Whistler in the Dark by Kathleen Ernst Page A

Mother asked.
    Yes! Emma wanted to say. Yes, I do mind. I always mind when your work is more important than me! Especially when scary things are happening! But the words wouldn’t come out.
    Mother bit her lip. “Emma, I won’t always work so hard,” she said after a moment. “I promise! But I want this story in the first edition of the paper, so we can send it off with Mr. Abbott’s brother when he heads back east. This first edition is so important, Emma! Once it’s done …”
    Emma nodded. She knew how important the first edition was. But she also knew that after that, other things would become just as urgent for Mother. There was no point making that observation, so she changed the subject. “Mother, I need to ask you something. I met a young woman today—Tildy Pearce. She wants to subscribe to the paper so badly that she’s selling dances at The Raven to earn the money.”
    â€œGracious!” Mother’s eyebrows raised.
    â€œShe and her husband bought some farmland from Mr. Spaulding. She has a receipt proving that they paid him for the land, but nothing else. She thinks she should have a deed to the land.”
    â€œYes, that’s right.” Mother nodded. “Mr. Spaulding forgot to give it to her, no doubt. That man has the business sense of a caterpillar. She needs to press him on it, as I’ve had to do on the things he promised me.”
    â€œI’ll tell her.” Thinking of Tildy Pearce, gamely bobbing up and down in some lonely miner’s arms on the dance floor, made Emma want to do whatever she could to help.
    Mother pulled her cape from the peg by the door. “Thank you for your help today, Mule Tom,” she called, and to Emma she said, “Come along, dear. I’ll walk as far as the boardinghouse with you.”
    After Mother headed off to her meeting, Emma sat down to a miserable supper of beans and bacon in Mrs. Sloane’s dining room. Resentment simmered inside as Emma picked at her food. Living in a boardinghouse meant Mother never had to fix meals, and she’d hired a laundress to wash their clothes once a week. Living here makes it too easy for Mother! Emma thought. What if Mother decided she and Emma didn’t need a house after all?
    At least Dixie John didn’t show up for supper. Blackjack nodded pleasantly at Emma, then spent much of the meal sparring with Miss Amaretta. A man called Spuddy, who peddled supplies to distant mining camps, was also spending the night, and he talked nonstop about the need for decent roads into the mountains. Emma was glad to escape to her bedroom.
    Once there, she sat down at the desk with her notebook. She hadn’t learned anything useful that afternoon. Blackjack talked in circles. As for Dixie John … Emma shuddered as she remembered the smell of strong drink on his breath. What a horrible man! Surely she couldn’t put any stock in his drunken ramblings.
    Could she?
    Emma forced herself to recall their conversation. Most of what he said hadn’t made any sense. Still, he had tried to tell her something . Could she afford to overlook that?
    Closing her eyes, she listened again to his words exactly as she remembered them, then struggled to write them down. A bunch of nonsense! Itsh the gold! You won’t believe me. But id—itsh all there. You can find it. You have to look ish … ish … th’bird’s eye—
    â€œâ€˜You can find it,’” she muttered, staring at the page. “‘Look ish’ … look with the bird’s eye? Look in the bird’s eye?” She snorted. What in thunderation did he mean?
    She chewed on the end of the pencil, then wrote Bird’s-eye map? Was Dixie John referring to the beautiful map hanging in Mr. Spaulding’s office? What else could he have meant? She stared out the window, puzzling over the questions as she absently watched a cluster of men hurry up the steps of The