One night Glory sat straight up in bed, reaching for the rifle when she heard someone pounding on the front door and shouting, “Let me in, girl! I know you’re in there!”
Amos! He continued banging on the door with his enormous fists, muttering drunken threats between poundings.
Sliding out of bed, she crouched beside it, her fingers tightening around the gun’s stock. When Amos was drinking, he was mean as a wolverine. Poppy had warned her to never let him in when he was in such a state.
The heavy bar across the door rattled. “Come on, Glory girl! Open up the door and let Uncle Amos in! It’s hot out here!”
He wasn’t her uncle—he was no kin to her, and now that Poppy was dead, she didn’t have to pretend that he was. What did he want? Why was he here in the middle of the night pounding on her door? Her heart thumped in her throat. Had he found out that Poppy was dead? How could he know?
Amos’s voice dropped to a menacing growl. “Open the door, Glory. I’ve come for my money.” He shoved his weight against the oak, and Glory slid under the bed. Her fingers closed around the trigger, fear choking her.
He knew. Somehow he knew Poppy was dead, and he was here to take the gold Poppy kept hidden in a pouch beneath the floor.
Amos slammed his bulk against the door, trying to break it down. Glory closed her eyes, silently praising Poppy for building the shanty out of strong oak. Trembling, she listened to Amos’s repeated attempts to enter. Over and over, he threw his weight against the door. She could hear him swearing violently under his breath, threatening her with unimaginable, vile acts.
Trembling, she gripped the Hawkins until her hands hurt. Other than hunting food, she’d never shot another living, breathing thing, but she intended to shoot Amos if he broke that door down. She could hear her own breath coming in ragged gasps as his threats became more threatening and vile now.
She kept her eyes shut and waited. If he gained entrance, he would kill her and take the gold. Images raced through her mind—images of the rage burning in his dark eyes, corn liquor coursing through his veins, his big hands doubled and ready to hit, greed spurring him to madness.
“I want that gold, Glory! It’s mine and I mean to have it!”
She kept quiet, refusing to answer. Give up and go away, Amos. You’re not coming in!
Then there was silence, and the night seemed endless. It sounded as if Amos had left, and then she knew he was back. She could hear him chopping at the door with something, but the oak still held. A bottle shattered on the porch, and he bellowed in rage. The stench of corn liquor drifted under the crack beneath the door.
Fueled by whiskey, Amos slammed against the door—over and over until Glory was certain he would come flying into the room at any moment.
Getting out from under the bed and standing up, she positioned herself a few feet away from the doorway, waiting for him. She hefted the loaded rifle to her shoulder, squinted, and took aim. The room was dark. She couldn’t see a thing, but she knew where to point, and there weren’t many better with a gun than she. If Amos came through that door, she’d drop him like a hot rock.
Suddenly silence fell over the cabin again. The pounding stopped. Straining to hear, Glory eased closer to the door. Had he given up and left? Long seconds passed while she waited, conscious only of her frayed breathing.
The windowpane behind her shattered. Whirling, she fired, aware of the sound of more breaking glass. Her heart threatened to leap out of her chest as she dropped to her knees and crawled toward the front door. He was at the back of the house now; she had to escape. If he trapped her in the cabin, she wouldn’t have a chance.
Bounding to her feet, she lifted the bar, threw open the door, and bolted outside. The night was pitch-black, a heavy cloud cover obscuring the moon. Racing toward the lean-to, she bent low, her bare feet covering the ground silently. He wouldn’t be able to see her, not in this blackness.
The smell of hay and cow dung rushed over her when she slipped inside the crudely built shelter and threaded her way to the back of the stall. When she was a child, she’d hidden here from Poppy many a time when they were playing hide-and-seek. She could hear Amos shouting her name, cursing as he staggered about in the dark searching for her. The hunt went on for hours. Toward dawn, he finally staggered onto the front porch and collapsed from drunken exhaustion.
Seizing her chance, Glory shot from the lean-to and raced to the back of the cabin. She climbed through the broken window and hurriedly gathered her knapsack with her extra pair of pants and shirt, a jacket, some bacon and a few cold biscuits, and the pouch of gold that she took from beneath the shanty floor. She quickly pulled on her scuffed leather boots.
Amos’s besotted snores filled the cabin as she carefully eased the front door open and gingerly stepped over his sprawled form.
His right hand snaked out and latched on to her ankle. “You’re not going anywhere, girlie.”
Bringing the butt of the gun down on his hand, Glory broke his hold. Howling, he struggled to sit up, but Glory swung the rifle a second time and knocked him cold. With a moan, he slumped to his side and lay lifeless, blood seeping from a wound on his head.
Scrambling off the porch, Glory raced to the lean-to and swung open the door. “Shoo!” she yelled at Bess.
The chickens started on their nests, squawking as she raced through the coop and opened the back door. She drove the cow out, making a clear passage for the hens’ freedom.
A moment later, she fastened a bedroll and her knapsack on back of the mule and swung aboard. The last she saw of Amos, he was sprawled on the front porch, lying amid the remains of a shattered whiskey bottle.
She didn’t know if she had killed him or not. But by now, she didn’t rightly care.
Chapter Two
“Oh, Molasses!”
Hands on her hips, Glory stood beside the lifeless mule a day and a half later, feeling helpless. She’d depended on that mule to get her to—well, somewhere. They weren’t very far from the cabin, and she was sure that Amos would try to follow her, once he regained consciousness. If he regained consciousness. Had she killed him? The thought gave her a bellyache. She hadn’t intended to kill him, just escape him. When it came to gold, Amos was determined.
She studied the dead mule. Molasses, on the other hand, had never been determined about anything, except going to the barn.
“Well, ole friend, you gave us the best you had, and I thank you for it.” Glory knelt and patted the mule’s rough hide. Poppy had brought Molasses home one day when Glory was very small. He’d bought him from a down-on-his-luck trader. Now Molasses was dead, and she was afoot.
Hefting the bedroll, her pack, and the Hawkins over one shoulder, she struck off. She was not sure where she was going, but she knew she couldn’t sit in the middle of the road and twiddle her thumbs. Poppy had headed this direction every spring when he’d gone to town for supplies. To her way of thinking, there had to be people in this direction, and where there were people, there was opportunity to start a new life. A new life was what she needed the most right now.
That and a mule.
She plodded along the faint trail for some time, shifting the pack from one shoulder to the other until hunger made her stop and dig into her meager cache of supplies. She was glad she had fried up the last of the bacon and made that batch of biscuits the day before Amos arrived. She’d have enough food for another day or two if she was careful.
Sitting down on the pack with her rifle across her knees, Glory munched on the bacon and biscuit slowly, trying to make it last. The sun was straight overhead when she heard the creak of wagon wheels. Both excited and apprehensive, she waffled between the choice of flagging down strangers or hiding until they passed.
“Better a ride than blisters on your feet,” she decided, quickly jamming the last bite of biscuit into her mouth. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she peered down the road, waiting for the wagon to come into sight. She hoped it wasn’t Amos—if it was, she’d
bolt like a jackrabbit.
The tall ribs of a prairie schooner with a double hitch of oxen came over a rise. Glory’s mouth went dry. A man—a big man—much younger than Poppy, sat on the driver’s seat; his hat was pulled low over his face.
The mid-July sun was hot, so hot she could hardly breathe. Swallowing, she eased out in the road, thankful that it wasn’t Amos and hoping it wasn’t something worse.
Coughing, Mary Everly leaned forward on the wagon seat. “Is that someone standing in the road?” she asked, squinting.
Jackson Lincoln was wondering that himself.
“The owner of the dead mule we passed a ways back, I’d venture.”
Jackson smiled at the earnest youngster who hovered near his shoulder. He’d had his doubts when he left Westport a few days ago to escort five women to Denver City to be mail-order brides. It was the most unusual assignment he’d ever undertaken. When he’d first seen his charges, he’d almost backed out of the job; they seemed awfully young to be traveling such a long way. They were orphans, too old to be adopted and, therefore, an unwanted liability. The head of the orphanage had allowed the girls to sign marriage contracts with Tom Wyatt, a broker who had promised to secure a good husband for each one of them.
But a couple of days into the trip his worries had been proven false. The girls were pleasant and helpful, passing the time amicably. Mary was fifteen, he guessed. Patience, Ruth, Harper, and Lily—all around the same age. Not one of them was certain about anything except that she had no home unless he could safely deliver her to Wyatt in Colorado.
Jackson suspected why some of the girls had never been adopted. Mary was sickly and pale with a persistent cough. Patience, at sixteen, he figured, was gentle in nature but addled at times. She’d stop talking in midsentence to think about something, and he’d found her more than once conversing with a bird on the limb of a tree.
Harper was a hard one to figure out. Her mother had soured her on all men, leaving Harper tough as leather. Thought to be fourteen, she was the youngest and a clear-cut troublemaker with a razor-sharp tongue. Harper looked out for herself and tended to irritate people. Just the opposite of Patience, who would mother the others, making sure everyone was comfortable before she took to her own bedroll.
Then there was Ruth—the serious, most educated one, who looked on the positive side of the worst circumstance. Ruth was certain a wonderful new life lay over the next rise. Jackson wasn’t so sure of that. Experience had taught him otherwise. Caution made him one of the best wagon masters around, even if there was only one wagon on this assignment.
Ruth’s opposite was Lily, who laughed easily, her eyes dancing with mischief. Jackson strongly suspected that this fifteen-year-old was bound for trouble before the trip was over. She was too full of life for him to think otherwise.
“Who is it, do you suppose?” Lily leaned out of the wagon over Jackson’s left shoulder, straining for a better look.
“I don’t know, but we’re about to find out.”
Hauling back on the heavy reins, Jackson drew the team alongside the thin youth. Clearly, the teenage boy had outgrown his dirty cotton trousers. The hems crowded the tops of his scuffed leather boots. Jackson’s eyes touched on the faded flannel shirt that was too big across the shoulders. The brim of the battered leather hat hung down over his forehead, obscuring half the youth’s face. One thing for certain: he handled the Hawkins like someone accustomed to having it close at hand. The wagon rolled to a halt, and the boy shuffled his feet.
“Got a problem?” Jackson asked.
The wiry youth squinted up at him, and Jackson noticed his smooth cheeks. He wasn’t even old enough to shave, and he looked almost feminine under all that grime.
“Mule up and died on me.”
“Where’re you going?”
“To town.”
The boy was young; Jackson noticed his voice hadn’t dropped yet.
“Climb aboard, but the rifle goes in the back.”
The stranger hesitated briefly before handing it up. Jackson passed the weapon back to Lily.
The youth fixed him with a stare. “I want it back.”
Jackson met his troubled gaze, then scanned the dirt on the youth’s face. “You’ll get it back once you reach where you’re going.”
The girls didn’t like handling guns, which suited Jackson just fine. Then he didn’t have to worry about their getting hurt. But the boy was another matter. He could be an outlaw, or he could be down on his luck as he claimed. Jackson wasn’t taking any chances.
The boy slung his bedroll and pack up into the storage box and shinnied up beside Jackson, who caught a whiff of the young man and regretted the invitation. The kid stank—smelled as bad as rancid meat. The girls, who had crowded to the open flap at the front of the wagon to eye the stranger curiously, immediately moved farther back. Mary joined them. Jackson hoped he could keep the boy downwind as much as possible.
Slapping the reins over the rumps of the oxen, he kept an eye on the newcomer from the corner of his eye. “Lost your mule, huh?” The loaded wagon slowly traversed the rutted trail.
“Yes, sir. Died on me clean as a whistle.”
“Where’s your family?”
“Don’t have any. Mostly just had the mule and Poppy. Poppy died a few weeks back.”
“That right.”
The boy watched the road. Jackson noticed he was gripping the seat like it was going one way and he was about to go the other. When the lad noticed Jackson staring, he turned to eye him and asked, “Where’re you heading?”
“Colorado.”
“Colorado. Is that far?”
“A dreadfully long way,” Mary declared from the back of the wagon. “We’re going to Denver City to be mail-order brides.”
The youth turned to look over his shoulder. “Brides? You’re gonna marry someone you’ve never met?”
Mary nodded, a friendly expression in her hazel eyes. “A gentleman by the name of Tom Wyatt is paying our way. Mr. Wyatt arranges marriages for young women. We’ve signed a contract with him, and he in turn will provide us with suitable husbands.”
The boy turned back to look at Jackson, who was working the reins to avoid a deep pothole.
“How far have you come?” Patience asked the boy. The girls all gradually shifted back to the front to join the conversation while keeping upwind of their guest.
“Don’t know … left the cabin ’bout two days ago.” The boy kept his eyes trained on the road. “Buried Poppy there … dug the grave myself.”
“Poppy?” Harper poked her round, coffee-colored face over Lily’s shoulder. “Who on earth’s Poppy?”
The boy blinked as if he’d never seen a dark-skinned person before. “Don’t rightly know—just a man, I guess. He found me on the trail when I fell outta my pa’s wagon and took on the job of raising me.”
“Found you?” the girls chorused.
Lily’s eyes widened. “Where are your real folks?”
The boy stiffened. “Don’t know that either. It’s always been just me and Poppy.” The boy shifted as if he’d rather not continue the discussion.
“Then you’re an orphan like us,” Ruth said.
“Don’t know about that, but I’m mighty glad you came along.”
Jackson smiled as he listened to the friendly chatter. The boy was so candid.
“What happened to your Poppy?” Ruth asked.
“Went to sleep and never woke up. Guess that was good. He didn’t suffer, I suppose.”
“You buried him?” Jackson asked. “And started off on your own?”
“Yes, sir. Off to find me a new life.”
“So are we.” Mary scooted closer. “A new life, with husbands and hopes for families and children one day. They told us at the orphanage that more and more people are moving west and building towns with stores and houses.”
“It’s an exciting adventure,” Lily bubbled, “and we can hardly wait to get there. But Mr. Lincoln says Denver City is a lon
g way off.”
Jackson grinned. “A very long way, ladies. With any luck, we’ll be there in plenty of time before the snows.”
Right now, that was Jackson’s main concern—to complete the six-hundred-eighty-five-mile trip to Denver City before late September, and he wanted nothing to slow them down. What concerned him most was getting through the high divide between the Arkansas and Platte Rivers before snow, even though it was now July and snow seemed a long way off. It was a crucial pass, and wagons were advised to get past the spot as early as possible.
“I’ll just be riding to the next town,” the boy said.
Jackson nodded. “Should be there sometime tomorrow.”
Late that afternoon Jackson pulled the oxen off the road and went another mile before stopping in a grassy field beside a running stream. “Black Jack Creek is a good place to camp for the night. Good grazing for the animals with fresh water nearby.”
“Why, it is almost evening,” Ruth said, surprise registering on her flushed features.
The afternoon had passed pleasantly enough. The boy had warmed up to the girls when they’d stopped for a half hour to rest the team and let the group pick the blackberries growing thick along the roadside.
Jackson got out of the wagon and unhitched the team. The boy leapt down nimbly, dragging his bedroll and pack with him.
The girls quickly set about making camp. As they did their chores, the newcomer pitched in to help. Jackson was happy to see the youth was no shirker. The young man gathered wood, and by the time Jackson had watered the oxen, he had a fire going in a circle of rocks and a coffeepot bubbling to one side.
Jackson staked the oxen where they could graze during the night, then joined the others at the fire. The boy jumped up to pour him a cup of scalding black coffee.
Jackson smiled and thanked him. “I didn’t catch your name.”
The boy glanced away, and Jackson wondered if he was shy.
“Glory.”
Glory Page 2
