by Lyn Cote
Freshly shaven and with his face no longer drawn with fever, he was an exceptionally handsome man. She brushed a fly away from her face. She turned her gaze forward. Handsome men never looked at her. Why should she look at this one?
Brennan spoke to the horses as he slowed them over a deep rut. His Southern accent made her wonder once more. The horrible war had ended slavery, yet tensions between the North and South had not eased one bit. And after four years of war, the South was devastated. What had brought this Southerner north?
She watched his jaw work. She wondered what he was getting up the nerve to say to her. She hoped he wasn’t about to repeat the usual words of discouragement.
“Are you sure you’re ready to set up a place all by yourself?” he asked finally.
Rachel did not sigh as loudly as she felt like doing. Her stepmother’s voice played in her mind. An unmarried woman doesn’t live alone. Or run a business on her own. It’s unnatural. What will people say?
“Brennan Merriday,” Rachel said, “if thee only knew how many times that has been asked of me. I am quite certain that I can homestead on my own land.” Her tone was wry, trying to pass his concern off lightly—even though it chafed her. She had become accustomed to being an oddity—a woman who didn’t marry and who wanted to do things no woman should want.
“Why do you say thee and thy and your cousin doesn’t?”
This question took her by surprise. “I don’t really know except there isn’t a Quaker meeting here.”
“I take it that Noah’s the preacher hereabout, but not a Quaker.”
She barely listened to his words, still surveying him. His body still needed feeding, but he had broad shoulders and long limbs. Most of all, the sense of his deep inner pain drew her even though she knew he didn’t want that. She turned her wayward eyes forward again. “Yes, he seems to have reconnected with God.”
“Don’t it bother you that he’s not a Quaker no more?”
“We were both raised Quaker but I don’t consider other Christians to be less than we are. Each Christian has a right to go his own path to God.”
“And what about those who don’t want to have nothin’ to do with any church?”
She heard the edge in the man’s voice and wondered how to reply. She decided frankness should be continued. “When he enlisted in the Union Army, Noah was put out of meeting.”
The man beside her said nothing but she felt that he absorbed this like a blow to himself. She recalled praying for God to keep her cousin safe and reading the lists of the wounded and fallen after every battle, hoping not to see his name listed. The horrible war had made a dreadful impact on all their lives. Still did.
She brushed away another fly as if sweeping away the sadness of the war, sweeping away her desire to hold him close and soothe him as she would a wounded bird.
Brennan remained silent. His hands were large and showed that he had worked hard all his life.
Just as she had. “I know that people will think me odd when I stake a homestead,” she said briskly, bypassing his digression. “But I intend to make my own way. I’ve worked for others and saved money enough to start out on my own.”
Any money a woman earned belonged to her husband or father. Still, in the face of her stepmother’s disapproval, her father had decided that Rachel should keep what she earned. No doubt he thought she might never marry. His wife would inherit everything and leave Rachel with nothing. This had been her father’s one demonstration of concern for her. How was it that when she’d lost her mother, she’d also in effect lost her father?
Except for Brennan murmuring to the team, silence again greeted her comment. Finally he admitted, “I see you got your mind made up.”
They rode in silence then. The homestead Noah had told her about lay north of town within a mile and had been abandoned just before deep winter the previous year. Rachel gazed at the thick forest and listened to the birdsong, trying to identify the different calls.
Her mother had taught her bird lore. She heard a bobwhite and then a robin and smiled. A pair of eagles swooped and soared overhead. She realized she already loved this place, the wildness of it, the newness.
Another mile or so and Brennan drove through town and then turned the horses onto a faint track and into an overgrown clearing. A small log cabin and a shed sat in the middle of it. Stumps poked out of tall grass, dried from weeks without rain. Only deer had grazed here earlier this spring. The sight of the almost cozy clearing wound warmly around her heart. Would this be her home?
Brennan halted the team with a word and set the brake.
She started to climb down.
“Miss Rachel,” he ordered, “ya’ll will wait till I get there to help you down. I may be riffraff but I know enough to do that.”
She froze. “Thee is not riffraff.”
He made no reply but helped her down without meeting her eyes. Again, she longed to touch him, offer comfort, but could not.
So this man had also been weighed by society and found wanting. She recalled all the times people had baldly pointed out her lack of beauty or wondered why she wasn’t married yet—as if either was any of their business. And of course, she couldn’t answer back without being as rude as they.
Lifting her skirts a few inches, she waded through the tall, dry grass, which flattened under her feet. Noah had been praying for rain. The cabin’s door was shut tight. A good sign. She stepped back and bumped into Brennan, nearly losing her balance. He steadied her. She was shocked at the rampant and unusual sensations that flooded her. She pulled away. “My thanks.”
He reached around her and tried to push open the door. It stuck. With his shoulder, he had to force it. Looking down, he said, “Mud washed up against the door and under it and grass grew on it.”
She stepped into the dim interior and let her eyes adjust. Brennan entered and waited behind her. Finally she could see a hearth on the back wall, cobwebs high up in the corners and a broken chair lying on its side. Otherwise only dust covered the floor. “It just needs cleaning.”
“Look up.”
She obeyed. “What am I looking for?”
“I see stains from a few roof leaks.”
She turned to him. “Is that hard to make right?”
“No, I just need to bring a ladder to get up there and see where the shingles have blown loose or cracked.”
She considered this. “Thee can do that?”
“Sure.” He looked disgruntled at her question.
“Let’s look at the shed then.”
They did. Just an empty building but in good order. Excellent. Mentally she began listing the new structures she’d need. She noted how Brennan looked around as if tallying something, too. Finally she asked, “What’s thy opinion? Will this be a good homestead for me to claim?”
“Well, it’s fortunate to already have a cabin and shed on it.”
She pointed to a mound between the cabin and the shed. “Could that be a well covered over?”
“Might be.” He strode over to it and stooped down. “You’re right. They were good enough to cover the well and mud got washed onto the boards and then grass sprouted.” He rose. “Do you know why the family left the claim?”
“Sunny said the wife died.”
The bleak reply silenced them for a moment.
“Life is so fragile,” she murmured. Then she took herself in hand. “But we are alive and I need a home.”
“I do, too.”
She took this to mean that he’d decided to accept her position, but couldn’t bring himself to say so. And he would know he couldn’t live anywhere on the property of a single woman.
Tactfully she said, “I’m glad making this livable will not take long. It’s important I get my business up soon because the prime season for making a reputation for my sweets up and down the river is summer, when the boat traffic will be at its peak. This far north the Mississippi freezes, according to Noah.”
“You make good sense,” he allowed gr
udgingly.
She moved to look directly into his eyes. After a mental calculation she said, “I could afford to pay you two dollars a week. That would include meals.”
“I won’t take anythin’ for my work, but I’ll need to pay for a room.” He left it open that he’d need her to cover that.
“Where will you live?” she asked finally.
“I thought I’d ask in town who has room for me.”
She offered him her hand. “It’s a deal then. Let’s go to town and stake this claim.”
“Yes, Miss Rachel.” His words were polite but she caught just the slight edge of irony under them. What had made this man so mocking of himself and others? She would just take him as he was. Until he moved on.
And she ignored the sensitive currents that raced up her arm when he gripped her hand and shook it as if she were another man. Were foolish schoolgirl feelings going to pop up now when she least needed them? And when to show them would embarrass both her and this complex man?
*
Brennan halted the team outside the narrow storefront. In the window, a small white placard read simply Government Office and beneath that a smaller placard—Agent Present. He went around and helped Miss Rachel down. She looked sturdier than she felt as he assisted her. She was such a little bit of a woman—with such big ideas.
He seriously doubted she would be allowed to register for a homestead. The idea was crazy. Still, he asked, “Do you want me to come in with you?”
She looked up at him with a determined expression, her large gray eyes flashing and direct. “No, I can handle this myself.”
He listened for any sign she might want him to accompany her. But he caught only a shade of tartness in her tone. He accepted her decision. He didn’t like people hovering over him either. “Then I’ll be going to find me a room.”
“Very well. If I am not here when you need me, look for me at the General Store.” Without waiting for his reply, she marched to the door and went inside. He wondered idly why she never wore any lace or pretty geegaws. And she skimmed her hair back so severely. Didn’t she want to look pretty?
He stood a moment, staring after her. Northern women were different all right and up to now, Miss Rachel stood out as the most different he’d met. Lorena’s biddable face flickered in his mind, stinging as it always did. He walked resolutely away from the starchy Yankee and his own taunting memories.
He paused, scanning the lone dusty street for a likely place to ask for a room. This little dot on the shore of the Mississippi hadn’t progressed to having a boardinghouse yet.
Whom could he ask? Then he noticed the saloon at the end of the street, the kind of place where he always found an easy welcome—as long as he had money in his pocket.
No doubt it would irritate Miss Rachel if he went in there. So he strode toward it, reveling in the ability to walk down a street healthy once again. He pushed through swinging doors into the saloon, almost empty in the late morning. A pudgy older man leaned back behind the bar.
“Mornin’,” Brennan greeted him.
“What can I do for you?” the man replied genially.
Brennan approached the bar. “I’m new in town, need a room. You know any place that’d be good for me to ask at?”
They exchanged names and shook hands.
“You’re from the South?” Sam, the barkeep, commented.
“Yeah.” Though bristling, Brennan swallowed a snide reply.
After eyeing him for a few moments, Sam rubbed his chin. “Most shopkeepers have family above their place or build a cabin behind their business. Got a blacksmith-farrier in town. Single. Think he’s got a loft empty. Can’t think of anybody else that has room.”
“Don’t have many businesses in this bump in the road,” Brennan drawled, leaning against the bar, suddenly glad to have someone more like him to talk to. The Whitmores were good folk, but he had to watch his errant tongue around them.
Sam smirked. “You got that right.”
A look of understanding passed between them. Brennan drew in a deep breath. “Thanks for your advice about the room.”
“Glad to help. Drop in some evening and we’ll have a tongue wag.”
After nodding, Brennan headed outside. Miss Rachel probably hadn’t finished in the government office yet. So under the hot sun, he ambled toward the log-constructed blacksmith shop. The clang of metal on metal announced a smithy hard at work. Would the blacksmith be anti-Southerner, too?
He entered the shady interior and fierce heat rushed into his face. A broad-shouldered man in a leather apron pounded an oblong of iron, shaping it into some long-handled tool, sparks flying. Finally, after plunging the tool into a barrel of water, the sweating blacksmith stepped back from his forge. Over the sizzling of the molten iron meeting cold water, he asked, “What can I do for you, stranger?”
Brennan moved forward and offered his hand. “Name’s Merriday. Ah’m lookin’ to rent a room.”
Pulling off leather gloves, the blacksmith gripped his hand briefly. Brennan felt the power of the man in that grip.
“You sound like you’re from the South,” the man observed.
“I am.” Brennan said no more, though smoldering.
“Comstock’s my name. Levi Comstock,” the tall man said. “How long you staying here?”
“A few months maybe.” These few words cost him. He never spent a month in any place anymore. The disorienting flashes of memory and restlessness always hit him after a few weeks. He hoped in Canada he could finally settle down. But I owe Miss Rachel. “You got room for me?”
The blacksmith studied Brennan.
Brennan didn’t like it and pressed his lips together to keep back a nervy comment that itched to be said.
The man finally nodded toward a ladder. “I built me a lean-to to sleep in for the summer. Get the breeze off the river. Not using my loft now. It’ll be hot up there. I’ve been meaning to cut out two small windows for some air. Maybe you could do that.”
“How much do you want a week?”
“Four bits?” Comstock asked.
“That’s all?”
The man’s blackened face split into a grin. “You ain’t seen the loft yet. No bed. Just a dusty floor.”
“And two windows when we cut them.” Brennan knew he’d just taken a liking to this practical man and dampened down the lift it sparked in him. He’d be here only as long as Miss Rachel needed him. Then he’d move north and get settled before winter. The two men shook hands.
“When you moving in?”
Brennan considered this. “Soon. Maybe tomorrow.”
“See you then.” The smith turned back to his forge.
Brennan stepped outside and gazed around at the nearly vacant main street and sighed. What would he do in this little berg for a few weeks? And how was Miss Rachel faring with the land agent? He headed toward the office. Maybe Miss Rachel needed some backup by now.
*
Just inside the door of the government office, Rachel paused to gird herself for battle, quelling her dislike of contention. She knew she faced one of the the biggest battles of her life, here and now.
The small, middle-aged man in a nondescript suit behind a small desk rose politely. “Miss?”
She smiled her sweetest smile and went swiftly forward. “Good day, sir. I am Miss Rachel Woolsey.” She never used sir. Quakers didn’t use titles. But she couldn’t afford to be Quaker today. After she told him what she’d come for, she was going to brand herself odd enough as it was. Their hands clasped briefly.
“Please take a seat and tell me what I can do for you, Miss Woolsey.”
She sat primly on the chair he had set for her and braced herself. “I’m here to stake a claim.”
Shock widened the man’s pinched face. “I beg your pardon.”
“I am here to stake a claim,” she repeated, stubborn determination rearing up inside.
“Your husband is ill?” he asked after a pause.
Hadn’t she introduc
ed herself as Miss? “No, I am unmarried.”
“Then you can’t stake a homestead claim.” Each of his words stabbed at her. “It isn’t done.”
She’d expected this reaction and she had come prepared. “Excuse me, please, but it can be done.” She tried to keep triumph from her smile. “And quite legally. My father consulted our state representative to the U.S. Congress before I left Pennsylvania.” She pulled out the creased envelope. “Here is the letter.”
The man did not reach for the envelope. “I know the law, miss. But a single woman homesteading, while legal, is ridiculous. You will never prove up your claim. Why put yourself through that?” His last sentence oozed condescension.
Her irritation simmered. So many sharp replies frothed on her tongue, but she swallowed them. “I have already hired a workman and the claim I want is the one that the Ryersons left last winter. May I please begin the paperwork?” She gazed at him, giving the impression that she would sit here all day if need be. And she would.
He glared at her.
Seconds, minutes passed.
She cleared her throat and pinned the man with her gaze. “Is there a problem?”
“I think it’s shameful that your father would let you leave home and homestead on your own. What will people think of you—a single woman without a male protector? Have you thought of that?”
Rachel shook off this measly objection. “Sir, I cannot think that anyone here would take me for a woman of easy virtue. And—” she didn’t let him interject the retort that must be reddening his face “—my cousin Noah Whitmore is here to watch over me.”
“You’re Noah Whitmore’s cousin?”
“Our mothers were sisters.”
He stared at her again, chewing the inside of his cheek—no doubt trying to come up with another objection.
She kept her steady gaze on him. The door behind her opened. Glancing over her shoulder, she glimpsed Brennan enter. She lifted one eyebrow.
“Miss Rachel, aren’t you about done here?” he asked, hat in hand, but the willingness to dispute with the agent plain on his face.
