The Springsweet (3 page)

"In front of all Baltimore," Mama muttered, then spun round to face me again. "I've indulged you too often. Spoilt you. And what shall we do with you now?"

I should have been ashamed, but I smiled instead. "Lock me in the attic. I should say you could easily convince people of my insensibility."

Glowering, Mama plucked another stick up from the pile by the door and stuffed it in the stove. Though we had gas lighting through the rest of the house, Mama swore that nothing but wood and brick could cook a proper supper.

The bright scent of burning pine filled the kitchen, the only pleasure I had left when Mama plucked my cup from my hands. "Look at you, preening over this."

"Will Papa mind overmuch?" I asked disingenuously. I couldn't imagine he would—matters of comportment and decency he generally left to my mother's discretion.

Mama finished my tea and put the cup aside. "I should think so, Zora Pauline. You've indebted him to Mr. Clare, embarrassed us all in front of him. That's our livelihood!"

A sliver of doubt lodged in my chest. Could it matter? Even Theo, poor, sad dupe that he was, would only be embellished by the incident. I was the one ruined; he'd earned a conquest.

But it pained me to think of Papa troubled by it, and I lowered my head. "If that's so, I'm sorry."

Mama snapped, "Good. I expect no less." Then, perhaps regretting her sharpness, she came to put her hands on my shoulders. "Oh, duck. I wish I knew what to do with you."

Sinking against her, I laid my cheek on her arm and murmured, "I did say it once—there's always the attic." When she pinched to punish my impertinence, I tipped my head to look at her. "I'll be quiet in daylight. Tell everyone you sent me west to stay with family."

My mother stilled, and I had learned that my mother's stillness could never bode well for anyone. Twisting on my perch, I looked at her quite directly. "Mama?"

I think she would have forgotten my suggestion entirely if a letter hadn't come for me the next day.

Postmarked Kansas, the envelope contained a note and a photograph of a grizzled farmer and his weathered children. Lord above, I must have answered his advertisement for a bride—I hadn't considered how old a man with four sons might be.

Sheepishly, I hid my face while she read from his letter. In the middle, she stopped and fished out a paper cigar ring. Slapping it on the table before me, she informed me, "That's in lieu of a gold band, should his farm ever break even."

As a hot flush crawled my neck, I tried to find some valiant defense of myself. Instead, I only managed, "Well, he does need the help, doesn't he?"

"Enough," Mama said, collecting my mail-order proposal. "I'm wiring Birdie. She can put you to work, and maybe then you'll come to your senses."

What use my aunt might have for a slightly ruined, partly maddened eastern girl in Oklahoma Territory, I couldn't begin to imagine. But married or indentured, the result was the same.

I would be yoked, and I didn't mind at all.

Three

Through the gentle rise of the Allegheny Mountains, then on through woodland that turned to amber plains, I made my way by locomotive to Birdie's homestead in Oklahoma Territory. The train itself was pleasant enough most days, though the constant snow of coal ash through the windows made it impossible to keep anything clean—perhaps a portent of things to come.

From my window, I studied the villages blossoming along the rails, and considered my fate. I'd come to appreciate that Mama's way had advantages over mine. My methods—ruining myself, taking a husband-—each required an infidelity I didn't wish to commit, not in truth. As my aunt's helper, I'd need never betray Thomas' memory.

Stepping from the train at Skeleton Ranch, I marveled at a sky that stretched boundlessly across the plains. The pure intensity of the blue stole my breath; at once, I was miniscule and infinite beneath it.

Then a sudden blast of heat snatched at my bonnet. I'd never felt such a wind, scorching and dry. In fact, I doubted entirely it was wind, because it seared and clawed, pulling my hair loose in spite of its pins. Baltimore's winds weren't always sweet, but they were always cool; they carried ever a taste of the ocean in them. They pushed, but never pulled.

Plucking a spray of tansy asters, I was glad to step into the black coach that would carry me to West Glory. Just a few more hours, and I'd be starting over. My new beginning had begun.

After four hours in the airless cab, however, I wasn't quite so optimistic. The schoolteacher who sat beside me chirped in terror each time we hit a bump in the road. And without any sort of pavement to follow, we hit quite a few.

But she wasn't as bad as the bachelors who sat on the seat across from us. Chaw stained their lips and their breath. What stank more than their gnawing mouths was the shared can into which they spat.

Though I had a bundle of bread and cheese for my lunch, I couldn't bear to eat it, closed up as I was with chirping on one side and expectorating on the other.

The coach shuddered to a stop. My travel mates murmured among themselves, and I brushed the curtain back to peer outside. I saw no town on the horizon—only saddle-bound men surrounding us. They pulled their reins hard, bits cutting into flesh. Their horses reared with agonized cries.

"Oh no," the schoolteacher whimpered.

She pulled a cross from her collar and started to pray. The coach jerked to one side, and she interrupted her devotions with a squeak. Sound swirled away for me; the dust outside fascinated my senses, leaving me numb to the realization that someone was crawling on the top of the coach.

The dust had a strange quality to it, like none I'd ever seen. Delicate stars flickered when sunlight streaked through it. Puffing and swirling, it danced in eddies and brooks around hooves in motion. And then, when someone threw our luggage from the stage, it rose in plumes, a great, waterless spring.

My trunk split when it hit the ground, revealing all I had in the world. Velvets and laces spilled out, trampled and kicked. Suddenly, I heard again; I saw more than the clouds of silken haze. I threw myself against the window.

My stamps! My writing papers! My dance card from the Sons of Apollo Ball, half-filled, all crushed beneath iron shoes and wooden heels.

Furious, I reached for the door. What I thought to say, I can't imagine, and I had the latch all but open when one of the bachelors shoved me back into my seat.

"Just let 'em take it," he said.

Offended, I strained forward again. Who was he to handle me like that? No gentleman, that was certain. Sharply, I informed him, "That's all I have!"

The schoolteacher clutched my arm. "Don't give them cause to come in after us."

It occurred to me that she was afraid—that the bachelors were too. And I thought that perhaps I should have been. But what I felt was not the quavering chill of terror. It was indignation that my few mementos, trinkets worth nothing but sentiment, had been ground into the dirt.

"I'm sorry," I told them, and threw open the door.

***

It was customary to help a lady from a coach. However, the shove from behind wasn't the usual method, nor was the slamming of the door. Nevertheless, I righted myself, lifting my chin when one of the highwaymen strode up to me.

"Lady, you better get back in there," he said.

A dirty rag covered most of his face, and a battered hat covered his head. There was nothing of him but a stripe of watery blue eyes beneath dark eyebrows. Long lashes caught the light, and his voice gave him away—younger rather than older, bravado instead of confidence.

"If you want my valuables," I told him, emboldened, "take them. But I'm collecting my dance card."

An unbearable hum started in my chest and rushed through me, fingertips to toes. Pushing past him, I hurried to my ruined trunk. Though my feet moved purposefully, I felt adrift—woozy on my own nerve. I snatched the dance card that still bore Thomas' handwriting, and my packet of stamps as well. I shoved both of them in my blouse for safekeeping.

A hand dropped on my shoulder, and I whipped around. Slipping my fan from my sleeve, I brandished it, as if I'd met this boy at a ball and not a robbery. "Mind yourself, sir."

Before he could answer, another bandit hopped down from the coach and started our way. His long brown coat flapped with each step, and he sounded like he might be amused. "Boy, what're you doing over there?"

"She won't get back in," the other said.

The answer came: "Make her!"

Petulant, he waved a hand at me. "What do you want me to do? Shoot her?"

In response, I heard the coach driver crack a whip. The stage groaned, then took off, speeding into the dust-laced distance. The older highwayman cursed, kicking at the luggage on the ground.

The high, dusty heat of the plains deserted me. Chilled into my bones, I found I couldn't quite take a breath. Until that moment, I had been submerged. Being abandoned pulled me to the surface-—back into light and sound and realization. I stood in the middle of nowhere, beyond the bounds of etiquette, protected only by my wit and my ivory fan.

"You should be ashamed of yourselves," I said, manifesting a bit more of my madness. "Bad enough to make a career of thievery, but honestly. Look at the mess you've made."

The highwaymen exchanged glances. As I could see only their eyes, I couldn't tell what passed between them. But the older of the two grabbed my arm. Then he lifted, setting me off balance as he marched me to the side of the road like an unruly child.

"Sit down and shut up," he said, jerking me over ruts cut into the dirt.

The hum within me rose to a pulsing howl. My head pounded with it; I felt it in my throat and my temple. I was alone—utterly alone in the wilderness, with two men of few scruples.

At once, lightning cracked so near, my ears rang and I tasted its acrid remains. The heavens opened with a deluge. Without my bonnet, which sat on the coach seat I'd abandoned, unexpected rain soaked my hair and ran down my face unimpeded.

Swallowing hard, I said, "I may shut up, but I will not sit on the ground in a corset and bustle."

"We need to go," his companion said, already saddled. Rain darkened his hat, and his horse twitched anxiously. "They're gonna beat us to town."

This bandit's eyes trailed my face, coming to rest just beneath my chin.

Instinctively, I reached for my locket. "It's tin. It's not worth anything."

"Then you won't miss it, will ya?"

His gloved hand covered mine, and he yanked. The ribbon snapped, and I felt it slip from my neck. Though his face was covered, I knew he was smiling. His eyes crinkled at the corners, a satisfied kind of smugness in the curve of his brow.

Then he mounted his horse and presented one more in sult. He pulled the reins hard, turning the beast in deliberate circles on the remains of our luggage. New mud mixed by the rain coated everything with filth. It wasn't enough to rob me; he had to try to break me as well.

Finally, he rode off. In his wake, a piece of once-white lace fluttered weakly, a bird with a broken wing.

Though I suppose I could have, and might have been entitled, I didn't sit down and cry. Nor did I stand there waiting for rescue. I picked through the remains of my baggage, for cotton could be washed and lace could be mended.

Throwing a few sodden pieces over my arm, I turned to follow the coach's tracks. I'd survived much worse: my mother was right. I was alive—not the dreamy, rescued sort of survival I'd experienced at the fountain in Baltimore. This was a real and deliberate reclamation; I had rescued myself.

For the first time in a year, I felt alive, and I was glad of it.

***

When night came, cold came with it.

Putting my head down, I trudged on. Though the wagon path was clear enough—for it was the narrow stream of mud lined by prairie grasses on each side—I'd passed no sign for West Glory in my hours of walking. And I'd seen no evidence that these plains were inhabited by anything but an abundance of jackrabbits.

In a way, the cold relieved me. It distracted me from the growing fear that I might never make it to town at all. Surely if I'd walked that long in Maryland, I would have found
something
—a house, a traveler, the shore.

But Oklahoma Territory yielded nothing but a scrubby, never-ending plain. I wondered if the coach had arrived yet. If it hadn't, no one could know I'd gone missing. That meant no one would be looking for me.

Alone, I shivered.

The skies cleared, clouds parting like stage curtains to reveal a pure, black night. The stars went on and on, endless diamonds on the field above me. And though I saw my breath and felt my innards clench in hunger, I stopped to admire the constellations.

In that moment, I alone existed.

And then, with the rattle of wagon wheels, that moment ended.

Turning toward the sound, I squinted into the dark. A lantern danced in the distance, a firefly darting in the fields. It trundled toward me, and when I made out the shape of a wagon, I called out to it.

"You, there! Hello!"

I heard no answer, but the light shifted, turning toward me more directly. Giddiness bubbled in me, but I quashed it when I realized it could be the highwaymen come back to finish me. For a moment, I considered hiding.

But then I felt a tremor across my skin, as if I had rubbed some amber with silk. It raced through the earth beneath my feet, and though I couldn't place the source of it, it calmed me.

I waved my bit of lace again. "Hello! Over here!"

Finally, the wagon became more than a dark impression. It was a buckboard, not much more than four wheels and a spring-mounted seat, drawn by one chestnut horse. The driver stopped and lifted his lantern to better see me.

"What are you doing out here, miss?" he asked. His voice was warm as a summer afternoon.

Drawn to it, I wrapped my arms around my filthy bundle and came closer. "My coach was robbed on the way to West Glory. They left me here, and then it rained. I may be lost..."

He smiled faintly. "You
may
be lost."