Sally Mae and the few other girls loved Laurel in spite of their jealousy. As Sally Mae told her brother Mark, who was one of Laurel’s most faithful admirers, “It’d be different if she was flirty or stuckup. She’s just nice to everyone.”
The only real flaw in Laurel’s world except for running away from her beloved Red Cedars was the weight of deceiving Adam. It pricked at her like an imbedded splinter. Soon, she often promised herself, but days and then weeks passed and she still had not confessed to Adam and asked his forgiveness.
During that time the respect and attraction that had lighted a tiny fire in her heart grew into the steady flame of love. Although Adam could not suspect it, he had no rivals for Laurel, alias Ivy Ann. She also saw in his eyes when she caught his gaze in unguarded moments a growing feeling and she thanked God for it.
Widow Terry’s business took a surprising jump after Laurel signed on as her apprentice. “You’re my best advertisement,” Mrs. Terry told the young woman. She eyed the tiny frills around the high neck and long sleeves of Laurel’s work gown.
Laurel laughed. “Back home we—I learned to make the best of what we had and make sure I took care of it! New gowns can’t compete with the need for new tools, seed, and all the things that wear out on a big farm.” She industriously leaned closer to the window to catch a final gleam of daylight. The soft glow of lamplight didn’t offer adequate light for the tiny stitches necessary to finish Mrs. Hardwick’s new Sunday dress, a dark blue gown with fine tucks and a wisp of braid on the collar.
“Ivy Ann?”
Something in Mrs. Terry’s voice stilled the flying fingers. “Yes?” She felt guilty answering to the name she’d never claimed.
Dull red suffused the gaunt face. “I don’t want to pry but hasn’t Dan Sharpe been around an awful lot lately?” She rushed on, obviously eager not to offend. “Some of the other boys come too, but….”
Laurel sighed. “I can’t very well ask Dan not to drop by. I avoid him when I can and turn down twice as many of his invitations as I accept.” She impatiently shook her head until a light brown curl escaped its mooring and hung over her forehead, making her look like a troubled little girl.
“I know, child.” Mrs. Terry took up the child’s dress she had cut out earlier then folded it and put it away. “Tomorrow’s time enough for this.” Her sigh matched Laurel’s and her kind face seemed strange without her quick smile. “I guess as long as you aren’t spoken for the boys won’t leave you alone.”
Laurel felt warmth steal into her cheeks. She bent her head, wishing she could confide in her new friend but rejecting the idea immediately. Not until she settled things with Adam could she tell anyone else. She pretended far more interest in setting the final stitches in the gown than she felt. “There! Dear Mrs. Hardwick will get a lot of service out of this dress and I know she’ll look nice in it.”
The keen-eyed dressmaker took the garment from Laurel and examined every seam and the set of the sleeves. “If I’d known what a good apprentice I’d get, why, I reckon I’d have sent back to West Virginia for you long ago!” She smiled roguishly. “But I s’pose a handsome young doctor is a better reason to come West than an old lady like me.”
“You aren’t old and I love you.” Laurel hugged Mrs. Terry. Her words and actions so flustered the widow the subject changed, as Laurel intended it would.
Only to Laurel did Nat confide his and Adam’s adventure with Chief Grey Eagle and his people. She had learned to appreciate Antelope’s minister and gloried in the fact that as Adam grew older, the same sterling qualities would deepen in his own life. Her first letter home actually spoke more about Nat than Adam. She praised his dedication to duty and devotion to his Lord and merely said Adam stayed extremely busy supporting his brother’s spiritual ministry with physical healing. So when Nat called one evening while Adam was still in the hidden village, she gladly walked with him and thrilled to his tale.
“What’s it like, the Indian village, I mean?” Laurel’s sincerity loosened Nat’s tongue.
“It’s located in probably the most beautiful spot in Wyoming, inaccessible except to those who know the way. Even after going and coming back, guided by Grey Eagle, I’ll have to look sharp when I go back for Adam. He could have simply had Grey Eagle guide him but he wants me to pack in a few luxuries for the tribe—candy, bright cloth, that kind of thing.”
She stopped short, her heart pounding at her own daring. “Take me with you when you go. I’d love to see the camp and meet Grey Eagle and Running Deer and their people.” She clasped his arm with both hands.
For a moment she thought he’d agree but then he shook his head. Regret clouded his eyes. “I can’t, Ivy Ann. I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she persisted. “Don’t you think I can ride or hike that far?”
He threw his head back and laughed in the way the Birchfield men did when highly amused. “Gracious, it isn’t that. Antelope’s rampant with stories of your horsemanship.” His eyes twinkled with mischief. “Did you really beat Dan Sharpe in a race a few days ago?”
“Who told you?” She clapped her hand to her mouth then joined in his laughter. Pride lent a tilt to her chin, a sparkle to her mobile face. “He was so sure he could beat me he offered me a headstart. I told him I needed no favors.” She blushed, remembering how Dan suggested a wager, a silver dollar against a kiss. She had coldly told him she didn’t wager, then beat him in the race by a full three feet.
Now she returned to her teasing. “Please take me.”
Nat shook his head again, more decidedly this time. “Adam and I gave our word we would not reveal where the camp lies. I couldn’t break that promise, although I’m sure you would enjoy the hard climb and scenery.” A new thought brightened his face. “Tell you what. When I see Grey Eagle again I’ll ask him for permission to have you visit the camp sometime. There’s no guarantee he will agree but I can ask.”
“Tell him he has nothing to fear from me,” she said earnestly.
“I don’t know about that.” Nat’s laughing mouth reminded her of Adam’s. “According to Mark Justice and some of the other boys you are mighty dangerous. Seems a rash of heart trouble has broken out since you came.”
His meaning brought floods of color to Laurel’s neck and face. She controlled the desire to retort and meekly suggested, “Perhaps they should consult Dr. Birchfield.”
“Perhaps they should,” he blandly agreed, and Laurel wondered if the innocent words held a subtle, hidden warning.
On a soft spring evening a week after Adam came back to Antelope he called on Laurel. For the first time he seemed restless and uneasy. After a short while Mrs. Terry took up her bonnet and decided to “visit Mrs. Greer for a spell.”
Disturbed by the change in Adam, Laurel couldn’t help dreading the inevitable conversation that must follow. Somehow he must have discovered her deception. Perhaps Ivy Ann had written, not knowing her twin’s masquerade. Yet through the dread came relief. At least things would be clear between them.
“I have something I must tell you,” Adam began. Embarrassment colored his tanned face. “It’s hard to say without sounding pompous.”
“Ivy Ann, I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you. You are so different from the girl I met in West Virginia. But I have to be honest with you, even though you may despise me for it. I hope we can continue to be friends. “His voice underscored the word.
“You seemed so bound to your home that I never dreamed you’d come to the Wyoming Territory. Since you arrived I’ve tried to convince myself—Ivy Ann, when you used to write to me your sister always included a message. At first I had the two of you all mixed up together.” He drew in a long breath and stood to full height.
“What I’m trying to say is that I do admire you, especially since you’ve become part of Antelope. But I’ve had time to think. I know now I fell in love with Laurel the first time I saw her. I don’t know if she would ever consider me or leave West Virginia, but maybe someday.” He looked
at her bent head. “Forgive me if in any way I’ve hurt you, Ivy Ann.”
He loves me. He wants to marry me.
Laurel wanted to shout it to the peaks and let them echo back to the valley. Exquisite delight she hadn’t known existed burst into a beautiful flower.
But it died on its stalk, frozen by reality. Ivy Ann still stood between them. Not a flesh and blood Ivy Ann, but the shadowy twin whose name Laurel wore like a crown of thorns.
Chapter 11
From the moment Ivy Ann Brown discovered Laurel had fled, everything about Red Cedars changed. Sometimes she wondered how she could have been so blind. “Shallow, foolish, vain!” she accused herself. “Why didn’t I see it sooner, before my flirting and hatefulness drove Laurel away?”
Days and nights of soul-searching agony thinned Ivy to string bean proportions and left dark smudges beneath her deep brown eyes. Gradually the beaux who had once delighted her and fallen in droves for her charms deserted, lured away by jollier and more interesting girls. She cared little. Even when Beauregard Worthington’s calls became fewer and fewer “due to the press of business” she only shrugged.
“Why didn’t I know how much I loved Laurel and how good she was until she left?” Ivey wailed to her parents.
For perhaps the first time, they offered no excuses, no solace. “Most of the time we let the real treasures we have slip away and don’t realize their worth,” Thomas Brown sternly told his repentant daughter. He softened at the acute misery in her face. “We can’t undo the past but we can use it to shape the future.”
Sadie also suffered. Shocked by the defiance and secretiveness of her tractable Laurel, she haunted the front porch whenever anyone rode in from Shawnee. Laurel’s first letter brought a certain uneasy peace.
“Thank God she’s all right!” Thomas swept Sadie into a rare public embrace.
“She’s happy, too,” Sadie decided out loud once the letter had been read and reread. “This Mrs. Greer and Mrs. Terry sound like wonderful Christian women. Besides, Dr. Birchfield will look after her.”
Thomas drew shaggy eyebrows together. “It doesn’t excuse her going as she did.”
“Would you have allowed her to go if she had asked?” Ivy Ann posed, not in her usual pert manner but seriously.
“Of course not!” Thomas faced west and a slow smile lightened his craggy features. “I didn’t think she had it in her.”
Every letter brought glowing reports of the beauties of the Wyoming Territory. Each message invited, not in words, but with the challenges Laurel had found, coupled with her experiences, the memory of Adam Birchfield’s strong views on the need for godly men and women to help settle the West.
Ivy Ann could see the effect of the long family discussions, first on her father, then on her mother, and last of all on herself. Inspired by her complete confession to God asking for His forgiveness, she found herself tantalized and drawn by the vastness of the unknown frontier that had swallowed Laurel. She also missed her twin with every fiber of her being. Strange, she had always believed Laurel relied on her.
Not one of the three Browns could remember when the tone of the conversation changed from, “If we should ever” to “When we get to Wyoming….”
“Shall we write and tell Laurel?” became the hotly debated question. Thomas favored a blunt admission that through business connections he’d arranged to buy a ranch near Antelope and that Red Cedars had been eagerly snatched up by some of Beauregard Worthington’s contacts.
Ivy Ann definitely wanted to surprise her twin. She had begun and discarded a dozen letters to tell Laurel how much she had changed. None came close to what lay in her heart. “I need to look into her eyes so she will know it is true,” she told her parents.
Sadie remained undecided about telling Laurel but sang louder than ever while she did the hundreds of things necessary to turn over the property to its new owners. Many a tear dampened her work apron at the thought of leaving Black-eyed Susan, Gentian, and their families. Yet her sturdy pioneer spirit rose up and sustained her. Soon she would be a part of the new flood of expansion sweeping America, and soon she would see Laurel.
At last Ivy Ann persuaded her mother to side with her and Thomas reluctantly gave in. Laurel would not be told.
“Just think of her face when we knock on Mrs. Terry’s door and ask for Miss Brown.” Ivy Ann gleefully clapped her hands. Sincere and repentant she might be, but her unquenchable spirit of fun had bounced back like an India rubber ball.
A flurry of farewell parties with a dozen suitors wondering how they could temporarily have thought Ivy Ann dull swept by until the perfect June morning when the Browns turned their backs on Red Cedars and faced west.
The long train journey offered time to hear all the details of the new life that lay ahead. Thomas looked ten years younger, so fired was he with enthusiasm and vigor. “The ranch we’re getting is actually part of one of the largest spreads near Antelope.”
Ivy hid a smile at the word spread. Ever since they started talking of going West, western colloquialisms, courtesy of Mr. Hardwick, sprinkled her father’s conversation.
“Mr. Hardwick, who owns the Lazy H, had such terrible losses due to the unusually cold winter he’s been forced to sell or go under,” said Thomas as he took writing materials from his bag and drew squiggly letters. “This is the Lazy H cattle and horse brand. See? The H is lying down on the job.”
“What will our brand be?” Ivy Ann peered at the paper with interest.
“Hardwick suggested we use the Double B.” Thomas drew another figure ᗺ Β. “It will be easy to brand over the Lazy Η because it only needs a few curves to change.”
Sadie looked worried. “I’m not sure I like a purchase where we don’t know the seller. What if he cheats us or doesn’t furnish as many cattle as the contract calls for? We put most of what we got from Red Cedars into this.”
“My dear, this Hardwick is so well thought of and trusted on the range that every person our agent talked with flared up at the idea he’d ever cheat anyone. Most of them just do business with a handshake and Hardwick’s never been known to go back on his word.” When Sadie didn’t look totally convinced, Thomas continued. “Besides, it isn’t like we’re going into partnership. The sections of range we just bought are separated from the Lazy H by a parcel of land owned by someone else. That’s one reason Hardwick let some of his holdings go.” A frown flickered. “I kind of wish we were snuggled up to the Lazy H but, according to my man, whoever owns the in-between strip of land has never done anything with it except collect fees for grazing of Lazy H cattle.”
Any time interest in the changing scenery lagged, the fascinating subject of the new Double B rose to be explored.
State after state surrendered to the steady clack-clack of the train’s churning wheels until as Adam and then Laurel had done the Browns gazed in awe at the Rocky Mountains and knew their destination could not be far off. Like the two travelers before them, the clear distance deceived Thomas, Sadie, and Ivy Ann.
Once Ivy cried out, “Look! Those must be the pronghorns Adam told us about.” Spellbound, the easterners watched a small band standing with raised heads and staring intently at the train. A heartbeat later they moved into single file and fled faster than anything the Browns had ever seen.
“They can reach speeds of up to sixty miles an hour,” a fellow passenger told the enthralled travelers.
Ivy Ann pressed her nose to the train window until the last of the graceful animals disappeared from sight. Would the rest of the Wyoming Territory prove as new and intriguing? The answer would come soon enough.
Adam’s declaration of love for a girl he believed to be safely back home in West Virginia changed Laurel’s troubles to disaster. All the sweetness of being loved by the finest man she had ever known turned sour because of her deception. The sword of Damocles that legend said once hung by a single hair paled next to the weight pressing down on Laurel.
Tell him, her conscience ordered night and
day.
I can’t, her weaker side protested. What if he despises me and I lose his love? Yet even the weak side had no answer to conscience’s retort.
How is waiting going to help? You have to confess sometime.
So she stitched seams and hemmed gowns, smocked and tucked, and tried to ease her conscience and aching heart that leaped each time she saw Adam. How hard was the way of a deceiver! Basically honest, Laurel hated the role she played yet feared what Adam would say. His integrity that first won her respect then love worked against her now.
Just a few more days, she promised herself, then the days stretched into weeks. Early summer came in all its Wyoming glory and Laurel still had not confessed.
While she struggled, so did Adam to his own amazement. He had been so sure of himself about Laurel and his feelings he confidently expected every worry would slide away regarding the future. Nothing prepared him for the tumult that continued to rage inside him, stilled only by Antelope’s demands on him for skill and comfort.
“I never dreamed Ivy Ann could change so,” he told his horse a dozen times. “All the wonderful qualities I saw in Laurel are magnified in Ivy since she came!” As he raised his face toward the blue heavens where fleecy clouds played tag, he prayed, “Dear God, can a man be in love with two women at the same time?”
His question remained unanswered and a startling happening drove it and other things from Adam’s mind. News came that the Rock Springs bank had been robbed. Antelope perked up its ears, especially when the amazing truth came out: No masked men had appeared. No dynamite or the usual paraphernalia of such robberies had been used. Someone, evidently in broad daylight, had simply marched in without being observed and helped himself. Or some wily, unauthorized person had a key and had come at night.
Rumors flew like cawing crows. Good citizens shook their heads and wondered. If anyone had information, it stayed locked behind securely fastened lips.
Wildflower Harvest: Includes Bonus Story of Desert Rose Page 10