Into the Savage Country by Shannon Burke Page A

there, piecing this together, while a few natives slumped in the shade and watched me. Five minutes passed. Children straggled from the courtyard and started for the Indian camp. Then Alene came out, wiping her hands of dust.
    “So, you’re here,” I said jovially. “The Widow Bailey.”
    “Yes. And I knew you were here. I came to see you during your fever. You don’t remember. They weren’t sure you’d live.”
    “And now you’re disappointed that I have lived,” I said.
    “I was pleased to hear you’d recovered,” she said in a measured tone. “I apologize. I meant to visit.”
    “You were hoping to pilfer my buffalo robe and moccasins,” I said.
    “Yes. They were such high quality.” That stung a bit. “Not properly fleshed,” she said. “You did it?”
    “I traded with the Crow.”
    “You traded with the wrong Crow. Not properly fleshed,” she said again.
    Though her composure was in keeping with her black dress, I could not contain my happiness.
    “Well, this is good luck,” I said. “Not the circumstances, of course, but I’m pleased to find an acquaintance in this godforsakenplace. And you … you’re in mourning. For … Horace Bailey? Am I right?”
    She nodded. “We were married two months after you departed.”
    “Congratulations.”
    She bowed her head. “He died four months after that.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Thank you.”
    She kept her head lowered. There was a long silence. I waited for her to explain her present situation. She did not.
    “But—how did you end up in the settlements?” I asked.
    “Horace joined the regiment.”
    I could hardly imagine that fat dandy Bailey as a soldier. I started to say about three things, then merely said, “I’m sorry to hear of his demise.”
    “Yes,” she said. “He was forced out of St. Louis by his creditors and his father. He participated in some underhanded dealings arranged by Henry Layton. You remember him?”
    “He was with Bailey the last time I saw you.”
    “Horace lost his considerable fortune, or at least the part that he was allowed to access, all because of that blackguard Layton. Despite his circumstances, we agreed to be married. His father arranged for Horace to become an officer, and he came out here to separate himself from St. Louis and its low occupants and to recover what was left of his good name. Now it’s killed him.”
    She said all this bitterly.
    “Was it the natives?”
    “A fall from a horse. He was hunting.”
    I was trying to be as grave as possible and was putting on a horrible show of solemnity. Blast the lazy man, I thought. Gambling in some business venture with Layton, then having hisfather arrange an officership and falling off a horse and stranding Alene out in the settlements with patched clothes and dusty hair.
    “And now you have chosen to stay?”
    “I have no means of leaving,” she said evenly. “He had only debts. The doctor has offered me an occupation. And the children need me.”
    “His family was wealthy.”
    “His family had cut their ties with us before he died.”
    “Because of his debts?”
    “Because of me,” she said matter-of-factly.
    She had a quarter native blood.
    “I knew his father slightly,” I said. “My initial impression was of an arrogant, heartless man. Now I have another reason to dislike him. I’m sorry to hear of all this. I offer what assistance I can.”
    “I ask for no assistance. I will be glad for your friendship.”
    I could think of nothing more to say and she did not offer any word of familiarity. Slowly the position she was in settled inside me. She had taken on Bailey’s rich-man’s debts without the rich family to buffer her. The cuffs of her pants were frayed. She was wearing a patched winter jacket though it was summer.
    “I must return to the children,” she said after a moment, though I’d seen the children straggling away to the native encampment. “I will call on you in town. Do not come here again. Because of the