by Tia Siren
Margaret pulled her feet up under the bench and locked them at the ankles. Her hands were folded neatly over her satchel, which she held in her lap. She was gripping the handle as if the bag wanted to jump off her lap and run away on invisible legs. When she realized she had such a tight grip, she relaxed her hands and splayed her fingers a few times to stretch them.
While doing so, she met eyes with a young man across the way from her. He nodded at her, tipping his hat. She nodded back and lowered her eyes. She didn’t know him and she was on her way to meet her new husband. It would look very bad for her to be seen speaking with a young man she didn’t even know.
She brought her eyes back up and looked through the window again. She would have sworn it was just raining out there. Now it looked like they were passing through a dry desert. Seconds later, the scene was completely blocked as they went through a tunnel that had been dug right through the middle of a mountain.
Margaret felt a bit of apprehension but shook it off. Her family was centered on people with strong back bones. Her father had begun teaching her at the age of seven to be one of the best horse breeders and trainers there was in all of England…or at least their little Meadowbrook Village area. When he had immigrated with his family to America, he had brought his business and his love for horses with him. These were traits he never had to try hard to instill in his only daughter.
Margaret had never wanted for anything and had always known if there was anyone she could count on in life, it would be her father. She was proud and had a high level of self-esteem. Her strong countenance and narrow stare had been known to shut the dirty mouth of the sailor and quiet the screaming child, one the same as the other. She also had a strong faith in God and often called upon Him to help her through the trials and tribulations of life.
This would have made it rather odd that she would be responding to an ad in the paper for a bride to come to the West and join a stranger in matrimony. And it was true that she had initially been against it. But the more her father talked about it, the more she had become convinced it was the right thing to do. She was advancing in age and she needed to make sure she had a family to carry on the family business. Her two brothers would not be able to take over when their father passed on. One had died in the war and the other was not interested in horses in the least. The only use Margaret had for him was that he was swiftly able to convince their father just to let a woman take over – or at least marry her off to someone who would do it.
Margaret would have preferred to take over the business on her own. But there was little to no women running any businesses anywhere in America, and if they were running the business, they had a man’s name (usually their husband’s) out in front for everyone to see.
Margaret would be 29 in a few months and her advancing age had been one of the valid points her father had mentioned in order to get her to do this. She needed a family more than she wanted one - but she did want one. She let him know that she had been thinking of a family of her own for some time.
Finally, she had given in and boarded the train after communicating with a man in Nevada named Mark Brooks, who was living in a tiny established property called Las Vegas. There were only a few hundred people there, maybe a bit more. Margaret’s village in England had room for about 1000 before it began to break into sections.
The ad had requested a woman of average height and weight with a strong back and a love for horses. She definitely met those qualifications. The groom, Mark, said he was looking for a bride who would share his interests.
If Mark’s interest was in horses, Margaret was definitely answering the ad.
Through their letters, Margaret had explained that her father had brought her from England when she was young. Mark had told her that he had once already had a family – a wife and two children, one of each – but that they had been killed in a raid by hostile Indians. It had been nearly ten years and he was tired of being alone. The women he knew, within his circle of friends, were few and far between and so far, none had shared his love for horses.
Margaret was also interested to read that he attended church regularly. Most people did, she noticed, but few mentioned it in passing, as part of an introduction to themselves. Mark had not only made mention of it but told her politely that she would be required as his wife to attend with him.
She thought it was a bit strange that he should say such things but shrugged it off, wanting to know more about him as a person before making any judgments. Of course she would go; she would be happy too, as a matter of fact. It was also a practice she and her father shared. They had rarely missed a day, even after her mother and brother passed away and her second brother stopped attending.
Her attention was drawn from her thoughts when the young man sitting in front of her pulled out a gold pocket watch with a fast moving train emblazoned and embossed on the front. He pressed the button and it flipped open, revealing the time. He looked up and saw that she was looking at the watch.
He turned it so that she could see the face was trimmed with gold and had tiny gold hands inside it. There were even a few small diamonds encrusted inside at the very middle where the hands met.
“This was my father’s,” He said, leaning forward to whisper loudly, as if what he was saying was top secret. Margaret instinctively leaned forward, as well, scanning the watch a little closer. “He gave it to me before I left New York. I’ve taken this watch almost all over the country now. All I have to do is reach the ocean on the West coast and I will have traveled every single mile with this watch telling me the time.”
Margaret lifted her eyebrows, not sure how to respond to that. It seemed like a senseless trip if it was only to bring a watch from one side of the country to the other.
He noticed the look on her face and smiled. Suddenly, he seemed more attractive to her and she smiled back.
“I see you are wondering why I would do something so foolish as to travel all over the country just for a watch.”
Margaret sat back without a word, still smiling.
He chuckled. “Well, I’ll tell you why. I’m not just carrying this watch around the country. I’m making records of the time differences. You see, I developed this watch.”
She began to listen to him more closely, interested in his watch and the recordings he was doing of time changes. He told her his watch was special because it went by the shadow of the sun, similar to a sun dial. He seemed pleased that she knew what a sun dial was. She thought everyone knew what a sun dial was.
When he went to a different climate, he would record the hours his watch gave him until the sun dial said it was a different time. Then he would calculate the distance between where he had been and when the time change occurred.
“What do you hope to gain from all of this?” Margaret asked in a curious voice, her head tilted.
“I hope that someday we will be more accurately counting time and days when communicating with each other from across the country.”
“How in the world do you think that is going to happen? Are you also developing faster horses?” Margaret gave him a smile to let him know she was teasing him. He smiled back.
“No, but think about it…” He hesitated and she said,
“Margaret.”
“Yes, think about it, Margaret. It’s John, by the way. If you think about how fast this locomotive is going, that steam engine is taking us all the way across the country with the power of hundreds of horses.”
“So you don’t need horses to take letters across the country? It still takes a very long time to travel.”
John nodded. “I believe that someday we will develop and have the knowledge to create faster communications and travel.”
“I really can’t imagine, John. I must be a grounded thinker. I’ve never been much of a day dreamer.”
“Oh, it’s not a daydream, Margaret,” John responded in an excited tone. He scooted to the edge of the bench he was sitting on and pulled at his bow tie subconsciously. “I’
ve been developing these time tables and records for a year, really more than a year. I’m not going to stop until I have a complete list of analysis. I want everyone to have one of my watches eventually. Then they will know what time it is all over the world!”
Margaret had to laugh, the thought of the entire world being able to communicate with each other in a short time was amusing. John smiled at her, not at all disappointed by her frivolity. He was used to people laughing at his plan for everyone to know what time it was no matter where they traveled or resided.
“I try not to think about the time,” Margaret said. “It never seems I have enough to do all the things I need to do in a day, much less the time to do what I want. And I never get to do what I want, as it is.”
“And what is it you want to do?” John asked.
“Sleep in every morning.”
They both laughed.
“Why are you traveling by yourself across the country?” John asked. Margaret braced herself for whatever reaction she was going to get.
“To marry a stranger.” She responded bluntly.
“Oh really?” John just nodded, looking at her. “I certainly do hope it turns out well for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
“Not really, just that his name is Mark and he loves horses. My father taught me to rope, train and live with horses on a regular basis. Now I return the favor by marrying a man who also loves horses the way we do.”
“It’s certainly good to start out on a new adventure in life.”
“I agree.”
“And being with someone compatible should make it even better.” His tone had changed somewhat and she suspected he had been hoping for a closer relationship upon their arrival at their destination. She wasn’t offended and felt a bit flattered that he had sprung into conversation with an obviously single woman on a train. His face was still friendly, though he looked a bit disappointed.
“And do you have a wife?” She asked. If he was going to be forward, she would gladly return it.
“I do not.” He shook his head. “Too much traveling. Never found a woman willing to do it.”
“Well, I certainly hope you do someday, if that is what you wish. And what a grand opportunity you have to find a woman who loves to travel as you do. You are always on here, I gather, and that’s where she will be, too!”
John shrugged, smiling. “I guess we will see what happens in the future, won’t we?”
Chapter Two
The dry dusty plain spread out in front of Margaret to one side, and the bustling action of the station was on the other. She looked out over the plain. It was in such contrast to the people milling about, talking, laughing and crying their goodbyes. She held on to her satchel and thought about how John had continued to talk to her about his travels for the rest of the ride. He was obviously itching to tell someone about them.
It made her wonder why he looked surprised when she said that he should write it all down and make a book of his adventures. It was as if the idea had never occurred to him before.
She went with her satchel directly into the train station and approached the clerk behind the counter.
“Pardon me,” she said. “Where is the nearest post?’
“You can send a telegraph through me right here, young lady. You want to send a letter you gotta go the other side of the station and talk to Ester.”
Margaret thought about it for a moment. “I will send a telegraph.”
She proceeded to send her father a message, letting him know that she had arrived safely and would be en route to Las Vegas shortly. She would keep him updated of her status.
The clerk took the telegraph and Margaret paid for it in coins.
She turned away just in time to see a man she suspected was Mark approaching her from the two double doors she had come through. He was not so tall, but he walked with confidence, taking long strides, his broad shoulders pushed back. Margaret noticed how his hazel eyes glistened and his smile was warm. He was handsome.
“Hello,” Mark said as he got closer, removing his hat. “You are Margaret, are you not?”
“I am. How did you guess?”
Mark took one of her long blond braids in his hand and touched the soft hair with his large, short fingers. Her bright blue eyes stared up at him from behind surprisingly dark lashes. He wondered how she managed that.
“Your description matches you nearly to perfection, Margaret. How uncanny.”
Margaret blushed a little and confessed, “It was my father who wrote that letter.”
Mark hesitated before throwing his head back to laugh loudly. “No wonder you sounded so full of yourself. That’s bound to happen when a father describes a daughter he loves.” He looked down at her. “You do have a close relationship with your father don’t you?”
“I do.” Margaret smiled up at him, pleased that he could tell without her saying it.
“It’s a good thing to have a relationship with your father like that. Respect is very important.”
“I agree.”
“Did your father approve of your decision to answer my ad?”
“Yes, he did. He was encouraging from the beginning.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Mark was very happy to hear it. He knew that a woman who had respect for her father would have respect for her husband, too. When he’d placed the ad, he’d only done so because he had been through all the women in the city and he hadn’t found a decent one in the bunch. He decided to roll the dice on a stranger, at the behest of one of his buddies at the stables. It had been all somebody else’s idea and he’d lucked out. He’d won that bet. He smiled. “So if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna take you on to the courthouse and get the papers signed.”
Margaret nodded. She didn’t know how it was supposed to go anyway. If he wanted it quick and immediate, she didn’t have an objection.
“I am fine with that.”
“Then after it’s done, you can come with me to the stables where I keep my horses. Some of them are for breeding. I also race.”
She looked up at him with wide eyes. “You ride a horse in a race?”
He laughed and shook his head. “I used to be a jockey, yeah, but it was a while ago. Now I just watch the races and train the jockeys and horses and breed. I’d like it if you would be there, meet everybody, maybe help out sometimes.”
Margaret jostled in the seat when the tires bumped over rocks and debris. She grabbed Mark’s arm instinctively and he smiled at her.
“You’ll have to get used to that. These roads can be pretty rough. You can’t really even call most of them roads. They’re just paths. The tires have made them in the ground where people keep going.”
“How long have you been here?” Margaret asked, looking at the dismal scene as it passed her by. There was not much of anything there. The people didn’t look very happy and the dust was constantly being kicked up by one horse or another.
“I was born and raised in the area but I’ve been here in this part of Nevada for four years. That’s when it got the postmaster, back in ’84. I arrived just days before they made it part of this state instead of Arizona.”
“That’s very interesting.” Margaret nodded, politely. She had no knowledge of either Arizona or Nevada and hadn’t been interested in reading the news when she and her father had a business to run. She scanned the landscape again, looking at the heavily male occupied area that seemed like a blight in the middle of plush green all around them. There was almost a line differentiating between where man dominated and land dominated. “I must say it seems quite amazing that you would race horses here. I didn’t know such a thing existed in these small places out here in the West.”
“Well, we have to do something to entertain ourselves, don’t we? Especially us men who don’t frequent the saloon until all hours of the morning. I don’t care for the taste of that beer they serve, and liquor gives me a blasting headache. So no worries in that d
epartment. Saves me a pretty penny, I’d say, not drinking like my buddies do.”
They pulled up in front of a small official looking building and she knew it was the local courthouse.
“They got what we need in here. Let’s go on in, sign the papers and be done with that, how does that sound? Oh, and if you want to wait a short time to get in to the marital bed, should I say, that sits fine with me, too. I’d like to get to know what kind of woman you are, if that’s okay with you.”
“That’s a good idea, Mark. I appreciate that.” She did feel a sense of relief. She had been a bit worried about it.
Margaret followed Mark into the building and went through the motions of getting married. The clerks in the courthouse were not congratulatory, nor were they interested in the event whatsoever. They signed as witnesses to the union and the two of them were walking out of the courthouse less than an hour later.
“So you are Mrs. Mark Brooks now,” He said as he gave her his hand to help her up onto the wagon. “How’s it feel?”
She gave him a small smile. “Not much different than when I wasn’t Mrs. Mark Brooks.”
“It’ll hit ya later.”
Margaret let out a small laugh. It felt good so she did it again. Mark gave her a nice smile in response.
“So we are going to your stables now?”
He nodded. “Yeah there’s some people there I want you to meet. I work with them all the time and they need to… they want to see you.”
She thought it was a strange way to put things until she rolled his words over in her mind a few times. If he was the owner of the stables then all the people were probably his employees. That made her their boss, too, she supposed. It made her smile. She wasn’t about to take over her husband’s business.
