A/N - Yes, this will have some B&W, but it won't really be about them, just as this fic won't have murders or trials. While it takes place in the same (very) faux 19th century world of the Journey fics, it has its own path. I want to do something a little different with this fic, maybe explore, a little more, a created world, and fix these two women firmly within it. Assume the usual disclaimers - also this is rated "M" so there will be sexual situations (eventually) and occasional strong language.
Prologue
It was an imposing desk, heavy, dark, ornate, more imposing than the person who was sitting behind it. Not that the woman behind it didn't have an air of authority, she did, but her authority seemed receptive to questions, perhaps even a difference of opinion, whereas the desk, were it a person, suggested an authority that would be absolute, uncompromising. Crushing. Audra had to smother a wry smile at the thought of the desk leaping to pin her to the floor. It was gentler than some of her editors had treated her. Audra might have come to a different opinion about the woman if she weren't uncertainly fingering and then removing her wire-rimmed spectacles as she spoke; the frequency of the gesture implied that the woman was uncomfortable with the situation, with being on her side of the desk. Audra suspected that what the woman really wanted to do was to pull up a chair next to her and continue their conversation as equals. But there was no denying that a job-seeker and a prospective employer occupied different levels, they couldn't be equals.
"What interests you in a position that's so far away and in a place so unlike New York? I can promise you that the news people in Sweetwater expect is very different from the news people are accustomed to reading here. There are no investigations of inefficiencies, or worse, at hallowed institutions because South Dakota has precious few of them yet. Politics is in its infancy at the capitol and as for the doings of titans of industry, there are none. You'll be incorporating reprints, an account or two of the most recent legislative session, and a reminder of the upcoming social." Although there was a certain coolness to the woman's voice, her eyes, a pale green, seemed more curious than skeptical.
"I've lived in New York all my life. I'd like to see what's outside it, and as for the differences between the Journal and the papers I've worked for, ma'am," Audra paused, caught by the strangeness of the word on her tongue, in this context, and the foreignness of being interviewed by a woman altogether, "I'd be responsible for the content, which will never be the case if I stay here." For another woman, "never" might be too strong. There were women who had founded and edited their own papers and magazines, and there were others who had made names for themselves as reporters, like Margaret Fuller and Jane Grey Swisshelm, not to mention Nellie Bly, but Audra knew "never" wasn't too strong in her case. She had angered the wrong men at the wrong times far too often, especially . . . .
The woman rested her elbows on the desk and steepled her fingers, and Audra wondered if she were doing it so she would quit fiddling with her spectacles. "You have no managerial experience. Even though the Journal is a small paper compared to what you're used to, we've grown over the past few years. Our circulation, if measured by miles, would swallow any number of cities. You'd be responsible for everything from soliciting advertisements to writing opinions to ensuring delivery. What makes you think you're ready for a leap from writing for a paper to running one?"
Audra had expected this question, had practiced her answer when she snatched a few minutes of privacy in the bedroom she shared with her sister and her niece, but now that the woman across from her was waiting for her answer, she had nothing to say . . .
"Myka!" The call was eager, fond, even indulgent, but it was also a call that expected a response. Audra's prospective employer didn't bother to hide her smile, which was also fond and indulgent but knowing as well, as though Myka Bering understood better than the woman calling to her that a response wasn't only expected but demanded. A rush of footsteps beating an impatient rhythm on the floor outside and then the door was flung open. "Myka, you must - ." The woman's dark eyes flew to Audra. "You must finish conducting your interview. I'll talk with you afterward." There was more amusement than apology in her tone, and Audra thought that this was a woman who wouldn't find it at all uncomfortable to sit behind that desk. In fact, she suspected that Helena Wells was the one who had chosen the desk.
"I won't be long, Helena." Something flashed between the women, and Audra looked more sharply at them. So that was the way it was between them. She knew of such arrangements; sometimes they were called Boston marriages, sometimes less euphemistic, harsher things. When she had seen the advertisement for the position in the papers, the person to contact was listed as Miss Myka O. Bering, Editor and Publisher. There was nothing to suggest in those few words that she lived in a brownstone near Washington Square Park, nor that she lived there as the friend and companion of the infamous Helena Wells.
Audra might have believed that Myka Bering was little more than a paid companion hired by Mrs. Wells to keep the outside world at bay. For months there had been stories in the papers virtually every day concerning Helena Wells and her role in the death of a prominent business man named James MacPherson in Dakota Territory. The coverage had been extensive and damning, especially in the Clarion. While Audra had passionately wanted to report on the trial, she knew that her items on garden shows and charity teas hardly augured for her selection. Had MacPherson been murdered a couple of years later, she still likely wouldn't have been chosen, but she would have had a basis for believing she could have been considered. Not that the trial had been anywhere near as sensational as the build-up to it. Suddenly and inexplicably, little more than a week after the trial had started, the charges against Helena Wells had been dismissed on the grounds of insufficient evidence, and she had been set free. The decision, while it might have quieted the voices clamoring for her imprisonment, hadn't completely silenced them. There were still murmurs that the trial's inglorious end had been the result of the machinations of Henry Tremaine, Mrs. Wells's benefactor and reputed lover. Yet whatever the relationship between them had once been, in the six years since the trial had ended, Mrs. Wells had lived quietly, dividing her time between her home in South Dakota and her home in New York, accompanied publicly only by Miss Bering, and Henry Tremaine had returned to changing mistresses every six months. Some of the reporters Audra knew would nod wisely and claim that the two had already been secretly married and were just biding their time to announce it, but she had no doubt now to whom Helena Wells was married, in all but name.
As if she knew exactly what Audra had been thinking, Helena glanced at her, her look both roguish and appraising. "Henry has a very interesting proposition for us. He's asked us to dinner to discuss it."
"I'll be all ears," Myka replied dryly. As Helena swept out, her skirts rustling expensively, the dress a confection Audra calculated would cost her more than her weekly pay saved for . . . forever, Myka turned that pale green gaze on her again. "As I am to hear your answer, Miss Clarke," she reminded her, equally as dryly.
The answer Audra had rehearsed failed to assemble itself in the right order, "goals" and "great responsibilities" and other serious-minded words that spoke of her hopes and ambition a jumble in her mind. Panicking, she resorted to the simple adage that helped her to fill a blank piece of paper when a deadline was looming, begin with the beginning. "There's hardly been a day since I was ten years old that I haven't hawked newspapers, drummed up advertisers for them, written copy for them, or run them off the presses when the printers were out drinking with the reporters. And in all that time, I hardly ever had a title, let alone a desk. I was always among the first to be let go when times were tough and the last to be listened to. I know this business, and all I need is the opportunity to prove it." She had been truthful but maybe all that Miss Bering had heard were empty boasts. It didn't help that Miss Bering was steepling her fingers again, as though she were preparing herself to deliver bad news.
Audra held herself rigid in the chair. It had been something of a lark, though not nearly as light-hearted as one, when she had mailed a letter of interest, along with the names of three references who would attest to her good character and ability, to the publisher of the Sweetwater Journal. Her current employer, the New York Banner, had once again passed her over for a promotion, awarding a man five years her junior with half her experience to the vied-for position of covering City Hall. If she were going to be buried in obscurity, why not in some hamlet in a state whose name people could barely remember, let alone spell? At least she would have the satisfaction of seeing her name above a masthead, even if the newspaper were little more than a circular.
"You've told me why you think you can manage my paper, but why do you want to manage any newspaper? Why are you still in the business? The publishers are men, the editors are men, the advertisers are men, and when they aren't telling you that the work is too physically demanding or too mentally challenging for a woman, they're showing you they think it by giving assignments to the man standing next to you – and paying you less. If it's a wage you need, there are positions that better compensate you for the indignities that you'll suffer." Miss Bering had stopped steepling her fingers to cross her arms on the desktop and to lean over them, her shoulders hunched intently, making Audra think that what she might say in response could be what secured her the post or put it out of reach.
She desperately wanted to look away because she knew she didn't have the answer Miss Bering was looking for. "Because it's all I've known" would be the wrong thing to say, although there was more than a little truth to it. "Because I'm good at what I do" would be slightly better but almost as inadequate. One expressed timidity and a lack of confidence, hardly qualities Myka Bering wanted to see in an editor, while the other, albeit more confident-sounding, didn't explain why she had gone from paper to paper, never looking for or even thinking of different work, nor why, once she had ended up at the Banner, she hadn't had the gumption to leave it after being continually passed over. "I'm one of 11 children, and in our family, you had to shout to make yourself heard. Our parents didn't the time or energy to pay attention to the cares of two children or the tales they had to tell, let alone 11. Newspapers are always searching for stores to publish." She hesitated. She knew she wasn't making sense. Unconsciously leaning forward, mirroring the intensity of the woman across from her, she said, "To write those stories, you have to listen to the patrolman on his beat and the politician in his office. You do more listening than writing, at least you should, if you want to be any good. I like to listen to people and to make it possible for others to hear what they have to say."
Miss Bering smiled at her. "Thank you." Audra couldn't determine from the politeness of her smile and the unrevealing steadiness of her gaze whether she had meant it simply as an acknowledgment or had heard in that off-center response the answer she had been hoping for. Surging to her feet as Miss Bering came around her desk, her arm already extended, Audra realized she wouldn't learn anymore today about what Miss Bering might think of her because the interview was over. Unsure if it was expected of her, Audra shook Miss Bering's hand, which, much to her surprise, gripped hers strongly. The hand had looked slim, even elegant, but the skin had the hard smoothness that came from years of toil, not pampering. Despite the dress that was only moderately less expensive than Mrs. Wells's, although much plainer in style and ornamentation, Miss Bering, it seemed, hadn't lost the habit of putting herself to work. But what she would have to do in this well-staffed home, if the maid who had opened the door to Audra and the one who had brought her a cup of coffee while she had waited in the library were any indication, was a mystery to her. "I'm very close to making my decision," Miss Bering was saying to her as they returned to the foyer that alone could encompass a good portion of the second floor apartment that Audra shared with her sister Nan and her brother-in-law, their children, and a few of the younger Clarkes.
Audra remembered to offer the appropriate appreciation for Miss Bering's time and interest and Miss Bering was gracious in return, which wasn't something Audra had always encountered when seeking work. The only dissonant note was cast by Audra's coat, which was a made-over man's winter coat, one of her brother-in-law's discards, but of such a stout wool that Audra could overlook the spots where the fabric had grown thin and threadbare. The fact that it was a man's coat and of an unbecoming cut was the least of her concerns. However, the fact that she had lost another button to it was a concern, and she fretted over the likelihood that she had lost it on a piece of metal jumping down from the streetcar to make her appointment. As she shrugged it on, uncomfortably aware that Miss Bering was inspecting it, Audra almost lost Miss Bering's question in her struggle to fasten the coat as closely possible in spite of the missing buttons.
"I'm sorry, were you saying something about winter?" Audra reddened as she tugged on mittens that were more yarn loosely assembled at this point than mittens.
"I asked how well you liked winter." Again a certain coolness had crept into Miss Bering's tone, and Audra suspected that she was seeking a particular answer.
"I like the things that make winter tolerable, good fires and hot cider . . . and Christmas dinner, but in a few weeks, ma'am, it'll be spring here."
"But not there," Miss Bering countered. "There it will still be winter. You can open your door in mid-April and be greeted by three feet of snow." She let her eyes run over Audra's coat. "I suggest that you invest in a new coat." Then she smiled.
Chapter One
This was the last leg of the journey, the last train. There had been the train from New York to Chicago, then from Chicago to St. Paul, Minnesota, and from St. Paul to a town hardly worthy of the name, still more settlement than town, in Audra's opinion, called Sioux Falls, just inside the state's eastern boundary (she would have to memorize how it was spelled). The trains had become smaller, older, less efficient the farther west she had traveled, the one from Sioux Falls to the state capitol, Pierre (she would have to memorize how it was pronounced), wheezing and clanking every mile, and the one she was on now, from Pierre to Sweetwater, so slow she believed she could get off and walk faster. Perhaps impatience was coloring her opinion. Today was her fourth day of being in the same undergarments, of hardly being able to brush her hair or wash her face. The only thing that had changed was her traveling companions. After a steady stream of men, salesmen by and large, who had not hesitated to grab her knees as they pretended to wobble to their seats or hawked gobs of phlegm that only sometimes didn't spatter across her shoes, she found in front of her as they left the station in Pierre, the pastor of the Lutheran church that had recently been built in Sweetwater, a Mr. Nordquist, and his wife. They had craned their necks looking for the husband or father or brother who must be accompanying her, and when no such man sat in the empty seat beside her, she had ended their confusion by explaining that she was journeying to Sweetwater to manage its newspaper. There followed tight smiles and awkward acknowledgements that they had heard Miss Bering was looking for a new editor, Mr. Simcoe having left for Kansas City. "Hard worker," Mr. Nordquist had solemnly acknowledged, "Good man," Mrs. Nordquist had said, adding, "he's left to take a position with Miss Bering's brother-in-law. He's been engaged to one of the sisters for the past two years." The beaming smile became even brighter as she said, "There's no greater blessing for a woman than a good man to support her and their children, should God so reward them."
Audra returned a smile as tight as the ones the Nordquists had bestowed upon her. "I'm sure they'll be very happy."
When Mr. Nordquist inhaled with significance and asked, "Have you thought about where you might worship the Lord Jesus while you're with us in Sweetwater?," Audra said firmly, "I was raised Catholic, Mr. Nordquist." She actually hadn't been raised in any faith, although she vaguely recalled that her mother might have been Catholic. It was the perfect answer, however, to stop further inquiries, and after a muted "The nearest Catholic church is in Halliday, I believe," from Mr. Nordquist, neither Nordquist had anything more to say to her.
It wasn't the type of response that would have earned Myka's approval, Audra ruefully admitted to herself. Just a few days before she was to take the train to Sweetwater to begin her new position - to be honest, to begin her new life, since how often would she be able to return to New York? - she had had dinner with Myka (who had insisted that she quit calling her Miss Bering since they were more partners than employer and employee) and Helena (who had followed suit, although the name felt stiff even when sounded only in Audra's mind) at their home. While much of the initial conversation had been taken up with the practicalities of managing the newspaper, it had eventually turned to the practicalities of living in Sweetwater.
"It's the isolation, the loneliness, that you may find the hardest of all to accept," Myka said.
"The ignorance," Helena interjected. Her tone growing playful, she said, "As I recall, you didn't lack for a suitor from the moment you arrived in town." The smile was playful as well but her face grew sadder as she and Myka looked at one another. "He was happy, love," she said gently, her smile not completely fading away. "A wife to bake him a pie every night, two little boys whom he adored and a third child on the way, our sheriff was a contented man." Directing her attention to Audra as Myka began to rub the design etched into the stem of her wine glass, Helena explained, "In a town as small as Sweetwater, you come to know everyone who lives in it. Whether you like your fellow citizens doesn't matter as much as whether you can depend on them. The closest towns are miles away, and the biggest city is the better part of a day's train ride northeast. We lost Sheriff Lattimer earlier this year when he tried to rescue two children presumed missing in a snowstorm. They hadn't returned home, and people feared they had wandered farther out into the prairie. The snow flies so thickly you can't see your hand in front of your face, and it becomes terrifyingly cold very quickly. He and a number of men went to search for them. The men returned, the children having been found taking shelter in a barn, but Sheriff Lattimer didn't. Another search party found him two days after the storm ended." Helena hesitated. "Life in Sweetwater can be brutal, Audra, when it's not merely grim. You'll have to learn to endure blistering heat, drought, grass fires, blizzards, and as unendurable they may seem at times, they're less insupportable than the narrow-mindedness of your neighbors. Are you sure you still want to run the Journal?"
"I could be asking the same question of you," Audra said boldly, gesturing first at the china and crystal glinting under the chandelier and then at the dining room itself. "Why still live in Sweetwater when you can live here all year round? You must believe there's something of value the town can give you, or something you can give the town. I believe that I can do something similar, better there than here."
Myka raised her eyes from her wine glass. "As I said, it can be lonely living out on the prairie. You'll find plenty of people to listen to. They can be small-minded and suspicious of strangers, but they also can be exceedingly generous. If you can find the best in them, you'll find it worth the effort." Sorrow still shadowed her face, but her gaze was clear and direct.
"She managed to find the best in a brothel-owner, and I hope she still finds it was worth the effort." Helena was teasing Myka once more, but the affection in her voice was palpable, and Audra was certain that if she hadn't been at the table with them, Helena would have leaned over to kiss her "companion."
"It will help with the isolation you might feel, especially in the winter, if you have people who want to listen to you, and not just as an editor of a newspaper. There are good people in Sweetwater," Myka repeated with a stern look at Helena.
"Unless you're taking such a someone with you," Helena said innocently to Audra, ignoring the look. At Myka's equally stern "Helena," Helena said, "Darling, this is not the former brothel-owner speaking. I believe Audra has referred to having several brothers and sisters, maybe one of them will be accompanying her." The dark eyes had both a feline tilt and a feline shine, reflecting rather than absorbing the electric light of the chandelier.
Audra knew exactly what Helena had meant, and she shook her head. "No, no family, no intended. I'll be arriving in Sweetwater unaccompanied."
She had said it lightly, but as she met Helena's gaze, she felt that she was being measured and appraised, much as she had felt measured and appraised when Helena had interrupted her interview, little more than a week ago. The inventory was impersonal without being cold and thorough without being intrusive. Audra suddenly had an image of Helena as a brothel-owner judging how profitable a new girl could be. "I doubt very much that you'll be leaving Sweetwater unaccompanied, should there come such a time," Helena said with a hint of smugness.
Remembering that appraisal now, Audra looked down at her stained and spotted dress and touched what she was sure were matted curls. She hadn't understood what Helena had found in her to make such an assertion - out of six sisters, she had never ever been called the "pretty one" - and she doubted that her appearance was any more pleasing after several days of travel. Frank had called her pretty once or twice, but that was only before she had given in to his entreaties and . . . . Audra blushed in recollection and decided that she had spent enough time thinking about that part of the dinner conversation. She didn't know how long she might stay in Sweetwater. If all went well, she might consider applying for a similar position at a larger newspaper someday, maybe even a paper in New York, but she didn't expect that she would be bringing anyone back with her. She would leave as she came, an independent woman.
Leaning forward, she tried to peer through the soot-covered window that she and the Nordquists shared. She had caught glimpses of the terrain they were crossing, rolling and cultivated around Lake Erie and then increasingly flat as they had traveled through Indiana and Illinois, the flatness and barrenness interrupted only by the sprawl of Chicago and bluffs that bordered the Mississippi. Occasionally the sweep of a river might break the monotony, but otherwise all she saw was grass and sky. The prairie seemed, might even be, unending, but it wasn't empty; sometimes she could make out a farmhouse or barn against the horizon, which supported her belief that somewhere out there were farmers readying the land for planting, but the closest thing to a human she had glimpsed was a cow. The vastness, the emptiness of this country questioned, if not ridiculed, a person's pride in her independence; she was so very small in comparison. It was difficult to have confidence in that independence, moreover, when for the next several weeks, months possibly, she would have no one to turn to for advice about the Journal's operations, should she need it. Over dinner, Myka had explained that while it had been her plan to follow Audra a few days later to help ease her into her new responsibilities, a journey that would be one with her and Helena's usual springtime relocation from New York to Sweetwater, new developments had forced a change. Her excitement undisguised, she revealed that the Clarion had become their newest acquisition. Audra wouldn't have guessed Myka Bering was capable of smiling that broadly.
"Having spent the past six years methodically engineering Oskar Rasmussen's financial ruin, Henry Tremaine obtained the Clarion, along with other of Mr. Rasmussen's assets, for pennies on the dollar," Helena cut in with an enjoyment that didn't lack for malice. "Mr. Tremaine has no interest in running a newspaper, so he offered it to us at a very advantageous price." She sent Myka an arch look whose full meaning, Audra realized, only Myka could share.
At the time, the prospect of learning how to run the paper on her own hadn't seemed daunting. Myka would be available by telegram if any emergency arose, and Hans, Audra searched her memory for his name, Hans Albrecht would be someone who could help her if there were problems with the printing press. But now, now it all seemed too big. Under the Journal's umbrella, there were the Halliday Free Press and the Meridian Pioneer News. Although the two had yet to be formally merged, Helena and Myka had acquired last summer the Pierre Guardian. Thankfully, she wasn't expected to make frequent trips to Pierre since the Guardian's editor had decided to stay on following the acquisition, but she would need to visit Halliday and Meridian. The Journal included news and advertisements of special interest to each community and though she could reach each of them by rail, or so Myka had assured her, she would spend the better part of a day getting to Halliday, and Meridian was another day's journey east of Halliday. She hadn't realized until the train leaving Sioux Falls had traveled some distance west and the prairie extended to the horizon and beyond on either side of her, just what an undertaking it would be. For a moment, she felt sick from the enormity of it, the prairie, the sky overhanging it. In the city, the sky had a quilted, patchwork quality, cut up into irregular squares by the buildings that rose stories high, but here, here, it was as if the Atlantic Ocean had been inverted and placed above her, and Audra thought she could as easily drown in space as she could water.
Begin with the beginning, she reminded herself, and the first thing she would do when she arrived in Sweetwater was what Myka had advised her to do, find Hans Albrecht and get the keys to the Journal's office from him. In addition to keeping the Journal's press in good repair, he fixed ranges and sewing machines, cash registers and farm machinery. Myka had said she might happen upon him on his way to inspect a balky stove or tune a piano, but she would have better luck finding him if she spoke to his sister, Mrs. Lattimer. By the time the train arrived in Sweetwater, it was supper time or perilously close to it, which, Audra felt, only vindicated her decision to speak with Mrs. Lattimer before doing anything else on her list of "first day" tasks, drawn up only in her mind and pages long. No man Audra knew, even the topers among them, willingly missed a meal; cards and drink could wait. Hans Albrecht was likely hanging over his sister's shoulder at this very minute, asking her when supper would be ready. Audra's desire to see the house that would be hers for as long as she remained the Journal's editor was a secondary consideration, despite the fact that she continued to marvel at the prospect of occupying a house, having only ever lived in cramped apartments in which privacy was as rare as fresh air. Above all, she wanted to visit the Journal's office, to poke in its corners and open its desk drawers, hoping to get an idea of how she would need to adapt to it and it to her. No paper was perfect, no matter how large its circulation or how advanced its production. There were always processes that could be improved and machinery that could be replaced.
As the train lurched to a stop, Audra, who had long since retrieved her valise (her sole piece of luggage) from underneath her seat, shot to her feet in hopes of exiting the car as soon as the conductor opened the door. She hastily offered farewells to the Nordquists who were more sedately collecting their things, and they murmured wishes that they might see more of each other in the future. More warmly, Mr. Nordquist said, "Jesus doesn't place the importance that we do on the forms of our faith. He wouldn't care that you might choose some Sunday to attend our house of worship." Audra only smiled in response and edged around her seat, ready to join the other passengers in the corridor as they pressed toward the exit. "Miss Clarke, I believe you've forgotten something."
She whirled around to see that Mr. Nordquist was holding her coat out to her. Her new coat. One heavy enough to withstand the winters at the North Pole, the clerk had assured her, yet appropriately feminine. It had been too warm to wear on the train, but as Audra reached to take it from him, she glimpsed snow on the station platform. Not a patch of it here or there as you could still find in New York in early April but a thick covering, like a carpet. Mr. Nordquist unsuccessfully smothered a smile at the shock on her face. "Not what you're used to, is it?" He held the coat up for her to slip her arms into it. "You'll need this out there." She reluctantly put her valise on the floor and allowed him to help her put it on, Mrs. Nordquist providing commentary on the order of "Lovely coat, but just a mite thin for the worst of the winter here" and "Well made, but it should fasten farther up to block out the icy winds we get." The coat was made of wool but felt like it was made of chain mail. She could easily believe it weighed 20 pounds as she stooped to pick up her valise, which was overstuffed and equally heavy. She plodded toward the exit, as bent and slow as a pack mule.
Laboring down onto the platform, she noticed how low the sun was on the horizon, and she fretted that it would be night before she was able to enter the Journal's office. Trying to increase her pace, she nearly swung her valise into the stationmaster, who admonished her, "Miss, you need to keep an eye out for where you're going. Lots of people coming off the train." By New York standards, the platform was virtually deserted, a dozen or so passengers waiting for their baggage and about as many walking past the station house on their way into the town proper. With a muttered apology, she followed the ones leaving, realizing as she tramped through the snow and puddles of water that the shoes she was wearing (her only pair, in fact) weren't sufficient either. The leather was dark with moisture, and she could feel water seep through the seams. She stopped on the edge of the main street, wide and lined with the businesses that were the lifeblood of any small town - general store, hotel, bank, barbershop, and farther down, a saloon and livery. As she twitched her damp toes in recognition that her preparations for the journey had managed to fall short, Audra also remembered that she hadn't thought to ask Myka where Mrs. Lattimer lived. It hadn't seemed important at the time considering everything else she needed to do. How difficult could it be to find someone, anyone in a tiny prairie town? Yet the sun was setting on a town that was bigger than Audra was anticipating. Sweetwater was no longer a community stretching away erratically - and sparsely - from a single road, as Myka had described its appearance, reminiscing during the dinner about her first impressions of the town. The winding paths between the homes had been widened and groomed into streets deserving of the name. Had she arrived earlier she would have used her ignorance as an opportunity to acquaint herself with the town, but she would worry about introducing herself to Sweetwater tomorrow. Today, or what was left of today, she would start her inventory of the Journal and then, if she was too tired, she would simply use her valise as a pillow and sleep on the floor.
A man passing her on the warped slats that passed for a sidewalk had slowed to appraise the arrival of someone obviously new in town. He tipped his hat in greeting and gave her his friendliest smile. "You look a little lost, miss. Maybe I can be of assistance?"
He wasn't leering at her, but there was something too confident in his smile, as though he believed he had routinely succeeded in charming all the unaccompanied women who visited Sweetwater. Brusquely Audra told him, "I'm looking for where Mrs. Lattimer lives."
"If you're wanting to find the sheriff's widow, you just need to follow the street down from the jail. Here, let me take your bag, and I'll show you." He held his hand out for her valise.
Sheriff's widow. Audra remembered the stricken look on Myka's face, the story of the children lost in a snowstorm. Two little boys and a third child on the way, Helena had said. Nothing like barging into a grieving woman's household and asking for her help in locating her brother. "Thank you very much for the information, but I can find it on my own now." She injected as much coolness as she dared into her response and started to cross the street without waiting for his reply, spotting a squat brick building that had a deserted air about it. A sheriff in a town this size wouldn't have much to do until the weekend, when the young men from the farms and ranches came riding in looking for entertainment. Behind her, she heard the man stammering in surprise but she kept walking.
Nearing the building, she spied the Wanted posters posted on the walls, but the interior was dark. Perhaps the town hadn't found a sheriff to replace Mr. Lattimer, perhaps hadn't needed to with winter keeping people in their homes, but spring was here, according to the calendar, and there needed to be someone with authority, or at least one sporting a star, to keep all that pent-up energy contained. There was a street to the left of the main street that led beyond the jail and there were homes on either side of it. The Lattimer residence would be among them. Picking her way over to a thin strip of exposed grass that promised surer footing than the snow-churned mud in the middle, Audra noted that the jail and the saloon were practically across the street from one another. She doubted that the jail acted as much of a deterrent to the men who congregated at the saloon, but the sheriff wouldn't have to walk far to break up a fight or put a troublemaker in a cell. The valise was getting heavier with every step; a handful of books, her few dresses and undergarments, her brush, a photograph of Nan and her husband on their wedding day (Audra had to have some reminder of home), how could they weigh so much? Her foot skidded, and she understood her purchase was no more certain on the grass than if she had slogged through the icy mud.
The houses in the fading light looked nearly identical, one story, two- or three-room homes, the main distinction being in their age, the older houses weathered to gray, their paint, if they had been painted, clinging to the wood only in spots, the newer ones, and there were several of them, still having a greenish tinge as if their sides might suddenly sprout leaves. Which one, which one, Audra silently chanted, the arm carrying the valise hanging so low that its bottom barely cleared the ground. Then a house farther down the street from the others caught her eye, and she no longer had to ask herself which one. It was larger than the others and its paint was fresh, but that wasn't what told her it was the sheriff's house. Though its yard was the same sloppy mixture of snow and mud, the house seemed to sit in it more neatly, and the front porch - it was one of the few that had one - appeared to be swept clean. Even the smoke issuing from the chimney curled decorously, circumspectly into the air. The house of a sheriff couldn't appear to be less than in perfect order, and her picture of intruding upon a household in mourning became a double intrusion because she would be introducing her damp, disarrayed self - in wet, muddy shoes, no less - into an impeccably kept home. Her chances of making a favorable impression upon Mrs. Lattimer were fast diminishing.
Audra switched her valise to her other hand and straightened her shoulders. Her hair might be a tangled mess and her coat, skirts, and shoes splattered with mud, but she didn't have to look like an old woman rooting for stray pieces of coal. She could keep her chin up and back straight. With greater determination she made her way to the Lattimer house and climbed the front porch to knock on the door. The porch was as clean as it had looked, except for a few muddy paw prints. In the summer, the sheriff and his wife would have sat on this porch and looked out on the prairie, although Audra could see signs that additional houses were going to be built out this way; stakes, cloth tied around their ends and fluttering in the breeze, marked out the plots, and by the end of summer, if not sooner, Mrs. Lattimer's view would be of her new neighbors. Audra raised her hand to knock on the door, reminding herself to smile. She had been told by more than one person that her smile was among her best features, so she needed to put what few natural advantages she had to work for her.
She was never able to put the events in order afterward, whether she had knocked first and then the door had flown open or if the door had flown open while her hand was still in the air. Maybe she had already been teetering back in surprise when a body with four legs followed by a body with two legs had barreled into her. Her arms swung away from her sides at the force of the collision and the valise, a cannonball in weight by this time, spun her around. She might have been able to regain her balance had the dog and the boy not also recovered and resumed their chase. They didn't collide with her again, but as they bowled past her, she was still unsteady enough that their inadvertent brushing against her sent her off the porch into the mud. She desperately tried to avoid falling, but the valise, the damn valise, was too much for her once more and her back smacked noisily into the muck. The door was flung open again, and a woman rushed out onto the porch, shouting "Will! William Lattimer, come back here!" Turning around, she yelled back into the house, "Mary, get the next batch of rolls into the oven. We'll worry about the ones that are on the floor later." Only then did she see Audra in the mud. "Oh, no, I'm so sorry. I didn't see you, and, clearly, my son didn't see you." Muttering in a language that wasn't English - Audra didn't have to understand the words to know that Mrs. Lattimer was asking what else could go wrong with her day - the woman carefully, awkward stepped down from the porch to help Audra to her feet.
Audra had been scrabbling to push herself up, dismally accepting that her brand-new - and expensive - coat was never going to quite recover from its first outing. Her stockings, shoes, and the skirt of her dress were also stained beyond her ability to get them clean but she didn't feel their loss as keenly. The shoes were old, the stockings new but cheap, and the dress secondhand. Mrs. Lattimer was extending her hand to her, and although Audra was embarrassed to be helped to her feet by a pregnant woman, and one well along in her pregnancy at that, her shoes were now so thoroughly wet and covered with mud, she didn't trust that she could stand up without help. Mrs. Lattimer's grip was sure and she pulled Audra up without risking her own balance, although the disposition of the weight she was having to support, the child she was carrying in addition to that of a grown woman, was working against her. Standing so close to her, Audra realized that they were practically of a height, which was a novel sensation, the Clarke family joke being that she was a changeling, tall and thin and cursed with hair both wiry and red, while the rest of the Clarkes were dark-haired and on the small side.
It had been a joke only when her father and older brothers weren't in their cups; after a night spent at McGiverney's tavern or sharing homemade spirits on the stoop with the other tenants, her father and brothers would give her increasingly hostile looks and the references to her being a changeling would grow darker, her father muttering that about the time Audra's mother had become pregnant with her he had been "laid up," as he put it. If she hadn't resembled him so strongly, aside from her height and the color of her hair, and if her mother hadn't already been worn to silent compliance by the five children who preceded her, Audra might have given some credence to his suspicions. But Timothy Clarke hadn't been a man who had wanted the cares of a single child, let alone 11 of them, so she had learned early on to dismiss his broad hints that she wasn't his as his hopes that he could shirk the responsibility of having fathered at least one of his children. But Mrs. Lattimer had no way of knowing, and wouldn't likely care had she known, that not towering over another woman was something that Audra found not only novel but pleasant as well.
Blue eyes on a level with Audra's own searched her face for any sign that her tumble off the porch had injured more than her pride, and Audra shook her head slightly in negation. "Come inside, and we'll try to clean you up." Mrs. Lattimer stepped to the side, encouraging Audra to go ahead of her. Audra shook her head more strongly, retrieving her valise, which only reluctantly came free of the mud.
"I'll bring a mess into your home. I can clean myself up on your porch, if you don't mind my getting it muddy."
"Come inside," Mrs. Lattimer insisted, her tone firmer. In a sweeping motion, she gestured down the length of her, and Audra understood that she was to take the apron dotted with streaks of batter and the smudges of flour on Mrs. Lattimer's face as proof that she was in no better order. However, while the apron and Mrs. Lattimer's cheeks and forehead bore witness to a lengthy session of baking, the blond hair skillfully braided and then as skillfully pinned up and the sober navy dress, protected by the apron, still neat and with a collar still crisp suggested that her disorder was strictly temporary.
This realization only reinforced the first thought that had entered Audra's mind when Mrs. Lattimer had bent low over her belly to offer her hand, that this sheriff's widow in this unremarkable town in this unremarkable place was remarkably beautiful, so much so that Audra was fairly well convinced she had said aloud the words that had immediately come to mind, "You're perfect."