Springwater Seasons Page 6

  “I’d be happy to visit Emma,” she said.

  He stared at her. Having been braced for a rebuff, he was unprepared for an acceptance. “Oh, well, when?” he stumbled out, once his own face had had time to turn good and red.

  “Whenever it’s convenient,” she answered blithely. “Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps?”

  Trey swallowed, thinking of the rough accommodations he and his daughter shared. There was only one bedroom, and that was Emma’s. He was usually downstairs half the night, and when he did sleep, he just stretched out on the old couch next to the stove. They had no fancy dishes, and no pictures on the walls, unless you counted the page Emma had torn from a wall calendar, a few years before, a simple rendering of an Indian girl on a pony, watching the moon rise. “Tomorrow afternoon,” he echoed, and damn near choked on the words.

  “Two o’clock?” she prompted. He couldn’t tell if she was laughing at him or not, behind that placid schoolmarm expression on her face, and at the moment he didn’t care. She was coming for a visit, and Emma would not be let down. For the time being, nothing else mattered. Nothing in the world.

  “Two o’clock,” he said, and turned to go so fast that he damn near stumbled over his own feet and landed face down in a puddle of rainwater, mud, and horse-piss. As it was, Jacob McCaffrey almost ran him down with a buckboard.

  CHAPTER

  4

  RACHEL HAD DONNED her best clothes—the black sateen skirt and snowy white shirtwaist—for the call on the Hargreaves household. Her hair was done up in a tidy chignon and she walked proudly, briskly, as was her normal way, with her chin up and her gaze fixed straight ahead.

  In front of the Brimstone Saloon, she stopped and debated her means of entrance. Odd that she hadn’t thought of this before, she reflected uneasily. Visiting a student was one thing, but walking straight through the front doors of such a place in the broad light of day was entirely another. Schoolteachers were held to exceedingly high standards of morality and personal decorum, and many had been dismissed for far lesser infractions. Perhaps, she thought, chewing her lower lip, there was a rear door.

  “Changing your mind?” Trey asked, nearly startling her out of her skin. He stood just inside, and held one of the swinging doors aside for her. “This is mighty important to Emma.”

  Rachel was indignant at the mere suggestion that she would have been so rude as to turn around and flee at the very threshold of a pupil’s home. “I was merely wondering,” she said, keeping her voice low in case the child was nearby, “if there was another way in.”

  A grin spread across Trey’s face. “Well,” he said, “as it happens, there is. You might have found it, if you’d bothered to look behind the saloon. It’s been my experience that rear doors are almost always situated in the back of a building. However, since you’ve already made a spectacle of yourself, you might as well come right on in.”

  Rachel passed him with a regal stride, which was not easy, given her rather unregal size of five feet, two inches. She glanced about curiously, once inside, for of course she had never set foot in an establishment of that sort before, and she collected and treasured new impressions the way other people gathered postage stamps or pressed flowers for their scrapbooks.

  No lamps were lit, and the shadowy dimness lent the long room an air of mystery, not unlike the innermost parts of a harem, or the secret chamber in some fairy-tale castle. There were two large tables, for billiards or pool, along with a number of smaller ones, some with bare tops, others covered in felt. A roulette wheel took up a good part of one wall, giving the lie to Rachel’s own naive assumption that there was no gambling going on beneath Trey’s roof, and the bar itself seemed as long as a boxcar, with a glistening mirror behind it. Although she naturally had no standard by which to judge it all, Rachel was sure that the Brimstone was especially well-appointed, for a Western drinking hall. A few customers, careful to keep their heads ducked and their hat brims pulled low, lingered here and there, in isolated silence, nursing their drinks.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel could see that Trey was enjoying her discomfiture, try though she had to hide it from him, and that stirred an irritation in her that she wouldn’t even have tried to master, if she hadn’t known how very important this visit was to Emma. June-bug had been baking all morning, and just over an hour ago she’d sent Toby to the Brimstone with her only tea set, as well as enough molasses-oatmeal cookies to feed the nearest cavalry regiment. Toby’s reward, upon returning from this errand, had been a feast of sweets that had left him rolling on his cot and holding his belly. Jacob was planning to lecture him on the virtues of moderation, and the McCaffreys themselves had had words over the incident, Jacob maintaining that encouraging greed was no favor to the child, June-bug retorting that the poor little scamp probably hadn’t had anybody to fuss over him in the whole of his life.

  Just as Rachel’s eyes were adjusting to the light, she caught a glimpse of Emma, standing at the top of the stairway at the back of the room. The little girl had tied a blue ribbon in her hair, to match the pretty calico dress she’d worn for the occasion, and her smile was so tentative, so eager, that Rachel immediately put aside all her differences with Trey and focused her attention on the child.

  “Emma,” she said, “you look very lovely.”

  Emma’s long, raven-dark eyelashes lowered, just for a moment, in shy pleasure. “Thank you, Miss English,” she said. “We’ve got cookies. And tea, too. At least, we will have, once I pour hot water over the leaves of orange pekoe in Mrs. McCaffrey’s china pot.”

  Rachel went willingly up the stairs, Trey close behind her. “I have been anticipating this visit ever since your father invited me yesterday,” she said. “Tell me, Emma, what is your favorite subject in school? I know you like to read—you told me that when I first met you, at the Wainwright ranch. But what else do you enjoy? History? Geography? Ciphering?”

  Emma’s dark eyes were alight. “I like writing, Miss English. I want to make books someday.”

  Rachel reached the landing, and barely stayed herself from embracing the child. It was important to tread carefully, when meeting with new students, especially sensitive ones, like Emma. She might misinterpret an overly avid interest as condescension or pity, and if that happened, the delicate rapport between teacher and pupil could be damaged beyond repair. “What sort of books?” She laid a hand on Emma’s shoulder and allowed the little girl to lead her into the living area she and her father shared. “True ones, or stories?”

  Emma fairly glowed. “Stories,” she confided, with a note of wonder.

  “Then we must center our efforts on your composition skills,” Rachel said. “Though, mind you, arithmetic and history are important, too, as is geography. We can’t give those subjects short shrift.”

  “Short how-much?” Emma asked, brow furrowed.

  Rachel explained the meaning of the phrase, and found herself in the midst of a pleasant if simply furnished room. Three chairs had been drawn up to a worn but solid-looking oaken table, and June-bug’s cheerful tea service was set out with such care that Rachel’s heart tightened for a moment, just to look at it. A plate of the savory cookies was on prominent display as well. There was no cookstove—merely a potbellied affair with a black kettle on top—and no settee or decorations of any kind, save a tattered calendar page showing a young Indian girl on a spotted pony silhouetted against a giant moon.

  It wasn’t difficult to work out why Emma would favor such an image, of course; she was proud of her heritage, and Rachel was glad to know it. Too many children of mixed ancestry, and adults as well, were treated as if they were inferior to others. The decision of whether or not to accept that assessment of one’s self, however, in Rachel’s considered opinion at least, remained a matter of personal choice.

  Trey cleared his throat, and Rachel turned to look at him. He was obviously uncomfortable with the whole fuss—her presence, the china tea things borrowed from June-bug, perhaps even the cookies—but he
was willing to endure it all for Emma’s sake. Knowing that made Rachel think better of the man—though only slightly, she decided. If he was really as interested in giving his daughter a normal life as he made himself out to be, would he be willing to raise her over a saloon?

  And were those bullet holes, there in the wall next to the stove? Rachel squinted, uncertain.

  Emma dragged back one of the chairs, the place of honor, Rachel suspected. Her small face was bright and earnest. “Sit down, Teacher.” She glanced up at her father, whose face Rachel could not see, since he was standing just behind her. “I mean, please sit down.”

  Rachel made something of a show of settling herself in the chair; it was an occasion for Emma, and for that reason she would savor every moment, every sip of tea. She would certainly consume at least one of the cookies as well, even though they were the size of saucers and sure to spoil her supper. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Now you can sit down, Pa,” Emma told Trey. Some of the child’s anxiety had ebbed away, but her eyes were still bright with pleasure.

  “Thanks—er, thank you very much,” Trey replied, with an elegant bow to his daughter, who beamed in delight. What an engaging child Emma was, Rachel thought, with yet another twinge in her heart.

  When Trey was seated, Emma got the tea kettle from the stove, using both hands and a dish towel to grasp the handle, and lugged the steaming water over to the table, there to fill June-bug’s china pot. Rachel sensed that Trey was poised to leap, in case the child’s hold should slip, as she was herself, but in the end it was a good thing neither of them moved. Emma managed the task on her own, with an awkward competence.

  Although Rachel would often, over a period of many years, try to recall the conversation that followed, somehow it always remained elusive and somehow magical, like the shadow of a unicorn, barely glimpsed at the edge of a moon-splashed clearing. She remembered that they laughed, the three of them, and surely they must have talked about school and lessons, but Rachel could never call the precise words and topics back to her mind.

  At the end of the visit, she and Emma were fast and lifelong friends, although she still had her reservations about Trey. He was an enigma, a purveyor of whiskey and the lord of a gambling den, and yet he was plainly an attentive parent. Few men of his inclinations, Rachel knew, would have endured a tea party on any account.

  Good-byes were said, and Rachel rose to leave, this time by the rear door, belated as that effort seemed. Emma, humming under her breath, carefully cleared away the remains of the cookies and tea, while Trey escorted their guest down the back stairs.

  “Mr. Hargreaves,” Rachel said, when they reached what would have been an alley, had there been any other buildings around, “you have raised a remarkable daughter.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t mind telling you that it still worries me, though, her growing up in a saloon.” She was thinking of the bullet holes again, the ones in the wall by the stove. If indeed that was what they were.

  Trey’s eyes narrowed a little, and some of the luster went off his grin. “We live real simple, Miss English,” he said, “but Emma’s getting a decent raising. You don’t believe me, you just ask Miss June-bug. She’s no great admirer of mine, Jacob’s missus, but even she will tell you that I look after my little girl. For one thing, maybe you didn’t notice, but Emma’s got shoes on her feet, good ones, and when your pupils start trailing in toward the last of August, you’ll find out that’s uncommon out here. Most of those kids will be lucky to have shoes before it snows.”

  Rachel rested her hands on her hips. “I’m not implying that you don’t provide for Emma,” she said, in a conscientious whisper, “nor do I doubt for a moment that you love her. What concerns me is,” she gestured toward the hulking saloon, “this … this place. Mr. Hargreaves, I am admittedly a greenhorn, but I do know bullet holes when I see them. Surely you can imagine the danger to Emma—”

  Trey’s jaw clamped down hard, and she watched, fascinated and a little unnerved, as he made a visible effort to relax it. “Emma did that herself, playing with one of my pistols six months back. It was the first and last time I ever paddled her. Good God, do you think I’m just going to stand there and let some drifter empty a pistol into the place where my daughter lives?”

  Rachel drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He’d convinced her by the sheer righteous indignation of his response. “Perhaps I have been a bit unreasonable—”

  “A bit unreasonable? You practically came right out and said you don’t trust me to take care of my own child!”

  Rachel closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” she paused miserably. “It’s just that—”

  Trey released a sharp sigh and looked exasperated, though whether with her or with himself, she couldn’t quite tell. Maybe it was a little of both. “I guess I might have reacted a mite too strongly myself,” he surprised her by admitting. “It’s just that usually, when folks feel called upon to express an opinion about Emma’s raising, they say I ought to send her away again, to some school, maybe. I don’t cotton to that kind of interference.”

  Rachel, calm again, back in control of herself, held up a hand to snag a certain phrase from the stream of what he’d just said. “Just a moment. What do you mean, ‘send her away again’? Are you saying that you didn’t raise Emma?”

  He looked away, then back again. “Up until she was eight, Emma lived with my mother’s people, over in Choteau—specifically her second cousin Jimpson’s widow, Miss Ionie. Miss Ionie was old, though, and she passed on four years ago, so I brought Emma home. She’s been with me since then.”

  Rachel stood there, absorbing all that she’d just heard. Perhaps she’d been too hasty in giving Trey credit for his daughter’s intelligence and good manners, she concluded. Perhaps it was the late Mrs. Jimpson who had deserved the acclaim. “I see,” she said.

  “No,” Trey argued quietly, sharply, “you don’t see. You probably figure I wanted to be shut of Emma so I could have myself a high old time building my saloon. The fact is, she was only a baby when her mother died, and I was out of my mind with grief. I asked Miss Ionie to take Emma in and she did, God rest her soul. But there was never a day of the time we were apart, Emma and I, that I didn’t think of her and wish I could bring her here to be with me.”

  “But you didn’t,” Rachel said, without rancor. “Not until Miss Ionie died and you had no other choice.”

  “It wasn’t like that, damn it!” Trey snapped.

  “I believe you!” Rachel snapped back, and was surprised to realize it was true. Which wasn’t to say she didn’t still have concerns for Emma’s safety and well-being. It might be prudent, she decided, to alter the course of present conversation. “Perhaps you could build a house, just a small one—”

  Trey made a move to snatch his hat off and slap it against his thigh, something Rachel had already cataloged as one of the gestures he made when he was exasperated, but the whole exercise was futile because he wasn’t wearing a hat. “I’m not Scully Wainwright,” he said. “I’ve got practically every cent I have tied up in that saloon!”

  Rachel frowned. “What on earth does Scully have to do with this?”

  “He’s got a fine, fancy house. Horses and cattle. Money.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t have any of those things. Not yet, anyway, though I mean to get them, you can be sure of that. Until I do, Teacher, Emma and I are going to go right on living in those rooms up there.” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder without looking back. “If you’ve got any other opinions to offer, I’d appreciate it if you’d just keep them to yourself!”

  “You really are irascible,” Rachel said, her hands back on her hips. “I’m sorry we started this conversation at all.” It had, after all, gotten them nowhere.

  “So am I,” Trey bit out. Then he turned on one boot heel and stormed away, and so ended the first and almost certainly the last tea party ever held within the w
alls of the Brimstone Saloon.

  *

  “Well?” June-bug demanded eagerly, the moment Rachel set foot inside the station. “How did things go, over there at Trey’s place?”

  Rachel frowned, wondering what her friend expected of a simple student-teacher visit. She’d seen something of the same attitude in Evangeline, on that first evening at the ranch, a watchfulness where she and Trey were concerned. A subtle but still unsettling interest in the lively dynamics between them.

  Rachel shrugged, although she did not cherish a single hope that the gesture would circumvent June-bug’s curiosity. “It all went very well,” she said, approaching a table set square in a spill of daylight from a high window, where the other woman was busy cutting out another pair of boy-sized trousers. “You were right about Emma. She really is a special child—the sort a teacher comes across only once or twice in a career, I suspect.”

  June-bug nodded. She wasn’t dismissing Emma’s exceptional qualities by refraining from comment, Rachel knew; the other woman had accepted them as fact, long since, and probably saw no need to elaborate. “And Trey? Did he stick it out, or head for the hills?”

  At last, Rachel smiled. “He wanted to run like a rabbit,” she confided, “but he stayed for Emma. It was a little like watching a man try to sit still in the middle of a bonfire.”

  June-bug laughed. “He’s a hand with the women, Trey is, but I reckon it’s been a spell since he sat himself down to take tea and cookies with a pair of respectable females. My goodness, I’d have given a good laying-hen to see that.”

  Rachel glanced toward the closed door of the small room behind the cook stove, where Toby slept. “How is the boy?”

  June-bug gave a fond smile. “He’ll be all right. Just et too many cookies, poor little feller. Now that he’s done chuckin’ ’em up, he ought to get better right fast.”