The Journey of Josephine Cain

by Nancy Moser

  Beggars can’t be choosers.

  He drew her to standing and pulled her into an embrace.

  “Ahem,” Frieda said from the doorway.

  Josephine ran to her. “Look! We are betrothed!”

  Frieda gave the ring a good looking-at, then said, “What do your parents say?”

  “I haven’t—”

  Lewis intervened. “I asked General Cain for permission when we were out west, and he gave it. Mrs. Cain gave her approval even before the trip.”

  Frieda’s eyebrow rose, and she seemed only partially satisfied.

  “You arranged all that?” Josephine asked him.

  “I did. For I knew early on you were the one for me.” He kissed her hand.

  Josephine linked her arm through his. “So you see, Frieda, it is not a complete surprise—to anyone,” Josephine said. “You have heard us speak of the possibilities, right here in this room.”

  “I suppose.” Frieda took up her usual position in Aunt’s chair near the fire and opened a book.

  Josephine drew Lewis back to the sofa. “Where will we live after we’re married?”

  Whatever your dowry will buy. “I don’t really know.”

  She shook her head, making her earrings bobble. “It doesn’t matter. I will live anywhere with you.”

  He kissed her hand. “And I you.”

  “I simply pray we will be blessed with love, prosperity, and many children,” she said.

  Children? He didn’t want children.

  But prosperity sounded good.

  After Lewis left, Frieda held Josephine’s left hand under the firelight in the bedroom. “It’s quite a large emerald,” she said.

  “Very large. And the setting is both delicate and intricate. I couldn’t be happier with it. Besides, it was his grandmother’s. In my eyes, that makes it perfect.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Frieda pulled Josephine into her arms. “Congratulations, Liebchen.” She shook her head, looking at Josephine from top to bottom. “I can’t believe it. You’re all grown up. And engaged. Where did the time go?”

  Josephine sighed. “It has been a wonderful birthday,” she said, as she removed her amber earrings.

  “Now, to tell your mother and aunt.”

  She froze. “Not tonight.”

  “Pish-posh. You’re not going to bed without telling them.”

  “But they are sleeping. And Mother is unwell.”

  “You will be unwell if your mother discovers you accepted Mr. Simmons’s proposal tonight and didn’t tell her. Besides, she apparently gave her permission already, so she’ll be pleased. Go on now. You can tell your aunt tomorrow.”

  Josephine handed Frieda the earrings and walked toward her mother’s room. Why was she so reluctant to tell her the good news?

  Because I don’t want her to say anything to ruin it.

  The person she really wanted to tell was Papa. She would write him a letter this very night. He would be pleased. He had been the one to introduce her to Lewis.

  Josephine reached her mother’s bedroom and put an ear to the door. There was no sound, which was not surprising. Even though Mother approved of Lewis, she would find many negative things to say: You are not marrying and leaving me alone without your father. Or, We don’t have the funds for anything lavish. Or, I hope Lewis doesn’t expect a large dowry.

  Bracing herself for the worst, she entered the room. Mother’s bed could be seen in the firelight. She was clearly sleeping.

  Leave. Just leave now.

  But as Josephine decided to do so, her mother stirred, looked toward the door, then sat up. “Josephine! You nearly scared me to death. What’s wrong?”

  It was best to just get it done. She walked toward the bed. “Lewis proposed. We are engaged.”

  To Josephine’s surprise, Mother clapped her hands together and beamed. “Finally! I thought he would never get around to it.”

  She was dumbstruck by her joy. “So you are truly pleased?”

  “Of course I am. Your father and I have exchanged many letters over it, and we agree it is a good match.”

  She held out her arms and wiggled her fingers. “Come here, girl. Let me give you a hug.”

  Josephine couldn’t remember the last time her mother had hugged her—or added a kiss for good measure.

  “Go on then,” Mother said. “Sleep if you can. We shall start making wedding plans in the morning.”

  Josephine turned toward the door. Would wonders never cease?

  “Josephine?”

  She turned back. “Yes?”

  “Happy birthday, my dear.”

  Happy birthday indeed.

  The snow fell heavy and hard outside Hudson’s room. Tomorrow there would be no work on the buildings, but plenty of work clearing the track so trains could keep coming in from the east. With the railroads temporarily providing free freight there were stockpiles of supplies all over Cheyenne. Last time there was a blizzard it had taken a hundred men ten hours to clear the track.

  Raleigh was readying for bed, tucking his long johns into his socks before getting under the freezing covers. “Get some sleep, Hud. You know the general is going to work us to death tomorrow.”

  “I will. I’m just finishing up a letter to Sarah Ann.”

  Raleigh pulled the covers up to his ears. “How long has it been since you heard from her?”

  “A little bit.” It had been three months. Since before Christmas.

  “We’ve got letters from Mum and Da since then.”

  So I can’t blame it on the mail. Actually, Hudson guessed why Sarah Ann’s letters had stopped. “She’s just mad because I didn’t come home for Christmas.”

  “Rightly so, I’d say.”

  Hudson swung around in the chair to look at him. “You agreed it was best if we stayed here and kept working.”

  “For money reasons it makes sense, but for love reasons . . . you should’ve gone home.”

  “Now you say this?”

  Raleigh turned toward the wall, adjusting the blanket over his shoulders. “Don’t blame me. You knew what you were doing. Now hush. I want to sleep.”

  Hudson returned to the letter. Dearest Sarah Ann . . .

  Raleigh was right. Hudson had known there was a risk in not going back to Pennsylvania for Christmas. But the thought of traveling all that way and entering that before world made his stomach clench. Yes, it would have been nice to see Sarah Ann, to hold her and kiss her. She was such a bitty thing that holding her close was like embracing a child.

  But having to hear his parents and his brother Ezra talk about working at the mill . . . he felt like an outsider. He’d been away fighting the war for years, and had only been home a few months before he’d heard of the opportunities on the railroad. Allegheny wasn’t home to him anymore. It held his childhood memories, but when he thought about the future he found it hard picturing himself there. The mills were a job, not a life.

  He looked outside at the huge wet flakes flying by the window. His thoughts of the future were out there. Probably not in Cheyenne, but somewhere in the west that was to come. There was something exhilarating about the newness of the plains. Not that they were new, but until now only Indians had lived here, only fur trappers had tapped in to their potential. But both of them were transient sorts, and even the wagon trains were just traveling through. To stay put, to have this be his destination, not just his route to somewhere else . . .

  It was easy for the idea to consume him, and so he finished his letter to Sarah Ann, sending it eastward.

  Into his past.

  Josephine turned over in bed. Again.

  Realizing her eyes were wide open, she sat up. “This is ridiculous.”

  She rearranged her pillows, creating a comfortable throne. She drew her covers ’round and plopped her arms on top. “There,” she said. “Now figure it out so you can get some sleep.”

  Figure what out?

  Problems? Worries? She had neither. She was a happily engag
ed woman.

  Yet her sudden sigh spoke volumes she didn’t want to hear.

  There was a tap on her door, and Frieda stuck her head inside. “You’re not asleep.”

  Josephine shook her head.

  Frieda pulled a chair over to the side of the bed. “Tell me.”

  Right to the point. “Marriage is the next step. I am grown now. It is time I marry.”

  “So you’ve become betrothed because it’s ‘time’?”

  Not exactly. “I became betrothed because . . .” Because I was asked by a man who has done nothing to make me not love him, a man my parents approve of. How could I refuse? “It is time I am a wife and start my own family. It is time I have my own house, and get out of this—”

  “Yes?”

  “Get out of this house for good.”

  “And?”

  “Get away from Mother and Aunt Bernice.”

  “There you go. The truth is always best.”

  Josephine looked toward the window. A branch tapped lightly on the pane. “With Papa away, I still feel trapped here.”

  “If he were home, would you be so eager to marry Lewis?”

  Josephine pursed her lips, not liking the answer that came to her. “But all my friends are getting married—or have married. It is my turn.”

  “So it is a contest?”

  “Of course not. But I have dreamed of my wedding all my life.”

  “So it is the wedding you want, not the marriage.”

  “No, that is also not true.”

  Frieda looked at Josephine through her lashes. “You haven’t shared the most important reason for marrying Lewis.”

  Josephine hesitated. “I do love him.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Frieda moved to the bed, pulling her into an embrace. “Oh Liebchen. Having doubts is natural. Every big decision comes with doubts clinging to its side.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Frieda tucked her in. “Now go to sleep. Tomorrow is a fresh day.”

  Josephine liked the sound of that.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lewis walked through the cold with his shoulders raised to his ears. He was weary from working at the butcher shop every day then rushing over to spend time with Josephine. The trouble was, he couldn’t ask her for sympathy. He’d told her he was working on some drawings for Mr. Wilson, which was hardly physically exhausting work.

  If only it were true. Since the Wilson dinner party, he’d repeatedly approached the man but had been told they’d hired another artist to do their illustrations.

  No one shut the door on Lewis Simmons. Not without consequence.

  “Simmons? Is that you?”

  He turned around and was shocked to see the photographer from the meridian trip. He shook his hand. “Rosewood. How are you?”

  “Very fine actually. Come into my studio and tell me what you’ve been up to.”

  Only then did Lewis see that he’d walked past a new shop. Two men were inside, painting the name “Rosewood Photography Studio” on the windows in gold letters. Very impressive.

  Inside was a photo-taking area complete with intricate, painted backdrops and props such as velvet settees and potted ferns upon Corinthian pedestals. The opposite wall was a gallery of very small photographs, two-and-a-half inches by four. Lewis moved forward for a better look.

  “These are wonderful. You got some good ones of the Indians.”

  “I’d love to get more, but I’m kept busy here—busy enough to open this larger studio. The small carte de visites are all the vogue here and in Europe. Queen Victoria is quite a collector.”

  Lewis had never heard of them.

  Rosewood explained. “Visiting cards. Instead of leaving calling cards, some of the upper crust like leaving these small photographs of themselves.”

  He’d seen such photographs of Josephine’s brother and cousin in the Cain parlor.

  “They’re also small enough to send through the mail.” He pointed at the studio area. “I’m getting a steady traffic of people wanting to see pictures of the West, or wanting me to take their own photographs. As you probably know, people are vain.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  Rosewood chuckled. Then he froze a moment and peered at Lewis. “Are you going out west again?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Because if you were, I could teach you the photographic process, and you could be my legs out there, taking photos, selling them on the spot, and sending plates back to me.”

  “So you can develop the plates away from a studio?”

  “I’d set you up with a traveling darkroom.”

  It was intriguing. Ambition collided with his plan to marry Josephine. Yet, perhaps the two could be melded. The West . . . He would need a new place to settle himself after he carried out his revenge on the general, abandoning the man’s daughter and humiliating the Cain family. Or—what if he could hurry up the plan? “How much would I make?”

  Rosewood clapped him on the back. “Now we’re talking.”

  “You are doing what?”

  Lewis took a step back. “I’m going out west to take photographs.”

  Even after he’d repeated himself, Josephine couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Since when are you a photographer?”

  “Since I crossed paths with Sam Rosewood, the photographer I met on the meridian trip. That’s why I’m late coming over here. He was teaching me how to do it.”

  She remembered the man. Vaguely. “You are leaving me here for weeks? Alone?”

  “Actually, I’m going to be gone for quite a while.”

  “Meaning . . . ?”

  “Perhaps a few months.”

  This was getting worse.

  She took her own step back, needing space between them. “What about our wedding plans? And setting a wedding date?”

  He grinned and pulled her close, a hand at the small of her back. “How about today?”

  She pushed free of him. “Today.”

  “Then you could go with me.” He paused, then said, “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  Josephine threw her hands in the air. “Tomorrow? You come here to say you’re going off to my father’s railroad project for a few months, and you’re leaving tomorrow?” She let her hands come to rest on her hips. “This is not the way it’s supposed to work, Lewis. We are engaged. We are planning a life together. To-geth-er.”

  “Yes, we are, and we’ll fulfill that plan, we can fulfill it by marrying today.”

  Suddenly, the absurdity of the idea transformed into something palatable. The solution came as a flash, but she was quick and didn’t let it pass without her catching it. “I know the answer to all of this. We will not hurry the wedding, but I shall come with you.”

  The words hung in the air. Outrageous words. Rousing words.

  Yet Lewis looked anything but roused, which made her wonder whether he really wanted her along at all.

  She slipped her hand around his arm. “I belong wherever you are.”

  He just stood there, his face blank, as if his thoughts were requiring all his attention.

  “Come now, Lewis. It will be wonderful. There is nothing I would like better than to see Papa. Besides, I’m curious about the railroad’s progress and how they are going to cross the mountains in Wyoming. I have never seen proper mountains.”

  A face beyond Lewis’s and Papa’s flitted through her thoughts. One she had very purposefully nudged aside since last October.

  She shoved it aside once again.

  “Telegraph your father,” Lewis said with a sigh. “Tell him the two of us are coming. And Mrs. Schultz again, I suppose.”

  “Tell him?” She was close to Papa, but even she knew better than to tell him something.

  “Ask him, using all the pretty words of a loving daughter. Tell him you miss him and—”

  She raised a hand, stopping his words. “I know what to say.” Then she looked toward th
e stairs—toward her other hurdle. “Mother will never agree.”

  “You are an adult. You do not need her permission.”

  “She has been feeling better lately. I’m not sure I could leave her if she were sick.”

  Lewis took her hand and strode toward the door. “Let’s go to the telegraph office. Contact your father first.”

  “But you were leaving tomorrow.”

  “I shall postpone my departure.” He held her cape. “I shall wait for you.”

  “If Papa says yes.”

  “He will say yes. He wants to see you as much as you want to see him.”

  Josephine could only hope that were true, as the anticipation building in her chest was the first she’d felt in months.

  Hudson stood in the Cheyenne railway office, waiting for further instructions from General Cain, who was busy going over a map with one of the surveyors. The general glanced up, acknowledged Hudson with a nod, then looked back at the map.

  Hudson didn’t mind the wait. He had good news to report about a shipment of ties. They’d be ready to begin laying track soon. Although it was backbreaking work, he enjoyed seeing the constant progress, the knowing that what he was doing was vital to one of America’s dreams. To his dream.

  He trembled at the notion that he was a part of something so important. No one would ever remember his name, and history would go on without notice of him, but the people he was working for—General Cain, Thomas Durant, Samuel Reed, General Dodge—these were men that history would embrace. To think that he talked to these men, followed these men, worked with these men . . . that was a fact no one could take away from him.

  “Excuse me, General? This just came for you.” The telegraph operator sidestepped around Hudson and handed him a note.

  The general read it, shook his head no, then said, “Well . . . why not?” He turned to the operator. “Write back, ‘I miss you too. Travel with Lewis and Frieda at your convenience.’”

  Lewis? Lewis Simmons? Was the note from the general’s daughter?

  As the operator left to send the message, the general chuckled to himself. “She is a spirited thing.”

  The surveyor said, “Sir?”