On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch

by Shelter Somerset

  By midsummer, Tory’s enthusiasm for Franklin’s letters failed to wane. But they seemed to slow in frequency. Exactly two weeks had passed since he’d last received a response. There hadn’t been such a long gap in their correspondence since Franklin’s run-in with Henri Bilodeaux. One day while free from chores, Tory waited for Mr. Persson on the front stoop, eager to see if Franklin had sent another letter.

  When Mr. Persson arrived that day, the postman said with a taut smile that he carried no letters for Tory. The next day, and the next, were more of the same. The following week, again, no correspondence. At one point, Postman Persson grew gruff with Tory. With a glower and a grizzled voice, he informed Tory that he should wait for the letters in the door slot, followed by the cord chime, and to stop bothering him.

  Days turned into weeks. August passed. Tory worried something awful might have happened to Franklin. Had the wretched Henri Bilodeaux raided his homestead and harmed Franklin in some way? How could Tory find out what had happened?

  He was the first to race to the door whenever he heard Mr. Persson ring the cord, often brushing past his mother along the way. But no letter from Franklin came. By the second week of September, there was still no letter. Tory wracked his brain with worry and grief. Perhaps Franklin had grown tired of Tory’s overly faithful writing or found a more likeable correspondent?

  Surely others must have responded to Franklin’s advertisement in Matrimonial News. Some small-town tart like Clair Schuster. Maybe Franklin’s rejecting him was for the best. What had Tory to give him? Tory had misrepresented himself the entire time. He hung his head in shame and dejection.

  But finally, Tory was unable to keep from pestering Mr. Persson. He approached the postman as he limped his way down Chicago Avenue, his canvas sack by his side. Tory took care to slow his pace so as not to appear frenzied like in previous weeks.

  “Mr. Persson, may I ask you a question?”

  “Yes, of course, Torsten.” The postman retained a guarded voice.

  “I’ve been getting letters, or at least I had, on a regular basis. You know because I have bothered you so much for them. But suddenly those letters have stopped coming. I’m surprised I haven’t received any recently. Do you know anything about them? They are postmarked from Dakota Territory with the sender Franklin Ausmus.”

  Mr. Persson’s face went white.

  Tory knitted his eyebrows. “Tell me,” he insisted. “What do you know about them?”

  “I don’t know anything,” Mr. Persson said. But Tory detected a slight twitch in the postman’s upper lip.

  “Please, Mr. Persson. If you know what’s happened, tell me.”

  Mr. Persson avoided Tory’s gaze. Red streaks broke out along his neck and cheeks. “Your father insisted I burn any letter addressed to you from the Dakota Territory,” he said in a rush, as if to get it out once and for all. “I’m sorry, Torsten. He gave me no choice. He was adamant. Said it was in your best interest.”

  Tory could barely form the indignant words that ricocheted inside his head. “You… you burned… Franklin’s letters?”

  “I’m sorry, Torsten. I truly am.”

  “You… you had no right. It’s… it’s against the law.”

  “I really do apologize. I did try to change your father’s mind, but he insisted.”

  Tears boiled in Tory’s eyes. “How many were there? How many did you destroy?”

  The postman appeared flustered. He glanced toward the whitewashed sky from under his cap. “I… I don’t know. I guess maybe four, five. I can’t recall.”

  The street swayed. Tory hated everything and everyone on Chicago Avenue.

  “Please don’t say anything, Torsten,” the postman said. “If the postal service finds out about this, I’ll lose my job. Please don’t tell them. I’m a veteran.”

  Tory glared at Mr. Persson. “Franklin’s a veteran too.” He scurried off to the bakery next to the house. Once inside, he shouted for his father. The new counter girl reported that he had gone in the house for a short rest.

  When he failed to find his father inside the house, he shut himself in his bedroom and composed Franklin a brief letter, explaining why he had failed to reply in such a long time. The poor man must think Tory had rejected him. And yet Tory had thought Franklin had done the rejecting. Pencil clamped in hand, he nearly tore the paper while he scribbled an apology. With the letter sealed in an envelope and clenched in his fingers, he raced downstairs. Mr. Pilkvist, his face twisted, waited for him at the bottom.

  Tory slowed. Inhaling, he descended the last few steps like a watchful fox, his hand loose on the handrail.

  “What is this shouting, Torsten? I hear you near all the way to the mercantile.”

  The anger, like a steam engine, pressurized inside Torsten. “You had the postman discard my personal letters,” he spewed at his father. “Why, Pappa? Why?”

  “I do not like the tone you take, Torsten.”

  “Never mind my tone, Pappa. Why did you do it? Please, tell me. Why?”

  “I not like you writing that person, whoever he is. Silly skräp, writing to strangers in far-off lands. There are more important things to do. You waste time and energy with such nonsense.”

  “It’s my personal business. You had no right to interfere.”

  “I have the right to do as I see just in my own home,” Mr. Pilkvist sputtered back. “I have a business here. I look after our welfare. First your silly nonsense with that boarder Joseph, and now—”

  “Don’t mention Joseph’s name like that, Pappa. He wasn’t just a boarder. You know nothing about him.”

  His father’s eyes widened. “What is that in your hand?”

  Tory’s heart stopped. Before he could conceal the letter he had written Franklin behind his back, his father snatched it from him.

  “No!” Tory grabbed for it, but Mr. Pilkvist held him back. “Please, Pappa,” he shouted. “Give it to me. You have no right to read my private letters.”

  Mr. Pilkvist pivoted his shoulder, blocking the letter from Tory’s reach while he tore open the envelope. Tory had no choice but to stand by and watch his father read. The farther his father’s eyes traveled down the page, the redder his face became. Mr. Pilkvist’s eyes narrowed into black dots, angry tears glassing over his blue irises. Grunting, he tore the letter into pieces and balled the scraps into a tight fist, which he shook at Tory.

  “Why do you write this to some cowboy? Tell me now. Why do you write this?”

  “He’s not a cowboy.”

  Tory’s mother shuffled into the entrance foyer, but she refrained from nearing them. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyes darting from Tory to her husband.

  “Nothing to concern you, Anna. This is between me and my son.”

  “But you speak so loudly.”

  “We are done here. It is all over with, once and for all.” His father unleashed a barrage of Swedish expletives. In English, he said, “I will take this skräp to the incinerator where it belongs.” He flexed his fist in Tory’s flaming face. “And you, Tory, you no longer write such nonsense, understand? As of now, we put this behind us and get back to business. Right now, I need you in the bakery to help. Get your head out of the clouds and come with me. Come with me now!”

  “No, Pappa. I won’t. I won’t come with you ever again.”

  “Torsten!” His mother scurried to the steps and reached for him, but he slipped from her slender fingers as he turned to dash back upstairs.

  In his bedroom, Tory grabbed for his satchel. He tossed in whatever clothes fit without concern for wrinkles or snags. Through reddened eyes, he noticed his mother standing by the threshold.

  “What are you doing, Torsten? Why are you packing?”

  “I’m leaving, Mamma. I’m a man now. I’ll be twenty next year. I can make my own way. I don’t need either one of you anymore.” He dug inside drawers, dressers, closets, throwing in anything he might need that would fit—socks, slippers, cologne box, comb.

&
nbsp; He stopped long enough to fling his mother a steaming glower. “You’re the one who told him about the letters, aren’t you? Those two you intercepted. You told him about them.”

  “Tory, I only think of your best interest. You’re my son—”

  He rooted through his desk drawer for his tablets and pencils. And for Franklin’s letters. He dug and dug. “Where are my letters from Franklin? I had many more in my drawer. Did you take them too? Did you?”

  “No, Torsten. I not do that.” Her cheeks colored a deep red.

  “You’re lying.”

  “Torsten—”

  Tears blurred Tory’s vision. “Why, Mamma? Why did you take them?”

  She remained quiet, shaking. “I… I had to, Torsten,” she finally said with a quavering voice. “When your father found out about the letters from that cowboy, I assumed you had more hidden away, so I find them before he do. I was trying to help you. I didn’t read them. I didn’t.”

  “Where are they?” Tory demanded.

  Mrs. Pilkvist lowered her head. “I put them in the incinerator.”

  Red-hot flames flashed before Tory’s eyes. “How dare you rummage through my things and destroy them.”

  Tory’s father stood behind his wife, a grim look on his round face. “You do not use such insolent voice to your mamma, Tory. She do what is right. Like what I do with that book of poems that are filled with nonsense. Like what I will do with this letter.” He raised his fist, where the torn bits from the letter Tory had written still protruded between his clenched fingers.

  Chewing on the anger that burned his lips, Tory snapped his bag shut and put on his derby. “I’ll never forgive either one of you for what you’ve done.” With a cursory kiss on his mother’s tear-moistened cheek, he nudged past them and fled downstairs.

  “But where will you go?” his mother called after him through the balustrade. “What about us here? The business?” She pulled on her wetted face. “My children have all gone. They have all deserted me.”

  Tory stopped by the front door and scowled at his mother. “I’m sorry, Mamma, but I can no longer live in this house. Not after everything that’s happened. If neither of you can respect my life, then I’ll find a place where others will.”

  And with those words, Tory slammed the door shut behind him and was gone.

  Chapter 10

  THE Chicago and North-Western railcar rumbled along the tracks past the suburbs of Batavia and Dekalb. As the train left the sprawl of the city, the prairie opened like Lake Michigan to the east, empty and large, with sporadic dots of life. Farms and tiny balloon-framed houses scattered along the tracks. Small children raced along the train and gestured wildly. Some sat in trees and waved from branches. The engineer blasted the air horn. Gray smoke blew past the window from which Tory gazed out.

  Immediately after rushing from home, he had drained his bank account of his last four hundred dollars and headed to the railroad depot on Wells Street. The thirty-five-dollar one-way fare to Omaha included supper.

  In Omaha, he’d purchase another one-way ticket on the Union Pacific to Cheyenne City and then go onward to Deadwood via stagecoach, the way Franklin had mentioned people traveled to the Black Hills. Tory had never journeyed a long distance on a stagecoach, but he worried little about his discomfort. His only aim—to get away from his parents and Chicago, and to reach Franklin Ausmus.

  He had no plans once he found Franklin. Yet he was driven to go to him. Even if he must remain clandestine. At the moment, Franklin Ausmus stood as the only person on earth with whom he felt a genuine and vital connection. In his mind, no other human being existed beyond him.

  Staring out the window as the prairie grew wider, he imagined his mother wailing into her hands. His father certainly still fumed with resentment at Tory’s abrupt departure. Mr. Pilkvist, always expecting Tory would remain at the bakery and master the trade, was probably beside himself with both anger and grief.

  “I had to leave, Pappa, I had to,” Tory whispered into the window, although even to his ears the words sounded like tin cans dropped on the thin red carpet of the coach car.

  He had already told them once how he wanted to explore the country. He came from the new world, not the old, and no one could hold him back from satisfying his dreams. His real reason for leaving: to see a man whom he’d contacted via a matchmaker periodical. His venture might horrify his parents and his fellow passengers, but to Tory, westward expansion thrived solely for one purpose: so that he could meet his beloved.

  He had left the stuffed bear Joseph van Werckhoven had given him on his bed. Tucked between his feather pillows, the bear, safe and sound from the perils of western travel, represented another life for him. A new world of unusual landscapes and realities awaited him in the far-flung distance, a mere train ride away—a world he’d only read about in newspapers and dime novels. A world inhabited by Franklin Ausmus. A man, in actuality, no more real to him than the romantic and fearless characters in the stories he’d read.

  If he had one thing to dread, it was the uncertainty of whether Franklin would live up to his letters. Would Tory find a fragile, unkempt wild man living in the backcountry, unworthy of human companionship? Yet if anyone should be charged with misrepresentation, it should be Tory. Franklin knew “Torsten P.” as an idealistic young female with a heart yearning for romance and adventure. If Franklin had misrepresented himself to Tory, then Tory deserved likewise.

  The conductor patrolled the car, announcing the next stop. Tory craned his neck to get a better look. There was barely a town at all. The open landscape appeared so different from his North Side neighborhood. Apprehension gripped him. Should he debark and return to Chicago on the next eastbound train? Suddenly the romantic adventure he’d planned loomed menacing and uncertain now that Chicago was solidly behind him.

  With a squaring of his shoulders, he closed his eyes and inhaled, imagining Franklin Ausmus at his cabin nestled among the mountains and high granite walls, the way he’d described it in his letters. What else might Franklin have revealed to him when Postman Persson had begun burning his letters? He opened his eyes. What right had anyone to interfere with his life? Postman Persson, his mother, his father. They had all conspired against him. He was glad he had left them behind.

  While the other passengers debarked and new ones boarded, Tory took out his tablet and pencil and composed another letter to Franklin to replace the one his father had destroyed. He needed Franklin to understand that he had not rejected him. Anger for what his father had done coalesced into his fingers, and the lead point tore into the paper. Using a fresh sheet, he started again, but this time he hesitated. What good would it do to write him? His letter would only create more confusion for Franklin. He balled up the paper, tossed it into a receptacle in the vestibule, and headed for the dining car.

  Glancing around, he saw no available seats. One middle-aged, well-dressed man sitting alone at a table must have noticed Tory’s lost expression. He gestured for Tory to join him. Edging forward, Tory sat opposite the grinning man. They introduced themselves. The businessman, Abel Hendricks from Muskegon, Michigan, was traveling to Omaha to acquire lumber accounts.

  “It’s the place to be in my line of business,” Mr. Hendricks said. Smoke from his cigar hovered above their heads. “They don’t have much lumber out there, so we have to ship it to them. I’m hoping to stay ahead of the ball. Where are you going, Mr. Pilkvist?”

  Tory hesitated. “I’m traveling to… to the Black Hills.”

  “Do you have business there?”

  “No.”

  Mr. Hendricks laughed, his broad shoulders shaking like the cinched curtains on their window as the train passed a rock quarry. “Go west, young man. Isn’t that what everyone says these days? Or is it already a cliché?”

  Tory flushed and shrugged.

  “Are you searching for gold?” Mr. Hendricks asked with a playful air.

  Tory chuckled and shook his head. “I’m going for personal reasons
.”

  A waiter took their order. After he left, Mr. Hendricks put a finger to his goatee. “Perhaps I should consider traveling to the Black Hills someday,” he said. “I might be able to start a lumber company. I hear there’s plenty of lumber there.”

  “I’ve never been, but I hear it’s beautiful.”

  “Are you originally from Chicago?”

  “Yes, born and raised.”

  “I grew up on a farm in Indiana,” Mr. Hendricks went on. “I often miss the open country. But I couldn’t possibly earn the kind of money I make now toiling the soil the way my family had. Poor Father worked himself into an early grave, and with very little to show for it. Of course, droughts were to blame for most of it.”

  A smile tickled Tory’s face as Mr. Hendricks rambled on about one topic after another. He was glad when the waiter served their supper to break up the string of endless sentences. Tory ate his quail and string beans while Mr. Hendricks continued to chat about the developing prairie and how the trains had carried unimaginable industry and people to places no one had ever conceived of living. Tory allowed the food to warm him. Dabbing at his mouth, he peered out the window. They were crossing a wide, twisting river. Mr. Hendricks must have noticed his dazzled expression, for he suddenly ceased speaking.

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” he said after a moment, chuckling. “Each time I pass over it I’m always impressed. The lifeline of America.”

  “Is it really the Mississippi?”

  “None other.”

  “I never expected it to be so broad.” Tory’s nose was near flat against the glass. The river wound to the horizon like a colossal bronze ribbon. A few hundred yards from the bridge, a riverboat churned upriver.

  “Nothing like the picture books, hmm?” the man said.

  “No, it certainly isn’t.”