Mail Order Josephine - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides) (7 page)

He scrutinized her, thinking it over. Then he brightened up. “I know! I’ll bring you a hat and you can tuck your hair underneath it. If either Tim or Ben sees you from a distance, they’ll think you’re a man. I’ll tell them I was out riding with a man. I’ll come up with a fictitious name for you, just in case anyone asks. I don’t think Tim or Ben will make too much of a fuss about it.”

“I hope not,” she mused.

“Besides, it’s not as out of the question as you might think. There’s a woman who owns a ranch over in the next valley,” he related. “Her husband died about three years after they bought the ranch, and she couldn’t afford to hire anyone to run the place. So what did she do? She put on his trousers and chaps and boots, and she belted on his pistols, and she mounted his horse, and she rode out and punched the cattle herself. Of course, there was a big outrage in the town, and they sent the sheriff out to her place to straighten her out. But there was nothing he could do. When she explained the case to him, that she could either punch cattle like a man or she and her two young children could starve in the gutter, he let it go. When he came back to town, he explained the same thing to the outraged citizens who demanded he arrest her, and they shut their mouths right quick. Everybody settled down peacefully after that, and now everyone understands. She even comes into Johnny’s forge like any man, and negotiates for the shoeing of her horses and the repair of her tack, and no one bats an eyelash.”

“She must have learned an awful lot about how to run the ranch,” Josephine observed.

“Yes, she did,” Andrew confirmed. “She came over here a couple of times to consult with my father about a few things, and I know she asked a lot of questions of the other ranchers when she first started out. Johnny was particularly embarrassed to have to transact business with a woman and to explain everything to her. After all, most of the men around the area—like me, for example—started going to Johnny’s forge as boys and learned most everything we know from listening to our fathers and uncles and other men negotiating with him. She didn’t have that experience. She had to learn everything on the fly, and quickly, too. Johnny didn’t like it at all, but he got used to it. He grumbled at first, but basic charity made him bite his tongue and tell her what she wanted to know. Besides, she was too good a customer to turn away, and he accepted her for her late husband’s sake.”

“I’d like to meet her sometime,” Josephine remarked.

“Maybe, sometime,” Andrew agreed. “But for now, let’s head back.”

“Do we have to go so soon?” she complained. “It’s so peaceful and beautiful here.”

“We’ll come again tomorrow,” he promised. “We’ll carry out our secret project, and we can stay longer, if you like. I just want to get you back to Aunt Agatha before it gets too late in the day. I wouldn’t want to do anything to make her mad.” He bent down and formed a cradle with his interlocking fingers. She stepped into it, and he propelled her up into her saddle. Then he leapt up onto his own mount, and they ambled back across the ridge in the direction from whence they came.

“I don’t think Aunt Agatha has given me a second thought since I went downstairs to breakfast this morning,” Josephine speculated. “She’s much too preoccupied with her own despondency at being stuck here for the rest of the week to consider that I might ride off into the wilderness with a strange man.”

“I’m hardly a strange man,” Andrew countered. “We’re practically related, after all.”

“
Almost
practically related, you mean,” she pointed out. “I never actually married your brother. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course, I remember,” he returned. “But for some reason I feel like I’ve known you a long time.”

“I feel the same way,” she breathed.

Andrew pulled up his horse and wheeled around to draw up by her side. “I feel like we’ve known each other since childhood. I feel like I’m talking to my sister or my cousin when I talk to you. It seems so natural to talk to you. I feel I could go on talking to you for hours and never get tired of it. I hate to think of leaving you alone at the hotel. I want to stay with you. But I suppose it’s only for one night. I’ll be with you again tomorrow, so it’s not so bad, I guess.”

She started to smile, but she stopped herself when she saw a faint mist of moisture in his usually merry black eyes. She felt a sudden pang of regret in her own breast at separating from him. She leaned across the gap between the two horses and laid her hand over his where it rested on the pommel of his saddle. “I know. I feel the same way. But we’ll spend tomorrow together, and we have five more days before I leave. Maybe you might even like to wear your fancy clothes in town and take me out to dinner sometime.”

He brayed with laughter. “Not on your life! I wouldn’t be seen in these clothes in town if you were the Queen of England!”

She laughed heartily in reply, and they urged their horses back into a lively canter across the meadow toward the gate leading out to the main road back to town. When they reached the road, however, they both slowed to a steady walk in order to delay the moment of separation as long as possible. The closer they drew to the town, the more dampened grew their conversation until, when the first houses and buildings sprang into view, all discourse between them ceased, and they rode into the streets of the town in subdued silence. They wound through the back alley to the rear step of the hotel, where Josephine slid down from her saddle and placed her reins in Andrew’s hand.

“Thank you so much for inviting me out,” she gushed. “I had such a wonderful time. I can’t wait until tomorrow to do it all again.”

“I’ll be here bright and early,” he assured her. “As soon as you finish breakfast, you can come out here and find me waiting for you. I’ll leave it to you to handle your Aunt Agatha.”

“Don’t worry,” she grinned. “I’ll take care of her.”

“I knew you would,” he twinkled his eyes. “She looks like a battle axe, but she’s really a soft meringue underneath.”

“You’re exactly right,” she chuckled, jumping up the steps.

He tipped his hat. “Good afternoon, Miss Parker.”

“Please, call me Josephine,” she instructed him.

“Alright,” he consented. “Good afternoon, Josephine.”

She beamed at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and she disappeared inside.

To Josephine’s chagrin, Aunt Agatha joined her for breakfast the next morning.

“What do you have planned for today, Aunt Agatha?” she chirped.

“Planned?” Aunt Agatha repeated. “I don’t have anything planned. After breakfast, I plan to go back to the room. That’s what I have planned.”

“Do you intend to stay in the room for the rest of the week?” Josephine challenged.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Aunt Agatha confirmed.

“Well, I don’t!” Josephine snapped. “I’m going out again today. I don’t care what you say!”

“I don’t care if you do go out,” Aunt Agatha growled. “I hope you go out. You’ll leave me in peace.”

“Aren’t you even marginally interested in where I’m going or what I’m going to do?” Josephine persisted.

“Not very much,” Aunt Agatha sniffed.

“But I could be meeting strange men alone,” she suggested. “I could be meeting them in secret places and doing highly questionable things with them.”

“Like what?” Aunt Agatha asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she pondered. “I could be doing any number of things you might not approve of. I could be wearing men’s clothing and riding horses astraddle.”

“Well, you’re twenty-two years old,” Aunt Agatha commented. “You’re a bit too old to have me watching your every move and controlling you like a little child. I suppose I’ll just have to trust your judgment not to do anything as objectionable as that in my absence. If that’s the sort of behavior you engage in when I’m not around, then there probably isn’t much that I can do to correct you. But somehow I think I can trust you not to do that. You’re too smart and too well bred. You’ll have a good look around the town and see whatever it is you want to see, and that will be the end of it. You won’t be marrying into the Stockton family, and we’ll be leaving here in a few days. I don’t imagine there’s much you can do to get into trouble before then.”

“Some chaperone you turned out to be!” Josephine exclaimed.

“I’ve served my function as your chaperone,” Aunt Agatha stated. “My function was to transact your marriage, and that isn’t going to happen. So it only remains for me to wait until the train leaves for New York.”

Josephine gaped at her. “So you really don’t care what I do in the meantime?”

“No, I don’t,” Aunt Agatha declared.

Josephine could hardly believe her ears, but she blessed her good fortune and kept her secret until Aunt Agatha finished her toast and coffee. She conducted her aunt to the foot of the stairs. “I’m going out now, Aunt Agatha. I’ll be home later.”

Aunt Agatha halted on the lowest step and stared at` her. “But you haven’t even got your hat!”

“Yes, I have,” she strolled over to the hat stand by the hotel desk and picked up her hat and hat pin. “Here it is.”

Aunt Agatha huffed once in exasperation, turned her back, and lumped up the stairs without another word.

Josephine watched her until she was out of sight and then skipped away to the back door of the hotel where, as he promised, Andrew awaited her with their horses. As he stated, he wore his old work clothes, the same ones she remembered him wearing at the forge when she first set eyes on him. The only difference appeared to be an absence of dust about his general person. She even noticed a rifle tied onto the side of his saddle The most surprising aspect of his appearance, however, was the greater attraction Josephine felt toward him in his mundane cowboy gear than she experienced the previous day when she first gazed on his immaculately pressed suit, gold watch chain, and shining brass-topped walking stick. She suddenly realized, seeing him now for the second time in his hard, worn work clothes, how little connection she felt toward the clean-cut gentleman who originally invited her to ride out of town to the country with him, and how his calloused hands and bullet-studded gun belt represented the person with whom she most wanted to be. She wondered if she carried out her illicit project of wearing trousers and riding astride, a similar alteration in her own appearance would affect a similar attraction for him. Maybe, on the contrary, it would repulse him and he wouldn’t want to see her again.

“What’s the matter?” he bristled when he noticed her staring at him.

She smirked and shook her head, forcing herself to drop her eyes. “You look different.”

“You’ll look different, too, in a little while,” he grumbled back.

“I’m sure I will,” she assented. “You might decide you don’t like me so much, after you see me.”

This time, he shook his own head, studying her seriously. “I doubt that will happen. Just remember, I suggested this
hair-brained scheme in the first place. If anyone questions you, you can tell them I influenced you to do something illegal and immoral, and you never would have dreamed of doing it if I hadn’t compelled you through my excessive manipulative persuasion.”

She chortled with laughter. “That would be a good excuse. At least I could go home to New York with my reputation intact. You, on the other hand, would be ruined. No respectable family in the area would let you near their daughters for the rest of your life.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he assured her. “It would be worth it, just to see you dressed as a man for a few minutes. Now come on, mount up and let’s get going. I brought more food this time, so we can stay out on the range for most of the day, if you like.”

“Oh, good!” she exclaimed. “We came back much too early yesterday. I want to see a lot more of the valley today and you must show me.” She climbed up into her saddle and took hold of the reins. Billy recognized the familiar rider and responded readily to her hand on the reins and her heel against his flank. In a moment, both riders trotted out of the town and down the road toward the Stockton ranch.

This morning, as soon as both horses passed through the gate and Andrew secured the chain to close it, both he and Josephine kicked their horses to a tremendous gallop over the plane and up the hill to the top of the ridge. Josephine shrieked with wild laughter as they tore along the precipice in a breakneck race to the limits of their horses’ endurance. The wind tore her hat off, but instead of going back to retrieve it, she simply shook her curly locks out behind her and raced on faster than ever. When they stopped at the far end of the ridge top, both horses foamed with sweat, and both she and Andrew gasped with breathless laughter. Andrew especially shook his head at her between pants for breath. “I beat you that time, but we’ll have to do it again when you have a proper saddle. Maybe you can beat me then.”

“
You
beat
me
?” she puffed. “You did no such thing!
I
beat
you
! You’re a rotten cheat, if you think you beat me. You couldn’t beat me in a million years. I’ll show you!”

“That’s what you think!” he snorted. “I’ll teach you to call me a cheat. Come on!” He spurred his horse again, and they raced back to the trees. He led her to the spot where they ate their picnic lunch the previous day. “Here we are.
There’s your things.” He pointed to a small bundle at the foot of the tree. “Give me Billy’s reins. I’ll take him around the other side of the trees and put the other saddle on him while you change your clothes. You call me when you’re ready for me to come back.” He took both horses away, and Josephine knelt down on the cool grass and untied the bundle.

Only when she laid the articles out in front of her did she understand the gravity of what she was about to do. She knew women in New York locked up in jail or sentenced to public humiliation in the stocks for daring to wear trousers. Maybe Andrew Stockton planned to entrap her by giving her this opportunity to shame herself before he exposed her to the wrath of social justice. Maybe his solicitous attention was nothing more than an elaborate confidence game designed to win her trust before he took advantage of her. Once she changed into these clothes, she would not be able to call for help without compromising herself. Then again, who could she call for help in this remote location? She rendered herself virtually helpless the moment she passed beyond the gate with him. No one knew where she was or with whom she came. He held her completely in his power.

The smart, safe thing to do would be to run as fast as she could go, back to Aunt Agatha, back to the hotel, back to her room, and slam the door and never see Andrew Stockton again. No one need ever know how close she came to such of a dangerous indiscretion. Once she crossed that bridge into perdition, she could never come back to the guiltlessness of her current innocent state. Even if no one ever found out, she would always carry the guilt of her transgression on her soul. And no matter how careful she was, one person would always know she had sullied herself, and that person was Andrew himself. Would she ever be able to look him in the eye again, knowing that he held this secret over her? Even when she returned to the company of society, he would control her forever, knowing her secret and wielding the power to denounce her at any moment.

Oh, hang it all!
she thought. At least she could return to her life in New York knowing she dared to challenge her secure little bubble of gentility. She could perhaps tolerate her predetermined slide into withered old maidenhood, holding close to her heart the secret knowledge that, just once in her life, she threw off the shackles of her social position and defied convention. She would seize this moment with both hands and enjoy its full measure of delicious danger. And, above all else, the picture in her mind’s eye of Andrew, with his laughing eyes and his easy, heart-felt conversation about his life, his family, and his work, put her doubts to rest. She trusted him, for good or ill. She felt a certainty that, if he meant her any harm, he would not have brought her here, to his father’s land, within sight and sound of his own brother and his work mate. He showed no sign whatsoever of hiding his deeds, beyond the basic measure of discretion he suggested to protect her reputation as a lady from a higher strata of society than himself.

Hastily, Josephine unbuttoned her shoes and slipped both her feet into the legs of the trousers. She hoisted them up to her waist underneath the skirts of her dress and pulled tight the belt threaded through its loops. She cinched it to the very last hole, but the garment still hung loose around her hips. She slotted the pin into the hole and buckled the belt. Next, she took off her dress and threw the plaid cotton shirt around her shoulders. She snaked her thin arms into the sleeves, only to find once again that the shirt hung loose and enormous around her slight frame. She fastened the buttons up the front of her chest, rolled up the sleeves so that they took their proper position around her wrists, and tucked the shirt tails into the trousers. I must look like a clown in these oversized clothes, she thought. She buttoned on her shoes again and folded up the cuffs of the trouser legs. She rolled her dress into a ball and stowed it at the base of the tree. Anyone passing by would have to come over and unroll it before they figured out what it was. She took up the last item from the bundle, a battered old hat, but she could not bring herself to complete the transformation by putting it on. Instead, she held it in her hand and called out, “I’m ready!”

Andrew immediately rounded the stand of trees, riding his brother’s horse and leading Billy, who now wore a typical stockman’s saddle with one stirrup on either side. He burst out laughing when he spied Josephine. “A bit big, are they?” Then he roared with laughter again.

“Just a bit,” she acknowledged. She waited until his bubbling laughter subsided. Then she asked, “Are these Paul’s old clothes?”

“No, they’re mine,” he informed her. “They’re old, and I’ve grown out of them, so they’re the smallest ones I could find. I couldn’t run the risk of borrowing anything from Tim, although his would probably fit you better. But Paul was even bigger than I am. You’d be drowning in anything of his. Besides, it would never do for you to wear a dead man’s clothes. I couldn’t live with myself if you did.”

“So what do you think?” she spun around to give him a view of her costume from all sides. “Do I still look like a lady?”

He stifled a laugh, but suddenly shook his head seriously. “I’m sorry, Josephine. You still look like a lady to me. You look like a lady all over. You look like a lady wearing trousers.”

“Oh,” she wilted in disappointment.

“Come on,” he invited, “put on your hat and mount up and let’s go for a ride!”

She swung the hat confusedly in her hand. “I don’t seem to be able to put it on.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?” he demanded.

“Nothing’s wrong with it,” she faltered. “I just don’t think I can.”

“But why not?” he pressed her. “Put it on. It’s only a hat.”

“I know,” she returned. “I just….
It’s the final piece of the puzzle, so to speak. It’s the last nail in my coffin.”

“Oh, I see,” he observed. “Well, hand it to me. Now mount up and see how you feel. Maybe once you’re in the saddle, you’ll feel ready to put it on. But I don’t think we should go riding around the ranch without you wearing it. If anyone saw you without it, they’d know immediately that you were a woman from your hair hanging down your back. Mount up. That’s it. Then we’ll see where we’re at with the hat.”

She strode over to Billy, put her foot in the stirrup, and hoisted herself up onto the horse’s back. For reasons not clear to her, when she straightened her leg against the stirrup, her other leg automatically swept over the horse’s back and flew to the opposite stirrup, while her thighs and seat found their natural resting place in the saddle without any conscious effort on her part. Her body seemed to understand of its own accord how to mount into this saddle, and her weight seemed to settle into the most natural possible position. She let her body sink into the hard seat, and her weight seemed to meld with the muscular sinews of the horse underneath her. Her other foot slipped into the opposite stirrup, and she shifted her weight between her legs and her seat.