A Path Worth Taking

by Mariella Starr

  “Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

  Beth turned to a tall, buxom woman and stepped back with wide eyes.

  The woman was flamboyant in a blood red silk dress covered in ruffles and a hat almost three-feet wide and almost as tall. Her face was almost hidden under a profusion red and yellow silk roses. The woman walked around Beth, inspecting her. “Well, ain't you a pretty one. Are you looking for a job, honey? I’ll take you into my stable and treat you right.”

  “Maude, you leave Mrs. Wakefield alone,” Mr. Smith yelled. “She’s got a husband and a boy with her.”

  “It’s a real shame,” the hussy remarked. “With your looks, honey the men would be bidding for you.”

  “Maude, you’re scaring away my customers,” Mr. Smith yelled, coming out from behind the counter brandishing a large rolling pin. “You know your kind ain’t allowed on the streets until after dark.”

  “What’s going on here?” Garret demanded stepping up behind Beth.

  “You can come by my place any old time,” the woman named Maude smirked. “I might even give you a free taste of what we offer.”

  “Out!” Mr. Smith yelled. “Whores ain’t allowed on the streets until after dusk! Everyone knows no self-respectin’ woman would be out at night!”

  The woman spun around and sashayed out of the building with an exaggerated sway of her hips.

  “Was she a lady of the night?” Beth whispered.

  “Lady doesn’t describe her,” Garret answered. “Did you get us squared away with the supplies?”

  “I gave the list to Mr. Smith and Jasper should be all right for clothing for the upcoming year even if he keeps growing.”

  “That boy is going to be a tall one,” Garret agreed. “He told me his daddy was well over six feet. It’s a testament to your good cooking!”

  “Thank you. Where did you go?”

  “I was talking to a man about the cattle,” Garret said. “When you’re through here, and we get the supplies loaded, I’ll take you down to the camp area where you should be safe. I have to go to the stockyards, and with the likes of the men down there, it’s no fitting place for you.”

  The wagon was no longer as tightly packed as it had been on the trip into town. Garret had paid a man for the right to park their wagon in an empty field overnight. Some of the campsites appeared as if they had been permanent for a while.

  “Why don’t you rest,” Garret suggested as he went off to take care of business. Beth was a bit at a loss since, for the first time in months, she had nothing to do. Garret had promised to treat her and Jasper to dinner, so she didn’t even have to cook.

  She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and decided to take a walk. The camp area gave each wagon about a thirty-foot square of space for their use. She supposed it was enough for a certain amount of privacy. However, children seemed to be everywhere, running, screaming, and playing.

  “Mrs. Wakefield?”

  Beth turned and faced Joe Braxton from the wagon train. “Captain Braxton, I didn’t expect to see you here. Shouldn’t you be in Oregon?”

  “We had problems and had to turn back,” Braxton said limping toward her. “I busted my leg.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, is your family here with you?”

  “My wagon is back in the third row. Matilda is there, and my kids are running around here somewhere,” Braxton said. “The Willowbees, the Griffins, and the Greer’s are here, too! The rest of our party joined another train heading west. They’ll be all right. There’s strength in numbers. Is your husband around?”

  “He’s at the livestock yards buying a herd of cattle.”

  “Why don’t you go say hello to Matilda,” Joe said. “She’ll be glad to see a friendly face. I’ll go find Garret.”

  ***

  “Everything went wrong,” Matilda Braxton explained over a cup of hot tea. “We lost three wagons in one river crossing, two on the next, and all of those poor souls drowned. Dysentery swept through the train and wiped out four more families. Joe separated them from the rest of us, but it still spread. Everyone lived in fear of who it would strike next.” The woman’s voice broke as she covered her face with her hands. “We lost our Trudy, and she was only three.”

  Beth hugged the woman, her eyes filling with tears at the loss.

  Matilda sucked in her breath and suddenly straightened. “Joe was trying to fix a broken wheel when something slipped, and the wagon fell on him. It broke and twisted his leg something awful. The men held a meeting and voted to leave us behind. My husband was of no further use to them, so the cowards abandoned us out on the godforsaken trail. I did the best I could, but a woman doesn’t have the strength to do what needs to be done on a wagon train. When a small caravan turned back, we joined them. This is as far as we made it. Joe is only now getting on his feet. I thank God my husband is better, but there’s no work for him here. The foremen see his limp and refuse to hire him. I don’t know what we’ll do. Are you and Mr. Wakefield turning back?”

  “No,” Beth said. “We have made our home about forty miles west of here. We have a piece of land, which was a former homestead. Garret bought it outright several years ago. It’s real pretty. We have mountains to the west and Denver to the east.”

  “You’ll starve to death before you survive a winter out here,” Matilda warned unhappily. “Sometimes, I think Captain Howell was right. Our train was jinxed!”

  Beth gasped.

  “I didn’t mean you,” Matilda said taking Beth’s hand. “We never believed the hog swill Captain Howell spewed against you. Joe says some trains are destined for failure. This time, it was ours.”

  ***

  Garret was looking over several different small herds of cattle separated by fences. He was making notes on a piece of paper when Joe Braxton walked up to him. Noticing the limp, Garret had to ask. “What happened?”

  “A wagon fell on me,” Joe answered. “It broke my leg real bad. We have to winter in the wagon encampment. With any luck, we’ll head back home to Ohio in the spring. I can’t talk Matilda into trying again, and I don’t blame her. She lost a lot taking a chance on this trip. We lost our Trudy to dysentery.”

  “I’m sorry,” Garret said knowing his words meant little, yet not knowing what else to say. Condolences were a paltry offering when a family lost a child, and little Trudy had been a sweet little girl.

  “What are you doing this winter? I heard the only jobs in town are for carpenters and bricklayers.”

  “I know. Everyone hiring has turned me down. They see my limp and turn away. There are too many men and too few jobs. I reckon we’ll manage somehow.”

  “Can you ride with your bad leg?” Garret asked.

  “If I have too, I will.”

  “I was planning on hiring another man to help out at my place,” Garret said. “I intended on hiring a single man, but if you can do the job, I can keep you busy until next spring. I bought this herd, and I’ll need help keeping it alive through the first winter.”

  “I’ll take it,” Joe replied quickly. “Matilda won’t like it, but I’ve got children to feed.”

  “There’s only one cabin on the property, but there’s a small barn we aren’t using. You’re welcome to it. If you’re willing to help, we could probably get a second room added onto the cabin before the first snow falls. That way, you would have a sound place to winter. I can’t offer better, right now. We have taken on a youngster who works for us. Jasper does a good job, but he’s still a boy. I can’t expect him to do the work of a man.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” Joe promised. “I want to get my family out of the tent city. Families froze to death in that hell hole last winter.”

  Garret offered his hand and the men shook. “We’ll leave at dawn, you can follow us.” Garret dipped into his pocket and pulled out several bills. “You’ll need provisions, and it’s a two-day ride to Denver on horseback, three to five by wagon. You best get your supplies before you leave.”

 
; “I can’t take what I haven’t earned.”

  “You’ll earn it,” Garret promised.

  “There’s something else you need to know,” Joe Braxton said.

  Garret turned and waited for whatever his new hire needed to tell him.

  Joe took off his hat and rolled the rim in his hands. “I’m not sure Captain Howell had the authority to marry folks.”

  “What?”

  “When we arrived here, I went to talk to Captain Howell’s brother to tell him what happened on the wagon train. Floyd Howell runs a saloon here in Denver. He didn’t take well to the news of his brother’s death. I tried to explain, only the man has a bad temper and didn’t want to hear the truth. He stormed out, swearing a blue streak. His wife, on the other hand, was not so fond of her brother-in-law. Once her husband left, she didn’t mind giving me an earful.

  “The bottom line is Captain Howell was a liar. He was not a captain in the Army. He also was never a captain of a ship. He was a crook, lying to everyone and risking the lives of every man, woman, and child traveling on his wagon trains.

  “His family lost track of him for years before the war. He reappeared in Independence, Missouri four years ago claiming he’d been in the Army fighting the Indian wars. I don’t know how he managed it, but he faked his history of being an experienced wagon master. He assembled a group of settlers who wanted to go Oregon and took on the job. He got two trains through safely before ours. I don’t know how he did it. I’ve talked to a lot of men since and no one had ever heard of him. Some of those men have been wagon masters for thirty years. He lied to all of us.

  “Wagon masters have to register at the courthouse in Independence so they have the legal right to marry folks, same as a lay preacher. If he faked his background, he might have faked other things, too. The only other couple he married on the train were lost in a river crossing. I thought you might want to know since he married you to Miss St. Claire.”

  “Damn!” Garret cursed. “Howell has a lot to be blamed for, and this explains much of what happened on my first trip scouting for him. I thought he was a hard man. It turns out, he was a stupid man who put everyone’s life in danger. You had best get your wagon prepared if you are leaving out with us in the morning. I have to talk to Beth.”

  Garret finished his transactions with the stockyards and walked to the wagon camp with Joe Braxton. Beth was not there. Matilda told him she went to the mercantile to buy sweets for the children.

  He headed toward the business part of town, leaving Joe Braxton in an argument with his wife. It was getting louder by the minute, and he was surprised that the man would put up with such backtalk.

  Beth was wandering around the mercantile. She had already purchased a nickel bag of peppermints for the children and another one for herself, Garret and Jasper.

  “Mr. Smith, do you know where I can purchase a cat?”

  “I’ve already sold you my two of my best laying hens and a rooster. What more do you want, Mrs. Wakefield?”

  “We need a cat for the vermin in the barns.”

  The man disappeared into the bowels of the storeroom, carried out a cage, and set it on the counter. He went to the butcher section of his store, grabbed something out of a bucket, and tossed it in the cage. “This is the best I can do. There are feral cats in the alley down by Water Street. Open the door, wait for them to go in for the guts, and slam the gate closed. Keep your parts out of the way of their claws. Even if you catch one, it will take you a couple of weeks to tame it enough so it won’t run off. That’ll be twenty-five cents to rent. I want the cage returned.”

  “Thank you,” Beth said carrying the cage outside. She asked a man on the sidewalk for directions to Water Street, and he gave her a strange look before pointing down the street. She found the street sign only a moment before Jasper joined her.

  “What are you doing with a cage, Miss Beth?”

  The boy shook his head and took the cage away from Beth as soon as she explained her intentions. “I can’t let you do this, Miss Beth. If you get scratched, Garret will have my hide for not stopping you. Besides, Water Street is no fit place for a lady. You best get back to the wagon before he finds you here.”

  Beth knew it would do no good to argue. The two men in her life, young and old, were protective and sometimes treated her like she was ten years old and a silly child. She thought it was sweet of them most of the time. Sometimes it aggravated her, depending on her mood.

  As she walked past Water Street, she peeked down the alleyway to sneak a look at what they did not want her to see.

  It was a street full of saloons and bawdy houses. A girl in a low-cut top and an indecently short skirt was sitting on the raised sidewalk dangling an uncovered leg, and leaning against a porch post. She had the other leg propped up in a most unladylike pose allowing her undergarments to show, and she was smoking a cigar.

  “Beth!” Garret’s voice was stern as he took her firmly by the arm, propelling her quickly along the wooden sidewalk. He gave her a hard smack on her bottom. “I don’t ever want to catch you on this side of town again! What are you doing down here?”

  “I came here on Mr. Smith’s advice to catch a cat. What are you doing here?”

  “Don’t sass me,” Garret growled.

  “I answered your question, why won’t you answer mine?”

  “I said, don’t sass me! I was looking for you. You shouldn’t have left the campground.” He took her hand and almost dragged her to the mercantile porch. “Stay put this time,” he growled as he left her there with no explanation.

  Beth sat on the bench outside the store until Jasper showed up with the cage. He had three young cats in it not much past the kitten stage. The boy was grinning, although he had two long scratches across the back of his hand. “I had to fight the momma cat for these critters, but I figure they have a better chance with us than with her.”

  “They’re not so old we can’t tame them,” Beth exclaimed excitedly looking closely into the cage and then jumping away as a small paw swiped at her.

  “I’ll take them to the wagon,” Jasper said. “Are you coming?”

  “You will have to find a crate or a box for them,” Beth instructed. “I have to return the cage to Mr. Smith, and I’m waiting for Garret. He told me to wait for him here.”

  Garret eventually returned, took her elbow, and escorted her into the store. “I need a wedding band,” he said gruffly to the proprietor.

  Beth smiled and picked out a ring. However, instead of letting her wear it, Garret stuck it in his shirt pocket, paid for it, took her hand, and again pulled her down the sidewalk.

  Tired of being led around, Beth dug in her heels. “Where are we going?”

  “To the preacher’s house,” Garret said appearing upset.

  “Why?”

  Garret looked around and pulled her into an alley. “Honey, I got bad news today. You may not be my wife legally.”

  “What?” Beth’s hand covered her mouth in shock.

  “Joe Braxton told me Captain Howell might not have had the authority to marry us. It turns out he was not the man he claimed to be. He lied about an awful lot of things. I’m not willing to wait until we can verify for sure if he filled out the paperwork to make it legal for him to marry us. I’ve already talked to the preacher, and he’s waiting for us.”

  “Oh my God!” Beth gasped. “Oh my God! I’ve been living with you for almost five months. I’m a whore!”

  “Stop it! I don’t want to hear such talk,” Garret snapped. “Look at me, Beth! I’ve loved you since the first day we met. This might not be one of our finest moments, but the only person we can blame for this mess is dead. We might very well be married legal, except I don’t know for sure, so I’m not taking any chances if we aren’t. We’ll stand in front of a preacher and say our vows again and this time, you won’t be forced. When you say those words, you’ll be coming to me willingly.”

  “You don’t have to marry me,” Beth whispered.


  “Yes, I do,” insisted Garret. “You get that thought right out of your head! I love you. I didn’t put a ring on your finger before because I didn’t have one. This time, I will. It means you’re my wife, and it’s supposed to be that way. Are you willing to marry me again, so we can be sure this time?”

  Beth nodded her head slowly. “If we say the vows in front of a preacher, it really is forever.”

  “It’s always been forever, Beth,” Garret said gruffly. “You are my wife and have been for some time. This is just a little hiccup along the way, but there is no way I’m letting go of you. Now, come on woman, we need to get hitched.”

  ***

  Beth disagreed with her husband’s idea of moving the Braxton’s out to their ranch. Her opinion did not matter much, though, as Garret would not go back on his word to a man he considered a friend. He reminded her of Joe’s support after Captain Howell had been killed. Still, Beth had her doubts. Not about Joe, but about Matilda.

  She hadn’t become friends with Matilda even after Captain Howell died because the woman hadn’t offered friendship. She wasn’t one of the women who had helped or become friendly. She had heard the other women gossiping. Some of those women thought Matilda looked down her nose at them. They whispered about Joe’s wife being a complainer and not a true helpmate to her husband. Garret had also not heard how bitter Matilda was about being stranded in the territory.

  Beth told her husband what she knew. He sloughed it off as female gossip. Garret said it was all the more reason to offer help. The Braxton family needed someone’s help to survive until the next spring when they could join a wagon train heading eastward.

  Matilda was none too pleased either with her husband’s decision to take the family to the Wakefield ranch. Neither Garret nor Beth could hear what was being said in the wagon behind them, but Joe Braxton seemed like a beleaguered husband. Four nights of rough camping on the way to the cabin did nothing to improve the woman’s disposition. She was snappish to her husband and children each evening at the shared campfire.