Springwater Seasons Read online

  Rachel, while still nearly overwhelmed by the pervasive stench, felt a sudden desire to embrace the girl. Would have done so, in fact, if she hadn’t been so innately conscious of Christabel’s fragile pride. “I’ll be watching for you,” she said. “You come to the Springwater station, a few days before school starts. In the meantime, I need to take some kind of measure if I’m going to make that dress.” No need to mention her private doubts concerning her sewing skills and discourage everyone.

  In the end, they used string, unwillingly fetched by a sullen Granny, and Rachel took Christabel’s measurements, cutting a separate length for each. Then, sensing that Granny’s patience had worn dangerously thin, Rachel said her farewells, extracted another assurance of attendance from Christabel, and mounted her horse.

  She waited until she was well out of sight of the Johnson shack before giving way to tears of sorrow, frustration, and pity.

  Midway down the mountainside, with the smoke of June-bug’s cookstove chimney curling visibly against the pale blue of the sky, Sunflower came up lame. Rachel dismounted and raised the mare’s left foreleg to examine the hoof, and sure enough, there was a raw place in the fleshy portion, though she couldn’t tell whether a shard of glass had gotten inside or not.

  “Poor darling,” Rachel said, and patted the animal’s neck. Then she proceeded toward home, on foot, moving slowly and leading Sunflower by the reins. Jacob could treat the mare’s wound, she was certain, but in the interim there was no choice but to keep going.

  It was sunset when they reached the edge of the timber and lamps were burning in the windows of the station. There were a dozen horses out in front of the Brimstone Saloon, and it sounded as if a brawl was taking place inside.

  Worried about Emma—or so she told herself at the time—Rachel left Sunflower’s reins dangling at the side of the road and clomped up onto the wooden step in front of the saloon to peer in over the swinging doors.

  Trey sat, hatless, with the sleeves of his white gambler’s shirt rolled up and a cheroot clamped between his teeth, at a small table in the center of the room. Seated across from him was a man roughly the size of a one-hole privy, and the two of them were engaged in an arm-wrestling match. The noise came from the half-moon of spectators who looked on from the rear, thereby affording Rachel an unobstructed view. Emma sat on the stairs, watching through the lathe-turned rails, her chin propped in one palm.

  Rachel might have gone on about her business if it hadn’t been for the sight of that child. Even though Emma didn’t look at all disturbed, but merely interested in the proceedings below stairs, the scene, coupled with all she had witnessed on the mountain, brought out the crusader in Rachel. Full of reckless indignation, she shoved the swinging doors open with both hands and stormed into the Brimstone Saloon like a blue norther.

  Trey was obviously startled at the sight of her, and relaxed his arm just enough to allow his opponent to slam his hand down onto the tabletop and win the match. Cheers went up all around—except from Trey, of course, who was flushed to the hairline and looked as though he could chew up a stove poker. The winner and his supporters shouted for whiskey, at the same time watching Rachel’s steam-engine approach with expressions of eager dread.

  Trey rose slowly to his feet to face her. “What the devil—?” he sputtered. Then, evidently too angry to speak, he fell silent. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides.

  Rachel could not have cared less that she’d spoiled the foolish competition for him; she was only worried about the child watching, wide-eyed now, and plainly breathless, from the stairway. Emma gripped a rail in each hand and seemed to be attempting to press her face between them.

  Now that she had braved the lion’s den, Rachel wasn’t entirely certain what she should say or do. She’d entered the Brimstone on the power of an indignant impulse, but some of the locomotion went out of her when she came to stand before Trey, looking up into those furious silver eyes.

  She fell back on bravado. “Are you aware,” she demanded, in a fierce undertone, “that your daughter has witnessed this entire sorry spectacle?”

  Trey raised an eyebrow. He looked slightly calmer, though his eyes were still flashing with sparks. “Which one is worse, Miss English?” he shot back. “That spectacle—or this one?”

  Rachel was chagrined because, damn him, he had a point, but she wasn’t about to back down. Not in front of Emma and all those seedy drovers. “If you care one whit for that child, you’ll send these drunkards away and put an end to this vice once and for all!”

  Trey too had his hands on his hips now, and he was leaning in, so that his face was uncomfortably close to Rachel’s. “If I close this place down,” he retorted, in measured tones, “that child will go hungry. Thanks to you, I just lost the first arm-wrestling match of my life, and a five-dollar gold piece along with it!”

  Rachel wet her lips with a hasty pass of the tip of her tongue. “Perhaps, then,” she responded, “you will think twice before wagering such a sum on a scurrilous contest again!”

  One of the onlookers laughed. “This mean you ain’t gonna take part in the horse race come Sunday afternoon, Trey?”

  Trey silenced the man with a wave of one hand, never so much as looking away from Rachel’s face. She felt pinned, even entranced, unable to go forward or backward until he deigned to free her, and that made her angry as a swarm of bees whipped to a frenzy in a butter-churn.

  “What horse race?” she demanded.

  “The one I mean to win,” Trey growled.

  “There’s a race after Jacob’s preachin’ and the picnic this comin’ Sunday,” put in some intrepid and interminably helpful observer, from the humming void that surrounded her and Trey.

  Rachel frowned, confused. “A picnic? I hadn’t heard about that.”

  “That,” drawled Trey, “is because it was supposed to be a surprise, it being in your honor and all. Miss June-bug’s been planning it ever since you agreed to come out here and save us all from our sin and ignorance.”

  Rachel blushed, and only partly because of the forthcoming picnic that was supposed to be a surprise. She looked around self-consciously, but carefully avoided meeting Emma’s gaze, though she felt it like a beam of strong sunlight, full of curiosity and confusion. “I don’t know what to say,” she said.

  “How about ‘good-bye’?” Trey asked. “We’re conducting business here, in case that’s escaped you.” He raised a pointer finger and dared—dared to waggle it in her face. “Furthermore, Miss English, I plan on winning that race. I’ve got a sizable amount of money riding on it. See that you don’t go interfering again, because if you do, I will not take kindly to it.”

  Rachel opened her mouth, closed it again, completely at a loss. He was just lucky, she told herself, as cold comfort, that she hadn’t bitten his finger off at the middle joint. “My horse is lame,” she said, in a corresponding tone of voice. “She needs tending.” Having so spoken, she turned, with all the dignity she could muster, and walked out of the Brimstone Saloon with her chin high. It was only when she got outside, her head spinning with a welter of confusing emotions, none of which could be fitted with a particular name, that she dropped the facade.

  The confrontation with Trey Hargreaves had not been an amicable one, and yet she was filled with a strange, tentative sense of celebration, quite unlike anything she’d ever felt before. Underlying this was a dark and utter despair that brought an ache to her heart and tears to the backs of her eyes. On the one hand, she wanted to dance in the street, but her desire to fling herself down on the nearest piece of flat ground and cry herself blind was equally strong.

  She tried to remember, as she walked toward Springwater station through a purple twilight, so busy with her thoughts that she was barely aware of her surroundings, poor Sunflower ambling along behind her, whether Langdon had roused such conflicting reactions in her. He hadn’t, she concluded; this was all new, and at once as frightening as meeting a grizzly bear in the woods and as sple
ndid as dancing with an angel.

  June-bug was seated in her rocker, near the empty hearth, her sewing in her lap. The needle in her hand flashed silver as she worked, but when she looked up and saw Rachel standing in the doorway, she left off her stitching. “My heavens,” she said, “what’s happened to you?”

  Jacob, smoking a pipe next to an open window, regarded Rachel in thoughtful silence. In their own way, Jacob’s silences were as eloquent as the words of any bard.

  Rachel remembered that the door was open behind her, letting in flies, and closed it with a groping motion of one hand. “Sunflower’s got a sore foot,” she said to the Stationmaster, sounding strange and helpless even to herself, as though someone else had spoken through her vocal chords. “There was broken glass—I’m afraid she might have picked up a piece or bruised herself somehow, the way she’s limping.”

  Jacob nodded and crossed to the fireplace, tapped his pipe against one wall of the hearth, placing it neatly on the mantel, and went out to see to the injured horse. Toby was already there beside him; Rachel heard his excited voice even through the shut door.

  “I believe I asked you a question, young lady,” June-bug said, with pointed good humor and a gentleness that made Rachel want to fall into the other woman’s arms and wail like a distraught child.

  “Something terrible has happened,” Rachel said, slowly pacing the length of the long room now, hugging herself as she walked. “Something utterly unexpected and all wrong.”

  June-bug didn’t prod; she simply waited, placid and steady, another shirt for Toby lying half finished in her lap.

  “I think—” Rachel lowered her voice, “I think I … care for Trey Hargreaves.”

  The vivid blue eyes smiled, even though June-bug’s mouth merely twitched. “No!” she said, in a tone of mock horror.

  Rachel came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the room, hugging herself even more tightly than before. “You don’t understand. He’s all wrong for me, and I’m all wrong for him.”

  “I see,” June-bug said, with a solemn nod.

  “He’s … he’s a saloon-keeper!” Rachel cried.

  “Yes’um, that’s so.”

  “And I’m a teacher!”

  “I reckon you are indeed.”

  “He hates me!”

  “I don’t believe that,” June-bug said, with the first real conviction she’d shown since the conversation began. “The pair of you have been strikin’ sparks since the first day, when Trey fished you out of that bogged-down stagecoach and helped Guffy get the rig to shore. Some of the best matches start that way, with fireworks and plenty of ’em. Why, me and Jacob, we like to have stripped each other’s hide right off afore we figured out that we was courtin’.”

  Rachel covered her face with both hands. “Why? Oh, why?”

  “No sense in askin’ that,” June-bug said wisely. “Ain’t no earthly answer, when it comes to such matters.”

  Rachel peeked between splayed fingers, not quite ready to face the world. June-bug was sewing again, at a quick, contented pace. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Nonsense,” June-bug replied, without looking up from the green cotton fabric of Toby’s new shirt. “The children need you. And so does Trey. One of these days, he’ll reason it through and come a-courtin’ proper-like, with flowers and pretty words.”

  The image made Rachel laugh out loud. It was as incongruous as—well, as Trey at a tea party, sipping from a delicate china cup and nibbling at a molasses-oatmeal cookie. “Even if he did—which is about as likely as St. Peter coming in on the next stagecoach—I couldn’t marry him. Our principles and values are at variance to say the least, and besides, I will never give up teaching.”

  “Hmmm,” said June-bug, rocking and stitching.

  Rachel slumped onto a nearby bench and leaned back against the table’s edge, suddenly spent. She had to change the subject, or lose her sanity. “I visited Christabel Johnson today,” she said.

  June-bug nodded. “You told me you was a-goin’ to.”

  “Granny offered to shoot me—in case I was tired of living, I guess.”

  At that, the stationmistress chuckled. “That’s Granny. She’s nobody to trifle with. Why, one time some cowboys got drunked up—just kids really, passin’ through and meanin’ no real harm—and went up there with a mind to tip over Granny’s outhouse. She put so much buckshot in them boys that it took Jacob and me half the next day to pick out the lead.” She winced a little at the memory, shook her head and chuckled again.

  “Naturally,” Rachel said, simply not up to dealing with the image of a lot of cowboys with their drawers pulled down for the procedure, “it’s Christabel I’m concerned with. I think I’ve persuaded her to come to school when classes begin, but there are a couple of problems. She has no clothes or shoes to speak of, but I can make her a dress or two from the yard goods I brought and give her my extra shoes. She’ll still need a coat, though, and then there’s the sorry state of her hygiene.”

  June-bug made a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue. “That poor little snippet,” she said. “You just bring her to me, and I’ll get her bathed. Maybe I can move Granny to let her board here, just through the winter.”

  “I don’t think the old woman will agree to that,” Rachel replied, with a sigh. “She says she needs the girl to help around the place, and it’s probably true.”

  “Bullfeathers,” said June-bug. That was as close as she ever came to cursing in all the time Rachel knew her. “Granny Johnson ain’t helpless. She’s just got that little girl buffaloed, that’s all. I’m going to hitch up the buggy and drive up there and pay her a call first chance I git. Maybe tomorrow morning, in fact, if the stage comes in on time and I can get everybody fed afore it’s time to start supper.”

  If anyone could reason with Granny, June-bug could. Rachel’s spirits, chafed raw by the events of the day, rose a little. “I’ll see to tomorrow’s supper,” she said. “You see to that incorrigible old lady.”

  “Fair enough,” June-bug agreed, with a small smile. “I don’t reckon Granny’ll shoot at me, but you never know.”

  Rachel headed for her room, there to wash, change her clothes, brush out her hair, and pin it up again. Attending to her personal grooming invariably made her feel better, and the delicious scent of something roasting in the oven had gone a long way toward restoring her as well.

  The cleanliness remedy did not fail her; when she returned to the main room, Jacob and Toby were back, standing side by side, scrubbing their hands and faces at the washstand. Toby looked at Rachel with a light in his eyes.

  “Sunflower’s gonna be all right, Miss English. It was just a little scratch. We cleaned it good and put on some medicine. Jacob put her out to graze in the pasture for a while, so she’ll get a chance to heal up.”

  Jacob merely smiled and placed a big hand on the boy’s shoulder, in silent verification of his words. Somehow, it seemed like more, that simple gesture, a confirmation of Toby’s very being, the masculine blessing Mike Houghton either could not or would not give.

  “That’s wonderful, Toby,” Rachel said, dropping her gaze from Jacob’s face to the lad’s. “Perhaps you’ll grow up to be an animal doctor.”

  “I want to run a stagecoach station, like Jacob,” the boy said, with a shake of his head and a look of determination.

  “Might not be much call for that, with the railroads comin’ on the way they are,” Jacob observed, but Toby was undaunted.

  “I ain’t leavin’ Springwater,” he said. “Not even if my pa comes back meanin’ to fetch me.”

  At that, Rachel and Jacob exchanged another look. If indeed Mike Houghton returned, he could reclaim his boy and there would be nothing anyone could do to prevent him, and they both knew it. The fact that Houghton neglected and probably abused his son meant little in the eyes of the law; children, like women and dogs, had only the most minimal rights.

  Jacob squeezed Toby’s narrow shoulder. “I reckon we’d better deal wit
h that when and if it happens,” he said. “In the meanwhile, we’ll just do the best we can. How’s that?”

  Toby turned and looked up at the older man with something resembling adoration. “That’s just fine,” he said, in complete trust.

  The following morning, the stage arrived right on time, and the three passengers alighted to stretch their legs, take hot meals, and attend to other personal needs. All of them were moving on, and as soon as the coach was loaded up again, June-bug removed her apron and handed it to Rachel.

  “Jacob,” June-bug said, “I’ll need the buggy and a shotgun. I’m goin’ up the mountain to pay a call on Granny Johnson.”

  “You mean to shoot her?” Jacob asked, with the merest twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  “I don’t require no shotgun to deal with Granny. If ’n I were to meet up with a mama grizzly, well, that would be somethin’ different entirely.”

  “Maybe I ought to go with you,” Jacob said, looking uncertain.

  June-bug shook her head. “You’ve got that wornout team of horses to feed and water and rub down,” she said, referring to the eight animals that had drawn the stage west to Springwater, from over Choteau way. As always, Jacob and the driver had hitched fresh horses to the coach and led the tired ones away to the stable. “You see to them poor critters. Rachel’s goin’ to wash up the dishes, sweep the floor, and start supper for me.”

  Jacob raised his eyebrows at that, though he offered no comment. It was unusual for June-bug to let anyone take over the tasks she saw as hers to do, and one didn’t have to be married to her for forty-odd years, like Jacob, to know that.

  “I’d better take along a few of them cookies,” June-bug mused, bustling toward the pantry. “Some eggs and butter, too, I think. I know they ain’t got no cow up there, and with winter just past, them chickens of theirs are probably as scrawny-lookin’ as Granny herself.”