by Cyndi Raye
“I’m fine,” mama said, raising her beautiful blue eyes to her daughter. Ruby watched as life came back in to them and smiled. Her mother was so brave and strong. She had proven it so many times over the years. She opened her mouth to take a sip of the laudanum Tillo offered, then pulled back with a slight shake of her head. A frail hand pushed the bottle away. “Later, Till. I need to give my Ruby something. Hand me my bible.”
Tillo picked up the worn book and laid it on her lap. Ruby watched with saddened and yet curious eyes as her mother opened the leather bound book. Long, slender fingers ran over the edge of the folded papers inside the pages. She looked up at Ruby and smiled. “This is your ticket out, child. Come here.” Her other hand patted the quilt as Ruby sat down on the edge of the bed.
“What do you mean, my ticket out, Mama?”
“Your uncle thinks I owe him for living here all these years, even though I’ve paid my way all along, thanks to these. I’ve cashed in my share of land certificates to save his struggling business every single time he needed help. His were gone the first year our lawyers gave them to us.” Her chest rose and fell before another coughing fit started. Ruby was used to seeing her like this and hated how much pain her mama was in.
“Maybe you should drink the laudanum, Mama.”
A hand touched her own. “Not yet. I rescued him many times but he’s in trouble again. These last certificates I’ve saved for you. I told him there are no more. Do not let him find these.”
Ruby glanced at the papers being handed to her. The edges shook as her mama tried to shove them in her hand. “What am I supposed to do with these?”
Her mother leaned back against the pillows and smiled as if a wonderful memory passed over her. She sighed as the papers hit the quilt. “You keep them for now. They are worth a fortune in the West. People are leaving the city in droves to find a new life where the air is pure and the city dust is far behind. You can sell these for cash or buy your own land. I was there once.”
“You were?” Ruby leaned closer. She had heard this story many times before and never tired of listening to her tales. “Tell me, Mama.”
“I met your father out West. I traveled the new rail road to visit Aunt Adeline, who was the first family member to use her land certificates. She purchased a piece of land along the rail road line, build a boarding house and made quite the life for herself.”
Ruby remembered the stories of her Aunt Adeline. A smile slipped across her face at the intensity of the way the woman paved a way for herself. She wanted to meet her so bad, but they never got the chance to travel as promised since mama got sick a few years back.
Her mother’s voice was becoming weak but Ruby didn’t have the heart to stop her. “Wesley worked for the rail road. We fell in love and I was completely smitten. We got married and planned on using my land certificates to build a ranch and farm the land. I remember a trickling waterfall, where he proposed to me one Saturday afternoon. He said we would buy the land surrounding the flowing water. He was ready to settle down, away from the rail road.” Her voice cracked as tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Mama, please. Don’t wear yourself out.”
Tillo picked up the bottle of opium for another try. “Come on, Misses, please take some medicine.”
Her mama, sweat pouring from her brow, finally nodded, allowing Tillo to tilt the rim of the bottle to her mouth. Ruby watched as her head fell back against the feather pillows, silent as the pain began to fade away. Her mother’s eyes began to droop, her breathing even now. “Finish the story, Till,” she whispered, saving her strength.
Ruby’s heart pounded inside. With eyes like her mothers, she raised them to the roof of the bedroom, silently berating God for giving her mother this affliction. She wanted to cry out, now more than ever and shame the very one whom her mother had trusted all these years.
A calloused hand covered her own. She looked into Tillo’s troubled dark eyes. “It won’t do any good to curse the man upstairs.”
“I hate that God did this to her.”
Tillo patted her hand. “Oh child, ain’t no God who did this, it just happened.”
When the door burst open, Ruby was glad her mother was drugged. She could hear Uncle Ross’s short bursts of breaths as he carted his overweight body in to the room, uninvited of course. “The sickness is her retribution for defying our parents years ago. Running off to that uncivilized, savage territory out west against their wishes comes with punishment. I knew it would come back to haunt her. I told her so, over and over.” He pointed a finger at Ruby. “Now you will have to pay for her punitive measures.”
Ruby wanted to spit in his eye but refrained. She bit her lip when Tillo grabbed her hand and squeezed to keep her calm. It also helped to keep her in her seat when Uncle Ross leaned his fat body over her mother and pressed an ear close to her nose, as if he wanted to see if she were still breathing.
“I’m. Not dead. yet.”
Ross jumped as if the very devil himself came out of her mama. It almost made Ruby laugh at the way his body fat jiggled when he jumped back. She also didn’t miss the fact Tillo shoved the land certificates under her mama’s quilt before Ross noticed them.
Uncle Ross glared at Ruby. “Mark my words, Ruby. You will find out your fate the moment my sister takes her last breath.”
“You have no right to come in here like this,” she told him, placing a hand on her hip. He had been overbearing and rude since she was a child and she hated him for being so mean. Even if he did give them a home, it came at a price. She wanted to lash out, tell him it was his fault too that her mama was dying but refrained from doing so.
He shrugged as dark, hateful eyes bore into her own. Ruby was shaking from the top of her head to the tips of of her toes for defying the man who gave them a home years ago but it couldn’t be helped. She refused to let him ruin the time her mother had left. He took a step towards her, his finger pointing. “Just as I suspected, you’re origins are showing with that smart mouth. No lady would behave in such a discerning manner.”
Uncle Ross took her wrist in the palm of his hand and squeezed. “Ouch,” she muttered. “Let me alone.” It was offensive the way he leaned in to speak. Fear struck at her heart. He had never crossed the line with her when her mother was healthy. She had always kept him in place. Would he hurt her? What was to become of her when mama was gone?
He leaned in and whispered for her ears alone. “I have plans for you. Big plans. Just ask Horace Lourdes. He has had his eye on you for a long, long time. You’re just what I need to pay off my debt.” He whipped his hand away when Ruby’s mama called out.
“Leave. Ross. Don’t force me to tell your secrets. Ruby. Come here.” It didn’t take long for the man to leave, banging the door shut. Ruby grabbed her wrist, rubbing it with her other hand. She clamoured to her mother’s side.
“Why is he so mean, Mama, and what does he mean that I’m just what he needs?”
“My worst fear has come true.” She struggled with her words, the opiums affect making it difficult for her to talk. “You must leave, child. Today.”
Ruby shook her head back and forth. “I’m not leaving you like this, Mama. Never.”
“Till, explain to her what will happen.” Her eyes fluttered shut. Tillo began to dab a cloth into the water basin, wringing it out and placing it over her forehead.
“Sit down, Ruby,” the woman ordered.
Ruby did as she was told. Something was off. There was more to this story than she knew. Perhaps it was time she listened. “Tell me everything, Tillo. I want to know.”
Tillo nodded as she continued to bath her misses. “When your father got killed, your mama knew there was no way she could make it out west. She came back here with a babe in her arms. She begged her parents to forgive her for running away but they banned her from ever stepping foot in their presence again. The only one who took her in was your uncle. At a price, I might add. At the time all she wanted to do was put a roof over your hea
d. You were a wee thing without any means to survive.” Tillo’s voice lowered as she continued the story, “The thing is, your uncle has a gambling problem. His wife left him because he owed bad men. She couldn’t take it any longer and fled to her home in the South, never to be seen again. At least that’s the story the man has told. I think there’s more to it and your mama knows what happened but she’s been loyal to her brother. Not sure why, he is a bad man.”
Tillo wrung out the cloth again, placing it on her mama’s forehead. The steady rhythm of her breathing kept Ruby calm. She didn’t know where this story was going. “Now, child, none of this is your fault, you hear me?”
At her nod, Tillo continued, “Your mama was desperate, like I said, she needed to raise you up. Your uncle bargained with her for you. He said when you are at the age of marriage, you must marry Horace Lourdes, his long-time friend, the one he is indebted to. I remember that day, the two of you standing on the doorstep, having no choice but to agree to his terms.”
Ruby’s eyes widened. “I, I don’t believe mama would bargain like that. She wouldn’t give me up to a man that could be my grandfather!”
A wince came from her mama. “I lied. Never planned to do it, I swear.”
“Now, now, misses. You rest, let me do the explaining.”
“No.” The strong voice coming from the bed shocked Ruby. Her mother was so weak and yet the voice was so bold. As if she had more energy in that moment, the frail woman pulled herself up in bed until she was sitting straight up. “It’s my story and I want Ruby to know everything. I did bargain for you, Ruby, and I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do, where else to turn. My parents banned me, the streets weren’t safe for a baby and I couldn’t let us be homeless. You may wonder why I didn’t sell the land certificates. It’s because the money would eventually run out. I couldn’t take the chance. Living here with Ross was the only way to raise you right. I was young. I kept those certificates, believing some day we would go back. I never planned to keep my promise to him. Now, I’m dying, plain and simple. It’s too late for me, but not for you. Here.” She took the notes in her hand and handed them to Ruby.
“Where did these come from, Mama?”
“I’m feeling light as a feather right now, so I best get it all out before I can’t go on. An ancestor of ours was a gambler, like your uncle, ‘cept he was good at it. He won these land certificates in a poker game. They are like gold. You can buy land with these, whatever land you want, where ever you go, if no one has claimed the land, it’s yours by way of these certificates. Now that Wichita Falls is becoming modernized, I thought we could go back, buy a small place and live there, the two of us. But my plans went awry when I got consumption. It may be too late for me, but not for you. Get on that train as fast as you can and claim your land. Tillo has your ticket. I instructed her to buy it a few days ago. Do it before Ross makes you marry Lourdes.”
Ruby sat so still she wasn’t sure she dare move. Not only was the person who loved her more than life itself leaving her, she was inclined to leave everything she ever knew to start over. In the West. With cowboys and Indians and outlaws. She had read the penny novels, romanticized at times about meeting a cowboy and living happily ever after like she read in those tall tales. She just never dreamed she would be heading into the midst of it.
“Ruby? I’m sorry.”
“Mama. I’ll do my best. I’ll make you proud.” She swore in that moment she would never let a man like her uncle tell her what to do. No, she would follow her mother’s dream and head westward, defining a life for herself no one could take away. She remembered the stories about her brave Aunt Adeline, who forged a life on the frontier. Yes, she smiled to herself. She would be like her, a brave and powerful woman of the west and nothing in this world would stop her.
You can get the whole set of the mail order
Brides of Wichita Falls Boxed Set here
.
