Cowboy to the Rescue (3 page)

“Can I help with anything?” Susanna poked her head through the front opening of the schooner and peered over Zack’s shoulder at Nate. Her gaze dropped to the river, and her eyes widened. “Oh, my. That must be the Rio Grande River. Not quite the Mississippi, but no easy crossing, I’d guess.”

“No, ma’am. It’s a good forty feet across these days because of runoff from the mountains.” Nate hated to think of the punishing ride her father would have if they took the usual mode of getting to the other side. “How is Mr. Anders doing?”

She disappeared behind the canvas for a moment, then reappeared. “He says not to mind him, just do whatever you have to do.” Her usually smooth forehead was creased with concern.

“What do you think?” He could at least give her a chance to decide.

“Do whatever you must.” A steely look narrowed her eyes and tightened her jaw. “That’s what our wagon master said more than once on the trip out here.”

Her courage continued to impress him. Leaving her behind would be all the more difficult in a couple of hours. Maybe he could make it easier with more teasing. “By the way, it’s just Rio Grande.”

“I beg your pardon?” Her cute little grin appeared.

“You said Rio Grande
River.
That’s like saying Big River River.”

She laughed in her musical, ladylike way. “Spanish, of course.”

“Yep.” He could see her mood growing lighter. “And if you really want to get it right, it’s Rio Grande del Norte.” He used his best Spanish inflections, as Angela had taught him. “Great River of the North.”

Susanna put the back of one hand against her forehead in a dramatic pose. “Mercy, mercy. How can little ol’ me evah learn all of that?” Her sweet drawl oozed over him like warm honey.

“Poor little thing.” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Zack coughed softly, shaking Nate loose from his foolish teasing.

“All right. Let’s get this done.”

He drove his wagon into the shade of some cottonwoods, then unhitched the two horses and joined them to the team in front of the schooner. Like old friends glad to be together again, the horses nickered and tossed their heads as much as their harnesses permitted.

Nate considered carrying Mr. Anders across the water on foot, but it wouldn’t do for the old man to get wet, even in this hot weather. Instead, he instructed Susanna to cushion her father as best she could, then brace him for the crossing.

Taking the reins himself, with Zack beside him to help as needed, he circled the schooner around and away from the water to give the horses a running start. Then he slapped the reins and cried, “Hyah!”

His team didn’t let him down. They gamely leaped into their harnesses, built up speed and plunged into the water, their momentum more than matching the current as they angled downriver to conquer the forty-foot expanse. The water covered the wagon’s axles but did not breach the box. With a final lunge, the lead horses emerged from the river, then the second pair, at last pulling the wagon onto dry, solid ground. All four animals shook their manes and whinnied almost as if they’d enjoyed the bath.

But Nate had felt every rock and tree branch submerged under the water’s surface; he’d heard every clatter of the contents of the prairie schooner, along with a yip or two from Susanna and her father. Now to go back and get his wagon. The prospect made his chest tighten with trepidation.

He’d conveyed Mother’s china this far without mishap, but the Great River of the North might just put an end to that. He found it impossible to please the Colonel with his good, hard work, so there was no telling what his father would do if Nate let the china get damaged.

Chapter Three

S
usanna’s pulse finally slowed enough for her to step down from the prairie schooner. Before climbing out, she checked on Daddy, only to find he’d fared better on the crossing than she had because of the thick padding Nate had put in his bed. Shaking out her wobbly legs, she approached Nate and Zack, who were unhitching the horses so they could go back across for Nate’s wagon.

A sudden protectiveness for Mrs. Northam’s anniversary gift stirred within her. No matter that she’d never met the lady. If she’d reared this kind gentleman, Susanna already liked her.

“Surely, you don’t plan to bring the china across the river that same way.” She posted her fists at her waist for emphasis. “Every plate and cup and bowl will be broken.” Maybe there was even some crystal glassware in the crates, and that most certainly would not survive no matter how well it was nestled into the straw packing.

Nate shoved his hat back, revealing the tan line on his forehead and giving him a charmingly boyish appearance. He looked down his straight, narrow nose at her. “I suppose you think I haven’t thought of that.” His tone held a hint of annoyance, but his green eyes held their usual teasing glint. “You have a better idea, Miss Smarty?”

“Humph.” She crossed her arms and tapped one foot on the ground. “As a matter of fact, I do.” Sliding her gaze northward along the river, she pointed toward the raised railroad trestle. “Have you ever heard of a little thing called a train?” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine why you didn’t just have the crates shipped that way over the mountains.”

Now serious, Nate frowned. “The Colonel didn’t trust them to show due care, especially over La Veta Pass. Sometimes trains jump track or run into fallen trees.” His tone suggested he didn’t quite agree with his father. “He didn’t want to risk it.”

At the mention of railroad tragedies, Susanna could think only of the stories she’d heard all her life. Sherman’s army destroyed the Confederacy’s entire rail line, digging up the tracks and wrapping them around trees, burning train stations and cutting telegraph wires. Maybe Colonel Northam participated in that same kind of destruction somewhere in the South. She shook off the memory and forced her thoughts to Mrs. Northam’s certain appreciation of her husband’s extraordinary gift. After all, Northern ladies hadn’t participated in the war, and surely nice things meant as much to them as they did to Southern ladies.

“Maybe he wouldn’t mind just for the crossing?” She lifted her eyebrows with the question and smiled at Nate.

He glanced between the bridge and her, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. This man liked her, she could tell. But she wouldn’t play with him, as she had some of the boys back home. Southern boys understood and even expected flirtation. Yankee boys might get the wrong idea if she behaved as she had back home, and so far their teasing had fallen short of real flirting.

“I wouldn’t have you disobey your daddy, Nate, but isn’t the most important thing getting the china safely to your mother? That would honor both of them most of all, wouldn’t it?”

He grinned in his boyish way. “Yes.” He eyed Zack. “Let’s unhitch Henry.” He nodded toward one of the lead horses. “I’ll ride up the tracks a ways and flag down the train to see if they’ll carry it over for us.”

“It’ll cost you, boss.”

Nate shrugged. “Broken china will cost me a lot more.”

* * *

The moment Nate rode away, Susanna heard her father’s faint call. Zack gave her a worried look as he helped her climb into the rear of the prairie schooner.

“I’m sure he’s all right,” she whispered as she gave the cowboy a nod of appreciation. Then she ducked inside. “Yes, Daddy?” She knelt beside him and brushed the back of her hand over his cheek. “You’re hot. How do you feel?”

“Don’t worry about me, sweet pea.” A glint in his eye contradicted the set of his jaw. “While Northam’s gone, you walk on up to that hotel and give that note to the desk clerk.”

“What? Now?” She retrieved the envelope from beneath her tattered bedding. “Daddy, please tell me what this is all about.”

“Now, daughter, you’ve never been one to question me.” He fumed briefly. “Oh, very well. I’m not partial to being laid up in some hotel in a tent city where no one knows or cares about us. I want that proprietor to turn us away. Then Northam won’t have any choice but to take us on to his place.” He coughed, then held his ribs and groaned with pain. When he recovered, he gave her an apologetic grimace. “Out here in this wild country, it’s hard for a man to be so helpless he can’t even take care of his own daughter. I trust Northam. He’ll do the right thing by us, he and his family.”

Susanna studied him for several moments. He’d slept fitfully last night, and no doubt the river crossing had been hard on him. Maybe he wasn’t in his right mind. But that didn’t give her an excuse for disobeying him. Still, he had never asked her to do anything this close to lying in all her born days. Unless she counted his changing their last name and pretending to be poor. She still hadn’t reconciled herself to those ideas.

“Will you go?” He tried to sit up. “If you won’t, I will.”

“Shh.” She gently pushed him back down. “You rest, dearest. I’ll do as you asked.” Her stomach tightening, she climbed out of the wagon and tied on her bonnet. “Zack, please tell Mr. Northam I’ll be on up the road arranging tea and sandwiches for all of us.” At least that part wouldn’t be a lie.

* * *

Nate emerged from the hotel scratching his head over the manager’s refusal to take in Mr. Anders. He thought everybody out here in the West knew that when decent folks suffered terrible losses, other good men needed to help them out. But Nate’s offer of up-front payment and his promise to return in a day or two to check on them were rebuffed. Even mentioning his father had no effect because the man was new to the area and didn’t know the Colonel’s position in their burgeoning community to the west.

Granted, the one-story wooden hotel wasn’t much to look at, but it was serviceable. New in late May when Nate and Zack had come through the tent city of Alamosa on their way to Pueblo, it already had a well-worn appearance. Like the other premade wooden structures lining the main street, the six-or seven-room establishment had been transported by train one room at a time and set up in haste. No doubt something more substantial would soon be needed to house the many travelers riding the newly laid Denver and Rio Grande railroad line, which would soon extend both south and west.

Nate glanced across the dusty, rutted street and snorted in disgust. Of course, they’d brought in a building for a saloon to keep the railroad workers happy. There would be none of that over in his as-yet-unnamed community. The Colonel always made it clear up front to everyone who came to his settlement that no liquor would ever be allowed there. Apparently, the founders of Alamosa didn’t feel the same way. Even now in midmorning, several disreputable-looking men loitered outside the swinging doors, their posture indicating they’d already had a few drinks. Nate couldn’t help but think Mr. Anders and Susanna would have been better off in Fort Garland, Buffalo Soldiers notwithstanding. But he couldn’t take them back there now.

Nor could he put off delivering the bad news about the hotel to Mr. Anders. Peering into the back of the prairie schooner, he waited until his eyes adjusted to the dimness before speaking.

“Everything all right, Nate?” the old man croaked.

“Yes, sir. No, sir. I mean—” He couldn’t manage to say the words. “Is Susanna back from getting her tea?” Foolish question. Obviously, she wasn’t in the wagon. “Maybe I’d better go check on her.”

“You do that, son.” Mr. Anders lay back with a groan.

His belly twisting, Nate turned back to the hotel just as Susanna came up the street carrying a tray laden with a teapot and sandwiches.

“I finally found some refreshments at a cute little tent café down the road.” She tilted her head prettily in that direction. “I brought enough for everybody.” She held the tray out to Zack, who was eyeing the food like a hungry bear. “Help yourself.”

“Much obliged, miss.” He tore off one leather glove and snatched up a sandwich with his grimy paw. “A mighty welcome change from all them beans.”

At the sight of his dirty hand, Nate cringed, but Susanna didn’t seem to notice. Or chose to ignore it, as any lady would.

“Did they give us a room?” Her expression revealed a hint of conflict, almost as if she hoped they hadn’t.

Once again, that feeling of protectiveness welled up inside Nate, and his concerns vanished. He knew what he had to do. “No, ma’am, but don’t you worry your pretty head about it. It’s just a few more hours to my ranch. We’ll put you up until your father recuperates.”

With some effort, he willed away his anxieties about the Colonel. Mother was hospitality itself, and she would more than make up for his father’s reaction. If worse came to worst, Nate could always take the Colonel aside and point out that Susanna was the one who insisted he take the china over the river by train. Otherwise, Nate would tell him, he wouldn’t have dared come home, because all the dishes would doubtless have been broken coming across the river’s rough bottom in the fast-flowing current. That should convince the Colonel she and her father deserved some help.

For Nate’s part, he was grateful for the Denver and Rio Grande engineer and conductor, who had been more than obliging. Once they’d learned the shipment was for the Colonel, they’d ordered their own men to give a hand. And once they’d learned it was imported china, the other men couldn’t have been more careful. Seemed every one of them understood a man wanting to do something nice for his mother. When all was said and done, Nate couldn’t have been more pleased, and it had only cost him ten dollars for the lot of them.

Nor could he say he was disappointed when the hotel manager turned Mr. Anders away. After all, Nate had wanted more time with Susanna. Now he had it. The Colonel might have ideas about him marrying Maisie Eberly, but he could never feel the attraction for his longtime friend that he already felt after only two days with Susanna.

* * *

As they resumed their journey, Susanna noticed how pleased Nate seemed. In spite of the brisk wind whipping up all kinds of dust, he’d left off his kerchief and kept smiling her way. It was plain as the nose on his handsome face that he didn’t mind his Good Samaritan role, and she kept thanking the Lord for his kindness.

She really shouldn’t be hanging out the back of the wagon, but she couldn’t help herself, even with all that dust threatening to choke her. Many weeks ago, she’d resigned herself to landscapes far different from the verdant fields and forests of Georgia. When they had viewed a large area of the San Luis Valley from the mountain pass, she had observed vast expanses of green and several broad lakes glistening in the sunlight. But the valley floor had some stretches of desertlike land, as well, and she wondered how anyone could expect to farm it successfully.

Thank the Lord that Daddy had chosen to be a prospector instead of a homesteader. He was far too old to till unbroken sod, and even his prospecting was more of a hobby than an occupation, at least in her mind. After all, they had enough money to live on. If they hit hard times, Edward would send more. Once Daddy was back on his feet, she’d let him have his fun searching for silver and gold for a little while. Let him find a silver nugget or two, and then she would persuade him to take her back home to Marietta.

Being in the company of a kind, compassionate, educated man like Nate reminded her of her yearning to find a good
Southern
gentleman to marry, someone with whom she could build a home and family in the hometown she loved so much, among the friends she’d known all her life. For now, however, she must set aside those longings and take care of Daddy. She whispered a prayer that the Lord would tell Mama she was keeping her promise.

At last the dust won out, and she pulled her head back inside the schooner and closed the flap. Daddy was bearing up quite well, although he still had moments of incoherence and slept fitfully when he did manage to sleep. She prayed there would be a doctor near Nate’s ranch who could help him.

By midafternoon, they had reached a small settlement of several houses, some buildings and a white clapboard church with a high steeple. Nate had said they would take time to stretch their legs and water the horses before going on, and now he hurried to help Susanna out of the wagon.

“Shall we get a bite to eat?” He waved a hand toward another white clapboard building, this one with a sign over the door that read Williams’s Café. “Those sandwiches didn’t last me very long, and it’s a few hours until supper at the ranch.”

A sudden nervous flutter in Susanna’s stomach extinguished her appetite. Supper at the ranch meant at last meeting that intimidating Union colonel. Would he still be fighting the war, as most Southerners were, if only with words? Habitual animosity filled her chest, but she wouldn’t let on to Nate.

“Maybe a piece of pie, if they have some.” She nodded her head toward the wagon. “I think it would be good for Daddy, too.” As Nate tipped his hat and started toward the building, she touched his arm.

His eyes widened with apparent surprise as he turned back. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Do you suppose there’s someplace where I could, um, well...?” She shook her brown skirt, and dust flew in every direction. “I would like to be a bit more presentable before I meet your mother.”
And especially your father.
Maybe he would take more kindly to them if they didn’t look so bedraggled.

“Now, don’t worry about that.” Nate grinned. “I’m sure she’ll understand that you’ve been on the road.” He glanced toward the building. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

Mrs. Williams, the café owner, could not have been more accommodating. It seemed that the Northam name held much more power in this unnamed settlement than it did in Alamosa. Miss Pam, as she asked to be called, had a permanent smile etched in the lines of her slender face. She appeared to be around fifty years old, and her warm brown eyes exuded maternal kindness as she invited Susanna into her own quarters at the back of the café.