Page 15 of Married By Midnight
Sarah quickly washed the teapot and set it to dry. “What should I do about him?” She tilted her head towards the room.
“I’ll get my bedroll and I can sleep here. Just in case something happens.”
“Thank you, Dell.” She didn’t expect anything to happen, but she also didn’t want any whispers to be heard around town. News traveled fast in Creede. Even though it was a large town, a rumor such as an unattached woman tending to a man could ruin her reputation.
Dell nodded. “I’ll be right back. When I return, we might want to dry out the stuff in his knapsack.”
“I didn’t think about that, but it sounds good.”
“Might want to make another pot of coffee too.” He took one last look at Sarah. “What’s on your mind, miss?”
“I was just thinking how I could get to town. The last time the road was swept away it took us three days before we could get into town.”
“I’ll have Dusty go out and look tomorrow. How long you plan on keeping him here?”
“Just until I am sure he is healing.”
Dell nodded and Sarah shut the door behind him.
Unsure what to do, she went back to her father’s study and started looking through his journals.
Soon she thought her eyes might roll into the back of her head. There was nothing in any of them that would give her an indication where her father hid his money.
She heard Dell come back into the house. He popped his head in the office. “You need to go to bed, miss.”
“Let’s quickly go through that knapsack and dry out anything that needs to be dry.” Dell agreed and they went to the room where the man was sleeping.
Dell picked up the sack. A water stain already appeared on the wood floor where the bag rested. He dumped the contents out on the small area rug in the room.
“Looks like a bunch of nothin’,” Dell said.
There was an extra pair of pants, two shirts, a small notebook, an apple, a worn blanket, and a tin. Sarah picked up the notebook first. She flipped it over and a name was scrawled on the front in bold strokes.
“Ian Poole,” she read. Most of the pages had been ruined by the water. The ink had smeared into the pages and not a word was legible.
She looked at the man asleep on the bed. “Well, Ian Poole, let’s see what else you have here.” Sarah put the notebook aside. She didn’t know if the pages would be salvageable unless she tore them from the binding and dried each one individually.
The clothes were drenched. She would hang those up in the kitchen and they should be dry by morning. Dell had picked up the tin and was turning it in his hands. It was the size of one of the cigar boxes she had seen at the mercantile.
“I don’t know if we should open that, Dell,” Sarah said.
“Might be something in there that can help us figure out who to contact about him.”
Reluctantly, Sarah nodded, giving Dell the go ahead to pry open the tin.
“Side got smashed when he hit that rock.” Dell grunted as he pulled the tin apart. He gave one last grunt and the top separated from the bottom causing papers and coins to fly everywhere.
“Oh my,” Sarah said, picking up the papers and paper money that had fallen to the floor. “These are bank notes.” She quickly collected them. They were from various banks around the country.
“What do those mean?”
Sarah sorted the cash and bank notes into different piles. “It means that when he gets to wherever he is going he can take these to the bank, and they are good as cash. The money will be transferred to him.”
“How much is there?”
Sarah quickly counted the pile in front of her. “Over ninety-dollars in cash and three hundred dollars in bank notes.”
Dell gave a low whistle. “What would a young’un like him have with that much money?”
