Come Spring

by Jill Marie Landis

  Two ranchers on the platform smiled a greeting before they moved on, and Kase nodded in acknowledgment. He’d made a name for himself as marshal of Busted Heel before he gave up his badge and went into ranching. More often than not, men he didn’t even recognize called him by name. He wondered how different his life might have been if he hadn’t taken the job of marshal six years ago and helped rid the area of the Dawson gang. And where would he be now if he hadn’t married the one woman in the world who could have helped him forget his heritage and see himself as a whole man?

  Kase felt his anxiety build as he thought of Rose. She was pregnant again, due the first of May. It was the fourth time in five years they’d waited for a baby and now he was even afraid to hope that nothing would go wrong. His wife had miscarried once, then given birth to a stillborn boy. On the last try, their daughter had not lived more than a few hours. So this time, although he wished it could be otherwise, he had received the news of her pregnancy without joy, but with overwhelming fear. He couldn’t face the thought of building another small wooden coffin, didn’t want to bury another child any more than he wanted to risk losing his Rose, but motherhood was her one burning desire, so all he could do was see that Rose had the best of care, and wait. And pray.

  Right now all he wanted was to collect his sister and get back out to the ranch as soon as he could so that he would be there if Rose needed him. He knew all the hands were at her beck and call—there was no one who could resist the petite Italian’s charm—but Kase still preferred to be within shouting distance of her most of the time. But Rose had insisted he go into Cheyenne to greet his sister properly, said that they should have dinner at one of the finest restaurants and attend the opera, then spend the night at the Interocean Hotel before he drove Annika out to the isolated ranch. After much argument—and although he would never admit as much to anyone, he was proud of the way his Rose could argue—he decided to give in to her and go all the way into town.

  But now the train was late with no word of how much longer it would be before it arrived.

  Kase watched in silence as a huge man dressed in the trappings of a buffalo hunter shoved through the crowd and jumped off the platform. The giant, bearded blond had to be a good six feet four if he was an inch, his hair was long and wild, pulled back in an attempt to tame it into a more civilized style. He was dressed in buckskins well greased to keep out wind and water, in clothes that appeared to be handmade. Long fringe swayed from the sleeves and yoke of the man’s hooded jacket. Knee-high moccasins adorned his feet. Kase frowned when he glimpsed the long sheath hooked to his belt and tied to the hunter’s thigh. It held a skinning knife.

  He’d seen the rough-looking giant earlier, studied him as they stood near each other on the platform, wondered if such a young man could have indeed taken part in the last of the buffalo hunts. It had been years now since a herd of any size had been spotted anywhere outside of the Yellowstone area. Twenty years ago millions of head of buffalo had thundered across the prairies. Now, except for a few lone stragglers and small, privately owned herds like the nineteen head Kase had rounded up, there were no buffalo to be found. Hunters like the man who had just left the platform had slaughtered them one by one, selling off boxcars full of hides and leaving the carcasses to decay on the open plains.

  With the killing of the buffalo came the near annihilation of the Plains Indians, and although Kase had not been able to fully accept that part of him that was Sioux until a few years ago, he had always respected the Indians as a people, just as he respected all life. Caleb had taught him as much, and so too had his mother.

  Before his anger could block out reason, Kase turned away from the sight of the hunter and left a message for Annika with the station clerk. He decided to go to the Interocean Hotel and reserve a room for each of them, do some of the shopping as he had promised Rose, and then return to check on the progress down the line. If the delay was to last much longer, it would be wiser for him to ride on back to Busted Heel and collect Annika there before he went back to the ranch.

  As he stepped off the platform and began to make, his way up Capitol toward the Interocean, he saw the buffalo hunter leading a mare and two pack mules and riding flat out down Fifteenth Street.

  3

  ALICE Soams disliked just about everything she had seen so far on this hateful trip, and now that the train had stopped dead in the middle of nowhere, she even hated the Union Pacific Railroad. It was bad enough that she’d been cooped up in the confines of the first-class sleeper with the stove drying up what little moisture there was left in the air, but now that she’d decided to step outside and stretch, even the weather had turned against her. She tried to hold on to the lapels of her thick woolen coat as she bent forward into the wind and struggled up the gentle incline toward the tracks.

  For the past day and a half she had spent her time mulling over her decision to marry Buck Scott, the man who answered the advertisement she had put in the paper on a whim. She certainly didn’t regret accepting the first-class fare he had promptly mailed her when she accepted his proposal, nor did she look back with any sorrow at leaving her sister’s home. She was tired of playing the part of the spinster sister, tired of living off Muriel and her husband, sick of wearing her sister’s old clothes and feeling beholden for every scrap of food she ate from their table merely because she had never found a man willing to marry her.

  As she stalked down the snowy patch already trampled by the other passengers, Alice did not look right or left but at the ground. She couldn’t abide talking to strangers, never saw the good in it. Waste of time, if anyone ever asked her, but they never did. She looked down the right of way and watched a couple ahead of her swinging their clasped hands between them. “Immoral and indecent,” she grumbled to herself, still unable to avert her gaze. They were as bad as the flashy blond girl riding three seats ahead of her in first class.

  Alice had seen her type before, knew the girl for what she was—a society debutante decked out in her finery, all too willing to lord it over the rest of the world. The girl had the conductor eating out of her hand from the moment she had boarded the train. Alice thought it was disgusting.

  She had hated the girl on sight. It was almost too much to bear, watching her flash her big blue eyes at every man on board, having to witness the open, friendly way she greeted everyone. Anyone with a lick of sense knew that a body shouldn’t go around speaking to strangers, but the tall blonde didn’t seem to know it, even if Alice did. Probably never had a care in the world, that girl. It was all too clear she had more money than sense. Her clothes were new—cut fashionably and showy. She had an ornate, hinge-lidded lap desk she kept her writing things in and to top if off, a new valise. As if all that weren’t bad enough, she flaunted a shining black satin cloak with AS, the same initials as Alice’s own, emblazoned on the bodice in gold.

  Alice thought of her own worn coat and protectively clutched it tighter with her long, thin fingers. As soon as she reached Cheyenne and married Buck Scott her worries would be over. She’d have money enough then, and she’d show them all. After all, she thought, he’d sent her first-class fare without question, and his last two letters had been filled with descriptions of Blue Creek Valley. His letters had never been long, but they were neatly penned. He told of the riches to be had in the valley, of how the place was all his, about the home he’d built that they wouldn’t have to share with anyone.

  Alice looked up, braving the wind long enough to turn and stare down the tracks. She had walked farther than she realized, so she quickly turned around and began to make her way back. The last letter she had received from Buck Scott was tucked safely in the pocket of her coat. She might need it to prove her identity if she had to—if he didn’t recognize her right off. Not that he shouldn’t, but when she faced the truth, she knew that she had taken a bit of license when she’d described herself to him. But how could she have written to the only prospective husband she had ever had and tell him that she was painful
ly thin, had lanky, light brown hair, sharp features, and faded blue eyes? She couldn’t. And she hadn’t. But she figured she could clear all that up when she met him face-to-face.

  She wondered what she would do if Buck Scott had lied to her about his appearance the way she had. He said he was taller than most men, blond headed, and promised he’d be easy to please. She had imagined him more than once, envisioned a successful land-owning man in a dapper, hounds-tooth check suit and bowler hat, bouquet in hand, anxiously awaiting her in a new carriage ready to whisk her off to their mountain home.

  There seemed to be a crowd gathering up ahead, so she hurried toward them, planning to stand on the outskirts and watch whatever uneventful happening was about to unfold. As she drew near, she noticed that everyone was watching a rider approach from the west. He rode alongside the tracks across the slight ditch that ran parallel to the rail line. Alice sniffed in disgust as the man neared. He was huge, his clothing dark and greasy, his white-blond hair curling wildly, showing well past his shoulders beneath his hat. She was as speechless as the rest of the crowd as he thundered to a halt, followed by the string of animals he led behind him.

  Alice leaned forward to listen as the man strode over to the black-uniformed conductor. The wind, luckily, was blowing in the right direction. It carried his words to her ears.

  “I’m Buck Scott, and I’m lookin’ for a blond woman from Boston that’s supposed to be on this train.”

  Alice nearly reeled into the young German couple who was standing beside her. Instead, she tried to catch her breath, grabbed the handrail behind her, and scrambled aboard the train without another moment’s hesitation. Inside the door, she paused long enough to let her racing heart slow a bit and, with her face averted from the scene outside, continued to listen.

  The conductor was rocking back and forth from the balls of his feet to his heels. His head didn’t quite reach the bigger man’s collarbone. “Boston?” The conductor looked him up and down. “I just can’t say. Can you describe her any better? Besides,” he said, suddenly possessive of his passenger, “what is it you want with this woman anyway?”

  The man reached inside his dirty buckskin jacket and then, much to Alice Soams’s dismay, withdrew a well-worn envelope. She knew without seeing it clearly that it was one of her letters to him.

  “I have a letter here that says she’ll be my wife. I paid for her fare, first class,” he added, “and this is the train she said she’d be on. I went into Cheyenne to meet her, but when they told me you were stalled out here, I came straightaway to collect her because a big storm’s comin’ in,” the big man explained carefully.

  The crowd seemed to inch closer to him with every word. The men were watching him warily, while the women stared in awe. Some of them watched with tears glistening in their eyes when they heard his gallant reason for finding the stalled train before a snow storm kept him and his fiancée apart.

  “Her name’s Alice Soams,” Buck Scott added to reassure the conductor.

  Straightening, the portly conductor finally smiled. “Never wanted to be one to stand in the way of cupid’s arrows,” he said. “Right this way.” With a grand flourish, he waved Buck toward the first-class car. “I believe the blond lady you’re looking for is waiting for you right in here.”

  Alice did not wait to hear more, because one look at Buck Scott told her all she needed to know—she could no more marry the crudely outfitted, wild-haired mountain man than she could fly. Without hesitation she thanked her lucky stars that she had told Buck Scott that she was an attractive, statuesque blonde. As she hurried down the aisle, she discreetly drew the man’s letter from her pocket. Then, when she passed the young blonde whose attention was centered on her writing, Alice stealthily dropped Buck Scott’s last letter to her on the seat beside the other girl’s valise.

  Before the conductor led Buck Scott up the stairs and over the threshold of the sleeper, Alice Soams had disappeared into the next car.

  February 3, 1892. Although a stalled train isn’t much to celebrate, at least I have finally encountered some sort of adventure during this otherwise uneventful journey west. The unscheduled stop has afforded me time to walk around outside. The scenery is breathtaking, the sky seems to stretch endlessly in every direction. The wind is freezing. It carries with it a particularly lonely moaning sound, but the sun is shining. It sets all the snow-covered land asparkle. I can hardly wait to reach Cheye —

  A loud noise in the doorway caused Annika to pause and look up. The conductor was heading down the aisle toward her, his face wreathed in smiles. He looked very much like a man who could not wait to shout “Surprise!” A large man moved up the aisle behind him, a man Annika had not seen previously on board the train. Although the conductor blocked some of her view of the stranger, she could still see his head and shoulders. He embodied everything she had ever read about the “Wild West” in the periodicals, from his untamed hair and beard to his buckskin clothing. He was even taller than Kase, and there weren’t many men larger than her brother. Annika watched with undisguised curiosity as the giant followed the conductor down the aisle.

  A line of passengers walked in behind the two, some of the braver ones managing to squeeze past the conductor and his companion and slide into the seats they had previously occupied. Everyone was quiet; a hush of expectation hovered in the air. She wondered what was going on.

  Annika was speechless when the conductor stopped beside her seat and motioned the huge man forward. “Here she is, safe and sound,” the conductor said. “Your blonde from Boston.”

  Annika blinked once, looked from the conductor to the other man, and said, “What?”

  “Your fiancé heard we were stalled and rode all the way out here to get you, miss.”

  “My what?”

  “Fiancé.” The conductor nodded.

  The big man stepped as far forward as the small space in the aisle would allow. “I’m Buck Scott, ma’am.” He smiled and pulled off his hat, then nodded as if the name should mean something to her.

  Annika watched him warily, but still wasn’t too concerned about the mistake. He was obviously nervous. If he squeezed his hat any tighter in his big hands, she thought it would disintegrate. His tanned cheeks pinkened above his beard.

  She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then shook her head. Finally, she said to the conductor, “I don’t know what either of you are talking about.”

  “It’s me, ma’am, Buck Scott. The man who sent you the money for the ticket?” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a ragged envelope and held it up in front of her face. “This is your letter to me, Miss Soams. Your promise to marry me.”

  “That’s right, Miss Soams,” the conductor added.

  Annika looked down, slowly and carefully blotted her pen, corked the ink bottle, and then set them inside her writing box along with her journal. She closed the hinged lid and set the box down beside her on the seat. She smoothed out her skirt and pulled her cloak tightly about her. Then, as regally as a queen, she drew herself up and said directly to the obviously insane person named Buck Scott, “I am not Alice Soams and I have no idea who you are, sir.”

  The low murmur of whispers ran through the car.

  The conductor frowned. “Are you sure, miss?” he asked.

  “What do you mean am I sure? Of course I’m sure. I’ve never seen this man before in my life and furthermore, my name is not Alice Soams.”

  The conductor looked confused.

  Buck Scott looked angry. He reached past the conductor and picked up an envelope that lay on the seat beside Annika’s valise.

  “Then what’s this?” Buck demanded in a tone laced with sarcasm.

  “How should I know?” Annika fired back.

  “It’s a letter from me, addressed to you, and it just happens to be lying here next to your bag.”

  The murmurs of the other passengers were no longer hushed, but excited. Annika tried to ignore them as she concentrated on what this man was tr
ying to tell her.

  “Let me see if I understand you correctly. You supposedly wrote me that letter, my name is Alice Soams, and you are harboring some delusion that I am going to marry you?”

  “That’s right. But it’s not a delusion.”

  She stared at him for a moment longer, then she burst out laughing.

  Buck’s fist closed around the letter.

  The conductor turned beet red.

  Everyone around them stopped whispering.

  Annika noticed the deadly silence and stopped laughing. She wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled up at the two men. “Very entertaining, gentlemen. I can’t wait to write home about this.”

  The conductor turned to Buck for help.

  Buck nodded toward the door. “Leave.”

  The conductor left.

  Buck hunkered down in the aisle alongside the blonde. His heart was pounding like a buffalo stampede. She was more beautiful than he could have ever hoped. Her eyes were round as a full moon and as blue as the clearest mountain lake he’d ever seen. The sight of her buttercup-yellow hair, thick and waving, made his hand itch to touch it. Still, as exquisite as she was, she did not give the appearance of a pale hothouse flower. Her skin was sun-kissed gold, the color of clover honey. Her eyes, surrounded by a thick circlet of dark lashes, had a slight tilt to their outer corners. High cheekbones gave her an exotic, aristocratic air.

  Afraid he’d embarrass himself by reaching out to touch her just to see if she was real, Buck kept his hands balled into fists around both letters, his to Alice and hers to him, and his hat brim. Aware that all eyes were on them, he lowered his voice and leaned closer so that only she could hear him. Once he was face-to-face with her, he immediately regretted his move. He was assailed by the mingled scents of heady soap and rose water.