Brides of Prairie Gold (7 page)

The lesson was clear. Without money, a person had no choices at all. Her father had killed himself rather than live without money. Now his daughter was vulnerable to white trash like Cora Thorp, the daughter of a gravedigger, for heaven's sake. And Mrs. Thorp took in other people's laundry.

If she hadn't been wearing gloves, Augusta's fingernails would have cut deeply into her smooth palms.

Red-hot resentment burned through her body, shocking her to the toes of her fashionable boots. It didn't seem possible that she could resent or blame her adored father, but when she thought about his liaison with that creature Perrin Waverly, which had led to him leaving his daughter penniless amid the scandal of his suicide, anger swelled into a scalding flash.

All of her life she had been taught that Boyds were special, several cuts above ordinary common folk. Boyds had sailed on the Mayflower; Boyds had distinguished themselves in the Revolutionary War. Boyds enjoyed wealth and privilege. The Boyd men were giants in business and politics; Boyd women graced society at its pinnacle and married men like their fathers.

Except Augusta. There had been no man in Chastity good enough to marry Augusta Boyd. That had been her father's judgment, and an opinion Augusta shared. It was far better to remain a Boyd spinster and devote her life to her father than to marry beneath herself.

That future was no longer possible, because her father had forgotten who he was. He had forgotten that Boyds didn't lose their fortunes, didn't alter the books of their own bank. Boyds did not place a noose around their necks and step off of a chair.

Now, because of her father's mistakes, Augusta was penniless and driven to marry a common stranger to survive. It still did not seem possible or real.

The scandal of his suicide was even worse than the scandal he'd caused with Perrin Waverly. Augusta would have killed herself if she had believed for a minute that anyone knew the humiliating truth about her father's financial devastation. It would be unendurable if people knew she was penniless, reduced to the same common level as as Cora Thorp. Good Lord.

Miles Dawson waved and shouted. "Move your wagon up, miss."

With a start, Augusta emerged from her misery and dashed at the tears hanging on her lashes. She gripped the wooden seat and called for Cora.

"I'm here." Sullenly, Cora climbed up on the seat and released the brake. She slapped the reins across the oxen's back and they crossed the stream without trouble.

Eventually all the wagons reformed in a line and returned to the ruts winding across the prairie. Here and there green shoots sprouted out of winter-brown. But Augusta didn't notice the greening earth. Nor did she hear the rattle of harness or the sound of women's voices calling to one another.

Each revolution of the wheels whispered: No money; no choices. No money; no choices.

Whenever she thought of the future and the stranger waiting for her in Oregon, when she thought of Cora demanding her pay, or wondered if her provisions would last until she reached Clampet Falls, desperation glazed her eyes and she felt physically ill.

Cody lifted a stick out of Smokey Joe's fire, lit a cigar, then leaned against the back wheel of the cook wagon, studying the camp. At night the wagons formed a square, four wagons to a side, with the animals corraled in the center. Unless there was reason to expect danger, the women cooked and slept outside the square. It wasn't ideal, as he couldn't see all of the women at once, but it was the safest arrangement for the animals.

Before he let his mind release the day's small problems, he listened to his men exchanging tall tales around Smokey's fire. Heck Kelsey amused them by spinning yarns in different accents. Heck was solid and dependable, as honest as a collection plate. He'd already proven his worth by repairing an axle that broke on the second day.

The four teamsters laughed and joked, filled with high spirits and young enough to believe there was no obstacle they couldn't conquer. Overconfidence could be a problem, and it concerned Cody. But as long as their showing off didn't get out of hand, he didn't mind the competition among them or that they flirted with the younger brides.

A sound caught his attention and he stiffened and peered into the darkness, not relaxing until he recognized Webb's owl call. Minutes later Webb loomed out of the night near one of the molasses wagons. Cody waited while Webb unsaddled his mustang, watered and fed it, then turned it in to the enclosed square.

After washing at the water barrel, Webb accepted a platter of venison from Smokey Joe, then glanced at Cody. Cody nodded, and they walked into the darkness away from the others.

Webb speared a chunk of venison on the tip of his knife, chewed, and they both scanned the dark ridge of a low hill.

"We'll camp near Addison's farm the night after tomorrow," Webb said after a minute. "There's good water."

Cody smoked his cigar and waited.

"Jake Quinton is there."

Cody flipped his cigar into the darkness. "Is there another campsite other than Addison's place?"

"I'm avoiding the usual sites. We're seeing too many graves; there's too much risk of cholera, typhoid, or measles."

"Jake Quinton." Cody swore and ground his teeth.

"I spoke to Ed Addison. He says Quinton's been hanging around his farm for several days. Quintan's heard about the brides. He's curious what other freight we're carrying."

Cody jammed his hands in his back pockets and tilted his head to look at the inky sky. Clouds blotted the stars. A cold wind blew steadily from the north. Turning, he gazed toward the ring of cook fires circling the wagons. Here and there a woman's form passed in front of wind-tossed flames.

His history with Quinton tracked back five years. Jake Quinton had deserted during a summer campaign in the Dakota Territory. When the patrol returned him to the post, it had fallen to Captain Cody Snow to decide if Quinton would hang or be confined to the stockade at hard labor for six months.

"He's sworn to kill you. You know that."

Cody watched as the women began to extinguish their fires and drift toward the sleeping tents.

He should have hanged Jake Quinton.

A fast stream, swollen by spring melt, tumbled across Ed Addison's farmland. The water was clean and sweet, the ground level, and Addison earned a tidy profit by allowing trains to camp on his acreage. Addison sold grain for weary animals, his wife and daughters peddled eggs and handicrafts, and one of his sons hawked cider out of a wooden stand near a weathered silo.

"We'll rest here for a day," Cody informed Perrin. Shading his eyes against the morning glare, he looked toward Addison's farmhouse about three-quarters of a mile in the distance. "Tell the women they can bathe in the stream and do laundry, get some baking done ahead. I don't know when our next rest day will be."

Immediately Perrin's spirits soared. Although plates of ice rushed along the surface of the stream, the weather had improved in the last few days and the air had warmed. The luxury of a bath and a hair wash would cheer everyone. Smiling, she raised her face to the sun, glorying in the bright morning.

"Are we permitted to walk up to the house?"

Cody's silence became so lengthy that she opened her eyes and studied him as he continued to contemplate the farm buildings on the distant rise. He had an interesting face, Perrin decided, weathered and strongly angled. Vertical lines split his cheeks, the creases deepening when he smiled or frowned. A stubborn jaw framed an uncompromising mouth and lips that were full and wide.

The lines fanning from the corners of his eyes confirmed a life lived out of doors, but more interestingly, they suggested strength of character. Although Perrin hadn't actually seen Cody laugh, she had heard the sound. Like his voice, his laughter was deep, genuine, and resonated with feeling.

"If you go up to the house," he said finally, "go in a group. Not alone."

She nodded, trying to decide if his eyes were blue like the trim on her skirt or like the delphiniums that had bloomed in the garden behind her rented house in Chastity.

A startled blush heated her cheeks as Perrin realized that she hadn't speculated about a man's eyes in years. Suddenly she was very aware of how close they stood, aware of the flannel and leather scent of his shirt and vest.

"I'll inform the others," she said abruptly. Lifting her skirts, she started back toward the wagons.

"Mrs. Waverly?"

After hesitating a moment, Perrin uneasily returned to where he stood, not far from the smithy's wagon. The ring of Heck Kelsey's hammer sang in the clear air. An aroma of sizzling bacon curled from the cook fires, and the smell of strong coffee. It was better to appreciate the perfect spring morning than to marvel at the color of Cody Snow's eyes or to notice that standing near him tightened her nerves.

"We're having a problem. You and me."

Abruptly, Perrin's heart plummeted to her toes. When she stared into Cody's steady gaze, she was certain she read condemnation there. Lowering her head, she blinked rapidly, shocked to discover how much she had hoped that Cody Snow wouldn't hear the gossip about her.

"In the past week," he said, watching her as he lifted a hand and started to tick down his fingers, "Sarah Jennings has come to me with a suggestion that the brides share provisions and a communal cooking fire. Ona Norris has come to me to inquire how many miles we've traveled. Augusta Boyd has come to me to demand bathing facilities. And Thea Reeves has come to me to inquire if I'll pose for one of her sketches." He shook his head and made a sound reminiscent of stones grinding together. "Do you see the problem, Mrs. Waverly?"

A rush of pink tinted her face. She scuffed a boot over the sun-soft ground and frowned. "I don't know how to make them come to me instead of you."

Cody removed his hat, raked his fingers through a tumble of dark, sweat-damp hair, then he resettled the hat on his head. "You need to figure it out, Mrs. Waverly or we'll have to make other arrangements."

Which meant choosing a new women's representative. The sudden cramp in her stomach told Perrin that she didn't want that to happen. Being the women's representative had become important to her.

Because of the title, the others couldn't shun her outright. When she stopped by their fires in the evening to inquire if there were any problems, they didn't offer her coffee as they did with each other, and they didn't invite her to stay for a chat. But at least they were politely cordial. They didn't snub her or look through her, as they had done before she drew the slip of paper with the X on it.

Moreover, the title and position restored a tiny kernel of something that almost felt like pride, something she hadn't experienced in longer than she could remember.

A sudden choking sensation closed her throat as she tried to imagine the five- or six-month journey with no one to talk to, with no social interchange. No illusion of friendship.

She could not allow that to happen; she couldn't survive it. Being the representative required contact with the others, and it was her fervent secret hope that frequent contact could prove to them that she wasn't a bad person. She had made mistakes, yes, but her mistakes were not the sum total of her character.