Montana Sky: Jasper's Wish (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Grooms with Honor Friends Book 3)

by Linda K. Hubalek

  Text copyright ©2018 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Debra Holland. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Montana Sky remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Debra Holland, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  A Word from Debra Holland

  Welcome to Montana Sky World, where authors write books set in my 1880s “world” of Sweetwater Springs and Morgan’s Crossing, Montana. Aside from providing the backdrop and setting and townsfolk, I haven’t contributed to the stories in any way. The authors bring their own unique vision and imagination to the KW books, sometimes tying them into their own series.

  Jasper’s Wish is written by Linda K. Hubalek and is the third Kindle World book in her Grooms with Honor Friends series.

  Years ago, I read several of Linda’s historical fiction books in her Butter in the Well series, based on the woman who homesteaded Linda’s family farm. Linda’s books bring that time period vividly to life, and I still remember scenes from Butter in the Well.

  I hope you enjoy reading Jasper’s Wish.

  Debra Holland, New York Times bestselling author

  Prologue

  Spring 1887

  Clear Creek, Kansas

  "Julip? You say her name was Julip?" Jasper Kerns asked Holly Clancy as he sat in the Clancy Café while Holly finished refilling his cup of coffee.

  "Yes. Like Tulip but with a J instead," Holly answered.

  Jasper was talking about his new business and wanting to find someone who made rugs. Holly mentioned she once knew someone that loomed rugs and her name was Julip.

  "I had never heard of that name until I lived in Sweetwater Springs," Holly sat the coffee pot down on the table and set herself down in a chair at Jasper's table.

  "Sweetwater Springs...Kansas?" Jasper queried.

  "No, it’s a little town in the Montana Territory, where I lived before I met Nolan. I worked in a café there, and Nolan helped me out when his train stopped because of a snow blizzard."

  Jasper and Mack Reagan were having forenoon coffee, and talking about the business Jasper wanted to open in Clear Creek, Kansas. Since moving to Clear Creek after finding his sister, Iris Reagan in town, Jasper had been working with Mack constructing new buildings along Main Street. The city council project, funded by a rancher, Isaac Connely, planned to bring new businesses to town by having storefronts, with living quarters above them, ready to buy or rent.

  Jasper enjoyed the construction work because that had been his occupation after the Civil War, rebuilding New Orleans, but now he was thinking about his future. Jasper approached Mr. Connely about renting one of the new Main Street buildings for his own use and living space.

  Besides building projects with Mack, Jasper would make furniture and coffins in the back workshop and display them in the storefront. He thought the furniture would show better if there were rugs, lamps, pictures and the like arranged around the groups of furniture.

  "How old was this woman? What'd she look like?" Jasper asked, but there was no way this Julip, living many states away from Louisiana, was his childhood friend.

  "Julip is in her mid to late twenties. Coal black straight hair similar to my own, but skin more like yours than mine." Although Holly's father was a white man, Jasper guessed she favored her Comanche mother's looks.

  "Think she was a mulatto, like me?" Jasper didn't openly talk about his heritage but Holly, being mixed blood, would honestly tell him.

  "Probably. And the woman had a distinct Southern drawl, as if she was from the South, so that might be another hint at her heritage."

  Jasper almost hated to ask but did. "Married? Children?" Jasper lost his wife and young son in a wagon accident two years ago.

  Was he jealous that Julip might be happy with her own family now? Possibly, but he hoped that she ended up with a good life after their terrible times living in slavery.

  "Widowed, with two young children. Julip’s husband died in the same mining accident as my father did. That happened in Morgan Crossing, which was a two days ride from Sweetwater Springs. Like me, she moved to get away from the rough men in Morgan's Crossing. The last I knew, she was living with an elderly widow lady."

  What would Julip think of Jasper showing up on her doorstep? He had money in the bank so he could travel to the territory.

  His sister, Iris, had given him five hundred dollars, half of her inheritance from their former master's estate in Louisville, Kentucky. Master Rudell Kerns had moved Iris' mother, June, a mulatto, into his plantation house and thought the infant she'd born in the house was his daughter.

  Kerns had sold June’s husband, Johnny, and Jasper, their son, at a slave auction in New Orleans to get them away from his mistress.

  Four-year-old Julip, from another plantation, was also sold at that same auction and her, Jasper, and his father were bought by the Washburn Plantation east of New Orleans. They'd gone from children clinging together at an auction to childhood friends.

  "If you'd like, I could write Reverend Norton in Sweetwater Springs to see if Julip is still living there," Holly suggested.

  Would Jasper like to know if this was his former friend? Sounds like she might have had some happiness like him before it was taken away.

  The last time Jasper saw Julip she was fifteen, starting to blossom into a beautiful young woman. Her shiny straight hair was in a bun at the nape of her neck instead of braided pigtails.

  "Yes, please write to see if it's my old friend. Her name before marriage would have been Julip Washburn."

  He assumed she would have still used it until she married. She was given her last name when the Washburn Plantation bought her. Jasper's pa said to use the Kerns name when he became a free man, hoping it would help connect him with his mother or sister someday. And it had. By fluke, Jasper was working in Nebraska, heading west, looking for Iris when her future husband took a homestead photograph of the place he was working. Fate united Jasper and Iris. Could it do the same for him and Julip?

  Chapter 1

  Summer 1887

  Sweetwater Springs, Montana Territory

  Jasper took a deep breath and looked around again before knocking on the wooden door to the log cabin. He’d never been this far west or north in America. Jasper wasn’t familiar with the type of pine tree which surrounded the home he stood looking at either. The cabin was less than a quarter-mile walk from town, he didn’t work up a sweat in this cool mountain air. It was hot in Kansas, so Jasper hadn’t thought he needed a coat for this trip to check on his former friend.

  The depot master pointed the way to Reverend Norton’s home when he departed from the train in Sweetwater Springs. Jasper wanted to thank the reverend for writing back about Julip and to get more information about her situation. Turns out Julip wasn’t living with the widow anymore since the elderly woman died.

  Jasper thought the reverend was rather tight-lipped about Julip, but he gave Jasper directions to her current home.

  Now he stood here, ready to see if the woman who lived in this house was his childhood friend.

  Jasper knocked his knuckles on the rough-hewn door before calling out, “Hello? Anyone home?”

  He studied the missing chinks between the house logs. The walls needed repair before next winter. Holly said it snowed from early fall unt
il late spring in the Montana Territory. Last year’s Kansas winter was bad enough for this man of the South. He’d hate to spend the winter in this area.

  Jasper heard someone moving around inside the house, but no one was coming to the door. He knocked again and heard a muffled voice.

  “Just a minute. You’re early!”

  Early? Julip didn’t know he’d traveled across several states to visit her. She must have been expecting another visitor.

  Jasper stared at the door as a bolt was released on the inside. What would Julip look like a decade later?

  He didn’t expect a woman answering the door in her chemise and drawers.

  “You’re early. Get in here before anybody sees you,” the woman waved at him without really looking at his face. “Take off your holster and lay it on the table with my money before you go any further.”

  The woman stepped back and looked at Jasper when he didn’t do as he was told because he wasn’t sure what she meant. Then he looked around the one-room cabin and saw the bedding on the bed pulled back. This woman was servicing men in this little cabin in the woods. That’s why she was half-dressed, wanting money, and impatient to get it over with.

  “Julip? Julip Washburn?”

  “Ah! How’d you know my maiden name?” she whispered in shock.

  The woman grabbed her wrapper at the foot of her bed and held it against her, but Jasper had already seen her bony body, too thin from lack of food, he guessed. And although her skin was shallow, and she had deep shadows under her dull eyes, he knew this woman was Julip.

  “Cause I’m Jasper Kerns, your friend, formally of the Washburn Plantation.”

  Julip stared at him a long second, then she crumpled onto the dirt floor in a dead faint.

  ***

  Her mind was playing tricks on her. She’d been dreaming of Jasper Kerns, but he was a full-grown man now, not a gangly boy. How could she guess what he looked like now?

  A damp cloth gently wiped across her forehead, making her mind float back to how comfortable she felt as if someone was taking care of her for a change. She sighed and sank deeper into the warmth of the bedding and pillow. How she wished she could sleep all day without a care in the world.

  “Momma? Why’s the man still here?”

  Julip’s eyes tried to open to answer her five-year-old daughter’s question. Her children shouldn’t be in the house when men visited her. They were to stay in the outhouse until she retrieved them. They had the extra blanket and a book to keep them occupied.

  Where were the children going to go when winter snowed them inside the cabin? Hopefully, Julip would have saved enough money by then that she didn’t have to entertain men until the spring thaw.

  “Momma? Wake up,” Tara’s voice was quivering with concern.

  “I’m here, baby. I just need to rest a bit. Where’s your brother?”

  “They’re both here, Julip,” a man’s voice answered.

  Julip’s eyes popped open, her mind clear and on alert now.

  “Who—”

  Julip stared at the man sitting on the chair beside the bed. Tara and her three-year-old son, Tyrell, stood on either side of him, leaning against his thighs as if they knew the man.

  “You fainted, Julip, so I put you to bed. When’s the last time you ate some food?”

  “We ate some broth at noon, but Momma didn’t eat anything then. She hates to eat before a man comes to the house,” Tara announced, oblivious that Julip couldn’t stomach food before having to lay with a man. And she had to scrub her body before taking any nourishment afterward.

  “Julip, you passed out after I introduced myself. Do you remember me now? I’m Jasper Kerns.”

  Julip closed her eyes in humiliation. Why did he have to see her this way? His timing couldn’t have been worse.

  “Why are you here, Jasper?” Julip kept her eyes closed and turned away, not wanting to see the pity in his eyes.

  “Do you remember a Holly Brandt who worked in the café in town? She left in December of 1885. She married Nolan Clancy and lives in Clear Creek, Kansas now. I found my sister, Iris, living there, so I stayed to work. I’m doing construction work with a Mack Reagan and building furniture on my own time.

  “I was talking about needing rugs for my new shop, one thing led to another and Holly knew a Julip who made rugs in Sweetwater Springs. Holly wrote to Reverend Norton to see if that might be the girl I knew in Louisiana.”

  Julip finally stared at the face she’d seen in her dreams. He’d grown into a nice-looking man dressed in a fitting brown suit and white shirt. His healthy bronzed face showed a shadow of whiskers since it was the end of the day. Jasper’s brown eyes showed worry but with a tint of happiness, as did his broad smile.

  “You came looking for me, Jasper? Why?”

  “You’ve been on my mind since I found my sister. You were the next person I wanted to find, so here I am.”

  “You have a wife and family though? You shouldn’t be crossing the country looking for me. You should be with them.”

  Jasper's face turned hard and his eyes dulled. “Lost my wife and boy over two years ago in a wagon accident. They’re buried in New Orleans. It took time for me to get through my grief and decide to move on. That led to finding Iris and her husband, Fergus, in Kansas.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss. I don’t know how I would have stood my husband’s accident if I hadn’t had my children to take care of.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss too. Who’d you marry? Did I know him?”

  Julip licked her lips and turned away before answering, “Vernen Grover.”

  She glanced at Jasper, knowing the name would bring back memories for him. Vernen was the son of the Washburn Plantation’s foreman.

  “I assume he turned out to be a good husband. Why him, Julip?”

  “Because he asked me,” she replied, and you didn’t.

  Jasper ignored Julip’s comment and asked another question. “How did you end up in Montana Territory?”

  “Vernen thought we needed a change,” Julip said with a shrug. She’d had no choice in the matter but pack up their belongings and go with him. Then after Vernen had died, Julip had no money to leave the area. She thought Sweetwater Springs would be better for her and the children compared to Morgan’s Crossing, but the small community had fewer opportunities than Morgan’s Crossing. They lived with an elderly widow to take care of her, but when she died, her son kicked them out.

  Living in this cabin and selling favors had been her last resort to providing food for the table, but she didn’t have enough clients to fill the larder very often.

  Her stomach growling made Julip think of the man she was expecting. She glanced at the door, wondering what she should do. And why were the children already inside?

  “Someone came after you fainted, but I sent him away.”

  “Jasper, no. I need that money. What did you say to him? Will he be back later?”

  “No. I told the man you were no longer working on your back.”

  Chapter 2

  Jasper was seething inside. Why wasn’t the community helping Julip and her children instead of turning a blind eye? No wonder Reverend Norton suggested bringing food out to the cabin. If Jasper had known how bad their situation was he’d have brought a wagon load of supplies instead of some ham slices to make sandwiches.

  Did she even have flour to make bread?

  Julip’s situation would never have happened in Clear Creek. Kaitlyn Reagan, the preacher’s wife would have moved Julip and her children into the parsonage until she found a home for them or a husband. Adolph Bjorklund, the town’s butcher, was always on the lookout for a wife. Jasper wondered if he’d be interested in a ready-made family.

  Nope. Jasper was claiming this family if he could convince Julip to marry him.

  “Say, I didn’t take the time to eat before coming out here, so I brought food along. Anyone want to eat a sandwich with me?”

  It broke Jasper’s heart to see the w
ant and hunger in the children’s eyes.

  “Yes, please,” Tara said without looking at her momma this time. Tears dripped down Tyrell’s cheek, but he kept his thumb in his mouth instead of talking. Come to think of it, Jasper hadn’t heard the boy utter a word yet.

  “I set the box on the table, so let’s see what we can rustle up for a meal while your momma rests a bit more. Tara, you want to set out the plates and silverware?”

  Tara went to a near empty shelf and set two plates, a fork and a spoon on the table, then looked up expectantly at Jasper. Was that all they had? The only other thing on the shelf were two tin cups.

  Jasper bit his tongue when he looked back at the bed and saw Julip had turned her back to them, silently sobbing into her pillow. What had the woman gone through these past months?

  He didn’t see a knife by the dry sink, so he tore the ham slices into small chunks and put them on the two plates, along with a pickle on each plate.

  “Would you please get those tin cups, Tara. I also bought a quart of milk.”

  Tyrell’s thumb popped out. “Milk?”

  Tara scrambled to get the tins for Jasper, and he poured a couple of inches of milk in each one. He was worried the children would gag and spill it as they tried to drink it too fast.

  When did the children last have some? Did they not have a milk cow in the pasture by the lean-to behind the house?

  “Do you have any eggs I could scramble up to add to the meal?” Jasper asked Tara.

  “The last chicken disappeared last week, so no eggs.”

  Eaten by a varmint, or their last meat?

  Jasper set the plates and cups by the one chair and both children scrambled on the chair seat to sit on their knees, so they could reach the table.

  Jasper quietly told them, “You two eat the ham slow, one piece at a time. Chew it until it’s mush in your mouth before you swallow it, okay?”

  He was afraid they’d stuff their mouths and choke the way they were eying the food. Jasper watched them for a few minutes before returning to Julip’s side.