He plucked up a couple of long stems of grass. “I was good at it. And because I’d been workin’ the trail for so long, the money was decent when I made it to trail boss. Not as eye-poppin’ as a job with the railroad, but better than I would’ve earned workin’ in a factory.”
“The railroad dangles superior money at you until that job gets you killed, and then there’s no money.”
When she didn’t elaborate, he bumped his shoulder into hers. “Dinah, darlin’, you know you can’t let them words just lie there.”
“I know.” She started fiddling with the grass, as if nerves were getting the best of her.
Silas placed his hand over hers. “I wanna know everything about you, sugar pie, so start at the beginning, like I did when you asked me yesterday.”
“Okay.” She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I was born in Cheyenne and grew up there. My father worked for the railroad. He was a supervisor or something, which meant he was home most nights, not out in the railyard or on the tracks. My mother married him when she was sixteen. They lost a few babies before I was born. I think because of that, my dad did everything for her or hired people to do it for her. We had a day maid who did household chores as well as shopped for food. My mother did manage to cook most nights.”
Silas tried to wrap his head around the fact she’d grown up with servants.
“So I attended school, took piano lessons, horse-riding lessons, had friends and social activities. We lived in a nice house, with nice things. As a child you don’t know what your parents go through to keep up appearances. On the outside we seemed well off. Having hired help was an indulgence that in retrospect, we couldn’t afford. I knew none of this until after my father died.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen. There was an emergency at the trainyard. I never did hear the details, but my father was crushed by a runaway train car. My mother…went into immediate shock. She never really recovered.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I was when I learned that we didn’t own the house we lived in; it was a benefit of working for the railroad.”
“You didn’t know that?”
“No. Neither did my mother. Although thinking back, everyone in our neighborhood worked for the railroad, so it should’ve been obvious it was company housing. Thankfully one of my father’s friends took me in hand because he knew my mother was worthless.”
He sent her a sharp look when she used that term, but she kept talking.
“I had to learn to do all those things that my mother should’ve known. We had to move. Mr. Jones found us a two-room apartment to rent. I sold all of our household furnishings, except a few pieces. It gave us more money to live on. Another task Mr. Jones taught me was how to run a household ledger to track our expenses, since we wouldn’t have any more money coming in with my father being dead.”
“Did you have to go to work?”
“Not like you, out riding the range. I continued to attend school only because…I know it sounds selfish, but it allowed me a break from my mother’s grief. By age fourteen I ran our household. I cooked, cleaned, budgeted, and cared for my mother. When she got sick enough to go into the hospital for two weeks, I sold all of her jewelry—not that she owned much—to pay that bill. Out of desperation I tried to sell some of her clothing since my father had indulged her need to flit around in the latest fashions. The dressmaker paid me a pittance for the dresses I knew cost ten times that new, but even a small amount of money helped us survive another month. When the dress shop owner asked if I could sew, I admitted to knowing only the basics. She hired me on the spot. I was able to do piece work for her from home. That saved us. But there was no saving my mother. She passed on shortly before my nineteenth birthday. Does it make me sound horrible if I confess I was relieved?”
He reached for her hand. “No, darlin’, it doesn’t.”
“Mama loved me in her own way. She just loved my father more. She once told me if it hadn’t been for