The Bride's Prerogative

by Davis, Susan Page

  “I heard.”

  “He’s boarding him at the Fennel House.”

  Bill grunted. They reached a somewhat flat spot in the road, with no trees or large rocks about, and he halted the team. “I like to let them take a breather here. More uphill ahead.”

  Vashti nodded. “What would you have done if bandits jumped out from behind that rock back there?”

  He frowned and spit again. “It’s a bad place. Can’t run away from ‘em, ‘cause the road’s so steep. Can’t turn around. Reckon I’d have to stop and give ‘em what they wanted—unless you shot ‘em first.”

  She gulped. “You think I should shoot if that happens?”

  “If someone jumps out, aiming a gun at us, I’d just as soon you let off a round and didn’t wait to parley. If they’s only one or two of ‘em, that might be enough. If they’s a whole gang … well, that’s different. At a tight spot like that, it’s better to give in than get killed.” He shrugged. “Just be glad we don’t have to worry about Injuns anymore in these parts.”

  By the time they reached Silver City, every muscle in Vashti’s body ached. The passengers grinned at her as they left the coach. “Thanks, young fella,” one of them said.

  “You’re welcome.” She kept her hat on as Bill drove the coach around to where the liveryman would unharness the team.

  As she climbed down again, she heard the man say to Bill, “You’ve got a new messenger.”

  “That’s right.” Bill came around to her side of the coach. “All right, George, let’s get over to the hotel.”

  Vashti quietly walked alongside Bill, carrying the small canvas bag she’d brought.

  “I generally share a room with the shotgun rider,” Bill said as they reached the steps of the Idaho Hotel.

  She paused with one foot on the bottom step. “Mr. Bane said to get a separate room.”

  “He paying for it?”

  “I reckon.”

  Bill shook his head. “He won’t want to keep doing that.”

  “Well, he was in a bind today.”

  “So this is a onetime thing for you?”

  She raised her chin and met his gaze just below her hat brim. “No, sir. I want to learn to drive and do this regular, like I told you.”

  “Then you need to think about your bunking arrangements. Folks will think it’s odd if you have a separate room. And that Griff pays for it, or pays you enough for you to do it. People will think about that.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  Bill lifted his hat and scratched his head. “Don’t know. There’s a widow woman over on Placer Street. Maybe if you told her who you are, she’d let you board with her whenever you come up here.”

  “Then wouldn’t folks wonder why the widow took in a boy as her boarder?”

  “Maybe so.” Bill spit off to the side of the steps. “You got any ideas?”

  “Well, I’m not sleeping in the same room with you.” He pulled back, frowning. “Didn’t mean to suggest you should.”

  “Then let’s get in there and ask for two rooms.”

  He threw his hands in the air, managing to keep hold of his whip as he did so. “Fine with me, Georgie. Come on.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Griffin kept in his anger all the way to the hotel. What right did this upstart boy have to tell him what he was and wasn’t going to do? Evelyn had sent him here to get straightened out. Well, Griffin didn’t know much about parenting, and he’d be the first to admit it. But he knew about hard work. Hard labor had made a man of him, and he figured it could do the same for Justin. But what if the boy wouldn’t work? He couldn’t force him to do it.

  He had a mind to wire Evelyn and tell her he was sending the boy back. But that wouldn’t solve any of the problems that had traveled across the country with his nephew. He’d have to give it some thought. Calm down, that was it. Keep from getting mad and saying things he’d regret later.

  “When did you eat last?” he asked as he pushed open the door to the Pacifica Hotel.

  “I had breakfast.”

  “Breakfast? What about dinner?”

  Justin shrugged. “Some folks bought dinner where we stopped last.”

  “What? You didn’t have any money?” Griffin eyed him closely. The boy shrugged and squinted his eyes.

  “Well, we’re going to have us a whopping big supper, I’ll tell you that.” Griffin tromped to the desk. “We’d like a room, my nephew and me.”

  “Yes, sir.” The clerk turned the guest registry toward him. “Sign here, please. That’ll be a dollar.”

  “Thank you. And we’d like supper as soon as possible.”

  “Our dining room opens at four thirty for early diners.”

  “Can’t get nothing now?”

  “No, sir. Unless you go into the bar, but your nephew looks a bit young for that. If the marshal came along while you were in there, I couldn’t guarantee you wouldn’t face charges.”

  Griffin looked over at Justin. “How old are you?”

  Justin hesitated. “Seventeen?”

  “I doubt it.”

  The boy hung his head and muttered, “Fifteen and a half.”

  “Right. We’ll go down the street and find a place where we can get something to tide us over till supper. Let’s go put our kit in the room first.”

  They found a boardinghouse down the street, and the proprietor was willing to heat up some leftovers for them. A bowl of beef stew and a brace of biscuits went down quickly. Griffin considered ordering a refill, but decided it would benefit the boy more to have a small meal now and another later, rather than to stuff himself.

  “How about apple pandowdy?” the woman who had served them asked.

  “Surely.” Griffin looked over at Justin. “You could do with a dish of that, couldn’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  Griffin scowled. “That’s no way to answer. You say, ‘Yes, sir.’ “

  “All right, yes, sir. I’d like coffee with it, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Shouldn’t boys drink milk? Griff tried to remember back when he was fifteen on the farm. He’d drunk a lot of milk. But somewhere in there, he’d started drinking coffee with his father, too. “All right.” He looked up at the woman. “Another cup of coffee, please.”

  When she’d gone, Justin said, “How far is it to Fergus?”

  “About forty miles. We’ll get there tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Ma said you’ve got a smithy and a livery stable.”

  “Yes, and this past year I’ve been running the branch line for the stagecoach company. Guess I didn’t tell your mother about that.” He ought to write to Evelyn more often, but he seldom had time to sit down and craft a letter.

  Justin’s chin came up a notch. “Are you rich?”

  Griffin laughed heartily. “That’s a good one, son.”

  The boy’s face clouded. “You’re not my pa. In case you didn’t hear, my pa’s dead.”

  “Yes, I heard. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Well, just so’s you know, I don’t plan to be your boy.”

  Griffin studied him for a long moment. About the time he’d decided silence was the prudent thing, the woman came back with their dessert and coffee.

  Maybe he was doing his nephew a disservice by feeding him. Maybe he’d ought to invoke that Scripture verse Pastor Benton mentioned a few weeks back—the one about people who didn’t work not eating. He’d give that some thought.

  “I’ve got a few errands to do before supper.” He lifted his thick china mug and sipped the coffee. It was much better than what he’d gotten at the depot. And better than what he made in the old tin pot he kept on the shelf near the forge. His always tasted a little burnt.

  “I can amuse myself while you’re at it,” Justin said.

  That didn’t seem right in Griff’s mind. He recalled Evelyn’s words about the boy getting in with the wrong friends. “He comes and goes as he pleases. I don’t like to mention it, but I fear he stole some
money from my reticule last week. Not only that, but he’s taken up smoking. “

  Just recalling those lines made Griff’s nose wrinkle. He hadn’t smelled any tobacco on the boy, but then, Justin wouldn’t likely smoke on the stagecoach with other passengers present. And he appeared to have arrived broke. But if he wasn’t above stealing, he might get himself into trouble if Griff turned him loose in Boise. Yep, a young fellow like Justin could find a heap of trouble in this half-grown, half-tamed town.

  “You stay with me.” He took a gulp of coffee.

  “What?” The boy obviously took the command as an insult.

  “I said, you come around with me. See what I do. I’m going to do a little livestock shopping. We could use an extra team of six, and I need another riding horse or two for the livery trade. After that, I’ll go around to the Wells Fargo office again and see if the division agent is back. I need to talk to him about some stagecoach business.”

  “I don’t want to stand around while you do all that.”

  “What would you do?”

  The line of Justin’s mouth hardened. “Explore.”

  “Oh yes, I can just envision that. You stay with me.” Griff took another sip.

  Justin cautiously slurped his coffee. He didn’t make a face or ask for sugar. Maybe he’d been drinking coffee for a while, though Griff couldn’t imagine Evelyn allowing it. Of course, he had no idea how Jacob Frye had raised his children; didn’t know Jacob at all, for that matter. Griff tackled his apple pandowdy.

  “Your pa let you drink coffee all the time?” he asked when he’d scraped out the last bite.

  “Nope.”

  Griff drained his cup and pushed his chair back. “Come on. Let’s get over to the stockyard.”

  The ride down from Silver City went twice as fast as the long pull uphill had gone. Vashti clung to the edge of the seat at least two-thirds of the way. Sometimes Bill drove faster than she’d have thought prudent, but on some of the slopes, it would be impossible to make the mules walk. By the time the road flattened out some, her hands ached from gripping the seat and the shotgun. Despite the warm sunshine, she could feel the tang of winter in the mountain breeze.

  “Hey, young George, you done all right this trip,” Bill said with a lopsided grin.

  “How long till we get home?”

  “Another hour.”

  Vashti nodded. They had no passengers on the return trip, but the heavy treasure box was always on her mind. That cargo had to make it safely to Fergus, and someone else would take it on to Boise.

  “Think Mr. Bane will let me do it again?”

  “No idea. But if he asks me, I’ll tell him you did good.”

  “Thanks.” She lifted her hat and let the sun shine on her head for a moment. It was warmer down here than it had been up at Silver. She shot a glance at Bill. “What are you laughing about?”

  “Don’t ever do that when there’s men about. No way they’d think you was a boy when they saw that pile of red hair.”

  “My hair is not red,” she said with precision and dignity.

  “That right?”

  “It’s auburn.”

  “Ha.” Bill drove on for a bit, still smiling. “How’d you come to be with Bitsy, anyhow?”

  Vashti hesitated. No one in Fergus knew her story. Not even Bitsy and Goldie, her two closest friends.

  After about half a minute, Bill looked over at her. “You don’t need to tell me. I just thought … well, you know. You could have gotten some other job besides working in saloons.”

  “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “That’s right, I don’t.”

  Her joy in the sunlight, the breeze, the trotting mules, and the creaking coach crumbled. Her stomach began to ache. They came to another steep hill, and Bill let the mules extend their trot but kept the reins taut so they wouldn’t break into a run and go out of control. Vashti clapped her hat on. They flew down the grade, with her clenching the edge of the seat once more and bracing with her feet.

  When they slowed to a businesslike trot, she said, “My folks died when I was eleven.”

  “Didn’t know that.”

  She nodded.

  “Didn’t you have no kin?”

  “I did.” She didn’t like thinking about those times. For a good many years, she’d tried to forget.

  “Guess they didn’t treat you right.”

  “Something like that.”

  They rode in silence for another mile.

  “We’re almost to town.” Bill leaned down and reached under the seat for his horn.

  “Is this where I plug my ears?”

  “You’d better not. If you do, it’ll mean you’re not holding on to that shotgun.”

  Up ahead, she glimpsed the roofline of the Spur & Saddle. Beyond it, the steeple of the new church pierced the achingly blue sky. Bill put the horn to his lips.

  She’d have to go back to see Libby at the emporium. Next time, she’d have some cotton wool in her pocket to stuff in her ears when they approached a stop.

  The mules broke into a canter as the blast of the horn rang out. They charged into town in a flurry of dust. Vashti wished Griffin could see them, but he wasn’t due back for another four hours at least.

  “How we going to open the safe?” She turned to Bill, but he didn’t seem flustered.

  “Miz Adams says we can put it in hers until Griff gets back.”

  “Oh.” Vashti looked ahead to where they would stop and unload the strongbox. There on the boardwalk in front of the Wells Fargo office and stretching up the street before the emporium almost as far as the post office, waving and calling congratulations, stood the members of the Ladies’ Shooting Club of Fergus.

  “I thought we were going to take the stage to Fergus.” Justin scowled as he eyed the mule his uncle expected him to mount.

  Just like a kid. They wanted change and excitement, but when it came along as someone else’s idea, they balked. Speaking of mules …

  “We were. But I need this string, so I bought it, and I don’t know another way to get ‘em home. So get in the saddle and let’s move.”

  The boy had no idea that he had it easy. Griffin rode the one horse he’d purchased—he’d considered letting Justin take it, but if anything went wrong, he had to be able to get around quickly. Besides, this was the horse he’d chosen for Hiram to give his bride as a wedding present. The ten-year-old palomino gelding looked flashy, but he was settled and well behaved. Libby could handle him with no problems.

  Griffin would ride the palomino and lead along the string of three more mules he’d bought. Six new mules would have been better, but he’d settle for four. These looked healthy and strong, and the seller had guaranteed they’d pull a coach. Griffin had already strapped Justin’s satchel to one of them and his own small pack to another. The sun was up, and the day was a-wasting.

  “Come on,” Griffin said. “Mount up.”

  Justin held the mule’s reins and turned to face the saddle. He wiggled this way and that and finally raised his left foot to the stirrup. Griffin almost called out to him but held back. Was the boy really as green as he seemed? He’d lived in the city. Maybe he hadn’t ridden much.

  When he landed in the saddle with a thud, the mule stood still and blew out a breath as though resigned to a tedious day. Justin stared down at the reins in his hand as if he knew something wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t pinpoint the problem. He separated the reins and put one in his right hand.

  Griffin adjusted his hat and said as calmly as he could, “You need to get the off rein on the off side. Lean forward and run it under his neck. Grab it with your other hand.”

  Justin sat still for a moment, like an equestrian statue, but Griffin had never seen a general cast in bronze on a mule before.

  After a good half minute, Justin leaned forward along the mule’s neck and fumbled with the lines under the animal’s throat latch. It was all Griffin could do not to ride over, grab one rein, and pass it to th
e correct side. Instead he looked toward the distant hills. He counted silently to ten and then looked back. Justin had dropped the off rein and now leaned over the mule’s withers to the right, groping for it. But in doing that, he pulled the mule’s head around to the left without meaning to.

  “Let up on the near rein,” Griffin said.

  Justin looked over at him.

  “I said, let him have some slack.”

  Justin dropped the other rein.

  Griffin sighed. “Good thing that’s not a fresh horse, or he’d be halfway to Nampa, and you’d be eating dust.” He walked his new horse over, and the other three mules went with him. He angled the horse so that he could get close to Justin’s mule without jostling it. With a swoop of his long arm, he caught the near rein and held it up for the boy. “Hold on to that loosely, and bend over the other side and get the off rein.”

  Finally Justin had both reins again, one on each side of the mule’s neck.

  “All right, let’s move.” Griffin headed his horse toward the road. He looked over his shoulder to make certain Justin followed.

  Although the boy continued to hold the reins so slack they looped down below the mule’s neck, the mule seemed content to fall in with the others and keep pace. It was going to be a lengthy process to teach his nephew to ride well—but the owner of a livery stable couldn’t allow his kin to be so ignorant about animals. Of course, if Justin couldn’t stay in the saddle without a struggle, he’d be unlikely to ride off and get himself into trouble. Perhaps there were advantages to not teaching him to ride.

  The boy’s sour expression stayed in place for the first mile or two. Griff ignored it and set a steady pace, jogging along. It was as good as he could expect when leading three mules. Justin kept his seat, though he jarred up and down in the saddle. That boy was going to be sore come tomorrow.

  Finally Griffin called out, “The trail gets narrow up ahead. You go ahead of me.”

  Justin looked ahead and then back to him. “What if there’s outlaws in those rocks?”

  Griffin patted his sidearm. Since he’d ridden to Boise on the stage, he hadn’t packed a long gun, but he had worn his pistol. He’d had the same thought as Justin, but he wasn’t about to tell the boy that.