The Journey of Josephine Cain (30 page)

Josephine wanted to cry. She put her arm around Nelly and drew her head against her breast. “No one owns you, Nelly. And you are safe here with me and Frieda and Papa. We won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“Or let anyone get me?”

Josephine’s throat grew tight. “Or anyone get you.” Just let anyone try.

Frieda stood, her work done. “Okay, girl. To bed with you.”

Nelly climbed between the covers. “This is soft.” She drew the sheet to her nose. “It smells like fresh air.”

Josephine knelt beside her, looking into the face of not just
a
child, but
her
child. In spite of all Nelly had endured, there was innocence there. The knowledge that Josephine was taking Nelly away from anything that could further taint that innocence strengthened her.

She took Nelly’s hands in hers. “Let’s say prayers.”

Nelly closed her eyes. “Now I lay me down to sleep . . .”

Josephine joined in, “I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

Frieda stood over them and added her voice, “If I shall die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

“Amen,” Nelly said with gusto.

Josephine was pleased—and surprised. “Who taught you that prayer?”

“One of the ladies. Miss Vera. She made me say it every night.”

“Really?”

Nelly let go of Josephine’s hands and turned on her side. “I’m tired.”

Josephine stood. “You’ve had a hard day.”

“So have you,” Nelly said.

She was a smart little whip.

Josephine leaned down and gave her a kiss good night.

Josephine awakened in the middle of the night, but she wasn’t sure of the cause. She lay still and held her breath, but the only sound she heard was Frieda’s soft snore beside her.

But then . . .

There it was again. Voices. Soft, but
there
.

Josephine slipped out of bed and looked through the door to the main room that she’d left ajar, just in case Nelly needed them.

Nelly was standing beside the town-side of the railcar, leaning out an open window, talking to someone on the ground below.

Had the “sweet man” come to nab her?

Josephine burst out of the bedroom. “What’s going on?”

Nelly jumped back from the window. “I’m just talking to—”

“
Who
are you talking to?” Josephine grabbed her parasol to use as a weapon, then looked out the window, ready to jab anyone who dared get close.

But then she saw it wasn’t a man but a woman with black hair, a shawl wrapped close around her.

“It’s just Miss Vera,” Nelly said.

Vera of the bedtime prayer. Vera who’d brought Nelly’s belongings out of the brothel.

Josephine dropped the parasol and stuck her head out the window. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“I couldn’t sleep, thinking about the girl.” She pulled the shawl tighter. “I was just seeing she was all right.”

Josephine let herself take a fresh breath. Everything was fine. There was no threat in the night. “She is doing well,” she told Vera.

Nelly nudged her way beside Josephine. “We’re going to Washington tomorrow.”

“All that way?”

“My father thinks it best.”

Vera looked to Nelly. “You all right going so far?”

Nelly hesitated. “Is it very far?” she asked Vera.

Vera shrugged. “It’s a ways.” She looked at Josephine. “You take care of her, you hear? She’s special.”

Josephine was touched by her concern. “I will make sure she’s safe.”

“And happy. Make her happy.”

“I will do my best.”

Nelly turned to Josephine. “Can I go hug Miss Vera good-bye? Please.”

“I suppose.”

Nelly ran toward the door of the railcar and fumbled with the lock. Josephine helped her with the latch, and the girl ran into Vera’s arms.

Together they rocked, and Vera kissed the top of her head. “It’s good you get away, Nell. But I’ll miss you something awful.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

Then Vera let her loose and walked toward the town.

Josephine ushered Nelly back inside and helped her into bed. She was curious about Vera, but her questions could keep until the long trip home. “To sleep now,” she said, tucking her in.

“Miss Vera’s nice. I’ll miss her.”

“Maybe we can send her a letter when we get home.”

“Really?”

Why not? Sending a letter to a prostitute was nothing compared to taking one into her home.

Nelly plopped on a chair, her arms crossed. “I don’t want to go to Washington. I want to stay here.”

Frieda busied herself repacking their trunk. “Don’t be silly. There’s nothing for you here—nothing you should want, at any rate.”

“But some of the ladies are nice. Vera and Jenny. Not Miss Mandy so much, but she’s busy with the—”

Frieda pointed at her. “Shush. We don’t want to hear what Miss Mandy is busy with, nor do we want to hear about the
ladies
who are not
ladies
at all.”

“They’re ladies to me,” Nelly said, swinging her legs. “They been nice to me.”

“Humph
.”

Josephine had heard enough. Yes, she had met Vera last night, and yes, she had seemed like a nice enough woman, but she didn’t even want to think of Nelly’s life at Miss Mandy’s. It only fueled her need to leave. “Come now, Nelly. It will be a great adventure. And when we arrive home, you will have a pretty room all to yourself, with my old dolls and toys, and I shall buy you some new dresses, and—”

Nelly’s eyes lit up. “Can I have a corset with black lace on it like Vera and Jenny have?”

Josephine withheld a shudder. “You’re too young to need a corset. Enjoy your freedom while you can. Now up with you.” She handed her a small carpetbag.

Nelly began packing with all the enthusiasm of someone cleaning out a privy.

Josephine heard boots on the platform and expected Papa to come in. But then there was a knock.

Frieda went to answer it.

“Good morning,” Lewis said. “I wondered if Josephine would like to go for a morning walk to look at the sunrise.”

That was nice—but very unlike him. And very badly timed.

Part of her wanted to break their engagement now, before she left Cheyenne, and have it done with. But she dreaded the thought. She had secretly hoped she could leave without having to endure the confrontation just yet.

“Good morning to you too, Lewis,” she said. She stepped aside to let him see what they were doing. “But I can’t go walking with you, because we are leaving this morning. Going back to Washington.”

His brow creased. “But I’m not ready to leave. I still have lots of photographs to take, especially now that they’re going to start laying track again. . . .”

She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t tell him yet. What if he tried to do something to keep them there? What if he tried to come
with
them as a means to get her to reconsider? “You aren’t going, Lewis. We are.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask for specifics.

He pointed past her, to Nelly. “Is she going with you?”

Josephine stepped between Lewis and his view so she could speak with more confidentiality. “Her safety is one of the reasons we are going. I don’t want Miss Mandy to change her mind, or have one of the men . . .” She hoped he wouldn’t insist on more details.

“Three women traveling alone? How will you manage?”

Josephine resented his low opinion of her abilities. Who was the one who had run after the thief? “We will manage quite well,” she said, deciding not to mention Hudson. “After all, this will be the second time I have made this return trip.”

Frieda closed the lid on the trunk. “And we won’t be—”

Josephine cut her off. “And we won’t be foolish. We will be very careful.” She flashed Frieda a look, and the woman looked away.

“But what about me?” Lewis said. “What about our wedding plans?”

She found the order of his concern telling. But Josephine didn’t want to risk either Frieda or Nelly mentioning Hudson’s name, so she motioned Lewis outside and led him a short distance away. “When we first return
home I shall be busy getting Nelly settled, and—”

He stopped walking. “Settled? How can a girl like Nelly get settled back home? Do you really think your mother and aunt will accept her?”

No, she didn’t, but that was a worry for another day. “I have to do this whether they accept her or not. I can’t
not
help her, Lewis. Don’t you understand that?”

He answered with a shake to his head before his words caught up. “No, I don’t.” He leaned close. “She’s a whore.”

Josephine felt the spark of anger rise, and she faced him. “She is a little girl who needs help. I believe I was placed here at this time and in this place to help her.”

He laughed. “So you’re the angel of mercy, swooping down to pluck a nothing-girl from a nothing-whorehouse in a nothing-town?”

The spark fanned into a flame, and she pushed him away, not wanting to be tainted by his boorishness. “If not me, who?”

“No one. Did you ever consider that? Maybe Miss Mandy’s is her lot in life. Her place.”

She stared at him, incredulous. And then Papa’s words returned to her:
I much prefer you be frank rather than suffer because you don’t wish to cause offense
.

It was the time to be brutally frank. “You are not the man I want to marry, Lewis. I am sorry, but our engagement is over.”

He stepped back, as though her words had physical force. “Our engagement is not over. It can’t be.”

“It can be, and it is.” She stepped away, ridding herself of his presence. “Good-bye, Lewis. Take care of yourself.”

“But . . . what happened?” he called after her. “What did I do to cause this? And what happens now?”

Not knowing the answer to his last question, she kept walking.

You stupid, stupid man. You’ve blown everything
.

Lewis strode away from the train, away from the town, walking onto the prairie without seeing or caring.

Why did Nelly ignite his anger and annoy him so much? The brat was the reason Josephine was leaving, the reason she’d called off their engagement.

Surely Josephine didn’t mean it. And she couldn’t leave. If she did . . . there would be no hope for reconciliation with him here and her in Washington.

She’s leaving whether you like it or not
.

His thoughts took another tack. With her gone, he’d have to work on the general, slip deeper into his good graces. He would wait a short while, then return to Washington with the father’s blessings fortified. Josephine wouldn’t refuse her father’s wishes for them to marry.

Why had he let his mouth run away with him? He should have known better. The idea of that girl blending into the Cain household
was
a joke, but he should not have said so to Josephine. If he tried hard enough, he might even be able to muster up some pity for the little scamp. Hadn’t he been through hard times himself? After he’d deserted the Union army for the second time, he’d had to run behind enemy lines to North Carolina to find his parents. It was either that, or get executed as his friend Smith had been.

As his father had been.

He stopped walking and closed his eyes, pressing his hands to the sides of his head, trying to rid himself of the memory of his fellow Union deserter being marched out, accompanied by a band and four men carrying an empty coffin. That Smith had marched along with them, helping to carry his very own casket, was something Lewis would never understand.

Twelve men with rifles had formed a line, and a chaplain said a few words and put a blindfold on him. Then Smith sat upon his coffin. He raised his hand two times, and on the third, held it straight in front of him.

The rifle shots roared and created a cloud of smoke. Smith fell back but was still kicking, so the shooters stepped up and put their guns right against his head and chest and shot some more.

Appalled and frightened, Lewis had fled into the woods and was sick. His insides spent, he curled up on the leaves and lay there a long time.

After Lewis had deserted the first time, he’d run into Smith hiding out
in the woods. It was Smith’s idea to re-enlist for the signing bonus, desert a second time, and enlist yet again. It was a good way to make a little money.