Prairie Rose

by Catherine Palmer

Rosenbloom Cotton Mills, that beautiful name. It wasn’t hers. It belonged to a factory that made underwear. No mother had loved her newborn baby and tenderly laid her in a warm, safe place until she could be discovered by someone who had the means to care for her. Rosie had been abandoned. Cast away. Unwanted.

  She fought the tears that welled in her closed eyes. The stationmaster’s rebuff rang in her ears. Even God don’t want nothing to do with the likes of foundlings. Ain’t you read what the Good Book says? The book of Deuteronomy. A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord— Rosie forced the memory to stop. She couldn’t believe such a thing was really in the Bible. No matter what Mr. Holloway said, she had to believe God loved her. Thanks to his mercy, she had been found. Taken in by the Christian Home. Fed. Clothed. Taught to read and do arithmetic and sew. Given honest work to keep her hands busy.

  But nobody had ever wanted her. Her mother hadn’t wanted her. She hadn’t been chosen by any of the families who looked over the children for adoption. She hadn’t been picked by any of the young men who came courting the older girls at the Home.

  Even now. Seth Hunter didn’t want her. Though he had come to her defense against Mr. Holloway, he had made it clear that Rosie was a bother to him. Annoying. Afflicting. Agitating. He hadn’t wanted to take her to his homestead in Kansas. And he didn’t like her spending time with his son.

  Stay out of my life, was the message his blue eyes conveyed. Keep away from me and those I love. I don’t want you.

  “Sheena’s right,” Seth was saying as Rosie struggled to keep her tears from spilling down her cheeks. “If we had a better crossing at Bluestem Creek, we could cut Holloway right off the trail. The only reason people stop at his station on Walnut Creek is because they can’t cross the Bluestem until they get almost up to the springs.”

  “So why don’t you build a bridge, Seth?” Sheena asked. “It would bring you closer to our place, as well—just across the creek instead of half a day’s travel upstream and back down again. Sure, the stagecoaches would love it. And the military, too. Can you imagine? A straight stretch from Laski’s Station to LeBlanc’s Mill. It would cut off almost a full day’s travel. Maybe you could charge a toll, Seth. Make enough money to pay for the bridge—and a little extra to save besides.”

  “You want fifteen stagecoaches a day passing across our property, Sheena?” Jimmy asked. “You want settlers stopping and begging you for eggs and milk? You want them slipping into our fields and picking our corn? You want soldiers poking around in your kitchen garden to see if they can find a spare spud for their stew? You want to be cooking for thirty at dinnertime instead of seven? I say let Holloway have the lot of them, and bad luck to them every one.”

  “And what if a fire burns our fields like it did poor Rustemeyer to the north, Mr. Contrary O’Toole?” Sheena hurled back. “What if a cyclone comes along and blows away our house? Did you ever think about that? Sure, we could use the money then, couldn’t we? What if we have a drought? What if—”

  “What if St. Patrick drives all the snakes back into Ireland? What if all our spuds turn into gold nuggets? By all the goats in Kerry, woman, I’ll not have fifty spalpeens a day traipsing across my homestead. I don’t care how much you want a bridge, I’ll not build it!”

  “Then I will,” Seth said. “I’ll build it just downstream from my house, over near the barn. Jimmy, with your permission, I’ll clear a path from the main trail across the corner of your land to that spot on the Bluestem where folks cross in a dry month. Nobody would come near your house, but I’ll let them stop at mine for water and feed. You know it would do the both of us good to have a bridge.”

  “That Jack Cornwall would get to you quicker if he had a nice, straight road to ride down,” Jimmy said.

  “And you and I would be closer to each other in case we need help. It would even tie in Rolf Rustemeyer—”

  “That German?”

  “Yes, and you’re Irish, LeBlanc’s French, and Laski’s Polish. Why not build a bridge to connect us? At harvesttime it would shorten your trip to Topeka, and I could get to the mill twice as fast.” He paused. “And we’d cut off Holloway.”

  Sheena laughed. “There you have it! Cut off the scoundrel and his pickle-hoarding little wife.”

  “You’d cut off Salvatore Rippeto, too,” Jimmy said. “Or did you forget about our Italian neighbor?”

  “Sure, he and Carlotta would thank us kindly for such a thing. That poor woman’s got so many wee ones she can barely keep her eye on them—not to mention tending all the travelers.”

  “Aye, build your bridge then,” Jimmy said. “I knew it would come to this one day. Civilization. Before you can count to ten, the preacher will be dropping by to tie up our Sundays with his crawthumping. And then somebody will get the elegant notion to put in a mercantile. And a saloon. And a schoolhouse. In no time, there’ll be lawyers and doctors and all manner of scalawags swarming us.”

  “And St. Patrick will drive all the snakes back into Ireland,” Sheena said. “To tell God’s truth, Jimmy O’Toole, you are the sourest man that ever lived. There’s not a chance in all the world that Seth Hunter’s little dugout will become the next Topeka.”

  “Dugout?” Rosie said, coming suddenly alert.

  “Sure, and what else did you expect?” Sheena asked. “A white clapboard with roses and morning glories twining the front porch? You’re on your way to the prairie, my girl.”

  Rosie sank back against the seed keg and shut her eyes. The prairie. No bridge. No mercantile. No church. No school. Not even a house.

  Unwanted, unneeded, unloved, the girl with no name was on her way to live in a hole in the dirt of the barren, windswept prairie.

  “It makes me think of ironing,” Rosie said to Sheena.

  Seth frowned. What was she on about now? Ever since they’d left Holloway’s Station on Walnut Creek, Rosie had been uncharacteristically quiet. No songs. No whistling competitions. No riddles. No long, drawn-out fairy tales about princesses and ogres. At first, it had been a blessed relief. Seth thought he’d had enough silliness to last a lifetime.

  But then the O’Toole children began to whine and fidget. Sheena complained about the heat. Jimmy complained about Sheena. The whole cacophony was regularly punctuated by Chipper announcing he wanted his Gram and Gramps, and he didn’t want to go live with “no Yankee.”

  Seth had almost rejoiced when he heard Rosie’s voice from the back of the wagon. “I don’t know what I expected,” she said, and everyone grew quiet. “But this certainly isn’t like anything I ever imagined.”

  “What are you talking about, lass?” Sheena had asked.

  “The prairie,” Rosie had said. And then she made her comment about ironing. No doubt this was going to turn into a riddle game or something, Seth mused. At least the sound of her voice had calmed the children. Even Chipper seemed to be listening to what Rosie would say.

  “Ironing,” she repeated. “You know how it is when you do the laundry? You start with a shirt fresh off the clothesline, and it’s as rumpled and wrinkled as Missouri is full of hollows, hills, creekbeds, and bluffs. Then you begin to iron. The wrinkles smooth out, and the rumples flatten down. The hills vanish. The streambeds stretch out straight and smooth. And it’s the prairie.” Sheena laughed. “What do you think of it then? Do you like this pressed down, flat land, Rosie?”

  The young woman sat silently for a moment. “I think the prairie is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Seth swung around. “Ugly?”

  She turned her big chocolate eyes on him. “Ugly. Boring, too. It’s flat and dry and all but bare of trees. There’s nothing to stop the wind. The water is so sleepy it makes hardly a sound. And the grass—it seems to go on forever like an endless pale green and yellow sea. I know God created the prairie, but I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything so ugly in all my life.”

  Seth stiffened. “You call soil as thick and rich as chocolate cake ugly? You call a sky that stre
tches from one horizon to the other like a big blue bowl ugly? Miss Mills, you don’t know a thing about ugly.”

  He glared at her. The prairie was his home, his certainty, his hope. The prairie was the source of his faith. In his lifetime, Seth had known enough pain to turn him away from God—a father who walked out on him, a war that tore his country apart, a best friend blown to bits by a cannonball, a wife whose parents despised him, a love who died in the bloom of her life. But the prairie refused to let Seth’s bitterness and doubt claim his soul. The prairie was proof of a future, proof of heaven, proof of God himself.

  “You call this ugly?” he asked, bending over the side of the wagon and snapping off a bunch of long-stemmed red blossoms. “This is Indian paintbrush. See these pink and yellow flowers? Goat’s rue. Those little white flowers? Pussy’s-toes. The purple ones? Bird’s-foot violets.” He reached down and plucked another handful of tiny blue flowers. “Blue-eyed grass. And here’s yellow-star grass.”

  He tossed the wildflower bouquet into Rosie’s arms. She caught it and clutched it with both hands. Her brown eyes were wide, as though she feared he might put her out of the wagon any moment and abandon her on the ugly, boring prairie.

  Seth had half a mind to do just that. On the other hand, for some reason he couldn’t explain, he wanted Rose Mills to see what this land meant to him. He wanted her to understand that it was his life.

  “It’s not just an endless sea of yellow and green. Right from this wagon seat I can count seven different kinds of grass. There’s prairie dropseed over there and two kinds of broomsedge along the trail. See that patch of light green? That’s Elliott’s broomsedge. It’ll be a brown orange come fall. This other kind looks almost the same, but it’s not. The leaves on the seed stalks are broader, and they’ll turn bright orange.”

  “There’s little bluestem,” Jimmy chimed in. “It’s a sort of blue green, so it is. And you see that stand of purple-stemmed grass over there, Miss Mills? That’s big bluestem. By mid-August, the seed heads will divide into three parts.”

  “They look just like turkey tracks, so they do,” Will O’Toole said. “I see silverbeard bluestem, Papa. Look down, Rosie, just by the wagon wheel. Silverbeard is very short. Do you see it?”

  Holding tight to her bouquet, she nodded. “I never imagined—”

  “I see Indian grass!” eight-year-old Erinn piped up. “Look just over there! It’s so tall. Taller than me.”

  “And there’s switchgrass!” Will said.

  “I see sideoats grama,” little Colleen pointed out.

  As the children began exclaiming over the grass and flowers, Sheena patted her bonnet. “Sure, you’ve not said a word to Rosie about the animals, Seth Hunter. The prairie is teeming with animals, so it is. Deer, antelope, jackrabbits, prairie chickens, wolves—”

  “Don’t forget buffalo,” Will cut in. “Sometimes we see them crossing the prairie by the thousands, so we do.”

  “And grizzly bears,” Colleen added, touching Rosie’s arm. “Sure, they like to follow the buffalo herds and eat up the weak shaggies. You’ll want to beware of grizzly bears.”

  “She should beware of snakes, too,” Erinn said. “You’ll want to look out for copperheads, Rosie. If a copperhead bites you, well … you’re done for.”

  Will squared his shoulders. “But there’s lots and lots of other good snakes. We’ve ribbon snakes and garter snakes and bull snakes, not to mention prairie ringnecks and prairie king snakes—”

  “All right, all right!” Rosie exclaimed, holding up her hands in surrender. “There does seem to be more to it than I thought. Just … just give me time.”

  “You’ve got six months,” Seth said. “When I take you back to Kansas City after the harvest, you can tell me then if you still think our prairie is ugly and boring.”

  Rosie was smelling the bundle of wildflowers, but he could read the pain written in her eyes. She didn’t want to go back to Kansas City. As unappealing as she found the prairie, she considered her old life a far worse prospect.

  Chances were good she would find herself some farmer and marry him. Then her husband could put up with her songs and whistling and chatter. It sure would be quiet when autumn rolled around. Nice and quiet.

  “There’s Rippeto’s Station!” Will shouted. “I see it! I see it!” Sheena patted Rosie’s arm. “Here’s where we part ways. After a good night’s sleep—”

  “Good night’s sleep?” Jimmy snorted. “With Carlotta’s brablins hollering their lungs out?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” Sheena continued, “our Jimmy will put all the O’Tooles on the wagon we left at Rippeto’s. Then we’ll set off down the western bank of the Bluestem. You and Seth and the boy will travel down the eastern bank. Sure, we’ll see each other’s wagons almost the whole twelve miles, but there’s no way to cross.”

  “Until Seth builds his elegant bridge,” Jimmy said, “and paves the way for Jack Cornwall and every other scoundrel from New York to California.”

  “Whisht, Jimmy,” Sheena said softly. “Aye, Rosie, you’re almost there. By tomorrow you’ll have what you’ve always dreamed of. Home. A beautiful home.”

  Seth gave the reins a flick. “Six months,” he said. “And the only home she’ll have is the barn.”

  CHAPTER 4

  BEFORE heading east to Kansas City with Seth Hunter, the O’Toole family had stored their wagon in Salvatore Rippeto’s barn. Now loaded down with the seeds and farming equipment they had purchased, the wagon rattled across Bluestem Creek. Sheena and her children waved good-bye, and Rosie was never so sorry to see anyone go. As Seth turned his own wagon south, she felt more alone than she had in all her life. Not only was she lonely, she was concerned at what the day might bring. And she was tired.

  The night at the Rippetos’ had seemed as endless as Jimmy had predicted. Carlotta regularly shouted at one or the other of her ten children—evidently the only means she knew to control them. Salvatore hammered in his loft until well after dark. Four stagecoach passengers stretched out on the floor and snored loudly enough to raise the roof. Two military men talked for hours on the porch. And in the darkness, little Chipper sobbed.

  It had been all Rosie could do to keep from creeping over to the grieving child and taking him in her arms. But she remembered his father’s stern command to keep away. She was to provide for the boy’s needs and nothing more. But wasn’t compassion a need? Didn’t a child have a right to comfort and love?

  “We’ll be at my place a little after noon,” Seth said as he guided his mules downstream. It was clear to Rosie that the man kept his focus on himself and his own interests—and not on those around him. “Most of this land’s unclaimed, though it was surveyed before the war. We’ll pass Rolf Rustemeyer’s place in a few hours. He’s the fellow just north of me. German. Can’t understand a word he says.”

  Rosie studied the man on the bench beside her. The nearer they drew to his homestead, the more civil Seth became. His blue eyes shone in the early morning sunlight. His dark hair lifted and feathered beneath his hatband. Rosie thought she even detected the hint of a smile at one corner of his mouth.

  But the change in Seth’s demeanor hardly made a difference to her. All she could see was how coldly he behaved toward his son. He gave no heed to the little boy’s tears. He never laid a hand on the child or whispered even the slightest word of comfort. His indifference toward his son infuriated Rosie, and she began to wish she had whacked Seth on the head instead of Jack Cornwall.

  “Rustemeyer’s been working on his claim a lot longer than I have,” Seth said, oblivious to the fact that she was attempting to bore holes through him with her glare. “He’s been looking after my place while I’ve been away. I think I’ll see if he has a notion to help me build the bridge.”

  “You just told me you couldn’t understand him,” Rosie said.

  Seth glanced at her, one eyebrow arching a little at her retort. “Not much. It’s all ja and ach and nein. But we manage.”

&
nbsp; “Does he have any children Chipper could play with?”

  “Rolf’s not married.”

  “Well then, Chipper, you’ll just have to help your father build that bridge so you can walk over to the O’Tooles’ house to play.” Rosie bent down and kissed the little boy’s hot, damp forehead. “Who do you like best of all the O’Tooles? I thought Erinn was very pretty with her long red braids. Do you like her?”

  “Will,” Chipper said softly. “I like Will best.”

  “I like him, too. Did you hear him going on about the snakes? I’ll bet you and Will could have a fine time out by the creek. He can teach you all about the prairie, and you can teach him some games. What’s your favorite game? Hopscotch?”

  “Tag.”

  As the hours passed, Rosie did her best to draw out the little boy—and to ignore his father. She had come to the conclusion that Seth Hunter had kidnapped his son in the vain hope of recapturing a part of his dead wife. But he had no inclination to love Chipper for the special person he was. To Seth, the boy was a prize. A trophy. He would kill Jack Cornwall for the right to keep that trophy. But he had no idea how to truly cherish such a treasure.

  Chipper had stopped crying and was beginning to catalog all his favorite foods when the wagon rolled to a stop. Rosie looked up to find Seth setting the brake and climbing down from the bench. In the distance, a blond giant of a man waved from his plow.

  “Rustemeyer!” Seth called. “Good morning.”

  “Guten Morgen, Hunter! How you are?”

  “Pretty good, and you? We’ve just come from Rippeto’s.”

  “Ja, Rippeto. Sehr gut.”

  Curious, Rosie slipped down to the ground and started after Seth across the newly tilled field. Rolf Rustemeyer was no taller than Seth, but he had been built like a granite bluff. His thighs looked like two tree trunks. His hands, great slabs of ham, gripped the wooden plow handles. His hair hung to his shoulders in thick golden waves. When he smiled, his grin spread from ear to ear.