The complete oregon seri.., p.67
The Complete Oregon Series, page 67
Nattie grasped Amy’s hand, and together, they stared down Ella and her friends.
With a huff, Ella whirled around and marched away, her entourage following behind her.
“Oh, Amy, that was great!” Nattie squeezed her hand and then let go.
Hendrika finally lifted her gaze from the floor. “Thank you.”
“They were just jealous because you two were hoarding all the eligible bachelors,” Amy said. “Don’t listen to them, all right?”
“I won’t.” A little color returned to Hendrika’s pale cheeks.
“Listen, you two, I’m gonna head out now. Don’t worry about Ella and Fanny. I doubt they’ll bother you again.”
Nattie stared at the old clock on the wall. “You want to go home? Now? It’s not even midnight. The dance is gonna last for at least another three hours. Hank and the boys said they’d go home early and take over milking tomorrow morning so that we can stay.”
“You can stay if you want, but we still got two mares in foal, and Mama can’t keep an eye on them both.” And besides, Amy had all the dancing and socializing she could take for one night.
“All right,” Nattie said, still not looking pleased.
Hendrika rose from the bench. “Actually, I’ll come with you if it’s all right for Nattie to stay here alone.”
“Oh, come on, Hendrika.” Nattie tugged at her sleeve. “Don’t you hear? They’re striking up ‘Beautiful Dreamer,’ my favorite waltz. Please stay. Don’t let these arrogant witches spoil the dance for you.”
But Hendrika shook her head. “It’s not about them. I’m just not used to staying up all night.”
Frowning, Amy directed her gaze at Nattie. “Will you be all right here on your own? Bernice promised to keep an eye on you, and Josh will take you home, but if you’d rather—”
Nattie straightened like a rooster ruffling up his feathers. “Would you stop treating me like a child? Of course I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m among strangers. Hannah and Rebecca are still here, and in a minute, Bernice will serve her famous midnight snack.”
“All right. We’re going, then.” With one last glance back at Nattie, Amy led Hendrika out the door. She turned her palm skyward. For once, the mistlike drizzle had stopped. She helped Hendrika onto the wagon seat, telling herself that it was just because Hendrika’s dress was tighter than her own.
A sigh of relief flew from her lips when the horses trotted homeward. She hoped this would be the last dance for a while. The silence of the night and the rhythmic clip-clop of hooves were a balm to her soul. Only the occasional brush of Hendrika’s arm against her side threatened her equilibrium.
“I know you wonder too,” Hendrika said after a while.
“What?”
Hendrika stared straight ahead. “You probably wonder why I answered Phineas’s ad for a mail-order bride.”
Curiosity was burning in her, but Amy forced herself to answer, “It’s none of my business.”
“I didn’t make the decision to come west lightly, but my life in Boston...” Her gaze touched Amy and then veered away. “After the war, few eligible men remained in Boston.”
The war had never touched Oregon, so Amy had a hard time imagining all the death and destruction. “So many have died?”
“Oh, there were enough who survived, but so many of them are wounded, either on the outside or the inside. Some started drinking and gambling and—” Hendrika interrupted herself. “The war brings out the worst in people. This land,” her gaze caressed the land half-hidden by the darkness, “your family...you’re untouched by that ugliness.”
Are we? What about the ugliness, the unnatural feelings that lurked inside of her? She looked at Hendrika and waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. She had a feeling she was getting just half of the reason why Hendrika had come west to marry Phin.
She didn’t have the right to ask, though. Not when she was keeping so many things to herself.
They spent the rest of the way home in silence.
Hamilton Horse Ranch
Baker Prairie, Oregon
April 25, 1868
The buckboard crested the hill, and Amy slowed the horses. She always loved coming back from town and getting her first glimpse of home. Below them, the main house lay in darkness.
“Your mother probably went to bed already,” Hendrika said.
Amy shrugged. “Could be that she bedded down with the mares.” Her gaze wandered to the stable. She jerked in alarm.
Flames shot through the barn’s roof.
Fire! “Hold on, Hendrika! Hyah!” she shouted and flapped the reins.
The buckboard flew down the hill.
Hendrika hung on to the seat but didn’t protest the breakneck speed.
In the stable, horses screamed in panic.
Amy’s heart clenched. “Mama!”
There was no answer, and her fear increased as she reached the ranch yard, pulled the horses to a stop, and jumped down. Already, the flames were dancing higher along the beams of the roof. She raced across the yard and flung open the barn door. A black cloud billowed around her, making her cough and bringing tears to her eyes.
“Amy!” Hendrika shouted from behind her. “No!”
A high-pitched squeal from inside the stable made Amy’s decision. She rushed into the black smoke.
“Amy,” Rika yelled. “Amy, come back!”
Only the crackling of the fire answered her. She was alone in the ranch yard, with no idea of what to do.
Fear clutched at her and made it difficult to breathe. She hesitated, trying to see something through the smoke. “Amy?”
Nothing.
Going after her is crazy. Completely crazy. “Darn it.” She lifted her arm to cover her face and stepped into the burning stable.
Heat leaped at her. The back of the stable was a sea of fire. Flames licked at the barn’s old wood and shot along the floor, consuming the hay.
“Amy?” she called.
No answer.
Somewhere a horse squealed, but the smoke was so thick that she couldn’t see. Coughing, she groped her way down the center aisle.
Another piercing scream sounded, and something big stormed past her.
The horses! Amy is getting the horses out.
To her left, the spotted horse with the eye patch kicked a panicked rhythm against the stall door.
Rika hurried over and opened the latch.
The horse reared and jumped forward. Heavy hooves missed Rika by inches.
Her heart skipped a beat. She leaped out of the way and watched the horse flee down the aisle and out the door. Breathing hard, she gripped the bolt of the next stall door.
Pain seared her fingers. With a scream, she let go of the red-hot piece of metal. Ignoring the pain, she wrapped the hem of her skirt around her hand, shoved back the bolt, and jumped out of the way.
The brown horse pranced past her, its eyes wide with fear.
The next stall held the gray mare. One slap of her wrapped hand against the bolt and the door opened.
But this horse didn’t storm past her. It snorted and backed away.
“Come on, Mouse.” Rika tried to make her voice as soothing as possible. Smoke filled her lungs, and she coughed.
The horse moved, but away from her and the door that led to safety.
Someone grabbed Rika’s shoulder. “Get out of here,” Amy shouted.
Rika’s knees went weak with relief at seeing her. “Not without you. The gray mare is still in there.”
Amy walked past her, her movements calm, as if a raging inferno weren’t blazing around them. With a gentle but firm touch, she grasped a bit of mane and led the snorting mare out of the stall.
Rika hurried after them, careful not to get too close to the hooves of the panicked mare.
The smoke thinned, revealing the barn door.
Rika jumped across the threshold and sucked in a lungful of fresh air.
“Close the door!” Amy shouted.
Startled, Rika slammed the door of the burning barn behind her, not sure what difference it would make.
When she turned around, Amy hurled herself at her, and they both went down.
Rika groaned as she hit the ground and lay dazed under Amy’s body. “What?” She struggled when Amy began to grope and slap at her. “What are you doing?”
“Your skirt’s on fire!” Amy batted at the flames with her bare hands. “Hold still.”
Finally, they lay still, coughing and wheezing. Smoke drifted up from Rika’s skirt.
“Your hands,” Rika whispered and lifted one of them to study the red burn marks.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Amy answered, her voice equally low. “Not right now.”
“Amy?” A strangled call drifted across the ranch yard.
Amy shot up. “Mama?”
Nora staggered around the corner. She was holding her head with both hands and stared at their blazing barn.
“Mama! What happened?” Amy caught her mother as she stumbled.
Without hesitation, Rika slung Nora’s other arm around her shoulder, ignoring the pain in her hand.
The fire reflected off Nora’s wide eyes. “Something...someone hit me from behind when I went back to the house after checking on the mares. I passed out. Next thing I know, you were shouting across the ranch yard.”
“Who would do something like that?”
“Adam,” Amy said through gritted teeth. “I fired him, and now he’s out for revenge.”
Fast hoofbeats pounded the earth. At first, Rika thought the panicked horses were coming back, but then she saw that riders clung to the horses’ backs. The ranch hands were returning from the dance.
Amy shouted orders, still holding on to her mother.
“Go,” Rika said. “I’ll take care of her.”
Amy hesitated.
“I was a nurse during the war.”
“Go,” Nora said to her daughter. “Take care of the horses. I’ll be fine with Hendrika.”
After one more reassuring nod from Rika, Amy hurried away.
“Damn Indian!” Hank grabbed his lariat from the saddle horn and spurred his gelding toward the bunkhouse.
“Where are you going?” Amy called after him. “We have to catch the horses before they head back into the barn.” Sometimes, horses became so frightened that they rushed back into the fire, searching out the treacherous safety of their familiar stalls.
Hank didn’t listen. In front of the bunkhouse, he slid out of the saddle and disappeared inside. When he exited, he dragged a sleep-drunk John Lefevre on his lariat behind him.
“What the hell? Hank!” Amy stormed across the yard. “What are you doing? Let him go—now!”
Hatred burned in Hank’s eyes, flickering hotter than the fire in the stable. “Let him go? He set fire to the stable!”
“What?” John gasped. The loop tightened around his neck.
“Yeah, you were the only one who didn’t go to the dance.” Hank jerked on the rope.
“You idiot!” Amy grabbed Hank’s shoulder and shook him. “He didn’t go to the dance because the stupid people in town think anyone whose ancestors didn’t drink tea with the people on the Mayflower doesn’t deserve to be part of their community!”
Hank continued to tighten the rope.
“Stop it!” She pulled on his arm. “Do you think John would go back to sleep in the bunkhouse if he had set the barn on fire? Let him go, or you’ll be out of a job.”
Reluctantly, Hank loosened the rope. “But didn’t you smell it?” He gestured toward the barn. “Kerosene.”
The biting smell of kerosene had stung her nose as soon as she had entered the burning stable. While barn fires could spread quickly, this one had gotten out of control too fast not to be caused by arson. “I smelled it. But we can’t afford to jump to conclusions. We need to think this through. Let him go.”
Hank wrenched the rope off John, who lay in the mud, gasping for breath.
When Amy helped him up, a fresh wave of pain shot through her hands. “Come on. We have to catch the horses, especially Dotty and Nugget.”
A few more tense moments ticked by as Hank and John stared daggers at each other, but they finally hurried away to follow Amy’s orders.
“I’m fine, really,” Nora said as they entered the main house.
Rika kicked the door closed behind her with her heel. “Let me be the judge of that.” The amount of weight Nora put on her told Rika she wasn’t fine at all. Nora was as tall as she was, so they struggled to make it to the side table to light a lamp. “Bedroom?”
The arm around her shoulders tensed for a moment before Nora nodded. “All right.”
They struggled up the stairs. Nora opened the last door at the end of the hall.
The scent of bay rum and leather hit Rika’s nose before Nora lit another lamp. Mr. Hamilton was as present here as in the rest of the house, and she wondered if Nora had applied bay rum to one of her pillows because she missed her husband. Did Mama ever do that when Father wasn’t there? She couldn’t see that happening.
Nora sank into the pillows with a groan. “Oh, finally the room has stopped spinning.”
Rika removed Nora’s bonnet and probed along her skull. “Do you feel nauseous?”
“No, I—ouch!” Nora flinched. “I’m just a bit rattled.”
Rika parted the red locks that held no trace of gray. Would Amy’s hair feel this soft too? The unexpected thought startled her. What was she doing, thinking about that when she was supposed to be taking care of Nora? She forced herself to focus on the task at hand, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Amy. Was she fighting the fire, or was she galloping through the darkness, searching for the horses? Finally, she straightened. “You’ve got a big bump right here, but the skin isn’t broken.”
“Good.” Nora pushed up on her hands to get out of bed.
“Oh, no.” Rika pressed her down again. “You need some rest.”
“I’ll rest later. The whole ranch is in an uproar and—”
“Just imagine how much bigger the chaos would get if Amy had to worry about the horses, the barn, and you all at the same time. Don’t do this to her.” If Nora was the kind of woman Rika thought she was, only an appeal to her motherly side would stop her from getting up.
Nora sank against her pillow. “You fight dirty.” A smile trembled on her lips. “And speaking of dirty, you should change out of that skirt. Go to Amy’s room and take one of hers.”
Heat rushed through Rika’s soot-stained cheeks. “If I keep going at this pace, Amy will run out of dresses.”
The faint lines around Nora’s eyes crinkled as she smiled. “Oh, Amy would be grateful if that happened. Then she could finally start wearing her beloved pants to town.”
“I’m starting to see the advantages,” Rika said. By now, seeing Amy wear a skirt seemed more unnatural than seeing her in pants. “At least pants would have been less likely to catch fire.” She directed a regretful glance at the hem of her skirt.
“Catch fire?” Nora jerked upright, then groaned and grabbed her head with both hands. Her face blanched. “You went into the burning barn?”
Rika could hardly believe it herself. “We had to get the horses out.”
Nora squeezed her eyes shut as if she wanted to avoid the mental image. When she opened them again, they held warm regard. “You are a courageous young woman, Hendrika Bruggeman. Thank you.”
The last name made Rika flinch. She didn’t feel courageous at all. I don’t even have the courage to tell these people who I really am. “I’ll sit with you for a while,” she said, “and then go change into another skirt.”
The drenched sleeves of Amy’s dress clung to her. Her arms felt heavy, and her heartbeat pounded in her burned palms. “This one should do it.” She handed John the last bucket from the well.
John passed it on to Hank. The bucket went from Hank to Emmett and finally to Toby, who used the water to soak the grass next to the barn. The stable was still smoldering, but at least this way, the fire wouldn’t reach any of the other buildings or ruin too much grass.
“Amy,” Toby called. “Did you see this?”
Cursing her sodden skirt, Amy walked to where he was pointing. In the light of breaking dawn, she saw fresh footprints leading from the hills to the ruins of their barn. Next to the indentations left by the boots, a brownish substance had been baked by the heat of the fire. Amy bent down and rubbed a bit of it between her burned fingers.
“Chewing tobacco.” She hurled it away. Only one man in the area was chewing and spitting wherever he went. “I knew it. It was Adam.”
“That goddamned bastard!” Hank slapped his fist into his open palm. Then he ducked his head. “Sorry, Amy.”
“Don’t be sorry for cursing.” Growing up around ranch hands, she had heard worse. “Be sorry for almost lynching John. You owe him an apology.” She held his gaze until he looked away. “Now would be a good time for that.”
Hank’s teeth ground together. He had his pride, and apologizing to someone he considered an Indian in front of his friends and colleagues... Amy knew it was a lot to ask. But if she wanted to have a good crew, they needed to establish mutual trust and respect. And the men needed to learn that her orders were not suggestions they could take or leave.
“I’m waiting, Hank,” she said.
“Sorry,” Hank mumbled.
Amy kept staring at him. He had almost killed John. A halfhearted sorry wouldn’t do.
Hank turned away from Amy and finally looked John in the eye. “I’m sorry,” he said more loudly.
Charred grass rustled as Toby shuffled his feet. They were all waiting for John’s reaction.
