Chapter One
“I won’t do it!”
Sarah Gillham threw her silver hairbrush across the bedroom.
“I’ll figure a way out!” She punched her pillow into submission and buried her face in it.
“I don’t ever want to get married!” Spit flew from her mouth and penetrated her pillowcase. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and took a deep breath through her nose.
“Ahhhhhh!” she screamed into the feathered object of her wrath so her momma wouldn’t hear her outcry.
As if Momma would do anything, if she did hear her anguish.
In a catatonic stupor of grief, her momma barely functioned, let alone reacted to Sarah or anybody who came to visit. Her poppa had been gone for nearly a month, but momma hadn’t said one word since the day he took his last breath.
That day was forever embedded in Sarah’s memory.
Flora Adams, the saloon owner who had turned the Lucky Lady Saloon into an infirmary after the accidents, told Sarah what had happened. She had taken Sarah into her office so they could talk in private. Her momma was already there, being consoled by two saloon girls.
“You’re poppa was having trouble breathing today.” Miss Flora began. “The healer, Miss Hattie, said something about a blood clot. I think it came from the broken bones in his legs.”
Miss Flora shrugged. While her hand gently rubbed Anna Mae’s back, she spoke to Sarah.
“Your momma is a real hero, you know? If it weren’t for her, your poppa and several other rescuers wouldn’t have made it out of that silver mine alive.” A sardonic chuckle escaped Flora’s ruby-red lips. “She just grabbed the first thing she saw and started shoving that debris outta the way. Your poppa was a lucky man. We thought.” Flora paused, rethinking her words. “I think Miss Hattie truly expected him to recover from the broke legs.”
“But,” Sarah had tried to make sense of what Miss Flora had been telling her. “He was fine when I left.”
Sarah had watched her mother being comforted by three women, yet acknowledging nothing. She wasn’t even crying anymore. Sarah had touched her momma’s arm. “Momma?”
“We brought her in here,” Flora had continued. “So her grief wouldn’t be so… public.”
Sarah had nodded, overwhelmed with guilt for not being there with her poppa when he died.
Two weeks earlier, April fifteenth, the day her world turned upside down, two consecutive earthquakes had shaken the town to its core. Workers had been killed when the mine collapsed with the first earthquake, and rescuers had been killed or badly wounded with the second. Then the accompanying torrential rain swept the loggers away with a landslide. Timber Town was annihilated with the mud cascading down the mountain, taking out the loggers’ families who lived there. A lot of her friends were… just gone.
Every store and residence was in a state of dishevel, some worse than others, including her poppa’s shop. Glass windows were shattered and door frames were twisted and splintered. Everything that wasn’t nailed down had fallen and broken. It would take a lot of time and money, not to mention laborious work, to get everything back in order. The only people left to make repairs were old men, the women, and older children.
Oh, there were a few able-bodied men left. Marshal Sewell for one, and a few elderly men who no longer worked in the mine or the timber. But it was much more than they could do alone. The rail line was mangled or covered by many feet of mud and debris, preventing any men from coming into Silverpines to help.
It had taken Sarah two weeks to leave her poppa’s side and face the shop’s devastation, and then while she worked on cleaning and straightening the mess over there, her poppa died.
Sarah blinked out of her terrible memory.
Was that just three weeks ago?
Her momma moaned in the parlor. Sarah stood from her bed. There was no more time to lament the majority’s decision. It was done.
She washed her face and straightened her flyaway curls. “I’m coming Momma.”
Her mother was so deeply depressed by her poppa’s passing, she didn’t move, or speak, or eat, unless Sarah guided her. Sarah fed her like an infant, cutting her food into small, bite-size pieces and spooning it into her mouth. She put her to bed at night, got her up in the morning, and talked to her as if she understood, even though her momma made no sign of acknowledgment.
“You want some tea, Momma?” Sarah pumped the water into the cast-iron teapot and stoked the fire. “You look cold.”
Her momma always looked cold, and thin. She had obviously lost a lot of weight in three weeks, even though Sarah fed her the same meals she was accustomed to eating. She set about putting together a chopped beef and vegetables dish that she knew her momma particularly liked.
“So…” It was how her family always started a story. They’d just suddenly say, “So,” followed by a long dramatic pause. “You’ll never believe what’s going on among the women, Momma.”
She hit a wooden spoon on the side of a dutch oven to force a glob of lard to drop. Sarah tried to sound chipper despite the angst that lingered in her heart. “They’ve decided that since there aren’t any eligible men left in Silverpines, they are gonna do like Miss Betsy Sewell did and solicit for a husband.”
She looked at her momma for any reaction.
There was none.
“You remember when Betsy Sewell, only she was Betsy Pike back then, was about to marry Marshal Ike Clayton? But that no-good, thieving—“ she cleared her throat and calmed herself.
“That gambler, Charles Little, killed him and tried to take over as marshal? He killed Doc Hamilton, too. Remember? Then he had his sights set to marry Mrs. Sewell, er, Miss Betsy.”
Sarah snorted a giggle. “But Betsy out smarted ole Charlie Little. Put an ad in the Grooms Gazette, and found her, and this town, the kindest marshal, Alexzander Sewell. They’ve been married over a month now, maybe two.” She paused to think about when it was they got married. “It was just before the accidents.”
Everything seemed to be categorized in her memory as: before the accidents, when everything was normal and nice; and after the accidents, when all the men were dead and hell opened its doors to let out a slew of con men who infiltrated their sweet town.
“It’s no wonder Marshal Sewell can’t help with repairs. He’s always chasing down a new con man who’s slipped into town. They’re slicker than a well-oiled snake, I’m tellin’ ya.”
Sarah stirred the meat then slid over to the pie cabinet to chop some root vegetables.
“Momma?” She stopped cutting halfway through the turnip to see her mother’s expression. “I put an ad in, too.”
No reaction.
“Not that I want a husband.” She blew out an exasperated sigh. “Lord, no. But, if I could bring a fella here who knew about gunsmith shops and smithing in general, maybe he could help us get poppa’s shop back in business and…” She fought the tears screaming to pour from her eyes. “He could give them con men the what-for and get them outta our business. I swear if that Tommy Goodnight comes into our shop and tells me one more time how I’m fixing things wrong, and how we women are gonna turn Silverpines into a ghost town… I swear, I’m gonna do something of biblical proportions on his head.”
Now, she knew her momma would react to that outburst. She wasn’t allowed to talk like that in this house, even if she was nineteen years old.
No reaction.