For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
MATTHEW 6:21
Chapter One
Near Fort Kearny, Kansas Christmas Eve, 1860
That’s it. The Chelan Swing Station.”
Caroline Adams strained for her first view of the destination she’d traveled from North Carolina to reach. At swing stations along the Pony Express route, tired horses were exchanged for fresh mounts. The initial impression disappointed her.
Hopefully it would improve upon closer inspection. On this prairie, where she could see things for miles around, she couldn’t gauge the distance. She held on to that hope.
An hour later, the driver, Mr. Cox, stopped again, this time half a mile from the station. Up close, the appearance had improved: a sturdy wooden shack, with what appeared to be a chimney. Perhaps the building was split in half, half a barn for the horses, and the rest the living quarters for the stationmaster.
Her father. Caroline squared her shoulders. The space would be sufficient, as long as they were together.
Mr. Cox pushed his cowboy hat back on his forehead. “It looks empty. Are you sure you want to stop here, Miss Adams? Horse Flicker isn’t that far away. You can come back later.”
“Not before Christmas.” Caroline shook her head. “And I came here to spend Christmas with my father, not with strangers. Bring me to the door.”
Fifteen minutes later they pulled up in front of the station, and Mr. Cox helped Caroline dismount.
She knocked on the door. She had come all this distance, trusting he had received her letter. Now that she had arrived, what should she say? What should she say to the father she hadn’t seen since she was five years old?
She knocked again. Mr. Cox called, “Mr. Adams? Mr. George Adams?”
No one answered, and Caroline considered Mr. Cox’s offer to take her to town. Not yet. “Do you mind staying with me for a few more minutes?” She gathered her courage and opened the door. Mr. Cox shut it behind them.
The room was tightly organized, every inch put to use. Green boughs sat on the windows, with popcorn and holly strung among the branches.
A stove and basic cooking supplies promised decent fare, and a fresh rabbit lay wrapped in newspaper, ready to skin and prepare for a meal.
However, the room didn’t offer space for guests. A blanket separated the sleeping quarters. The bed did have a trundle. No one would consider it inappropriate for a girl to stay with her father, would they?
Mr. Cox stood in the door with her two valises. “Are you staying here? Alone?”
The rabbit assured her Pa was coming back. “I’ll be fine.”
He frowned. “I’d best be going then. I’ll stop by on my return journey. Have yourself a merry Christmas, Miss Adams.”
As the wagon trundled away, Caroline prayed she hadn’t made the wrong decision. But someone occupied the cabin, and her news indicated her father worked here. Butterflies flew in her stomach. Papa. She knew with all her heart that when she caught up with him, he would be a changed man.
While she waited, she looked at the record book. June 1, 1860—the first page. The number of horses exchanged, with a note of the riders, filled that page, ending with June 30.
She turned through the pages, absorbed by the history coming to life before her eyes. The door flew open and a tall shadow fell across her shoulder. “Who are you, ma’am, and how may I help you? Do you have a letter you wish to post?”
Caroline closed her eyes and sought for composure. Please, God, let me see my father when I turn around.
The man, no more than five-and-twenty years of age, stood before her. He couldn’t possibly be her father.
Severe disappointment coursed through Caroline’s body, but she clung to the counter and cleared her throat. “I’m not here to post a letter. I came in search of the stationmaster, George Adams.” She pulled herself to her full height. “If you would tell me when I may expect him…”
The cowboy took off his hat, revealing a head of wheat-colored hair, and stared at her for a long moment. He lifted a finger as if to ask her to wait a moment, and reached into the mail boxes beneath the counter. He pulled out an envelope with handwriting she instantly recognized. “Are you Miss Caroline Adams?”
She gulped and nodded.
“And Mr. Adams was your—”
Was? “My father.”
The man shook his head. “I don’t know how to tell you, Miss Adams, but your father deserted Chelan Station at the end of August.”
Before Caroline had even left Charlotte. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “So you don’t know where he is now.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t.” The stranger twisted his hat in his hands. “The office asked me to find out what had happened and to take over if necessary. I’ve been here since September 8th.” He offered his hand in welcome. “I haven’t properly introduced myself. Martin Green, the current manager of the Chelan Home Station of the Pony Express route.”
Martin Green stared into Caroline Adams’s blue eyes, dark like a twilight sky and wide with fear. “I’m being a poor host. You’ve traveled a long distance and must be thirsty and hungry. Let me prepare you a cup of tea and a slice of bread.” He had coffee, but most ladies found the beverage a foul brew when it had been waiting on the stove for so long.
“Did Cox drop you off on his way by this morning? He’s a good man. You couldn’t ask for a better escort.” He put the tea kettle on and started on the rabbit. She might not like to watch him dress it, but the sooner he got it ready and in the pot, the sooner she’d have a proper meal. Collect enough of the soft pelts, and they’d make a fine coat for a lady like Miss Adams. He snuck a glance at her. Did she know any of the survival skills needed on the frontier? From her voice, she sounded like a southerner. He’d heard rumors that George Adams came from one of the Carolinas.
The tea kettle whistled, and he prepared a cup of tea and cut a slice of bread before adding some apple butter. “This isn’t much, but maybe it will tide you over until supper.”
Caroline accepted the food, bowed her head for a word of thanksgiving, and then took a tiny bite of the bread and a sip of tea. From the way she ate one right after the other, she must have been hungry, so he cut another slice with a bit more apple butter. “You might as well make it a sandwich.”
“Thank you.” She broke the sandwich into chunks and enjoyed each and every bite. Her face brightened as she drank her tea, and her hands stopped trembling.
When she finished, he offered her a second cup, but she shook her head. “You don’t know where my father is, but do you have any idea where he might have headed?” A wide smile pulled at her face, full of hope and desperation at the same time.
Martin hated his answer. “No, I don’t. The head office sent me to straighten things out, so I did a little looking around. I didn’t learn anything. Even if I found Mr. Adams, he’d already lost the job.” He hesitated to make the next statement, but she needed to be prepared. “Also, remember that the Pony Express is a dangerous job, especially for the riders, of course. We’ve lost more than one rider to accidents and Indian attacks. I haven’t heard of any station managers being hurt, but it’s a possibility.”
She blanched. “But this close to Fort Kearny—” She gestured for him to pour another cup of tea, which he did gladly. “Surely they wouldn’t attack this close to a fort.”
“There is no evidence that they did. There is no evidence of any sort, except for reports that the riders had found the station unattended.” His search accomplished nothing except for an aggravation that he had to make up for Adams’s absence. “My point is, I don’t know Mr. Adams’s whereabouts.”
A blink cleared the tears from her eyes and she lifted her chin. “In that case, please tell me where I might find lodging for the night.”
How did she expect to get there? To walk? For him to take her?
“It’s Christmas Eve, and night falls early. You can’t reach Horse F
licker before dark.”
“But I can’t stay here.” Pure scandal tainted her voice.
“People will understand.” He hoped.
Through the window he caught sight of a wagon swirling up dust as it hurried toward the station. Behind it he saw snow clouds from the north racing in their direction.
She turned to where she could see as well. “What’s going on? A storm—maybe a white Christmas?” A wistful smile parted her lips. “If only my father were here.”
At least she wasn’t afraid of the storm. He didn’t want to be cooped up in a building with a woman who howled at every bump and noise of the night. But who was driving the wagon?
“I don’t think Mr. Cox would come back…” Her voice sounded hopeful nonetheless.
When the wagon neared, he recognized the driver. “It’s Mrs. Gibbs. She runs a general store and restaurant in town, brings me supplies sometimes.” Although he wasn’t expecting her tonight.
Caroline grabbed her valise. “Perhaps she can take me back to town.”
It depended on the storm that came on her heels. “Stay inside until I have a chance to find out what’s going on.”
Caroline was already putting on her coat. “I want to speak with her.” A glint of steel in her eyes dared him to disagree. It explained how she had made it here all the way from Charlotte by herself.
“Very well.” He went outside and Caroline followed. “Mrs. Gibbs. How may I help you?”
Mrs. Gibbs peered around Martin. “I heard you had company. Good to meet you, Miss Adams. What a Christmas welcome for you. I fussed at Mr. Cox, leaving you here alone the way he did.”
“I insisted,” Caroline said.
Martin bet she did. “But why are you here, Mrs. Gibbs?”
“Miss Adams can’t stay out here alone with you. What would people say? You don’t want to take a wife just to protect your reputations.”
His face hardened, Caroline paled, and Mrs. Gibbs chuckled. “I hoped we might make it back into town.”
“Have you looked behind you recently?” Martin asked.
She nodded. “I packed supplies, in case the storm blew in.”
“That’s neighborly of you.” Caroline’s mouth softened into a smile at Mrs. Gibbs’s kind words.
Martin huffed. “We’d better get ready before it reaches us.”
He grabbed the two bags of supplies Mrs. Gibbs had brought in the wagon and held the door to the station house open for the women. “Merry Christmas, ladies.”
Chapter Two
Caroline walked through the door to the Chelan Swing Station, her heart as heavy as a bag of coal Santa Claus might leave at a houseful of bad children. She’d had only one wish for this Christmas: Please, God, let me find my father.
She had settled her mother’s affairs, located her father’s place of employment, and planned for the cross-country trip. Against all odds, she had arrived on Christmas Eve.
And once again, her father had failed her. He didn’t abandon her this time, but the fact didn’t lessen the pain.
Martin had gone behind the work counter, searching among his records. Was he expecting riders yet tonight? Did the Pony Express demand that their riders work on the holiest day of the year?
After a few minutes, he held up a pale blue envelope, much marked and trampled from its travels. “Did you send this letter?” He offered it to her, the curl to his lips suggesting he knew she might not welcome the discovery.
The envelope lay back-flap, seal side up, the familiar wax seal of the letter A. As she examined the folds and cracks, she wondered what had happened to her letter from its departure until it arrived at the Chelan Station. Her thumb resting on the C of C. Adams. C could refer to his father, Charles, or his brother. She had also borrowed her grandparents’ address, hoping he would remember it. Although she didn’t live there, the servants treated her kindly whenever her mother visited, pleading for their help on behalf of their granddaughter.
They didn’t, much. In their opinion, their son had married below his station and they blamed his subsequent problems on her sweet mother, as if their son could do no wrong.
She allowed herself to look at the name of the addressee. George Adams had left Charlotte the day after Caroline’s fifth birthday, promising, “I’ll be back, my sweet girl. I don’t know when, but I’ll be back.”
After more than fifteen years and her mother’s death, Caroline had waited long enough. She wrangled her father’s whereabouts from one of the servants, sent the letter, and began her journey.
“Yes, it’s mine.” She pulled her lips tight. “Had he already left before it arrived?”
Martin looked at her keenly. “It came in the mail about a week after I took over.” He hesitated. “I thought about returning it to the sender, but the envelope said, ‘For George Adams’s eyes only.’ I took that to mean you didn’t want it back.”
She nodded. “It’s a good thing you didn’t return it. I left shortly after I sent the letter, trusting the vaunted Pony Express to deliver the letter before my arrival.”
“Of course we did. We make it from St. Joseph in Missouri to San Francisco in ten days. And Chelan is one of the early stops on the route.”
He pulled down a map that had flags representing stations along the Pony Express route in locations such as Julesburg, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, Utah.
Caroline traced her route across North Carolina to Tennessee and Missouri, before turning north and west through the plains of Kansas and Nebraska. She’d seen maps of the country before—who hadn’t? California had become a state when she started school and the possibility of a country stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific beckoned settlers west. Making the journey herself was an entirely different matter.
“It must be quite an adventure to be a rider. I’ve heard about William Cody and Robert Haslam. Such interesting names. Is Chelan the name of somebody famous or—?”
Mrs. Gibbs laughed from her spot by the stove. “I hear Chelan is an Indian word meaning ‘pretty lake.’ The lake ain’t so pretty in my opinion, but it’s a grand gathering spot for human and beasts alike.”
An Indian word. That made sense, like Hatteras and Cullowhee back home.
The sky outside had turned a dull gray and a few flakes feathered the ground. “Will the horses be all right?”
Martin put on his jacket and headed for the side door. “They’ll be fine unless it gets really bad. We serve ’em warm oats and fresh hay.”
Another time she’d like to see the ponies that held up under the pressure of traveling such great distances at such fast speeds. They should be better than the best of the racing stallions her grandfather kept at his plantation. The ones her mother didn’t want her to see, saying that way lay temptation.
A brisk wind chilled the room when Martin went out to feed the horses. “What brought you out here? Are you planning to spend the night?”
Mrs. Gibbs bobbed her head toward the window. “We’re not going anywhere as long as this weather lasts. I don’t have any family to keep me company, just me friends in town, so I decided you could use a chaperone and a friend, so far from home on Christmas. I’ll be spending the night. If you want to help, why don’t you peel these taters?”
Mrs. Gibbs’s kindness swelled Caroline’s insides, warming her heart. “But what about Martin?”
“So far as I know, he doesn’t have a family. A lot of the riders don’t. Best that way, don’tcha know, in case something happens. Mr. Adams never mentioned a family back east.”
“Did you know him?”
Mrs. Gibbs hesitated for a moment. “I met him, but I can’t say I got to know him much. He mostly just sent shopping lists to be delivered out here.”
So he stayed to himself. Even so, Caroline hungered for any tidbit she could share.
“He had a stallion, and he treated him like he was worth a fortune in gold. He didn’t like to tie him up to a wagon, so he asked me to deliver.”
Horses, like the Adams family
in Charlotte.
Martin returned. Caroline scooted close to Mrs. Gibbs for him to squeeze by. He said, “You’re fixing a feast, and it’s only Christmas Eve.”
“Whatever we have left will taste just fine tomorrow, and I’ve got the fixin’s for a good meal tomorrow, too.”
Mrs. Gibbs must love to cook.
Caroline kept glancing at the door to the barn. Martin would show her the horses once they finished eating. She wanted to see the horseflesh more than she wanted to cook—like her father, from what he’d heard. But she didn’t give in to the temptation, peeling and chopping the potatoes as quickly as Mrs. Gibbs worked on the carrots, and soon the broth was simmering.
“Give us half an hour and we’ll have ourselves supper.” Mrs. Gibbs bent over the oven and pulled out a tray with flaky biscuits. Since his biscuits turned out more like hardtack, this was a real treat.
“We’re going to have a grand Christmas Day. Better than I expected, a bachelor alone on the prairie.”
Mrs. Gibbs waved a finger at him. “And whose fault would that have been? We invited you to join us.”
Martin shrugged. “My job is here. I can’t leave unless someone takes my place, and I’m not about to ask anybody to come out here on Christmas Day.”
“I don’t know. It seems to me you just don’t like coming into town.”
She hit a sore spot, but he shook it off. “I’m glad I was here today, and that you joined us, so that Miss Adams doesn’t have to spend the day alone.” He pulled up a chair and reached for a biscuit, expecting Mrs. Gibbs to swat his hand away.
“I appreciate your hospitality. Of course, I was hoping to spend the day with my father.” Tears trickled down Caroline’s face, something that turned Martin useless. She sniffled and settled it into quiet sadness. “In the circumstances, I am blessed indeed.”
Mrs. Gibbs reached overhead for plates. “It looks like three plates are all you have on hand. It’s a good thing there’s no more of us here.” She waved a hand at Martin. “I thought tonight we might hunt around the station as well as the things I brought with me, see what kind of gifts we could come up with for each other. It won’t be much, but it honors the God who gave us the greatest gift of all.”
The Pony Express Romance Collection Page 14
