Lessie: Bride of Utah (American Mail-Order Bride 45) (12 page)

Sunrise.

Well… I’ll be jiggered.

The boss done
finally
found himself a bride. Took him long enough. The pathetic ad had run in
Groom’s Gazette
for months.

That bit of good news changed things all around, and definitely for the better.

He chose his response with care. Keeping to the forlorn lovers’ style, he chose the word sure to convey the go-ahead.
Dream of me.

After it all panned out, he’d have to remember to reward the soldier good and proper.

Loyal soldiers deserved nothing less.

X X O O.
Message received.

Morning dawned clear and bright. Another beautiful autumn day. Early sunlight streamed through the east-facing windows.

And despite the awkward ending to their kisses and becoming acquainted last night, it was an absolute pleasure waking up with Lessie in his bed.

He lay there, quietly, watching her sleep. So relaxed, so peaceful. All he could figure was she must be used to a very small bed— a cot, perhaps— and sharing with her sister. She’d sought his warmth in the middle of the night, and he’d awoken to find her curled against him.

What was a husband to do in a situation like that? He’d gladly wrapped an arm about her middle and snuggled her in close, spooning them together like the matched set he wanted them to be.

What better way to accustom her to his touch?

He needed to get outside and see to the horses. And he would. After a few more stolen moments with his wife. Once she awoke, and found herself this close to him in bed, he could only imagine what she’d say, how she’d respond.

She might push him further away.

Deep in his gut he knew the best way to help her get over her discomfort with the idea of them together would be to touch her at every turn. Gentle caresses, little kisses in parting and in greeting, goodnight kisses. Holding hands. A touch to her arm. His hand at her back. Helping her in and out of the carriage.

More massages with lotion into the dry skin of her hands and feet. She hadn’t allowed him to minister to her feet last night. Too private, too far beyond anything she’d previously experienced.

But tonight…?

Seeing her threadbare, yellowed-with-age shift by morning’s light renewed his determination to see his bride well dressed. She couldn’t own more than two sets of clothing… four, counting Josie’s.

Today, he’d see her properly outfitted. He wanted her comfortable, adequately dressed, and prepared for winter. Frost came early in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, and she needed woolen stockings, flannel petticoats, plenty of lacy and feminine under things. Several new chemises and day dresses of various fabrics to ensure no matter the weather, she had all she needed.

As his wife, it was his duty to meet her needs, including decent clothing.

If anybody saw her on the street dressed as she was, the shame fell on him and him alone.

Today he’d take her to Z.C.M.I. on Washington Avenue. They wouldn’t leave until she’d selected every item she needed to fill their closet and—

A brisk rap sounded on the front door. He snapped awake from the drifting half-rest he’d fallen into. Sure enough— another knock at the door. Who would call at this time of morning?

Beside him, Lessie slept on, undisturbed.

Hmm. She must be accustomed to noise and disturbances.

He sat up, reluctant to leave the warm comfort of their bed.

He quickly pulled on his robe over the undershirt and drawers he’d left on last night, out of consideration for Lessie.

He headed down the stairs in bare feet, peered through the leaded glass surrounding the front door, and recognized the Deseret Telegraph Office delivery boy.

“Morning, Mr. Cannon.”

“Bart.” Richard nodded in greeting to the familiar courier. He accepted the wire, his heart already twisting. Despite Deseret’s pledge to serve the business community and deliver wires in a timely manner, a courier at this time of morning could not be good news.

Surely the train carrying Adam and his bride—

He almost gasped in relief when he scanned the yellow card and picked up the location: Big Ezra.

Not
Adam—whose journey to New Mexico had them well beyond the border of Utah Territory by now.

Needing coin to thank Bart for his trouble, patted his pocket and realized, again, he’d answered the door in the inappropriate dress of a bridegroom kept abed by his new wife. “Come in.” He shut the door behind the kid. “Hold on just a moment. I may need to send an immediate reply.”

“Of course, sir.”

Richard hurried into his office and found a few coins in the desk drawer to tip Bart.

Bart already knew the contents, naturally, but pretended ignorance as Richard read.

Big Ezra tunnel collapse. Forty men trapped. Presumed dead.

Impotent rage surged. He crumpled the yellow card in his fist, prepared to hurl it against the wall. These aren’t just numbers, they’re
human beings
. Men with names and lives and families who would grieve them.

Two serious tragedies with a high fatality count, at
one
location, within the week.

“Will you send a reply, Mr. Cannon?” Bart’s footfalls sounded on the hardwood hallway floor as he approached the office. The kid had often come all the way in while waiting for replies or to speak to Richard when Adam answered the door.

“Yes.” He grabbed fountain pen and paper from his desk, scrawled a rapid reply to the mine foreman, asking for details and a full report, informing him of an immediate visit.

He had to go. And
quickly
.

He tipped Bart and saw him to the door. He turned, visions of the collapsed mine shaft and the men crushed—

Lessie stood in the hallway, a clean but rumpled dress donned.

Sadness lingered in her expressive eyes. “Another disaster?”

“A tunnel collapsed.”

“How many?”

He considered decreasing the number, sheltering her from the tragic news. But remembering last night and the strides they’d made toward knowing each other, trusting each other, he opted for the truth. “Forty.”

She winced.

Seconds passed as the grandfather clock in the parlor softly chimed the half-hour. Six-thirty.

“Someone,” she said softly, “wants you at the mine site, don’t they?”

His thoughts, exactly.

Fear unlike anything he’d known in a long while skittered along his frazzled nerves. “Yeah.”

“We have no time to waste.” Like the bossy girl he’d met at Union Station, she had it figured out. “We’d better go, don’t you think?”

“No.” The thought of her in that rough mining camp when he couldn’t identify the enemy—

“I’m coming with you. It’s why you brought me here.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“You and I are a team.” Her tone left no room for argument. “I thought we settled that last night.”

“I don’t know who’s causing these ‘accidents’.”

“We’ll figure it out, together.”

He’d find a way to ensure her safety while poking around a bear den with a sharp stick. When his opponent came out swinging, he’d have to ensure he positioned himself between that danger and his wife.

The solution was a poor one, but necessary.

“We’re going to load the wagon with supplies and stop at a department store on the way out of town. You need decent clothing.”

She opened her mouth to argue but he cut her off. “No boardwalks where we’re going. You need good boots to protect your feet. Woolen petticoats and a coat. This time of year, it freezes at that altitude at night.”

At least she didn’t argue with him.

He ushered her up the stairs, his hands at her waist. “One important thing you need to understand before we arrive up there, Lessie.”

“Yes?”

“No matter what, we can’t let on we suspect anything more than a streak of bad luck. First the rock dropping from a late fall and now a collapse. Horrible accidents. That’s all.”

She stepped onto the landing ahead of him.

“Understand?” he pressed. “
No suspicions.
”

“Understood.”

“We can’t show our hand too soon. Until we determine who might be damaging operations and killing my men, we cannot let the culprit know we’re suspicious.”

To do so would put Lessie in serious danger.

Chapter Ten

Much later that afternoon, Richard drove the wagon into Big Ezra. Lessie sat beside him on the hard wooden bench, glad the arduous drive over the rough mountain road was behind them.

A company store with painted lettering across the false front stating just that: Company Store. A blacksmith sat back a ways where the heat and fire of the forge wouldn’t put the mercantile at risk. The acrid black smoke from the blacksmith’s chimney hung over the crooked street where rainwater had carved riverbeds and dried into washboards.

Two haphazard streets of square cottages, no more than shanties with rock chimneys, intersected with this nameless main street. Three covered wells interspersed between the dwellings had once been painted white. Another crooked row of small buildings, less than eight-feet square, had no apparent purpose.

Smoke curled from various chimneys in the buildings, fires for heat and cooking. Of course Richard had been right. A deep chill permeated through her coat and many new layers of warmer clothing. The leaves in the mountainous canyon had donned their autumnal colors, and the higher mountain peaks already had a dusting of snow.

The climb from Ogden City to Big Ezra had been a constant pull for the horse team. It seemed they’d gained hundreds of feet of altitude.

The wind shifted, and the stink of sewage identified the communal outhouses. Always good to know where to find the necessaries.

In this environment she was so much more at home than in Richard’s lovely newly built home.

Further up the hill, large wooden buildings must collectively be the colliery— the boxlike entrances to coal mines and their various structures.

Though more than fifty men had died in the mines at this site within the past week, work apparently stopped for no one. Lessie scanned the busy streets, men, women, and children going about their work. Some led mule-drawn rail cars up the steep grade toward the mine entrances. A group of men must have just completed a shift because they trudged toward a long building she supposed to be a bunkhouse, blackened with dirt and coal dust.

She could see the stark difference between the whites of the workers’ eyes against the dusty darkness of their skin.

If she could so easily identify them, they had to know who drove this wagon, had to know their employer Richard Cannon had arrived.

Not one man raised a hand in greeting. No one doffed a cap in respectful acknowledgment.

Instantly, she identified with the men, remembering the two times she’d seen Mr. Bob Brown, owner of the textile mill where she’d spent ten to eighteen hours a day working herself to the point of exhaustion.