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352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
Would you like to see something pretty? It might make you feel better.
Maybe I better take your arm again," she muttered, eyeing the staircase.
"If I fall down the stairs," she added in a low, dry voice, "and end up sprawled at the bottom in front of all those swells, I'm going to pretend that I'm dead. You tell someone to haul me off to the nearest boardinghouse, then go have your supper.
She wished Billy Brown would end his speech right there. At the same time she secretly hoped he'd say more good things. Compliments were as rare as finding a nugget in her pan. She remembered every one that had come her way.
“All my life I dreamed of having someone think I was beautiful.”
As scruffy and rootless as the other prospectors searching for gold in the Rockies, Low Down wanted nothing in return for nursing a raggedy bunch through the pox. But when pressed to reveal her heart's wish, she admits, "I want a baby."
“I love you, Louise Downe McCord. You drive me absolutely crazy sometimes, and this is one of those times, but I love you.”
This one's eyes were closed and she wasn't sure he was breathing until she shook him and saw his chest heave. Leaning to his ear, ignoring the weeping sores and the stench, she whispered, "Can you hear me, you worthless no-good worm? This is Martha, your first wife. I'm waiting for you, you spineless lazy chunk of pig offal. Go on and die so we can be together for all eternity." His breath hitched and a shudder of recoil ran through his body. She decided that he might just make it.
”I told you already that I did this before a long time ago. I didn't like it much, and I wasn't good at it, so don't get your expectations up. Just do what you have to do and don't dawdle around.”
"To tell you the truth, I don't know why I'm trying to help you. You're about as worthless a person as I ever met. But I'm here for the duration. I guess tending sick folks or folks in pain is a flaw in my character. Now do you want to know what's happening to you, or not?"
Someday you're going to hold that marble, and it won't be a symbol of all you lost. That marble will be the gold you went to Piney Creek to find. It will be the most precious thing you own.
"All my life I dreamed of having someone think I was beautiful," she whispered.