Chapter 2 - TWENTY-THREE LETTERS
Abigail did not open the letters immediately.
She was too exhausted.
Ruth insisted she sleep.
The twins lay in a wooden drawer Daniel had removed from a chest, padded with folded blankets and placed beside the bed.
“Not elegant,” he said.
“It’s perfect,” Abigail whispered.
Jacob slept near the stove.
Daniel stayed awake.
By morning, the blizzard had weakened.
Snow covered the cabin windows halfway.
When Abigail woke, Ruth was feeding the fire.
Her daughter slept against her.
Her son made small impatient noises.
“What time is it?”
“Late morning.”
Abigail panicked.
“The babies.”
“Have eaten. Have complained. Have survived.”
Ruth smiled.
“So have you.”
Abigail looked toward the table.
The letters remained there.
Twenty-three.
Ruth followed her gaze.
“Want privacy?”
Abigail shook her head.
“No.”
She reached for the first.
The postmark was six months old.
Her fingers trembled.
Abby,
I reached Silverton safely. Mr. Colter hired me with the survey crew. Pay is better than I expected. If I work through autumn, I can put enough aside for a room and perhaps a small place come spring. I know your father thinks I am nothing but a laborer with muddy boots, but I intend to return able to look him in the eye.
Abigail stopped.
Ruth said nothing.
She opened another.
Your last letter frightened me. If you truly believe you are carrying my child, then please do not think for one second that I mean to leave you alone. I am coming as soon as the pass opens. If your father refuses me, then I will ask you what you want. Not him. You.
Abigail covered her mouth.
She had never received that letter.
Never received any of them.
Her father told her Elias had left Colorado.
Her mother said some men enjoyed girls until consequences arrived.
Abigail had believed them.
Because no letters came.
She opened another.
I sent Samuel twenty dollars for you. Please tell me if it arrived.
Another.
I sent thirty more. Mr. Colter says I should keep it for myself, but you need it more.
Another.
Why have you stopped answering?
Another.
Samuel wrote that you refuse to see me. I do not believe him.
Abigail’s hands went cold.
“Pa answered him?”
Jacob nodded.
“I saw him once.”
“What did he write?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
Then Jacob remembered.
“He told Ma that Elias would stop eventually if he believed you hated him.”
Abigail closed her eyes.
Ruth muttered something under her breath that was definitely not appropriate for church.
Daniel entered carrying split wood.
He saw Abigail holding the letters.
“Bad?”
“Worse.”
She handed him one.
Daniel read only enough to understand.
He set it down.
“Your father stole money too?”
Jacob looked frightened.
Abigail turned.
“Jacob?”
The boy hesitated.
“I saw Pa put cash in the flour tin.”
“When?”
“After letters came.”
Abigail stared at him.
“Our flour tin?”
Jacob nodded.
Samuel had spent months complaining that Abigail had cost the family money.
Extra food.
Medicine.
Fabric.
He had told her repeatedly that her “mistake” was draining them.
All while taking money Elias sent for her.
Ruth sat down hard.
“Well.”
Daniel looked at Jacob.
“Does Samuel know you have the letters?”
The boy swallowed.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He saw me take them.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“You stole them?”
“They were in Pa’s lockbox.”
Ruth looked toward the window.
“He’ll come.”
Jacob nodded.
“He said if I ever touched them, he’d—”
He stopped.
Daniel finished quietly:
“He’ll come.”
Abigail looked at her babies.
Fear returned instantly.
“My father will take them.”
“No,” Daniel said.
“You don’t know him.”
“No.”
Daniel met her eyes.
“But I know this is my house.”
Ruth gave him a look.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“Try sounding less like a man about to do something foolish.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
He placed the rifle above the mantel.
Then added:
“But Samuel Pierce does not enter this house unless Abigail wants him here.”
Abigail stared.
Nobody had asked what she wanted for months.
Maybe years.
Ruth turned toward her.
“What do you want?”
Abigail looked at Jacob.
The letters.
Her twins.
Then whispered:
“I don’t want to see him.”
“Then you won’t.”
Simple.
No sermon.
No argument.
No reminder that Samuel was her father.
Ruth simply accepted her answer.
That afternoon, Daniel rode to the nearest settlement once the road became passable.
He returned near dusk with Dr. Amos Bell and Deputy Marshal Thomas Hale.
Not because Daniel wanted Samuel arrested immediately.
Because Ruth insisted Abigail and the babies needed a doctor.
And because Daniel believed the law should hear the story before Samuel invented one.
Dr. Bell examined Abigail and the twins.
“Lucky,” he said.
Ruth frowned.
“Prepared.”
He smiled.
“Also lucky.”
Both babies were small but healthy.
Abigail’s injuries from the fall were mostly bruises and scraped skin.
Then Deputy Hale sat near the fire.
He was in his fifties with tired eyes.
“Tell me what happened.”
Abigail did.
Everything.
She expected skepticism.
Instead Hale asked careful questions.
Where on the road?
What time?
Who witnessed it?
Jacob confirmed.
Then he produced the letters.
Hale read several.
His face hardened.
“Your father abandoned a seventeen-year-old girl in active labor during a mountain storm?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother?”
“She went with him.”
“Anyone else?”
“Jacob.”
Jacob spoke.
“I came back.”
Hale nodded.
“That matters.”
Abigail whispered:
“Will he be arrested?”
Hale paused.
“Maybe.”
He did not promise.
“Frontier law is not always as clean as people want it to be.”
He looked at the twins.
“But leaving somebody in a storm where they are likely to die is more than a family disagreement.”
Then hoofbeats sounded outside.
Daniel rose.
Hale reached for his coat.
A voice shouted through the snow.
“ABIGAIL!”
She went pale.
Samuel Pierce had arrived.
May you like
And he was not alone.
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