by Natalie Dean
Bonnie had even learned to ride a horse, finally, after months of avoiding the task. Finally, she had just decided it was time and Z had taught her how. She still preferred riding Cabot to any of the other horses, and she did not intend to ever ride Whistler, Z’s big stallion, but she could ride. Elzbieta would learn eventually, too, but there was no rush. With the baby coming, Bonnie might prefer to have her sister on hand to help. In time, God willing, there would be a baby for them, and Bonnie would help. They would be double cousins, and that would be almost as good as being twins, allowing for the difference in ages, which would hopefully not be much. He didn’t want to start a family immediately, but he did want one, and it would be better if the two families had young ones near in age.
But that too, was in God’s hands, he realized. Everything was in God’s hands. But God had brought him a sister-in-law who had a sister that seemed just right for him and within a few minutes, he’d be meeting her.
On the hill overlooking Mesquite, he could see the town below. When he and Z were boys, they used to skip school and come this way so that they could watch the town beneath them. The hillside gave a magnificent view and as he paused the wagon, he spotted the stagecoach approaching from the far side of the outskirts of town, tiny specks of movement that brought his future closer to him. A wife, marriage, and hopes for a family, all coming ever nearer.
Will Henry slapped the reins against Cabot’s backside. “C’mon, Cabot!” he urged the horse. “We can’t be late.”
“So much for Grandmother fearing that I’d be the one to send you into an early delivery,” Z muttered, holding Bonnie close against him as Cabot obeyed the command to pick up the pace.
But Bonnie was excited and ready to get there too. It had been two years since she had seen anyone from her family and now she would have a sister living under the same roof. She didn’t mind Cabot’s brisk trot in the least, knowing that it would bring her to Elzbieta faster.
Chapter 5
The wagon drew into town just as the stagecoach arrived. Will Henry was suddenly conscious of the fact that the haste with which he had urged Cabot to go faster meant that he now looked a mess, and there wasn’t any time to make sure he looked presentable before his bride got out of the stagecoach. He’d look like some overeager schoolboy with his hair out of place and his clothing mussed, all because he’d given in to his anticipation.
People were milling around, as they often did when the stagecoach came through. Several people were greeting passengers, while others were just curious. Bonnie moved forward quickly; she wanted to be right there for her sister when she got out.
The stagecoach was full. It must have been an uncomfortable journey for Elzbieta, but as soon as they got her back to the ranch, she could freshen up and—
There was a flurry of activity at the door of the stagecoach. The other passengers had descended and were going about their business. Puzzled, Bonnie stepped closer. Elzbieta had always been a composed woman, unlikely to show her emotions, but after coming so far, Bonnie would have expected her to at least be eager to get out of the stagecoach. She went a few more steps so that she was at the door of the stagecoach and tried to peer inside.
Suddenly, a figure bolted from the stagecoach upon spying Bonnie, and hurtled herself forward. “Bonnie!” the girl cried out. “I want to go home! I want to go home!”
Will Henry stared. The girl had brown hair like Bonnie’s, piled underneath a shapeless black hat that owed nothing to fashion, even to his untrained eyes. He’d never seen such a hat; not only would it keep the sun off her skin, but it threatened to conceal her face entirely. The girl was wearing a dark dress of navy blue or black, he couldn’t be sure which, with an enormous skirt, a loosely-fitting bodice, and a gray collar and cuffs. It made the girl appear to have dressed up in the garments of a much older, much larger woman. It was not an attractive outfit, but Will Henry reminded himself that she’d come on a long journey and she couldn’t be expected to look as if she’d just left a dressmaker’s shop.
“Kasia?” Bonnie asked, the confusion apparent in her voice.
The girl burst into sobs and held onto her sister as if she were afraid of being wrested from her. From the back, it looked as if Bonnie were being gripped by a small, misshapen form whose gender could almost not be determined except that, as she was wearing a dress, she had to be female. Bonnie put her arms around her, holding her tightly. She began murmuring to her sister in what Will Henry assumed was Polish, because he didn’t understand a word she was saying.
People were staring. Will Henry felt his face redden with embarrassment. He couldn’t say for sure that he knew everyone in town, but close to it, and people knew that he was awaiting the arrival of his mail-order bride. By suppertime, the news that his bride had arrived in tears would be all over town.
Z stepped forward. “Sweetie, we’d better get on home. Obviously, there’s something going on, but this isn’t the place to unravel it.”
Bonnie, her arms still around her sister, nodded. Z helped Bonnie into the wagon first and then, without asking, just lifted the sobbing girl up so that the sisters could share the back seat of the wagon. Once they were safely deposited, he took Will Henry’s place on the front seat and took the reins. Feeling as if he were numb, Will Henry climbed into the wagon and stared ahead. Z lightly flicked Cabot on the rump. The horse, restored once again to his usual amble, moved forward.
It was a long ride home. The girl didn’t stop talking the entire time, except when her sobs were so overwhelming that her words were strangled in them. Bonnie kept talking to her in a low, soothing tone, always in the foreign tongue. Will Henry had no way of knowing what was being said but it didn’t matter now. Whatever she was saying, it wasn’t anything about being glad to be in Texas or that she was looking forward to her wedding. This wasn’t the introduction that he had hoped for. This girl wasn’t the Elzbieta he’d envisioned, and he didn’t know who Kasia was, but he was pretty sure that the girl who’d arrived on the stagecoach wasn’t the bride he’d been promised. As they headed toward home, the landscape that was as familiar to Will Henry as the ranch where he’d grown up took on an unfamiliarity that made him feel as if he’d been taken out of Texas and dropped into an unknown land.
“Grandmother is likely to be waiting outside,” Z said when the wagon was approaching the ranch, his voice inaudible beneath the crying going on behind them. “You take the reins. I’m going to go on ahead and let them know . . . I don’t know what I’ll tell them, but I’ll explain something. You just drive slow so I’ll have time.” He flashed his brother a swift smile, commiserating and reassuring all at the same time. A twin smile that promised that, one way or another, they would get through this. “Cabot won’t mind going at his natural pace this time.”
Will Henry nodded.
“We’ll find out what’s going on after . . . after.”
Will Henry took the reins and Z jumped down from the wagon. Bonnie looked questioningly at him, but then she must have figured out what he was doing because she turned her attention back to the girl in her arms. She didn’t say anything; the girl was still talking, still sobbing, still wrapped in Bonnie’s embrace like a child. From the quick glimpse Z had of the girl, she was a pretty thing, but he couldn’t see much with that awful hat blocking the view. Who in the name of God would have chosen a hat like that for a woman heading west to meet her husband? It was ugly as sin. If this was Elzbieta, she needed to learn a thing or two about fashion from her sister Bonnie, Z thought as he headed toward the ranch at a swift pace. And if it wasn’t Elzbieta, who in tarnation was she?
Z was right. Grandmother was waiting for the wagon, Elsie vigilant behind her in case she wearied and needed more support than she could count on from the canes she gripped in each hand. Regardless of her handicap, there was no way that Eldora Kennesaw would fail in her obligation to greet Will Henry’s bride.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
Z quickly explained what had happen
ed.
“What do you mean, she’s crying? What kind of girl meets her bridegroom with tears? She agreed to come here, no one forced her!” Grandmother was irate.
“Bonnie will explain when she gets a chance.”
“What’s Bonnie going to explain? What did Elizabeth say?”
There was no sense in concealing anything. “I don’t think it’s Elzbieta that came,” Z answered.
“What do you mean, you don’t think it’s Elibe—whatever her name is? Who came?”
“I’m not sure. Someone named Kasha, I think.”
“You think? The woman who came clear from Pennsylvania to marry your brother gets off the stagecoach and you don’t have a name for her?”
“She wasn’t speaking English, Grandmother,” Z defended himself. “And I don’t speak Polish except for a few words. We weren’t having a conversation. She was the last one off the stagecoach, like she didn’t want to get out, and then all of a sudden, she about flew out and went straight into Bonnie’s arms, sobbing like a child. She’s still crying, and Bonnie is comforting her and Will Henry looks like he’s been caught in a stampede, so go easy on him.”
Eldora glared at her grandson. “I don’t need anyone to tell me how to behave toward my own grandson.”
“Actually, Grandmother,” Z said with strained patience, “sometimes you do, and Will Henry doesn’t need an interrogation right now. He doesn’t know any more than I just told you, so it’s best if you just go on inside and act like we have visitors who show up on our doorstep in tears every day but Sunday.”
“C’mon, Miss Eldora, let’s go inside, like Mr. Z says to do. That boy’s not going to want us to be out here gawking when he pulls that wagon in.”
Thank God for Elsie, Z thought. Sometimes she was the only one who could make Grandmother see reason.
Grandmother protested, but she allowed them to help her into the house and to her bedroom. “You tell me the minute you find out what’s going on, you hear me?” she told Z.
“Grandmother, as soon as any of this makes a lick of sense, I’ll let you know. I promise. Elsie, even if it’s not a celebration, she’s likely to be hungry so that cooking won’t be wasted. I know I’m hungry.”
“Mr. Z, you’ll be hungry on Judgement Day,” Elsie responded.
“Darn right I will, and I tell you, I’m going to want more than loaves and fishes, and I reckon I’ll adjust to the wine.”
Elsie laughed. “You’ll keep the Lord laughing all through the judging, Mr. Z.”
“There’s nothing to laugh about,” Eldora snapped.
“Miss Eldora, ain’t nothing we can do about any of this. You just settle in for a spell, and I’ll bring you a plate and Mr. Z will let us know when there’s any news.”
Z and Elsie’s eyes met, both of them joined in the conspiracy to protect the tough, cantankerous woman they loved. Both were determined to avoid adding anything to the physical pain which she already endured without complaint, thanks to the fall from a horse years ago that had left her unable to walk without the aid of canes, and unable to move very far without a wheeled chair.
“Make sure you do,” his grandmother ordered him fiercely. Her hands were gripping the canes as if she needed to hold onto something that would not give way. Elsie, recognizing the signs, urged her mistress into the chair before she risked a fall. The tall, lean woman, leaning for support on the shorter, stouter one, made her way into the ranch house.
Z sighed with relief. Grandmother in full battle mode was not something that would help the situation. Whatever was troubling the girl, she was Bonnie’s sister and his sister-in-law, and she was kin. She didn’t have anyone but the Kennesaws to help her now, whatever the problem was, and judging from the way she was carrying on, it was trouble plenty. He wondered if the other sister, Elzbieta, had taken ill and died. That would be all Will Henry would need, to lose another bride-to-be to death.
Z knew that there was trouble ahead and he didn’t need to hear it in English to be aware that this was not a good day and that it was likely to get worse before it got better, if it got better. Grandmother had been looking forward to marrying off her bachelor grandson ever since she found out that Bonnie had been matchmaking between her sister and Will Henry. Grandmother wanted a house full of family and she wanted great-grandchildren.
With the expectation of a baby coming and a wedding, Grandmother had been the happiest that Z could remember seeing her. With both events coming near Christmas time, Grandmother had said that this year, they were going to celebrate the holidays the way no one had since the Magi went to Bethlehem. Even though Grandmother didn’t hold with what she called the ways of Popery, she had consented to Bonnie’s request that, this year, they could celebrate some of the special days the way Bonnie’s family had celebrated them back in Pittsburgh. Z couldn’t keep them straight but there was some day that was a celebration for miners coming up; then there was something to celebrate with some saint named Barbara, and a slew of other customs that Z had never heard of. Last year, there was an upside-down treetop to decorate and straw on the table, and an empty chair. None of it sounded like it had anything to do with Christmas as the Kennesaws were used to celebrating it, but as Bonnie reminded him, this year, the Kennesaws would no longer just be German and Scottish; they would be Polish as well.
Grandmother was dubious about acknowledging that fact, insisting that they were all Americans, but Bonnie was just as insistent and as Z had learned, his pretty little wife had a stubborn streak as wide as the Red River when she was set on something. She and Grandmother were alike in one way: neither would back down when they were convinced they were right. Bonnie was smart enough to know that she had leverage this year, with a Kennesaw baby inside her. The shrewdness that had made her a victorious poker player when she challenged Linc Duffy at the saloon two years ago was a part of her and it didn’t depend on the cards in her hand.
But this situation was something different. Will Henry wasn’t like Z when it came to hurting. Z could shrug things off easily but for Will Henry it was a little more complicated. Z didn’t know what his brother was going to need to get through this, but his twin wasn’t going to go through it alone, even if Z had to brave Grandmother’s devouring need to control every situation that confronted a Kennesaw.
Chapter 6
Will Henry unloaded the bags, then held out his arm so that he could help the ladies out of the wagon. The girl, her face blotched from tears, shrank from him. Helplessly, Will Henry looked to Bonnie, who murmured something in her foreign tongue. The girl looked at him, fearfully at first, then took his hand. As he helped Bonnie’s sister step down, he averted his eyes from the sobbing young woman who looked at him with an expression of terror on her face, as if he had abducted her from her home and brought her to Texas without her consent. Bonnie gave him a compassionate glance and a nod that told him she would let him know more as soon as she could. Then she and her sister hurried into the house.
Clem came hurrying up from the stable. “Mr. Will, where’s your bride?” he asked as he came over to unhitch Cabot and return him to his stall in the stable.
“I don’t know, Clem,” Will Henry said.
Clem’s face wrinkled up in bewilderment. “You don’t know? Elsie said you was going to meet her when her stage come in. Didn’t she come in?”
“She did, but it’s not quite what we expected. I’m not sure what’s wrong but something’s troubling her. Bonnie is seeing to her. Clem, you take care of Cabot, will you? He had a little bit of a run today and he’s not used to it.”
“Cabot? I didn’t know that old horse could do more than follow his nose.”
“Neither did I. Thanks, Clem.”
Will Henry hastened away before Clem posed any more questions. He entered the ranch. Z was in the kitchen, pouring two cups of coffee. He was the only one in the room.
“Bonnie took her sister to the guest room,” Z said, handing his brother a cup.
The warmth of the cup fe
lt good between his hands. He was surprised that he could actually feel anything at all. Everything that was going on inside his head seemed to be happening to someone else. The kitchen was reassuringly familiar. What was it like for the girl, he wondered, to be here where nothing was familiar?
Z swore softly. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Bonnie will let us know.”
Will Henry nodded.
Z didn’t say anything more. There wasn’t anything to say. He didn’t think the stagecoach had been attacked by Indians. There hadn’t been any trouble of late, and anyway, if there had been an attack, there wouldn’t have been living people on board. The stage had arrived right on time, and no one had said anything about being stranded in the desert or running into trouble. Whatever was wrong, it was something that affected Bonnie’s sister directly.
“Grandmother knows?” Will Henry broke the silence.
Z nodded. “Just what we know, which ain’t much.”
“How’d she take it?”
“The way Grandmother always takes things. She’s riled. You know Grandmother; she’d face down the Union army if she thought they were out to do one of us harm.”
Will Henry nodded. That would be Grandmother’s way of handling the matter; anger was the emotion she summoned up in order to drive out what she considered to be the weaker feelings. Anger wasn’t Will Henry’s oasis, though. When he could feel anything, he supposed he would just feel bewilderment and embarrassment. Right now, he just felt numb. This was how it had been after Mary Ellen’s death. The aching, bottomless numbness that engulfed him and then, after that, the ravening grief that closed off parts of him so that he couldn’t sleep at night. But Mary Ellen had died. This girl, the bride who had been coming to marry him, she wasn’t dead. She was alive, but from the way she was acting, she didn’t much want to be. Or else, Will Henry realized, she just didn’t want to be in Texas and she sure didn’t want to marry him.
