Blessing. Deborah Bedford

addressed in the neatest handwriting she’d ever seen from a man, all perfectly drawn, without so much as one blot: Elizabeth Calderwood, Flying S Ranch, Fort Collins, Colorado.

      She wanted to just spit in the dirt.

      Uley decided Aaron Brown would go to his grave next week getting everything he could from her. Uley had heard the marshal offer, in as gentlemanly a way as possible, to post the letter so that Uley wouldn’t be put out of any more time. But Mr. Aaron Brown would have none of it. He’d made her promise, right there in front of the marshal, that she would deliver it herself and wait to see it safely out of town.

      So here she stood, mad enough to hurt something, watching for the supply wagon to head out over Alpine Pass.

      Elizabeth Calderwood. Uley didn’t know why it irked her so that he had taken up her whole day, said it was something important, then posted a letter that must be a gushing goodbye letter to some girl he’d been sparking back home. She thought about the aftershave and the handsome black suit and figured some girl would probably fall for him if she knew him all gussied up and smelling good. Too bad Miss Elizabeth Calderwood couldn’t see him now, all stinking and mean down in that jail, and being held for murder. Uley bet seeing him like that would take the stars out of any woman’s eyes.

      “Yah!” Lester McClain hollered at the mules as he shook the reins and urged his freight team forward.

      “Any snow up there?” somebody called to him as he pulled out of town, headed for the road that disappeared into the pine trees.

      “Nope,” Lester shouted back. “Those drifts at the top are almost gone. The pass is clear all the way to St. Elmo.”

      Uley watched as the horses tugged the wagon loaded with freight and passengers up Washington Avenue...toward the first bend in the road...up into the lush green stand of lodgepole pines that stood sentry at the edge of town.

      There.

      His ridiculous gush letter was gone and on its way.

      Aaron Brown was none of her concern anymore.

      * * *

      But four days later, just after Lester McClain arrived back in across the 12,154-foot pass with a bag of incoming mail, the sky above Tin Cup turned gray as pewter and the wind started howling down through the gold hills like something alive. By three that afternoon, when snowflakes as big around as tea cozies started falling, everybody figured they were in for one of those late-spring storms that everybody talked about, the kind that caught everybody unawares, the kind of storm that killed things.

      Aaron Brown stood at the window in the Tin Cup town jail, looking out at the snowflakes, thinking this was the last snowfall he would ever see. What part of this is Your purpose, Lord? What’s the point of teaching me humility if I’m not going to be around to be humble? And then for some reason, his mind traveled to Miss Uley Kirkland.

      What would it be like, he wondered, to pretend you were a person of a different gender? Why, he wondered, would she do it? Perhaps she concealed some horrible disfigurement somewhere, although Aaron couldn’t imagine where it might be. She looked perfect to him, at least when he overlooked the fact that she was wearing a man’s work pants. She was small, but she was brave, as stout-hearted as anything else that survived in this harsh territory.

      She had certainly bested him.

      Aaron felt, just then, as if he’d come a far, far piece from home.

      * * *

      Upstairs, above Ongewach’s Saloon on Washington Avenue, Santa Fe Moll gave her girls their nightly talking-to.

      “Moll,” Wishbone Mabel said, “look at it snowing outside. Nobody’s going to come looking for entertainment tonight. Nobody’s going to be able to find this place tonight.”

      “Won’t do,” Moll said, narrowing her eyebrows and shaking her head at all of them, “when miners start showing up and you’re all sitting around like you ain’t expecting anybody to be here because of the snow. There you are in calico, that will never do. You must look good, be clean, and smell sweet, just like true ladies. Now get going and get into them silk dresses!”

      As they all groaned and moved in the direction of their rooms, Tin Can Laura scanned the place. “Where’s Joe? I don’t see him.”

      “He’s probably downstairs in the kitchen, looking for scraps,” Mabel answered. “He always goes down there this time of night.”

      Laura gathered her skirts and took the steps running. “Hey, Joe! Hey, kitty! Come on up here!”

      Joe, who was due to have kittens just about any day, was the only living thing in the world Laura loved. A saloon patron had given her the calico cat for Christmas back when she’d been a Pitkin girl. Because of Joe, Laura stayed welcome wherever she wanted to go. The mama cat always proved an excellent mouser.

      “Snow’s coming heavier,” Cook said as Laura got downstairs. “I’m betting people outside can’t even see where they’re going.”

      “One thing’s for certain,” Charles Ongewach commented. “No freight wagon will be coming in over Alpine Pass tomorrow. And wouldn’t you know, McClain was supposed to bring over my new piano. I’ve been lookin’ forward to it ever since that old miner Scheer danced on mine with his hobnailed boots.”

      “Judge Murphy won’t make it in, either,” Cook said. “Aaron Brown’s hanging is going to have to wait.”

      Laura came up beside them. “Either of you seen Joe? It’s almost time to open up, and I’ve got to lock her in my room.”

      “Sure have,” Cook said. “She came down here meowing to get out before the storm started. I let her out the door and ain’t seen her since.”

      Laura grabbed her shawl off a hook by the door and draped it across her shoulders. “I’ve got to find her.”

      Charles Ongewach donned his coat, too. “Here. Take a rope, Laura. Tie yourself to the building, or you won’t find your way back. I’m right behind you.”

      Charles stayed close to the side of the building, feeling his way along the rough-hewn logs until he rounded the corner, calling for the cat at the top of his lungs. Laura started straight out across Washington Avenue, or what she thought was Washington Avenue, with the rope knotted around her waist. In the shelter of the saloon, the gale had seemed overrated. But when Laura reached the street, the icy whorl hit her full in the face. The wind whipped around her, sucking away her breath. Snow pelted her face. Within moments, the shawl covering her head was weighted with ice that clung like molten glass.

      Laura struggled on. “Kitty. Joe! Here, kitty.”

      As she reached the middle of the street, horses loomed up beside her. At the same time, she heard the doleful cry of a cat. “Joe!” She tried to rush forward, but the rope stopped her. She released the shawl and fumbled with the knot at her bodice. “Joe!”

      The knot fell away.

      She dropped the rope and rushed toward the sound.

      Laura found Joe howling in the middle of the avenue, her stubby fur coated with thin ice. “Joe...” She scooped the frightened animal into her arms and turned toward Ongewach’s.

      The snow came stinging from every direction.

      She couldn’t see more than six inches in front of her face.

      “Charles?” Her words died away in the fierce bray of the wind. Joe struggled against her, clawing at her inside the shawl.

      The rope couldn’t be more than five steps in this direction.

      She took the steps. But the rope wasn’t there.

      She turned once, remembering the horses that had just passed along the street. “Help,” she screamed against the wind. “I cain’t find my way.”

      Uley and Sam, on their way home from the mine, kept their horses moving flank to