Chapter 5
Ruthie crawled out from beneath the bed. She was clutching her flour sack with knuckles white from strain. Slowly, tentatively, she looked into Emmett’s face, searching for any sign of hesitation, any trace of the cold indifference she had grown accustomed to seeing in grown men.
She found none. Only a quiet, weathered tenderness that smelled of woodsmoke, coffee, and snow.
“They wanted this,” Ruthie said, offering him the sack. “The bad man said my papa had something important. He yelled at Vernon about it before... before Vernon didn't wake up anymore.”
Emmett gently took the sack from her small hands. He sat her on the edge of the bed and pulled the quilt snugly around her shoulders. With careful fingers, he reached inside.
He pulled out the faded pink ribbon. He pulled out the hand-carved wooden horse with the missing ear. Finally, he drew out the thick, water-stained Bible.
On the front flyleaf, in delicate, flowing script, were the words: Hannah Brennan. 1852–1884.
Emmett ran his calloused thumb over the paper. He could feel the uneven thickness in the back cover. Using his pocketknife, he carefully separated the cloth lining of the rear binding. Out slipped two folded, wax-sealed documents.
The first was a bank draft drawn from the First National Bank of Cincinnati, payable to Thomas Brennan or his legal heirs, in the sum of four thousand two hundred dollars—a life’s savings meant to build a future in the West.
The second was a deed to three hundred and twenty acres of rich bottomland in the heart of the Gallatin Valley.
Ruthie watched him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. “Is it bad?”
Emmett looked up from the papers, his throat thick. “No, sweetheart. It’s not bad at all. Your papa worked hard for you. He made sure that whatever happened, his little girl would never have to beg for a crust of bread.”
Ruthie’s lower lip trembled. She looked down at her oversized boots, stuffed with newspaper, and then at the warm room around her. “I don’t want the papers, Mister Cade. I just wanted my mama and papa.”
A solitary tear spilled over her lashes, tracing a pale path down her windburned cheek.
That single tear cracked the iron shell Emmett had lived inside for two agonizing years. He dropped the papers onto the bedside table, sat beside the little girl, and pulled her into his arms.
Ruthie didn’t pull away. She buried her face into the wool of his shirt and wept—not the quiet, hopeless weeping of an abandoned orphan on a station bench, but the deep, wrenching grief of a child who finally felt safe enough to let go. Emmett wrapped his large, scarred arms around her, rocking her slowly in the dim light of the lantern.