Heartbreak Creek (3 page)

A sudden, intense swell of homesickness almost choked her.

Gone. All of it. Forever.

The
clackety-clack
of the slowing train wheels gave way to the
screech
of brakes. Finally the train shuddered to a full stop. Passengers twisted in their seats, trying to see past the vapor from the smokestack that coiled around the windows like lost clouds.

The door at the front of the passenger coach swung open, and the conductor stepped inside. Stopping in the aisle between the two long rows of bench seats, he hooked his thumbs into his vest pockets and studied the expectant faces turned his way, his lips pursed beneath a bushy gray mustache that looped around his red-veined cheeks to join equally bushy muttonchop sideburns. He didn’t look happy.

“There’s a problem, folks,” he announced. “Three miles up, a washout took out the Damnation Creek trestle.”

The passengers moved restively. “What does that mean?” one asked.

“Means we’ll be stuck for a while.”

Edwina perked up. A while? How long was “a while”?

Raising his hands to quiet the angry muttering, the conductor explained. “They’re sending wagons to carry you around the washout to Heartbreak Creek. The railroad will put you up there until the trestle is repaired.”

“How long?” a man called out.

“A week. Maybe two.”

Immediately, more voices rose. The conductor had to shout to continue, but Edwina scarcely heard a word. With something akin to giddiness, she turned to Pru. “We’re saved, praise the Lord.”

“A reprieve only.” When Edwina started to say something more, Pru shushed her and leaned forward to attend the conductor’s words.

But Edwina was feeling too euphoric to heed more than a word or phrase here and there—“hotel . . . meals . . . don’t drink the water.” To her, it all meant the same thing. A delay. A blessed reprieve. She wouldn’t be meeting her new husband in Heartbreak Creek today as expected.

The conductor concluded his announcements and left, promising the wagons would arrive within an hour or so.

Pru fidgeted and sighed. “At least they’ll be covering the cost of our accommodations in Heartbreak Creek until the tracks are repaired.” She shot Edwina a look. “Stop grinning. And what makes you think your new husband won’t travel the extra distance around the washout and be there waiting?”

“Oh, Sister, pray he doesn’t.”

Pru’s elbow poked her ribs. “Hush,” she warned in a low voice. “You must stop referring to me as your sister.”

Edwina almost snorted. Prudence was more than her sister. She was her lifelong best friend, her confidant, the one who gave her courage when everything seemed so bleak. “You
are
my sister,” she argued, rubbing her bruised side.

“Half sister. And to call attention to that fact is unseemly and casts your father in a poor light.”

“
Our
father.”

Pru pressed her full lips in a tight line, a clear indication she was losing patience. “Must you be so obstinate? If you’re trying to make a new start, Edwina, why carry old baggage along?”

“Old baggage?” Edwina gave her a look of haughty disbelief. “Even though you’re twenty-seven and an
entire
year older than me,
Sister
, I have never considered you ‘
baggage
.’ ”

Waving that aside, Pru went on in the same low voice. “There is no need to bandy it about that your father—”

“
Our
father. Who adored
your
mother. As well he should.” Edwina was growing weary of this endless argument. Back home, Pru’s parentage had been common knowledge. Everyone at Rose Hill had loved Ester, who had taken on the role of Edwina’s mammy as soon as it had become apparent that Pricilla Whitney was incapable of caring for her own child. Had he been able, Charles Whitney would have gladly married Pru’s mother; as it was, he had been utterly devoted to her until the night the Yankees had swept through Sycamore Parish, leaving death and destruction in their wake.

In truth, Edwina had loved Pru’s mother more than her own.

Her gaze dropped to the fine, pale web of scars marring the brown skin that showed between the cuff and glove on Pru’s right wrist. Other scars, hidden by the long sleeve of her gray bombazine, stretched up her right arm and halfway across her chest and back. Burn scars, given to her by Edwina’s mother when Pru had tried to protect her little sister.

Edwina had scars, too, although other than a few pale stripes across her back, they were of a more subtle kind, the kind that festered in the soul and left behind invisible wounds of doubt and guilt and distrust.

She owed Pru her sanity, if not her life. And she loved her for it.

“Be that as it may,” Pru went on, regaining Edwina’s attention. “Races don’t mix. It’s against the laws of man and God, and you know it.”

“Here we go again.” Edwina faked a yawn behind her gloved hand. “If reason fails, bring out the Scriptures.”

“Edwina!”

“Well, really, Pru. If it’s true that white and black shouldn’t mix, you would be a drooling, crossed-eyed hunchback with an extra ear. Instead you’re beautiful.”

Pru snorted. “Except for the hair and nose.”

“Not as bad as the wart on my elbow,” Edwina chimed in. “And my less-than-ample bosom and—”

A soft, feminine chuckle interrupted Edwina’s self-deprecation. Looking past Pru, she saw the blond lady across the aisle was smiling at them. Edwina had seen the smartly dressed young woman several times over the last days, nearly always seated with another young, attractive lady toward the rear of the coach. But today, after the train had stopped in Santa Lucia to fill the tender with water, both women had moved to the vacant bench across the aisle from Pru.

“Are you truly arguing about which of you is less attractive?” the woman asked, her green eyes dancing with amusement. Beautiful eyes, with a slight upward tilt at the outside corners that might have hinted at wide-eyed innocence if not for the hard knowledge behind the knowing smile. A Yankee, by her accent. Poor thing. No wonder she seemed jaded.

Before Edwina could respond to the comment, the other woman, seated next to the window, looked over with a wide smile. Where the blond had shown a worldly-wise weariness beneath her cool green eyes, this auburn-haired lady seemed without artifice. An ingenuous, dimpled smile complemented intense chocolate brown eyes that sparkled with such life and intelligence Edwina couldn’t help but smile back. “You are both too beautiful by half,” the woman said in a clipped English accent. “Your bone structure is superb, both of you. And I assure you, I would know.”

Edwina wasn’t sure what to make of that. Usually, any compliments she received—mostly from men—involved her magnolia skin, which always sounded a bit sickly to her—or her glorious hair, which she thought was abysmally average, ranging from mouse brown to light brown, depending on how many lemons were available—and her soulful blue eyes, which were admittedly her best feature and the exact shade of the early spring forget-me-nots that had bloomed along the garden wall back home.

How sad that they, and the wall, and all the handsome young men with their pretty compliments were gone forever.

“Excuse me for intruding.” The blond woman held out a hand encased in a finely sewn white kid glove. “I’m Lucinda Hathaway.”

“Edwina Ladoux . . . Brodie.” Leaning past Pru to take the proffered hand, she noted the gold ear bobs, the fine fabric of the blond’s traveling cloak, the shiny button-top boots planted protectively against an expensive leather valise stowed under her seat. Even though Edwina had supported herself and Pru as a seamstress—barely—and was skilled at refitting made-over dresses to look stylish, she couldn’t help but feel dowdy in comparison to this pretty woman. “And this is, Prudence, my—”

“Traveling companion,” Pru cut in, ignoring Edwina’s sharp look. “So pleased to meet you.”

“Madeline Wallace, but I prefer Maddie,” the auburn-haired woman chimed in with a wave in Edwina’s and Pru’s direction. She wore no gloves, and a thick signet ring was visible on her left hand.

“You’re married?” Edwina was taken aback by the notion that a married woman would be traveling alone if she didn’t have to. Then realizing how rude that sounded, she quickly added, “I saw your ring.”

Maddie held up her hand, palm out. She studied the thick gold band for a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose I am married, although I haven’t heard from Angus in over three years. Perhaps he’s dead.” A brief flash of distress at that startling announcement, then she let her hand fall back into her lap and smiled. “He’s Scottish,” she clarified, which clarified nothing. “A soldier. I couldn’t bear to stay another day with his family—they have low regard for the English, you know, and little hesitation in showing it—so I left.”

“Good girl,” Lucinda murmured.

“Left?” Edwina parroted, shocked by the notion of a woman simply heading off on her own to a foreign country just because she didn’t like living with her husband’s family.

“I’m an expeditionary photographer. A tintypist, really, specializing in
cartes de visite.
” Maddie smiled as if that explained everything, which it didn’t. “The
Illustrated London News
is paying me to capture the American West from a woman’s perspective. Isn’t that grand?”

It was unbelievable. A female photographer? Edwina couldn’t imagine such a thing. It had taken all her courage to travel a thousand miles, yet this tiny woman had taken on a man’s occupation and crossed an ocean to an unknown country. How daring. And terrifying. And admirable.

“And you?” Lucinda inquired, jarring Edwina back to the conversation. “Do you live in this area?”

Edwina blinked at her, wondering how to answer. “Yes. I mean, I plan to. That is to say, I will. Soon.”

“She’s traveling to meet her husband,” Pru piped up in an attempt to translate Edwina’s garbled response.

“How nice.” Lucinda’s voice carried a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

“Not really.”

“Oh, dear,” Pru murmured.

The two women across the aisle stared at her with brows raised and expectant expressions, so Edwina felt compelled to explain. “I’ve never met him, you see. We married in a proxy ceremony.”

A moment of awkward, if not stunned, silence. A pitying look came into Lucinda’s eyes, but Maddie clapped her hands in delight. “A mail-order bride! How perfect! How utterly western! You shall be my first subject! Won’t that be delightful?”

Delightful in a ghoulish, horrifying way, Edwina thought, not sure she wanted her misery captured on tintype for all time.

 

 

That afternoon, when the wagon transporting the passengers rolled to a muddy stop outside the hotel, Edwina decided that if Heartbreak Creek was an example of divine intervention on her behalf, then God was either extremely angry with her or had a macabre sense of humor.

But she still offered up a grateful prayer of thanks that no tall, dark-haired, unsmiling man rushed forward to greet her.

“Oh, my,” Maddie breathed, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm as she peered over the side rails. “I could take photographs here for a month.”

“If we live that long,” Lucinda muttered. Clutching her leather valise in one hand and raising her skirts with the other—much to the glee of three reprobates grinning from the doorway of the Red Eye Saloon next door to the hotel—she gingerly stepped out of the wagon, onto the mounting block, then up onto the boardwalk. With a look of distaste, she dropped her skirts and looked around. “Two weeks. Here. Surely they’re jesting.”

Edwina climbed up onto the boardwalk beside her, followed by Maddie, then Prudence. Moving aside to make room for the other passengers clambering out of the wagon, the four women studied the town.

It was a dismal place.

Situated at the bottom of a steep-sided canyon, the town was a rat’s nest of unpainted plank-sided buildings, sagging tents, dilapidated sheds and lean-tos, all sandwiched between a flooded creek and a single muddy dunghill of a street. And the crowning glory, perched on the rocky hillside north of the wretched town, was a sprawling, many-scaffolded edifice that looked more like a monstrous spider poised to strike than a working mine. The entire town had a haphazard, unfinished feel to it, like a collection of random afterthoughts thrown together by a confused mind.

And yet, Edwina realized, looking around a second time, if one looked beyond the eyesore of the mine, and the squalor and taint of decay that seemed to hang in the air like stale wood smoke, there was astounding beauty to be seen. Tall conifers rising a hundred feet. Stark cliffs sheened by cascading waterfalls winding down the rock face like frothy ribbons. High, white-capped peaks cutting a jagged edge against a cloudless blue sky. It was savage and mysterious . . . but it was also blessedly free of the ravages of war, and for that reason more than any other, Edwina liked it.

“I wonder what they mine?” Maddie asked, squinting up at the sprawling hillside monstrosity.

“Nothing lucrative,” Lucinda murmured, eyeing the ill-kempt, wide-eyed gawkers now spilling out of the saloon to get a better look at the ladies. “This place is one step from being a ghost town.”

“A ghost town!” Maddie fairly glowed with excitement. “Two weeks won’t be long enough to do justice to this marvelous place. And look at those faces! Each one tells a story. I can’t wait to get to work.”

“Then you’d best start unpacking,” Lucinda advised, eyeing the boxes of photography equipment crowding the boardwalk.

Prudence nudged Edwina’s arm and nodded to where the conductor was crossing names off a list as the other passengers filed into the hotel. “Let’s get settled.”

The Heartbreak Creek Hotel might have been—for a month or two, anyway—a thriving place. But years of neglect had reduced it to a bedraggled, rickety old dowager, barely clinging to the threadbare remnants of her brief glory. Sun-faded drapes, scuffed wainscoting against peeling wallpaper, once-lovely oil sconces now caked with soot and dust. Even the air that met them when they stepped through the open double doors smelled musty, laced with the lingering scents of stale cooking odors, tobacco smoke, and moldy carpets.