Prairie Fire (6 page)

“Hurry, hurry!” Rosie called. “Caitie, where did we hide the strongbox yesterday? And just look at this floor! Erinn, leave the sawdust alone and sweep up that popcorn over by the coffee mill.”

Caitrin pushed the damp letter into her pocket and hurried to help. With only three of the fabric bolts folded and the floor still littered with remnants of the party, Mr. Dunham, the mail-coach driver, walked into the mercantile. Two fur trappers and a couple of soldiers followed him. They’d seen worse, Caitrin realized.

Rosie welcomed them and made excuses for the state of the floor. Mr. Dunham was more interested in hearing about the exciting events of the previous night. She was deep into the tale of Seth’s chasing down her stagecoach when Chipper and his dog, Stubby, bounded into the mercantile. A moment later Seth, Jimmy, and Rolf Rustemeyer walked in. When they started telling the trappers and soldiers about the mysterious appearance of Jack Cornwall’s black horse, Caitrin spied her opportunity.

She took out the letter, grabbed two sheets of blotting paper and a new envelope, and went to work at a back table. Cornwall’s message must get to his parents—and as soon as possible. Certainly they should be warned about the troublemaker searching for their son, who was in enough hot water himself. They deserved to know about Chipper’s decision to stay in Kansas with his father. They needed to understand that Seth Hunter had laid his memories of their daughter to rest and was planning to marry again. And they should be told of their son’s injury. If Caitrin couldn’t budge Cornwall from the storage room, perhaps a letter from his parents would.

Working quickly, she opened the envelope and took out the sodden page. She unfolded it and laid it between the sheets of blotting paper. Then she copied the address onto the dry envelope.

“Caitrin?” Rosie called from the front of the store. “Do we have any oysters?”

She barely glanced up. “In the basket on the counter. I brought some tins from storage this morning.”

Caitrin peeled off the blotting paper and began to refold the letter. As she turned up the bottom of the page, she scanned the faded blue ink. She knew it was wrong to read Cornwall’s words. Very wrong. But as surely as the blotting paper had soaked up the water, her eyes absorbed his words.

… Keep a sharp lookout for Bill Hermann. He included my name
when he testified, and he’s hoping to implicate me in the Easton lynch
ing. Don’t tell him I’m holed up hurt. He’ll come after me.

Caitrin swallowed and folded up the bottom third of the letter. Mr. Cornwall’s troubles were not her concern. All the same, she did wonder if he had mentioned anything about Jimmy’s barn and the woman who had discovered him there in the darkness. She skimmed the letter for her name.

… a Miss Murphy is looking after me here. She’s about as Irish as
they come—red hair, rosy cheeks, and a brogue so thick you could cut
it with a knife. Don’t have a fit of apoplexy about her being Irish, Ma.
She’s stubborn and mouthy… .

Caitrin looked up and frowned. The very idea! How dare Cornwall call her mouthy? What else did he say about his rescuer? She glanced at the letter again.

… How is Lucy? I know she misses me, and I don’t like to think
about her there alone. Please tell her I’m coming after her soon. Tell her
she’ll be with me the rest of her life, and I’ll make sure she’s the happiest
woman on earth. Tell Lucy my heart is always with her… .

Chagrined, Caitrin creased the last fold of the letter and slipped it into the envelope. So, there was a woman in Jack Cornwall’s life. A woman he loved and intended to marry.

Good. A man so uncontrolled and ruthless ought to marry and be tamed by a loving wife. Best wishes to Jack Cornwall and his Lucy. May they live happily ever after.

Caitrin dropped the letter into the basket of outgoing mail. She didn’t care in the least that Mr. Cornwall was engaged to be married. As for herself, she had too much work to do to ponder such matters. And besides, what gave him the right to label her
mouthy
? Certainly she spoke her mind, as any creature with a backbone ought. She held to her opinions, and she didn’t mind sharing them if the situation called for it. She had a brain in her head, after all, and what good was a brain if a woman couldn’t use it?

As she wiped the counters, she pondered the man’s words. Why would Cornwall’s mother have a fit to learn his caretaker was Irish? There was nothing wrong with Ireland and nothing wrong with Caitrin’s manner of speech.
A brogue so thick you could cut it
with a knife?
Of all the impudent, disrespectful—

“Caitie!” Rosie called. “Bring the mail over here, please. The stage is leaving.”

Caitrin grabbed the basket and marched to the front of the mercantile. She dumped the letters into the driver’s open canvas satchel, dusted off her hands, and stalked away.
There, Mr. Jack
Cornwall,
she thought.
And may you be gone as swiftly as your letter.

As the others walked out of the mercantile, she swept popcorn into a pile and pushed it toward the door. The chickens would like pecking at it, and she didn’t suppose a little salt would kill them. In a moment she would finish the dusting. Then she could set to work measuring the front of the mercantile for its new windows. Rosie would certainly be surprised to hear how Caitrin had worked a miracle of persuasion at the harvest dance. The next time Mr. LeBlanc hauled a load of flour from his mill to sell in Topeka, he would return to Hope with a set of large glass windowpanes.

Floors. Shelves. Windows. Caitrin Murphy had more than enough work to fill her days. There simply wasn’t time to mourn Sean O’Casey. As for Rosie and Seth, their wedding preparations would be her focus. If Rosie wanted to daydream and gush all day long, so be it. But Caitrin had more important things to do.

And Jack Cornwall? Well, he could rot away in the storage room for all she cared. She couldn’t spare a second thought for a man with a cruel tongue, a troubled past, and a fiancée languishing after him. So much for the notion that he had lingered in Kansas out of fascination for Caitrin Murphy. That was a grand joke on her, but she was the better for learning the truth.

Whisking the popcorn out the front door, Caitrin straightened and leaned on the broom handle a moment. At the edge of the barnyard, Seth held Rosie in a farewell embrace. Oblivious to the two waiting men, he tenderly kissed her lips. Then he whispered against her ear, and she nodded eagerly in response. Reaching up, she touched the side of his face and straightened his hat. He kissed her on the cheek before mounting his mule. And then—as if he couldn’t bear the thought of a single minute away from her—he leaned over, took her hand, and kissed her fingers.

Caitrin watched as Rosie stood on tiptoe to wave good-bye. Seth turned half around in the saddle, letting his mule follow the others across the pontoon bridge. As the men headed off, Rosie hugged herself, hardly able to contain her joy. Then she lifted her skirts, raced across the barnyard, grabbed up Chipper and swung him around and around.

Caitrin turned away. There was work to be done.

Jack Cornwall sat on the pickle barrel trying to read the text of
The Pilgrim’s Progress
by lamplight and wondering if Caitrin Murphy would come. He had heard her in the barn just after noon that day. She and the little girl had opened a big wooden trunk and sorted through dresses, hats, and gloves until Jack thought he was going to climb the walls of the tiny storage room.

Their chatter about voile, tulle, satin, and silk hadn’t bothered him. He didn’t mind the endless discussion of fringe, ribbon, and lace. And he even held up under the lengthy debate about which kind of sleeves were the most flattering—flared, tiered, puffed, or capped. In fact, he could now declare himself a veritable encyclopedia of ladies’ fashions. As if such knowledge were worth a plugged nickel.

No, it wasn’t the female babble that had stretched his nerves. It

No, it wasn’t the female babble that had stretched his nerves. It was Caitrin Murphy’s voice. Musical, it sang in his ears and sent his heartbeat stumbling like a dancer with two left feet. He craved the sound—the roll of the
r
’s, the hint of laughter in every word, the lilt that made each sentence she spoke like the verse of a song.

Risking discovery, Jack had knocked out the center of a knothole and peered out at the two. Caitrin Murphy glowed in the dingy barn like a stained-glass window in a darkened church. Her hair flamed in shades of rust, cinnamon, and copper. Against the conflagration of auburn curls, her skin was as white and pure as snow. And her emerald green dress swished and swayed around her hips until Jack’s head spun.

The image of the woman had burned in his thoughts all afternoon. Certain his decision to stay at the O’Toole place to recuperate had been wise, he spent the silent hours washing, shaving, and cleaning up. He focused his attention on medicating his shoulder and exercising the stiff joint. During the weeks of pursuing his nephew, Jack had tried to ignore the wound. But now he knew his recovery was crucial. If Bill Hermann found him, he’d need his wits and his strength. And a job in blacksmithing promised the only hope he had of caring for his parents and Lucy in the years to come.

Moving his arm in circles, he stared at the words on the book in his lap.
I would advise thee, then, that thou with all speed get thyself rid
of thy burden; for thou wilt never be settled in thy mind till then… .

Jack slammed the book shut. Thee, then, that, thou? What kind of garbage writing was this supposed to be? The only
wilt
he knew anything about was a piece of soggy lettuce—and it never settled anybody’s mind or stomach either.

He glowered at the book’s green cover. Where was Caitrin? Was she going to leave him out here to starve? He glanced at the shelves stacked high with jars of apple jelly, beef and venison jerky, and dried apricots. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t starve. But didn’t she want to see him? Wasn’t she even curious about whether he’d left yet?

He was curious about Caitrin Murphy. So curious his brain fairly itched. What had brought a woman with so much life in her all the way from Ireland to the barren Kansas prairie? What spurred the ambition that drove her to tend a mercantile day after day? Where had she come up with the notion that God considered any man precious? The first battlefield skirmish he’d witnessed had taught Jack that human life was as fragile as a cobweb. If God thought people were precious, why did he let them die so easily? And what had possessed Caitrin to utter those amazing words—words that fluttered around in Jack’s head like crazy butterflies?
I love you. I love you.

“So, you’re still here,
pooka
,” Caitrin’s musical voice said in the semidarkness.

Jack jerked upright. The woman was standing a pace away just outside the storeroom door. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Sure, you were too busy reading that book. What is it?” She leaned across him and studied the cover. “
The Pilgrim’s Progress
. Good, perhaps it will scare some religion into you.”

“What makes you so sure I don’t have religion already?” Jack stood, hoping to catch another whiff of the sweet scent that had drifted up from her hair a moment before. “Maybe I’m a preacher in disguise.”

“A devil more like.” She shoved a basket into his stomach. “Here,
pooka
. It’s all I could gather without the others taking notice. There’s a chicken leg for you and some corn. I trust you won’t mind eating it off the cob in the American fashion—you being such a fine citizen of this country, while I’m merely Irish.”

She brushed past him and went to her money jar. Jack watched in amazement as she emptied her pockets and refilled her stash. Obviously it would be a simple matter for him to steal everything she’d earned that day and add it to the cash she had given him earlier. Either she didn’t care about money at all … or she trusted him. An odd thought.

“The Irish don’t eat corn on the cob?”

She swung around. “We eat potatoes, don’t you know? We dance little jigs and search behind every bush for leprechauns with their pots of gold. We’re
Irish
.”

Bemused at the hostile tone in Caitrin’s voice, Jack studied the woman in silence. She was arranging and dusting her shelves with enough steam to power a locomotive. He knew he should try to figure out what might have set her off, but his attention wandered to the more interesting fact that a single tendril of fiery hair had escaped her topknot and drifted down onto her long white neck. What was the scent in her hair? Some kind of flower, but he couldn’t put a name to it. He took a step closer.

“I trust your shoulder’s healing, Mr. Cornwall,” Caitrin said, stacking and restacking small paper sacks filled with coffee beans. “Perhaps you’re well enough to be off tonight. We’ve Rosie Mills living with us now, and it was all I could do to keep her from spending the night in that very loft above your head. She’ll be staying here with the O’Tooles until her wedding, and if you think I can stop her from having a look in this room, you’re wrong. If anyone is stubborn, it’s her. In fact, I’d wager Rosie Mills is a great deal more mouthy—”