Read Messenger by Moonlight Online
Authors: Stephanie Grace Whitson
Tags: #Fiction / Romance / Historical / General, #Fiction / Romance / Clean & Wholesome, #Fiction / Christian / Historical, #Fiction / Christian / Romance
Messenger by Moonlight (32 page)
With a last look in the mirror, she scooped her patchwork bedroll up. It had been lying atop the letter she’d received earlier in the day. With a quick glance at Luvina’s frilly script, she picked up the letter, folded it up, and tucked it inside the cover of her Bible for safekeeping, all the while wondering how to think about the contents.
Dear sister, I write to lend my voice to Emmet’s in the matter of our desire that you consider our home as yours when you return to Missouri. In these uncertain times, family becomes more important than ever. Incidents in St. Joseph must surely be sufficient warning that it is not the best place for a lady alone to reside. You will be heartily welcomed, your capable hands appreciated as we welcome a new Paxton into the world.
Annie still didn’t know what to think about Luvina’s odd invitation. It almost felt like she was hoping to acquire a free nursemaid.
You don’t know Luvina well. Choose good thoughts instead of suspicious ones.
George was waiting out front when she emerged from
the station. The moment she stepped into the sunlight, he exclaimed, “You look beautiful.”
Annie appraised his polished boots and crisp white shirt. “So do you.”
Again, he lifted her into the saddle. They rode west—a bit off the trail to avoid the dust rising from the long line of wagons trundling along. Conversation wandered from Annie’s wondering about the sick little boy George had carried back to his wagon the year before to the one who’d negotiated over a snakeskin.
At mention of Ed, George chuckled. “He’s a savvy little trader. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up owning half of Oregon before he’s my age.”
“I don’t know,” Annie said. “The first thing he did when he caught up with his family was to dole out some of that hard-earned candy to his sisters. At least I assume they were his sisters. Two little towheads, from what I could tell by the braids hanging down their backs.”
George shook his head in mock dismay. “Only ten years old and already subject to being taken in by a pretty face. I recant my prediction about his potential for driving the kind of bargains it takes to make a man rich.”
Annie looked over at him. “Is that the voice of experience?”
“What d’ya mean? I drive a hard bargain. Last year was my best year yet trading with Badger and his clan.”
“I was thinking more about the fancy furniture in my room. It just doesn’t quite seem like something you really needed.”
“I didn’t really need a cow, either. But I’ve got one.”
“That sort of proves my point, doesn’t it?”
“I think I forgot the point. We’re almost there. Don’t forget to save me a dance.”
“Already have,” Annie said. “The first one.”
Long after midnight, long after reels and waltzes, long after endless glasses of punch and laughter and smiles, Annie bid Lieutenant Wade Hart and Lydia a warm good-bye. “Until next week,” she said. “You promised to stop at Clearwater on your way east.”
“We will,” Lydia said. “I’ll bring you a copy of the article I’m writing about saying farewell to Fort Kearny.”
Annie took George’s arm and, together, they walked to where their horses waited. George lifted her into the saddle, then fumbled with the straps to untie her bedroll while Annie tucked her skirts about her legs. The cotillion was still in full swing. Glancing in the direction of the laughter and music, Annie saw Cinda Collingsworth capture Wade Hart the minute he stepped back inside. George handed up the patchwork comforter, and Annie pulled it about her shoulders, holding it in place by pulling a single large button she’d attached to the binding through a leather loop affixed to another edge.
As they rode toward Clearwater, bright moonlight shone almost as bright as day. They rode in silence for a while, past several wagon trains circled around low-burning fires. Tomorrow was the first day of June. Annie gazed across the moonlit prairie, smiling as she imagined the wildflowers that would soon bloom.
“You asleep in the saddle, Miss Paxton?”
“Certainly not. I was entertaining flowery thoughts of wildflower bouquets arranged in my mama’s cracked teapot.”
“Your mother’s. I wondered why someone would hang on to something in such bad shape.” He paused. “I guess that just goes to show you can’t judge a thing’s value by how it looks.”
Annie murmured agreement. “I have one of her old ball gowns, too. I don’t dare try to wear it, but I can’t seem to let it go.”
“You never talk much about your mama.”
“Neither do you.”
George took a long, slow breath. He spoke of growing up in Philadelphia and always feeling himself the center of an unspoken tug-of-war between his adoring mother and his disapproving father. When he moved on to Rose’s accident, he broke off. “But you already know about that. And how I ended up where I am. Tell me about your mama.”
Annie did—what little she could remember. “… and so,” she concluded, “I rescued the teapot off the trash heap behind our cabin and stowed it away until the day the prairie bloomed.”
“You’ve kept it out, though,” George said. “Up on that shelf by the window.”
“It reminds me of all the good things about having a home.”
George grunted softly. “Things like pretty dishes and window boxes and little white cottages with blue trim?”
Annie looked over at him. His face was shadowed by the brim of his hat. “Frank told you about that, did he?”
“It’s a fine dream.”
“It is,” Annie agreed. “But since I’ve been here at Clearwater, I’ve realized that the very best of the good things about home aren’t really things. The best things are the people you love. That’s what makes a place feel like home.”
They’d only ridden a short way when George pulled up. “You really mean what you said just now?”
“About…?”
“What makes a place feel like home.”
“I do. Why?”
He took his hat off. Cleared his throat. Finally, after taking a deep breath, he said, “I’ll build window boxes. As many as you want. I’ll paint the station white and add blue
trim and shutters.” His voice wavered. “I’d do anything for you, Annie—just to have you look at Clearwater and think, ‘That’s home.’ I l-love you, Annie. P-please don’t go back to St. Joseph. S-stay here. With me.”
A blush warmed Annie’s cheeks. For the briefest moment in time, it felt like someone was reaching inside her and rearranging things. In a good way. She looked toward Clearwater Station in the distance, the corrals and the buildings bathed in soft, bluish moonlight. And then she gazed at the man next to her. She thought of the first time she’d seen George Morgan as he staggered out the back door of the station and fell to his knees, yelling for Billy. She’d had no idea of the goodness hidden beneath the man’s rough-hewn exterior. She thought of George carrying a sick child back to a wagon train for a worried mother. George trading for a snakeskin so a boy could have some candy. George caring for a wounded friend. Riding through the night to bring Frank home. Building a chicken coop and buying a cow and humming off key while he waltzed her around tables made from shipping crates. She didn’t quite know when it had happened, but there was no doubt. She’d fallen in love with George Morgan. The realization swept over her like a refreshing spring rain.
Finally, she said, “You don’t have to do any of that. The painting. The building. I don’t need them.”
“Y-you don’t?” He nudged his horse closer.
Annie shook her head. “I already am home. Here. With you.”
George leaned in. And this time, the moonlight message was love.
In July of 1861, telegraph crews moved west from Fort Kearny. Riots in St. Joseph resulted in the eastern terminus of the Pony Express being moved to Atchison, Kansas. By August, the “handwriting was on the wall” regarding the end of the Pony Express, and in October, the completion of the transcontinental telegraph line erased its
raison d’être
. Service continued into November, until all mail entrusted to the Pony had been delivered. The last run westward reached Sacramento, California, on November 18, 1861.
Farewell Pony: Our little friend, the Pony, is to run no more… Thou wert the pioneer of a continent in the rapid transmission of intelligence between its peoples, and have dragged in your train the lightning itself, which, in good time, will be followed by steam communication by rail. Rest upon your honors… Rest, then, in peace; for thou hast run thy race, thou hast followed thy course, thou hast done the work that was given thee to do.
—
Sacramento Daily Bee
, October 26, 1861
Ann E. and George Morgan
were remembered as founders of the town of Clearwater, which grew up around the road
ranch. Ten years after their wedding, George began to build Annie’s cottage, although
cottage
wasn’t exactly the right word for the white, two-story, five-bedroom farmhouse that was the talk of the region. The house featured a broad front porch, blue trim, and an impressive complement of window boxes. Soon after its completion, the Morgans added a massive barn that became a favorite site for box suppers, socials, and dances.
Frank Paxton
never returned to Missouri. After his last mail run, he volunteered to serve with a Nebraska cavalry regiment. Just before enlisting, he tracked down and purchased Outlaw, entrusting the once-magnificent black horse’s care to an expert horsewoman known as Pete. While serving with the cavalry, Frank was befriended by William Cody, and when Cody created his Wild West show he recruited Frank to perform as a Pony Express rider. In time, Frank convinced Pete to marry him. They settled down at Midway Ranch, where Frank received the unexpected blessing of a father figure and Pete’s father gained the son he’d never had.
The Paxtons of Midway and the Morgans of Clearwater
made it a point to visit each other often. After all, what was a hundred miles to two Pony Express riders once known as midnight messengers?
Emmet and Luvina Paxton
were unable to have children because of the injuries Luvina sustained when her father’s prize bull escaped his pen and went on a rampage. The Paxtons became everyone’s favorite aunt and uncle, enjoying summer visits from their numerous nieces and nephews, contributing to various college funds, and supporting missionary causes around the world.
Lydia Hart
not only saw the Pacific Ocean and the Sandwich Islands but went on to circle the globe and to publish
several books about her adventures. She returned to Clearwater for a visit in 1881, marveling at the growing town and delighting in the moniker
Aunt Lydia
bestowed upon her by Ann’s six children.
Lieutenant Wade Hart
was mustered out of the United States Army as a Brigadier General. His distinguished service in the war put him in contact with many prominent political figures, and upon his return to the family home in Philadelphia, he enjoyed a long life of government service as an advisor to a succession of senators, cabinet members, and presidents.
Dear Reader,
My storyteller’s journey along the Pony Express trail has been a search for what it was like for the women living at those stations. It was born in my imagination decades ago when I read about “a woman on Plum Creek in Nebraska Territory” who “started a store across from a Pony Express station. She baked as many as 100 pounds of flour a day, sold bread at 50 cents a loaf and made as much as thirty dollars per day. She made cheese which she sold at 25 cents a pound and travelers paid as much as $2 for the good meals she prepared.” While the historian in me may have doubted some of those statistics and wished for “independent verification,” as I continued to learn about the history of my home state, I grew to admire the women whose efforts fueled nineteenth-century westward migration. It wasn’t until many years after first reading about that “anonymous” woman that I visited the Dawson County, Nebraska, historical museum and “met” Louisa Freeman, the woman who started that store across from a Pony Express station.
As I studied the Pony Express, I could not escape the question: Why has an entity that lasted for such a relatively short time (less than two years) retained such a prominent place in our national story? I think I’ve learned some answers to that question.
For one thing, the Pony Express was the NASCAR of 1860. Fast “cars,” challenging “tracks,” and courageous “drivers” all combined to make the Pony something people talked about, wrote about, and never forgot. If I’d been part of a wagon train making my way west at the rate of fifteen-to-twenty miles
a day
(not an hour, mind you), you can bet I would never have forgotten the breathtaking spectacle of a lone rider tearing across the landscape at breakneck speed. I would have done more than just admire his apparent fearlessness. I would have written about it in letters home and in my journal. In later years, when I looked back on the westward journey, I’d have remembered the Pony Express when I told my children and grandchildren bedtime stories.
Buffalo Bill saw to it that the Pony Express was immortalized by making it part of his Wild West production—the only view of the American West many Americans and Europeans would ever have. “Le Pony Express” featured prominently in one of the posters used to advertise the production when it toured Europe.
Beloved author Mark Twain did his part in
Roughing It
, the account of his own westward trek in 1861 wherein he described both the anticipation and, finally, the actual sighting of a Pony Express rider. Westerns and pulp fiction glorified the Pony Express. When the riders themselves began to reminisce about their youthful adventures, some extraordinary feats came to light. One rider’s memoir inspired the scene where my fictional rider Frank Paxton is “saved by a bunny.” Billy Fisher was twenty-one when Pony Express superintendent Howard Egan hired him and assigned him to ride between Ruby Valley Station and Schell Creek Station in Nevada. Fisher told of losing his way in a blizzard, getting off his horse to shelter against a cedar tree, and then beginning to
get drowsy. “I was about to… take a good nap when suddenly something jumped on to my legs and scared me.” A jackrabbit saved Fisher’s life for, as Fisher said, “A man who goes to sleep in the snow might keep on sleepin’, you know.”
The more frustrating part of my research into this legendary phenomenon was the lack of information about the women.
I should make it very clear that there is no documentation of an Annie Paxton taking a moonlight ride in place of an injured rider.
Could it have happened? Why not? Did it happen? There is no record of anything like it. Then again, there are few records at all of the part the women played in the Pony Express. They were there, cooking and cleaning and raising children in sometimes incredibly difficult circumstances, but time and time again I caught only a whisper of them hidden behind words like
and family
,
and his wife
, or, in the case of the stations in Utah,
and his two wives and children
.
As is often the case in history, the women of the Pony Express are, for the most part, little more than anecdotes. This novel is my personal tribute to them.
Stephanie Grace Whitson
Lincoln, Nebraska, 2015
www.stephaniewhitson.com