Sonnet
By
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know;
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty;  never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be leveled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

As Adam rode into Virginia City, he thanked his lucky stars that this ordeal was behind him.  A simple trip out to the mining camp to check on operations and look over the books should never have taken nearly two weeks.  It had been too long since any of the Cartwrights had been out there, and he had found the camp mismanaged, the conditions unsafe, and the overworked men discontent and in a grumbling, dangerous mood, ready to turn on the management and the owners at one more provocation, real or imagined.

    No one wanted to let him get close to the books, and Adam soon found out why when he talked to some of the angry workers.  Adam had fired the foreman and his henchmen, and had recruited the other workers to his side by helping them shore up the weakened tunnels with timber that had been delivered from the Ponderosa some time ago for that purpose, but had instead been sold, little by little, by the foreman and his gang to a rival timber supplier to make an extra profit on the side.  Some of the tunnels still weren’t safe, but Adam told the new foreman to keep his workers out of them until more timber was delivered.  That meant, of course, another trip to the camp in the near future to be certain that this time, things were done right.

    Adam wiped a grimy hand across his forehead.  He knew his face must be as dirty as his hands and clothes.  He watered his weary horse outside the Silver Dollar Saloon, and splashed some of the water over his neck, face, and dark hair.  A drink to wash away the dust and a bite to eat sounded mighty fine right now.  Sport tossed his head and neighed at him.  Adam smiled, and stroked his neck.  “We’ll be home soon, my friend,” he said.  As he walked around the hitching post onto the board sidewalk, his eyes fell on the alleyway next to the saloon.  His thoughts drifted back to a day about a month earlier, when he and Joe had been in town to get supplies.

    In the alley between the Silver Dollar Saloon and the livery, a young lady in a light blue dress with long sleeves and a  high collar was stooped beside a figure in rags lying on the ground covered with a thin blanket.  The lady spoke to the person lying before her, who stirred, clutched a bottle close, and finally spoke.

    Adam and Little Joe recognized both of them.  The young lady was Jenny, who lived adjacent to the Ponderosa with her parents on a small piece of property.  The person lying on the ground was Roberta, a saloon girl from the Bucket of Blood, who was dying from the pox.  The madam at the saloon threw her out as soon as she discovered the girl had the disease, and refused to let her take refuge in the alley next to that establishment.  Desperate, Roberta drummed up what business she could next to the Silver Dollar with miners and lumberjacks who were either too drunk to notice her condition, or too hopeless and penniless anymore to care.  Her services earned her a moth-eaten, worn blanket, a few extra clothes, and a bottle to ease her pain.  Though many of Virginia City’s decent citizens complained about Roberta, and demanded that she at least move out of view of the main street in town, the madam at the Silver Dollar refused to force the girl to move, and even helped her occasionally by giving her another bottle of whiskey, or another blanket, though she did make it clear that Roberta was to stay out of the saloon and away from the patrons who frequented her girls’ rooms, as well as telling her girls to stay away from her.

    Roberta was not the first young prostitute to fall prey to a social disease.  Such occurrences were more and more common in Virginia City.  Most women in such a position killed themselves rather than go through the horrifying, living death brought on by the pox, or other unmentionable diseases.  Most hoped they would be killed by jealous lovers before they went through the torments of such a horrible death, or became too old and ugly to be attractive to the men.  The young men were warned by Doc Martin and his assistant, as well as by their fathers, but many of the young men winked to one another and watched as their fathers and the doctor’s young assistant visited those women’s rooms late at night and sneaked out either in the early morning or 30 minutes later, depending on how much they paid.  They fully intended to have their fun before they married a decent woman.  How could they possibly get a disease like that?  They were going to settle down later, weren’t they?

    Adam and Joe watched as Jenny left a little food, a flask of water, and some money with Roberta.  They weren’t the only ones watching.  Most of the citizens of Virginia City had stopped what they were doing, and stared at her, or so it seemed to Adam.  Matrons’ heads drew together and disapproving stares and whispers began.  Some men looked at one another and laughed knowingly, while others looked on silently or turned aside in shame.

    Jenny stood, and with a last compassionate word to the woman before her, went to the sidewalk before the livery and gave her hand to her three year-old niece, whom she had told to stay there and wait for her.  As she returned to her wagon loaded with supplies, women moved out of her way, sweeping their skirts away from her.  Daughters were pulled aside.  Men either gawked at her, or touched their hats and ducked their heads.  Jenny took no notice, but lifted her niece onto the wagon seat, and carefully climbed up beside her.  Adam smiled to himself when he recalled how heedlessly he had seen her ride her horse alone, astride as often as not, with her hair flying in the wind.  Now, her light brown hair was flawlessly curled and pinned under her hat, and her dress was neat and free of dust, despite the dry wind blowing the dust about the hot, dry town.

    Two women approached Adam and Joe, pulling their daughters after them along the sidewalk.  “Imagine!” exclaimed one.  “That hussy!  Who does she think she is?  And with that child of sin, pretending she’s her aunt!  As though we don’t all know what they both are!”

    “It takes one to know one,” the other woman agreed.

    As they approached the Cartwright brothers, the women smiled, and the daughters inclined their heads ingratiatingly.  Joe and Adam smiled and touched their hats in return.  Joe felt that if he had to force his mouth up any more, he might crack his face.

    Without speaking, they threw the last of the feed bags into the wagon, and moved as one toward Jenny’s wagon in front of the general store.  Jenny was trying to turn the wagon so she could go home.

    “Jenny!” called Joe.

    Jenny looked about her, but didn’t see them in the busy street.  Adam reached the wagon and jumped up beside her, followed by Joe, who climbed up the other side.  Startled, Jenny stopped the horses and stared at one, and then the other.  “What’s wrong?”

    Adam and Joe just looked at her, uncertain what to say or do, as Jenny returned their gazes with a puzzled look.  “What’s wrong?” she repeated.

    “You shouldn’t – you should – be more careful,” said Joe apologetically.  As Jenny stared at him, Adam took the reins and pulled the wagon back along the sidewalk.

    “What we mean,” he said gently, “is that people misunderstand when you help someone like – like you just did.  Not that you shouldn’t have helped her,” he hastened to add, and Joe sputtered his agreement.  “You have to realize that – well – people think that –“

    “I know what they think,” Jenny replied evenly and quietly.  “I’m accustomed to it.  Believe me, I’m used to people’s ‘misunderstandings’.  It doesn’t really matter to me what they think.”

Joe thought of what the women had just said about Jenny and her niece.  “We don’t mean that,” he said earnestly.  “If you talk to – help – a – a woman like that, then, well….  Maybe you should….”   He let the sentence dangle lamely, wondering how to tell her not to let people see her do something that obviously needed to be done.

    “She needs help, Joe,” Jenny almost pleaded.  “She needs a doctor.  Men have been using her for years.  That’s why she needs help.  Who will help her now?”  Joe and Adam looked down, unwilling to meet her gaze.

    “Uh, Ma’am -”  A cough and a series of wheezing gasps drew their attention to the street next to them.  A stooped, grizzled miner stood next to the wagon with his dirty, misshapen hat in his hand.  His greasy hair fell lankly over his face, which was creased with wrinkles.  His clothes were ill-fitting and dirty.  When the coughing fit subsided, he said, “I can tell the doctor about the lady, if it pleases you, Ma’am.”

    Jenny eyed him suspiciously.  His blue eyes were bleary and his nose reddened from too much alcohol.  She could smell him even over the horse dung and other smells of the city street.

    “The doctor can’t do anything for that woman,” said Adam, sounding almost defensive.  He recognized the man as one of the town derelicts, who spent all his time gambling with others down on their luck and drinking up his winnings.

    “That’s right,” agreed Joe.

    “How do you know?”  asked Jenny.

    “He could give her some laudanum, Ma’am, if he would,” said the miner.  “That’s ‘bout the only thing that’s gonna help her now.”  He paused as he stared at Jenny.  It had been a long time since he had spoken with a lady, and such a pretty one at that.  Usually, the ladies hurried to the other side of the street as he approached.  Even some of the loose women of the town wouldn’t talk to or associate with him.  He considered this woman before him to be one of the finest ladies he had ever seen or known.  “My name’s Charlie, Ma’am.  And I’ve tried to help Miss Roberta here, but I believe that Doc Martin is the only one who can help her now, if he will.”

    “Why haven’t you spoken to the doctor before this?” demanded Jenny.

    The miner coughed again.  “Well, Ma’am,” he spluttered, “most people won’t listen to the likes of me.  But I -” Jenny waited patiently as he again hacked and gasped – “I took a liking to Miss Roberta a long time ago – no offense to you, please, Ma’am – and I try to help her however I can.  Perhaps if you speak to the doctor on her behalf…”  He gave a tremendous sneeze – “he’d listen to you better than me?”  He wiped his nose on his dirty sleeve and fixed her with a hopeful stare.

    Jenny wondered if she was the object of a practical joke.  She looked at Adam and Joe, but they gave her no indication that her suspicion was correct.  If this miner was making fun of her, or joking with her, Jenny was certain that they would speak up.  But their faces showed only apprehension and concern.  Jenny had been escorted to a dance by Adam, and had gone riding with him several times, and with Little Joe a few times, and she knew that they would never allow this man to take advantage of her.

    “I’ll go speak to Doctor Martin,” she said.

    Adam took hold of her wrist.  “No!” he exclaimed.

    Jenny tried to pull away.  “But he’ll listen to me!”

    Adam held on to her firmly.  “No,” he repeated.

    “But Adam…”

    “I’ll talk to him,” said Adam.

    Jenny looked at him, then at Joe.

    “I’ll go with him, and talk to him, too,” said Joe hesitantly.

    “You mean it?” asked Jenny.  “You’re not just saying this to – to get me to be quiet and go home?”  She looked at the miner, who hadn’t stopped staring at her.

    “He’ll listen to the Cartwright boys,” the miner said approvingly.

    Jenny still wondered if this was a set-up, but one more look at Adam’s and Joe’s faces convinced her that they were sincere.  “All right,” she said, hoping their sincerity wouldn’t disappear as soon as her wagon was out of sight.  “I’ll trust you to go to the doctor, and get her the help she needs.”  She took the reins from Adam, and waited for him and Joe to get down.

    “I’ll ride with you to the edge of town,” said Adam, and gently took the reins back from her.  “Joe, why don’t you stay with our wagon until I get back?”  Joe climbed down from the wagon, and Adam escorted Jenny through the noisy, disapproving throng in the streets.

    The red-headed woman hidden behind a tree at the top of the bank near the stream watched and listened.  She had heard and seen the eagle, but the rabbit was too far away for her to see.  She knew, however, that the eagle’s prey had just had a close call, and wondered how much longer she and her friends could keep going before they, too, were snared, throttled, slaughtered, and devoured.  She peered around the tree, and looked about cautiously.  There appeared to be no one in sight, but she couldn’t be too careful.  They had seen a fence a while ago, as they came out of the foothills near the Sierra Nevada range, and had quickly gone out of sight of it, hurrying toward the trees, so they could get under cover, and hopefully near water again.  She stiffened as she heard a shout, and ducked behind the tree again.

    A small girl with light brown braids coming undone and dress flying about ran into her view.  She gave a mighty yell accompanied by a flying leap, and landed on a mounded hump of dirt covered with scrubby grass and weeds.  Dust flew up about her and settled upon her hair, face, and clothes, turning her dress from blue to brown.  A young lady with her hair pulled back and fastened under her hat appeared shortly, holding her dress so she didn’t trip over it, hurrying yet managing to appear ladylike as she scurried to catch up with the child.  Before she could reach the hillock where the little girl perched, the child gave a shout, leaped up, and ran toward the stream.

    The red-headed woman threw herself to the ground and crawled desperately back down the bank, heedless of the additional dirt and grass stains on her dress.  She heard a tremendous shout – a man’s shout – and knew he was after her.  Her breath caught in her throat as she scuttled under the overhanging bush by the stream with her companions. She could only hope the mule was hidden well enough, and he wouldn’t see it, or them.  Terrified, she curled herself into a ball and willed her gasping, wheezing breath to stop and her pounding heart to still.

    “Who said you could go down by the stream?”  The angry voice approached.

    He was coming.  What a fool she’d been, to think she could escape him again.  She’d run away before, and he’d come after her, always tracking her down, finding her, - and forcing her back.

    “What do you think you’re doing, running off down here, and no one with you?”  He was at the top of the bank.

    “But Grandpa, Aunt Jenny was right behind me” – a little girl’s voice began.

    “No, she wasn’t!  You ran off and left her!  You could fall down the bank and hurt yourself, or fall in the water!  You don’t go down near the stream without someone holding your hand!”  The last statement was spoken with great emphasis given to each word.

    In her hiding place, the woman opened her eyes.  His voice didn’t sound the way she remembered.  She lifted her head and twisted her neck around to carefully peer back up the bank.  The same child and young lady she had seen before stood at the top of the bank.  A man with dark, curly hair with more than a touch of gray stood next to them.

    “I’m here now, Father,” said the young woman, as she took the little girl’s hand.  “Don’t yell at her.  She’s just excited.  I can take her down.”

    “No!  She’s too wild right now, and apt to get into trouble.  Stay up here!”

    “We need to get back home, anyway.”  An older woman’s voice from further away floated down the bank.  “We’ve visited, had our picnic, and run and played and talked.  I need to finish some mending and get dinner started, and the chores need to be done.”

    The child’s face fell in disappointment.  “Never mind, Karen, we’ll go down another time,” said her aunt.  “Let’s go look at my flowers while Grandma gathers the picnic things.”  Karen yielded to the gentle tug on her hand, and allowed the young lady to lead her away.  The man followed them.

    A deep longing stirred within Elise from her hiding place.  That and curiosity conquered her fear, and she emerged from the bushes and crawled carefully back up the bank.  A muffled whimper of terror followed her.  “Don’t worry, Mai Ling,” she said quietly over her shoulder.  “It wasn’t him.  Stay with Marabelle.  I’ll be right back.”

    Just below the top of the bank, she stopped, then carefully lifted her head and peered over.  The young child and her aunt – Karen and Jenny, Elise told herself – were walking up a slight hill, their backs to her, toward a couple of lone trees standing in the midst of open grassland stunted here and there with bushes.  A wagon approached, going slowly over the bumpy ground.  As it came closer, she saw it was driven by a boy of about eight or nine.  A woman sat next to him holding a baby.

    “What are you doing?” asked the man.  The woman in the wagon said something about bringing the wagon to everyone instead of waiting for everyone to come to the wagon.  The man threw his head back and laughed, a long, loud laugh from his heart.  He took the baby from his wife’s arms and held him closely and carefully to him, stroking his hair and kissing him before giving him back.  Then he turned and gave a trilling whistle.

    Elise followed his gaze.  His granddaughter and her aunt were kneeling by the trees, carefully admiring and touching something Elise couldn’t see.  They looked back at the sound of the whistle, and Jenny waved to him to show she had heard.  After a moment longer, they stood and walked back to the wagon.  The grandfather picked up Karen and threw her in the back, to the sound of much giggling, and helped Jenny in more slowly.  The boy then climbed in the back, and the grandfather stepped up next to his wife, took the reins, turned the wagon, and drove out of Elise’s sight.

    Elise wished they would come back, so she could watch them some more, and listen to the grandfather laugh again.  She swallowed the lump in her throat, and was surprised to find herself fighting off tears.  She hadn’t cried since – when had she last cried?  Shortly after her parents had died, and she’d had to go live with her uncle and aunt, she had learned not to cry.  She shuddered at the memory of her uncle:  Such a seemingly genteel man, with a kind word for everyone, but who had stared at her all the time.  Shortly after she arrived at his home, the night time visits to her room had begun. At first, she was too horrified to resist. When she finally protested, he immediately warned her that any resistance on her part would make things worse for her.  He also informed her that if she ever told anyone about what they did, he would kill her.  But there was never any chance of her telling anyone about the terrible nights she spent in his house.  She knew that no one would believe her, and even if they had, they would look upon her with the same disgust and hatred that her aunt always had in her eyes whenever they were turned toward her.

    When her uncle had tired of her, he sold her to Clint.  What Clint did to her was far worse than anything her uncle had ever done.  She never cried there.  She also learned to instantly obey everything he wanted her to do, and to pretend she liked it, no matter how distasteful it was to her, and to never, ever show fear around him.  Mai Ling was so terrified of Clint that she shuddered visibly whenever he came around her.  Clint had fed off her fear as a leech fed on blood.

    Elise emerged slowly from the trees, looking about to be certain no one was watching her.  Keeping low to the ground, she went to the small stand of trees where she had seen Jenny and Karen.  Though it wasn’t far from where she had been hidden, it was further away than it seemed, and the gradual uphill slope winded her easily in her weakened state.  She saw the fabulous blossoms as she approached.  Someone had planted beautiful red roses by the trees, and had transplanted some wild prairie roses about them.

    Heedless of the danger of being in the open, Elise stood lost in thought.  Her mother had grown roses which Elise had helped tend.  All of her mother’s flowers had been lovely, just as she was.  Elise remembered how she had followed her mother, listening to her humming and singing to herself as she wandered through the garden, pruning, pulling weeds, and carefully choosing blooms to adorn their dining  room table.  Her father used to say that her mother helped the sun rise in the sky with her singing, and as Elise saw the mornings grow brighter around them, and her mother’s red hair shine in the sun, she believed him.

    Elise swallowed and pushed the memory away.  These flowers looked a bit scraggly.  They needed pruning.  She pulled a knife that she carried at her hip, and proceeded to cut them back.  She wondered how she could remember how to do this after all these years, but she did the task as though she had just done it yesterday.  She cut one blossom and trimmed the thorns.  Surely whoever planted these couldn’t begrudge her one flower.  The soil about them was dry, as was everything about her, but she could water them later.  The stream was nearby.

    She went back to her friends much more lighthearted than she’d felt in years.  “I brought us a flower,” she announced, as she crawled under the bushes.  “Someone planted rosebushes out here!  Isn’t it beautiful?”

    Mai Ling looked at the rose, then at Elise.  “Who were those people?”

    “A family.  They must live close by.”

    “Did they see you?”

    “No.”  Elise paused.  “They seem nice.  Maybe they’d help us.”  But she knew that no matter how nice they seemed, they were respectable, and would want nothing to do with the likes of them.

    Mai Ling looked at Marabelle.  “She’s getting worse.”

    Elise looked at their friend.  Open sores covered her face, and could also be seen on her arms and legs through rips in her sleeve and her skirt.  A rash of small blisters was starting to form again, after having disappeared earlier while they rested in the wilderness.

    “She’s so hot!” exclaimed Mai Ling.

    Elise gingerly touched a part of Marabelle’s face that didn’t have blisters or sores on it.  Her skin felt hot and leathery.  As she brushed her friend’s neck, she could feel swollen glands.  She moved her hand down to the enlarged belly, and felt the muscles contract briefly.  Marabelle groaned and drew her hands over her belly, curling into a ball on her side, squeezing her swollen red eyes tightly shut.

    Elise whispered to Mai Ling, “It can’t be her time yet!”  Mai Ling just looked at her with huge, frightened eyes.

    “Let’s get her a drink and sponge her off,” said Elise.  “Maybe we can wash our clothes out here.”  A fish splashed in a low-lying pool isolated from the stream during this dry spell by a fallen tree and other debris piled against it.  “Let’s make a fire, too,” said Elise, grateful for the Indians they’d encountered in the wilderness who had taught them how.

    “Someone will see it,” whimpered Mai Ling.

    “We have to chance it,” Elise countered.  “We can’t eat raw fish, and I’m sick of jerky.  We’re running low on food, anyway.”  She nodded toward Marabelle.  “Give her a drink and wipe her face, while I try to catch some fish.  She needs something good to eat.”

    Elise fashioned a hook and line from a twig and light-weight branches the way she had seen the Indians do a short while ago, and persisted until she had three fish.  Then she built a small fire in a hollowed-out semi-circle under the bank, prayed that the fire wouldn’t smoke or that the smoke would not be seen, let it burn low, and laid the fish on the hot coals.

    Meanwhile, Mai Ling lifted Marabelle’s head, brushed her dirty blonde hair out of the way, and gave her a drink of tepid water.  “If only it would rain!” thought the Chinese girl.  “We could be a little cleaner just by standing in it!”  She glanced at the sluggish, muddy water in the stream.  They might wash in that, only to come out dirtier than when they came in.  Perhaps they had to drink it, but they didn’t have to wash in it.  She wet the corner of her shawl in the water, and wiped her sick friend’s face and hands.

    As Elise brought a fish to Marabelle, she wondered if she would be able to eat it.  But the girl sat up, and despite the tremors that racked her body, reached hungrily for the food.  Elise looked at her stringy hair, the dirt covering her from head to toe, along with the sores ravaging her body, and wondered how much longer she could last.  They had to get to shelter;  they had to find someone with a kind heart who would help them, before the baby came;  before it was too late.  But Elise knew, despite her young age of not-quite-seventeen, that kind hearts would turn to stone against the three of them.  She also realized that no help would be freely given.  Everything had a price, and no one would do anything for her unless something was in it for them.  And all she knew how to give would be repulsed with disgust as long as anyone knew about Marabelle.

    “What a pity,” Elise thought, as she watched her hungry friend devour the fish.  Marabelle used to be so pretty.  Everyone wanted her.  Men even paid extra for her.  But now…they never knew her.  No one wanted her.  Nobody cared.

    Marabelle ate two fish and some jerky.  Mai Ling ate the other fish.  Elise just had jerky.  Elise and Mai Ling washed as well as they could in the muddy stream, and washed Marabelle as much as they dared.  As the sun set, they huddled under their thin blankets and went to sleep.

    Jake, the bartender, laughed.  “Yeah, right, Adam!  We’d all like that about now.”  He dispensed some brew in a glass and put it in front of his customer.  “Where have you been?  Looks like you’ve been gone for a while.”

    Adam took an appreciative sip.  “Off to check on some mining operations,” he said, hoping Jake wouldn’t ask any more questions.  He was sick of dealing with the problems there, and definitely wasn’t anticipating telling his father about how they’d been swindled.  No telling how much money they’d lost in that crooked scheme, not to mention the additional timber they’d have to cut now to shore up the mine.  He took another long drink.

    “You’ve been gone for a while.  Your pa was in town about – oh, maybe a couple days ago now, wondering if you’d been around.”

    Adam maintained his composure.  Of course his father had good reason to be concerned, but he didn’t want Jake knowing that.  “It just took me a little longer than usual, that’s all.”  Jake hurried away to answer the call of another customer.

    A few minutes later, Adam asked for another beer.  As Jake set it before him, Adam asked, “What happened to that girl in the alley?”

    “What girl in the alley?”

    “You know,” said Adam.  “Roberta.”

    “Oh!  Her!”  Jake shook his head and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.  “She’s gone, about three, four weeks now.”

    Adam looked thoughtfully at his friend.  “What happened to her?”

    Jake stared at him, and raised his eyebrows.  “What do you think happened to her?”

    “I mean, did she die, get driven away, get taken away, what happened to her?”

    “All I know is, she’s gone.”  Jake leaned close to him.  “Some say the doctor helped her,” he whispered.  “That she died right after he saw her.  I don’t know;  I didn’t see it.  But lots of them didn’t, either.  They carted her away shortly after his visit to her.”  He wiped a few glasses.  “What’s your interest in it?”

    Adam put his empty glass down.  “Just wondering.  I asked the doc to see her.  Wondered how she was.”

    “Well, now you know.  Doctor can’t do anything for someone like that.  Jake picked up his empty glass to refill it, but Adam held up his hand to stop him.

    “I’m heading home.  Don’t bother.”  He tossed another coin on the counter.

    “You sure?” asked Jake.  “We got lots of entertainment here later on, if you want to spend the night in town.”  He winked.

    Adam wondered how Jake could even suggest such a thing after seeing what had happened to Roberta.  He shook his head.  “Nope.  I’ve had enough trail dust to choke my horse, and seen enough ‘entertainment.’  I’ll see you around.”  He strode out the door, waved to some men playing cards by the window, and left the saloon.  Jake shrugged his shoulders as he watched him leave.
Later that night
 

Mai Ling woke before dawn, certain she heard someone at the top of the bank.  She strained her ears for the stealthy footsteps through the grass she was sure she had heard, and the soft crunch of booted feet in the dirt.  She barely muffled a scream as she heard some pebbles and small clods of dirt rustle through the grass and bushes near her.  She held her breath, pressing her face in the dirt beneath her, hoping that whoever it was wouldn’t notice them, and that their mule would be silent.  But the startled animal scrambled to its feet and strained against its tether.  A screeching bray echoed through the pre-dawn air, and the terrified girl wrapped her arms about her head.

    After what seemed to Mai Ling like several minutes of noise and struggle that could wake the dead, the mule settled back down with several loud snorts.  When the girl mustered the courage to uncover her head and look, she could see the animal’s shadow in the late moonlight that still glimmered over the very edge of the shallow ravine in which they were hiding.  She looked carefully about, but saw nothing and no one.

    The coyote that had caused the disturbance trotted nervously along the top of the ravine, searching for a place where it could get water undisturbed.  He was roaming far from his usual hunting grounds, looking for water and food after being driven away by roaming Indian tribes and increasing numbers of settlers searching for the same during this drought.  He had scented water and easy prey, but humans were also near by, and seemingly all about him, and he was nervous as he ran on.

    The minutes passed like hours as Mai Ling strained her ears to hear the slightest sound of anyone about them.  She heard only the soft wind in the trees, the call of a lonely owl, and the barely audible ripple of water in the disappearing moonlight.  Finally, she sat up slowly and carefully, cringing at the crackle of dead leaves and the snapping of twigs beneath her.  The moon set over the lip of the ravine, and she could barely see the darker shadow of the mule as it slept again.  She looked next to her, but it was too dark under the dense bushes where they hid to see her companions.  She could hear their breathing, but reached over and touched them blindly in the dark just to reassure herself of their presence.  Marabelle, next to Mai Ling, jumped when she was touched.  Elise, on the other side of Marabelle, stirred, yawned, and turned over.

    Driven by an impulse she did not understand, Mai Ling left the shelter of her tangled bush and stood for a moment in the dark beside it.  She looked in vain for a glimmer of light reflecting from the water she could barely hear, then turned the other way.  Blackness met her eyes.  She raised her head, and finally saw light far above her.  She wandered blindly forward, and stumbled on her hands and knees up the bank, until she reached the top.

    The moonlight still shone over the grassy meadow about her.  Bushes and trees stood out starkly against the flowing silver grass drenched in lustrous white.  She peered out at this strange world, feeling like a small, lost child. She hadn’t looked upon such a sight since her childhood in China.  She recalled the last sight of her homeland three years earlier, as her brother traveled with her to a ship to take her to America.

    She remembered the night before they arrived at the ship.  It was a beautiful, cloudless, moonlit night like this, with the shimmering grass flowing up the hillsides and the trees standing like sentinels.  She and her brother had slept one last night in the open, and he had told her, once again, that she would meet her cousin in San Francisco.  She was to travel with him to his home, where she would keep house for him, and he would eventually find her a suitable husband.  Mai Ling had clung to the memory of that last night of her free life with her brother many times during the years since then.

    She wished she could erase her memories from then on.  Her cousin had not taken her to his home, but had sold her to men of her own country who trained her for a life she never wanted to live.  Unable to escape from them, and with no place to go in a foreign country often hostile to her people even if she had managed to flee, she learned to please the men who came to her in order to survive.  She often wished to kill herself to end her misery, but lacked the courage to do so.  She was locked in the brothel, unable to leave.  Clint had bought her during one of his trips to San Francisco.  She had not seen a nighttime sky until the three of them had fled from Clint.

    Clint.  Was it he she had heard earlier?  Surely not.  He would have found them, with all the noise their mule had made.  Then again, perhaps he was waiting.  Waiting for daylight.

    The moonlight seemed suddenly revealing instead of beautiful, and Mai Ling shivered.  She moved away from the edge of the trees and slipped back down by the stream.  As she crawled about, vainly trying to locate her friends in the dark, she bumped into the mule.  She curled up next to him and lay sleepless until dawn.

    Jenny looked out the window.  The gusts of wind blew clouds of dust along the ground with tumbleweeds, leaves, and branches.  Spidery flickers of lightning briefly illumined the blackening sky, occasionally accompanied by thunder, but no rain fell.  The dust was getting in the house, despite the tightly shut windows and curtains.  She was sure it would be in their food.

    She looked about carefully.  A few hours ago, the cat, who had been sleeping soundly, had suddenly sat up, listened intently, then rushed to the window.  He jumped behind the curtains onto the windowsill, then exploded from there and hid under the bed in Jenny’s room.  Shortly after, Karen insisted she saw someone by the barn.  Jared had scoffed, making fun of her imaginary friends, but Jenny kept checking outside after that.  No one had been to the barn since early morning.  There was no sign of anyone outside now that she could see.

    Jenny wondered why her father had to leave now on business, and why her mother had accompanied him.  She realized that her father’s job representing a company that sold mining equipment, as well as his investigation into the sale of equipment needed for the establishment of factories in some parts of the West, kept him traveling, but there seemed  to be an unusual number of trips to Silver City lately.  Both of her parents went on those trips, while her father traveled alone on his other journeys.  Her father said Silver City wasn’t that far away, and it was a chance for her mother to get away with him, but Jenny doubted that was the only reason.  She wondered why her father would have to travel to one place so many times, even a boom mining town like Silver City.

    She dropped the curtain and went back to the stove.  They could eat an early supper, Jared could do the chores, and she’d put the younger children to bed.  She’d had Jared fill the bathtub for their evening bathing that morning, when she saw the storm coming, and it only needed some hot water added.  She knew after all the dust, they’d want to wash up thoroughly before bed.

    As she set the table, the cat emerged from hiding and watched her expectantly.  She looked at his sleek form and glossy black fur, and reminded herself that he didn’t need any tidbits during their meal.  She scraped the fat and meat scraps that she had saved for him from their stew onto a plate, and put it on the floor.  “Here you go, Comet,” she said.  He ran over to the plate with his tail waving in anticipation, sniffed at the offering, then moved in front of the stove and looked longingly at the pot of simmering stew above him.

    “Supper’s almost ready!” she called.  “Wash your hands.”  Karen and Jared came in the kitchen.  Karen pushed her stepstool to the sink, bumping it into Jared’s foot as he pumped the water.  Impatiently, he kicked it aside.  She shoved it right back, and before the incident could escalate into a major confrontation, Jenny spoke sharply.  David fussed and called from his cradle near one of the windows.  As Jenny took him to the bedroom to change him, she called over her shoulder, “Karen, finish setting the table, please.”

    She returned to the kitchen a few minutes later to find her niece pumping water into the sink.  As the flow reduced to a trickle, the cat put his head under it and drank.  When it stopped, he meowed loudly, and waited for her to pump some more.  She giggled and complied.  Jenny opened her mouth to reprimand the girl for wasting water during the drought and not finishing setting the table as she was told, when Comet suddenly took fright, leaped out of the sink, and bolted toward her.  He ran into her legs, nearly knocking her over, then almost tripping her.  As she caught her balance, she heard a horse whinny, and there were several loud raps on the door.  Karen leaped from her stool and ran across the kitchen.

    “Karen!” Jenny spoke sharply.  “Let me get it!”  She put David back in his cradle, and hurried to the door, where she had to pull the girl out of the way.  She pulled the door open, letting in the hot wind and dirt.

    A tall man stood there.  The lower half of his face was covered with a bandana.  He was so plastered with dirt and grime that she couldn’t tell what color his clothes were.  She stepped back in alarm.  He pulled the bandana below his chin and hurriedly caught the door with his other hand as she tried to close it.  “It’s me, Jenny.”

    “Adam!”  She recognized his voice, and let him in.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you!”  She gave him a glass of water, and he gratefully washed the grit from his mouth while she rinsed out his dirty canteen at the sink.  “What are you doing out in this storm?”

    “I’m on my way home from business at the mines,” he replied.  “I saw the storm coming after I left Virginia City, and should have gone back to town, but I was too anxious to get home.”

    “You can stay here tonight,” she told him.  “At least eat supper with us.”  She turned.  “Jared, see to Adam’s horse.”

    “No need for that,” assured Adam firmly.  He preferred to care for Sport himself.  “I’ll take care of him.”

    Jenny looked at Jared.  “Go do the chores, anyway.  We’ll eat after you both get back.”

    Jared and Adam worked in the barn with minimal conversation.  Adam was weary from his journey and frustrated with the problems from the mining camp, and Jared was rather in awe of this tall, handsome man who seemed larger than life to him.  Adam made some small talk with the boy, and discovered his grandparents were not at home.  He frowned.  Jenny staying alone with the children disturbed him, even after Jared assured him that Adam’s pa had agreed to look in on them a few times.  Adam determined then to spend the night in the barn.  Staying in the house would not be proper in these circumstances.

    After he cared for Sport, Adam helped Jared finish the chores.  Jared knew he shouldn’t let him, as Adam was a guest, but Adam insisted.  When they finished, and Jared was following Adam out of the barn, Jared heard a thump and a rustle, and what sounded like a gasp, followed by a suddenly stifled moan.  He turned quickly and looked behind him, but Adam had the lantern, and he could see nothing.

    Adam returned to his side.  “Something wrong?”

    “I thought I heard something – or somebody.”

    They both listened intently and heard only the wind, some far-off thunder, and the animals contentedly munching in their stalls.  “Maybe we should go take a look,” suggested Adam.

    “It was probably just the wind, the rats or mice, and maybe some of the barn cats,” said Jared.  “There’s some new kittens that are probably getting big up in the loft.”

    “There are?” Adam smiled.  “I hope I didn’t throw any of them down with the hay!”

    Jared laughed.  “If you had, you would have heard them.  I did it myself, once.”  Laughing together, they locked the barn door and went back to the house.

    The table was set, and Jenny was reading a story to the children when the man and boy returned from the barn.  She looked up as they entered.  “Jared, there’s warm water in the pitcher.”  She pointed to the wash stand near the door.  “Adam, there’s a bath waiting for you, and I’ve heated water to put in it.”  She rose and went to the stove, and started to lift the pan of water that was steaming on it.

    Adam stopped her.  “Jenny.  I don’t need a bath right now.  If I stay here, and it looks as though I have to, I’ll sleep in the barn, and take a bath when I get home tomorrow.”

    “Nonsense!” Jenny exclaimed.  “There’s no need for you to sleep in the barn, especially in this storm!  And,” she added with a twinkle in her eye, “if you’re eating with us, you need to bathe first.”

    Adam couldn’t help laughing.  He was tired, filthy, and knew he must stink.  A bath certainly did sound delightful right now.  He decided to bathe now and argue later.  As he lifted the heavy pan of hot water from the stove, he said, “Just don’t hold dinner for me.”

    Jenny smiled politely and led him to the bathroom.  As he added the hot water to the tub, she asked, “Do you have some clean clothes, or do you need me to wash some?”

    “I have some that are clean enough,” he replied.  When he’d realized his supposedly brief trip to the mines was going to be a long one, he had washed his own clothes in a nearby stream, and he had some that would do for tonight.  “They’re in my saddlebags, by the door,” he added.  Jenny brought the bags to him.

    After sweeping out the dirt tracked in by the door, she brought down from the shelves above the stove an apple pie that had been baked earlier in the week.  Her chief thought while preparing dinner had been to get one step closer to getting the children into bed and out of her hair, not feeding company.  Thank goodness she had made stew.  That would feed all of them, though it was a good thing, she thought, that it was Adam and not Hoss, Adam’s  bigger “little” brother, who had happened by.

    Adam hurried through his bath, and entered the kitchen as he finished buttoning his cream-colored shirt.  “I would wear a tie for the occasion,” he said, “but I’m afraid I lost it while I was in the mines.”

    Jenny and Jared laughed.  “What were you doing at the mines?” asked Jenny.  “Your father was by early this morning, and mentioned that you’ve been gone for two weeks.  He seemed worried about you.”

    Adam sighed.  “It’s a long story.  It was supposed to be a short trip, but it turned into a nightmare, which I will discuss with my father when I get home.”  Jenny took the hint, served the stew, and steered the conversation in a different direction.

    Everyone was hungry, and for the first several minutes, there was no talk except requests for more biscuits or stew.  Jenny had pushed back her plate with a sigh of satisfaction, and noticed happily that Adam seemed to be enjoying his meal (though he was probably so hungry that a two-by-four and a can of nails would have been appetizing).  Suddenly, she heard a familiar and aggravating sound:  Comet sharpening his claws on the doorjamb by the hall near the bedrooms.  She turned toward him.  “Comet!” she exclaimed.

    He looked at her with huge green-rimmed eyes filled almost completely with black pupils, twitched his tail, and climbed the doorjamb to the ceiling.  “Get down!” she shouted.  The cat climbed part way down, leaped to the floor, and in two bounds was on the table.  He snatched a piece of stew meat from Karen’s plate and jumped from the table like a jackrabbit, knocking over Karen’s milk in the process.  As she hurriedly mopped up the milk, Jenny saw him running to her bedroom with his tail held high and his trophy in his mouth.

    Jenny was angry for a moment, but soon joined everyone else in their laughter.  Adam laughed so hard that he nearly choked.  Even David smiled and laughed until he hiccuped with the effort.  “Let’s hope he’s happy with just one piece.”  Jenny threw the three napkins she had used to wipe up Karen’s milk toward the sink, and got another glass of milk from the pail brought in earlier.

    “Maybe you should feed him, Aunt Jenny,” said Karen.

    “I did – before dinner.  He has fat scraps and some meat, with a little gravy.  He wouldn’t eat it.  It’s still by the stove.”

    “He doesn’t like his water, either,” said Karen.  “That’s why I have to run water in the sink for him.  That’s how he likes to drink it.”  Adam nearly choked again.

    Jenny removed the dishes and served the apple pie.  Adam pronounced it the best he had ever eaten, but swore everyone at the table to secrecy, as Hop Sing, the Cartwright’s cook and housekeeper, would be very upset if he knew that Adam like anyone’s cooking better than his own.  Jenny, pleased and proud, smiled and thanked him.

    Jared looked timidly at Adam, swallowed a bite of pie, and said, “It’s a good thing you weren’t here the last time Aunt Jenny fixed dinner, Adam.”  He glanced slyly at his aunt, who frowned at him.

    “Why is that?” asked Adam.

    “Jenny made supper while Grandma and Grandpa were packing to go away,” said Jared a little more boldly.  “The broccoli…”

    “I suggest you hold your tongue, young man, unless you don’t want to go fishing and camping with your friends and their fathers in a couple of weekends,” said Jenny firmly.  She needed no tales of the worm-covered broccoli she had put on the table.  Her mother had laughed, thrown it away, and told her to soak it in salted water the next time.  But Jenny wasn’t about to let Jared get away with regaling Adam with this tale at her expense.

    “You can’t stop me from going on that trip!” Jared hotly shouted.  “That’s up to Grandpa, not you!”

    “You think I can’t talk him out of it?”  Jenny raised her eyebrows.  “Try me!”

    “Uh, Jared,” Adam intervened.  He leaned close to the boy.  “Tell me later,” he whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear.  “We might be able to use it as blackmail sometime.”  He winked at the boy.  Almost triumphant but still half scared, Jared glanced at his aunt.  To his surprise, she was laughing.

    Jenny made some tea as she washed the dishes.  “Adam, you can sleep in Mother and Father’s room.  I don’t expect them back for at least a week, and there’s no reason for you to go out to the barn tonight.  It’s too nasty outside, and you’ve been on the trail long enough.”

    “Would your father consider that proper?” asked Adam.

    Jenny was silent for a moment.  “He definitely would not consider it acceptable for you, a good friend of the family who has escorted me to dances and other events, whose father is a friend and neighbor, to sleep in the barn in a storm like this, especially after you’ve been on the road.  Please, if you won’t sleep in my parents’ room, sleep out here, on the couch.  It may not be long enough for you, though.”  She paused for a moment as she rinsed a glass.  “It’s not as though I’m alone.  Jared is here, and the younger children.  Besides, who is going to find out about it?  No one will see you as you leave in the morning , and we’re not doing anything improper, anyway.”  She looked at him as she finished the dishes.  “Please stay in the house.  I can’t let a guest who is a friend stay in the barn, especially on a night like tonight.”

    She didn’t add that she was desperate for adult company, or that she often was nervous when her parents were away.  Though she liked living in the wide open spaces, far enough from town to be alone, yet close enough to be within riding distance of help if necessary, taking care of three children, the house, and outdoor tasks by herself, with no help within calling distance, made her feel too responsible and frightened.  She would welcome his presence in the house, even for just one night.

    Adam gave in.  “All right,” he smiled.  “I’ll sleep out here, by the door, on the couch.”  He looked sternly at Karen.  “But everyone had better be good, behave, and go to bed on time.”  Karen nodded solemnly, but Jared smiled.  Jenny dried her hands and poured Adam a cup of tea, then began putting the Karen and David to bed.

    About an hour later, Jenny joined Adam in the sitting room, an area next to the kitchen in their small house.  She refilled Adam’s cup of tea, and got one for herself.  Jared crept into a chair across from Adam, while Comet leaped on Jenny’s lap, curled up, and murred and meowed, demanding to be petted.  “I didn’t sleep well last night,” Jenny confessed as she attempted to stifle a yawn.  “I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, sure I had heard something.  It sounded for all the world like a donkey braying.  A crazy dream for sure!”

    “Grandma heard it, too!” exclaimed Jared.  “I heard her telling Grandpa about it before they left this morning.  Grandpa was wondering where a donkey would have come from, and Grandma just said  don’t worry about it, it was either a stray donkey from a ranch or farm nearby, or a silly dream.  But she and Grandpa both wondered why she’d be dreaming about a donkey!”

    “Well, at any rate, it took me a long time to get back to sleep,” continued Jenny.  “And Karen was certain that she saw someone by the barn today….though she does ‘see’ lots of things, and has plenty of imaginary ‘friends’….and the cat was acting strangely around the time that she insisted she saw someone, too.”

    “‘Cat behaving strangely’ seems to me, in this case, to be a contradictory description,” said Adam as his dimples showed.  “I’d say strange behavior from him is perfectly normal.”  He took a sip of tea without taking his eyes from Jenny.  “If he ever began acting ‘normally’, I’d say you’d best assume he was sick.”  He put his cup on the table before him.  “The best ‘cure’ for that cat is for him to go live in the barn and fend for himself.  Catch a few mice, or rats.  Fight the other cats.  Teach him a few lessons, and be good for him, too.”

    Jenny laughed as she rubbed her tired eyes, then petted Comet.  “Not a chance,” she scoffed.  “He’s the household baby.”  Comet prrowed in approval.

    Adam raised his eyebrows.  “I thought David was the baby?”

    “Noooo,” hedged Jenny.  “Well, he’s around a year old, so he’s not really a baby so much anymore.…”  She didn’t mention their worry that he wasn’t moving about or developing as he should.

    Adam watched her, smiling.  “Why don’t you just put the diapers and baby clothes on Comet?”

    Jared spoke up.  “Karen already tried.  He won’t wear them.”

    They all laughed.  “I need to go to bed,” said Jenny, “and so do you, Jared.  I’ll bring some sheets out for you, Adam.”

    “Is Adam still here?” he asked.  Jenny pointed to the couch.

Jared looked at him with barely concealed admiration.  “I was thinking you might have left already.”

    “Without breakfast?  The way your aunt cooks?  Never!” said Adam.  He stood up.  “Why don’t you finish dressing, and we’ll go do the chores?”

    Jenny bit her tongue and refrained from asking if he was referring to the stew from the previous night or the tale he had heard about the wormy broccoli.  She knew a guest should not be doing their chores, but also knew the uselessness of attempting to talk Adam out of it.  Besides, he seemed to be a calming influence on Jared.  He hadn’t once pestered the younger children since Adam had arrived the night before, and even his table manners had improved.  So she kept quiet and continued to fix breakfast, and tended to Karen and David when they awakened.

    At Adam’s request, Jared instructed him on the chores with the horses and milk cow.  Jared went up in the loft and began pitching hay down, after they had both mucked out stalls.  Suddenly, Adam called, “Hey, Jared!  I didn’t know you had a mule!”

    “We don’t,” Jared called down.

    “There’s one here, by the back door, around the corner, behind the wall with the tools,” returned Adam.  “He’s not in a stall.  He just has some hay thrown around him.  And…” he paused as he examined the floor.  “It seems he’s been given some oats, from the looks of things.”

    Jared dropped the pitchfork and walked across the loft to the back wall of the barn, above where Adam was.  “We don’t have a mule,” he insisted.  “How did you find him?”

    “He was just here, across from all the tack and supplies, and behind the wall with the tools,” repeated Adam.  He looked him over with a critical eye, noting the matted fur, worn shoes, protruding ribs, and the head drooping from exhaustion.  “He’s been worked pretty hard, from the looks of him.”  He picked up the animal’s right foreleg.  “Has a shoe missing, too.”

    Jared moved to the edge of the loft and looked down at Adam.  “He’s not ours.  Where’d he come from?”

    “No telling,” replied Adam.  “At least, not yet.”

    Jared turned to go back toward the center of the barn so he could descend the ladder and see this mule.  He noticed that some of the hay was scattered about toward the edge of the loft, in an area where he hadn’t been throwing it down below, and kicked and threw it away from the edge as he walked.  He heard a gasp and a rustle, and saw some movement in the mound of hay. He thought he saw a flash of color:  blue, perhaps?  He couldn’t be sure.  Narrowing his eyes, he walked slowly toward the piled up hay.  He began pulling down the stack where he thought he had seen and heard something.  What should have been a high and solid wall, fairly tightly packed, easily collapsed before him.  Behind a thin wall of hay, Jared saw, in the dusky light of the loft, three emaciated, dirty women, peering at him through their stringy hair with terrified, desperate eyes.  One of them held a knife, poised for action;  another looked too frightened to move, while the third lay between them, breathing heavily.  A groan escaped from the last one while Jared stared at them.  The frightened one made a whimpering noise, while the one with the knife simply stared at him, daring him with her eyes to come closer.

    Jared couldn’t move or speak for a long minute.  Finally, he backed up until he almost fell from the loft.  “Adam?  Adam!  I think you’d better come up here!  Quick!”

    Adam bounded up the ladder in a few seconds, and was at Jared’s side.  He had his hand on his gun, and started to draw when he saw the crouching figures back in the loft.  But when he saw they were women, he hesitated, even when he saw the knife in Elise’s hand.  He stared in amazement at them.  Elise’s stone-cold blue eyes met his unflinchingly, while Mai Ling’s huge brown eyes were filled with terror.  Marabelle’s knowing glance spoke volumes, of pain expected and misery anticipated.  After looking at him with a piercing gaze, she closed her eyes, curled up, and groaned as another wave of pain consumed her.

    Adam took his hand from his gun.  “Go get your aunt,” he told Jared tersely, when he finally found his tongue.  Jared shuffled backwards, then sideways, until he found the ladder.

    Adam hadn’t taken his eyes from the women.  “Who are you?” he asked.

    Elise gripped her knife and raised it higher.  “Stay away, Mister,” she hissed.  “We’re doing you no harm.”

    Adam raised his hands palm outward.  “I just want to know who you are,” he said.  “Why are you here?”  His eyes drifted toward the woman lying on her side, groaning in pain.  He moved closer to look at her.

    Elise scooted in front of Marabelle and stood up, the knife before her.  “Stay away from her!” she snarled, doing her best to conceal her fear.  He was a big man.  He could easily overpower her, even with the knife, and Mai Ling was too terrified to fight, and too small to help her, anyway. Marabelle couldn’t help her, nor could she deal with any man’s attentions right now, should this man take it into his head to avail himself of her services, or to beat her due to her condition.

    She decided to change tactics.  “Look, Mister,” she said coaxingly, “just be patient.  Give me some water, and I’ll get cleaned up a bit.  Then, you can have me, if you want.”  When Adam didn’t respond except by staring at her, she added, “It won’t cost you anything, of course.  Just leave them alone -” she jerked her head toward the other two – “and you can have your pleasure with me.”  When she saw his incredulous face, she added, “I’ve been on the road for a long time.  Let me get cleaned up, and I think you’ll be right pleased.”  Her voice was almost sultry. Adam could practically see her in a satin gown trimmed with lace, and with ribbons in her hair, in a fancy parlor, or in a saloon. Her voice sounded exactly like the voices of such women.  Even the desperation evident behind her proposition didn’t sound out of place.  He continued staring speechlessly at them, wondering almost frantically where Jenny was.

    He heard footsteps on the ladder behind him and felt the floor of the loft vibrate as Jared and Jenny hurried to his side.  Elise shifted her gaze from Adam to Jenny.  She frowned, and her eyes narrowed.  Jenny looked at the desperate, emaciated girl with the knife, the trembling Chinese girl crouching behind her, and an obviously ill girl huddled on the floor, clutching her distended belly and groaning in pain.  Jenny attempted to approach them, intending to speak with and comfort the sick one, but Adam put out his arm to stop her even as Elise raised her knife and glared at her with murder in her eyes.

    “Don’t,” said Adam quietly.

    Jenny stopped, but looked in wonder and concern at the ragged figures before her.  “Who are you?”

    Stony silence met her question.  Elise glared at her, recognizing the lady from near the stream a couple of days before.  She wasn’t going to talk to her.   Nice as she and her family had seemed the other day, she knew the type.  This was a woman who would cross to the other side of the street if she saw Elise coming.  Should they be near one another, she would turn away and refuse to speak to her.  The only reason this little miss wasn’t scorning her now was because she didn’t know what she was.  Well, this gent with her would inform her, if she was so naïve.  Then she could show her true colors.

    Without looking away from them, Jenny said to Adam and Jared, “Go back to the house, please, both of you.  There’s some stew in the kettle on the back of the stove.  Get some in a big bowl and bring it here, along with three bowls and forks.  The biscuits are in the drawer in the counter near the stove.  And you might as well bring a pitcher of milk and some glasses, too.”

    “I’ll stay here,” replied Adam.  “You go in and help get that together.”

    “No, Adam.”  Jenny shook her head.  “You’re scaring them.  Let me talk to them.”

    “I can help,” volunteered a small voice behind her.

    Jenny turned about and saw Karen behind her.  Fury seethed through her.  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.  “You were to stay in the house!  The baby may be crying, and no one is with him!”  Karen looked at Jenny, then at the three figures in the loft with a sober and troubled expression that made her appear far older than her three years.  When Jenny saw the look on her niece’s face, she stopped scolding.  Karen moved beside Jenny and continued to look solemnly at the sight before her.

    Jenny laid her hand on the girl’s head.  “Go in the house and help Adam and Jared,” she said softly.  “Make sure you show them where all the dishes are.  Then stay in the house with David.”  She wiped away a tear that fell from Karen’s eye, hugged her close, and sent her and Jared back to the house.  At Jenny’s insistence, Adam reluctantly followed the children, but had a whispered consultation with Jared at the bottom of the ladder, after which the youngsters went to the house while Adam stayed at the foot of the ladder, his ears attuned for any trouble that might arise.

    Elise frowned.  This was no good at all.  The man should have stayed.  She could handle a man.  The only one she never could fully control was Clint.  Now, some men were mean.  They were harder to handle, but she could still manage them.  She had studied this man while he was talking with this girl.  This lady.  He  didn’t look mean, but he didn’t seem very controllable, either.  He knew his own mind, and wasn’t going to run off after a momentary diversion – unless she could convince him of it.  If that was the only way he would leave Marabelle alone, or promise not to tell about them, well, she’d simply have to persuade him.  But it sure would be a  lot easier to do if she was cleaned up!

    “Who are you?  What are you running from?”

 The soft voice interrupted Elise’s thoughts.  She glared at Jenny.  This “good” girl was being nice now, but just give her time:  Time to realize what the three of them were, time to realize that she couldn’t have anything to do with them.  That’s all she needed:  time.  She would turn on them.  Her kind always did.  They acted so high and mighty, so hoity-toity, that they usually made fools of themselves.  If Elise hadn’t been so desperate, she would have enjoyed watching it happen, and might even goad her along a bit.

“My name is Jenny.”

“I know.”   Elise finally spoke to her.  “And the little girl’s name is Karen.   I saw you and your family near the stream the other day.”  She continued to watch Jenny suspiciously.

“Why didn’t you come to the house?”

    Elise laughed.  “And have your father throw us out, and your mother threaten us with the sheriff?  No, thank you!  We take what we can get how we can get it, which usually means sneaking around.  Guess you wouldn’t know much about that.”

    Jenny privately thought that this woman didn’t know anything about her past, or any of the painful events in it, but knew it was best to leave that be for now.  She had to admit that this stranger was right in assuming that she herself never had known the kind of suffering this woman was apparently acquainted with.

    Jenny glanced at the other women behind the one speaking with her.  “What are your names?”

    “I tell my friends my name.”

    Jenny wondered at the rebuff.  She was obviously desperate.  Why would she be so hostile to her?  “I might be able to help you if you’ll tell me where you’re going and why you’re running.”

    “Where are we going?  Anyplace where there’s no men.  You know someplace like that, besides a convent?”  She laughed bitterly.  “They wouldn’t take too kindly to us!  The ‘why’ is our business.”

    “If you’re on my father’s property, it becomes our business,” Jenny replied gently.  “But I’m not asking you to tell me anything you haven’t a mind to.”  She heard Jared coming across the barn.  “We’ve brought some food for you.”  She took the tray of bowls and glasses, then the tray of food.  As she ladled the stew into bowls, she realized there were no utensils.

    “Where are the forks?” asked Jenny.  Jared ran back in the house to get them.

Jenny handed the food to their visitors, and started to tell them that the forks were coming.  Her three guests, however, pounced upon the stew as wolves upon prey.  She noticed that even the sick one lying down took on new strength as she struggled mightily to sit up, and desperately consumed the food before her.  Burned fingers scooped mouthfuls of meat, vegetables, and gravy, which were hastily gulped down.  The biscuits were devoured, the bowls licked clean, and crumbs even picked from the straw before Jared could return with the forks.  Jenny and Adam looked at each other.   Elise looked at them hopefully for more.  Adam shook his head firmly.

“No,” he said.   “You eat too much now, you’ll get sick.”

“You can have more later,” Jenny promised.  She walked hesitantly to them to retrieve their bowls, expecting to be challenged with the knife again.  Sated with the food, however, the exhausted trio lay back against the hay, and their eyelids drooped.  As Jenny stooped to take Marabelle’s bowl, she saw the all-too-familiar sores and rash on her face, as well as on her legs and arms through the tears in her dress.  She gasped sharply.  “Just like that woman in the alley,”  she thought.  “Just like Roberta.”  She turned to find Elise watching her curiously.

“Now you know,” said Elise.  She closed her eyes wearily, then opened them a moment later.  “I suppose you want us to leave.”

“She needs a doctor,” said Jenny.  “I’ll send someone into town for him.”

Elise smiled bitterly.  “A doctor can’t help her.  And he probably wouldn’t see her, anyway.”

    “Doc Martin will see her,” Jenny assured her.

    “He’s gone right now,” said Adam.  “I heard yesterday in town that he won’t be back for a while.  Visiting family, I guess.  His assistant, Doctor Young, is there.”

    Jenny hesitated.  She didn’t like Doctor Young.  She was afraid of the way he stared at her, the ingratiating way he spoke to her, and how he tried to put his arm around her or brush up against her.  She hadn’t told her father about that.  She was too embarrassed and didn’t want any trouble.  So she stayed away from him, and determined that if she needed a doctor, they would only see Doc Martin.  She had a feeling that Doctor Young had heard the rumors about her and Karen, and believed every one of them.

    She turned to Adam.  “I guess you’d better go to town and get him.”

    Adam shook his head.  “No.  I’ll stay here.  You go get him.”

    Jenny swallowed and looked down.  Of course, Adam didn’t know about Doc Young’s behavior toward her.  She thought of Jared, and immediately dismissed any idea of sending him to town.  How could she instruct an eight year-old to say, “Doc, there are three women at our place. They’re all half-starved and filthy, and one has the pox and is with child.”  No, she would have to do this.  Adam was right.  He should stay in case there were problems.  She turned toward the ladder.  “Jared can stay with the little ones, then.  I’ll go make sure everything is settled with them before I leave.”  She stopped as she saw Jared at the top of the ladder.

    “I brought the milk out,” he said, and pointed to the tray on the barn floor.

    “Hand it up here.”  Jenny took the covered pitcher as he handed it to her.  She placed it near Adam, next to the empty glasses.  “Maybe they can have a little of this when they wake up.”  With one glance back at the exhausted women, she left.  “I’ll be back with help.”

    Elise jumped and turned about, feeling vainly at her hip for her knife.  Damn!  Where was it?  She’d just had it, when Jenny had tried to get too close.  She’d gone to sleep with it in her hand.  It must be in the hay back where she’d slept.  She ran desperately back toward her two friends, but tripped over her skirt.  Her head swam as she tried to rise to her feet.  She couldn’t do it, not as weak as she was.  Harsh travel conditions and too little food had sapped her strength.  As her head cleared, she saw booted feet before her.  Her eyes looked up the black pants and cream-colored shirt to the hazel eyes observing her with a mixture of wary caution and concern.

    “Are you looking for this?”  He held up her knife.

    She stared at him.  He returned her gaze evenly.  His expression was inscrutable.  He made no move toward her, and the usual leer or poorly concealed lust that she always saw in men’s faces was missing from his.  Well, of course it was!  She was a mess!  But that sure hadn’t stopped some men as they’d fled from Clint and their old way of life.  Elise glanced at Marabelle and Mai Ling.  They were still sleeping.

    “You dropped the knife while you were asleep,” Adam explained.  “I took it before you rolled over on it.  I’ll keep it, for now.  I don’t like having knives pulled on me, especially when I haven’t done anything, and the people threatening me are someplace where they don’t belong.”

    Elise’s eyes never left his face.  He didn’t seem angry, and still he made no move toward her. What did he want of her?  He wasn’t an easy one to figure out.  She could hear the madam of Clint’s parlor house talking to her, shortly after Clint had tired of keeping her to himself and she had begun entertaining customers, “They all want the same thing, Elise, honey.  It’s how they want it that’s different.  Study them.  Figure them out.  Give them what they want, how they want it.  And don’t make ‘em mad:  An angry man is dangerous.”  Well, she could play the ingratiating, apologetic part for threatening him with the knife, if that’s what this man wanted.  But she needed more time to figure him out.   Carefully schooling her face to show no fear, she said, “I sure am thirsty, Mister.  Think I could have a drink of whatever’s in that pitcher over there?”

    Without taking his eyes from her, Adam slowly nodded.  “I’ll get it for you.”

    “Oh, there’s no need,” Elise protested in her best coaxing voice.  “I don’t want to trouble you, any more than I already have.”

    “Stay there,” ordered Adam.

    Elise shrank into the floor as he passed her, silently cursing herself for acting afraid of him.  When Adam gave her a scant half glass of milk, she smiled as graciously as possible and let her hand linger against his as she accepted it.  “Thank you,” she said demurely.

    “Drink it slowly,” said Adam as he pulled his hand away from hers.  “You don’t want to get sick by eating or drinking too much of anything too quickly.”

    Elise nearly choked with anger.  Why wasn’t he responding to her?  But it had been a long time since she’d had any milk, and she drank it quickly despite his warnings.

He pulled the glass away from her.  “Wait a minute before you drink the rest of it.”  He looked at her as she watched him.  Her stringy red hair was tangled and greasy, with wisps of hay in it.  Her dress might have been a pretty shade of sapphire once, but was now ripped and soiled beyond repair.  Her blue eyes, however, were clear and piercing, and Adam could see, despite her valiant efforts to hide it, that she was afraid of him.  Beneath the dirt covering her and beyond the hardness of her face, he could read depths of pain that it disturbed him to contemplate.

Elise smiled timidly.  “Mister, I’m sorry I pulled that knife on you.  Really, I am.  It’s just, well, with the three of us on our own, we need to be careful, you know?  I’m real sorry.”

Adam looked sharply at her, and Elise’s hopes withered.  He knew her.  He knew what she was trying to do.

“You need to get cleaned up,” Adam said, as he returned the glass to her.  “I’ve told Jared, the boy, to heat some water, and we’ve found an old tub in the barn that you can use.  Jenny left some dresses for you to change into after you wash.  We’ve set it up down below, in the barn.  Of course, with the drought, there’s not a whole lot of extra water, so you’ll have to be sparing.  But you’ll at least be cleaner than you were.”  He stood up.  “I’ll finish getting it ready, and you can bathe first.”

Elise smiled knowingly.  This was finally going her way.  “I think you’ll like me, Mister, once I get cleaned up.”  She tossed her head confidently, and flashed him her best seductive smile.  “I know I’m not much to look at now, but- ”

“My name is Adam.”  She was surprised at his interruption.  “Call me ‘Adam’.  And I should make it clear to you that I’m not in the habit of frequenting the company of ladies who sell their services.”  His voice was quiet and calm, and she looked at him in trepidation again.  “It has happened on occasion,” he continued with a rueful smile, “but I’m rather selective about the company I keep.  I don’t want that from you.”

Elise was furious.  Why didn’t he just say she wasn’t good enough for him?  There were few men she had met whom she couldn’t bend to her will.  Of course, she didn’t stop to think that most men came to her for that express purpose.  “Mister – uh, Adam – please,” she begged, “don’t bother Marabelle.  I’ll do anything you want, just don’t bother her.”

“I’m not going to bother any of you,” replied Adam gently yet firmly.  “No one here wants anything from any of you.  We just want to help you.  Now, I’ll call you when the water’s ready.”  As he went toward the ladder, Elise didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended.  She decided she simply hadn’t yet figured him out, and hoped that he really wouldn’t bother Marabelle while he made her bathe.  She’d scratch his eyes out if he did.

Adam stopped before he came to the ladder.  He pointed to the sick woman. “She must be Marabelle,” he said to Elise.  “What’s your name?”

There was no point in not telling him.  He was obviously a man accustomed to having his own way.  She bit her lip, and replied, “Elise.”

Adam looked at the Chinese girl, then back at Elise.  “And hers?”

Elise hesitated.  “Mai Ling,” she whispered.

Adam nodded.  “Thank you.  Good to know who I’m talking to.”

Elise wanted to cry or scream, but didn’t dare.  What had he heard about them?  Clint was after them, she knew.  Did Adam know Clint?  Had word of them come to this area before they arrived?  Would Adam betray them?  If he didn’t want her, or either of the other two, he surely would sell them off somewhere.  That couldn’t happen.  They wouldn’t go back to their old life.  They had made a pact that they would die first.  They had all sworn on Marabelle’s rosary that if they couldn’t escape, they would kill themselves.  If any of them lacked the courage to do that, they would kill each other.  Elise had run away from Clint twice before, and each time, he had brought her back.  She broke out in a cold sweat as she remembered what he had done to her.  But worse than that was what he had done to the men who had aided her flight.   She felt sick to her stomach as she tried to block out those memories.  Was Adam was having her bathe, so he could sell her to someone?  That must be it.   Elise felt like crying, but had forgotten how long ago.
Later that day
 

Jenny stopped her horse outside Doc Martin’s office.  She dragged her feet up the steps and reluctantly opened the door.  The few people in the room looked at her curiously.  She smiled hesitantly and waited with them, dreading to see Doc Young.  When a patient emerged from the back room, she rose, and under the scrutiny of all the people waiting, went to the door of that room and knocked.  She hated to be in a room alone with this man, but she could hardly present her request to him before a roomful of people.  Under the disapproving eye of the others waiting their turn, she entered the room at the doctor’s query.

Doctor Young watched Jenny appraisingly and greedily as she entered the room.  His light brown hair fell over his forehead, and his mouth tipped slightly upward in a calculating smile.   Jenny left the door cracked, and walked halfway across the room.  “Good morning, Doctor.”

The young doctor barely tipped his head.  “Good morning, Miss Barnhart.”

“We’ve had some unexpected visitors at my place this morning,” said Jenny, aware that her heart was pounding and her face flushed.  “There are three women who are half-starved and ill, and they need to see a doctor.  One of them, I’m afraid, has – well, an unmentionable disease, and appears to be – with child.”  Jenny knew that most properly bred Eastern ladies would never speak of such things, but this wasn’t the East, and besides, with Doc Martin, she would not be judged.  But this wasn’t Doc Martin.

The young mans eyes narrowed, and he smiled a most unpleasant smile.  “Indeed,” he said soothingly.  “And how did you happen to become – acquainted – with such – ‘visitors’?”  His eyes ran over Jenny’s figure.

Jenny wanted nothing more than to run from the room, but knew she couldn’t.  “They were in our barn this morning,” she explained, knowing this man heard almost nothing of what she said.  “They’re sick, and need to be seen right away.”

“And your father and mother sent you to tell me?”

Jenny didn’t want to tell him that her parents were gone, much less that Adam had been there overnight.  She simply nodded.

The doctor smiled as though he could guess what she had left unsaid.  “Perhaps we could arrange something,” he said.  “I believe that I heard from – someone? – that your mother and father are gone right now.  Is that correct?”  When he received no reply, he continued, “Perhaps, I could be persuaded to make the rest of my patients – some of whom have been waiting for quite a while – to wait a bit longer.  You and I could have lunch, perhaps?  And then, I might be persuaded to go to your home and see these women.”  He approached her with a hungry look on his face.

Jenny backed away.  “Never mind,” she whispered.  She turned and fled from the room, wishing she had never come.  She had known it would be a mistake.  Why had she bothered?  She’d had to try, but had known that this vile man would press his advantage with her.  She stopped by her horse and attempted to compose herself.  A couple of cowboys who had spotted her as they left the saloon across the street approached her and asked if she was all right.  She assured them that she was, mounted her horse, and rode carefully down a maze of several side streets, unaware that Doc Young was following her.

She stopped before a ramshackle building. As she tied her horse to the hitching post before it, she looked about her apprehensively. Shabbily dressed men recovering from hangovers and a night of celebration leered at her.  Scantily clad women passed by, looking at her suspiciously.  The steps creaked and snapped beneath her as she gingerly climbed them, and she noticed that some of the wood was rotted about the door as she knocked on it.  She wasn’t even sure that this was the right place.  She had heard many people talk about the man who lived here, and several of them knew only that he lived “over on the wrong side of town”.  It was finally Charlie, the miner who had approached her about Roberta about a month before, who had privately told her (some time after she had helped the girl) exactly where this man lived, and that he doctored the poor.  Charlie had also told Jenny that this man had done what he could for poor Roberta, but couldn’t be convinced to do what it took to release her from her suffering.

Jenny was about to flee in a panic when the door opened, and a man dressed in clean working clothes stood before her.  Jenny stared at him for a moment.  Was this the man she was searching for?  Doc Gabriel, as he was known, was supposed to be half Negro and half Indian.  Word was that Gabriel had fetched Doc Martin during an outbreak of influenza in one of the poorer districts.  Gabriel had shown such skill and compassion in caring for the ill that Doc Martin offered to teach him medicine when he learned that Gabriel’s parents had just died and he was all alone. Gabriel was still a young man when the doctor had taken him under his wing, and Paul Martin had taught the younger man much of his own medical knowledge.  He had to be careful while doing it, of course.  Many of the proper citizens of Virginia City and the people scattered around the countryside  did not approve of him practicing medicine with them.  As a result, Doc Martin had taken Gabriel on trips to Indian villages and to the poor sections of town, to help people who either couldn’t afford most doctors or who were frowned upon when soliciting a doctor’s care.

Jenny had no idea if any of that was true.  She had heard of this man a number of times, but only knew that people called him “Doc Gabriel”, not because he was a doctor, or because his name was Gabriel, but because those in the poorer sections of town considered him to be an angel of mercy who often cared for the poor at no or little charge.  She held her breath as she looked at the man before her.  He could be Doc Gabriel.  She didn’t know.

“Are you the man they call ‘Doc Gabriel’?”

“That’s what they call me.”  He looked at her steadily.

Uncertain as to how her request would be received, she told him the same story she had just told Doc Young.  “I told Doctor Young, but I’m not sure that he’ll come.”  She shut her mouth firmly.

Doc Gabriel nodded knowingly and sympathetically.  “Let me get my bag.”  He opened the door.  “Come in while I get ready.”

Jenny wondered if that was proper, but decided it was more risky to stay outside.  The doctor quickly gathered his instruments, placed them in his bag, and left.  He carefully locked his door.  “Tell me more while we ride to your place,” he said.

As Jenny spoke, she led them back through the streets to the main road out of town, unaware that she was being watched.  As she rode past Doctor Martin’s place, she didn’t notice Doc Young on the porch, smiling as he jingled several gold coins in his pocket.

She also didn’t see the man in front of the saloon.  His hard brown eyes followed her and Doc Gabriel, and he pushed his gray hat up to get a better view.  His face was hard, shrewd, and devoid of emotion as he studied them.  He thought of what Doc Young had told him:  three women, one with “an unmentionable disease” and also with child, as this little lady put it.  He would have laughed with glee if he’d known how.  Not wanting to draw attention to himself – not yet – he went to the hitching rail and untied his horse.  He wore a ghoulish grin that was as cold as the grimace on the frozen face of a corpse. This sounded perfect to him:  A young lady taking care of three young children, her parents gone, and the women he was hunting taking refuge with her.  His caricature of a smile spread across his face.  This was easy pickings, indeed.  It was worth the gold he’d paid to Doc Young for the information.  He had known these women would be forced to seek out medical care sooner or later, and he’d given every doctor who would listen in every town near where they’d fled a description of them and a few coins of gold , with promise of more to come if they gave him any leads.

This time, he’d make Elise pay for what she’d done.  She thought, and so did he, that she’d paid before, the other times she’d run away.  But this time, she’d really pay.  She would see what she had done to those around her.  She would watch every single person, those who had come with her as well as those who had aided her, pay.  One by one.  Person by person.  Inch by inch.  Drop by drop.  She’d pay.  Elise would know who owned her.   She was his.  He had bought her.  He owned her.  He possessed her.  And he vowed right now that she would know that, realize that, and never, ever forget it again.   He followed Jenny and Doc Gabriel as they rode out of town, far enough behind them not to be noticed, but close enough to see where they were going.

“They just drew water for one of the women to take a bath,” replied Karen.

Jenny got a glass of water for Doc Gabriel.

“Aunt Jenny,” continued Karen, “who are those women?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why are they so dirty?”

“Because – they don’t have anyplace to stay right now.”

“Can’t they stay here?”

“Yes.  We’ll help them.  I’ve brought the doctor.”

Karen looked up for the first time since Jenny had entered the house.  “That’s not the doctor out there!”

“Doc Martin isn’t in town, but he taught this man to take care of people.  He’s the only doctor who would come.”

“Why?”

“Not too many people want to take care of - women like this.”

Before Karen could ask “why” again, Jenny heard voices.  She hurried outside.  Adam and Jared were exchanging greetings with Doc Gabriel.  Jenny handed Gabriel the glass of water, and he drank it thirstily.

“Karen said something about one of the women taking a bath?” Jenny asked.

“Elise has finished,” replied Adam.  “Mai Ling is bathing now.  I gave them the clothes you left.  You sure you can spare them?”

Jenny nodded.  The clothes had belonged to her, her mother, and her sister.  For a moment, she was overcome with sadness at the memory of her sister, whom she hadn’t seen in a few years, but she pushed the thoughts aside.  “Elise?” she asked.  “Mai Ling?  How did you find out their names?”  She had witnessed their fear of Adam and Elise’s contempt of her.

“I asked.” Adam smiled slightly.

“I asked, too,” said Jenny.  “They wouldn’t tell me their names.  Which one is the sick one?”

“That’s Marabelle,” replied Adam.  “She’s still in the loft.”

Jenny led Doc Gabriel to the barn, while Adam and Jared went into the house.  “They were in the loft this morning,” she explained.  “Jared found them hiding there when he was in the barn doing the chores with Adam.”  She explained how Adam had arrived during the storm the previous night and had slept on the couch.  She marveled at the naïveté of her words to Adam that no one would know if he spent the night at her house while her parents were away.  She believed Doc Gabriel would mention it to no one, but still had the uneasy feeling that by the time this was over, the entire Nevada Territory would know.  As they climbed the ladder to the loft, Jenny could hear Marabelle panting.  “This is the one who is sick.”

Doc Gabriel stooped beside the woman, put his bag down, and looked at her with a critical eye.  Jenny saw him close his eyes and shake his head.  Obviously the pox, he thought, and possibly the clap as well.  He pulled her lower lid down to examine her swollen, inflamed eye, and pushed her hair from her face, observing her open sores and the rash spread over her face, arms, and legs.  Hell, this woman could have as many as three social diseases, and was with child as well.  He felt a surge of anger.  Did she know what this would mean for her unborn child?  These diseases affected the children in the womb, so if they weren’t stillborn, they died shortly after birth, as the disease was usually far more progressed in the children than in the mother.  No, he concluded, she probably didn’t know.  He figured she most likely didn’t care, either.  She probably didn’t even know who the father of her child was.

    Gabriel had seen many women die of the diseases associated with prostitution.  He had also known of men afflicted with them who infected their wives.  He had been ushered in the back door of many fine houses, because people were too proud to go to Doc Martin or Doc Young with a problem of this nature.  Many figured that since he worked with the poor people, Doc Gabriel would know more about “this sort of thing.”  Where the hell did they get that idea?  If it wasn’t for the people who paid for the services of these women, “this sort of thing,” as they so delicately put it, wouldn’t even exist.  Many people didn’t even know they were infected until they broke out in a rash, had some kind of discomfort they were only willing to whisper in his ear about, or gave birth to a child severely affected.  Many “respectable” men wanted to blame their wives, and that was one situation in which Doc Gabriel stood firm.  He had made it clear to many men on countless occasions that they had themselves to blame for their own, their wife’s, and their child’s condition.  He had made a number of enemies that way, but no matter.  What were the men going to do, protest that he shouldn’t have come to see them because he blamed them for an unmentionable social disease that was in their household?  No, their lips were sealed.

    Marabelle opened her eyes and looked at Gabriel.  She tried to say something, but he couldn’t understand her.  “Get me some water,” he said tersely.  Jenny ran back to the house.

    Gabriel tried to make Marabelle more comfortable.  She looked at him for a long time, and finally whispered so he could understand, “Who are you?”

    “You can call me Doc Gabriel.  We’re getting you some water.  Try to relax.”  The woman was breathing hard.  He elevated her head and gave her the water that Jenny handed to him.  She drank a little.  “Has she had anything to eat?” he asked Jenny.

    “Yes, she had some beef stew earlier.  Not much.  I was afraid they’d make themselves sick if they ate too much at once.  She went to sleep before we brought the milk out, though.”  Jenny looked at her.  “She needs a bath, but I don’t see how we can get her out of the loft.”

    “That’s the least of her worries,” Doc Gabriel assured her cryptically.  He turned to Marabelle.  “Do you know when your baby is due?”

    Marabelle shook her head.  “Not sure,” she said in a raspy voice.  “Maybe a couple more months.”

    “You’re having labor pains, and you’re also bleeding,” Gabriel told her.  “That means you’re about to give birth.”

    Marabelle tossed her head in agitation.  “Not time, yet.  Not time!”  She looked at the doctor, then at Jenny, who thought, despite the redness of Marabelle’s swollen eyes, that they must once have been a beautiful shade of blue.  “My baby! Don’t take this one away from me!”  She tried to rise from her bed in the hay, but sank back down, clutching her abdomen and groaning.  Her face broke out in a sweat and she panted shallowly.  When the wave of pain passed, she looked at Jenny.  “I need this baby!  You can’t take him – her – away!”

    “No one is going to do anything to hurt you,” Jenny assured her.  “We only want to help.”  She glanced at Doc Gabriel, who avoided her gaze.  The sooner Jenny learned that the best help for this woman lay in an overdose from a bottle in his bag, the better.  He had seen this type of situation too many times before, and hated to see someone as gentle as Jenny drawn into it.

    Marabelle stared at Jenny.  “I know you,” she whispered.  “I’ve seen you before.”

    Jenny shook her head.  “No, I don’t think so.”

    “Yes,” insisted Marabelle.  “In Silver City.  I’ve seen you there, several times.”

    Jenny smiled.  “I’ve never been to Silver City,” she told her.  “You must have seen someone else.”

    “It was you,” Marabelle insisted.  “Sometimes you were with your mother and father.  I saw you talking to them, and heard you call the woman ‘Mother.’  You looked happy.”  She sounded envious.

    Jenny opened her mouth to deny it again, and froze.  Silver City.  Her parents were in Silver City right now, before heading on to Carson City, supposedly on her father’s business.  She thought of her missing sister.  Her parents had sent her away long ago, and Jenny hadn’t known her whereabouts.  Yet, Jenny knew that her parents would never throw her out.  All those trips to Silver City….could it be…?

Jenny heard a sound on the ladder behind her, and turned as her niece shuffled through the hay to her side.  “Mai Ling is finished with her bath,” Karen said.  She put her thumb in her mouth and looked cautiously at Marabelle.

Marabelle looked at Karen, then at Jenny.  “Your daughter?”

“No, my niece.”

Marabelle smiled sadly and knowingly.  She gave Jenny a piercing look.  “She looks just like you.  And like the woman I saw in Silver City.”  She closed her eyes as she rode another wave of pain.

Jenny watched uncertainly, unsure of what to do.  When Marabelle opened her eyes again, Jenny asked cautiously, “You’re from Silver City?”

Marabelle nodded.  “Yes, that’s the last place we lived.  I think we were going to move on to California soon, though.”  She grimaced as another pain took her, then looked at Karen.  “I bet it’s the little girl’s mother I saw in Silver City, isn’t it?” Marabelle asked

Jenny froze.

“She looks a lot like you, that lady I saw.  Unless it was you, of course,”  Marabelle continued.

Jenny knew she mustn’t mention her sister.  She should deny ever having one. That was what she had always been told to do:  Never mention having a sister, and present Karen as the daughter of her brother and his wife, both dead.  But Karen’s mother was very much alive, though her parentage must be hidden and always disguised as acceptable.  As Jenny longed to see and remember her sister, this was often very difficult for her to do.

She stared at Marabelle, wondering at her perceptivity and discernment.  “I don’t know who you saw,” she said carefully,  as she struggled with her tears.  “But the girl is my niece.”

 Marabelle’s knowing look pierced her.  She laughed mirthlessly.  “I had a child five years ago, when I was sixteen.  My mother and father took it away from me, and threw me out of the house.”

Jenny swallowed, and looked at  the shadow of a woman before her with pity.  “My mother and father would never see any of us turned out, no matter what.”

“Lucky you,” whispered Marabelle