Mail Order Bride: On The Run: A Historical Mail Order Bride Story (Mail Order Brides) (5 page)

The pink highlights of dawn glowed in the window of the hotel room. David opened his eyes and found Lou Ann watching him.

He sighed and stretched. “How long have you been awake?”

“A while,” she told him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then snapped them open again. “You haven’t been lying awake all night, have you?”

“No,” she replied. “I slept.”

David scratched his head. His hair stuck out from his head at odd angles. Lou Ann smiled at him. “I hope you did.” He glanced toward the window. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know,” Lou Ann told him. “
but the sun is almost up. You should get up and get something to eat.”

He lifted his head off the pillow and cast a quick look over at the table. “You still haven’t eaten. You haven’t eaten since before the church service yesterday. You must be getting light-headed. It’s no wonder you’re so emotional.”

“I’m okay now,” Lou Ann told him. “I’ll have something with you when we get up.”

David looked at her side-long. “You look different. What is it?”

“I feel different,” Lou Ann admitted.

“What is it?” he asked again.

“I’m okay now,” she told him. “I’m ready for what comes next. I wasn’t ready before, but I am now.”

“That’s good,” he exclaimed. “I was getting worried about you.”

“You won’t ever have to worry about me again,” Lou Ann declared.

David narrowed his eyes at her, trying to understand what she meant. She smiled at him. No doubt he saw the serene determination in that smile. The same steadfast resolve permeated her whole being.

David swung his legs over the side of the bed and slipped into his clothes. Lou Ann followed, and before long, she joined him at the table. They shared the remaining food without much conversation.

Lou Ann considered how to break her decision to him. How would he react? He might forbid her to carry out her plan. She couldn’t allow that to happen, not now that it gave her so much peace of mind in the face of uncertainty.

She studied him as he ate, and her gaze made him uncomfortable. Or maybe he already felt the need to separate himself from her in anticipation of their parting. Their separation must be as painful to him as it was to her before her vision in the middle of the night.

The vision made her leave the table before David finished eating. She went to her trunk and pushed back the lid. She dug around in the corners and down to the bottom until she pulled out a collection of woolen winter knits. She stacked them on the bed in a neat pile.

Then she went back into the trunk and brought out a heavy leather coat. Her uncle insisted she bring it just in case. She blessed him in her heart as she folded it up and set it next to the knitwear.

David watched her diving into the trunk a third time. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t turn around. “I’m getting out a few things I think I’ll need.”

“What have you got there?” he asked. “What do you need woolen mittens for? It’s a hundred and ten degrees in the shade out there.”

“It is now,” she replied. “But it gets cold in the desert at night and in winter. I’ll need these.”

David frowned. “
Dad’ll be here in a few minutes with the wagon. He can take your whole trunk back to the house. You don’t need to unpack anything here.”

Finally, she turned around. She smiled at the confused look on his face. She couldn’t hold out on him anymore. “I won’t be going back to the house. I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not,” David shot back. “You’re going to the farm. It’s all arranged. You heard me talking to Dad about it yesterday. He’ll be here to pick you up in a few minutes, if he isn’t waiting outside already.”

Lou Ann sat down in the chair next to David at the table. She rested her hand on his knee. She couldn’t leave him in the dark any longer. “I’ve made up my mind, David. I’m not waiting at the farm for you to come home. I’m not going to spend the years of my life alone. I’m going with you.”

“It’s too hard for you,” David insisted. He didn’t say “for a woman”, but Lou Ann heard it in his voice, anyway. “You don’t want to live out in the desert, not when you could be living in a nice cozy house on the farm. Take my word for it. You’ll be much more comfortable here.”

“You’ll be much more comfortable here, too,” Lou Ann pointed out. “But you’re going. So I’m going, too. Whatever hardship you’re going to endure down there, I’m going to endure it with you. We’re married now. We’re going together.”

“You’re crazy!” he exclaimed.

Lou Ann patted his hand and rose from the table. She went back to her trunk and the arrangement of her things. “I may be crazy, but I’m going.”

“What will you do?” David demanded. “Can you ride a horse or shoot a gun? Can you hunt for our food? It’s hard living out there, and they may send men out to bring me back.”

“I can’t ride a horse or shoot a gun,” Lou Ann admitted. “But I can learn. And if they send anyone to bring you back, you’ll need all the help you can get to fight them off.”

David gasped. “You! You fight them off! You’re out of your mind! You’re a woman.”

Lou Ann regarded him. “So you noticed. Come on. Finish eating. It’s nearly time to go.”

David stared at her. Then he smacked his lips in exasperation. “Heaven help me! What’s this I’ve married? What did I do to deserve this?”

Lou Ann burst out laughing. She flew over to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. “You wanted a wife, and now you have one. Learn to love it.”

“Well, blue blazes!” David stood up and slapped his thigh with his hat. “You don’t give a man much room to wiggle, do you?”

“There’ll be no wiggling.” Lou Ann wrapped a knitted shawl around her shoulders. She tied another into a bundle around the articles from her trunk she wanted to bring. “Come on. Let’s go. Your father will be waiting for you downstairs.”

Arthur McGee raised an eyebrow at the sight of Lou Ann dressed to travel with her bundle in her arms, but said nothing. He held David’s horse by the reins. His buggy stood nearby.

He handed David a set of saddlebags. “Take these. There’s a little bit of food, and some money, and a box of shells.”

David took the bags and slung them across his saddle. “Thanks, Dad.”

“You’ve got your rifle,” Mr. McGee continued. “And there are more guns and ammunition at the cabin. Will you have everything else you need?”

“We’ll be fine, Dad,” David told him.

Arthur McGee’s eyes flew open. “ ‘We’?”

David rolled his eyes at his father. “She wants to come.”

“And you let her?” Arthur McGee asked.

“It wasn’t a matter of ‘let’,” David replied. “She wouldn’t bend an inch.”

“Still,” Mr. McGee remarked. “You’re her husband. You should tell her to stay here, where it’s safe.”

“Tell her?” David crossed his arms over his chest. “You tell her. See what happens.”

Arthur McGee turned to Lou Ann. “You’re not thinking of going to Canyonlands with him, are you?”

“Yes, I am,” Lou Ann declared. “I’m going, and no one is going to stop me.”

“You could be making it worse for him by going,” Mr. McGee told her. “You realize that, don’t you?”

“I don’t think so,” Lou Ann replied.

“You could be endangering him,” Arthur McGee pointed out. “If a posse comes hunting for him, he’d have to worry about protecting you and fighting them off at the same time.”

“No.” Lou Ann shook her head. “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t go if I thought I would be putting him in any more danger than he‘s already in. I can help protect him, and I can help him hunt for food, too.”

David interrupted. “But you’ve never done it before, have you? Unless there’s something you haven’t told me.”

“No, I haven’t,” Lou Ann admitted. “
but everyone has to learn some time.  You weren’t born knowing how to hunt and shoot and live off the land. You learned. Someone taught you. Now you’ll teach me and I will learn. What could be simpler?”

David turned to his father. “You see? It’s hopeless.”

“You’ll need a woman at this cabin of yours,” Lou Ann continued. “You’ll need someone to cook and clean for you. You need a woman to make your life more comfortable. I can do all that. You don’t want to be living alone in a cabin in the middle of the wilderness. That’s no life for you.”

“What about me?” Arthur McGee asked. “I need a woman to make my life more comfortable, too. You could be cooking and cleaning for me at the farm.”

Lou Ann scanned him up and down. “If you want a woman to make your life more comfortable and to cook and clean for you, why don’t you get yourself a mail-order bride?”

Arthur McGee smiled. “Maybe I will. It doesn’t sound half bad, now that you mention it. I was looking forward to having you around the farm.”

“David needs me more where he’s going,” Lou Ann told him. “A wife belongs with her husband, not with her father-in-law.”

“Well, then, here.”Arthur McGee fished his wallet out of his pocket and shoved a stack of bills into David’s hand. “Stop by the livery stable and get
yourself another horse.”

“But I don’t know how to ride yet,” Lou Ann objected.

David guffawed. “Well, I can’t take you on my horse all the way, can I? It’s almost three hundred miles to Canyonlands from here.”

Lou Ann’s brow furrowed. “It is?” She hadn’t thought of that before. The decision to go with David made so much sense to her she just didn’t think about the journey itself.

“Does that make you change your mind?” David asked. “You’ll have to ride a horse to get there.”

Lou Ann tightened her grip on her bundle. “No, I’ll go. I’ll just have to learn to ride, that’s all. And today will be my first lesson. Let’s go.”

David and his father exchanged glances. “Nice try,” Mr. McGee muttered.

“Was Mom like this?” David asked.

Arthur snorted. “All the time. I couldn’t scratch my backside without checking with her first.” He clapped his son on the shoulder. “I feel sorry for you.”

“If you could handle it,” David replied, “I guess I will, too.”

“You should be glad,” his father told him. “A good woman who cares enough to put herself out on your account is a prize. You should treasure her. You don’t know how long you’ll have her.”

Father and son gazed at each other, sharing a silent understanding. Then they threw their arms around each other, clutching at one another in a bear hug. Lou Ann averted her eyes.

When the men separated, Arthur McGee sniffed away his tears. “You two take care of yourselves. Young lady,” he nodded to Lou Ann. “you take good care of my boy here. I’m counting on you.”

“Don’t you worry, Mr. McGee,” Lou Ann declared. “I’ll take good care of him, and I’ll bring him back to you just as soon as all of this blows over.”

“I know you will,” Mr. McGee replied.

David took the reins from his father. “Well, come on, then. If you’re coming, let’s go. The sheriff will be here soon.”

She stepped forward, not sure what to do.

David picked her up and positioned her behind his saddle. “You’ll have to hold onto your bundle with one hand and hold onto me with the other. The livery stable is just around the corner. Then we can tie your bundle to your saddle. You’ll need two hands to steer the horse.”

Lou Ann shifted on the horse’s back. Could she really do this? Was she just fooling herself that she could learn to do everything necessary to live in the wilderness? She dared not ask David for reassurance.

But he noticed her hesitation. “Don’t worry. Your horse will follow mine, so you won’t have any serious riding to do right off. You’ll have plenty of time to learn the ropes.”

Lou Ann shifted again to get her bearings. Or were they her sea legs? Or should she call them horse legs? Was there really such a thing as horse legs?

But she didn’t have time to think about it, because David swung up into the saddle in front of her. He tightened up on his reins and nodded to his father. “See you around, Dad. We’ll be back before you know it, and then you’ll be hankering for a way to get rid of us.”

Arthur McGee pretended to smile back at his son, but the tears stood out in his eyes, just waiting for David and Lou Ann to leave before he let his tears flow freely.

Father and son gave each other another quick nod. Then David wheeled his horse away and kicked it into a trot through the streets. The morning sun broke above the roofs of the houses, and the newlyweds rode away to start their life together.

The End

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