Chapter One
Sweetwater had the same hopeful, optimistic ring that the names of so many other dusty prairie towns had, Clear Lake, Blue Spring, Pleasant Valley, and just like those others the reality of its setting belied its name. As Myka surveyed the cluster of buildings in the center of the town with their weathered wood and peeling paint and then the endless grasslands, nearly gray under the afternoon sun, she saw nothing that suggested any bountiful supply of water, sweet or otherwise. Her father was paying the man he had hired to cart them and their few belongings from the train station to the Journal's home, a worn building that housed both the paper's office and press and their living quarters. With one last glance at the quiet main street, Myka entered their new home, reminding herself that she needed to accept Sweetwater with an open mind just as she hoped the town would accept her and her father. This was their fresh start (yet again), and the disappointments of the past had to be left behind.
Someone had taken the time to clean the rooms. The floors were swept and the corners free of cobwebs. She inspected the printing press, which, although old, looked to be in working order. There were three rooms in the back, a parlor furnished with a few pieces of well-worn furniture, the kitchen with its undoubtedly idiosyncratic range that Myka would have to learn to master, and the bedroom. She and her father had occupied smaller, worse places, and at least there was an alcove off the kitchen where she could sleep. Turning back toward the office, she saw her father sitting at the editor's desk, sipping from his ever-present flask.
"What do you think, Myka?" Are we going to be a beacon of light for this community? Be the voice of democracy, of the rights of man?" His words weren't slurred yet, but Myka could hear the familiar echo of self-loathing. He would continue drinking through the day, she knew, lost in memories of happier times, when her mother was still alive and he was publishing articles and editorials that he was proud of, that he believed might lead to change if he dinned his message enough in his readers' ears. But if Warren Bering maintained that he hadn't grown smaller over the years, the papers had. Myka dimly remembered living in a big house where sunshine poured through the windows and she could curl up in an armchair in the library and read about knights errant and princes in disguise (she never had much use for stories about princesses). She remembered the noise and energy of a city and her father coming home, talking animatedly to her mother about his meetings with the city council and important businessmen but he never forgot, in whatever excitement followed him home, to sweep up her and her sister Tracy and kiss them soundly on their cheeks. Myka would bury her head in his neck, inhaling the scents of peppermint and tobacco. But the joy in the Bering household had disappeared long ago, and the cities had dwindled to towns, and her father's pride lay at the bottom of the bottles that only he thought he had successfully secreted in the drawers of his desk.
He was lucky to have been hired by the Journal; the publisher of the last paper Warren Bering edited had fired him six months into the job. Their path to Dakota Territory had been a winding one. The Berings had left an agricultural community in California where Warren had taken the city treasurer to task for some mismanaged accounts resulting in his being asked by the treasurer's brother-in-law, the mayor, to resign, to take over a paper in a mining town in Nevada. There the town fathers had been an incensed by an editorial deploring the working conditions of the mine, and Warren received his dismissal just days later. The Journal's publisher, however, hadn't been put off by the idea of hiring a firebrand, noting only in the letter offering Warren the job, that he expected the paper to provide a forum for 'lively discussion.' Myka could still recall the bold strokes of the signature, the thick vertical slashes that formed the H and the sweeping W of Wells.
"What's the big news of the day?" Her father demanded sourly of the room. "The Saturday social has been moved from Saturday to Wednesday? A new litter of kittens has been delivered in the Smiths' barn?"
"Shsh, shsh." Myka gingerly patted his shoulder. Although not a violent man even in his cups, Warren Bering had a drunk's surliness, and Myka had learned from experience to touch him with caution. "I need to go out for a little while. Will you be all right here?"
"Of course," he snapped.
Her shoes clattered loudly on the walk, the wooden planks warped and cracked with age. The heat was a wall that Myka felt she was pushing against, and the wind was whipping her skirts around her legs. She almost wished she wouldn't be able to speak with Mr. Wells; he would find her a sight, with her dress plastered to her sweaty skin and her hair a wind-tossed mess of curls. Her hair was hard to manage in the best conditions, and she knew that the wind had long since sprung it from the knot she had wrested it into in the morning. But she needed to discuss with the publisher his expectations for the paper. She didn't want a repetition of what had happened in Hartsville, and though it would be more appropriate for her father to attempt this meeting, Myka could fall back on the excuses she had used for so many years with town officials and businessmen, "My father is under the weather and sent me in his place. . . . He's busy planning the next edition as we speak and asked if I would meet with you." She was so busy rehearsing what she would say to Mr. Wells that she rocked back on her heels with a gasp when a man suddenly appeared in front of her.
He shot out a hand to steady her. "Sorry, miss," he said with an engaging grin as he doffed his hat, "but I know everybody in this town, and no one this pretty has graced Sweetwater since." He stopped, searching for the comparison, but finally gave her a boyish shrug and said, "Well, in a long time."
Myka took in the star on his vest and peered into the building he had exited. At the back she could make out a series of iron bars and, behind them, a small cot. She was in front of Sweetwater's jail. She wondered how soon it would be before she would have to come to the jail to retrieve her father after sleeping off a drunk. But this man had a kind face and warm brown eyes, she didn't think he would pity her, like some of the lawmen had, or, worse, threaten her that the next time Warren would wake up and find himself on a train or coach out of town. "You must be the –"
"Pete Lattimer. The law in town when there's call for it."
Myka blushed under his admiring gaze. Nervously clearing her throat, she said, "I'm Myka Bering. My father's the new editor of the Journal."
The sheriff rounded his lips in an O but his whistle, if he whistled, was a silent one. "The new newspaperman. We knew you were coming but didn't know when." He waved his arm toward the dusty street and the darkened doorways of the buildings on either side. In any town, there were usually a few old men passing the time outside the general store, spitting tobacco and regaling each other with tall tales heard a million times before. But there were no men squatting on their heels, no children chasing each other down the walks. The chairs outside the barbershop were empty, and even the saloon was quiet. Above its doors was a sign, its lettering faded by the sun but still readable, the Rusty Spur.
"Usually we're a little livelier around here, but it's been awful hot and dry this summer," the sheriff said apologetically. He fingered his hat as he and Myka stood in an awkward silence. Bringing himself to with a jerk, he exclaimed, "You must think I have no manners. May I get you a glass of water or lemonade?" He nodded at the store across the street. "Can't promise you that it'll be cool, but it should cut down the dust."
"No, thank you." Myka had started to blush again at the sheriff's clumsy courtliness. "But if you could tell me where I might find Mr. Wells, I would appreciate it."
"Mr. Wells?" The sheriff was puzzled.
"H. Wells. I don't know whether the H stands for Herbert or Harold or, or Horatio." Myka noticed that her small joke, her very tiny joke, elicited no answering smile from the sheriff. "The publisher of the Journal?" She added hurriedly.
"Oh," Sheriff Lattimer said. Then "Oh" again, this time louder and in recognition. "That H. Wells," he said, his face seizing in a grimace. "You must mean Mrs. Wells." He darted a quick look at the saloon, then glanced back at Myka. "We should get you out of the sun. Why don't you wait in the store while I try to find Mrs. Wells?"
H. Wells, their publisher, a woman? Although she was still revolving the novelty of it in her mind, Myka hadn't missed the significance of the sheriff's look at the saloon. Publisher and what? Card sharp? Bartender? Then Myka remembered what women usually did in a saloon. Surely not. Certain that her cheeks were flaming at this point, Myka hoped that her voice didn't betray her embarrassment. "If Mrs. Wells is in that . . . establishment then that is where I'll find her." Gathering her skirt, she brushed past the sheriff and started crossing the street.
"Ah. . . .geez. . . ah, Miss Bering?" The sheriff loped ahead of her, backpedaling as she continued toward the saloon undeterred. "Really, the Rusty Spur is no place for a lady."
She stopped, looking at him sternly. She didn't know this Mrs. Wells, but she felt insulted on her behalf. "Sheriff Lattimer, are you implying that Mrs. Wells isn't a lady?"
He swept off his hat and frantically scratched his head, as if he dug hard enough he might be able to pull out the proper response. "Ah, no, you see, Mrs. Wells, she's a lady. Just, uh, a different kind of one."
"And how is she different?"
"She's an English lady?" The sheriff managed to make the statement of fact sound like a question and his eyes pleaded with Myka to take his words as sufficient answer for why Mrs. Wells was to be found in the Rusty Spur and not some place more suitable.
Myka bit her lip to keep from smiling. It was perfectly acceptable for Mrs. Wells to while away her time in a saloon because she was English. How could she remain indignant in the face of such utter illogic? Pointing his finger at the side of his head and twirling it in a circle, the sheriff leaned in, saying, "The English, you know, they can be a little cuckoo."
"Cuckoo or no, I need to speak with Mrs. Wells." Once more Myka brushed past him and he scrambled to draw even with her. She had no intention of telling him that she had been in more saloons than she cared to count, a number of them considerably more disreputable looking than the Rusty Spur, helping her father home or, when he was too drunk to stand on his own power, relying on some good Samaritan to shoulder Warren Bering's gaunt frame and carry him home. Sometimes the good Samaritan had wanted Myka to express her gratitude in a more tangible form than a heartfelt "Thank you" and she had learned the effectiveness of a sharp jab of her elbow to the man's stomach or, if necessary, a swift thrust of her knee to his groin.
The sheriff cut in front of her to swing the door open, and Myka was accosted by the familiar smell of sawdust and stale beer. The bartender, a middle-aged man with a two-day beard and an apron that looked as though it had been worn three days too long, chatted with the saloon's lone patron, a man in a shiny black suit coat, an equally shiny black bowler hat on the seat next to him. A drummer, perhaps, waiting for the heat to break before heading onto the next town. The bag on the stool beside him carried something he would hawk to his future customers, patent medicines or ladies' accessories. Although there was nothing prepossessing about the saloon's interior, the floor looked relatively clean and the poker tables, while scarred and mismatched, were free of empty bottles. Myka surreptitiously moved her feet; they didn't stick to the floor. That was something. A stairway led to an upper level and hanging over the railing were two women. They were wearing close-fitting dresses with short skirts and low-cut bodices, and they were avidly watching her and the sheriff. Myka couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the sheriff as a third woman squeezed herself between the other two and waved down at him.
"Pete! Pete!" She called, running down the steps and launching herself at the sheriff.
Smiling tightly, the sheriff tried to remove himself from the woman's enthusiastic greeting. "Whoa, whoa," he said, trying to free his neck from the arms the girl had clasped around it, shooting agonized glances at Myka who surveyed the floor with great interest. "Maggie, uh, Miss Anderson, would you—"
Maggie slapped him playfully. "Miss Anderson! That's not what you called me last night. It was 'Oh, Maggie' this and 'Oh, Maggie' that." She trailed off, taking in Myka in one long, coolly assessing look. "Who do you have with you, Petey?"
Petey. Laughter bubbled wildly in Myka's throat, but she forced it down. A last-chance job in a small town at the end of the universe where their publisher ran a whorehouse and she was being sized up by this brazen slip of a girl – and found wanting. Myka began to choke on the absurdity of it and brought her hand to her lips. The sheriff firmly set Maggie down and snapped his fingers at the bartender, "Freddie, a glass of water here, please." Turning to Maggie, he said pleasantly but with an underlying steeliness that even Myka heard through her coughing, "Go get Mrs. Wells."
Maggie did as he said but not without a disgusted flounce and a muttered "Why didn't you just say you were here on business?"
The bartender brought over a glass of water and Myka smiled her thanks. He grinned back at her until he caught a warning look from the sheriff, which had him speedily returning to the bar. The drummer, who had been idly running his eyes over Myka, just as swiftly picked up his conversation with Freddie where they had left it off. The sheriff tapped his hat in frustration. Seeing the two women still watching them from upstairs, he said, "Sallie, Glenda. Warm day, isn't it?" They tittered at his discomfort, and then their giggles died away as a woman emerged from an office in the back of the room.
At first, Myka didn't notice her. She was busy gulping down the water, which was warm and brassy-tasting but wet. But she felt the somnolence that had lain over the room begin to lift, as if an electric charge had been shot through the saloon. Resisting the temptation to see if her skin was prickling into goosebumps, she raised her eyes as the woman approached them. The woman was neither tall nor imposing and dressed plainly in a black skirt and a wine-colored blouse, but she carried herself with an air of authority and when she spoke, she spoke with the confidence of someone who expected people to listen to her. "Sheriff Lattimer, you wished to see me?"
Her presence seemed to have an effect even on the sheriff, who stopped fidgeting with his hat and glancing distractedly around the room and fixed his unhappy look on her. "Miss Bering wanted to see you, and she insisted on coming in."
"We are a business, Sheriff," she said, amused. "Our doors are open to everyone." Turning to Myka, she said, "You have me at a disadvantage, Miss Bering."
It wasn't only the accent, although the way she lingered over certain words, drawing them out, had a certain richness to it. But Myka had heard English accents before, some plummier than this woman's. Some might liken the woman's voice to honey, and while Myka might concede the smoothness, she recoiled at the thought that anyone's voice could convey that much sweetness. The image that came to Myka's mind was an apple. The woman's voice felt smooth and round and firm, the way an apple felt in Myka's hand. And like an apple, Myka instinctively wanted to cup it, to curl her fingers around it. But who could hold the sound of someone's voice in her hand? It would be like trying to capture "You have me at a disadvantage" between her two hands like a firefly and hold it to her ear. It was nonsensical, and the only reason she was having such a flight of fancy was because she was dizzy from the heat. She wanted to sit down, but she couldn't betray any sign of weakness in front of the Journal's publisher. The Berings' weaknesses would become all too apparent later on.
Wincing at her sudden hoarseness, Myka said, "I'm Warren Bering's daughter" and looked at Mrs. Wells as steadily as she could. But that carried its own dangers since Mrs. Wells' eyes were so dark that pupils were barely discernible from irises, and Myka was overwhelmed by the feeling that if she didn't look away she would drown. "He's, he's the new editor of the Journal," she heard herself stammering.
"Yes, I'm aware of that," Mrs. Wells said, amusement threading through her voice again. Then her hand slid against Myka's, smaller and, Myka noticed with mortification, far better tended to than her own, but capable of a surprisingly sturdy grip, and they were shaking hands like two businessmen closing a deal. "I'm Helena Wells."