Gabriel's Lady

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Gabe asked, “Why are you looking for Parker?”

“His sister wants him. It seems she’s determined to make a happy home for him up there at the mine. She’s over at the store right now buying soap and brooms and what all. Says she’s going to clean things up.”

Gabe chuckled. “Well, now, that should be interesting.”

* * *

By the time an evasive Parker and an even more evasive Morgan had joined Amelia at the general store, she had finished making her purchases. She stood impatiently, surrounded by bundles and feeling a little self-conscious. The storekeeper didn’t seem to mind having a strange woman planted in the middle of his store, tapping her foot and looking around restlessly.

Parker had refused to offer much in the way of an explanation for the delay, though he claimed to be pleased that she had found a project with which to occupy herself and agreed to return to the cabin with them. All in all, the trip to town had brought back Amelia’s headache, and she decided to postpone her cleaning venture until the next day.

It proved to be a wise decision, since she awoke the next morning with a clear head and a renewed determination to make the best of her stay in the West. Even the weather seemed resolved to put on its best face. It was a brilliant, cloudless day. The stream sparkled like liquid diamonds and the valley beyond looked green and inviting. Amelia thought for a moment of taking a short ride across the meadow before she started her work, but firmly pushed the idea away. Her first task was to do laundry, and since she had never in her life washed so much as a handkerchief, she figured she’d better get an early start.

Parker was on his best behavior, evidently as determined as she that their six weeks would be pleasant. He agreed without fuss that Morgan should stop working on the mine long enough to help her fill the washtub they had cut from a barrel and haul water up to the new copper boiler she’d purchased in town.

Once she had her system set up, Amelia told Morgan that he could go back to helping Parker. She would handle things from here on. What could be that difficult about boiling and rinsing clothes?

Feeling a touch of that independence Parker had boasted about, she prepared the first batch. She remembered that Meggie, the Irishwoman who came in once a week to supervise the laundry at the Prescott household, always put the light-colored things together, particularly the more delicate…unmentionables. As she started to choose items from the pile that Parker had gathered for her the previous evening, it dampened her enthusiasm a bit to discover that it wasn’t only Parker’s house that hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. But she persisted and added some things of Morgan’s and her own until the boiler was chock-full. She ladled out a spoonful of soap. She had no idea how much to use nor how long the things should boil, but it didn’t seem that such considerations should matter. After all, she had been the star pupil at Miss Longworth’s Female Academy four years running. How hard could it be to do a little laundry?

Gabe gave his horse free rein across the last flat stretch of meadow. Yesterday he had resisted the urge to walk with Parker and Morgan to see Amelia. Her refusal to dine with him had made it fairly clear that she was not interested in cultivating their acquaintance. But this morning he’d found himself mounting up to ride out to the mine with absolutely no excuse whatsoever except the beauty of one of the last hot days of summer. Amelia Prescott might not want to see him, but she’d left him with a bur under his saddle that had to get combed out…or at least scratched a bit.

Parker and Morgan were upstream at the far end of the digs, so Gabe hitched his horse, untied a paperwrapped package from the back of his saddle and headed for the little cabin. The paper contained a slab of salt pork. Not the most romantic of offerings, but he knew the state of Parker’s larder and figured that by now the lad’s Eastern visitors could be getting pretty hungry. They weren’t used to living on scrawny rabbits and scavenged wild vegetables like the more veteran miners up and down the Black Hills.

He couldn’t hear any noise from inside the cabin. Perhaps Amelia was upriver with her brother. Tentatively he pushed open the door and looked inside. He couldn’t decide whether the scene that met his eyes was comical or tragic. Amelia sat next to a large tub with her legs stuck straight out in front of her. The dirt floor underneath her had turned into a giant mud puddle that had splattered her light blue dress with polka dots of mud. She was surrounded by soaked, muddy articles of clothing. The water in the tub was black. A copper boiler lay on its side by the fire, more clothes tumbling out of it onto the ground. Amelia held one item in her hands and was viewing it with an expression of mourning.

She turned when the door opened. “Oh, fine,” she said. “Now my day is complete.”

“You’re glad to see me, I take it,” Gabe answered. The comical was winning out over the tragic, but he kept his expression neutral.

“What do you want, Mr. Hatch?”

Gabe looked around the room. “I…ah…heard you were determined to clean this place up.”

“Mr. Hatch,” she said in a slow, deliberate tone, “I’m sure your business is with my brother. He’s up the hill somewhere with Morgan. Please go find them and leave me alone. I am, as you can see, very busy.”

Her voice was a strong contrast to the forlorn picture she presented. No one would say that little Amelia Prescott lacked pluck. “Can I help?” he asked mildly.

Her chin came up another degree. “I’m doing just fine, thank you.” When he continued watching her with a sympathetic look in his eyes, she added, “Except…except…”

Finally there was the slightest tremor in her voice. He moved closer, just to the edge of the ring of mud, and crouched down. “Except what?” he asked gently.

She pulled her bottom lip through her teeth. Her mouth was full and red, Gabe noted idly. Ripened.

She lifted the soggy piece of clothing from her lap, then let it drop with a sodden splash. With an intake of breath that could have been close to a sob, she said, “This was my only nightgown.”

Gabe glanced at the garment. It appeared to be made plainly of a serviceable white cotton. What had been white cotton. “Are you having trouble getting it clean?”

She shook her head. “It’s ruined. Look.”

He leaned close as she picked it up once again. The entire piece was covered with sticky black globs.

“What water did you use?”

She looked confused. “Well, just…water. From the stream.”

“Ah.” He stood and walked through the mud to pick up the fallen boiler. Then he began dumping the dirty clothes back into it. “The streams around here are full of minerals. See how the clothes have turned yellow?”

He spoke calmly, as if to a child, and gave Amelia time to compose herself. She picked at one of the little black balls. “Will these ever come off?” she asked.

“Perhaps. With patience. But the way to start would be to wash everything again. Doesn’t your brother have a rain barrel?”

She gave a forlorn shrug.

“You need fresh water and lots of soap. How much did you use?”

She cupped her hand to indicate the size of the spoonful. The skin of her palm was bright red.

“You’ve burned yourself!”

She quickly turned her hand over, but he reached for it and gently spread her fingers out. “It’s nothing,” she said.

“Didn’t you pour cold water over the clothes before you took them out of the boiler?” She didn’t answer. He dropped her hand with a shake of his head, then collected the soiled nightgown from her lap. It appeared to have fared worse than most of the other garments. “Whenever you have to use river water, you need to use a lot of soap.”

“I didn’t think it would make any difference.”

He smiled at her. “It’s not quite the same as turning on a faucet over a washtub back home, is it?”

“Mr. Hatch, I have never in my life turned on a faucet over a washtub.”

Her expression had regained some of the defensive haughtiness he had found so intriguing the other day. He liked it better than the sadness he had seen in her eyes when he came in, which had put an uncomfortable soft spot in the middle of his gut.

“Well, then, you can learn from the beginning.” He reached out his hand. After a slight hesitation, she took it and let him pull her up out of the dirt. “We’ll start by moving this operation out of Mudville, here. There’s a nice grassy bank behind the cabin that will do just fine.”

By late afternoon it was done. Gabe’s brisk manner and gentle jokes had helped Amelia overcome her initial embarrassment at seeing him, his white ruffled shirt rolled up to his elbows, scrubbing away at her most personal items of clothing. She’d never in her life seen a man do laundry, but Gabe seemed to think it nothing extraordinary. A few of the garments had been beyond remedy, including her nightgown. Sadly she’d crumpled it into a ball with the other ruined things and tucked them away in the corner of the cupboard to use as rags.

She sat back against the little hill bank and surveyed the results of their efforts. Freshly cleaned clothes, now only slightly yellowed, flapped in the breeze from the clotheslines Gabe had strung between three small trees in the back of the cabin. The boiler had been dried and put away in the cabin and the barrel washtub was emptied and lying on the ground bottom up.

She was glad that Parker and Morgan had taken their lunches with them this morning and had not returned to the house at midday. She didn’t think she could bear having them see the mess she had made. They would be home soon, though, and hungry as usual. She didn’t have an ounce of energy left to prepare a meal, and she had no idea what they were going to eat. The squirrel stew was gone, and neither Parker nor Morgan had been out to catch anything else. Remember stores? she thought to herself. Stores where you bought food in boxes and cans? Restaurants? Restaurants where you sat at tables covered with snowy linen and fine china and were served course after elegant course by a discreetly hovering waiter?

“Now what’s the problem?” Gabe interrupted her thoughts.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You look gloomy again. The laundry’s done. The floor inside has almost dried. The only thing left to do is get you cleaned up,” he added, gesturing to her now completely filthy dress.

She felt her cheeks color. She couldn’t believe she was sitting on the bank, her dress wet and clinging to her in what must be a most indecent way, her skirt pulled up inches above her ankles and her feet bare, since she had abandoned her soggy shoes halfway through the afternoon. She must look like the worst kind of hoyden. “I am a sight,” she said ruefully.

“Yes, you are,” he agreed easily, his eyes bright as they roamed the length of her.