The Bride Lottery

by Tatiana March

  “That’s awful. Did it hurt terribly?”

  “I don’t remember it hurting, but I remember being furious because I was stuck. It took me a while to wrench the piece of timber loose. By the time I got my hand free, the other boy had run off and I had no prospect of catching him.”

  “Does the scar bother you?”

  Jamie held his hand in front of him, curled and uncurled his fingers. “Not normally. I was lucky. The nail went between the bones and tendons. The wound healed in no time. I never think about it, except...”

  He fell silent. To his surprise, Miranda didn’t prompt him. It seemed as though she realized it was something he struggled with in his own mind, and she wanted to give him the freedom to talk about it or to keep his thoughts private.

  “After Louise went to live on the reservation, she became a great believer in the Indian superstitions. According to her, the scar holds my fate. One day, it will change the course of my life.” Jamie sent Miranda a tense smile across the flickering firelight. “It’s nonsense, of course.”

  “Do you miss your sister?” Miranda asked softly. “Do you mind not being able to visit her grave, or Nora’s grave?”

  The tension in Jamie grew. He didn’t talk about his emotions, let alone admit to weakness. And yet somehow, the words tumbled out. “Of course I miss them. For years, providing for them was my purpose in life. But I have no need to visit their graves. Their spirits are not there. They are all around us. Every time I see a skylark, I’ll think of Louise. Every time I see a hummingbird, I’ll think of Nora.”

  As Jamie fell silent, it occurred to him that what he had just explained about the spirits of his sister and his niece contradicted his claim that he regarded Indian superstitions as nothing but nonsense.

  Miranda didn’t probe further, and Jamie pushed the prediction about his scar out of his mind. But that night he had the dream again. It came perhaps three or four times a year, usually right after he’d been in a gunfight.

  In the dream, he was holding a gun aimed at an outlaw. When he tried to pull the trigger, his fingers refused to work. One by one, he heard the small bones in his hand snap. His hand broke apart, like something made of clay, and the fragments rained down to his feet.

  In the dream, he only had the one gun, and when his hand was no longer there, the gun fell to the ground, leaving him to face the outlaw unarmed. He always woke up before the outlaw shot him. He wondered what might happen if he remained asleep. Did dreams have the power to kill? He wasn’t familiar enough with Indian legends to know the answer.

  * * *

  It took Miranda a while to realize the white blobs on the horizon were covered wagons. There were two of them, and ahead of them she could see a heavy open wagon, filled with barrels and crates, drawn by a string of mules.

  They were half a mile away when gunshots cracked through the air. The team of mules burst into a run. The wagon filled with barrels and crates hurtled to the riverbank, where a ferryboat stood waiting. A pair of men jumped down from the wagon and drove the mules onto the ferry, forcing the animals into a tight group to allow room for the wagon.

  The ferry, drawn by a steel cable, set in motion and inched across the wide expanse of the river. On the other side, the mules jumped off. The harnesses pulled tight and the wagon rolled off on its way. The ferry remained moored to the riverbank.

  When Miranda and Jamie reached the pair of covered wagons, they found a woman and three men standing in a cluster, yelling at each other. The woman, a heavily built brunette dressed in a mud-brown gown, a gunbelt strapped around her waist, was hurling insults at the men. Her eyes narrowed as they settled on Jamie in his long duster.

  “You a gunfighter?” she demanded to know.

  “Could be,” Jamie replied.

  The woman pointed across the river. “Two outlaws stole my whiskey wagon. A hundred dollars if you retrieve it.”

  Jamie jumped down from Sirius. “How much whiskey?”

  “Ten barrels. Twenty crates of French champagne, too.”

  Miranda sat on Alfie and watched Jamie lift the saddlebags from his horse and set them down on the ground. By the time she had dismounted and gained her footing on stiff legs, Jamie had already unsaddled Sirius, unhooked his gunbelt and was wrapping it into an oilcloth pouch.

  “We don’t need the money,” she told him.

  He glanced over at her and spoke quietly. “If my guess is right, much of that whiskey will make its way to the Indian reservations. If it does, it will rob Indians of what little money and dignity they have left. I won’t let it happen.”

  He took off his long duster and the buckskin coat beneath, but kept on his shirt and denim trousers, and the boots that never seemed to leave his feet. He vaulted on Sirius again, bareback. Holding the oilcloth pouch that contained his gunbelt high above his head, he rode down to the riverbank and urged the horse into the stream.

  “When you get to the other side, untie the ferryman,” the feisty brunette shouted after him.

  Miranda hurried to the edge of the water, leading Alfie by the reins. The current whirled and foamed around Sirius and Jamie as they eased into the stream. The water rose up to Jamie’s boots. Then up to his thighs. Then higher still. Sirius began to swim, his neck craning out of the water, his powerful body moving in a steady rhythm.

  When they reached the opposite bank, the horse scrambled up to dry ground. Jamie jumped down from the saddle, took his gunbelt from the oilskin pouch, tied it around his hips and hopped onto the ferry. Miranda saw him bend to a man trussed up in ropes. A blade flashed in the sun, and an instant later Jamie jumped back to dry land, vaulted on Sirius and took off, crouched low over the horse, his speed making a mockery of Miranda’s claim that she could ride faster than him.

  Her eyes followed the horse and bareback rider until they shrank to a speck in the distance. It felt as if a cord attached to her heart was stretching tighter and tighter. She could barely breathe. When Jamie finally vanished out of her sights, the world seemed empty and cold and full of shadows.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The brunette came to stand alongside Miranda and waved at the ferryman across the river. Freed from his ropes, the ferryman got to his feet and rubbed his wrists to get the blood circulating. A few seconds later, he went to work with the steel cable and the ferry set off toward them, fighting the current.

  “What’s he called, the gunfighter?” the brunette asked.

  “Jamie Blackburn,” Miranda replied. “He’s my husband.”

  “A married gunfighter?”

  Miranda nodded, her gaze strained into the distance where Jamie had vanished.

  “Well, Mrs. Blackburn, I’m Stella Stevens.” The woman turned and pointed at each of the three men in turn. “And these no-good pieces of human junk are my brothers. Stan, Simon and Seth.”

  Miranda glanced over. She could see the family resemblance. Dark hair and sallow skin. Small eyes and prominent brows, in faces that were almost as wide as they were long. On Stella, the looks gave an air of shrewd cunning. On the men the impact was the opposite, a primitive, simian appearance that suggested lack of intelligence.

  The men were all dressed the same, battered bowler hats and dark wool trousers and ill-fitting suit coats over faded shirts that might have once been blue. Miranda made no attempt to guess which was Stan or Simon or Seth. They all seemed around the same age, middle thirties. Stella looked over forty, clearly the eldest and used to giving orders.

  Stella clapped her hands. “You can come out now, girls.”

  Before Miranda’s astonished eyes, a girl jumped out from one of the wagons. Then another. And another. And another. Four girls. The sight brought back memories of how the little Summerton girls had emerged from their stranded carriage in Boston.

  However, Miranda hoped those little girls wouldn’t grow
up to join the profession of these ones, for it was easy to recognize them as saloon girls. All four were dressed in high-heeled slippers and low-cut satin gowns, identical except for the color.

  “This is Scarlet,” Stella said. “And this is Olive. Violet. Sandy.”

  Bright red dress. Muted green dress. Violet dress. Light brown dress.

  Stella beamed like a proud mother hen. “I reckon men might forget which girl is which, but they’ll remember by the color of their dresses. These are my Color Girls, for my saloon in Gold Hill. The best watering hole in all of Utah, it will be.”

  “If we get the whiskey back,” one of the men muttered.

  “And if we don’t, I’ll take it out of your hide,” Stella shot back. “You were supposed to guard the shipment.” She spat on the ground. “Cowards, the lot of you. I’m glad Pa isn’t alive to see what kind of lily-livered chickens you’ve turned into.”

  “Should’ve taken the train to Salt Lake City,” another one of the brothers mumbled.

  Stella gave an angry flap of her hand. “You know we can’t take the train. I owe money to the Rio Grande railroad company. They might impound the goods.”

  While they’d been talking, the ferry had made its way across the river. Stella sprang into action. Gathering her mud-brown skirts, she climbed onto the bench of one the wagons—not the one the girls had emerged from, but the other one. She twisted around to shout inside.

  “Time to come out, gentlemen.”

  Two men scrambled down, one tall and thin, the other short and even thinner. Unlike most men in the West, neither wore a hat. It might be out of vanity, Miranda decided, for both had glossy black curls, long enough to pull into ringlets—the most attractive feature in their appearance, for their faces were bony, with beaked noses and receding chins.

  The tall man, in his fifties, gave a courtly bow, one hand sweeping the air, the other hand pressed to his chest. “Jobai, Laszlo. Master musician, at your service.”

  The short man, around twenty, cradled a violin case in his arms like one might hold a cherished child. The older man prodded him in the side. The younger man slanted an alarmed glance at him, then gathered himself and bowed with the same flair. “Jobai, Istvan.”

  Stella cracked the reins. The mules set into motion. “Do you want to take the first crossing or the second, Mrs. Blackburn?” Stella called out. “We’ll have to cross in two lots.”

  “First crossing,” Miranda shouted back. The other side was where Jamie was. It might only be fifty yards closer to him, but it was an important fifty yards.

  * * *

  Trusting Seth and Stan and Simon to look after the pack mules, Miranda guided Alfie into the narrow space left free behind Stella’s wagon. The Color Girls had already hopped aboard. The ferryman, a compact individual who moved with short, jerky steps, probably from years of having to take care not to trip over the edge, detached the ramp and they set off.

  Halfway across the stream, the current seized the primitive vessel, sending it into a swirl. The steel cable overhead sprang taut. “Grab hold of the cable!” the ferryman yelled. “Help me stabilize the craft.”

  Miranda reached up. The steel line, tight as a bow, cut into her palms. The ferry spun and jerked, fighting the current. The girl in a scarlet dress toppled over and rolled along the bottom of the vessel, her red silk skirts flaring out like a bullfighter’s cloth.

  Alfie gave a frightened whinny. The timbers shook as the Appaloosa reared up and slammed down again. His heavy flank hit Miranda in the shoulder, knocking her off balance. Instinctively, her hands tightened around the steel cable. As she clung on, the ferry went into another spin and fell away from beneath her feet, leaving her dangling on the cable.

  Terrified, Miranda fought to get back on board. Swinging her body, transferring her grip along the cable, she chased the vessel as it pulled away. Cold sweat rose on her skin, making her hands damp. She could feel a snag in the steel wire cutting into her palm. Blood trickled from the wound, warm and slippery, mixing with the sweat.

  Her hold grew precarious...slipping...slipping...

  She lost her grip and plummeted down to the water, the momentum of her fall plunging her beneath the surface. Cold darkness closed around her. She held her breath as the torrent seized and spun her, pulling her into the icy depths.

  Legs kicking, arms thrashing, Miranda battled the rushing water, upward, upward. Her lungs strained. Blood pounded at her temples. She broke through to the surface, sucked in gulps of air. She was floating, the current carrying her downstream, the ferry already ten yards away...twenty...thirty...

  Her deerskin coat weighed her down. Water filled her boots. Miranda tried to reach down to her legs and pull off the boots, but the current seized her and spun her again, sucking her back down into the icy darkness.

  Forget the clothes. Miranda filled her lungs to help her float and started swimming, each stroke taking her closer to the shore as she drifted downstream. Ahead of her, the river narrowed, the banks rising into sheer walls of rock. If she didn’t reach the shore soon, she might never be able to climb out.

  With every ounce of her strength, Miranda swam, arms churning, legs kicking, lungs heaving. The muddy bank drew closer. Five yards. Four. Three. Two. No trees, no boulders, no protruding roots, nothing to grip, nothing she could use to haul herself out of the water. With a desperate lurch, Miranda buried her fingers into the mud and clung there, battling the force of the current.

  The strain on her muscles easing, she summoned the last of her strength and managed to flip onto her side and roll out of the water. Panting, she sprawled on the muddy slope, her feet still in the current, the stream gushing over her boots.

  For several minutes, Miranda lay there, letting relief slide over her. Then she realized the river had not released its hold on her yet. The mud beneath her was eroding away. She was slipping backward, the water already lapping at her hips. Exhausted, her entire body shaking, Miranda teetered up to her hands and knees and clawed her way up the bank.

  “Jamie,” she whispered as she knelt on the grass, weighed down by a mix of terror and relief and exhaustion. She found the strength to lift her head and stare ahead, along the trail where the bareback rider had disappeared, chasing the whiskey wagon. She could see no horse, no rider, no sign of him. Just the river snaking its way across the rugged landscape.

  * * *

  Jamie drove the mule wagon back down the trail, Sirius trotting behind. Ahead, one of the covered wagons and Miranda’s gray Appaloosa had already crossed the river. The ferry, loaded with the second wagon and the pack mules, was docking at the shore.

  “Jamie! Jamie!”

  He saw Miranda hurtle along the bank toward him. She was covered in mud, her hair in a tangle. With every step, water sloshed from her boots. Jamie halted the mule team, set the brake and climbed down. Miranda threw herself against him, her arms sliding around his neck in a wet, muddy embrace.

  “Oh, Jamie.” The words came on a sob.

  “What happened?” He hugged her tight. “Did you take a tumble when you got off the ferry?”

  “I fell into the river. I had to swim. Look. Look.” She drew apart from him and held out her hands. Her palms were scratched, with a bleeding cut on one of them. “I tried to hang from the steel cable but I lost my grip. I thought I was going to drown.”

  The ferry had finished unloading and the others hurried up, crowding around them. “Did you kill the thieves?” the woman asked.

  “No,” Jamie replied, his attention on Miranda’s palms. “I nicked one of them in the arm and they ran off.”

  “We heard gunshots,” one of the men said.

  Jamie shifted his shoulders in dismissal. “They were new to the business of thieving. Panicked and wasted a lot of ammunition.” He glanced up. “Can someone get me a drop of whiskey?”

 
One of the men produced a metal hip flask from his pocket. Jamie took it, pulled his shirt free from his trousers, unscrewed the flask and dampened the hem. Gently, he patted Miranda’s palms clean with the whiskey-soaked fabric. “It’s only a scratch,” he said. “It won’t bleed much, but it might hurt to grip things for a day or two.”

  Behind them, a muffled explosion and the tinkle of shattering glass disturbed the quiet. The woman in a mud-brown skirt swore.

  “Sorry,” Jamie said. “The champagne got shook up when they raced off with the wagon. The bottles are breaking and popping open.”

  “Don’t move the wagon,” the woman yelled at the man who had climbed up to the bench and gathered the lines. “Get a couple of buckets,” she ordered the gaggle of girls in brightly colored gowns. “We’ll save what we can from the broken bottles. We’ll have ourselves a party tonight.”

  She turned back to Jamie and Miranda. “Can you stay? We have a side of beef to cook. It doesn’t exactly go with champagne, but I can promise you music and merriment.”

  Jamie glanced up into the sky. The sun was sinking, the light fading, the air getting cool. Beside him, he could feel Miranda shivering. He wrapped one arm around her, pulled her close to his side and held the slim flask of whiskey out to her.

  “Drink,” he told her. “It will stop you from getting a chill.” He watched as Miranda tipped her head back and took a deep gulp. Her face puckered with distaste. A ripple traveled down the length of her.

  “I think champagne might be just what my wife needs,” Jamie said to the strangers. He gestured at the edge of the forest about a hundred yards back from the river. “If you collect some firewood and build a fire, we can forget about the hundred dollars. As long as you help me get my wife warm and dry.”