“Nothing for you,” says the tidy man behind the counter, his eyes remaining on his ledger, though he does pause his scribbling long enough to ask, “Unless you have something to sell?”
I don’t. Not since I sold him my father’s pocket watch when I got to town, swearing that I’d buy it right back up until the day it disappeared from the display case and into its new owner’s pocket. I had consoled myself over the loss with the certainty that I hadn’t had another choice. Without steady work, the earnings from that sale have been the majority of what I’ve had to live on, since my remaining sense of self-preservation keeps me from selling either my father’s knife or his gun. My hope that I will someday leave this place also keeps me from selling the brown and white mare he named Tess.
After I’d fled, I admittedly felt a sizable twinge of remorse for taking her and the money she would have brought my mother and sisters, but it had quickly dissipated the following morning when I watched from a nearby alley as they boarded the stagecoach that would take them back to Boston without missing a step. In truth, when my mother had woken to find me gone, she probably considered the trade-off between the price of the mare and the price of my ongoing company and believed she had gotten the better end of the deal.
“Young lady?” The shopkeeper is leaning against the counter now, his eyes finally peering over the top of his spectacles in annoyance. “You have something to sell?”
“No,” I admit. “Not today.”
“Looking to buy, then?”
“No,” I repeat, refusing to let myself even glance at the shelf of food to my left. “Not today. But Icanwork.”
He waves me off before going back to his books, and after a few more unsuccessful attempts to get him to reconsider, I leave to try the house next door. And the one next to it. And the one next to that one. On down the street until the boarding house near the stable is my last option.
I raise my hand to knock, already believing that this is likely not the place where my fate will turn, but I experience a moment of suspended possibility when the door opens almost as soon as my knuckles strike the wood.
“Hello, welcome to…” The older woman’s words trail off, her expression dropping like a stone along with my hopes. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Hello, Mrs. Jensen,” I say, brushing off the lackluster greeting. “I was wondering—”
“No,” she says quickly, stepping out onto the porch in her best church clothes and looking up and down the street with her carefully set gray curls bobbing. Apparently not finding what she is seeking, she takes the time to step back inside before turning her disappointment back on me. “Off with you. I’m expecting guests.”
She shuts the door in my face without another word, which results in me being already halfway back down the front steps and nowhere close to knowing what to do when it opens again.
“Wait,” Mrs. Jensen calls after me, and I can tell by the look on her face that she is already regretting whatever she is about to say. “Can you cook?”
I turn, clasping my hands at my waist. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You can clean? Make beds?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looks my dress up and down. “Laundry?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She sighs, folding her arms and shifting from side to side. “I’ve got a party coming this evening, but my daughter just had my new grandson yesterday. She lives outside town, and I haven’t had a chance to make it over to see them with everything needing to be done. If you are able to help take care of some things tomorrow, perhaps I could make it over for at least a couple hours.”
“I can help,” I say quickly. “Anything you need.”
Her eyes are piercing as she looks me over again. “You have something else to wear?”
My hands press tighter together. “Yes, ma’am.”
“All right then. Be at the back door first thing in the morning. Don’t you be coming to the front again. And don’t you be late.”
She shuts the door, and I wait long enough to hear the lock slide into place before I fly down the rest of the stairs, running for the stable as fast as my feet can carry me.
From what I’ve been able to put together through my limited interactions with him, the bedraggled, young man named Elliot who runs the stable on the outskirts of town does not do it for the love of it. He does it because it is what his father did, and his father’s father, and now here he is to carry on the legacy whenever he can be bothered to put down the bottle. Which is rarely.
Generally preferring the company of the bar to the company of horses, I’m fortunate in that our paths usually only cross when board is due and I have no choice but to talk to him. A whiskey bottle tight in his left fist and his eyes practically floating in his skull as he seems to debate whether to make a grab for me or for the money in my outstretched hand. Which is why, on any other occasion that I hear him coming, I quickly find my way to one of the plentiful hiding spots amongst the debris that litters the grounds or the hay bales that fill the loft. The latter spot the one I had sequestered myself to on that first night and all the nightsthat have followed.
Perhaps when I said I hadn’t asked anyone for charity I should have considered this an exception, but given that Iampaying him for boarding Tessandtaking care of the other boarded horses more often than he does, I am choosing not to feel shame for it. At least, not until the day when I can no longer afford to keep Tess here, which is fast approaching based on the few remaining dollars I manage to pull from the old tin I tucked up in the rafters.
My so-calledsavingsare proof of how unlikely it is that I will be able to provide a bounty hunter’s wage. Even if Mrs. Jensen is impressed enough with me tomorrow to keep me on for a time, it would take meweeksto put together even a quarter of the required amount. Then likely far longer for someone to track and apprehend the man who killed my father. Both irrelevant unless I can come up with a better place to stay.
As hot as the days can run in this part of the country, the nights are cold enough to make you wish the heat had stayed, especially during the oncoming fall and winter months when a body needs a fire as much as a warm meal.