Читать книгу The Cowboy's Orphan Bride - Lauri Robinson - Страница 9

Chapter One

Central Kansas, 1877

“Those damn cowboys!”

Bridgette Banks tightened every muscle against the way she’d flinched at Cecil Chaney’s outburst and how he slammed the door. Neither was unusual, she just hadn’t expected him to be home so soon. He’d barely been gone an hour, probably less. Which should not have surprised her. He had to be the laziest man she’d ever encountered.

“I’ll shoot the lot of them if a single one steps foot on my property!”

She dried her hands with her apron before turning away from the boards nailed to the wall to form the crude counter barely large enough to hold the dishpan. “A cattle drive is near?”

“Of course a cattle drive is near,” Cecil barked. “I just said as much, didn’t I?”

“No, you said you’d shoot every cowboy.” She didn’t point out there wasn’t a reason anyone would want to step on his property.

The chair creaked as Cecil dropped his heavy frame on the seat. “Same thing.”

“No, it’s not,” Bridgette insisted. Arguing, especially with Cecil, got her nowhere, but she’d quit caring about that. His constant complaining had frazzled her nerves since the moment she’d arrived. He complained when it was hot. Complained when it was cold. Complained when it rained. Complained when it didn’t. His attitude was exhausting. As had been living in his house the past six weeks. Keeping her voice hushed, she said, “You may want to see if they have a cow you can buy. One nursing a calf. The milk is needed, as is the butter and cream.”

“Where am I supposed to get the money to buy a cow?” he snarled.

She bit her tongue to keep from saying he could forgo a few bottles of the hooch he bought from Graham Linkletter and kept stashed behind the barn. Turning around, she picked up the water basin. “Perhaps you could make some sort of bargain with them.” Walking to the door, she added, “Emma Sue could use the nourishment, even more once the baby arrives.”

“I’ve used up all my bargaining on you.”

Bridgette ignored the disgust lacing his words. Telling him she could leave at any moment would be the most wonderful thing ever. Except for Emma Sue. Goodness, what that woman saw in Cecil, how she’d ever lain with him, become pregnant, took more imagination than Bridgette had. She’d rather bed down in a den of snakes than next to Cecil Chaney. His breath alone was enough to make her eyes water.

“That’s what you’re here for.” Cecil’s shout followed her out of the door. “To make sure Emma Sue has nourishment. Meals and rest so she can pop out that baby alive this time. Doctor’s orders.”

The desire to slap him made Bridgette’s hands shake. The fool had no idea how lucky he was to be married with a baby on the way. To have a family. Knowing she couldn’t slap him, at least shouldn’t, she pitched the water out of the basin with such force dirt splattered across the bottom of her skirt. That increased her ire. There was more than enough to do around here and washing clothes more often than necessary was not a welcomed chore. Reminders of her duties were not necessary, either. Being farmed out to women nearing their delivery time had been her job for over six years. Ever since she’d turned twelve. Others on the Orphan Train had said she was lucky to be adopted by a doctor and his wife. They wouldn’t think so now.

“Where is she?”

Containing her thoughts, Bridgette held her attention on wiping the inside of the basin with her apron as she walked back into the two-room shanty made of square blocks of sod. She’d seen many houses just like this one since being taken in by Dr. Rodgers and his wife. Those who lived in homes made out of wood usually had their own help, or other family members, when someone was ailing. That’s what she’d have someday, a house made of wood, not dirt. And a family all of her own.

“Your wife is resting,” Bridgette said. Emphasizing exactly who she was here to help was a waste of breath, but so would telling him to be quiet. It wouldn’t have done any good when he’d stormed into the house and it wouldn’t now.

“Already? We just ate breakfast.” He harrumphed. “She slept all night. Better than me.”

His pouting increased Bridgette’s ire. He was big and homely with black hair so greasy lice couldn’t catch enough footing to live in it. And no one had gotten any sleep last night except him. Half the town of Hosford probably heard his snoring, and that was four miles away.

Keeping those thoughts to herself, she removed her apron and switched it out for the other one hanging on the nail. “Creating a new life is hard work on a woman’s body.”

“It’s been happening since the beginning of time, girlie.”

“And women have been dying from it for just as long,” she answered, walking out the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Someone needs to water the garden,” she shouted over her shoulder. Then for her own ears only, muttered, “Lord knows those weeds won’t grow on their own.” There were pitiful gardens, and then there were pathetic gardens. To call this one merely pathetic would have been a compliment.

The entire acreage of the Chaney place could be described as pathetic. It didn’t have to be that way, but Cecil had the ambition of a slug. Emma Sue didn’t, which could explain why she’d lost two babies already. Last year and the year before. Both times Cecil had refused Dr. Rodgers’s suggestion of help so Emma Sue could rest. Bridgette wondered if Emma Sue’s father, who managed the land office in town, had been the one to pony up the extra cost of her staying at the Chaney place. There was no love lost between Douglas Phalen and Cecil, but Douglas must still love his daughter.

Love. Bridgette sighed heavily. Sometimes, the older a person got, the more love they needed. She fully understood that, and hoped someone loved Emma Sue. She was sweet and kind. Quiet and gentle. The exact opposite of her husband in every way. While Emma Sue was tiny and delicate, Cecil had the shape and coordination of a drunken bull.

Bridgette smiled at her own wit. Of course bulls didn’t drink, but if one did, it would look exactly like Cecil. Smell about the same, too.

Stopping as she rounded the corner of the house, Bridgette lifted her face to the sky. The summer sun blazed down enough arid heat to make plants curl their leaves. She didn’t mind. It was hot, but the brightness and fresh air were a wonderful reprieve from dark and gloomy dankness inside the sod shanty.

She closed her eyes and let the sunshine fill her. Cleanse her. A thud inside the house made her open her eyes and sigh. Feeling fresher and lighter, she pinched her lips as a silly image formed. That of the chair collapsing under Cecil. Smiling, she made her way to the garden.

A short time later, sweat trickled down her back as she drew water from the well and carried bucket after bucket to the tiny fenced-in area behind the house. Careful not to waste a drop, she watered only the vegetables, plucking out weeds as she made her way up and down the meager rows. The only thing producing were the bean plants. She’d have to pick them again today.

She should be happy about that. Six weeks ago, critters were eating anything that popped out of the ground. The fence had done wonders. No thanks to Cecil. He’d merely pointed out where there was some old lumber. Mr. Phalen had brought out the wire when coming to visit Emma Sue one day.

Too bad he hadn’t brought out jars. She wanted to can the beans so Emma Sue would have a few more reserves come snowfall. Mrs. Winters had taught her how to can practically anything several years ago when she’d stayed with the Winters family for an entire fall, but asking Mr. Phalen to provide jars was out of the question. Emma Sue refused to ask her father for things. Said Cecil didn’t approve of her doing so.

Therefore, despite Cecil’s complaint that he didn’t like green beans, there would be more on the table for lunch, and supper.

Bridgette had no idea what made her stand up and gaze southward, beyond Cecil’s scrawny and scraggly field of wheat. An irrigation ditch from the creek that flowed freely not too far past the line of barbed wire Cecil had erected to keep others off his property could turn that wheat into strong, flourishing stalks. Emma Sue said no one owned that land, but diverting the water would be too much work for Cecil.

To hear Cecil talk, walking was too much work for him. Bridgette hadn’t mentioned that to Emma Sue, or that the land next door was the piece Cecil should have bought, but she’d thought it. That creek flowed from the river and would provide plenty of water for people, animals and crops.

That’s what she wanted, and would have. Someday. A piece of land with plenty of water and good, fertile soil, and a solid house made of wood, with floors and windows and a real cookstove complete with an oven. And it would all be hers. Truly hers. A place to plant roots. She’d be the one having babies then, children she’d welcome and love with all her heart and never, ever, let out of her sight.

Bridgette continued to scan the horizon. The land was so flat a person could watch a bird fly away for days. New York hadn’t been like that, what she could remember of it, and the land between here and there had been decorated with rolling hills and trees. And houses, big ones surrounded by flowers and fences.

Her house would be surrounded by trees. Big leafy ones that would provide shade from the summer sun and protection from the cold winter winds.

She grinned at the thought, and how memories started to form. Those of playing games with the other children on the train, each guessing what they might see next.

Her heart fluttered slightly when she recalled how Garth had predicted he’d see an elephant. Everyone had laughed, but minutes later, they’d pulled into a train station, and sure enough, there, on another train, had stood an elephant.

She rarely thought of the other orphans who’d been shipped West with her all those years ago, except for one. A day hardly passed, even after all these years, when she didn’t think of him.

“Garth McCain,” she whispered. “Whatever happened to you? Do you even remember the promises we made?”

Bridgette let her mind roam and wondered if she’d recognize him when she did see him again. Not if. When. Garth would find her. He had to. Otherwise all her years of waiting, all their promises would be for naught, and she refused to believe that. His hair would surely still be brown, and his eyes. He’d be taller, but she couldn’t imagine he’d have grown fat. Not like Cecil.

She shook aside a shiver at comparing Garth to Cecil, and her gaze settled on a spot on the horizon. There was nothing distinguishable, but the gray haze said something was there. The cattle drive Cecil had mentioned, most likely. They traveled through this region each summer, on their way to Dodge City.

Unlike Cecil, the small town of Hosford welcomed the cattle drives. Dodge was still twenty miles north, and though the cowboys rarely entered town, the trail bosses often did, restocking supplies for the last leg of the long trip they’d embarked upon months before down in Texas.

She’d never been to Dodge, but she’d heard it was a wicked and wild town. Where soiled doves ran naked in the streets and men chased them, whooping and hollering when they caught one of the women.

It wasn’t for her to say if that was true or not, but she’d like to see if it was. Dr. Rodgers and his wife, Sofia, whom, even after nine years, Bridgette still referred to as Mrs. Rodgers, would be horrified to know she wondered about such things, therefore she never mentioned her curiosity. Not to anyone.

In the nine years since she’d left the Orphan Train, there hadn’t been anyone to share secrets with, not like she had Garth. He’d known all her secrets, and she’d known his.

Staring at the gray haze rising from the ground to faintly obscure the blueness of the sky, she sighed. “It’s been a long time, Garth,” she whispered. “And I’m getting tired of looking for rainbows.”

“Are you done out there?”

Bridgette breathed through the spine-crawling sensation of Cecil’s shout before grabbing the empty water bucket. Leaving the garden, she swiped aside the hair that had escaped her bun to tickle her cheek. “Baby Chaney,” she mumbled, “if you want to meet your father, you best hurry up. He’s getting close to being whacked by a frying pan.”