Free Fervent Charity by Paulette Callen Page A

me. I’ll take you home.”
    “Not my home.”
    “No. Mine.”
    “All right, then.”
    Lena, with Gustie’s help, pulled herself easily onto the mare’s back. She wrapped her arms around Gustie’s waist and leaned her head into Gustie’s back. Holding the baby in the crook of her arm and the reins loosely in her other hand, Gustie turned Biddie toward home.
    “Lena, we’re here.”
    “Oh.”
    Gustie thought that Lena must have dozed even while holding her tight around the middle. She gave her a second to clear her head.
    Lena slipped off the horse and reached up for Gracia, who had not wakened even while being passed from one set of arms to another and back again.
    Inside, with the lanterns lit, Gustie could see that, while Lena had been out with little enough between herself and the night air, Gracia was bundled snugly in warm blankets. Gustie pulled the trundle bed out from under her own bed and rolled it into the main room, which was warmer than the bedroom. She took the baby out of Lena’s arms once again and laid her down on the bed.
    Gustie poured milk into a saucepan. “When did you eat last?”
    “I don’t know. I had supper, I guess. Will didn’t come home till about ten or eleven...so drunk and mean...he doesn’t usually come home at all when he’s like that. He was mad about something...something happened during the day... I don’t know what...that set him off, you know. He broke some dishes and then came after me.”
    Gustie was aghast. “Did he hurt you?”
    “I didn’t let him catch me! I grabbed the baby and ran out. I’ve been walking and walking, but I couldn’t go all night, and I was afraid to go home yet. So I started out here.”
    When the milk was warm, Gustie poured it into a bowl and put a loaf of bread on the table in front of Lena. Lena tore the bread, put the pieces into the warm milk and ate with shaking hands.
    “Why didn’t you go to Alvinia’s or Mary’s? You wouldn’t have had so far to walk.”
    Lena frowned. “They already know enough about me.”
    “Then, you should have come here right away. Whether I am here or not, you know the place is never locked.”
    Lena nodded almost imperceptibly and pushed the empty bowl away from her. With the side of one hand she shepherded breadcrumbs into the palm of the other and dusted them into the empty bowl.
    As Gustie helped her take off her shoes and lie down next to her daughter, Lena asked her sleepily, “What were you doing out there in the middle of the night for heaven sakes?”
    Before Gustie could think of an answer, Lena was asleep. She pulled the blanket over her and went back outside to bed down her horse, again.
    The next morning, after Gustie and Lena had finished their breakfast, Will appeared, cleaned up and sober. Only his blood shot and puffy eyes gave away his night of drinking. He had driven out in a borrowed rig. Gustie recognized it as belonging to Harlan Gudierian.
    Gustie sat at the window holding Gracia in her lap and watched Will and Lena outside performing their ritual of contrition and forgiveness. In fifteen minutes, Lena came back in to collect her daughter.
    “You’re not going to be warm enough.” Gustie gave Lena her wool coat. “Don’t get a chill on the way back. You were lucky not to catch your death last night.”
    Lena looked lost in Gustie’s coat. Buttoning it up obediently, she said, “Thank you Gustie. You’re a brick.”

    The Spittoon, Wheat Lake’s only saloon, lived up to its name. It was dark and dirty and smelled of stale tobacco—smoked and spat, sour beer and whiskey, and worse. And it was, more or less, home to Jack Frye. Losing his job as Indian agent meant that he also lost his dwelling—the back room of the agency building. Since then, he had slept in the bunkhouse next to the livery stables—a place for itinerant workers and those who were so down on their luck they couldn’t even afford the modest cost of a room in Mattie Olson’s hotel.
    For a nickel one