Brides of Prairie Gold (2 page)

"Here comes trouble," Smokey Joe announced cheerfully. He lowered a hundred-pound canvas sack of flour to the ground beside the cook wagon, then straightened and thumbed back his hat before he slid Cody a sidelong grin.

Cody glanced up from the list he was checking against the provisions waiting to be loaded and frowned at Smokey's grin. Nothing entertained Cody's trail cook more than trouble that arrived with someone else's name on it.

"Right now I'm glad I ain't you, Capt'n," Smokey Joe added, his grin widening. He tilted the wide brim of his hat, directing Cody's attention toward the row of wagons they had ferried across the Missouri yesterday. "Think I'll just make myself scarce."

Cody tucked the provisions list inside his vest and glanced down the row of wagons, noting the alignment and bright canvas tops. Later today he and his teamsters would bring the cattle and oxen across the river; tomorrow the long journey would begin.

He hadn't expected trouble until they were well under way, but Smokey Joe had called it right. Two of the brides he was commissioned to transport from Chastity, Missouri, to Clampet Falls, Oregon, were marching down the row of wagons, grim-faced and tight-lipped, skirts billowing and flapping in the cold wind like the dark wings of mythical Furies.

Suppressing a sigh, Cody leaned against the back wheel of the cook wagon, folded his arms across his chest, and observed their furious advance.

The willowy blonde draped in deep mourning was Miss Augusta Boyd. During her interview, she had made certain that Cody understood she reigned as the society belle of Chastity, the implication being that her name and position merited deference and esteem.

Perhaps the obligations of society in Chastity, Missouri, demanded the profusion of ribbon, braid, and fringe trimming her dark pelisse and skirts. On the other hand, for all Cody knew of women's fashion, it was possible that lavishly adorned mourning had become the mode everywhere.

The small brunette with flaming cheeks, he recalled, was Mrs. Perrin Waverly, a widow of several years' standing. Her plain brown dress was not richly trimmed nor as well cut as that of the imperious Miss Boyd, and she didn't wear a warm wool pelisse but clutched a yarn shawl over slender shoulders.

Cody remembered their names and a little of their history because Miss Boyd and Mrs. Waverly were far and away the best-looking women among his eleven charges. He found it curious that women as beautiful as these two had agreed to undertake an arduous, two-thousand-mile journey to marry a stranger.

At the moment they both looked angry enough to chew rocks. Fists pressing down their crinolines, they advanced at a rapid pace as if each feared the other would reach him first.

Augusta Boyd won the race. She halted in front of him in a swirl of black crepe, her china-blue eyes frigid with outrage.

"Mr. Snow!" A cold breeze tossed the ribbons trimming her bonnet and pelisse, imparting the impression that even her clothing quivered with anger. "I demand a word with you!"

Cody glanced at Perrin Waverly as she arrived a step behind Augusta Boyd. He couldn't tell if her cheeks were fiery with anger or from the chill in the air. He guessed a bit of both. For an instant her deep-lashed cinnamon eyes met Cody's gaze, then she abruptly turned toward the river and faced the town of Chastity on the opposite bank. She gripped the shawl close to her throat and lowered her head.

Cody lifted his hat and stepped away from the wagon wheel. "Good morning, ladies."

"I will not share a wagon with this this creature !" Augusta Boyd announced furiously. Twin circles of scarlet flamed on her pale cheeks. "I demand that you order your men to stop loading her goods into my wagon!"

Cody's jaw tightened. He didn't take kindly to demands, didn't warm to orders issued by his passengers. It required an effort to hold his tongue, required a reminder that dealing with women was not, and could not, be the same as dealing with men.

In the expectant silence that followed Augusta Boyd's outburst, Cody slid a curious look toward the "creature." Wind buffeted Perrin Waverly's small, stiff form, molding her skirts around shapely hips and thighs. Her cheeks burned and she kept her gaze fixed on the skeletal trees outlining the dirt streets of Chastity. At this moment she looked as if she were held upright solely by anger and embarrassment.

"I could place Mrs. Waverly with Miss Hilda Clum," Cody decided after a minute, looking back and forth between the two women. When Mrs. Waverly didn't speak, he returned his attention to Miss Boyd. "Are you willing to ride alone, Miss Boyd? Drive your oxen with no relief?"

"Certainly not!" she snapped, giving him a look of irritation and incredulity. A slight shudder convulsed her shoulders. She shot a venomous glance toward Mrs. Waverly. "I expect you to remove her goods from my wagon at once!"

Before Cody could reply, Augusta Boyd whirled in a billow of black crepe flounces and departed the way she had come, carrying her head high.

Narrowing his gaze, Cody watched her cut a wide path around the piles of goods stacked behind and to the sides of each wagon awaiting loading. He noticed that she nodded regally in response to greetings from the other brides, but didn't pause to speak.

She had departed too soon. Cody decided he had a few things to say to Miss Augusta Boyd. But first there was the problem of Mrs. Waverly.

"I take it that you and Miss Boyd are acquainted," he commented dryly, studying Perrin Waverly's profile. The curve of her bonnet hid her eyes, but he glimpsed a slender nose and a well-shaped chin that trembled with anger.

"Indirectly," she replied after a minute. Her voice was low and throaty as if the cold wind had settled there. She pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders, clutching the edges near the high collar of her dress. "I'm sorry for this inconvenience."

As tact didn't rank high among his qualities, Cody couldn't think of a soft way to ask the next question. "Is there any reason why Miss Clum might object to sharing a wagon with you?"

Perrin Waverly flinched, then squared her shoulders with an obvious effort. "Possibly," she admitted after another pause. Waves of angry humiliation rolled off of her and crashed against Cody's chest. He cursed beneath his breath. Curiosity was exactly the type of involvement he didn't welcome, didn't need.

He didn't want to know the brides personally, wasn't concerned about them as individuals; he rejected any speculation about their choices. He chose to consider them as cargo, freight he was paid to haul. Unfortunately, though it grated against his better judgment, he couldn't help wondering what in the hell little Mrs. Waverly had done to incur the wrath of the regal Miss Boyd.

"Miss Clum is the schoolteacher, isn't she?" Her throaty voice made him suddenly think of French corsets and lace garters, an image distinctly at odds with her plain, high-necked gown.

"I'll speak to Miss Clum on your behalf."

Suspicion flashed in Mrs. Waverly's brown eyes, eyes too large for her small face and delicate features. "I will speak to Miss Clum myself, Mr. Snow."

He shrugged. She was glaring at him as if he'd given offense by offering to intervene. Before his irritation mounted, her expression dissolved into uncertainty. "If Miss Clum won't agree to let me share her wagon"

"Then we have a serious problem." Even angry and embarrassed by the scene with Augusta Boyd, she was truly a beautiful woman, not the sort of woman he had expected to find on this journey. "If Miss Clum refuses, then I can't accommodate you on this journey. Unless you resolve your dispute with Miss Boyd."

"That isn't possible," she said sharply, turning away from him to face the river.

From this angle, glimpses of gabled rooftops and brick chimneys could be seen through the winter-bare branches of thick elms and cottonwoods. The largest house, Cody had been informed, was the Boyd mansion, which Augusta Boyd had recently sold. Mrs. Waverly gazed at Miss Boyd's house with an unreadable expression.

After a moment she straightened her spine and smoothed down her skirts. "Well. There's no sense putting it off."

In silence, Cody accompanied her as far as the third wagon. The women working around the first two wagons did not greet Mrs. Waverly or acknowledge her in any way. He was thinking about that when they reached Hilda Clum's wagon. Hilda was moving her trunks and sacks of provisions herself, placing them in the order she wanted everything loaded into the wagon.

Aside from bright, intelligent brown eyes, Hilda Clum was about as plain a woman as any Cody had encountered. Broad Slavic features topped well-fleshed bones: she was put together as sturdily as the wagon behind her. On the plus side, she seemed practical, efficient, and cheerful. Cody had yet to discover her without a smile. He had liked her at once.

He tipped his hat. "Miss Clum. Are you acquainted with Mrs. Waverly?"

Hilda Clum's eyes widened and she hesitated before answering. "I have not actually met Mrs. Waverly, but Chastity is small enough that of course I've heard of her." Hilda dusted bare hands together and kicked her skirts forward between the boxes littering the ground. "The only bride that I do not recognize by sight is Miss Munger. Jane Munger is from St. Joseph, isn't she?"

Mrs. Waverly cast Cody a steady, narrow-eyed look that told him to go on about his business and leave her to hers. It occurred to him that this was one bride who did not particularly like men.

That, thank God, was not his problem. But he felt a flash of sympathy for the poor bridegroom awaiting her arrival in Oregon. The man would get a beauty, but he'd also get a spit-in-your-eye attitude. After watching the women study each other for a moment, he left them to reach an accommodation if they could.

Striding down the line of wagons, he nodded to women busily checking lists against their provisions, and automatically skimmed a critical eye over canvas and axles and the iron tires rimming the wheels.

At the last wagon, Heck Kelsey, Miles Dawson, and John Voss stood off to one side of an astounding number of boxes and trunks. They smoked, wasting time, and watched Miss Augusta Boyd with unhappy expressions. She glared back at them with eyes flashing anger and contempt.

"Thank goodness you've finally come," she said, hurrying forward. "Thesemen!refuse to do as I order. They won't remove Mrs. Waverly's boxes from my wagon!"

Cody narrowed his eyes on her smooth oval face, noting a perfect complexion, thick-lashed blue eyes, and a rosy mouth. "My men don't take orders from anyone but me."

Irritation quirked her mouth and her gloves fluttered in an impatient gesture. "Then you tell them!"

He nodded at Heck Kelsey before he touched Augusta Boyd's elbow and led her several yards from the wagon. She was tall enough that the lip of her black bonnet nearly reached Cody's eyes, taller than Ellen had been. As always, Ellen's memory blindsided him. He stared down at the blond fringe curling on Augusta Boyd's brow, the color so like Ellen's, and felt a flash of white-hot anger.

"First, you do not issue orders to my men," he said bluntly. "You don't demand; you don't insist. Second, the men in Oregon are paying for these wagons and paying the fare for your passage, but they are not paying for drivers. Either you drive your wagon or you don't go. And third, just so you understand, no one gets preferential treatment on this journey."

Instantly her smile snapped into shock and outrage. "My father was a respected banker and the mayor of Chastity for three terms!" When Cody's expression didn't alter, she added, "That's our home over there." She nodded toward an impressive mansion showing through the trees. "My father was the most esteemed"

"I don't care if your father ruled the Western world, Miss Boyd." Shock silenced her. "On my train, all passengers are equal. You drive your wagon, you cook your meals, you set up your tent, just like everyone else. You pull your share of the load or there's no place for you here."

Anger frosted her blue eyes. Her chin rose imperiously. "I am a lady, Mr. Snow. It is outrageous that Mr. Clampet, my intended husband, did not provide a driver for my use and I shall speak sharply on this subject when I meet him." She glared at the men removing Mrs. Waverly's goods from her wagon. "It's clear that I'll need an additional wagon to accommodate my furnishings and linens. I'm sure you'll agree to that requirement at least."

Cody ground his teeth and swallowed a swear word. "One wagon was ordered and paid for; one wagon is what you get. What won't fit into one wagon stays behind," he said, striving for patience.

"But my furnishings!"

At the conclusion of ten minutes of pleading on her part and implacability on his part, moisture and resentment appeared in Miss Boyd's eyes, but she finally, sullenly, accepted that her furnishings would not accompany her to Oregon.

"If I had known of these restrictions in advance" she whispered, pressing gloved fingers to trembling eyelids.

"Miss Boyd, have you ever driven oxen?" Looking at her, he couldn't imagine she had attempted anything more strenuous than wielding an embroidery needle.

"My maid, Cora, will drive the wagon," she said, her gaze mourning the heavy furniture that would remain behind.

"Your maid?" Incredulity blanked his expression.

"Cora Thorp. She grew up on a farm. I suppose she knows about things like driving a wagon." After throwing Cody a glance that labeled him an unfeeling brute, she turned her face away. "Will that be all, Mr. Snow?"

Cody stared, his mind leaping to accommodate the addition of a passenger of whom he had no previous knowledge. A maid. After an inner struggle, he conceded there was space for Cora Thorp now that Mrs. Waverly had gone to Miss Clum. At least he hoped Mrs. Waverly had worked it out with Miss Hilda Clum.

"This is a long journey, Miss Boyd, and I don't want any unnecessary problems. If there's" he paused, "anyone on this train that you can't get along with, then you need to reconsider this expedition. We're going to run into enough problems with forces we can't control."

"If you're referring to that creature," she said, speaking between perfect teeth, "she's the person who should be put off this train! She is a woman of the lowest possible character. Her presence dishonors all decent women!"