The Bride Series (Omnibus Edition)

by Bittner, Rosanne

  “What about the Sleiter wagon?” he asked, taking a puff on the cigar.

  “What about it?” Cap answered.

  Josh shrugged. “What will you do with it?”

  Cap eyed him curiously in the moonlight. “Probably split up the belongings among the others—try to find out if there are relatives who should be notified—break up the wagon for firewood. What the hell do you care?”

  Joshua sat down, leaning against a wagon wheel. “I want it. I want the wagon and most of the supplies inside it. I’ll pay for it. You can send the money to relatives, if there are any.”

  Cap frowned. “What do you want with a wagon?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I might…need it.”

  “For what?”

  “Jesus, Cap, what do you care as long as I pay for it?”

  “Two reasons. One is, I need you to hunt. You can’t hunt and drive oxen at the same time.”

  “I’ll find somebody to drive them. There are a couple of older boys along who would probably jump at the chance to make some money and have something to do to relieve their boredom.”

  “All right. The other reason is I think you want it for that MacKinder woman. You’re up to something, Joshua Rivers, and it smells real bad. We’ve already had one tragedy on this wagon train. I aim to keep such things to a minimum. I already told you that.”

  “And I already told you I can take care of it. Trust me.”

  “I trust my own instincts above everything else, and they tell me you’re a young stud with his eye on the prettiest filly out of the herd. You just remember that with wild horses, a lot of times a male has to fight another male for control of the herd. You might be after only one mare, but the other stud is going to fight just as viciously for her as he would a whole herd.”

  Joshua grinned. “You didn’t have to put it so crudely, Cap.”

  “Crude or not, you get my meaning.”

  Joshua smoked quietly for a moment. “She’s a free woman, and I’m a free man. I can’t say this minute what will happen, but I’m going to pursue it because there is nothing I can do to stop myself. Like I told you before, all I wanted to do when I joined up was get to Oregon, start a ranch of my own, regain what I lost down in Texas. I didn’t plan on meeting someone like Marybeth on the way.”

  Cap laughed lightly. “Ain’t many men who plan something like that.”

  Josh grinned himself then. “Well, if there’s too much of a ruckus over this, I’ll leave the train. I said it before, and I mean it. Whether I leave with or without Marybeth MacKinder depends on what happens between now and when the MacKinder men catch up.”

  “You’re diggin’ a mighty deep hole for yourself, Josh. There won’t be no climbin’ out once you fall into it. Just don’t get buried alive.”

  Josh took another puff of the cigar, envisioning again the way Marybeth had looked at the back of the wagon. How he wanted to tangle his hands in that beautiful hair! He rose and stamped out the cigar. “I can’t let any man bully me out of what I want, Cap. And even if Marybeth doesn’t want me, I can’t let them force her into a life of unhappiness. Somebody has to help her.” He headed toward his tent. “I guess I’ll try to sleep. It won’t be easy after what we’ve seen tonight.”

  Cap settled back against a saddle. “I’ve seen it happen before. Folks come out here with big dreams, knowin’ nothin’ about what they’re headed into until it’s too late to turn back. It’s sad. All I can do is keep the rest of them goin’. But somethin’ like tonight—it never gets any easier on a man. You’d think I’d get kind of hardened to it, you know? But I don’t. They’re good folks. It’s too bad.”

  “It sure is.” Josh started to walk away, then stopped and turned. “The Gentrys,” he said to Cap.

  “What?”

  “The Gentrys can use the Sleiter wagon until we get to Fort Laramie. If I don’t need a wagon by then, they’ll have one for the rest of the trip. If I do, they can get one at Fort Laramie. Either way, I’ve got a driver between here and the fort at least. And the Gentrys can all be together again as a family. It’s a good excuse to keep the wagon without involving me.”

  “Well, you’re right there. Good idea, Josh, but what do you mean if you don’t need a wagon by then? You figurin’ on comin’ up with a family in the next two weeks?”

  “You never know, Cap. Stranger things have happened out here.”

  Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted, and the night creatures went on about their business, animals and insects unperterbed by the wild, unpredictable land that had just claimed two lives by a loneliness so intense they could not survive it. But women like Marybeth could survive the worst life had to offer. Her strength was part of what attracted him to her. He realized she was the perfect kind of woman for this land, strong, proud, determined. He realized it wasn’t just her beauty, or her predicament that had drawn him to her. It was the whole, wonderful woman that she was.

  The funeral was the saddest Marybeth had ever attended. None that she could remember, not even her mother’s death, or Dan’s horrible death, carried with them this kind of tragedy. She could still hear Wilma Sleiter’s pitiful sobbing after the furniture was set off her wagon; could see the vacant stare in the woman’s eyes those last few days before she held a gun to her sleeping husband’s head and pulled the trigger, then turned it against her own head.

  Marybeth prayed over her rosary as Raymond Cornwall read from the Bible. “Now I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

  Cornwall knew his Bible well and had done some lay preaching. He had gradually become the leader of the emigrants’ religious services, and some had turned to the man for spiritual guidance.

  Josh watched Marybeth move the beads in her hand, admiring her faith and the strength she must draw from it. He knew that some of those with the train thought the Catholic religion somehow wrong or odd, even threatening; but as far as he was concerned, a person had a right to worship any way he or she chose. He thought about some of the beautiful missions in Texas and realized the Catholic religion had always fascinated him, although he understood little about it.

  The last few years spent with Brand Selby had helped him understand that God could be many things to many people. To the Comanche and other Indians he was a Great Spirit that lived in the animals, the trees, the earth, the sun—in essence, earth was God, a bear was God, the sun was God. Josh had come to believe the same, but he kept his religious thoughts to himself. Such things were personal, and he was glad that at least on this journey the others along seemed for the most part tolerant of Marybeth’s faith, and most had stopped staring when she prayed over her beads.

  “Death is swallowed up in victory,” Cornwall read. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  The man raised his head to look at the quiet, somber group of travelers. “Let us learn from this, brothers and sisters, how much we need each other, how we must not turn our heads and hearts from those who suffer silently just because we have our own problems. The problems of each one of us here become the problems of all of us. Who knows if any of us could have prevented this tragedy? We can only go on from here and hope such a thing will not happen again. Wilma Sleiter is with her son now. She is happier than she ever could have been here with us. Surely God will welcome her, understanding her tortured heart, her bitter grief. Surely our forgiving Father will understand why Wilma Sleiter took a life before she took her own. If we mortals can understand the love and loneliness behind what she did, who are we to say God will not understand? Let us sing.”

  The man began singing “I
n The Sweet Bye and Bye.” Josh stood silent, as did Marybeth. He was sure she wanted to join in the singing, but she probably didn’t know most Protestant hymns. “We shall meet on that beautiful shore…” He watched Delores move closer to Marybeth and put an arm around her as she sang loudly, helping Marybeth learn the words. He liked Delores. She and her husband both were generous people with good hearts. So were the Gentrys. Their eight-year-old daughter had stayed at the Svensson wagon with Danny so that Marybeth could pray over her rosary beads at the funeral. Florence and Samuel Gentry had been touchingly grateful to have a wagon to use so that their family could all be together again, although no one rejoiced over the circumstances that had left an empty wagon.

  The funeral ended, and although it seemed almost sacreligious, people hurried back to their wagons. Too much time had already been lost. Life went on, and people loaded up, ready to leave the two lonely graves behind.

  “I’m so glad you have a wagon now,” Marybeth told Florence. “And all the supplies inside it.”

  “Well, we won’t keep everything. Cap is going to try to find out if there are any relatives back in Indiana, where the Sleiters came from. He’ll try to find a wagon train or other travelers to go back to them and pay them for the wagon and the things we keep. Actually, Josh Rivers will be paying for the wagon itself. We’ll just pay for the food and utensils, things like that. We’ll have to buy another wagon at Fort Laramie.”

  Marybeth frowned and stopped walking. “Josh Rivers? Why would he pay for the wagon?”

  Florence smiled at the way Marybeth’s eyes always lit up at the mention of the man’s name. She glanced at Delores. as though the two women shared a lovely secret. “Didn’t you know?” Florence asked Marybeth. “Oh, that’s right. You weren’t with me when Cap first discussed our using the wagon. I told Delores later, but I never told you. Cap said to keep it quiet. Josh Rivers asked Cap to keep the wagon. He wants it for himself, but he’s offered to let us use it until we reach Fort Laramie.”

  Marybeth dropped her rosary beads into a pocket on the skirt of her dress. Today she wore the black calico because of the burial. “Why would Josh Rivers want to be burdened with a wagon? He’s gone hunting half the time.”

  Delores arched her eyebrows. “Who knows? Maybe he thinks he’ll be needing one sometime in the future.” Their eyes held, Delores’s dancing with good humor. Marybeth suddenly reddened, realizing what they were thinking.

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  Delores and Florence both laughed lightly as Florence left the other two to go to the Sleiter wagon. “I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all,” Delores told Marybeth. “I think Josh Rivers is just a cautious man who plans ahead.”

  “And I think he is a foolish man who is going to be burdened with a wagon he won’t need. Once John and Mac rejoin us, I’ll no longer be able to even talk to the man, let alone…well, what you’re implying—you know what I mean.”

  “All I know is you have to stop letting those men dictate your life, Marybeth. They have no hold—on you or your heart.”

  “Well it seems to me there are others who are ready to take over for the MacKinders and try to tell me what to do with my life. As you keep saying, Delores, it is my decision. And I am too confused right now to make any decisions that will affect the rest of my life. I certainly won’t be making any decisions at all until I reach Oregon.”

  “But you’ll still meet with Josh tonight, won’t you?”

  “I don’t know…I suppose. My heart is so heavy right now from the funeral, I cannot think about anything else.”

  Melinda Gentry climbed down from the wagon. “Danny is sleeping, Mrs. MacKinder.”

  “Thank you, Melly. Your mother is waiting for you at the Sleiter wagon.”

  Melinda frowned, wrinkling up her freckled face. “Do you think it’s okay to use dead peoples’ wagon?”

  Marybeth put an arm around the girl’s slender shoulders. “Of course it is all right,” she told the girl. “The Sleiters would have wanted your family to use it. You can help your mother pack away Mrs. Sleiter’s things to be sent back home. You must be very careful with everything, as though Mrs. Sleiter was still alive and you were helping her pack them.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Melinda left, and Marybeth peeked into the wagon to make sure Danny was all right. “Let’s ride up on the seat while Danny is sleeping,” Delores told her. “You can watch him better that way.”

  “Are you sure it’s all right? The extra weight?”

  “Aaron said we should take a break today and rest our feet and legs. Cap said the trail today will be very flat and not so much of a burden on the oxen; after that we will be gradually climbing toward the mountains and will have to do more walking.”

  They climbed onto the seat of the wagon, and Marybeth noticed the hem of her dress was becoming tattered from constantly being dragged over prairie grass and wildflowers and rocks. She wondered if she would have one decent dress left when she arrived in Oregon. She sat down and looked at the horizon ahead as Aaron shouted and coaxed the oxen into motion. She refused to look back at the graves of Wilma and Cedrick Sleiter, but she could see them in her mind, and her heart ached at their tragic story. How sad that Wilma could not at least have been buried next to her son, whose death had been the cause of her own. She wondered if the river waters had already destroyed the beautiful handmade, oak furniture the young man had made for his mother.

  Chapter Eleven

  The night was blessed with a gentle, summer breeze that helped keep insects away. Marybeth, her heart beating with a mixture of anticipation and worry that she was doing the wrong thing, walked blindly into the darkness outside the circle of wagons, trusting that she was in no danger. Josh Rivers would be watching.

  “I’m glad you came,” he spoke up from somewhere in the darkness.

  She turned at the sound of the voice, seeing only the glowing end of his thin cigar. Clouds covered the moon, and there was the smell of rain in the air. She could make out his form as he came closer and took her arm. “Over here.” She let him guide her toward the river, down into a thick grove of cottonwood trees, where he lit a lantern. He held it up to her face and grinned. “You’re awful pretty when you’re looking all scared like that. Only thing is, I’m not sure what you’re scared of. Surely not me!”

  She felt a delicious flutter inside at being so close to him again, and she wondered if any man could be more handsome than Josh Rivers. “No, not you. I’m just…so afraid this is wrong.”

  He waved her off and turned to sit down on a blanket he had spread out on the ground. “If you really believed it was wrong, you wouldn’t be here. Sit down, Marybeth.”

  She watched him warily. They were alone here in the darkness, and he had brought a blanket. Was it proper to sit down beside him? She watched his eyes move over her, and suddenly she felt self-conscious in the yellow dress she had worn, her best calico. It fit her form beautifully and was one of the few dresses that still had its hemline intact.

  “That sure is a pretty dress,” he told her. “But it wouldn’t be so pretty without you in it.” She had worn it just for him, but now that he realized it, she was embarrassed.

  “Thank you,” she answered, her face reddening. She stood stiffly looking down at him, feeling a sudden compulsion to run. He must have sensed it, because he reached up and took hold of her hand.

  “Come on, Marybeth, sit down. We’ve both waited all day for this.” He gently pulled, and she sat down, keeping as many inches between them as she could and still be on the blanket. He squeezed her hand gently before letting go. “How’s your boy,” he asked.

  “So far he’s fine, but I worry so much about him—all those graves we pass every day. Others have told me stories they have heard about sickness on such journeys. Some of the graves we’ve seen are so small. Burying the Sleiters today didn’t help any.” She looked at her lap. “Danny is all I have. And he’s such a good baby. He’s most of the reason I intend to
some day get away from the MacKinders. I don’t want him to grow up under their influence and be like them.”

  “With a proud mother who stands up for what is right and fair, he won’t be. You’re a strong woman, Marybeth. I’ve told you that before. You just have to realize you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do—including staying with the MacKinders.”

  She met his eyes. “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It is easy. Once you get to Oregon, you could find all kinds of things to do to get by on your own, and there are plenty of people along who would gladly help you. For Danny’s sake if not for your own, you’ve got to break away from them, Marybeth.”

  She sighed deeply. “I know. But you have no idea how determined MacKinder men can be.”

  He puffed the cigar quietly for a moment. “I think I can guess.” He laughed lightly. “How old are you, Marybeth?”

  “I am twenty.” She looked at him, the same question in her eyes.

  “Twenty-six,” he said. She wondered as she studied the beautifully formed lips and straight nose, the gentle, wide-set brown eyes, how many women this charming, soft-spoken man had wooed and coaxed into his bed. She tore her eyes from his, afraid he would know what she was thinking. Most of all she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to have a man like Josh Rivers make love to her. It was a thought she had struggled to avoid, had told herself was wrong, but there it was, stabbing painfully at her insides. How she longed to know if it could really be enjoyable being with a man.

  “Tell me more about Texas,” she said presently. “You said you saw your brother killed. Can you talk about it?”

  “Oh, that’s a long story. The shortened version is a man I thought was a friend, a Texas Ranger, had a real yen for my sister, Rachael. Rachael was probably the prettiest woman . in Texas, but she didn’t care a bit for the Ranger. Nobody knew the man was double dealing with comancheros—those are what we call the worst of outlaws down in Texas—men who steal women and sell them in Mexico, sell guns to Indians, that kind of thing. Anyway, the Ranger had my ranch raided by comancheros made up to look like Comanche Indians. They burned my house and murdered my brother Matt—chopped him up like a side of beef.”