Page 15 of Ellen Found

What do I do? I’m thirty-two years old, and I’m thinking like twenty again. I’ll be damned darned if the sap rises in places besides pine trees.

AFTER ONLY A few blocks, Charles knew Ellen was right about Butte. It was a no-account town with more bars and brothels than churches. He gave Butte the benefit of the doubt at the depot. He had been around enough depots to know that things looked better after a few blocks. Not in Butte.

He was only supposed to go to Bozeman to inspect and purchase a new power saw, except that the salesman didn’t know his Bozemans from his Buttes. “You’ll find what you want in Butte,” he said with no apology. Ah well. The day was warm, and he was amenable to a little longer with nothing to do, a rare novelty. A telegram to Mr. Reamer easily explained a few more days away.

More than that, he wanted to think. He’d said nothing to Ellen—it was hardly his business—but he had seen Sergeant Reeves kiss her at the upper basin last week.

At least it wasn’t a long kiss. Maybe a business trip with time on the train would give him the courage to admit to himself what he had known for some time: he was in love with Ellen Found.

He knew he could rationalize the powerful emotion that played merry hell with his peace of mind. Gwen needed a mother. A man was entitled to another wife to make his way easy in life.

It was time he admitted to himself that Gwen had not once entered into his desire to marry Ellen. He wanted Ellen as much as he had wanted Clare Hayden, and for the same reasons. He missed the pleasure of married life, from the simplicity of sharing a pillow and talking about life plans, to the complexity of loving a woman because he had urges that weren’t going away.

He smiled to himself as he walked along streets dirty with black snow found in mining towns like Butte. He was thirty-two years old but as frisky as a colt.

He stopped in front of a shop window to stare at himself in the reflection. He knew he was a handsome man. Clare used to get tight-lipped when women stared at him and flirted. He pleaded innocence because he didn’t care as long as Clare found him attractive. He could easily have enjoyed a lifetime with her, but fate had shuffled their cards.

Now he found a promising future in Yellowstone. A recent letter from Harry Child stated there was work to be done finishing the remodel at Lake Hotel as soon as Old Faithful Inn was completed, and was he interested? Aye he was. And could it also involve Ellen?

What prevented him from being the man kissing Ellen? Did he need some cosmic approval to marry again, have more children with likely an excellent mother, and grow old with someone besides his first love?

He stared at his reflection, which had turned glum and stupidly pathetic. “I want a wife,” he told his wavy image. “It’s no crime.”

He’d started contemplating remarriage a year ago when the raw hurt of Clare’s lingering death from a failing heart had turned to a dull ache and then to tender memories of a woman he loved who died too soon. He decided he should look for a wife like the one he had lost.

Then why Ellen? From her dark looks and olive skin, she possessed none of Clare’s rosy complexion or her majestic height and truly elegant features. Ellen was small and energetic, with wonderful brown eyes and black hair. With that energy came a quiet nature at odds with the fervor of her labors. Perhaps he could trace that to a child trained from youth to be seen and not heard, a child of low origin that was somehow her fault. Ellen was a person on her own from youth.

She was also the bravest person Charles knew, someone who did not lose her head in a crisis, someone ready to sacrifice herself for another. He doubted he had that much courage and prayed it would never be tested. He could tell Ellen loved his daughter. Did Ellen love him too ?

Enough of this; he was here on business. Charles purchased the power saw to replace the saw and bits worn out with chewing into lodgepole pine. He handed over the cheque from Harry Child and received a receipt and guarantee that it would arrive in Gardiner, Montana, in two weeks. Done.

He didn’t want to stay another moment in Butte. He already had a ticket for tomorrow’s first train to Bozeman, but that was tomorrow. I wonder ... he thought, then turned back to the clerk. “Where is the Mercury Street Café?” he asked.

The clerk stared at him, maybe seeing a capable man wearing a good overcoat, and wondering why on earth... “It’s not a place for gents like you,” the clerk said tentatively.

“I know someone who worked there, and I was wondering ...” Charles saw the smirk. “No, not that sort of person.”

“I’m relieved to say it burned to the ground two weeks ago.”

Insufferable prig , Charles thought, then, “ Really ? I’d still like to see it.”

The clerk pointed. “Two blocks that way, then three more north.” He stifled a laugh. “Nasty place. Glad it’s gone.”

Two blocks took Charles into an even worse part of town, where women wearing nothing but wrappers and smiles leaned out windows. One whistled at him and made a vulgar comment about the swing to his walk. He blushed at the unwanted attention. Clare had mentioned that swing herself, but not while leaning out a window.

There it was, a blackened heap giving new meaning to the word “eyesore.” He breathed in the stink of burned wood and old grease that had probably been trapped in drains since the town’s founding. Someone had hung a sign, “Too bad, so sad.”

A merchant stood in the doorway across the street; Charles joined him. “I used to know someone who worked here,” he said, wondering if he should admit that he knew anyone associated with the café. “A kind woman with a mean cat.”

“Meanest cat that ever lived,” the man said with a laugh. “I hear she snuck out at midnight a few months ago, cat and all.”

“She did. You knew her? ”

“She bought soap and tooth powder from me. She asked to use my address as a return address for a job she wanted. She got the job?”

“A good job,” Charles said, then nodded at the eyesore. “What happened?”

“Ol’ Linson had a cook who smoked. Near as anyone can figure, she dropped ashes on a pile of newspapers, and whoosh!”

“That bad?”

“That bad. The old rip flicked her final ash. Linson left town the next morning, and good riddance.” He paused, then peddled back a bit. “Hopefully you’re not related to him.”

“Not I.”

“Good.” His face took on a wistful expression. “That little lady who got away... she was a pretty thing with kind eyes, but oh, that cat.”

Charles almost told the merchant how Plato the demon cat saved his daughter’s life and the life of that pretty thing, but that meant more questions. He nodded his goodbye and strolled down the street.

Making sure he wasn’t being watched, he found his way to the alley. The burn smell was even stronger, along with alley odors best left unidentified. He paused before a door hanging off its hinges. In his mind’s eye, he saw a woman of courage and determination living there, sharing her skimpy meals with a cat.

He looked inside to see a precarious ceiling sagging and a rotting floor. The bed was no more than a cot, and there was a three-legged table and one stool. Pages from magazines were still tacked to the walls, photographs of mountains and streams, and a lady in a frilly dress. With a pang, he wondered if Ellen had tacked the picture there, her homage to a mother she never knew, a lady of the line, but her mother despite all.

“Family’s what you make it, dear lady,” he said.

Where now? He didn’t want to pass those ogling harpies again, so he walked up the alley. He slowed, knowing he was being followed. He tightened his grip on his carpetbag and turned around.

It was a cat. No, a kitten, ambling along, maybe following him, maybe not. Who knew with cats? He watched, amused, as it pounced on a leaf, tried to eat it, then found a prize. He looked closer as the kitten wriggled its backside, then pounced on a cricket that had somehow survived into winter. It ate with some relish, then looked around for more.

“Tight times, little buddy,” Charles said softly.

He had always been a careful man, measuring twice before cutting once, taking good care of his wife and daughter, and then his daughter. He kept his saws sharp, and he hammered nails straight and true. He left little to chance, because that was how buildings fell down and chairs collapsed.

In an impulsive gesture he could only credit to a longing to make a pretty lady happy again, he knelt. “How about you come with me... uh... Socrates?”

Without a hiss or a backward glance, the little morsel made no objection when Charles deposited it in his overcoat pocket. To his surprise, he felt an outsized purr against his hip. He stopped at an emporium near what looked like the least-scabrous hotel in town and bought several cans of Carnation, a can opener, and some sardine tins.

“You’re changing residence, Socrates,” he said the next morning as the kitten, its belly full of milk and sardines, nestled in his carpetbag.

Careful as always, he telegraphed ahead, so there was a freight wagon held for him at Fort Yellowstone, full of crates and furniture labeled Old Faithful Inn . He looked around, amazed at what a few days away could do. The great melt was on. The wagon had wheels again and not skids.

“Getting ready to open that hotel?” the driver said as he joined him on the wagon seat, carpetbag at his feet, Socrates inside.

“We are. Rooms are almost done. And you’re hauling more furniture.”

As they rode by mounds of melting slush, Ellen Found occupied his mind. He reconsidered. His heart was occupied. The obstacle was Sergeant Reeves. We shall see , he thought. I’ve courted a woman before .

They were almost through scary Golden Gate, that maze of curves and hoodoos where the road cantilevered out over the Gardner River far below, when the driver glanced over his shoulder. “Uh oh,” he said, then something not repeated in polite company.

Uneasy, Charles looked back just as a sudden gust of blizzard wind roared down his overcoat collar, followed by icy pellets. The sky vanished in a swirl of snow.

“I can’t see ahead,” the driver said. Charles heard the panic in his voice. “Why’d this happen right here? I daren’t move. Didja bring any food?”