Tumbleweed Letters
Praise for Vonnie Davis’s Writing
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Tumbleweed Letters
by
Vonnie Davis
Love Letters Series
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Tumbleweed Letters
COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Vonnie Davis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by
Tina Lynn Stout
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Cactus Rose Edition, 2012
Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-518-8
Part of the Love Letters series
Published in the United States of America
STORM'S INTERLUDE
Holt Medallion finalist as
Best Book written by a Virginia author
and
as Best Book in Mainstream/Single Title
Also
nominated as Book of the Year
at Long and Short Reviews
~*~
“This book has easily found its place on my keeper shelf and has become one of my personal favorites. If I could pull these characters from the pages and make them real I would. …I will revisit them again in the future and I very much look forward to it.”
~Long and Short Reviews
~*~
“Wow, I absolutely loved
STORM'S INTERLUDE
! …sweet romance, heartfelt feelings, a whole lot of sexual tension, and its own share of on-edge suspense.”
~Night Owl Reviews
~*~
“In love with this book! This author is now on my auto-buy list. Please keep them coming, Ms. Davis!”
~The One Hundred Romances Project
~*~
“
STORM'S INTERLUDE
is a delightful read from beginning to end.”
~Romancing the Book
~*~
“Readers, prepare yourselves for a breathtaking emotional journey.
STORM'S INTERLUDE
is simply a book you should not miss. The characters are well crafted and…Vonnie Davis' writing is tender, witty and beautiful. I devoured each page, but didn't want the story to end because it's so powerful.”
~Siren Book Reviews
Dedication
To Grace Chiasson Miller,
of the Mi’kmaq tribe,
my "go-to lady" for all things Native.
Thank you for sharing your heritage and
for keeping me true to The Red Way.
The exceptional grandson we share between us
will always keep us joyfully connected.
Bless you.
Chapter One
October, 1879
South of Deadwood, Dakota Territory
Cam McBride fought to keep his horse under control. “Steady, now. Steady, Samson.” He reined the chestnut to the left, away from the rolling tumbleweed. “Just another wind witch.” Leaning forward, he patted his mount’s neck. Leather creaked, and Samson snorted. “I know those tumbleweeds spook you.”
Eli turned slightly in front of him, and Cam’s palm automatically went to the child’s waist for support. “Drink, Daddy.” His son pointed to the roaring creek beyond the golden, swaying aspens.
“Okay. Drink.” He dismounted and lifted his two-year-old from his perch behind the saddlehorn. “Stay, now. Don’t go running off.”
“Stay,” Eli repeated with a nod, his wheat-colored hair fluttering in the breeze.
Cam led his horse to the creek. He removed his canteen and pulled a metal cup from his saddlebags.
“No, Daddy, drink.” Eli pointed to the creek and did his I-want-what-I-want jig, kicking up a little dust in the process. “Cold drink.” He crossed his little arms and stuck out his lower lip.
They’d been riding the range since sunup, slowly herding his small drove of cattle to lower ground in preparation for winter. No doubt the cranky boy needed a nap. “Okay, you get your way. I’m too tired to argue.” He stepped into the high grass along the bank, squatted, and leaned forward, extending the tin cup to catch fresh water gurgling over a mound of rocks in the stream. Cam leaned back on his hunkers. “Here’s your drink.”
Eli trotted over and grabbed the offered cup. “Dank you,” he chirped in a sing-song voice.
“You’re welcome, son.” He ruffled the boy’s curls and listened to the child’s gulping and breathing echo within the metal cup. His Amanda would be pleased he was teaching her son manners. She’d always set great store by them, growing up in the South the way she had. No doubt his beloved was smiling from heaven at his awkward attempts to raise their boy alone.
The offending tumbleweed that had spooked Samson moments earlier snagged his attention. A sliver of color dangled within it. Taking his son’s hand, he walked him away from the stream and toward the tumbleweed caught between a couple of scrub pines.
He stooped to untangle a piece of blue calico. Maybe Eli would enjoy playing with it. As he untied the knotted material, paper crackled.
What’s this?
Cam unfolded the remnant. A piece of newspaper was tucked inside. Wasn’t that odd? As he turned the torn paper over, slanted writing along the margins caught his eye. Before he began reading, he gave Eli the scrap of calico.
To the four winds, I hate it here. I miss Pennsylvania. I miss my home with my things about me. I miss my students and my husband, hooligan that he was. My friends told me nothing good would come from marrying him, but love only sees what it wants. Now I am alone, on the run, and without funds. I barely earn my keep. I have no hope of happiness and no one to talk to, except you—the four winds.
“Mine.” Eli held out the blue strip of fabric so it fluttered in the breeze.
“That’s right, son.” Cam turned the scrap of newspaper over in hopes of reading more. Nothing but an ad for winter coats at Munter and Lillanthal’s in Deadwood. The paper’s name,
Black Hills Pioneer,
was printed in the corner.
No more handwriting and no signature. So a lonely, unhappy woman wrote a note to nobody, secreted it within the folds of fabric, and tied it to a tumbleweed? He ran a hand across the back of his neck. If that wasn’t the strangest thing.
****
Sophie Flannigan tensed at the footsteps on the wooden stairs of the Green Front Hotel and Theater.
Now what is my boss wanting me to do? Haven’t I been working since sunrise?
“You got all the bedclothes washed yet? Customers will soon be coming to see my girls.” Madam Dora’s gaze swept the narrow room furnished with a bed, small dresser, and chair.
Twisting the excess water from her scrub rag, Sophie reached for the dust in the corner and then sat back on her heels. “I’m boiling the last set now. Once I make the beds and scrub down the steps, I’ll be through up here.”
The owner of the brothel sashayed on in, her taffeta petticoats rustling and the fragrance of rosewater trailing behind her. She stroked the sleeping orange cat on the windowsill. “You know, if you changed professions, you could make a better living for yourself.”
No, thank you. I do still have my pride.
“Meaning no disrespect, I’d sooner make my living on my knees than on my back.”
Madam Dora’s eyes narrowed for a beat and then a slow grin spread. “Well, darlin’, you can make a good living on your knees, too.” She grazed fingers over the globe of the kerosene lamp. “In fact, two of my girls specialize in that highly desired act.”
Sophie stood and stretched the kinks from her back. “Every creature has a place on this earth. Your place is running this establishment. Mine has resorted to keeping it clean.”
Her employer cackled. “I like you, Sophie Flannigan. Although I’ve got my suspicions as to whether you like me or not. When you’re done cleaning up here, have a bowl of that stew you got simmerin’ on the stove. You look plum peeked. Then restock the bar for tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Her breakfast, the heel of a loaf of bread, hadn’t kept her rumbling stomach quiet for long. She’d been working nonstop since she began her day, cleaning the shambles in what Madam Dora referred to as the drawing room of her profitable brothel, her “cat house” as the owner so disgustingly called it. How Sophie’s station in life had plummeted from respected schoolteacher to scrub woman for a bunch of strumpets was a story few would believe. At one time, her hands bore a thin layer of chalk. Now they were reddened and chapped from scrubbing soiled sheets and mud-splattered floors.
Because she worked and lived in a whorehouse, what polite society there was in this lawless town turned their noses up at her, no doubt figuring if she worked here, she
worked
as a soiled dove. Men frequently foisted their lascivious attentions on her, and she was thankful for Dora’s protection. For all her sins, the madam was a kindhearted soul. She’d taken her in when she was hungry and nearly penniless.
If the world only knew she slept on the floor behind the cookstove in the kitchen—alone, and fearful one relentless Pinkerton would soon catch up with her.
Chapter Two
“Sophie, look who’s here.”
She glanced up from her task of restocking the bar. Madam Dora had her red-velvet-clad arm linked through that of a dark-haired man.
Both were smiling at each other. “This here is my dear friend, Martha Jane, although some no-accounts call her Calamity Jane.” Both women chuckled as if they shared some private secret.
This is a woman?
Sophie gaped at the creature dressed in man’s clothing. The stench of cattle and the layer of trail dust erased any sense of femininity.
“If we treat her right, she might stay a spell and work for me again.” Madam Dora winked at Sophie. “Give Martha Jane and me a shot of my private stock. The good stuff.”
“Don’t think gettin’ me tipsy will get me up those steps and on my back.” Calamity Jane poked her man’s broad-brimmed hat farther back on her head with a dirty finger. The brass spittoon Sophie had just cleaned to a shine dinged when Calamity Jane spat chewing tobacco into it. Then she downed the shot Sophie set in front of her, wiped the back of her hand over her lips, and grinned. “At least not for a few hours, anyway.”
Sophie poured her another shot, which Calamity Jane once again downed quickly. “Damn, that hits the dusty spot at the pit of my belly. Been bullwhackin’ from Rapid City to Fort Pierre.” She turned to Dora. “Damn, if I ain’t tired a lookin’ at the ass-end of a bull.”
“Well, when you’re ready to get cleaned up, let Sophie here know. She’ll carry you up a hot bath.” Madam Dora tilted the tiny glass to her lips and then slapped it on the bar. “Don’t just stand there gapin’, girl. Give us another round.”
A few hours later, the gentlemen of the town and outlying areas were dirtying the glasses and sheets Sophie had worked so hard to clean that morning. Business at the bar and upstairs in the lust chambers, as she regarded them, was busy. Calamity Jane was bathed and dressed in the usual finery Madam Dora insisted her girls wear.
Sophie had two blessed hours to herself before she began washing glasses and beer mugs. Two hours to step outside under the stars and breathe the fresh air. She set a lantern on a nearby rock and settled on her favorite boulder. Once she’d had a favorite rocking chair to relax on, but now a large gray boulder sufficed.
Just a few months earlier, she’d been in her little house in Luzerne County back in Pennsylvania. She was a respected teacher at the one-room schoolhouse. Then Tommy Flannigan stormed into her life and taught her, an old maid, how to laugh and hope.
Saints preserve me, but I fell hard for that heathen.
Swearing pierced the stillness of the night. Two gunshots reverberated from building to building. Screams floated from one of the windows upstairs. One of the customers was evidently beating up one of the soiled doves.
God help me, I’ve moved from gentle civilization to the land of Sodom and Gomorrah.
She exhaled a long sigh and swiped at a tear. Not everyone back home was civilized, though, were they? No. And that included her Tommy.