Colorado Hope(16)

Not one to miss an opportunity, Lenora picked her way through the debris-littered riverbank—over broken timber and planks and mounds of upended grass that had been violently ripped from the earth and sent careening down the river. Her eye caught on light glinting off his finger. A gold ring!

Serendipity, she sang in her head, turning the word into a little ditty she began to sing as she pulled on the ring, twisting it this way and that, until she finally held the prize in her hands. It was a simple band of matrimony, not worth all that much—which made her wonder about the fate of this man’s wife. Had he been traveling with her? She looked around and saw no other bodies. Then, she spotted what looked like a finely made leather satchel draped across the man’s shoulder. She hadn’t seen it at first, as it lay underneath the man. No doubt it contained his valuables.

She pocketed the ring, then grabbed the cold, lifeless body and flipped it over. She gave a little gasp of delight, which quickly turned to pity. What a handsome face! A chiseled jaw, strong nose, broad forehead, thick neck. The strong muscles his wet clothes hugged told her this was a man who had spent his life in physical labor, but the gentle features and lack of scars told her he was no scrapper. A man of means and education, she guessed. But one who reveled in work and using his body strength. She smiled as she ran a finger along his cheek, imagining such a man touching her. She wondered what color his eyes were, as he had them closed.

She sighed. Such a waste.

She pulled out the knife she kept strapped to her ankle and cut away the satchel. After some hard tugging, she freed it from the branch it was snagged on and walked back from the river a bit to look through her lucky loot. Would there be money? Gold? Her hands trembled in anticipation.

She found a somewhat dry patch of sand and dumped out the contents of the large satchel. A flutter of papers fell to the ground, along with some strange pieces of equipment. She picked up the two brass objects and studied them. They were heavy in her hand. Something to do with navigation maybe. Was he a sailor? What would a sailor be doing this far from the ocean? She craned closer and made out initials that had been etched into each piece—M.C. She doubted they were worth much, but she’d find out. She could sure use some extra cash.

Lenora set aside the objects, stuck her hand in the waterlogged pouch, and rummaged inside. Her fingers caught on a packet tied with string, and a folded silk scarf. And then a small box. She pulled them out and examined them. The packet she quickly unwrapped, for she could tell it held money. And lots of it. She giggled in delight and set the soggy bundle aside. The small box revealed the match to the ring that had been on the man’s finger.

No doubt his wife had died—for why else would he be carrying her ring in his satchel? She concocted a sad story in her head and envisioned herself on the stage, under bright lanterns, playing the role of the dying wife, with this handsome hunk at her bedside, shedding tears of grief as his beloved wife crossed over into the great beyond.

Another search revealed nothing more in the pouch beside water and sludge, so she looked through the papers at her feet. Surprisingly, the papers were mostly dry, having been sandwiched atwixt the packet of money and the scarf. The first was a letter addressed to Montgomery Cunningham. M. C.—those were his initials on the brass objects. Lenora perused the letter and found it to be an offer of employment with the land office in Fort Collins. A surveyor job. That explained the brass objects. Poor fella. On his way . . . from somewhere . . . to start a new job, a new life. With his wife dead and still grieving over her, no doubt he’d been driven to leave his home—wherever that was—and find new hope in the West. She turned the letter over, but there was no indication of where it was from. The signature at the bottom was too garbled and the ink too smeared to read.

Another letter—this one a recommendation from someone named Hayden. Whoever he was. And another—one from a man called Powell. Lenora read with interest about this Montgomery Cunningham. Apparently he came highly regarded—had attended Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, and had gotten a degree in geology and then went on expeditions in the West.

That was the explanation for his manly figure. She sighed and fingered the man’s ring. Such a sad, sad story. But the West was full of disappointment and death. Of dashed dreams and squashed hope. You had to be tough to survive—and lucky. But luck wasn’t enough. You needed smarts, and she’d had to develop those quickly on the mean and dirty streets of Denver City, since her mother practically ignored her—so busy she was entertaining men.

The last slip of paper was not a letter but a certificate of marriage. Ah, the final sad piece to the puzzle. He’d married a woman named Grace Ann Wilcox, and the date showed they’d only been married about eight months.