THE GIRL WHO KEPT THE LAST PIECE OF BREAD
The Girl Beneath the Freight Platform
By the summer of 1886, people in Dry Hollow had learned how to look away.
They looked away when a farmer lost his land to the bank.
They looked away when a widow was charged twice for the same sack of flour.
They looked away when the sheriff dragged a drunk cowboy through the street hard enough to leave blood on the boards.
And when thirteen-year-old Elsie Rowan began sleeping beneath the freight platform behind the railway depot, they looked away from that too.
Dry Hollow, Wyoming Territory, was the sort of place that liked to think of itself as respectable.
There was a white-painted church on the eastern end of town.
A courthouse in the center.
A bank with polished brass handles.
A hotel with lace curtains in the windows.
And three saloons that did more business than all the other establishments combined.
Respectable men wore clean shirts on Sundays.
Respectable women lowered their voices when discussing unpleasant things.
Respectable people did not ask why a thirteen-year-old girl had no home.
Elsie had learned not to expect them to.
She had been alone for nine months.
Her father, Thomas Rowan, had once owned forty acres north of town.
Not much land.
Enough for a small house, six cattle, two horses, and a narrow field where he grew barley.
Elsie's mother had died when she was seven.
After that, Thomas had raised his daughter himself.
He had taught her to mend fence posts, read weather, set traps, count money, and shoot a rifle badly but safely.
Most important, he had taught her never to sign anything she had not read.
That lesson had become important the winter before.
Thomas Rowan had gone to the Dry Hollow Bank to dispute a loan.
He never came home.
Three days later, Sheriff Wade Gannon announced that Thomas had stolen four hundred dollars from the bank and fled the territory.
The bank seized the Rowan property.
The cattle were sold.
The horses disappeared.
The house was boarded shut.
Elsie was told she could go to the county poorhouse fifty miles east.
She ran away before they could take her.
She did not believe her father had stolen anything.
He had once made her walk two miles back to a store because the clerk had accidentally given him ten cents too much change.
“Heavier than gold,” Thomas had said, placing the coin in her palm.
“What is?”
“Money that isn't yours.”
A man like that did not steal four hundred dollars.
Elsie knew it.
Nobody cared.
So she slept beneath the freight platform.
The depot clerk knew.
He ignored her.
A kitchen boy from the hotel sometimes left potato peelings wrapped in newspaper.
An old Mexican stableman named Mateo gave her beans when he could.
But the only thing Elsie always had was a piece of bread.
Not fresh bread.
Not even good bread.
She kept it inside a square of cloth in her coat pocket.
It had become almost as hard as wood.
Her father had given it to her the last morning she saw him.
“Eat it before noon,” he had told her.
She never had.
At first, she saved it because she thought he would return by supper.
Then because she thought he would return the next day.
Then because eating it felt like admitting he wasn't coming back.
Nine months later, she still carried it.
Every night she touched the little bundle before sleeping.
And every morning she told herself the same thing.
Today might be the day.
Her father might come back today.
The morning Gideon Vale arrived in Dry Hollow, Elsie woke to the sound of boots above her head.
The freight platform trembled.
She remained still.
Travelers passed through all the time.
Most never noticed her.
Then a man's voice said, “Who's under there?”
Elsie froze.
The depot clerk answered.
“Rats.”
There was a pause.
“Those rats wear boots?”
Elsie looked down.
Her toes were sticking out.
She pulled her feet back.
Too late.
A moment later, someone crouched near the edge of the platform.
She saw a face in the shadows.
The man was perhaps forty.
Tall.
Lean.
Dark beard.
Sun-burned skin.
His coat was brown, faded at the shoulders.
A revolver hung low on his right side.
He wore no badge.
That made him slightly less dangerous.
“Come out,” he said.
Elsie tightened her grip on the small knife beside her.
“No.”
The man raised one eyebrow.
“You planning to live under there forever?”
“Maybe.”
“Seems uncomfortable.”
“Go away.”
He looked at her for several seconds.
Then he sat down on the ground.
Elsie frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“You.”
“I said I'm not coming out.”
“Then I'm waiting a long time.”
She hated adults who acted patient.
Patient adults usually wanted something.
“What do you want?”
“Breakfast.”
“That doesn't concern me.”
“I disagree.”
He reached into a saddlebag beside him.
Elsie smelled biscuits.
Her stomach tightened.
The man noticed.
He removed one biscuit.
Then another.
He placed them on a clean cloth.
There was also a strip of bacon.
“You trying to buy me?”
“No.”
“Then why are you giving me food?”
“Because you're hungry.”
“I didn't say I was.”
“You didn't have to.”
Elsie stared at the biscuits.
“Put them down and leave.”
The man almost smiled.
“Fair enough.”
He stood.
“What’s your name?”
She said nothing.
“My name is Gideon Vale.”
The name meant nothing to her.
He walked toward the street.
Elsie waited until he disappeared.
Then she crawled out.
The food was still warm.
She ate half a biscuit.
Slowly.
Then wrapped the rest.
Not with the old piece from her father.
Never with that.
She kept them separate.
By noon, Gideon Vale had learned three things about Dry Hollow.
The sheriff lied too easily.
The bank president was afraid of something.
And a thirteen-year-old girl living beneath a freight platform had the same gray eyes as a man Gideon had watched die six months earlier.