It made him weary just thinking of it. If he had a fire going, he would read some from the Bible his mother had given him as a boy. It never failed to comfort him. His mother had been a fine lady. Of course, she’d been totally unsuited to the roughness of life out here. He relaxed just thinking of his old home, hidden on the side of a mountain northwest of here by the pines growing thick and tall all around. His father had brought them there, not believing the reports he’d heard that the trapping days were almost over. He thought it was all just rumors spread by the Hudson’s Bay Company. He pictured getting rich on furs once the other trappers gave up, but he barely managed to feed his family.
Jake had grieved when his mother died a couple of years after they came West. The crude cabin where they lived seemed to shrink and grow empty without her. He and his father never talked about his mother after her death. They had both felt too guilty for failing her. His father hadn’t even put a marker on her burial place. The last thing Jake had done, before he left to go out on his own, was to find a smooth slab of rock and place it in front of his mother’s grave with her name scratched on it.
By that time, his father had married again, this time to a Lakota squaw. Red Tail was their son.
If he didn’t have the girls, Jake would not consider marriage—especially not to a woman like Elizabeth O’Brian. She reminded him too much of his mother. This land had changed in the almost forty years he’d lived here, but it still wasn’t a place for pretty, young white women. He didn’t want to watch another one of them grow bitter and fade away here. He didn’t have much choice, though. Not if he wanted to keep the baby alive.
Elizabeth wasn’t sure if it was the pebble under her back or the smell of frying salt pork that woke her the next morning. She could see out the flap in her tent well enough to know there were heavy gray clouds hanging low in the sky. There was also a biting cold to the morning air. Winter was coming. The low bluffs in the distance might even have snow on top of them by now.
Elizabeth hadn’t slept well and it was later than she’d planned to waken. It had taken her hours last night to coax the older girl close enough to the tent so that Elizabeth wouldn’t worry about her. Finally, Spotted Fawn had agreed to sleep beside her tent when Elizabeth said she might need help with the baby.
Fortunately, the baby only stirred twice during the night. Elizabeth had fed her both times and the little one was doing better. Maybe this man, Jake, would be content to spend a few more days near the fort so Elizabeth could nurse the baby. That should give him enough time to find someone else to take care of the infant.
In the cold light of morning, Elizabeth accepted the fact that she was going to live. She looked down at the sleeping infant. Maybe God was keeping her alive to save this Indian baby. That was the only thing that made sense, even though she couldn’t help but wonder why He saw fit to worry about this little one when He had not hesitated to take her Rose away.
Elizabeth knew no one was supposed to question the ways of God, but she couldn’t help her thoughts. It would be a wondrous, as well as a bitter thing, if God used her to save this heathen child’s life when she had not been able to do anything but watch her own baby die.
Unfortunately, no matter what her thoughts, she could not spend her day hiding inside her tent. Whether or not she wanted to see him again, Jake Hargrove was out there and he’d naturally want to know about the baby.
Elizabeth pulled the blankets closer to the sleeping infant before she tried to smooth back her hair. Maybe she could slip around to the wagon without being seen and get her mirror. She didn’t want anyone accusing her of being untidy again. Maybe if she rubbed her cheeks with a damp cloth, the color on her face would even out, as well.
When Elizabeth opened the flaps to her tent, she could see that Jake wasn’t the one frying the pork. There was a layer of frost on the ground and someone had hollowed out a place in the dirt to build a cooking fire, even though the blackened ashes from her own fire were only a few feet away.
Elizabeth didn’t recognize the man who crouched by the fire’s coals, although he was wearing the usual army uniform so he clearly belonged to the fort. She took a quick look at the ground around him and didn’t see any signs of his belongings. She did see that the man had a coffeepot settled at the edge of the fire and was heating a rock that looked as if it had some biscuits warming on it.
She took a deep breath. The coffee didn’t have the faintly bitter smell of green coffee, either. That’s what she usually smelled around the fort. No, this was the kind of coffee a man would buy special in the mercantile. That soldier had probably been hoarding that bit of coffee for months. And now he was celebrating something.
Elizabeth frowned. The only thing around here to celebrate was his new camp. Why—she drew in her breath as she finally understood. That man wanted her place. Elizabeth’s needs had been pushed aside by others all of her life, and she’d accepted it. But now that she’d been cheated out of death too, something rose up inside of her. She refused to be pushed any longer. She didn’t care what her hair looked like.
“This spot’s taken,” Elizabeth said as she stepped out of her tent. The canvas had kept the frost away from the ground inside, but the icy cold outside made her gasp when her foot touched the ground. She had worn a hole in her left shoe from all of the walking she’d done on the way here and the cold went right through her stocking. She saw her breath come out in white puffs again today.
But she ignored all of that. As cold as she was on the outside, she felt a growing heat inside. For all this man knew, she was still dying. People needed to wait for the dead to be finished with their business before they took everything from them. She liked the spot where she was camped; she intended to keep it.
“If you’re planning to set up a camp, you might try a little farther down the ravine. There are more cottonwoods and dry thistle down there anyway so it will be easier for fires and all.” Elizabeth forced herself to smile. If she stood in one place, the ground under her shoes grew a little warmer.
“I’m not setting up camp.” The man stood up indignantly. His nose was red from the chill of the morning and his hair was slicked back with some kind of grease. He looked vaguely familiar. “I’m cooking you breakfast.”
“Me?” Elizabeth was astonished. She forgot all about her manners and her cold feet. “Whatever for?”
What would possess the man to do something like that? No one had ever cooked breakfast for her, not even the morning after she’d given birth to Rose. Maybe the doctor had decided she was going to die after all and this soldier had been sent to prepare her last meal. Really, that was no way to break the news to a person.
“Who told you to cook me breakfast? That doctor?”
“Nobody told me to do it. I just know women like to have breakfast cooked for them once in a while.”
The man smiled, even though he didn’t look too happy.
Elizabeth took a closer look at him. The man had shaved this morning. It wasn’t Sunday. Outside of God’s day, the men at the fort only shaved for special occasions like Christmas, the occasional dance and, of course—funerals.
She swore she’d never listen to a doctor again. The man couldn’t even keep a proper log of days. He had probably lost track of time and, when he recalculated, discovered his error.
“I’m still dying, aren’t I? Just tell me the truth. I won’t make a fuss.”
Elizabeth braced herself even though it was what she had suspected all along.
“No one’s dying. The doctor told me you were as healthy today as you’ve ever been in your life.”
Elizabeth wasn’t really listening to the man anymore. She was looking around. The man cooking breakfast wasn’t the only soldier here. There were actually several soldiers standing to the left of her. They’d been hidden from her view when she was in the tent. They were certainly standing quietly. And they all seemed to be carrying big, tall bunches of dried weeds.
“Is something wrong?” Elizabeth a
sked. Surely, the men would be worrying about their rifles and not those weeds if something was really wrong.
The first man in the line stepped forward. The gold penny buttons on his uniform were all in place and his posture was straight. He’d recently shaved, as well. She could tell that by the whiteness of his skin where his beard had once been.
Surely the doctor wouldn’t lie about whether she was expected to live.
“I was hoping you’d like these flowers,” the man said as he handed her what looked like dried cottontails. Then he took a deep breath and recited something he’d obviously memorized. “They should be roses to match the roses in your cheeks.”
The man gave an abrupt bow and turned to the side.
“But Rose is—” Elizabeth swallowed. She hadn’t even said the name aloud since Rose died. She’d scratched it in the dirt several times when her longing had overcome her, but she’d never spoken it again until now. “That’s my daughter’s name.”
The men weren’t listening.
“Roses aren’t fair enough to compare to your loveliness,” the second man said as he thrust another bunch of weeds in her direction. At least, he’d had the foresight to tuck in a little sage so it smelled better. “I’m saving to buy some land when I finish up here at the fort. I’ve got prospects. This is going to be cattle country soon. You’ll see.”
The third man stepped forward.
Elizabeth finally realized what was happening. “You can’t be here courting me.”
She wouldn’t have been more surprised if they had shown up to tar and feather her. She supposed it was flattering, but—“I’m afraid there’s been some misunderstanding. I’m not—that is, my husband and my baby, Rose—they’re, well…”
Elizabeth gave up and pointed. Surely they could see the mound of fresh dirt near the edge of the ravine. She had carried over the biggest rock she could find to mark the place so the grave wouldn’t be lost in the vast expanse of land here. But now that she looked again, it didn’t seem as if it would be enough. The weather here would wear the rock down or someone would move it not knowing what it was.
The third man took off his hat. “It’s sorry I am for your loss, but I was hoping you’d be willing to be my wife.”
“Your wife! But I don’t even know you.”
Never, in all of the years that Elizabeth had longed for a family, had she imagined that a man she didn’t even know would want to marry her. It didn’t seem quite decent, somehow. Matthew had taken her to church for months before he proposed. That was the way civilized men courted their wives.
Elizabeth hadn’t seen Jake coming toward her until he was suddenly there. The sight of him, standing so solid before her was reassuring. He might have surprised her yesterday, but today he felt like safety itself. At least he could explain that she was not looking for a husband.
“Tell them,” Elizabeth said to Jake. She could hardly think of what to say so she just gestured to the men.
“You’re going about it all wrong,” Jake said to the men. “She sets a great deal of importance to names. You might want to introduce yourself before you propose.”
“Well, it takes more than a name to—” Elizabeth stopped as she looked up at Jake for the first time. “Surely no one expects me to get married now.”
Elizabeth didn’t know what to do. Maybe Jake didn’t understand the problem completely. She was going to explain it, but she noticed he had changed out of his buckskins and stood before her in a blue shirt and black wool pants. It didn’t seem right that the blue dye of the shirt should match his eyes so exactly. And, the color was evenly spread so she knew someone had used dyer’s woad to get the blue. It had probably been one of those big factories that dyed the cloth, but it was the same process and it looked good. Not that the man probably knew anything about how his shirt was made. Men never did.
Elizabeth noticed her breathing was betraying her again as she looked at him. She realized she was actually gawking at the man.
“I could still be dying,” she finally muttered and then turned to face the soldiers. It wasn’t all she’d meant to say, but that piece of information alone should put the men off the idea of marriage. “The doctor could be wrong. It’s a bad death—influenza. I’d probably pass it along to any man I…ah…married.”
There. Elizabeth crossed her arms. She’d said enough. She’d be left in peace.
Jake should have realized what would happen. He’d gone to beg some hot water off the blacksmith so he could shave again without needing to build a fire and, when he had gotten back, he’d seen the men. He wouldn’t have taken so long, but he had a new razor strap and he felt a wedding proposal deserved a careful shave. While he was gone, the men had gathered.
He knew right away what that meant. It hadn’t taken long for word to get around that the woman was going to live. There weren’t many women at the fort and it wasn’t often an opportunity to marry presented itself to these soldiers. If the men hadn’t been so scared of the fever, they would have been lined up to court Elizabeth before now.
Jake couldn’t blame them for taking any chance they could. He knew how tired a man got of his own company. He just wished they were not lining up for this particular woman. Jake could see the men looking at each other and wondering if the doctor really had miscalculated how long it would take for someone to come down with the fever.
“I can’t marry one of them,” Elizabeth said as she turned to Jake. Her eyes were wide. “I’ve never even seen most of them until this morning. They’re absolute strangers.”
Jake wished he could ease the panic he saw in Elizabeth’s eyes, but he knew he wasn’t going to. “Given that you’ve known me a bit longer, maybe you should marry me instead.”
She just stared at him as if she hadn’t heard him right. Jake figured he better add some more persuasion. “You’re going to have to do something before winter comes anyway.”
Jake could hear Elizabeth’s breathing as she considered his words. He’d heard the same shallow breaths from wild horses that had been corralled for the first time. He would have put his hand on her arm to soothe her, but he thought it would have done the opposite.
“But what if she does get sick?” one of the soldiers called out. “You’d likely die, too, if you married her.”
“I’m not worried. She looks healthy enough to me. And pretty, too.”
Ah, good, he thought. She wasn’t looking so scared now that she was a bit angry again. He found it hard to believe Elizabeth was a widow when she blushed up pink the way she was doing.
“They’re right. If the doctor’s wrong, I could be dying any day now,” Elizabeth said. Jake thought she sounded downright hopeful. “You need someone else for your daughters.”
“They’re my nieces, not my daughters.”
“Oh.”
“The doctor’s not wrong,” he said. She looked so troubled that he decided to reach out to touch her arm anyway; he only pulled back when he saw her move away. “If you’re waiting to see if you get the fever, you could wait just as easy if you are a married woman.”
“I am a married woman. At least, I—I was.”
Jake nodded. He’d expected that. She was still in love with her husband. Well, it was probably better that way. All he really needed was someone for the girls. “I’m not asking for myself. It’s for the baby.”
“I don’t need to marry you to help with the baby. Of course I’ll help with the baby.”
Jake nodded. That was something. “I can’t keep the girls here at the fort all winter, though. We have to go back to my place and folks won’t understand us living under the same roof and not being married.”
Jake didn’t add that the girls wouldn’t be welcome at the fort. The only Indians at the fort were the Crow scouts and the Sioux who were here against their will. The girls would be treated like captives and he couldn’t do that to them. They would have a hard time gaining acceptance with civilians; but they would have no hope of finding it among the soldiers and t
heir families. The girls’ tribe had fought General Custer and his men. No army man would forget that defeat soon.
“I could take my tent with me,” Elizabeth said.
“You would need to be with the baby at night. The baby can’t sleep in your tent when it gets colder.” He wondered if the woman had any idea what winters were like here.
Elizabeth nodded. “Still, we don’t need to get married.”
“The people of Miles City will see it differently.”
“I don’t care about gossip.”
“Neither do I, but Spotted Fawn needs to go to school.”
“Ah.” Elizabeth nodded.
She still didn’t look convinced. And she was looking at him as though there was something lacking in him.
Jake had known a woman from back East would have a hard time with the land out here. But he’d never quite considered that she might have an even harder time with him. He’d changed out of his buckskins, but he knew he didn’t look like what an Eastern woman would expect in a husband. Well, he decided, it was best she know the truth about him.
Jake wasn’t the man his mother had hoped he would grow up to be. He didn’t much care for big cities. Or small ones, either. He was wearing wool now, but he preferred buckskin. Still, he was a fair-minded man and he didn’t expect more in a bargain than someone should have to give. “It can just be a piece of paper between us. All I need is someone for the baby.”
She was silent.
“My girls, they’re good girls.”
“Oh, I’m sure they are.”
Jake could see he wasn’t making progress. Her eyes still seemed drawn to that grave, as if she was afraid the ones who were dead and under the ground could hear what she was saying and would rise up to accuse her of disloyalty.
“It wouldn’t need to be a real marriage,” Jake made his words even clearer. “You’ll be able to get it annulled in the spring if you want.”
He’d do whatever she wanted in that regard.
Calico Christmas at Dry Creek Page 3
