They headed down a rather steep portion of the trail, pushing David back into his seat corner and making the men opposite brace themselves. Those on the middle seat clung to the leather straps that hung from the ceiling. David took his watch out for a quick look, though he didn’t like to show it often among strangers. They’d make Brown’s Town by sunset, he hoped.
A sudden jarring sent the drummer completely out of his seat and crashing into a rotund traveler sitting in the middle. The coach listed to one side—David’s—and the driver erupted in coaxing “Ho’s” and “Whoa now’s” designed to convince the team to stop.
As soon as the coach halted, the driver hopped down and could be heard breaking the no-cussing rule as he examined the vehicle. A moment later, the door swung open.
“Sorry, folks,” the shotgun rider said almost cheerfully. “Got to have you all step out. We seem to have busted a wheel.”
Millie accepted his hand and climbed out first.
“Do you have a spare?” Stoddard asked.
“Nope, but we’re only three miles from Brown’s. I’ll take one of the horses and ride in to tell the station agent. He’ll send out a wagon with an extra wheel and a man to help change it.”
“How long will that take?” McCloskey asked as he squeezed out the door.
The shotgun messenger frowned for a moment, sending his droopy mustache askew. “Couple of hours, maybe.”
“But we’ll go on tonight?” McCloskey apparently was in a hurry to get to Boise with his sample cases.
“I expect so, if we get it fixed in time. They don’t run the ferry after dark here.”
The driver, meanwhile, was unhitching one of the leaders for him. He clipped on shorter reins that they carried for emergencies, and the shotgun rider trotted off toward the river.
David strolled around and eyed the broken wheel with misgiving. Unless he was mistaken, when they’d hit that rock, they’d also cracked the axle.
“I say, if it’s only three miles, I might set out and walk for a bit.”
The driver pulled a twist of tobacco from his shirt pocket. “Well now, I make it to be about that far. You armed, mister?”
“Yes, actually. Am I apt to need a weapon?”
The driver shrugged and leaned on the unharmed wheel. “This road’s been hit before. Been awhile, but I figure that means it’s about time I got held up again. Bein’ stranded out here ain’t good.”
David surmised that he’d have as good a chance of keeping his wallet if he walked. The broken-down coach might draw in road agents the way a carcass drew vultures.
“I guess I’ll chance it then.” It would put him out of range of Millie’s piteous gaze, if nothing else. He certainly didn’t want to give her the opportunity to seek him out again.
“If we get goin’ before you’re to Brown’s, I’ll pick you up.” The driver took a big chaw of tobacco. Apparently the halt gave him license to break the spitting rule as well as the cussing one.
David patted his pockets. Wallet and pistol were in place, along with the box from Millie and a few coins. If he was ambushed, he’d lose the cuff links again. But he didn’t like the odds any better if he stuck them in his luggage and left them with the disabled coach, so he set off with them in his coat pocket. He deliberately didn’t look back. If Millie watched him walk away, he didn’t care, and he didn’t want to make eye contact and give her hope that he’d stop and talk to her—or worse yet, let her walk with him.
It wasn’t Millie, but the sheep farmer, Stoddard, who tagged after him.
“Hey! Mr. Stone!”
David kept walking but looked over his shoulder, only as far as Stoddard’s jogging figure, not back to where the others clustered.
“Walking in to Brown’s Town?”
“That was my plan,” David said. “Thought I’d stretch my legs.”
“Mind if I join you?”
He seemed a stout enough fellow, not overly talkative, and he wore a Colt revolver strapped about his waist.
“Fine by me,” David said.
They walked along companionably for ten minutes before Stoddard said, “Is that Mrs. Evans an acquaintance of yours?”
David grunted, wondering what he really wanted to know. “I met her once before.”
“She a widder woman? I didn’t see no weddin’ ring.”
“I believe so,” David said.
They walked in silence for another ten minutes before Stoddard said, “I don’t reckon she’d take to a sheep farmer.”
David smiled grimly. “I cannot speak for her, but from what little I know, I don’t think you can afford her taste.”
“Ah.”
They’d walked about two miles when a wagon passed them bearing their shotgun rider and another man, with the replacement wheel. The men waved and drove on. David and Stoddard finished their journey in silence and without sign of highwaymen. In less than an hour, they sat together in Mr. Brown’s dining room, making up the first supper sitting of the stagecoach passengers and thus getting the best portions of the fried chicken and having the leisure to enjoy it. The driver who would take them onward also ate when they did, grumbling between bites about the delay.
The stagecoach didn’t arrive until nearly two hours later, as the sun slid behind the mountains. The passengers went inside to eat hastily, while the coach and horses were ferried across the river. David noted that this time Millie headed inside. She must be purchasing the meal this evening.
“Hey,” Stoddard called to him, “we can ride over with the coach if we want. We’ll get there afore the rest and can get good seats.”
David boarded the ferry with Stoddard. It was hard to feel smug about it though, when they couldn’t travel on without the people they’d left behind. He felt a bit sorry for them all—they hadn’t gotten the exercise that he and Stoddard had. At least he felt more prepared to get back in the stagecoach and on the road again.
On the other side, David was the first on the coach, and he claimed his comfortable corner again. Stoddard took the one across from him. The other passengers came across the river as twilight descended. Millie, unfortunately, was one of the last to board and lost her usual spot. She settled demurely on the middle seat with two rough-looking fellows. The one nearest her appeared to keep inching closer to her, until Millie looked in a fair way to tumble to the floor.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she said when the coach had been underway for ten minutes. “Could you possibly give me a little more room?”
“Hmpf. Bit of a thang like you?” the man said. He scooted over, but not very far. The first time they rounded a corner, he slid back toward her.
It was dark now, with only a sliver of light shining in from the lanterns on the front of the stage, and David couldn’t see much of what else was going on, but suddenly Millie leaped up and whacked the man with her handbag. Since it held David’s Bible, he imagined it packed a wallop.
“How dare you?” Millie said in tones that would have frozen the river if they’d still been on the ferry.
David couldn’t sit by any longer. “Here, ma’am. Take my seat.”
Though he couldn’t read her expression, he sensed her hesitation.
“Why…thank you, sir!”
With some awkward shifting as the stage rolled on, they managed to exchange places without landing in anyone else’s lap. David held his ground against the encroaching fellow to his left—though he suspected the offender was less eager to claim more territory when an alluring woman was not involved. But David found it necessary to cling to one of the hanging straps, and his right arm was soon aching dreadfully. This was the shoulder in which he’d been wounded, and after five minutes, he turned around on the seat and faced the other way so that he could reach the strap with his left hand. The next two hours were torture.
Charlotte, he thought. No, Millie. If she hadn’t boarded this stage, I’d be sitting in comparative comfort. He was glad his back was to her now. He didn’t want to see her, even in the sc
anty light they had.
Even so, in his mind he saw her lovely dark red hair, piled high as it had been in Scottsburg when they’d dined together. Her skin was as white and smooth as ever, her eyes as vibrantly green. He gritted his teeth and tried to think instead of Stoneford. Once there, he’d be thousands of miles from the woman he disliked more than anyone else on earth.
CHAPTER 4
At midmorning of the following day, they reached the verge of the Snake River. At long last, Millie was putting Oregon behind her. What a pity that part of her past traveled with her. She tried to avoid looking at David, since he so obviously shrank from contact with her.
“All out,” the station agent called as they pulled up in his barnyard. As she descended from the coach, he droned, “Dinner inside, two bits. The ferry will take you across in thirty minutes. All luggage will be ferried with you.”
“Are the horses going across as well?” she asked, looking about for a fresh team and seeing none.
“Nay, madam. This coach and team will stay on this side and head back for Fort Dalles tomorrow. You’ll board a new stage once you’re over the water.”
Millie gulped and looked toward the river. She didn’t like water, and the Snake looked rather treacherous. She remembered that fateful night in Scottsburg when David had plunged into the Umpqua. That river had been much calmer. This one, high with snow melt from the mountains, twisted and writhed its way through the wilderness.
Three of the passengers had left them, and Stoddard and McCloskey would part company with them across the river. Perhaps they’d be less uncomfortable now. Millie had pitied David after he took her spot on the center bench, but she’d been more grateful than she could express. She’d tried to express her gratitude at the next stop, but David had brushed her aside. Embarrassed? What gentleman would be ashamed of his gallantry? More likely he was still angry with her.
A married couple joined them at the station on the western bank of the river. Though Millie was glad to have another feminine presence—the men had grown weary of not swearing or smoking, and the miner had taken to chewing tobacco and spitting frequently out the window, though the rules forbade it. She hoped that with Mrs. Caudle’s arrival, this would stop.
They were all ferried across with their bags. The water swirled and tugged at their low, flat craft, but strong cables and ropes held it from being swept downstream. Millie clung to one of the railings and stared at the pile of luggage, which was secured to the deck with ropes. Mrs. Caudle looked a bit green-faced, and Millie imagined she presented an equally distressed picture.
At last they landed, with only one of the passengers being ill, and that one of the men. The new coach was waiting for them on the eastern shore and carried the eight of them to the station yard a short distance away, where the luggage was put down for those who had finished their journey.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Evans,” McCloskey said before disembarking.
“Farewell, sir. I wish you Godspeed.”
The salesman tipped his hat and left them to claim his valise and sample cases.
“We’ll have to make up some time,” the new driver said.
“Aye, see if you can make up half an hour on this stage,” the station agent told him. “But whatever you do, don’t have another wreck.”
“Don’t you worry,” the driver told him. “I know this road like I know the back end of my wheel horses. We’re all rarin’ to go.”
Mr. Caudle paused before entering the stage. “What about Indians, sir? Have they bothered the traffic along the trail this year?”
“Not yet, and please God they won’t,” the driver replied.
“I admit I’m a little nervous, since that massacre—”
“That was nigh three years ago, sir.” The driver seemed a bit disgruntled at having the safety of his bit of trail cast in doubt.
“But they shut down Fort Boise—”
“True, but there be troopers back and forth. They man the cantonment near Fort Hall every summer, and they’ve set up for the season, to make sure wagon trains get through safely. Now, let’s get aboard and head out, shall we?”
Geography wasn’t Millie’s long suit, but she knew they were still many miles from the vicinity of the old Fort Hall. She hadn’t given much thought to the Indian troubles in Idaho when she’d bought her ticket. She was in Idaho now, and she’d have to trust God and the cavalry to see her through.
They set out again with only six aboard, and the miner made no secret of his plans to leave them at the next stop. Millie sighed and leaned back against the leather-covered headrest. She’d hardly slept a wink last night. Perhaps she could catch a nap now. Though she could barely imagine sleeping with the intriguing David Stone so close, her exhaustion would surely come to her aid in that matter.
Her hope of slumber soon drifted out the open window. Although the party had become smaller, the atmosphere in the coach had not improved. Mrs. Caudle sat between Millie and her husband, and the most notable thing about her was her heavily applied scent. Millie barely had time to recognize it before her nostrils were overcome and it became a stench.
Mrs. Caudle plunged into conversation at once, introducing herself and insisting the others give their names and home towns.
Millie pasted on a smile. “I am Mrs. Evans, and I’m lately of The Dalles, but I’m traveling to Fort Laramie to visit my cousin.”
“Oh, how lovely for you, my dear,” Mrs. Caudle said, laying a moist hand on Millie’s wrist. Her cloying perfume caused Millie to swallow hard and avoid inhaling deeply. “And has Mr. Evans remained at home?”
Millie hesitated and shot a quick glance at David, but he was staring out the window.
“Mr. Evans met his demise several years ago,” Millie murmured.
“Ah, what a shame.”
Not really, Millie thought. If he hadn’t gotten himself killed when he did, he probably would have beaten her to death. Of course, she would never say such a thing to anyone. Sam knew she’d been unhappy, and he’d seen her once or twice with bruises on her face, but even her half-brother had no idea the extent of her suffering under James Evans’s hands.
“So he is at home after all,” Mrs. Caudle said sweetly. “At home with the Lord.”
Millie couldn’t respond to that. She took out her handkerchief and put it to her nose, not to cover her sorrow, but to filter the overbold perfume of her seatmate.
David said merely, “David Stone, of Eugene.” His words were few enough that his accent was not obtrusive, and no one commented on it. The others gave a bit of their background.
When the turn came to Mr. Caudle, he gave his name—Robert Caudle—and said, “I’ll let Agnes tell it.”
Mrs. Caudle chuckled. “Ah, my husband is too modest.”
Millie got the feeling this was the moment she’d waited for, and sure enough the lady continued with relish.
“Mr. Caudle is headed to Washington to help lobby for statehood. He’ll be attached to our new senator’s office. Isn’t that delightful?”
Millie and a couple of others murmured their assent.
No one seemed desperate to hear more of Mr. Caudle’s official duties or how he came by this position, but his wife held forth anyway.
David sat across from Millie, in the same corner he’d started out in at The Dalles. After a few minutes, his eyes closed, but she couldn’t tell whether or not he was sleeping. He was too genteel to snore or let his head loll to the side.
Millie leaned toward the window, hoping to catch more of the breeze. After a while, she rested her arm on the window ledge, her handkerchief clasped lightly in her fingers.
“Don’t you think that’s true?” Mrs. Caudle leaned closer and elbowed her sharply.
Millie jumped, a bit startled at the woman’s audacity. Her handkerchief flew from her fingers.
“Oh!” She tried to look out and behind the coach, but the bit of white muslin was gone on the perpetual breeze.
“What is it?” Mrs. Caudle asked, lou
der than necessary.
“It’s nothing,” Millie said. “Just my handkerchief.”
“What? You lost your handkerchief? Robert, quickly! Pound on the ceiling and tell the driver to stop.”
“Oh no,” Millie said quickly. “Please don’t. There’s no need.”
“But madam, if you lost a piece of your property,” Mr. Caudle said, leaning forward to peer at her with all the ostentation of his position, “of course we can ask the driver to stop.”
“Yes indeed,” his wife added. “Those men work for us, after all.”
By this time the three men opposite were all paying attention, though none of them spoke. David hadn’t moved, other than to open his eyes in narrow slits. As soon as Millie glanced his way, he closed them again.
“Please don’t,” she said, leaning past Mrs. Caudle to appeal to her husband, and thus getting a strong whiff of the by-now nauseating perfume. “I should be excessively embarrassed if you asked them to do that. It was nothing but a scrap of muslin, and we’re running late already. I shouldn’t like to cause another delay. Indeed, that handkerchief is not worth the trouble.”
“Hmpf.” Mr. Caudle sat back and folded his arms. “Very well then.”
Millie exhaled and closed her eyes for a moment, relieved to have averted the halt. The other men would no doubt have resented her for the rest of the journey if she’d demanded the driver and shotgun rider stop and look for her handkerchief or wait while she did so. She already knew how the driver would feel—he was bound to make up lost time and would see her as a troublemaker. And Mr. Stone? David appeared to have drifted back into slumber, but she wondered if he wasn’t very busy thinking behind those closed eyelids. Thinking bad thoughts about her.
David tried to ignore the conversation on the other side of the coach. The Caudles, while attempting to be pleasant, were anything but. He had to give Millie credit—she maintained a gracious demeanor but did not prompt the loquacious Mrs. Caudle to ramble. Alas, the woman needed no encouragement from others; she achieved it under her own steam. If only Millie were a little less polite and would tell her to be quiet.
THE Prairie DREAMS Trilogy Page 67
