Sixteen Brides (9 page)

“I don’t know a single thing about what kind of horses Mr. Gray would have on a ranch,” Caroline said. She really didn’t want to pursue the topic of Lucas Gray. “But maybe we can go up to the livery and see what they have in the way of horses for hire. In fact—if you’ll go ask Mrs. Haywood to lend us a couple of shovels, we’ll shovel our way to breakfast at the dining hall and then maybe go on to the livery this very mornin’—depending, of course, on what your mama thinks of the idea.”

“She won’t like it,” Jackson said. Finally, he opened the dormitory door all the way and stepped out into the hall. “She’s always worrying about me getting hurt. And horses?” He shook his head.

“George Washington Jackson Dow,” Caroline said with mock horror. “Did you sleep in your clothes?”

He licked the palms of both hands and smoothed his hair. “Don’t tell Mother.”

Caroline just shook her head. She pointed toward the front door. “You’d best get started shoveling so there’ll be a good reason why you’re so rumpled. The sons of generals have no call to look so raggedy. And besides that, you need to be in your mama’s good graces when we ask her about your learning to ride.”

Caroline had just bent to scoop her first shovelful of snow when a snowball glanced off her left shoulder. “Hey!” She brushed it off and shook a finger at Jackson. “You’d better watch out, Mr.—” Another snowball landed. Jackson laughed. Caroline made a show of standing her shovel in the snow, then bent down to make her own snowball. Jackson had pelted her a third and a fourth time before she had a chance to scrape together enough snow to launch even one defense. It fell apart in midair. With a screech, she made another one, this time packing it firmly and sending out a victorious shout when it hit its target. Turning her back on Jackson, she slid her way around the corner of the Immigrant House.

“Hey,” Jackson called. “I didn’t hit you too hard, did I?” He sounded worried.

Instead of reassuring him, Caroline concentrated on making snowballs. “Caroline?”

She stayed quiet and kept working.

“Don’t be mad,” he pleaded. “I was just—”

The frozen top layer of snow crunched as Jackson came toward her. As he rounded the corner, Caroline launched three snowballs in quick succession—and landed all three. The boy let out a whoop as he scooped snow with a cupped hand and sent a wave of white her way. As she dodged the crystalline shower, Caroline heard a door open.

“You two children hush,” Ruth called. “You’ve awakened the entire dormitory!”

“It’s all my fault,” Caroline said, breathless as she hurried to retrieve her shovel and get back to work. “I was just—” She never got the words out.

Ruth launched a snowball that, while aimed at Caroline’s shoulder, glanced off and hit her in the face. Ruth slung a second snowball at Jackson. “I win,” she called, and ducked back inside.

Caroline and Jackson exchanged surprised smiles.

“I guess Nebraska agrees with Mother,” Jackson said.

They shoveled furiously and ended up clearing a path across to the mercantile and then on past to the dining hall and toward the newspaper office, laughing and challenging each other to go faster and faster until, from behind them, Mrs. Haywood called out that she had fresh coffee ready. Up ahead, the livery doors slid open with a screech.

“Well, I declare,” Caroline said. The ladies would be glad to learn there was no need to worry about that nice Mr. Cooper being trapped alone in a snowstorm. Here he was, pulling his suspenders up as, hatless, he looked up at the blue sky. Apparently he caught a whiff of Martha Haywood’s coffee, because he inhaled deeply and, smiling, turned toward the dining hall. At first sight of Caroline, though, he hesitated. His hand went up to smooth his hair. He looked down at his mud-spattered work pants and went back inside.

Caroline sent Jackson to return the shovels and then headed toward breakfast in the dining hall. She would have made it, too . . . had it not been for the ice.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

ROMANS 13:13

I’
ll be fine,” Caroline muttered to the air. Feeling silly, she floundered her way off the ice to a spot where a thin crust of snow still granted some semblance of footing. She glanced around, grateful that Mr. Cooper had ducked out of sight and thus no one had seen her graceless fall. She planted her left foot to stand up. Pain shot up her leg. She tried again. This time, a wave of nausea made her sit back with a grunt and close her eyes. Someone swept her up in his arms. He smelled . . . musty. Embarrassed, she demanded to be put down and was ignored.

“Put me
down
.” A combination of anger and humiliation brought on tears. Her nose began to run. “I said, put me
down.
” As she swiped the tears out of her eyes, she realized she was already at the Immigrant House. Her rescuer loped up the stairs, down the wide hall between the dormitories, and into the kitchen. Finally, he plopped her into a chair just as Hettie Raines came in from the hall.

“What’s happened?”

Sniffing and swiping at her tears, Caroline recognized the man who’d caught her parasol when it blew away yesterday. He wore a hide coat and breeches tucked into knee-high boots decorated with a wide strip of beading up the side. Long, unkempt hair and a thick black beard made him look half wild. And once again he just stood there, staring at her with those pale blue eyes of his and saying nothing. When he finally did speak it was to Hettie. “She fell,” he said. Glancing down at Caroline, he muttered, “Hope it isn’t broken.” He retreated out the kitchen door without another word.

The last thing on earth Hettie wanted anything to do with was doctoring. Ladies like her, who knew about doctoring, were unusual and people tended to talk about things that were unusual. Hettie didn’t want to be talked about. Talk had a way of traveling, and the past had a way of catching up with a person. If that happened, she didn’t know what she would do. The idea sent a tremor of panic to the very tips of her toes. But here sat Caroline, white as a sheet and in pain. Habit and Forrest’s training trumped fear.

“Where exactly does it hurt, Caroline?”

She pointed to her ankle.

“W-we’ll need to get your boot off before your ankle swells any more,” Hettie said. “I’ll fetch a button hook and be right back.” Button hook in hand, she sat down and lifted Caroline’s foot into her lap, quickly unhooking each of the ten buttons running up the side of the stylish black leather boot. She pulled it off as quickly as possible, pleased when Caroline only grunted with pain. “That’s a good sign.”

“What’s a good sign? That it hurts like the devil himself?”

“No, it’s a good sign you didn’t scream.” With her palm flat against the ball of Caroline’s foot, Hettie applied gentle pressure, flexing the foot so the toes pointed to the ceiling. She prodded the swollen tissue around the joint and had Caroline move it from side to side. Finally, she nodded. “It’s only a sprain, and I don’t think it’s too bad.” Lowering Caroline’s foot to the floor, she went out back and filled a dishpan with snow. “Ice is the best thing I know,” she said as she set the tub on the floor in front of Caroline.

“You want me to put my foot in there?” Caroline shivered.

“You’ll only be able to stand it a little while, but it’ll help keep the swelling down.”

“It
hurts
.” Caroline grimaced as she slipped her foot into the snow.

“Who was your knight in shining armor?”

“My what?”

“The man who carried you in.”

“Someone from town. I don’t know. He was over at the station yesterday. Helping Mr. Cooper load his wagon, I think.” Caroline clenched her jaw against the cold. “I was supposed to help Mrs. Hay-worth in the mercantile today. For a few days, actually. Could you go in for me?”

“No!” Hettie ducked her head. “I . . . I don’t know anything about keeping a store.”

“Neither do I. I pretty much figured it was smile and do what you’re told. I imagine Linney knows everything a body’d need to know. She told me she practically grew up working there, and she’s sweet as sweet can be. You’ll be just fine.”

A solution presented itself when Mavis and Helen exited the dormitory and headed for the front door. Hettie hurried after them, explaining what had happened to Caroline and what she’d promised Mrs. Haywood. “I know you were going to ask about work at the dining hall, but maybe one of you could help in the mercantile instead?”

By Thursday evening the last vestiges of the snow had melted. Hettie said she felt confident that if Caroline kept her ankle wrapped and if she elevated it when she was sitting down, it would likely be “almost back to normal” within a couple of days. “I doubt you’ll be up to dancing tomorrow night, but with a little help you should be able to make your way to the dining hall and enjoy the music. Martha says they have a fiddler who’s next to none.”

Sally winked at Caroline. “She won’t have no trouble gettin’ to the dance. I reckon that guardian angel will check in just when you need him again and want a dance, too. Although he smells a bit rangy to be a member of the heavenly host, he makes up for it with all the rest.”

“The rest of what?” Caroline frowned at Sally over the top of the most recent edition of the
Plum Grove News
.

“Did you hit yer head when you fell? Didn’t you see those blue eyes?” Sally gave a little shiver.

Caroline pretended to concentrate on the newspaper. “I did not hit my head. And for your information I remember quite well that he definitely did
not
look like a man who spends time waltzing with the ladies.”

Only a very tiny bit of her halfway hoped that whoever he was, the mountain man might reappear at the dance. After all, waltzing wasn’t all that hard to learn.

The framework that would soon be three new buildings on Main Street looked like as many skeletons silhouetted against the sunset sky. From where he stood just inside the livery’s wide double doors, Matthew Ransom took stock of how Plum Grove was growing. Linney said the three newest buildings would be another mercantile, a hotel, and, of all things, a photography studio run by some fellow who’d just come into town today and was rooming over in the station house. Oh yes, Plum Grove was growing.

Already wagons and carriages lined Main for tonight’s dance. Laughter sounded from up the street, and Matthew imagined he could already hear the one-two-three as boots and slippers waltzed across the dining hall floor. Today he felt Katie’s absence as if it were something new. She wasn’t there to hear the laughter, to wonder at how on earth Bill Toady got the sounds he did from a fiddle, to exclaim over this new baby and that toddler, to complain when Matthew stood with the group of men gathered outside the dining hall jawing about crops and livestock.

How Katie would have loved the new display of geegaws in the front window at the mercantile. Her blue eyes would have shone just like Linney’s did when she showed him the jet buttons. Maybe he’d buy a card of them for Linney. Martha was planning to teach her to sew this spring.

Jet buttons.
The pretty little thing he’d scooped up out of the snow a couple of days ago liked jet buttons, too. He felt a little guilty about his ability to remember how those buttons marched downward from the velvet-edged collar of her blue dress. Scratching his beard, Matthew tried and failed to suppress a smile remembering how angry she’d been when he scooped her up. She was light as a feather. And she smelled like spring. He wondered if she would be wearing that same dress tonight. And he hated himself for wondering.
I’m sorry, Katie.

Old Bill Toady was already outdoing himself this evening. Matthew hadn’t heard fiddle music that good in a long while.
You haven’t heard ANY music in a long while. Unless you count Jeb Cooper’s humming to himself when you helped him load his freight.
Folks seemed to be having a wonderful time. The music and laughter had an odd effect on Matthew. He didn’t quite understand why, but instead of drawing him toward it, the sound of people enjoying themselves made part of him wish he hadn’t promised Linney a dance. Made him wish he hadn’t agreed to stay in town for a few days.

Already Vernon Lux was talking about how he needed a carpenter to fill the orders he was getting for new wagons over at the implement store, how there would likely be a rash of business once the new homesteaders started breaking ground, how good Matthew had always been at woodworking and such. “Why don’t you think about it,” Lux had said earlier today. “That back room would fix up nice. You could use it for as long as you wanted. I bet Linney would dance a jig to have her pa close by.”

These were the things keeping Matthew up here in the livery. Pondering Plum Grove’s expansion and Linney’s growing up and Katie’s absence. Realizing that Vernon Lux was right. And dreading what it all meant for Matthew Ransom.

“Oh, Mama.” Ella looked down at Mama’s open trunk and the familiar bandbox from a certain milliner’s shop in St. Louis. How had she managed to sneak it onto the train? “How did you—”

Mama waved a hand in the air. “Where there is the will, Zita finds a way.” She grinned. “You are so easy to fool sometimes.” She pointed to the hatbox. “The hard part was keeping you from seeing it when I took it out of my traveling case last night.” Mama chuckled. “I thought you’d never go to the necessary! Now—” She reached for the hat. “Hurry and put on your Sunday dress. It doesn’t match exactly, but—”

“Mama.” Ella glanced toward the hallway, mindful of how the other ladies had looked a few minutes ago as they helped Mrs. Jamison out the door and toward the dining hall. Multicolored songbirds fluttering up the street—that’s what Ella had thought. Even Mrs. Dow had laid aside black in favor of indigo silk.

“Take it.” Mama held out the new hat. “A new hat for a new life. Wear it to please
me
.”

“I can’t.” Ella plopped down on the bed. How could she make Mama understand? It had taken so very much effort to grasp a new dream and new hope and to climb back into the light. But that light did not include womanly things like new bonnets and waltzes. Ella’s new light shone on dreams of well-fed livestock and mountains of newly mown hay.