist by the time Sofia was a young woman. If it did not, how would the Ponderosa and the Double D fare?

 

She stroked back a strand of hair behind Sofia’s ear and smiled as the child murmured and sighed, hugged Clarabelle more tightly and relaxed even further into the bed.

 

She closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep, and as sleep came to gently guide her into the void, she knew that she would have to go and see Katherine Royale for herself, talk to her and then face up to the situation as a result of that meeting.

………………..

 

Reuben pulled the blanket over his head and closed his eyes. Woodsmoke drifted around them, it’s smell permeating his clothing and the warmth of the fire making him relax and want to wriggle into a more comfortable position. On hard ground that was not really possible although Pa had made it as comfortable for him as possible, gathering up handfuls of dried leaves to form a bedding upon which to put his blanket.

 

It had been such a great day. It always was when they camped together. He went over in his mind some of the things they had done…of course the swimming, and then meeting Uncle Joe and Hoss, that had been good.

 

He yawned, today Adam had shown him how to recognise directions that the Paiute and other Indians of that area had left behind so that they would never get lost. It had amazed him that there were so many and he had never noticed them or given them any importance before…rocks set in a certain pattern looked as if they had been set so naturally by wind and erosion. Adam had taught him to recognise certain animals by the stools they had left, by knowing the smell or softness they could tell how long ago the animal had passed the stool, and therefore how far away it was from their camp. He was shown how to know whether such evidence was of a predatory creature or one that would be a victim to others…even to themselves.

 

Coming upon some rabbits Adam had asked how many could Reuben kill for their supper that night…and he had reached for his rifle only to have Adam place a hand upon his and shake his head. The rabbits hopped about and nibbled grass, and darted into their holes or sat there staring out around them as though pleased with life. “But Pa …”

 

“You wouldn’t get a single one with a bullet, son. “

 

“You would though, Pa.”

 

Adam merely smiled…and then quirked his brows and nodded over to one fat bunny who was washing his face very slowly with his paws. “Fire a rifle now and they would scatter. So what do you think we should do to make sure we have enough for supper tonight, huh?”

 

“Well, you could shoot that fat one….”

 

Adam had chuckled then, and rolled over onto his back and Reuben had giggled although he didn’t know exactly why… so they had made snares together and as a result had caught several rabbits. “When you can aim and shoot with certain accuracy, son, then you can use your rifle, in the meantime we’ll catch ‘em the more conventional way.” he looked at Reuben and narrowed his eyes “Imagine you’re in Indian territory …how wise would it be then to use a rifle?”

 

And so it was, questions, explanations, example…and now as his eyes were closing Reuben thought he had learned so much. They had eaten well, Adam had explained some about the stars pointing to the Pole star, and tracing its way…telling the story of Hercules and his twelve mighty deeds all shown up there in the heavens…and they had sung silly songs together, and he had told Adam how he wanted to be a seaman like him, but that would be after he had been a bronco buster … but first of all he had to go to college, didn’t he?

 

Adam had said that they would discuss that another time.

 

Reuben yawned again, next day would be such fun.

 

Chapter 34

 

For a while Adam sat on the log close to the camp fire with a mug of coffee between his hands, his fingers  clasped around it as though to gain some warmth from its heat.  He had his legs stretched out and his hands dangled between them,  while his eyes remained on the dark shadow that was his son sleeping beneath the blanket nearby.

 

After a while he stirred himself to reach for the coffee pot and pour the last of it into his cup.  He set the pot down away from the fire, and drank the coffee in several gulps, but other than that he didn’t move, but remained as though frozen to the spot.

 

His thought travelled to the past few days with Olivia, with Katherine and once again his mind went over and over the events, the words, everything he could think of in order to find some solution.     He had found his time with Hiram interesting, and frustrating.  Again he was reminded of Mr Dicken’s pithy comment about the law being an ass, but he knew that Hiram was no such thing, and that what he said was the truth.   There had been the time lapse as well…and Katherine was doing no harm.  It was her choice to change her name,  America was a free country, people were changing their names, cultures, nationalities all the time.

 

He sighed and finally got to his feet, stretched to get kinks out of his back and walked over to check on the boy,  pulled the blanket over him, smiled at the snores and snorts.  Then he checked the fire, before finally settling down to sleep.

 

He remembered how Olivia had held him close when they were going to part that morning.    Her body pressed into his, her arms around him and her head against his shoulder, and then her lips upon his,  gentle, trusting and so wanting to keep hold of him and not let him go.

 

He sighed,  fear was a strange emotion…the mind could create it and emotion would feed it until logic disappeared entirely.  Logic and Love.  The most effective weapons against fear, and he felt that Olivia needed both but was looking to him to supply them.

 

The fire spat sparks, and for a moment he watched as the wood glowed red embers, hungry flames… he closed his eyes and within minutes was sleeping.

………..

 

Reuben was still sleeping when Adam woke up, and the sky was purpling into a new day.   By the time the fire was blazing and coffee and food were cooking, the sky was streaked with oranges and reds and pinks across a blue sky with not a cloud in sight.  He shook the boys shoulder and roused him awake,  and then handed him a plate of food  “You alright, son?”

 

“I had funny dreams, Pa.   I was on a ship – thank you -” he took the cup and sipped it, set it down and balanced his plate on his knees “ and the ship was sinking but not in water, it was in sand all the time. “

 

“Did you manage to get off the ship before drowning.” Adam asked and forked bacon into his mouth and chewed,  while he walked from the boy towards the fire and picked up the coffee pot to pour coffee into his mug.

 

“Aw, Pa, you can’t drown in sand.”  and Reuben gave a little giggle as though the idea or the fact that his Pa didn’t know, was amusing.

 

“Well, son, actually you can….”  and Adam gulped down his coffee and  told Reuben about quick sand,  and how even on the Ponderosa there were areas one had to avoid, as some parts had swallowed up horses, men and even a wagon that he knew of,  at which tale the boy’s eyes were like saucers.  He didn’t continue to mention that sadly, yes, even in ‘normal’ sand, one could drown.

 

“Wow,  Pa, wait till I tell Jimmy about that,  I bet even Davy never heard about that…”

 

“Eat up, now.   We need to get on.” Adam said with a smile and nod of the head,  as he scraped his plate clean and washed the food down with the last of the coffee.

 

They checked their snares and found several rabbits,  which Adam tied and hung from the pommel of his saddle for  their camp meal later on.    The sun was warm, warmer than the previous day,  and it was good to feel the lightest of breezes brushing against their faces as they walked their horses through the  shrubs and trees they were travelling through.     Adam was pointing out various plants to Reuben, explaining their healing properties,  telling the boy the effectiveness of moss for plugging up wounds,  and willow bark for fever.  The horses loped along,  it was no hardship for them, they could enjoy the day as much as their  masters without having to expend too  much energy in doing so.

 

They eventually stopped to make camp as the sun had reached its highest point.  Adam dismounted and stretched,  and Reuben ran to the cover of the shrubs to  empty his bladder before hurrying to pick up twigs and wood for the fire.   He was lost in his thoughts,  when he heard a snuffling and rustling close by him.   “It’s alright, Max, I’m just here.”

 

His horse, Max, was no where near, and he was being rather naïve to have assumed that the animal was because when he looked up, his arms loaded with wood, he found himself confronted by a bear.    Just a little bear.   Actually a really very cute cuddlesome bear…and not just one, but two.

 

Their little brown eyes peered at him with curiosity and their noses twitched, one stood on its haunches and waved its front paws at Reuben as though in greeting, while the other ambled forwards to sniff at the boy and then playfully rolled over onto his back  waving his paws and exposing his plump belly while it made funny snorting grunts.

 

“Aw, my,  ain’t you two just about the cutest things ever…” Reuben said and was quite prepared to drop his load of wood when he remembered Adam’s warning not to be tempted to touch, pick up, stroke, or do anything at all when confronted with a wild animal, no matter how tame they ’pretended’ to be.

 

He backed away, carefully, his load of wood in his arms as he headed for the camp.  With squeals and squeaks the two cubs rollicked along behind him,  and the faster he walked the faster they moved.

 

“Pa!”   he called but with out any panic in his voice, after all, what harm could two little cubs do to him?   “Pa, come see what I found….”

 

Adam turned and looked at the little boy hurrying towards him with a big grin on his face, half hidden by wood,  and almost tripping over the cubs as they played around his feet.   He shook his head “I thought I told you not to mess with any wild animals…”

 

“I didn’t do nothing, Pa.  They just found me and now they won’t leave me alone.”

 

Adam was about to say something more when there was movement through the shrubs, the branches of trees were pushed aside as though made of paper,  a dark shuffling shape suddenly reared out of the small copse of trees and stood erect on her back legs, snuffling the air, front paws extended.   The cubs squeaked and squealed at the sight of their mother,  she though tossed her head and roared.

 

Reuben felt his knees go weak, he clung fast to his wood as though it were a protective shield while his eyes went rounder in his white face, freckles stood out like ink blobs.   “Don’t move.”    he heard his father hiss close beside him.

 

Loosening the gun in its holster Adam made the minimum of movements in order to feel it smooth to his hand.   The bear tossed her head, roared again, dropped down onto all four feet and shuffled forwards snuffing the air.   The cubs  stopped moving about, they looked around them as though to ask ’what’s all the fuss about’ but the mother bear tossed her head, opened her jaws, bellowed again so loudly that Reuben felt his ears pop.

 

“Keep still.    Don’t move an inch.”   Adam whispered yet again while he worked the gun into his hand  and took several paces closer to his son, his eyes constantly fixed to the bear.

 

The bear roared again,  they could smell its breath, stinking and fetid, as it caught the wind and drifted towards them.  The cubs snuffled the air, then lolloped towards their mother, not a backward glance at the two humans who watched them and the huge beast with anxious faces, beating hearts and when the mother bear cuffed one of the cubs across the head as though berating it for causing her problems, Adam and Reuben began to relax.

 

The danger was over, the bear had her babies and all three ambled off.   Adam shook his head, “Well, guess we had better find some place else to camp, I don’t want to risk old mother bear visiting us tonight and stealing our food…or deciding that we might make a good main course.”

 

“Shouldn’t we have run, Pa?”

 

“No one can out run a bear, son.   She just wanted her babies …but no point taking risks now that we know we’re in her territory.” he frowned, “I should have noticed sign of her being hereabouts, but didn’t see a single print or anything.”

 

Reuben nodded and dropped the load of wood he had carried so carefully, and brushed off the wood dust as he walked to his horse.  Max and Kami had both been nervous at the smell and sound of the bear but were calm enough to be mounted and to be led away from bear territory as Adam led them back on their trail and towards where they had camped previously.

 

To Reuben it indicated their camping trek was coming to an end,  and he glanced over his shoulder just in case he could see old Mother Bear and her cubs again ….but of them there was no sign.

 

It was all beautiful land though,  and as he rode alongside Adam the views expanded wide, trees, mountains, rivers … and the bluest of skies above them.   It didn’t seem possible that there could be any danger to them, not in such a beautiful place as this, but then he remembered the bears.   As his father reminded him, bears were not the only predators prowling their land, what they had to do, was learn how to live alongside them,  without coming to any harm.

 

 

Chapter 35

 

When the new day had dawned it was with the realisation that there was still work to be done on the excavation and her summing up article for Maurice and the Smithsonian. After eating a good breakfast Peggy collected together her sketchbooks, pens, journal and Maurice’s report and stuffed them all into her saddle bags and set off for what she considered to be a days work. Hop Sing presented her with food for her lunch break with a smile and bow of the head, grateful that the young lady who brought a dark cloud into the house was going to be absent from it for a few hours at least.

 

There was also another place where she needed to go, and which she had avoided but knew she would have to visit eventually so resolutely she turned the horse in the direction of the cemetery. Despite a rather depressed feeling clamping down on her she walked through the gravestones until she came upon the one she recognised and that had, at times, haunted her dreams.

 

The tombstone no longer gleamed white in the sun, not as it had all those years ago when she had first stood before it and read the legend that it bore “Frank Dayton – beloved husband – “ . Now it was weather beaten and the granite was pitted with wear from the years of standing in memoriam to the bones beneath it, withstanding the blizzards and the gales, the pitiless sun and winds.

 

She sighed as she stood there, her head bowed and her hands clasping the posy of flowers that Hop Sing had kindly prepared for her from ‘his’ garden. ‘Beloved’ – she thought over that word and wondered why Laura had had it engraved as an eulogy to her husband, the man who had hated her and whom she had resented and loathed. Just another lie among many, Peggy thought as she knelt down and placed the flowers at the foot of the headstone.

 

Strange how much of her life now was involved with death and the dead. She knew there would be no ornate urns containing the organs of this man, nor food to nourish him on his journey to the afterlife, nor weapons or treasures, the familiar things he had enjoyed in life to enjoy again. How many times had she and Maurice and their team of archaeologists discovered such things in so many different parts of the world. It didn’t matter where one went the mysteries of life and death was a common thread binding everyone in the cycle of grief and mourning.

 

But Frank Dayton, her father, had loved her and bounced her on his knee and told her he loved her. She closed her eyes and tried to recapture that feeling of security she felt when he was there, holding her in his arms, telling her he loved her and that he would never leave her. Except that he did….

 

A memory trickled through her mind now, a morning when he had swung her up into his arms and taken her outside where he had crossed over the yard and set her down on the swing. He sang a song about a girl called “Margaret …” most of the words missing and he had ended up whistling the tune, but it hadn’t mattered. Time with her father was always a gift.

 

“Peggy…”

 

“Yes, daddy?”

 

He had leaned in closer, holding the swing steady as he whispered in her ear, not the words of a song but something more important, a secret. She could remember now how his words tickled her ear, and she had wriggled a little so that she could actually hear them. “We’re going away from her, my lovely, you and I. Would you like that?”

 

“Is Mommy coming too?” she had turned to him, confused.

 

“No, she doesn’t want to come. She wants to stay here. It will be just you and me…won’t that be grand, my darling?”

 

“Just you and Me?” she had whispered and closed her eyes “Will it be far away?”

 

“Yes, a long way away..” and he had pushed the swing and the breeze had drifted past her face and when he caught the swing again he whispered “Not a word to Mother about it, it’s our secret.”

 

“Our secret.” she had intoned and the swing was pushed and the breezes had blown against her face and her hair had scattered in the breeze

 

She could remember it clearly now, he had whispered this secret just the day before he had died, and she had let it sink into the depths of her memory, a secret that he had taken to the grave and she had never remembered until now.

 

She knew nothing of the woman who had met Adam Cartwright on the road to the ranch, nothing about the exchange of a letter for $500. That was a secret unknown to her, and hidden away in the past between three people…Laura, Adam and the woman who would have been going on that journey with Frank and his daughter. Ignorant of such an event Peggy stood and wondered where they would have gone, and then with a sigh, turned away and walked towards her horse.

 

It didn’t matter now anyway, she mused, that was all gone now, secrets, hatreds, and the love too. Strange how it was the secrets from the past that she always wanted to discover during their excavations…the bodies with their own personal histories, their loves and lives spanning their own personal cycle, their secrets hidden away and which they, with their eager hungry fingers tried to discover as they stripped away the soil, the dust of years.

 

She mounted the horse and made her way towards the hills where the Spanish soldiers had died and slept for all those years until the children had found them just the previous year. it seemed that every soldier had now found his resting place, and for some their discovery had ended several hundred years of mystery and speculation.

 

Peggy jogged along at a steady pace, pushing the thoughts of her father to the back of her mind and concentrating now on what she had decided to do that morning. She had woken up restless and gone to the books to resume her summary for Maurice, but the sun was warm, the room seemed stifling and sounds of the children were intrusive. The best place to work was where the events took place and she had packed up her journals, pens and equipment to return to the caverns. She realised she had been rather negligent of this task, putting it to one side because of the planned meeting on Saturday, and because of her bout of sickness.

 

She had reached the area where the track led off to the excavation site and was about to turn the horse in order to take the path when a surry came trundling along towards her. A woman seated and alone, modestly dressed, smart little bonnet bouncing upon her head almost as though it was dancing along with the rhythm of the horses feet upon the hard baked road.

 

“Good morning,” the horse was brought to a halt, the woman smiled at her and now Peggy recognised who it was, the assistant Librarian, Miss – ummm – Godfrey.

 

“Good morning. “

 

“Miss Dayton, isn’t it?” Elizabeth narrowed her eyes against the glare of the sun, early though it was the sun light was bright and harsh.

 

“It is, Miss Godfrey. How do you do?”

 

“Very well, thank you. You’re a long way from the Ponderosa?” Elizabeth observed from her seat in the surry, and she glanced up at the scree covered hillside “Were you going to go up there?”

 

“I was.”

 

“It it a good view then?”

 

Peggy raised her eyebrows and shook her head, “Well, I suppose so…I haven’t really taken much notice.” she remembered her visit with the boys, with Adam, then nodded “Yes, it is a good view.”

 

Elizabeth nodded, and thought for a moment before she tentatively asked if she could come up and join her. “I have nothing to do, and I don’t know anyone. I just wanted to get out of town and take a ride out. Would you mind very much if I were to accompany you?”

 

Peggy gave a slight shrug “You may find it rather boring. I’m here to make some final notes on the excavations here.”

 

“Excavations?” Elizabeth said clambering down from the surry and her voice almost obscured by her action, she straightened up and brushed dirt from her skirt. “What excavations?”

 

Peggy smiled “You haven’t been around here very long, have you? Nor read the latest articles Mr deQuille has written about them?”

 

“No, I’m very new here, just a few weeks really.” she smiled, and Peggy thought the woman was very attractive, particularly when she smiled. “And I haven’t read any of the news sheets except for the Situations Vacant column.”

 

“Well, it is quite a trek so be careful where you put your feet. If you really want to come with me, I’ll give you a short resume of what this is all about…”

 

She tied the reins of the horse to the back axle of the surry and led the other beast to where the vehicle would be no obstacle to any others and the animals could graze. Then with a hearty “Come along then…” she led the way to the gaping holes above them that resembled so many hungry mouths there to consume them for lunch.

 

 

The Assistant Librarian found the subject matter enthralling. She laboured her way up the hill, at times needing the helping hand of her companion for she was no great walker, all the while listening to what Peggy was telling her about the Conquistadors and how they had left the main body of soldiers to search out what was ahead of them. Obviously with the intention of returning with tales of lost cities of gold. She was lost in the story of the men who rode through scorching heat in their suits of armour, bringing horses to a region where horses had never existed before and introducing to the local natives stories of the shining men who came to search for the yellow dirt that send men crazy.

 

Now they stood at the mouth of the cavern and they turned to look around them. The view was amazing and Peggy realised she had forgotten how much so because of her interest in the history of the men that had been killed, the living landscape meant nothing in comparison, to her, of the history of the dead.

 

Peggy had brought along her saddlebags and a canteen of water, which she passed to her companion now. The saddlebags contained food, as well as her writing journal and other equipment . Elizabeth, town dweller, had ridden out prepared with nothing. She drank some water and smiled her thanks, then Peggy turned and led the way inside.

 

Peggy’s voice echoed rather in the vast emptiness and Elizabeth shivered involuntarily. Not from fear but from the sudden coolness in the chamber. Peggy took out her journal and turned to the pages where the sketches of the bodies had been made by Maurice … Elizabeth looked at the pictures, then at the chamber and scanned the height of the walls, the ceiling above them…”And they all died, not one survived?”

 

“We checked the lists that had been made and they tallied exactly with the names of the men whom Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo had sent out as a scouting party headed by Don Flores who had listed the dead men here, and those who had died along the way. There were letters in the chest found in the cavern, one of which was written by Don Flores, and was intended to be handed to Cabrillo when the detachment returned.“

 

“Why did they come so far?”

 

“It seems he decided to take some men and ride on towards Arizona.” she smiled slightly, “Not that it was known by that name then, but Don Flores mentioned a river he was going to travel along, and we know from that he made his way into what we know now as Arizona.”

 

Elizabeth nodded and found the entrance to the passage way that Reuben and Davy had found and which had led to the chambers discovery. It was dark and damp, she decided not to venture along it but turned to watch as Peggy began to search around the chamber, noting things here and there which to Elizabeth were nothing of any importance at all. But there was little left to discover, Peggy was disappointed in a way, for she was competitive by nature and would have enjoyed finding something Maurice and his men would have overlooked.

 

Even Jan de Jurgen who had represented the Smithsonian when he visited the previous autumn had commented on how little there was left to discover. A reflection, he had concluded, on how efficient Don Flores had been in keeping everything tidy and catalogued, as though he had realised himself that there could be a time when there burial chamber would be considered worthy of history’s attention.

 

After a while she turned to her now silent companion and smiled “I did say it would be boring.”

 

“Well, there isn’t really anything to see, is there?” Elizabeth laughed and Peggy found herself smiling in agreement.

 

“I can finalise things here now. Maurice will be pleased.” she gestured to a pile of rocks for Elizabeth to sit down upon, unaware that hundreds of years previous Don Flores had sat there to write his last Testament. “I’ve some food Hop Sing provided for me. He always gives far too much…”

 

She gestured to a large boulder and Elizabeth rather carefully sat down upon it and gratefully accepted the beef sandwich that was handed her. Hop Sing always assumed that at some time during the day there would be need for Hoss-like sized sandwiches. Sometimes he was right.

 

“Hop Sing?” Elizabeth frowned, and cleared her throat “He’s the Ponderosa cook, isn’t he?”

 

She hoped her voice sounded nonchalant, casual…and it seemed that Peggy was unaware of anything for the younger girl nodded “Yes, I’m staying with them.”

 

“Do you know them very well?”

 

“Oh, since I was a baby….I was born around here, on the Dayton ranch, well, it isn’t the Dayton ranch now of course …” she paused and chewed on her food, thoughts of Abel Greigson floated into her brain which she tried to remove promptly.

 

“”They seem a very well known family. People talk about them all the time…”

 

“Do they?” Peggy looked up, that vague look of surprise settling over her face and then she shrugged “They’ve been here since forever.”

 

They once again settled into silence. They ate the sandwiches, some cake, washed down by water.

 

“Do you know Adam and Olivia Cartwright very well?” Elizabeth felt her heart beating fast even as she asked, and she hoped that the words didn’t vibrate to indicate their importance to her.

 

“Yes…well…sort of. I know Adam very well. He almost married my mother.” Peggy laughed then, but smothered it with a gulp of water. “I don’t know Olivia very well, I havent really met her very often. I’m staying with Hester and Hoss.”

 

“Oh, I have to admit not to knowing them, except by reputation.” Elizabeth said gently, and it was true, she had yet to meet the Cartwrights apart from Mary Ann, very briefly from a distance. But Miss Tyndale knew them all, was as a result of being in Virginia City for so long, part of the history of the place.

 

“Olivia was raised around here … on the Double D ranch. I don’t know where it is, never been there. didn’t know it existed.” she licked her fingers, drank some more water. “She’s a very attractive woman though, if you like blondes with green eyes.”

 

“Don’t you like her?”

 

Elizabeth looked at Peggy with narrowed eyes. Just something, a sharpness in the tone of Peggy’s voice, that little giveaway a woman has when speaking of someone they dislike, and she noticed even in the gloom of the cavern with its myriad shadows, that Peggy’s face had deepened in a blush.

 

“As I said I don’t really know her. She’s a very quiet woman, I believe… nothing like Hester who is all bustle and busyness. Nor like Mary Ann who is very bright and intelligent.”

 

“Oh, so she’s – Mrs Olivia I mean – she’s not intelligent?”

 

“I daresay she is…or she wouldn’t be married to Adam. I doubt if he could tolerate a dull boring wife.” Peggy frowned, and wondered if she were describing her mother when she had said that. “But Mary Ann is very forward thinking. Very modern.”

 

“Ah yes, of course…you are both involved with the Emancipation for Women movement aren’t you?” Elizabeth wiped her fingers on a handkerchief and dabbed at her mouth, hiding a slight smile.

 

“Yes. It’s important …” Peggy replied and stood up to brush away crumbs and then feeling guilty as though she had desecrated a sacred place by doing so..after all she had scattered crumbs on what had been the resting place of those men’s bodies. She shivered at the thought.

 

When Elizabeth made no reply she darted a quick look over at her, but Elizabeth was getting to her feet now, and straightening her shoulders and didn’t look the least bit interested in what Peggy was talking about….unabashed Peggy continued

 

“You seemed quite interested when I met you in the library that time…you were going to get some more books on the subject for me?”

 

“Yes, I did order them.” Elizabeth replied turning now towards the entrance of the cavern with a longing to be out in the fresh air and sun light again.

 

“You seemed very knowledgrable about the subject?”

 

“I’m a librarian, I’m supposed to be knowledgeable about all manner of subjects.”

 

“Aren’t you interested in the cause then? I thought you were…”

 

“To be honest, Miss Dayton…I have little time for other causes just now, apart from my own.” Elizabeth frowned and turned away from the rather angry features of the other woman, “Sometimes a person’s own problems, situations, difficulties in life…whatever you call them …has to take precedence over any exterior cause, whether it is emancipation for women, giving back land to the Paiute, providing more funds for the Orphanages …whatever…there just isn’t time, or energy, or the emotional capacity to add to the burdens.”

 

“Well, I have to say, I am surprised…” Peggy muttered in her usual brusque manner.

 

They stepped outside, the clean fresh air hit their cheeks, flushed from the warmth within the enclosed space…and the conversation no doubt.

 

“If you have the time to indulge in such things, Miss Dayton, all well and good. But you do need to realise that most women do not …”

 

Peggy stood stock still for a moment and stared at Elizabeth’s retreating back. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. She couldn’t believe that she had got Miss Godfrey so wrong in thinking that she was a forward modern thinking woman, seeking independence, wanting to achieve things in her life..

 

She scurried down hastily to catch up with Elizabeth, and then said “Miss Godfrey, as a single independent woman, what, then, do you want out of life?”

 

Elizabeth stopped, paused a moment…she thought of Abel Greigson, his arm around her waist, his hands in hers and her face softened. She looked at Peggy and smiled, “What all women want I suppose…to be loved by a good man, to have children…just to be happy.”

 

They parted at the end of the track, Elizabeth to return to town in the surry while Peggy remounted the horse and made her way back to the Ponderosa.

 

She couldn’t believe that Elizabeth Godfrey would settle for domesticity when she had all her life ahead of her, and could achieve so much. In her head Peggy just could not understand that young women were not all cut from the same cloth as herself and Lucy or even Mary Ann. Surely the way life was for women today, needed to be changed and young women must see that, realise that they had an untapped power that was at their finger tips.

 

She walked her horse some way while she pondered over this conundrum and then put her into a loping gait. Unbeknown to her she trotted past the sheltered spot by the river where her mother had twenty years previously sat beside Will Cartwright and confessed her love for him. The river trickled along undisturbed and as uncaring now as it had then of human artifice and contrivance. Peggy turned the horse to take the track that would eventually lead to the three houses that made up the Ponderosa

 

Chapter 36

 

A man on a horse stood like a graven image ahead of her.  Momentarily she thought he would turn aside but he maintained his position, facing her, and right in the centre of the road.

 

He was gaunt looking, and his long black hair hung over his shoulders caught back by two feathers, and his black eyes were glittering like hard stones as he stared directly at her.   In one hand he held a lance, its tip pointing to the sky.    His clothing were of worn calico, frayed and torn.   Were he a white man Peggy would have thought him a down and out miner or saddle tramp,  but this was an Indian and one never expected them to be dressed in anything other than rags.   Not now…rags suited a vanquished nation.

 

He didn’t move not even when she had halted her horse and had looked anxiously from side to side,  and then  behind her as though seeking some help to call to,  assistance ready to hand.  But there was none,  so she reined in her horse and sat there watching him.

 

He walked his horse towards her and she could see now that he was a handsome man for all his gauntness,  strongly built and muscular although too thin.  He wore his rags proudly, his bearing was one of dignity and as he came to a halt by her side she realised that there was a calm about him that left her unafraid.

“You are the one who looks at the bones of the shining ones?”

 

She didn’t answer but looked at him thoughtfully, while he observed her with his calm black eyes before he nodded as though confirming some thought in his mind for he allowed himself a slight smile before he spoke again.

 

“I am Tall Bear of the Bannock.   I have heard that you stay with my friends,  the Cartwrights on the Ponderosa.”

 

“Yes, that’s right.”  she nodded and rather nervously told him her name.   “I’m Margaret Dayton.   I’m an archaeologist. “

 

He inclined his head gravely “One who looks at the bones of the dead?”

 

“Yes, well, partly and -”

 

“You were at the caves where the men with the shining  -” he gestured at his body indicating clothing but wanting to provide the right word in order not to be ignorant “the ones who came from long ago with their horses and metal suits.”

 

“Yes.  I was, but of what interest is that to you?”  she asked although she was feeling some pulse of excitement within her as an inkling of an idea trickled through her mind.

 

He inclined his head and glanced around him, then pointed to a flat rock “We talk – yonder.”

 

She inclined her head in agreement and together rode to the rock, the river gurgled close by, and were this a setting for a romantic tryst as it once was years back, then Peggy would have been well pleased.     She slid from the saddle and by the time he had dismounted and reached her, she had her saddle bags in her hands and was seated.

 

He did not sit but looked down at her for a moment so that she felt diminished and rather self conscious “Are we going to talk about the time of the fight on the mountain side?”

 

He inclined his head and watched as she produced her sketch pad and pen, she flicked through some pages and then opened it at the page where Maurice had drawn an sketch of the men in the cave, she showed it to Tall Bear who glanced at it and nodded “All dead long time.”

 

“Yes ..all dead and now returned to their home land from far away.  A country called Spain.”

 

Tall Bear nodded and raised his chin haughtily, she turned another page to show him pictures Maurice had drawn of the suits of armour that had been in the cavern, the helmets with their plumes.   Again Tall Bear barely glanced at them and she sighed as she closed the journal and looked up at him

 

“Do you know the story of this battle?”

 

“Yes,”  he said quietly and looked at her thoughtfully “It was an important time for the Waso Paiute, the Koso, Panamint, Shoshoni, Walapi, and Ute.  We were free people then and this was our land.”   he spread out his arms wide to encompass the whole area and she knew he meant that everywhere for hundreds, thousands of miles was the land they could travel freely, unhindered.

 

“Will you tell me the story, Tall Bear, so that I can tell my people and the families of the men who died here?”

 

He looked at her face, so earnest,  so intelligent and nodded “I came to tell you the story. “

 

He spoke simply as he made the statement.   There was no other reason for him to have journeyed so far other than to tell her what had happened according to the story as handed down by word of mouth from one shaman to another through the ages.

 

The story of the tribes as relayed by this way guaranteed the truth of their history.  There could be no deviation.  It would be repeated and those who listened would know that when they heard it last it was just as it was told now.  A long dead ancestor could return and hear the story of the tribe at his time of life and hear no deviation.  The words spoken would be truth, any lie would be challenged by those who heard it.  That is why they so distrusted the writing of the white men, knowing how quickly those written words were changed.

 

“This is the story of the times when our lives changed like the sun chasing the moon and night time falls.   We did not know it then but dusk was falling upon our nations and the darkness of night would soon follow.

 

“We heard of the coming of these men who rode the animals and wore shining suits even though the sun burned hotly on them.  We saw them as they rode over our lands and we heard that they came to find the yellow dirt…what you call…gold.   It is what drives white men crazy.  They were great in number and some would stay in a village while others rode on.

 

“We saw them come and we had heard already that those who had stayed in the villages they passed through had killed many, raped our women, burned down homes.  So we waited and when they were fewer in number and weary we attacked them so that they would know that only so far could they come … and then they would go back.

 

“The battle was not long for the white men were tired and weary from travelling so far in their shining suits in the hot sun.   They retreated to the caves … we followed…  but their weapons were not known to us then,  and our people fell in great numbers.  The white men built up a wall to prevent our getting into the cave so we waited until they would need to come out.

 

“Time passed.   Then two men came from the cave.  They were sick.   Weak.  We thought it was because they had not eaten.  We were wrong.”

 

He stopped then and frowned.   Peggy blinked, so caught up in the story and in picturing the scenes as he had described them that it took her a moment to realise he had stopped.   She looked up at him “What happened then? “

 

“We did not speak their tongue and they did not speak ours.   We were tired and wanted to go back to our people and took the white men with us.   We took death into our villages. “

 

“Death?”

 

“In time we learned that the sickness the men had -”

 

“A plague?   Your people got sick too?”

 

“Yes.   They got sick too.   We did not know what this sickness was, and our shamen could not cure us.   Many many died.   Then people from the villages where the white men had stopped they came to us…they told us of the sickness and how the white men burned down their homes to stop it spreading…is that the right word?”

 

“Yes.   It is the right word.   But that didn’t work, did it?”

 

He shook his head “Many died of the sickness which we had never had before…. The white men brought with them death by their weapons, their greed and their sickness.  They shut off the sun and brought in the night.”

 

“All this happened a very long time ago,  Tall Bear,” she said quietly,  “hundreds of years ago.”

 

“But still it goes on.”  Tall Bear replied and then he sighed “That is all I have come to say.  That is the story of this battle and why the people of this land became so few, so weak,  that when the white men returned we were already a beaten people.”

 

She stood up then, and put out her hand which he accepted in his, “I am sorry, Tall Bear.”

 

“A woman’s word means even less than that of a man.   It is a word blown about on the wind…” he paused and looked at her, then he released her hand and walked away.

 

“Wait.”

 

He paused and turned to look back at her, and she stood up to walk towards him, her face concentrated on the events of the past that he had related “What happened to the two men, the men from the cave that were taken prisoner?”

 

He nodded and glanced around him as though having to collected his thoughts, snatch back the thread of the story he had related “The two men …one died, the other became part of the people.  He had sons.  He died an old man.”

 

“Do you know his name?”

 

He shrugged then “He was called Stands Alone.”

 

“But his other name, his Spanish name?”  she persisted, and put a hand on his arm,  a sinewy strong arm she noticed as she quickly withdrew it.

 

He shook his head and without another word turned to his horse, mounted with an ease that she  quite envied and then walked the horse away and back onto the road.

 

Peggy watched him go as without a backword glance at her he rode away.

 

She returned to sit down and pulled her sketch book and note pad and pens onto her lap, and with a determined concentration began to sketch pictures of her visitor with deft swift strokes of her pen.  She was a good artist, not brilliant, not even as good as Maurice, but she was able to convey what she had seen onto paper well enough for it to considered a true impression.   After she was satisfied at her drawings she began to write down the information he had given her.  It was the other side of the coin, so to speak, the untold and unknown version of the events that they had only been able to speculate upon and, she paused, how interesting that two of the soldiers had left the cave.

 

She checked through Maurice’s notes and picked out the two names that they had not been able to place, names that had no bones or indication of their presence in that cave at all.   So now they knew that two men had not died in the cave, but as a result had caused the deaths of more than their puny weapons could ever have done.   A silent and more deadly bullet had effectively wiped out most of the local people and made their resistance in later years, futile.

 

Chapter 37

 

Sheriff Carney stepped down from the sidewalk onto the road and walked towards the woman who had just left Ridleys Livery stable. Elizabeth Godfrey was about to step into the road when Nate reached her side, removed his hat and nodded a greeting,

 

“Miss Godfrey?”

 

“Sheriff?” she smiled pleasantly, he was a handsome man, so tall with eyes that were rather like those of a spaniel she had once owned. She had seen him in town occasionally but had never spoken before now, “Is there something I can do for you?”

 

He nodded and cleared his throat, the sun glinted on his badge so that she had to narrow her eyes against the glare, “If you could come with me, Miss Godfrey, there’s something I need to discuss with you.”

 

“Discuss with me? In your office? Are you arresting me?” she stepped back, a natural recoil and she realised as soon as she had done it that it was a mistake She reminded herself that she had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing of which she could be accused and with a sigh she nodded and quietly stepped along with him,

 

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, and liked what he saw for she was attractive and he was a handsome man who liked the company of women. He cleared his throat again “I am sorry about this, Miss Godfrey, but it shouldn’t take too long.”

 

“I’m intrigued, sheriff.” she murmured and forced a smile, noticed as she approached the sheriff’s office the slant of eyes from the people who passed her and the sheriff, the spark of curiosity on their faces.

 

The interior of the office was cooler than it had been outside and she was grateful for that. Momentarily stepping into the room from the light prevented her from seeing who was there, and it wasn’t until Nate had pulled out a chair by the desk that she could see the men … two deputies whom she had seen about town, and a tall thickset man whom she didn’t recognise.

 

“That’s her,” this man said without prompting and he approached the desk to look at her more closely “Yes, that’s Katherine Royale.”

 

She didn’t give in to the quaver that hit her stomach and trickled down to her knees, grateful that she was seated for she was not sure what would have happened had she still been standing. She looked at Nate and then at the man “I don’t know you.”

 

“May be not, but I know you….” the man turned to the sheriff “This is Rosemarie Royale’s daughter from Bodie. I can swear to it on a stack of bibles…”

 

“No need to do that, Mr Silverman. Take a seat please and just be quiet a moment while I discuss this matter with Miss Godfrey.”

 

“She ain’t any Miss Godfrey, she’s …”

 

“I know…” Nate put up a hand for silence and then turned his dark eyes to the woman, admiring her quiet dignity as she sat there, ramrod straight, her shoulders square, her hands folded neatly over her purse in her lap. She met his gaze with a calm that he wondered she was actually feeling inside.

 

“Miss Godfrey…Mr Silverman here claims to have recognised you as Miss Katherine Royale who lived in Bodie for some years, the daughter of a Major and Mrs Rosemarie Royale. Is he correct?”

 

She didn’t answer straightaway, just looked at him and he saw a fleeting look of anguish in her eyes before she nodded “He’s correct. I am – was – Katherine Royale.”

 

“There you are, didn’t I say so?” Silverman almost shouted and looked at the deputies and then the sheriff as though he had achieved the impossible “Now you arrest her, sheriff, arrest her for the crimes she’s committed.”

 

Again Nate raised a hand for silence and looked at her, she had bowed her head as though to examine her feet, but when she raised it her eyes were calm,

 

“I have not committed any crimes. Whatever Mr Silverman claims – he’s wrong.”

 

Silverman drew in his breath as though he were about to explode with the full list of crimes he held against her, but once more Nate’s hand insisted on silence. He picked up a pen, and jotted words down on a piece of paper, then looked at her.

 

“Miss Godfrey….Miss Royale… “ he paused and frowned “You have already admitted to being Katherine Royale so for the sake of formality during this interview that is the name by which I shall address you.” he glanced up and she nodded, he sighed and leaned forward “Mr Silverman claims that land was stolen from him some years ago, land that is now yielding a high percentage of silver ore. He also claims that he was the victim of fraud, where he lost several thousand dollars…”

 

“I know nothing about that…” she said quickly and turned to Silverman, “Truly Mr Silverman, I know nothing about any of these charges. I had the misfortune to be my mother’s daughter, but I was certainly not party to her crimes…which, I have to admit, are many.”

 

Nate frowned “Your mother is dead, isn’t she?”

 

“Yes, thankfully.” Katherine nodded and frowned, “Perhaps if she were alive now she could answer for her crimes but somehow I doubt if she would admit to them…”

 

Silverman was pacing the floor, his hands clasped behind his back and his face purpling, “That’s not going to restore my land to me, is it? Nor the profits I’ve lost out on, nor the …”

 

“My mother kept a journal for every year – oh for about a decade I should imagine. I should imagine details of what she did …her transaction as she would term it….could be found in one of them.” Katherine frowned, it seemed to her that even now her mother was reaching out from the grave and clawing back her power over her. Guilty by association, was that the correct terminology? “I can tell you where the journals are, you can check through them all.” she paused “Perhaps Mr Hiram Woods should have them and he could restore things legally. “

 

Nate glanced at Silverman who had stood his pacing and was glaring at the woman so calmly seated in the chair “You must have known what your mother was doing…you’re just as guilty as her. You were as involved in her dirty doings as those men she hired to carry out her work for her.”

 

Nate noticed now how the woman’s lips trembled, colour washed out of her face and what looked like tears formed in her eyes, he glanced at Clem “Get some water for the lady, Clem.”

 

“I’m alright…” she whispered but when Clem handed her the glass she accepted it gratefully and sipped it, before setting the empty glass back onto the desk. She turned to Silverman “I promise you, I didn’t get involved with what my parents were doing. I thought my father was helping the community, restoring some order to it…I was given the impression that he was – he was a good man – doing all he could to make Bodie a decent place in which to live.”

 

“Your father was well intentioned enough,”Silverman admitted gruffly, “but he allowed himself to be manipulated by that witch of a wife of his…and you lived with them, you must have known what she was doing.”

 

She sagged slightly and leaned against the back of the chair, looked at the empty glass and then at Nate, “I suppose I must have done. I was there, I lived with her….”

 

For a while she was silent, struggling to come to terms with what was happening and then quietly, so quietly that Nate had to lean forwards to catch the words she said

“She killed my father, you know? I didn’t even know that until I found her journals, she had even written that all down as though it were some kind of business deal. How much it cost to hire the killer, who did it, when….”

 

Silverman paused, looked shocked and said in a calmer voice that he hadn’t known…but then what did it matter, she took over the reins, didn’t she? She ruled over Bodie, ran rough shod over everyone there, killed, stole, plundered…allowed her men to destroy everything that decent people tried to build up. Surely she had known, how could she have lived with such a monster and not known.

 

“She was a monster,” she said quietly, again in a voice barely a whisper so that Nate had difficulty hearing her. “I never questioned anything, I never thought beyond the fact of existing through another day. She destroyed my life and I let her go on doing so and every day I just went through the motions, just slept, ate, survived…” she clenched her fist, tightly and sagged a little lower in her chair. “There was no law in Bodie. She made sure of that, she was, she would tell me, The Law. I just accepted it. I didn’t even question the absurdity of it. I suppose that makes me guilty, doesn’t it?”

 

She raised her eyes to Nate and then turned them to Silverman, who had the decency to look away. She had lost the colour in her face and Clem took the glass and refilled it. He put it on the table and it stayed there, while she stared at it as though finding no strength left in her bones to reach out to pick it up.

 

“How could you have accepted it, Miss Royale? Surely you could have done something …?” it was Silverman, his voice was calm, even pleasant, now that the anger had subsided he was even looking like a rational human being.

 

“What could I have done? Men came into Bodie and set themselves up as the law, and the next thing they were gone. I didn’t see my mother as a monster then, although she had already ruined my life. I didn’t see her behind the men who tarred and feathered one sheriff, and rode him out of town. I didn’t know she was – what she was, truly I didn’t. I think after – what she had done to me – and I was so ill – I lived in some kind of dream, a twilight world – I tried to help the community, I remember even discussing things like that with her, about setting up schools for the poorer children, improving the orphanage and she was always in agreement, saying about setting money aside from father’s pension.” her voice trailed away.

 

She could remember one day wondering where the jewellery came from, the rings and necklaces her mother wore…surely fathers pension hadn’t stretched that far, and she had asked her mother only to be told they were passed down through the family, and the long story that was spun about their heritage. Stories, stories…always another story …until suddenly she realised the gaps, the missing pieces, the inaccuracies of one story to another.

 

“I don’t think I really woke up to what was happening until we brought Sofia Cartwright home….”

 

Nate glanced up sharply, his pen hovered “Sofia Cartwright? What has she to do with it?”

 

Clem cleared his throat, of course Nate hadn’t been here then, it was Candy Canaday who had been sheriff and very quickly the deputy gave Nate the story about Sofia’s disappearance and how the Cartwrights had gone in the blizzards to find her and bring her home.

 

Nate looked at her “Why didn’t you just bring her back here to town? She could have been looked after by the doctor here until her parents came for her.”

 

She stared at him as though not seeing him now…instead she saw herself holding the little girl on her lap, the blinding snow, the grim features of her mother and of the man who, at that time, was her mother’s current love interest. Had she even stopped to think about turning back to Virginia City …she was tired of the whole thing, first Luke, then Adam, and now this sheriff looking at her and expecting her to provide the answers to questions that had no real answers at all.

 

“I didn’t question what my mother said. She and Clifton Reid –

 

“Clifton Reid -” Silverman snorted in contempt “A murdering thug if ever there was one, well, he got what he deserved too…rumour has it that the old lady …” he paused, stopped and turned his back on them to stare out of the window.

 

Nate turned his attention back to her, and nodded “Go on…”

 

“I found her, the child, by the fire, in the snow. Reid said there was a blizzard coming, and I didn’t know where we were, I was too miserable to listen to anything they said anyway. All I could remember was that we had to get to Bodie before the blizzard struck or we would never get there at all, probably freeze to death. I never argued with them, mother would tell me – not to think – so I didn’t. I just trailed along in their wake ….it wasn’t until they came, the Cartwrights and Luke Dent, that I realised what was happening to me, to Sofia … “

 

She reached out for the glass of water now and gulped it down, shivered and replaced the empty glass on the desk. Nate was looking at her, he had written down words on the paper, she could see the squiggles of words, she glanced over at Silverman.

 

“You Can’t imagine what my life was like, Mr Silverman….living with them. I was naïve, stupid, ignorant ….but I never harmed anyone deliberately. We were coming home from Warsop, seeing my sister who had had a baby son. “

 

Her voice cracked now, and she shivered, “She had a daughter, a little girl called Alice. Except that Alice was my daughter, my mother had taken her and handed her to Emily, a so called barren woman but a married woman. I was not married. That was my shame, my sin. An unmarried mother. I sat in that coach listening to her talking about my sister, the new baby, the child Alice and all the time thinking, ‘That’s my little girl, mine, and she doesn’t know me, she doesn’t even like me.’ And I felt dead in side, quite dead. “

 

Silverman clicked his tongue against his teeth, and shook his head, he turned to Nate but the sheriff gave him a glare before looking at Katherine who sat there but had a glazed expression on her face, as though she were reliving that cold, bitterly cold, ride from Warsop, having left her daughter, having endured her sister’s triumphs, her mother’s taunts. “Reid said we had crossed the Ponderosa and were on the way home, I saw a fire .. No …I didn’t not right away, it was because I couldn’t bear being in the coach with her and ordered him to stop …we got out, and I saw the fire then, and found her. She looked so like my Alice….” a tear rolled down her cheek, dripped onto her hand and she looked down at it as though surprised to see it there.

 

“What has that to do with what happened to me, to others in town…” Silverman now said, tired to the emotion, tired of the time wasting.

 

“I don’t know, Mr Silverman…nothing I suppose. Except that the Cartwrights came, Luke Dent …a friend of my fiance’s …he came. And I – I guess I woke up – realised what had been happening. I knew she kept journals, I had seen her writing in them, she’d laugh if I commented about them and just say a woman should keep her secrets locked up in a safe place….so I found them, found the journal for the year my father died and … learned how he died. I woke out of a nightmare and found myself living in one.”

 

They were quiet for a moment. Clem coughed and said something about doing his rounds to which Nate nodded and told him to take Watts with him. The two men left the room, the door closed with a gentle thud.

 

“Why are you here, Miss Royale? In Virginia City?” Nate now asked, his voice soft and kindly

 

So she told him how she had seen Grant Tombs at the trial, admired his courage knowing that he had to live down the reputation of his father, and it made her realise that she could do the same.

 

“I didn’t come to cause any harm – just to start a new life, like Grant has to do. I suppose I could have gone anywhere really, perhaps it would have been wiser if I had done so. I just -” she paused and frowned then gave a slight shrug of the shoulders “I suppose, with no one to tell me what to do I just went to where there was some one I could relate to, even though he doesn’t realise it. I didn’t come to cause trouble for the Cartwrights, I don’t yearn for Sofia nor desire to steal her away. I just want to live a normal life.”

 

Nate looked at Silverman who was rubbing along his jaw and looking confused. Then he looked at her again, “I’ll have to discuss this with Hiram Woods, and if you need a lawyer, perhaps he would act on your behalf?”

 

She inclined her head and Silverman walked to the window and looked out at the people passing by, “The journals…you said you had them?”

 

“Yes. Well, they’re in a safe deposit box in town here. Mr Weems is the Manager, I can give you the key …” and she rummaged about in her purse and produced the key which she handed to Nate “I only read the journal entry regarding my father …flicked through some …couldn’t bear to read any thing more but it’s all there, enough information I’m sure to make restitution where possible.”

 

She dropped the key into Nate’s hand, a broad hand the fingers of which curled around the little piece of metal and withdrew from hers. Nate looked at Silverman “Are you staying in town, Mr Silverman? “

 

“At the Whitby Hotel.” the man intoned, then he turned and looked at her “I won’t be pressing any charges, Miss Royale. I reckon you’re more sinned against than sinning. Your mother was ……” he shut his mouth, the words he wanted to use would be honest but not the kind she would want to hear, he turned to the sheriff, “If you give Mr Woods the journals, perhaps arrange for an appointment with him sometime.”

 

“I’ll do that, Mr Silverman.” Nate replied and added “It may be necessary for Miss Royale to discuss this further with you, with a lawyer present of course.”

 

Silverman nodded and without another word slapped his hat back onto his head and left the building. “Well, Miss Royale, you’re a puzzle.”

 

She sighed “I didn’t intend to be, sheriff. There was a time when life seemed very straightforward … I was engaged to be married, he got killed, and then everything just fell to pieces.”

 

She stood up “Am I free to go?”

 

“Of course, but Miss Royale….a word of advice….just be yourself from now on. This town is full of people who have made mistakes, some more serious than others, some answerable to the law and some not…but don’t be like them, don’t hide behind a false name. Just be yourself, you’ll be better respected for it if you do.”

 

“But then everyone will know who I am…like Mr Silverman, they’ll come and …”

 

“You don’t have to explain anything to them, Miss Royale. Grant Tombs – you mentioned him earlier? Well, he has to face up to far worse than you have, his father was evil, a monster, your mother is just a pale shadow of him…but if Grant can face life honestly, then why not give it a try too?”

 

She smiled, a small smile to be sure, but it was in her eyes where small smiles shine quite large. He watched her leave the building and close the door softly behind her.

 

Chapter 38

 

Reuben nibbled at the meat and then sipped some water. The camp fire was spitting flames as fat from the meat dripped onto the burning wood, scorching the side of the coffee pot that was steaming and ready for pouring. For a moment or two he kept glancing over at his father who, aware of his son’s scrutiny, waited for the questions that were heading his way. He had eaten his fill had been staring into the flames while working out the amount of time it would take to get to home for Reuben to get to bed ready for the school day

 

“Pa, why did you leave the Ponderosa?”

 

Adam raised his eyebrows and hunched his shoulders. He hadn’t expected that particular field of enquiry and stretched over to pick up the coffee pot and pour some into his cup.

 

“Sorry, Reuben, what did you say?”

 

“Why did you go to sea and leave the Ponderosa? Didn’t you want to stay here?”

 

His father smiled and shrugged, sipped a little of the coffee into the fire and stretched out his legs “No, at the time, I didn’t. I thought it was time for me to move on, and do something else before I got too old to do anything other than tot up the ledgers or move a herd of cows from one pasture to the other.”

 

“Yes, but why did you leave…didn’t you love Granpa anymore?”

 

Adam gave a slight snort of a laugh, “Of course I loved my Pa. Nothing like that changes just because of – circumstances – “ he sighed and smiled over at the boy who was now licking his fingers and had tossed the bone he was gnawing onto the flames, “I was getting older, and I knew if I stayed here any longer then I would never achieve anything other than being here…I wanted more, than riding around here, herding cows, eating dust, and all the things that ranch life entails.”

 

“But you’re doing all that kind of thing again now, arnt’ you?” Reuben said sagely and smiled, he sidled up against his father and when Adam put his arm around the boys’ shoulders felt a sense of comfort and security.

 

“Yes, and happy to do so, son. I got it out of my system, all that wishing to be somewhere else, and not being able to fulfil what I wanted to do with my life. I had always loved the sea, it was in my blood – my mother’s family were sea faring folk, and so was Pa’s mostly. “

 

He leaned forward to pour more coffee into the mug and then settled back, Reuben regained his place, his head on Adam’s shoulder, “When I went to college I would stay with Granpa Stoddard and of course he would fill my head with his adventures at being at sea, just as Pa had done on the journey here … you have to remember it took years to get to the Ponderosa, I did a lot of growing up listening to my Pa and his stories about the sea, the ships ..”

 

“And the shipwrecks and sharks, Pa.” Reuben reminded him, having listened to a fair few of the stories himself over the past few years.

 

Adam sighed and Reuben felt the motion, the rise and fall of his father’s chest, the soft breath drifting over his head, “GranPa Stoddard would take me on trips on board some of the ships. He had a ship in harbour The Wanderer, and I would go with the men when I had the chance, or I’d watch them come and go, the sails billowing out as the wind caught them, the little tugs almost shepherding them to sea.. Well, it fired my imagination I guess.”

 

He sipped some of the coffee, it was lukewarm now, and he allowed himself to think back to the times when he stayed with Abel Stoddard in his cottage by the harbour front. The smell of the sea, the salty language of the seamen, the cries of the gulls. He smiled, and sighed again.

 

“Do you miss it, Pa, not being on the ships?”

 

“Yes, of course. It was part of my life for a long time…well, long enough.”

 

“Then why did you leave it?”

 

“Same reason why I left the Ponderosa. It was time to go, time to come home. Besides which, I had met your Ma and wanted to settle down, be a real father to you and Sofia.”

 

“and Nathaniel?”

 

Adam chuckled and nodded “Yes, and to Nathaniel, and to any more that come along. It’s hard being a long distance father, never knowing if your ship would sink the next gale that comes along.”

 

“Or get eaten by sharks…”Reuben intoned morbidly.

 

“You and those sharks…” Adam laughed, “You wouldn’t want to meet one of them, I can tell you. Nothing so dead as the eyes of a shark, especially when it’s heading your way and your hearts hammering like a drum under your ribs and there’s no where to go -” he shivered, some memories were best left buried. “So have you decided what you want to do yet, son?”

 

“I want to be bronco buster, I told you that already, didn’t I? And I want to be a cowboy too, like you and Uncle Joe and Uncle Hoss.”

 

Adam nodded, he frowned thoughtfully for a moment, “Your Ma told me once that your father had been involved with politics, could have been one of the youngest senators in the country. Would that appeal to you?“

 

Reuben screwed up his nose “I thought he was an architect.”

 

“He was, but he was also involved in politics…had he lived he would have had to make a choice, like I had…mine was the Ponderosa or the sea…his would have been designing houses or sitting in the House of Representatives.”

 

Reuben nodded thoughtfully, he didn’t have a clue what Adam was talking about, except that it sounded as though his real father would have had quite a future. He was quiet for a while thinking about Robert, trying to dredge up memories and wondering why he seemed so far away.

 

“The thing is, son, everyone has choices to make…in their lives…you will have as well, one day.”

 

“I might go to sea, like you.” Reuben looked up at his father just as Adam glanced down at him, their eyes met, they smiled at one another, understanding each other perfectly and feeling the bond closer than ever between them.

 

“Well, if you do, don’t leave it too late, like I did.” Adam smiled and then roused himself, disentangled himself from the boys arms and stood up, “Time to break camp and get on home.”

 

Reuben nodded, he poured water from the coffee jug over the dying embers of the fire, and then kicked dust to make sure it had died out, then began to gather up their belongings, leaving the camp site as close to how they had found it as possible.

 

Adam cast a wary glance over and nodded in approval, “You could be an explorer.”

He said and tossed the boys jacket over to him.

 

“Or a mountaineer….or a traveller…”

 

Their voices died into silence as they checked their saddle bags, then mounted their horses. Max and Kami turned around as they were led away from the grass that they were enjoying, and waited for them to mount into the saddles.

 

Reuben glanced over his shoulder, up at the wooded slopes of the mountains and then back to meet the kindly gaze of his father, “Thanks, Pa, it was a great time.”

 

Adam nodded, “Let’s get home.” was all he said in reply and turned his horse in the direction of home.

……………….

 

Katherine Royale left the sheriff’s office with her head spinning. It had been a shock to see Mr Silverman and to listen to the accusations he had poured out at her. She was grateful for Nate’s kindly handling of the situation but it made her aware that such a thing could happen again. She made her way down the street without thinking where to go, her feet just aimlessly going forward. She passed the school at the corner of C street and didn’t even glance at it, and then she passed into the more residential area of town all the time wondering about what she should do now, where could she go for advice.

 

A man stepping through a gate and walking up to the door of a house caught her attention and she watched as he pushed the door open with all the familiarity of it being home to him. She watched the door close behind him, and then, having made up her mind she turned in that direction and within minutes was knocking on the door to Roy Coffee’s house.

 

Roy answered the door with his spectacles balanced on his forehead and his watery blue eyes looking keenly at her, he nodded “Anything I can do for you, Miss?”

 

“I hope so. I need some help, some advice…”

 

He looked a little startled, and glanced over his shoulder where a young man could be seen loitering in the shadows. Grant Tombs stepped forward “Oh hello.” then silence as he tried to remember who she was, realisation and “Miss Gregory, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes, that’s right. I didn’t think you would remember me.” she forced a smile, too anxious to feel like smiling but it seemed the right thing to do

 

“Oh of course I remember you.” he smiled, the only difference being that his smile was genuine and he seemed to really want to smile at her. “Miss Gregory is the Assistant Librarian, Roy.”

 

“Ah, yes, I heard that Amelia had an assistant at last…come on in, my dear. Would you like some coffee? Tea?”

 

“No thank you,” She replied and quite voluntarily without any help from Grant’s head shaking behind Roy’s shoulder, “I had some earlier.”

 

She was led into the parlour and sat down, the two men sat opposite her and waited. After a few moments of silence she cleared her throat with a little cough, and then with a sigh looked at Grant “I was at the trial, your father’s trial.”

 

Grant looked uncomfortable but not too embarrassed, he nodded “Yes, and what does that have to do with your coming to see me? Are you someone my father …”

 

“No, nothing like that, nothing at all. I just wanted to say how much I admired you then, and now…for getting on with your life, for not hiding away and trying to pretend it never happened.”

 

“There’s no point in doing that, is there?” Grant said, rather brusquely this time, “Roy offered me a home and I was more than pleased to accept it. I’m not my father, and I don’t intend to let my father run my life now he is dead, he did enough of that when he was alive.”

 

She nodded, that statement alone would be something she would have to think about carefully later on. She looked at them both with a wariness in her eyes that even Roy noticed, he asked gruffly what exactly she wanted them to tell her. What advice did she really want to hear from them

 

“My mother was Rosemarie Royale, from Bodie.” she said quietly and looked at Roy whom she knew had accompanied the Cartwrights on the trek to find Sofia.

 

“Ah,” Roy said immediately and nodded, tugged at his moustache and grimaced, he looked at Grant “Mrs Royale was just a few rungs down the ladder from your father so far as – er – breaking the law was concerned.”

 

“Oh!” Grant replied looking at their visitor with renewed interest, “But I thought you were called Godfrey?”

 

“I made the name up. I didn’t want people to know who I am. I – lacked – your courage, Mr Tombs.”

 

The two men nodded but it was Roy who now asked her what exactly she wanted them to do for her. She sighed, slumped a little in the chair and shook her head “I don’t know.”

 

“In which case we won’t be much help.” Grant said quietly.

 

“I know,” she said again very quietly and her fingers nervously played with the clutch to her purse, she looked from one to the other of them, trying to collect random scattered thoughts as she did so. “I’ve just seen the sheriff, he suggested I take on my name, Katherine Royale. But I’m not a man, I’m just a rather weak woman, and I’ve already been here some weeks establishing myself as Elizabeth Godfrey. I don’t want people to know I was associated with Rosemarie Royale and all that happened with her. I want to be accepted as my true person and it isn’t Katherine Royale.”

 

Roy nodded and stood up, “You need a glass of water.” he said and made his way to the kitchen where they heard water glugging into a glass.

 

Grant looked at her and frowned, “I don’t know much about what happened with you, or your mother but I think you should see Mr woods. He would be able to help you give, you the advice you need.”

 

Roy handed her the glass and she drank it wondering if she would get to the Boarding House before needing the lavatory. She stood up and after handing Roy the glass made her way to the door, “Do you think he would see me tomorrow?”

 

“I’ll make an appointment for you, and let you know…you’ll be at the library won’t you?”

 

She nodded and shook his hand, then shook Roys,.”Thank you.” was all she could say even though she wasn’t really sure for what she was thanking them .

 

Roy watched her go, and turned to Grant “Mmm, best tell you what happened …”

 

Grant nodded, although he still kept his eyes on Miss Godfrey as she made her way to the Albierno’s Boarding House. “Yes, please do…”

 

As Elizabeth made her way to the boarding house she asked herself again and again why had she bothered to call on Roy and Grant. what help had they been, and what help had she actually expected? She thought over what Grant had said about his father, and knew that she had the same desire, to be totally free from Rosemarie’s influence and life. She also knew that Hiram Woods was an excellent person to whom she could entrust her hopes, her fears and her future desires. That certainty lasted all of five minutes.

 

 

Chapter 39

 

Mary Ann had not slept well since Joe’s return home. It wasn’t because she was nervous about giving her speech but because she was now not sure whether or not she should give the speech at all. Her conflict arose from the fact that Joe had fallen into the trap of doing what many men do to placate their wives…he had gone along with her and allowed her to think that she had his whole hearted approval and that it would ‘go away’ in time. The more she thought about that aspect of his character the more uncomfortable she felt, and the less inclined she was to talk openly to him about it.

 

Joe on the other hand had no such misgivings. He had given her his support because he loved her, and wanted her to be happy. He had never really thought that Peggy would seize upon Mary Ann’s interest and arouse even more from it, and although he could dimly recall his wife referring to the meeting and her part in it, he had never given it serious consideration.

 

Of course he had discussed it with his brothers, and he could remember what each of them said which had, in an odd way, confirmed his reasons for not expecting Mary Ann to go any further with it. He has assumed that she would realise where she was happiest, with him and the children.

 

He had tried to be his usual self around her but somehow it had not worked, both of them were treading on egg shells around the other and as a result their conversation was stilted and stiff. There was none of the gentle teasing, the close contact, the kiss on the back of the neck or the sweet endearments of the previous times he had returned home from a few days absence.

 

Instead he was conscious that she would think he was trying to coax her back into her usual loving self and that in turn was an attempt to get her to abandon her ideals. Mary Ann on the other hand wouldn’t permit herself the flirting and kissing that she usually enjoyed in case he assumed she was softening in her attitude towards him and was, therefore, quite prepared to abandon her project.

 

The children sensed the tension between their parents and Daniel was, as a result, wilful and naughty. Constance was confused, one moment she would be all smiles and the next she would be whining and whimpering and demanding attention. The more attention she received from one or the other of the adults, the naughtier Daniel became in his efforts to get the attention of either his mother or father.

 

It was not a happy household and when Peggy arrived with wide smiles and bright greetings Joe was blunt to the point of rudeness and Mary Ann was overly demonstrative in welcoming her in . Like the children, she was confused.

 

Unlike the children however, she didn’t take much notice of them but declared in her bright clear voice “I had the most interesting day today. I went to the cavern to make my final assessment and -” she rummaged among her saddle bags and pulled out her sketch book and journal “I had the most amazing meeting with an Indian. He told me his name was Tall Bear and -” she flipped over the pages until she came to the drawing she had made of him, and smiled broadly at them both as they leaned forward to see it, “he told me all about the battle here.”

 

“Tall Bear…Johnny…” Joe said and took the drawing from her to look at it more closely, “He’s been a friend of ours for a long time.”

 

“He has?” Peggy’s brow creased a little, “He never said about knowing you…ah, come to think of it, he did mention knowing that I was with you, so I guess he found that out -” she shrugged, what did it matter anyway, “He told me that the battle was the last of several skirmishes along the way, how the Spanish soldiers stayed in some villages along the way, his people decided to stop them here and that was when the battle took place.”

 

“His shaman would have kept account of that, it would have been repeated verbally throughout the generations.” Joe said quietly and handed her the picture “did he say anything else?”

 

While he pulled out the chair to sit down Mary Ann began to prepare coffee, from the other room Constance was crying for attention and with a quiet ‘excuse me’ she left them to attend to her daughter. Daniel came in and stood beside his father, and then, slowly, crept up onto his knee.

 

“He told me that the soldiers had brought sickness to his people, so many died as a result that when the Spanish soldiers came in force there were not sufficient of them left to fight back. He did say that two of the men survived…the Spanish men I mean…and I got the impression that they stayed with the tribe.”

 

“Which means that some of the Bannocks or Shoshone may have a Spanish blood line…A pity he couldn’t tell you who although it does explain why there were Spanish soldiers’ helmets in their lodges.”

 

“They called the one who survived “Stands Alone”. perhaps because he was shunned by the tribe, do you think?”

 

She looked at Joe earnestly, but Joe shook his head, and shrugged “Indians sometimes change their names quite frequently. We’ve known Johnny as Johnny Tall Bear, as well as Johnny Brave Heart during the time we have known him.” Joe replied and glanced at Mary Ann who was now back in the kitchen, Constance resting on her hip, while she attempted to make the coffee.

 

Without a word he got up, gently turned her to the chair to sit down while he continued with the coffee, in turn she smiled at him, Constance snuggled into her chest, and stuck her thumb in her mouth, Daniel, abandoned by his father, sidled onto the vacant chair. Peggy sighed “Maurice is going to be so pleased by this….it’s like another chapter in the story, and if we could track down some of Stands Alone’s descendents that would be even better.”

 

“Why?” Mary Ann asked with a slight frown, “What good would it do them?”

 

Joe placed the cups of coffee in front of them and then took his seat, lifting Daniel up and then down again onto his lap, “Mary Ann’s right … what good would it do them? It wouldn’t make their lives any easier.”

 

“But they could be descended from some noble Spanish family, they could…”

 

“Do you think a noble Spanish family would want to acknowledge members that were of Bannock or Shoshone blood? Over the course of the generations since that battle, there would be more Native Indian blood than Spanish, so why bother to even try to find out to which Spanish family they came from…” Joe shook his head again, “It may seem a romantic notion, Peggy, but prejudices run deep, and that man’s descendants could cut their veins to prove they were from that family, but I doubt that any Spanish nobleman would detect a drop of Spanish blood in it.”

 

“Oh, I just thought that maybe – well – maybe it would be quite a lovely story to finish the excavation on.” Peggy sighed and looked downcast, then brightened up and smiled “But it is still a good story, isn’t it? There’s no need to go so deeply into it really…I suppose…” and again she sighed and pulled a comical face that made Daniel laugh.

 

“I don’t think Stands Alone’s Indian descendants would want to acknowledge their white blood either.” Joe said quietly, “they suffered a lot back then, and they’re suffering equally as much now from white man’s oppression.”

 

“I noticed how thin he was, and his clothes were hanging off of him…his horse looked as though it would collapse within the next few hours. Oh dear, what a mess…” Peggy said and looked at her drawing “He looked so handsome, so proud. Sometimes -”

 

Joe glanced at Mary Ann who gave a little smile before she turned to Peggy “They’re a proud people, Peggy, and they’ve learned to be cautious, we’ve offered them horses before now, but they refuse because other white men could accuse them of stealing them, and hang them ..any excuse to get rid of another Indian.”

 

Peggy said nothing to that but rolled up her sketches and slipped them into her saddlebag, along with the journal. “Well, I’ll let Maurice and the Smithsonian know. At least it tidies up one loose end. Perhaps Mr deQuille will write an article about it…

 

She drank her coffee and then smiled at them both brightly, then turned to Mary Ann, “Have you written out your speech for Saturday yet?”

 

Mary Ann blushed and Joe looked down, hard faced, at his cup and saucer. Peggy chattered on, either she hadn’t noticed their discomfiture or she chose to ignore it, but she told them about meeting the Librarian and how disinterested she was in women suffrage, “How strange, I was amazed, I thought she would be so interested because she knew all the books, and told me she had others on order.”

 

“What does she want then, did she say?” Joe now asked, wishing that she would leave them now, and also that his arm didn’t ache so much. It crossed his mind that he should have gone to see Paul or Jimmy and have got it seen to by them.

 

“Oh the usual..a husband, children, that sort of thing.” Peggy said airily.

 

“And is there anything wrong with wanting those sort of things?” Joe now asked rather tersely and Peggy raised her eyebrows,

 

“No, of course not, and it isn’t wrong to have them either, it’s just that there should be more to life than rearing children …think of the women who just have children year after year, worn down by the drudgery of caring for them, for their husbands, for their homes. They should have the right to a career, like men do, to carve out a name for themselves…” Peggy hauled in a deep breath and half closed her eyes, she was a Joan of Arc of her time, seeing a vision for the future, trampling on the hopes of so many who lacked the desire to share it.

 

“So – do you think Mary Ann or Hester or Olivia fit into this pattern of drudgery?” Joe now asked and heard Mary Ann’s drawing in her breath as though surprised at his saying such a thing “Do you think Mary Ann lacks intelligence because she settled for a home, and children, and a husband instead of staying the local town teacher, single and unloved?”

 

“Joe” Mary Ann whispered, and put a hand on his arm as though to halt the words he had been too hesitant to say to her.

 

Peggy saw the challenge and accepted it, raising her face defiantly she said quietly “No, I don’t, but – that’s her choice, and now she has the chance to speak up for herself, and for others, who want wider choices for their children.”

 

“It seems to me that you did well enough, Peggy, you got to college, and you have a Doctorate too… so why get so involved in a cause that is going to create so many problems? Why can’t you just leave things as they are?” Joe said, his face flushing and Daniel looked up and wondered why his father was so angry.

 

“Because your little girl deserves the right to vote, she deserves all the things that her brother has so easily because he’s a boy.” Peggy responded.

 

“And what about the boys born to Indian or Chinese families here in America? What rights do they have? Let me tell you, Peggy, they have none…my daughter has more rights then they have.”

 

Mary Ann sighed and stood up, she excused herself again and carried Constance out of the room and settled her down on the settee, wrapping a blanket around her and securing it so the child would not fall should she turn over.

 

After some moments she returned to the kitchen to find Joe had gone, taking his son with him. Peggy was sitting at the table turning the cup round and round between her fingers, she looked up at the other woman and shrugged “So? Are you still going to make that speech on Saturday?”

 

Mary Ann sat down opposite her and poured out more coffee into their cups, she shook her head “I don’t know, Peggy. I don’t really know what to do for the best now…”

……………….

 

At one time Joe would have taken himself off to speak to his father about any problem he had, but his loyalty to Mary Ann prevented him from doing so in this instance. Instead he took Daniel into the stables and together they spent time with the horses. Karim, Kami’s colt, was a handsome beast now, and he placed Daniel on his back and walked him round and round the corral.

 

It did Joe’s heart good to see his son sitting so straight in the saddle, a natural rider, with the same agility as his father, Joe, in his body. He was a handsome child, with his unruly mop of hair and hazel eyes, but he had Mary Ann’s smile and way of looking that made Joe feel so proud of him.

 

“Pa, are you angry with Mommy?” Daniel asked as Joe helped him down from the saddle, one armed as he was, it was a rather clumsy effort.

 

Joe frowned, and squatted down to be at eye level with the boy “No, just angry with myself really, sometimes things can be said that shouldn’t be…” he ruffled the boy’s hair, just like Ben and Adam had done to him when he was that age, “and sometimes things should be said – a word at the right time, is oh so good.”

 

He smiled, it was a proverb that Ben had spouted at times, how did it go? “A word at the right time is oh so good, like apples of silver in carvings of gold”. and wasn’t there another about never going to sleep before making peace between one another otherwise giving place to the devil? He sighed and smiled, if Mary Ann wanted to make that speech, then so be it…he would be there at the meeting and give her his support, whether he agreed with what she said or not. He loved her, and if this was the only way to show it now, then let it be so.

……………..

 

Olivia had given Luke’s words a considerable amount of thought and whether or not she had agreed with what he said, she decided she would discuss it with Adam before she did anything else.

 

Sofia had slept through the night and woken with smiles. A day with her Uncle and Aunt, with the twins, and on the Double D, and thinking nothing but happy thoughts she had stepped into her day. Nathaniel had determined to climb the tree but he hadn’t yet found one that he could manage beyond the first limb from which he had hung rather like a sloth! Not that he knew what sloth was but had Adam been there that would certainly have been the creature the boy reminded him.

 

Johnny Tall Bear had watched the children for a while before he had walked his horse into the yard. Sofia, recognising him, ran up to him with a smile “Hello, have you come to see Mommy?”

 

Tall Bear inclined his head gravely and Sofia turned and ran into the house calling for Olivia to come and see ‘”her friend was here.”

 

Both women rushed from the house to see exactly which friend Sofia would mean and when they saw Tall Bear, Marcy immediately went back into the house to prepare some food for him. Olivia approached and placed a hand upon the horse’s neck

 

“It seems to me, Tall Bear, that your animal needs some food in its stomach before it makes home journey home.”

 

He nodded, grateful for the way she had approached the subject of food, and without a word he slipped from the saddle and together they walked the horse to the stall where it was led to a oats in a manger, clean water in a trough, and hay from a net hanging from the wall by a nail.

 

“Come into the house and tell me what you are doing here, Tall Bear.” she said now and turned, “There is nothing – serious – I mean – nothing wrong is there?”

 

“My people starve, we are on the reservation with other tribes – Utes, Shoshone, Kiowa “

 

“Kiowa? But they’re plains Indians aren’t they?”

 

He inclined his head, Indians from different parts of the country, different customs and different attitudes, it had all led to disharmony and that had in turn led to recriminations and reprimands from their white ‘Guardians’.

 

“I came to see the woman who seeks out the dead…we heard that she had come and the shaman said she had to be told what really happened.”

 

“Oh -” Olivia nodded “And have you seen her?”

 

“I saw her. I spoke. She knows.”

 

She looked at him. He had changed over the years since she had first known him. She could remember when he was in the prime of his life, handsome, virile, strong..and he wore the best buckskins,and carried the best weapons, now he was haggard and worn, grey hair was scattered in the long black locks, and his clothing was ragged and poor.

 

“You rode a long way to tell her.” she said quietly and led him into the house.

 

Marcy came and smiled at him, chattered to him about nothing except having seen him before, and then placed a bowl of food in front of him, a cup of coffee with the pot beside it. Tall Bear said nothing but sat down and began to eat, tearing into the bread, ladling in the food, leaving them the impression that he hadn’t eaten so well in days..which was, in fact, the truth.

……………………..

 

They would be home soon, and Reuben’s heart sunk a little as he realised how close to the ranch he was and that soon another adventure would be over. Tomorrow the day would start and it would be going back to school. He sighed and glanced over at Adam who seemed to be deep in thought, his brow furrowed and his eyes hooded as though behind them too much was going on that he couldn’t reveal.

 

“Pa?”

 

Adam turned his head immediately and nodded over to the boy, smiled and raised an eyebrow “Yes, son?”

 

“That bear …” he paused and saw Adam’s face grow wary, the eyes narrowed, “Well, I was thinking that I didn’t see no sign of her being around our camp…nothing at all…not even a little paw print from the cubs. Does that mean I wasn’t looking out carefully enough?”

 

Adam grinned and shook his head “Well, you and me both, Reuben, I saw no sign of her being around either. To be honest, “ and his voice took on a less light tone, “it’s unusual for bears to come down so far this time of year. We would have picked up plenty of sign had we strayed into bear territory, but there was nothing …” he frowned now and rubbed his chin “It seems to me that she must have come down this far during the winter to hibernate, have her cubs and establish her own territory. If she is trying to establish fresh territory it means that they are getting overcrowded where she came from … she wanted her own space…and where she has gone others will follow.”

 

“Is that bad?”

 

“It is for us, it brings them too close to where we have our cattle, and once a bear starts raiding our herds, well, it’s easy meat for them …”

 

“What will you do, Pa?”

 

“I’ll have a talk about it with Hoss, he may have some ideas on how to get old Mother bear and her cubs back to her own territory.”

 

They lapsed into silence for a while, until Reuben sighed and made some comment about having to go to school in the morning. “I bet Jimmy’s in his new place now.” he said, and frowned “And Davy will be complaining that nothing happens and he had a boring weekend.”

 

Adam nodded and smiled, and slipped into thoughts of his own before looking at his son who was trying not to look too dejected at the prospect of school.

 

“Reuben, has Sofia ever mentioned anything to you about what happened to her when she went to Bodie?”

 

“Oh you mean that time – that time when it was blizzarding and we got lost.” Reuben said and bit down on his bottom lip in order to suppress a shiver that went down his back and into his stomach “Pa, I didn’t mean to lose her…I did …”

 

“I’m not asking you about that, son. I know you did well, very well and I don’t think many boys your age would have done half as well to be honest.” Adam paused and hoped he hadn’t piled on the commendation too thickly, “No, I was thinking more of how Sofia feels now about the women…you know… the old woman and her daughter.” he cleared his throat, “I was wondering because of how she got so upset about being called Alice.”

 

“Yeah,” Reuben frowned and nodded, he looked very much as though he took it as a personal insult himself, “She didn’t like the old woman, she says she was like a witch, the one that wanted to eat Hansel and Gretel in the gingerbread house.”

 

“And what about Katherine?” Adam asked quietly, “The younger woman?”

 

“Oh she likes Katherine. She says that she was like the White Queen in a story, where she only wants things to be pretty all the time. I think she made that up though….” Reuben grinned “But she didn’t like it when they called her Alice and then the story upsets her, but it was only because they wouldn’t believe she was Sofia and had brothers and lived on the Ponderosa.”

 

“So, she doesn’t have nightmares about Katherine?”

 

“No, only about that story, she keeps dreaming about falling down a hole.”

 

“So she does talk to you about it, even now?” Adam frowned, his dark eyes thoughtful.

 

“Not much now. Only when she has a bad dream.”

 

Adam nodded and said nothing more. He began to whistle a tune beneath his breath, a song that the men would sing on board ship when they had had their tot of rum and the ship was in calm waters.

 

“Soon be home, Pa.” Reuben said and without realising it there was a slight tremor of excitement in the words, “Wait til I tell Davy about that bear…and those bear cubs…they were real cute, though, weren’t they, Pa?”

 

Adam smiled and nodded, “We’ll go again another weekend soon, son.”

 

That was all that Reuben wanted to hear, and his grin was so wide that it nearly did stretch from ear to ear.

……………………..

 

Clemmie Hawkins reached up to straighten the lapels on the jacket her lodger was wearing, and then stepped back to survey her handiwork, she nodded with a pleased expression on her face

 

“Well, my duck, you look good enough to eat even if I do say so myself.” she smiled and clasped her hands together almost as though she had been clapping in applause.

 

Edward Evans put a nervous hand to his tie and then with a twitch loosened it just a little bit. “Thanks, Clemmie.”

 

“Nothing to thank me for, duckie, any woman with half a brain would be, should be, delighted to ask you round to spend some time with them, ‘specially as you ‘ave been ‘elping ‘er move into ‘er new place.”

 

“Mrs Carstairs is a fine woman, and she works hard to keep her son well cared for.” Edward said quietly as though trying to convince her that this evenings appointment was all above board and there was nothing in it for Clemmie to be ‘sharing’ with any of her friends.

 

“No doubt, luvvie, and I’m more than glad that she realises what she owes you. Now, just you enjoy yourself now.”

 

She gave him a slight push towards the door, and smiled as he hesitated for a moment, and then turned to her “You don’t think it’s too soon…I mean…after Beatrice?”

 

“I don’t know what your talking about, me duck, how long is too long?” Clemmie frowned, “Seems to me that your life with Beatrice wasn’t – well – it wasn’t real, was it? It was like as if you were sleep walking through some one else’s life, wasn’t it?”

 

He looked at her for a moment with an expression of surprise on his face, then smiled gently, leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead “Mrs Hawkins, you have a very perceptive way of looking at things. I believe you’re right.”

 

He picked up his hat and then once again paused, “I loved Beatrice, through all our life together I was never once unfaithful, nor would I have thought to be…she was my world. But her world was of music, the concert circuit, fame, adulation, demands on time, constant demands on her time….I sometimes felt as though I were sinking beneath all the demands, the recitals, the soiree’s. It was only when I came here to take up this teaching position that I felt as though I had come alive, the real me, who I really was, suddenly woke up. When she died it was the most natural thing in the world to come back here, to come home.”

 

“Well, Teddy” for that was her name for him, not Edward, or Mr Evans, but Teddy, she touched his cheek gently with her hand and smiled, “You just go and enjoy yourself now, just be yourself.”

 

Edward Evans nodded and then carefully placed his hat on his head and stepped outside the house. He paused on the doorstep and looked around him, up at the purpling sky, at the stars that were just beginning to peek through the crush velvet of the night. The moon was bright and luminous, he heaved in a deep breath and stepped forward with a lighter heart, having spoken to Clemmie about his feelings for Beatrice had been like closing the door to the past. He felt, really felt, like a new man.

 

In their new apartment the Carstairs were trying to calm their own nerves. Jimmy checked to make sure his hair was parted smartly in the middle and his boots polished, Mrs Carstairs was fussing around the oven, one she wasn’t too familiar with but hoped would cook the meal as well as the ‘other one’ had done while at the same time making sure the table setting was laid out smartly. If she thought too much about Mr Edwards’ and his previous life with the high and mighty, rich and noble, she felt she would faint so kept reminding herself that he was only Jimmy’s school teacher, nothing else. Just the school teacher…

 

The knock on the door made her jump and the pie in her hands nearly landed on the floor, nearly, but, thankfully, not quite.

 

 

Chapter 40

 

By the time Olivia arrived home the sky was darkening and Nathaniel was asleep, his cheek resting upon his arms and looking so enchantingly adorable that his mother had to kiss his cheek as she carefully lifted him from the vehicle.

 

Sofia bounced ahead, “Is Daddy home yet? Is Reuben?”

 

“Hush, you’ll wake Nathaniel.” Olivia whispered placing a finger, with difficulty upon her lips as she carefully made her way from the buggy to the house, following behind her daughter at a slow pace.

 

Adam opened the door with a smile on his face and caught the little girl as she sprung up into his arms. “I knew you would be here, Daddy.”

 

“Well, you were right too…” he laughed and hugged her close, then looked over her head at Olivia, shared a smile before he leaned down to kiss his wife, glanced down at the sleeping child and then put Sofia down “Here, let me take him.”

 

He was able to take the sleeping child into his arms and holding him close against him walked over to the stairs, taking them carefully one by one. Olivia could hear the bedroom door open and his footsteps on the floor boards as she removed her outer jacket and set it to one side.

 

Reuben ran in now and flung his arms around his mother, nearly knocking his sister over in the process “Ma, Ma, guess what I did, I nearly got eaten by a bear…and it had two cubs.” ignoring the way his mother’s face paled he turned to Sofia, “You would have really liked those cubs, Sofia, they were really small and fluffy, you would have wanted them as pets to bring home.”

 

“Were they really tiny little bears?” Sofia gasped with round eyes and a flush to her face, “Really tiny and fluffy?”

 

“They came right up to me and were waving their little paws like this..” he demonstrated quite admirably making Sofia gasp and feel quite envious “and they wanted me to play with them and pick them up, they came right up to me.” he turned again to Olivia “They did, Ma, they came right up to where I was standing.”

 

“I wish you had brought them home. We could have played with them…were they really like toy bears?”

 

“Yep. They had little beady eyes too.” Reuben widened his eyes and rolled them making Sofia laugh as he did so.

 

“Reuben, what’s this about a bear …” Olivia stopped as Adam came down the stairs with a slight smile on his face, ”Adam, Reuben says he was nearly eaten by a bear!”

 

“Well, not quite.” Adam chuckled and gave his son a reproving look for worrying his mother so much, “Just that mother bear didn’t want such a puny little boy playing with her cubs … “

 

“Aw Pa,” Reuben frowned and his mouth drooped “I ain’t puny…”

 

“In comparison to the size of that mother bear, son, you were…to be honest, so was I.”

 

Olivia relaxed, and now that the tension was gone she pointed to the stairs “Bed, now, both of you. School in the morning.”

 

Sighs, and groans, but they both turned towards the stairs, and Sofia hugged Adam again and whispered rubbish into his ears just to let him know she loved him.

 

Adam approached his wife, and took her hand in his, smiled at her “I’ll go see to the horse …we’ll talk when I get back in.”

 

She nodded, squeezed his fingers gently within his own, and followed her children to their rooms.

 

Cheng Ho Lee had prepared a light supper for them before he had retired to his bed. A small but welcome fire burned in the hearth, sending the smell of wood smoke into the room. The clock ticked away the minutes with the monotony that no one took any notice of until suddenly they realised time was running out on them.

 

The lamp light was soft and glowed like beacons in the room, softening the harsher corners as shadows were created to swallow them up.

 

Olivia loved this room, and waited for Adam to join her with an almost sleepy peacefulness stealing up on her. Her children were sleeping safely in their beds, her husband was nearby and she was home, she half closed her eyes and released a sigh.

 

Her husbands lips upon hers caught her by surprise, but then she laughed, her lips moving beneath his, and she closed her eyes again. Then he was sitting by her side, one arm across her shoulders and his other hand holding fast to hers, holding it captive as his fingers curled around her own.

 

“It’s good to be home,” she murmured, and smiled up at him “It was lovely being at the Double D but being away from home always makes one appreciate it more when one returns.”

 

“You had your comfortable bed, and I slept on rocks….I still bear their imprint on my hide.” he sighed and she could feel his smile against her hair, his breath warm as it drifted past her cheek.

 

“Tell me about the bear…and your adventures.” she said and nestled in closer to him, feeling the warmth of his body and sensing the warmth of her own trickling through her like a gentle fire in her veins. She loved being close to him, the feelings it aroused in her, the desire and passion being with him could unlock. As she listened to him talking, much like a story being read to Sofia, she knew that there was little point in worrying about anything really, not with him by her side, not with Adam Cartwright being her soul mate, her protector, lover, oh just everything one could ever wish a husband to be.

 

She realised he had finished telling her the story and was waiting for her to speak, but she had been so full of her own thoughts and feelings that the words had passed her by, only the sound of his voice had been a caress to her senses, lulling her into a cocoon of almost sensual longing.

 

She turned to him and smiled, kissed him and leaned her head against his shoulder, his arm held her closer and she heard, felt, his own desires released in a soft sigh so that she kissed him again.

 

His hand cupped her face, caressed her cheek, kissed her throat, her lips and she heard him whisper “I missed you, Mrs Cartwright.” as he kissed her again.

 

Later they ate the supper that had been set out on the low table for them, and drank some wine. The fire was dying down to its last embers now but the room was warm, and they themselves were still feeling the heat of their togetherness earlier to worry about a fire now.

 

“Adam, Luke came up with a suggestion that I want to discuss with you.” she said and smiled over the rim of the glass, before she lowered her face in order to drink a little more, “It’s about Sofia.”

 

“Oh yes, and I wanted to mention something to you that Reuben told me as well.” he picked up some of the food and with a smile held it towards her, and when she opened her mouth he laughed as her lips closed upon it, he picked up another piece and ate it himself. “It seems that Sofia isn’t afraid of Katherine, doesn’t worry about her at all, she puts her into the category of being the good fairy as opposed to the wicked witch that she was afraid of, that being, of course, Rosemarie. I suppose it is natural really for a child like Sofia to romanticise the two of them..one good and one evil.”

 

“I know, and I remembered how she always spoke of Katherine in a fond way, calling her Aunty Katherine, and how she and Aunty Katherine did this, or that, and – and I remember that I felt jealous of her, Katherine I mean. All that affection from my daughter being given to a woman who had stolen her from me.”

 

“Except that she didn’t, did she? She didn’t steal Sofia from us, she did her best to save her, protect her…”

 

Olivia started back, and her eyes widened as though in horror as she listened to him, and quite involuntarily she cried “While trying to convince our daughter that she was someone else, that we never existed, that she was Alice…” Olivia paused and heaved in a deep breath, placed a hand on her chest as though to still the beating of her heart and blinked rapidly, whether she had tears in her eyes Adam was unable to see, she glanced up at him, “I’m sorry, Adam, I meant to be calm and rational, and not sound so bitter and – jealous.”

 

He said nothing, but dropped a kiss upon her nose, looked intently into her eyes to make sure she was calm again. He picked up his wine glass and turned his gaze upon that for a while “What did Luke say, I should imagine he had some sound advice after all, he knew her when he was in the army and served under Major Royale.”

 

She nodded and told him of her discussion with Luke, “I didn’t agree with him at first but then I got to thinking that he was right really, by being too protective we’re really feeding her fears arnt’ we? We don’t even know what she is fearful of, because we’ve never spoken to her about them, just given her the musical box to calm her at night.”

 

Adam didn’t say anything to that for a while. He chewed on the food and swallowed, drank more wine. Ben had never let him touch the musical box until Inger came into their lives. On the journey until that time they had experienced some terrible things, seen horrific sights that had given him nightmares of gigantic proportions but he had never been given a musical box to soften the minutes of terror. Not until Inger came …

 

He blinked, swallowed and looked at his wife. She too had experienced horrors, and Luke was right, there had been no counselling, no kindly doctor to hold their hands and pat them on the heads and wipe their tears. He poured more wine into her glass, and smiled, “He’s right, and I don’t disagree with him one bit. We need to talk to Sofia about this, bring it out into the open and scare away the shadows, if she has any.”

 

Olivia relaxed back into the cushions, and half closed her eyes, through them she watched him as he drank the wine, the fall of his dark hair over his brow, his unbuttoned shirt revealing his chest, his half hooded eyes now turned towards her while the curve of his mouth turned into a smile and the dimples formed in his cheeks. She emptied her glass and set it down on the low table, she thought for a moment of Sofia, and how relaxed and content she had been over the weekend. She raised a hand and trailed her fingers down his arm, until they came to rest upon his hand and when he turned towards her and gathered her back into his arms again she let the worries drift into the air like – wood smoke.

……………….

 

In the room that had been allocated to her, Peggy sat at the bureau busily writing her letter to Maurice. Her report to the Smithsonian had been finished a few moments ago. She had scanned through it time and again to make sure she had the facts correct and had then sealed it into an envelope to take into town the following day.

 

Now as she began to write this next letter she found her thoughts wandering, not to the adventures of the day, but more towards the young man who had threatened to shoot her if she appeared on Greigson territory again. Hoss had informed her that the ranch was now known as the Box G, but most people who had been in the area for any length of time still referred to it as the Dayton place, which, of course, she already knew.

 

Abel Greigson, what an arrogant man he was to sit there in the saddle and threaten to shoot her if she rode onto the Box G again. What right did he have to treat her like that? She had been born there, she had a right to be there, to see the places she loved and treasured for the memories they held for her.

 

She put down her pen and walked to the window and looked out at the dark sky, saw the clouds drifting past the face of the moon, stars blinking and twinkling. She could remember Laura teaching her to sing “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are…” and how she had stood in front of her father singing it and the great beam of a smile that had passed over his face, the gleam in his eyes as he had leaned down and picked her up, told her she had sung that real pretty and how, after he had set her down and told her to go and play, he had said to Laura “Don’t teach her rubbish like that again, I don’t want my Peggy growing up into any cissy-girl.”

 

It hadn’t mattered then, in a way she had felt proud of her father and of herself, she thought it was a compliment. Her daddy wanted her to be special, not just ’any cissy-girl’. And he liked her in her dungarees and shirt, scowled if she appeared in a dress so that she had avoided wearing them rather than see that dark look on his face.

 

It struck her then that although her father had loved her, and she had no doubt of that love at all, he had also been ashamed of her. Ashamed of her for being a girl and not the boy he had wanted. He was ashamed because she was a girl who could grow to be just like his wife, whom he detested with every fibre of his being.

 

The moon slid out from the clouds and she caught a movement in the yard, looked down and saw Ben Cartwright walking slowly to the corral. She watched as he stopped , leaned upon it and placed one foot on the lower rung, then raised his pipe to his mouth. She could see the smoke he puffed into the night air and she wondered what he was thinking, whether or not he had been a friend to her father for he had never mentioned Frank, just brief references should she have raised the subject of him.

 

She sighed and returned to the bureau, glanced down at her letter and pushed it aside. What did it matter? In the whole scheme of things what did anything matter? After a few years big issues were forgotten, ignored, pushed aside and new ideas and causes rose in their stead. Everyone ended up as ash eventually. Stands Alone was dead and gone, what did he care about any of his descendants now who could be starving on some reservation eking out some meagre existence.

 

She sat down on the side of the bed and put her face into her hands. She was miserable, she was alone and miserable. As she listened now to the night sounds, heard the tick of the clock, the soft thud of a door closing, she wondered just who it was Abel Greigson had taken to the dance, and whether either of them had enjoyed it. In her heart of hearts she hoped they had not.

…………………..

 

Ben Cartwright closed the door behind him and walked to his chair by the great hearth, he eased his bones into it and then puffed a few smoke rings into the air. He had been thinking of how he had felt that day when he had seen the ranch burning, how he had felt despair and rage against the loss, against the wretched man who had caused it. Now here he was in a room as close to a replica of the original as they could have got it.

 

He half closed his eyes and thought over the events of the day, of the children that had added laughter and chatter to what had become a silent house until Hannah had been born. He gathered up his tobacco pouch and added a little more to the bowl, puffed a little as he tamped it down. So many changes and how many times had he considered them over the years?

 

His thoughts slipped to the girl who was their visitor…for no one had changed so much, in his view, than Peggy Dayton. Or had she changed really? He remembered when she was born, how Frank Dayton had swaggered into the Sazarac and ordered drinks all round, he had a daughter, better though had it been a boy. But they had laughed and congratulated him for he had been happy then, proud of his baby despite the disappointment of its gender.

 

He could recall seeing him with the child, always a beaming smile on his face when he was with her, and Peggy had been a sweet natured child, with a stubborn streak in her and a mulish look on her face if things didn’t go her way. He remembered one time when he had thought ’She is just like her father…’

 

He puffed a cloud of smoke that hovered over his head for some seconds before it faded away….no doubt about it, Peggy had grown up to be just like Frank Dayton, with a dash of Laura. No wonder the poor girl was so angry all the time.

 

The faithful old time keeper chimed the hour and Ben sighed, leaned forward to tap out the dead ash from his pipe and set it on the rack with the others. There had been that time when Joe had been badly injured, and Peggy had made a visit then…she had been a happy young girl just blossoming into womanhood. Happy, laughing, teasing Joe, and getting along so well with Barbara. He sighed, something had happened to change her, or, to bring out the worse elements in her. The happy teasing girl had gone, and this angry changeling had taken her place.

 

Ben rose to his feet and stretched, shook his head, it was a shame when a person changes so much, almost like a loss, to be lamented over.