by Sara Luck
“I’ve not seen hide nor hair of her since the day she came in to look at wedding dresses,” Walter said.
“Wedding dresses? Did she buy one?” Drew asked.
“Oh, I don’t have them here. Most women sew their own or else have one of Dan Eisenberg’s seamstresses make one. I just don’t have much call for a ready-made wedding dress.”
“Do you know which one she picked out?”
“It was in my Godey’s catalog. I expect I could find it. Not that it’s any of my business, but are you planning a wedding?”
“Yes, I am.” Drew took out his money clip and peeled off several bills. “You know her size. Find the dress Jana wanted and have it here for her when she needs it. Oh, and have Fern pick out something she thinks Jana’s sister would like for a bridesmaid’s dress. Will this cover it?”
Walter smiled when he looked at the pile of bills. “Yes, sir. That would cover the finest wedding Bismarck has ever seen, and that includes the cake and the flowers.”
“Would you handle that, too?”
“Well, I don’t know. We don’t normally do anything but clothes. But now if there was a commission . . . ?”
“When the time comes, you can count on it. In the meantime, get the dress here.”
“You’ve got it.”
New Salem
Thanks to Hank’s help in equipping her before she left, Jana had the biggest tent in New Salem, and Johan had chosen the best place to raise it. The spot was far enough away from the two boxcars that sat on the new siding track, yet close enough to the water car that was brought in, to make it convenient for her. Like most of the men, Johan was sleeping in the open country because the men’s boxcar was so crowded. He did sleep just outside the tent though, and for that Jana was grateful because his presence provided her with a sense of security.
The construction of New Salem went slowly. The railroad had provided enough lumber for an adequate immigrant house, but the leaders had decided to divert it to the building of a church. Jana was appalled at this lack of foresight, but no one asked her opinion.
The supplies, too, were running short because the people who had brought food with them were reluctant to share with those who had not.
Again the reverends had a solution. The next time the water tank was delivered, they arranged with the conductor for bread to be bought in Bismarck and delivered to them. But this posed a problem. New Salem was on one of the few inclines in Morton County, and the train from the east would not stop unless it was an emergency. Consequently, the bread was thrown from the train as it passed on its way west, and there was never enough to go around.
So amid much grumbling among the colony, Jana proposed a solution to Johan: “Why don’t we bake the bread here?”
“Because nobody has any flour,” Johan said.
“If they can throw bread off the train, they can throw flour. I have a Dutch oven and I’m sure the other women have one as well, and John Christiansen has a horse to go hunt for a vein of coal for fuel. That means we could bake twelve loaves of bread at one time.”
“How are we going to pay for flour?”
“I’ll take care of that. The next time the water is delivered, I’ll send a message to my friend in Bismarck, and he’ll see to it that we get all the supplies we need to make bread. But, Johan, I can’t use my real name.”
“All right. What name will you use?”
“Hester Prynne. Hank will know it’s me.” Jana laughed at her own joke.
So it was that Johan and Jana became the most popular residents in New Salem, as they probably prevented the colony from disintegrating before it ever got started. Every day the westbound train threw off the supplies, and Jana supervised the bread-making, while Johan was made the keeper of the sourdough starter. Across the prairie, sod houses began to form, and one by one, people began to move out of the boxcar. That is, all except Johan and Jana, who were too busy with the bread.
Bismarck
“I’m not going to Medora,” Drew said emphatically. “I don’t care what kind of mess the marquis has gotten himself into. If you can’t take care of it, then it’s his problem.”
“Drew, you know you’re being ridiculous. You can’t just live for the rest of your life hoping to hear from a woman who has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. You’ve been watching Greta Kaiser like a hawk, and you’ve struck out there, too,” Frank said. “The woman doesn’t want you to find her, or she would have done something to let you know where she is.”
Drew sighed. “I’m not going. The last time I went, when I got back, my whole world was turned topsy-turvy. The boys were gone—I lost Jana. I won’t risk it again.”
“If you don’t go, you’re going to lose me as your partner. The Marquis de Morès is our client, and he’s gotten off on the wrong foot with Gregor Lang. Now I have a telegram from his . . . valet saying three hunters are threatening to string up foreigners if they don’t get out of town, and you know the marquis. He’s not budging. He thinks he’s back in Algiers or some other godforsaken place.”
“And what do you expect me to do about it? That man listens to nobody.”
“Well, you know those people out there a whole lot better than I do, and if you can’t soothe the waters, maybe you can get Devlin or Toby to calm things down. Are you going or not?”
“I’ll go, but if anything happens while I’m gone, I’m holding you personally responsible. Send a telegram telling Devlin to meet the train tomorrow.”
Frank smiled broadly. “I already did.”
Drew picked up a book and threw it at Frank.
Drew had been at the depot all night. The westbound train was late and didn’t pull into Bismarck until almost five o’clock in the morning. He was tired and irritable and found a seat near the window away from everyone. He leaned back, pulled his hat over his face to keep out the morning sun, but was unable to fall asleep. At best he wouldn’t get to Medora until after lunch and what would he find? The marquis in an uproar, and Devlin either drunk on Forty-Mile Red Eye or madly in love with some whore in Little Misery. Oh, no, he was not looking forward to this trip. A far cry from the trip at Christmas, when he had his boys across from him and Jana’s sweet head on his shoulder.
Unable to sleep, Drew sat there watching the barren landscape, then noticed some construction and some soddies going up that he hadn’t noticed before. What was this place?
Then he saw her. A woman standing beside the tracks. Her hair blowing in the wind, her face brown from the sun. She bent to roll some sacks of freight away from the track.
Was that Jana? He couldn’t be sure, but his heart began to race. He wanted off this train, but what if he was hallucinating? He wanted it to be her, but what if it wasn’t? He would be stuck in the middle of nowhere, and what would the boys think if it took him a week or more to get home?
The freight that was thrown off the train! What was the name on the freight? He rose from his seat and made his way to the express car.
“What was the name of the settlement we just passed, and whose name was on that freight that you just kicked out?” Drew asked.
“It’s a new one—not likely to survive. Lots of squabbling goin’ on there.”
“The name? What’s it called?”
“They’re calling it New Salem.”
“Damn, why didn’t I think of that? Of course she went there.” Drew pumped his fist in jubilation. He turned and almost ran back to his car.
“Don’t you want to know the name on the freight?” the express messenger called out.
“Yeah, do you know it?”
“Do I? Every trip west there’s three bags of flour for Hester Prynne.”
Drew laughed uproariously. “Does she ever ask for a scarlet letter?”
He threw himself back into his seat, a grin stretched wide across his face and his heart practically singing.
For the rest of the trip, Drew could barely contain himself. He was more excited than Sam or Benji could ever be, an
d he began planning his next move.
The wedding would be at Rimfire as soon as he could get everybody there, and that included Jana’s mother. He figured Jana’s mother could get to Medora in a good week. By the time they reached Dickinson, he had a lengthy telegram ready to be sent to Walter Watson with exact details. Whom he was to invite and what he was to bring and when he was to be there.
To Frank he wrote three words: I FOUND HER.
At Dickinson, he tipped the telegrapher generously to make certain the two dispatches took precedence over everything else. The rest of the trip seemed like an eternity for Drew until, finally, the train stopped at the newly built depot in Medora.
“Howdy, Boss,” Devlin said as he stepped up to shake Drew’s hand. “Quite an improvement over the last time you were here. Look at what the marquis has done.” Devlin swept his hand around, showing all the construction that had been done since March.
On an ordinary day, Drew would have been impressed, but that was not the case today. “I’m going back on the eastbound train. I’ve got to check to see what time they expect it. Is Clem still the stationmaster or is he across the river?”
“He’s here, but why are you going back so soon? You won’t have time to even ride out to Rimfire.”
“Get it ready for a wedding. I’m bringing Jana and a few of her friends from Bismarck, and we’ll be back in a week.”
“A wedding? Hot damn, boss, didn’t that come up sort of quick?”
“Devlin, if you only knew.”
Clem Pittman checked the wires and told Drew the eastbound would be in Medora in a little less than two hours, so Drew felt honorbound to call on de Morès. Devlin drove him up the hill to de Morès’s “cabin,” which was finished and almost completely furnished. That was a major accomplishment because the cabin, or the château, as Devlin called it, had twenty-six rooms.
When Drew arrived, de Morès was the consummate host, providing cheese and fresh fruit along with French wine for their lunch. After Drew was satisfied that the marquis’s incident with the local ruffians was under control, Drew briefly told him about Jana.
With de Morès, Drew did not express the same bravado that he had shown in either the telegram to Walter Watson or even his words to Devlin. He thought he could convince Jana to marry him, but what if after all he had said, she had changed her mind?
De Morès sensed the kernel of doubt in Drew’s plans. “This woman. Do you love her?”
“I do.”
“But do I gather you have not seen her since you left here in March?”
“This is true.”
“My friend, a lot can happen in a short time. With my beautiful wife it was a coup de foudre, or, as you say, love at first sight. We knew one another less than six weeks when we were wed. Has it occurred to you that your Jana may have wed another?”
Drew’s face paled. That thought had never occurred to him, but was that why she had kept her whereabouts from him when she was only thirty miles from Bismarck?
“I can see that this thought troubles you, but I have a suggestion. Come with me.”
De Morès rose and led Drew down to the stable that stood at the bottom of the hill. He threw open the door, and standing in a bay were a beautiful pair of Shire horses at least sixteen hands tall, their black coats shining.
“My God, Antoine, what beautiful animals, but why on earth do you have these?”
“To pull Napoléon’s coach.” De Morès directed Drew to an oversize wagon with six wheels. It had a covering much like a Conestoga wagon, but with grommets laced with rope that when pulled would allow the covering to be withdrawn. “And for you, my friend, it can be a love wagon.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“We must hurry. We have less than an hour to get them to the train.”
“What?”
De Morès clapped his hands, and at once several grooms appeared. “Hitch up Nate and Bob. They’re going for a train ride. And make the coach ready for a week’s journey with an overabundance of champagne and the finest food on board. My friend needs to ply his lady.”
Just before three on the afternoon of June 2, 1883, Drew Malone was on the eastbound Pacific Express with two horses that were worth thousands of dollars and a coach that was a one-of-a-kind replica of the hunting wagon Napoléon used during his campaign against the Russians. De Morès had explained that if Jana agreed to the marriage, the trip back to Medora could be a veritable paradise, as Jana and Drew traveled as many or as few miles a day as they chose, and if she refused, Drew would have the solace of the many bottles of champagne to drown his sorrow.
As the miles flew by, and the hours ticked along, Drew’s stomach began to churn. He tried to take deep breaths to calm himself, but the closer he got to Jana, the faster his heart beat. He checked his watch against the conductor’s, and when it had been nearly six hours, he rose to make certain the conductor knew to stop at New Salem.
But when the train stopped and Drew stepped off, not a structure was in sight.
“What the hell! Where are we? Didn’t I tell you to stop in New Salem?” Drew yelled, his nerves now almost shot.
“Hold your fire, partner,” the conductor said. “This is the Bluegrass Siding. The engineer thought it might be a bit easier to unload that monstrosity the marquis is shipping on the flat instead of on a grade. New Salem’s only another couple of miles down the track.”
Drew smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m a little anxious, and I want to make sure I get there before dark.”
“Mister, are you new to these parts? You know you got more’n fifteen hours of daylight this time of year. Surely you can get that rig two miles before the sun goes down.”
Drew chuckled. “I deserved that.”
Drew sat in the coach watching the train until the caboose was out of sight and the smoke was but a thin wisp drawn across a bright blue sky. This was the moment. In less than fifteen minutes, he would know if he was either the happiest man alive, or . . . he refused to think of the opposite.
“Come on Nate, Bob, let’s get going,” Drew said, then he laughed out loud. Couldn’t a man whose name was Antoine-Amédée-Marie-Vincent Manca de Vallombrosa, Marquis de Morès, come up with better names for horses than Nate and Bob?
But the laughter was good for him. All his tension was gone. He was going to see his Jana as soon as he crested the hill.
Jana was exhausted. The day had been hot, and two of the younger women had gone off with their husbands to spend the day on the prairie. She realized that they needed privacy to “couple” as they called it, but that could be done at night. She had taken over their bread duties, in addition to her own job of keeping the coals hot on the Dutch ovens for most of the day, because Johan had taken one of the horses to the vein to gather more coal.
Even though the water supply was low, Johan had brought two pails of water to the tent to warm during the heat of the day, and Jana had washed her hair and her body as best she could. Now she was sitting outside the tent brushing out her hair.
She had not seen Johan for most of the day. He was a good man, and a hard worker, who would make a dependable husband for some woman someday.
It is Drew Malone’s fault, she thought, and she thought about him often. Did he come back to Bismarck? Did he get the kids back? Did he ever really love . . . ? She closed her eyes. She would not allow that thought to surface.
Just then, she looked up to a bit of a commotion. Most of the men who still lived in the boxcar were shielding their eyes from the sun, which was now low in the western sky. Something was coming, and at this hour that was unusual. Few people traveled this way except on the train, and it only stopped when the water car was exchanged. Occasionally, a Sioux Indian would wander into the colony, but they were friendly now, so there was seldom any activity.
When Jana stood up, she thought she saw an unusual coach that probably belonged to a drummer hawking his wares to the homesteaders. She had made it a habit to stay out of sight when any
stranger was in the colony. But why? No one had tried to find her. Nonetheless, she stepped into the tent and lowered the flap.
She lay back on her pallet and closed her eyes, but in a minute she heard voices. At first they seemed to be far away, but then they came closer to her tent. She sat up, grabbing her flannel wrapper.
And then she heard it.
“Hester Prynne? Are you in there?” The voice was laced with humor, but she would recognize that voice anywhere. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Drew!” she yelled as she dropped her wrapper and pulled back the flap of the tent, almost falling as her foot caught on the center pole.
He was standing not ten feet from her.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to apologize. I didn’t even give you a chance to tell your side. I don’t know what to say.”
“All you have to do, Drew, is say you are sorry.”
“I have no right to ask for your forgiveness, my dear Jana, but . . .”
“All you have to do, Drew, is say—”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“That’s all it takes.” Jana bounded into his arms and he lifted her off her feet, kissing her as only he could kiss her.
She wound her arms around him and returned the kiss with all the pent-up passion she had felt for these many weeks.
Then she heard a clearing of a throat. Beside Drew stood Johan. “I take it this is not a consanguineous relationship,” he said, a smile crossing his face.
“No, no. This is him. This is the man I was going to marry.”
Drew stopped her as he put her feet back on the ground. “You’ve made a mistake, miss. I’m not the man you were going to marry.”
Jana looked at him, confused.
Drew smiled broadly. “I am the man you will marry, one week from tomorrow at Rimfire Ranch, assuming, of course, that the answer is yes.”
“Oh, yes, Drew, yes! You’ve made me the happiest woman in the world.”
Rimfire Ranch—One week later
Jana stood on the porch that stretched across the front of the house watching Greta, wearing a peacock-blue dress and a hat trimmed with feathers, move slowly toward the wedding guests. Jana had to smile. Her little sister, no more a frail child, was radiant. If only her mother could see her now.