Читать книгу Heartland Courtship - Lyn Cote - Страница 11
ОглавлениеChapter Two
A week later, Rachel climbed up on the bench of the wagon with Brennan’s help. He had insisted that if he was accompanying her, he would do the driving. She’d given in. Men hated being thought weak and this man had been forced to swallow that for over a fortnight now.
Finally she’d be able to get started doing what she’d come to do, create her new life. A fear niggled at her. What if someone had gotten the jump on her and already claimed the property? Well, she’d deal with it if she had to, not before.
Another worry pinched her. The homestead might need a lot of work, more than Noah and Brennan could do. “Did Noah tell thee where to find the abandoned homestead?” she asked, keyed up.
“Yes, Miss Rachel, you know Noah explained where it was. What you’re asking me is, do I remember how to drive there.”
She grinned at him, ignoring the barely disguised aggravation in his tone. “Thee must be feeling better if thee can joke.”
He looked disgruntled at her levity but said nothing, just slapped the reins and started the horses moving. They rode in silence for the first mile. Against her own will, she studied his profile, a strong one.
Freshly shaven and with his face no longer drawn with fever, he was an exceptionally handsome man. She brushed a fly away from her face. She turned her gaze forward. Handsome men never looked at her. Why should she look at this one?
Brennan spoke to the horses as he slowed them over a deep rut. His Southern accent made her wonder once more. The horrible war had ended slavery, yet tensions between the North and South had not eased one bit. And after four years of war, the South was devastated. What had brought this Southerner north?
She watched his jaw work. She wondered what he was getting up the nerve to say to her. She hoped he wasn’t about to repeat the usual words of discouragement.
“Are you sure you’re ready to set up a place all by yourself?” he asked finally.
Rachel did not sigh as loudly as she felt like doing. Her stepmother’s voice played in her mind. An unmarried woman doesn’t live alone. Or run a business on her own. It’s unnatural. What will people say?
“Brennan Merriday,” Rachel said, “if thee only knew how many times that has been asked of me. I am quite certain that I can homestead on my own land.” Her tone was wry, trying to pass his concern off lightly—even though it chafed her. She had become accustomed to being an oddity—a woman who didn’t marry and who wanted to do things no woman should want.
“Why do you say thee and thy and your cousin doesn’t?”
This question took her by surprise. “I don’t really know except there isn’t a Quaker meeting here.”
“I take it that Noah’s the preacher hereabout, but not a Quaker.”
She barely listened to his words, still surveying him. His body still needed feeding, but he had broad shoulders and long limbs. Most of all, the sense of his deep inner pain drew her even though she knew he didn’t want that. She turned her wayward eyes forward again. “Yes, he seems to have reconnected with God.”
“Don’t it bother you that he’s not a Quaker no more?”
“We were both raised Quaker but I don’t consider other Christians to be less than we are. Each Christian has a right to go his own path to God.”
“And what about those who don’t want to have nothin’ to do with any church?”
She heard the edge in the man’s voice and wondered how to reply. She decided frankness should be continued. “When he enlisted in the Union Army, Noah was put out of meeting.”
The man beside her said nothing but she felt that he absorbed this like a blow to himself. She recalled praying for God to keep her cousin safe and reading the lists of the wounded and fallen after every battle, hoping not to see his name listed. The horrible war had made a dreadful impact on all their lives. Still did.
She brushed away another fly as if sweeping away the sadness of the war, sweeping away her desire to hold him close and soothe him as she would a wounded bird.
Brennan remained silent. His hands were large and showed that he had worked hard all his life.
Just as she had. “I know that people will think me odd when I stake a homestead,” she said briskly, bypassing his digression. “But I intend to make my own way. I’ve worked for others and saved money enough to start out on my own.”
Any money a woman earned belonged to her husband or father. Still, in the face of her stepmother’s disapproval, her father had decided that Rachel should keep what she earned. No doubt he thought she might never marry. His wife would inherit everything and leave Rachel with nothing. This had been her father’s one demonstration of concern for her. How was it that when she’d lost her mother, she’d also in effect lost her father?
Except for Brennan murmuring to the team, silence again greeted her comment. Finally he admitted, “I see you got your mind made up.”
They rode in silence then. The homestead Noah had told her about lay north of town within a mile and had been abandoned just before deep winter the previous year. Rachel gazed at the thick forest and listened to the birdsong, trying to identify the different calls.
Her mother had taught her bird lore. She heard a bobwhite and then a robin and smiled. A pair of eagles swooped and soared overhead. She realized she already loved this place, the wildness of it, the newness.
Another mile or so and Brennan drove through town and then turned the horses onto a faint track and into an overgrown clearing. A small log cabin and a shed sat in the middle of it. Stumps poked out of tall grass, dried from weeks without rain. Only deer had grazed here earlier this spring. The sight of the almost cozy clearing wound warmly around her heart. Would this be her home?
Brennan halted the team with a word and set the brake.
She started to climb down.
“Miss Rachel,” he ordered, “ya’ll will wait till I get there to help you down. I may be riffraff but I know enough to do that.”
She froze. “Thee is not riffraff.”
He made no reply but helped her down without meeting her eyes. Again, she longed to touch him, offer comfort, but could not.
So this man had also been weighed by society and found wanting. She recalled all the times people had baldly pointed out her lack of beauty or wondered why she wasn’t married yet—as if either was any of their business. And of course, she couldn’t answer back without being as rude as they.
Lifting her skirts a few inches, she waded through the tall, dry grass, which flattened under her feet. Noah had been praying for rain. The cabin’s door was shut tight. A good sign. She stepped back and bumped into Brennan, nearly losing her balance. He steadied her. She was shocked at the rampant and unusual sensations that flooded her. She pulled away. “My thanks.”
He reached around her and tried to push open the door. It stuck. With his shoulder, he had to force it. Looking down, he said, “Mud washed up against the door and under it and grass grew on it.”
She stepped into the dim interior and let her eyes adjust. Brennan entered and waited behind her. Finally she could see a hearth on the back wall, cobwebs high up in the corners and a broken chair lying on its side. Otherwise only dust covered the floor. “It just needs cleaning.”
“Look up.”
She obeyed. “What am I looking for?”
“I see stains from a few roof leaks.”
She turned to him. “Is that hard to make right?”
“No, I just need to bring a ladder to get up there and see where the shingles have blown loose or cracked.”
She considered this. “Thee can do that?”
“Sure.” He looked disgruntled at her question.
“Let’s look at the shed then.”
They did. Just an empty building but in good order. Excellent. Mentally she began listing the new structures she’d need. She noted how Brennan looked around as if tallying something, too. Finally she asked, “What’s thy opinion? Will this be a good homestead for me to claim?”
“Well, it’s fortunate to already have a cabin and shed on it.”
She pointed to a mound between the cabin and the shed. “Could that be a well covered over?”
“Might be.” He strode over to it and stooped down. “You’re right. They were good enough to cover the well and mud got washed onto the boards and then grass sprouted.” He rose. “Do you know why the family left the claim?”
“Sunny said the wife died.”
The bleak reply silenced them for a moment.
“Life is so fragile,” she murmured. Then she took herself in hand. “But we are alive and I need a home.”
“I do, too.”
She took this to mean that he’d decided to accept her position, but couldn’t bring himself to say so. And he would know he couldn’t live anywhere on the property of a single woman.
Tactfully she said, “I’m glad making this livable will not take long. It’s important I get my business up soon because the prime season for making a reputation for my sweets up and down the river is summer, when the boat traffic will be at its peak. This far north the Mississippi freezes, according to Noah.”
“You make good sense,” he allowed grudgingly.
She moved to look directly into his eyes. After a mental calculation she said, “I could afford to pay you two dollars a week. That would include meals.”
“I won’t take anythin’ for my work, but I’ll need to pay for a room.” He left it open that he’d need her to cover that.
“Where will you live?” she asked finally.
“I thought I’d ask in town who has room for me.”
She offered him her hand. “It’s a deal then. Let’s go to town and stake this claim.”
“Yes, Miss Rachel.” His words were polite but she caught just the slight edge of irony under them. What had made this man so mocking of himself and others? She would just take him as he was. Until he moved on.
And she ignored the sensitive currents that raced up her arm when he gripped her hand and shook it as if she were another man. Were foolish schoolgirl feelings going to pop up now when she least needed them? And when to show them would embarrass both her and this complex man?
* * *
Brennan halted the team outside the narrow storefront. In the window, a small white placard read simply Government Office and beneath that a smaller placard—Agent Present. He went around and helped Miss Rachel down. She looked sturdier than she felt as he assisted her. She was such a little bit of a woman—with such big ideas.
He seriously doubted she would be allowed to register for a homestead. The idea was crazy. Still, he asked, “Do you want me to come in with you?”
She looked up at him with a determined expression, her large gray eyes flashing and direct. “No, I can handle this myself.”
He listened for any sign she might want him to accompany her. But he caught only a shade of tartness in her tone. He accepted her decision. He didn’t like people hovering over him either. “Then I’ll be going to find me a room.”
“Very well. If I am not here when you need me, look for me at the General Store.” Without waiting for his reply, she marched to the door and went inside. He wondered idly why she never wore any lace or pretty geegaws. And she skimmed her hair back so severely. Didn’t she want to look pretty?
He stood a moment, staring after her. Northern women were different all right and up to now, Miss Rachel stood out as the most different he’d met. Lorena’s biddable face flickered in his mind, stinging as it always did. He walked resolutely away from the starchy Yankee and his own taunting memories.
He paused, scanning the lone dusty street for a likely place to ask for a room. This little dot on the shore of the Mississippi hadn’t progressed to having a boardinghouse yet.
Whom could he ask? Then he noticed the saloon at the end of the street, the kind of place where he always found an easy welcome—as long as he had money in his pocket.
No doubt it would irritate Miss Rachel if he went in there. So he strode toward it, reveling in the ability to walk down a street healthy once again. He pushed through swinging doors into the saloon, almost empty in the late morning. A pudgy older man leaned back behind the bar.
“Mornin’,” Brennan greeted him.
“What can I do for you?” the man replied genially.
Brennan approached the bar. “I’m new in town, need a room. You know any place that’d be good for me to ask at?”
They exchanged names and shook hands.
“You’re from the South?” Sam, the barkeep, commented.
“Yeah.” Though bristling, Brennan swallowed a snide reply.
After eyeing him for a few moments, Sam rubbed his chin. “Most shopkeepers have family above their place or build a cabin behind their business. Got a blacksmith-farrier in town. Single. Think he’s got a loft empty. Can’t think of anybody else that has room.”
“Don’t have many businesses in this bump in the road,” Brennan drawled, leaning against the bar, suddenly glad to have someone more like him to talk to. The Whitmores were good folk, but he had to watch his errant tongue around them.
Sam smirked. “You got that right.”
A look of understanding passed between them. Brennan drew in a deep breath. “Thanks for your advice about the room.”
“Glad to help. Drop in some evening and we’ll have a tongue wag.”
After nodding, Brennan headed outside. Miss Rachel probably hadn’t finished in the government office yet. So under the hot sun, he ambled toward the log-constructed blacksmith shop. The clang of metal on metal announced a smithy hard at work. Would the blacksmith be anti-Southerner, too?
He entered the shady interior and fierce heat rushed into his face. A broad-shouldered man in a leather apron pounded an oblong of iron, shaping it into some long-handled tool, sparks flying. Finally, after plunging the tool into a barrel of water, the sweating blacksmith stepped back from his forge. Over the sizzling of the molten iron meeting cold water, he asked, “What can I do for you, stranger?”
Brennan moved forward and offered his hand. “Name’s Merriday. Ah’m lookin’ to rent a room.”
Pulling off leather gloves, the blacksmith gripped his hand briefly. Brennan felt the power of the man in that grip.
“You sound like you’re from the South,” the man observed.
“I am.” Brennan said no more, though smoldering.
“Comstock’s my name. Levi Comstock,” the tall man said. “How long you staying here?”
“A few months maybe.” These few words cost him. He never spent a month in any place anymore. The disorienting flashes of memory and restlessness always hit him after a few weeks. He hoped in Canada he could finally settle down. But I owe Miss Rachel. “You got room for me?”
The blacksmith studied Brennan.
Brennan didn’t like it and pressed his lips together to keep back a nervy comment that itched to be said.
The man finally nodded toward a ladder. “I built me a lean-to to sleep in for the summer. Get the breeze off the river. Not using my loft now. It’ll be hot up there. I’ve been meaning to cut out two small windows for some air. Maybe you could do that.”
“How much do you want a week?”
“Four bits?” Comstock asked.
“That’s all?”
The man’s blackened face split into a grin. “You ain’t seen the loft yet. No bed. Just a dusty floor.”
“And two windows when we cut them.” Brennan knew he’d just taken a liking to this practical man and dampened down the lift it sparked in him. He’d be here only as long as Miss Rachel needed him. Then he’d move north and get settled before winter. The two men shook hands.
“When you moving in?”
Brennan considered this. “Soon. Maybe tomorrow.”
“See you then.” The smith turned back to his forge.
Brennan stepped outside and gazed around at the nearly vacant main street and sighed. What would he do in this little berg for a few weeks? And how was Miss Rachel faring with the land agent? He headed toward the office. Maybe Miss Rachel needed some backup by now.
* * *
Just inside the door of the government office, Rachel paused to gird herself for battle, quelling her dislike of contention. She knew she faced one of the the biggest battles of her life, here and now.
The small, middle-aged man in a nondescript suit behind a small desk rose politely. “Miss?”
She smiled her sweetest smile and went swiftly forward. “Good day, sir. I am Miss Rachel Woolsey.” She never used sir. Quakers didn’t use titles. But she couldn’t afford to be Quaker today. After she told him what she’d come for, she was going to brand herself odd enough as it was. Their hands clasped briefly.
“Please take a seat and tell me what I can do for you, Miss Woolsey.”
She sat primly on the chair he had set for her and braced herself. “I’m here to stake a claim.”
Shock widened the man’s pinched face. “I beg your pardon.”
“I am here to stake a claim,” she repeated, stubborn determination rearing up inside.
“Your husband is ill?” he asked after a pause.
Hadn’t she introduced herself as Miss? “No, I am unmarried.”
“Then you can’t stake a homestead claim.” Each of his words stabbed at her. “It isn’t done.”
She’d expected this reaction and she had come prepared. “Excuse me, please, but it can be done.” She tried to keep triumph from her smile. “And quite legally. My father consulted our state representative to the U.S. Congress before I left Pennsylvania.” She pulled out the creased envelope. “Here is the letter.”
The man did not reach for the envelope. “I know the law, miss. But a single woman homesteading, while legal, is ridiculous. You will never prove up your claim. Why put yourself through that?” His last sentence oozed condescension.
Her irritation simmered. So many sharp replies frothed on her tongue, but she swallowed them. “I have already hired a workman and the claim I want is the one that the Ryersons left last winter. May I please begin the paperwork?” She gazed at him, giving the impression that she would sit here all day if need be. And she would.
He glared at her.
Seconds, minutes passed.
She cleared her throat and pinned the man with her gaze. “Is there a problem?”
“I think it’s shameful that your father would let you leave home and homestead on your own. What will people think of you—a single woman without a male protector? Have you thought of that?”
Rachel shook off this measly objection. “Sir, I cannot think that anyone here would take me for a woman of easy virtue. And—” she didn’t let him interject the retort that must be reddening his face “—my cousin Noah Whitmore is here to watch over me.”
“You’re Noah Whitmore’s cousin?”
“Our mothers were sisters.”
He stared at her again, chewing the inside of his cheek—no doubt trying to come up with another objection.
She kept her steady gaze on him. The door behind her opened. Glancing over her shoulder, she glimpsed Brennan enter. She lifted one eyebrow.
“Miss Rachel, aren’t you about done here?” he asked, hat in hand, but the willingness to dispute with the agent plain on his face.
“I still need to fill out the claim form,” she replied evenly and then turned to face the government official who should be earning his money by doing his job and not wasting her time.
With a glance at Mr. Merriday, the man whipped out a form and jumped to his feet. “I need to walk a bit.”
She didn’t reply. Outside sea gulls squawked; the sound mimicked her reaction to this officious little man.
After he exited with a huff in each step, she moved to his side of the desk and, using his pen and ink, neatly and precisely filled out the form. All the things she wished she could say to the agent streamed through her mind. She wore skirts—why did that make her incompetent, inferior?
She knew all the various restrictions society placed on women and knew that many quoted scripture as their justification. But she never knew why submitting to a husband or not speaking in the church had anything to do with regard to a woman without one. And the Quakers didn’t believe in either anyway.
Soon she finished filling out the form and read it over carefully to make sure she hadn’t omitted anything. When satisfied, she rose.
“Miss Rachel, why don’t you go on to the store and I’ll find that government agent and give him your claim?”
She paused to study Brennan’s face. Then she understood him. Oh, she hadn’t thought of that. Papers could go astray so easily. Though this goaded her, she said nothing, merely handed him the paper and walked out the door, thanking him for his help. Brennan might not approve of her intentions but he wasn’t treating her like a female who couldn’t know her own mind. A definite point in his favor. And no doubt why he’d begun popping into her mind at odd moments. She must be wary of that. He would be gone soon. She tried to ignore the shaft of startling loneliness this brought her.
* * *
Brennan accepted the paper, accepted that once again he was going against the grain by backing the unpopular horse, his curse it seemed. He let the lady go, determined to get her what she wanted. As little as Brennan approved of Miss Rachel’s filing for her homestead, he wasn’t going to let some scrawny government weasel gyp this fine lady. Not on his watch.
Outside the office, he scanned the street for the man. When he didn’t see him, he headed for the saloon. Maybe the barkeep would know where the agent stayed when in town.
He stepped inside and found the man he was looking for, pouring out the affront he’d just suffered in his office. “I don’t know what this country is coming to. Giving black men the vote and now a woman thinks she can stake a claim like a man. Next they’ll want the vote, too! A woman homesteading—I ask you!”
“I know it’s not the usual,” Brennan drawled. “But it’s a free country. For women, too.” He didn’t like meddlesome little squirts like this man who liked to throw around their half ounce of power.
The land agent glared at him. “Who are you?”
Brennan eyed the man with distaste. Suddenly he felt proud to say, “I’m the one who’s workin’ for the lady.”
“Then you’re as crazy as she is,” the agent declared.
Sam moved back and leaned against the wall behind the bar as if enjoying a show.
“I been called worse than crazy.” Leaning against the bar, Brennan began enjoying this rumpus. He didn’t cotton to the fact that he had to stay in this little town. So why did this man think he could have everything his way?
The agent turned away from him, venting his spleen by muttering to himself.
“I brought Miss Rachel’s paper.” Brennan said the words with a barely concealed challenge in his voice. “I want to make sure it gets into the mail today and marked in your records nice and legal.” Brennan had never staked a claim or done anything else with any government except enlist in the army. But he figured the agent should keep a record of the transaction and send one to Washington. That sounded right to him.
The man swung around, glaring at him. “Nobody tells me how to do my job. Least of all some Johnny Reb.”
Sam’s amused gaze swiveled back and forth from one to the other.
Brennan did not respond to the derogatory Yankee nickname for Confederate soldiers. “I’m not tellin’ you how to do your job. Just...helpin’ you do it. After you.” Emphasizing the final two words, Brennan swept one hand, gesturing toward the door. Brennan itched to grab the man’s collar and drag him out.
The man glared at him.
So Brennan waited him out—not changing anything in his expression or stance, barely blinking.
The land agent finally caved in, growled something under his breath about stinking Southerners, and stalked past Brennan out the door.
Hiding a grin, Brennan nodded politely to the barkeep and followed the man to his office. Lounging against the doorjamb, he said nothing as the man sat at his desk, filled out a ledger. Brennan moved to look over his shoulder.
The agent then slapped Miss Rachel’s application into a mailing pouch. “There! Are you satisfied?” the man snapped.
“Anything else need doin’?” Brennan asked in a mild tone.
“No!”
“Then after you write me out one of those receipts—” Brennan gestured toward a pad of receipts on the desk “—I’ll just help you by taking this mailbag to Ashford’s store. I seen the notice in the window that he’s the postmaster hereabout.”
The agent resembled a volcano about to blow, but he merely chewed viciously the inside of his cheek. Then he dashed off the receipt, ripped it from the pad and shoved the mail pouch at Brennan.
“I’ll bid you good day then,” Brennan said drolly and strolled outside.
A stream of epithets followed him, including “Confederate cur.”
He ignored them and crossed the street, his boots sending up puffs of dust with each step. The drought filled his nose with dust, too. His destination in sight, he moved forward. He’d been inside Ashford’s store only once before on a trip to town with Noah. But he nodded politely at Ashford’s hesitant greeting and handed him the leather pouch, which read Official U.S. Documents. “I brought this over for the land agent. Do you think the mail will go out today?”
Ashford, middle-aged with thinning hair, consulted a notice on the wall. “Yes, if the Delta Queen arrives on schedule.” The storekeeper cocked an eyebrow at Brennan. “It’s odd that the agent let you bring this over.”
“Oh, I just told him I was on my way here. Now you watch over the mail pouches, don’t you? You don’t let anybody mess with the letters, right?” Brennan asked.
“I certainly do not let anybody interfere with the mail. I took an oath.” Ashford starched up.
“Excellent. Glad to hear it.” Brennan turned to Miss Rachel. “Here is your receipt for the land transaction.”
“Thank thee, Mr. Merriday.” She accepted the paper and slid it into her pocket, then dazzled Brennan with a smile that cast her as, well, pretty.
At this realization, Brennan stepped backward. Whoa, he had no business thinking that. Why had he thought her plain? Was it the way she hid behind that plain Quaker bonnet?
“I just staked my claim, Mr. Ashford,” Miss Rachel explained, “on the Ryersons’ abandoned claim.”
Ashford goggled at her. “Indeed?” he finally said.
“Yes, Miss Rachel’s makin’ her own way in the world.” Brennan regained his aplomb. “An independent woman.” Brennan relished setting another pillar of society on edge.
“And Mr. Merriday will help me as my hired hand,” Miss Rachel agreed. “Mr. Ashford, I will be back next week to pick up the flour, sugar and other items I’ve ordered. And please let it be known that I want to buy a cow and chickens from anyone who has any to spare. I’ll pay what’s fair.”
“Yes, Miss, but I still think you should have ordered much less flour to begin with,” the storekeeper said.
“I appreciate thy concern,” she replied, but this didn’t show in her tone. “Mr. Merriday, I think our town business is done now.”
He was back to himself. So he did find the lady pretty—what did that have to do with the likes of him? “Yes, Miss Rachel,” Brennan said, grinning with sass as he followed her to the door, opened it for her and let her step outside. He glanced over his shoulder to catch Ashford frowning. And mocked the man with a grin.
Back on the wagon bench beside Miss Rachel, Brennan slapped the reins and piloted the team toward home. A rare feeling of satisfaction suffused him. And he was beginning to like Miss Rachel. That was all. “You called me Mr. Merriday,” he teased. “Thrice.”
“Yes, I thought if I called thee by thy first name as Quakers do, the storekeeper might misunderstand our relationship. I think it will be best if I use Mr. Merriday so everyone understands....” Her voice faltered.
“I take your meaning, Miss Rachel.” He couldn’t stop his grin from widening. Working for Miss Rachel would certainly bring zest into his life for a time.
From the corner of his eye, he gazed at her profile. She sat so prim and proper, her back straight and her gloved hands folded in her lap. What would she do if he turned and kissed her? A startling, disturbing thought.
Then she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “My thanks, Mr. Merriday, for thy support today.”
“Just part of my job, miss,” he said, taking control of his unruly mind. He owed this lady a debt, that was all.
And then the two of them rode in outward silence toward the Whitmore claim. But one sentence ran through Brennan’s mind—What have I gotten myself into this time?
