Mail-Order Man

by Martha Hix

  “I’ve got time.” Like a Cheshire cat, she added: “I’ve got something special, too.” She reached into her pocket. “Something to sew into the hem of your dress. For good luck.” She closed her sister’s fingers around something rocklike. “It’s a blue topaz.”

  Opening her hand, Skylla saw a beautiful polished gem. “My gracious. Wherever did you get this?”

  “I found it. Up in the attic when I was looking for your uncle’s trunk. There’s a casket of jewels. And gold coins.”

  Skylla’s initial reaction? “What!”

  “You won’t have to hoard those four coins you found any longer. I found a fortune hidden in the attic.”

  Collapsed on the edge of the bed, Skylla reeled. A fortune in the attic all this time? While the St. Clairs had scratched, searched, and plotted simply to survive. A fortune. While Braxton’s family had perished.

  “Should we tell Claudine?” Kathy Ann asked.

  “Of course. Wait. Maybe not.”

  A treacherous little voice told Skylla not to chance upsetting the wedding plans. What with her bad mood of late, Claudine might do something. Skylla didn’t know what, and she didn’t want to examine her suspicions too closely. Did she owe Claudine an explanation? Uncle willed his estate, both real and personal, in entirety to Skylla. It was her decision as to how to handle this.

  “Kathy Ann, don’t say anything to anyone. I want Braxton to be the first to know. It’ll be my other wedding present to him, knowing this ranch will prosper.”

  Fourteen

  “Giddy up.” Brax nudged the gelding’s flanks. “I said giddy up!”

  Impossible continued to plod along. Heading east from Menard County with Geoff on Molasses to his rear, Brax frowned and not only from the frustration of Impossible’s impossible gait. He’d failed in his mission.

  Oren Singleterry had gotten wind of men at the Nickel Dime, and in anticipation of what was to come, he’d moved on. There were no Nickel Dime horses to herd home. But Brax wouldn’t return empty-handed.

  “I sold Mother’s cameo.” Broiling in the late morning sun, he removed his kepi to wipe his brow with a forearm, then eyed Geoff, who now rode abreast on his similarly fleet-footed steed.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “I had to. Before leaving Ecru, I incurred a wedding expense or two. I need to pay up, once we reach town.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t let Skylla be married with no frills. So, I sold the cameo in Menard.”

  “That explains everything.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It explains why you’ve been touchy as an old cook ever since you stormed outta that cathouse.”

  “Yeah, I’m cross.”

  No one in Menard town had been able to afford a bauble, he’d learned quickly. Upon hearing a quartet of men compare notes about the local whore, Brax had had a brainstorm. If anyone would have money, it would be a trollop. He near to fainted when Jane Clark opened that door.

  She might have cried a tear or two upon learning Brax hadn’t returned to Texas for her, but she’d, nonetheless, agreed to buy the cameo at an inflated price. Brax had left Jane’s establishment with money in his pocket—probably the first man in history to find his financial situation improved after leaving a whore.

  Whatever the case, he hated to part with that cameo. It ought to be Skylla’s.

  “Bubba. Look to the horizon. Riders.”

  It didn’t take much to halt Impossible. Brax scowled upon getting a gander at six soldiers clad in navy blue. They were U.S. Army troops. Two officers and a quartet of cavalry soldiers, Brax counted as they drew closer, the corporal to the rear in charge of a string of horses, none resembling Army-issue mounts.

  The Blue Bellies had arrived.

  Brax’s hand moved to Piglet’s pearl-handled six-shooter that now rested in the holster at his hip. “I’ll pick off the enlisted men,” he said to Geoff. “You get the officers.”

  “War’s over, Bubba. Time to forget all that picking-off business.”

  “You’re suggesting I not take my foul mood out on Yankees?” Braxton did nothing but stare at the lad’s somber coffee-and-cream face.

  “Yo there!”

  “Bubba,” Geoff repeated after that greeting from the nearing Yankees. “The war is over.”

  Five minutes later, the officer in charge, a major, held up a white-gloved hand to stop his squad. “Greetings, gentlemen. State your business.”

  “We’re on our way home. To the Nickel Dime Ranch, about five miles yonder.” Brax gestured southeast.

  “Why, you’ns are next to being neighbors,” remarked the sergeant, a ruddy-faced man with fire-red hair.

  He rode forward and didn’t bother to hide his disgust when he caught sight of the kepi as well’ as Brax’s gray britches with military stripes down the legs announcing Confederate issue. “Say, boy.” He pointed to Geoff. “Do you know you’re free? Is this Reb scalawag holding you against your will?”

  “Sergeant Reilly, enough,” warned the major, a lanky fellow with dark hair and the airs of breeding, though his flat nasal tones testified to a provincial upbringing.

  Brax scorched the sergeant with a glare. “First of all, Geoffrey Hale isn’t a boy. And I’ll thank you to address him as Mr. Hale, if you must address either of us.”

  The sergeant’s hand went to his holster. “You want me to take care of these stragglers, Major Albright?”

  The major shook his head, echoing Geoff’s earlier words. “No. War’s over.”

  Michigander, Brax decided. He’s from Michigan.

  The Blue Belly enlisted man retreated, under orders.

  “Where you headed?” Brax asked the officers.

  “Camp Llano,” replied the baby-faced lieutenant. “It’s a new frontier outpost and way station for troops headed west. Camp Llano isn’t more than a half-day’s ride from this spot.”

  The camp had to be less than a day’s ride from the Nickel Dime. Which might mean money. Cattle were on the loose by the thousands, but these soldiers had to eat and they didn’t look like they knew their way around a lasso, so the Army might be willing to pay for beef.

  “How are y’all doing for rations?” he asked. “I’m in the beef business.”

  “I’m the quartermaster.” The lieutenant removed his hat. “Do you have some for sale?”

  “Damn shooting we do,” Brax replied.

  The sergeant changed his tune. “I’m a butcher. I intend to spend some time smoking meats into jerky.”

  “How much a head?” asked the youthful lieutenant.

  “Two bucks.”

  The Michigan major took over negotiations from his quartermaster. “One fifty.”

  Brax shook his head. “One seventy-five.”

  “Sold.”

  “How many y’all need, Major?”

  “Fifty head.”

  Brax nodded. “We’ll have them to you in, say, four or five days.” Which would cut short his honeymoon, but the ranch needed legal tender. “That is if we get cash on the barrelhead.”

  “Half now, half on delivery.”

  Over forty dollars! That much again upon delivery. Lord above, forty bucks was the same as the inside of King Midas’s coffer. Brax hadn’t seen that much money since Second Manassas. If he’d known this windfall was in the air; he wouldn’t have parted with the cameo. Regret clamped on him, yet he reconciled himself. The cameo might be gone, but he had the money for wedding fixings and froufrou.

  His line of sight kept turning to the string of horses. “Unusual-looking mounts for you fellows, especially the skewbald and that pair of roans.”

  “We bought them from a horse trader in San Antonio,” the major replied. “Fellow named Oren Singleterry.”

  So, Singleterry had moved south. At least Brax now knew where to find him. He pulled a cheroot from a pouch, his sole extravagance from the recent sale to Jane Clark.

  Lighting up, he squinted past a curl of smoke. “
Say, Major, how ’bout I bring a hundred head to Camp Llano, providing you part with the eighty bucks and those three renegade horses?”

  “Sixty dollars and the three horses.”

  “Seventy. And I’ll throw in a barrel of some of the finest corn liquor outside the Smoky Mountains.”

  “Liquor? You’ve got good corn?” was a chorus from the Blue Bellies.

  “What do you think, Major?” Brax asked.

  “We accept.”

  “Let’s shake on it.” Brax rode forward and extended a hand to the major, was met with a firm handshake.

  “Webb Albright at your service, sir. What’s your name?”

  “Brax Hale. Of the Nickel Dime Ranch.”

  “You wouldn’t be the Hale who fought at Chickamauga?” Upon an affirmative reply, Albright leaned forward in the saddle, respect growing in his angular face. “You’re the fellow who caught General Hood when he got blown from the saddle.”

  “How did you have such a bird’s-eye view?” Brax asked.

  “Word got around.” Albright’s mount grew frisky. “I’m a United States cavalryman, Hale, but I respect the great fighting men of the Confederate States of America.”

  “Hale,” asked the junior officer, “what are you doing wearing Injun moccasins?”

  “No Injun made them. I made them myself.”

  Webb Albright quirked a black brow. “If you’re without decent footwear, I have a pair of boots that might fit you.”

  Amazed a Yankee would show generosity, Brax appreciated the offer, but declined. “A cobbler in Ecru is repairing my Wellingtons. Gave him the first work he had in months.”

  Why mention the special-order shoes he’d purchased for Skylla? The telling would have led to other questions, he felt certain, and those slippers were personal. And selling that cameo had made another purchase possible. His pocket held a wedding band. He wouldn’t have Skylla getting married without a proper ring.

  “I could use a new pair of boots,” someone said.

  “Me, too,” became a round of Northern accents.

  The major scratched his jaw. “Army supply wagons are on the way, but we’ll have to make do for a spell.”

  Recalling Skylla’s initial plans for bringing revenue to the ranch, Braxton rubbed the corners of his mouth and wished for tannery supplies. (Somehow he couldn’t picture the assorted horde of the Nickel Dime gathered to scrape hide, or to rub fat and brains into it, much less carrying out the other tedious details of tanning leather, Indian style.) If they had the white man’s supplies, leather could be prepared for shoes, boots, saddles, and the like. If, if, if.

  The sergeant spat tobacco to the ground, then scratched himself. “Hale, what did happen to your Wellingtons?”

  “I wore ’em running from y’all,” he joshed.

  “Hell, I wore out two pairs running from you fellows,” commented the sergeant. “About got my butt shot, hightailing it in the Wilderness Campaign.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Brax joked in the camaraderie of exaggeration. “That was you?”

  This drew a round of companionable laughter. The lieutenant added a fish story; the major made a joke about having Stonewall Jackson peppering him with grapeshot and Bible verse.

  Then the conversation turned serious, and Brax gave the soldiers the lowdown on Mason County. A strange awareness settled in him. For the first time in years, he got the feeling the war might really be over. It was as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  Now on to getting married.

  Tonight Brax would take a wife. He wanted to shout his happiness from the rafters. After the ceremony he and Skylla would have the privacy he’d been dreaming about, since Claudine and Kathy Ann would stay the night at the Burrows farm. He looked forward to all that seclusion.

  Wedding guests were collected in the front room of the ranch house, where the hired fiddler played soft sweet tunes, the parlor clear of furniture save for chairs and a few tables. The fragrances of bay rum, lavender toilet water, and candle wax mingled with the scent of the magnolias floating in bowls. The Reverend Lester Byrd, minister of the gospel and a circuit rider for the Methodist Church, stood alongside Brax in front of the fireplace.

  A cool September breeze blew through the open windows. Everyone seemed pleased and relieved, for the wedding guests were dressed in heavy Sunday-go-to-meeting finery gone to tatters. In attendance were the bride’s sister, Charlie Main, Emil Kreitz—he had provided a candy dish full of sweets that Piglet had availed herself of—and Luke Burrows and his missus, the plump and rosy Gertie May. Seated in a horn chair, Oliver Brown smiled benevolently. Electra was stationed beneath the kindly physician. The calico complained, hissed, and chewed her claws.

  Kathy Ann caught Brax’s eye. She raised her hand halfway from her plump hips to wave. He winked back. She looked sweet, standing in organdy and an uncharacteristically shy smile.

  The fiddler struck up the wedding march.

  Suddenly, Brax’s stock got tight. The jitters passed the moment he caught sight of his bride.

  Skylla, led by her stepmother, glided past the beribboned staircase and smiling guests. Her head held high, she floated to her bridegroom. That’s right, floated. She wore a built-up slipper, cobbled by the Ecru shoemaker. Another tradeoff for the cameo.

  His best man whispered, “She’s beautiful.”

  “I know, Geoffie. I know.”

  She took her place next to Brax. A blush tinted the cheeks of her heart-shaped face. Her hair flowed down her back, a gossamer veil touching it lightly. The peach hue of her low-cut gown set her ivory complexion and dark hair off in their best light. She was a vision, straight from a master’s canvas.

  “Are you ready for this?” she asked him, her voice a happy whisper.

  He squeezed her hand gently. “You bet, sweetheart.”

  They faced the preacher. Brax couldn’t help thinking how the cameo would have added just the right touch to her attire. Somehow he’d get her another one.

  Fifteen

  “Get on with the marryin’, preacher man,” Luke Burrows called from behind the bridegroom, and got chuckles from the other guests.

  Brax’s eyes slid to his bride again, reveling in her beauty. “Do get on with it, preacher man. I need me a wife.”

  “Dearly beloved . . .”

  The ceremony began.

  Minutes later Brax slipped the thin gold band on Skylla’s finger. “Don’t be nervous,” he whispered. “It’s almost over.”

  “Nervous? I’m not. Not at all.” She smiled her gentle smile, the one that never failed to warm his heart.

  Reverend Byrd cleared his throat to get their attention.

  “Wait,” Skylla whispered to the preacher. “I have something. A wedding gift.”

  Her work-worn fingers lifted to the stock Brax had borrowed from Titus’s belongings; she stuck something in the center of it. He looked downward, seeing a gold stickpin centered with a green stone that had to be an emerald.

  “My father’s,” she said, making him feel all the worse for selling the Hale heirloom.

  “Thank you,” he whispered and brought her fingertips to his lips to kiss them. A fist seemed to tighten on his heart. What could it be but love?

  She tantalized him with: “I have a better gift waiting for you.”

  Damned right she did. He grinned smugly.

  They got back to the official part of the ceremony. At half past seven, Reverend Byrd smiled and said, “I now pronounce y’all man and wife.”

  Brax gazed into those expressive dark eyes and tweaked her cute little nose. “Hello, Mrs. Hale.”

  “You may kiss your bride,” the reverend informed Brax.

  She tilted her chin up, closing her eyes and parting her lips ever so slightly. Brax brought his mouth to hers to seal their vows. Her bouquet of magnolia blossoms fluttered to the floor.

  The minister congratulated the couple, then turned to sign Titus’s Bible. Brax and Skylla added their signatures. Back slappin
g and the usual congratulations followed.

  Claudine anchored her arm to the elbow of a bathed and spiffed-up Charlie Main, but she kept her distance. She had agreed to act as matron of honor; Brax knew she meant to keep this promise, but a way to make trouble had to be on her mind. He’d deal with the redhead as the situation unfolded.

  He signaled to Geoff, and the younger man crept into the bridal suite to make it ready according to Brax’s earlier instructions.

  The musician set bow to fiddle, a tune filled the air, and the newlyweds, laughing and smiling, headed to the big dining room, where their wedding cake waited on the long rectangular table. After feeding each other the traditional first bites, the new Mr. and Mrs. Hale sipped wine from goblets borrowed from Emil Kreitz, who’d brought them from his native Germany.

  Brax didn’t mull the fruitcake’s savory taste, his attention being captured by his wife and fantasies about their wedding bed. When the fiddler struck up a waltz, he took Skylla’s hand and grinned. “May I have this dance, Mrs. Hale?”

  “Most certainly, Mr. Hale.”

  Making sure he’d be able to catch her should she falter, he guided her to the middle of the room and brought her closer than propriety dictated. She had no trouble following.

  “This is a lovely wedding, husband.”

  “Thanks to the generosity of the Yankee Army.” And to a good-hearted whore.

  “The Army didn’t have anything to do with these shoes.” She stopped dancing to step back and lift the hem of her dress a couple inches. Kid slippers, one with a built-up sole, peeped from beneath. “You’ve given me another chance at the dance.”

  “Same goes for you.” Brax kissed her.

  “Did you hear the new county officers have arrived?”

  Everyone turned to Oliver Brown. The honest-eyed physician elaborated: “We’ve got a sheriff and a county clerk. The clerk’ll collect taxes, I’ve heard.”

  Claudine abandoned Charlie Main. She swept over to Skylla, who glanced at Brax before eyeing her stepmother.

  “Since Dr. Brown brought up the subject, there’s something you need to know. The Reconstructionists may well void the deeds held by Rebel veterans and sympathizers.”