He reached the door and waited for her to catch up as she struggled through the snow with the child on her hip. Buck stepped back to let her open the door, his hands still somewhat bloody and occupied with the bundle of meat.
“Go ahead.” He nodded toward the door. He half expected her to comment on his sudden show of manners. Her silence warned him how upset she truly was.
Annika preceded him into the cabin and set Baby down on the closest chair. The child immediately scrambled down and tried to pull off her coat, now damp from the melting snow clinging to it.
As Annika took off her cape and then helped Baby remove her coat, he began to anchor the rabbits to the turnspit in the fireplace.
Without removing his own coat, Buck watched Annika as she held Baby’s small coat forgotten in her hands and stared at the floor. He could tell she was fighting back the urge to vomit as she swallowed repeatedly and concentrated on a spot on the ground between her shoes.
He quickly washed his hands and toweled them dry. Thinking it might be better to say nothing than to say the wrong thing, he silently took Baby’s jacket from Annika and set it on the bed. Then he pulled out a chair for her, gently lay a hand on her shoulder, and guided her to the seat.
When his hand touched her shoulder, her eyes flashed upward and met his for a brief moment, then she looked away. She held her hands clenched together in her lap.
He started to turn away.
“I suppose your sister cleaned rabbits,” she said.
He wondered what she was getting at. “She did.”
“Oh.”
“What about it?”
“Is that why she went crazy?”
He couldn’t see her face, but he had the distinct feeling she was dead serious. The vision of his father flaying Jim’s corpse flashed through his mind. “No. That wasn’t it at all.”
“I’m surprised.” Her tone was as cold as the air outside.
He hunkered down before her so that she was forced to look at him. “Listen, I didn’t do that to punish or torture you, no matter what you might think. I did it because there is a very real possibility that anything could happen to me while I’m out hunting. I’d like to think that you could take care of yourself until the thaw. Old Ted’s bound to come back by then and he could get you out. If Ted or someone else doesn’t happen by, then you’ll have to pack up the mules and leave on your own with Baby. Follow the trail up out of the valley, go through the pass, and then head toward the rising sun—remember, away from the setting sun—and you’re bound to hit Cheyenne, or come close enough to find a ranch or a smaller settlement.”
For the first time since he’d laid eyes on her, she looked at him with something less than disgust. “What about Baby?”
“When you get to Cheyenne, see that she gets a good home. Maybe there’s a preacher who can take her or at least find someone who will. Maybe your brother knows somebody who wants a child.”
“You’d trust me to do that?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“What about her mother?”
“Don’t even look for her. Patsy can’t be trusted with her.”
“But—”
He turned on her before she could say another word. “Not Patsy. Do you understand?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” She sounded fearful rather than positive as a host of possibilities occurred to her now.
“Just do the best you can. You don’t owe me, I know, not after what’s happened, but you seem to like Baby well enough.”
Annika was silent. Her mind raced as she thought of Kase and Rose and the babies they had lost. And here Buck Scott had one to give away.
Buck stood up again and walked back to the fire. He bent down and turned the spit. The rabbits were beginning to roast, the outer skin that had been seared by the fire was now dripping juice that hissed on the glowing logs below.
“I’m going back out for a while,” he told her. “I have to clean up the shed and dispose of the entrails and parts of the rabbit we don’t need.”
She turned to him, her blue eyes shadowed with question. “Are you going hunting again?”
“No. Just out to clean up.”
“How long will you be?”
“Planning another escape now that you know which way to go?” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise it. The storm’s not played out yet. It’s going to snow again.”
She straightened, the concern in her eyes turning to impatience. “I’m not that stupid, Mr. Scott. I was just wondering how long you plan on being out so that I might know at what point I should begin worrying that one of the many dire predictions you’ve made might have occurred.”
“I should be back within a quarter of an hour.”
“Fine.”
He had his hand on the door handle when she said, “Exactly how am I to procure the game that is to keep us alive in the untimely event of your demise?”
He gave her a half smile as he said, “Don’t worry. As soon as it stops snowing, I’m going to teach you to hunt.”
ROSE Storm brushed aside the lace curtain and rubbed a peephole in the frosted oval window set in the back door. She stretched on tiptoe and stared out into the thickening gloom of the late winter’s afternoon, watching for her husband. The stable yard behind the house was empty; squares of lamplight shone in the bunkhouse windows across the way, marking the only sign of life in the snow-draped surroundings. She sighed and let the curtain drop. Smoothing a hand over the swollen mound beneath her burgundy serge gown, Rose walked out of the kitchen and into the parlor. She left the lamp burning in the center of the kitchen table so that Kase would not have to walk into a dark room.
She roamed through the house, which seemed so very silent with Kase gone, and wondered when he would return from Cheyenne. She had guessed that the storm would hold him back, but she had half hoped that somehow he would get through despite the snow.
Rose lit the lamps in the downstairs parlor. The golden glow highlighted the home in which she took so much pride. Every nook and cranny, every piece that decorated every room of the two-story house had been lovingly selected by her and Kase together. Rose had opted for simplicity and comfort rather than the fashion of the times when she chose a simple house over the more ornate Queen Anne Kase had wanted to have built for her. She had preferred something typically American, something the likes of which she had never seen in her native Italy. Although she was able to dissuade Kase from building her a mansion, their home was far from a cabin.
“We may live on the plains,” he told her, “but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have all the modern conveniences.” So saying, he had installed front and back stairs, a huge pantry, gleaming brass chandeliers, and even linen roller window shades beneath the Belgian lace curtains. A wide veranda encircled the house and from every angle the view was magnificent, whether it was of wide-open, rolling plains or the widespread skirts of the mountains that seemed to extend almost to the back door.
Rose sat on the deep cushioned sofa near the fire and smoothed the pristine collar and the white lace cuffs of her gown. It was simple but stylish, and again, Kase had a hand in choosing it for her. Her dark hair was piled on her head, twisted into a simple knot at the crown. She felt the child inside her move, the flutter as soft and hesitant as a captive fairy’s wings. She placed her hand protectively on the swelling mound where her child grew.
She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer, asking God to deliver this child to them safely, not so much for her as for Kase, for she knew he could not stand to lose another baby. Some innate instinct had seen her through each of her previous tragedies, some inner voice that told her once the mourning and tears had subsided that this was a land where a less than healthy child could never survive. Nature took care of her own. Rose believed that the weak infants that had died before reaching full term would never have survived the harsh Wyoming winters or the dry dust of a windblown summer.
Already she had carried this child far longe
r than the first two, but their third loss had been a little girl born just last year. Little Katerina had lived but a few hours, and when she suddenly died it had been Kase who had grieved the longest. He had been so withdrawn for a time that Rose had been afraid he would refuse her more children, but in the end she had convinced him that she needed to try again.
She smiled to herself when she thought of the way he treated her like a queen. “My Roman goddess,” he teased even now that she was swollen with his child. Kase had been insisting of late that she hire someone to help her with the cooking, for she prepared all the meals for the ranch hands herself, but she had refused any outside help. When word arrived that his sister was coming to stay for an extended visit, Rose had pleaded with him not to hire anyone because Annika could help him with the cooking. She remembered how he had laughed, his blue eyes bright with merriment, as he shook his head. “Annika, dear Rose, probably couldn’t pick out the stove if you showed her around the kitchen.”
“Good, then I will have someone to teach. Maybe she will help a little.”
Kase had smiled. “It’ll be good for her. She’s never really had to do anything for herself.”
“And that is her fault?” Rose had asked.
With a shake of his head he had answered, “No. We were all more than willing to spoil her to death.”
“As you do me,” Rose whispered aloud in the empty room.
The sound of the back door brought her to her feet. She hurried through the house, her heartbeat accelerating the way it always did whenever Kase walked in. For that moment there were only the two of them in the world; all else was forgotten. She greeted him without words and stepped straight into his arms. He enfolded her gently and held her as their heartbeats commingled, then pulled away far enough to lower his head and kiss her tenderly.
“I missed you,” he whispered afterward.
“And I you.”
He kissed her again, deeply, passionately, until she suddenly remembered the reason he had left and and pulled back, resting against the circle of his arms. “Where is your sister?”
She looked up into the dark, handsome face, brushing back the stray strands of hair that had escaped the beaded ornament that held it in a shoulder-length queue. His expression hardened.
“Come sit down first.” He began to usher her back toward the parlor.
She refused to budge. “No. Tell me now.”
“Rose...”
“Kase, tell me.”
He sighed and pulled a chair away from the kitchen table. “Then sit here.”
“Is she all right?”
“Sit,” he said, knowing full well she would do as she pleased unless he held his silence.
Rose sat, knowing he would not say anything until she did as he demanded.
He pulled a chair up close beside her and took her hands. “Annika was abducted from the train.”
“You are joking with me, yes?”
“I wish I was.”
“But why? Someone knows your family is rich? They ask for money?”
Kase shrugged. “The conductor told me that man who took her thought that Annika was his mail-order bride.”
“She is mailing what?”
Kase sighed. “A mail-order bride is a woman who is engaged to a man she has never met. They correspond first and then agree to marry.”
“But why did—”
He cut her off before she could ask more questions. “I don’t know why, Rose, all I know is that this man has kidnapped my sister and has ridden off with her.
“What about your mother and Caleb? You sent the telegram to them?”
He shook his head. “I’m hoping to put it off as long as possible. I don’t want to worry then unnecessarily. I’ve offered a big reward and had flyers printed up while I was in Cheyenne. In a few days I’ll have to let them know because the paper already interviewed me and the story is sure to spread. I’d hate to have them read about it in the news.”
“What can I do?” She watched him carefully and prayed silently that his sister’s abduction didn’t force him to pin on a lawman’s badge again.
“You can fix me a cup of coffee. It’s cold enough to make a polar bear hunt for cover.”
10
FEBRUARY 7th. Somewhere in the Rockies.
As I look back upon the last few entries in this journal, I realize that until now I did not know how kind life has been to me. This morning I am writing hunched over a scarred and battered table, hoping that my ink will not freeze again. I have been kidnapped by a man the likes of which I have never seen, a mountain man of sorts, but not the romantic stock the dime periodicals would have one believe the West is made of.
I won’t even sully the pages of this journal by adding his name. Suffice it to say that he is unkempt, ill-mannered, unsmiling, and uncivilized, just to list a few of his better traits. He is a hulking bear of a man clothed in hides and fur who lives with an endearing child with the face of an angel. I have tried to ignore her but I cannot. I am here because he believed me to be the woman he was to marry, but the only reason he wanted a wife at all was to fill the position of drudge, scullery maid, and nanny. So far he has tried to enlist my services, but is finding me none too malleable.
I am both tired and filthy, not to mention frightened, although my fear has lessened now that I have been in this man’s company for four days and he has yet to physically harm me. Not that I don’t think him capable of it, but I believe that somehow he has his own set of rules, a moral code which does not allow for cruelty to females. At least I pray I am correct.
I am certain my family is frantic to ascertain my whereabouts. And, although I don’t wish them any undue suffering, I do pray that Kase will hurry and find me. All I know is that we are living in a miserable excuse for a cabin, somewhere in the mountains northwest of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
If only I had a change of clothing, I feel I might better handle this situation.
As I look around I can’t help but think of my mother and wonder how she was able to survive the years she existed in a sod house on the Iowa prairie. I try to imagine what it must have been like for her, an immigrant, virtually alone and lonely in her crude surroundings. How easy it was for me to picture her former life as a romantic adventure! I am now certain the reality of the situation was quite the opposite.
“How long have you been up?”
When Buck Scott’s voice cut into her reverie, Annika jumped, leaving a blob of ink at the end of her last sentence. She swung her long braid over her shoulder and glared at him. He was lying propped against the pillow of his huge bed, his arms crossed over the chest of the red overalls which he had stripped down to the night before. The rest of his length remained hidden beneath the covers.
“Unlike you, Mr. Scott, I don’t intend to sleep the day away like a hibernating bear. I’ve been up for some time.” She curled her stockinged feet up beneath the hems of her gowns.
“Did you start the coffee?”
“No.”
“Last night I said the first one up should start the coffee,” he reminded her.
“I have a feeling that’s exactly why you chose to sleep in.” She capped her traveling inkwell and, in lieu of a rag, tried to blot her stained fingers on the edge of the table.
He scratched his head. “You’re staining my table.”
“How can you tell? It’s already a mess.”
He pushed the covers back and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Annika averted her eyes and kept them on the journal lying open in front of her. Her face flamed.
“It’s the only table I have, Miss Storm, even if it isn’t what you’re used to. Now, what about that coffee?”
She heard the swish of his pants when he picked them up off the floor. He was standing not two feet from her as he pulled them on.
“Well?”
She answered without looking in his direction. “I couldn’t remember if you said to boil the water before adding the coffee or after.”
His voice was muffled as he knelt down and fished around beneath the bed for his moccasins. “I said to fill the pot with water and bring it to a boil. While it’s boiling you grind the coffee beans. Then you add the coffee and one of those broken eggshells in the can beside the grinder.”
“How much coffee?”
“One spoonful per cup and one for the pot. I put in nine, ten if I want it stronger. After the coffee is the color you want it, you have to trickle in some cold water to settle the grounds to the bottom.”
“I couldn’t remember all that.”
“I don’t think you wanted to. Didn’t you say you were trained as a teacher, Miss Storm?”
“In a weak moment I might have admitted it, yes.”
“Then I think you can probably remember something as easy as how to make coffee. Shoot, Baby could do it in a year or two.”
“But can you wait that long for a cup, Mr. Scott?”
“I don’t intend to. You’re going to do it.”
“Or what?”
“Or we’ll go without today.”
Annika almost agreed, but the thought of giving up the heady smell of the rich brew and the chance to hold the steaming cup between hands that had been impossible to warm was something she hated to miss, even if it meant giving in to him.
She stood up and began to fill the coffeepot with freezing water from the barrel by the door. “You need a decent stove.”
Buck ignored her and shrugged into his flannel shirt. As he worked the buttons closed, he thought about the peace and quiet he had enjoyed before he brought Annika Storm home. As sorry as he was that he had mistaken her for Alice Soams, he was still glad that he had not ended up with a wife. He could just imagine the complaints she would have about the cabin, the lack of amenities, the isolation. He saw as much in Annika’s eyes every time she looked around. A wife’s every sentence would start with “Do you know what you need?” He would have to put up with the complaining or make endless trips to Cheyenne to cart the items she demanded up the mountain.
Come Spring Page 14