“Yes.”
“Good, let’s see how well he taught you to ride,” Kitty said. “Now, catch me, if you can.”
Suddenly Kitty’s horse exploded forward as if it had been shot from a cannon. Matt did not expect it, so by the time he realized he was being challenged, she was some distance ahead of him. Instead of heading for the road, Kitty galloped across the lawn, the hooves of her animal throwing up divots of grass. Matt had no choice but to dash after her.
Kitty was heading directly for the stone wall that surrounded the estate. The wall was high, not insurmountable, but high. Had it been an ordinary fence, or a row of shrubbery, it would not have presented much of a challenge.
But this wall was made of stone, and it was at least three feet wide. If the horse missed the jump, it could be fatal for the horse, and possibly for the rider as well. Kitty and her horse took the jump as if the animal had wings.
“Come on Spirit, don’t embarrass me,” Matt said, squeezing his knees against Spirit. “Damn, I didn’t mean that, boy. Embarrassment is the least of my worries. Just don’t kill yourself.”
Spirit made the jump as well, and Matt saw that Kitty had stopped just on the other side to look back toward the wall. She laughed when she saw Matt make the jump, then she urged her horse on, and it was all Matt could do to keep up with her.
Kitty maintained the gallop for about mile or so before she finally pulled up to a trot, followed by a cooling walk, then ending the ride at a grass-covered point that overlooked the Bruneau River. From this overlook, the river was about one hundred feet below.
It was obvious that Kitty had visited this spot many times, because there was a bench that overlooked not only the river, but also the Owyhee Mountains. Sitting on it, she invited Matt to join her.
Kitty was quite an attractive woman. Bareheaded, her blond hair glistened in the sun. Her eyes were shining, and her full-breasted figure was displayed to advantage in her riding habit.
“I’m impressed that you made the jump,” Kitty said.
“You are the first visitor I’ve had who has been able to make the jump. Most of them go around when they see the rock wall.”
“I confess that I thought about going around myself,” Matt replied with a laugh.
“I shouldn’t do that—challenge my visitors to make that jump, I mean. I would hate to think that my vanity might cost a horse its life.”
“It wouldn’t be your vanity, it would be the vanity of the rider who took the jump unless they knew they could make it.”
“I suppose that’s right,” Kitty said. She looked at Spirit. “That’s a fine horse you are riding as well. You call him Spirit?”
“Actually, he is Spirit the second,” Matt said. “My first horse was also named Spirit, but he was killed. He was such a special horse to me that I like to think that he—or his spirit, at least, is living on. Somehow, I think this horse understands that he is carrying on the name. I know that sounds silly.”
“No, it doesn’t sound silly at all,” Kitty said. “Since I’ve become involved with horses, I’ve learned a lot about them. Horses understand us, not only our words, but our very thoughts. If you named this horse to honor your first, then this one knows exactly what you have done, and believe me, he carries the name proudly.
“I think that is a very nice thing to do,” she added.
“Oh, I believe you all right. It’s like the jump he just made. I don’t think, once he saw the challenge, there is any way I could have held him back,” Matt said.
“Then the two of you seem well matched,” Kitty said. “You are obviously one who is up to a challenge. Otherwise, you would not have responded to my letter.”
“Well, once I read the letter and knew who you were, there was no way I wouldn’t come.”
“I wasn’t sure you would even remember me,” Kitty said.
“How could I forget you, Katherine? You were the prettiest girl there.”
Kitty laughed, her laughter as melodic as wind chimes stirred by the breeze.
“I think you may be doing a bit of flattery there. Especially since everyone knew how taken you were with Tamara,” Kitty teased.
“Ahh, well now Tamara was an older woman, and you know how boys are often intrigued by older women,” Matt replied with a laugh of his own. “As I look back on it now, it’s hard to think of a fourteen-year-old as an older woman. But at the time, that’s exactly what she was.”
“Tamara was the oldest of all the girls then,” Kitty said. “She was sort of the mother hen to the rest of us. Or at least, she was our big sister. I really missed her when she left the home.”
“What happened to you, after you left the home?”
The smile left Kitty’s lips. “Don’t you know?”
“No.”
“Matt, I went the same path as Tamara, and every other girl who left the home. Like all the others, I was sold into prostitution,” Kitty said.
“What do you mean you were sold into prostitution? How can you sell somebody? Isn’t that like slavery?”
“It is exactly like slavery,” Kitty agreed. “But Mumford, and the people he sold us to, had a clever way of getting around it. Mumford charged all the girls for room and board, then he arranged for Madam Crockett to loan us enough money to pay off the fee we owed to Mumford.”
“Madam Crockett?”
“Emily Crockett. She owned what she called a ‘boardinghouse for women’ there in Soda Creek. The boardinghouse was a whore house, and we were bound to Madam Crockett until the loan was paid off. And of course since we also had to make a living out of what were getting, it took quite a while to pay off the debt. Some of the girls never got it paid off.”
“You did.”
“Yes, I did eventually get her paid off, but it took four years. By that time I knew no other profession, so I went into business for myself. That’s what I was doing when Tommy came along,” Kitty admitted. “After his first wife died, Tommy became one of my regular customers. I don’t know how, or why, but, for some reason, Tommy fell in love with me.”
“It’s not that difficult to understand why,” Matt said. “You are a beautiful woman, Katherine. And I don’t mean just your physical beauty.”
“You are just being nice to me, for old times’ sake.”
“No, really, you are a very beautiful woman.”
“I wouldn’t have been, if Tommy hadn’t come along when he did. By now I would be worn and haggard looking—or I would be dead.” She sighed. “So many of the girls who were residents of Mumford’s Home are dead now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Matt said. “I didn’t mean to bring up unpleasant memories.”
“I don’t know if I would call it unpleasant memory, as much as I would call it a simple fact of life,” Kitty said. “And, for me at least, it didn’t turn out all that unpleasant. I wasn’t in love with Tommy, not in the way a young girl dreams of falling in love. He was very good to me, and I did love him in my own way.” Kitty sighed. “But then, I’m not sure that someone like me—someone who has been on the line, can ever actually be ‘in love’ with someone.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Katherine. You have a lot to offer. You’re husband was a very lucky man.”
“Marcus certainly didn’t think so.”
“Yes, Mr. Gilmore told me a little about Marcus Kincaid,” Matt said. “I gather he was not all that pleased with the fact that you married the man who had been married to his mother.”
“I think that is what you would call an understatement,” Kitty replied. “I’m sure he believes that, somehow, I tricked Tommy into marriage, in order to get out of the life, and have all this,” Kitty said. “And I must confess that he is half right. I was anxious to get out of the life, and Tommy seemed like a good way of doing it. I knew Tommy, I knew that he was a very nice man, and I thought it would do no harm. But I swear to you, Matt, I didn’t really know who he was, and I knew nothing about all this until after we were married,” she said, taking in the land with a sweep of her arm. She laughed. “He told me that he didn’t want me to know about it beforehand, because he wanted to be sure that I was marrying him for him, and not for his fortune. Bless his heart, he didn’t know that I would have married him if he had been a stable hand just to get out of that situation.”