“Aaah but it isn’t, my dear.” The old woman nodded and gave her a sympathetic look. “It isn’t. You will find happiness again, don’t you worry about that. God has a plan for you.”
Minnie’s face was still downtrodden but she nodded and gave the old woman the best smile she could. “I know. I’ve been told that before.”
“That’s because it’s true. You shouldn’t forget it.”
“I won’t soon forget it, I promise.”
The woman laughed softly and nodded, her eyes on the little boy, standing once more on the bench and smiling as he looked out the window at the fast moving landscape.
“You won’t forget it at all.”
Catherine was not at all pleased with Joe’s decision to bring a wife for himself from the East Coast. She ranted about the dangers of bringing a strange woman into the life of such a small little girl. No matter how much he tried to explain that the letters told him he would be dealing with a woman of generous spirit and a kind heart, Catherine didn’t believe it.
He wasn’t sure if his sister-in-law was speaking from her concern for Ruthie or her desire to keep the little girl as her own. He just couldn’t tell. He’d not dealt much with the woman, except on a friendly basis where they might get together to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, which they did every year.
Joe was on his way to the station to pick up his new bride. He felt a bit sick to his stomach because Catherine had insisted he bring Ruthie with him. Though he’d planned to take Minnie to his brother’s house to introduce her and pick up his 3-year-old, Catherine had insisted he take her with him to the station.
“She deserves to know sooner rather than later. The fact that you’ve gone and done this without consulting the right people is bad enough…” She shot a darting glance at her husband, who looked back nonchalantly as if he had nothing to do with it. The sweet look made Catherine stop short and think more kindly. “You really shouldn’t have done it this way.” The woman continued to lecture him for at least twenty minutes to half the hour.
In the end, it was getting later and closer to the time Minnie would be arriving. Finally, Catherine outright demanded he take Ruthie, telling him that she and her husband were going out and wouldn’t have time to care for her.
Before he left, his little girl in his arms, sitting up and looking at the adults as if she thought they were all insane, Joe gave Catherine a direct glare. “You’re telling me you would rather have my baby girl see an argument first thing from her new guardian and mother, between her and me?”
Catherine just shook her head and closed the door behind them. “Sleep tight, Joey. We’ll see you tomorrow maybe.”
The door clicked and Joe turned to walk to his wagon. The temperature was dropping, but Joe had brought along an extra blanket for his daughter’s legs and to wrap around herself to keep warm. With her in one hand and the blanket in the other, Joe managed to get up in his saddle and fit his feet in the stirrups very well.
“Let’s go see your new…mama.” It was going to take a bit to get used to that, he decided.
The train pulled up into the station, and Minnie’s heart leaped into her throat. “Oh Lord, protect us from any evil and wrongdoing.” Minnie murmured quickly as she stepped down from the train onto the wooden platform outside. There were only a few people there, many less than she had seen when leaving South Carolina. She gathered her bag and her child in her arms and stepped carefully.
Once she was off the train, her luggage bags brought to her by the valet, she was beginning to feel a headache that nearly leveled her. It was one of the bad ones that she just wanted to sleep with. She saw a man approaching her, a beautiful little blond girl. She wondered if he knew why she was here. He looked like he was coming straight toward her. He looked down at the baby as soon as he was within just a few feet of her. He stared at Billy.
She stared at the tiny blond girl in his arms. Ruthie looked older than her Billy. She propped Billy up in her hands and whispered in his ear. “Look at that, Billy. You see those boys in the proper hats? They work here. They are here so you are protected and safe.”
She distracted him with looking elsewhere, though her eyes were still on the handsome man carrying the baby.
“I’m sorry for staring.” Joe said softly. “Are you in need of assistance? Is there someone there to get you?” He cleared his throat. “Are you Minnie?”
She hesitated only for a second. “I…I am. And are you Joseph?”
He nodded, still switching his eyes to Billy. Then he looked up at his three year old and smiled.
“I think Minnie and I have some explaining to do.” He laughed softly. “Do you think we can do that? You want to go play inside with your ball?”
“I can go play ball…” The little girl pulled the ball from her daddy’s hands and jumped up and down until he set her on the floor. She ran to the door and a taller man pulled it open, stepping back for her.
“Here you go, tiny miss,” the man said, smiling.
“Thank you!” Ruthie darted into the building.
Minnie and Joe looked at each other.
“You can say anything you want to,” Minnie murmured. “I won’t tell if you don’t want to marry be because of Billy…”
“In case you didn’t notice,” Joe shook his head. “I’m not going to back out of marrying you because you…weren’t honest about your situation. I…did the same thing with Ruthie, didn’t I?”
Joe hung his head in shame.
“I wasn’t exactly spelling out Billy’s name in our letters.”
“I only received one. Did you send others?”
Thinking back, she could only think of one. She shook her head. “I must be wrong.”
“Do you want me to re-introduce myself? Shall we both start getting to know each other better without having these little precious hearts be our bait for a mate?”
“You are a charming poet.” Minnie giggled. “But if we’d been using them as bait, we would have advertised about them, we never would have hid them from each other.”
“Are we on a level playing field, then?”
“I think we both know what’s right and what should and must be done.”
Joe took one of her hands, placing the other hand on the little boy’s tousled hair. “Hello, Billy, do you want to meet my little girl and come to my house?”
The boy nodded so violently, Joe couldn’t tell whether he really did or not. He laughed and noticed that Minnie’s mood had lightened. She was a beautiful woman and he could tell that physical attraction was mutual on both sides. From her letter and the fact that she’d also had a baby of her own, he decided he’d made the right decision after all.
He leaned over and dared brush his lips against the top of the little boy’s head.
He whispered to Minnie. “Are we going to be all right?”
She sighed softly with a smile. “I think so, Joe. I want to be.”
“Then we will be. Let’s go take care of our little ones together. I…I can see we are going to have a good future.”
Minnie could only look up at him. From the first moment she’d seen him, she’d hoped he was Joe, coming to get her, even if he did have a baby in his arms. That certainly didn’t bother her. He gave off the impression he would love her completely.
And she had no doubt she would give him the same in return. She expected great things.
And great things were coming her way.
She smiled as she let Joe lead her inside, where they would find the baby, Ruthie, and head home.
A Heart in the West (by Mary Miller)
It was the late summer of 1871 when Cora Sutton left from the big city and boarded the Lil’ Miss, a prize addition to the East Missouri Rail operations. She boasted less than a week’s journey from Boston to the Western territor
y, and just two and a half weeks to California, notwithstanding unexpected delays in the form of weather and shady characters with sights on her cargo.
It can’t very well be all that bad, Cora Sutton had thought as she boarded the train, her carpet bag nearly falling at the seams. Perhaps she should have stowed away books in a travel chest, and not in her bag. But what else was she to do with the time? Cora laughed as she bumbled down the aisle to her coach, chiding at her wandering imagination.
Train bandits don’t really exist, not in real life, she said to herself. And the Western territory surely isn’t all that wild…
The thought would prove a cruel stroke of irony in the days to follow.
For the time being, all she had to set her sights on was taming her imagination from getting away from her. Cora admitted to herself that she was actually quite excited. A serendipitous ad in the paper. A snap decision. And the promise of a new life out West. It all sounded rather romantic for a simple hosiery girl at Freeman’s Department Store—well, former hosiery girl. One day, she was living a dull, hapless life on the bustling streets of New York City, and the next she was set for life. Or she would be, as there were some small details yet to attend to.
It started about two months before the Lil’ Miss even slugged her way into Grand Central Station. Cora worked as the assistant stocker at one of the finest department stores in Manhattan. The marble ceilings rose as high as three levels, with bright crystal chandeliers glittering in the light. The sound of women, of the most well-to-do-sort, clicked their shoes and brushed their puffed dresses through the ground floor, eyeing the delights the store had to offer. For Cora, the closest she could ever come to such a life was spent in the back closets of the store, stocking the hosiery and other ladies’ garments. It was quite the accomplishment even getting that far. Before hosiery girl, she had a stay as a seamstress, but not for long as she had little to no skill in such delicate matters. Then there was a brief stint working in a factory making women’s hat boxes, which proved to be a tedious task that required too much focus for a constant daydreamer. Nanny, flower girl, a shoemaker’s store clerk…and the list went on.
Life, she had long ago decided, was unutterably dull.
So it came to her surprise when she was informed she would no longer be needed at Freeman’s department store. There were always prettier, talented, more qualified girls to work the store and spruce up the general atmosphere. A new direction for a new age, she was told. And that new age did not include the likes of her.
That was what brought her to take the first step. To be exact, it was that and the upping of the next month’s rent.
“But Mrs. MacDonough, I’ll get a new job soon, ma’am. If you just give me a little more time, I can pay you what I owe.”
Cora’s mind drifted to an earlier conversation she had with her landlord, Mrs. MacDonough, a stout and rather stern Irish woman who rented out her building to all sorts, mostly immigrants and newcomers into the city.
“Aye, Co-ra, I can’t be bothered’ with ye all the time,” she bustled across the hallway carrying a basket of her linens, and Cora traced after her.
“Ye never bring yer rent on time,” the woman continued in her thick accent. “And on top o’ that, I hear ye been sacked from Freeman’s this mornin’.”
“You already know about that?” Cora followed behind.
Mrs. MacDonough stopped and sighed as she waved her finger toward Cora’s face.
“Now lookee, Miss, I can’t be competin’ like I do with all the other landlords around. There’re plenty of others who need a place, jus’ as much as you. And they deserve it every bit, too. And they’re also in dire straits for an opportunity”
“But…”
“No buts, Cora. I’m broken hearted as much as you, but that’s jus’ life, it is.”
It was a miserable few months following. Cora moved into a dingy hostel in Brooklyn, making her way with measly compensation at a butcher’s shop. The boss didn’t much like the idea of hiring a young woman for such a job, but Cora insisted she could just as easily pick it up. It didn’t mean that the work was pleasant.
One day, she made her way out from a long shift, after having cleaned the back room, her clothes smelling like raw meat, her boots wet after hosing off the blood. She was headed down a street she headed down everyday. Took the same turns, watched the same faces walk past. Everything was quite the same. That is, until a certain leaflet from a newspaper caught her eye. It seemed positively serendipitous. A stray page, a gust of wind, and soon she was staring at an ad that seemed to be shouting directly at her.
Wanted: Young woman of intelligence, refined, and possessing means. Gentleman landowner seeking a match of high pedigree. Must be willing to relocate at short notice.
At first Cora laughed. The idea of being a mail-order bride certainly seemed like an odd one, like from a story in a magazine or a tale that old grandparents tell. But Cora was sure of one thing: she had no family, no ties, and no where to go but up.
Besides, she reasoned, it really is quite the romantic story.
Cora nestled herself onto the seat, sliding herself against the window as the locomotive wheezed, her wheels beginning to make the heaving creak out of the station. The ticket master came and punched her ticket, and her insides leapt with excitement as the view outside begin to whir past, the loud whistle sounding, the steady churn of the wheels matching to the rhythm in her own heart.
This is it, she reminded herself. This is my new start.
From here on out, Cora imagined life going by without a hitch. Well, perhaps there was one small fly in that ointment. There were, after all, a few…liberties…Cora had taken to grab the opportunity before it escaped.
The end justifies the means, she told herself.
Besides, in her eyes, Cora Sutton deserved just as much a happy ending as Mistress Cora LeBlanc, the wealthy and debonair young aristocrat aboard the Lil’ Miss, on her way to meet the man she’ll marry.
*****
“Expecting a shipment this afternoon, Mr. Dansby?”
The mustached outpost manager tipped his hat toward the tall and dark Joshua Dansby. Mr. Dansby tipped his hat toward the man, his other hand tucked neatly into his suited pocket.
“Nothing big, Mr. Stanfield. Waiting for a person, actually. Not a shipment.”
Mr. Stanfield raised an eyebrow, but kept his words to himself. No sense in poking into the affairs of a man as private as Joshua Dansby, or at least as private a man could be in his position. Mr. Stanfield looked at the stopwatch in his hand, and dropped it into his front vest pocket, and made his way into the station house.
Joshua Dansby leaned toward the rail, the balls of his feet bouncing on the wooden boardwalk of the outpost. It was a rather overcast day, but generally clear sights as far as one could make out. He kept looking impatiently toward the sky, as if somehow he could discern from the clouds or the breeze the distance of the oncoming train, or hear faintly the loud whistle of the Lil’ Miss making her way into the outpost. No such luck.
Mr. Dansby stopped his movements and straightened his suit coat. Moving so much would make him seem nervous, and in fact it served to actually make him nervous, if not for just a moment.
There’s nothing to be nervous about, he reminded himself.
It was unconventional for the both of them. He never really anticipated being one of those type of men who would place an ad out East to find a wife. But there were extraneous circumstances out of his control, and if he was going to take matters back into his own hands…
He cleared his throat and walked toward the station house. He removed his hat, the coolness from being under the awning shadowing his dark brown hair.
“Mr. Stanfield, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Lil’ Miss supposed to have come in over an hour ago?”
Mr. Stanfield s
tood upright and checked at his pocket watch, then at a chart along the wooden panel wall of the station house.
“That’s correct, Mr. Dansby. It is quite odd that she’s not as on time as she usually is…but perhaps the weather hit them first and has slowed them down.”
“Weather,” Joshua Dansby echoed.
“Yes, sir.”
Joshua Dansby sighed and fixed his hat once again atop his head.
“Is there something I can do for you?”
Mr. Dansby draped off his suit coat and handed it through the station house window toward a surprised Mr. Stanfield.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Dansby, I don’t know what you mean—”
“Just hold on to it for a while,” Joshua made haste down the outpost steps, calling out with a waved hand. “I’ll be back in a bit. Get ahold of the Sheriff.” And to himself, he said in a low, hushed tone, “I’ve got a bad feeling.”
A stunned Mr. Stanfield merely stuttered a “Y-y-yes, sir.” before Joshua Dansby had fled from the site.
He approached the buggy he arrived in, with his horse, Kan, enjoying the overgrown yellow-green grasses nearby. Joshua untied the reins and slung himself atop his horse.
Leaving the buggy behind, the broad shouldered man took off into the distance. The clouds seemed to be gathering faster, and darker, and Joshua Dansby continued headlong beside the tracks, Eastward.
This is impossible, Cora thought to herself as she ducked breathlessly into her coach cabin.
A scream and some shouts filled the passenger car in front of her. There weren’t many in her own car, but she could hear murmurs and worried rustling in the cabins beside her. They heard it too.
She had read of stories of bandits and seen news clippings of railway robbers, but nowhere had she accounted for the possibility of it ever really happening. And especially not to her.
The Lil’ Miss had come to a complete standstill about three and a half miles out from the post. A pretty daring proximity to town for a band of robbers in the Western territory.
There were more shouts and rustling coming from the cabin before her. Probably looting the passengers. If they were like any of the smart bands of thieves she read about in books, no doubt some were going through the cargo hold at the tail-end of the train, mounting what they could onto their getaway buggies. The others were slowly making their way through the cabins, scaring the passengers into giving up their on-hand possessions.
Romance: Detective Romance: A Vicious Affair (Victorian Regency Intrigue 19th England Romance) (Historical Mystery Detective Romance) Page 90
