Still, it didn’t sit right to let her go by herself. She was so little.
“I’ll just be a minute,” he promised her.
She tugged against his hold the entire time he was checking on the horses. And then once he was satisfied they were doing fine and not suffering too much from the journey, he felt a sudden emptiness about his person. Something missing. His hand was empty. Mae was gone.
“Mae!” he looked around desperately for her dark bouncy curls, her white pinafore and dress. When had she slipped away? How had he not noticed? The other passengers milling around—not many, but enough to seem like a crowd—looked at him, their eyes cautious, with maybe a trace of alarm: men in rugged Western wear, ladies in plain homespun dresses, nothing fancy. They were common, hard-working people, all tired from their journey—worn out by life, maybe.
“Have you seen my daughter?” he asked them. “She’s about knee high. Dark brown hair. Curly. White dress?” He looked into each face, repeating his question and description. Nothing. Not a single flicker of recognition. He searched behind ladies’ skirts, behind the wheels of the train...heaven forbid. Still no sign of her.
Then he remembered.
He spun toward the church tent and there she was, sprawled out in a patch of dirt with that black puppy, giggling as she scratched its tummy. The young woman knelt beside them, fingering her braid in one hand and trailing one finger through the dirt with the other. Didn’t the woman know she was getting filthy sitting there in the dirt like that? Maybe she’s a bit simple, he thought. Not everyone was blessed with great intellect. Kindness was a much more rare gift, and much more important when it came to children. He knew that perhaps more than anyone. And she looked kind to him, watching over Mae with a slight smile on her face.
Mae. She was safe.
All the pent-up tension flooded out of Jem in a rush.
She was right there. She was safe.
“Mae!” he yelled, angry now, marching toward her with quick strides that ate up the distance. He gathered steam as he drew closer. As soon as he got there, he scooped Mae up and pressed his face to hers, nose-to-nose. “Don’t you ever run off like that again.” He knew better than to yell at her up close, so he used his very quiet, this-is-very-serious voice. Urgent. Maybe a tad desperate.
Her face crumpled. “Daddy.”
The young woman was staring at them, concerned. She gathered the puppy in her arms, but almost immediately had to set it down because it started to squirm and twist, not unlike his two-year-old daughter did when she wanted to get down.
Jem settled Mae on his shoulder, safe and sound, as far off the ground as he could get her. Feeling the eyes of the passengers behind him and the men outside the tent on him, he felt his face heat. He could be excused for yelling across the street, he told himself. Any father or mother would understand.
The young woman smiled hesitantly at him, or maybe more at Mae. He couldn’t tell which.
“Thanks for looking after her,” he told her.
She made a small sound, and then looked mortified, as if she’d just said a swear word.
He looked at her curiously, not sure what to make of her.
The men standing near the tent had already gone back to their conversation. Jem was about to move off in search of lunch when he heard one of the men say, “That’s right. A mail-order bride.”
He set Mae on her feet, and she was immediately back on her knees in the dirt, playing with that puppy. It licked her face and she giggled.
Jem kept one eye on Mae, one eye on the men. What were they talking about—a mail-order bride? Surely not this girl?
“Been getting those marriage papers—you know the ones? Well, her father placed the ad. After some time we worked a deal, and he sold her off to me,” this one younger man was saying. He wore a black preacher’s suit with a white shirt and a neatly tied, black ribbon bow tie. He couldn’t have been much more than twenty-two or -three. There was something about him too, an air of agitation that kept Jem glued to the spot.
Sold her?
Surely he hadn’t just said that.
“I’ve got a business to run, you know? Preaching’s a business just like any other,” he continued, sort of puffing himself up, not unlike a rooster. His white Adam’s apple bobbed in his neck. Jem took an instant disliking to the young man. Despite his pretty-boy face, there was something greasy about him, and the things he was saying only confirmed Jem’s opinion. “I knew up front she wasn’t all she should be—told me himself that she grew up in a ‘hen house,’ but I thought we could make it work. It’s a hard life going town to town—itinerant preaching, you know. Don’t meet many ladies willing to do that.”
“So why ain’t you keeping her?” one of the men standing around him asked. His gaze was interested but cautious. He had the air of a man suspicious of getting a bad deal.
All Jem’s senses went on alert. Something was off here, very off.
Not your business.
Don’t get involved.
Just walk away. Just grab Mae and head back to the train.
But he couldn’t seem to move. His attention was riveted on the men. He fixed a bland expression on his face, not too interested, definitely not allowing any of his alarm to show.
The young preacher recognized his presence among them with an inclination of his head, evidently his way of welcoming Jem into their circle.
“I hit a spell of bad times,” he answered the man. “Someone’s run off with all my money, and I need some cash fast, so I can get back to Oregon. Got family there. Heard there’s a town there that wants a proper preacher. Not town to town like this.” He gestured with disgust to the church tent behind him. His jaw firmed. “I just want to go back home, but I can’t. So all’s I’m asking is a fair trade, you could say. I just have one stipulation.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve got my principles,” the young man pronounced, all full of fluff and air, Jem thought. “It wouldn’t be right to send the girl off without making sure she’s going to be cared for proper.”
“What do you mean?” another man asked.
“I mean marriage. Married right proper. And I’ll perform the ceremony here and now. All legal like, I swear. I just need the money.”
One of the men took a hard look at the dingy young woman and shook his head. He walked off without a word.
“There aren’t many good women in these parts,” the preacher called after him. The man looked back once, swiped his hand in a dismissive motion, and kept going.
Jem noticed the young woman was listening to them with a watchful air. She was too carefully not drawing attention to herself, pretending all of her attention was on Mae and the puppy, but he could tell she’d tucked her hair behind one ear and had her head cocked in their direction.
The remaining men—four of them now, not including Jem—stared at the young preacher with a lot less shock than Jem would have liked to see from a group of law-abiding, moral men.
“I’m not a bad man,” the young preacher said, putting on a reasonable air. “I would have married her proper myself until this bad spell.”
Jem’s belly soured listening to the man. What kind of preacher—what kind of man—sold off a young woman? And why hadn’t he married her yet? They were obviously traveling together. Probably had been for some time. They just had that air about them. She knew this man, maybe not in the biblical sense, but she knew him enough not to like him. That much Jem could tell from the way her lip curled in a clearly disgusted way at his last words. She went back to tracing one finger through the dirt again.
He again had the impression that maybe she was simple, but there was also something about her expression when she looked at Mae that struck him as sweet. She didn’t deserve to be handled like a horse for sale. No one did.
That lit a fire in him. He could feel the burn of righteous anger rising in his chest. His friend Becky had traveled all the way from Massachusetts to Seattle to be a mail-order bride. Tha
t’s how she and his boss, Isaac Jessup, had met. Isaac’s pop, Sam, had evidently meddled and done some matchmaking, but it had all worked out in the end. Jem couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like if Becky—who’d become more of a sister than friend over the years—had arrived in Seattle only to be sold off to another man.
Jem looked at the young woman before him again and couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling. Indignation. Fury. Desperation. Helplessness, maybe?
Or maybe he was imagining problems that didn’t exist because of his own unique experiences... Maybe she just wanted to get away from this preacher fellow. That was a possibility.
She’ll be fine.
One of these men would likely take the young preacher up on his offer. There weren’t many young women in these parts—he was right about that. Any of these men might be in the market for a wife, and they might appreciate not having to go to the trouble of putting an ad in the paper, waiting for letters to be exchanged, the expense of train fare, possibly weeks of travel... All that time. With one swift transaction here and now, they could be done with the whole thing—married up proper and legal—and on their way. They could be back on the train in minutes.
You can’t get involved.
The details of this particular situation might not sit right with him, Jem told himself firmly, but who was he to judge? Men put out ads for mail-order brides all the time. Sam Jessup, Isaac’s pop, was just one example of many. Marriage was a good and decent thing. Jem knew that. He’d known personally what it was like for it to be better than good. He couldn’t begrudge a man for wanting a wife.
Unless one of these men meant to buy her and make her a saloon girl.
Jem frowned.
“I’ll take her,” one man spoke up. All heads turned toward him, Jem’s included.
Jem looked the man over speculatively. He was a bit on the older side, maybe even old enough to be the girl’s father, which felt somewhat awkward to Jem. The long brown duster the man wore looked custom fitted, and appeared to be made of quality leather. Expensive. His trousers, hat, and boots had the same appearance of quality. Maybe he was a prosperous rancher, someone with a big spread by the looks of him. The man began counting out some money, enough to make the other men cough and back away. They walked off, the low rumble of their voices trailing after them. It was the kind of sound men made when they were laughing as they talked. Like it was all a big joke. Soon it was just a circle of three: the preacher, the rancher with the money, and Jem, just standing there. The young woman was staring up at them openly now, one of her hands braced against the ground.
“You’ve got to marry her up proper,” the preacher said, his attention fixed on the money. He may as well have been swimming in a pool of money, his eyes had gotten so big.
“What’d you say was wrong with her?” the rancher asked, halting mid-count, his eyes on the preacher. He cast a glance at the young woman.
“Can’t talk. Not right, anyways. And can’t write neither.”
“Other than that?”
“Healthy. Young. Strong. Hard worker. She can cook. Clean. Mend.” The preacher waggled his head as he listed off her attributes, as if he was selling bottles of remedy. It was a spiel all right. Oily man. It was no way for a preacher to behave. No way at all. In fact, Jem would’ve liked to strangle the young man right then, but he held himself back. Violence had a way of taking over a man if unchecked—and he hated seeing it in himself. If he needed to protect someone he loved, he wouldn’t hesitate to fight. That was only natural. But to give free rein to violent urges? He couldn’t do that. Besides that, he couldn’t seem to move away.
“And you said she’s ‘not all she supposed to be’?” the rancher asked.
He made it sound like a bonus.
Jem’s hands balled into fists.
“I wouldn’t know myself, not firsthand, but I’d say so,” the preacher said. “Not really her fault,” he hurried to add. “Guess her mama was...that way. She ended up being fostered later on—a good family in Tennessee took her on.”
“And that was the father?” Jem heard himself asking. “The one who sold her to you?”
They both looked at him as if he’d sprouted a pair of devil’s horns. Or flashed a marshal’s badge at them.
“That’s right. He was a good man, I assure you. A preacher like me.”
“Like you,” Jem repeated tersely.
“That’s right,” the young preacher looked at Jem closely as if trying to measure him—perhaps feeling a tad judged, Jem suspected, because he could feel disapproval welling up inside him and rolling off his body in hot waves. It had to be showing on his face. He tried to cool his temper, folding his arms purposefully over his chest.
Seeing no badge, the two men relaxed and ignored him.
“I’ve got all the proper papers,” the preacher said to the prospective “groom.” He glanced at the money in the man’s hands and quickly bent to rifle through a satchel next to the tent opening. The tent was one of those big square white affairs, with flaps that pinned back to make a dark triangle of a door. A revival-gathering tent.
He must not have had much luck in a little town like this, Jem thought. Whether his money had truly been stolen or not, he could well believe the young man was short on funds, if not completely broke. Likely the latter.
Hearing a small strangled sound, Jem glanced at the young woman. She was standing now. She must have made the noise he’d heard. He quickly checked on Mae and saw her still playing contentedly with the puppy, blissfully unaware of what the grownups were talking about. The young woman wasn’t. All the color had washed out of her dirt-streaked face, and she was staring fixedly at the affluent rancher.
Her buyer.
She caught Jem’s eye then. All the while, he’d been so studiously not looking her in the eye, not getting involved. He knew himself well enough to know that was what he was doing. It had become something of a habit since Lorelei died, this way of holding people at a safe distance. So her catching his eye happened purely by accident.
She sent him a silent plea. What she expected him to do now, he didn’t know. He tugged down the brim of his hat.
“No, no need for a ceremony, really, if you don’t want.” He overheard the young preacher saying to the rancher. “She can’t talk anyway, so I don’t see the point of it. Just sign right here.” Jem glanced over to see the rancher signing a paper. A marriage certificate, he guessed.
“She’ll just have to sign too,” the preacher said, turning to the young woman. She faced him with a forceful glare, and he seemed to diminish a little, as if she’d stolen his confidence.
“Now, Annie,” he said to her gently as if to a small child, “all you need to do is make a mark here. Any kind of mark.” He pointed to a line on the document. “Right here.” He held a pen out toward her.
She didn’t move.
“Please,” he said through gritted teeth. He was at her side in two strides, then briefly pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered something. Jem noticed how stiffly she held herself until he pulled away. She bowed her head for a moment, and when she looked back up her expression was beaten. What had he said—or threatened her with? Whatever it was, his words had taken all the fire out of her eyes. She took the pen and held it in an awkward grasp. The young preacher held the paper against his palm and crowded in close until she signed it. To Jem her mark looked like nothing more than a couple of rolling mountains, but he supposed it could have been an A and a couple of Ns.
“That’s good,” the preacher said, relief evident in the way his shoulders dropped slightly. “Here you go.” He blew on the ink to dry it and waved it in the air a bit before he folded it nice and neat and handed it to her buyer. A man who hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself to his bride. Like his name didn’t matter. Like she didn’t matter. He’d never once asked her name either.
Annie. That’s what the preacher had called her.
A simple name.
Jem felt
sickened by the whole thing. He moved, fixing to retrieve Mae and already bracing himself for her to pitch a fit. She wouldn’t want to leave the puppy.
Don’t look at Annie, Jem told himself.
The young woman’s gaze on him was too penetrating though, and he found himself glancing at her. She sent him another pleading look.
What did she want from him? There was nothing he could do. She was married now, all legal and proper. Or whatever it was the preacher had called it.
She grunted, some tiny desperate sound that tore at him. It seemed to come from the core of her, a place of pure panic.
He wanted to reassure her, but there was nothing he could say.
The man was likely just a mite close-lipped, like a lot of men were, clueless about the greater emotional needs of women, but generally not bad.
Jem had to stop just short of Mae, because Annie’s new husband rudely brushed by him and latched a chain around the puppy’s neck. It was his dog?
“Time to go,” he said, giving the leash a tug. He seemed to direct his command both to the dog and to Annie. Little Mae looked up at the man towering over her, her eyes wide and frightened. Jem made to step around the man to get to her, but Annie had already put a reassuring hand on Mae’s shoulder. The puppy flopped onto its side, obviously not wanting to leave its new playmate.
“I said come.” The man yanked the pup forward along the ground, lifting it onto its feet. The puppy straight-legged him, but the man was stronger, pulling it along protesting, its head thrashing against the chain.
A noose tightened around Jem’s neck, just as surely as if the man had slung that leash around him.
Sleigh Bells & Mistletoe: A Short Story (The Brides Series 1.5) Page 5
