The Bride Series (Omnibus Edition)

by Bittner, Rosanne

  The tension around the MacKinder camp each night was almost more than Marybeth could bear at times. Ever since Josh had stopped to speak to her after the tornado, John slammed things around and deliberately made messes that would cause more work for her and Ella. “Maybe if you’re kept busy you’ll mind your ways and not shame this family,” he told her once. Mac continued his threatening ways, even more angry with her for spending what he considered too much time helping others and not enough helping her own mother-in-law. Ella hardly spoke to her any more, often giving her extra chores as a kind of punishment for being the cause of extra work.

  It was two weeks before Joshua returned with Devon and Trapper. “Had so much meat, we had to dry some of it and smoke the rest,” she heard Josh telling Cap as the old man walked along with their horses, greeting them happily.

  “I figured that’s what took you so long,” Cap replied. “Everybody will be glad to get some of that meat. Supplies are gettin’ low. Be glad when we get to Laramie. And I’m glad to have my scouts back. Devon, you and Trapper restock your supplies and rest up here tonight, then get back to the trail ahead.”

  “There are several more groups of wagons behind us,” Marybeth heard Josh say as they headed up to the cook wagon, their pack horses loaded down with meat. She knew better than to look at him. She tended to the cook fire, feeling both Mac’s and John’s eyes on her, neither of them aware that she felt like crying at the sight of Josh Rivers. She said a secret prayer of thankfulness that he was all right.

  After a little while Marybeth finally stole a look to see Josh and Devon had stretched two buffalo hides across the sides of the cook wagon to dry. Bill Stone had noticed the same and commented that Devon must want to use the skins for blankets or maybe for trade.

  “Indians use every part of the buffalo, they say; couldn’t survive without them.” He grinned. “The way I look at it, we do a good job of killing off the buffalo, we take care of our Indian problems. Those devils have been getting pretty rowdy, I hear. The more the west is settled, the less room they’re going to have to be roaming about.”

  Marybeth hated the way he tried to speak with such authority, as though he knew about all things. She also hated the way he watched her lately as though he were keeping an eye on her. She wondered if Mac had told him to watch her.

  “I don’t much care one way or another about Indians. I know nothing about them,” Mac put in. “I just want to get to Oregon. They say there is not much problem with them there.”

  “Mostly Chinook and Nez-Perce,” Bill said, lighting a pipe. “I’ve been studying up on these Indians. They say the ones out in Oregon are mostly friendly, but not too awful clean—and they’ll rob you blind if you need ferryin’ across a river or anything like that. You gotta’ stay away from their women, though, or you’ll be crawlin’ with bugs!” The man laughed heartily, and John and Mac both joined in. Marybeth was embarrassed, and Ella simply tended the fire, acting as though she had not heard a thing.

  Marybeth heard Danny start to cry, and she walked to the back of the wagon and took the baby out. “I’m going to feed him,” she told Ella, moving to the outside of the circle of wagons where no one could see her. She unbuttoned her dress, deciding she would have to try giving Danny more solid food. It was simply too difficult to breast-feed on the trail, where there was seldom any place to sit down in private except the inside of the wagon, which half the time was too hot. Besides that, her milk seemed to be decreasing. Danny never seemed able to get quite enough.

  She took her breast from her dress and undergarment and Danny found his nourishment. It was so warm she hung the blanket she normally used to cover herself over the wagon wheel. She looked down at her little son. “You’re my only joy, Danny,” she told him softly. She looked around for a crate to sit on, but suddenly John came around the side of the wagon, his eyes falling on her exposed breast before she had a chance to cover herself.

  Marybeth’s eyes widened and she grabbed the blanket, while John only grinned. “How dare you!” she cried. He stepped closer.

  “Not so loud, little woman. You don’t want everyone to know what I have just seen.”

  “Go away and leave me alone!”

  He came close to her then, backing her against the wagon and putting a hand on either side of her as though to pen her in. “And maybe you were hoping Josh Rivers would come by and get an eyeful, were you?”

  Marybeth shot him a look of rage. “You have no excuse for a remark like that! Why do you insist on taunting me and upsetting me? If you do have any desire to make me a part of this family again, how can you think that you could ever win me over by treating me the way you have?”

  To her shock and devastation he ripped away the blanket and pushed a finger against Danny’s mouth to make him stop sucking so that her nipple was exposed. Marybeth yanked the baby up close over her breast, and Danny started crying at being refused his food. “You get away from me or I will scream and humiliate you in front of the whole wagon train!” Marybeth told him through gritted teeth.

  John grasped her arms. “I don’t have to win you over, as you put it, Marybeth. And I treat you the way I do because I want you to understand a woman’s place. You’re going to be my wife some day, woman. That is the only future you have to think about, so you get other men out of your head, and you quit thinking about being a free woman, because you’re not free! My father has told you, and now I’m telling you! And I’m not so sure I want to wait until we get to Oregon. Bill Stone says people think nothing of quick marriages out here. Women shouldn’t be making this trip single—it’s too hard on the men, and it’s too hard on me!”

  He bent down to try to kiss her, but Marybeth bit his lip. He jerked back, refusing to cry out for fear of drawing stares. In the next moment a huge hand slammed across her face, hard enough to make her ears ring and to make her almost lose her balance. She felt him grab her hair then, and he jerked her head back. “If I had hit you as hard as I could, I would probably kill you, Marybeth. But I don’t want to do that. All I want to do is make you understand your place. I’ll hit you harder next time if I have to! Are you starting to understand now? Are you going to straighten up and be a MacKinder woman?”

  Marybeth struggled against tears, refusing to cry in front of him. All she could feel at the moment was rage, and she met John MacKinder’s eyes. “You could be such a handsome man, John MacKinder, if you weren’t so ugly on the inside!” she spat at him. “And my last name might be MacKinder, but I’ll never be the kind of MacKinder woman you want me to be! And if you raise a hand to me again I’ll scream so loud every person on this wagon train will come running and see the kind of coward big, bad John MacKinder really is!”

  He stood towering over her, fists clenched, his breathing coming in heavy pants. “This isn’t the end of it,” he told her. He returned to the campfire, and a moment later Marybeth could hear him laughing as though nothing had happened. It was only then that she shivered and broke into tears. She knelt down and picked up the blanket, devastated that he had looked at her. She covered herself and walked farther away from the wagon, sitting down on a lone, flat rock and putting Danny back to her breast, hoping the ordeal with John hadn’t upset her so much that her milk wouldn’t come.

  She brushed at Danny’s tears, then at her own, wincing with the ache at the side of her face and wondering if it would turn into a bruise. How would she explain it? But chances were that everyone would know it was one of the MacKinder men who put it there. They would know what brutes they truly were; but they would also wonder what had caused one of them to hit her. Would they think she had done something shameful?

  “Marybeth?”

  She looked up to see Delores approaching, then looked away again.

  “Marybeth, why are you sitting way out here?”

  “I just…wanted some privacy. Please go away, Delores.”

  Delores frowned, coming closer. “What happened, Marybeth?”

  “Nothing. I told you I just
want to be alone.”

  “I don’t believe you.” The woman knelt in front of her and Marybeth met her eyes, watching Delores’s widen with shock. “Marybeth! Who did that to you?”

  “Is there a bruise?”

  “More red and white, but turning a little purple.” Delores’s dark eyes blazed. “Did that big ox John do that?” Marybeth looked down at Danny again. “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “MacKinder men don’t need a reason. Now you know why I don’t seem to be in deep mourning for Danny’s father, sinful as that might be.”

  Delores reached out and stroked her hair. “It isn’t sinful at all. No one would blame you for not missing a husband who would do this to you. I can’t imagine Aaron doing such a thing. Why I…I would just want to die if he did.”

  “Aaron is a good man. There were times when I wondered if there really was such a thing, but I’ve seen it among most of the men on this wagon train.” She looked at Delores with tear-filled eyes. “Please go, Delores, before they see you talking to me. It will just make Mac try harder to keep us apart, and I don’t want to lose your friendship. Go and help poor Florence with the children.”

  “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

  Delores rose, sighing. “It’s shameful, that’s what. How can John MacKinder call himself a man?”

  “He thinks something like this makes him more manly. Please, please go, Delores.”

  “All right. But you come to me if you need me.”

  “I will.”

  Marybeth watched the soft blue cotton of the young woman’s dress as she left her. She wanted to scream for her to stay, but she feared a confrontation between John and Aaron over Delores’s “nosing in,” as John would call it. Something moved then to her right, and she turned to see Josh Rivers sitting on his horse several yards away, watching her. For a panicky moment she thought he was going to ride up to her and talk to her, but instead he rode to the Svensson wagon, stopping to talk to Delores.

  Marybeth felt new tears come when she realized why he must have gone to Delores. He must want to know why Marybeth was sitting off alone. He turned his horse and watched her for a moment, then rode off. Marybeth, too angry and hurt to return to the MacKinder campfire right away, sat where she was until after dark, wishing she would never have to go back. But out here there was no place to turn. She simply had to go on.

  She heard the soft footsteps then of a horse at a gentle trot. It came up behind her, and she rose, looking up in the moonlight into the face of Josh Rivers. “That will never happen again,” he told her. “John MacKinder might try to kill me for it, and I might be the biggest fool ever born, but I’ll never let him hit you again.”

  It was all he said. He rode off, leaving her standing there feeling suddenly comforted and protected. She returned to her wagon and laid Danny inside. He had fallen fast asleep. She straightened her dress and found her hairbrush, running it through her hair. She walked to the side of the wagon and splashed water from a barrel onto her face, then patted it dry, wincing when she touched her left cheek. She turned and sat down at the campfire, glancing at Ella, who got a strange look on her face when she saw Marybeth.

  Marybeth looked at her proudly. She had made up her mind that John MacKinder could beat her to a pulp if he wanted. She was not going to cower to him or let him get away with anything.

  “Your big, strong, brave son hit me, just because he doesn’t want me to have other friends,” she told Ella. “That was really very brave of him, don’t you think? MacKinder men do have a way of proving their manhood. It isn’t just any man who would take on a hundred and ten pound woman with a baby in her arms.”

  John stood up, gripping his whiskey bottle and glaring at her, looking like a bull ready to charge.

  “Go ahead, John, show everyone what a man you are,” Marybeth goaded him.

  John turned so red Marybeth thought he might have a stroke. “You damn bitch!” he hissed. He turned and walked off, and Marybeth just stared after him. She proceeded to help Ella scrub and repack the supper dishes. Every day seemed an endless ritual of packing, unpacking, cooking and packing again.

  She was not aware that Josh Rivers was close by in the darkness. One hell of a woman, Josh thought before walking off to his own tent. He longed to possess her, to have her vent her fiery passions in his bed. His thoughts and plans for Oregon had suddenly come to include Marybeth MacKinder.

  And still he hardly knew her.

  Chapter Eight

  Marybeth wore her bonnet in spite of cloudy skies. It helped hide the bruise on her cheek. She vowed John MacKinder would never get her alone again, and a growing fear was building inside her that he would decide to “show” her in a more violent, humiliating way that she belonged to him. He was a man who enjoyed women and who had gone a long time now without one, and what John MacKinder wanted, he usually took. She stayed at the campfire every night until he had gone to sleep, and she never wandered anywhere alone. She spent her days walking with others, helping Florence Gentry or walking with Delores.

  Delores said nothing more about Marybeth’s bruise, but her heart ached for Marybeth and she and Aaron wished they could help. But Aaron was hesitant to interfere, as were others. The fact remained Marybeth’s problem was a family affair, and few cared to challenge the hot-tempered MacKinders.

  “You heard Cap,” Aaron argued quietly one night inside the wagon. “We can’t be making trouble, Delores. It’s risky enough you befriending her like you have, her being Irish and Catholic, but I’d not stop you from that. You’re a good woman with a big heart. That’s what I love about you. I agree Marybeth MacKinder is a fine woman in her own right, and I don’t judge her for her religion. It’s just that not everyone on this train thinks it’s right to get involved.”

  Every night when she lay in Aaron’s arms, and when they very quietly made love, Delores could not help wondering how lonely and afraid Marybeth must be, and at prayer services she prayed that somehow Josh Rivers would find a way to do something about the situation. She would not forget the anger on his face the day he rode up to her and asked why Marybeth was sitting off alone. It was so obvious the handsome young man from Texas was enamored with Marybeth MacKinder, and Delores could not help imagining what a beautiful couple they would make.

  “Josh Rivers won’t let this continue, Aaron,” she said to him quietly. “I can see it in his eyes. I never realized until two nights ago, when he asked me why Marybeth was sitting off alone, that he truly seems to care about her.”

  “Yah, I can see it, too,” he answered with his strong Swedish accent. “The day that man and John MacKinder come together will be a sorry one indeed. I am not so sure for which man, but I fear it would be Joshua Rivers who would be sorry.” He sighed deeply. “Many the times have been that I have thought of giving MacKinder what is coming to him myself. A man can only stand by and do nothing for so long. I do not want you to think I am a coward or that I do not care. I do care about Marybeth.”

  “I know that.” She kissed him. “And you are just as big as that brute, John MacKinder, and I know you would do just fine if you were to stand up to him.”

  “Perhaps. But I am not a fighting man, Delores, and that John MacKinder has been in fights before. Experience and a mean temper can make a big difference.”

  She hugged him. “That’s part of what I love about you. You’re so big and strong, Aaron Svensson, but you never brag about it or go around trying to prove you’re stronger than someone else like that John MacKinder does; and I know that if it ever came to having to protect me, you would fight a man twice your size.”

  He laughed lightly. “We will hope that I will never have to prove that.” He pulled a light blanket over their heads against mosquitoes. “I would much rather prove I am a man in other ways,” he told her then, pushing up her gown.

  They came to another river crossing. The river was much shallower, but Cap still insisted the wagons cross only where the
scouts indicated they should cross. Again, the MacKinder wagons had taken their turn at the rear of the wagon train, a lonely spot for Marybeth, away from Delores and far from the cook wagon, the only place where she managed an occasional glimpse of Josh Rivers.

  John walked back from the river, where he had gone to check things out and to splash some of the welcome water on his face. He paced impatiently. “That river is as shallow as a creek,” he grumbled. “Why do we have to cross in single line? It takes forever this way.”

  “Cap says that’s how we gotta do it,” Bill spoke up.

  “And who says he’s always right?” John looked at his father. “I know the man is right about most things, Pa, but the oxen are restless for a drink, and besides, the sooner we cross, the sooner the women can do the wash and prepare the noon meal.”

  “Eating is just about all you think about, isn’t it, John,” Bill joked.

  John glanced at Marybeth and grinned. “No, it’s not all I think about.” All three men laughed, and Marybeth went to the wagon to change Danny’s diaper.

  “Let’s just take the damn wagon across, Pa,” John was saying. “Cap won’t do anything about it. Others can follow us and we’ll be saving a lot of time.”

  Mac shrugged. “Why not? If we make it, others can follow. It could mean making a few extra miles. The sooner we get to that Fort Laramie, the better. Cap says there’s supplies there, and whiskey.”