Pearl (25 page)

As Caesar had said, ‘‘The die is cast.’’ She sniffed back tears and paid for her ticket.
Little Missouri, here I come, only six weeks
early
.

Pearl stared out the soot-smeared window as the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul train pulled out of Chicago heading west. She fought the tears that threatened to drown her as buildings of her city slipped by. Leaving Chicago was not something she had ever planned to do. Would she see her family again?Would they even write to her?

And most of all, would they take her back if she failed at her new life on the frontier?

She shook her head slowly as she sniffed. No, she’d never go back, at least not as a penitent. How soon would they receive the letter she wrote while waiting at the train station? And Mr. Longstreet, he didn’t deserve to be treated like this, but he deserved an unwilling wife even less.

By the time the train approached St. Paul, Minnesota, where she had to change trains, Pearl had worried herself into a bog deeper than needed to bury the train upon which she rode. The marriage to Sidney Longstreet sounded like an oasis in a desert. Not that she really knew what a desert looked and felt like, but sand she could picture, especially if it gritted like the soot that had invaded every inch of bare skin and worked its way into the seams of her clothing. And the smell? Surely there was something dead on the railroad car to create that putrid odor. But when she, with handkerchief-covered nose, questioned the conductor, he just shook his head.

‘‘Sorry, miss, but sometimes that’s the way it is. You might want to move farther away from the head, er, the water closet.’’

Stepping off the train in St. Paul, she headed for the women’s necessary, wishing she could have a bath and grateful for a basin big enough to put both hands in at once. However, a handkerchief lacked a certain amount of productivity when one had to wash one’s face and as much of the neck and arms as possible with it. Even so, she felt much refreshed after her ablutions and shook out the skirt of her traveling dress after brushing her shoulders. She also removed her hat and blew the cinders off the brim and the veil. Using the mirror she pinned the wisps of veil and straw back in place so that the silver feather drooped over one side of her face.

Boarding the Northern Pacific train west made her heartbeat quicken. This was the last leg of her journey. Had she made the right choice?

The prairie flowed past, sections of farms along the rivers, long stretches of grass higher than she’d ever dreamed possible. A young rider raced the train for a ways, then waved his hat as the train pulled by him.

The land undulated on forever with a blue bowl of sky that arched to a horizon so far distant that she felt she’d moved to a new world. No longer able to concentrate on the book she’d been reading, she watched the land pass.

Where were the Indians she’d read about? The cowboys, the covered wagons heading west? Were there any towns or villages? ‘‘How much farther?’’ she asked the conductor after they left Dickinson on the following day. Sleep had been nonexistent.

‘‘Not long now, miss. You can be glad we are running on time these days. Life is changing out here, you know. People coming in like a line of ants, always looking for new forage. Killed off the buffalo, drove out most of the game, cattle will soon be king. Whatever is taking you to Little Missouri? You know, many folks around here refer to that hamlet as Little Misery.’’

‘‘I am to be the new schoolteacher.’’

‘‘You’re a schoolmarm?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Well, now, ain’t that a bit of news? Goin’ to have a school clear out here. Didn’t think there was that many children.’’ He started to leave. ‘‘You got a place to stay?’’

‘‘I-I don’t know. I mean I’m sure the school officials have made some kind of arrangements for me.’’

‘‘Well, you check with Miss Ruby Torvald at the Dove House. She’s most likely the one set all this in motion. She’s a real forward thinker, that one.’’

When the train screeched to a stop, he assisted her down the stairs. ‘‘Your trunk will be ready shortly.’’ He turned at the greetings from two young girls.

‘‘Hey, Mr. Larson.’’

‘‘Hey yourself, Miss Opal. I brought you a guest. Miss Hoss-fuss, the new schoolmarm.’’

‘‘What. . . ?’’ The girl seemed to catch herself. ‘‘Hello, ma’am.’’

‘‘I am very pleased to meet you.’’ Pearl smiled at the freckle-faced girl with sun-fired hair in braids tied with blue ribbons. She doubted the girl was normally shy, but she had greeted Pearl with the subdued demeanor of a new student. Her hat hung on a string down her back rather than shielding her face like it should.

The other girl almost disappeared in her spotless white apron. Both of them carried trays tied around their necks by cords. Wrapped packages of what Pearl assumed to be food filled the trays. A man with a bowler hat stood behind them with a granite coffeepot and cups. He gave her a friendly nod.

‘‘What you got for my passengers today?’’ the conductor asked.

‘‘Roast beef on fresh bread, molasses cookies, and fresh buttermilk.’’ Perhaps these two girls would be in her schoolroom. She watched as the three climbed the steps, then smiled at the porter who wheeled her trunk up to her.

‘‘Where you want this, miss?’’

‘‘Ah, I guess right here until I find out where I’m going.’’

She turned and glanced down what she assumed was the main street of the sorry collection of buildings that must be the town. In the distance, not that anything in this town was of much distance, she saw a three-story building with a porch all around. A sign read Dove House, and it was the only building in the area that looked like someone cared about it. Curtains behind windows that sparkled in the sunlight and hitching rails on two sides. At least there was something here that appeared friendly.

She made her way across the ruts and dust, dodging a few wagons and men on horseback, then walked up the front steps and jingled her way in through the front doors.

The dining room tables wore white cloths. What a nice surprise. A carved banister led the way up walnut stairs—all in all, a very respectable place.

A young woman with honey blond hair in a snood pushed open a swinging door, a white apron covering her almost to her feet.

‘‘Welcome to Dove House. How may I help you?’’

‘‘The conductor on the train said that I should find Miss Ruby Torvald.’’

‘‘I am she.’’

‘‘I am Pearl Hossfuss, and I answered an advertisement for a schoolteacher here. I needed to come early for personal reasons and—’’ ‘‘My goodness, they really hired someone?’’

‘‘Yes, me.’’

‘‘But this is wonderful. We are really going to have a school then.’’

‘‘I believe so. Where is the school building?’’

‘‘We don’t have one.’’

‘‘Oh, I see. And the teacher is to live where?’’

‘‘I don’t know. They haven’t told me. Obviously, since they hadn’t apprised me of their having hired you.’’

Pearl wished she had somewhere to sit down, and rather abruptly at that. Her nightmare had come true. No one knew she was coming.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dakotah Territory

He couldn’t get Ruby out of his mind.

‘‘Hey, Rand!’’

‘‘Boss!’’

He heard their voices, finally, and shook his head. Removing his hat, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve covering his forearm, used both hands to settle his hat back on securely, and looked around to see where the voices were coming from. Or were they only in his head too?

Beans skidded his galloping horse to a stop beside Buck. ‘‘You all right?’’

‘‘Sure, why?’’

‘‘We been yellin’ at you somethin’ awful, and you just sat there. Began to think you was sick or somethin’.’’

‘‘No, just thinkin’, I guess. What was it you needed?’’ Rand glanced up to catch the smirk Beans wiped off his face real quicklike.

‘‘Some help with that last bunch Joe brought in. Got a couple a cows in there that need some doctorin’. Looks like a wolf or some other critter tried to bring ’em down and failed.’’

Both men reined around and headed back the way Beans had come. One of the men had a rope on a belligerent cow that had deep scratches along her top line on both sides of her backbone.

Chaps, the oldest of the ranch hands, crossed his arms on the saddle horn and spat a gob of chewing tobacco off to the side. ‘‘I’m bettin’ on a mountain lion, and an old one at that, ’cause he didn’t bite her neck and kill her. I think she scraped him off, leastwise that’s what I read.’’

‘‘Looks to me like you told the tale right.’’ Rand rode closer so he could see more clearly. ‘‘Take her down, and I’ll put some salve on those scratches. At least one of them looks infected.’’ He rode back to the house for the salve while the men put a loop around the cow’s back legs and threw her to the ground. Her calf ran bawling to the other cows, as if pleading for them to come help his mother.

Rand used his knife to scrape off the pussy scab and release the infection, then smeared the salve in place. ‘‘Better keep her in the corral for a day or two, see how this goes. How bad is the other one?’’

‘‘Looks like it happened earlier. It’s healin’ now.’’

‘‘So we got us a predator that needs to be taken care of?’’

‘‘Seems so.’’

‘‘Where’d you find these?’’ Rand nodded to the grazing cattle.

‘‘Out by Chimney Butte. Saw some bones too. He musta got one.’’

Rand tipped his hat back and stared out to the cone-shaped peak that stood out from the rounded hills in the vicinity. Layers of rock showed tan and black and terra-cotta, giving the peak a pattern of rings. ‘‘Any more cattle out there?’’

‘‘More’n likely. Thought two of us should go on out there in the mornin’.’’

‘‘We got anything to use for bait?’’

‘‘Could tie out that skinny old cow over there. No calf again, and she most likely won’t make it another winter.’’

Rand looked across the herd until he recognized the one Beans had mentioned. Her patchy coat hung from her frame, the bones looking to poke through at any movement. ‘‘Okay, bring her in. We’ll take her out there tonight and stake her out. Joe and Beans, you go on back and see if you can find any mountain lion signs. If he’s real old, he might just be holed up in one of those caves or clefts.’’

Rand stared into the night, the stars so close he was sure, if he climbed to the top of the peak, he could snatch them out of the sky one by one.
Wonder if a star would be enough to win her? I’d
hand it to her just so and—
He jerked his attention back to the cow tethered down below. At least she’d given up fighting the rope and was grazing as if she had not a care in the world. Not that she knew she did. Not like humans who ruminated on everything, figuring this, discarding that. He’d finally quit calling himself a stupid
idjit
and other less complimentary terms for the way he’d handled his big moment with Ruby. Of course Beans and all the others pointed out his failings with great delight—not that any of them had proposed to a woman in recent years, or at least they hadn’t owned up to it.

One of the horses snorted, then another. He had one of the hands watching the horses. No need to let that old cat take out a horse when they’d tried to give it a cow. But then horses were better than a dog at warning. And horses hated mountain lion.

Come on—attack that cow. Let’s get this over with so we can all get
some sleep
. From his place in the rocks, he had a good view of the grazing cow now that the moon had risen. Another snort. Something was near, how near was the question. He could feel the hair stand up on the back of his neck, that feeling of being watched, an age-old dread. If he listened any harder, the thumping of his heart would drown out a buffalo charge. But buffalo weren’t sneaky, like a cat, especially a big cat that was hungry.

The cow threw up her head and headed out until she hit the end of the rope. The leaping cat hit the ground with only a slight rattle of gravel, but in that split second, Rand sighted and fired. He pumped a second shell into the chamber but didn’t pull the trigger again. The cat somersaulted and lay sprawled in the grass three feet from the frantic bawling cow.