The Reluctant Bridegroom (17 page)

“He’s a pretty rough customer, Dave,” Lake responded, adjusting his spectacles. “Been pretty pushy since we started this trip. Might be too much for Winslow.”

“No way, Tom! In a rough-and-tumble he’d probably be too much for Sky, but he’d get his ticket punched if he tried to pull that gun of his. He knows it, too.” Lloyd looked at Lake’s slight form and said, “Better stay clear of him for a few days, Tom. He’ll be like a bear with a sore toe. Man like Stedman can’t take a put-down like that without taking it out on somebody.”

“Got no quarrel with Jack.”

“Makes no difference. Just watch out for him.”

The next day they reached the Platte, which Sky claimed was a mile wide and six inches deep. Rebekah walked over a rise beside Karen Sanderson; on the other side, the world flattened out before them as far as the eye could see. Rebekah
had never seen anything like it; she had lived in a world hidden by trees and buildings and hills—a small world for dolls, where distance was something three blocks away. Now she saw the sky tilting to meet the flattened ground, and whispered, “Karen, look at it!”

“I know,” the other woman replied quietly. “It makes me feel very small.”

All afternoon they walked along, feasting their eyes on the panorama of sky and land, the borders of which met along a seam that was almost invisible. The next day they saw the fort, shining white in the afternoon sun high up on a bluff. Spotted below were white objects that they discovered were tepees. As they approached, two mounted Indians came out and met Sky, the trio forming an outline against the red sky. In a few minutes, he wheeled and galloped back alone to lead them to a spot outside the fort.

“It’s not much, is it?” Rita looked around as they all walked eagerly inside the walls of the fort. There was a drab monotony about the collection of log huts that occupied the interior of the log ramparts. “At least I’ll be glad to sit down on a
real chair!
I hope we stay here for a week.”

“I heard Mr. Winslow tell Dave that we’d pull out day after tomorrow,” Karen told them. “In any case, I doubt there’s much in the way of entertainment here.”

Like most western army posts, Fort Kearney had little in the way of elegance. Officers occupied private quarters, but enlisted men were crammed into barracks where rows of bunks stood head-in to the walls. Candles provided a flickering light, and a round iron stove offered a tiny circle of warmth. Privies were outside, and there was no bathhouse.

Colonel Malachi Kenyon sent word to Winslow shortly after they arrived, inviting him to come to his office. The colonel had been stationed in the North at one time, and had become friends with Christmas Winslow and his family. Sky remembered him as a trim lieutenant, but the years had added pounds, so that now he bulged in his uniform.

The colonel insisted on having some of the ladies in for a meal. “Not
all
of them, Sky,” he said with twinkling eyes, “Can’t fit them all at once. Just bring about five or six of the prettiest ones along.”

Sky said ruefully, “Colonel, I’ll have the others mad at me for the rest of the trip—but I’ll do it.”

He had avoided choosing by telling Edith of the invitation. “You pick out four of the women, and I’ll ask Dave to come along.”

Just before sundown, he found Edith waiting with Karen Sanderson, May Stockton, Rita Duvall, and Rebekah. They walked the short distance to the fort and went directly to Colonel Kenyon’s house. The officer was a widower, and he greeted them at the door with a smile. “Come in! Come in, ladies!” He shook hands with each of them. “Fort Kearney is honored. Haven’t seen such attractive ladies since I was back east ten years ago. Well, let’s see what my cook has put together; then we can visit.”

He led them to a dining room where a Mexican woman was setting a steaming meal on the table, which was covered with a snowy white tablecloth. Real china reflected the lights of the overhead lamps, and the gleam of silverware completed the picture.

“A bit primitive, I’m afraid,” Kenyon apologized. “No ice to chill the wine.”

“We’ll just have to suffer, I reckon,” Sky returned with a straight face, and Lloyd grinned impishly.

They ate course after course of the spicy Mexican food. Some of it was canned, of course, for the colonel was a gourmet. May picked up a morsel from a small plate. “What’s this?”

Colonel Kenyon waited until she placed it in her mouth, then said, “That’s escargot.”

May chewed for a moment. “What’s that mean, Colonel?”

“It’s French for snail.”

May’s jaws froze and her eyes opened wide. Then she
turned her head to spit it out in her napkin. “Some blamed fools would have
swallowed
that!”

The shout of laughter that followed freed the visit from any formality, and they sat around the table lingering over the delicious pie and coffee that followed. Kenyon was a highly intelligent man with a lively curiosity about their venture. He broached the subject carefully. “I don’t want to offend, but sink me if I can understand why such attractive ladies as you would have to risk your lives to find husbands.” He sat back and glanced at Sky. “Winslow—I’m afraid you’ve deceived me. You left all the homely women with the wagons, didn’t you?”

“I chose these ladies, Colonel Kenyon,” Edith spoke up. She was wearing a plain gray dress and no jewelry at all, but she was attractive in spite of that. She regarded the officer with a trace of humor in her gray eyes, knowing that his curiosity was the norm. “Everyone wonders why we’re going to Oregon. It’s quite simple, actually. There are many women in the East and few men, but in Oregon it’s just the opposite. I want a home, and this is the way for me to get one.”

“I see,” Kenyon replied. He examined Edith carefully, and took a sip of coffee. “What about romance, Miss Dickenson? Do you suppose you’ll find
that
in Oregon? I was under the impression that all women are entitled to it—expect it, in fact.”

“My expectations fall in a different category, I’m afraid, Colonel,” Edith answered. “I was engaged once, and my fiance supplied me with an abundance of romance.” She lifted her head high and stared right into his eyes. “Then he left me at the altar. No, moonlight and roses and poetry are all very well—but there’s more to a marriage than that.”

“I don’t think you really mean all that, Edith,” Karen Sanderson smiled. “I want a home the same as you—but surely we can hope for a little romance as well?” Her blond hair was a crown of braids that framed her oval face, and a gentleness touched her broad lips as she added, “Does it have to be one
or the other? Surely a marriage can have mystery as well as permanence and commitment.”

Rita shook her head, her eyes set off by a dark green gown cut low to expose creamy shoulders. “Most of the marriages I’ve seen have been more business arrangements than moonlight and roses. Men are willing enough to play at romance for a time—but once the ring is in place, they put it away with the piece of wedding cake. Something to remember, but not to practice.”

“Why, I’m surprised to hear you say so, Miss Duvall,” Kenyon remarked, though he did not mean it. The woman stood out from the others in a glaring fashion. “If you feel so strongly, why would you cross a continent to enter the institution?”

The question caught Rita off guard, they all noticed, but May rescued her quickly. “Well, let me tell you
my
plan, Colonel,” she interjected in a lively voice. “All my life I’ve had to take the leftovers as far as men are concerned. Always took whatever the pretty ones cast off—but it’s going to be a different story in Oregon, you can be sure!”

“Going to be hard to get, are you, May?” Dave asked with a grin.

“That’s the size of it. The man that wants me will have to whip at least a dozen other men to get me—just for starters. Then I’ll let him hang around my door with a dozen roses every night for a month or so—maybe write some of that gooey poetry that I never got. Then, if he pleases me, I
may
agree to marry him—but you can bet he’ll have to keep up some of the romancin’ even after we tie the knot!”

“Bravo!” Colonel Kenyon cried out. Rising to his feet, he walked around the table filling wine glasses. “I think you should do
exactly
that, Miss Stockton—and all the rest of you as well! After all, if you’re going to all the trouble of traveling to Oregon, it’s the very least those bachelors can do. A toast—to all the bachelors of Oregon!” He raised his glass, saying with a grin, “May you ladies make them totally
miserable—until you make them totally happy by taking their names!”

Resuming his seat, Kenyon noted that the final member of the company had said nothing. Thinking to include her in the light talk, he addressed her. “Now, then, Miss Jackson, tell me—are you determined to get a husband on the terms mentioned by Miss Stockton? Make them fawn at your feet?” He saw that the woman was embarrassed, and tried to soften his remark. “I suppose that you want to have a home and children?”

Later Kenyon wished he’d let well enough alone, for Rebekah lifted her face and looked at him with a quiet air that reminded him of the Scottish women he had met on his trip abroad. She was not flamboyant like Rita Duvall, nor was she as self-possessed as either Edith Dickenson or Karen Sanderson, yet he admired the natural beauty of her face.

“I have a baby, Colonel, and another on the way. I hope to find a man who loves children and will be a father to them.”

A silence dropped around the table, and Colonel Kenyon cursed himself for being so clumsy, but redeemed the moment by saying gently, “I’m sure there will be that kind of man—especially when he will gain such a fine young woman for his bride.”

Edith changed the subject quickly. “I’ve been worried about the Indians along the way, Colonel. Do you think we’ll have trouble?”

“Always a danger of that, of course,” the officer told her, relieved to be on safer ground. “But you’ve got a good man to lead you. No one in the West knows this country better than Sky Winslow. ’Course, if you were in a train of fifty wagons, it would be much better. Stragglers may get picked off, but Indians would never attack a train of that size.” He smiled and added, “Which brings up a matter.” Turning to Sky, he said, “There’s a small group camped by the river, Sky—just four wagons. They dropped out of a bigger train that left last
week, and they asked me to be on the lookout for another train for them to join.”

“I don’t think so, Colonel,” Sky rejoined. “Ordinarily I’d jump at it—but this train is different. Don’t think it would work to mix with another bunch.”

“As you say, of course,” Kenyon nodded. “You’ve got to think of your own train—but wouldn’t it be possible for the two groups to travel together but camp separately? That way you’d both have the advantage of a larger train—more firepower.”

“I’ll think on it. Why’d they leave the other train?”

“Can’t say. Some argument about leadership, I believe. But I have no vested interest in the group. Do as you think best.”

The party broke up about nine o’clock and Sky asked Dave to take the women back to the wagons. After they had left, he talked with Kenyon about the trip that lay ahead. “You weren’t telling it all about the Indians, were you, Colonel?”

“No. Didn’t want to alarm the women. We’ve had reports that Spotted Elk is on the warpath in earnest. He says that he’s tired of having his hunting grounds taken by whites, and that he’ll kill anyone who tries to cross his territory.”

“He’s pretty tough,” Sky replied quietly. “I met him once about five years ago.”

“That might help—but if I were you, Winslow, I’d wait for the next train. Be easier to get through if you were in a train of fifty or so.”

“Don’t want to wait, Colonel—but I’ll go check on the train you mentioned.”

“You’ll find them down by the river just beyond the sandstone outcropping.”

Sky left and made his way to the river. He found the wagons with no trouble, and when he got close enough, he called out, “Hello!”

“Who’s there?”

“Sky Winslow. Want to talk about joining trains.”

“Come on in.”

Sky found a small group of men and women seated around the large fire he’d spotted. A big man dressed in overalls stepped forward. “Git down and set,” he invited in a deep voice. “Got some coffee left. My name’s Albert Riker. These is my boys, Burt and Pete.” He indicated two young men who had the same big build as himself, then introduced the man next to him. “That’s Will Kent, my nephew.”

The coffee was bitter, but Sky drank it down and said, “Haven’t got long, Riker. Taking a train of fourteen wagons through to Oregon City. Colonel Kenyon tells me you might be interested in joining up with another train.”

“Might be.” Riker stared at Winslow, considering him carefully, “We broke off with the train we left with. The wagon master was a fool!” His voice grew angry. “Wouldn’t even put out a guard at night! Can you believe that?”

“Wouldn’t care to try that myself,” Sky replied. Then he handed the cup back to Riker and said, “You better know what kind of a train we are.” He explained the nature of his group. “It’s hard enough to keep my drivers and the women apart; the only way I’d agree to join you is if you keep your people separate from ours.”

Riker shook his head. “Never heard of such a thing—but it’s your lookout, Winslow. All I want to do is get my family to the coast. Might not sound neighborly, but I’ll find my own neighbors when we get to Oregon.”

“You know this country, Winslow?” one of the sons spoke up.

“Been over it quite a bit.”

“Done any Indian fighting?” the other son shot back. “That soldier told us a Sioux chief is on the warpath.”

“I know the chief a little. May be a help.”

He said no more, but stood there, waiting for Riker to decide. Soon the tall man nodded. “Agreed. We’ll keep our own company, Winslow. You want to leave in the morning?”

“If that’s not too soon for you.”

“Not a bit! We’ll meet you at sunup!”

“All right.” Sky mounted and rode back to the wagons, wondering if he had done the right thing, but soon put the matter out of his head. He stepped off his horse and was met at once by Dave. “We got troubles, Sky.”