Brides of Prairie Gold Page 8

  Finally she nodded. Lowering her head, she examined the raw blisters on her palms. "I'm so tired," she whispered. "So bone-deep tired. But I can go a little farther if I know an end is coming." Lifting her head, she stared hard into Perm's eyes. "I can't go back to Missouri. That's impossible. But it will break my health to continue like this. Please help me."

  "I will," Perrin promised. She pressed Jane's hands, then released them and helped her to stand.

  Alone on the riverbank, she watched Jane return to the wagons, her hem and steps dragging. With all her worried heart, Perrin wished she knew what to do. But there was a bole in her mind where a solution should have been. This problem was too large to grasp.

  Then she spotted Cody, watching her. He stood beside one of the teamsters, a bucket of tar in his hand. For a long moment they gazed at each other across the broad expanse of muddy earth.

  Still watching her, Cody removed his hat and waved it in the air to alert Smokey Joe. Smokey Joe pounded his dinner gong, signaling it was time for the women to return to the wagons. As Perrin hurried toward her wagon, she noticed that Cody still watched her. His hard scrutiny should have worried her, and it did, but it also gave her a tiny secret thrill of pleasure.

  Her heart sank. There was something about dangerous roguish men that had always appealed to her. Perhaps it was their stubborn refusal to be manipulated or their relentless confidence or their disregard for rules other than their own. Perhaps it was the open speculation that smoldered in their eyes when they gazed at a woman who intrigued their interest.

  Face flaming, Perrin hastily pulled herself onto the wagon seat, where she could no longer see him.

  Several trains camped near Fort Kearney, resting from the arduous river crossing, drying goods soaked by rain or river water, and crowding the post stores to replenish provisions.

  After three weeks on the trail, most immigrants discovered they had overestimated the need for some items and had seriously underestimated the need for others. Consequently, the post stores conducted a brisk business, callously charging outrageously high prices, secure in the knowledge that travelers were at least five weeks away from the next opportunity to purchase supplies.

  Augusta's frustration was like a vise tightening around her chest, anxious tears clogging her throat. Simply everything was going wrong.

  First, the tar had not held on the bottom of her wagon and river water had seeped into the bed, soaking her good linens. Worse, twenty pounds of sugar, her entire supply, had rolled out of the gutta-percha bag that was supposed to protect it. The sugar had dissolved and flowed away. The twenty-pound sack should have lasted the entire journey; now it was gone.

  Next, Cora had gotten frightened and drew up on the reins, causing them to stall on a sand bank in the middle of the Platte. The teamsters rode into the river to assist them, but they couldn't help the ox, who, stupid thing, was sinking in a bog of quicksand. All they could do was cut the ox from the yoke and watch helplessly as the heavy animal sank beneath the water.

  Then, as if there hadn't been enough misfortune, icy rain poured from the skies in buckets, drenching them before they completed the crossing. Later, Cora tried to cook their supper in streaming rainan impossible taskso they had gone to bed hungry, trying to sleep with half-frozen raindrops soaking through their tent and dripping on their faces all night.

  And the final disappointmentafter days of anticipation, Fort Kearney had turned out to be nothing more than a dismal collection of log shacks set alongside a square that was a sea of churned-up mud, horse droppings, and tobacco juice.

  Augusta stepped up on the boardwalk erected before the stores and stared down at the disgusting mess clinging to her boots. The tassels were ruined and so was her sodden hem.

  She swallowed hard and blinked against the tears stinging her eyelids. She would not cry, she absolutely would not .

  "Well? Are we going inside the store, or ain't we?" Cora asked crossly. Rain had all but melted the pasteboard lining of her sunbonnet, and the brim now sagged and flopped in her eyes.

  In other circumstances, Augusta might have laughed. Still, by choosing to wear a bonnet that was already ruined, Cora didn't have to worry about spoiling a good one. But then, Cora didn't concern herself with maintaining the standards of gentility. A gravedigger's daughter had no family name to live up to.

  "I haven't decided if I'll purchase anything," Augusta said, turning her eyes away from the tempting items arrayed in the store window. Soldiers and travelers clogged the square, further churning the mud. Wagons piled high with provisions moved out the open end and empty wagons rolled in to take their place.

  Cora leaned to examine the goods in the window, then threw out her hands. "We can't go all the way to Oregon without sugar," she said in a voice sulky with impatience. "You might believe you can sweeten your coffee merely by sticking your finger in it, but believe me, it ain't going to happen that way. Plus, you need to replace the ox we lost."

  "And whose fault was that?" Augusta snapped, stepping aside to allow a man and a woman to enter the store. Before the door closed, she caught a tantalizing glimpse of cloth bolts and medicals and intriguing barrels and leather goods.

  Cora stared at her. "Maybe if you'd take the reins once in a while, you'd find out it ain't so easy to drive several yokes of oxen! Especially when the wagon is mostly floating and there's water rushing all around you!"

  Augusta lifted her chin. "Some people make do with only six oxen, so we can get along nicely with seven."

  Discreet inquiries had elicited the shocking information that the price of an ox could run as high as eleven dollars. It wasn't fair. The silly animals were prone to foot disease, could go lame in a heartbeat, and were dumber than an earthworm.

  "Well, we do need sugar." Cora entered the store and let the door bang behind her.

  Grinding her teeth, Augusta squeezed the little purse dangling from her wrist and fervently wished it would magically grow fat beneath her anxious fingers. Sugar, she had learned, was selling for the dismaying price of twenty cents a pound. To replace what the river had stolen would cost four dollars. And to buy fresh eggs, which made her salivate and nearly swoon to think about, would cost fifteen cents a dozen.

  Biting her lip to hold back tears of anger and self-pity, she paced along the mud-caked boardwalk, performing the arithmetic again and again in her mind.

  Shock glazed her blue eyes. She had thirty-five dollars to see her through five months and two thousand miles. "Oops." Mem Grant caught Augusta's arm as they collided near the store's entry. When Augusta didn't apologize, Mem did, speaking in a cool voice. "I beg your pardon. I fear I wasn't paying attention."

  Augusta acknowledged the apology with a distracted nod, then turned toward a voice speaking above her hat.

  "Good afternoon, ladies."

  Both women looked up at Webb Coate as he tipped his hat and smiled. Augusta caught a breath and felt Mem do the same. She had an impression of flowing dark hair, lustrous black eyes, and white, white teeth in a darkly bronzed face. A warm shiver skittered toward her toes.

  Webb's gaze skimmed her ornate bonnet and the gauze tied beneath her chin. "I'd suggest that you ladies buy the widest-brimmed hats you can find. We'll be into hot weather soon."

  "Dry warm weather can't come soon enough for me." Mem lifted her damp skirts and laughed at the mud pasting the folds together. "A little sunshine sounds like a boon from heaven."

  Webb smiled, seeming to notice Mem for the first time.

  "If you aren't carrying lip salve, it would be wise to buy some while you can. Wind and that sunshine you're so eager to see can wreak havoc on a pale complexion."

  Augusta gasped. She could not believe her ears. Quivering with indignation, she drew to her full height. "Your advice is neither wanted nor welcome," she snapped, letting her eyes go frosty with offense. "Should you make intimate remarks in the future, we will complain to Mr. Snow!"

  Webb stared at her and something dark and challenging gle
amed in his black eyes. Then he touched his fingertips to his hat brim, nodded, and stepped off the boardwalk. He crossed the square toward the saddle shop where Cody waited.

  The instant he turned his back, Mem's fingers dug into Augusta's arm. "You are the rudest, most self-inflated woman I have ever had the misfortune to encounter!"

  "I beg your pardon! That half-breed mentioned our lips and our complexions! Such personal remarks are not to be tolerated from a white man, let alone an Indian!"

  Mem leaned down until her eyes reached a level with Augusta's. "Don't evernot ever again!include me in anything you say. Don't presume to say 'we.' You speak solely for yourself, Miss Boyd. You do not speak for Mem Grant!"

  "Well!"

  Thoroughly angry and offended, Augusta watched Mem stride down the boardwalk with a face so stormy that even hardened soldiers hastened to scurry out of her path.

  "Well!" she said again, lifting her chin. It was certainly evident which sister had the breeding in that family.

  As if her thoughts had conjured reality, Bootie came rushing out of the store, halted in a swirl of skirts, and inspected a cameo watch pinned to an imitation cashmere shawl.

  "Oh, dear. I'm going to be late for Perrin's meeting. Mem will be furious." She looked up and saw Augusta watching with a cool expression. "Have you seen my sister?"

  Silently, Augusta nodded toward Mem's retreating figure.

  Bootie took a few steps in pursuit, then halted. "Aren't you coming? The meeting is scheduled to begin in a few minutes."

  Augusta tossed her head, feeling her blond curls give a satisfying bounce against the top of her shoulders. "That creature has nothing to say that I choose to hear. I can't imagine you would respond to her summons either. Perhaps you would prefer to return inside with me?"

  An agony of indecision pinched Bootie's expression. She gazed toward Mem, who had reached the end of the boardwalk, and high color flooded her cheeks.

  "Id like to, I really would, but well, Mem made me promise that I'd attend Mrs. Waverly's meeting, and" she shrugged helplessly. "Any other time but I"

  Augusta released her with an impatient flick of her fingertips. "Run along, then," she said coldly. She watched Bootie hurry along the muddy boardwalk, taking Augusta's hopes with her. She had counted on persuading Bootie to buy her a dozen eggs.

  Involuntarily, she glanced at the little gold watch pinned to her own genuine cashmere shawl. The creature's meeting was due to begin in fifteen minutes. Well, she would not be present.

  Inside the store, she inhaled a blend of tantalizing aromas, her mouth watering at the scent of pickles and onions, coffee beans and smoked sausage. After inspecting the tumble of goods tossed willy-nilly on the shelves, she paused before a piled stack of sugar bags, wishing she could purchase something smaller than a ten-pound sack.

  "Ain't you going to Mrs. Waverly's meeting?" Cora asked innocently, appearing from another aisle.

  "Hardly!" A pungent scent wafted from the black licorice whip Cora was chewing. "And neither are you!" She stared at the bag of licorice Cora clutched in her hand. The rich dark aroma filled her nostrils.

  Cora's eyes narrowed. "I am too going! I guess I can go wherever I want when I ain't working!" Turning abruptly, she hurried down a narrow aisle and left the store.

  Heartsick, Augusta stared at the bags of sugar without seeing them. Licorice. Cora had spent part of her dollar on licorice. Augusta had surrendered one whole precious dollar so that stupid, wasteful Cora could buy licorice.

  A flood tide of rage, frustration, and helplessness almost knocked her to her knees. Despairing, she pressed her purse against her side. Oh, God. What was she going to do?

  Cody watched Webb's dark face as he wound through the traffic clogging the post square. He moved forward as Webb stepped onto the boardwalk. "We'll stop in at Rogue Street on the way back to camp. Looks like you could use a drink."

  Rogue Street was situated outside the post, a collection of saloons, washhouses, and whores' cribs. They entered the last saloon in the row and took a table near a cracked window that gave them a view of the post's entrance gate. Miles Dawson, the head teamster, would remain at the post until the last of the brides, Augusta Boyd, returned to camp. Cody wouldn't relax until all his passengers had returned to the train.

  Tilting his chair against the rough log wall of the saloon, he scanned the faces of the men crowding a faro bank. "I knew the commander of this fort when I was in the army. Willis says Jake Quinton passed through about four days ago."

  Webb tossed back a whiskey. "I would have thought Quinton had had his fill of army posts."

  "Willis thinks Quinton and his men robbed Jed Lexy's train."

  Webb nodded. "I'll tell the watch to keep their eyes open."

  They never left the guns and molasses wagons unguarded. Someone was always posted on look out, day and night. Both men were fully aware the freight they carried made the train a target for marauders like Quinton and his gang.

  Cody poured a second round of whiskey. "This is none of my business, but I keep telling you she's poison, old friend."

  "You're right. It's none of your business. And it's not my place to mention that you regard all women as lethal since Ellen died." Webb turned his gaze toward the window and the view of the post entrance.

  Cody didn't answer, but Webb's observation stung as it was intended to. When Ellen and her newborn son had died a day after the birthing, he had gone crazy. The craziness eventually cost him his career in the army, but that no longer mattered. What mattered was he never wanted to endure that kind of pain again.

  Webb turned his shot glass between long elegant fingers. "You worry me, my friend."

  "You worry about you; I'll worry about me," Cody muttered.

  "You're letting what happened poison your thoughts against all women." He tossed back the whiskey. "That's why you're planning to settle in Oregon at the end of this trip."

  Cody almost laughed. "Because there aren't many women in Oregon? Is that what you think?"

  Webb smiled. "If the cargo we're carrying is any indication, there don't seem to be many temptations in Oregon."

  Cody let his chair bump down on the sawdust floor, then stood and resettled his hat. "Heck and Miles will be looking for us to relieve them back at camp."

  The two men strode down Rogue Street, accustomed to seeing other men step out of their path.

  "You know, Coate," Cody commented as they left the boardwalk and slogged through the mud toward the train. "I hate it when you go analytical on me. That's part of the Indian culture that I really don't warm to."

  Webb laughed and returned Cody's grin. "You don't like hearing the truth, white eyes."

  "What do you red devils know about truth?" They both laughed.

  As they approached the campsite, Cody noticed the Chastity brides had gathered a short distance from the squared wagons. The women's camp chairs were arranged in a half circle to face Perrin Waverly.

  "What's that all about?" Webb inquired.

  "Damned if I know." A twitch of curiosity furrowed his brow. "I wasn't invited."

  Perrin Waverly occupied his thoughts more frequently than he cared to admit. She was beautiful and she was an outcast, two conditions guaranteed to pique a man's interest. What surprised him and aroused his grudging admiration was her quiet fortitude. She was doggedly determined to succeed as the women's representative regardless of how little the other brides cooperated with her efforts or how coldly they treated her.

  As he and Webb entered camp, he watched her step to the front of the assembled brides, and it occurred to him that courage came in many forms.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  Perrin hadn't known how many, if any, of the women would attend her meeting. She suspected they came largely in response to Mem's cajoling, bullying, and veiled threats. She located Mem's erect figure in the midst of the group and cast her a look of heartfelt gratitude. Unfortunately, Mem couldn't help her conduct the meeting. That s
he had to accomplish on her own.

  Although she had rehearsed for two days, she hadn't realized how unnerving it would be to address a group, especially a group who preferred visiting with each other to listening to anything Perrin Waverly might have to say.

  Some of the women darned stockings or mended torn hems while they chatted; Sarah Jennings stirred a cake bowl in her lap. Thea Reeves had opened her sketchbook and kept looking up at Perrin, then down at a stick of charcoal that appeared to fly across the page. Cora gave Lucy a licorice whip, and they whispered together. Ona Norris busily pressed the season's first tiny wildflowers between the pages of her trip journal.

  "Excuse me?" It wasn't a good beginning. She sounded timid and tentative. And the suspicion that Thea might be sketching her portrait tied her stomach in knots. Swallowing hard, she began again. "May I have your attention, please?"

  Gradually, the women quieted and raised inquisitive faces. All those eyes, resistant and judgmental, drove Perrin's speech out of her mind. The saliva dried in her mouth.

  "I've never made a speech before," she admitted in a low voice, floundering, wondering if they could see her lips tremble.

  "Louder," Hilda prompted gently.

  Perrin cleared her throat. To bolster her courage, she had tucked her most prized possession beneath her bodice. She touched her chest and traced the old valentine lying next to her skin. Over the years the lettering had faded, and now only she could make out the inscription: To my beloved wife, Charlotte . The valentine was all she had left of her parents.

  She clasped her hands tightly and cast a quick glance toward Jane Munger, who sat a little apart from the others. Jane's tired eyes fastened on Perrin with hope and anxiety.

  Perrin drew a deep breath. "I've asked you here because we have a problem that I can't solve without your assistance."