Sam rose from his bed in the cold, dismal, darkness of the early morning. Without lighting the candle, he washed in the basin of water that sat on the stand in the corner of his room in the boardinghouse. As he always did each day before he pulled on his buckskin clothing, he felt the bulging cyst in the top of his stomach. The thing had stopped growing; he was fairly confident of that. But it was a hateful, threatening thing waiting to rupture, to spill its poison and kill him.
He dressed and went out into the dark street. He felt much troubled. The days had sped past as he searched St. Joe for the river pirates. The probability that the men had left the town, if they had ever been there, was becoming almost a certainty. Trappers often went overland to St. Louis on the Mississippi, or downriver to New Orleans.
Sam moved slowly along the street through the growing morning twilight. The brisk wind blowing over the town was chilly, for the temperature had fallen below freezing during the night. The ground was frozen as hard as stone.
The covered wagon of an immigrant family came by, its iron wheels jolting and rattling on the hard earth. The man and woman sat bundled in heavy coats on the high seat. The woman held a crying baby in her arms. The wagon turned down Francis Street to the ferry.
A group of men rode by on trotting horses. Sam peered intently at them. No, none of them were the men he sought.
He scrutinized the patrons eating breakfast in a restaurant. Disappointed, he went on.
A big brown dog came out of an alley and began to trail noiselessly behind Sam. He ignored the beast, and after half a block it loped off. The double doors of a blacksmith shop swung open, and the smithy began to rekindle the fire in his forge.
The twilight brightened to full daylight. More wagons moved toward the waterfront. A wagon train must be forming upon the west side of the Missouri River. Pedestrians came into the streets, as well as more men on horseback. St. Joe was coming awake.
Sam halted in front of the office of a fur buyer. Perhaps the proprietor would know the men for whom Sam searched.
***
Ruth Crandall raised her gaze from her father’s business ledgers and looked across the office and out the window. She had been at the office for more than two hours, for she liked to work in the quiet morning before the town noise began. It was a safe, comforting feeling with the soft yellow light of the lamp shining on the pages of the ledgers and the black ink recording the purchases and sales, and the profits her father always made. Since the arrival of the railroad in the February just past, the profits were even greater.
Another hour and all business transactions would be recorded. Her father would be pleased. However, there would be no more ledgers to work on. She would leave St. Joe this morning, for she had decided to go with the Mormon converts to Salt Lake City. Her father would not like that.
Though she would miss her father terribly, and her life in St. Joe, the new religion was like a fever in her blood. She must go where it lived, where the people practiced it and thrived. Her hands trembled and her heart felt ready to burst in anticipation of joining the immigrant converts in their journey to the place called Zion.
A gaunt man in buckskins came into sight on the street. He was bent forward as if carrying a heavy load on his back. Each one of his steps was carefully placed upon the ground, as if his legs were fragile and might break.
He halted and looked up at the Crandall Fur & Hides sign on the face of the building. He crossed the sidewalk. The tiny bell fastened to the front door tinkled as he entered.
Ruth watched with growing surprise as the man came closer. She had thought him an old man, ill and frail, from the manner in which he walked. However, he was not but two or three years older than she. His eyes were an intense tan color, the color of flint, and glowed with a fierce inner fire. A pistol was in a holster on his belt. It seemed to belong there. She wondered if he had killed, and sensed that he had. Yet, strangely, even with that thought, she felt no fear of him. His hand swept the new, stiff-brimmed felt hat from his head.
“May I help you?” Ruth asked.
“I would like to talk with the fur buyer,” Sam said. He cast a scanning look around the office. The young woman could not be the buyer. He saw a door open in the rear, exposing a huge storeroom. The storeroom was empty.
“My father is in New York selling the furs he bought this spring.”
“When will he return to St. Joe?”
“In ten days to two weeks. He had no set schedule. I’m Ruth Crandall, his daughter. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Maybe so. I’m Sam Wilde. I’m looking for three trappers who probably sold a large quantity of furs here in St. Joe in the past three or four weeks.”
“Many trappers have sold pelts to my father. I keep the records. What are the trappers’ names? I can look and see if they traded here.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know their names. I was hoping the fur buyer, your father, could help me find out their names.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t deal directly with the trappers, so therefore I can’t help you.”
The sincere kindness of the girl reached Sam. He focused his attention on her. Their eyes touched for a few seconds, and his cramped, angry heart expanded and beat pleasantly. A rare event in his murderous quest to find the fur thieves. He silently thanked her for her unintentional lessening of his misery.
Ruth saw the change in the young man’s gaze as he looked at her, the angry fire in his eyes dying and a gentleness flooding through their depths. A most pleasing expression.
“Is there something else I can help you with?” she asked.
“No. But I do want to thank you,” Sam said.
“You’re welcome.”
As the man turned away, Ruth saw the gentle expression begin to fade from his eyes and the harsh, burning light creep in. He moved toward the door.
Sam stopped midway across the office. God! How beautiful the girl was. He could not erase her face from his mind. It held center stage against all his images of how he would kill his enemies. Or be slain himself. The thought came that she might well be the last beautiful female he would ever see.
He turned around and retraced his steps. He halted in front of her desk and stood staring down into her face. The lamp light and the morning light from the window seemed to compete for the most pleasing way to illuminate the planes and curves of her face and her delightful gray eyes.
A powerful urge came over Sam to touch, to caress, the girl’s soft skin. His hand reached out part way toward her before he could stop and freeze it in midair. He allowed his eyes to do what his hand could not. To trace the contours of her face, of her lips.
Sam knew the girl understood his emotion. Still, she did not stir but instead looked steadily back at him.
He sighed without sound. In other times, other situations, he would have spoken to her of things other than murderous trappers.
Sam turned once again to the door and, forgetting for the moment his illness, hastened with a quick stride from the fur buyer’s office and the girl, Ruth.