Beyond the Widow’s Fence (Preview)

Chapter One

Albuquerque, New Mexico
1881, Early Spring

The locomotive breathed hard beside the platform, spilling steam that slicked the air and left grit on Etta Grey’s lashes. Coal and hot iron stung her nose, and the boards under her feet quivered with each impatient shudder of the engine.

She kept her daughter Anna close, fingers wrapped around the five-year-old’s little hand.

“Mind your skirt, sweetheart,” Etta murmured, tugging Anna a half-step back from the edge, where porters hurried past with trunks and carpetbags.

“Mama, is that our train?” she asked, tipping her head back.

“It is.” Etta sighed, trying to keep her voice even.

Clara Pettigrew stood at Etta’s elbow, bundled in a dark traveling cape—though she wasn’t traveling anywhere—the black of it less fashion than a widow’s habit. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and the strain of smiling. One gloved hand rested on her son Andrew’s shoulder, holding him close.

Etta’s gaze found Clara’s, and she tried to set her mouth into the brave curve of an encouraging smile. “Well, my love,” she whispered, “this is it.”

“You’ve got everything?” Clara asked hurriedly. “Is your trunk checked through?”

Etta lifted the small leather satchel at her side. “The trunk’s labeled. The clerk said it’ll go as far as Deming without trouble.” She forced a smile.

“And after Deming?” Clara pressed.

Etta swallowed and shifted the satchel higher on her shoulder, buying herself a breath. “After Deming, we’ll see…I still haven’t—”

Anna giggled, then went up on her toes to see past a gentleman’s elbow. “Mama, will there be horses where we’re going?” the child asked. Her deep blue eyes held no notion of the long days of travel ahead, and Etta meant to keep it that way.

“There’ll be horses,” Etta said, and she was grateful for the interruption. Clara was her dearest friend, but her questions, however well-meant, had a way of laying everything bare.

“Will there be a river?” Anna continued.

“There might be,” Etta answered carefully. “Not every place has a river right near, my lamb.”

Anna accepted this with a huge grin on her face. “And will our house be big?”

“It will be…enough,” Etta said, because she herself did not have the strength for any more lies that glittered.

“Etta.” Clara moved Andrew closer and lowered her voice. “Are you certain you can do this alone?”

Etta kept her eyes on the train as the conductor’s watch flashed in the light. “No,” she said simply.

“Then why do you have to do it right now?” Clara insisted, sounding more concerned than Etta wanted her to be.

“Because I’ve spent two years trying to do the other thing,” she said, turning at last. “And the other thing is done with me.”

Clara held Etta’s stare, waiting. Clara had always been like that, even as a girl. Etta nodded once toward Anna, who had started whispering something to Andrew about the “big smoke monster” of the train.

“Not here,” she said. “Not where she can hear every word.”

Clara angled her body, an old habit from keeping conversations private even in public. “Then whisper it to me.”

Etta didn’t care to speak the truth aloud. It only seemed to make it heavier. Still, she was no coward. “You know the cattle got sick,” she said. “And you know it was only a few. Then it was half, then it was the best milk cow, Jasper’s favorite mare, and the calves that should’ve carried us through winter.”

“And you know I paid the ranch hands as long as I could,” Etta went on. “But when the bank note came due, I went in with my hat in my hands, and the man behind the desk looked at me like I’d brought him a sick dog.”

Clara’s eyes went glossy, but she blinked it back. “I know, Etta…” she whispered.

“You think I wanted to sell everything?” Etta asked. “Lord, I didn’t even sell it for what it was worth, not for what my Jasper put into it, God rest his soul. But I sold it all, Clara, because if I didn’t, they’d take it anyway, and Anna would watch strangers pull boards off our house like scavengers.”

“But what about the graves?” Clara asked, though Etta could hear the regret in her words the moment they left her mouth.

“I didn’t leave Jasper,” Etta whispered. “I was forced to leave a patch of ground I can’t feed my child on.”

Etta’s throat burned. But despite it all, she kept her eyes level, and her spine straight. “Jasper talked about Silver City a lot,” she said. “He used to sit on the porch after supper and tell me about his uncle, a bachelor with a sour temper and a soft spot he would hide from the world.”

“His uncle…He never spoke to Jasper’s father,” Etta went on. “They fell out years ago over pride and property, but Jasper got a letter out of nowhere last year…before he…” She stopped herself. She had promised, silent as a vow, that she wouldn’t spill her grief all over the platform like laundry water.

Clara’s eyes gentled. “Before he passed,” she carefully finished Etta’s sentence.

Etta nodded and took a deep breath. “In the letter, the old man wrote that he’d been wrong, and that he wanted to make amends the only way he knew how.” She lifted the satchel a fraction. “And now, the deed, the claim papers, the lot lines…all of it’s here. Jasper said it was our chance to start over.”

Etta’s gaze shifted toward the train. The conductor called something, and the porters began moving faster. The moment was drawing closed like a fist.

“Silver City’s a hard town, Etta,” Clara said, after a pause.

“So I’ve heard,” Etta uttered somewhat absently. She was too worn and too wrung-out in her mind to spare much thought for what lay ahead. “So I’ve heard.”

But Clara obviously wasn’t. “Miners,” she went on, “gamblers…and men who think a widow is either prey or entertainment.”

“I know where I’m going, and I’m ready to face what that town’s got in store for me,” Etta said, though that last part was a lie she’d forced herself to believe.

Clara’s expression cracked at it, too, and Etta felt the uncertainty slipping through. She saw it in the way Clara’s eyes shone too much, in the way her hands kept finding Andrew as if she could hold the whole world together by holding him.

But Clara was her dearest friend, and Etta knew she would not let a little uncertainty send them turning back. “I’ll write,” Clara added, and those were the words Etta was waiting for. “I’ll send news…I’ll even come if I can manage it.”

“I know you will.” Etta smiled.

Just then, Andrew tugged on Clara’s sleeve. “Mama,” he said, “will Miss Etta’s train have a cow on it?”

Clara blinked, caught between laughing and crying. “No, darling. Trains don’t carry cows in the passenger cars.”

Anna leaned in conspiratorially. “Maybe in the back.”

Etta couldn’t help it. A small sound escaped her, almost a laugh. It felt rusty, like a gate that hadn’t been opened in months.

Clara heard it and looked at Etta as if she’d been handed a gift. “There,” Clara said quietly. “That. Do more of that.”

Etta smiled again. “I’ll try.”

A second whistle shrieked, louder this time.

The conductor called, “All aboard!”

Clara stepped closer, and her gloved hand caught Etta’s forearm. “You don’t have to be made of iron, Etta,” Clara said. “But still…Take care, my friend.”

They stood there, the station noise rolling around them, the train breathing steam like a beast. Anna squeezed Etta’s hand and bounced on her toes. “Can we go, Mama?” she asked impatiently. “Can we go see our seats?”

“Yes,” Etta said, and then she looked at Clara and smiled for the very last time. “You too, my dear friend,” she whispered. “Take care.”

“I will.” Clara pulled Etta into a quick embrace, and Etta hugged back, brief and fierce.

When Clara stepped back, she cupped Anna’s cheek. “You listen to your mama,” Clara told her. “Be brave for her.”

Anna nodded solemnly, as if she’d been given a soldier’s duty. “I already am brave.”

“I know you are.” Clara laughed and kissed Anna’s forehead. Then she reached into her pocket and produced a small, worn book. “And this is for the train. Stories help the miles go faster.”

Etta looked at her best friend before she gathered their things. She put the satchel over her shoulder, grabbed a small valise in her other hand, and tucked Anna’s hand into hers. And then she turned and boarded the train.

When she turned, Clara stood on the platform holding Andrew, the boy now waving with all the seriousness of a man sending off a ship. Clara’s smile held, but her eyes had gone bright, and the wind tugged at the ends of her scarf as if it wanted to pull her forward, too.

Etta raised her hand, and Clara raised hers. The conductor called again. The door slammed. This is it…

Etta found their seats by the window. The bench was nearly new, its upholstery dulled not by age but a fine coat of dust. Anna climbed up and immediately pressed her face to the glass.

“We’re going,” Anna breathed delightedly.

Etta sat beside her, arranging the satchel in her lap like a shield. The train lurched, slow at first, then steadier. The station slid past in jerks, then in a smooth, relentless glide. People on the platform became shapes, then specks, then nothing at all.

Anna waved until she couldn’t see Clara anymore. Then she turned, cheeks flushed. “Mama!” She laughed. “We’re really going!”

“Yes, we are, sweetheart.” Etta sighed.

Outside the window, Albuquerque’s buildings thinned, the streets widening into scrub and open land. The familiar lines of fence and road began to blur into the distance, and the sky stretched out.

Anna opened the little storybook, then shut it again without reading a word. Questions tumbled out of her instead, one after another like coins from a torn pocket. “Will there be a big bed for me? And what about the chickens? Will there be chickens? I hope there’ll be a garden! Will we have neighbors? Will there be a dog? Mama, can we have a dog?”

Etta rested her hand over Anna’s small one, anchoring her. “One question at a time, my lamb.”

“Sorry.” Anna giggled. “So…Will there be a dog?”

Etta glanced out at the land rushing by, the brown and gold of winter scrub, the distant line of mountains. She could feel the satchel in her lap, the papers inside it, the inked promises that had pulled her onto the train.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

Anna’s mouth made a small, disappointed pout, then smoothed as quickly as it came. “Well,” she said, crossing her arms, “if there isn’t, we can find one.”

“Maybe we can,” Etta answered tiredly.

Anna leaned against her mother’s arm. “And now…” she insisted with the same amount of careless energy, “tell me what it’s like. Our new home.”

Etta looked down at her daughter’s eager face, freckles like small commas, waiting for the next sentence. Etta drew a slow breath. “It’s…it’s going to be quiet,” she said. “Quieter than town. There’ll be open land where you can run without bumping into anyone. There might be a creek not too far, and if there isn’t, we’ll find water and make do. There’ll be work, but we’ll have our own place. A little house…And land that’s ours.”

Anna’s eyes widened, already seeing it. “Will there be stars?” she asked, amused.

Etta’s mouth softened. “More than you’ve ever seen,” she promised.

Anna smiled, pleased, and finally opened the book on her lap as if she’d been granted permission to believe.

Etta kept her gaze on the window, watching the past fall away in long, rattling strips of scenery. The train clacked and sighed and carried them forward without asking whether she was ready.

Chapter 2

Silver City, New Mexico

Dawn came thin and pale over the hills, washing the pasture in a color that made everything look honest and unfinished. Peter Donovan walked the fence line with his hat pulled low and his coat collar turned up against the bite of morning. The grass held a crust of frost that cracked under his boots, and the air smelled of cold earth, manure, and last night’s woodsmoke still clinging to the yard.

Behind him, two small sets of footsteps tried their best to sound like a man’s.

“Stay out of the burrs,” Peter called without turning. “And quit pushing.”

“We’re not pushing,” Gus said, quick and earnest.

“You are too,” Finn shot back. “You stepped on my heel.”

“I did not,” Gus defended himself.

Peter glanced over his shoulder. The twins trailed him like matching shadows, seven years old and both convinced the world ought to bend to their notions of fairness. Their hair stuck out from under their caps in the same stubborn way, though Finn had taken the time to smooth his, and Gus looked like he’d wrestled a tumbleweed and lost.

They were his late wife’s boys. They weren’t his blood, and they carried their own father’s name, Redding. Peter had never once asked them to trade it for his. The law might call him their guardian, but in the yard and at the table, they called him Pa, and he answered by calling them his boys, and that was the only thing that mattered.

“You stepped on his heel,” Peter said as he turned.

“I didn’t mean to,” Gus tried to sound as innocent as he could, which almost made Peter smile.

“You did too,” Finn continued in his own manner.

“Both of you, hush,” Peter ordered. “The fence doesn’t mend itself because you’re disputing it.”

And mostly, they quieted; at least they tried to. The twins had learned, over time, that Peter didn’t raise his voice often, which meant when he did, it was worth listening to.

He moved along the posts, running his hand over the wire where it sagged slightly near a corner. A mule deer did it again, most likely…or one of the calves found a soft spot and leaned. He knelt, tightened the staple with the back of his knife, and tested the tension. Good enough for now.

“There’ll be time later to reset it properly,” he murmured, “if the day gives me any mercy.”

“There’ll be time for what, pa?” Gus asked.

“Yeah, pa, for what?” Finn joined the interrogation.

“For you two to quit your foolishness and help your old man.” Peter straightened and shifted the coil of rope on his shoulder. His left cheek pulled faintly where the old scar crossed it. The skin felt tighter there, reminding him that the ranch had teeth if a man got careless.

“Alright.” Finn sidled closer, trying to look brave and helpful, all at once. “What’s next?”

Peter took in their bundled coats, their hands shoved into pockets. “The chickens need feeding,” he said. “Finn, that’s yours.”

Finn puffed a little, proud to be chosen first. “Yes, sir.”

Peter looked to Gus. “Gus, you check the water troughs. If the surface is skimmed with ice, break it. Don’t fall in. And don’t throw rocks in it for sport.”

Gus’s eyes went wide, offended by the thought. “I wouldn’t.”

Peter gave him a flat look.

Gus tried for innocence. “Not big rocks.”

“Go on.” Peter pointed toward the yard. “I want the chores done properly before we hitch up. Today’s the first day of school, and you’re not arriving like a pair of barn cats.”

“Do we really have to go?” Gus sighed.

“Yes,” Peter said simply.

“I want to go, Pa.” Finn smiled.

Gus stared at him as if Finn had said he wanted to eat dirt. “Why?” Gus frowned.

“Because,” Finn said, as if the answer ought to be plain, “I heard Miss Daley’s going to show us the new slate.”

“I don’t care about a slate,” Gus scoffed.

Finn lifted his shoulders in that quiet way he had. “I do.”

Peter watched them for a beat longer. The boys were so different, it would have been funny if it didn’t also mean constant squabbling. “And Gus,” he added as Gus turned away.

Gus paused, hopeful that maybe he was being given a special task, something important.

“Try to make it through one morning without some kind of trouble,” Peter said.

“It’s not my fault trouble always finds me first,” the boy answered, shrugging his shoulders.

“I just wonder how that’s possible,” Peter said dryly. “Go.”

They ran off, voices rising and falling as they argued over who ought to go first through the gate. Peter let them have it, and turned back to his work.

He found his horses standing in their pen, checked their hooves, ran a hand down a foreleg, and tightened a loose strap on the tack hanging from a peg. The bay mare, Daisy, bumped his shoulder, impatient for grain.

“Easy,” he murmured, and fed her from his palm.

He found himself thinking of Lena then, not because the horses reminded him of her, but because the quiet did. Lena had liked mornings best. She used to stand at the doorway with a shawl around her shoulders, watching him set out with the boys at his heels.

He pushed the thought aside and finished the checks.

“As if the ranch cares what I miss, isn’t that right, Daisy?” he murmured.

By the time he headed back toward the yard, the smell of feed was in the air. Finn stood by the chicken run with a tin cup, scattering grain with grave concentration. The hens scrabbled and clucked, feathers ruffling.

Gus was at the trough, using the end of a stick to crack the thin ice.

Peter nodded in approval. “That’ll do,” he said.

Finn looked up, pleased. “I gave them extra.”

Peter raised a brow. “Now, what did we say about that extra, Finn?”

“Just a little,” the boy muttered. “They looked hungry,” he added in his defense.

Peter sighed through his nose. That could be a strength if it didn’t get him taken advantage of. “We’ll see if they lay extra eggs, then,” Peter said. “Go wash your hands, both of you. And change your shirts if you’ve got dirt on them.”

“Why?” Gus looked down at his sleeves. There was dirt.

There’s always dirt.

“So Miss Daley doesn’t think I’m raising you in a pig pen,” Peter said.

Gus made a face. “But we don’t have pigs,” he replied, clearly confused.

“Don’t start,” Peter warned. He shook his head as he walked toward the barn to gather what he needed for town.

The wagon sat where it always did, near the shed, wheels rimed with frost. Peter checked the harness, the yoke, and the straps. He packed a small sack with a few tools and an extra length of rope—old habit. A man learned to expect something to go wrong as soon as he left his own gate.

He had nearly finished when Finn came running, panic in his eyes. “Pa! Pa!” he blurted, breathless. “We can’t find our bags!”

Peter stilled, hand on a buckle. “Your school bags?” he asked, frowning.

“They’re not under the bed,” Finn explained.

Gus trailed behind him. “We looked,” he said, and Peter instantly became suspicious.

His gaze sharpened on Gus. “Did you look, or did you hide them?” he demanded the truth.

“I didn’t hide them.” Gus lifted his hands, palms out. “I swear!”

Finn wheeled on him. “You did,” he murmured. “I know you did.”

“I did not!”

“You did!” Finn’s voice rose.

Peter stepped between them before it turned into grabbing. “Enough! Both of you, inside,” he ordered. “Now.”

They obeyed, though Gus dragged his feet, and Finn stomped like a man twice his size. Peter followed them into the house, the warmth hitting him all at once, the faint smell of soap and last night’s biscuits.

The boys’ room was small, with two narrow beds, a shared chest, and hooks on the wall for coats. Peter stood in the doorway and took it in with a soldier’s eye.

Lena would have had their bags laid out the night before. She would have tucked their slates inside, checked their pencils, smoothed their collars.

Peter cleared his throat. “Finn, check under the beds again,” he said, trying to sound grounded. “Gus, check the chest.”

Finn dropped to his knees and peered into the darkness, muttering. Gus went to the chest and lifted the lid with exaggerated innocence. “They’re not in here,” Gus said at once, too quickly.

Peter frowned again. “Move.” He sighed.

Gus stepped aside. Peter put aside a folded blanket, then another. Beneath them, tucked like a treasure, were the two canvas bags with their straps knotted together.

Finn’s face went red. “Gus!”

Gus tried for a grin, but it faltered when he saw Peter’s expression.

Peter lifted the bags by the knotted straps. “You tied them together.”

Gus’s shoulders rose. “So they wouldn’t get lost,” he whispered.

Finn surged forward. “You hid them! Now I’m going to be late because of you!”

“We’re not late,” Gus insisted. “You worry too much.”

Finn shoved him, not hard, but enough. Gus shoved back, harder. In a heartbeat, they were grabbing at sleeves and shoulders, anger turning clumsy.

“Stop,” Peter said.

Of course, they didn’t. Peter took one step forward and clapped a hand on each boy’s collar, separating them like two quarrelsome dogs.

“He always does this!” Finn’s eyes shone, furious and frightened.

“He’s always acting like he’s the oldest,” Gus scoffed.

Finn snapped, “I am the oldest.”

“By three minutes,” Gus protested. “Three!”

“Well, three minutes is still first!” Finn’s voice went shrill.

Peter closed his eyes for half a breath. “Both of you, enough!” As soon as the boys went still, he continued, “Now, listen close. You have enough time to get to school if you quit wasting it hollering. If you want to be late, then go ahead, keep fighting. But if you want to ride in with your heads up, you better get moving.”

Peter thrust the bags into Finn’s hands. “Unknot them,” he said, then turned to Gus. “As for you, apologize.” Peter’s voice dropped. “Now.”

“Sorry,” Gus muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Fine,” Finn muttered back, though his face said it was not fine at all.

Peter watched them as an awfully familiar ache kept pressing behind his ribs. Lena would have knelt, smoothed their hair, and spoken softly. She would have turned their tempers aside with a look and a gentle hand.

“Boots on,” he said. “Coats…and hats. Out.”

They scrambled to obey, and within minutes they were back in the yard, cheeks flushed, hair askew, bags thumping against their legs. Peter hitched the team, checked the straps twice, and lifted the boys into the wagon.

Finn sat stiff as a fence post, still offended. Gus swung his legs like the world was a game he intended to win.

Peter climbed up, gathered the reins, and looked down at them both. “Now, you two,” he began. “You don’t have to like each other every minute. But you will treat each other like family. You’ll watch out for one another. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Finn said, taking it all too seriously as always.

Gus looked away, then back. “Even if he’s acting like a schoolmarm?”

Peter held Gus’s gaze. “Even then.”

Gus huffed, but he nodded. Peter clicked the reins, and the wagon rolled forward, wheels crunching over frost and dirt. As the road bent toward town, Peter felt that old, quiet strain on his shoulders, the weight of responsibility that never left him, not even for a moment, a promise he’d made over Lena’s grave, spoken low where only God could hear.

He glanced at the empty seat beside him, the space where Lena used to sit when she came in on school mornings with folded hands and eyes bright with pride. Then he faced forward again and drove them on toward town and the schoolhouse waiting at the end of the road.