out near the banks of the Truckee, where the drifts were deepest, and taught him to make angels in the snow.
Nate’s clayback stallion was tethered in the drive when they got home. Around the horse’s hooves the snow had been churned black, and a blanket was thrown over him. Wisps of smoke came from the stove pipe, rising straight up until they were as high as the main house, then feathering off sharply to the east.
Imogene shifted Wolf to her other hip; he’d been too tired to walk. “Evidently Mr. Weldrick is here. He’s been to call on Wolf a half-dozen times since the new year. Fatherhood seems to have hit him hard, if rather late.”
Sarah looked confused and depressed, an expression she often wore when Nate Weldrick came to call. “He’s not on the porch.”
“It seems he’s invited himself in and built a fire,” Imogene said sourly. She strode to the front door and jerked it open, banging it against the side of the house. Nate, who was crouched before the stove, poking kindling into a growing fire, started at the crash.
“Mr. Weldrick. What a surprise.” Imogene stood in the doorway without coming in.
“How do, Miss Grelznik.” He reached to take his hat off but it wasn’t there; he snatched it from the chair beside him. “Come in, come on in.”
“Thank you.” She was painfully polite.
“I nearly froze to death riding over from Carson. Just got here maybe a quarter of an hour ago. You gals were out, so I just kind of let myself in.”
“So I see.”
“Didn’t figure you’d mind, what with it snowing and all.”
“You’re here, it seems, so it would certainly be a waste of time to mind. If you’ll excuse me, Wolf is wet and tired. We all are.” Imogene carried the boy into the room he shared with Sarah, and closed the door.
Quietly, Sarah shut the front door and lit the lamps. A lamp flared, brightening her cheeks and eyes for a moment before she turned down the wick.
“You look real pretty. That’s a pretty coat,” Nate said.
“Imogene made it for me.”
“You look pretty in it. You ought to wear it more often.”
“I wear it when I go outside.” Sarah fingered the fur on the collar, then, at a loss for anything else to do, took it off, though the room hadn’t taken any warmth from the fledgling fire.
“That blue looks good, better than all the drab gray stuff she’s got you in most of the time. You ought to get yourself some bright-colored things.”
Sarah hung up the coat and smoothed the sleeves of her charcoal-colored gown self-consciously. It was another of Imogene’s dresses cut down and resewn to fit Sarah’s slight frame.
“Get yourself something pretty.” Nate dug into his pocket and took out a small leather purse.
“Please, Mr. Weldrick.” Sarah glanced anxiously toward the bedroom door.
“You’re afraid of her, ain’t you?”
Sarah laughed, a light surprised sound.
“She don’t like me much, does she?”
“I don’t know. We never talk about you.”
Her answer seemed to annoy him.
It was late when he finally left. Imogene stood in front of the stove, heating sausage cakes in the skillet. At the kitchen table, perched on a stool, Sarah peeled and sliced boiled potatoes. Neither had suggested supper while Nate Weldrick was there.
“Wolf never got his supper,” Sarah said. “Should I wake him, do you think?”
Imogene pushed at the sausages with a wooden spatula. “I think not.”
Sarah dropped the potatoes into the hot grease and watched them brown. A companionable silence flowed around them, warmed by the sizzling.
“Mr. Weldrick thinks you don’t like him. Do you?” Sarah asked.
Imogene spooned their dinner onto the waiting plates. “I don’t think he’s a good father,” she replied carefully. “But mostly I suppose I don’t care for him because he makes you so unhappy.”
“Mr. Weldrick’s nice to me,” Sarah protested.
“Yes and no.”
Sarah waited.
“He’s pleasant and complimentary,” Imogene continued, “and he seems to care for you, after his fashion. But since we’ve moved to this house you have come so far. I remember those first months at the Broken Promise-you are so much stronger now, more sure of yourself. Mr. Weldrick takes that away from you.”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, suddenly tired. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
Imogene looked up at the hollow sound of her voice-the confusion, the depression. “
Before Sarah could reply there came a sound of bells, of pots and pans crashing together in the icy air, of shouting and the beating of makeshift drums. Faint at first, a long way off, then growing louder, the din swelled as the noisemakers came up Virginia Street to the river. Hooting and wild laughter cut through the winter night.
Grabbing wraps, the two women stepped outside, leaving their supper to grow cold. Addie Glass was on her back porch, a heavy dressing gown thrown over her bed clothes. She was carrying a lantern.
“Miss Grelznik, Mrs. Ebbitt-I was just coming to fetch you,” she called excitedly, waving them over. “I thought, being so new to the West, you maybe hadn’t seen a charivari.” The lantern cast ample light and they hurried over the snow.
Addie led them through the dim corridors of her house and into the front parlor. “It’s better if it’s dark,” Addie said when they reached the bay window overlooking the street, and blew out the lantern. In its last light her weathered face looked as rosy as a young girl’s, and her eyes shone. “They’ll be by in a few minutes. I remember my charivari like it was yesterday. Rupert was the drunkest of all.” She laughed at her memories. “My Rupert was the sweetest drunk in the state. He loved everybody. If I’d come late, he would’ve married the best man.”
Across the water, the first dancing lights came into view, and individual voices could sometimes be distinguished from the general tumult.
“They’re grander here than anywhere,” the old lady said. “The Chinese sell fireworks beforehand.”
The parade of torches and lanterns snaked like a dragon along the road following the river. Snatches of song floated out across the water. Addie Glass leaned forward and opened the window. “Never mind the cold,” she said. “Look, there’s the bride and groom.”
Pushed along at the dragon’s head, a buckboard covered in homemade decorations carried the newlyweds. Running alongside the groom were the loudest merrymakers, whistling and banging spoons and pails against the wagon. The bride, all in white, her veil falling off, clung to the seat, radiant even across the width of the Truckee. The buckboard was pulled by a mass of men in lieu of horses. Those too tired or too drunk would stagger away to be replaced by fresh pullers.
“Look at them!” Addie said. “Just look at them! That’s the way it ought to be.”
Entranced, Sarah watched the torches weaving and dipping through the night like winter fireflies, mirrored by running reflections on the river’s surface.
“Like it should be,” she murmured.
Throughout the spring and summer, Nate came to call on Sarah, and though she showed little pleasure at his attentions, she always received him. For Wolf’s sake, she said.
Imogene would sniff and purse her lips and say nothing.
25
ELMS AND OAKS WERE FROSTBITTEN TO RED AND GOLD, AND THE warm yellow autumn leaves of the cottonwood trees lined the streets. Imogene stepped out of the stationer’s and heard a train whistle in the distance. “Most trains will be carrying Bishop Whitaker girls,” she said to herself. “They’ll be trickling in all week.”
