The Bride Lottery

by Tatiana March

  “When Louise fell pregnant and they knew they’d soon have another mouth to feed, he thought, why fight the changing times when you can move on with the progress? So they took to prospecting for gold. They found a claim and staked it, but when they went to record their claim, they were told Indians didn’t qualify. Louise had thought she could file in her name. She didn’t look Indian, not as much as I do, but the recording officer knew she was part Cheyenne and rejected her claim.

  “They went back to where they’d found gold, planning to dig up as much as they could before someone else found the location. The recorder must have tipped someone off, for a week later two men came. They shot the husband and chased Louise away.

  “She fled on horseback, seven months pregnant. Nora was born premature, which might be what left her with a weak heart. My sister got the job cleaning at the Carousel, and she continued to work there until she died two months ago. Stray bullet in a bank robbery, I told you about it. Before it happened, she’d asked me to look after Nora, and I promised her that I would.”

  Even though Jamie rarely betrayed his emotions, Miranda could tell he had loved his mother and sister, just as much as he loved Nora. Apart from the three women who had been his family, it appeared he was alone in the world. Once Nora died, he’d have no one.

  Except her, it occurred to Miranda. Legally, she was his wife. An odd excitement stirred within her at the thought. What would it be, to be married to a man like him? There was danger about him, and a hard, uncompromising edge. And yet she’d discovered there was honor in him, and compassion, and a deep sense of family loyalty.

  Suddenly a comment whispered in her mind, something her mother had once told her and her sisters while talking about finding a husband. A man who spreads his love too thinly will rarely love deeply.

  James Fast Elk Blackburn certainly did not spread his love too thinly. Did that mean he possessed the capacity to love unusually deeply? The thought made Miranda’s heartbeat quicken, made a strange pressure build up in her chest, as if she could not catch her breath.

  “You said your sister asked you to look after Nora,” she commented when Jamie seemed to have run out of words. “You make it sound as if she expected to die.”

  Jamie locked his gaze on the horizon again. “She said a skylark had told her she’d die before Nora. Skylark was her special bird. Her powerful connection with nature. The Cheyenne religion is partly animistic. After Louise went to live on the reservation, she learned about the old beliefs, and she embraced them.”

  “And do you believe in them?” Miranda studied his expression as she asked the question. “Do you believe a hummingbird will come for Nora?”

  She could see a muscle tug in the side of Jamie’s jaw. She knew he wanted to tell her it was nonsense, but something was stopping him. Miranda glanced up at the oranges swinging on the metal wires, and then at the child asleep at the base of the tree. A chill rippled along her skin.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “The air is getting cold. I want to go back.”

  Jamie looked at her from the corner of his eye, then gave a nod and rolled up to his feet. She knew what he was thinking. What they both were thinking. Perhaps neither of them believed, but they were clutching at anything, even the tiniest source of hope. They didn’t want to see a hummingbird. Not yet. Not today.

  * * *

  For the rest of the afternoon, the sky remained clear, building up heat in their small upstairs room at the Carousel. While Nora slept, Jamie helped Miranda hang up more pictures on the wall.

  “Another nail,” he prompted.

  Miranda held out her palm.

  Every time Jamie took a nail, his fingertips grazed her skin. There was a new kind of awareness between them now. It was not just the kiss they had shared, or the distraction of constantly brushing up against each other in the confines of the small room.

  The attraction was beyond the physical. It was the kind of yearning that could flare up between a man and a woman if both of them had a raw spot of grief inside them, if they both longed for someone to help them heal and forget.

  Jamie knew the feeling would grow. It would be at its worst right after they lost Nora and buried her lifeless body in the ground. That’s when he’d have to be at his most alert to resist temptation, to stop himself from doing something that could not be undone.

  “That’s it.” He stood back. The wall was covered now, two more of Miranda’s oil paintings next to Louise’s drawings and pictures cut out of magazines.

  Miranda looked up from where she was arranging her brushes and paints. Her hair was spilling free from its upsweep. Perspiration beaded on her brow. She lifted one arm to wipe her face with the sleeve of the shapeless gown she’d changed into after they returned from their picnic. She looked lovely enough to break a heart of stone, let alone one of a solitary man who was about to lose the only living person he loved.

  Jamie shifted on his feet. “I’ll go and check on the horses.”

  He went out to the livery stable and managed to keep away for almost an hour, until sundown, when the restlessness inside him drew him back into the room. Nora remained asleep, a small, huddled shape beneath the quilt.

  “I’m not going to work tonight,” Miranda said. “I’ll bring up a tray with chicken casserole. Nora will be too weak to eat, but she might take a little of the broth.”

  Jamie waited while Miranda went down to the kitchen and came back with a big tureen that released spicy scents into the air. They propped Nora against the pillows and took turns feeding her. Soon Nora fell asleep again and they had their own supper. It seemed wrong for Jamie to enjoy the food, but it was the best meal he’d had in a long time, tender and succulent and full of flavor.

  “Moses is a good cook,” he remarked.

  “He is a good man,” Miranda replied. “I think he was in love with your sister.”

  Jamie nodded. Instinct had told him the same, even if Louise had never said anything. “I think she loved him, too, but Nora was her world. If Louise had lived, maybe one day something might have come of it...”

  Startled, Jamie listened to the easy cadence of his voice. He didn’t like to talk. In particular, he didn’t like to talk about feelings—not his own or anyone else’s—and here he was now, speculating about his sister’s affections.

  They kept up the quiet talk until Nora awoke again, just as darkness fell, and a dusting of stars appeared in the black expanse of the sky outside the window. Jamie lit the lamps in the wall brackets. Miranda took out the book of poems and read Tennyson verses about a brook.

  “I chatter, chatter, as I flow

  To join the brimming river,

  For men may come and men may go,

  But I go on forever.”

  Jamie watched her as she read, her head bent, lamplight playing in her golden hair. A deep, painful ache rose in his chest. He knew he was falling in love with her. He’d never thought about a woman that way before. He’d turn thirty soon, and vaguely he’d assumed that one day, if he wished for some home comforts, he might marry an Indian girl, or at least one who was part Indian. A woman who didn’t have much to lose by marrying him.

  But now, the domestic scene filled him with a fierce longing. He’d give anything for the right to have a family of his own, the kind of family Miranda would one day have. A good husband, with a position in the community. Neighbors. Extended family, trusted relations who traveled across the continent when called upon, instead of turning their back with a cold, callous rejection the way his grandfather had done.

  He’d have to suffer this strange anxiety for a few more days. Then they’d bury Nora, and he’d put Miranda on the train to Gold Crossing, wherever that might be, and he’d never see her again. Although he couldn’t hope to forget her, in time the memory would fade, and he might achieve some kind of a pale imitation of happiness. Or perhap
s his luck would run out, and an outlaw’s bullet would wipe away all his worries.

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the morning Nora was too weak to dress or eat, but she insisted on inspecting the oranges hanging from the picnic oak, to see if hummingbirds had been feeding on them. Miranda and Jamie bundled her into a quilt and rode out.

  For once, the gusty wind that seemed a permanent fixture of the Wyoming weather had stilled. The mine works were clanking across the valley. The first hint of autumn chill lingered in the air but the sunshine chased it away.

  Jamie dismounted first, picketed the horses and held his arms out for Nora. Miranda passed the child to him and jumped down to the ground, grateful for her tall boots and warm coat. Perhaps they should have waited for the afternoon heat, but Jamie had worried the day would grow overcast.

  They laid Nora down at the base of the tree, where she could lean against the trunk and have a clear view of the oranges hanging from a branch above. Jamie went to inspect the fruit that had dried a little.

  “Something’s been pecking at it.”

  “It’s been. My hummingbird has been.” Nora’s words were faint.

  Miranda tucked the quilt more firmly around the child. “Rest now.”

  Nora closed her eyes. Miranda and Jamie settled to sit on either side of her, shielding the child from the wind with their bodies. Miranda started singing. Her father had liked sea shanties and her mother had liked the opera, Verdi and Mozart and Rossini, and the newcomer Puccini. In her saloon act, Miranda had combined both. She sang Puccini now, her voice lullaby soft.

  “Look! Look! He’s come.”

  Nora’s excited cry made Miranda pause. She looked down at the child. Nora’s eyes were open, her head tipped back. A happy smile lit up her face. Miranda followed the direction of her gaze.

  A tiny bird hovered by one of the orange halves, as if suspended in the air. The wings beat so fast, the eye couldn’t follow the movement. The long beak dipped inside the fruit as the bird drank the nectar. Spellbound, Miranda stared at the bird that glittered like a flying jewel in the sun. Then it flew backward, beat its wings on the spot for a second before darting off into the distance with a purring sound, a bit like a grasshopper makes.

  “She is gone.”

  Miranda heard Jamie’s softly spoken words and turned to look at him. He was bent over Nora, gently closing the child’s eyes.

  “No!” The cry of denial tore from Miranda, even though she had known it would be today—had known since the moment Nora woke up and had been too weak to even take a sip of the honey-sweetened tea.

  “It was her time,” Jamie said.

  Miranda had never known grief could be so powerful. It swelled inside her, forming a relentless pressure that made tears stream from her eyes. It filled her lungs with a harsh cry that wanted to burst out, that wanted to ripple through the air, all the way up into the sky, and demand that God explain why. Why Nora? Why this child?

  Her grief had been nothing like this sharp when her parents died, for then the loss had followed the pattern of nature—that the old should die before the young. Miranda clamped down on the rush of emotion, holding it tight inside.

  Beside her, Jamie had not moved. Miranda took her cue from him and sat still, forcing her body to relax. She resumed her singing, in halting, broken snatches, fighting the sobs, fighting the grief. They remained beneath the tree until midday, when clouds blotted out the sun and the wind grew blustery. The hummingbird never returned.

  At the Carousel, Nordgren informed the customers the saloon would close after lunch and would remain closed until midday the following day. No one complained. In the kitchen, Moses began to sing in his booming voice, the kind of deep, haunting, spiritual hymn he and his fellow slaves had sung to remind each other that God had not forsaken them.

  Eve and Jezebel cleared the bathing room and Jamie and Miranda laid Nora in the coffin with the toys and picture books the child had chosen for her journey. Then they sat down to hold their wake over her. They didn’t speak but Miranda drew comfort from Jamie’s quiet presence.

  Late in the afternoon, a knock sounded on the door. It was one of the ladies from town, a small woman, perhaps thirty, with a purple birthmark the size of a silver dollar on her cheek, a blemish that in medieval times might have gotten her burned at the stake as a witch.

  “I’m Miss Vickery. My brother told me the little girl has passed away. The rose bush in my garden is still in bloom. I thought perhaps you might like some roses for the coffin. I could bring them in later tonight, so they’ll be fresh in the morning.”

  “That is very kind of you.” Miranda stood aside. “Would you like to see her?”

  Miss Vickery advanced into the room, her steps slow and reverent, and paid her respects. After she’d gone, another lady came, and then a husband and wife. All evening, a stream of well-wishers trickled in, the death of a child breaking the barriers of prejudice where all else might have failed.

  * * *

  When the first rays of the sun peeked over the hillside, they carried the coffin to the small cemetery beside the church. Miranda wore her riding outfit. Eve and Jezebel wore brightly colored silk gowns, fringed shawls covering the low necklines. The fabrics glimmered in the sun like the feathers on a hummingbird.

  As they walked along the street, people stood on their front porches, men with their hats in their hands, women with their fingers laced in prayer. Respecting their privacy, no one joined the procession.

  At the cemetery, Miranda lifted from the coffin the rose wreath Miss Vickery had prepared and held it while Moses and Jamie lowered Nora to her final resting place. They took turns tossing sprays of earth over the coffin, and then Moses picked up his shovel and filled the grave while the rest of them watched. When the earth was closed up, Miranda laid the wreath of roses over the small mound and read out an excerpt of the Tennyson poem that had brought her to Nora.

  “Yet all things must die.

  The stream will cease to flow;

  The wind will cease to blow;

  The clouds will cease to fleet;

  The heart will cease to beat;

  For all things must die.

  All things must die.”

  After she had finished, Moses sang one of his spiritual songs, a haunting lament about the end of earthly toils and eternal joy in the Kingdom of God. Once the final notes had faded away, they turned around in silence and walked back to the Carousel. Miranda leaned on Jamie’s arm, relying on his strength, the way she had warned him she would need to do.

  At the Carousel, Jamie led Miranda upstairs. She felt cold, so terribly cold. Her body was shivering, her teeth chattering. When they got to their room, she halted in the middle, between the two narrow beds, her mind completely blank.

  “Take off your coat,” Jamie prompted.

  She frowned, unable to comprehend the simple words, unable to move.

  “Your deerskin coat. Take it off and get into bed. You look exhausted.”

  When she didn’t react, Jamie unbuttoned her coat and slid it down her shoulders, talking softly as he eased her arms out of the sleeves. “You’ve been up since yesterday morning. I’m used to going without sleep, but you’re not. You are just about ready to collapse on your feet.”

  “I’m cold.”

  “I’ll warm you up.”

  Jamie tossed her leather coat on Nora’s bed. He curled his hands over her arms and rubbed her skin through her cotton shirt, trying to get her warm. “Your hands are like blocks of ice.” He took one of her hands in both of his, blew warm air into her palm and massaged her fingers, then did the same with her other hand, but it didn’t help.

  “I’m cold,” Miranda whispered, her body rigid. “Why is it so cold?”

  “It will be all right. I’ll go and get you some hot tea.”


  “Nora likes it with honey to sweeten the taste.”

  “Nora’s gone, sweetheart. She’s gone.” Jamie put his hands on her shoulders, peered into her eyes, frowning. “Do you understand? Nora is gone.”

  She stared at Jamie, saw the black hair and bronzed skin and straight nose and sharp angle of his cheekbones. She’d never really paid attention to it before, but she could see a hint of family resemblance between him and Nora now.

  “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  And then the tears came. Great, racking sobs rose in her chest, as if each sound was tearing a piece out of her. Her body trembled. Her hands rose to fist in the front of Jamie’s shirt. He bundled her against his chest and held her close. His warmth flowed into her, finally thawing that frozen feeling inside.

  On and on she went, her breath flowing in jerky gasps, her sobs growing into angry wails as she struggled to accept her loss, struggled not to resent God for taking Nora away.

  Jamie held her tight. At first, he tried to console her with murmured words, but when she ignored him and just kept on crying, he merely held her, his arms wrapped around her, his body warm and strong against hers. Little by little, exhaustion overcame grief, and Miranda’s crying subsided to muted sobs.

  Jamie withdrew his arms from around her and settled her on the bed. “Let’s get you under the covers.” He lifted the patchwork quilt and bundled her beneath.

  Miranda obeyed, as docile as a child. Her mind was empty. It felt as if all her thoughts had focused on a list of tasks to accomplish for Nora. Now that she had come to the end of the list, her mind had shut down, unable to figure out what should come next.

  Beneath the covers, the cold invaded her again. Her teeth clicked together. Her body trembled. “Hold me,” she said. “Hold me, so I’ll be warm.”

  Jamie hesitated, rocking on the balls of his feet. Then he climbed in beside her. He eased past her, settling his back against the wall, and fitted her into the curve of his body, her back against his chest, his arm across her waist, anchoring her in place.