Mr. Taggerty rushed for the door and into the house. He stopped and backed up a step.
“What’s wrong?” Amelia asked.
“Maybe this isn’t my home.” He pointed toward the table. “I don’t recall a baby.”
Amelia patted his shoulder. “That’s my little girl. Her name is Poppy. Poppy, say hello.”
“’Lo.” She waved. Red jam circled her mouth and dotted her fingers.
“Hi, Pa.” Kat watched her father with a dose of wariness. The poor girl had been dealing with the uncertainty of his behavior for a long time.
“Thank you for taking care of Poppy.” Amelia led the man to the table as she spoke. “Kat, would you give your pa some bread and jam?”
Kat sprang up to do so and poured him coffee from the pot on the back of the stove. The liquid was black and thick. How long ago had it been made?
Amelia would make some fresh as soon as she got things under control. “Now, where can I find Gil?”
Kat nodded to the side of the house.
“Will you keep an eye on these two while I deal with him?”
Kat’s eyes lit up. “I’d sooner see how you handle him.”
Amelia didn’t say anything, just waited for Kat to answer her question.
“Oh, very well.” The words were anything but gracious.
“Thank you.” Amelia went outdoors and around the house. She could have followed her nose to the man. He sat with his knees drawn up, and his head lolled to one side. A bottle hung from his hands. He didn’t hear her approach.
She stood in front of him. “Gil.” She spoke sharply, not knowing if the man was passed out or sleeping. Either way, he was drunk as a miner in town with a poke of gold and nothing to spend it on but liquor.
Gil jerked. His legs jolted outward, and he squinted at her, struggling to focus. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
Before he could find his voice, she spoke. “Zach was good enough to bring you here, give you a home and some dignity in exchange for cooking and watching his pa. You agreed not to drink while you’re here. Now look at you. You’re a mess.”
He patted his pant legs, sending up puffs of dirt.
“You’re sitting here drinking while Mr. Taggerty roams away on his own.”
Gil found the bottle where he’d dropped it when she frightened him awake. Before he could lift it to his lips, she grabbed it and poured the contents on the ground.
“Tha’s mine.”
“Not while you’re here.”
Gil struggled to his feet, swayed, and groaned. “Maybe I won’t stay.”
In Zach’s letters, she learned about Gil. Zach had found him behind the saloon, where he begged or scavenged food from what the hotel dining room threw out. Zach had taken him to the man’s mother, and she’d begged Zach to give him a job. With Pa’s approval, he’d done so, but only because his ma was close friends with Gil’s mother.
His ma excused his behavior, saying he wasn’t always like this, but he’d never recovered from the accident that took his pa. She thought he was hurt in the head in that crash and never got better.
I soon learned he was of no use out with the cows. He could cook. But not on the range. Too much time on his hands. He’d take a horse and ride to town. I was ready to give up on him, but after Ma died, I needed someone to keep an eye on Pa and do the cooking, seeing as Kathy refused. Gil does fine so long as he stays away from the bottle.
“I ain’t nothing but a drunk.” The exact words Zach—only it wasn’t Zach—had written in his letter.
She repeated the answer “Zach” had given in those same letters. “You can change that.”
“Trying.”
