Page 69 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
“Shall I find some crow to go in there?”
She shot him one dour look, sniffed, and used her cuff to dry her cheek, staying silent as she gave the pot a stir.
“You have a right to be angry. I owe you an apology.” He folded his arms across his tight chest. “I didn’t want to believe you’d taken it, but I didn’t know how else it could have disappeared. I accused you, and that was wrong. I won’t do it again.”
She tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot, set the lid on it, and brought it to him where he stood in the open door. She shoved the cold stew pot into his hands.
He stooped to set it at his feet and said, “Come on, Marigold. I don’t let things fester. Say whatever you need to say and let’s get past this.”
She pulled her carpetbag from the hook on the wall beneath his bunk and started thrusting her meagre possessions into it.
“It’s fine that you’re packing. I told the men that first thing tomorrow I want all hands to report here to build out this cabin for winter. We’ll all camp out across the way while the roof’s off.”
She paused at that news, then gathered her writing supplies from the shelf.
“Emmett reckons it’ll take ten days if the weather holds, so long as we don’t lose any more men. Then you’ll have your own room.”
She took her hairbrush off the small washstand she’d fashioned from a crate. She left the hand mirror hung by its handle above it, the one that had been a gift from one of the men. That little wash area was one of the small but welcome improvements she’d made to their living conditions here. Everything was better now she was here.
“For Christ’s sake, Marigold. Refusing to speak to me is childish.”
“I don’t have anything to say.”
“Like hell you don’t. Call me an asshole and get it over with.”
“What’s the point in that?”
“You’ll feel better.”
“No,” she said with a faint shake of her head, sounding baffled. “I knew that’s what you were the day we met. All men are.”
He snorted. As far as insults went, comparing him to her ex-husband and his attorney was about as mean as it got.
“I’m not angry with you,” she continued in that lost little voice. “I’m angry with myself for wanting to believe you were different. I hate myself so much for that.”
“Marigold.” He gripped the edge of the door, trying to withstand the knives turning in his guts.
“And running away hasn’t really worked out for me in the past, but I would walk all the way to Oregon to get away from how I behaved with you, it’s so humiliating.” She was talking to the wall, not even looking at him.
“Stop it. You’re not going anywhere.” He lurched into the cabin on instinct.
His foot hit something. The stew pot went clattering across to hit the table leg. Beans and water and chopped onion tops spilled across the dirt floor.
“Fuck!” he shouted at the ceiling.
She hunched her arms into her body, shoulders protective up around her ears.
“It’s all going to be fine,” he insisted. Maybe he was still yelling because she was staring at him with apprehension. “The men will bring crates and the handcart so we can pack up and move across the way. I’ll sleep with Tom and you can sleep with the children, and it will all be fine. Just quit talking about leaving and give me a chance to make this right.”
He left before she could say anything, heart pounding so hard he thought it would burst. As he strode away, a heavy weight settled over him. How the hell was he going to follow through on his promise?
…
She missed him, damn him, not that she had much time for pining over Virgil. He and the men worked dawn ’til dusk on the cabin. Levi helped them between his other chores, but Marigold kept the little ones out of the way by working with Gristle in the cookhouse. They ensured the men had good meals each day and jugged the hare that Levi had learned to snare. He was bringing in one or two a day along with the occasional grouse or wild turkey.
In the evenings, Marigold took the children back to her wickiup. She read to them by firelight, then slept in the snug shelter. One night it rained, and the children cuddled in closer to her, mostly to avoid a drip through the leaves and branches that formed the cupped roof, but otherwise their nights were uneventful.
Stoney had finished the chimney on the second day of work. When Marigold heard he was headed to Denver, she asked him to post another letter to her sister. She hadn’t given away the intimacies she and Virgil had shared, but she had needed to cry to someone about her hurt and disappointment.
