Chapter Two
July 14, 1885, Boston, Massachusetts
With an exasperated sigh, Samantha Ward leaned out her second story bedroom window. “What are you doing here, J.W.? You agreed to visit the convent during the day and use the front door like a normal person.” Her father never took a shine to being called anything remotely close to “Pa” so she, like everyone else, called him J.W., short for John Ward.
“And get a scolding from the ‘Good Sisters’? Don’t think so. Come down here.”
“No,” Samantha said as loudly as she dared. After living with the Sisters of St. Joseph for a few years, the nuns moved her room to the second floor thinking that would deter her father’s sporadic and drunken visits. He still came, just yelled louder.
“Got a partin’ gift for you,” he called.
Samantha shook her head. “Pay off your debts, not me.”
“I’m leaving for Aspen tonight.”
“Running away again? Who’s after you this time?” In her twenty years, she’d been talked into and fooled into so many dishonest endeavors she swore she’d never trust him again. No one did. Which is why on her twelfth birthday, the good citizens of Boston decided she’d be better off in the care of the Sisters.
“Just got a telegram from Aspen. I am getting my hands on some land out there.”
“You need money to buy land.” Believing him became too painful years ago. “I’m going back to bed.”
“Sam!”
He’d never said it, but she knew that raising a daughter scared the hell out him. It was no coincidence that just when she started looking more like a girl than a boy, he shortened her name.
“If you don’t come down here for your present, I’m going to climb up there.”
“Sure,” she scoffed. It was just another attempt to get money from her.
“Listen to me,” he insisted.
“Sh!” she hissed, lowering the window.
“I’m off now. I’ll send you a telegram when I get there. If anything happens to me, look up Luke Tremain.”
“Luke Tremain?” She shoved the window open. “You said he was a no good son of a mudsill. You trust him?”
“Hell no, but he’s gettin’ me a deal on a ranch.”
“A deal?” Sam yelled dangerously loud. “Are you swindling some rancher, J.W.?”
Muffled footsteps sounded in the hall. The glimmer of candlelight cast its sliver of a shadow on the floor below her bedroom door. It was probably just Sister Mary Ellen sneaking a snack again, but getting caught talking to J.W. could mean eviction or worse—disappointing the Sisters. She couldn’t take that chance, so she quietly closed the window and dove into bed.
“You’ll come when I’m settled. I’m going to make things right. You’ll see.”
“Ugh,” she groaned, still able to hear him. He liked to remind her that she was a cowboy’s daughter and belonged in the West. He would have been the father she deserved, he’d say, if they just lived in Aspen. But after all that had happened over the years, she wasn’t sure where she, or he, belonged.
“The gift—it’s what you always wanted.”
Her heart pounded. Someone was going to hear him.
“Don’t you worry about me,” he said before his voice finally melted into silence.
Don’t worry? It was his favorite thing to say. As a child, she had held onto his coat-sleeves with the strength of an ox each time he walked out the door. Too many nights had turned into mornings when she feared she would never see him again.
She replayed his words in her head. A gift she always wanted? What she always wanted was a father she could…wait. Was it Mother’s bowie knife? She bolted across the room and flung open the window. She craned her neck into the night sky. The sound of crickets filled the crisp air. “I thought you…”
He was gone, but a pouch awash in the familiar scent of worn leather lay on the sill. He climbed up here? She clutched the soft bundle to her chest and held her breath. Huddled before a hastily lit candle, she unfolded the wrappings. The sparkle of silver danced in her hands. He remembered how much she wanted this piece of her mother.
A long-lost smile stretched across her face. What had Mother thought when she opened this on her wedding night? Mother was a Boston girl who fell for a cowboy. That’s what J.W. said anyway, back in the days when he would talk about her. He promised her on her deathbed that their daughter would be raised back in her hometown. He’d kept that promise. The only one he ever did.
The sleek steel glided across her hand. Her fingers swept over a small ruby soldered in the hilt. J.W. had concealed the knife along with his memories of her mother. Sam had tried to reach the buried parts of him, but she’d failed and his demons took him away long before the nuns took her in.
The bowie knife was sacred to him so why was he giving it to her tonight? He was up to something, something that made him think he might never see her again.
She glanced at the window. The knot in her belly began to twist as it always did whenever he thought he was acting like a good parent. The ache in her stomach hadn’t been this bad since the time he showed up at mass announcing his intentions to change and be a good father. Archbishop Williams, along with the rest of the congregation, pretended he wasn’t even there. Drunk, he tripped and landed in the first pew. Instantly, his proclamations had turned to snoring for everyone to see and hear at communion. He was a swindler, a liar, and a drunk. He was also the only real family she had.
For him to team up with Luke Tremain meant he was in deep this time. She tore off her nightgown and threw on her dress. Rummaging through her sparse wardrobe, she unearthed her cowboy boots—contraband in her home for the improperly parented. Covering the bowie knife in soft leather wrapping, she slid her present under her pillow.
Years ago, she learned to accumulate only enough belongings that could easily fit through her bedroom window. But tonight she’d be back, so she grabbed her usual rock along with her secret stash of money. The nuns forced her to give every penny she had earned, won, or swindled to the poor. But money was security, so she gave up enough to cleanse her sins and kept the rest.
“This is the last time I’m going to save your hide, J.W.” With a deep breath, she slipped quietly down the stairs. The door on the main floor groaned open. Nudging the rock into place, she propped the door ajar for a safe return.
“J.W.,” she called into the darkness.
No answer.
Nausea rolled in her belly. He wasn’t really going to leave her again, was he? No, he wouldn’t.
“J.W.?” The sound of her breathing was all that filled the night until the whistle of the Boston and Albany blew, announcing its imminent departure.
“No!” She spied the dim lights of the gas lamps at the train depot and ran for them.
Smoke and ash filled the air as the thunder of her boots pounded the wooden stairs. She rounded the train platform. “Wait!” It was too late. The caboose was already snaking its way toward Worcester.
He’d left. “Don’t worry,” he had said. They both knew better.
****
The tapping of Sam’s boot kept time with the pounding of her heart as she surveyed the Boston Train Depot. Black smoke curled through the locomotive’s cars and windows, engulfing the platform in its blinding ash. She had returned to the convent after J.W. left, she had no choice, but after two days of her pacing, the Sisters knew something was amiss. They also knew just what to say to get the truth out of her. If Boston had nuns enforcing the law instead of sheriffs, there’d be a lot fewer criminals on the streets. Confessing was the easy part. It was being cooped up in the convent, hovered over and watched day and night that Sam couldn’t take anymore. Ten days had passed with no word from J.W. and with each passing hour the expressions on the Sisters’ faces hardened, their smiles more forced their eyes downcast.
No one could replace a parent, but the Sisters came close. In the beginning she clung to the nuns for the stability she never had. Over time, the prostitutes and orphans who lived there too had become a surrogate family. Which made her resent J.W. even more for what she was about to do.
Sister Mary Ellen was the easiest to fool. Sam wasn’t allowed out of her sight. So she simply told the Sister that she had to see a friend off at the train station. Not exactly a lie.
“The train is about to leave. Are you sure your friend is coming?” Sister Mary Ellen asked.
“Yes,” she said searching the faces of the passengers. A close friend and reformed prostitute at the convent assured her that the nuns’ lawyer was going to be on the train. “He’s as bright as mineshaft. Afraid of women, won’t try nothing. You’ll be as safe as Reverend Mother at a whore house.” Having met him before, Sam agreed that Wade Rush was the perfect man for her plan.
She took a deep breath as she spied the young lawyer boarding the train. When the last of the first-class coaches passed, she slid a note into the nun’s hand.
“You are the friend. Please share this letter at home and tell them not to worry. I’ll send a telegram when I get there.”
“Not to worry? What are you…? Get where?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t risk losing him. I know you don’t agree, but there is good in him.” Wrapping her arms around the nun, she breathed in the fragrance of maple and molasses, the comforting scent of the woman who had wiped her tears and made her laugh over the past few years. “I’ll miss you,” Sam said. With sweaty fingers, she lifted her skirts and raced for the back of the train. She leapt onto the boarding crate and gripped the warm steel railing and climbed the stairs.
“Goodbye!” she cried to Sister Mary Ellen, who stood dumbfounded on the platform clutching the letter.
In the coach, plumes of smoke filled the cramped quarters. She spied Wade sitting alone peering through wire-rimmed glasses, his nose burrowed in a book as he chomped on a roll of beef jerky. She slid down on the bench next to him. Gusts of gray soot wafted through the air and the engine screamed as it began its steady chug west, sending her stomach fluttering as the train lurched forward.
Allowing herself one last look, she leaned over him and peered out the window. Sister Mary Ellen was still there staring at the letter.
Sam bowed her head. She was no nun, but she prayed they’d forgive her all the same.
“Tickets, please, sir,” the conductor said to Wade. “And your wife’s,sir?” he added patiently.
Wade coughed up his beef jerky and reddened under his spectacles. “My wife?”
“Here it is.” Sam handed her ticket to Wade. The man nodded and took her ticket. He frowned at Wade clearly disapproving of a wife handling her own ticket. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the dusty window and smiled. He thought they were married. Just as she had planned.