A/N: Thanks for reading and thanks for your comments. Thanks, as always, to GiggleBlanket for being my beta. The ending is a little more leading than I had intended, but this was growing into a huge chapter, and I needed to put in a break somewhere.
Chapter Three
Myka adapted to life in Sweetwater more quickly than she thought she would. Part of that had to do with her father. While he still nipped from his flask and squirreled away bottles brought home from the Rusty Spur, he was relatively sober most of the day and threw himself into running the Journal with more enthusiasm than Myka had expected. When Helena Wells paid a visit to the office, he greeted her with a steady hand and eye and recommended some changes to the paper's style and content to which she readily agreed. As he described his vision for the paper, one that would make room for more local news as well as an expanded section for opinions on various issues of the day, Myka was proud of him. He wasn't quite the man she remembered from her childhood; he didn't speak with the same fire and, at times, he seemed unsure of himself in Helena's presence, but Helena appreciated his commitment to the paper, or so she said.
Those dark eyes took in everything, from the bundles of paper waiting to be fed into the press to the partial layout of the next issue. Helena's gaze frequently lighted on Myka, and Myka, though she tried to keep her attention fixed on her father, couldn't resist the pull of the other woman's interest. She no longer felt she might drown when she met Helena's eyes, but she saw something in their depths that left her feeling restless and unsettled. She had been to Helena's home a few times since their first meeting, dropping off books she had borrowed and taking new ones with her. Helena had been warm and gracious, asking her how she was finding Sweetwater and chatting with her about the novels she had read, but Myka heard herself fumbling for words and desperately hoped that she was saying something intelligent. Walking around the library, she had noticed a photograph on the desk, which showed a man with Helena's dark eyes and hair standing behind two women sitting on a loveseat. One of the women was much older, the man's wife, while the other woman, girl really, appeared to be their daughter. Her resemblance to Helena was striking, the same oval-shaped face, the same set to her mouth and the same slight lift of her chin; her eyes narrowed in the way that Helena's would when she was amused. Perhaps the photographer had said something funny or maybe the girl, like any adolescent, was enjoying her belief that she didn't so much obey her parents as humor them.
Myka blurted on one visit, "She's your niece?"
Helena's head snapped around, but she quietly answered, "Yes, my niece Christina."
"She's lovely. She looks like you." Myka prayed that she wasn't blushing but knew better from the sudden heat in her cheeks.
But Helena had turned away from the photograph, trailing her fingers along a row of books. "Her father, I'm sure, doesn't appreciate the likeness." Helena had said it wryly, but Myka sensed an old bitterness behind the comment.
Realizing that it was not a topic Helena cared to discuss, Myka didn't ask the questions raised by the photograph, but she couldn't help glancing at it every time she was in the library, wondering what had taken Helena so far away from her family. Myka acknowledged the envy that was mixed in with her curiosity. Having never been separated from her father for more than a few days, she wondered if Helena found the distance freeing or lonely. As if she knew that Myka's thoughts were about her and not the stack of books she held in the crook of her arm, Helena would occasionally turn a speculative look on her, as though she could hear all the questions racing through Myka's mind.
Myka had never felt so uneasy, been so jumpy around someone before and yet, at the same time, anxious to see her again. Myka's response made no sense to her, and she was alternately frustrated and disturbed that she had no answer for it. On the other hand, she never felt less than at home with Sheriff Lattimer. Or Pete, as he insisted she call him. "Even my jailbirds call me Pete," he joked. But she had learned from experience the costs of being overfamiliar with an unattached man so "Sheriff Lattimer" or "Mr. Lattimer" he remained. He stopped by nearly every day, and if Myka's father swayed a little when he led Pete into the parlor or smelled of whiskey, Pete didn't seem to take notice. Pete would sit on the high-backed sofa with its tilted cushion, boots firmly planted on the floor to prevent him from sliding off, and ask after Myka's day. Myka knew her skills as a cook were modest at best but she always tried to have some extra sweet on hand for when Pete visited, and no matter that it might be lopsided or runny or burned, he was always appreciative. She wasn't sure that he was courting her, but her father was certain of Pete's intentions, growling good-naturedly about her "suitor" and muttering just loudly enough for Myka to hear that "he's a damn sight better than that Martino fella."
Myka was never discomfited meeting Pete's eyes. They were almost as dark as Helena's, but Myka imagined that she could see through them to the essence of Pete himself, loyal, steadfast, kind. He might poke fun at his being the "law in Sweetwater," but Myka had seen him more than once defuse an argument between a couple of cowboys stumbling out of the Rusty Spur, talking a stream of nonsense that had them blinking at him rather than each other as he nimbly removed their guns from their holsters. She looked forward to his visits, and the part of her that fretted about when her father's drinking or a flap about something published in the Journal would get him fired screamed at her not to let such a good man get away. But no matter how warmly he looked at her – when he thought she wouldn't notice – or how sincerely he offered her a compliment, she couldn't bring herself to encourage his pursuit of her. Each time that Pete hinted he would enjoy taking her out for an evening stroll, she would jump up from her chair and dart about the tiny parlor, picking up their cups and saucers and checking after her father in the office. She would then return to her chair and take up her sewing, which, like cooking, she labored over rather than enjoyed, and change the topic of conversation from how pleasant the night air was to the newest desperadoes on Pete's most wanted list. Eventually Pete would rise from the sofa, stiff from having locked his knees to keep his seat on the cushion, and bid her, and a loudly snoring Mr. Bering, good night.
Myka became acquainted with other residents of Sweetwater as well, the proprietor of the general store, the livery owner and his wife, the telegraph operator. Some stopped by the Journal's office out of curiosity, but others she met at Sweetwater's church, a clapboard structure on the opposite end of town from the railroad station. She never missed the Sunday service, and she was usually able to coax her father into joining her. They would sit in a pew toward the middle, and Myka had a friendly greeting for the families as they went down the aisle or took seats in nearby pews. She would add her voice to the rest of the congregation's as they toiled through the hymns, and she would hold her Bible open and bend her head attentively as the pastor intoned his sermon. If her father's head began to loll, she would nudge him awake. But she couldn't have said which was her favorite hymn to sing or provided an opinion on the sermon other than her standard "It gave me food for thought" because her mind was always elsewhere. Myka attended the church not because she was looking for spiritual insight or solace – she had stopped looking for those long ago – but because it would make her and her father part of the community more quickly, and it would be harder for the people who saw them every Sunday to let them be run out of town. At least that was her hope.
So Myka moved her lips in prayer, but she was thinking about the content for the next issue of the Journal or the latest book she had borrowed from Helena's library. Occasionally she daydreamed about the man who, while not rescuing her from her father, would be willing to share the burden of caring for him with her. She never saw his features with any clarity and other than being a "good provider" she had no words to describe him, but she assumed that was only because she had not yet met him. More and more frequently, however, her thoughts were taken up with Helena and the endless questions she had about her. Sometimes as Myka drifted from thought to thought, one preoccupation would blur into another, and the man of her dreams would become more distinct, suddenly having dark hair and dark eyes, and for a moment she might think this future husband could be Pete until the eyes became less kind and more sardonic and she would recognize Helena in his faintly haughty regard. When she first had that realization, she had let her Bible crash to the floor, waking up her father and drawing to her the attention of everyone in the church. Now when thoughts of Helena would intrude into her daydreams, Myka told herself, not without a certain pleasure in the rigor of her own sternness, that it was only because she could fashion no one worthier of her devotion than another version of Sam Martino, and Helena, with a character as interesting as it was disreputable, reminded her of him.
When Sunday worship ended and Myka and her father would join the others filing toward the door, she would sometimes see Helena and Leena in a pew at the back of the church, Helena elegantly attired as always, the dresses modest in color and design but fitted perfectly to her. Occasionally some of the girls from the Rusty Spur would be with them, and Myka noticed how the good ladies of the congregation would hold their skirts aside and look anywhere but at the pew they occupied. She always made it a point to stop for a moment and exchange greetings with Helena and Leena, acknowledging the girls as well. Helena's eyes would track the wide circuit the other ladies made around them, and when she would turn her head in response to Myka's hello, her eyes danced with a wicked glint and her inquiries after Myka's health carried a mocking edge, but her decorum rarely slipped. Except one Sunday when the pastor unexpectedly veered from a story of Paul to a harangue about Mary Magdalene, and Myka counted not one or two but all five of the Spur's girls sitting next to Helena and Leena. When Myka was chatting with them later, Helena had said, a crooked smile on her lips, "Jesus may have forgiven poor Mary, but I do believe Pastor Wallace is still on the fence. What do you think, Miss Bering?" Leena had clucked disapprovingly and Myka, much to her chagrin, blushed in response.
Myka's father had taken her arm then, urging her none too gently away from Helena. "I know she's our employer, but she's not a woman you should be seen associating with, Myka."
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask her father if it were any better for her reputation for her to be seen taking him home from jails and saloons, but she smothered the impulse and nodded in sham acquiescence.
As for the men who led Sweetwater, Myka and her father were introduced to them through Helena's intercession. She took them to the bank, where the Berings spent an excruciatingly long 20 minutes listening to the bank's president, Mr. Jeffries, discourse about the need to ensure that loans carry the proper collateral. Then the next day she arranged for them to attend the town council's meeting. Mr. Bering had protested Myka's attending the meeting with the bank president, and he vociferously objected to her going to meet the town council with him. When he had blustered that Myka's participation in the Journal was limited to gathering news of weddings and births and other "women's affairs," Helena had countered, "But she's the face of the Journal when you're not present, isn't she?" At Mr. Bering's unhappy nod, she had continued in a tone that would not be brooked, "Then she'll go with you."
The town council held their meetings in the offices of James MacPherson, a local rancher and Sweetwater's sole attorney. Mr. MacPherson's offices were on the floor above the doctor's office, which was, conveniently enough, just down the street from the Rusty Spur. A disruptive patron getting the bum's rush out the Spur's doors didn't have far to go to have a bloody nose or black eye tended to. The Berings followed Helena up the stairs and stood behind her uncertainly as she opened the door that displayed, in black lettering across the glass, James MacPherson, Attorney-at Law. Mr. MacPherson's secretary, an owlish looking young man, with wire-rimmed spectacles sitting at a slant on the bridge of his nose and a distractingly large mole on his cheek, led them to a room down a short passageway. Compared to the reception area they had just been in, with its uncomfortable looking chairs and ancient carpet, this room was luxuriously furnished with chairs upholstered in plush fabric and dominated by a large table, on top of which were a box of cigars and a tray holding decanters ringed by glasses. Men had already gathered around the table, selecting cigars and nominating one among them to start pouring drinks. They looked displeased at the Berings' entrance until they caught sight of Helena, who was thanking the secretary for his assistance.
They tugged their waistcoats over their bellies and smoothed their whiskers, reminding Myka of a flock of preening birds. Helena spoke to each of them, asking after their families and working in her introduction of the Berings amid their rough gallantries. Their words were courtly, but their hands first hovered and then landed with a possessive splaying of fingers on her back while their glances kept dipping below the neck of Helena's dress. Mr. Bering they acknowledged with slight interest, and Myka merited only an appraising look or two, too dull a hen for their attention when paired with Helena Wells. Smoke from their cigars began to fill the room, and the councilmen's faces grew redder and their voices louder as, one after another, the decanters were emptied, but no one tried to start the meeting. Eventually the door to a private office opened, and the councilmen fell silent, taking chairs with the alacrity of students hoping to impress their headmaster.
The man who entered the room wasn't a handsome man nor a particularly young one, but in his pearl gray suit coat and trousers, which seemed to shimmer against the black broadcloth worn by the other men, he would cut a fine figure in the opinion of many, and he obviously thought so himself, accepting the greetings of the councilmen with the measured gravity of a royal thrust among the commoners. He surveyed Myka and her father with mild curiosity before approaching Helena and lifting her hand to his lips.
Myka had only ever read about such gestures, and it didn't look nearly as romantic in reality as it had in her imagination. It was too extravagant for this room and its audience, and Myka had the fleeting thought that the man was using the courtesy to mock Helena more than flatter her, and Helena must have had a similar feeling because the muscles along her jaw tightened as she withdrew her hand from his. "As always, Mrs. Wells, it is a delight to see you," he said. "What is it that I can do for you?"
"I've brought the new editor of the Journal and his daughter to meet the town council. What better way for them to become acquainted with the concerns of Sweetwater than to meet the men in whose care the town is entrusted?" She said, smiling sweetly upon the councilmen in their chairs. Myka could almost hear a fluttering of wings as thumbs were tucked into waistcoats and chests swelled under the implicit compliment.
"MacPherson," one of the men chuckled, "I've said it before and I'll say it again, we ought to make Mrs. Wells an honorary member of the council. I'd much rather have her pretty face next to me than the ugly mug of Roberts here." With an excess of good humor, he slapped the shoulder of his neighbor.
Mr. MacPherson smiled thinly but didn't respond. He made no motion to cross the room to greet the Berings, and Myka realized before her father did that Mr. MacPherson expected them to come to him. She inclined her head slightly in Mr. MacPherson's direction and discreetly pulled at her father's sleeve. With a grimace he directed at the ceiling, Mr. Bering advanced with hand outstretched. Mr. MacPherson briefly clasped it and sketched a bow in Myka's direction before refocusing his attention on Helena. "They are more than welcome to stay for the meeting, as are you, Mrs. Wells." At that, a few of the councilmen pounded the table in support. Mr. MacPherson waited for the noise to die down before he continued. "But I'm afraid you'll find us rather boring. We spend much of our time going over the town's accounts." He directed another thin smile, clearly dismissive, at the Berings. "If what you really want to know are the issues we face as a community or our plans for the future, I'll be more than happy to meet with you privately to discuss them."
"If you don't mind, we'll stay for the meeting," Mr. Bering said blandly, locating an empty chair and settling snugly against its back. "I'm always interested in hearing the details."
The corner of Helena's mouth twitched upward, but if Mr. MacPherson was displeased with the Berings' decision to stay he gave no sign of it, dragging forward another chair for Myka and apologizing for the lack of suitable refreshments. Having successfully seen to the Berings, Helena took her leave, much to the disappointment of the councilmen, many of whom chorused that she would be seeing them later at the Spur. "Adding to my night's profit," she teased. She nodded coolly to Mr. MacPherson on her way out, and Myka found herself hoping that Helena might hesitate in the doorway and look back in her direction, but the decisive stride didn't falter.
The council did spend much of its meeting on the town's accounts, calling in the town's bookkeeper (who just so happened to be Mr. MacPherson's secretary). As he ran his finger down the columns of the ledger, droning about income from various taxes and fees and expenses related to various charges and wages, Mr. Bering's head rolled to the side of his chair and he snored, snorted himself awake, and then repeated the process. Since at least one councilman's head was drooping toward his chest, Myka hoped that the council wouldn't hold her father's inattention against him. Every once in awhile she would look away from the bookkeeper and his mole, only to encounter the incipient smirk on Mr. MacPherson's face as he watched her father sleep. She wouldn't have been surprised if Mr. MacPherson was letting the bookkeeper run on to discourage them from attending future meetings. Surely no one, not even the most diligent and dedicated of the councilmen, could care whether last month's accounts were off by a penny.
Finally a councilman roused himself to thank the bookkeeper for his time and then turned to Mr. MacPherson. "James, we keep hearing rumors about a new branch line running through Halliday. What have you heard about it?"
The smirk faded, and Mr. MacPherson's eyes drew down at the corners as if he were trying not to see something unpleasant. Like the question just asked, Myka thought. Summoning a knowing smile and spreading it among the councilmen, letting them in on a secret they should already know, Mr. MacPherson chided, "They're just rumors. There's no more truth to them now than there was last year. As far as I know, a branch line will continue to run through Sweetwater."
Another councilman said through a cloud of cigar smoke, "Well, Charlie Graves was in Bismarck last week, and he told me there was a lot of talk of it. Taking the railroad away from Sweetwater would be the death of this town."
Mr. MacPherson shrugged and spread his palms wide to suggest his helplessness before the wild talk of men like Charlie Graves. "I repeat, gentlemen, there will be no new branch line through Halliday."
The councilmen cast uneasy looks, but first one and then more began to guffaw and remind each other that Charlie Graves could never be trusted to tell a story straight. They settled back in their chairs; one of the decanters was passed around, and for a few minutes the room was silent as the men puffed on their cigars and sipped their drinks and took comfort in the knowledge that their ship of state was still riding high on its prairie sea. Clearing his throat, Mr. MacPherson introduced the remaining items of the council's business, the approval of the previous meeting's minutes and a proposal to increase the vice tax levied on the Rusty Spur.
"That won't please Mrs. Wells," a councilman noted.
"Mrs. Wells's displeasure is not our concern," Mr. MacPherson said crisply. "Too much of Sheriff Lattimer's time and, thus, this town's money is spent breaking up fights at the Spur. She should bear her responsibility for the cost."
The councilmen once more exchanged uneasy glances, but there were no further objections, and the meeting ended with an increase to the vice tax of 3%. The men departed with a few gruff farewells to the Berings and a more enthusiastic purloining of cigars. Mr. MacPherson broke off a whispered conversation with his secretary to intercept the Berings. "You should feel free to attend any of the council's meetings in the future, although I can't promise they'll be any more interesting than this one." He picked at an invisible piece of fluff on the sleeve of his coat. "Of course, I would be happy to continue the arrangement the council had with your predecessor, Mr. Sanderson. After the minutes are finalized and approved, I'll send a man over with a copy to the Journal."
"I'll give some thought to that, but for the time being, I'll plan on attending the meetings," Mr. Bering said affably, but his point was plain.
Mr. MacPherson's answering smile didn't reach his eyes. "We'll look forward to seeing you." It looked none the warmer when he turned it toward Myka. She felt like rubbing her arms as she and her father went down the short hallway and re-entered the reception room, and she could have sworn that she felt a cold draft emanating from Mr. MacPherson's offices even once they were outside.
On their return to the Journal, Myka asked, "What do you think of Mr. MacPherson?"
Mr. Bering stopped, blinking against the late afternoon sun. "I trust him about as far as I can throw him." He tugged a handkerchief from a trouser pocket and mopped the perspiration from his face.
"I'm not sure he was telling the truth about the railroad line," Myka said, recalling the irritation Mr. MacPherson couldn't completely hide when the subject was raised. "Or not the whole truth. He seemed dismissive of what the other council members were saying."
"Maybe," her father said. "But he doesn't strike me as a man with much patience or tolerance for opinions the opposite of his, either." He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. "I think I'll try to collar some of the council men when they're alone, see if they have something different to say when he's not around."
"You could ask Mrs. Wells what she knows," Myka suggested. Even if Helena wasn't a member of the council, she owned the largest clearinghouse for gossip in the town, the Rusty Spur, and, from the way they joked with her before the meeting, it sounded like a number of the councilmen were regular customers.
Mr. Bering tilted his head in consideration before wagging it from side to side. "I imagine she thinks she knows quite a bit." He missed the wry smile of acknowledgment that crossed his daughter's face. "But she's not privy to the kind of information I'm looking for, the goings-on with the politicians and the other high mucky-mucks. No, I'll try the other councilmen over the next week or two." In an awkwardly affectionate gesture, he shook Myka's shoulder. "In the meantime, we need to get home so you can get supper on the table."
Myka wanted to believe that the father she remembered, not the tired, sweating man in front of her, anxious for nothing more than a meal and several stiff drinks, would have been open to approaching Helena, but though she had memories of him sharing his day with her mother, she couldn't recall him asking her mother's opinion. Nor could Myka remember Jeannie Bering volunteering one. Her mother had been a quiet woman, from her appearance, which, while attractive, blended into her surroundings, to her voice, which had been soft and trailing. But even if Myka's father had always held the traditional view of a woman's role, the old Warren Bering would have no sooner left the council meeting than he would have been tracking down the other members and hounding them with questions, not satisfied to leave Mr. MacPherson speaking for all. He certainly wouldn't have been standing on the walk, putting his hand to his back as if he were feeling for an ache and looking forward to one of Myka's meals.
Mr. Bering ate his supper and then a piece of apple pie, its filling so thick and pasty that Myka, ruefully evaluating her latest effort at baking, thought they might be able to use it to caulk the windows for winter. He sat in his chair afterward, filling his pipe but restlessly tapping his feet. After several looks at his pocket watch, he announced that he was going out, and Myka knew he would be heading toward the Rusty Spur. She cleaned their dishes and picked up her sewing, intending to mend a hem in one of her father's pairs of trousers, but she felt a sudden burst of restlessness herself, and without examining too closely what it was she was doing, she washed her face and hands and scowled at her hair in the mirror before closing the door behind her. It was twilight, with few people on the street and most of them on their way home. She had never visited Helena this late, but then this wasn't a social call, not exactly.
As Myka opened the gate, she was reassured by the light shining from the library's windows. Leena answered her knock with the same warm smile that she always greeted Myka with and led her to the library. "Mrs. Wells is on her way out, but I'm sure she won't mind your borrowing some books. I think you know her library almost as well as she does."
Myka looked at the bookshelves longingly but said, with a minute shake of her head, "If this isn't a good time, I can come back, but I need to speak with her."
Leena's smile faded, although she spoke even more gently. "Mrs. Wells likes to personally keep an eye on things at the saloon when all the cowhands come to town, but I'm sure she'll spare some time for you." She paused as Myka unconsciously began to toe the dusty tip of her shoe into the deep pile of the rug. "Would you like to sit down, Miss Bering? May I bring you anything?"
With another tiny shake of her head, Myka sat on the edge of a chair, her eyes fixed on the entrance to the library. She heard the soft clatter of Leena going upstairs and then, moments later, the quick, firm steps that heralded Helena's appearance. Seeing her in the shadow cast by the doorway, Myka wondered why Helena was dressed in mourning until she came farther into the room and what had looked black turned the darkest violet. The silk of her dress rippled in the glow of the lamps, suggesting in its sheen the color of water at night, and poised above it, like the moon risen on its arc, was the pale perfection of Helena's face. The sound of her own breathing rasping in her ears, Myka forgot why she was sitting in Helena's library, thinking only that she had never seen anything so beautiful.
"If you're here to tell me about the outcome of the meeting," Helena said with an exaggerated sigh, "I already know about the increase in my taxes, from three different councilmen, no less."
Dazedly, Myka said, "No, it's not that. It's about the railroad line to Halliday."
Helena looked sharply at Myka. "What was said about it?"
"Nothing, no, obviously that's not true," Myka said, flustered, distracted by how the dress fanned onto the floor and then swirled around Helena's legs in synchronous movement with her, as though Helena didn't so much wear it as it clung to her of its own volition. Myka tried to marshal her thoughts, but her mouth was dry and she couldn't take her eyes away from Helena. Her hair was sleekly swept up into a chignon and diamonds sparkled at her ears; if only the princesses in the knightly romances that Myka had devoured as a child had resembled her, she might have paid them more attention. "The council was concerned about rumors of a new railroad line, but Mr. MacPherson said the rumors weren't true." Inwardly Myka groaned at her words. Helena must think she was an idiot for rushing to her about a rumor that was no sooner mentioned than squelched. "But I didn't believe him," she said flatly.
"Why not?" Helena asked, her gaze intent and utterly devoid of the amusement Myka had expected.
"Because he didn't want to talk about it," Myka said slowly. "I think Mr. MacPherson is a man who likes to impress others with what he knows."
Helena snorted; it was a very ladylike snort but still a snort. "You've read him well. James MacPherson is a small cog who yearns to be a very big cog." Rounding Myka's chair, Helena went to her desk and took pencil and paper from a drawer. "Here, let me show you the nasty little mess that our Mr. MacPherson has created."
