June 1891 Larkspur, Colorado

The trail stretches long and flat in front of them, rutted and dry. The mules’ hooves pound dirt as Mary Agnes steers the chuckwagon toward the far reaches of Double H Ranch. After the morning fog lifts, the sky opens in pure golds and oranges tinged with red. It’s not long past dawn and there’s a slight chill.

Dutch rides ahead in a cloud of dust, his long brown riding coat flapping behind. He wears heavy canvas pants and a flannel shirt, a dirty cattleman’s hat and boots, and a red plaid kerchief at his neck. A long gun hangs in a scabbard affixed to his saddle. His cow horse trots at a good pace, its head high.

Mary Agnes wears a black day dress, shawl, and boots as she sits on the buckboard of the chuckwagon, clucking at the mules. Her hat is two townships wide and keeps the relentless sun from browning her already freckled face. Soon, by eleven maybe? she will not need the shawl. She clicks her tongue to keep the mules moving. Dust billows around her and she covers her mouth with a kerchief.

She readjusts her bottom on the hard seat and takes in the view. How is it that she landed in this seat? Fortune? Misfortune? She is thousands of miles from home without a husband and pinch-penny poor. Why is it her brothers could choose to be a village schoolteacher or go into the priesthood? It was Mrs. Kerrigan’s greatest joy back in Dawrosmore that her Michael followed the call to the priesthood. Father Kerrigan went to Sligo at first, home for a week come summers. For days after his visits, all the boys would talk of going into the priesthood, until they started fishing again or going around to the pub or stepping out with local girls. Then it was a subject lost to reason until the next summer came around.

Boys have all the choices, she thinks. They can join the bar, go to sea. Be a shopkeeper. Run a farm. Mary Agnes doesn’t have these options. But she does know how to cook. And men are always hungry.

The chuckwagon brims with cookware, foodstuffs, medicines, water, and everything Mary Agnes can think of that might be needed on the trail: Knives, matches, coils of rope, a long gun. And plenty of ammunition. One cannot be too careful on a ranch.

A drive is due to Double H tonight at the halfway point of the old Goodnight-Loving Trail. These days, drives end at Larkspur, where cowmen load trail-weary cattle onto the rails headed for Denver after a few days of fattening, them and the cattle.

To the south, through a gash in the hills, Pike’s Peak—Sun Mountain, the Utes call it—juts into the thin Colorado air, rising more than fourteen-thousand feet to pierce the clouds. She squints through smudged eyeglasses and wonders if she’ll ever see a peak as high. The hills around Dawrosbeg—Bengoora and Benbaun and the others she thought as a child were the tallest mountains in the world—are dwarves compared to Sun Mountain.

One of the mules stumbles and Mary Agnes loosens her rein. “There, now, Betty.” Betty’s ears flare back, as if she’s embarrassed. “Walk on, now. You too, Bill.” The other mule wheezes, his brand of answering.

As she sets up the chuckwagon, a dizzily fast hummingbird nosedives to attract a mate. From Mexico they come, she’s heard. On those tiny wings! The male flutters, dives, arcs again, the whirr of its wings beating faster than its heart. She reaches out, not to touch the tiny bird’s iridescent wings or bejeweled head, its elongated bill or quivering tail, but to touch something out of reach.

What does this little bird teach us? she thinks. It doesn’t take but a second for an answer. Even though the journey is long, never give up. Never. She smiles. It might as well be tattooed on my heart by now. Never give up.

She tosses together beef stew, cornbread, and dried apple cake, and puts coffee on to boil. There is never enough coffee for ranch hands. She’ll have her share of compliments tonight, too. Not only because the cowhands have reached their destination, many weeks into the drive. Or that they’ll enjoy a home cooked meal. Yes, that. She also knows she’s a pretty face, something they haven’t seen much of on the trail. She’ll take all the compliments, but that’s all. Her heart is tender, but she can’t let anyone see, least of all a handsome herdsman. She misses Tom in every way, more so in her empty bed. But it’s only been eight months now since his spirit left the world. A year in mourning will never be long enough. Or any cowhand more winsome, in every way it can be measured in a woman’s heart.

Or am I fooling myself? Am I falling for Dutch?

Every time she passes him, her heart races. At night, she thinks of him. She quietly takes her hand to herself like she does almost every night now. She no longer fools herself. She lusts after Dutch—his hands, his mouth, his body. But he is not one of us. Not Irish. Not Catholic. Because he is forbidden, she lusts all the more. She is careful to be quiet; Dutch is sleeping not ten yards away by the fire. Why did you have to die, Tom? And why can’t I be with you, Dutch?

Stars dot the night sky, constellation to constellation. Mary Agnes remembers Mary Catherine, her bunkmate on the ship carrying them to America, and learning about the zodiac. “Scorpio,” she whispers. “Secret bearer.”

The second night, hot and dusty and a bit crochety, Mary Agnes makes blanket steak with tomato rice and dumplings, one of Dutch’s favorite dishes. He thanks her with his eyes. She nods her thanks back. Is this how we will communicate from now on? Just nods? As if we don’t know what to say to one another? Like strangers?

After washing up, Mary Agnes climbs under the chuckwagon and settles on the rough tick pallet, an old quilt covering her. It is darn cold again, the ground seeping dampness. She is tempted tonight to sleep in the cooney, a low-slung hammock under the wagon, but it’s filled with supplies. In the middle of the night, she gets up to pass water on the far side of the wagon and sees the glow of the night herder’s cigarette thirty yards off. He’s getting even less sleep than she is. She wonders where Dutch is. He isn’t in his bedroll by the fire. Mary Agnes stays awake for most of the night, wondering, but he never returns. She is uneasy, used to his company and near to panic that he might be gone.

The next day is transport day, a haze of dust and lowing, shouts and whips, as the cowmen prod cattle through the long wooden chute to the loading dock in Greenland on the old Denver and Rio Grande route up to Denver. When the train pulls in, its wheels squeaking, the cattle begin to bellow, a deep keening that rattles Mary Agnes. Like they know. She spends another restless night under the chuckwagon, her heart fileted like cattle.

On the final morning, the night herder is the first in line, eyes rimmed red. He nods, “Ma’am.” She sets the coffee pot down on the table that extends from the rear of the chuckwagon. She hasn’t yet pulled out the canvas cover, but today is closing up shop day, so likely she won’t bother. The other cowmen have had an extra two hours of sleep today, now that the cattle are gone. Soon they’ll be lined up waiting for grub, as if it magically cooks itself.

The sun creeps over the hills as Mary Agnes reaches for a long stick. She stokes the fire under the cast-iron pot and lifts the lid at an angle to avoid dirt and ashes from getting into the hash. Gathering baking supplies from the cupboard, Mary Agnes sets to mix up biscuit dough. The larder is almost bare after three days here on the range, rice and beans gone, lick, too, and flour and sugar short. It’s been a blur of men and cattle and horses and dogs. She’s still got some air-tights, so today’s eggs will be flavored with canned tomatoes. Dried fruit she has abundantly, so she softens apples in water to serve with the biscuits.

“Grub’s on!” she yells, as she clangs two Dutch oven lids together, like a cymbal. Slowly, one by one, cowmen line up for breakfast, dirty and unshaven, Whip-O-Will and Old Dan, Brownie and Texas Jack, “a mean sumbitch,” Dutch says.

“Move along, Brownie,” Texas Jack prods. “You, too, Whip, Dan. Don’t care for God or the devil, or any of you.” He cuffs Whip on the side of the head.

“Quit it, T.J.,” Whip yells. “We’ve a lady present.”

Immediately Janus-faced, Texas Jack tips his hat toward Mary Agnes. He reeks of man sweat and horse sweat and clothes that haven’t been washed for a month. “Pardon me for saying, ma’am. But,” he continues sweetly, with a wink, “I never said anything about not caring for the ladies.”

“Plainly,” Mary Agnes says, as she slops hash and bacon and eggs onto his plate. He holds out his plate as if wanting more. She waves her spoon at him. “You got your vittles. Now move along before I cuff you.”

He arches his eyebrows and dips in a mock bow, the plate still proffered in front of him.

“No one tangles with a skunk, a mean horse, or a cook,” she says, as she shoos him away. “Haven’t you learned that yet, greenhorn?”

Mary Agnes shakes her head while others stifle laughs. Being called a greenhorn is the deepest cut to any cowman, and Mary Agnes just made her point. Texas Jack slinks away to eat his fill on the far side of the encampment, muttering under his breath.

“See what I mean? Meanest cowboy I’ve ever encountered,” Dutch says, as he grabs a tin plate. He is last in line this morning, but Mary Agnes has saved him a thick slab of bacon.

“I do.” The last time she said those words were on the altar at St. Mel’s.

I do, Dutch. I do lust after you. I do want to be with you, damn convention.. I do want to run my hands through your hair and down your chest . . .

She hands Dutch coffee. He reaches for the mug and she doesn’t let go. She meets his eyes and doesn’t let go there, either.

“Thank you, Irish.”

After breakfast, the crew readies for the trip south, this year’s cattle shipped to market. Cowhands roll up bedding and stuff extra clothes into grain sacks. From the sides of their saddles, they hang lariats and scabbards, and tuck oilskins and bedrolls behind. Mounting, they slide firearms across their laps and tip their hats.

Thank you, ma’am; Best vittles this side of the Rockies; Hope you’ll wait for me.

“Pah,” she says and waves them off with a laugh. “Don’t fall off your saddles, boys.”

And then they’re off in clouds of red dirt. If they’re lucky, they’ll make Pueblo by nightfall. Now to washing up and packing up and heading back to the ranch. With Dutch.

As Dutch packs up his kit and bedroll, he glances at Mary Agnes. Is he biting back a smile? She nods and secures the wagon. There’s been no rain for days so the trail should be smooth, and, forgoing any breakdown, they’ll be back at Double H before supper. Home.

It’s not a life she thinks she would have chosen, a young widow alone in Colorado cooking on a chuckwagon, but here she is in God’s High Heaven Country, and she bites back a smile herself. I’m right where I need to be. Where I want to be. Thank you, Mary, for leading me here.

Mary Agnes offers up a short prayer to the Purple Mary. Then she pipes up. “Dutch!” she yells. “Daylight’s burning! Let’s get moving on.”

AFTER SLEEPING LIKE THE DEAD, Mary Agnes wakes to a stain of dawn bleeding through her window. She dresses in half-dark. In the draughty kitchen, she sets to breakfast. It’s not long past dawn now, when the day’s spindly fingers reach deep into the kitchen. She primes the wood stove and replaces the coffee pot on one of the two burners. Henry has been up already and made his first pot. She takes another cast iron pot from its hook above the stove and places it on the second, larger, burner to warm. To her left, kitchen implements sit on a small table wedged in the corner; dangling from a shelf above, a sifter, wooden spoons, spatula.

Next to the table, a ceiling-high hutch grazes low, rough-hewn rafters. Where glass fronts once had been, Henry replaced glass with old newspaper to keep dust from settling on dishes and stemware. A pail of clear water sits to the left of the hutch, and above it, Henry’s holstered pistol, saw, oilcloth coat, and canvas canteen. His hat is missing from its peg; a signal he’s out in the barn already.

Two small chairs and two short wooden benches surround a large table in the middle of the room. She bustles to set the table for three. They only eat breakfast in the kitchen; dinner is always served in the dining room. Henry isn’t much for conversation, but he loosens up some nights.

“If that kitchen table could tell stories,” Henry says, “it’s a good thing no woman lives within fifty miles, pardon me for saying, Mrs. Halligan.” Every time he says her name, it digs deeper. If he knew, he wouldn’t hurt her intentionally, this she knows. But what else would he call her? Irish, like everyone else? Maybe she will go back to Coyne, her birth name. But how would Tom feel about that? Or maybe Mary Agnes Laffey, she thinks. Gram and Granda’s girl.

Henry and Dutch talk of the seasons of a cowman’s work, riding bog and cleaning out water holes in spring, breaking horses and roundup in summer, herding the last of the cattle to market in fall. Winter is for “old hands,” Henry says one night when it’s long past shut-eye. But the light lingers, so she and Henry and Dutch sit at the table sipping coffee as one tale spins into another.

“There’s enough to do, cutting ice, feeding bulls, gathering firewood, riding line,” Henry says. “Dutch here is the best there is.”

“Don’t go puffing up my head,” Dutch says. “It’s you that taught me. Remember that good-for-nothing, Spike What-Was-His-Name?”

“Don’t recall,” Henry says. “There’ve been too many to count. Good-for-nothings, that is.”

Dutch slurps coffee and leans back on his chair. “I’ll never forget him, though, even if I can’t dredge up his surname. We were working up north of Salida and would likely have forded the Big Bend that time of year, the riverbed’s wide enough there, less deep and less dangerous to swim the cattle across. But the weather was coming on fast and we had to ford the Arkansas instead, the river angry and little time to get herd across before nightfall, and he says ‘Why risk the Ar-Kansas River?’”

Henry snickers.

“With the straightest face I say to him, ‘It’s Ar-Kan-Saw, you idioot. And if we don’t ford now, we’re going to be up a crick.’ And he comes swinging for me, from the saddle, and falls right down, kerplunk.”

Mary Agnes laughs, picturing the cowhand in the raging river.

“When he finally gets himself up, wet from hat to boots, his horse has taken off across that ‘Ar-Kansas’ and he’s left to ford it himself,” Dutch says. “He was none too happy, you might say. All hat and no horse!” He slaps his thigh and laughter fills the room.

Mary Agnes realizes she’s happy, for the first time in more than a year or maybe longer. Count the days, girl, she thinks, the days you are happy to bursting. Because any manner of heartache will mar them, dash them, bury them six feet deep, this she knows.

She wonders if Dutch can read her thoughts like her mother used to do when her mind strayed at church, but then she doesn’t care if he can, and almost hopes that he does. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, her gram used to say. She knows what she’s thinking. Is it what he is thinking, too? That we could fall into bed together, today?

Days turn to weeks and Dutch plies on compliments about her progress with Clara, her new garden, her green apron—“a change from the black,” he says. He notices.

And food, he always compliments her on food. After scrambled eggs, hashbrowns with bacon gravy, and pancakes, “Another fine breakfast, Irish.” After short ribs, buttermilk biscuits, and dried cranberry pie, “Mmm, I’ll have more if you’ve got more to spare.” Oh, I have plenty to share.

She daydreams about Dutch all through the day, regardless the task. She could be washing up when she thinks of him coming up behind her and wrapping his large arms around her. Or pegging sheets out on the line, thinking of what Dutch could do to her in bed.

At night, the cooling time, she darns socks, knits neck warmers and mittens, and sews flannel skirts for the long winter ahead. If I had Dutch in my bed, I wouldn’t be so cold. She tingles then and checks the clock—it won’t be long until Henry and Dutch are back from out riding lines.

She spreads fabric on the table, using a pattern for an apron she found in an old ladies’ magazine in the parlor. She wonders who left it there. Maybe the last cook. Maybe a woman visitor. She’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter. She has read it three times, every word, recipes, articles, even the classifieds, one advertising for a cook on another Colorado ranch, up in Golden. She pictures a young woman reading the magazine in New York or Pennsylvania or Ohio and writing back, yes, I’d like to apply, and waiting waiting waiting for an answer before riding the rails to this new life. And how many cooks end up as wives? she wonders.

With sharp shears, she makes cuts and pins right sides together. Close to the lamplight, she weaves her needle through cotton lawn with even stitches. That makes three new aprons now: The green with small sprigs of dainty flowers that Dutch commented on, a solid blue she sewed together a few nights ago, and, tonight, a red stripe, a bold choice when custom dictates she should still only wear black. She holds the apron up and loops it over her neck. It falls below her knees. She feels suddenly . . . desirable. Pretty. Young. Wistful. Am I climbing out of my grief?

Tying the loops of the apron behind, Mary Agnes cuts off excess fabric on the back ties. This she will use to bind summer flowers that she plans to plant beside the kitchen door, tall off-white hollyhock and fragile blue delphinium and a riot of pink and purple foxglove, if they will survive in this climate. Already, the Copper Queen roses outside the door are beginning to bud. That Henry thought to plant roses around the house, she sighs. Making a house a home. And what about Dutch? Where would he like to call home?

Mary Agnes checks the clock and peers out the kitchen window. The moon is full —she knows this, it’s circled in black on the calendar—so Henry and Dutch will be out riding late tonight. She thinks of them up at the perimeters of the ranch and wonders how long it will be before she can take Clara that far at night, either with Henry or Dutch or on my own. Then she thinks of the moon, and how it’s shining everywhere she loves—especially Dawrosbeg—and how her granddad said you can count on the moon.

Granda, I miss you.

As she puts her sewing things away, she conjures up scene after scene of her childhood fishing with Festus off Dawrosbeg. The currach. The cold Atlantic. Cod and hake. Frozen hands, frozen feet. But such a happy heart. And so many stories. So long ago, another life.

She hangs her new apron by the cookstove for tomorrow, ah, tomorrow. More cooking and baking and cleaning and gardening. What is that old wives’ tale about being a wife? Washing, Ironing, Feeding, Etc.?

As she walks down the dark hall to her bedroom, her mind wanders brazenly. It’s the etcetera she’s thinking about tonight. It’s not too bold to think about a new life, is it? At only eighteen? Might I be a wife again? To Dutch?

Mary Agnes undresses in the dark as the moonlight climbs through the window and makes whitish-yellow slits across the wooden floor. She pictures working hard beside a man she loves, pulling weeds and tending horses, riding lines and rescuing cattle, weathering tornados and thunderstorms and snow, and growing through the seasons with him, many meals and aprons—and maybe children—later.

And then her mind explodes with images, more immediate, Dutch coming in after a full day’s work and taking her into his arms, the shaft of the full moon the only thing between them as they come together. So real the images are, Mary Agnes can feel them, the way their loving would blur out all the stars, every one of them.