people almost like she could hear the truth of them without them even speaking. It hadn’t been said, but Rose knew Mae was conversant with herb and magic. And unlike any of the other folk in town, who were suspicious of her, Rose had been her first and her only friend in Hallelujah.
“I don’t know that I can be of help,” Mae said. “Even if there were something I could do, there isn’t much in me but grief.” She paused, then added, “And that . . . clouds things. I don’t suppose that will change for a long while.”
Rose’s hand gently cupped Mae’s shoulder and Mae realized Rose was an inch or so taller than her. Her hand was warm and strong. Her fingers squeezed just a little. “There isn’t anything more natural you should be doing but grieving, Mrs. Lindson. It takes a heart long days to heal.”
Mae looked into her eyes. Rose had seen pain in her life, but Mae knew she’d never lost everything in the world worth breathing for. “The pain of loving someone never heals.”
Rose pulled her hand away, flinching like she expected a switch to her back. Mrs. Small had obviously never learned to curb her temper before using the switch.
“I don’t mean to overstep—,” Rose said.
“And you haven’t.” Mae forced a smile. “I do appreciate your concern.”
Rose nodded, and started off toward the back of the room. “If you’d wait out here, Mrs. Lindson,” she began.
“Mae,” she said. “I’d think by now you’d be calling me by my given name. As a good friend ought.”
Rose tossed a smile over her shoulder and Mae marveled at the joy in it. There was something alive and glowing to her. She was the kind of woman folk should be drawn to, men should be drawn to. A strong charisma. But she’d learned to hide that light under a bushel. Mae figured she rarely showed anyone her true self. No wonder she wasn’t married.
“If you’d wait a tick . . . Mae,” she said, “I’ll bring out your box.”
Rose slipped through the doors at the corner of the shop. The mercantile wasn’t a bank, but they had safe vaults made of cast iron. So heavy, it was said, each plate had needed a barge of its own and a full team of oxen to drag it to town. The Smalls had hired up the blacksmith to weld together the plates and set clever locks, so that anything within that vault needed a combination of keys to retrieve.
Fireproof, bulletproof, and heavy enough it was thief proof. People of town deposited money at Haverty’s bank, but other valuables, jewels, rings, notes of property, and such, were often as not given to the Smalls for safekeeping.
Mr. Haverty wouldn’t deposit money from a black man, but Jeb had done the odd job for Rose’s father, Mr. Small. In return, Mr. Small tolerated keeping their money, so long as Mae gave them a blanket or length of lacework every season in payment for the safe box.
Rose once told Mae that Mrs. Small sent the blankets and lace down to her sister in Sacramento, where they fetched a high price from city folk.
Mae walked through the store, not much seeing the items for sale. Outside, the noise was starting to pick up as the men who worked LeFel’s rail came into town for a midday meal, drink, or gamble.
“I think I have it all here.” Rose pushed open the door, the box propped under her arm and hard against her hip. “One box?”
“That’s right.”
Rose carried the box to the countertop and set it down. “I forgot to ask if you have the key. My father keeps the box keys in another location I’m not privy to.”
Mae withdrew the key from her pocket. “I have it here.” She walked over to the counter, then set the key in the lock and gave it a turn. The internal gears snicked, and the lock sprang open.
The light in the shop grew darker as one of the railmen shadowed the door, stomping his boots of dust before removing his hat and stepping into the store.
“Afternoon, sir,” Rose said, moving out away from the counter. “Can I help you find something?”
“You the owner?”
“No, sir. Owner’s daughter, so I know my way around the shop. Maybe you’re looking for the doctor, though?”
Mae glanced over at the man. He was rawboned, tall, looked like he drank far more than he ate. His left hand was wrapped with a dirty cloth, stained with blood. Like all the railmen, he carried a gun at his hip.
“If I was looking for a doctor, I’d of found one,” he said. “You got any of the fireproof gloves for sell? Those damn matics boil the meat off a man.”
Rose gave him a smile that would sweeten honey, but still had a bit of sting to it.
“We sure do. Right back there on the shelf to the right, below the washboards. Cowhide suede with wool felt inside. Come in special from Chicago just last month.”
He headed down that way, and Mae was very aware that Rose did not turn her back on him, but instead put her hand in the pocket of her apron. Mae wasn’t certain what she carried in those pockets, but from the set of Rose’s jaw, she’d guess it wasn’t a Bible.
Mae opened the lid of the box and picked up the canvas bag. She pulled at the cords and glanced inside. This purse held more silver than copper, and no gold. She hesitated. It was enough to buy a horse, or a small matic to sort or thresh the crops, or plow the field. Maybe enough to set her right for the long winter ahead. She’d been saving it in hopes she and Jeb would one day need to put a room on the house for a child, or to send that child to a good school down in California, or back East.
No hope of that now. That tomorrow was gone. All the good this money would do now was buy her a man’s death. She tucked the purse into her other pocket and closed the lid on the empty box.
Rose came back around the counter, dusting again, her gaze never leaving the rail worker for long.
Mae glanced over at the man. He slid looks their way, nervous, as if waiting for something. He did not seem to harbor intentions of the neighborly sort.
That was the downfall of having the rail push through. Too many men and women who followed the great landway were desperate folk who had supped on hard luck too much of their life. Robberies, shootings, and more followed in the wake of the rail.
Hallelujah might be putting itself on the map, but that mark would be made in blood, as well as iron.
Mae locked the box and took back her key. “Thank you, Miss Small.”
Rose nodded and put the box at her feet behind the counter, out of the man’s sight.
“Is that all for you today?” Rose asked.
“I’ve a mind to wander the store a bit until your father arrives,” Mae said. “I have a pertinent question for him. He’ll be back any moment now, isn’t that right?”
Rose shot her a look of thanks for the lie. “Why, I suppose he will. Said it wouldn’t take him but a shake to finish his business with the sheriff. Said Sheriff Wilke might even come back to check the new rifles we got in yesterday.”
At that, the man in the back stopped dawdling and came up to the counter to pay. Mae stepped aside and found herself interested in a collection of fragile glass globes with thin copper wires threading them set in a straw- filled bucket not far away. The man paid, took his gloves without a word, and left just as the tiny bird on the windowsill chirped the hour.
Outside, the water clock tower whistled out the noon bell, a melodious, lonely chord.
“I’m obliged to you,” Rose said. “Never know what those sorts of men have in their mind. Mr. LeFel works them like demons. Come in wild-eyed and mean, near often as not.” She made it sound matter-of-fact, but Mae could see the slight tremble in her hand as she brushed her hair back from her face. Rose might be too old to marry conventionally, but she was very pretty. Too often a man took that kind of beauty to be his right to spoil.
“You keep a gun in your pocket?” Mae asked.
Rose gave her a level gaze. “A proper woman wouldn’t,” she said. “But don’t suppose I’m so proper as some.”
Mae nodded. “That’s well and wise of you.”
Rose’s smile was sunshine and summer breezes again. “Such talk! If my mother heard me, I’d be left scrubbing floors for the remainder of my God-given years. Is there anything else you’ll be needing today? I cooked up a rhubarb pie this morning. I’d be happy to bring it out to your place this evening, and maybe sit for a bit of tea?”
