Page 26 of Ellen Found
“He’s a good fellow with a promising future in the army,” he said. She listened for animosity but heard only words carefully chosen.
“He has plans,” she said, choosing carefully too, because she liked Dan Reeves.
“Do his plans include you?” he blurted out another morning.
“He hasn’t said so,” she replied, wanting to shake him a little, or maybe a lot, because she realized that somewhere between the envelope of seeds and iron fish, something had happened to her. And so she sat with the tentative widower who touched her mind and heart.
She taught Gwen to make biscuits, and how to French braid her own hair. “After all, when this project is done, you’ll be moving to another place with your father,” she said, which broke her heart in ways she hadn’t reckoned on.
Mr. Reamer asked her and Mrs. Quincy to increase their chores to include sweeping out the finished rooms and wiping them down. “That last freight sled brought in iron bedsteads and bedding,” he told her. “The chairs and bureaus are here too. Time to furnish the rooms.”
Mrs. Quincy asked her to work with Gwen. “I work better alone,” she assured Ellen, who wasn’t even slightly fooled. Mr. Wilson always managed to show up to sweep and mop too. She heard them laughing together down the hall and felt a twinge of envy.
“Does he like Mrs. Quincy?” Gwen asked her once when it was almost warm enough to open a window. “She doesn’t seem to grumble as much.”
Ellen kissed the top of her head.
“I am observant,” Gwen told her. She plumped herself down on a bed. “Papa doesn’t write so much in his journal. He stares at the pages, then shakes his head and closes it.”
“Do you write in yours?” Ellen asked, powerfully wanting to have a look at Charles Penrose’s journal.
“Aye.” She leaned closer. “Papa is hoping to get another assignment here in the park. A place called Lake. Are you staying here?”
“I hope to.”
“Come with us to Lake,” Gwen said. “You’ll be too far away here. I... I asked my father if you could come with us.”
Ellen heard the urgency and sat downbeside the little one. She held her close. “What did he say?”
“He kissed my cheek like you kissed my head. I am getting nowhere with him!”
I know the feeling, Ellen thought.
The days began to lengthen as snow moved from endless powder to wet, heavy flakes that signaled a change of season. Already some of the workers had left for other jobs. The only thing that made her happy about that were their bashful thanks to her for good food, something she never heard at the Mercury Street Café.
Sergeant Reeves came by more often after supper. The exhaustion of cold patrols on skis and frustrating searches for poachers who robbed Yellowstone for their own enrichment had left its mark. As worn down as he was, she knew he would show up after dishes were done to walk with her in the geyser basin.
The snow never stayed long there, vanquished by the everlasting warmth of fumaroles, hot pots, and geysers. As impressive as they were, none of them rivaled nearby Old Faithful, which showed itself at a regular fifty-five minutes, but life, she knew, was seldom spectacular.
“Think of the tourists coming in June,” Dan said one evening as they strolled. “They’ll ooh and aah, but for my money, I like this basin.”
They paused to watch Old Faithful erupt. Who wouldn’t? As they watched, she told the sergeant her plan. “I’ve applied for a position as front desk clerk here.”
“You’ll get it.” He turned to her. “You’re the kind of pretty girl Mr. Child wants to see in his hotel.”
“Thanks, Dan.” Goodness. Better make a joke. “I should have put my hair up months ago,” she told him. “Every girl likes a compliment.”
“It’s more than that, Ellen,” he said, more serious now than she had seen him. “You have kind eyes and a good heart, and it shows.”
He had kissed her before on the cheek, but this was different. This was a serious kiss on the lips, her first ever. “Been wanting to do that,” he whispered when his lips still nearly touched hers.
She strolled with him, shy and pleased.She knew Dan Reeves was a good man with honorable intentions, the sort of man she could never have found anywhere near the Mercury Street Café. In her short lifetime of wanting little because she had next to nothing, she had wanted more. That wanting had brought her to Old Faithful Inn.
To her chagrin, she still wanted more.
What do I do? I’m thirty-two years old, and I’m thinking like twenty again. I’ll bedamneddarned if the sap rises in places besides pine trees.
AFTER ONLY A few blocks, Charles knew Ellen was right about Butte. It was a no-account town with more bars and brothels than churches. He gave Butte the benefit of the doubt at the depot. He had been around enough depots to know that things looked better after a few blocks. Not in Butte.
