“You may kiss the bride!” the minister said. Angus looked at her a bit awkwardly before leaning forward and giving her a light peck on the cheek and withdrawing. She blushed as she stood there looking at her new husband. There was no going back now. She was officially Mrs. Angus McCord.
“Thank you, Brother Anderson,” Angus said to the minister before turning back to her. “Ready to go home, Mrs. McCord?” He smiled.
“I am, Mr. McCord,” she replied, still feeling a bit jittery.
“Let’s get going, then,” he replied.
All the way back to the farm, Margaret wondered if he would expect relations with her immediately. She was now his wife, but he still felt like a stranger to her. It seemed wrong to be so personal with someone she didn’t know. She felt relieved when they reached the farm and he showed no inclination toward rushing into such things.
“Let’s change and go out to the fields. We have a lot to do before the weather comes in tonight,” he told her.
“Okay,” she replied, hurrying upstairs to get into a work dress.
Angus went out to the shed where he had been staying so that he could get changed and then met her in the field a few minutes later. He quickly showed her what needed to be done and then left her to work her part of the fields. It was hard. The sun beat down on her as she tried to make quick work of what she had been asked to do. Instead, it was an all-day toil, stopping only for a brief lunch of salted pork sandwiches she had managed to put together from the meager contents of Angus’s kitchen.
The work didn’t just end once the fields were tended, either. By the early afternoon, the kitchen was heavily laden with a variety of fresh vegetables that she would have to tend to rather quickly so they didn’t spoil. She had no experience with canning or drying vegetables, so Angus was going to have to help her with the finer points of storage. Margaret marveled at having a man teach her how to do women’s work, but that was certainly the case here.
Outside, Angus continued working to get the acres of corn they had been pulling put away in the bins that lined a back portion of the field. It would be safe from the weather there. He stopped only to eat the food she brought out and then they both returned to working in the fields as the skies began to darken much earlier than usual.
“The rain is coming in, Margaret. Let’s put everything we can into the sheds before it gets too bad,” he shouted across several rows toward her.
Margaret knew that the rain was not what worried Angus. She didn’t have to be an experienced farmer to know that some water wouldn’t hurt corn. What would hurt it was water pouring from the skies in buckets, accompanied by high winds. There would be a good chance of a tornado, but even without that, it could rip the stalks of corn right out of the ground. They had salvaged much of it, but he was still looking at a heavy crop loss if he couldn’t get the rest in before it got bad. The rain was already beginning to fall, stinging her sunburned skin as they hurried to get what they could put away.
“Margaret, get in the house. I’ll do what I can with the rest alone,” Angus shouted at her.
“No. I’m not leaving you out here alone. I’ll help,” she shouted back.
“It’s not going to safe for you,” he yelled back.
“It won’t be safe for you either, Angus. It’s just corn. We’ve done all we can!” she called out.
Angus shook his head in resignation, pushing the wheelbarrow of corn he had over toward her and adding hers to it. The wind sounded like a train as they stood there between rows of corn, the stalks whipping around and striking their skin.
“Do as I say, Margaret. Get in the house! I’ll get this to the shed and be right behind you,” he yelled.
“Okay, Angus,” she replied, quickly helping him to get all the corn moved over before staggering against the wind toward the house.
She stood watching from the porch for a bit as his shadow moved around in the rapidly descending darkness. Angus was barely visible through the heavy rain now, even though he was not really that far away. A loud crash caught her attention as she stepped inside and she ran toward the kitchen window in time to see the shed in which Angus had been staying the night before have the tin ripped from the roof. There was no sign of Angus.
The injured dog whimpered at her feet. She hadn’t even noticed that he was up and about or that he had followed her in from the front porch when she had come inside. Reaching down, she scratched his ears and continued watching out the window as the wind seemed to pick up even further. Finally, she could see Angus walking along the fence posts that stood between the house and the field beside it. He was holding onto them for dear life as the rain pelted him and the wind blew him sideways.
Margaret watched as it nearly picked him off his feet and he clutched the post to keep from being violently thrown across the yard. It showed no signs of letting up and she couldn’t think of what to do to help him. She screamed as he lost his grip and went flying sideways, his body slamming against the side of the porch beside her. Wind or no wind, she was going out there. Throwing open the door, she ran out, holding onto the porch railing as she made her way down the steps and toward the side of the porch. Angus lay crumpled in a pile there. At least the high porch protected them somewhat from the wind.
“We have to get you inside,” she yelled at him. He seemed barely conscious as he blinked up at her, blood gushing from his head where he had hit it on the porch. “Come on, Angus. Crawl!”
The two of them made their way around the edge of the porch. Margaret guided Angus’s hands upward to grip the rails as they rounded the edge and the wind once gain threatened to pull them away. The porch was rattling and Margaret became afraid it would tear loose and take them both with it as they tried to get inside, but it held and they managed to crawl up the steps and into the wide open back door as the dog barked at them. Margaret helped Angus to a nearby chair and quickly closed the door before grabbing a cloth and dampening it to clean up the blood running down his face and see how badly he was injured.
“It’s not so bad,” he mumbled.
“I’ll be the judge of that!” she told him, cleaning the wound.
Fortunately, he was right. It seemed that it was fairly superficial, but the bleeding continued for quite a while before she could get it to stop. Outside, the storm continued to grow, the wind picking up everything not nailed down and dragging it along as it passed.
“We have to get to the cellar,” Angus told her.
Margaret nodded and they headed toward the hatch that led to a set of narrow stairs leading to a large area beneath the house he had shown her yesterday. The dog ran through just as Angus was about to close the door. Angus hobbled around, lighting a lantern that he kept there and grabbing some blankets from a nearby shelf. Though it was warm outside, they were still chilled in their wet clothes in the cooler area below.
“You’ve hurt your leg,” Margaret observed.
“It’s okay, Margaret. Probably just bruised from hitting the porch,” he told her.
“I hope so,” she replied.
“Well, if I’ve gone lame, you could always put me down like a horse,” he replied.
“That is not funny, Angus,” she said, smiling despite herself.
“Then why are you smiling?” he asked. “I know you couldn’t put me down, anyway. You couldn’t even let that worthless dog there be put down.”
“Look at him, Angus. He is going to be fine. He just needed someone to care about him,” she replied.
“Don’t we all,” he said, looking at her thoughtfully.
Margaret’s smile broadened as she returned his gaze. As husbands went, she had the feeling that Angus McCord might be the smartest choice she could have made, even if she had taken a shot in the dark. Her smile quickly faded as she thought of her secret. She should tell him. She knew that, but not today, maybe not ever.
Chapter Four
The stormed had waged throughout the night. As it grew later last night, they spread out their blankets on t
he dirt floor and lay down to sleep. Angus slept near Margaret, but didn’t offer to touch her. She tossed and turned with the dog at her feet until sometime early the next morning when she awoke to the sounds of someone beating on the door upstairs. Jumping up, she ran up the stairs and through the house to look out the window. There was a strange girl standing there, looking badly shaken.
“Ma’am? Can you help me? Ma’am?” the girl called out through the door.
Margaret pulled it open and stared in amazement past the girl at all of the trees that had been uprooted and lay on the ground. Debris were scattered everywhere.
“What’s wrong?” Margaret asked.
“It’s my pa. He’s stuck under a tree. I can’t get him out,” the girl told her.
“Let’s go,” came Angus’s voice from behind her.
He and Margaret ran out, following the girl along the road to where a wagon sat, completely demolished beneath a tree. A man lay beside it, his leg trapped beneath a fallen tree. Margaret could see that the leg was not only broken, but crushed. It would be useless to him, even if he made it through this.
“Get to town and bring the doctor out here. See if you can find some men to help us while you are there. Tell them to come quickly and to bring a wagon,” Angus told the girl. She immediately ran down the road in the direction of town.
“I found a post, Angus. Maybe we can get some leverage and get this off his leg,” Margaret told him, dragging over a small fence post that had been dislodged from somewhere.
“I don’t know, Margaret, but we will try it,” he said, motioning for her to come around to his side.
They wedged the post into the mud beneath the tree and began trying to pry it upward. It moved just a little, but not enough to free him. He remained unconscious, making Margaret wonder if his injuries weren’t far more extensive. After several more tries, Angus shook his head.
“Let’s see if he has anything else we need to tend to,” Margaret said as they waited for help to arrive. Checking him over, she couldn’t find anything else that seemed to be wrong other than some cuts and bruises. He began to come around as she knelt beside him.
“I hope you are the angel of mercy,” he croaked, wincing in pain as he spoke.
“I am not, but we are going to get you out of here. I’m Margaret and this is my husband, Angus,” she told him. It felt somehow both weird and natural to say that. The man’s eyes refocused on Angus for a moment before closing, pain obviously taking hold of him.
“My leg, it’s broken, isn’t it?” he moaned.
“Yes. I’m afraid so,” Angus replied.
“Badly?” he asked.
“Yes,” Angus told him.
“There was a girl with me. My daughter. Where is she?” the man asked in a panicked voice, trying to look around.
“Your daughter is fine. She came to get us this morning and now she has gone to town to get some help for us to get you out of here,” Margaret told him.
“She’s a good girl. Don’t let anything happen to her,” the man said, calming down.
“Nothing is going to happen to her or you, for that matter. We are going to get you out from under this tree and let the doctor tend to you,” Margaret told him.
A good bit of the morning was spent waiting for help to arrive. Once it did, things moved fast with several men pulling the tree up enough to get the man out from under it. They quickly had him back on the wagon and were headed back to town with him and his daughter. The doctor had been unable to come due to other injuries piling in, but would tend to him once he got there.
Walking back to the farm, Margaret and Angus looked around. They had left in such a hurry at dawn that they hadn’t been able to see what it looked like. In addition to the trees that had been uprooted, there were farm utensils everywhere, some theirs and some that had blown in from who knew where. Other than the missing tin from the shed Angus had been staying in, the other corn bins were all intact. At least their work at getting the crops in was not in vain.
“Welcome to Montana,” Angus told Margaret. “I guess this is a far cry from your life in London or New York, isn’t it?”
“Just a bit,” Margaret admitted.
“I’m glad you are here,” he said simply, heading into the house with her and the dog following behind.
“I am too, oddly enough,” she laughed. Turning toward the panting animal at her feet, she spoke to it. “Come on, Dog, and we’ll find us all something to eat.”
“You still haven’t named that thing?” Angus asked, pausing at the foot of the stairs.
“I just did,” she replied.
“What did you decide?” he asked.
“Dog,” she replied.
“That is his name? Dog? Just Dog?” Angus laughed.
“Yes. I think he and I will enjoy a simple life here together, so we are just going to give him a name which suits that idea,” she said.
“Dog,” Angus said with a laugh, climbing the stairs. She could still hear him chuckling as he reached the top.
Margaret made her way to the kitchen, feeding Dog a few scraps she found. She felt dirty, having spent yesterday in the fields, last night in the cellar and this morning digging a man from beneath a tree. Her dress had dried from being out in the rain, but was splattered with mud. It was getting late, thoughm and she still had so much to do. Cleaning up would have to wait. She set about making biscuits and slicing thick tomatoes to go with them. It wasn’t something she would have eaten back home in England, but some of her American friends in New York had taught her to make them and shown her how incredible they were with fresh tomatoes.
She could hear Angus coming back down the steps and doing something downstairs. When he walked into the kitchen, he was cleaned up and wearing dry clothes. He sat a metal bucket of water down on the stove to heat up and joined her at the table, taking only a few minutes to down his food.
“I’m sorry to rush through such good tasting food, Margaret, but there is a lot to be done. I brought in some water for you to use so you can get cleaned up and change. I put some on the stove to heat up for you. I didn’t figure you wanted to use it cold like I usually do. I’m going to get started on cleaning up outside.
“Do you need me to help you?” she asked.
“No. I’ll get it done. I’ll let you get started on making what you will of this house,” he told her.
“Very well, Angus,” she said, feeling a little disappointed. It wasn’t that she wanted to clean up the yard, but she found that she was going to miss having him by her side. At the same time, she was excited to get started making something of their home.
Both she and Angus worked well into the evening to get things done. It was getting very dark outside when he finally came in and sat down, looking exhausted. Margaret noticed that the bandage on his arm was soaked through with blood and caked with mud. She brought in some fresh strips of cloth and a wet cloth to clean it up and wrap it again.
“I’m not used to having someone fuss over me like this,” he commented.
“Perhaps you should get used to it then,” she told him. “Did you get a lot done outside?”
“Not enough. There issubstantial damage out there and loads of stuff that blew in from somewhere else. I’ve just stacked all the things that aren’t ours out in front by the road. Perhaps the owners will see it on their way into town or something and retrieve it.”
“Are we missing anything?”
“A few small things, but nothing too hard to replace. Thank God for that.”
“I’ll bring you a bowl of soup and we can just eat in here if that is okay. No need to be so formal with eating at the table when it is just the two of us.”
“You’ll get no argument from me. The house looks so much cleaner already, by the way. Thank you for working so hard on it while I was outside.”
“It will look like a woman lives here in no time,” she said.
Both she and Angus laughed as she returned to the kitchen to prepare a bowl of
soup for him and herself, tucking a few crusts of bread that were left from where he had made it along top. They settled into their meal wordlessly, content to just eat and enjoy the peace and quiet that followed a day of hard work. Before they knew it, bedtime had rolled around and once again, Margaret found herself feeling awkward at the idea of sleeping in the same bed as a man she hardly knew. Then again, there was a part of her that was looking forward to it.
Neither of them said a word as they got ready for bed after they had finished their meals. Angus appeared as nervous about sharing his bed with her as she did. They each kept their backs turned to the other as they changed into their night clothes and climbed beneath the covers. Sleep was a long time coming for Margaret as she lay there in the darkness beside him, both hoping and dreading that he might take her for the first time. Apparently, he was just as restless, rising in the middle of the night to get out of bed and make his way downstairs.
Margaret lay in the bed staring into the blackness for a while before venturing up to see where he had gone. She was surprised to find him nowhere in the house. Dog stood looking quietly out the front window, whimpering at something he could see outside. Margaret tried to see what it was he was looking at, but could not. Finally, she stepped outside onto the porch and looked about. There was only darkness all around her, but she could hear something, a sound from behind the house and when she looked that way, she could see a large shadow looming overhead before quickly disappearing beyond the shed.
Her heart raced as she waited for it to appear again. What was it? Some sort of beast she had never heard of? It was far too large for a hawk or an eagle. She was still trying to make sense of it when she saw Angus emerge from the shed. She wondered if he had seen it too, but then wondered if perhaps she wasn’t just imagining things. Rather than making a fool of herself in front of Angus, she scurried back into the house and up the stairs, jumping into bed and pulling the covers over herself before he came back to bed.
Dragon of the Prairie Page 3
