Читать книгу Her Cheyenne Warrior - Lauri Robinson - Страница 10
ОглавлениеJuly 1864, Nebraska Territory
If a year ago someone had told her she’d be a part of a misfit band of women, wearing the same ugly black dress every day, and have calluses—yes, calluses—on her hands, she’d have laughed in their face. Then again, a year ago she’d had no reason to believe her birthday would be any different than the nineteen previous ones had been, complete with a party where friends plied her with frivolous gifts of stationery, silly doodads and fans made of colorful ostrich feathers.
Lorna Bradford lifted her stubby pencil off the page of her tattered diary where she’d written Tomorrow is my birthday, and questioned scribbling out the words. It wasn’t as if there would be a celebration, and she certainly didn’t need a reminder of what had happened last year. That night was the catalyst that had brought her here, to a land and a way of life that was entirely foreign to her. But somehow, though she had once been a stranger to it, she had begun to grow used to this life, this land, and to feel at home, as amazing as that seemed.
Wearing the same dress day after day didn’t faze her as much as it once would have; and the calluses on her hands meant she no longer needed to doctor the blisters she’d suffered from during the first few weeks holding the reins of the mules.
Nibbling on the flat end of the pencil, Lorna scanned the campsite she and the others had created for the night. Stars were already starting to appear. Soon it would be too dark to write in her diary. Maybe that was just as well. She had nothing to add. It had been an uneventful day. God willing, tomorrow would be no different.
Lorna pulled the pencil away from her lips and twirled it between her thumb and fingers. She made a note of some sort every night, and felt compelled to do so again. Perhaps because it was habit or maybe because it marked that she’d lived through another day. Despite the past. Despite the odds. Despite the obstacles.
In fact, her notations were proof they were all still alive, and that in itself said something. The four of them might be misfits in some senses of the word, but they were resilient and determined.
Meg O’Brien was most definitely determined. She was over near the fire, brushing her long black hair. Something she did every night. The care she gave her hair seemed odd considering it was covered all day and night by the heavy nun’s habit. Then again, the nun’s outfits had been Meg’s idea, and the disguises had worked for the most part. Soon Meg would plait her hair into a single braid and cover it with the black cloth, a sign her musing was over for the evening. Though boisterous and opinionated, Meg sat by herself for a spell each night. Lorna wondered what Meg thought about when she sat there, brushing her hair and staring into the fire, but never asked. Just as Meg never asked what Lorna wrote about in her diary each night.
Lorna figured Meg had a lot of secrets she didn’t want anyone to know about, and could accept that. After all, they all had secrets. Her own were the reason she was in the middle of Nebraska with this misfit band.
She and Meg had met in Missouri, when Meg had answered Lorna’s advertisement seeking passage on a wagon train. The railroad didn’t go all the way to California. A stagecoach had been her original plan, but the exorbitant cost of traveling on a stage all the way to California was well beyond her financial resources, thus joining a wagon train had become her only choice. When she’d answered the knock on her hotel room door, Meg had barreled into the room asking, “You trying to get yourself killed?”
Lorna had pulled her advertisement right after Meg had explained that wagon trains heading west had slowed considerably since the country was at war and that Lorna would not want to be associated with the ones who would respond to her advertisement. Meg had been right, and Lorna would be forever grateful to her. They’d formed a fast friendship that very first meeting, even though they had absolutely nothing in common.
The clink and clatter coming from inside the wagon, against which Lorna was leaning, said Betty Wren was still fluttering about, rearranging the pots and pans they’d used for the evening meal. Betty liked things neat and orderly and knew at any given moment precisely where every last item of their meager possessions and supplies was located. Too bad she hadn’t known where that nest of ground bees had been. Perhaps then her husband, Christopher, wouldn’t have stepped on it.
The wagon train had only been a week out of Missouri, and Christopher had been their first fatality. He’d died within an hour of stepping on that bee’s nest. Others had been stung as well, but none like him. Lorna had never seen a body swell like Christopher’s had. A truly unidentifiable corpse had been buried in that grave. She’d never seen a woman more brokenhearted than Betty, either, and was glad that Betty only cried occasionally these days.
Betty’s heart was healing.
They eventually did. Hearts, that was. They healed. Whether a person wanted them to or not. Even hate faded. That was something she hadn’t known a year ago. A tightening in Lorna’s chest had her glancing back down at the notation in her diary. The desire for retribution, she had discovered, grew stronger with each day that passed.
“Can’t think of anything to write about?”
That was the final member of their group speaking, Tillie Smith. She, too, had lost her husband shortly after the trip started, while crossing a river. The water wasn’t deep, but Adam Smith had been trapped beneath the back wheel of his wagon, and it was too late by the time the others had got the wagon off him. Trapped on his back, he’d drowned in less than two feet of water. It had been a terrifying and tragic event.
“I guess not,” Lorna answered, shifting to look at Tillie, who was under the wagon and wrapped in a blanket. More to keep the bugs from biting than for warmth. The heat of the days barely eased when the sun went down, but the bugs came out, and they were always hungry. How they managed to bite through the heavy black material of the nun outfits was astonishing.
“You could write that I say I’m sorry,” Tillie said.
“I will not,” Lorna insisted. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
Tillie wiggled her small frame from under the wagon, pulling the blanket behind her. Once sitting next to Lorna with her back against the same wheel, she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “Yes, I do. If not for me, the rest of you would still be with the wagon train. You should have left me behind.”
Lorna set her pencil in her diary, and closed the book. After the death of her husband, pregnant Tillie had started to hemorrhage. The doctor traveling on the train—a disgusting little man who never washed his hands—said nothing could be done for her. In great disagreement, Lorna and Meg, as well as Betty, who’d latched on to her and Meg for protection as well as friendship by that time, had chosen to take matters into their own hands. The small town they’d found and the doctor there had tried, but Tillie had lost her baby a week later. It had taken another three weeks—since Tillie had almost died, too—before the doctor had declared she could travel again. The wagon train had long since left without them, so only the four women and their two wagons remained. That was also why she and Meg only had one dress each. They’d started the trip with two each, but had given the extra dresses and habits to Betty and Tillie. Four nuns traveling alone were safer than four single women. That was what Meg had said and they all believed she was right.
“Leaving you behind was never an option,” Lorna said. “And we are all better off being separated from the train. They were nothing more than army deserters and leeches. There wasn’t a man on that train I trusted, and very few women.”
“You got that right,” Meg said, joining her and Tillie on the ground.
“Furthermore,” Betty said, sticking her head out the back of the wagon, “taking you to see Dr. Wayne was our chance to escape.”
Lorna turned to Meg, and they read each other’s minds. Neither of them would have guessed that little Betty, heartbroken and quieter than a rabbit, had known of the dangers staying with the wagon train would have brought. Lorna and Meg had, and had been seeking an excuse to leave the group before Tillie had lost her husband and become ill.
Betty climbed out of the wagon and sat down with the rest of them. “I wasn’t able to sleep at night with the way Jacob Lerber leered at me during the day. Me! With Christopher barely cold in his grave.”
The contempt in Betty’s voice caused Lorna and Meg to share another knowing glance. Jacob Lerber had done more than leer. Both of them had stopped him from following Betty too closely on more than one occasion when she’d gone for water or firewood. Gratitude for the nun’s outfits had begun long before then. Everyone had been a bit wary of her and Meg, and kept their distance, afraid of being sent to hell and damnation on the spot. When Tillie had become ill, no one had protested against two nuns taking her to find a doctor. In fact, most of the others on the train had appeared happy at the prospect.
“But,” Tillie said softly, “because of me, we might not get to California before winter. It’s midsummer and we aren’t even to Wyoming yet.” Glancing toward Meg, Tillie added, “Are we?”
Meg shook her head. “But I’ve been thinking about that. There are plenty of towns along the way. I say wherever we are come October, we find a town and spend the winter. It would be good if we made it as far as Fort Hall, but there are other places. Having pooled our supplies, we have more than enough to see us through and come spring, we can head out again.”
Betty and Tillie readily agreed. Meg had become their wagon master, and they all trusted her judgment. None of them had anyone waiting at the other end, and whether they arrived this year or next made no difference.
To them. To Lorna it did. She needed to arrive in San Francisco as soon as possible. That was why she was on this trip, but she hadn’t told anyone else that. Not her reasons for going to California nor what she would do once she arrived and found Elliot Chadwick. That was the first thing she’d do. Right after getting rid of the nun’s habit. However, she also wanted to arrive in California alive. Others on their original train had told terrifying stories about being caught up in the mountains come winter, and claimed they couldn’t wait for Tillie to get the doctoring she’d needed.
Meg’s plan of wintering in a small town, although it made sense, wasn’t what Lorna wanted to hear. She didn’t want to pass the winter in any of the towns between here and California. The few they’d come across since leaving Missouri were not what she’d call towns. Then again, having lived in London most of her life, few cities in America were what she’d been used to, not even New York, despite having been born there.
“Lorna, you haven’t said anything,” Meg pointed out. “Do you agree?”
Meg might have become their wagon master, but for some unknown reason, they all acted as if Lorna was the leader of their small troupe. “Yes,” Lorna answered, figuring she’d hold her real opinion until there was something she could do about it. “Wherever we are come October, that’s where we stay.” She turned to Tillie. “And no more talk of being sorry. We are all here by choice.” Holding one hand out, palm down, she asked, “Right?”
One by one they slapped their hands atop hers. “Right!” Together they all said, “One for all and all for one.”
As their hands separated, Lorna reached for the diary that had tumbled off her lap. Too late she realized the others had read the brief entry she’d written for the day.
The women looked at one another and the silence thickened as Lorna closed the book.
Tillie picked up the pencil and while handing it back said, “How old will you be tomorrow?”
Lorna took the pencil and set it and the book on the ground. “Twenty.”
“I’m eighteen,” Betty said. “Had my birthday last March, right before we left Missouri.”
“Me, too,” Tillie said. “I’m eighteen. My birthday is in January.”
The others looked at Meg. She sighed and spit out a stem of grass she’d been chewing on. “Twenty. December.”
Betty turned to Lorna, her big eyes sparkling. “I have all the fixings. If we stop early enough tomorrow, I could bake a cake in my Dutch oven.”
Lorna shook her head. “No reason to waste supplies on a cake...or the time.”
Silence settled again, until Tillie asked, “Did you have cake back in England? Or birthday parties?”
Lorna considered not answering, but, ultimately, these were her friends, the only ones she had now. Meg didn’t, but Betty and Tillie, the way their eyes sparkled, acted as if living in England made her some kind of special person. No country did that.
“Yes,” she said. “My mother loved big, lavish parties, with all sorts of food and desserts, and fancy dresses.”
“What was your dress like last year?” Betty asked, folding her hands beneath her chin. Surrounded by the black nun’s habit, the excited glow of her face was prominent.
Lorna held in a sigh. She’d rather not remember that night, but couldn’t help but give the others a hint of the society they longed to hear about. “It was made of lovely dark blue velvet and took the seamstress a month to sew.”
“A month?”
She nodded. “My mother insisted it be covered with white lace, rows and rows of it.”
“You didn’t like the lace,” Meg said, as intuitive as ever.
Lorna shrugged. “I thought it was prettier without it.”
“I bet it was beautiful,” Betty said wistfully. “How many guests were there?”
“Over a hundred.”
Tillie gasped. “A hundred! Goodness.”
Lorna leaned back against the wagon wheel and took a moment to look at each woman. In the short time she’d known them, they had become better friends than anyone she’d known most of her life. Perhaps it was time for her to share a bit of her story. “It was also my engagement party. I was to marry Andrew Wainwright. The announcement was to be made that night.”
While the other two gasped, Meg asked, “What happened?”
“Andrew never arrived,” Lorna answered as bitterness coated her tongue. “Unbeknownst to me, he’d been sent to Scotland that morning.”
“Sent to Scotland? By whom?” Betty asked.
“His father,” Lorna said, trying to hold back the animosity. It was impossible, and before she could stop herself, she added, “And my stepfather.”
“Why?”
Night was settling in around them, and inside, Lorna was turning dark and cold. She hated that feeling. Her fingernails dug into her palm as she said, “Because my stepfather, Viscount Douglas Vermeer...” Simply saying his name made her wish she was already in California. “Didn’t want me marrying Andrew.” Or anyone else, apparently. Since he’d made certain later that night that it would never happen.
“Why not?” Tillie asked.
At the same time, Betty asked, “Oh, how sad. Did you love Andrew dearly?”
As astute as ever, Meg jumped to her feet. “Lorna will have to finish her tale another night. It’s late, and morning comes early.” She then started giving out orders as to what needed to be done before they crawled beneath the wagons.
No one argued, and a short time later, Lorna and Meg were under one wagon, Betty and Tillie under the other. Meg didn’t utter another word, and neither did Lorna. There was nothing to say. She’d never told Meg what had happened that night back in London. She didn’t have to; her friend seemed to know it was something she didn’t want to remember. To talk about. Just like a hundred other things Meg seemed to know.
Lorna shut her mind off, something she’d learned how to do years ago, and closed her eyes, knowing her body was tired enough she’d fall asleep. That was one good thing about this trip. It was exhausting.
* * *
The next morning, when the early-dawn sunlight awoke them, they all crawled out from beneath the wagons. No one complained of being tired or of sore muscles as they began their work of the day. Breakfast consisted of tea and the biscuits Betty had made the night before along with tough pieces of bacon. Betty insisted they have meat—bacon that was—once a day. She’d save the grease and make gravy out of it tonight, as she did every day. A year ago, Lorna would have quivered at such meals. Now she simply accepted them, and was thankful she didn’t have to depend upon herself to do the cooking.
Another good thing about these women was that they were affable without any of the falseness of those she’d known all her life. Each one wished her a happy birthday with sincerity and no expectations of learning more. That was the good thing about mornings. It was a new day. A new start. The conversation of last night was as dead to her as everything else she’d left behind.
Once the meal was over, she and Meg gathered the mules they’d staked nearby and hitched them to the wagons while the other two cleaned up their campsite. Lorna appreciated that Betty and Tillie didn’t mind doing those chores. Kitchen duties had never appealed to her, not like the stables. That was one thing she missed, the fine horseflesh that had lived in the barns back home. Her father had taught her to ride when she was very little, and the memories of riding alongside him were the only ones she cherished and refused to allow to become sullied.
Once set, all four of them climbed aboard the wagons.
The lead wagon was Meg’s and she drove it; the second one was Betty’s. Tillie’s had been lost in the river accident that took her husband’s life. This morning, Lorna sat in the driver’s seat of the second wagon. She and Betty, as well as Tillie, took turns driving it. Another chore she didn’t mind. Each step the animals took led her farther and farther away from England, and closer to California.
Tillie was on the seat beside her and Betty beside Meg. The trail they followed was little more than curved indents in the ground. Summer grass had grown up tall and thick, and Lorna wondered how Meg deciphered where the trail went and where it didn’t.
“Meg says we might cross into Wyoming today,” Tillie said.
“We very well may,” Lorna answered. They’d passed the strange formation of Chimney Rock a few days ago, and ever since then, Meg had been saying they’d be crossing into Wyoming soon. Truth was, as far as any of them knew, they might already have entered Wyoming. It wasn’t as if there was a big sign saying Welcome to Wyoming or any such thing. The area was neither a state nor territory, just a large plot of land the government hadn’t figured out what they wanted to do with yet. That was how Meg described it.
Lorna, like the others, had long ago put their trust in Meg’s knowledge. Although she had no idea how Meg had acquired such knowledge, it was admirable.
“Do you ever wish you hadn’t left England?” Tillie asked.
“No,” Lorna answered. She’d have to be dense to believe what she’d revealed last night wouldn’t eventually bring about questions, but she didn’t need to elaborate on them. Leaving England had been her decision, and she’d never questioned it. Nor would she. She was glad to be gone from there, and far from everyone who still lived there.
“Will you ever go back?”
“No.”
“You don’t like talking about it, do you?”
“No,” Lorna said. “That part of my life is over. No need to talk or think about it.” That, of course, was easier said than done. And a lie. Some days the memories just wouldn’t stop. More so today, an exact year since her stepfather had stolen the one thing that had been truly hers, and only hers. She’d win in the end, though; once she arrived in San Francisco, Douglas would get his due.
“Adam and I lived in Ohio,” Tillie said. “I’ve told you that before, but I didn’t mention that Adam’s father said he either had to join the army or go west.”
“I know,” Lorna said.
“How would you know? I never mentioned it.”
“Because most every man on that wagon train had made that same choice.”
“He chose west because of me,” Tillie said. “I was afraid he’d die being a soldier.”
Lorna held her breath to brace for what was to come. Tears most likely, and more blame. Tillie was a fan of both. The girl had had a hard time, Lorna would admit that, but at some point, enough becomes enough, as she herself had learned.
“Can I tell you something?” Tillie asked.
“Yes.” The answer hadn’t been needed. Tillie would go on either way.
“I’m glad we went west. I’m sorry Adam died, and that I lost the baby, but if he’d gone to the army, I’d be living with his parents now and would never have met you, or Meg or Betty. I would never have known how strong I am. How much I can do.”
Lorna glanced sideways just to make sure those words had come from Tillie. It wasn’t likely a stranger had appeared out of nowhere and jumped up on the seat beside her, but hearing Tillie saying such things was about as unexpected. After assuring herself that it was Tillie’s big brown eyes looking back at her—her curly red-brown hair was well covered by the black habit—Lorna grinned. “I’m glad you came west, too.” She was sorry for Tillie’s losses, but had said that plenty of times before. “And I’m glad you’re on this trip with me,” she added instead.
They conversed of minor things then, just to lighten the monotony of the trail. Tall grass went on as far as they could see in this wide-open country. There were a few small hills here and there, and a large line of trees along the river that ran just south of them. They’d camp near the river again tonight, like every night. Meg said farther into Wyoming, they wouldn’t have the water they did here in Nebraska. Lorna hoped they wouldn’t have the high temperatures, either. It was unrelenting. The yards of black material covering her from head to toe intensified the heat, making the sun twice as hot as it ever had been in England.
By the time they stopped for the noon meal, Lorna questioned if she’d ever been so sweaty and miserable in her life. She wasted no time in unhitching the mules and leading them down to the river for water. The poor animals had to be beyond parched.
“Sure is a hot one,” Meg said, dropping the lead rope as her mules stepped into the water and started slurping.
“Miserably so.” Lorna pushed the tight habit off her head and lifted the heavy braid of her hair off the back of her neck to catch the breeze. The relief wasn’t nearly enough. “I feel like jumping in that river and swimming clear to the other side.”
Meg looked up and down the river, and then over her shoulder where Betty and Tillie were busy seeing to the noon meal. It wouldn’t be much, just more tea and biscuits, and maybe some dried apple chips.
“Why don’t we?”
Lorna pulled her gaze off the other women to glance at Meg. She was smiling, which in itself was a bit rare. “I don’t know,” Lorna said, trying to conceal how her heart leaped inside her chest. “Why don’t we?”
“No reason I can think of,” Meg said. “You?”
Lorna shook her head. “Not a one.”
Meg glanced up and down the river one more time. “I gotta say, a swim sounds like a better way to celebrate a birthday than any stupid party with fancy dresses covered in lace.”
Lorna laughed. “I agree. And getting out of these heavy dresses for a moment would be heavenly, Sister Meg.”
Meg laughed. “Then, stake down your mules, Sister Lorna.”
Grinning, and with her heart skipping with excitement, Lorna didn’t waste a minute in staking the animals and then unbraiding her hair. She hadn’t been swimming in years, but it wasn’t something a person forgot. Hopefully! Then again, submerging herself in that cool river water would be worth almost drowning.
Meg shouted for Betty and Tillie to join them. In no time, all four of them were stripped down to their underclothes and running for the water, giggling like girls half their age. The water was as refreshing as Lorna imagined and not nearly as deep as it looked. She was halfway across the river before the water reached her waist, at which point she pinched her nose and fell onto her back. Sinking beneath the water was trivial, yet the most spectacular event she’d had in months. When she resurfaced, she stretched out and slowly kicked her feet to propel her around as she floated on her back. The water was like taking a bath, except that it smelled earthy and pure instead of cloying and sweet from the various flower oils her maid, Anna, had drizzled in the brass tub before she’d proclaim the bath was ready.
Of all the people she’d thought of over the past year, Anna hadn’t been in her memories at all. Yet the woman should have been. She’d been the one mainstay in her life, clicking her tongue and waggling a finger at the slightest misstep. Maybe that was why. As Tillie had pointed out, learning to take care of oneself was liberating. Lorna liked that. Taking responsibility suited her.
Stretching her arms out at her sides, she smiled up at the bright blue sky. Not answering to anyone was liberating, too. So was not being committed to doing anything or being anywhere she didn’t want to be or do.
This was how her life would be from now on. Free to do as she pleased.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?”
The chill that encompassed her had nothing to do with the water. Lorna dropped her feet. As they sank into the soft sand, she turned to where the familiar male voice had come from.
Jacob Lerber stood on the riverbank, along with three other men who looked just as uncouth. They reminded her of the stories she’d heard about wolves, complete with evil eyes and yellow teeth.
All four of them had guns hanging off their waists. She’d learned since coming to America that only those who didn’t mind killing broadly displayed their weapons. Which was why she kept hers hidden, and would have had it on her right now if she hadn’t decided to go swimming. As it was, her little gun was still in a deep pocket in her dress...which was on the shore not five feet from Lerber. The man who’d sold her the tiny pistol had said it wouldn’t do any harm at a distance, but if a man got within three feet of her it would stop him dead in his tracks. The very reason she’d bought it. No man would ever get that close to her again.
“What do you want, Lerber?” Meg shouted.
“Hush,” Lorna hissed, inching her way to where the others stood in the waist-deep water. What Lerber wanted was obvious—making sure he didn’t get it needed to be the focus.
“Well, now, I was just worried about the four of you out here all alone,” Jacob drawled. “Thought I best backtrack and check how you fine ladies were getting along.”
“More likely you got kicked off the wagon train,” Meg yelled.
Lorna agreed, but hushed Meg again. “We’re getting along just fine,” Lorna said. “Thanks for stopping.”
“Thanks for stopping?” Betty hissed under her breath.
“Shush,” Lorna insisted.
“You can shush us all you want,” Meg snapped. “They ain’t leaving. Mark my word.”
“I know that,” Lorna replied. “I’m just trying to come up with a plan.”
“What you ladies whispering about out there?” Jacob shouted. “How happy you are to see us?”
The others beside him chortled, and one slapped him on the back as if Jacob was full of wit.
Intelligence was not what Jacob was known for. “Delighted for sure,” Lorna answered while gradually twisting her neck to see how far the opposite bank was. The men hadn’t yet stepped in the water. From the looks of Jacob’s greasy hair, he was either afraid of or opposed to water. If she and the others swam—
Her brain stopped midthought. What she saw on the other side of the river sent a shiver rippling her spine all the way to the top of her head. Lorna shifted her feet to solidify her stance in the wet sand and get a better view, just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. The way her throat plugged said she wasn’t imagining anything.
“Indians,” Meg whispered.
That was exactly what they were. Indians. Too many to count. And they weren’t afraid of water. Especially the one on the large black horse who was front and center. He was huge and so formidable the lump in Lorna’s throat silenced her scream as his horse leaped into the water like a beast arising from the caverns of hell. The very image of her worst nightmare.
Water splashed as other horses lunged to follow him, and the Indians on their backs started making high-pitched yipping noises.
Frozen by a form of fear she’d never known existed, Lorna couldn’t move, didn’t move until the screeches of the women penetrated her senses. She spun to tell them to hush, but her attention landed on the other riverbank, where Jacob and his cronies ran beside their horses, attempting to leap into their saddles before the animals left them afoot. All four managed to mount, and watching them gallop away would have been a relief if the riverbed beneath her hadn’t been vibrating.
Waves swirled as the Indians rode past. Their stocky horses were swift and surefooted, and leaped out of the water to take after Jacob and his men. Their crazy yipping noises echoed off the water, the air, and vibrated deep inside her.
“What are we going to do?” Betty was asking. “What are we going to do?” Lorna spun back around, toward the bank still lined with huge horses and bare chests. One by one, the horses stepped into the water, and her fear returned ten times over. As her gaze once again landed on the great black horse hurdling the opposite bank, she muttered, “Hell if I know.”
