by Bella Bowen
Interestingly enough, there were two brides who had resigned themselves to the men at their elbows, but were completely wrong for each other. And Mary couldn’t help but intervene. A quick swap and four content people became two happy couples eager for another week of getting to know each other better. Poor Mary Lou might have ended up on a sheep ranch when she’d longed for a life in the city. Mr. Charleston, from Boston, was a much better match. And hard-working Millie Adair wanted a hard-working husband and a bit of land to call her own. Boston would have left her fit to be tied, but Charlie Sparks had finally begun to see the prize within that plain package.
A rough pull on her elbow dragged Mary away from her conversation with Mr. Charleston and Mary Lou.
Fontaine whispered in her ear. “If you’re not careful, you’ll have all eleven of them married off this week,” she hissed.
Mary frowned. “Isn’t that what you want? Wouldn’t that make you a perfect success?”
Fontaine shook her head. “A perfect success means we’d need twelve new brides by next week, Mary. Next week! And if we can’t come up with twelve…”
Mary’s stomach dropped. “Then I’ll be dancing again?”
“Then you’ll be dancing again.” The gunslinger gave her a disgusted look and marched out of the room.
Immediately, everyone relaxed. Mrs. Kennedy appeared and clapped her hands together to get everyone’s attention.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you’ve been enjoying yourselves. But at this time the ladies will be leaving you.” She smiled when the men sounded their disappointment. “It’s been an eventful day or two and they’ll need to rest. And we need to get the dining room ready for this afternoon’s Tea.”
Upstairs, the window allowed a large square of sunshine to drape across the bed like a blanket. Just enough warmth for both Mary and Millie as they tried to rest.
“I heard what Fontaine told you,” Millie said without opening her eyes. “That she’ll make you dance and play the bride again next week if we all get proposals today.”
“I did enjoy the dancing,” Mary said. “At least what I can remember of it. I’m sure I can suffer through another evening of it.” There was no use telling Millie about John now. If word got back to Alexandra, the Scotswoman would only feel bad for Mary missing her chance to tell John who she was.
“Well, you should resist dancing if you can, especially if you’re not ready to marry. There’s just something…intoxicating about it. I nearly lost my heart to Mr. Charleston and he wouldn’t have suited me at all. I think it was his dancing that nearly seduced me.”
“Seduced?” Mary choked on the word.
“Yes, Mary. Be careful. If you hope to still be available when Mr. Hermann returns to Sage River, be careful who you dance with.”
In Mary’s mind came the image of herself and a featureless husband, walking hand in hand out of the little chapel…only to come face to face with John Hermann.
“John! It’s me, Mary Radley!” she’d say.
And there would be her husband, shaking his head. “No. That’s not your name anymore.”
And Fontaine would laugh…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As it happened, the roads were passable on Friday morning and the runners on the sleighs were needed more for mud than snow.
When both vehicles pulled to a stop in front of Carnegie house, bursting with happy brides, a distraught Alexandra Campbell was waiting. Her face was drawn and pale. Her hands twisted together while she waited for Fontaine to notice her.
“It wasn't Mary's fault,” she wailed. “I begged her to take my place.” She burst into tears and Hortense gathered the Scotswoman against her side. Together, they face Fontaine who waited impatiently for the rest of the brides to unload themselves so she could drive on to the barn. The tears had no effect on the gunslinger, which no one expected anyway. But Alexandra's state had everyone else rallying to her side.
“You listen to me, Fontaine,” Hortense barked. “We were all in on it. Every one of us. We didn't want to compete against Alexandra's...” She indicated the intimidating bosoms by waving a hand in a circle above them, “so we voted to allow Mary to take her place.”
That finally got Fontaine's attention. “You voted.”
“Yes,” the brides said in unison. Having an idea of what the future held for them seemed to have given them a shot of courage.
Fontaine snorted and slapped the reins without looking to see if everyone had disembarked. If their grand gesture had lessened the tough woman's sense of betrayal, there was no telling.
~ ~ ~
Christmas Eve. Boston.
The door closed after John’s young sweeper left for the holiday and he was finally alone in his large workshop with the new shipment from Hermann Tanner and Saddlery, Sage River, Wyoming. As the pot-bellied stove warmed the cool drafts that came and went, so did it warm the leather saddles and cases of tack. And what had always seemed a foreign, cheerless space now smelled exactly like home.
Dies and stains came complete with the essence of the trees and plants from which they were derived, and at that moment, the entire expanse of Snowy Range Mountain kissed him on the face.
A fine Christmas gift for himself.
His hand felt and found the new tool he'd been storing in his pocket for this special occasion. He'd learned how to make his own, but it had been a long while since he'd needed anything other than the set of tools that had become extensions of his own hands. A single evening in Sage River, however, had brought him a fresh rush of inspiration. And during the trip back to Boston, he'd obsessed about the tool that might recreate a certain ruffle on a certain pink dress—on a certain young woman who had brought his youth flooding back to him.
He stepped down onto the hard floor and all but lunged for the wooden crate that would contain the smallest leather pieces from his father's shop. He pried the lid off and found, on the top, a beautiful black bullwhip that almost sparkled at him. A note was attached.
Merry Christmas, Rebel.
He felt like Rebel again—a gangly teen who yearned for the black bullwhip in his father's shop—a bullwhip made for a special customer, braided by his father's hand while Rebel had watched, mouth drooling.
“Can you teach me how to make one of those?” he'd asked.
“If you want to learn this, you have to learn it all,” his father chided. “You don't start with rewards. You start with sweat. When you've learned all there is to know about tanning, then you can move on to this.”
Rebel that he was, he’d told his mother he hoped for a black bullwhip for Christmas, hoping she would take his side in the matter. But it only caused his parents to argue. He got a pair of boots instead. Needed, but unappreciated.
He'd used his father's tools to decorate the toes. Disgusted, his father took them back and sold them to someone else. No son of his was going to wear fancy frills on his boots.
John blinked away the moisture gathering in his eyes and stroked the peace offering.
A black bullwhip for Christmas. I'd like to take back the past, he could almost hear his father say. Let's go back to that day you asked me to teach you how to braid a whip...
Now he had a whip his father knew was destined to have fancy frills added. But John had no intention of making the whip into a show piece. There was only one, small design he would add to the perfection of the present.
His own signature.
He took the whip to his worktable, secured the handle with a vice in the center, and turned up the gaslight above his head. There was a wide swath of smooth leather at the base of the handle just begging for his touch. He took his new tool and placed it in the holder next to the six he used for his brand, then got to work.
The back edge of the rose. The exact number of petals. The front petals, then the turned edge. The center stamen. The stem...and the bottom of the leaf—the top of the leaf would be different. From that day forward, the leaf would have a ruffled edge.
He laid t
he head of the new tool against the smooth leather, adjusted it—four times—then picked up the small mallet.
He took a breath and held it.
Whack.
He pulled the tool away and beheld the magic left behind. A perfect little ruffle. Just the right size. Just the right touch.
Each and every time he'd put his brand on a piece of leather, or wood, he would think of his Mary. Her face was never clear anymore, but he thought of her just the same. But not that evening. No matter how he tried, he couldn't summon Mary's eyes. Couldn't get her memory to turn around and look at him. Instead, he saw Alexandra Campbell. But the warmth he felt was the same.
Maybe it was the smell of tanned leather bringing thoughts of home and the mountain. But Alexandra wasn't home and didn’t have anything to do with his mountain. She was a charming girl from Pennsylvania, a young woman not quite old enough to marry.
He studied the ruffle again and decided he was only obsessed with her because she'd been the source of his inspiration. She'd probably be perplexed to know that he thought about her at all.
He tried to summon Mary again, but again, she wouldn't turn away from the sheet she was hanging on the clothesline. Was she trying to tell him something? Did she want him to stop worrying about her?
He chuckled silently to himself and was glad that no one could hear the nonsense in his head. He'd heard that artists have odd thoughts. And if that was true, he supposed he really was a bona fide artist now.
An artist with the stamp of approval from his own father. A black, shiny, perfect bullwhip.
John was suddenly sick for home. It didn’t matter that he could close his eyes and pretend he was already there, especially with the smells swirling around his head. But it wasn’t good enough. He wanted to look into his father’s eyes and thank him. And in spite of a certain gun-toting female, there was a young woman he needed to check on. The Mary in his mind would keep ignoring him until he did.
Problem was…there was a sea of leather waiting for his skills and he wasn’t going anywhere until it was all done and delivered. He’d been looking forward to the work and the challenge only half an hour ago. Now it was a mountain of leather goods keeping him from Wyoming. And he feared that while he scaled that mountain, some smooth-talking gentleman would be able to convince Alexandra Campbell she wasn’t too young to marry after all…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mary watched out the window as Puuku rode up to the house. Puuku didn't like the house. Puuku never came to the house. The Comanche woman worked with horses, mostly. But people, as far as Puuku was concerned, didn’t deserve her doctoring. She liked to sleep outside in her own little hut up against the rise far south of the bathhouse. Sometimes, women sought her out for silly things like love potions because she thought maybe the woman had unearthly powers. She was certainly able to bring sick animals back from the dead sometimes.
It was enough of a surprise that Puuku was nearing the house that Mary stopped her mending and watched the woman come. The Comanche soon stomped through the front doors as if she did it every day. No hesitating. No expression on her face.
“Mary,” she said. “A man. Sage River. You must go. Fontaine say.”
Mary looked around to see if she might have fallen asleep on the settee behind her and maybe she was just having another dream about John Hermann. He filled her head day and night. It was no wonder she'd dreamed he'd come for her.
But there was no earthly form of herself sleeping on the settee. Cold had settled into her feet and she stomped to feel the pins and needles of waking them up. The pain told her she wasn't dreaming.
Puuku stood unmoving, still pointing at the door, the direction of Sage River. “You go. Fontaine say.”
“What man?” She was proud of herself for having the courage to ask.
Puuku frowned for a moment. “Friz Raddy.”
Mary's heart bolted out of her chest. “Fritz Radley! Do you mean Fritz Radley?”
Puuku nodded. “Friz Raddy. You go.”
Her brother was in Sage River! Maybe the rest of her family too! But she couldn’t leave the ranch without permission. Bride or not, Mrs. Carnegie had to give her permission first.
“I need a horse. Where is Mrs. Carnegie?”
Puuku shook her head. “My horse. You go now. Missus at hot springs. You go.”
Mary thanked her and ran to get her coat, her boots, and all the warm things she might need to keep from freezing if she had trouble.
“Fontaine gate,” the woman said. “Go too.”
Mary nodded. She was relieved she wouldn’t be traveling alone, but she still needed permission. So she thanked Puuku, got on the horse, then turned its head toward the south.
Diamond Springs was named for the hot springs that bubbled up out of a hill a good mile south of the house. In the snow, she’d be able to follow the woman’s tracks, but even if it were summer, she was confident she knew where those springs were.
Puuku hollered something at her in her native tongue, but Mary had no time to go back and try to decipher what she’d said. After alerting Mrs. Carnegie, she’d be coming back by the house anyway. Maybe by then Puuku could figure out how to tell her in English.
The terrain was rocky. Her mount made slow progress once it started up the rise though horse tracks showed a clear path to follow. About halfway up the hill, where the brush gave way to trees, another set of hoof prints joined the first. Either someone else was on the hill that day, or Mrs. Carnegie had become lost and had started covering the same ground.
In case someone had followed the woman to the springs, where she always insisted on going alone, Mary thought it best to have her gun at the ready. So she slipped it from the pocket of her skirt, pulled the holster off it, and got it cocked and ready. All the while, Puuku’s horse followed the tracks as if it knew the way.
The rocks gave way to smoother footing and the snow gobbled up the sound of her progress. The birds quieted. But the air was broken with a woman's laughter.
She tried to stop the horse, but lost one of the reins. The animal continued while she bent over its neck and tried to get hold of the slippery leather.
Finally!
She sat straight and pulled the animal to a stop. Standing nude and almost shoulder-deep in the water, Mrs. Carnegie gasped just as a dark head sunk into the water in front of her.
“I'm so sorry!” Mary looked away before she even thought about what she'd seen. “I know you don't like to be disturbed here, but...”
“But what!”
Understanding dawned. And she turned back. A confession was called for. “Ma'am, I'm pretty sure everyone knows you and the sheriff are carrying on. No need to drown the man.”
While Mrs. Carnegie continued to hold her crossed arms in front of her, a dark head and bare shoulders rose up out of the steaming pool and the sheriff laughed outright. If the embarrassed woman's look was any indication, he wouldn't be laughing for long.
Mary turned her head to the side and pretended not to watch. “I'll be on my way, ma'am. But I did need to get your permission to leave the ranch. My brother, Fritz, is in Sage River and he's asked to see me. Fontaine said she'd take me into town.”
“Fontaine sent you up here?” Mrs. Carnegie sounded outraged by the possibility.
“No. I think...I think Puuku tried to stop me, but I couldn’t understand her.”
From the corner of her eye she could see the sheriff trying to move close to the woman, but he got slapped for his effort.
“Fine. Permission granted,” the woman called out. “And Mary...”
“I know, ma'am. I won't tell a soul.”
~ ~ ~
Fontaine met her at the bottom of the hill. The gunslinger was three shades of red, but said nothing when they met up. She looked from Mary's knowing grin up to the top of the hill, then back again before she turned her horse north. Puuku frowned at her and shook her rifle when the pair of them rode out of the gate. Mary figured the woman was trying to say if it was
up to her, she would have shot her before she let her head for the Springs.
“You knew better,” Fontaine finally said.
Mary laughed. “I knew better than to try to leave the ranch without permission.”
Fontaine looked long and hard at her until their horses moved apart and the eye contact was broken. Then the gunslinger surprised Mary by busting up.
They laughed all the way to town.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A sober Mrs. Kennedy stood with her feet planted in the entryway pointing to the floor at Mary's feet. Fontaine was already wiping the mud from her boots and gave Mary a funny glance before making her way into the parlor, coat, hat and all. Mary hurriedly hung her scarf and coat and dropped her gloves in the basket that sat near the fireplace. They weren't wet, but it would be a treat to don toasty mittens on the way out the door.
Two young men stood to either side of the wide white mantle watching Fontaine. When they glanced at Mary, she realized they were her own brothers, Jens and Max. Twelve and thirteen years old now, they looked like completely different boys. Their eyes lit up and they rushed her. She was crying before she even got her arms around them both.
“You've grown completely up,” she said. “You'll both be taller than Fritz if you eat your carrots.”
Max pulled away, grinning. “Nah, we won't.” He pointed.
A tall man stood beside Fontaine. His full blond beard hid the face, but the eyes she knew by heart.
“Fritz!”