Brides of Prairie Gold (15 page)

My Journal, May, 1853. Approximately three hundred miles along the trail. We have settled into numbing fatigue and a tedious daily sameness. Tempers flare. We are beginning to know each other.

Sarah Jennings

"I think I see it! Just the top!" Ona Norris exclaimed. "Look. There on the horizon on the south side of the river."

Augusta pushed back the lip of a fashionable straw sun-bonnet and peered hard. "I don't see a thing."

"We won't be able to see Courthouse Rock until at least tomorrow evening," Cora insisted, setting two buckets of water beside the back wheel, then stretching her back against her hands. "Mr. Coate said so."

"Him!" Augusta waved a dismissive hand. But the mention of Webb Coate caused her to instinctively scan the site, searching for his tall graceful form even though she knew he and Miles Dawson were away from camp hunting prong-horns. She had watched them ride out minutes after the fog lifted.

Why she wasted so much time watching for Webb Coate and constantly thinking about him mystified her. She supposed her secret fascination had developed because this was the first time she had been exposed to one of his kind at close quarters.

And she had to admit, grudgingly, that Webb Coate wasn't what she had expected. He didn't seem lazy or thieving, and she had yet to catch him reeling about in a drunken state. Nevertheless, she held it uppermost that Coate was a heathen, barely civilized, and like all Indians, not to be trusted. Heaven help her if ever she relaxed her guard. There was no telling what he might do. Something stirred in his eyes when he looked at her, something speculative, dangerous and thrilling.

"Are you cold, Augusta?" Ona inquired. "You shivered."

"Merely a passing chill." She glanced at the afternoon sky. "But now that the sun has reappeared, it should warm up some."

Since entering the Platte Valley, the weather had become troublesome. By midday the air was usually warm, but every afternoon, the temperature plummeted and thunder rumbled down the valley signaling the onset of a chilly afternoon rain.

Yesterday's storm had turned into a steady slashing downpour that continued until morning. Augusta had spent a miserable night trying to sleep beneath a haze of fine drizzle that filtered through the canvas tent roof.

This morning they had awakened, tired and out of sorts, to discover a heavy milky fog clinging to grass and ground, making travel impossible. The women had used the free day to turn out the wagons, bake, catch up on chores that never seemed to end.

Bending over the fire pit, Augusta filled a china pot that had belonged to her mother, waited for the tea to steep, then poured for herself and Ona, trying to bring grace to a ritual never intended to be performed on a barren prairie. As her mother, may she rest in peace, had never surrounded herself with shoddy items, the tea set must have cost a pretty penny. Augusta wondered what the set might fetch today, assuming she could find someone along the trail willing to buy it, and assuming she could bring herself to part with a treasured heirloom.

She also wondered if she had been a tad hasty to invite Ona Norris to address her familiarly. On reflection, she realized that she knew very little about Ona's background.

"I know you came to Chastity from back east" she said pleasantly, hoping to draw out more details. Idly she snapped her fingers at Cora as a reminder to pull another of the folding camp chairs out of the wagon. Couldn't the slow-wit see that they had a guest? One who was standing rather awkwardly, holding her cup and saucer in front of her waist?

"I lived in Washington, D.C., until ten months ago," Ona said evenly. "After my cousin died, I traveled west to Chastity, to live with my mother's brother and his wife."

"I see," Augusta murmured politely, only slightly more enlightened than before her inquiry. No matter. She would learn Ona's story. There was so little to occupy one's interest on this journey that everyone shared their history merely for something to talk about. Undoubtedly Ona's narrative would be short and largely uninteresting. It could hardly be otherwise, as few were blessed with as fascinating a background as a Boyd.

"Well, finally!" Cora dropped the extra chair beside Ona, then walked past the fire and smiled grimly toward the first wagon on their side of the square.

"How, many times must I tell you not to interrupt?" Augusta warned sharply. This was one of those days when dealing with Cora unraveled her. The continual whining, complaining, and rude remarks were enough to erode the patience of a saint. "Can't you see that my guest and I are"

She gasped and stood so abruptly that her cup and saucer clattered from her lap to the muddy ground. No, her eyes did not deceive her. Perrin Waverly was walking directly toward them. Reluctance tagged her steps, but determination firmed her jawline. There was no mistaking the creature's destination.

Augusta whirled to stare hard at Cora's smug expression. "You know something about this, don't you? Why is she coming here?"

Cora's dark eyes glittered and her mouth set in a line. "It don't do no good to ask you for my back pay, so I did like Captain Snow said we should. I took my problem to our representative and asked Mrs. Waverly to help me get my money!"

Horror blanched the color from Augusta's face so swiftly that she felt dizzy. Throwing out a hand, she steadied herself against the back of the camp chair. "You told that creature! that I owed you money?" Though it sounded to her as if she screamed the words, her shaking voice emerged in a whisper.

"Maybe now you'll pay me the four dollars you owe me!" Folding her arms across her chest, Cora thrust out her chin, turned her back to Augusta, and waited for Pen-in to arrive.

The horror and betrayal staggered Augusta. As if looking through a distorted glass, she noticed that Ona's eyes had narrowed with curiosity. And sudden scalding hatred blurred her vision of Cora. All she saw was a ferretlike sharpness of black hair, black eyes, and black satisfaction. Her fingers twitched with the need to slap the smile off of Cora's face. Every ragged nerve ending screamed at her, ordering her to beat the treacherous snip until she begged forgiveness.

"How dare you do this to me!" Gripping the back of the chair with both shaking hands, she prayed that she would remain upright. Rage and hatred leeched the strength from her muscles.

Perrin approached the fire, then stopped and wet her lips. She nodded with stern politeness to Ona and Cora. "If you would excuse me, please, I'd like a private word with Miss Boyd."

Cora backed away, disappointed that she would not be privy to any unpleasantness on her behalf. Wordlessly, Ona pulled her skirts to one side and walked from the wagon to a position where hearing would be difficult but watching remained possible.

Perrin waited, then clasped her hands at her waist. She spoke in a low voice. "Please believe me when I tell you I'd give anything if this wasn't necessary. But I have no choice. Cora came to me in my capacity as representative and"

Augusta didn't hear the rest. Humiliation blinded her, closed her ears. Of all the people in the world who might take it upon themselves to chastise or admonish her, fate had dished up Perrin Waverly. It was beyond endurance. Hideously intolerable. Every terrible thing that had conspired to bring about her ruin could be laid directly at Perrin Waverly's feet.

"Cora understands that she is paying for her journey west through her labor. But she claims that you owe her for"

"You man-killing whore! If it wasn't for you, my father would still be alive!" The accusation exploded through clenched teeth, like poison lanced from a boil. She had held the hatred inside for so long that the relief of finally saying the words opened a torrent. "You seduced him, then you bled him of every penny he possessed, and now you dareyou dare to come here and demand money from me?" The audacity of it swept her breath away. The magnitude of this outrage made her shake all over with violent emotions impossible to contain a moment longer.

Perrin closed her eyes as if she'd been struck, and oh, how Augusta longed to strike her. She trembled with the need. She wanted to hit and bite and scratch and rend and tear. She wanted to howl at the sky and demand justice from heaven itself.

Perrin spoke in a voice trembling with quiet dignity. "I never asked Joseph for anything. What he gave, he gave freely."

"Liar!" Augusta gripped the top of the chair so fiercely that her fingers turned white. Her eyes burned and her heart slammed in her chest. "My father paid the rent on your house. He paid for the food in your harlot's mouth. He paid your dressmaker and the chemist and he paid your bill at Brady's Mercantile! He rented a gig for your use, and he paid your stables bill. He paid and paid until finally he faced ruin or suicide! That is what you did to him. You killed him!"

"No!"

Perrin's face paled and she looked sick. But that was not what Augusta saw. Her fevered state painted a superior sneer on Perrin's lips; she saw a harlot's greed and a harlot's indifference. She saw the whore who had destroyed her father.

"I was as shocked as everyone when Joseph died. Augusta, I promise you it wasn't because of me." Stepping closer, Perrin reached a hand in appeal. "Please. We both cared for him, and he cared for both of us. Can't we"

"You think my father cared for you? You? You make me laugh! A Boyd would never lower himself to give a spit for a low-born harlot! He used you, that's all. Used you as other men undoubtedly have and will in the future!"

Baring her teeth, she slapped Perrin's hand away, putting the full force of her hatred into the blow. And there was so much hatred, so much fear and frustration and helplessness bubbling and boiling inside her like poison.

Of course she had known her father was keeping Perrin. How could she not when everyone in Chastity whispered about the scandal? And oh, the pain of being cast into second place, of discovering that she was not enough for her adored father, that he needed someone besides her, someone he went to in the evenings, leaving her alone to wonder how she had failed him.

And in the end, Perrin hadn't suffered one iota. It hadn't been Perrin Waverly who set aside her grief to frantically deal with hushing up Joseph Boyd's embezzlement. Perrin Waverly hadn't been forced to sell the home where she had grown up, and dispose of treasured belongings to settle debts. Perrin Waverly hadn't fallen from the pinnacle of privilege to the cellar of despair.

Burning rage, and resentment, and a scalding sense of betrayal bit deep into Augusta's mind. The hardship of a journey she loathed and hadn't wanted to undergo. The empty hours, the tedious monotony, the lack of privacy and sleeping on the ground and eating gritty bland food. And at the end of this damnable miserable trek waited a husband whom she didn't know and didn't want. And alwaysalways!the bone-deep worry, the crippling fear about money.

Perrin snatched back her slapped hand and cradled it against her waist. Shock flamed on her throat and cheeks and she trembled from lips to toes. "Your father was a good man. Augusta, please. It would pain him deeply to see us at each other's throats."

Only vaguely did Augusta perceive that a crowd had gathered behind Ona and Cora. Only dimly did she realize that her voice had risen to an ugly scream.

"How dare you!" The words, too mild, too inadequate, stuttered from her lips, accompanied by furious droplets of spittle. "How dare you suggest that you know what would have pained my father! I was his confidante, not you!"

Fury boiled up before her, red and scorching hot. The stress of her dwindling purse, the strain of the journey, and her hatred for Perrin Waverly exploded inside her like a burst heart. Frothing at the top of the eruption was the humiliation of her father's destitution and his suicide, his betrayal of a daughter who had worshiped the ground he trod. And all of itall of the darkness in her spirit and the blot on the Boyd nameall of it was this whore's fault.

Her teeth clenched and her fingers curled around the top rung of the folding chair. Blinded by everything Perrin Waverly represented, needing to strike out or blow apart in bloody pieces, she gripped the chair and threw it as hard as she could.

The chair struck Perrin squarely in the torso and knocked her to the ground. In an instant, Augusta flew across the few paces separating them and fell on her, slapping her face, yanking her hair, kicking and scratching and trying to destroy the monster who had seduced her father and ruined his life and hers.

On some level she realized Perrin fought back, but she didn't feel her own hair tearing loose from the scalp, didn't feel the scratches digging down her arms. She had no awareness of the crack in her lip. Lost in the throes of momentary madness, her only reality was the bloodlust roaring inside her head.

Someone had to pay for the terrible things that had happened to Augusta Boyd. Someone had to stand responsible for her devastation; there had to be someone to blame. That someone was Perrin Waverly.

In this moment of madness and fury, she truly believed if Perrin were destroyed, all her problems would vanish. With Perrin gone, her father would stride into camp and rescue his beloved daughter from these commonplace women and the numerous unbearable hardships. Her father would explain that it had all been a mistake. He was alive, and they still owned their large mansion on the riverbank, they still were the wealthy and esteemed Boyds. He would beg her forgiveness and declare his love, he would spend the rest of their lives atoning for the shame and heartache she had suffered in his name.

A rough hand grabbed the collar of her shirtwaist and dragged her up off of Perrin. Iron fingers clamped her arms against her sides and held her tightly against a male body. Still screaming and spitting, fighting to free herself, she watched Cody Snow pick Perrin up by the shoulders and jerk her back against his chest. Panting heavily, Perrin strained against him, kicking and flailing her elbows.

"Let me go!" Augusta screamed. When she twisted to see who dared put his hands on a Boyd, she looked into the brilliant black gaze of Webb Coate. Her body went rigid, and revulsion twisted her lips as she felt the heat of him burning along the length of her body, felt his hips molding her buttocks.