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Returning to work the following day, Maddie found a perplexed Mrs. Wilkinson. "I simply do not understand why we made no sales yesterday."
"Oh, but we did! I sold a book of poetry to Mrs. McDonnell. Remember?"
Mrs. Wilkinson frowned, then turned, surveying the wall of literature. "Still and all, that is a bit discouraging."
"If you wouldn't mind a suggestion . . ." Maddie waited until she was certain Mrs. Wilkinson realized she was not alone in the room, something Maddie postulated was her natural inclination. Preoccupation seemed to be her normal state of mind. Mrs. Wilkinson turned to her, tapping her fingers on the counter. "Yes, of course."
Maddie took a breath and started in. "I have read that bookshops in eastern cities host readings. I realize that we do not have any authors here, but someone could read aloud from our collection." Believing that she still at last held the woman's attention, she pushed on. "We could also organize a women's reading circle. The members might suggest which books they would like to read ahead of time; we would order the books; they would meet to discuss what they had read."
Maddie knew the suggestions had merit, but whether Mrs. Wilkinson's crowded mind could give them proper consideration remained to be seen. She watched the woman's fingers grow quiet. Maddie considered this a good sign. However, her expression remained frozen for so long that Maddie began to wonder if she were thinking of something entirely unrelated to the bookshop, another of her many charitable endeavors.
At last Mrs. Wilkinson's face defrosted and a toothful smile reappeared. "Madison, those are brilliant ideas! I suppose that I might still offer tea and sandwiches?" She put this last question to Maddie almost as an appeal, her brow creasing.
Yes, of course, this would be her first concern. Impeccably dressed for all occasions, well-acquainted with the politics of every women’s society in Ketchum, a campaigner for every possible good deed, she must look after the needs of her guests, not her customers. They would never be simply those who wished to make purchases. Maddie nodded while suppressing a smile and said, "Of course, Mrs. Wilkinson. We will make many opportunities for tea."
By Friday, Maddie had managed to remove four wanted posters from the most prominent stores along Main Street. What were four more thefts when she had hidden in her room a satchel full of thousands of stolen dollars? These were, after all only, pieces of paper. That evening, after promising Mr. Wilkinson that she would lock up, she systematically burned each poster. One-by-one, she lay them in the fire of his woodstove, not willing to leave until all had turned to white ash.
Saturday evening, Evan announced that he and Lena would be traveling north to the Big Wood River Ranch. Anyone who wished to see the property was welcome to come along. Although the legal aspects of their ownership would not be finalized for some weeks, they planned a picnic at the site of the proposed lodge. Now that her brother had returned east, the widow seemed more than willing to welcome visits to the ranch. In fact, the picnic was her idea.
Sunday afternoon, after a disturbing sermon about Satan as the father of lies, Lena and Maddie hurried home to pack up pies and sandwiches enough for a dozen people. With the buckboard loaded, Ely, Lena and Evan climbed in. Maddie was about to step up when David offered her the second seat in his buggy.
Maddie blinked once at the suggestion. While the thought of spending more time with David was appealing, she feared allowing herself to be in a position to further her deceit. But the idea of riding on the buggy’s upholstered seat sounded far preferable to the hard buckboard. And there was the darling mare to consider. "That would be nice, thank you."
David’s sturdy little mare, head and tail held high, pranced as if she sensed the holiday atmosphere. She soon insisted on taking the lead, stepping out at a clip to pass up the larger horse. David kissed to the mare, urging her into a high-stepping trot.
Maddie laughed, seeing Evan’s disapproving scowl. "I’m not sure who enjoys this more, you or your horse."
"I think it’s mutual." He gave her an impish smile. "Let’s see what she can do." With a slap of the reins against the horse’s rump, the mare picked up her pace.
Grabbing her hat with one hand and the side of the buggy with the other, Maddie let out a startled squeal. With wind whipping tendrils of hair into her mouth, she thought of nothing beyond the joy of this moment. Her senses satiated, she reveled in the mad rush of hooves pounding on dirt.
Too soon, David reined in the mare, slowing their pace. Only then was Maddie aware of more than her tingling excitement. She lifted her eyes to the bluest sky she’d ever seen, filling so much of the horizon, stretching for miles to meet the foothills. Had there ever been such a sky or such a day?
Stretching out along their route were indications of Jessie’s awakening spring. Wildflowers and evergreens adorned with new growth in the palest shades of green marked their path north along the Big Wood River. David must have commented on the weather but Maddie, so enraptured by the beauty surrounding her, sat beside him stunned, scarcely hearing. It wasn't that she ignored him by any conscious decision but his soft voice became lost in the wonder. She was passing into a dream, a dream she’d had fallen into with her eyes wide open.
The trail turned toward the river, passing through a glade of birch trees just coming to leaf. Maddie looked up at the green canopy, her heart quickening at the glory of it. Unable to contain her delight, she rose to her feet, lifting her hands to brush the budding branches.
David reached out a hand to steady her. He looked up at her, alarmed. "What are you doing?"
Maddie laughed aloud as tender branches brushed her fingers. "Isn’t this amazing?"
He slowed the mare to an easy walk, allowing Maddie her moment of joy. He didn't scold her or suggest she was foolish; he simply laughed. It was a pleasant sound, rumbling up from deep within his chest. She looked down at him, his head bent back as he laughed with her.
In that moment of candor, he was everything spring represented—hope, new beginnings, possibilities. She saw him. Perhaps for the first time, she really saw him, and she was surprised by what she saw, perhaps even more by what she felt. For the first time since arriving in this small town at the end of her known world, she believed new starts were possible.
"Should I stop? Do you need to climb the tree or is touching it enough to appreciate it? Or perhaps you should take the reins and ride like Diana on her chariot. I wish I could offer you a bow and quiver of arrows." His eyes still held laughter.
"No, thank you." Taking his hand, she settled herself back onto the seat. "Is spring always like this? I can't recall ever seeing one so resplendent." She hugged her arms around herself, shaking from a spontaneous tremor of excitement.
David kissed to the mare and said, "I can't speak for them all, nor can I say that this one is unique." He cast his gaze to the swollen river tripping along, singing its own glad song. "I have to agree with you that it is splendid and finer than any I can recall."
The trail turned away from the river threading its way through tall grass to a small rise. They came upon Ely unhitching the horses. When had they fallen behind them?
Lena and Evan stood a little way from the buckboard gazing down on the valley below at a two-story farmhouse and a scattering of tidy outbuildings. Whoever had built the house had positioned it for a sweeping view of the river and the rising hills beyond. Maddie, transfixed by its charm, stared with open mouth.
David offered his hand to her. "I can understand why this place means so much to them."
She jumped down from the buggy but took hold of his sleeve before he could start off to join Evan and Lena. David gave her a puzzled look. She nodded to the couple. "They need some time, I think."
The couple stood like a lovely statue of lovers, Evan with his arms around Lena, she resting her head against his chest. David took a step back to her side and whispered, "I wonder how much more they see than we do."
It was Maddie's turn to be puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"I think they see more than a house, a couple of barns and prime grazing land. I think they see what it can become. I think they see the possibilities in the years ahead."
Maddie shifted her gaze from Lena to the valley and then back to Evan. He was right. She imagined that their eyes were focused on the future, sharing a similar vision. She couldn't imagine such intimacy, but in that moment, she wanted it more than anything else she'd ever desired in her short life. What forces worked to bring two hearts together like this? What miracle of heaven?
David startled her when he asked, "Who do you suppose dreamed this first? Was it Lena or Evan?"
She studied him, his face turned to the couple. Heedless of propriety’s dictates, she asked, "Do you have a dream that strong, something worth chasing?"
He stood unmoving for a number of heartbeats before he answered in a voice scarcely more than a whisper, "I want what they have for each other, that depth of intimacy with someone."
Maddie marveled at the man’s candor, the unveiled envy. But she had to agree. In her life she’d rarely glimpsed such companionship. She found it impossible not to feel a twinge of jealousy. "I think what they have must be a rare thing."
"Perhaps." Something in the way he said the word, made her think that he believed the possibility of such a relationship more tangible than she. Maybe he’d had that kind of attachment to someone. The young woman doctor, perhaps? She couldn’t explain why it should matter, but it did.
David turned abruptly to face her. "I forgot!" He rummaged through his coat pocket until he found what he searched for. Pulling out a folded newspaper clipping, he handed it to her. "I read this in the Idaho World Newspaper yesterday and thought of you. It’s only a few days old."
She unfolded the article and read the title. Miss Nellie Bly Takes the Challenge
"She’s a reporter for The New York World newspaper who’s attempting to navigate the world in 75 days. That article tells of her arrival in London after crossing the Atlantic from New Jersey. It’s quite the celebrated undertaking. Her writing is very engaging and lively. Have you heard of her?"
Maddie wished she could say that she had, but the woman’s name was new to her. She shook her head, scanning the article eagerly.
"Another article I’ve read reported that her editor, Mr. Pulitzer, didn’t wish to send her. He told her only a man could manage such a journey. According to her own words, she told him to hire the man to take the challenge and she would go to work for a competing newspaper and beat him."
“How amazing!” Maddie lost herself in the article while David unhitched the mare. "It says here that she once stayed in an insane asylum to write a report on poor conditions there. If only Dr. Thornton were here, she’d be amused to hear his reaction. Only men capable of travel? How arrogant! Hurray, for Nellie Bly! Maddie knew she’d just gained a new role model to match Miss Emma Willard.
She looked up from the clipping to see Dr. Reynolds grinning at her. Maybe Lena was right when she suggested that he was . . . how did she put it? On her side. He’d thought of her when he read of another woman’s adventurous undertaking! Perhaps he was an ally.
As they rode back to Ketchum, the sun slipped behind the foothills, hugging the western side of the river. With its disappearance, the evening air brought the reminder that spring still stood as a gentle mediator between the stronger opposing forces of winter and summer. Maddie pulled her wrap tighter to her neck, grateful that the buggy afforded little space between her and the doctor. His body heat kept her left side warmer.
After minutes of quiet hoof beats against soft earth, David asked, "Now that you have found some employment with Mrs. Wilkinson, do you think you might be staying for a while?"
Maddie considered the lies she might tell, those to please herself and those to satisfy the doctor's curiosity. "Now that we do actually have books on the shelves and a few customers, I think the work might be steadier." She knew she hadn't answered the question, but hoped it was enough.
They rode in silence for a while, the sounds of evening song birds and slow clip of the mare's feet creating a gentle rhythm. David seemed content with their silent passage through the night, his body relaxed, reins loose in his hands. "There are some interesting people in this town." He said it not as a question but a statement of his own observations. She heard the hesitation in his voice as he chose the word people.
Feeling mischievous, she said, "I think that I would call many of them characters."
David passed her a bemused expression. "And what distinction makes them characters?"
Maddie leaned a fraction of an inch closer, blocking the small pocket of air between their shoulders. "I have known many people who were interesting. Some were interesting because of their features, perhaps a large bulbous nose or cheekbones sharp as knives. Some were interesting because of the way they spoke. People that speak with a cadence like telegraph keys. Others have voices that sound shrill and birdlike."
She tucked her hands beneath her skirt, gripping the seat. "But characters have distinct personalities, you know?" She looked at him, attempting to gauge his reaction. "I don't have to imagine who they really are. I can just watch them or listen to them. They're more than interesting people to me."
"Maybe that's what makes you a writer."
His remark warmed her as much as his physical proximity. To be taken seriously as a writer would bring validation to her efforts, something she wanted. She dared to glance at him from the corner of her eye. Again, his expression revealed no duplicity of meaning. He was such an honest man. Why did that fact have to come between them?
Evan, Lena and Ely's voices carried with the wind from the wagon a little way ahead of them. Sprinkled generously with laughter, their spirits seemed imbued with the dreamings of the day and the potent elixir of a fair spring evening. Maddie tipped her head back to gaze up at the sky where stars winked on behind a thin veil of high clouds. "Do you believe our lives are fated in the stars? Some do, you know, saying our choices are just an illusion of free will."
"You ask weighty questions for such a night as this, questions puzzled over by theologians and philosophers for centuries." A note of amusement colored his answer. "I’m not sure I have the wisdom to answer."
Maddie turned to him, persistent in her musings and determined to extract a direct answer. "Seriously, don't you sometimes feel as though you've had little control over the direction your life has taken? You would probably still be in Baltimore had you not become too ill to stay. Isn't that right?"
She saw his expression darken. A long moment passed before he answered in that steady cadence she associated with the voice he used for patients. "Yes, I probably would have stayed, but I'm not sure that disproves the possibility of free will. I didn't have to move west, but I chose to."
"But it does prove that circumstances beyond our control limit or expand our possibilities. Yes?" Maddie’s father's choices had impacted every aspect of her upbringing. She remembered the disappointment she'd felt as she left school, once again under her father's stifling influence. She'd long since given up the expectations of fair treatment in life.
"I believe our actions produce natural consequences. If I place my hand in the fire, I should expect to burn my hand. It still would have been a choice on my part to do so, a bad choice, but mine."
"But what if someone forced you to place your hand in the fire? The consequences would be the same but the cause would have been out of your control."
"Yes, of course. I’m sorry, Maddie. I'm still not clear what you're asking."
Maddie let out a heavy sigh before answering, "Oh, I don't know. It's just that . . . well . . . life never seems to travel in a straight line, does it? Just when you think you know what's going to happen next, it doesn't or it's different from what you expected. One day you are on a train to Shoshone and the next you find yourself in Ketchum." She hugged her arms about herself. "Life certainly isn't straight like a train track."
David turned his face to her, his expression unreadable. She knew she shouldn’t continue, but the questions so crowded and jumbled in her head refused to stop, needing to be voiced.
"But just think of it, David. If I hadn't overheard Lena and Evan's conversation with Mr. Toliver, they'd never have known he didn't have a legitimate buyer, and if they hadn't known that he was lying they'd not been able to purchase the ranch from Mrs. Wagner. Now they have their dream. Was that chance or fate?"
"Perhaps it was neither. Why not consider a third option? Could it have been a divine plan that placed you in the kitchen at just the right moment? Is that any harder to believe?"
Maddie didn't answer, recalling the preacher who'd read over her mother's grave and spoke of a Heavenly Father who meant everything for good. If God were like her father, then her good was the least of His concerns.
She shook her head and pulled her hands back into her lap. “Have I spoiled our day with such talk? I’m sorry.”
Her fears faded as David met her eyes. “Not at all. I don’t think anything could spoil such a day as we’ve shared.”
