The Rose Legacy by Kristen Heitzmann Page A

face showed he’d not expected it, but it was only one small part of all he owed her.
    Taking the money, she went down. Mae was nowhere to be seen, but the aroma of dinner filled the lower rooms. Stewed beef and potatoes. Always stewed beef and potatoes, though twice a week onions and carrots would be added, and once a week it was bear meat in the pot. Carina tried not to think about it.
    How she longed for the rich smells of sausage and spicy tomato sauce thick with basil and garlic and oregano. But no one else seemed to care. As soon as the sun dipped below the peaks, the men would come to eat. Like locusts.
    She stepped back out to the porch. “There you are, Mr. Shepard.” She handed him the money.
    “I prefer Quillan.” He took the bills and tucked them into his shirt pocket without counting. “Shepard’s only loaned to me.”
    Loaned? How could a name be loaned? Was it not passed down with pride, father to son, regardless of station? “Loaned, Mr. Shepard?”
    “In a manner of speaking.”
    “What were you called before it was loaned?”
    “Quillan.”
    Carina studied him, looking, as Papa would have said, under the skin. For a moment, she glimpsed something, but it was gone too soon. She felt as though she had intruded, and he’d put her out like a stray dog nosing where it didn’t belong.
    “Have you plans for supper?” A smile quirked his mouth. “Mr. Beck, perhaps?”
    Mocking again. Bene. “Mr. Beck is my employer.”
    He raised his eyebrows to that. But before he could respond, a crowd of miners drawn by the scent of food rounded the corner of the porch. They climbed the two low stairs and swarmed between them to the door. She recognized three of her fellow boarders, Elliot, Frank, and Joe Turner, whose room she had taken, but who now slept in the dead man’s bed. Each tipped his hat in turn.
    Four others she knew but couldn’t remember their names. The rest were strangers. When they had passed, she found Quillan Shepard gone. Looking down the street, she saw him striding away, no doubt thinking already of the next business he would transact.

    Later that night Carina joined Mae at the sink. She rinsed and dried the dishes that Mae swabbed in the water, thick and cloudy with soap and the remains of the stew. How many plates had been filled and emptied? As there was no time to wash dishes during the meal, when the plates ran out, those waiting were served on the dishes already used. Carina would never eat unless she was in the first seating.
    Carina felt the grit beneath her boots. How long since the floor had been scrubbed? Why would Mae allow such filth in her own kitchen? Carina knew the mice came out at night and ate the scraps that fell. Their traces lined the floorboards. Did Mae not notice or care?
    Carina pulled a plate from the steaming rinse tub and wiped it. “I won’t need to use your pistol again. I bought a gun of my own.”
    “That’s what Quillan brought you?”
    Just Quillan. “Yes.” She stacked the plate and took up the next, the tips of her fingers smarting in the scalding water. “Why does he not have a second name?”
    “He has one. Just prefers not to use it.”
    “Why?”
    Mae shrugged, then hauled a stack of plates to the shelves and slid them into place. She clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “Don’t know how he does it. Those long days on the wagon with no one but himself for company.”
    Long days alone. She pictured him walking away from the crowd. She pictured his smug smile. She didn’t want to picture him. She had wanted Mae to talk, to fill the silence. But Quillan Shepard would not have been her choice of topic. Carina turned the plate and dried the back side. “Why doesn’t he take a partner?”
    “Can’t say, really.” Mae slid the next plate into the rinse basin. “It’s not that he isn’t liked.”
    “Perhaps he doesn’t like in return.”
    “Oh, I don’t know that I’d say that.”
    Carina started a new plate stack. “He