Messenger by Moonlight (25 page)

George brandished the book. “The secret to surviving winter at Clearwater.” By the time he was finished unwrapping the package, over a dozen books stood on the counter, a small crock at either end holding them upright. Picking one up, he recited, “‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…’” He paused. “Magnificent, isn’t it? And strangely applicable to the recent election news.”

Annie’s heart lurched. “You think there’s going to be a war?”

George set the book down. “I wish I could believe that cooler heads will prevail and a solution be found. But to be honest, it’s probably too late for that.”

Annie rubbed her arms to dispel the goose bumps. She remembered the woman storming out of the quilting bee at Fort Kearny a few weeks ago and the prediction regarding the post commander should Lincoln become president.

“What’s it mean for us—I mean, for people in the West?”

“Much of the regular army will likely be called east. The rest of the ranchers and I talked about that at the cotillion.
We’ll form a volunteer militia to take their place.” His voice gentled. “It’s good to remember a verse in the Psalms at times like these. I can’t quote it exactly, but the general idea is that when ‘the nations are in an uproar,’ God is still on His throne. Remembering that can get a man through many a ‘winter of despair’ and on to the ‘spring of hope.’”

Annie reached over and opened the book George had laid on the counter.
Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress
by Charles Dickens. “I’m impressed you liked this well enough to memorize it.”

“Oh, that’s not the one I quoted. I don’t have that book yet. It’s Dickens, just a different story. Newer. I read the opening in a magazine a stage passenger left here while you were at Fort Kearny. Captivating language. The story’s set during the French Revolution. It was published in pieces last year—a serial in
Harper’s.
I’d like to own a copy, though. Rose loved Dickens.”

Annie set the book down. “Tell me about Rose. A favorite memory.”

“That’s easy.” George chuckled. “We stole a peck of apples from the neighbor’s orchard.
Green
apples. And ate nearly the whole thing.”

“That makes my stomach hurt just to hear about it.”

“Mine, too, even after all these years.” He shook his head. “That girl got me into more trouble.”

“Poor George, an innocent child, dragged into trouble against his will.”

“Absolutely. I was always the good one. Rose was the troublemaker.” His tone denied the words, and they shared a laugh. “All right. I caused my share of trouble, too, but probably more than I would have on my own. Rose was never one to stay still for long. She was like Frank in that way.” He
looked over at the books. “After the accident, she said literature saved her. She didn’t know it would save me, too. All those hours reading to her after she got hurt cured my stutter, once and for all.” He sighed. “Did I ever tell you what happened to her?”

Annie shook her head. “Only that she passed on before you left home.”

George looked toward the fire blazing in the fireplace across the room as he talked. “She sneaked off with our father’s best rig and challenged a boy she liked to a race. She would have won, too—except she rounded a corner too fast and the carriage overturned. She never walked again.” For a moment, he was silent. Brooding. But then he looked at Annie and said, “I haven’t thought about that green-apple episode in a long while. I should think more on the fun we had and less on the accident.” He pointed at the row of books. “She taught me to cherish a well-told story.”

Annie wondered if reading might help Frank. She glanced toward his room.

George read her mind. He pulled another book from the row and handed it over. “This might appeal to his adventurous side.”

The Iliad.
What a strange word. “I can’t even pronounce this,” Annie said and started to hand it back.

George stayed her hand. “Trust me. It’ll appeal to Frank. War and sieges and calamity galore. It’ll get his mind off things here at Clearwater.”

Nineteen winters on a poor Missouri farm taught a girl how to cope with a lot of things—including winter. Annie knew what it was to battle deep drifts and to spend long days
shivering beside a tiny stove in a futile attempt to keep warm. There was nothing to be done but to endure it, knowing that spring would come again. But neither Annie nor Frank had ever endured weather like what Mother Nature threw at Clearwater in the winter of 1860 to 1861.

All through December, a succession of fierce storms piled snow in ever-deepening drifts. News filtered in from stage drivers about horses slipping or enduring injuries so profound they had to be shot. One such incident resulted in the death of a Pony Express rider who, after shooting a horse with a broken leg, grabbed the mochila and tried to walk to the next station. He perished when yet another storm blew through. The resemblance to Frank’s accident made Annie shudder.

George and Billy ran ropes from the station to the corrals, from the corrals to the barn, from the barn to the well, and so on. George warned Annie and Frank against thinking they could find their way without those ropes. “Men have been lost within a few feet of home when the wind came up and turned the world white. If that happens when you’re out doing chores, you keep hold of that rope, no matter what.”

The notion of getting lost in a storm plagued Annie as she thought about the men riding for the Pony Express. How could any of them survive? When she asked the question, George said, “By trusting their horses to know the way home. Those ponies know the trail better than their riders by now. A man gets lost in a storm, best thing he can do is to just wrap the reins around the saddle horn, hang on, and trust the horse.”

Night after night, howling winds rattled the shutters locked across Annie’s windows. As the thermometer plummeted, she added successive layers to her bed until she huddled beneath two buffalo pelts, several blankets, and the
patchwork comforter she’d brought from home. Some nights, she slept fully clothed. And still, she shivered.

She’d just dozed off one night when she heard someone moving about out in the kitchen. Reaching from beneath the covers, she retrieved her boots and put them on without getting out of bed. Drawing a buffalo hide about her shoulders, she padded into the kitchen. George Morgan was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a wooden crate crowded with live chickens on either side of him. Presently, Billy—who’d been sleeping up in the station loft since the onslaught of winter began—came inside accompanied by Luke Graber, a new Pony rider. Both men had a hen tucked beneath each arm. Shivering, they set the hens in the crate and hunkered down next to the stove.

Graber muttered, “It’s so cold the thermometer froze.”

“At least forty below,” George said. He pointed at the chickens. “Can’t do much about the cattle or the horses, but there’s no reason to let Christmas dinner freeze to death.”

As the night wore on, the men carried feather beds down from the loft to cover the kitchen floor while George nailed blankets over the doors and windows. They scattered loose hay in the storeroom and released the chickens, blocking the doorway with stacked crates to keep them contained. Finally, the birds turned in, cocooned in the kitchen. Annie’s last thoughts before drifting off to sleep were of the riders on the trail.
Lord, have mercy on them. Please.

In spite of the snow, the stage ran with surprising regularity. Passengers were rare, but newspapers and regular mail got through. An island in a world of white, Clearwater was not entirely cut off from the rest of the world. Emmet wrote every week. Lydia stayed in touch, writing frequent notes laced with humor and goodwill. As expected, the election news had precipitated the departure of several men from Fort Kearny—the post commander among them. The resulting shift in housing netted a larger apartment for the Harts, and Lydia was now ensconced in her own room.
They call it a room
, she wrote,
although it’s only slightly larger than the chicken coop outside your storeroom door
. One letter included a warmly worded invitation from Lieutenant Hart to attend the Christmas gala at Fort Kearny.
I have missed you. Please do all you can to join the festivities planned for Christmas Day
. Annie carried the letter in her apron pocket for a couple of days before broaching the topic with George.

He just shook his head. “You’d be taking your life into your own hands.” He paused. “Unless—I suppose if there’s a break in the weather when the next stage comes through, you and Frank could take it over. But if a blizzard blows in, you could both be at Fort Kearny for a good long while.”

“You wouldn’t mind, though? If we did that—if we took the stage?” Annie mentioned Frank’s seeing the doctor again.

“You work for the Pony Express, not for me. It’s not my business to order you about.”

Frank said no. They couldn’t risk not being able to get back. Annie’s twenty dollars a month wasn’t much, but they needed it. Annie knew he was right, but she still held out hope that unseasonably warm weather would make it possible for the two of them to ride to the fort and return early in the morning after the Christmas Ball. But the weekend before Christmas, yet another storm blew in. As drifting snow buried Annie’s kitchen window beneath a mountain of white, her dream of once again donning the blue ball gown and Lydia’s jewels faded.

In spite of her disappointment, Annie did her part to see that the humans huddled inside Clearwater Station marked the holiday happily. When she set a steaming bowl of chicken and dumplings before him, George smiled. He looked about the table at Luke Graber and Jake Finney, Billy and Frank, and referenced a Charles Dickens story he’d read aloud to everyone over the past few evenings. “‘God bless us every one.’” He took a bite.

“Mrs. Hollenberg uses butter for the dumplings,” Annie said. “I didn’t have any, because I wanted what little was left for the biscuits and jelly.”

George nodded. He took another bite.

“She didn’t indicate how much rosemary to use, either. I had to guess.”

“Mmm-hhm.”

Annie glowered at him. “Could you kindly do more than grunt? Is it good or just passable?”

“When a man can’t stop eating long enough to say anything, seems a cook would know the food’s good.”

Annie folded her arms. “I’d still appreciate actual words,
Mr. Morgan. I sacrificed two of my Reds for that food you’re gobbling down without so much as a
thank-you
.”

Humor twinkled in the man’s gray-blue eyes. “You mean those two roosters you didn’t want fighting with Clifford? Seems their demise was already decided the day they hatched.” He held up a hand. “But all right, all right. If it’s words you want, then it’s words you’ll have.” He paused. “The not-so-subtle reference to the absence of a milk cow is noted. As is the fact that we’re about to use the last of the butter.” He cupped the bowl of dumplings with both hands as he said, “As to the chicken and dumplings. With our without butter, they’re delicious. You used exactly the right amount of rosemary, although I personally lean toward a little more salt. All told, even Sophia would be impressed.” He set the bowl back down. “How’s that, Miss Paxton? Enough words to earn me the right to eat some more?”

Annie smiled and batted her eyelashes at him. “Quite. Just save room for pie.”

Right after Christmas, the stage delivered news that sent a different kind of chill through the inhabitants of Clearwater Road Ranch. South Carolina had seceded from the Union five days before Christmas. By the end of January, Mississippi, Florida. Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had followed suit. When George’s newspapers reported that secessionist mobs had torn down United States flags in St. Jo., Annie worried for Ira Gould and Luther. Initially glad Emmet was “safe” in Missouri instead of riding into blinding snow and life-threatening cold, Annie now began to worry about him for a different reason. As a slave state, would Missouri secede from the Union? Would Emmet volunteer to fight?

Occasional bouts of dizziness continued to send Frank wobbling back to bed. Sometimes, after he helped with chores, he slept for twelve or sixteen hours. Although she did her best not to let it show, Annie was worried. She was also fairly certain Frank was stealing a drink now and then from George’s medicinal stores.

In February, the newspapers reported the burning of stage stations along the southern mail route in Texas “with the stated purpose of interrupting enemy communications.” When railroad bridges along the southern route west of St. Louis were also burned, the central line became the main overland mail system. On hearing it, Frank let out a string of profanity.

“The Pony’s needed more than ever, and what am I doing about it?” He looked over at Annie and bopped himself on the head. “Waiting for my brains to unscramble.” He stormed outside.

On February 18, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president of the Confederate States of America. Luke Graber brought the news with him from Fort Kearny as part of his Eastbound mail run. The next morning, when she skittered into a cold, dark kitchen to stir up the fire and cook breakfast, Annie found a scrawled note. Six words.

Gone to see doctor. Don’t worry.

Wincing from the pain of what felt like the thousandth headache since he’d been thrown by that cursed horse, Frank leaned into the wind. At least the sun was shining today. If it kept up, the temperature might actually get above freezing. Annie meant well, but he was sick and tired of hearing her talk about how he should rest and wait. She was right
about one thing, though. He needed to get away from Clearwater. He was tired of hearing about Jake Finney’s adventures in the snow. Tired of hearing Luke Graber talk, period. The blond-haired, blue-eyed rider had mentioned Pete just one time too many. Frank had “rested” long enough.

What if being dizzy and having his head feel like it was caught in a vise was the way things were going to be for the rest of his life? The only thing that helped was whiskey, and he was pretty sure Annie knew he’d been hitting George’s medicinal stash. He could read the worry in her eyes. And he didn’t want to see it anymore. Now he wouldn’t—at least for a few days. Once he’d decided to leave for a while, he was packed and ready quicker than Outlaw could throw a greenhorn.

Outlaw.
He’d never have a chance to buy him now. The Pony Express might have paid them while the Paiutes were raiding, but they weren’t paying Frank now. With Emmet and his money gone back to Missouri, Annie’s dream-come-true was looking more and more impossible by the day. And all she could say was
Wait. Be patient. Rest.

Well, he was done with all that. He was going to see the doc at Fort Kearny and if the doc had nothing to offer… well, if he was going to have a headache all the time, it might as well be one he’d earned having a little fun.

The moon was a mere sliver in the night sky and Annie had just stretched out on her bed when someone pounded on the front door.
Frank!
She’d barely slept, hoping he’d return as soon as he saw the doctor. Rising quickly and using the patchwork comforter for a shawl, Annie hurried into the main room just as George stumbled out of the soddy at the opposite
end of the station and unbarred the door. A dark-haired, buckskin-clad stranger staggered across the threshold and went down like a felled tree.

By the time Annie got to his side, George had knelt and turned him onto his back.

“Badger, old friend,” he muttered. “What’s happened to you?” He shouted for Billy.

“I’ll get water,” Annie said.

“Light some lamps first. And—stay in the kitchen until I call for you. I need to look him over.”

Annie shoved four tables together and spread a buffalo hide atop them. “Put him up here,” she said. “You’ll be able to see better.”

“Good. That’s good.” George spoke to Billy. “Help me move him.”

Annie hurried to light the lamps around the room while the two men lifted Badger and placed him on the makeshift examination table. Lastly, she lit the lamp on the store counter and carried it to George.

He thanked her as he took it. “Hot water,” he said. “I’ll call for you when we’re ready.”

Annie hurried into the kitchen. While she worked, she tried to pray. For Badger and for Frank. When George didn’t call for her right away, she slipped into her room and dressed, leaving her braid to trail down her back as she rushed back into the kitchen. George was standing at her worktable, rummaging through a hide box she’d never seen before.

“I need to make a poultice,” he said. “Can you gather up some rags or towels? As long as they’re clean, it doesn’t really matter.”

A few moments later, he was stirring a stinking concoction on one burner while Annie brewed strong tea from a handful of dried herbs that had come from the medicine box.

“Do you know what happened?” she asked.

“He’s been shot. The bullet went clean through his shoulder, but it happened a while ago and now it’s pouring green pus.” He stopped short and looked over at her. “You squeamish?”

Annie shook her head. She looked around the kitchen. “What if we move Emmet’s cot in here? Wouldn’t it make it easier to tend him?”

“The cot’s a good idea, but we’ll set it up in my room where I can keep a better eye on him. He’s burning with fever. There might be something more going on than just the wound.”