Bride's Flight from Virginia City, Montana (12 page)

Zeph could see she was miffed. He stared out the window at two men hitching a horse to a small wagon. “Sorry.”

“When was that?”

Zeph watched the men load what looked to be sacks of lettuce into the wagon. “The war.”

She sat stock-still for a moment and took this bit of information in. Cheyenne slipped the knife from Charlotte’s hands and cut away at the orange.

“Gettysburg,” Charlotte finally said.

“That’s right.”

Now it was her turn to look out the window at the men loading the wagon. “My father was killed at that battle.”

Zeph didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t want to be there, Conner.”

“Nor did he.”

The edge was back in her voice. There was nothing he could do. It was over and done. Was she going to sit there and worry whether he was the man her father died beside? He thought it best to stand up.

“Wonder why we haven’t started yet?’ he said out loud.

A man in a white suit and gold paisley vest turned around and glanced up at him. “I just asked the conductor the same question. Apparently they’re taking another stack of wood into the tender.”

Zeph eased himself into the aisle. Charlotte reached out a hand.

“Where are you going?”

“The smoking car.”

“But you don’t smoke.”

“Maybe Fremont Wyoming does.”

She got up and slipped her arm through his.

“I’ll walk with you,” she said.

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Perfectly sure. Cody, help your sister finish peeling her orange.”

“All right … Ma.”

They walked arm in arm down the aisle of the car. There was scarcely room to do this, but Charlotte was determined. Zeph kept banging into seats and people’s knees and elbows. The smoking car had about half a dozen men in it who all stood up as Charlotte swept through.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said.

In another car they sat down briefly in a set of vacant seats. She took his hand and squeezed it. Her eyes were dark violet.

“I am sorry. You were not responsible for the war or my father’s death. You caught me off guard, that’s all. I didn’t know about Gettysburg.” “I don’t talk about it.”

“Is that battle the reason you won’t wear a gun?” “One reason.” “But a big reason.”

“Yes.”

“I admire you all the more for it.”

Zeph looked down at the floor.

“Is there something else bothering you?” she asked.

Zeph lifted his eyes to hers. “When you and Cheyenne were having baths, Cody and I walked to the telegraph office.”

Charlotte’s gaze became more intense. “Was there something there?”

He nodded.

“Another Bible passage?”

“No. Nothing from Raber. This one was from Matt.”

“What did he say?”

“The gang never came by Iron Springs. Matter of fact, they never came within a hundred miles of Iron Springs.” “Then where are they?”

“Nobody knows.” He took her hands in his. “We have to stick together on this, Conner.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had been in Pennsylvania during the war. I hate that conflict and everything about it. It was jarring to think about Gettysburg again. I was just out of sorts for a few minutes. I trust you, Fremont, and I know we will make it through this. I believe God meant us to see it through together.”

“I haven’t had a lot of time since I read the telegram to figure out what it means,” he told her. “But I have prayed for wisdom about this.”

“And what has God shown you?”

“I think that as soon as their accomplice telegraphed them we were headed for the railroad at Ogden they stopped thinking about Iron Springs. They knew they couldn’t catch us. So they changed direction.”

“To where?”

“If you wanted to make good time on horseback and try to get ahead of the train what route would you use?”

“I’m not sure.” Zeph watched her brow wrinkle and the freckles gather tightly together around her small nose. “You can’t ride through the Powder River Country. It’s been closed to white travelers since the ‘68 treaty with Red Cloud.”

“Are you sure?”

A flash of anger darkened Charlotte’s eyes. “I’m the town librarian, remember? I read about these things all the time.”

“What I meant was, do you think that treaty would keep Seraphim Raber and his crew off the Bozeman Trail?”

Her eyes widened. “But President Grant closed the forts along the Bozeman.”

“All the better. No military patrols to slow them down.”

“What about the tribes?”

“Raber and his men will move fast. Steal or buy fresh horses. Move by night as much as they can. I think Raber’s more worried about the kids than he is the Indians.”

The whistle blew. There was a jerk and a jolt, and Charlotte gripped Zeph’s hands tightly. The train began to move forward.

“We should get back to the children,” she said, getting to her feet.

She linked her arm through his again. They came back through the smoking car. It was empty. They reached their seats just as Cody sprinkled water from a canteen over Cheyenne’s hands. She looked up at Zeph and Charlotte and smiled.

“My fingers are pretty sticky. Sorry.”

“That’s fine,” said Charlotte as she took her seat.

Zeph noticed right away it was a Union army canteen covered in blue cloth. Charlotte caught his look.

“I used it on the stage,” she said.

“I guess I didn’t see it too clearly in the dark.”

“It was Ricky’s. He always carried it.”

“I remember it now. How do you keep it looking so new?” “I wash the cloth regularly.”

The train gathered speed. Cheyenne and Cody had the window seats and eagerly gazed in all directions. Cheyenne said, “Buffalo, Indians, cavalry, US Grant, buffalo, Indians, cavalry, US Grant,” and Charlotte arched her eyebrows.

“That’s quite a chant, Miss Wyoming.”

“I like the rhythm. Cody taught me.”

Cody looked embarrassed. “I didn’t teach her to chant. I just told her that Cannonball would blow the whistle if he saw buffalo and that I hoped we’d see Plains Indians and cavalry, too.”

She squeezed his hand. “That’s all right. It might be nice to see all those things. Provided everyone comes in peace.”

An hour passed. And another. Cody feel asleep with his head propped up on his hand and his elbow planted firmly on the windowsill. Cheyenne slumped into Charlotte’s side. Charlotte placed her arm around the girl.

“Aren’t they precious, Fremont?”

“They are. More precious than gold dust.” “That’s a sweet way of putting it.”

She stared out the window as the sun dropped lower and grew more golden. “Where do you think they’ll show up?”

“They’re going to keep riding the Bozeman and cutting a diagonal from west to east. They’ll come out in Nebraska. We won’t see a sign of them until well after Cheyenne.”

“How long will that be?”

He shrugged. “Depends on where they want to make their move against us. They might wait until Omaha.” “You don’t think that, do you?”

“No.”

“How long, Fremont?”

“They’ll want to put Fort Laramie well behind them. Catch us between Omaha and Cheyenne.”

“You mean they’ll try and stop the train?”

“There’s six of them. Fewer men than that have held up trains.”

Charlotte felt a shiver go through her like ice water. “Where are they going to block the tracks, Fremont?”

“The way I see it, they’ll stick to the North Platte River after the Bozeman plays out and follow it right to the rail line. That’ll put them far enough away from the law and the army to buy them some breathing room.”

“Where and when, Fremont?”

“There’s a little spot named Alkali that will suit them. Big Spring. O’Fallons. Maxwell. Any of them. Two days from here.”

“Two days? Are you sure?” “Less than two days.”

She reached for his hand again. He held hers in both of his. The sun was beginning to set. The Rockies in the east were flames of crimson and bronze and made her cheeks shine. “What will we do, Z?” she whispered. He gave her a small smile and shook his head. “I don’t know yet.”

To himself he thought,
I can’t say that I’ll ever know, Charlotte.

Chapter 12

C
harlotte watched Zeph sleep. They had enjoyed a fine supper the night before at the Green River Dining Halls in Green River, Wyoming. For the first time since she’d taken Cheyenne under her wing, the girl had taken a pencil to paper and tried to make a sketch of Castle Rock, a large hill in the vicinity. The sketch had been done so well it surprised Charlotte. Now they were through the high mountains and traveling across the plains.

The red light of dawn played over Zeph’s eyelids and down over his mouth and the growth of beard that had begun in Virginia City, but he did not stir.

Somewhere in that head of his,
she thought,
he is coming up with a plan to save us. Lord help him,
she prayed.

They had been so tired they hadn’t bothered folding down their seats and making up their beds after Green River. All the others in their sleeper car had done so. Many of the temporary partitions that created a flimsy illusion of privacy were still in place. Charlotte yawned, with her arm over her mouth. They had all slept pretty well just the same. Perhaps tonight they might set things up so they could stretch out their legs and put their heads down onto soft white pillows.

Cody was up and whittling with the pocketknife Zeph had lent him. It looked to her as if a pretty good horse was emerging from the chunk of wood he’d picked off the ground in Green River. Cheyenne was still sleeping, nestled against Charlotte’s side.

Charlotte gazed at the sky as it gradually turned blue like a fabric dipped in dye.

She opened a book in her lap and tried to read. “I remember that.”

She flicked her eyes off the book and up at Zeph. “Remember what?”

“Great Expectations.
I took it out once.” She smiled. “But did you read it?”

He smiled back, sleep still in his brown eyes. “You think I didn’t?”

“I’d just like to know. You borrowed a number of books from Iron Springs Public Library. I’ve often wondered how many of them you finished.”

“Often?”

“Often. Your titles were intriguing. Let’s see,
Oliver Twist
and
Barnaby Rudge
by Dickens.
The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After,
and
The Count of Monte Cristo
by Dumas. I think you read everything by James Fenimore Cooper.”

“I kept hoping you’d call me Natty Bumppo.”

“I recall you took out
The Deerslayer
more than once.”

“My favorite.”

“So you read it?”

“Three times. I even read
Pride and Prejudice
like you wanted.”

“Like I wanted?”

“‘Mister Parker, you will find some interesting male protagonists in her novels, as well as others not to be emulated.’”

She laughed and put a hand over her mouth, as there were still so many people around them sleeping. “I don’t know if I should believe you.”

“‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,’” he said, reciting the opening line of
Pride and Prejudice.

Her hand was still over her mouth. “‘I strive to do right, here,’” he continued, only this time quoting from
The Deerslayer
by Cooper, “‘as the surest means of keeping all right, hereafter. Hetty was oncommon, as all that know’d her must allow, and her soul was as fit to consart with angels the hour it left its body, as that of any saint in the Bible!’”

Charlotte dropped her hand and gave a squeal of surprise and delight. The heavy man in the white suit and gold paisley vest snorted in his sleep. She clapped her hand over her mouth again.

“Mister Wyoming,” she said through her fingers, “how can you play with such a good woman so? Have you really read all those books after all? Have you truly memorized all of Natty Bumppo’s lines in
The Deerslayer?
Every day you become a different man than the one I imagined you were. I don’t think I can bear it. You make my head spin as if I were waltzing.”

“‘Lord, Judith, what a tongue you’re mistress of! Speech and looks go hand in hand, like, and what one can’t do, the other is pretty sartain to perform! Such a gal, in a month, might spoil the stoutest warrior in the colony.’”

“Oh, stop! I completely misjudged you. I thought you were a good-hearted cowboy and Christian.”

“That’s all I am.”

“I did not think you carried Shakespeare in your saddlebag.”

“‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.’”

She dropped her hand from her mouth, her lips curved upward in a permanent smile, and shook her head. “You are incorrigible. And all this time it was my belief you took those books out of the library just to see me.”

Zeph nodded. “That’s exactly why I did it.”

“And that you chose authors I mentioned I liked just to please me.”

“That is the only reason I chose them.”

“But you read them!”

Zeph shrugged and squinted at the ball of fire that was the sun lifting off the prairie. “Well, at first I read them because I had all these ideas of going on long evening rides with you and quoting the books to you.”

“So you did want to impress me.” She felt happy inside at this thought.

“Sure I did. Just didn’t realize I’d like the stories so much. Mom was a great reader, and we had a fair-size bookshelf in the house. I read books about King Arthur and William Tell and Robin of Sherwood. We had books bound in leather that put the plays of Shakespeare into story form, so I read
Macbeth
and
Hamlet
and
King Lear.
My favorite was
Henry V:
‘once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more …’ I may dress cowboy and talk cowboy and act cowboy, but I have a first-class education in me, Missus Wyoming. I just like to hide it the way a Cheyenne brave hides himself in the buffalo grass.”

“Why?”

“Because no one would understand.”

She gazed at him. Zeph had already shown himself to be more of a man than she had ever dreamed he was during their flight from Iron Springs—the way he’d listened as she told about her Amish past, how he’d ridden after her and brought her horse to a halt, when he’d climbed out of the stage in a roaring storm and led the team of horses forward and saved them all. Now he was sitting in front of her and quoting lines from books and poems he’d memorized just so he could speak them to her on evening rides in the mountains at sunset. It was too much for her to take in, an answer to prayer beyond what she could ask or imagine. Yet the promise she had made to her brother bound her, and the binding must keep them apart. She felt a wetness slip down her cheek, but she did nothing to brush it away.