“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Rob said. “Some of those towns are just a handful of cabins with a post office for miners and trappers.”
“Nevertheless,” Anne continued, “I’m sure Daniel and I can reach Scottsburg safely. And from there we should be able to reach Uncle David’s mine within a day’s travel, and I’ll have my uncle to defend my honor.”
Rob shook his head. “That sounds good, missy, but we both know you’ve thought you were close to catching up with your uncle twice before and had to deal with disappointment. Supposing you get up in the Coast Range and he’s nowhere to be found? Then what will you do?”
“We’ll ride back to Scottsburg,” Dan said firmly. “And if it looks as though we’ll have to spend a night or more on the trail getting to the mine, we can perhaps hire a guide to take us. That’s if I can’t convince Miss Anne to stay in Scottsburg while I go and fetch Mr. Stone myself and bring him to her.”
“No,” Anne said, frowning, “I don’t suppose you could persuade me of that.”
Rob laughed. “You ought to have known better than to even think of it, Dan.”
Dulcie leaned forward and shook an accusing finger under Anne’s nose. “I know you’re independent, but my question is this: When we get back to Corvallis, what will we tell Mrs. Bentley?”
“That’s true.” Rob rubbed the back of his neck, making a tortured face as he considered his wife’s words. “Elise will be very unhappy. We told her we’d place you in your uncle’s care or bring you back with us. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
“Sounds like we’d better start practicing our ‘buts,’ ” Dulcie said.
Anne chuckled. “Elise will understand. Won’t she, Dan?”
He gritted his teeth. “Well…I don’t know as she will. But I can’t think of a better plan. Can any of you?”
“You’ll take my horse,” Rob said, and Anne took that as admission of defeat.
Dulcie nodded. “And my sidesaddle.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t,” Anne said quickly. Part Rob from Bailey, his favorite mount? She wouldn’t think of it.
“I don’t see that you have much choice,” Rob said. “Unless you have enough cash to buy a horse, and I’m not sure you could find a sidesaddle if you scoured Eugene City for one.”
“But—”
“We’ll be fine with the team and wagon,” Dulcie said. “You’ll have to go through your trunks today, though, and pack up what you want for the journey. We’ll take the rest back to our place and keep it for you until you come for it.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Anne murmured. She couldn’t think of anyone in England who would have shown her such kindness. “I promise I’ll bring Bailey back to you safely.”
“I’m sure you will.” Rob cleared his throat and looked at his wife. “Well, sweetheart, do you want to set out tomorrow morning?”
“I suppose we should, though it’s tempting to stay one more day,” Dulcie said. “Anne needs time to sort through her luggage, and she might learn a little more about her uncle’s doings.”
“I’ll repack this afternoon,” Anne said.
Dan nodded. “I can bring the wagon over from the livery and load the trunks. And I’ll make sure we have all the supplies we might need for the trip. Do you think we should take a pack horse?”
His question alarmed Anne. She didn’t want Dan laying out money for her venture, and an extra horse was beyond her current means, especially if they planned to pay for rooms and meals along the way.
“We should do fine with Star and Bailey, especially if you think we’ll find lodgings every night.”
“Good,” Dan said. “I don’t expect we’ll need a tent, but we might want to tote a couple of blankets just in case, and one kettle.”
Dulcie laughed. “Anne, you’d better take a coffeepot and some coffee beans along for this young man. I’ve never seen such a coffee drinker.”
“Well, Mrs. Brady makes it so well.” Dan waved a hand in protest. “But you don’t need to do that for me. I can go without coffee for a week if I have to. And we’ll likely be able to find it wherever we stop.”
Anne smiled and determined to slip a coffeepot and a small stash of ground coffee into her pack.
“Now, you’ll want to head straight south to Cottage Grove first.” Rob held out the map he’d asked the postmaster to sketch for him after church.
“Will we pass Uncle David’s property?” Anne asked.
“Yes, you will.”
She looked at Dan. “I’d like to stop in and see the neighbors Bank Raynor talked to, if you don’t mind—the ones who said they’d look after the cattle until Uncle David returns.”
“Certainly. We can go by David’s house again, too, if you want.”
“I don’t see any reason to go there. Mr. Raynor said he looked around to make sure there were no valuables left in the house.”
“If there were, that Millie probably pocketed them.” Rob shook his head. “She was a sly one.”
“Good thing I wasn’t there,” Dulcie said. “I’d have blacked her eyes.”
Anne couldn’t hold back a smile. “I’ll miss you, Dulcie.”
“Well, you’ll see me again soon enough. I hope your uncle will bring you up to Corvallis, if only to get your trunks.”
“He’ll want to see Elise, I’m sure,” Anne said.
“Good. I want to meet this famous English gentleman everyone’s been talking about.” Dulcie’s eyes danced. “Imagine, meeting an earl out here in Oregon Territory.”
Anne didn’t deflate her spirits by explaining that her uncle wouldn’t officially be the earl of Stoneford until he returned to England and claimed the title and the estate. She smiled at Dulcie. “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to make your acquaintance. Yours and Rob’s. After all, your husband saw me safely through many perils on the trail.”
Dulcie reached for Rob’s hand. “I almost wish I’d been along this summer. It might have been fun traveling with you and Elise Bentley.”
Rob smiled at her indulgently. “No, darlin’, you’ve told me a thousand times you don’t want to make that trip ever again.”
“It’s true.” Dulcie sighed. “When I first laid eyes on Oregon City, I said, ‘Rob, please find a place where I can have a hot bath, and if I ever need to go East again, I’ll go by ship, thank you very much.”
Millie slipped behind a buckboard and ducked down. Dan Adams and his friend Whistler came out of the livery stable. She could hear them talking as they walked past her hiding place.
“Are you sure you and Anne have everything you want for now?” the older man, Whistler, asked.
Adams had a brace of saddlebags thrown over one shoulder, and Mr. Whistler carried a shotgun.
“Pretty sure,” Adams said. “We don’t want to take too much up into those hills and regret having to haul it.”
“Well, Anne won’t have to worry about her trunks. We’ve got them strapped down tight in the wagon. We’ll take them right back to our place in Corvallis, and she can pick them up when you come back.”
They reached the street and headed off toward the boardinghouse, and Millie could no longer make out their words.
Where was this wagon they were talking about, anyway? Adams and the tall trail master had driven into the livery ten minutes ago. Were they leaving the wagon right inside the barn overnight? They must be, with all their boxes and bundles in it—including the fine lady’s kit and cargo. In the short time Millie had been observing Anne, she’d worn four different outfits, including two today alone. She’d set out for meeting this morning all got up in finery. Her hat matched her overskirt, and the lace on her bodice alone must have cost a month’s wages.
Then this afternoon, while Millie had watched from behind a cedar tree on the edge of the yard, Miss Anne had gone in and out from the boardinghouse to the wagon and back with her bundles and frippery, wearing a brown dress of good quality wool, with black velvet-ribbon trim. Understated but elegant, just plain elegant. Four dre
sses were more than most Oregon women could lay claim to, and Millie could only imagine what lay in the steamer trunks Whistler and Adams had trucked to the livery in the back of the wagon.
She slid from behind the buckboard and flitted to the door of the barn. Cautiously she peeked around the edge of the door. The livery man was in there, feeding the horses fortunate enough to sleep inside. Soon he’d lock up for the night. Millie smiled to herself as she eyed the ropes wrapped around Miss Stone’s trunks. Anything a man could tie, she could untie. It would just be a matter of coming back tonight when no one else was in the barn.
Hoisting her skirt, she hurried out to the street, watching out for familiar faces. She darted between two buildings and out behind them, toward the grove where she’d tied her chestnut mare.
In fifteen minutes, she’d reached the small sheltered meadow where she’d left Sam and Old Blue. Sam lay on the grass with his head on his saddle, while Blue grazed twenty yards away without so much as a hobble or a picket line to hold him.
“Why did you let the horse loose?” she cried.
Sam sat up and blinked as she jumped down in a swirl of skirts. “What? Old Blue will come to me.”
To prove it, he rose, stretched, and ambled toward the roan.
Old Blue lifted his head, looked at Sam, and resumed grazing, but took a few short steps away from him, gradually swinging his hindquarters in Sam’s direction.
“Oh terrific, now you won’t be able to catch him,” Millie said.
“Can, too!” Sam quickened his steps. Blue rewarded him by trotting a dozen steps away. He put his head down to the grass again but kept one ear cocked toward Sam.
“You are such a dolt!” Millie shook her head in despair as she opened her saddlebag. “You’ll have to give him some oats or you’ll never catch him. Lucky for you I scooped up a handful that had spilled outside the livery in town.” She took out a knotted handkerchief, plump with her loot, and carried it to him. “We’re fortunate that farmer didn’t find our horses out behind the barn this morning.”
“Wouldn’t be my fault if he had.” Sam gazed at her with an injured air. “You’re the one who picked the spot to leave ’em.”
Millie ignored that. “Get that horse and tie him up. I’ll get out our lunch. We probably would have been safer if we’d stayed at Stone’s place last night. Live and learn.”
Sam scowled at her. “You blame me for everything, but it was your idea to move around and sleep in barns. You said the marshal would find us if we stayed at Stone’s.”
“And so he would have. He was out there again yesterday.”
“How do you know that?”
“I learned a lot this afternoon. That’s the other reason I wanted to stay someplace closer to town. We needed to stick close to Miss Anne until we knew what her plan was.”
Sam watched her as she laid the makings of a campfire. “Do we know it now?”
“Yes, we do.” Millie used the plural pronoun loosely. She wasn’t about to disclose to her stolid half brother—whom she considered to be little more than half-witted—everything she knew. For one thing, if Sam had another brush with the law, he’d probably spill it. If not, he’d forget the critical bits of knowledge. No, it was best to tell Sam what he needed to know when he needed to know it. “Get that horse and then bring me some firewood.”
“You gonna tell me our plan, Mill?”
“When you’ve brought an armful of sticks. Good, dry stuff, now. Don’t bring me anything green. And don’t call me Mill.”
Why couldn’t her mother have given her a pretty name—something flowing, like Victoria or Charlotte?
Sam carried the small bundle of oats toward the horse. Old Blue was curious enough to let himself be caught this time. When he was tied up, Sam trudged away toward the line of pine trees that lined the creek. Millie filled her one pot with water and considered her strategy. She definitely wouldn’t tell him about the glorious dresses she was sure she’d find in Anne Stone’s trunks. She’d think up an excuse to go back tonight. Maybe she could give Sam a simple errand to carry out while she went to the livery. If he noticed that she came back with an extra sack, she’d tell him she’d found some clothes and let it go at that. She’d choose carefully and leave Eugene with some assets for the days ahead.
But that was only a small part of Millie’s plan. She needed her half brother to help her carry it out. Convincing Sam they should separate might be the most difficult part.
Dan looked up from fastening an extra strap on the pack he’d loaded behind Star’s saddle. Bank Raynor was walking across the yard of the boardinghouse toward him.
“You folks heading out this morning?”
“Planning on it,” Dan said. “You’re out early.”
Bank nodded. “I got a message last evening from Marshal Nesmith. Figured I’d best get it to Miss Stone before you headed out.”
“What is it?” Dan tugged on the strap. Everything lay snug on Star’s flanks. Way more gear than he liked to carry, though—he ought to have insisted on a pack horse.
“Seems there was a gent from New York who chased Miss Stone all the way out here. She mentioned him the other night—Peterson.”
That grabbed Dan’s attention. “Yes. Nesmith had him in custody when we left Oregon City. That was nearly two weeks ago.”
“Well, he ain’t there now.”
“They’ve released him?”
“I’m not just sure what happened. All the marshal’s note said was, ‘Tell Miss Stone that Peterson is on the loose. She’ll want to warn her uncle.’ Now, mebbe you can make more of that than I can.”
Dan puzzled over the message. “Not much, I’m afraid. I know who Peterson is, of course. I’m not sure we need to be concerned about him now that we’re down here. But thank you.”
Bank nodded. “Well then, that’s all I came for. I hope you have a good trip, and that you find Mr. Stone in one piece.”
“I appreciate it, sir.”
“Right.” Bank hesitated. “You watch out for Miss Stone, won’t you, Adams? She’s a pretty little thing. No bigger’n a minute, and I don’t misdoubt she can take care of herself, but still—you don’t want to put it to the test, do you?”
Dan nodded gravely. “I most surely will take care of her.”
He smiled as he watched the old man walk away. Taking care of Anne would be his life’s mission if he had anything to say about it. But he wasn’t sure telling her that Peterson was out of jail would be the best way to do that.
Anne liked Uncle David’s neighbors, the McIntyres, and wished she’d stopped in and met them the first time she’d approached her uncle’s farm. They might have saved her a lot of worry.
“I told David I didn’t trust that feller he hired,” Mr. McIntyre told her, shaking his head woefully. Anne and Dan had dismounted in the neighbors’ dooryard to inquire about David’s situation. “He’s trusting to a fault, though. Said Sam would be all right, and what could he do wrong, anyhow? David left him with a score of cattle at pasture and five acres he’d planted to winter wheat. That was all the man had to watch out for. David couldn’t see any harm in it.”
“That’s because he didn’t know Sam’s sister would show up,” Mrs. McIntyre added.
“If she is his sister.” Mr. McIntyre winked at Dan.
“He’s not smart enough to lure a woman out here unless she was related to him,” his wife said. “If your uncle weren’t so softhearted, he never would have hired Sam Hastings to begin with. That man couldn’t find a quill if he had a porcupine in his lap. Say, speaking of Millie, Sam came over here and borrowed my sidesaddle for her shortly after she arrived. They never brought it back.”
“I wonder if it’s still over in David’s barn,” Mr. McIntyre said.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Dan told them. “Millie lit out on horseback the day we took the deputy marshal out there. I expect she’s still got it.”
“Well, I’ll take a look around when I go over to check the livestock.�
�
“But you are sure Uncle David went up to the mountains?” Anne asked.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. McIntyre said. “He’d bought that property up there and said he wanted to go look it over and see if it was worth doing some mining on it.”
Her husband ran a hand over his chin. “That’s right. He’d been studying up on it, kind of as a hobby. I saw him the day he pulled out. Had all his gear on a pack mule. Said he thought he’d do a little panning in the creek that ran by his land, and if he found some color, he might even get a sluice box.”
That news relieved Anne. She would stop wondering whether Sam and Millie had done something awful to him.
“I wouldn’t worry about him being gone several weeks,” the man continued. “He was quite excited about it.”
“Just like a boy,” Mrs. McIntyre said. “But I expect he’ll tire of it soon, now that it’s getting colder. Can you folks stay to dinner?”
“No, thank you,” Anne said. “I have news for my uncle that I really must get to him. We want to push on to Cottage Grove. Is there a hotel there?”
“Sure,” said Mr. McIntyre. “Or you could spend less and get a better supper if you stopped with the Randall family. They’re just past the feed store on the south edge of town. They take in travelers regular, and Mrs. Randall makes a fine chicken pie.”
Anne looked up at Dan. “Sound good?”
“Sure does.”
They set out once more at a quick trot. When they passed the lane to Uncle David’s farm, Dan looked over at her with raised eyebrows.
“You sure you don’t want to stop?”
“I’m sure.” The cattle grazed peacefully inside the rail fence. She could see the barn’s ridgepole in the distance. “The next time I see that place, I want Uncle David there, welcoming me to his home.”
“All right, they’re past Stone’s place.” From beneath the spreading branches of a pine tree, Millie peered at the retreating horses. “You wait half an hour. If they don’t come back and no one else happens by, you can go fill out your supplies from the house. There’s plenty of beans and cornmeal and raisins. Then follow along. We know they plan to spend tonight in Cottage Grove, so there’s no hurry. When you get there, look around and find out where their horses are stabled. But whatever you do, don’t let Adams or Miss Stone see you.”
THE Prairie DREAMS Trilogy Page 39
