Wyoming Bride (5 page)

She looked up at Hetty and said in a shaky voice, “He’s going to get well,” as though the spoken words could make it true.

“Sure he will,” Hetty said.

Hannah could tell her twin didn’t believe what she was saying. Surely not everyone died of cholera. But Hannah had heard stories of enormous death tolls in places struck by cholera.

Josie climbed down from the wagon and joined them. She’d been sulking as well, angered by the loss of that cherished wagonload of books. However, with nothing but the trail to look at, the tarp slung under the wagon was full of grass for tinder, dried wood, and cow dung. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“We’re stopping,” Hannah said. “Until Mr. McMurtry gets better.”

“We’re getting farther behind—”

“There’s no help for it,” Hannah interrupted. “We can’t go on with him as sick as he is.”

“We could put him in the wagon and keep traveling,” Josie said practically.

The suggestion made a great deal of sense to Hannah. And it would move them closer to their destination and help. “All right,” she said, getting to her feet. “Let’s do it.”

“We’re going to have to unload a bunch of stuff and leave it behind to get him in there,” Hetty pointed out.

“What other choice do we have?” Hannah asked.

“We could wait here,” Hetty suggested.

“Until what?” Hannah said.

Until he dies
.

Hannah heard the words, even though Hetty didn’t speak them. Instead, Hetty said, “Maybe the last place we stopped has a doctor who could help him.”

Hannah didn’t believe that any more than Hetty probably did.

“We’d be better off finishing the journey,” Josie said. “We can’t be too far from Cheyenne.”

“The problem is, we don’t have any idea exactly how far it is,” Hannah said.

“It can’t be more than a couple of days farther on,” Josie said. “Unless we’re lost.”

“Don’t even
think
that!” Hannah said. Although she’d thought exactly that herself when they hadn’t reached Cheyenne after four full weeks of travel. Mr. McMurtry had looked worried after their stop at the collection of shantys. She wished now that she’d asked what was wrong.

“Going back to a place we can find sounds safer than going forward to a place we’ve never been,” Hetty said.

“If the last place we left is infected with cholera, I’d rather steer clear of it,” Josie said.

That made sense to Hannah, too.

“I say we keep going,” Josie argued.

“How will we find the trail by ourselves?” Hetty asked.

Josie pointed to shallow ruts the width of wagon wheels that led across the prairie. “We follow those.”

Hetty stuck her hands on her hips. “Who’s going to drive those stubborn oxen?”

“I will,” Josie said. “I’ve been watching Mr. McMurtry snap that bullwhip every step of the way. How hard can it be?”

Hannah looked from one sister’s face to the other’s. They didn’t look nearly as afraid as she felt. There was no sense reminding them of the difficulties that lay ahead. “All right. Let’s get the wagon unloaded. Josie, give the oxen some water, but don’t unyoke them. We’ll have to take a good look before we do that tonight to make sure we can figure out how to yoke them up again tomorrow morning.”

They’d started out with a wagon filled to the two-thousand-pound limit with supplies, everything from hammers and hatchets to snowshoes, from dried fruit and beans to pickles and vinegar, from a butter mold and churn to a coffee grinder. Even after nearly three months of travel, the wagon bed was still packed so full that there was barely space for Hannah and Hetty to stand.

“You’re going to miss having this rocker on your front porch,” Hetty said as she dumped it out the back of the wagon.

Hannah picked up a chair and threw it onto the patchy grass in the center of the wagon tracks they’d been following. The chest under it was too heavy to move by herself. “Help me with this chest, Hetty.”

“Maybe we should unpack it first, so it’s lighter,” Hetty suggested.

Hannah opened the chest and saw a beautiful quilt. “We can cover him with this, once we get him in the wagon.” She threw the quilt aside and found sheets. “We might need these, too. They’re wrapped around something.”

Hannah unwound the sheets and found a beautiful framed mirror.

Hetty took it from her and studied her dirty, sunburned face and windblown blond curls. “I don’t think any man would be attracted to me the way I look now.” Then she tossed the mirror onto the ground, where it splintered into a thousand tiny pieces.

Josie looked up at Hetty and said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?”

“When you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck.”

Hetty sneered. “Our luck couldn’t get much worse than it already is.”

“Keep working,” Hannah said. “We’re losing daylight.”

They threw out furniture, mostly, but also got rid of fifty-pound sacks of rice, beans, and flour, which Hannah knew they were going to miss when they reached Cheyenne.

She spread Mr. McMurtry’s sleeping pallet on the space they’d cleared, then put a sheet and quilt nearby. She took out a bowl to use in case he had to vomit and filled another one with water to wipe his fevered forehead. She tore one of the sheets into rags to clean him if he fouled himself while traveling in the wagon.

When Hannah was done, she left the wagon and crossed to where Mr. McMurtry lay. Josie had draped a sheet over a couple of chairs they’d discarded to make shade for him while her sisters worked. “Mr. McMurtry?” Hannah laid a tentative hand on his shoulder, expecting him to knock it away again.

He mumbled something incoherent, but he didn’t move.

“Mr. McMurtry?” she repeated. She dared far enough to put a hand on his forehead. It was burning hot.

He muttered something that made no sense.

“He’s delirious,” Hetty said matter-of-factly.

“We don’t know that!” Hannah snapped.

“He’s babbling nonsense. What would you call it?” Hetty retorted.

“Let’s get him in the wagon,” Josie said. “So we can go.”

Hetty put her hands on her hips again and said, “How do you propose we do that? He’s out of his senses.”

Josie knelt down and took one of Mr. McMurtry’s hands. “You get the other one, Hannah, and we’ll sit him upright.”

Hannah did as her youngest sister ordered. Once they had him upright, his eyes opened.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“Can you stand?” Hannah asked.

Hetty removed the sheet that had kept the sun off him and balled it up in her arms.

He started to get up but fell down again. Hannah and Josie helped him to his feet. Hetty hurried to the wagon and climbed up into it, ready to help pull him in. After several tries, the three of them managed to get him onto the pallet in the wagon. Almost immediately, he started retching.

Hannah grabbed the bowl she had ready and caught most of the vomit. Hetty choked and then threw up over the back of the wagon. Josie wrinkled her nose at the smell and said, “I’ll go get us moving.”

“If you’re both going to ride, I’m riding, too,” Hetty said to her twin, as she searched for a place to sit in the back of the wagon.

“Fine,” Hannah said. “You can help me wipe Mr. McMurtry when the time comes.”

“On second thought, I’ll walk,” Hetty said, throwing a leg over the tailgate.

“Please, Hetty, stay!” Hannah met her sister’s gaze and said, “I don’t want to be alone with him.”

Hetty made a face but stepped back inside the wagon.

Up front, Josie cracked the bullwhip and yelled at the oxen, “Get your butts moving, you lazy sons of bitches!”

Hannah met Hetty’s startled gaze with one of her own, and the two sisters burst out laughing. A moment later, Hannah was sobbing. A moment after that, Hetty was hugging her hard, crying just as loudly.

“What’s going on?” Josie called from the bench seat. “Did he die?”

“Not yet,” Hetty called back.

She looked at Hannah, and they burst into hysterical laughter again, followed by more hysterical sobs.

“I’m sorry,” Hetty said between choking sobs, as she stared into her twin’s tear-filled eyes. “I’m so sorry, Hannah. If I could take it all back, I would. I never imagined this would happen. I’m so sorry.”

Hannah pulled herself free. She wasn’t ready to forgive Hetty. Not yet. Maybe never. They’d probably end up dead anyway, so forgiveness wouldn’t matter. She took a piece of torn sheet, dipped it in the sloshing bowl of water, and used it to wipe Mr. McMurtry’s forehead.

His eyes opened almost immediately. He looked up at her and said in a soft, tender voice, “Hannah?”

Hannah’s heart hurt. She stared down into Mr. McMurtry’s eyes, wondering if she should call him Roland, wondering if she should tell him he was going to be a father. Before she could do either of those things, his eyes closed again. And he sighed.

Only, it wasn’t a sigh, exactly. It was longer and deeper and … he didn’t take another breath.

Hannah felt her hands trembling, felt her body shivering, felt her whole world splintering. “Noooooooooo!” she wailed. “Please, God. Please, God. Please, God.”

“Hannah, stop,” Hetty said. “You’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

“He’s dead!” Hannah snarled. “Can’t you see? He’s dead! And it’s
all your fault
.”

“That’s not fair!” Hetty cried. “I didn’t give him cholera.”

“We’d still be with the wagon train if you hadn’t gotten hot britches.”

“You’re just jealous because I found a handsome man to love me, and you were stuck with
him
.”

“He was a better man than either of those two fools who killed each other over you, you stupid cow!”

“Who’s stupid? You’re the one who married him.”

“I did it to save you and Josie,” Hannah shot back.

“Fat lot of good you did us. Look where we are now.”

“We’re here now because of
you
,” Hannah retorted.

“Both of you shut up!” Josie hissed at them through the opening in the canvas wagon cover. “Someone’s coming. And they don’t look friendly.”

Hannah bent her head around the edge of the canvas to look in the direction Josie was pointing. She felt her blood run cold. It was a band of half-naked men on horseback. Clearly not settlers. Clearly not white men.

They’d traded with a lot of friendly Indians on the trail. But there were no women or children with these riders. The colorful cotton shirts worn by the friendly redskins were missing. The oncoming horde wore buckskin breechclouts and had feathers in their long black hair. These savages carried bows and arrows and rifles, and they had menacing designs painted on their faces.

War paint
, Hannah thought.
It’s more colorful than I imagined
.

“Congratulations, Ransom.” Flint Creed grasped his younger brother’s hand and pulled him close for a hug. “Emaline chose the better man.”

“Thanks, Flint. No hard feelings?”

“None.” Flint still couldn’t believe Miss Emaline Simmons, the prettiest girl in the Wyoming Territory, had chosen his brother over him. But once Ransom had flashed her that lady-charming smile of his, Emaline had never looked at Flint the same way again. He should have known better than to give the woman his heart before he’d won her hand.

Emaline’s father, Lieutenant Colonel Simmons, the commander at Fort Laramie, gestured for Ransom to join him near the fireplace in the parlor of his two-story residence. Even though it was the twenty-sixth of July, they’d woken up to a freakishly cold day, so the fireplace was the only warm spot in the room.

The Sunday afternoon gathering was a celebration of Emaline and Ransom’s engagement. Flint felt sick at the thought of living in the same house with Emaline after she became his brother’s wife.

“Excuse me, Flint,” Ransom said. “Duty calls.”

“By all means, go.”

Ransom grinned. “I love Emaline. The fact that my future father-in-law is the one making the decision about who gets the contract to supply beef to the fort over the next year is icing on the cake.”

Flint watched as his brother joined the small group of military officers, ranchers, and tradesmen, who’d gathered at the colonel’s home with their wives after Sunday service at the chapel. Most of the women had their hands held out to the warmth of the fire as they chattered with one another.

The commander put a friendly arm around Ransom’s shoulder and the two of them engaged in conversation with Emaline. Ransom reached out a large, work-worn hand, and Emaline daintily put her small hand in his.

Flint felt his gut wrench.

What had Emaline Simmons seen in his brother that she hadn’t found in him? Was it something about his looks? He was taller by two inches, a full six foot three, and at twenty-six, a year older. Ransom was lean, top to bottom, while Flint’s own shoulders were broader, heavier with muscle. They both had blue eyes, although, to be honest, his were more of a flinty gray—what had given him his name, in fact.

Why Ransom and not him? Was it something as frivolous as the fact that Ransom’s black hair curled at his brow, while his own lay straight as a crow’s wing down his nape? He didn’t smile as often as Ransom, but he was the one who bore the weight of responsibility for his younger brother. Always had and always would.