Orphan Moon (The Orphan Moon Trilogy Book 1) (3 page)

Apply: Pony Express Stables, Saint Joseph, Missouri

It’s too bad I’m not a fellow, she thought, folding the paper and tucking it into her pocket as she stepped through the bank’s heavy, barred doors.

Mr. Goldthwaite was cordial, escorting her into his office, offering sincere condolences on the death of her father and of Jack Justin. He never mentioned Birdie. Then, he propositioned her.

“Your father,” he explained, tobacco juice staining the corners of his mouth, “was no businessman. He was a breeder of fine equines, a knowledgeable cattleman, but he lacked business acumen. Myself? I’m an astute businessman, quite clever with stretching the dollar.” He winked.
 

She remembered from what seemed a lifetime ago, although it had been only five years past, her initial encounter with this man the first night they’d made it to Fort Worth. She, her papa, grandfather, and Birdie had left the Gulf Coast behind, had spent three long weeks in a covered wagon before reaching the Fort, and she recalled his inclination at expressing significant meaning through the dramatic blinking of one eye. She still found the peculiar habit annoying.

“I came to you for advice, Mr. Goldthwaite,” she said, her hands folded in her lap. “My plan is to rebuild the ranch.” She envisioned a small barn to start, then a serviceable house, adding a few breeding animals as she could.
 

“My dear girl,” he said. “When I heard about your tragedy from Captain Goodnight, I straightaway inspected your father’s account and I went over his legal papers. Via his will, you’ve inherited outright all of your father’s estate. That means all of the debts as well as all of the assets.”

“I don’t believe my father had any debts. His custom was to pay cash for everything.”

“He owned the ranch outright, free and clear. However, he let accrue the taxes on the property. Last year it was to offset the purchase of breeding heifers. This year it was to offset the purchase of those fancy thoroughbreds your late grandfather was so fond of and your father, er, late father, liked to use for brood mares.”

A weedy panic began to take root. “Can’t you use the money that’s in the account to pay the taxes? Get them caught up until I can find a way to earn some money?”
Let the taxes accrue? Why would Papa do that?

“I have an idea on how we can take care of the taxes.” Mr. Goldthwaite, in his wrinkled gray suit with silver watch fob dangling too low from his vest pocket, waddled from his desk and stood behind her chair. His stumpy, liver-spotted hands massaged her shoulders in a fashion too familiar for casual acquaintances.
 

“I’m a lonely man. I miss having a wife, God rest her soul. I miss the pleasures that a wife affords a man.” He massaged harder, his fingers working forward and downward from her shoulders, brushing over her chest.

A red-hot blush blossomed on her face. “Mr. Goldthwaite! Please stop what—”
 

“If you’d consent to my proposal of marriage,” he said, plunging ahead, “well then, I’m sure I could persuade the board of trustees to grant you an extension on the taxes, in light of your recent tragedy.”

Her body shuddered with the absurdity. “Marriage? As in, me marry you?”
 

“Of course once married, I’d transfer your land to my name in order that you’d not have to worry about the taxes in the future. As your husband, I’d take care of all that business nonsense for you. I’d give you a handsome allowance, of course, to buy yourself pretty little things.”

She unfolded her hands from her lap, clutching the arms of the chair in a white-knuckle grip. “Mr. Goldthwaite, your offer is generous, but, I prefer to take care of matters my own way. Now, please remove your hands from my shoulders.”

“Miss Flanders, take some time to think about my offer. You’re still grieving. Give serious consideration to the options and the consequences.”

“Consequences?”

“Particularly to the consequences.” He leaned in, whispering his sour breath in her ear. “Take until the beginning of the year when taxes are due. January may come around and cause you to see things in a different light. By the way, your father’s account has a little over two hundred and fifty-seven dollars left in it. Taxes past and present amount to four hundred and six dollars, give or take.”
 

Barleigh’s heart felt as if it might pound from her chest. Her throat constricted and burned as she swallowed, trying hard to push down the rising swell of panic. “I pledge all the money in my father’s, I mean, in my account, toward taxes owed. I’ll have the rest to you by the end of January.”

“Miss Flanders, you do realize that this bank can foreclose on your property for delinquent taxes and sell the land to satisfy the debt? Consequences.” He kneaded her shoulders harder.

“Mr. Goldthwaite, you do realize that you can die a miserable death and rot in hell?”
 

She shoved away from the chair, sending him tottering and stumbling backward, and then marched out of his office. Between his embarrassing actions and her own surprising words, a prickly heat blushed her cheeks. With as much dignity as she could muster, she left the bank, head high, and elbowed her way down the crowded sidewalk, somehow managing to reach the alley before losing the contents of her stomach.

Reaching into her pocket for a handkerchief, her hand instead came out with the advertisement she’d found earlier. With the paper unfolded, she read the words again, the writing seeming to jump of the page. She was young, skinny, and wiry. Only slightly over eighteen. An expert rider since a child. Willing to risk death? For such generous wages? Yes. She qualified as an orphan, in the technical sense that both parents were now dead. There was only one conspicuous concern. She was not a fellow.
 

Refolding the paper and tucking it into her pocket, she set off to find Winnie.
 

Deep within, where pretense and truth come together in a battle of wits, she knew this waybill was meant to find her. The gods who govern the winds deposited this paper at her feet. Angels scooted it toward her via a gentle current from their fluttering wings. Some invisible force in the universe slowed the earth’s orbit long enough for
this
to catch up to her. Any theory, plausible or not, fit, because she knew this was her answer. This was her hope. She knew, without a doubt, this was her destiny.

*****

Clutching the paper tightly in her hands, Barleigh reviewed her thoughts, getting her ideas in order. The kettle of coffee she’d made earlier as she waited for Winnie to come down for breakfast was half gone, as were her chewed-off fingernails.

Winnie yawned as she shuffled into the sun-filled kitchen. “Good morning. You’re up early.”
 

“I haven’t slept.”

“Are you hungry? I can fix pancakes.”

She shook her head as she held out the paper, releasing the breath she’d been holding. “I want to show you what I found yesterday, or what found me. This is how I’m going to save my land.”

On their return from Fort Worth the day before, Barleigh had disclosed to Winnie what she’d learned from Mr. Goldthwaite about her financial situation, the taxes due, and her father’s apparent mishandling of his money. She’d purposely omitted the things that induced her to blush.
 

Winnie took the paper, studied it, and then handed it back. “It says they’re looking for young skinny wiry fellows.
Fel-lows
,” she said, elongating each syllable as she puttered around the kitchen, Starling sound asleep in her crib by the window. “You, Barleigh, while young, skinny, and wiry, could never pass as a
fellow
. It’s a crazy idea. Put it out of your head. We’ll think of something else. I’ll sell another cow.”

“You’ve only four cows left and still have dairy customers to think of.”

“With all the men and boys leaving to join the army, my dairy business has all but dried up. For crying out loud, we’ll come up with something more logical than you passing yourself off as a
fellow
.”

“Logic be damned!” Barleigh threw a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Aunt Winnie. I didn’t mean to curse at you.” She ran over and wrapped her arms around Winnie. “We’d need to sell a whole herd of cows to come up with enough money. This is all there is.”

“I wish I had a herd left to sell. I’d give them all to you.”
 

Barleigh held the advertisement up, reading again the words that were written for her. “It’s destiny, this paper finding me.”

Winnie pointed to the sleeping baby. “Your destiny’s curled up in that crib. It’s folly to think that that advertisement is your destiny. Folly. Pure and simple.”

*****

Later that evening as the dark house grew quiet, Barleigh lay in bed in the disconcerting arms of another sleepless night. Tossing and turning, a gauzy vision crept in. Stealthy, it settled against her like a secret friend. Wrapped around her. Took shape. Formed. Warmed her. Urged her. Inspired her. She understood what she must do.

She slid out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to where Winnie kept her midwifery kit. Taking the scissors in one hand, the other hand holding her hair out straight, she cut. Chopped. Whacked. Made another cut. The growing pile of chestnut curls on the floor looked like a small sleeping animal.

Rummaging through a chifforobe, she found some clothes that must have belonged to Jeddy, Winnie’s youngest son, close enough to her size. She pulled them on. Smudging the lower half of her face with coal—just a little—the shadow hinted at the beginnings of a boy’s first beard. With a bit of ingenuity and effort, she’d transformed from Barleigh Flanders, nineteen-year-old landowner and debtor of taxes, into Bar Flanders, not-over-eighteen-year-old orphan boy, soon to be Pony Express rider, and willing risker of death.
 

She put on her papa’s black church hat, and it fell over her eyes. Stuffing the inside brim with rolled-up paper kept it in place. The mirror on the chifforobe reflected her passing image as she strolled by, stealing glances. With each pass, she tried to blend her new reflection with her mind’s image of how her papa walked.
 

As soon as the smell of coffee wafted up to her room, she ambled down the stairs, thumbs hooked through belt loops, eyes half concealed with low-pulled hat. She sneaked around the kitchen with the caution of an imposter, trying to stitch her shadow to her new boy-self.
 

Winnie forked bacon and eggs onto a plate, her back turned as Barleigh stood behind her. Clearing her throat, and with her deepest, most masculine voice she could summon, she said, “I’ll take my coffee black, thank you.”

“My God,” Winnie gasped as she spun around, a hand clasped over her heart. “For a second I thought it was one of my boys.”

“But you knew it was me.” She plopped down onto a chair. Exasperated, heaving a frustrated sigh, she tossed her papa’s hat onto the table. “I stayed up all night practicing my voice and my persona. I have to become a boy.”

“And I stayed up all night last night too, worrying that you’d be doing exactly that.” Winnie sighed. “What you’re proposing to do is irrational. It’s going to be near impossible rolling a rock up a mountain so steep.”

“Near impossible.
Not
impossible.” She ran her fingers through her chopped-off hair, the shortness of it making her blue eyes appear larger in her face. “Please, Aunt Winnie? Help me with this?”
 

Winnie twisted and rubbed her hands together, her shoulders lifting and falling with each deep sigh. “It’s rash and foolish and I’ll no doubt live to regret this.” She sighed again. “The first thing we have to do is fix that hair of yours. Bring me my scissors, child.”

Barleigh threw her arms around Winnie’s waist. “Thank you. I’d live to regret it if I didn’t try.”
 

Winnie set to work giving Barleigh’s hair a proper boy’s cut as she had done for her sons and her husband. “There. Much better. Now. The tone of your voice wasn’t bad, but I knew it was you by the way you stood. If you’re going to be a boy, you have to stand with your legs more apart, less fussy, not so, um, not with your knees pressed close, like you’re hiding an important secret between them.” Winnie let out a hearty laugh.
 

Barleigh started laughing, too, and the laughter carried them away for a moment. Drying her eyes, she said, “That felt good. Laughing. It’s something I used to take for granted but now add to my list of things for which I’m grateful.”

Winnie dried her eyes on the corner of her apron. “Laughing and crying both are good for the soul.”

Barleigh thought about that for a moment, thinking she’d rather laugh. “What else do I need to fix?”

“Well, the way you’re sitting, all up right with your pelvis tilted forward, back arched. Boys don’t sit like that. Sit back on your pockets, pelvis rolled back and rounded, like you’re cradling a rare treasure in your lap of which you are most proud, but pretend casual indifference.”

They both busted out laughing. Snorting through noses, tears streaming from eyes, laughing.
 

“And how’s my walk?” Barleigh demonstrated as she moved from the table to the coffee kettle.

“Too girly. Turn your sashay into a saunter. Slow down your steps. Yes, there, like that. And every now and then, scratch your privates and make a readjustment. Act as unintentional about it, as if you’re blowing your nose.”

Barleigh feigned shock.
 

Winnie looked at her, eyes wide. “What?” she asked. “A husband, three boys, a nephew, and a slew of ranch hands, and I can tell you, that’s what they all do.” She proceeded to demonstrate, exaggerating every nuance, the sauntering, the scratching, the readjusting.
 

Barleigh doubled over again in laughter that took her breath away. Regaining her composure, she grew serious. “If I leave tomorrow morning, ride to Little Rock, catch the stage to Saint Joe, I can be there by the end of the month. But, I’ll need to borrow a horse.”

Winnie’s brow wrinkled in concern and she chewed her bottom lip. “Are you
sure
this is what you want to do? One hundred percent sure?”