Sixteen Brides (5 page)

When tears threatened, Ruth took herself in hand. For Jackson’s sake, she must be brave. And so she reached across with her free arm and laid her gloved hand on his. “Yes,” she said. “
Big
is certainly one word for it. It will be . . . interesting . . . to see more of the west than train tracks and stations. At least we have a nice supper awaiting us in Plum Creek.”

“Plum
Grove
,” Jackson corrected her.

“It was nice of Mr. Gray to invite you to visit, wasn’t it? Think how amazed your aunt Margaret will be when you write about your adventures.” She hadn’t changed her mind about Lucas Gray, and even if Jackson did write his aunt Margaret, it was impossible to know whether she would be amazed or horrified, but right now it was important that Jackson feel better.

Mention of Lucas Gray and a ranch accomplished great things. Jackson lifted his head from her shoulder and turned to look up at her. “You mean you really
would
let me visit? I thought you were just being polite.”

Oh dear.
She’d done it now. Backed herself into a corner from which there would be no escape. “Of course I was being polite,” Ruth said. “Good manners is part of being a lady—or a gentleman, I might add.” She forced the most sincere smile she could manage. “But just because I was being polite doesn’t mean I don’t really want to see Mr. Gray’s cows. I’m sure it will be very informative.”

Jackson hugged her so hard she had to straighten her hat when he finally let go. “Do you think we could get a horse?”

Ruth worded her reply as carefully as possible. “I think we could definitely entertain the idea of a horse.” Ruth smiled to herself. If a general’s wife knew anything, she knew to choose her battles carefully, and Jackson’s wanting a horse was not one to be fought today. They couldn’t afford a horse, and even if they could, she wasn’t about to let her son risk his neck trying to be a cowboy. But Jackson could entertain the idea to his heart’s content.

CHAPTER
FOUR

Brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just . . . think on these things.

PHILIPPIANS 4:8

L
inney was not going to give up. She set her bedroll down just inside the mercantile’s back storeroom door and continued the plea. “I’m fourteen, Pa. And I know you don’t like being around a lot of people, but it’s just one dance and Martha says you’re the best dancer in the county and . . . well . . . a girl needs to know how to dance and who should teach her if not her very own pa?”

When Matthew glanced to where Martha Haywood sat perched on a stool behind the mercantile counter, Martha took the pencil from behind her ear and wrote something in the ledger. She didn’t even look up as she said, “She makes a good point, Matthew. It’s not like that train car of ladies is staying here. They’ll be on their way to Cayote before nightfall. Friday will be mostly folks you already know. Shoot, half the boys from around here will be over at Cayote anyway, chasing after those women. What better way to celebrate spring than a dance among old friends with your very own daughter?”

“Just one dance,” Linney said. “It can be the
last
dance of the whole night if you want. And then you can hightail it back to your cave and hibernate again.”

He should be ashamed of himself—and was, for many reasons— but making the girl beg like this was just flat-out wrong. From the expression on Martha Haywood’s face, it appeared she thought the same. “All right,” Matthew said. “I can’t promise I’ll stay the whole evening, but—” Whatever else he was going to say was smothered by Linney’s squeal of delight and her arms around his neck. Before he knew it he’d promised not only to dance with her but to take her to supper at the dining hall beforehand, too. When Martha looked his way, Matthew steeled himself against the teasing he expected, but she said nothing. She just smiled and nodded approval.
Good for you.

A few minutes later when the train whistle sounded from the east, Matthew was in the haymow over at the livery, forking fresh hay down into a couple of vacant stalls. He worked there occasionally in exchange for Otto Ermisch not charging Matthew to board his pinto mare when he visited town. Seconds after the train whistle sounded in the distance, Matthew heard a door slam and a chorus of shouts. Making his way to the edge of the haymow, he watched as men spilled out of the saloon and the dining hall, the mercantile and the implement store, all of them hurrying along as they straightened collars, brushed dust off their pants, smoothed beards, and spat wads of tobacco out into the grass. Obviously word had spread that the Ladies Desperation Society was on that train. Tossing a final forkful of hay into the stall below, Matthew walked back to the wide opening above the livery’s double-wide doors. This, he had to see.

Mr. Drake hadn’t shown his face in the ladies’ emigration car since redefining the prairie fire as renewal. Now, as the train began to slow for the long stop at Plum Grove, he stuck his head in the door and directed them to “proceed to the Immigrant House,” where they would have opportunity to “freshen up” before the supper that they would enjoy during the unloading of a couple of freight cars and the taking on of water and fuel. “I’ll join you in the Plum Grove Dining Hall soon to discuss our arrival in Cayote later this evening. Until then, I trust you’ll all enjoy taking the air here in Plum Grove.” With that, he was gone.

Feeling rumpled and out of sorts, Ella stood up and stretched. When the train lurched unexpectedly, she nearly fell.

“Land sakes,” Mrs. Morris exclaimed, “what are they doing now?!”

Ella straightened her bonnet as she said, “Mama, I’m going to make sure they don’t unload our chickens by mistake. I should have been keeping closer watch at the last few stations. I hope they aren’t sitting unclaimed on some siding east of here.”

“Ella.” Mama motioned for her to bend down and look.

Ella looked. And plopped back down beside Mama.
Men.
A long row of men waited just below the weathered sign that read Plum Grove.

“I told you there would be a parade of bachelors.” Mama grinned. “And we aren’t even to Cayote yet.”

Ella was not amused. What were they doing there, anyway? Were they really there to meet the ladies? Apparently so, for that was Hamilton Drake talking to them, and whatever he was saying wasn’t making them happy.

“I don’t know why he’s so upset. I think it’s nice. And kind of . . . exciting.”

That was the youngest of the sisters-in-plaid, and since, other than introducing herself at lunch yesterday, she hadn’t said a word, everyone stared at her in surprise. She blinked. Glanced shyly at her three sisters. Shrugged. “Well . . . all I mean is . . . it’s nice to feel . . . welcome.” She turned back to peer out the window. “And the tall one in the plaid shirt is kind of . . . nice looking.”

Ella adjusted her bonnet. None of it had a thing to do with her. She had chickens to check on. With a promise to meet Mama over at the Immigrant House, she hurried off the train. As she barreled past the men and toward the freight cars, one of them shoved Mr. Drake aside and stepped forward.

“I like a beefy gal,” he said and, snatching his hat off his head, introduced himself as Ed Ostergaard.

Beefy?!
Ella ignored him and marched to the far side of the platform to watch and wait for her chance to check on her birds. It was impossible not to be aware of the
tone
as the men teased Mr. Ostergaard about his “beefy gal.”

Silence made her glance back at the men and from them to the train. Watching them all watch Caroline Jamison would have been amusing if it weren’t also pathetic.
Men. All alike.
Their heads moved in unison, first up toward where Mrs. Jamison hesitated before descending, and then down as she took each step. Finally, all those heads moved from left to right as Mrs. Jamison glided across the platform to join Ella. Not a single one stepped forward to introduce himself to her.
Struck dumb by a vision of loveliness.
Ella scolded herself for the bitterness in that thought before Mrs. Jamison said something that turned her attention to Plum Grove.

“Not much of a town, is it?”

Ella pointed toward the framed outlines of three new buildings. “No, but it’s growing.” She indicated the grassy space between the train station and the buildings a short walk across the prairie. “Someday this will be a real road running alongside the tracks. And there”—she indicated the imaginary line running perpendicular to the tracks and toward the short row of half a dozen businesses—“that will be Main Street. I imagine they already call it that. See those red flags in the distance? Probably meant to stake out a town square.”

Mrs. Jamison nodded toward the two-story log building next to the Immigrant House. “Where do you suppose a body gets logs for such an enterprise out here?”

Ella didn’t know, but she intended to find out. Maybe she and Mama would have a log cabin.

“Why does there always have to be a saloon,” Mrs. Jamison murmured, pointing to the one building “across Main” from the five false-fronted buildings identified as the Immigrant House, Haywood Mercantile, Plum Grove Dining Hall, Pioneer News, Lux Implements, and Ermisch Livery. “Do you suppose Cayote will look this . . . way?”

“You mean this pathetic?” Ella said. “I hope not.”

“And do you suppose we’ll have to face a similar welcoming committee?”

For the first time Ella realized that Mrs. Jamison wasn’t really using her ruffled parasol to keep the spring sun off her lily white face. She’d perched it on her shoulder to block her view of the men—and theirs of her. Ella chuckled. “I never did want to mess with a parasol. But I think you just showed me a new use.” She glanced at the group of men and back down at Mrs. Jamison. “Varmint deflector?”

The southerner laughed softly and twirled the parasol. “Maybe a saber if those particular varmints don’t disperse directly.” She frowned. “How’d they know to gather?”

From his place in the haymow, Matthew saw a gold parasol open. He counted sixteen women and as many men, each group staying to themselves as if battle lines had been drawn on either side of an imaginary space into which no one dared step. When a few other passengers appeared from the direction of the dining car, Matthew’s attention was drawn away from the women. He tensed. The swagger . . . the Stetson . . . and a wrangler riding up with three mounts in tow. Everyone in Dawson County recognized that gelding. Luke had been back east.

Another passenger stepped off the train. Even from this distance the man’s size was impressive.
I’m easy to spot,
Cooper had written,
just like Joshua’s giants in the land.
So. Jeb Cooper, the man who’d purchased the homestead, had come to Plum Grove on the same train as Luke and those women. It was good timing for Matthew. Linney would be busy helping Martha in the dining hall. That would give him a chance to meet Cooper without her wondering at her reclusive pa’s interest in a new arrival.

A horse screamed. Matthew looked toward the tracks just in time to see Luke lead a dark gray horse off the freight car. Swiping his forehead with one sleeve, Matthew returned to forking fresh hay into the empty stalls below. He’d head over and introduce himself to Jeb Cooper a little later. After he was certain Linney was busy with the new arrivals—and after Luke and company were well out of town.

Caroline had been far too nervous at the river crossing to pay much attention to Lucas Gray’s horse. All she really remembered was impressive size and spirit. But as the freight car doors screeched open and the creature whinnied and tossed its head, and as the afternoon sun glistened against the pewter-colored coat, she caught her breath. The stallion stomped and snorted.

“Wow.” Jackson let out his breath in a low whistle.

“He sure is somethin’,” Sally said. “And don’t he know it.”

Lucas Gray strode up the gangplank and into the freight car. While he was inside, a cowboy road up with three horses in tow—another gray and two bays. Johnny True and Lowell Day mounted the bays.

Everyone watched as the stallion danced its way down the gangplank alongside its owner.

“Gorgeous,” Ella murmured.

“The horse is nice, too,” Zita joked.

“Mama!”

“I’m old, Ella. I’m not dead.”

“Aw, you ain’t so old,” Sally laughed.

Gray handed the stallion’s lead to one of his “boys,” then leaped astride the gray gelding. He spent the next few minutes helping to herd livestock from the freight car into the sod enclosure behind the station. A burly stranger with a full beard and a floppy hat manned the gate to the corral. When Caroline noticed that one arm ended in a stump, she wondered at the brute strength on display as he easily handled the massive gate with one arm.

When Ella stepped down to check on her livestock, Caroline went with her. She might not be able to avoid another “cat and mouse” with Lucas Gray this way, but at least she wouldn’t have to wade through an entire crowd of voyeurs.