Sixteen Brides

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  Back out in the hall, Hettie’s voice wavered when she said, “I h-hope I remembered everything.” She sighed. “And I hope the doctor from the fort comes soon.”

  Ruth squeezed her hand. “He will. Wah Lo said he should be here by sundown. And then we can get home.” Home. Had she really just said that? “In the meantime,” she said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.” Once they had washed up, Ruth led the way back to their room.

  A soft knock at the door woke Ruth first. She sat up and blinked in surprise. The sun had gone down. Wah Lo was at the door. Gray was still asleep, but Wah Lo had a supper cooked, and Pete was waiting to speak with them. Wah Lo said it was urgent.

  “We’ll be right out,” Ruth said, and roused Hettie. Together they walked down the hallway to where Pete waited just inside the front door, his hat in his hands.

  “I don’t know any other way to say it than right out. There’s no doctor coming. ‘Relieved of his duties’ is all the commanding officer would tell Johnny. They don’t know when they’ll get a replacement. I sent Johnny to telegraph up the line to the next few stations to see about getting a doctor to come this way. That’s the best I could do.” Pete shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “But I’ve got to tell you, I don’t hold out much hope for that happening.” He fidgeted with the hat in his hands. Cleared his throat. “I guess it’s plain that we need you to stay.”

  Hettie ran her palms across her hair and touched the place at the bridge of her nose where her spectacles should be. “I…I’ve done everything I know to do. Mr. Gray needs a trained physician.”

  Pete nodded. “Yes, ma’am. But all he’s got is you and Mrs. Dow. We need you to stay. Both of you. Please.”

  Ruth glanced at Hettie, who looked pale and panicky. Exactly the way Ruth felt, but somehow she managed not to sound that way. “Can you keep the ranch going? I ask because Hettie says the patient’s…sense of things…is important in healing. So…will Mr. Gray be worried about the ranch or will he be able to concentrate on healing?”

  Pete looked off toward one corner of the room, thinking aloud. “We’ve got calves coming by the dozen. And with all the homesteaders pouring in we’re going to have to start running fence. Lowell Day’s disappeared. Luke had him in charge of collecting fence posts and such. Who’s to replace him would of course be Luke’s call.”

  “But you can handle things,” Ruth said. “I can sense you’re already figuring out how.”

  Pete drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I can.”

  “Well, then. It would appear we are all in the same position. We are all Mr. Gray has. And that will have to do.” As Pete nodded and turned to go, Ruth asked, “Could you send word that we’re going to be staying on for a while? Our friends were headed to our homestead today—this morning. It’s—”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Pete interrupted. “We know where it is. You ladies claimed the cottonwood spring.” He smiled. “Smart choice.”

  “Well. Thank you. I hate to bring this up, but I expect Mr. Ermisch in Plum Grove would appreciate knowing we haven’t stolen his best carriage horse.” Ruth frowned. “Do you think we should return it so he has use of it during our stay?”

  “I’ll see that someone checks in at the livery. If Mr. Ermisch is worried about the rig, we’ll just tell him to consider it sold to Lucas Gray.”

  Ruth thought that a rather extravagant way to handle things, but she liked the idea of having the rig handy. Somehow she’d feel less stranded with it here. If Mr. Gray fared well, maybe she could even drive to the homestead in a few days and check on Jackson. Of course Jackson was just fine, but she wouldn’t mind being really certain. This was, after all, the first time they’d been apart in all of Jackson’s young life.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it….

  PSALM 127:1

  The homebuilders began in one corner—by chance it was the corner that would be Ella’s side of the west bedroom wing—and laid two adjacent rows of sod strips grass-side-down and end-to-end along the guide string until finally the long rectangular outline of the forty-two-by-twelve-foot house appeared atop the prairie. Sally and Caroline helped pack the seams between each strip with loose earth before the next row of strips was stacked atop the first. And so it went, with lengthwise strips staggered so seams didn’t line up with the row below, and every third row laid crosswise to the two below.

  As the walls rose, two men wielded spades to shave the inside surface as clean as possible in preparation for plaster. They would shave the outer walls, too, Will explained, because “a smooth surface weathers better.”

  While the house walls rose, Matthew Ransom worked on the doorframes, his daughter alongside holding, fetching, sanding, laughing. It was obvious the girl was thrilled to be with her pa, and Ella noticed it wasn’t long before Jackson was helping with the carpentry, as well. When she took a short break to get a drink of water, Ella paused at the “carpentry shop” long enough to listen to Ransom tell Linney and Jackson why he was having them drill holes in each of the doorframes. “When I hammer a dowel through into the sod,” he said, pointing to a hole, “that will hold the frame in place.”

  By the time the third row of sod was laid, Ransom and his two assistants had the doorframes built. Jackson helped him set them in place, obviously pleased with his contribution to the effort. When Ransom began constructing window frames, Ella noted that he had Linney drill all the holes while Jackson built his own window frame. Knowing the future Ruth had mapped out for Jackson, Ella wondered if she would mind her son’s apparent interest in carpentry.

  They lunched standing at long planks laden with sandwiches and boiled eggs, pickled beets, and dried-apple pies. Caroline didn’t think she’d ever seen so much food consumed in one sitting. It made her smile to think how shocked the proper Mother Jamison would be to see mugs of soup drunk down like so much coffee by men with dust-streaked faces and muddy work boots.

  By afternoon Will had to park a flatbed wagon alongside the soddy walls so the builders could reach the tops of the ever-growing walls. Matthew had Jackson and Linney begin filling buckets with loose earth and handing them up to Caroline and Sally so the two ladies could stay put atop the flatbed. When the walls were chest-high, Matthew stepped inside, plumb line in hand.

  “If they aren’t straight now,” he explained as Caroline and Sally looked on, “they could start to lean when the house settles, and with all that weight…” He held one forearm up and mimicked a collapse.

  The thought made Caroline shudder. Late in the day, Matthew brought a bucket of loose earth, and when he handed it up, two pair of work gloves lay atop the earth. When Caroline looked surprised, he smiled. “Sturdier gloves.” He winked at Sally. “A lady’s hands deserve protecting, right?”

  “What about your hands?” Caroline asked as she pulled on a glove and wiggled a wave at Matthew.

  “Won’t need them for a while. Since you’re…occupied and I’ve finished the door and window frames, I told Jackson I’d show him a thing or two about riding.” He reached up and tugged on one of the half-empty glove fingers. “But I’ll be needing these back tomorrow. Will’s going to bring out some small sizes.” He shook his head. “No one really expected the ladies of Four Corners to build their own house, you know.”

  “Folks should get used to the ladies of Four Corners doin’ unexpected things, then,” Sally said.

  Matthew nodded. “So we’re learning.”

  Ruth had just dozed off—she and Hettie were taking turns staying at Gray’s bedside—when he moaned in his sleep. “Darlin’. Don’t go, darlin’. Look what I did. All for you. All for you. Don’t go—don’t leave me alone—please….” Ruth studied the handsome face as Gray continued to mutter, lost inside the nightmare…or was it a memory? Tears slipped out of his closed eyes.

  Ruth’s heart softened toward the man who, when healthy, seemed so arrogant. As he continue
d to beg whoever it was not to leave him, Ruth rinsed a cloth in cool water and laid it on his feverish brow. She murmured, soothing him with the same sounds she’d used when Jackson was a babe in arms. “Shh…shh…it’s all right…there now…shh.”

  It calmed him somewhat, but not enough. Finally, Ruth moved her chair close. She reached out and put a hand on his arm. “It’s Mrs. Dow, Mr. Gray. You’re right here at home. Safe in your bed. In your very own room. You’ve got a bit of a fever, but you’re going to be fine. No one’s deserting you. No one’s leaving you alone. Just relax now…there’s no reason to be upset…it’s just a bad dream. That’s all. Shh…shh…”

  Slowly, Gray relaxed. The lines across his brow disappeared. He stopped muttering. His breath evened out as he sank deeper into what Ruth hoped was a restful sleep. Hettie had said to just bathe his face and try to keep him comfortable. There was nothing else to be done. They wouldn’t bother the dressing for at least two weeks. “I cleaned it as best I could. If we mess with it now, we’re just inviting infection.”

  “But how will we know if the wound is healing?”

  “We’ll know,” Hettie said.

  “But—”

  She touched her nose. “You never forget the smell of gangrene.”

  Gray’s eyes flew open. With a vacant stare he grasped Ruth’s forearm. “My leg,” he croaked. “Don’t let them take my leg.”

  “Your leg is fine. You have a little fever is all. Nothing serious.” She hoped it wasn’t a lie. After all, they hadn’t seen the wound since Hettie reduced the fracture and tended it. Only a little blood had seeped through the first bandage. Hettie said that when it dried, it would help seal out infection. They would leave it be and wrap over the seepage with clean bandages.

  “You keep that sawbones from the fort away from me,” Gray said, his voice desperate. “You were talking about—someone was talking about him—”

  “That was yesterday,” Ruth said. “He’s not coming.”

  “Well, that surgeon’s a drunk. If he comes near me, I’ll shoot—”

  “All right,” Ruth said. The man’s grip was going to leave bruises on her arm. She put her free hand on his shoulder and forced amusement and a gentle scolding into her tone. “You won’t need to shoot anyone, Mr. Gray. You have my word on that.”

  He relaxed a little and closed his eyes, but he still held on to her arm. “Lucas,” he murmured. “Call me Lucas.”

  “And I’m Ruth, and the one who’s really directing your care is Mrs. Raines. Hettie. Now try to sleep. You need to rest and let your leg heal.”

  “It hurts,” he muttered.

  “And will for some time to come, I’m afraid,” Ruth said.

  He opened his eyes again and frowned a little. “I thought nurses were supposed to…comfort.”

  Ruth smiled. “It seems to me you’ll be most comforted knowing I’m telling you the truth.” With a little nod, he sighed and settled back. Ruth pressed a freshly rinsed cloth to his forehead, then leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  The rancher seemed to be resting peacefully when he suddenly whispered, “Darlin’…I did this for you…can’t you see…for you…don’t go…please…stay, sweet Katie…stay….”

  By the end of the week a long, roofless sod structure stood exactly over the corner of land where four surveyed homesteads met. It had taken a couple of days, but even Bill Darby finally agreed that he supposed a woman had a right to do whatever God gave her the strength to do—although he personally didn’t think building a sod house was the best use of her strength. Ella supposed the rest of the men and most of the women probably agreed with him, but they weren’t rude about it. In fact, the building bee had gone a long way toward making the five ladies feel like a part of the community. Mama had promised to show some of the women how to make real Italian tomato sauce when their gardens came in later in the year. Sally Grant reported that she had gotten some good advice about tending poultry, and Caroline had a sketch of a new quilt pattern she wanted to piece.

  As for Ella, while she felt weary at day’s end, she woke each morning feeling joyful about the promise of her new life and grateful for the fine spring weather. She’d heard the men joshing about “gully-washers” and cyclones as they worked, and while she was suspicious they might be exaggerating about the ferocity of storms and the speed with which they could move in, the April snow gave her cause to wonder. One night when she worried aloud to Mama about rain, Mama just shook her head. “You know how my old bones ache when the weather’s going to change. I haven’t felt so much as a twinge.”

  Ella stopped worrying quite so much. But then on Saturday Mama wasn’t quite as spry as usual. Right around lunchtime, a few gray-tinted clouds started to gather along the western horizon.

  It was time for folks to return home anyway. A couple of the men had ridden from place to place each day tending each other’s livestock, but with the soddy walls finished and only the roof remaining, fewer hands would be needed. Still, as neighbor after neighbor loaded up and moved out, as the clouds darkened, “getting home” seemed to take on a new urgency.

  When the few clouds became a dark wall, Will said it might be a good idea if the ladies changed their minds about camping out and came back to town. “Could be nothing,” he said, nodding toward the horizon. “But then again—” They could pull canvas tarps over the walls to protect them from a gully-washer.

  “What if the tarps blow off?” Ella asked.

  “I’ll see to it.”

  It was Jeb Cooper, offering to hunker down and make sure things stayed put. When Ella hesitated, Cooper smiled. “A man ought to be allowed to be and do what he thinks is right. Don’t you think so, Mrs. Barton?”

  What could a woman say to that? And besides, those clouds did look angry. If it were only her, Ella realized, she would stay, but it wasn’t only her. It had become increasingly clear as those clouds rolled toward them that Mama’s bones were aching. She’d be much better off at the Immigrant House tonight. There was Jackson’s safety to consider, too. What if it did storm? What if a cyclone blew through?

  And so it was that the Four Corners ladies—plus Jackson—left the tending of their roofless sod walls to Mr. Jed Cooper while they headed for Plum Grove ahead of what looked increasingly like storm clouds.

  Mr. Cooper was the topic of conversation among the ladies as Ella drove the wagon. He was going to be a good neighbor. Anyone could see that. He was so kind. The fence he’d put up around Mrs. Ransom’s grave had been quite the topic of conversation these past few days. Apparently several of the folks in the county had driven over just to look at it. It was, everyone said, a marvel. And wasn’t it a shame that Mr. Cooper couldn’t blacksmith anymore, what with Plum Grove needing one. But wasn’t it a wonder the way he’d learned to plow without a hand. And had you heard that he had a whole room in that soddy filled with books. Who had ever heard of such a thing. A bookish man out here homesteading. He certainly didn’t look like a bookish man, now did he.

  As far as Ella was concerned, whether Mr. Jeb Cooper liked books or not was no one’s business. As he said, a man should be allowed to do what a man wanted to do. As she drove the team along, she smiled, remembering the way he kept calling her Boss. She had to admit she liked the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners when he said it. Like they shared a joke. A special friendship. Which was all Ella was interested in. Just friendship. Nothing more.

  Hettie staggered into the ranch house kitchen and sank into a chair at the table. What was wrong with her? She’d slept soundly for the last two nights, and still she felt exhausted.

  Wah Lo wished her a good morning as he set a cup of tea before her. “Eggs come soon,” he said. “How you like?”

  “Anything is fine,” Hettie said. She didn’t feel like having breakfast, but she knew better than to refuse Wah Lo’s offering. He might not be a large man physically, but he had the will of a giant. If he offered tea, it was best to drink some. As for breakfast, he’d minded the ways of
a busy rancher far too long to believe that anyone anywhere could live without breakfast.

  The aroma of the tea Wah Lo offered this morning was different. More pungent…almost sweet. “This is delicious,” Hettie said, and sipped it gratefully.

  “Glad you like,” Wah Lo said from where he stood cracking eggs into the iron skillet on the stove. “Mrs. Dow, she like, too. I make last night. After you sleep.”

  Hettie took another sip of tea and then stood up. “I’m going to check in on Ruth and the patient,” she said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  “Eggs be ready,” Wah Lo said without turning around.

  Hettie yawned as she slogged down the hallway. At least her stomach had settled. Ruth was sitting in the wing-back chair beside Mr. Gray’s bed, her eyes closed, her hand resting atop the mattress. Gray stirred in his sleep. When he coughed, Ruth woke with a start and was on her feet bending over him before she even realized Hettie was in the room.

  “Shh, Lucas,” Ruth murmured, and put her hand to his forehead.

  “I’m all right,” he said. “Could use a drink of water, though.”

  “How about some hot tea?” Hettie asked from the doorway.

  Gray opened his eyes. “Tea sounds good. Just tell Wah Lo not to send in any of that sweet-tasting garbage. He’ll know which stuff I mean.”

  “I believe I just drank a cup of it.”

  Gray turned his head to look at her, and a ghost of a smile flitted across his face before he grimaced. “Figures. He always makes that for the ladies.” He grunted.

  Hettie went to the bedside. “How’s the pain?”

  “Dancing up and down my leg.” A fine sheen of sweat shone on his forehead.