“I’ll put this in the back of my wagon where you can see it,” Greg said, gesturing for Darcy to follow him to the modest Conestoga nearby. “Just so that you feel secure. We’ve got a lot of walking ahead of us. Hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” she said, breathless even to her own reckoning. As the wagons around her lined up and started around the fort and on to some point on the horizon, she was too stunned to mind anything.
It wasn’t until they were several yards away from the fort on the west side that she blinked herself back into sense and studied her surroundings. The wagons stretched out in a long, dotted line as they clattered on across a path that was worn hard by countless pioneers before them. Most of the people walked, with only a few of the very oldest or youngest riding in the wagons. Several wagons had seats where a driver perched as he goaded the oxen yoked to the wagon on with a long whip on a pole. Just as many people walked alongside their oxen, coaxing them on with words and touch. Greg was one of the ones who walked.
Darcy wondered if Conrad was the sort who would walk or who would ride on his wagon. She twisted and turned as her steps took her forward, looking for him. In spite of the fact that they were just a few humble travelers in the middle of a vast, uninhabited wilderness, it wasn’t easy to pick someone out of the crowd. She had to step far to the side, craning her neck to see farther up the line and hang back to check behind her before finding Conrad. He drove his wagon—sitting high on the driver’s seat with a whip clutched tightly in his fist, the man who had been with him now sitting next to him with his arms crossed, talking—several wagons behind Greg’s. Darcy hung back, intent on talking to him.
“Don’t think you can get away with cheating me out of twenty bucks,” Conrad shouted at Darcy when she tried to approach. “I’ll get my money from you yet.”
The smile that Darcy had put on in her attempt to do something to change Conrad’s mind faded. “I’ll do what I can, Mr. Huber, but don’t you think it’s a shame to go through all that effort only to have to do it all again and find another bride?”
His buddy leaned over and murmured something in his ear.
“You’re too stubby, too weak,” Conrad sniffed, glancing to his friend, then staring straight forward.
“But don’t you think—”
He cracked the whip, causing his oxen to jolt forward. They couldn’t go very far with another wagon in front of them, but he effectively ended their conversation. Conrad’s friend sneered down at her as though he’d won a victory.
Darcy let her shoulders drop and headed back to Greg’s wagon. If she really was strong, she would stand her ground and force Conrad to see how useful she could be. She had the itching feeling that his friend was whispering against her, and that if she tried hard enough, Conrad would change his mind. But after the rattling stagecoach ride and the twist of fortune that had meant the end of the journey and her hopes, she didn’t have the energy to fight. She picked up her pace, wanting nothing more than to distance herself from the failure that Conrad’s rejection presented.
Her only consolation was that, after weeks of sitting in a cramped and stuffy stagecoach, she was free to walk and breathe fresh air. She drew in a large breath and forced herself to smile. Smiling was healthy. It helped you to feel positive when nothing around you was working right, or so she had always been told. So she smiled and glanced around at the sun-touched wilderness the wagon train traveled through.
For weeks she hadn’t been able to see much through the stagecoach’s windows. Walking out in the open now was a revelation. She wasn’t sure when the landscape had changed from the endless, flat prairie to a different sort of prairie—rougher, with a hint of mountains on the horizon. It was far from the rolling hills and dense vegetation of Maryland, but the territory that they walked through now had its own shape and life. It was almost as if the land was stretching and beginning to stir at the dawn of a new day before it reached on toward the future.
At least she didn’t have to be here alone. Conrad may not have wanted her, but fate had ensured that she wasn’t entirely friendless. Greg Quinlan had helped her when he didn’t have to. She watched him several wagons ahead of her as she strode to catch up. He had the strong back and straight posture of a man who knew what he wanted from his life and was willing to go out and get it. That thought widened her smile and quickened her pace. If nothing else, she could walk with him for a while and seek his help with her predicament.
She was close to hitching up her skirts and jogging to catch up to him when Mr. Evans rode up to Greg’s side, dismounting so that the two men could walk together.
“I want to talk to you,” Mr. Evans opened the conversation.
“What can I do for you, Pete?” Greg answered.
The two men were close enough that Darcy could catch a hint of their conversation, even though they walked with their backs toward her. Curiosity got the better of her, and she quickened her pace and moved close enough to hear them.
“…is just not interested,” Pete was in the middle of saying when she picked up the thread of the conversation. “He was hoping for a bigger, strapping gal who can keep house and help him mine. That cute slip of a thing that showed up on the stagecoach back there just won’t suit, or so he told me.”
Darcy’s spirits fell.
“But he spent the money, put in the effort to send for her,” Greg defended her. “He’s just going to toss that away?”
“Looks like it.” Mr. Evans shrugged. “Though I think his buddy, Bruce, has something to do with it. Not the most friendly sort. Apparently he co-owns Conrad’s mine. Now Conrad’s acting ornery about his money. He wants it back, no two ways about it.”
“Miss Howsam said she doesn’t have it, and I believe her.”
Greg believed her. It was a small comfort. Darcy inched closer to them as the wagon train rattled on.
“That’s what I told Conrad,” Mr. Evans went on. “He doesn’t care. But I did manage to convince him to give Miss Howsam until the split point at Ft. Bridger. Conrad is heading on to California from there.”
“And how long will that take?” Greg asked the question that weighed on Darcy’s mind.
“Not more than a couple of weeks. Less than that if the weather holds out. It’s rough going, but I’ve been out this way a dozen times and more,” Mr. Evans replied.
“Well, that’s something,” Greg said. “Maybe Miss Howsam can do washing or mending for people, or at the forts we pass.”
She could. She could do any number of things. But Greg didn’t know how much money Conrad had sent her. How was she going to earn twenty dollars in just two weeks’ time on the trail? She still honestly believed she would do better to convince the man to marry her after all, as unsettling as that prospect was.
“I can’t see as it’s really any of my business,” Greg said, drawing Darcy’s attention back to him.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about, son.” Pete slapped him on the back. “I want you to keep an eye on that poor thing, take her on, as it were.”
“Take her on?” As Greg flinched at the comment, Darcy could see the color that splashed his face. A knot formed in her stomach. “I don’t know, Pete.”
“It’s just temporary,” Mr. Evans argued. “She’s got no one until Conrad steps up to his responsibility, and seeing as you’ve got nothing else going….”
“I do have something going,” Greg argued. “I’ve got plans. Big plans. As soon as I get to the Oregon Territory—”
“Hold on, now. That’s not what I meant,” Pete stopped him. “I’m only saying that you don’t have a family to watch out for or much more than a wagon and oxen to keep track of. You can spare a bit of attention for a wayward miss, can’t you?”
Greg hesitated. With each word he didn’t say, Darcy sank deeper and deeper into sadness. She truly wasn’t wanted, by anyone. The one man who she had hoped could turn things around for her was hesitating instead of helping.
“Sure, Pete,�
�� Greg answered at length. Darcy saw his weary smile in profile as he nodded to Mr. Evans. “I really don’t mind, it’s just that—”
He caught sight of Darcy out of the corner of his eye and stumbled. His smile flickered before he paused and waited for Darcy to catch up.
“Miss Howsam,” Mr. Evans said, pausing with Greg.
Neither man could stay still for more than a few seconds as Greg’s oxen pulled his wagon on.
“Hello, Mr. Evans, Mr. Quinlan,” Darcy greeted them half-heartedly. They had to know that she had overhead their conversation.
“Now, Darcy, I thought I told you to call me Greg,” Greg said, as friendly as if he actually wanted her there.
“I’m sorry, Greg,” she corrected herself. “I don’t want to be a burden,” she went on. Might as well deal with things upfront.
“On, no,” Greg insisted, making sure she was walking by his side, between him and Mr. Evans, before settling into a stride again. “If you overheard me, I can assure you it was a misunderstanding. I’m just concerned because I’m a single man traveling on my own and you’re a single woman.” He glanced across Darcy to Mr. Evans. “Are you sure it’s right and proper?”
Mr. Evans shrugged and let out a breath. “It’s the trail. One thing I’ve come to know about the trail is that normal rules of society have to be put aside for practicality sometimes. Like now.”
“I suppose,” Darcy said. She still had no wish to be a burden to a man who didn’t want her around, even if that seemed to be her lot in life.
“All right, you have me convinced,” Greg told Mr. Evans, his smile returning full-force. “Darcy, would you kindly walk with me until we can figure out how to get you out of your fix?”
In spite of herself, hope bloomed in Darcy’s heart once more. “Well, if you put it like that, I’m not sure I can refuse.”
“Good,” Mr. Evans said. He stopped long enough to mount his horse, then walked up beside them again. “Now that that’s settled, I’ll just go see how the McTavishes are doing. I didn’t like the look of Trudy McTavish’s fever earlier. Ma’am.” He nodded to Darcy, touching the brim of his hat, and rode ahead along the line of wagons.
An awkward silence fell between Darcy and Greg. Darcy broke it by saying, “I didn’t realize there was sickness in the wagon train.”
“Since we set out, it’s seemed like someone has always had a fever or a cough or something. It’s not as bad as some stories I’ve heard. Traveling like this is strenuous,” Greg answered.
“I suppose so, though it’s much better than stagecoach, I can assure you.”
Greg laughed. “Traveling by stagecoach was that bad?”
“Worse. One night I woke up from a sound sleep to find a gentleman whose name I barely knew asleep with his head in my lap, drooling.”
The two of them laughed together. Darcy took a breath and went on with the story. Greg listened with interest, asking questions that prompted more conversation. As the lonely trail miles wore on, they lost track of time and enjoyed each other’s company. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Greg had seen a lot of rough things in his time on the trail so far, but nothing prepared him for the spate of bad weather that hit them a few days later. What had started off as a hot, dry summer turned stormy and miserable in no time. By the time they were three days out of Ft. Laramie, he wondered if they hadn’t accidentally ventured into a monsoon.
“Careful there,” he called across to Darcy as she trudged alongside the oxen pulling his wagon. “Jupiter is looking a little unsteady. Just reach out and stroke his neck and I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“Like this?” Darcy asked, smoothing a hand along the wet coat of the ox on the right of the team pulling his wagon.
The rain beat down on them. Darcy’s dress was soaked and plastered to her shoulders. The wide-brimmed bonnet she wore sagged so badly that Greg wasn’t sure how she could see. But she was a determined little thing. She stroked Jupiter’s neck without fear and kept her pace steady by the beast’s side.
“Just like that,” he said, smiling through the storm.
A crack of lightning struck far on the horizon to their left. Greg’s skin prickled with the danger it presented.
“Shouldn’t we take cover somewhere?” Darcy asked, searching all around the slow-moving wagon train.
“Where?” Greg answered. “There’s nothing we could really use as shelter within a mile except a few scrub trees. At least the lightning is keeping well to the south.”
He thought he caught Darcy shivering as they walked and picked up his pace to sway closer to her side. The least he could do was provide some shelter from the rain with the bulk of his body if it came to it. Plenty of other families had piled into their wagons, but Darcy insisted on walking if he was walking. She was much tougher than she looked.
“What did you do when you ran into storms before reaching Ft. Laramie?” she asked.
Greg shrugged. “Same as we’re doing now. We walked right through them. If we didn’t, it’d take twice as long to get where we’re going.”
“And where are you going?” she asked as if the thought had just occurred to her.
She peeked up at him through the soggy brim of her bonnet, looking for all the world like a drowned cat. Her smile was still in place, though. That was almost as good as sunshine.
“I’m heading to the Oregon Territory to buy myself some land,” he explained, chest swelling with pride at his plans. “I’ve been saving up for years, ever since I was old enough to work. I grew up on a farm in Ohio, so I know how to work the land. We had cows too, so I thought about heading to the Dakota Territory to start a ranch.”
“But you decided on a farm instead?” she asked.
“Yep,” he nodded, then tipped his head to the side. “Well, maybe. I’ve got all the money I need to buy a nice parcel of good farmland near the coast in Oregon. I figure I could work that for a few years on my own until it’s producing well, then I can start to hire boys to expand it with me. Either that or I could start off buying land and a few head of cattle. I figure I’ll decide when I get there. Either way, it won’t be easy, but owning land the only thing I’ve really wanted to do for as long as I can remember.”
“I admire you,” she said, speaking up through the patter of the rain. “To go so far from home and all on your own.”
“And I admire you,” he complimented her in turn. “It takes a lot of courage to answer an advertisement in a newspaper from a man looking for a bride without ever having laid eyes on him. Braver than earning money and heading west to buy land.”
“I didn’t have much choice,” she said. Greg found himself wanting to know more, but before he could ask why, she went on with, “And why haven’t you sent back East for a bride?”
He grinned at the boldness of her question. Something about it set his heart beating.
“I’ve got a plan,” he answered. “First, go west. Second, find land. Third, work the land. Fourth, expand. And then, finally, once all of that is taken care of and I’m established, then I might find a bride, if one strikes my fancy. But I wouldn’t do it sight unseen.”
“Oh.” She checked on Jupiter, stroking his side. Her bonnet hid her face. “You wouldn’t consider looking for a bride before then?”
“Nope,” he answered, a little too quickly.
He didn’t understand the twist of guilt that lodged in his chest at his response. It wasn’t as if he was the one who had let her down by refusing to marry her. There were no promises between them.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean that a dozen men or more in every town we pass won’t be looking for a bride,” he went on, as if that could make things better. “I’m sure you won’t have a problem finding a husband that suits you, if that’s what you want.”
She sent him a wary sideways look. “That may be, but it doesn’t solve the problem of Mr. Huber’s money. I owe him.”
Those words sounded so wrong coming from Darcy that Greg flinc
hed. What did a sweet woman like her owe to a stubborn bully like Conrad?
Before he could ask her just that, Darcy said, “I have to convince him that I am the woman he thought I would be when he sent for me. If nothing in the letter I wrote when I answered his advertisement suited what he was looking for, then why would he send me the money in the first place?”
“I don’t know,” Greg said, frustrated for her.
“There has to be something else going on. There has to be something I can do,” she continued.
“I’m sure there is,” Greg agreed, though if he had his say, he would tell her to do whatever it took to pay Conrad off, then run in the opposite direction. It wasn’t really up to him, though. He was a man. He could save his money and buy a farm. Sad though it was, women didn’t have those same options.
Another crack of thunder rumbled in the distance, still on the horizon but a bit of a way behind them, now. The rain was as fierce as ever, though. The ground was soft with mud, but the stalwart oxen lumbered on.
“So what made you decide you wanted to be a mail-order bride in the first place?” Greg asked when he felt the silence between them had gone on too long. “Why that instead of, I don’t know, going to work in a shop or something?”
“I did work in a shop once,” Darcy replied in a grim voice. “I enjoyed it, but the shop went out of business. Then I worked as a maid in the house of one of Baltimore’s finest citizens.”
“Oh? What was wrong with that?”
She peeked at him from the corner of her soaked bonnet. “My employer had a roving eye and wandering hands,” she said, even more grim than before.
“Oh,” Greg answered. He balled his hand into a fist at his side. Men who acted like that were no better than… than men like Conrad Huber, making promises and then leaving women in the lurch. “What about your family, then?” he asked.
She sighed. “I don’t have any left, unfortunately. There was an influenza outbreak a few years ago. I was the only one who made it through. I nursed my poor mother and sister after Papa and the others had gone, but….”
Wild Western Women Ride Again: Western Historical Romance Boxed Set Page 43