Orphan Moon (The Orphan Moon Trilogy Book 1)

by T. K. Lukas

  Writing in her journal next to the campfire while eating a dinner of beans and cornbread (with a little rabbit cooked over the fire this evening) had become the one thing she looked forward to at the end of the day’s ride. She wrote quickly, finishing her thoughts before the thunderstorm snuffed out the light.

  *****

  Lightning crackled, the blackening sky bursting with bruised shades of green and purple. Thunder crashed and echoed throughout the thick piney woods. The reverberations were deafening, as if every demon that stalked the heavens shouted curses in unison, and through their fists shook thunder from the sky.

  King whinnied in a shrill, high-pitched alarm, stomping and rearing. Barleigh raced to untie him from the line picket, afraid that lightning would strike the trees and him, too. Then, she made a mad dash back inside the tent. It proved to be a useless shelter against the mighty gale, the powerful winds snatching up the tent and hurling it away. All she could do was huddle under the saddle blanket until the squall passed.

  The night woods were too dark for her to see further than the hand in front of her face. She sat until morning, dozing a little, wet, shivering, and waiting for the sun to come up. The fear that she wouldn’t find her horse caused a gloom to darken her spirit, a gloom as gray and damp as the sky.

  Walking in circles for hours, calling King’s name, whistling, looking everywhere for him, proved fruitless—he was gone. Barleigh told herself that the storm no doubt frightened him so badly that he ran all the way to Hog Mountain and back to Aunt Winnie. She liked to think that’s what he did.

  She couldn’t leave the saddle behind. It had belonged to Uncle Jack. So, off she went, saddle over shoulder, bedroll and blanket attached, and she footed it into Fort Smith, stumbling into town as the sun was setting over the wide Arkansas River, its slow current murmuring soothing, welcoming sounds.

  A boardinghouse with a room for the night and a hot bath were the two things she wanted most in life. She found them, the room costing two dollars, the bath ten cents. It was a boomtown and prices were high. She’d have paid twice that not to have to sleep in the woods again. Thoughts of Indians hiding in the shadows kept her unsettled and restless. Rare were the nights when her dreams were free of fearful images of painted faces, painted war horses, flaming arrows, burning buildings, and worse.

  Though physically exhausted, writing about her fears and placing them on the pages of her journal, she imagined that they would stay on the pages and not trouble her sleep. She began to write.

  *****

  Journal Entry – It’s hard to believe it was a month ago, the night of the Comanche Moon, the night so bright, so full of promise and life and death.

  Even as midnight approached, the sky was so bright that the stars refused to shine, their incandescent light no match for the huge, silvery orb. High overhead, the moon cast shadows where there should have been none, miniature shadows as if from the noon day sun.

  I took Papa another cup of coffee and my Navajo blanket to warm him against the cooling night air. Papa wrapped it around both of us, and we sat shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the tiny cry, the signal that Aunt Winnie had successfully delivered Birdie’s baby. We looked out over the pasture dotted with grazing Brahman cattle, their fair hides shimmering in the vivid lunar light.

  “Do you know the Indian name for what we call the harvest moon?” asked Papa.

  I shook my head no.

  “Wasuton wi,” he said. “They call it ‘the moon when calves grow hair.’”

  Our calves and foals had begun putting on early, thick winter coats, too. Nature was preparing them for a harsh winter.

  The lusty sound of a baby’s cry pierced the night, startling Papa and me with its sudden intensity. We bolted for the door, running into the bedroom to see Aunt Winnie wrapping a blanket around a squirming, crying bundle. The figure in the bed lay motionless, the sheets soaked with blood.

  “Take the baby and go on out. I need to attend Birdie. She’s lost a lot of blood. Your baby girl’s fine and healthy. Go.” Winnie bent to her work and Papa and I went back out to the porch, Papa cradling his new baby daughter in his arms.

  I pulled back the blanket to see my new little half-sister, wondering if she’d favor me, or Papa, or Birdie. “Look at all her thick, dark hair,” I mused.

  Papa laughed. “It’s the moon when babies grow hair, too. She’s beautiful, just like her big sister. Here, you take her. I’m going to see about Birdie, even if Winnie tries to run me out.”

  I rocked the baby, letting her nuzzle against my neck. Papa’s words gave me a chill. Was this baby, like the calves and the foals, in for a harsh winter? How could this happen to her, too, I wondered? Would she be cursed like me, with a lifetime of guilt that her birth caused her mother’s death? Please, I prayed to anyone up there listening, to anyone behind the moon when calves grow hair, please don’t let this baby grow up not knowing her mother.

  *****

  Wednesday, October 24, 1860

  From the second she awoke, Barleigh had coached herself for this moment. With confidence, thinking and speaking like a man, she asked the clerk behind the counter of the Fort Smith Mercantile and General Store for what she wanted. “One ticket on the next stage to Saint Joseph, Missouri, please.”

  The clerk, whose girth equaled his height, studied Barleigh from down his bent, warted nose for a long moment before answering. “Well, son, this is your lucky day. Just so happen to have one seat left.”

  “Good. Thank you, sir.” She breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

  “You’ll be the ninth and final passenger. One piece of luggage is allowed, but you got to hold it on your lap. Underfoot will be the mailbags. You carrying anything other than that saddle?”

  “No, sir. It’s all I got.” She looked him in the eye, man to man, unashamed of her meager net worth. The saddle had belonged to Jack Justin, but Aunt Winnie had insisted she take it. Its value was far beyond the leather, wood, metal, and stitching that went into its construction.

  “That’s a fine saddle, but it’s still considered a piece of luggage. On your lap it goes, or it don’t go.” He shoved his finger into the air to accentuate his point.

  “Yes, sir, I understand,” Barleigh said, jutting her chin in what she hoped was a show of masculine determination.

  “Fine. List of rules is posted over yonder on the wall. Read and commit them to memory. There’ll be stops four times a day and twice at night to change out the mule teams and to allow comfort breaks for the passengers. Food at these comfort stops is extra. Expect at least four days to make the destination. That’ll be forty dollars for a through ticket. Yes, or no?”

  “A through ticket?” Barleigh swallowed hard, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

  “Yes, a through ticket. Besides the comfort stops, the stage stops along the way to pick up mail in Rogers, Bentonville, Bella Vista, Neosho, Joplin, Carthage, Kansas City, and Liberty. To go all the way through to Saint Joe is a through ticket. Forty dollars, yes or no?”

  She handed over the money with a slight hesitation. Fifty dollars was the sum total in her pocket, a gift Aunt Winnie insisted on and that Barleigh insisted would be paid back once her taxes were settled with the bank.

  The steely-eyed clerk handed Barleigh the ticket along with a piece of advice. “For some of your journey you’ll be traveling through Indian Country. The safety of your person cannot be vouchsafed by anyone but God. Iffin’ it were me, I’d make sure my guns were loaded and in good working order. Read those rules now, boy. You got just ten minutes before the stage pulls out.”

  “Yes, sir.” She tipped her hat and turned to the wall, where the rules for proper stagecoach etiquette were posted.

  1. Abstinence from liquor is requested, but if you must drink, share the bottle. To do otherwise makes you appear selfish and unneighborly.

  2. If ladies are present, gentlemen are urged to forego smoking cigars and pipes as the odor of same is repugnant to the Gentle Sex. Chewing tobacco i
s permitted but spit WITH the wind, not against it.

  3. Gentlemen must refrain from the use of rough language in the presence of ladies and children.

  4. Buffalo robes are provided for your comfort during cold weather. Hogging robes will not be tolerated and the offender will be made to ride with the driver.

  5. Don’t snore loudly while sleeping or use your fellow passenger’s shoulder for a pillow; he or she may not understand and friction may result.

  6. Firearms may be kept on your person for use in emergencies. Do not fire them for pleasure or shoot at wild animals as the sound riles the horses.

  7. In the event of runaway horses, remain calm. Leaping from the coach in panic will leave you injured, at the mercy of the elements, hostile Indians and hungry coyotes.

  8. Forbidden topics of discussion are stagecoach robberies and Indian uprisings.

  9. Gents guilty of unchivalrous behavior toward lady passengers will be put off the stage. It’s a long walk back. A word to the wise is sufficient.

  Around back of the general store was the livery and blacksmith shop, where six replacement mules were being brought up two by two. They were being hitched in pairs to the celerity wagon, the type that was lighter and faster and thus more uncomfortable than the storied Concords, whose reputation was that of a cradle on wheels.

  The large, rawboned mules matched in size and color, all of them black, and they shuffled into their places in the hitching line. This coach didn’t look like a cradle on wheels, Barleigh thought, but looked instead more like a contraption suitable for rattling teeth and jarring bones.

  Inside the stagecoach were three rows of passenger seats, each row accommodating three passengers. On the back and middle row, the passengers faced forward, but the front row faced rearward, causing the passengers to face the folks seated on the middle row. With not much room between rows, the knees of passengers in the front and middle rows interlocked, and the narrowness of the stage caused the passengers sitting on the outside of the rows to want to dangle their outside foot out the door to gain legroom, putting it precariously close to the wagon’s wheels.

  A family of six were stuffed on the front and middle rows: a taciturn preacher dressed in black, his somber gray bride, and their four dour, supplicating children. They were relocating to Joplin to build a church of a denomination Barleigh wasn’t familiar, the father himself having a difficult time clarifying for the rest of the passengers this new church’s doctrine.

  On the back row, Barleigh sat wedged between a long-legged beanpole of an Army captain whose uniform smelled like cooked cabbage and who bragged that he had “been directed by President Buchanan himself to travel to Kansas City on official government business,” and a slight-built, blond-headed young man. With pride, he claimed he was “going to Saint Joe to show them other Pony Express riders what riding’s all about.”

  Barleigh’s heart sank to her stomach. This couldn’t be good, she thought. She looked down at the saddle in her lap, fiddling with the latigo straps tied around the bedroll, pretending not to hear the question the captain was asking, trying to gain a few minutes to compose a response.

  “Cat got your tongue?” The captain nudged her with his sharp, bony elbow. “We all said our ‘howdys.’ Now it’s your turn.”

  “Howdy.” Breathe. Relax. Don’t seem nervous.

  “That sounds mighty unfriendly, don’t you think?” the captain asked, his words sliding into a slur. “We shared our names and our stories of why we’re on this little journey. The rules of polite society say that one must reciprocate. Do I need to teach you a lesson on the rules of polite society, boy?” The captain studied Barleigh with hard, bloodshot eyes.

  “Reciprocating wasn’t on the list of rules,” said the other Pony Express rider, leaning across Barleigh to address the captain directly.

  “Who are you?” asked the captain in a haughty voice.

  “I already introduced myself. I guess you forgot. I’m Stoney Wooten, from Frog Level, Arkansas. I recall the rules mentioning not spitting into the wind, and not cursing or snoring or hogging the buffalo robes. Don’t recall nothing about having to share names and stories—just sharing your liquor if you brought any. I see that you brought some but you ain’t sharing. You done already broke a rule yourself, as far as I can tell.” Stoney eased back into his seat, giving Barleigh a friendly nudge of his elbow.

  “Are you his protector and appointed spokesperson?” the dark-haired, mustached captain asked in an agitated voice. He took a sip from his whiskey flask, making a big show of re-pocketing it.

  “Name’s Bar Flanders. I’m a Pony Express rider, too. Or soon will be.” She reminded herself to not act intimidated or afraid. Be direct.

  “Well, ain’t that something?” Stoney put out his hand. “Maybe after we get hired on, we’ll be on the same relay. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  Barleigh shook his hand. Full, firm grip. One pump. “Pleased to meet you, Stoney. Yep, that’d be something.” She shifted her body position a degree to put the captain more at her back as best she could, given the tight quarters.

  The captain retreated into his flask until the last drop of alcohol was coaxed from the container. Soon, a rattling snore filled the air, reverberating inside the small, closed coach. The family of six withdrew into their prayers and their Bibles, a humming drone of devotions blending with the whiskeyed wheezing coming from the captain.

  “I’m from down a ways in Frog Level. Lived in Arkansas all my life. My pa’s sending me off to get a paying job so he won’t have to. He says I should help with feeding the other twelve young-uns at home. Where you from?”

  Stoney’s friendly blue eyes and ready grin reminded Barleigh of her papa’s. She fought down a wave of longing that caused her eyes to burn. “I’m from Texas. Don’t have any family.”

  “Hell, I got enough to go around. I’ll share.”

  “I may take you up on that.” Barleigh attempted a lighthearted smile, but it was thin.

  The four days it took to get to Saint Joseph were long, dusty, and monotonous, the nights cold, cramped, and uncomfortable. Trying to sleep while sitting upright and holding your baggage in your lap induced little rest yet lots of stress. Friendly chitter-chatter dwindled to near silence.

  No Indians, though. Thankfully, no Indians.

  Even so, Barleigh kept her revolver in a firm grip, her hand hidden under the McClellan saddle at all times. The saddle straddled her lap the entire journey. This must be how a horse feels, she mused.

  After the praying family disembarked in Joplin and the Army captain stumbled off in Kansas City, Stoney and Barleigh stretched out. As she relaxed for the last day’s ride into Saint Joe, her thighs felt light without the stress of a saddle pressing on her lap.

  Stoney pulled back the canvas flap that covered the window opening of the celerity wagon; it had remained lowered most of the four days to keep the fine caliche dust out of the coach. A bandana over mouth and nose was still required as the mules kicked up much dust on their gallop into Saint Joseph.

  “Well, ain’t that something,” said Stoney as he poked his head out the window.

  The lower half of his face was clean when he retreated back into the coach and removed the red bandana covering his mouth and nose. The upper half of his face was sifted in a soft, white, chalk-like powder that made his eyelashes and eyebrows look like they belonged to a dusty ghost.

  “Look at all them people. I ain’t never seen so many people all at once, just ambling around in no apparent hurry.” Stoney shook the dust from his bandana and then washed his face with water from his canteen.

  Saint Joseph was on the fringe of settlement. It was the farthest outpost for travel and commerce. It was where the railroad ended its journey toward western expansion. It was a hub of activity, trade, and exchange. It was raucous with cowboys bringing in massive herds of cattle to market. It was where settlement bloated outward from the city center, and it was where the Oregon Trail picked up just over the
banks of the Missouri River and then wound its way across horizontal plains, over ragged mountains and through verdant valleys before reaching California and the Pacific Northwest.

  And it was where Barleigh Flanders had a rendezvous with destiny.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1860

  The wait staff at the Menger Hotel set a decadent evening buffet of smoked hens and wild game, savory cheeses, ripe fruit, yeast rolls and whole-grain breads, chocolate pastries, and a variety of imported wines and sparkling French champagnes. The lavish spread invited and encouraged gluttony. Hughes and Leighselle sat on the shaded patio, sipping chilled Veuve Clicquot.

  “How was your siesta?” Hughes asked, setting the champagne bottle into an ice bucket, the ice also a luxury import.

  “Refreshing,” Leighselle said, noticing that she hadn’t coughed in quite some time. She attributed it to the siesta. Then again, the champagne might have played a roll, she thought, taking another sip.

  “Do you feel like picking up the story where you left off?” Hughes asked. “Or would you rather just enjoy the evening?”

  “I feel like it, yes, though this may be the most difficult part to tell.” Leighselle looked at Hughes, wondering if he would rather just enjoy the evening instead of listening. “Are you sure you want to hear my tale of woe?”

  Hughes squeezed her hand and then raised his glass. “That’s what friends are for.”

  Leighselle raised her glass, clinking it against his. “Thank God for dear old friends.”