Mona Hodgson - [Quilted Hearts 03]

by Ripples Along the Shore

  Within twenty minutes, a gangly livery hand brought the two horses to her outside the corral gate, sparing her a mucky walk through the wet manure that coated the ground.

  “Thank you.” She took the two leads from him.

  He brushed the brim of his cap and spun toward the corral. When the gate chain clinked behind her, she settled between the sorrels, one rope in each hand.

  “Mrs. Milburn?”

  Caroline looked into the friendly face of the young man she recognized from the wagon train meeting. “Good day, Mr. Hughes.”

  “Please. Call me Boney. Any friend of Anna’s is—”

  “Is a friend of yours.” She smiled. “Thank you. Boney.” There, she’d used his nickname. But she didn’t expect to ever grow accustomed to the relaxed comportment on this side of the Mississippi.

  “Mr. Cowlishaw told me of your intention to provision a wagon and go west with the company.”

  “It’s true.” Polite airs obviously didn’t concern Boney Hughes. “Did your boss also tell you what he said?”

  “Yes ma’am, he did.”

  “Well, I’m a woman who takes no to simply mean not now.” She squared her shoulders. “I still intend to go west, Mr. uh … Boney.”

  He scrubbed the shadow of a beard. “I see.”

  She swallowed a giggle. “You needn’t trouble yourself though. I won’t be making the trip this spring with your wagon train. I’ve already made other plans.”

  “No hard feelings, then?”

  She smiled. “No hard feelings.” Except when she grew frustrated with her living conditions. Still needed to work on that. Soon, she’d have a place of her own, which would help immensely.

  The young man’s marriage proposal to Anna nipped at her curiosity, tempting her to ask him about it. Unfortunately, her eastern proprieties were still intact and forbade inquiry.

  Boney dug the toe of his boot into the wet ground, then looked up at her. “I called on Miss Anna and her family this past week.”

  “Oh?”

  He nodded, bobbing his hat forward as if it were too big for his head. “She hasn’t answered my question.”

  “About your question, Mr. Boney … it didn’t seem hasty to you?” If he wasn’t willing to entertain her curiosity, he shouldn’t have brought up the subject.

  “Anna did look a bit flabbergasted, didn’t she?” He chuckled. “Her jaw dropped so suddenly that I feared she might bruise her chin.”

  “I hadn’t thought on it long, but it ain’t my nature to stew. Just don’t take me long to make up my mind about somethin’.”

  Yes, well, she’d tried throwing caution to the wind last week. Had to hope doing so turned out better for this likable fellow. And for Anna.

  Less than an hour later, Caroline and Jewell had the horses harnessed to the wagon and were on their way to Mrs. Brantenberg’s farm. Mary squirmed on the front seat beside her mother while Caroline sat in the back with Anna.

  Anna leaned forward, her shawl fluttering in the light breeze. “Did you tell your sister?”

  Turning slightly, Jewell glanced over her shoulder. “Tell me what?”

  “I didn’t say anything.” Caroline looked at Jewell. “Didn’t feel it was my place.”

  “Do you remember the boy named Robert Hughes … Boney?” Anna asked.

  Jewell nodded. “He lived with his aunt and uncle over the old cobbler’s shop.”

  “Yes.” Anna leaned forward. “He’s back in town. I saw him at the Boone’s Lick Wagon Train Company meeting last week. And … he up and asked me to marry him.”

  “He what?” Jewell’s voice rose an octave, causing them all to giggle.

  “After the meeting, Boney proposed marriage.”

  “He had a reputation for being a tease. You’re sure he wasn’t pulling your leg?”

  “I was there. He seemed plenty serious to me.” Caroline looked at Anna. “As a matter of fact, I saw him this morning at the livery. Mentioned he had called on you last week but had yet to receive your answer.”

  “He’s very sweet. Said I deserved to be taken care of. I told him I’d think about it.”

  “And have you?” Jewell faced the road in front of them.

  “It’s all I’ve thought about. Ruined about a dozen candles in the distraction.” Anna wrung her hands. “What would you do?”

  Caroline shook her head. “You won’t hear me tell you what to do. I’m not even listening to myself anymore.”

  Anna giggled. “What about you, Jewell? You’re married. What do you think I should do?”

  Jewell looked at the road, then back at Anna. “If you don’t know for certain it’s what you want to do, I think you best not be rushing your thinking.”

  Anna blew out a long breath. “I—”

  Mary twisted onto her knees. “I know.” Her little hands grasping the back of the seat, she peered at Anna with big green eyes. “Does he have a horse?”

  Anna startled. “I believe he does, and a wagon.”

  “Marry him then.”

  When Anna’s shoulders began to shake with laughter, Caroline could no longer hide hers behind her hand. She remembered those childhood days … when everything seemed so simple and matter-of-fact. Days when she and Jewell skipped through grassy meadows and dreamed of dressing up like lovely princesses to marry charming princes.

  Those days were gone. So were the dreams.

  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.

  Recognizing the words of Scripture that echoed in her heart, Caroline folded her hands on her lap. Show me how, Lord. Show us all how.

  Sixteen

  Saturday afternoon, Caroline was the acting shopkeeper while Mr. Heinrich went to the bank. She pulled a tin of peaches off of a high shelf behind the counter and dangled it for her customer to reach. Concern creased Oliver Rengler’s brow.

  “You shoulda let me do the climbing, ma’am.” He set the tin on the counter and steadied the ladder.

  Her knuckles white, Caroline planted her booted feet on one wrung, and then another. She didn’t wish to lose her footing. Nor did she fancy tangling the heels of her boots in her skirt with two men nearby.

  She’d counted two more steps when Oliver held his hand out to her. She gladly accepted his assistance onto the solid floor.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded, but didn’t let go. Caroline glanced at her hand in his, which looked like a teacup inside a serving bowl.

  His face tinted red and he jerked his hand to his side.

  Caroline smoothed her work apron and returned to the ledger. A lot of folks were using store credit to gather provisions for their trip west, planning to pay off their debt after they’d sold their property and belongings. The Rengler brothers were counted among those. She picked up the pencil and continued listing their supplies. Like she and Jewell, the brothers were as different as a pencil is from a hammer. Owen favored the costume of a city businessman while Oliver seemed content in sailcloth trousers.

  Oliver added a poke of tobacco to the pile they were accumulating at the end of the counter. “A lady like you, Miss Caroline, should be sipping tea in a parlor.”

  She smiled. Oliver’s flattery was different … innocent. “I like the way you think, Oliver.” A parlor in San Francisco. “But sipping tea doesn’t pay the rent.”

  “No ma’am.” Oliver chuckled. “Playin’ checkers and gulpin’ old man Heinrich’s coffee don’t neither.”

  Owen set a sack of dried beans in front of her. “Looks to me like my brother’s sweet on you, Miss Caroline.”

  Color flooded Oliver’s face again. Was he sweet on her? No. Everyone in the store was friendly, that’s all it was. He was simply being sociable.

  Oliver met his brother’s impish gaze. “That ain’t the way it is, Owen. I’m tellin’ the truth, is all.” Hooking his thumbs on the suspenders holding up his trousers, he turned to face her. “Unless you’d like that, ma’am.” His eyebrows arched, his childlike expression
sweet. “You want me to be sweet on you, Miss Caroline?”

  Her mouth went dry.

  “Wouldn’t do either of you any good, Ollie.” Owen clapped his brother on the back. “Miss Caroline is staying in Missouri.”

  Oliver sighed. “You were at that meeting about the wagons. With Hattie and Miss Anna.”

  She nodded. “I went to the meeting, but I won’t be going west.” And right now, saying so was a considerable relief. “It’s a fine offer … you being sweet on me, and if I were looking for a husband—”

  The doorbell’s jingle stopped her midsentence. She faced the door. The grandmother of five seemed intent on tracking Caroline’s every move, but Caroline couldn’t have been any happier to see the woman. “Good morning, Mrs. Kamden.”

  “Dear.” She dipped her chin. “Misters Rengler.” A smile bunched her cheeks.

  Oliver chuckled, and pointed to his brother, then to himself.

  “Mrs. Kamden.” Owen doffed his bowler. “The pleasure is ours.”

  Caroline set her pencil down and stepped out from behind the counter. “Did you need help finding something?”

  The older woman waved her gloved hand. “Ian said we’ll do our shopping next week. “We came to see you.”

  Caroline looked at the door. She didn’t see anyone waiting outside.

  Mrs. Kamden fanned herself. “I meant to say … the others are on their way.”

  “The others?”

  “Why, my son and his family, of course.”

  Of course? Caroline nodded. Somewhere along the way, she’d apparently missed an important piece of the conversation.

  Davonna Kamden waved for Caroline to return to the brothers. “You go right ahead with your business, dear. I am in no hurry.”

  While Caroline finished adding the Renglers’ goods to the ledger, she couldn’t help but entertain a puzzling question: Why would Mrs. Kamden and her family come to see her if they weren’t there to shop?

  Caroline stepped onto the cobblestone walk in front of the dry goods store. As she strolled down the hill toward her sister’s cabin, the late afternoon sun cut a swatch of light across the road in front of her. That’s how Caroline viewed the news she’d received today—a light illuminating a dark path.

  But Jewell? That’s not at all how she’d see Caroline’s opportunity.

  With supper behind them, Caroline and Jewell tucked the three children into bed while Jack lounged in the sitting room, smoking his pipe like that was all in the world there was to do.

  First, Caroline smoothed the quilt over Mary, tickling her youngest niece’s belly as she went. Her heart warmed and wrenched in the reward of joyful giggles she received. Jewell came behind her tucking the quilt in at the sides, then Caroline followed with a nose tap and a kiss. They repeated the routine with Cora. But since such silliness was far beneath Gilbert’s eight years, they settled for tucking and a kiss on the forehead.

  Jewell claimed the tradition of praying over her children every night and every morning. The only difference on this night was that Caroline knew her role in the rite would soon come to an end.

  Sighing, she added her own amen to her sister’s.

  “Sweet dreams, children.” When Jewell lifted the candle lantern off its peg near the door, Caroline glanced longingly at her own bed in the far corner. She was ready to retire, to lie in bed and think about her future, but she could no longer delay the conversation she needed to have with her sister.

  Caroline followed Jewell out of the room, clicking the door shut behind them.

  “Hot tea?” Her sister’s invitation came out on a whisper as she led the way to the kitchen.

  Caroline pulled their favorite teacups from the hooks beneath the shelf and set a ball of sassafras leaves into each of the cups. “On the porch?”

  Still holding the candle lantern, Jewell nodded and poured water from the kettle, filling the small kitchen with steam.

  Caroline wiped her damp cheeks as if the kettle were to blame for her tears. She added a pinch of sugar to her cup and then followed Jewell past the man in the wicker wheelchair and out the front door.

  The porch wasn’t anything to boast, but it did house two slat-back armchairs and afforded them a quiet reprieve. Sister time. Together. Alone.

  Another tradition Caroline would sorely miss.

  Jewell set the candle on the low railing and looked at Caroline. “You’re real quiet this evening. Have been ever since you returned from work.” She lifted her cup to her mouth and took a sip. “Did something happen at the store today?”

  Caroline rested her cup on the arm of the chair and met her sister’s gaze. The glow from the candle set at their knees was enough to illuminate Jewell’s pinched brow. Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come.

  “You’re going, aren’t you?”

  Caroline nodded, swallowing hard against the lump of emotion clogging her throat.

  Jewell looked away, her hands wrapped around the teacup, and shook her head.

  Caroline lifted her cup to her chin, letting the droplets of steam on her face mingle with the tears.

  Seventeen

  I can read English, too.”

  Seated in The Western House Inn, Garrett slid the provisions list across the table to the oldest of the three Zanzucchi boys. At age ten, Alfonzo Junior was already well into manhood. His father sat beside him while his mother and two brothers stood behind them. The family had arrived in Saint Charles that afternoon from New York. They’d journeyed by train with their Conestoga wagon disassembled on a flatcar, then across the Mississippi at the confluence of the Missouri on a paddle-wheel barge for the day-long trip upstream to Saint Charles. “Tell your father he will need to have the wagon stocked and ready to go on April 11. We’ll line up the wagons out on the River Road.”

  Junior looked at his father, then rattled off in Italian what Garrett assumed was a translation.

  “Candles, a water keg, chains, a sturdy rope, flour, rice … it’s all there.” Garrett pointed to the paper.

  Junior spoke Italian to his parents and tapped the list.

  Mr. Zanzucchi nodded, responding at several points in Italian.

  Mrs. Zanzucchi cut in with what sounded like a question.

  “Ermalinda!” Her husband shook his head, his look as stern as his voice.

  Despite that, she let fly with what sounded like a diatribe. Her hand motions as fast as her Italian, the woman studied Garrett, her lips pursed and her gaze steady.

  Garrett shrugged, waiting for his English explanation. Did she want to take a piano? A set of fine china?

  Unfortunately, Ermalinda Zanzucchi didn’t look like a woman who could be easily dissuaded.

  “Papa said we’ll be ready.” Junior folded the paper.

  Garrett pulled the roster from the chair beside him. The Boone’s Lick Wagon Train Company would be a multilingual community. So far, he had Americans, Germans, Scots, French, and now Italians. Fortunately, each group had at least one member who could communicate in English.

  Leaning forward, Mrs. Zanzucchi rolled her open hand in front of Junior, then pointed to Garrett.

  Junior’s shoulders rose and fell. “Sir, Mama wants to know if you have a wife.”

  Garrett swallowed hard. “Why would she want to know that?”

  The two younger boys giggled.

  “It’s Aunt Mia. She is traveling with us.” Junior’s dark eyebrows lifted. “She has no husband.”

  “Ah.”

  Junior fanned his fingers out in front of him like his mother had done. “So do you?”

  “Have a wife?”

  The boy nodded.

  “No. And I don’t—”

  Another outburst in Italian from the woman who apparently had no problem understanding his no but didn’t care to hear his explanation.

  Junior pointed his open hand at Garrett as his mother had. “Mama says, ‘She is a good cook, my sister Mia. Not afraid of work.’ ”

  Garrett looked at
Mrs. Zanzucchi. “Ma’am. I’m sure your sister is a fine woman.”

  Junior dutifully translated.

  She dipped her chin and pursed her lips.

  “It would not be right for me to marry anyone at this time.”

  He waited for Junior.

  Her eyes narrowed to slits.

  “I have a job to do. A difficult job.”

  Junior added hand motions in his translation this time. Garrett hoped they were convincing.

  Straightening her back, the woman rattled off Italian. Even in a foreign language, it was a universal message of Mama knows what’s best for you.

  Before Junior could translate, Garrett rested his arms on the table. He clasped his hands and looked her in the eye. “Mrs. Zanzucchi, your sister is welcome to join you on the journey, but I do not want a wife. And I have a cook.”

  Five of them, although his bet for best cook was on Boney.

  Junior was quick with his translation.

  Mrs. Zanzucchi raised her thick eyebrows. They were fully arched by the time her son finished speaking. She answered in heavily accented English. “Some men don’t-a-know what they need.”

  Choosing to ignore the remark, Garrett held the roster out to Junior. “You’ll need to read the information at the top to your parents. It is an agreement to abide by the company’s rules. If he still wishes to join the caravan, your father will need to write his name—all of your names—and then sign his name. It is an agreement to abide by the company’s rules.”

  Junior set the roster in front of his father. The boy was translating the instructions into Italian when Caroline Milburn walked into the room. Her bustled green skirts swished with each step. She drew the attention of the waitress and had a short conversation. She’d gestured toward him, then to an empty table. The waitress looked at Garrett, then led Caroline to a table in the corner.