Spring Brides

by Judith Stacy

  “It’s the way things are done here,” Lavinia was saying. “It’s the reason we need someone like you here. I can’t stop the blood feuds once they’re started. No one can. But I’m hoping that education—in the long run—will help prevent them.”

  “This is…it’s murder,” Eleanor said.

  “Yes, it is. But many say Karl Dorsey deserves it.”

  “Then why doesn’t the law take care of it?”

  “There isn’t any law, Eleanor. I thought you understood that.”

  Apparently, she hadn’t. She had just assumed that there would be military law, at least, the same kind of arbitrary law that ruled the world she’d left behind.

  The land began to slope upward, and Lavinia urged the horse to go faster. Eleanor could feel the full force of the wind again, and she could no longer hear the fiddling and the laughter from the house.

  “Life is precarious here,” Lavinia said. “And that precariousness can break your heart. Believe me, I know.”

  Eleanor gave a quiet sigh and tried to focus on the passing scenery. “I have no intention of becoming attached to Mr. Ingram,” she said after a time.

  “Our intentions are sometimes not apparent to us,” Lavinia said. “Even if there were no situation with Karl Dorsey, an interest in Dan Ingram would be fraught with…personal risk. He’s like so many men who have returned from a war. I know about that, as well—mine is a military family, by birth and by marriage. Dan Ingram survived, and he doesn’t understand why. It’s almost certain he thinks he didn’t deserve to. He knows he’s not any better and perhaps a great deal worse than many who didn’t. I believe whatever he’s seen and done is a heavy burden to him. The sad thing is that I don’t believe he’d really mind if Karl Dorsey killed him—ah! Behold! There it is.”

  Eleanor could see cottonwoods and a small wooden building on the high side of the stream of water that wound its way through them. It was much more than she expected—an actual schoolhouse with two wings, one her residence, she supposed, and one a place for children to stay if need be. Incredibly, the building had a post out front—with a bell.

  “I wasn’t expecting anything so…grand,” Eleanor said. She wasn’t expecting it to be so far from the Selby house, either, but she didn’t say so.

  “I never do things by halves,” Lavinia said. “The bell has two purposes, of course. To call the children in and to send out an alarm should the occasion arise. It’s a fine bell, if I do say so myself. I bought it from the Union Pacific Railroad—right off the locomotive. It cost a fortune—the colonel had a fit. They didn’t want to sell it, of course, but I reminded them that, if their wonderful new tracks across Selby land aren’t monitored as well in the future as we do it now, something could go awry and they wouldn’t need a bell. I dare say you will have far more use for it than the Union Pacific ever will.” She threw back her head and laughed.

  “You have a good water supply and not too far to carry it. Someone will keep your wood cut for you, so you won’t have to bother with that. I expect they’ll all be eager to get down here, so you may end up with more sticks and logs than you can ever use. Your trunk has already been moved to your part of the building. And there are plenty of supplies. Food staples. And a box from Chicago with school items—slates and copy books, maps and the like. An actual globe on a stand, I believe. I’ve also sent down some books for your personal use from my own library, so you don’t get too lonesome. When you’re done with them, you must feel free to come up to the house for more.”

  She drove the buggy across the stream and pulled up in front of the school.

  “A quick tour and I’m off to bribe Mr. Warner’s better nature. Someone will also come by from time to time to see if you need anything. Or you can walk back to the house if it’s pressing. I’m sure you can see an urgency for you to learn to ride, but we’ll attend to that later. I understand you have your own firearm.”

  “I—yes.”

  “Please don’t shoot at any of the native peoples unless you’re absolutely certain your life is threatened. Firing at a good-for-nothing layabout like that Burley is one thing. Members of a peaceful tribe are something else again. I don’t want my treaty with them broken unless it’s utterly necessary. One last thing—children will present themselves for schooling in two days’ time. They should arrive by eight or nine in the morning and the school day will continue until two-thirty in the afternoon—that will give them time enough to get home before dark. Any questions?”

  “No,” Eleanor said. “None.”

  The tour of the school and the immediate surroundings was whirlwind at best, and she was suddenly left on her own. She walked around trying to take everything in, trying to assess if indeed there was anything she needed. The place smelled of new wood and sawdust. There was a potbellied stove in the center of the schoolroom. Three long tables, each with backless benches, had been provided for the children. There was a very large desk for her. The desk exuded authority, and she was grateful for that. There were shelves and cupboards, pegs for coats and hats, lanterns and plenty of oil, copy books and slates, ink and inkwells, a water bucket and a dipper. A path out back led to the privies, one for the girls and one for the boys.

  The windows in the schoolroom were small; they would likely need a lantern lit even on sunny days. Each window had a hinged shutter on the inside, which could be swung shut and barred. She didn’t want to dwell on the reason for them.

  The walls in her living quarters had been whitewashed. The kitchen itself wasn’t large, but incredibly, she had a brand new cookstove. There was a small fireplace in the room where she would sleep, and a rocking chair, and a chamber pot, and an iron bed with a large pillow and a stack of brown blankets folded and placed neatly at the foot. There was a small alcove where she could hang her clothes and a single window near the bed. When she looked out, she could see the stream and the cottonwoods through the wavy glass. This window, too, could be shuttered from the inside.

  She liked the idea of the rocking chair. Already she could imagine herself seated by the fire on cold winter nights with one of the blankets over her knees, reading or sewing or whatever content schoolmarms did after the children had gone.

  She crossed the shoolroom to the other wing—one large room half full of stacked wooden boxes—enough provisions and school supplies to last for a long time. There was a fireplace at the far end, but no windows. She made a mental note of what the boxes contained, then walked back to her quarters, still trying to ascertain if there was some necessary item missing.

  There was nothing. On the surface, Lavinia Selby seemed as straightforward as they come, and she had thought of everything—even protecting Eleanor from a broken heart.

  She spent the rest of the day unpacking her trunk and the boxes from Chicago. She carried a bucket of water from the stream up to her small kitchen, rearranged the food supplies to her own liking and convenience, made up the bed with all the blankets left for her. Then she built a fire in the stove and ultimately ate a late supper of fried bacon and toasted bread.

  Once or twice, she thought she heard a horse galloping, but when she went to the window to look, she didn’t see anyone. The sound of hoofbeats came again when she was about to retire for the night. This time there was no mistaking that someone had arrived. She stood for a moment, then picked up the revolver before she went to answer the knock on the door.

  “Miss,” Dan Ingram said when she opened it. He glanced in the direction of the gun she held hidden behind her skirts. “You ought not open the door if you don’t know who it is, miss.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “This is a dangerous country, miss—”

  “Have you killed Karl Dorsey yet?”

  He looked into her eyes for before he answered. “No, miss, not yet. I came to see if you wanted anything.”

  “No, nothing.”

  “You can find yourself lonesome in this country—”

  “I haven’t
had the time to be lonesome as yet.”

  “If you say so, miss. Tomorrow or the next day, I need to fix up a place for you to have a horse.”

  “I don’t want a horse.”

  “Yes, miss, you do.”

  “I think not. I can walk to the Selby house if—”

  “It might come that you’ll need to get there faster than a walk, miss. Me and maybe a couple of the boys will be fixing up a place for it—I’ve got a good, gentle mare in mind for you. Then you can set about learning to take care of it and ride it. I just wanted you to know ahead of time what the noise is all about.”

  He stood looking at her. “I’ll say good-night to you then, miss,” he said finally.

  “Good night, Mr. Ingram.”

  He touched the brim of his hat, and she closed the door and leaned against it. It seemed to take him awhile to ride away, and she impulsively opened the door again.

  He was nowhere in sight, but there was something wrapped in brown paper and tied with string lying on the porch in front of her. She fetched it inside, and she couldn’t keep from smiling when she opened it.

  Peppermint candy.

  He had left her three sticks of peppermint candy.

  Chapter Four

  More children showed up for the first day of school than Eleanor expected—and most of them were children. The colonel had only been able to spare one of the older boys—Petey, the one who liked to show off.

  He wasn’t showing off now, however. Eleanor didn’t know when she’d seen a face that reflected more abject misery. She fervently hoped he never gave in to the temptation to gamble at cards.

  The day was overcast, but there was no threat of rain, as far as Eleanor could tell. The children—five girls and four boys, not counting Petey—had arrived as predicted. She had done all the preliminary registration of names and ages, and they now sat on their benches staring at her, their clean faces showing a mixture of apprehension and a certain degree of…relief, she decided, probably at being exempted from their usual chores. Two of the boys she recognized as the ones who had carried her trunk to her room. The biggest surprise had been a girl named Annie, who had a baby boy on her lap. Annie’s mother filled a vital position in the Selby’s household staff, and carting her little brother along to school was the only way Annie would be able to attend, according to the note Lavinia Selby had sent with her. Clearly, there was a limit to how much Mrs. Selby was willing to be inconvenienced, civilization or no civilization. The note also advised Eleanor that Annie was one of three in the group who were already able to read and write a few words.

  That settled, there was nothing left for Eleanor to do but begin. She took a deep breath and decided to be devious and logical. Petey’s was a particularly delicate situation, she thought, because there was a matter of his male pride to consider. So she started with him first, hoping, if nothing else, to end his suffering as quickly as possible.

  “Mr. Watson,” she said to him, causing the little boys who sat in front of him to giggle and Petey’s ears to go red. She quelled the gigglers with a look, but they were having to work hard not to start up again.

  “Mr. Watson does a man’s job,” she said to them. “And I understand he does it well—much better than any of you or I could do. For that reason, we will show him a certain respect, until such time as he proves he is not worthy of it or until he says we may address him otherwise. Now, Mr. Watson…” She motioned for Petey to come sit across the desk from her, then she opened the Bible and placed it on the desktop.

  After a moment, he walked forward—but he looked as if he expected to be hanged.

  “This is what I want you to do,” she said, quietly enough not to be overheard, when he’d finally mastered his sudden awkwardness and managed to sit down. “I want you to look at the page here, and I want you to keep looking at it while you answer my questions. Do you understand?”

  “No, miss,” he said, glancing up at her.

  “Do it anyway, Mr. Watson.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  He obediently dropped his head and stared at the page.

  “Your full name, please, where you were born, your parents’ names, first and last, your favorite food and drink. And speak softly so that only I can hear you.”

  He gave her another brief, doubtful look, then did as she asked, lifting his head only when he was done.

  “One more question,” she said. “Look at the page, please. Can you read, Mr. Watson?”

  “No, miss,” he said, his voice barely audible. This time he didn’t look at her.

  “Do you know your letters?”

  He shook his head.

  “Does anyone else in this room know that?”

  “I don’t reckon so, miss.”

  “Then I expect to keep it that way—if you’re agreeable.”

  He glanced up at her, then immediately looked down again.

  “Are you agreeable?” she asked.

  “Yes, miss. But I don’t see how—”

  “The ‘how’ is basically up to you. You will have to work hard away from the schoolroom and you will have to be…cunning here. I think it can be done, Mr. Watson. Now. Take your seat again, please.” She looked at her list. “Jimmy Gallagher. Please come forward.”

  Eleanor continued with each of the pupils, verifying their degree of expertise or the lack thereof. Then she gave the seating assignments.

  “Mr. Watson, I would like you to share a desk with Jimmy Gallagher. Jimmy, I want you to take your slate and write the first three letters of the alphabet very carefully so that Mr. Watson can watch for mistakes. Then I want you to tell him the sound each of the letters makes and give him a word with that sound. After that, you will write the word until he is satisfied.”

  “Yes, miss,” he said, clearly in the throes of hero worship. Young Jimmy Gallagher would have no problem showing Petey Watson the respect his position on the ranch afforded him.

  Eleanor put the others to work, as well, giving the older children an assignment to be completed independently and the younger ones her undivided attention. At one point, she carried the now fretful baby boy, Theodore, on her hip so his sister could write on her slate in peace.

  They didn’t stop for their midday meal until early afternoon, when she sent them all out to eat and run and play, while the baby slept peacefully on a folded blanket on the schoolroom floor.

  She sat at her desk in the stunned aftermath of a high-stakes situation where the need for success was imperative. The stress of it all was intensified by the fact that all morning she had expected to see Dan Ingram again. Thus far, no one with a mind to construct an enclosure for a horse had appeared.

  It occurred to her suddenly that she had had no discipline problems this morning. None. Perhaps word of her confrontation with Burley had reached the ears of her pupils. If an orderly classroom was the result, she decided that she was glad.

  She looked up to find Petey standing in front of her desk with Jimmy’s slate in his hand. He didn’t say anything. He placed the slate where she could see it, then carefully scratched out an upper-and lowercase A, then a B, then a C.

  “Good progress, Mr. Watson,” she said.

  He continued to stand there, clearly with something on his mind.

  “What is it?”

  “I need to get back now, miss—if I’m going to keep Dan out of trouble.”

  “I see,” she said, when actually she didn’t see at all. “What about tomorrow?”

  “I can’t say, miss. Dan, he’ll try to make it so’s I can come. He said…”

  “What did he say, Mr. Watson?” she asked when the boy didn’t continue.

  “He said a man ought never waste the chance at something that can make his life better. He said I ought not pay any attention to what the others say about it.”

  “I expect he is quite right about that.”

  “If you’ll give me leave to go then,” he said. “I’m not to walk off without you knowing about it.”

  “Yes
. You may go. Tomorrow then—or so we hope.”

  He gave her a nod and left.

  Ingram. He was such a…puzzle to her. The things she knew firsthand and the things people said about him left no clear picture in her mind as to what he was really like. His being a war veteran would explain the melancholy in him—perhaps even his willingness to do murder. She wondered suddenly if Rob would have been the same man if he’d survived the war.

  She abruptly opened the desk drawer and removed the velvet case that contained his photograph. She looked at his handsome young face, then closed the case and put it away. Most of the time the sense of loss was dim, like a distant bad dream, and sometimes, inexplicably, like this very moment, it was strong and aching and raw, as she realized she was never, ever going to see him again. Kindly Verillia Douglas, a woman from back home, had told her once that her heart had gone into its winter because of the pain and the loss, but it would come out again, when Eleanor least expected it. She didn’t want it to come out again. A winter heart was…safe.

  She took a deep breath and went outside to call the children back to their lessons. The short afternoon session went swiftly, and somehow, the first day of school was over. The Selby children began their walk back to the big house, with one of the boys carrying Theodore. The three children from the army post climbed on the one horse the Indian scout’s wife had brought them, and trotted away. Eleanor felt uneasy about letting them go, but they seemed to be used to such traveling and much more comfortable about the ride than she would have been.

  She walked down to the stream to fill a bucket of water, and when she returned, Dan Ingram and another man waited on horseback by the porch.

  “I was just coming to hunt for you, miss,” Dan said, glancing at the other man.

  “Why?”

  “This is Mick Landry,” he announced, instead of answering.

  “Mr. Landry,” Eleanor said. She thought she recognized him. He was the man who’d lain weeping on the sidewalk the day she arrived.