Born of Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 2) (17 page)

The seller pushed the tickets through the window and her father accepted them. “Thank you and have a great day.”

“Are we getting right on or do we have time for traveling clothes?” Amethyst asked. Trekking across the desert and riding horseback hadn’t been the same as a proper press. Her hems were ragged, spots beneath her arms from sweating.

“There are more important things than new clothes,” her mother snapped.

“We’ll get onboard since the train leaves in an hour,” her father said. “We’re lucky to have made it so we didn’t have to spend the night in town.”

Sighing, Amethyst followed her parents and brother across the station and onto the train. Clark trailed behind her, one hand on her back as though ensuring himself she was safe. She leaned back against his chest, smiling. With her father and Clark in charge, everything would be fine.

Her father led them three cars forward, toward the steam engine. How odd. Normally, first class stayed in the back. According to letters from Georgette, the family owned a private car that attached to the back. Of course, they couldn’t use it then, but…

“This will be ours.” Her father stopped at an aisle. In this compartment, the windows were all opened and rows of cramped seats occupied the space.

“We’re riding here?” Amethyst waved at the lumpy seats. Some already had men and women slumped in them, some asleep, others staring out the windows or at them. Men puffed on cigars and pipes. Two little boys ran down the center row, shoving Amethyst’s hip as they passed.

“For now, we have limited funds,” Georgette said. “We’ll make do. Cheaper seats means we’ll be able to purchase food in the eating car.”

“Didn’t you say you and Father had worse conditions when you first came to Hedlund?” Zachariah asked.

So, he’d finally decided to talk.

“Indeed we did.” Garth rubbed Zachariah’s shoulder. “We’ll tell you children about them during the ride. We’ll be stuck on here for about three days, so we’ll have plenty of bonding time.” He laughed. He actually laughed. How could anything be funny?

When Amethyst had first arrived in Hedlund from New Addison City, she’d expected to ride home just as she’d ridden there. She would have the first class car, where her velvet seat reclined into a bed and there were tables set up for her to play cards with the other passengers. Rich, creamy foods had been brought to her at mealtimes, and servants had carried around wine, cheese, and peanuts every few hours for snacks. She’d read, designed new dresses for her city seamstress to make for her, and written letters about what an amazing journey it was—elaborating, of course—back to her finishing school girls. Even if she loathed it, they could still be jealous.

She pushed past her parents and crawled across the seats, barely wide enough for her to fit through, then dropped onto the chair beside the window. She folded her arms, leaned back, and squeezed her eyes shut. “Wake me when we arrive. I’m going to pretend this is all a nightmare.”

The seat beside her creaked, and Clark brushed his fingertips over the back of her hand. “Think of how I feel.”

Amethyst winced. She
had
been concentrating on herself and not on Clark. She slid her fingers through his and squeezed. “No matter what, I’m here for you, honey. I’ll stick by your side, even if we get stuck in the desert.”

The ticket seller handed his ledger to the telegraph officer. “Do it quick before anyone else comes in.”

“It’s late.” The officer trailed his finger down the list of names until he got to the first for the day. “Ain’t no one else coming now, I swear.”

“Then hurry up so we can get home. I’ve got cheddar soup waiting for me back there.”

“Wonder how long Senator Horan will want all the passengers telegraphed to him. Ain’t easy, you know. Irritating as all rusty gears.”

“They’re searching for those Treasures.” The ticket seller leaned against his counter and lit a cigarette. “I starred an entry on the third page. They fit the description, but sure didn’t look like no wealthy folk.”

The officer paused, his finger holding his place in the text. “You really think it was them?”

The seller scratched his neck where his whiskers were growing in. “I don’t rightly know. Feel bad for them. The army takes what they want.”

“I’m glad.” The officer snorted. “It’s about time the mighty fell.”

“Senator Horan?” The secretary knocked on the parlor door.

The senator looked up from his evening newspaper and removed the cigar from his lips. “What is it?” Everyone should know better than to bother him when he relaxed before retiring to his bed.

The secretary stepped into the room and bowed, holding out a paper. “We may have gotten a hit on the Treasures. A family traveling east by train, destination of New Addison City.”

Senator Horan placed his cigar in the ashtray on the mahogany table beside his reclining chair. His nerves tweaked and his breath hitched, but he forced his hand to be still. “Hand it to me.” The blasted Treasures would be destroyed and he would have Dead-Boy Clark. At last.

“The names don’t fit.” The secretary passed over the paper. “When the telegraph came in, this entry was highlighted. The ticket seller left a note that their physical descriptions matched the Treasures.”

As Senator Horan read the handwritten note, his heartbeat sped and sweat beaded on his brow. The first initials matched perfectly, but the last name.
Peterson
.

Garth’s father was Peter Treasure. Poor Garth, so honorable he didn’t even know how to properly hide.

‘This is them!” Senator Horan jerked to his feet. “Have them apprehended at the next station.”

trumpet honked from the yard. Jeremiah wiped his flour-speckled hands on a dish rag as he headed out, grinning at Alyssa where she stirred a pot of boiling water over the stove.

“I never thought I’d become Nolan.” Jeremiah chuckled. “Here I am making biscuits for stew.”

Alyssa laughed. “And making a jolly mess out of the whole baking endeavor.”

He pressed his hand to his heart as though wounded. “I’ve made bread before when Father and I went camping.”

The trumpet sounded again.

“Let’s go get our workers.” She used a hook to pull the pot away from the fire. Stew had seemed the best bet, throwing together what vegetables they’d scrounged from the garden, and Jeremiah had slaughtered one of the male calves that should’ve gone to market during the army occupation.

He slung his arm over her shoulders and steered her through the house. Captain Greenwood would be in his father’s study doing who knew what. It would be too late to hide any confidential papers, but his father kept the most important documents in a safe at the bank. The rest of the army would be lounging somewhere, eating Georgette’s bonbons and gulping the nasty moonshine they’d bought from one of the hillbillies who lived in shacks in the wilderness.

Jeremiah ground his teeth. They would’ve bought it by selling some of his family’s goods.

The town magistrate stood on the veranda steps with his son, a boy of ten, beside him with a polished trumpet. People crowded behind them. Jeremiah blinked, freezing in the front door. He’d expected twenty men at most, the kind who couldn’t hold a proper job and would want whatever they could get.

This group had to be worth half the town in population, and maybe some folks were from other towns, judging by the amount of unfamiliar faces. They wore working clothes: the men in overalls and denim, the women in homespun.

Jeremiah whistled. “You’re all here to work?” When they ran the bill in the papers every spring for seasonal workers, they never got that many takers in one swoop. Drifters, mostly, took up their job offers, wandering by to work for the summer before moving on.

A man he recognized from the lumber yard stepped forward to clap the magistrate’s shoulder. “Your family’s always been ready to help us. If we can’t pay the doctor bills, your dad slips us a little. Your mother does her charity parties. You’ve never been above us. If we need help, your folks are always right there.”

“But you have other jobs.” Jeremiah wiped his hand over his gaping mouth. “I can pay you folks, but…”

“I can work a half day,” the lumber yardman said. “Some of us do that, and the rest of us will work for you full time.”

The school teacher, a young girl with a blue bonnet, ushered a mass of children forward. “Some of us aren’t looking for payment. I called everyone back from summer vacation to do volunteer work, like they do in the east. We’ll write essays and poems on what we do here. We’ll make it a grand time.”

Another man, a farmer Jeremiah recognized from the next town over, jogged through the crowd. “We don’t like what the army’s done to you folks. It ain’t right.”

Alyssa clapped. “Thank you all. This is remarkable. I’m Alyssa Treasure. Jeremiah and I married last night. We had to do it then, or he wouldn’t have gotten his inheritance. When my parents arrive, we’ll have a grand celebration and I want all of you, our neighbors and friends, to attend.”

The crowd cheered. She’d said exactly the right thing, as Georgette would’ve done.

Jeremiah leaned against the railing to scan the crowd of grinning faces. “Alyssa’s the new mistress of the ranch. Those of you wanting to work the fields follow me out to the barns and we’ll figure out a plan of action. Those of you looking for house or garden work, see Alyssa in the ballroom.”