“Answer me!” her father’s voice was loud now, and Fern was sure their neighbors could hear his outburst.
“I know, Father.” She paused, not sure what else to say. When her father was in these moods, there wasn’t much one could say to change it. It was better to remain neutral.
“Let me get some dinner and then I’m sure you’ll feel better,” she said quietly. Fern pushed the basket of clothes she was folding to one side and moved to the stove.
Her father slumped into one of the rickety chairs by the table. “That sounds good,” he said in a quieter voice.
Fern’s feet ached and her back complained the entire time as she moved around the kitchen preparing dinner. Cooking wasn’t something she particularly looked forward to, but it was part of her life. The idea of her life made her give a little smile and shake her head.
If you could call it that, she thought ruefully.
Her life was something that she didn’t like to think about often. She felt as if it wasn’t going anywhere, and it felt as if every day that went by, she was more suffocated by it.
She moved across the modest kitchen and set a steaming plate of potatoes and beef in front of her father.
“This again?” He let the fork clank back onto the glass plate.
The noise it made grated on her nerves, but she maintained her neutrality and sat down across from him and picked up her fork.
“It’s what we have,” she mumbled, trying to enjoy her food.
People said that her father hadn’t always been this way. There were days when Fern wished she had met him before he had changed and other days, she wished that he had never been a part of her life.
Her father raised an eyebrow as he took a bite.
“We’ll have to get something different for tomorrow, I can’t take this much longer,” he growled.
Fern nodded in agreement.
“I heard in town that Darren was asking about you. Is something going on with that boy?” Her father’s steely gaze held hers until Fern forced herself to look away.
“No, there’s nothing going on. I told him that I wasn’t interested, but he doesn’t give up. Won’t let me have a moment’s peace,” Fern said through a bite of potato.
“You don’t fool me, girl. I’ve seen the way you look at the boys. Encouragement is what I call it. You keep it up and you will have an unwanted little brat on your hands.”
Fern’s heart beat faster, and she forced herself to breathe calmly.
“I have no interest in marriage.” Her eyes narrowed, and she gripped her fork a little tighter.
She had never imagined herself being a wife and that hadn’t changed. Even if she could bring herself to want a romantic relationship, it certainly wouldn’t be with a man like Darren.
“You just wait little missus, I’ll bet you’ll be runnin’ off with some boy in no time, but when you do, it had better be proper. I won’t have no daughter of mine being a little tramp.” Her father shook his head, and something that resembled disgust clouded his eyes.
Fern clenched her jaw and took another bite of food. It took everything in her not to respond.
Finally, her father rose from the table and pushed back his empty plate.
“Don’t leave a mess,” he mumbled as he walked out of their tiny kitchen, leaving Fern with her thoughts.
She hurried to pick up the dishes, washed them, and put away the food from dinner. Then she turned back to folding the laundry in the basket.
She took in the wash for two families and babysat the Withers family’s two children four days of the week. She tried to keep as busy as possible so she wouldn’t have time to think or lament on her home life.
She looked out the window to see a young woman hurrying down the street heading toward the general store, her two young children clutching her hands.
They were laughing at something the woman had said, and they looked as if there was nowhere else they would rather be.
Fern’s hands became still as she watched the happy scene. It was nights like tonight she wished that she had a mother. She knew that she’d had one; everyone had one at some point. But her mother had died giving birth to her. There were no pictures of her, so she had to imagine what she must have looked like.
Fern’s stomach tightened a little as she thought of it.
If it weren’t for you, your mother would be alive right now. If I’d had to choose someone, I would have chosen her, but did someone give me a choice? No!
Her father’s words stung in her mind, and she closed her eyes to see his angry red face as he had shouted them at her from across the room.
Some people had told her that it wasn’t her fault, but she’d heard the whispers, seen how some people from town looked at her.
There were days that Fern wished that she’d had a choice too. She certainly wouldn’t have chosen to grow up with a father who hated her and a town who looked down on her.
Her gray cat rubbed up against her ankles, startling her. She liked to think it was hers anyway. She had found it skinny and alone behind the house one day and had adopted it. The cat seemed to show up and disappear as she pleased. That was okay, though, Fern understood that she couldn’t be around all the time.
“What are you doing in here?” she whispered.
Fern laid down the piece of clothing she was folding and carried the animal outside. Her father hated the cat, and he had kicked it on multiple occasions when she had managed to slip by Fern.
“You stay out here, where it’s safe, okay?” she said softly, enjoying the grateful purr that came from the cat. She glanced up at the sky. It was nearly dark now, and she knew that she needed to be inside.
It was at this time that the men were often out and about at the saloons or causing trouble, and respectable young women knew to stay off the streets.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave the cat a final pat before retreating into the safety of her home.
She placed the last piece of clothing onto the neatly folded pile before setting the basket down on the hardwood floor by the door.
Laundry was one of her least favorite tasks, but it was just another thing she had learned to accept. She needed the extra money that doing the wash for others brought in.
There were days when she thought about what it might be like to have the means to pay someone to take care of her wash. The thought made her almost laugh out loud.
Everything was ready for the next day.
She let herself stand still in the empty kitchen for a moment, listening to the soft whooshing of the wind outside the glass pane windows and the sound of faint music from the saloon down the street.
Things were as they should be. They weren’t pretty, or right, or the way she wanted them, but they were as they always were; they were normal.
Fern smiled, normal was good and predictable. She liked predictable. It was those days that were different which were dangerous. She shivered a little as the memory of some of those unpredictable days from her past popped into her mind.
She walked quickly down the dark little hall into her room, the pitter- patter of her feet sounding a little too loud in the otherwise quite house.
It had gotten later than she expected.
She lit a candle on her bedside table, and after a few moments of preparing for bed, pulled out the book she was reading. Reading was her one escape, the one way that she could go to another world, another town or another city and be someone else, anyone else, for a little while.
She wasn’t sure what time it was when she set the book down, her eyes too tired to stay open any longer.
She blew out the candle stub and then dipped her fingers in water before pinching it. A soft fizzy noise greeted her ears, telling her that the flame had been put out all the way. She then stumbled to her bed in the pitch-black darkness that surrounded her.
Yet another day had passed, and she was okay. She was alive and well and would face another day tomorrow, and she was grateful for that.
&
nbsp; Chapter 2
Charley leaned against his shovel, staring at the sky. It was nearly dusk, and that meant it was time for his trip into town.
He had been low on supplies for a while now, and the prospect of getting some much-needed items, such as coffee and sugar, made him almost eager.
“Come on boy; let’s get going,” he called to the dog at his side.
Jug was his faithful companion and the one living thing that Charley felt he could really trust.
He’d found the bloodhound abandoned in the woods with his eyes pasted shut from lack of care. He couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old.
Charley had nursed him back to health, and they had been inseparable ever since. The dog went with him everywhere, even to the general store. No one had ever told him that Jug couldn’t go into the store with him.
Charley wasn’t sure if it was because no one cared or because no one wanted to talk to him about it. Either way, he enjoyed the animal’s companionship.
As they walked down the sloping hill into the town below, Charley noticed that the birds were extra active this evening. They were singing various songs, like a chorus together, and hopping about from tree to tree along the path.
Charley had a large burlap sack to carry his supplies in tucked under his arm. At one point, he had always ridden into town on his horse, but he enjoyed the walk. He felt it was good exercise, and it gave him time to think. The dog’s paws made little puffs of dust as he trotted ahead of him.
The sound of wagon tires crunching on the dirt road made Charley move off to the side a little. It was strange for anyone to be out this late. Most families liked to be at home, preparing for their evening meal at this time of day.
The figure in the wagon turned to look at Charley, and Charley’s heart stopped momentarily as their eyes met.
He knew the man, and he wasn’t anyone he had any intentions of talking to or even saying hello to. He pulled his hat a little lower over his brow and picked up his pace. Town wasn’t far away now; he’d be there in a matter of minutes.
Just as he had planned, the streets were empty. There was an occasional man heading back to his home or hurrying towards the saloon, but they paid little mind to Charley.
Charley wasn’t sure if it was because they were in a hurry or if they couldn’t really make him out on the darkening street, but it didn’t matter either way.
He briefly thought of the few times he’d come into town during the day.
The times were few. He had learned his lesson quickly. The children’s incessant questions about what was wrong with him; the parents always looked at him as if he would reach out and grab them and somehow transfer his misfortune to them by just being near.
The truth was it had all been a big adjustment for Charley. He had gone from being a normal person who interacted with the town when he felt like it or when he needed it, to being an outcast, someone that people kept their distance from and didn’t expect to see walking the streets of their town.
“Hey Charley, I was wondering which of these days you’d be showing up,” Tom greeted him as he entered the general store.
“Hey Tom.” Charley leaned his elbows onto the counter at the back of the store.
His conversations with Tom when he came into town for supplies were the one thing that had most likely kept him sane during the last five years of solitude he had endured.
Tom was a good man, and he treated Charley the same as any other man. He said the Good Lord didn’t judge men by what was on the outside, and so neither did he. Charley found that when he was with Tom, he forgot about his face for a while, and that was really refreshing.
“How you been?” Tom picked up some bottles from the counter and ran a cloth underneath them.
“Good. It’s quiet up on the ranch, you know; just me and Jug.” Charley lifted his arms so that Tom could clean underneath them.
“I’d imagine so. How long you been holed up out there?” Tom began rearranging a shelf of produce that to Charley looked as if it was organized just fine, the same as everything else in Tom’s store.
“Six years now, and it’s not that I’m holed up there. I come down to town every once in a while.” Charley pulled his shoulders together a little further.
He didn’t like the criticizing look that Tom was giving him.
“Coming down every few weeks to talk to me and buy necessities isn’t what I would call coming to town, but if you say so.” Tom shook his head, a small smile on his lips. “You know what? You should get a wife. I hear they fix things right up. You could definitely do with some fixing up.” Tom threw his head back and chuckled at his own joke.
Charley glared. It was just like Tom to make light of his situation. He always had. He didn’t understand what it was like for Charley, and Charley couldn’t exactly say that he expected him to.
“There’s not a girl in town that would give me a second look. Since… well you know. My chances of getting married are about as good as Jug’s here,” Charley reached down and gave the hound an affectionate pat on the head. Jug’s tail thumped the wood floor in reply, and he yawned and slid down into a heap at Charley’s feet.
“There are a lot more women out there besides the closed-minded ones in this town.” Tom raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly at the newspaper sitting on the counter.
“A mail order bride?” This time it was Charley who laughed.
“If a girl here wouldn’t marry me, what makes you think that one would travel weeks to marry a man with my… shortcomings.” Charley pulled the newspaper over to him and flipped to the part that showed the mail order bride requests.
There weren’t that many of them, but there were a few from ranchers, gold miners, and there was even one from a banker looking for a wife.
“You know, a lot of times mail order brides have shortcomings of their own. Maybe you wouldn’t need to be exactly upfront about yours,” Tom suggested. “Maybe after she gets to know you yours won’t be so important.” Tom shrugged his shoulders and paused his constant movement for a moment. “I think you should give it a try. After all, what do you have to lose?” Tom said, pushing a pencil across the counter.
Charley picked up the pencil and tapped it against his chin for a moment.
“You really think so?” he asked, his mind turning the possibility over a few times. He did hate the loneliness, and an extra pair of hands might be nice out on the ranch. Of course, he didn’t expect a woman to love him. All he expected was to provide something for whoever she was and in return, maybe she could learn to tolerate him and keep him company.
“Tell me otherwise all you want, Charley, but no one can take being alone forever,” Tom said.
Charley’s heart tightened a little. Tom’s words hit a little too close to home.
He hadn’t always been alone, but he avoided those memories like the plague. He didn’t need ghosts from the past intruding into his present and messing things up.
A young girl’s face flashed into his mind, golden wisps of hair curled around her smiling face.
“Maybe you’re right.” Charley placed the pencil to the paper that Tom had provided.
“I know I’m right!” Tom slapped his shoulder in a friendly way and then went back to organizing another shelf.
Charley wrote a few words, then erased them and started over. After a few tries he finally had something that he was pleased with.
A Treasure Brought by Fate: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 30
