The Passionate and the Proud (14 page)

Emmalee said nothing. Myrtle was too close to the truth. She was, in fact, right on the truth.

“Why, honey, I bet you haven’t even gone over and thanked Garn Landar for saving you. That chief is still ridin’ his white horse ’stead o’ you because of Garn, you know that?”

That, Emmalee had to admit, was also true. But how was she to thank Garn for what he’d done?
He
was the one who’d told her that he would do something to make her regard him in a respectful light. And he had. But her own ignominy was so intricately bound up with what he’d done that she was hesitant to face what she was certain would be his sardonic reception of her thanks.
She
had been the one posturing as an individual of maturity and common sense. Yet she’d been the one who’d hidden in the Conestoga: a reckless act of bad judgment no matter how you looked at it.

It was dark now, except for the light from a curved scimitar of moon above the foothills. Emmalee saw Myrtle shake her head.

“Honey, Garn Landar may be all you think him to be, or even worse, but you ought to go thank him for what he did. The man deserves that, anyway. You can do it. You got the stuff. I been watchin’ you. A lot of people been watchin’ you. You ain’t been bellyachin’ about that two-year deal Torquist made you sign, an’ you took right fine care of poor old Bernice.”

“But everybody thinks I’m an idiot because I almost provoked those Arapaho.”

“Could of been me.” Myrtle laughed. “Thank Landar first chance you get. You’ll feel better.”

“I will,” Emmalee promised, remembering the time she’d spent in Garn’s cabin on the
Queen of Natchez.
She’d thought she had seen the last of him
then,
with no regrets. She had thought she’d seen the last of him, too, after that intimate night beneath the wagon. But his handling of the Indians, along with relatively discreet behavior on the train, had pretty much set aright the suspicion with which he’d first been regarded, so it looked as if he was here to stay.

Every time Emmalee thought she might have seen the last of him, he kept popping up again, with a wink and a grin and a smart remark to put her in her place.

“
Emmalee, I swear I’ll cut your tongue out. And how could you live without it
?”

“All right,” she promised Myrtle again, “I’ll thank him when I see him.”

“Can’t hurt,” replied the older woman, belching. “Yonder comes the coffin now. Best we ditch these whiskey mugs.”

Carpenter Juneus Peabody, blacksmith Lawrence Redding, and the Buttlesworths, father and son, carried the coffin over to the wagon and set it down on the endgate. Myrtle lit a lantern inside the wagon. She and Emmalee lifted Bernice Creel’s body and laid it gently inside the plain, elongated wooden box for burial in the morning. Ebenezer did not awaken.

“I’ll stay with him,” Emmalee said. “I promised Mrs. Creel I’d take care of him.”

When the others had gone, Emmalee put a second blanket over the sleeping Ebenezer. She was just about to blow out the lantern when she caught sight of Creel’s big leather money belt hanging from a hook on one of the Conestoga’s curved wooden ribs. Emmalee excused herself for being only human, yet she could not help but remember Ebenezer’s offer of a hundred dollars for taking care of his wife. She would never have dreamed of taking money that was not offered to her, but she
was
curious…

The belt had about fifty slots notched into its thick length. Emmalee ran her hands over its cool, supple leather and removed it from the hook. Glancing at Creel to make sure he was still asleep, she carried the belt beneath lantern light and slipped a finger into one of the slots, touching crinkly paper.

She thrust her fingers into a second slot.

More paper, crisp and rustling. Like money.

She checked three more notches and felt paper in every slot.

Emmalee’s heart was beating fast. If there was a hundred-dollar bill in each of the slots she’d assayed, it was enough to buy her out of bondage to Horace Torquist!

Ebenezer’s hammock swayed slightly as he shifted position. Emmalee started and hid the belt behind her. But the old man slept on. Carefully then, she grasped a corner of one of the bills and withdrew it slowly. The numeral “1” revealed itself. She drew the bill out a little farther. A “0” showed itself in the lantern light and a second “0” followed. Another small tug and a third “0” dazzled Emmalee’s eyes. She yanked the bill all the way out of the slot. It was a
one-thousand-dollar note
!

Emmalee discovered that her heart was not completely free of larcenous impulses. She held the belt to her breast, clutched the bill tightly in her hand, and studied Creel. Did he count his money every day? Had he really been gambling with Garn? Had he been drinking too much? Might he have become confused about exactly how much cash he had?

Oh, Emmalee. Forget it. You can’t do this. And you’re always saying how you want to make your way on your own.

But…

“No,” she said quietly, taking a last look at the money before slipping it back inside its notch. The digits glittered, $1000, but now Emmalee saw, printed proudly across the crisp paper,
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA
.

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, she took all the bills out of the belt. There were tens and twenties, a lot of fifties, more hundreds, quite a lot of thousands, and even two glorious ten-thousand-dollar notes. All of it was Confederate currency. Ebenezer Creel held a king’s ransom in worthless money. Maybe it had been his reward for spying on Union General Boris Mad Dog Spaeth.

Emmalee replaced the bills, hung the belt back on its hook, got her bedroll, and spread it beneath the wagon. She’d be nearby in case Ebenezer awoke and needed somebody to talk to during the night. How silly she seemed to herself now. Bernice was dead in the coffin, Ebenezer was bereft, helpless, and asleep. Yet Emmalee, strong and young and healthy, had been standing there in the wagon, holding the belt as if it were the holy grail, dreaming of release from five-hundred-dollars’ worth—two years’ worth—of bondage.

Don’t even think of doing something that idiotic again,
she chided herself. Had the money been real, Torquist and the others would have known where she’d gotten it. Then she’d have been in a jam for sure.

She imagined Garn Landar laughing at her and quickly determined not to think about him.

She slipped into her nightdress, pulled blankets up around her neck—Denver was colder than the Great Plains had been—and thought of the Creels, whose long life together had just come to an end. She thought of her own life, too, and of the things Myrtle Higgins had told her. Obviously Randy confided in the old woman, clever enough to know that Myrtle, in her own way, would pass along to Emmalee continuing word of his serious interest in her.

A man was definitely serious if he wanted to go partners with you in acquiring land. And he was
really
serious if he was thinking about marrying you.

Without difficulty, Emmalee conjured up a mental image of Randy Clay, with his guileless smile and strong, honest face, his golden, rough-cut curls and lithe, powerful body. The Bent sisters were always mooning over him. Every time they saw him talking to Emmalee, they would hardly speak to her for days afterward. Trouble was, Randy was sort of hesitant. He could talk about land and the future just fine, but dealing with actual feelings came harder for him, and he was awkward at it. Emmalee had wanted to kiss him the one time he’d asked. But his shy streak and his natural reticence, at other times so appealing, in retrospect made it almost seem as if she would have been kissing a favorite brother.

That was your own fault, she accused herself. The body she’d felt pressing against her own in the shadow of the Conestoga had not been that of a man intent upon bestowing a brotherly kiss.

What would she tell him if he worked up the nerve to make a forthright proposal? He might. Soon they would be
in
Olympia, actually claiming the land they’d been dreaming of for so long. What would her answer be?

Emmalee didn’t know. She just didn’t feel ready to decide, to make such a choice. Myrtle’s peptalk notwith-standing.

But if she didn’t match his seriousness of intent, assuming he came to her and minced no words, wouldn’t he lose interest in her? Wouldn’t he have a right?

Garn was a definite problem in this matter. He complicated everything. There was no doubt in Emmalee’s mind about her bodily response to him, as if her physical being had a will in rebellion against propriety and good sense. Emmalee found it both irritating and dangerous to realize the sheer physical attraction he exerted upon her, even when she was only thinking about him. That kind of influence had to be watched carefully and guarded against. If a woman could remember the sensation aroused by the sweetness of a man’s caress, remember it long after the caress had been bestowed, if she could feel the flow of tender fire elicited by his kiss, wasn’t that perilous to her independence? Particularly if he was a man whom she could not trust?

Long months on the trail had afforded Emmalee chances to observe many different people in a variety of crises. And she had learned this: Human beings did not change very much. The bold stayed strong; the fainthearted and timorous remained so; complicated men like Horace Torquist were not suddenly transformed into straightforward souls.

Garn Landar was not about to change either. If—and Emmalee admitted it—if he made her feel like a woman and made her want him as a man, that was just a part of his dangerous charm. A stallion craves the mare, a buck his doe, and the rattlesnake loves to doze on warm rocks in the sun.

Emmalee forced herself to come to a conclusion so that she could get to sleep.
She
had the personal strength to forge a mighty future. Garn didn’t and never would. After all, he’d even failed in his promise to get the wagon train to Denver ahead of Burt Pennington. A new adventure might present itself, and off he would go in pursuit of it. Some new girl would come along, to whom he would take a transitory fancy…

Emmalee found it quite difficult to get to sleep.

Burt Pennington’s men, preparing to leave Denver that morning, were busy hitching horses and oxen to their wagons during Bernice Creel’s funeral. Cries of “Whoa! Back!” and “The goddamned harness is all snaggled up!” could be heard at the gravesite, absurdly punctuating the dry cackle of Ebenezer’s sobs and the defiant phrases of Horace Torquist’s eulogy. The old man, who did not trust ministers, had asked the wagonmaster to say words over Bernice’s coffin, and Torquist obliged.

“Death is not an end!” he cried, his strong chin jutting toward the heavens, thick hair stirred by the mountain breeze. “It is the beginning of a new life. Even in the destinies of those of us who remain behind, events that appear to be disasters may be filled with hope.”

To Emmalee’s surprise, Torquist seemed to have acquired a new lease on his own personal hopes. His spirits, so much at variance with yesterday’s heavy gloom, puzzled her. She could not imagine what had caused him to regain his fire. Bernice Creel had died, Burt Pennington was getting a head start over the mountains, and re-outfitting the train had scarcely begun. None of these events, in Emmalee’s eyes, was cause for cheer, let alone optimism.

Emmalee stood next to the grave, holding a Bible. Ebenezer had asked her to read Bernice’s favorite passages when the earth was cast down upon the coffin.

“Many long years of our lives pass by,” Torquist orated, “and we view the world from a single window, as it were. But then we become aware that the world is not as we have seen it. So we change. There comes a time when we no longer see as children, we no longer speak as children. There comes a time when we put aside our childish things…”

Emmalee watched him, listening carefully. Some inner transformation or a piece of welcome news, an obscure happenstance or a deliberate act of will, had wrought its effect on him. He was still Torquist of the troubled eyes and prophetlike demeanor. But he was indeed looking at the world through a different window now, and Emmalee was at a loss to know why.

The people noticed it, too, and in spite of the funereal occasion, there was little sense of tribulation, even less of defeat, in their collective bearing. The men were hatless but unbowed, the women bonneted and somber, there was an aspect of victory in their bearing. We are alive, they affirmed in the set of their shoulders, the steadiness of their eyes. We have survived. We have crossed the prairies and we shall conquer the mountains too!

Only Ebenezer showed the emotion of bereavement and loss, sobbing sporadically in the dry, hollow manner of the elderly. But even he stood erect, aware of ceremony and moment. “She made it to the mountains,” he muttered now and then. “At least Bernice had a chance to look at the mountains ’fore she left.”

Next to Ebenezer stood, to Emmalee’s slight surprise, Garn Landar. He looked younger, almost boyish, without that broad-brimmed hat that always cast a shadow over the upper part of his face, an effect that sometimes made his gleaming grin all the more mischievous. Garn seemed sad today. He did not look Emmalee’s way, but kept his eyes on Ebenezer, about whom he seemed concerned.

She also found Randy Clay among the people and looked at him until he felt her eyes. He gave her a brief smile but then, apparently thinking of decorum at a burial, frowned and averted his gaze.

“Ashes to ashes,” Torquist concluded, picking up a handful of gravel and scattering it on the coffin, “dust to dust. Emmalee?”

Virgil Waters, Jasper Heaton, and Lambert Strep began slowly to spade earth upon Bernice’s box as Emmalee stepped forward and read:

“The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes,
in many-colored robes she is led
to the king,
with her virgin companions,
her escort in her train.

With joy and gladness they are led along
as they enter the palace of the king.

And as nothing are the tribulations of the desert,
as nothing the woe of dun-colored seasons.

The world of fallen shields and rivenings
is cast aside.

And the people rejoice with
their queen, who is made whole and through whom they are healed.”

Emmalee closed the book. These words had brought joy to Mrs. Creel and must have had some significance to her, but they carried little meaning for the girl. Kings and queens were hard to find on a wagon train.

“Thank you, Emmalee,” Torquist said expansively. “But before we go about our labors,” he went on, raising his voice so that everyone could hear him, “Bernice Creel, a fine and loyal woman, would be glad to know—as you’ll all be glad to know—that I have been able to make arrangements for all the supplies we shall require.”

Emmalee felt that, had this not been a funeral, with shovelsful of dirt still falling into the grave, the people would have cheered.

“So let’s get back to work now,” Torquist said. He pointed up at the Rockies. “What are those mountains to us?” he asked grandly.

“Amen!” the people answered.

Randy Clay rushed up to Emmalee as the group broke up, drifting slowly away from the grave.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” he asked her.

“What’s that?”

“How Mr. Torquist has made sure we get supplies. It’s amazing how fortune turns. There are some horses and oxen here in Denver, and he bought them. But we needed more, and we needed wagons too. Well, there’s a train here from Indiana that’s not going on. They’ve given up and their people are staying here in Colorado. Mr. Torquist paid them a fair price for their animals and gear.”

“We’re still behind Pennington though,” said Emmalee, pointing at the long column of wagons that, even as she spoke, was rolling out of the camping grounds.

“We’ll overtake them. Mr. Torquist feels that the availability of new supplies, plus his ability to buy them, is heaven-sent. He thinks God is rewarding us for having crossed the plains.”

“I hope so,” said Emmalee. She caught sight of Garn and Ebenezer heading in the direction of Creel’s wagon. This would be as good a time as any to thank Garn for having saved her from the Arapaho.

“Randy, I’d better be getting along to my work. Now that Bernice Creel is gone, I’ve been sent back to being a seamstress, and there’s no end to the things that need patching.”

“Sure, Em, sure. But I was just wondering…”

“Yes?”

“Well, I was just…just wondering if I could see you tonight? Maybe we should, you know, talk over some…things.”

Randy had gotten up his courage and his hopes, which Emmalee certainly did not want to dash. Besides, after the thinking she’d done last night, she figured it would be a good idea to hear what Randy was prepared to say. Talking couldn’t hurt.

“I’ll be at the wagon,” she said, watching his face light up.

“That’s just great, Em,” he said. “See you after supper. I got to help Lawrence Redding forge wheel rims all day.”

He ran off toward the smithy and Emmalee walked over to Creel’s wagon. When she arrived, the old man was sitting on the endgate, drinking coffee, but Garn was not in sight.

“Hey there, Emmalee,” Ebenezer said. “Thanks for readin’ them pretty words. It meant a lot to me. And, o’ course, I can’t thank you enough about carin’ for Bernice.”

He was wearing his big belt, but he reached inside a trouser pocket and pulled out a bill.

“This is for you, just like I promised,” he said, holding the money out to her.

Emmalee stared. It was a one-hundred-dollar note, legitimate, bona fide, printed by the United States Treasury Department.

“Don’t think I’d keep it in my belt when I’m supposed to be asleep, do you?” he rasped, winking at her. “It’s the only one I got.”

To her profound embarrassment, Emmalee realized he had not been asleep while she’d been ransacking his money belt. Yes, she remembered that he’d shifted positions, the hammock had swayed…

“Take it, Emmalee,” Ebenezer said, pressing the bill into her hand. “You did good work, you’re an honest woman, no more curious than most. Take it.”

“But you said it’s all you have.”

“Don’t make no difference. When I get to Olympia, I’m gonna get plenty more. Me an’ Garn’s gonna get right rich in Olympia.”

Emmalee defeated the impulse to ask whether he and Garn were going to open a gambling casino or a saloon together.

“Take the money and that’s an order,” he commanded. “It’s yours. You earned it. And you gotta save up to buy your freedom from Horace.”

Emmalee accepted the bill. “If you need it…” she started to say.

He waved away her offer, shaking his head. “It’s yours. Just don’t lose it.”

“By the way,” she asked hesitantly, sticking the money into her bodice, “have you seen…?”

“Landar? Yeah, he went over to see Burt Pennington about something, ’fore Burt left.”

Wondering why Garn would want to see the man who’d fired him, Emmalee hurried to the other side of the camping grounds, from which the Pennington train was departing. She’d known it was a huge company, but the actual sight of it moving off, wagon upon wagon into the mountains, struck her with fearful awe. Pennington had all of these people with him. They would be first on line, in the most advantageous positions, when the land rush began. Torquist might be optimistic
now,
but how would he feel—how would they all feel?—on October first, competing with this organized army of ranchers?

She thought she saw Garn a couple of times and called his name, but two other lean, tall, buckskin-jacketed young men turned to her with smiling anticipation. She was forced to disappoint them. Finally she heard his voice—no way to miss that singularly resonant sound—behind a Conestoga. Dashing around a brace of sullen mules, she found him.

Talking to Lottie Pennington.

Lottie was dressed strikingly in a pale-green, trail-worthy gingham dress, the skirt of which ended at the calves of her intricately ornamented western boots. Around her head she wore a scarf that matched her dress and set off her shining rust-colored hair. Lottie looked beautiful, smiling coyly at Garn, one hip cocked to better display the lush curves of her body.

Emmalee wore the sober calico she had chosen for Bernice Creel’s funeral. She’d swept back, pulled tight, and pinned up her hair into a bun of mature severity.

Garn’s back was to Emmalee, so Lottie saw her first.

“Why, Emmalee!” the redhead called, as if she was her dearest friend in the whole wide world. “It’s so good to see you again! And I was
so
glad to learn that you’d reached Denver safely.”

Emmalee gaped. What was going on here, anyway?

“Garn, I’m sure you’ve met my good friend Emmalee Alden? After all, you
did
travel on the same train.”

Garn turned to give Emmalee an ironic smile, one corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
He
knew what was going on. “I think I’ve seen her,” he said.

“Em and I met in St. Joe,” continued Lottie, with exquisite sweetness. “I just know we’re going to be such close,
close
friends in Olympia. Aren’t we, Em?”

Now Emmalee knew exactly what was happening. Lottie was trying, with no lack of skill, to charm Garn Landar. She wanted to say, “Garn, don’t be deceived! Lottie Pennington is not sweet at all!”

Instead she said, “Yes, Garn and I have met, thank you.” She was thinking that Ebenezer had been wrong, or misinformed. Garn had come over here to see Lottie, not Burt. She decided not to thank him at all for saving her from Chief Fire-On-The-Moon.

“What are you doing over here, Emmalee?” he asked, looking boyish and virile and candid without his big hat.

“I was just…just walking around…”

“Emmalee did a very nice job reading the Bible this morning,” Garn told Lottie.

“Oh, I can imagine,” the redhead replied. “She
is
so gifted, don’t you think. I wish
I
were.”

“Lottie, you have many attributes,” said Emmalee, wishing she’d had the sense to bite her tongue.

Garn just smiled, enjoying the exchange immensely.

“Lottie!” called Burt Pennington from the wagon seat of a Conestoga. “Lottie, we’re leavin’. Either climb on now or get left behind.”

“Oh, I really
must
go,” trilled Lottie. “But I’ll see you both in Olympia, won’t I?”

She climbed aboard the wagon, swinging her behind much more than was necessary, Emmalee thought.

“Bye-bye,” called Lottie, waving.

The wagon rolled away.

“Clever girl, isn’t she?” asked Garn, turning to Emmalee. He was smiling wickedly, but his eyes searched hers in the old way.

“Oh, very.”

Why am I feeling so spiteful? she asked herself. Garn
deserves
Lottie. They’re two of a kind.

“You really did read well at the funeral,” he said. “Why those particular passages?”

“Bernice Creel liked them.”

“I’m disappointed. I was intrigued at the idea of a princess being taken by a king and…what was the wording? Being ‘made whole’ by him? I thought maybe you’d selected the passages.”

“No.”

“Sorry. My mistake. Just hoping, I guess. I’ve had the feeling that you’ve been avoiding me since our little encounter with Chief Fire-On-The-Moon. Gettin’ into a situation like that could be a blow to anyone’s pride. No matter. It’s good to see you’ve finally come around to thank me for saving you from the chief. Does that redeem me in your eyes? Have I finally done something that is not totally reprehensible?”

“I was just…walking here. But, yes. Thanks.”

“You don’t sound very grateful to me.”

“
Thank
you.”

“Good. It was a difficult negotiation. Also costly. I thought I performed splendidly. Speaking of which, may I see you tonight? There are some things I want to talk to you about.”

“Why not speak to me now? Here I am.”

“I would, but what I have to say might take a while. I’ve got work to do and so do you. See you tonight.”

Emmalee watched him stride away, noting the powerful, fluid grace of his movements, knowing that this, too, was a danger to her.

“I’m afraid we don’t have anything to talk about,” she called after him.