by Kate Whitsby
“Alma, he’s here!” Allegra voice hissed through the crack in the door. “Jude McCann’s out here.”
“Did you find him in town?” she asked.
“No,” Allegra answered. “He can up to Amelia outside the church and asked her if she knew where to find Alma Goodkind. He’s out here with the priest now. He’s waiting for you whenever you’re ready.”
“Hey, Allegra,” Alma called. “Would you come in here for a minute, please?”
The door cracked open and Allegra stuck her head in. “What do you need?”
Alma held up the long, white head piece. “Would you pin this into my hair? I can’t do it myself.”
Allegra stepped into the cloak room and narrowed her eyes at the train of lace hanging nearly to the floor. “I can give it a try. It’s not really my specialty, you know.”
Alma chuckled. “It’s not exactly higher mathematics. Just hold it while I put my hair up.”
Allegra held the head piece up off the floor as Alma shook out her long black hair. She swept it up to the top of her head and coiled it into a bunch on top of her head.
“Now,” she instructed Allegra, “put the comb in here to hold it.”
She pointed with her finger and Allegra slotted the bone comb into her hair. A stiff fan of white lace stuck up above the stark black twists of hair.
Allegra spread the lace across Alma’s back and admired the result. She shook her head with wide eyes. “It’s amazing. I never would have believed it.”
Alma smiled at her expression. “Do I look okay?”
Allegra gulped. “You wouldn’t recognize yourself. You look like one of those Spanish ladies at the Festival. You look like a princess.”
Alma blushed. “I guess that’s good.”
“No one would ever know you’re a cattle puncher in your free time,” Allegra continued.
“Let’s just hope Jude is as impressed as you are,” Alma remarked.
“Let’s find out,” Allegra replied. “Are you ready?”
Alma nodded and opened the door. Allegra followed her out into the church.
Alma stopped next to the pulpit. Her father and Amelia sat in the front pew with their hats resting on their knees. Alma smiled at them, but the only thing she could think was how different Amelia looked with her hat off. With her looped braids hanging around the back of her neck and her bright eyes visible, she looked like any other beautiful Mexican girl. Only her pants and riding boots gave her away.
Allegra took off her hat and sat down in the pew next to Amelia. With her short hair, she looked like a young boy of the Jicarilla Apache tribe. Unlike Amelia, nothing in her appearance indicated she was a woman, and it wasn’t only her hair or her clothes. Her face wore a hardened expression from long years of hiding her tender side behind an indifferent demeanor. No one outside her immediate family knew Allegra’s secret pain.
A voice clearing its throat drew Alma’s attention back to the pulpit. A man with sandy hair, green eyes, and the last vestige of freckles stood in front of the first pew. He wore the plain clothes of a Texas cowboy around his lean, muscular frame—no fancy suit or silk tie—and he wore his gun belt slung low around his hips. He smiled at Alma. “Alma Goodkind?”
Alma nodded and smiled back, but her eyes smarted with tears. “You must be Jude McCann.”
Jude answered with a stiff nod. “In the flesh.” He waved his hand toward the pulpit. “What do you say we get married? If you’re ready, that is.”
Alma laughed, but she couldn’t see more than a watery outline through her tears. “I’m ready.”
Jude glanced down at her dress and snorted. “I guess that was a stupid thing to say. You look beautiful.”
Jude took off his hat and tucked it under his arm. He crooked his other elbow at her, and Alma slid her hand around his arm. They turned and faced the pulpit.
Alma didn’t hear much of the service. Her mind swirled with the excitement and impressions of her first meeting with Jude. She knew he was a cowboy from their letters, but she never realized meeting him in the flesh would affect her this way.
She knew him. She knew the man who wore that uniform. She knew how he thought and how he spent his days and nights. She knew the people he must necessarily keep company with. She knew what made him happy and what sent him into a tempest of rage. She knew everything about him.
And the best part was that they were all the same things she knew about herself and her family. What made her and her sisters and her father happy would make him happy. They spent their time the same way and spoke the same language. They were cut from the same cloth, and they would get along just fine together. Her heart soared in her chest, and she looked forward to the end of the service with new eagerness.
Somehow, they got through the part where they both said “I do,” and Alma turned back to find her family in a mess of tears in the front pew. Even Allegra dabbed her eyes with the cuff of her shirt sleeve. Amelia returned Alma’s smile this time, and she rose to embrace her sister.
“You look so beautiful,” she murmured into Alma’s ear. “I never thought a simple dress could make so much difference.”
Alma squeezed her hands. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear you say that. I guess none of us realized what wearing men’s clothes and doing men’s work all these years has done to us. None of us realized how much we really want to be women.”
Amelia touched the corner of her eye with her sleeve. “I’m so grateful to you for starting this process. We had to give up our independence sometime to become the women we want to be. It took a lot of courage for you to make the first move toward changing all our lives. If any of us ever gave you any reason to worry that you’d done the right thing, I’m sorry for that, because you did do the right thing. You did the best thing for all of us, and I’m grateful to you for it.”
Alma burst into a flood of tears. “Oh, thank you! You don’t know what that means. I’ve been so worried—for all of us. I’m so relieved that it’s all over, and that it worked out for everyone.”
They embraced each other again, and Allegra joined them. Then Alma kissed the tears from her father’s cheeks and embraced him, too. She brought Jude over.
“Have you two been properly introduced?” she asked. “Jude McCann, this is my father, Clarence Goodkind. I suppose you’ve met my sisters, Amelia and Allegra.”
Jude shook hands with Clarence. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, sir. Alma’s told me so much about all of you. I think we’re going to be very happy together.”
Clarence opened his mouth, but Alma interrupted. “Of course we are.”
Chapter 9