Prologue

Broadus, Montana, 1885

Roxie Dewey tried to pull the cupboard door completely closed. But the Broadus Orphanage wasn’t what one would call filthy rich, and they didn’t care about petty things like warped cupboard doors or rusty nails sticking out from haphazardly repaired walls. She absentmindedly rubbed a scar on her knee that attested to that very fact.

She had been lucky; the nail hadn’t caused a bad infection, like it did in little Joseph Tanner a few years ago. He was five and he stepped on a rusty nail, only he got real bad sick after and didn’t make it. But as she hid in the cupboard once again, she wondered just how much luckier she was than Joseph had been.

With the cupboard door open like it was, she could hear much of the commotion outside. The walls of the orphanage were thin, but the words of the shouting children were clearer than they had any right to be. She guessed that some of the smaller kids must have run inside away from the fighting, like she had, and left the back door open.

“The little ones shoulda gotten the bread crusts,” one boy said. Roxie thought it was Thomas Greer, a fifteen-year-old boy she kind of liked. He was a typical boy most of the times, but when it counted, he always tried to do the right thing.

“Oh, fiddle-faddle,” said another, deeper voice. Roxie recognized it immediately as sixteen-year-old Billy Randall. He was always taking toys from the younger children and trying to fight all the older ones. He once even bit Miss Rader, the headmistress’s assistant, and she was the nicest worker there. “Us bigger ones are near grown men. We need more food than those little snots.”

Roxie could hear Miss Rader’s sweet voice. She couldn’t hear what she was saying, but her tone suggested she was distressed and trying to calm the fighting children down.

“But it’s Christmas,” a small voice whined. Roxie couldn’t identify it right away, but she knew it was one of the younger children. “You’re ‘pose ta share wiff us.”

Roxie’s heart squeezed. It wasn’t unusual for them to not have enough to eat, like right then. But she did think it was a terrible shame that Ms. Hamilton, the headmistress, hadn’t arranged for them to have at least enough bread and cheese for Christmas. There were kind people who sometimes brought meals to the orphanage. Why couldn’t she have made special arrangements for that to happen for the holiday?

While the fighting continued, Roxie pulled her knees to her chest and pouted. She didn’t much care that it was Christmas anyway. She had always hated Christmas. Life at the orphanage was never anything to celebrate, no matter what time of year it was.

But for Roxie, the holiday carried with it a specific kind of bitterness. She unconsciously reached into her pocket and grabbed the letter she carried with her everywhere, despite how much she hated its contents. It was the letter that was left with her in the basket when she was dumped at the orphanage on Christmas day, fourteen years prior.

Roxie knew the letter by heart. To try to drown out the escalating fight outside, she closed her eyes and read it in her mind:

Please, take care of my baby. Her name is Roxie Dewey. Her father left me the very day she was born, two months ago. And now, I lay sick and dying, unable to take care of her. I had to send her here before I’m dead, else she would surely die with me. May God have mercy on me.

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. It was a touching message, if only it could be believed. Despite the words on the paper, Roxie had been told her entire life that she simply wasn’t wanted. Ms. Hamilton had made sure to tell her that every time she saw Roxie. That was the reason all children ended up in the orphanage. They were blights to their parents, who were now off living happy lives without them.

If Mama was dyin’, how did she get me here? Roxie reminded herself. No one at the orphanage knew anything about how she ended up on their doorstep in that basket. But it didn’t make any sense that she didn’t have an able-bodied guardian to leave her there if her father was gone and her mother was on her death bed.

So, she was left with no choice but to believe what the hateful Ms. Hamilton said to her about her parents. But part of her couldn’t help hoping it wasn’t true, and that she might one day meet her father. Even if it was only to tell him off for leaving her mother with a baby that she didn’t want, either.

The back door slammed, and Roxie heard Miss Rader sobbing softly to herself. The young woman hurried away, and Roxie heard her footsteps thudding softly up the stairs. Roxie’s heart went out to her. Often, the rest of the orphanage staff left Miss Rader to deal with the troublesome children, and it always upset the poor young woman.

No one else cared to break up the fights when they happened, and the punishments, when they were doled out, were lashes and time alone locked in what Ms. Hamilton called her “reflection room.” Roxie felt bad for Miss Rader and wanted to seek her out and comfort her, but she didn’t dare leave her cupboard just yet. Even with the door now closed, she heard the fight continue outside. She closed her eyes, willing it to end.

It didn’t end, however. In fact, the fighting boys came back inside, screaming at the tops of their lungs. The older boys were swearing and slamming things, and the younger ones were shrieking and crying. Roxie never wanted to see Ms. Hamilton, as she was strict and cold even to the well-behaved children. But right then, part of her prayed the woman would come from her room and discipline the fighting children. Though another part of her hoped she didn’t. Roxie knew that Miss Rader would be scolded too, for not putting a stop to the bickering.

She had no idea how much time had passed. It felt like hours, and the fighting was still going strong. When she heard Miss Rader’s voice again, she held her breath and listened. She was tired of the fighting, and she was prepared to try to help the young woman put a stop to it, even if it got her in trouble, too.

“That is enough,” Miss Rader said in a husky voice. She sounded uncharacteristically harsh, and Roxie’s heart ached. For Miss Rader to be firm had to mean that she was fed up.

Roxie had only ever heard her that way twice before that day, and she hated when the children pushed the woman to that point. But despite how bad Roxie felt for her, she noticed that the yelling began to quiet.

“They started it,” one of the smaller children whined.

There a quick slamming sound, and Roxie guessed that Miss Rader had slapped the counter.

“I don’t care,” she said gruffly. “This fighting has gone on far too long. If you don’t stop this instant, I am going to send you right to Ms. Hamilton and let her deal with you. And none of you want that, do you?”

There was mumbling and grumbling, and Roxie thought she heard another swear. But she smiled to herself. She was proud of Miss Rader for putting her foot down and making the children mind. She knew the young assistant hated being mean. Ms. Hamilton was mean enough for the whole staff at several orphanages.

But it was clearly working, because Roxie heard voices fading away as children trickled out of the kitchen. A few minutes later, it was completely silent, except for Miss Rader’s footsteps heading back up to her quarters. Roxie sighed with relief. She was starting to get cramps in her backside from sitting curled up in the cupboard for so long. She was getting ready to push open the door when it flung open.

“I vum!” Debbie Cross, the cook at Broadus Orphanage said, jumping back. “You like to have made me faint. Git outta that cupboard, child.”

Roxie scurried out of the cupboard. Mrs. Cross wasn’t as mean as Ms. Hamilton, but she could be gruff when she wanted to be. Roxie quickly explained that the fighting with the other children was the reason why she was hiding in the cupboard. Mrs. Cross shook her head, leading her toward the stairs.

“Honey, that fightin’ ain’t likely to stop any time soon,” she said. “But you can’t just go around hidin’ in cupboards and scarin’ the tarnation outta people. Now git yerself outta here. I don’t wanna git blamed for you bein’ in here.”

Roxie sighed, dragging herself up the stairs.

She quietly made her way down the hallway of the orphanage’s second floor. The wood was so old that all the varnish was long faded, and it always looked like it was wet. The single rug that ran the length of the hallway was black, but it was threadbare, and Roxie could see faint stains on it. But it served well enough to keep her footsteps from being audible as she tiptoed down the hallway and to the quarters she shared with the other teenage girls.

The girls were all huddled up in front of the dirty window of their room, looking out at the snow-covered hills in the distance. They didn’t seem to notice Roxie as she entered, and that was fine with her. She quietly made her way to her bed and laid down on top of the itchy gray blanket.

She pulled the letter from her pocket and held it tightly in her fist. She closed her eyes, but she knew sleep wouldn’t come, neither right then nor later that night. She was hungry and the draft in their quarters was especially cold, and her nerves were strained from the fighting.

I will be out of here in a few years, she reminded herself, counting to four on her fingers. In four years, I will get to leave this terrible place. It was the first bit of anything close to cheer she had felt that day.

Right that moment, four years still seemed like a long way away. But she reminded herself that she had already lived there for fourteen years. Four was nothing by comparison. And at the end of those four years, she would get to live the life she wanted.

She smiled as she imagined what that life might look like. She would go to work the very day she left the orphanage, so she could make her way in the world. And maybe, one day, she would meet a handsome, kind man who fell madly in love with her and married her. Then, she could have children of her own, who she would never abandon, like her parents did her.

She would finally find the happiness that had so far alluded her. That was the dream that kept her going when despair tried to claim her.

Chapter One

Broadus, Montana, 1889

Two days after her eighteenth birthday, and three weeks before Christmas, Roxie stood on the cracked wooden steps of the horrible place that had kept her prisoner her entire life. She held her small, worn brown suitcase in one hand and Miss Rader’s hand in the other. She smiled at the rail-thin brunette woman, who had tears in her light brown eyes.

“I’m tickled pink for you, Roxie,” she said, squeezing Roxie’s arm with her free hand. “But I’m sure gonna miss you. I can’t believe you’re eighteen already. You sure you’ll be all right? You could always take a job here helping me.”

Roxie shook her head firmly.

“I love you, Miss Rader,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. She was relieved to be leaving the orphanage, but she was scared of the unknown path ahead of her. “And I’ll miss you somethin’ awful. But I can’t bear to stay here another minute. I wanna get out on my own and make my own way.”

Miss Rader let go of her to wipe a tear away. She nodded, but Roxie could tell that she wanted to keep trying to change Roxie’s mind.

“I understand,” she said. “But if you have any trouble, I want you to come right back here and talk to me.”

Roxie nodded. “I will, I promise,” she said, though she knew she didn’t mean it. She was sure she could find a job that paid enough for a room at a boarding house. And even if it took her a few days, she knew she would rather sleep on a train station bench than to go back to the orphanage. “But I’ll be just fine. You’ll see.”

Miss Rader nodded, hugging her tightly. “I believe you will. Don’t you forget about me, neither.”

Roxie patted her back before letting her go. “I could never forget you.”

Miss Rader glanced over her shoulder before reaching into her dress pocket. She pulled out a handful of money, both bills and coins, and tucked them into Roxie’s hand.

“Take this, honey,” she whispered. “This should get you through your first couple of weeks.”

Roxie looked down at the money in her hand and started to protest. But Miss Rader put a finger to her lips and shook her head.

“I insist you take that, darlin’,” she said. “Go on, now. Your carriage is comin’.”

As the wagon that would take her across town approached, Roxie walked down the orphanage steps for the very last time. She heard muffled voices coming from the windows, and she turned back to wave.

Some of the children were pressed against the glass, bidding her goodbye and waving. She didn’t feel any need to say anything special to any of them before she left. Thomas left the year before, and she wasn’t close to any of the remaining children. She was a little fond of the youngest children. But she knew that saying goodbye to them would only make them cry. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to leave if they started sobbing and begging her to stay.

She bade Miss Rader one final farewell as the driver helped her onto the wagon seat. She waved to the kind brunette woman until she couldn’t see her anymore. She was glad to put the horrible walls of the orphanage behind her forever.

But she was headed out into a much bigger world all alone, without someone like Miss Rader to comfort and guide her. She knew she needed to be brave, but without so much as a home to go to, she began to feel lost and small. At last, she faced forward in her seat on the wagon and took in the scene in front of her. There was snow as far as the eye could see, looking like God had dropped miles of white fabric down from the sky and covered the whole world with it.

The wind was cold enough to sting her face, and her threadbare white cloak and thin brown dress did little to offer her body warmth. Even so, she was happier than she could ever remember being. If a little cold was the price of her freedom, she would gladly pay it.

Roxie’s first stop was the sheriff’s station. She thought that might be her best shot at finding work. Surely, with the sheriff having only one deputy, there was cleaning that needed doing. Or maybe, he would hire her to cook meals for him. She felt optimistic as she walked in and approached the sheriff, who was sitting at a worn, dark brown desk. Even though he was seated, Roxie could tell that he was tall. His graying black hair and the crinkles at the corners of his brown eyes were the only indication of his age. He was fairly lean, with the exception of a belly that told Roxie he likely enjoyed going to the saloon after work.

“Help you, miss?” he asked.

Roxie gave him her brightest smile and nodded. “I hope so. My name’s Roxie Dewey. I’m looking for work. I was wondering if you might need a housekeeper around here or something.”

The sheriff raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “Can’t say I do, Miss Dewey. Why are you lookin’ for work at your age? You ain’t a runaway or nothin’, are ya?”

Roxie shook her head urgently. “No, sheriff. I just left the orphanage. I don’t have no family, and I need to make my own way in the world.”

The sheriff nodded, but he averted his gaze. “Sorry about yer family situation, Miss Dewey. But I’m afraid I ain’t got no work right now.”

Roxie couldn’t help feeling disappointed. She had hoped the sheriff might take mercy on her and offer her something, at least until she found a more substantial job. But he seemed instantly uncomfortable when she told him why she needed work. Did he think she wasn’t a capable worker since she came from the orphanage?

“You don’t need help cleaning or handling paperwork or anything?” she asked. “I can read and write, and it won’t take me long to learn how you like things done around here. Please, sheriff. I’ll take anything you can give me.”

The sheriff shook his head and gave her a weak smile. If it was meant to be apologetic, it wasn’t. It looked more like an uncomfortable grimace.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “I can barely pay my deputies. And if’n it wasn’t for taxpayers, I prob’ly couldn’t.”

Roxie sighed, but she nodded. It was only the first place she had inquired about work. Broadus was a small town, but there were a few other places who might be willing to hire her for something, however menial.

“It’s all right, sheriff,” she said, smiling. “Thank you anyway. I appreciate your time.”

The sheriff looked relieved, and he rose to walk her to the door. “Good luck to you, Miss Dewey.”

Roxie nodded. “Thank you again.”

With that, the sheriff saw her out and closed the door behind her. She sighed, looking at the small town from the porch of the sheriff’s station. It was designed in a three-quarter circle around a small brick circle where a single patch of dead weeds grew. Roxie thought someone must have meant to plant flowers or a tree there but had so far failed to do so. Like everything else in Broadus, it was covered with snow, but she could imagine the brown patch of grass and what looked like a single dry twig sticking out of the ground beneath the frozen precipitation.