Patience Read online

  He had been in these parts long enough to know that he couldn’t go riding into camp dressed like a lawman. That would tip off the kidnappers that he was on their trail if she was still being held somewhere. He studied the rugged landscape, weighing his options. As far as he could see, there was only one choice open to him. Miners were a rugged lot, suspicious of strangers, so he’d ride into the closest town and get himself a shovel and a gold pan. Going undercover wasn’t his style, but he was going to hit those camps disguised as a miner.

  Chapter Two

  Bitter cold air burned Patience’s lungs. She had lost dexterity in her fingers a long time ago. She clung weakly to the hope that someone was looking for her—if she could only hold on, someone would find her any moment. She had wandered for hours. When darkness fell, she had curled inside a fallen log and wrapped herself in pine branches and dead leaves. She had survived the elements—but barely.

  When she opened her eyes this morning, she realized that she had so many things she wanted to do—climb a tall mountain, eat a store-bought cake, make an edible blackberry cobbler. And if the good Lord was willing, find some way to make life easier for Mary, Harper, and Lily. Being single and alone out here in a man’s world wasn’t easy. She needed to find work, something that would pay better than clerking in a store or teaching school. If she lived.

  Ahead, nothing moved. She was surrounded by icy nothingness. She walked on, the hem of Lenore’s Irish lace gown dragging the uneven ground. Her hands felt like two blocks of wood. She crossed her arms over her chest in a feeble attempt to warm her fingers; her breath made heavy vaporous gasps. It seemed days since she had put on Lenore’s lovely dress, standing motionless while Mary pinned the silken fabric. No other garment was as pretty as a wedding dress, but if she didn’t find real shelter soon, this one could very well become her shroud.

  The sun, a huge globe of pale, polar yellow, broke through a ragged veil of clouds, washing the landscape with a cold, clear light. Patience plunged ahead, aimlessly walking. Moving. She had to keep moving.

  “Oh, God, help me. I need you!” she called out.

  The words hung in the frozen air. She stumbled over unseen roots, having lost the road long ago. Brittle branches of winter-bound shrubs lashed her face. The wind brought tears to her eyes, which froze on her eyelashes. Shelter. She had to find shelter.

  “God? Where are you? Can’t you hear me?” He had always been near; Patience had always felt his presence, but not today. Not now. She felt completely, utterly on her own. She longed to lie down under a rocky overhang, out of the wind, just for a moment, but she pushed the thought away. To stop meant death.

  When she did find signs of habitation, she almost missed them—a battered bucket, a small pile of mine tailings. She jerked to a halt, staring at a hole in the side of the mountain. A big hole covered with boards, but with a wooden door set in the entrance. A mine?

  She paused before a shabby sign, the weatherworn letters almost too faded to read. Dropping to her hands and knees, she tried to make out the lettering burned into the old board staked to the ground. “Mul … Mle … Mule Head.” Her breath pushed between frozen lips, and she repeated the crude markings. “Mule Head?”

  She sat back on her knees, staring at the deserted site. “Mule Head,” she repeated. “What’s a mule head?”

  Bitter cold seeped into her bones, and her joints felt like raw meat. Shadows played across the weather-beaten boards nailed above the entrance to the big hole, highlighting the sturdy door.

  Getting to her feet, Patience dusted off her hands. “Well, it isn’t exactly what I’d hoped for, God, but the name of the shelter isn’t important. Thank you.”

  Her head pounded and her stomach knotted with hunger. She desperately needed warmth and sustenance.

  Wind shrieked through the mountain pass. She rattled, then banged on the heavy door. What if no one was here? Was this a deserted mine shaft? She pushed hard on the door and stepped back when it slowly swung open on creaking hinges.

  Sunlight stretched higher in the New Year’s Eve sky. Her eyes anxiously searched beyond the dim light, into a seemingly endless black void. “Hello!” she called, forcing the greeting from frozen vocal cords. Her eyes roamed the shadows.

  There were bears out here—big ones—and she’d spotted herds of gigantic elk with big horns earlier this morning.

  Drawing a deep breath, Patience resolved to be as strong as Ruth. But she wasn’t as strong as Ruth. She was a coward. She didn’t have a gun—no way to protect herself from wild animals.

  Teeth chattering, she studied the odd-looking construction. Some hundred feet from the main shaft someone had tunneled into a steep hill face, fashioning a dark earth chamber about eight by ten feet. A six-by-four, crudely built wooden door secured the hole.

  Her breath caught, and she refused to accept the absurdity of the situation. Kidnapped, and now at the weather’s mercy. No. God was here; he was always with her. The thought assuaged any immediate concerns.

  Stepping up on a flat, granite boulder that served as a step, she tried to see into the dimly lit dugout, but the effort proved useless. Her vision cleared, and she could barely make out the interior. In one corner someone had piled pine and juniper boughs. Two or three chunks of old tree bole were scattered about for tables. Close to the entrance, a crudely built fireplace with a small bed of coals dominated the west wall. Fire. Warmth.

  She shook her head, refusing to believe her eyes. Did she risk entering and perhaps encountering something worse than kidnappers? What choice did she have? A few more moments in the cold and that would be a moot point.

  Her gaze centered on the primitive lodging; she took a deep breath and stepped inside. Wood. Please, God, let there be firewood.

  She inched forward, shuffling, one step, then another. She stumbled and fell; her hands touched cloth. An arm!

  Scrambling to her feet, she fought back a scream, but a shriek escaped anyway. She had fallen over a body—a lifeless body. There could be no mistaking the rigidity of those limbs. She backed up, moving deeper into the darkness.

  A rustling sound from behind her sent her scrabbling for something to use for protection. Her hand closed around a short stick she recognized as a chunk of firewood. Not much use against a bear or a mountain lion. She gripped the club in both hands, straining to see in the fading light of the dying coals.

  Something moved in the shadows, and Patience swallowed, caught between what was hiding in that corner and the dead man’s body. She fought back a hysterical giggle. Between the frying pan and the fire.

  Did that make sense?

  Her eyes adjusted to the light, and now she could see that the figure trying to struggle upright was human, a small human.

  A child.

  She dropped the stick of wood, staring at the ragged boy who slowly rose on unsteady feet. “Who are you?” Patience asked.

  The answer came in a thin voice. “Wilson. I’m Wilson.”

  Jay rode into Fiddle Creek with his badge in his pocket. As far as the residents were concerned, he was just another miner. He’d had a time finding clothes to match his new identity. For most of his life, when he could afford it, he’d dressed well, but today he wore pants with a hole in the knee, a shirt with a couple of buttons missing, and a hat he wouldn’t have put on a scarecrow. It wasn’t much consolation to see that he looked like most of the people he met.

  A tinhorn gambler, resplendent in gray broadcloth with a beaver hat, strode down the boardwalk, looking for a game. For a minute, Jay was tempted. See if his luck had changed …

  But duty came first. He had to find the Smith woman. And a thankless task it would probably be. She talks to birds! I ask you, what normal woman with any common sense would talk to a bird?

  Headstrong, too. He’d seen that. Stubborn as a cross-eyed mule. Well, it wasn’t any skin off his nose. He wasn’t looking for another woman, except in the line of duty. He’d had Nelly. All other women paled in comparison. No. Face it; h
e was a one-woman man. His woman had died.

  He entered the mercantile, closing the door behind him. “Morning.”

  “Morning,” the man behind the counter replied. “Help you?”

  “Looking for a shovel and a gold pan. Some ornery critter stole mine.”

  “There’s a lot of it going on,” the clerk agreed, placing the items on the counter. “Anything else?”

  “Got any licorice candy?” He had a sweet tooth.

  “Yep.” The clerk added the candy to the pile. “Don’t I know you?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Seems to me like you used to do some prospecting over around Cutter’s Gulch way. Jay something, ain’t it?”

  “Jay Longer. You’ve got a good memory. That’s been a spell.”

  “Well, some have it; some don’t. I never forget a face.”

  Jay paid for his purchases and left. Rum luck, hitting someone who knew him right off the bat. It had been a long time since he had prospected in this area. Never found any windfall. When it came to mining, he was a jinx.

  He stopped at Tillie’s Café for breakfast. The hot coffee tasted good going down his throat. He was cold and tired, and he wanted a hot bath and a soft bed. He’d spent a long morning working his way through small mining camps scattered through the mountains. This afternoon he’d check out Fiddle Creek. If Patience wasn’t here … He shook the thought away. She could be dead for all he knew—some grizzly could have gotten her or another hungry predator. He ran a hand over thick face stubble and hoped he didn’t run into too many other people he used to know. They’d wonder about Nelly, and he didn’t want to talk about her. It still hurt to say her name.

  Patience eased closer to the small boy. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I don’t think I am.” The child spoke with an English accent, like a drummer who had come to the store where she worked one day, peddling notions. “I’m feeling puny.”

  She stepped closer, reaching out to feel his forehead. Her hands tingled with warmth. “You’re running a fever. Is there a lantern—a candle I can light?” She had forgotten how cold and hungry she was in the terror of the moment, but now it came flooding back. She was alone in an abandoned dugout with a dead body and a sick child.

  The boy’s voice came back to her. “Yes, but I don’t know where.”

  Lord, forgive me for thinking this, but we sure have different notions of what might be considered help.

  She fumbled, locating a basket of pine knots, and held one to the coals until it caught fire. Now she could see more clearly. A crude cot had been built along the wall where the boy was. He slumped down, pulling a ragged quilt around his thin shoulders. A shelf held tin plates and cups and a few containers of what she guessed to be sugar, flour, and cornmeal. She hoped there was coffee.

  The boy stared at her with fever-dimmed eyes. “Are you real? I haven’t imagined you?”

  “I’m real enough. But we can go into that later. Right now, I’m going to build up this fire and fix something to eat. You lie down and cover up. I don’t want you to get chilled.” Speaking of chilled, her hands and feet were thawing, sending a hundred tiny prickles through her wind-frozen flesh.

  She knelt before the fireplace, making a pile of wood shavings and twigs, covering it with small pieces of dead branches, blowing on the tiny flame until it caught. As soon as the fire was strong enough, she added larger pieces of wood, fanning until the sticks caught and the flames roared up the chimney. Warmth beat against her face, her hands, and body, wrapping her in a blanket of hot air. She knelt there until her joints loosened and her teeth stopped chattering. Aware that she had to do something about the dead person in the room, she rose and discreetly covered the body with a blanket.

  Next, she rummaged through the meager store of supplies, finding a chunk of salt pork. Soon the smell of meat sizzling in an iron skillet filled the small space. While the meat cooked, she mixed cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and water, which she poured into a second skillet and pushed close to the fire. That done, she hunted for and found a can of coffee, filled the pot with water and grounds, and soon the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee filled the shelter.

  Now to get the boy close to the fire, where he could get warm. She helped him to his feet, letting him lean against her until she had him settled in an old rocking chair.

  “There. You’ll be all right now.” She tucked the faded quilt around him, wishing she had some willow-bark tea to break the fever.

  He bent closer to the flames, teeth rattling. “I still … think … I’m dreaming. Do you have a name?”

  “I don’t believe anyone ever called me a dream before. My name’s Patience.”

  “Patience.” He tried it out. “It’s a strange name.”

  Well, Wilson wasn’t all that great either, but she was too polite to say so. “My friends think it’s a strange name for me. Patience isn’t necessarily one of my virtues.”

  Stubborn, maybe. Patient? Never. She glanced anxiously toward the body on the floor. “Who’s that?”

  A spasm of emotion she took to be grief twisted the child’s face. “He’s the old prospector. He took me in when I had no place to go, and when he got sick, I tried to help him, but he died.”

  The boy’s forlorn face touched her heart. She wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him, but they were strangers. He would reject her efforts. Moving closer to the fire, she forked slices of meat onto the plates and sifted flour into the grease in the skillet, letting it brown. When it met her satisfaction, she stirred in water from the bucket sitting next to the door. Not as good as milk gravy, but it would be hot and, with the corn bread, filling.

  When the gravy thickened, she filled the plates with food and poured the coffee into tin cups. Wilson reached for his plate, but she stopped him. “First we thank God for this food.”

  “Why? He didn’t fix it.”

  “Don’t you believe it. When I was stumbling around on the mountain, thinking I was going to freeze to death, God was leading me straight to this place where there was shelter, fire, and food. He sent me here to help both of us, and we’re going to thank him.”

  Wilson stared at her with a skeptic’s eye. “Perhaps so, but the prospector bought that food. He paid for it with gold he found panning in that creek out there. It didn’t come from God.”

  Gold? Creek? The words caught her attention. A creek meant water. Water to drink, a necessity. And gold? Maybe she could manage to find enough gold to pay her way back home, if she ever found out exactly where she was.

  “Wilson, you listen to me.” She leaned closer, clasping his hands, noticing they were rough and chapped. “Everything in this world belongs to God. He allows us to use it. He gave that prospector the strength to pan for that gold. He led me here to be with you, and he’s going to take care of us. Never doubt it. Now bow your head because we’re going to thank him for all he’s done for us.”

  The boy started eating the moment she finished saying amen. He ate with the desperation born of hunger. How long had he been here alone with a dead man? She placed another slice of meat on his plate. He needed it more than she did.

  “How old are you, Wilson?”

  He thought for a moment. “Eight—I think.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “They’re dead. The cholera killed them. The prospector found us, and he helped me bury them. He took care of me until he got sick.”

  The picture was all too clear. Wilson had no one now. Eight years old and alone. Sometimes the world was a sad place. Patience knew what it meant to be alone. She was an orphan too. Before she had come to Denver City with the other mail-order brides, she had lived in an orphanage.

  “Is there a town nearby?” She had to let the others know she was safe; Mary would be worried sick about her.

  “Fiddle Creek. About a forty-five-minute walk from here.”

  She made a bed for Wilson in front of the fireplace, thinking he would be warmer there. Once she’d
made him comfortable, she added another log to the fire, carefully banking it with ashes. If she was lucky, they should have coals in the morning.

  Rolled in her own blanket, she sat on the hearth, staring at the smoldering coals, grateful for shelter, for food and warmth. God had brought her here and she praised him for it, but with the blessing had come a new responsibility.

  Wilson lay curled close to the fire, looking younger than his years. She studied the sleeping child’s feverish face. Any plans she made would have to include him. The two of them were bound together, fighting for their lives in this formidable wilderness.

  For all of her brave words, she felt alone.

  Resting her head on her knees, she silently called for help. Tears wet the bedraggled cloth of Lenore’s wedding gown. She wanted to go home.

  Stretching out on the hard ground, Jay rolled tighter into his blanket. Stars hung low in the sky, and a crescent moon barely illuminated the landscape. He’d forgotten how peaceful it was out here. Maybe if he spent more time out of doors, enjoying creation, he would spend less time at the gaming tables. He’d been a fool to keep playing when he was losing, but he had kept telling himself the next hand would be the winner. Well, the winning hand never came.

  His thoughts turned to Patience. Where was she tonight? She wasn’t in Fiddle Creek. He’d searched a couple more nearby camps, asking discreet questions, but no one had seen her. It was like she had vanished into thin air. But he’d keep looking. He’d stumble over information sooner or later. He couldn’t help wondering what she was going through if she was still alive. She was a little thing, just the right size to fit in the curve of a man’s arm. The way Nelly used to.

  He pushed the thought away. Nelly was gone, and he wasn’t interested in Patience Smith. She was a job. Find her and take her home. That’s all he had to do. Nevertheless, he found himself thinking of her out there in a flimsy wedding gown. She would have found shelter by now or she wouldn’t be alive. This country was rough on women. He shifted to a more comfortable position and closed his eyes.