Texas Brides Collection

by Darlene Mindrup

  Jenny’s eyes widened.

  Rachel’s sweet laugh rang out. “Look who I brought to see you. Meet my baby, Elijah.”

  Jenny peered into the blankets where the red-faced baby wailed. “I didn’t know you were expecting.”

  “You’ve been hiding out here for more than a year. Elijah was born four months ago.” Rachel’s cornflower-blue eyes shone. “It’s been far too long since we visited.”

  “We’re surveying nearby today,” Colonel Hanks said. “We’ll return this afternoon to escort Rachel home.”

  “I know this is an imposition, but when Pa volunteered to bring a message, I thought I’d just come.” Rachel lowered her voice. “Is it okay I’m here?”

  What could Jenny say? A crying baby, a dear friend, and a dead husband who could no longer protest her friendship, made it easy. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Her mother-in-law scowled from the porch, but Jenny turned away. She watched Sal squirm under the fence to where Charles Moss ran his hands down the front legs of a piebald dam.

  “What is it?” Jenny asked.

  “Her legs look swollen. If you don’t mind, I’ll walk her a bit.”

  “Please.”

  She saw his point as he led the horse around the inner paddock with the foal trotting after. The mare walked fine, but her legs didn’t seem right.

  “You feeding her much grain?” Moss asked.

  “The usual amount.”

  He patted the horse as he led her to Jenny. “Is she spending a lot of time in the barn?”

  “There’s so much to be done, I often let the horses out later than they’re used to.”

  Moss rubbed his chin. “I’d start with this one in the morning. She may need to move around more.”

  “Is something wrong with her?” Jenny bit her lip. Pa always doctored the horses. She had no money for a vet and couldn’t afford to lose the mare.

  “No telling. Cut back on the grain and give her more exercise. That should do it.” His confident voice reassured her.

  Jenny fingered the rough wooden fence. “How do you know?”

  “You can trust him,” Colonel Hanks said. “He’s spent a lot of time with horses.”

  Moss slapped the mare’s rump and chuckled as the foal nuzzled close to its mother. “She’s a beauty, and her foal looks promising. What’ll you do with her?”

  “Jenny’s family supplied mounts to the Confederate Army during the war,” Rachel said. “My husband rode one of their horses all the way to Chickamauga. Jenny’s pa trained him.”

  “What happens now?” Moss scratched Sal’s ears while Jenny opened the gate for him. At Colonel Hanks’s nod, he swung into his own sleek horse’s saddle.

  “Pa was negotiating with the Army out at Fort Griffin to buy more horses. We’re training them for army work.” Jenny needed to find the army paperwork in Pa’s office. Her heart sank.

  Colonel Hanks patted her arm. “Let me know if you need help with the Army. We’re off now.”

  Jenny nodded. “Thank you, both.” She turned to her friend, pasted a smile on her face, and gestured to the house where Ma Duncan barred the door with her thin arms.

  “I hope you brought food, ’cuz there’s none to eat here,” the old woman declared.

  Rachel adjusted the baby. “I brought dinner to share.”

  Jenny carried a heavy basket from the buggy. She set it on the porch, stepped indoors, and watched Rachel take in the parlor.

  “My goodness,” Rachel said. “I’d heard about this piano. It’s magnificent.”

  The Brazilian rosewood Schomacker upright piano took up most of the parlor, leaving room for two chairs and a small round table beneath the window. Heavy with metal filigree legs and panels on the front above the keys, the elaborate instrument had a padded stool covered in thick red velvet with gold fringe.

  Jenny frowned. “What have you heard?”

  “Everyone in town heard about the trouble Tom went through to ship the piano up the river and then drag it by oxen to your house.” Rachel cuddled the baby. “But no one has ever seen it or heard you play. Why not?”

  Jenny wiped the top of the ornate instrument with her dingy apron. Thick dust fell to the wooden floor. She hadn’t touched the piano in months.

  Rachel jiggled the whimpering baby. “I’d love to hear it.”

  “She wouldn’t perform for her husband, why would she play for you?” Ma Duncan glared from the doorway. “Tom’s foolery.”

  “If you’ll take my basket to the kitchen, Mrs. Duncan, you’ll find tea cakes. Perhaps you could brew us a cup of tea?” Rachel’s dimples appeared in a pert smile Jenny remembered well.

  Ma Duncan grumbled but hauled the basket into the kitchen on the other side of the stairs.

  “Why don’t you ever play this beautiful instrument?” Rachel asked in a low voice.

  Jenny clenched her hands. After all this time apart, could she still trust Rachel? She released her fists, smoothed her skirt, took a deep breath, and spoke the truth out loud for the first time.

  “Tom won it in a poker game. I can scarcely bear to look at it.”

  Chapter 4

  When they reached the main road, Colonel Hanks paused to look over the property. Charles halted his chestnut horse, Bet. “Pretty piece Jenny Duncan’s got.”

  “One of the finest. Her father Sam farmed this land for twenty years.” The colonel pointed to the cornfield where the boys were picking ears from the tall green stalks. “I don’t think Caleb and Micah will be able to bring in the corn by themselves.”

  The hay was in, thanks to their help; Charles’s muscles still remembered. “They’ll use all that corn this winter.”

  “Yep, and they need to store it.” Hanks nodded to the next field over. “Looks like Sam and Tom got the oats in before the fever got ’em. That’s something. We’ll ask the church and the neighbors to finish the harvest. Townsfolk liked Sam.”

  “How will Jenny manage with just these boys? Has she got any other kin?”

  Hanks tugged his hat to shield his eyes. “If you met Tom Duncan at Fort Delaware, did you meet the Peck boys there, too?”

  “Peck?” A cheerful face flashed in Charles’s memory, laughing and covered in freckles. Another visage, grim and determined but with the same ruddy look, made his gut clench. “Asa and Ben?”

  “Yep, Jenny’s other brothers. They fought at Gettysburg with Hood’s Brigade like all the Anderson County boys. Neither came home.”

  “No,” Charles muttered. Asa had died of dysentery within months of their arrival. Charles didn’t want to think about Ben’s death. He touched the small cubes in his right pocket. “Were you at Gettysburg?”

  Hanks shook his head. “My wife got ill early in the war, and I had twenty-one slaves needing oversight. I’d only signed up for one year. When my son died, I asked to be relieved. The Army needed our food crops, so they sent me home.”

  Bet stepped closer to Hanks’s stallion. “Did the Pecks own slaves?”

  The muscle tightened in the colonel’s left jaw. “He rented three during the war, but afterward Sam was pretty strapped working the farm without the older boys. Tom came by to return their effects, took one look at Jenny and married her. Sam needed Tom’s help on the farm. By the way, Moss. Forget we were ever here on a surveying job. This land belongs to Jenny.” Hanks nudged his horse forward.

  Charles glanced at the peeling white farmhouse as they trotted away. A pretty woman, strong and hard working, Jenny Duncan would be a draw even without her property. Charles just couldn’t imagine the Tom Duncan he knew working on a horse farm. But then, war could change a man.

  The countryside spread out before him as fine as Ben and Asa Peck had described it back at Fort Delaware. In the warming sun, he smelled field grass gone to seed. He saw indications of deer and other game. When they approached the pine grove where he now knew Jenny’s family was buried, he spied the makeshift crosses through the green trees.

  Hanks grunted. “Maybe y
ou can help the boys carve better grave markers this winter at school.”

  “How can Jenny afford to send them?”

  “The school board answers to me. They’ll be there.”

  A broad man of sixty with square shoulders, Colonel Hanks had fair skin that was now blistered red in the summer’s heat. He mopped his sweating brow, checked his county map, and kicked the stallion into a gallop. Riding hard after him, Charles appreciated the breeze on the fast track.

  A half-dozen furlongs down the road they set up their equipment. Hanks used the compass, telescope, and other tools to calculate and record angles and distance while Charles held the rods and chains, moving them as the surveyor directed. They measured acreage, drew plot and topological maps, and also noted elevation and grade. Charles suspected Hanks, as the senior surveyor, was making other notations, possibly for a private interest like the railroads.

  But he knew better than to pry.

  Charles set up the leggy tripod and screwed on the telescope for the older man. When he reached for the rod the telescope sighted, Hanks grabbed it first. “You do the measurements today, you’re faster than I am and I’ve got things to think about.” He passed the map and notebook to Charles.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re good at the calculations. Just don’t make me move the rod unnecessarily.”

  While the map gave a rough indication of boundary lines, Charles noted faint lines marked along level spots. Train track needed to be laid on the most level land available, and topography often determined the route.

  Jenny Duncan’s farm was among the most level in the area.

  Charles worked swiftly, taking sights and jotting observations as he sketched the land. With its lakes, rivers and woodlands, Anderson County’s weather had been humid during the summer but nothing like what he endured in Lexington, much less at Fort Delaware. The clean, healthy air and the sunshine felt good. Texas was an excellent place for Charles to start over.

  They broke for the shade of a woodlot when the sun rose straight overhead. Hanks unstrapped a basket of food from his horse and they both carried Confederate Army canteens. The colonel spread a blanket on the grass.

  “Roast chicken.” Hanks handed Charles a slab of bread with meat. “Much better than hardtack.”

  “Your wife’s cooking is superior to anything I ate in the army.”

  “My mother-in-law manages the kitchen. Louisa never learned to cook.”

  “Ah.” Charles lounged on a corner of the blanket. “The servant problem.”

  “Louisa is expecting another baby, and we need to hire help. I pray society sorts things out soon and we can find a nurse,” he sighed. “But I’ve been thinking about something else I need to discuss with you.”

  “Go ahead.” Charles took a swig of spring water from his canteen.

  Turkey vultures spiraled in the hot air above and mourning doves called from grasslands to the west. Heat ripples rose over the fields and the dirt road.

  They’d seen no one since the horse farm, but town lay several miles in the opposite direction. For all Charles knew, they could still be on Jenny Duncan’s property. He chugged more water.

  “Stovall Academy is just another mile down the road,” Hanks said. “I know you’re a good surveyor and you sing well in church, but are you a trustworthy man with women?”

  Charles sputtered. “What kind of question is that?”

  “A straight-shooting one. Sam Peck wanted his boys in school. Jenny needs an experienced horseman on her farm or she won’t last the winter. She’s got a bunk room in the barn where you could live and take board with the family. I wouldn’t suggest it if her mother-in-law weren’t there, but this looks like a solution for both of you.”

  “What problem does it solve for me?” Charles set down his food.

  “You can’t live in your tent through the winter. You need to come indoors and be respectable. This way you can have a comfortable place to live and decent food. With you to help with the chores, Caleb and Micah are more likely to attend school. You’ll have two more students.”

  “Does Jenny Duncan want a lodger?”

  “If we put it to her the right way, I think she’ll agree. She’s got to get through the winter. Come spring things will change and she’ll have opportunities. She just has to survive the winter.”

  “What opportunities?” Charles touched his pocket. “She’ll have to prepare the fields for planting, and I’m not likely to have the time or interest to do the work. Has she got money to pay a hired hand?”

  “You forgot about the horses.” Colonel Hanks raised an eyebrow.

  No, he hadn’t. Charles never forgot about horses; that was part of the problem. Every fast mare, every strong stallion he saw caused the blood to course faster through his veins with racing possibilities.

  Charles shoved the idea away. He was through with horse racing. He’d fled Lexington to avoid it. He had a new life in Christ and a desperate desire to undo some of the past by doing what God called him to in the present.

  “A pretty widow and two orphans,” Hanks mused. “If you don’t want the job, I’m sure I can find an odd man or two to help. But I doubt anyone in Anderson County can help prepare the horses for sale as well as you.”

  Was a good Christian man, a justice of the peace, and the school board head supposed to tempt a man with a dare?

  “I’ll pray about it,” Charles said.

  “Fair enough. Pray fast. I’m going to suggest it to Jenny this afternoon.”

  Charles spent the rest of the workday hoping God would provide an answer when the time came.

  They heard pianoforte music coming from the house when they trotted down the lane late that afternoon. The colonel nodded. “I knew seeing Rachel would do her good.”

  Charles, however, was looking toward the river where Caleb had coaxed Sal to help round up the horses. The dog barked in a halfhearted way as she plodded after the youngest foal.

  Charles dismounted and whistled for the shiftless dog, who pricked up her ears. Her yellow tail wagged, but Charles narrowed his eyes and strode to her. “Round ’em up.”

  Sal whimpered but scurried over to the lagging horses and yipped near their delicate ankles. The horses picked up the pace and thundered through the gate Caleb had just opened.

  The teenager gaped. “How’d you do that? She only obeyed Pa.”

  Charles gazed at him. What were the odds this kid could mature to do the necessary work without a grown man to guide him? “Dogs and horses are alike; you just have to prove who’s in charge.”

  Colonel Hanks dismounted and entered the house, but Charles went to the barn with Caleb to settle the livestock. Micah tended a cow tied in a stall near the house end of the barn, where Charles saw two doors on either side of the long corridor down the middle. One was obviously an office. “That an extra room?” he asked about the other. “Mind if I take a look?”

  The boy nodded. “We sleep there now, but Jenny wants us to move into the house.”

  A bunk bed, potbellied stove, square table, and two benches made up the furniture. Rumpled blankets covered the beds and worn clothes hung from pegs. Charles thumped the walls: solid. Much better than a tent.

  “You gonna move in, Mr. Moss?”

  Charles saw the hope in Caleb’s eyes. “It depends on your sister.”

  They hitched the horse to the buggy and were ready when the colonel came out of the house with Rachel, her baby, Mrs. Duncan, and Jenny. Jenny hugged her friend good-bye but then bolted to the bushes at the side of the house.

  “She’s been throwing up a lot lately.” Caleb’s brow furrowed.

  Rachel handed her baby to Colonel Hanks and went to Jenny.

  The colonel cuddled the baby and shook his head. “I’ve seen this before. She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

  Chapter 5

  Mid-September

  Jenny stood on the porch to greet the dawn and braid her long hair before starting the chores. The fresh air soothed
her sleepless worry, and she savored the early morning birdcall. “Where are You, Lord?” she whispered as the sky lightened over the top of the eastern hills. “Show me what I need to know.”

  Sal raised a sleepy head when Jenny slipped into the barn. She noted the closed door on the right. She’d told her brothers to sleep in while she handled the livestock. The day would be full of moving and sorting, and with all the emotions waiting to ambush them, they’d be more cheerful with plenty of rest.

  The cow lowed and she blew it a kiss. “I’ll be back soon.” As she walked the length of the long barn, the friendly horses nickered from their stall doors. Chickens grumbled in their enclosure and the rooster tried a raucous greeting. The comforting grain and hay scents mingled with the other evidence of livestock. Jenny couldn’t remember any other life.

  That all might change, soon.

  Jenny opened the double doors to the pasture and let the horses out, one by one. The yearlings kicked their heels and scampered as fast as they could to the water pond. The mares plodded after with their foals, a whisper of amusement tickling their muzzles.

  Jenny released the sturdy geldings last and watched them saunter out. They were her only hope, the half-dozen chestnut horses her father had meticulously trained. She’d continued taking them through their paces as best she could, but already they had lost her father’s fine tuning and they let her know as they ambled into the sunrise.

  Jenny freed the cow and Ma Duncan’s chicken flock, then straightened her shoulders. The barn had two rooms: the bunk room where her brothers slept and where Charles Moss would move in today, and the small office where her father had managed the farm’s business.

  That was the second part of the morning’s chores: going through her father’s paperwork.

  Jenny stepped inside the stale room. Drifts of straw followed her, and she frowned. Pa never tolerated untidiness. She’d sweep when she finished.

  The standing desk to the left held cubbyholes stuffed with papers. Shelves filled with ledgers, medicines, and tired horse-doctoring books covered the right wall. Jenny had taken money out of the locked cash drawer in the six weeks since her father’s and husband’s deaths, but now she needed to learn exactly where they stood financially. Jenny sat on the high stool and started at the top cubby on the left.