Free Wild Rose by Sharon Butala Page A

wooden chairs for her, indicating she should sit, which she did, although not without annoyance that he would offer her a chair in her own house.
    “I’m Walter Campion,” he said. “Came here from Ontario a while ago. I was looking around for land, saw your husband, he said he wanted to sell fast. Said that farming was not for him and he was leaving with his wife and he’d give me a bargain. I thought, better a place with sixty broke acres and a house and barn than one where I have to start from scratch.” He smiled self-consciously, then frowned, as if reminding himself to whom it was he spoke.
    Sophie said, forcing herself, “When? He was – alone?”
    “Yesterday,” he said. “Young woman in the wagon with him. Yellow hair,” he added, not looking at her.
    “He – sold our farm?” she asked, still incredulous. Campion only nodded, steel glinting in his eyes again. He had seated himself in Pierre’s chair, casually, as if he had always sat there. His bulk was such that the room became smaller in a way it never did when Pierre entered it.
    “Show me the bill of sale,” she demanded. Charles struggled to get down and she let him, hardly noticing she had. Campion reached inside his shirt and produced a piece of paper, holding it out to her. She had trouble reading it in the dim light and with her vision unaccountably blurring, but Pierre’s signature was at the bottom.
    “But he didn’t –” she swallowed. “He didn’t ask me if I wanted to sell. And where is the money? What did you pay him?” She wanted to ask, and who was the woman?
    He said, “I bought this place fair and square; we saw the lawyer in town, I gave your husband the money.” Again, he didn’t say how much. “Looks like he’s gone with it.” The last was heavy, as if for one second he had allowed himself to feel the weight of Pierre’s perfidy. She was regaining some sense now.
    “I do not consent,” she told him in the coldest voice she could muster so that he looked at her anew, a brightness appearing in his eyes, the colour of which she couldn’t determine, some kind of calculation going on, his gaze dropping to the tabletop.
    “You got no choice. I can give you a day or so to gather your personal things.”
    She sat stiffly, not looking at him, trying to see what it was she should do. But if she resisted, he would have no trouble to force her away. She looked to the door – the gun was gone from its resting place above it.
    “I will not go,” she told him, her voice growing louder, barely containing rising hysteria. He only stared at her. There was a silence, she unclenched her fists, swallowed, then said in a muted tone, “I need only an hour. But taking what I can gather in an hour in no way signifies my agreement to this sale,” a part of her amazed that she could find such words. But she rose, gathered Charles from where he stood, fingers in his mouth, gazing unblinkingly up at Campion’s impressive moustache. With her son riding her hip, she turned to go into the bedroom to begin packing, when suddenly she thought aloud, “I have no way to travel.” Turning to him, “I must ask you to take me to town.”
    He looked at her gravely, once again assessing her, and a knife of rage went through her so that she quickly lowered her eyes to keep him from seeing it.
    He took in a long suck of air through his nose, as if exhausted with this whole annoying inconvenience. “I have business back in town too. Want to sell that horse –” he tossed his head toward the young horse tied to the back of the buggy outside the door. “I’ll take you,” and she felt that now he was squelching amusement, which perception further enraged her. But she had to get to town, she would find out who this woman was. She would send the Mountie after Pierre; she would retrieve the money; would go elsewhere, since she doubted she could farm without a husband. Had she already accepted that he was truly gone? That he had indeed abandoned