They rode a while in silence, Noah feeling guilty for placing so much importance on Sarah Merritt’s aversion to sex. All right, so that part shouldn’t matter so much. If you were really in love the other things mattered more—respect, friendship, being able to talk to one another, enjoying a few of the same things, looking forward to being in the same room together.
“Hey, True?”
“Yeah?”
“Were you scared when you asked her to marry you?”
“Nope. I only got scared after I asked her and she said no—thinking about spending the rest of my life without her.” The mare picked its way down a rocky incline and the gray gelding followed. True hollered back, “You get a little scared ever, thinking about spending the rest of your life without that little newspaper lady?”
“I figured you knew it was her.”
“Doesn’t take much guessing, watching the two of you in the same room. Like a pair of witching sticks above water.”
“I didn’t know it was so obvious.”
“I saw you leave with her on Christmas Eve.”
“I figured you did. Thanks for not telling Arden.”
“Any fool could see she’s not for Arden.” True bobbed several more times before he shouted over his shoulder, “So you gonna ask her or not?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Got that lump in your throat, do you? Like a cud caught sideways?”
“Yeah.” The lump was there as Noah answered. He tried to swallow it but it stuck, even as he hollered at True’s back. “She’s scared of what happens in the bedroom, True. Real scared. Says she doesn’t want to be like her sister.”
True cocked himself sideways in the saddle and cranked his head clear around to cast a long glance back at his companion. The horses trotted along. Their manes lifted in the wind. Finally True faced front again.
“Now that’s a problem,” he called.
Back in town, Noah slowed his horse to a walk as he passed the office of the Deadwood Chronicle. Inside, the lanterns burned. He could see Bradigan and the Dawkins boy moving about, but not Sarah. Absurd, this overwhelming sense of disappointment, just because he’d expected to see her head beyond the gold leaf printing on the window when he passed by. He found himself looking in every window he passed, hoping to catch sight of her if only fleetingly.
He checked in at his office. Freeman Block, now a salaried deputy, reported that things had been quiet. No saloon fights, no trouble in the gambling halls, scarcely any traffic on the street yesterday.
Noah sent Freeman home and returned his horse to the livery barn, stopped by Farnum’s store, bought six sticks of jerky and returned to his office to gnaw them and do paperwork.
The afternoon seemed to crawl. Sometimes he’d find himself staring at the street, wishing she’d walk by so he could make an excuse to go out and bump into her, talk a little bit, see her face and try to figure out if asking her to marry him was the right thing to do.
Sometimes he sat with his face in his hands, miserable for reasons too complex to unsnarl.
He left the office a good fifty minutes before suppertime, went up to Mrs. Roundtree’s and took a sponge bath, combed his hair, shaved meticulously, trimmed the lower edge of his mustache with a scissor, splattered a little sandalwood vegetal on his cheeks and neck, put on clean clothes clear down to his hide and checked his pocket watch.
Ten minutes to supper.
He dropped the watch into his vest pocket, returned to the mirror and assessed his face. Funny-looking face—what would a woman see in it? Everything too round and high to turn a woman’s head, plus that silly-looking dent in the end of his nose. Well, hell, it was the best he could do.
It felt like he’d been away from her for two months instead of two days. The five minutes before he left his room and clattered downstairs put grasshoppers in his stomach.
In the dining room the men all said hello, how had his trip out to the Spearfish been, how was his folks, was they getting snow up that way?
Mrs. Roundtree brought in a huge brown crock full of baked beans, a platter full of venison chops, a bowl full of pickled beets, a plate of sliced bread.
Noah glanced at Sarah’s empty chair.
Mrs. Roundtree plunked into her own place at the head of the table and said, “There you are, gentlemen. Go to town.”
Again Noah studied the chair where Sarah usually sat. So she was a little late. Unusual, but it could happen.
The venison platter came from Noah’s left, went around the corner and took a long pass over Sarah’s empty seat.
“Aren’t we waiting for Miss Merritt tonight?” Noah asked.
“She moved out,” Mrs. Roundtree replied tartly, looking down her nose as she stabbed a hunk of bread and passed it on. “Lock, stock and barrel.”
“Moved out! When?”
“Last night. Sent the Dawkins boy after her trunks this morning.”
“Where?”
“I didn’t ask. Have some beets and pass them on.”
“But why?”
Mrs. Roundtree leveled her disapproving gaze on Noah. “It’s not my business to ask people why they come and go. You’re holding up the proceedings, Mr. Campbell. Mr. Mullins is waiting for the beets.”
Noah passed them on woodenly. She was gone! On the night when he’d pretty much decided to take her out for a walk and ask her to marry him, Sarah Merritt was gone. He figured he knew exactly why.
Supper tasted like fodder. He ate because he was expected to: to leave the table and run to find her would look most peculiar. All the men seemed to be casting him surreptitious glances, gauging his reaction to her absence. He avoided looking at her empty chair.
After supper he went upstairs to collect his gun and make his evening rounds. The Chronicle office was black. He stood a long time, looking in, feeling black himself. He could see the outline of his hat reflected in its windowglass, but could not make out his features.
You know perfectly well why she moved out of Mrs. Round-tree’s, Campbell. She didn’t want to deal with a rounder like you coming into her room in the dark of night and pestering her.
He pivoted and headed toward the next boardwalk, past the sound of a tinkling piano muffled by closed doors, past the laughter of men at the gaming tables, stopping beneath the overhanging roof of the boardwalk across from the Grand Central Hotel. She’d probably moved back there. If he stood here long enough she might come out. And he might cross the street and say, Hello, Sarah. Then what? Everything he imagined happening after that made him look like a lovesick fool, so he stomped into the Eureka Saloon, had a double belt of Four Feathers whiskey and went home to bed.
In the morning he awakened surly, remained surly through breakfast, and while he returned to his room for his gun, jacket and hat, and while he resolutely returned the Stetson to its peg on the hat tree, and while he plucked it off again and slammed it on his head, and muttered, “All right, I’ll wear the sonofabitch.”
They’d had snow overnight. He shoveled the boardwalk in front of his office, went inside and made a checklist of all the license taxes that needed collecting at the turn of the quarter, added wood to his stove, drank a cup of coffee that tasted like buffalo piss, stood staring out the window at the ruts in the street, sighed and gave up.
He needed to see her. Needed to spill what was on his mind. Needed to find out what was on hers. Needed to rid his gullet of this great lump of nothingness he’d felt since leaving her room on Christmas Eve.
There were four people in the newspaper office when he opened the door: Patrick Bradigan, running the handpress; Josh Dawkins, inking it with a brayer; Sarah’s sister, Eve, folding newspapers at a long table on the side; and Sarah herself, wearing a leather apron, squatting over a bucket of turpentine, cleaning a hunk of metal with a brush. He passed the typesetter and apprentice, nodding to them. He passed Sarah’s sister, saying quietly, “Hello, Eve.” He gave them the barest edge of his attention. It was all for Sarah, who looke
d up and went very still when she saw him approach. She released the brush and rose, wiping her hands on a rag, her face smileless.
“Hello, Noah,” she said.
He removed his brown Stetson, held it in both hands and asked, “Could I talk to you outside a minute, Sarah? It’s personal.”
“Of course,” She set the rag aside and untied the leather thongs at her spine, took off the apron and donned a coat from the hat tree beside her desk.
She headed for the front door but Noah asked, “Could we go out back instead?”
Her gaze collided with his and slid away. “All right.”
Her hair was pinned up in a neat coil, and the smell of turpentine followed her.
Outside the weather was much like yesterday, the wind picking up last night’s snow and pelting it against her skirt and his trouser legs. She held the neck of her coat closed and turned to him as the wind whipped a strand of hair from its moorings into the corner of her mouth. She reached up and scraped it away, but it blew back immediately into her face.
He faced her with his hat pulled low, collar up, gloved hands joined before him like a ball and socket. He dropped them to his sides as he said, “I missed you at Mrs. Roundtree’s last night.”
She hesitated a beat before replying, “Yes, it was a rather sudden move. How was your Christmas?”
“It was... all right.”
“And your family?”
“They’re fine. Arden asked a thousand questions about you.”
Her lips smiled, but her eyes remained fixed on Noah’s as if she scarcely registered the remark.
“Aw, hell, Sarah, the truth is my Christmas was terrible. I kept wishing I was with you and I couldn’t wait to get back, then when I did I found out you’d moved. You didn’t have to do that, Sarah.” He lifted one hand and let it fall. “I shouldn’t have come into your room that night after you asked me not to, but I told you it wouldn’t happen again, and I would have kept that promise.”
“You think that’s the reason I moved?”
“Well, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Then what—”
“It’s because of Addie. She’s left Rose’s for good.”
“For good?”
“That’s what she says.”
“Well, that’s... that’s good news.”
“At least we’re hoping it’s for good, Robert and I. He talked her out of there and brought her to see me, and we all had a delightful Christmas dinner at Emma’s. But Mrs. Roundtree treated Addie abominably and told me if I wanted to visit with her I’d have to do it somewhere else from now on because she didn’t want women like that in her house. So I got angry and... and I suppose a little bit retaliatory—after all, if a woman like Addie wants to reform and nobody will help her, what chance has she got? I gave Mrs. Roundtree the sharp side of my tongue and moved into a room at the Grand Central with Addie for the time being until we can buy a house of our own.”
“A house of your own?”
“I’ve already talked to Craven and he thinks he may have one for us, but in the meantime, I’m so afraid Addie will go back that I won’t let her out of my sight. That’s why she’s here folding papers. But as soon as we can find a house, Emma’s going to teach her how to do housekeeping. That should keep her out of trouble.”
He digested it all, watching the wind make flags of her hair, watching her scrape a strand of it away from her eye.
“I’m so relieved. I thought you were moving out to get away from me.”
“No... not at all.”
She met his eyes. For a while neither of them spoke.
“Can I tell you the truth, Sarah?”
She waited.
“I thought about you all the time I was gone, and I kept blaming myself over and over again, and telling myself that you’re not like the women up at Rose’s, and I should have known better than to go to your room. Sarah, I’m sorry for what I did... but on the other hand, I’m not, you see... hell, I don’t even know how to say what I mean.”
‘I think you’re doing quite well, Noah.”
“Am I?” He looked rather miserable. “You’re the one who’s good with words. Sometimes when I try to say things to you they don’t come out the way I intend them to.”
“What you’re trying to say is that you missed me.”
“Yes... yes, I did.”
“I missed you, too.” The wind lifted a few strands of her hair straight up and settled some down across her forehead. “Christmas at Emma’s was wonderful, but I kept wondering what the Spearfish Valley looked like, and where you were and what you were doing.”
“Did you, Sarah?”
She nodded silently, looking square into his eyes.
The lump reappeared in his throat and breathing took a tremendous effort.
“This isn’t the time or the place I’d planned to say this, not... not here in the alley by your woodpile. I thought I’d take you out walking up toward Mount Moriah some night when it was quiet and the owls were calling and... and...” He stumbled to a halt. Her blue eyes appeared silver, reflecting the leaden sky, waiting. “I think I love you, Sarah.”
She seemed to lose her grip on her jacket front. Her lips parted and her eyes went wide and motionless. It took some time before she spoke in a voice airy with surprise.
“You do?”
“And I think we should get married.”
She stood dumbstruck while he presented his case. “I thought about it all through Christmas, and I believe it’s the right thing to do. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that I’ve been around the horn a few times, and I have, but that doesn’t mean a man can’t change. And as for your sister, I swear to you, Sarah, from this day forward I’ll treat her like she was my own sister. I know it’s asking a lot of you to forget what...” He gestured toward the world behind his shoulder. “... well... what’s gone on up at Rose’s, but that was before I knew you, and everything’s changed since then.”
“Noah, I don’t know what to say.”
He studied her face with his heart racing while she stood utterly still, only her hair lifting and falling like loose cobwebs. “Well, for starters, you might tell me if there’s any possibility that you love me too.”
Her cheeks got very red and she dropped her gaze. “I think there’s a very good possibility of that, Noah.”
“But you’ve been fighting it, right?”
She tactfully refrained from replying.
“Well, so have I,” he admitted. They stood a while with the wind eddying around them, wondering where to go from here.
“It didn’t happen anything like I expected it to.” He reached out his gloved hands and took her by the upper arms, remembered how she disliked being touched and dropped his hands. He glanced at the woodpile, pushed a stick of firewood in line with those beneath it. Pushed a few others. “You weren’t what I expected. I wasn’t what I expected—I mean, the way I acted.”
“How did you think it would be?”
He gave up his preoccupation with the wood and faced her. “I don’t know, but I didn’t think I’d be walking around miserable like this all the time.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m miserable, too.”
His voice softened. “But then I see you and it feels like everything falls into place.”
“Yes,” she replied, “for me, too.”
Silence passed.
He smiled.
She smiled back.
“Well?” he said quietly.
“Well...” she replied.
Their uncertain smiles remained while at his side his gloved hand worked a piece of bark, then dropped it and became still.
“I know what I promised in your room on Christmas Eve, Sarah, but is there any chance you’d like to kiss me?”
A tender, half-sad smile touched her lips. “Oh Noah,” she said quietly, and moved toward him.
He moved, too—a step from each and their heads tipped, their mouths joined. It felt like
starting at the beginning, standing in the brisk winter wind, tasting each other with cold lips and warm tongues, while a wellspring of emotion flooded their breasts. Their embrace was chaste, by anyone’s standards, with his hands on her sleeves and hers on his jacket front. When the kiss ended they drew back to study one another’s eyes while wind whistled between them.
“So what do you think?” Noah said at last. “Would we be less miserable together?”
Her hands remained on his heavy jacket. “Could I have some time to think about it, Noah?”
His spirits fell. “How much time?”
“Until I can be sure Addie won’t backslide. If I told her now that I want to marry you, she’d have the perfect excuse to go back to Rose’s. She’s very unsure of herself, you see. In there—strange as it seems—she felt secure. She was paying her own way and she was accepted. Nobody pointed fingers at her. Out here, none of those things are true.”
“How long will it take?”
“I don’t know. I must find us a house—I think I should do that and get her accustomed to fending for herself. She doesn’t know anything, Noah, not how to cook or to wash clothes or how to handle herself in gracious company. She never had to learn. Who’ll teach her if I don’t?”
“And if you buy a house, what about us? Are you saying that’s where you’d want us to live?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Where did you think we’d live?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead either, but it wouldn’t work for all three of us to live in the same house.”
“No, of course it wouldn’t. But there’s no rush, is there? Why, we don’t even have a preacher yet.”
He hadn’t thought of that either.
“So what are you saying? Yes, you’ll marry me, but after we get a minister and after Addie’s settled into a house of her own?”
She opened her mouth to say I guess so when she thought of her newspaper.
“What about the Chronicle?”
“You can still run it, can’t you?”
“Not if we have a house and a family.”
“Would you want a house and a family?” he asked. He was really asking if she wanted a family.