The Misadventures of Maude March (30 page)

I leaned in to look at it along with her and told Marion, “Jesse James killed somebody again.”

“Well, there's fresh news,” he said with a smirk.

“It's all they've written about in here,” Maude said.

“Read it out loud,” Marion said. “I can't read upside down.”

And so I began at the first column:

“Maybe they've forgotten about you,” Marion said as Maude began to read about Jesse and Frank from another
article titled, “Local Boys Gone Bad.” “What with this interference, and your disguise, you won't have to worry about being recognized.”

“I never believed I would feel so relieved to hear about such things,” Maude said, “as a man killed.”

“I bet Frank rescued Jesse so he could finally get his name in the paper alongside Jesse's,” I said. Maude made a disgusted sound, but I argued, “It must get tiresome for him that Jesse gets all the attention.” Meanwhile, I realized Marion was right; Maude might not be news at all anymore. I paged through the paper, skimming the headlines. “There's not a word in here about you today.”

As the sky lightened outside, the room began to fill up with hungry cattlemen. Some of the help had arrived while we read the paper from front to back, girls not much older than Maude, most of them. And from the moment they stepped on the floor, they ran their feet off, carrying coffeepots and taking orders.

One of these customers came in carrying a fresher newspaper, and Marion bought it from him once the fellow had finished with it. I could see the light in Maude's eye that meant she couldn't see the sense in offering to pay for a paper that had already been read, but the truth of the matter was, the man hadn't looked like he would leave it behind.

This paper held one story after another about the James Brothers, every robbery they ever did, their days in the Confederacy. Their entire family history was written up, including their father's sad abandonment of the family to join the gold rush. Marion asked us to read every word to him.

Mad Maude did not get a mention. Again.

Maude said, “This is big news. It might well be all the papers are filled with for days.”

Marion looked very much cheered by this news too. “You're small potatoes compared to Frank's daring rescue of Jesse. I'd say they're going to write about little else for weeks.”

“By then they'll have forgotten about me completely,” Maude said.

“So long as you don't rob any banks,” Marion joked.

Maude snatched the paper out from under his elbows so fast his chin nearly hit the table. “Next time I need to get my name out of the paper, I'll know enough to write a note to the James boys.”

“I never know whether to take the things you say in jest,” Marion said.

“I never jest,” Maude told him.

“That's what I was afraid of.”

The city began to open up for business. At least the livery across the street opened up. “We might stay here a week or more, Sallie,” Maude said. “I want you to board the horse across the street there. You should ask if it's cheaper to pay weekly instead of by the day.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“I'll have to find a place to buy a plain cotton dress, cheap, so if it gets ruined working here, I won't mind so much. Should anyone ask,” Maude said smartly to me, “our name is Waters. Like Aunt Ruthie and our momma before she got married.”

“Sallie Waters,” I said. “I like it.”

“You and I can meet back here when we finish our business and then we'll see about a place to stay.”

“Where will you be heading, Marion?” I asked him, because I figured we'd be going back to Lily's. I doubted she'd let Marion sleep on her floor.

“I might chum around with you two for a while, if it's all right with your sister.”

“You can chum with Sallie,” Maude said. “See if you can avoid running up the price of boarding the horse.”

I was growing impatient with Maude's lack of graciousness, but decided to wait until I was alone with her to say so. “Why do you stick with us, Marion?” I asked him once Maude had gone off on her own.

“I feel responsible for the two of you being orphaned,” he said. “At least that's how it begun.”

“And now?”

“Now I kinda like you. Even that hardtack sister of yours,” he said with a grin.

“She does grow on you,” I said.

He said, “That's what I should've been afraid of.”

I
WOULD NOT BE OUTDONE. IF MAUDE COULD GET A JOB,
so could I. I made up my mind to ask for work at the livery across the street. If I got hired, I would be working right close to Maude. There was that to be said for it. Maybe we would get a reduced rate for the horse too.

I think I had decided on this not only because I didn't think I'd like to wait on tables but also because it was so warm in a livery. Of course, I reminded myself, it would be a hot job when it was dead summer too.

I walked up to the first man I saw come out of the building and asked him to give me the job. He was just leaving his horse off, not working there, but he was kind enough about it. Maybe because Marion was standing right behind me.

“I think you are wrong to do this,” Marion said after the fellow had walked away.

“If Maude is going to work, so am I,” I said. And remembering one of Aunt Ruthie's favorite sayings, one I had always chafed at, I said, “Every little bit helps.” Only now did I see that it might in some way have been Aunt Ruthie's way
of paying me a compliment when I had done a share of the work.

As I say, she was a spare woman.

“Are you going to be a boy or a girl?” Marion asked before I went inside.

“I'm still a boy,” I said to Marion. “Johnnie is my name.”

“I thought that was your sister's name.”

“If she wanted it, she shouldn't have left it laying around.”

“Do you want me to come in with you?” he asked when I hesitated at the open doorway to get my boyish slouch in place.

“No,” I said, and abandoned the slouch. I walked in tall.

I waited where I thought I ought to, about a room's distance from where the smithy stood holding a piece of metal to the fire. He sang a lively tune about three crows sitting on a tree, “O Billy Magee,” and I didn't mind hearing all of it, even though the heat was nearly more than I could bear, standing there.

It was no surprise the smithy worked shirtless. He'd have done well to work in nothing at all if such a thing could be allowed. Watching him, I began to worry that he would never hire me. His arms looked like thick blocks of wood. His back muscles were heavy as ropes. He wasn't likely to think much of using a pip-squeak like me, even to clean stalls. Worse, I was never going to muscle up like that. I would always be a pip-squeak.

Staring at his back, I noticed he spent more time in the sun than I would have guessed a smithy would. The sundarkened skin drew attention because of some odd white
marks, not quite round but pointed at top and bottom, that were sprayed across his back. It took me a moment to realize they were scars. I wondered if he'd gotten shot up somewhere or other, if they were bullet holes, but they didn't look anywhere so neatly round as the one bullet hole I'd had a good look at.

He didn't look unhappy to see me when he turned away from the anvil, more surprised than anything. Because I had been staring at those scars on his back, I wasn't altogether struck to see them on his front. “I advertised for a man,” he said, stopping his song in the middle of a line, and making me think about other than scars.

“I was hoping you'd hire me, if no men came looking for the job. I'll be thirteen soon,” I added, figuring an extra year couldn't hurt.

“Well, they have come looking, but it seems I don't like to pay what they're looking for. So if you don't want more than I offered them, you're in luck,” he said cheerfully. “As for me and
my
luck, I guess you'll be a man someday.”

I didn't reply to that.

“It's usually part of the deal that you can sleep in the loft, but I guess that's not much use to you if you're still living at home,” he said.

“I'm not living at home,” I said. “Can my sister stay with me? She's fifteen.”

“I don't know about that,” he said. “There's a lot of men in and out of here.”

“She works all day,” I added. “Can we lock up at night?”

“You
have
to lock up at night,” he said. “I don't want anyone stealing horses.”

“Let's us try it,” I said. “You pay me what I'm worth. If it don't work out, it don't work out.”

“Most folks around here call me Duck,” he said, putting out a hand. “My name is Arlen Waters.”

We shook, but I was already thinking. “Uncle Arlen?” I said. I felt certain he must be, but now that the moment was here, I could hardly believe we'd found him.

“Are you Aunt Ruthie's brother?”

He gave me an odd look. Then he said, “Who are you?” “

Aunt Ruthie's dead,” I said in answer, and seeing him take that in, I added, “I'm Sallie. Salome.” I had not said my full name in so long it felt funny in my mouth. “Salome March.”

“Ruth Ann wrote me last year that you girls were growing fast,” he said. “I didn't really picture you right, though, not so old as you are.”

I was just flabbergasted. “Aunt Ruthie wrote to you last year?”

“She wrote me once every year, whether she wanted to or not,” he said, “and it was clear she didn't want to. Her letters somehow ignored the fact that I had ever written. So I quit after a time. I haven't put a letter into the mail in three years.”

“We didn't know where to find you,” I said.

“I should have kept on writing,” he said. “I should have written to you girls.”

“Why didn't you?”

“Ruth Ann and I never were close,” he said. “She didn't like it when I didn't fall in with her ideas. It isn't a kind thing to say about my own sister, but she was the type to hold a grudge.”

“That was Aunt Ruthie to a T,” I said. “But she kept your
letters. She tied them together with a ribbon, and Aunt Ruthie wasn't one to waste ribbon.”

“‘Preciate it,” Uncle Arlen said, and I realized he might not be much more affectionate, generally, than Aunt Ruthie. But his eyes wetted up some, maybe to hear Aunt Ruthie cared about him, in her way.

“Maude and I were worried you'd have left Independence,” I said. “We figured you could have gone anywhere from here.”

“I did,” he said. “But the wildness of the Far West isn't for me.”

“I see you did get shot full of arrows,” I said, nodding toward the scars. “You mentioned it in one of the letters.”

“Yep, that's why my friends call me Duck,” he said. He had a sparkle in his eye. “Because I didn't.”

“Well, I hope you'll tell us about it,” I said. “

It helped me make up my mind about a few things,” he said more seriously. “I came back here and built this place. Been open for business over a year now.”

“Maude is going to be very happy to hear that,” I said.

“Little Maude?” he said, and his face lit up. “Where is she?”

I noticed then, he was rather pretty for a man.