Spring Brides

by Judith Stacy

  “Miss Hansen,” Landry said, smiling mischievously. “In case you’re wondering, Dan here, he took a bath before we rode over.”

  “Did he?” Eleanor said, enjoying Ingram’s obvious discomfort at the revelation. “I’m sure we both appreciate it.”

  “Well, I do, miss. He really did stink.”

  “Where’s the revolver?” Ingram abruptly asked. Clearly, he was in no mood to be teased by anyone.

  She waited before she answered, because of the tone of his voice as much as anything.

  “Where is it?” he asked again.

  “It’s…handy,” she said, when the truth was she hadn’t given it a thought.

  “You don’t go anywhere—not down to the water, not to the outhouse, not anywhere—without taking it with you.”

  He turned his horse and rode off, leaving her with a considerable amount of annoyance and nowhere to put it. She frowned and watched him head toward the stream and disappear among the cottonwoods.

  “Don’t mind him none, miss,” Mick said. “He likes you and he don’t want to, that’s all. It scared him when we couldn’t find you.”

  “He hasn’t known me long enough to like or dislike me,” Eleanor said.

  “Maybe so. But I reckon whoever made that rule don’t know much about people. Especially when the people are a man and a woman. Good day to you, miss.” He touched the brim of his hat, then spurred his horse and followed after Ingram.

  Dan waited just beyond the cottonwoods for Mick to catch up.

  “What did she say?” he asked as soon as Mick was close enough to hear him.

  “Nothing,” Mick answered. “I think she was still addled from hearing you took a bath.”

  Dan ignored Mick’s heavy-handed attempt at wittiness. “What did you say to her?”

  “Nothing. Nothing,” Mick assured him. “Does the colonel know you keep riding over here to see about her?”

  Dan didn’t answer him.

  “That’s what I thought,” Mick said. “Son, just how much trouble do you want to be in, anyway?”

  “I’m not worried about me,” Dan said, spurring his horse to end the conversation.

  “Well, maybe you ought to. If you want my advice—”

  “I don’t!” Dan called over his shoulder, urging his horse into a gallop so he could get to where he was supposed to be.

  He likes you and he don’t want to, that’s all.

  Eleanor didn’t want to think about what that meant. She set about making the schoolroom ready for the next session, and, in spite of her annoyance, she made sure the revolver actually was within her reach if she needed it. It had been reckless of her not to have taken it with her down to the stream. She had been living in a town occupied by enemy soldiers. She knew about the dangers that might befall a woman caught alone. She realized, too, that her annoyance came as much from Ingram seeing her lack of good sense as the fact that he’d presumed to chastise her about it.

  She made sure the door to the schoolroom was locked, then went to her own side of the building. There was still daylight left when she heard a wagon. She picked up the revolver and looked out to see who was coming.

  Ingram was back, driving a load of fence posts. He made no attempt to come to the door, and she made no effort to speak to him. She left him to whatever it was he intended to do in the remaining light, and set about cooking herself some supper. When it was nearly done, she opened the door and stepped outside. He didn’t stop working when he saw her. She stood and waited, anyway.

  “I have some supper nearly cooked,” she said when he finally looked at her. “I’m willing to share it.”

  It wasn’t the most gracious of invitations, but it was the best she could do—in return for the peppermint candy, if nothing else.

  He stopped what he was doing. “I’d appreciate it,” he said. “After the light goes, if that’s all right.”

  “Perfectly all right,” she said. “I’ll set you a place.”

  She turned and walked back into her quarters. She actually had extra plates, thanks to Mrs. Selby’s preparations for the times when the children couldn’t get home from school. Eleanor set two of them on the small table in the kitchen. The meal was nothing fancy—fried potatoes and onions, bacon and coffee, some hard cheese.

  She lost sight of Dan Ingram for a time, until he knocked softly at the kitchen door. When she let him in, his hair and the front of his shirt were wet. She supposed that he must have gone to the stream to wash up.

  “It smells good,” he said of the food she was about to set on the table.

  He stood awkwardly—in the way. The kitchen had grown small suddenly, with him in it. He had taken off his hat, but he didn’t know where to put it.

  “Peg,” she said. “By the door. Sit down. Either chair.”

  He hung his hat and sat in the chair facing the window. She got the coffeepot and poured two cups. He was looking at his surroundings as if he’d lost something.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Nothing, miss.”

  “You expected something…different?”

  “I was just seeing where you live.”

  “Why?”

  “Can’t say, miss. It’s of interest to me, I guess.”

  “I’ll show you the school if you want.”

  “No, miss. I’m not much for schoolrooms, even if I’m just passing through.”

  “But you made sure Petey got here.”

  “Yes, miss. Petey’s smarter than I am.”

  “Please. Serve yourself, Mr. Ingram.”

  She brought the bacon to the table and sat down across from him, handing him the bowl of potatoes. They ate in silence. If he felt the need to make conversation, it didn’t show.

  “I know how to take care of a horse,” she said at one point, surprising herself and him. “You said I needed to learn to take care of the horse. I can do that. I know how to feed and brush and water. I can catch and harness. I can clean out stalls. I just can’t saddle and ride.”

  Dan looked at her while she recited her accomplishments and shortcomings, but he didn’t say anything.

  He was trying to memorize her face without seeming to do so, the same way he’d been memorizing her surroundings. He had never dared to think he might actually sit down and share a meal with her—alone—especially at her invitation. But, as much as he wanted to be here, he should have said no. He should have let one of the other hands build the fence. He should have—

  I think about you all the time.

  The thought came so abruptly into his mind that he was afraid for a moment he had said it out loud. When exactly had he crossed the line from benevolent concern to such a relentless, aching need? He spent every day uneasy and dissatisfied until he’d seen her, even if it was only at a distance. He told himself that he just wanted to know she was all right. He liked her. He liked to tease her, liked to see if he could get her all flustered, liked to try to make her smile. Sitting here now, looking at her across the table, he knew there was more to it than that.

  “I don’t have any riding clothes,” Eleanor said abruptly, without really knowing why. No. That wasn’t true. She did know. In spite of all she could do, she was becoming more and more disconcerted by his scrutiny.

  “Don’t need them, miss. Mrs. Selby wears her husband’s britches when she goes out.”

  “She does not!” Eleanor said.

  “She does, miss. First time the reverend’s sister saw her, she nearly fainted in the dirt.”

  Eleanor frowned. “I never know if you’re serious or not.”

  “I’m always serious, miss. Anybody that knows me will tell you that.”

  “Then I think they don’t know you very well.”

  He smiled suddenly, then stood. “Thanks for the meal, miss.”

  “Thanks for the candy,” she countered.

  “I thought you might need the peppermint.”

  “I thought you might need a supper. We’re even now.”

  “Until I can
come up with something else to make you beholden,” he said, putting on his hat. “Be careful, will you, miss?”

  Now he was serious.

  “Yes. I’ll be careful.”

  He nodded and left, closing the door quietly and firmly behind him.

  “Don’t worry about not seeing me again, miss,” he called from the other side of it.

  She tried not to smile at his audaciousness and reached to draw the bolt. She saw the hole suddenly appear in the wood of the door and the splinters fly a split second before she heard the faraway report of the rifle that fired the bullet. The door flew open and Ingram flung her onto the floor. Another bullet glanced off the door facing and still another hit the far wall.

  “Stay down,” he hissed into her ear. He crouched over her, then moved to the doorway. “Damn it! My rifle is on my saddle…”

  It was so quiet suddenly. She could hear the wind buffeting the house, but nothing else save Ingram’s breathing.

  Her cheek began to sting, and she reached up to touch it. Her fingers came away wet and sticky with blood.

  “I think he’s gone,” Ingram said. He looked in her direction and swore. “You’re hurt!” he said, immediately coming to her.

  “I’m all right,” she murmured, moving to sit up.

  “Let me see.”

  “I’m all right,” she insisted.

  “It needs tending,” he said, holding her face where he could look at the wound. “There’s a wood splinter. Stay down…”

  He moved to get the piece of flannel hanging by the water bucket, dipped a corner to wet it and came back to her, all the while avoiding the window.

  He sat down on the floor beside her and carefully removed the small slivers of wood that were apparently imbedded in her cheek. It hurt. She stared into his face as he worked, measured the intensity of his expression and the concern. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’ve let this go on too long,” he said, cleaning her cheek with the wet corner of the flannel.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, reaching up to touch the place that stung so. He intercepted her hand and put it firmly in her lap.

  “Karl Dorsey.”

  “How do you know it was him?”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t. Mrs. Selby told me there’s no law here. It could be anybody. You have no proof, no reason to do anything to him because of this—”

  “I don’t want to see you hurt!”

  “And I don’t want to see you dead. Please. Don’t do anything to him on my account. I can’t bear it. I’m not—”

  Worth it, she was going to say. But she didn’t. She gave a wavering sigh instead, surprised at how close to tears she felt.

  Incredibly, Mrs. Selby had been too late with the warning not to let herself become attached to this man.

  “Please,” she said again. He was looking into her eyes, but she could tell by the closed expression on his face that it was useless. She had seen the same look when she’d begged Rob not to go off to war.

  “I’ll take you up to the house. We’ll have to ride double.”

  “No. I’m staying here. I’m not afraid.”

  “Damn it, you should be!”

  “Why? If you’re the target?”

  “You don’t understand the way things are out here—”

  “I understand the willingness to do whatever it takes to further a cause. Sometimes the cause is all wrapped up in fine sentiments like honor and freedom, family and home. And sometimes it’s personal—like this thing between you and Karl Dorsey. Lillyann, and now me—we’re just…handy reasons for something you intend to do anyway.”

  “That isn’t the way it is. Some things have to be done.”

  “Yes. And when a blood feud starts, it can’t be stopped—until the right person is dead.”

  “I know this is strange for you—” he began, and she gave a bitter laugh.

  “No. Not strange. It’s not the first time I’ve listened to a man explain how he has to go kill or be killed.”

  “Is that what he did? The man in the tintype?”

  She looked into Ingram’s eyes. “Yes,” she said evenly. “He wasted his life—and mine, too.”

  “I don’t reckon he saw it that way.”

  “No,” she said. She was so tired suddenly. “None of you ever do.”

  He reached out and took her hand, and he didn’t let go when she would have pulled free of his grasp. After a moment, she gave up, and they simply sat there on the floor, her small hand lost in his big one. Such a small gesture and, incredibly, she found comfort in it.

  “I don’t intend for Karl Dorsey to kill me,” he said after a time.

  “Don’t you?” she asked, and the moment she said it she realized that Lavinia Selby had been right about him and his not minding if he lost his duel with death.

  She took her hand out of his and got to her feet without his restraint or his help. He immediately stood with her.

  “Eleanor—”

  “What is it you want from me, Mr. Ingram? Tell me.”

  “I want…” He stopped and gave a sharp sigh. “All the way out here to Selby’s I could see how hard you were trying—it was plain to me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You were looking for something—anything—in this place you could like. That’s what I want. I want you to look for something you can like—in me.”

  The room was filled now with the soft darkness that had come as the last rays of sunlight disappeared. His horse whinnied and blew where it waited, tied to the wagon.

  “Go away, Mr. Ingram. Do what you have to do and leave me be. I don’t want to know about any of it.”

  She began clearing the table. She heard him walk to the door, and when she turned around he had gone.

  She thought that she wouldn’t see him the next day, that he would give her what she’d asked for. She was only half-right. He didn’t stay away, but, clearly, he intended to leave her alone.

  He went immediately to work on the fence, saying nothing. She might have believed she was glad of it, if she hadn’t found herself looking in his direction at every opportunity. After a time, even the children noted it and would look at Ingram in unison every time she did. She was hardly setting the example for proper social decorum, especially for the girls, and all she needed was Lavinia Selby to witness it, when Eleanor had already been warned that Dan Ingram—or his whereabouts—should not be her concern. Her only comfort was that if he was building a fence and a shed, he wasn’t hunting for Karl Dorsey.

  By the end of the week there was significant progress in the fence-building for the horse she didn’t yet have. The children gave up their recess play to help. Clearly, they thought she needed the animal. Or perhaps it was a sad reflection on her teaching. In the evenings after school, she began to try to fashion a riding habit of sorts—britches with a skirt over them. If she was going to have to do this, she intended to do it astride. She wasn’t going to ride half a horse.

  The arrival of the mare when both the fence and the habit were finished was a gala occasion indeed. Dan brought it saddled, but immediately unsaddled it and put it inside the enclosure.

  “It’s my job,” he said before she could offer any further protests about a situation—and perhaps a man—she didn’t want.

  She gave a resigned sigh. Learning to ride in theory wasn’t the same as the actuality.

  “Let’s see what you can do,” he said—in front of the children.

  “Not now,” she said pointedly.

  “Yes, now, miss. I’ve got other things to do. I want you to be able to get a saddle on her at least. Then Annie is going to teach you how to ride.”

  “Annie,” Eleanor said, thinking she’d misunderstood.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “Annie who?”

  The children giggled.

  “Me, miss,” Annie said. “I’m the best rider there is. Rain taught me—he’s the scout at the fort. He says
I’m good enough to teach anybody. Nobody else here knows how as good as I do, except Dan and Petey, and they ain’t got—I mean, don’t have—the time.”

  “I…see,” Eleanor said. She glanced at Ingram. He was enjoying this, she was almost positive. “What are we going to do with Theodore while all this is going on?”

  “We’ll watch him, miss,” Jimmy Gallagher piped up to say.

  “And who’s going to watch you, Jimmy Gallagher?”

  “Aw, miss,” he said, grinning.

  She looked at Ingram. “All right. What do you want me to do?”

  “Catch her—if you can.”

  “I can only try,” she said, very humbly. And she set about using the same technique she’d used on the docile horse—her namesake—that she and Maria Markham had played with as children. Bribery. She went and pulled up two fistfuls of grass and then stood inside the fence until the horse realized what she had, and came to her.

  She fed it the grass and stroked its neck. The mare was beautiful, she had to admit—a bay with a black mane and tail.

  “Well, that will work as long as you’re not in a hurry,” Dan said.

  “I’m not done yet, Mr. Ingram.”

  She left the fence, and this time she went to the kitchen in her quarters and brought back three small chunks of brown sugar. When she went inside the fence this time, the mare was interested, but it didn’t come. Eleanor whistled and held out her hand. The mare gave a soft rumble and stretched her neck toward the sugar Eleanor had lying on her open palm. Eleanor stayed out of reach, and when the mare ultimately came to her, she fed it one lump. Then she left again and came back to repeat the process two more times. The horse came at her soft whistle immediately both times.

  The next time, Eleanor didn’t have anything to offer, except pats and soft words, but after an inspection of her person for hidden sugar lumps, the mare didn’t seem to mind.

  Eleanor reached for the bridle and put it on without difficulty. The saddle was something else again. It was much heavier than she expected, and she made the horse nervous trying to heave it upward. The saddle blanket fell off. The air rang with pointers from her audience, but none of them made her any stronger.