by Merry Farmer
Pete knocked on the back of Graham’s wagon and said, “You all right in there? Is Estelle in there with you?”
“Yep,” Graham replied.
“I’m here,” Estelle said at the same time.
She rolled to kneel, and inched to the back of the wagon to loosen the ties holding the canvas closed. The canvas parted to reveal Pete’s concerned face and a patch of blue sky behind him.
“That was some storm,” Pete said, craning his neck to look inside the wagon to be sure everyone was in one piece. “We all made it through, though. It’s a small miracle that no one was struck by lightning.”
“Not a miracle, science,” Gideon called from somewhere nearby, outside the wagon.
“Yeah, well, whatever you call it, so far we’re all fine.” Pete thumped the top of the tailgate. “Folks are cleaning up here. It’s late enough in the day that I’ve given the order to camp here for the night. It’ll give us all a chance to dry out.”
He tipped his hat to Estelle, then moved on. Graham pushed himself to kneel as best he could and inched along to meet Estelle at the back of the wagon. As she finished loosening the canvas, he unhitched the tailgate and let it drop, then swung around to hop down. His crutches were right where he’d left them along the back of the wagon, so he was able to move shortly after hitting the ground.
Once Estelle helped Tim out of the wagon, she and Graham faced each other. Neither spoke at first, they only smiled at each other. Graham reached for Estelle’s hands, rubbing his thumbs across the backs of her long fingers as he balanced against the wagon.
“You want to tell people about us?” he asked.
Estelle’s grin widened. She tilted her head to the side and hummed in thought. “Not yet,” she said at length. “Let’s keep it between the two of us for now. It’ll be special that way.”
“Whatever you say.” Graham couldn’t help himself. He tipped forward and kissed her lightly, reveling in the taste of her lips.
“Oh!” They broke apart, Estelle gasping, in time to see Lucy blushing a few yards away. Her wide-eyed surprise shifted to a beaming smile. “So sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She giggled, then turned to run back into the wet prairie.
Estelle clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes bright with mirth. It was so good to see her happy that Graham planted another quick kiss on her cheek before reaching for one of his crutches and pivoting away.
In spite of the power of the love he felt, there was work to be done. Graham shuffled around the wagon, looking for Gideon. Estelle took Tim’s hand and led him the other way around the wagon, looking for ways to tidy the storm-battered camp.
Gideon and Lucy traipsed through the field of wet prairie grass, gathering up the metal rods Gideon had thrust into the ground as the storm broke. Only now did Graham notice that the two of them looked a little worse for wear—Lucy with her dress damp and wrinkled, a tear in the front near the top button, Gideon with his shirt buttoned askew. Gideon hummed as he tugged a rod out of a patch of scorched ground.
“That’s three,” he said to Lucy.
Lucy’s only reply was a bashful smile and a nod.
Graham did a double-take. That was her only response? He took a second look at the way both Lucy and Gideon were dressed. A slow grin spread across his lips, a chuckle following it.
“Well I’ll be,” he murmured. He rubbed his face, wishing he’d kissed Estelle more after all.
“What?” Estelle asked, trying not to catch his grin and failing.
Graham shook his head and turned away from his friends. Lucky Gideon. He hadn’t had a child in the wagon with him to stop whatever he and Miss Lucy had gotten up to.
“Oh, nothing,” Graham laughed. He reached for Estelle and squeezed her arm. “Let’s see if there’s anything we can do to help clean up and make camp.”
They rounded the wagon and headed back to the spot where a few of Pete’s assistants were already setting up a camp and building a campfire on damp ground. Neither of them said a thing about the declarations they’d made during the storm or the future that would come out of them. There was work to be done right now. They had plenty of time to think about the rest of their lives later.
The mood shifted when Isaiah hopped down from the back of the supply wagon. He started toward Estelle, his expression dark with disapproval. Estelle tensed by Graham’s side. She pursed her lips and frowned, ready for whatever Isaiah had to say. A few steps away, Isaiah changed his mind. He paused, then switched directions and strode toward the camp.
“You should have taken shelter in the supply wagon,” he said over his shoulder, not looking at Estelle.
Estelle balled her hands into fists at her side. Tim swayed closer into her skirts. Sense told Graham he should let it go, focus on cleaning up and the happiness he and Estelle had found in each other.
He had never been one for good sense.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed off in pursuit of Isaiah.
“What gives you the right to speak to Estelle the way you have been?” he confronted the man as he hefted crates down from the back of the supply wagon.
Isaiah turned to stare at him, brow raised in surprise. “More of a right than a cripple like you has to force your attention on her.”
Graham jerked back in shock. Never mind who Isaiah was or had been, that anyone would speak to him like that sent his temper soaring.
And yet, a faint voice in the back of his head reminded him that he was speaking the same way about himself.
“I may be short one leg,” Graham said, drawing from whatever inner strength he had left to keep his voice calm and steady, “but at least I know how to treat a woman like Estelle.”
“Graham. Don’t. Please,” Estelle pleaded from several yards behind him. “Let it be.”
Graham pivoted, balancing on his crutch, to check on Estelle. Her face was pale with worry. Tim glanced between the adults, eyes round with fear. Graham faced Isaiah again. The man had the nerve to wear an insufferable smirk on his dark face.
“I don’t know what your game is, Jones, but I’m here to tell you to stop,” he said
To Graham’s surprise, Isaiah softened to a broad, toothy smile. “You think we’re playing games here, soldier boy?”
Graham hardened his jaw. “Let’s call it what it is,” he said. “Estelle cares for me, and that rankles you.”
“You’re damned right it does,” Isaiah agreed with a sharp nod.
Graham leaned toward him. “I don’t know where you get off thinking you have any sort of a right to tell Estelle who she should love. You’re nothing to her as far as I can see.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Isaiah said. “I’m more to her than you could ever imagine.”
For once, Graham knew more than Isaiah thought he knew, but as badly as Graham wanted to set the man down then and there, people were watching as they cleaned up the camp. He couldn’t bring himself to risk Estelle’s reputation by dealing with the truth as it was.
“Whatever connection you and Estelle had in the past, that time is over now,” Graham said. “This is the West. It’s the land of new beginnings and broader horizons. What happened before means nothing. Past associations mean nothing. Not out here.”
Isaiah lowered his arms to plant his hands on his hips, shaking his head with a sharp, teasing chuckle. “You think you have what it takes to make a life for a woman out here in this new land?”
“Yes, I do.” Graham tasted the words, let them sink into his gut, into his heart. He did have what it took to provide for Estelle, to be the man he thought he’d lost.
Isaiah continued to shake his head. “Look at you. You’re a cripple. You can’t even walk on your own.”
“Isaiah, stop,” Estelle hissed. She’d attempted to go about her business as Graham and Isaiah argued, but now she stopped all pretense of work.
Isaiah ignored her, scowling at Graham. “How do you expect to build a house for a woman, provide for her? Can you really see yourself choppi
ng wood? Plowing fields? Can you?”
“No.” Graham answered, drawing himself up taller. “But I can see myself helping people. I can see myself using the knowledge I was raised with to enter government, with Mr. Nelson’s help.”
Isaiah’s mocking grin slipped to a frown. “With Mr. Nelson’s help. And just how much do you think a man like that would help if he saw who you keep company with?”
A dangerous prickle began to form at the base of Graham’s neck, itching its way down his spine. Isaiah wouldn’t really be so crass as to blurt out what Estelle wanted to keep hidden, would he? The man wasn’t that low.
“I keep fine company,” Graham said. “As you and I both know. Estelle is a gem amongst women. The two of us have a future together.” He prayed Estelle would forgive him for hinting at their engagement.
“A future?” For a moment, Isaiah’s scowl darkened, and he clenched his hands to fists at his sides. He stared at Estelle as though she’d betrayed him on some deep level. Then he relaxed, his sly smile returning.
“You don’t know a thing about Miss Essie,” he said. “You stand here, spouting all sorts of grand words about the future and all it holds. You say that you care about Essie. I wonder if you’d keep saying that if you knew what I knew.”
“Isaiah!” Estelle’s face was pale with alarm, her eyes wide with terror. Graham wanted to run to her, to take her in his arms and assure her everything would be all right. He stayed where he was, though. Before he could embrace her, Isaiah needed to know where things stood once and for all.
Graham nodded to reassure Estelle, turned to Isaiah, and stood taller. “Whatever you have to say—”
“I asked you to marry me, Essie.” Isaiah brushed him aside completely, striding toward Estelle. “I told you I’d build a life for you, a better life than this crippled soldier ever could. I want your answer now.”
Estelle backed up a step, nearly stumbling into the side of the wagon, in her haste to get away from Isaiah’s advance. She looked exhausted from the storm, and near tears.
“Why would you want to marry a woman who doesn’t love you, who loves another?” Graham chased after Isaiah with words where he couldn’t physically grab him and spin him around.
The effect was the same. Isaiah stopped his pursuit of Estelle to whip around to Graham. “I know this woman,” he said. “I’ve known her most of my life. You have no idea how important, how revered she was back home. It would be an honor for me to take her hand in marriage, a privilege for me to be her husband and shelter her for the rest of her days.”
Graham waited for Estelle to respond to those words. When she didn’t, when she only gaped in a mix of surprise and disbelief, Graham spoke up.
“You want to marry her as a status symbol?” he balked. “Because people looked up to her?”
Isaiah lifted his chin. “Are you saying I’m not good enough for the master’s daughter?”
Estelle gasped. Graham saw through Isaiah’s intention to shock him. He saw the bloated pride and the misplaced ambition of Isaiah’s words.
“It’s not about whether you’re good enough or strong enough or brave enough,” he said. He shifted toward Estelle, meeting her eyes. “It’s about whether you love someone. If you love them—truly love them with your whole heart—then it doesn’t matter who you are or who they are or used to be. It doesn’t matter what limitations you have. Love has no limitations.”
As if truth and understanding had burst as a firework in Graham’s chest, everything—his entire future—came clear to him. He loved Estelle. He would marry her as soon as he could. He would fully embrace Gideon’s efforts to simulate his missing leg and stop resisting Estelle’s desire to get him back on a horse, and instead embrace anything that could return him to who he was. He would ride and hope, plan for the future and dream, because he was whole and strong and brave in all the ways that mattered, just like Estelle had been trying to tell him all along. He would never let her go.
“No limitations, huh?” Isaiah barked a laugh. “How about race? Is that a limitation?”
“Isaiah, don’t. Please,” Estelle pleaded. Her gaze darted around to the other members of the wagon train who were working within earshot.
Isaiah ignored her, stepping in front of Graham with an angry smirk. “How does your so-called love feel about the fact that Miss Essie here isn’t just the master’s daughter, she’s the daughter of a house slave too? Or that she herself was a slave from the time she was born to the day Mr. Abe Lincoln made her free and her daddy shoved a wad of bills in her hand and told her to leave home before she was found out?”
“Hush,” Estelle hissed, but tears were already running down her face.
“She’s as black as I am,” Isaiah finished. “Always has been. What do you think of that?”
Graham stood as tall as he could on his one leg. He stood as tall as he would have if he’d had two legs…or five or a hundred. With a lazy grin, he said, “What, that? I figured out who Estelle was and what her past must have been weeks ago.” He could forgive himself for exaggerating the time involved, figuring his heart knew the truth far longer than his mind. “I’ve asked her to marry me too, and she’s said yes.”
Isaiah stared at him, brow falling. Estelle slapped a hand to her mouth, tears painting lines down her face. Graham couldn’t stand it anymore. He ignored Isaiah’s frustration and walked to Estelle with as much pride as he could with his crutch.
“Please forgive me for telling him,” he asked Estelle, embracing her with a soft, warm tone of voice when he couldn’t physically embrace her without losing his balance. “And only minutes after we decided to keep it between us. I guess you’ll have to get used to a husband with no patience.”
“No—” she started before emotion choked her.
The force of her reaction caught like a bone in Graham’s throat. His joy at triumphing over Isaiah’s assumptions flattened. Estelle didn’t share his confidence. In fact, she stared around at the curious pioneers who were inching closer and closer—as though a stage drama were unfolding in front of them—with terror in her eyes.
“I can’t do this to you,” she whispered.
Before Graham had a chance to object and tell her they would face their troubles together, Isaiah growled, “Well would you look at that.” He drew not only Graham and Estelle’s attention, but the attention of the rest of the curious onlookers. “The two little lovebirds, one dove and one crow, seem to be having trouble.”
Graham twisted to face Isaiah, balling his free hand into a fist and clutching his crutch with the other. “You just can’t stand to see anyone else happy, can you?”
Isaiah replied with a vicious smirk. He didn’t need to say anything. People were dropping what they were doing to watch the confrontation outright now. Tim poked his head around the edge of the supply wagon. Lucy was directly behind him with an expression of joy and shock, as if she’d listened to the entire conversation. Gideon, Pete, and Josephine came clean a moment later, stepping out into the open. Behind them, Bob and Ted and a few of the pioneers from the wagons parked nearby were standing or craning their necks to see what was going on.
“Yep,” Isaiah went on, angry energy raising his voice to a near shout. “Didn’t you all know? Miss Essie here’s been keeping a secret from you all. She’s a former slave, just like me. Black as night. Can’t you see it? She’s been making fools of you this whole time. Probably been laughing herself to sleep at night with how stupid she’s made all of you look.”
“Pipe down, son.” Pete stepped forward, clamping a hand on Isaiah’s arm.
Isaiah wrenched free. “Get your hands off me. Who do you think you are?”
“Your employer,” Pete answered. “Although I’m not sure how much longer that will last if you keep acting like this.”
“Hold on a minute,” Ted spoke up. “Estelle is a darkie?”
“That’s what he said,” one of the farmers near him said.
“I can see it now,” Bob said, shoul
ders dropping with disappointment. “I guess.”
That was only the beginning. The murmurs grew, and a few of the people who had been working nearby rushed off to tell their neighbors.
Estelle raised her hands to hide her face, shoulders trembling. Throwing caution to the wind, Graham rushed to put an arm around her, but Estelle shook him off.
“I can’t do this,” she said. “They know. I can’t go on like this. I’m sorry.” She pushed away, running off toward the open prairie. Lucy and Josephine broke away to run after her.
“You’ll regret turning your back on me,” Isaiah shouted after her. He turned to Graham, a smirk of triumph on his lips. “You’ll regret it.”
Chapter Thirteen
She couldn’t marry Graham. It didn’t matter how much she loved him or how deeply he loved her. To marry him now would be unforgivably selfish. Five days after the truth got out and she was a pariah. She couldn’t do that to Graham. But they had reached the Platte River crossing, and Estelle’s aching heart still hadn’t let her break away from Graham like she knew she needed to. At least not to his face. She’d taken steps toward setting him free, though.
“Don’t pay any attention to the rumors,” Lucy said, shaking her out of the downward spiral of her thoughts.
She, Estelle, and Josephine stood at the top of the sloping bank overlooking the Platte River crossing. Ruth and her friend Viola marched past, closer to their river. They turned their noses up and averted their faces from Estelle as they went. It shouldn’t have made a dent in Estelle’s heart. She had her friends with her. But the snubs hurt all the more because of it. She couldn’t let Graham—or any of her friends—be tainted by association.
Estelle hugged herself, stomach twisting. It wasn’t concern for her own reputation that gnawed at her, it was the deep, bitter guilt that came with knowing she’d let the people who cared about her down. It was why she couldn’t keep pretending she would be happy or Graham would be happy with her.
“I’m so sorry,” she sighed as two other pioneer women with jugs of water in each hand, sent her dark looks as they whispered to each other. “I should have told you sooner. I shouldn’t have put you through this.”