Prairie Rose (18 page)

Seth was pacing by the campfire when Rosie and Sheena emerged arm in arm into the circle of light. His relief at seeing the younger woman was so great, he had to fight himself to keep from letting out a whoop of joy and swinging her up into his arms. Instead, he stopped his pacing and set his hands loosely on his hips as Chipper and the other children swarmed around her. Even the puppy, whom she and Chipper had named Stubby, danced in delight, tugging on the hem of Rosie’s skirt and yipping in the excitement of the moment.

“Rosie’s been talking to God again, so she has,” Sheena declared to the gathered company. She accepted the rough willow chair offered by one of the visiting cattlemen. “Our Rosie talks to God—
and
she listens when he talks back to her.”

The cowboy laughed. “Maybe we should build her a shrine or somethin’.”

“Make light of it if you will,” Sheena went on, “but to Rosie every place on earth is a shrine. God talks to her anywhere.”

“Quite a little saint, is she?” The man took off his tall-crowned Stetson and surveyed the slender woman. Then he looked at Seth. “Your wife?”

“She works for me. Takes care of my son.”

The man let out a slow whistle. “I’d keep a sharp lookout if I was you, my friend. A man gets lonely on the trail, and she’s a mighty purty little thing. Can she cook?”

“Fery goot cook,” Rolf Rustemeyer said. “Fräulein Mills
ist
fery goot cook. Maken fresch bread, potato, egg, chicken.
Ist
goot
für
eaten—breakfascht, lunsch, zupper.”

“What’s he talkin’ about?” the cowboy asked Seth. “Is he French or somethin’?”

“German.” Seth struggled with the urge to tell the men to keep their eyes off Rosie and their thoughts to themselves—she wasn’t free for the looking. But she
was
free. She had kept her heart pure. No man had claimed her. He shoved his hands into his pockets and started toward her.

At that moment, the cowboy stepped in front of him. “Ma’am, that was a real fine supper you fixed,” he said to Rosie. “As fine a supper as I’ve ate in many a month.”

Rosie had been carrying Chipper on one hip. Now she let him slide to the ground. “Thank you, sir,” she said, her face lighting up. “They were Sheena’s dumplings.”

“I’d be much obliged if you’d allow me and my men to pay you for the meal. What would you say to fifty cents?”

“Fifty cents!” Rosie gasped.

“Per,”
the man added proudly. “Pay up, fellers.”

“Now just a minute.” Seth held up a hand. “We don’t take money for food. This is my homestead, not a boardinghouse. If we have extra, we share it.”

“Well, sir, that’s mighty generous of you. Mighty generous. If you feel thataway, why, we’ll just bed down over in your barn for the night. Awful late to be hitting the trail again.”

Seth’s spine prickled. “The barn’s off-limits. Head over the bridge to LeBlanc’s mill. He’s got a bunkhouse all set up, and his wife serves breakfast. If you start out now, you’ll be there by midnight.”

“Midnight! C’mon, now. If you don’t want us in your barn, we’ll put our bedrolls down by the crick.”

Seth crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t about to allow six lonely cowboys to sleep within half a mile of Rosie Mills—let alone as nearby as the creek. “Now listen here—”

“Sure, you gentlemen can stay in my barn,” Jimmy O’Toole said, laying a hand on Seth’s shoulder. “It’s dry enough if you can stand the smell.”

The cowboys eyed each other. Finally their leader turned back to Seth. “Say, farmer, by any chance do you know a feller by the name of Hunter?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just curious. We been hearing about this Hunter rascal all the way from Topeka. Seems he once took a woman against her will and used her most cruel. Then he run off and left her alone and in a delicate condition. More’n five years later, he showed up and kidnapped the child the poor woman had borned before she died a terrible death. There’s been talk of puttin’ a bounty on the scalawag’s head.”

“Is that so?” Seth stared hard at the man, his blood boiling in his veins. “Where’d you come by such a far-fetched story as that?”

“Folks talkin’ about it everywhere. There’s a feller by the name of Cornwall huntin’ for the missin’ boy. It’s him as is thinkin’ of a bounty. They say if he puts one on Hunter’s head, it’ll be for a hundred dollars.”

Seth wanted to laugh out loud. Jack Cornwall didn’t have a hundred dollars to save his yellow-bellied soul. The war had stripped him of house and farm—his only means of livelihood. He’d be hard-pressed to come up with ten dollars, let alone a hundred.

“A hundred dollars could make a lot of folks sit up and listen,” the cowboy went on. “You ever heard of this Hunter feller around these parts?”

“I mind my own business,” Seth said. “But I can tell you one thing. Before I’d set off chasing any man for a bounty, I’d take a close look at Jack Cornwall’s hundred-dollar reward.”

“
Jack
Cornwall, is it?” The cowboy gave his cronies a grin. “Well now, I reckon you know more about this matter than we do.”

“Bad news travels fast.”

The man laughed. “Shore enough! I guess we’ll be crossin’ that bridge of yours then. Keep us in mind if you hear of Hunter. We’d be the first in line to ride out in search of a hundred-dollar bounty. If we don’t get to Salina purty quick, we’re gonna be flat broke.”

“You’ll need at least two dollars apiece tonight,” Rosie said. Seth watched in amazement as she approached the cowboys. Head held high and shoulders squared, she confronted them. “If you want to cross the Bluestem Creek, you have to pay the bridge toll.”

“Bridge toll!”

“You don’t think that bridge built itself, do you? Lumber doesn’t come cheap and easy out here on the prairie. Unless you men intend to ride all the way up the Bluestem to the shallow crossing at Salvatore Rippeto’s station, you’ll have to pay the toll.”

“But that’s twelve dollars!”

“Twelve dollars exactly,” Rosie agreed. “We crossed plenty of bridges ourselves on the way here, and it’s a fair price.” She stuck out her hand, and the six cowboys dug around in their pockets for the silver coins. Grumbling, the men handed over their money and then shuffled off toward their horses.

As the cowboys rode away, Rosie took off her scarf, shook out her long hair, and tied the coins into the scrap of cloth. “I will take it upon myself to keep the money safe,” she said.

Rolf Rustemeyer—who evidently had comprehended the nature of the transaction—burst out into a deep, hearty chuckle. Sheena gave her a hug as the children cheered. Even Jimmy clapped her on the back.

From a distance, Seth listened as the cowboys’ horses clattered across the new pontoon bridge. He was glad he had put a heavy bolt on the barn door. Glad he had begun to shingle the roof. Glad the puppy always slept beside Rosie. But he had a bad feeling that his efforts might not be enough to keep her safe.

Swallowing hard, he fought the strong urge that welled up inside him. He wanted to protect Rosie. Shelter her. Care for her. It was different from the way he had felt about Mary Cornwall, who had lived so near her ever-vigilant papa. This feeling toward Rosie was stronger, and it filled his chest with an ache so powerful he could hardly suppress it.

But he didn’t want to care so deeply about Rosie Mills! Didn’t want to care about
any
woman. He had vowed never to fall into that trap again. Throughout his youth, all he’d ever wanted was a family. When he was grown, he hoped for a wife, children, a home. He wanted to be father and husband. He was sure he could do a better job of it than his own father had.

With Mary Cornwall he had tried. He had gone into that marriage with all the hopes and dreams a man could carry. And look what it had brought him. Anger, banishment, loss. He had a son who didn’t love him. His brother-in-law had become an enemy who planned to kill him. Chances were that before the summer was out Seth would have a bounty on his head. And his wife—the wife with whom he had planned to spend his years—was dead.

Seth studied Rosie as she cleaned up from the supper, her hair flowing around her like a long silk cape. Beautiful. Rosie Mills was beautiful. But if he allowed himself to care about her—to commit his future to her—he might lose her. Just the way he’d lost Mary.

No. He wouldn’t do that. Hardening his heart, Seth made up his mind. He would train his focus on his work. He would try as hard as he could to be the kind of father he thought Chipper needed. And … yes, he would encourage Rolf Rustemeyer to make Rosie his wife.

June brought such excitement, such joy, that Rosie knew she had done well in turning her heart toward her Father. Overriding everything hung the anticipation of the dance celebrating the new bridge. Rosie and Sheena took on the project with all the enthusiasm their blossoming friendship brought. It was hardly more than a twenty-minute walk from one soddy to the other, and they were constantly back and forth—talking, planning, even doing chores together.

Seth had decided to shingle the barn completely, and with each passing day Rosie’s home became more snug and secure. She hung a curtain in the loft window and set a stool beside her mattress. She even made herself a pillow. Stubby slept at her feet, and at the slightest disturbance, he barked with all the ferocity of a wolf— albeit a very young, slightly yappy wolf.

The barn had been chosen as the site of the dance. Rosie scrubbed the rough plank walls top to bottom, and she and Chipper kept the stalls cleaned and filled with freshly mown hay. Even if it rained on the momentous afternoon, the barn could hold almost everyone invited to the party.

Sheena’s list seemed to grow by the day. The Polish family, Casimir Laski and his wife, would come. Salvatore Rippeto had sent word that he and his wife and all their children were planning to attend. LeBlanc and his reputedly beautiful daughters were coming. They were said to be sewing new dresses expressly for the event.

Even Holloway and his wife—as community neighbors—had been invited. They hadn’t responded to the invitation. Rumor had it they were angry about the bridge that had effectively cut their station off from the flow of traffic down the main road from Topeka to Salina. But Rolf Rustemeyer would be at the dance and so would all the O’Tooles, as well as a collection of homesteaders from around the area. With music and dancing and wonderful food, the celebration promised to be the highlight of the prairie summer.

As if all this weren’t enough to keep her busy, Rosie had discovered a new source of activity: toll-taking.

“Here comes a party bound for the west,” she told Sheena one afternoon as they stood in Seth’s yard stirring soil-based pigment into the vat of milk paint they had made. They had decided to paint the barn a deep red. “Is it three wagons? Or four?”

“Three. That’s nine dollars.”

Rosie laughed and set down her paddle. “I never thought tending a bridge could be so rewarding. Did you know I’ve started taking goods in trade, too? Several travelers didn’t have cash to pay the toll. Rather than make them travel all the way to Holloway or Rippeto, I accepted other things. Tea. Flour. Buffalo skins. Blankets. I’ve put everything in a big chest that I found in the barn.”

Sheena studied the wagons as they rolled slowly toward the bridge. “Does Seth know?” she asked. “About the trade goods, I mean?”

Rosie chewed on her lower lip for a moment. She didn’t like to do anything without Seth’s approval. He hadn’t seemed too happy about the toll-taking in the first place. He never asked where she put the money or what she planned to do with it. In fact, he more or less ignored the bridge and the growing stream of travelers who crossed it each day. There could be no question he would object to taking away the hard-earned goods the settlers brought with them in order to establish their new homes.

All the same, Rosie knew if she let one wagon or stagecoach cross without paying, word would spread, and nobody would want to pay. There were plenty who could afford it—cowboys with their pockets stuffed full of earnings from their latest trail ride, miners heading back east from the gold fields of California, peddlers and politicians, fur traders. All travelers knew they would have to pay ferry and bridge tolls. It was an accepted part of the journey. But Rosie had no doubt Seth would despise the notion of taking goods from settlers. On the other hand, how could it be right to turn poor travelers away just because they couldn’t produce a silver dollar or two?

“I haven’t told him,” she admitted to Sheena. “I don’t think he’d like it much.”

“You might ask his opinion on the matter, Rosie. What’s the harm in it?”

“Seth doesn’t … he doesn’t exactly talk to me anymore, Sheena. Ever since that night when I ran away to the creek to talk to God, Seth has been angry with me. Not exactly angry. He just doesn’t seem to know I’m here. He never looks at me. He barely speaks.”

“By herrings, I don’t believe it. Seth doesn’t speak to you? Why not?”

“I don’t know. I suppose he’s upset that I left the company that night. Maybe he’s upset that I charged those cowboys a toll. Maybe it has something to do with Rolf Rustemeyer. I don’t know. Seth and I can’t seem to talk to each other without a squabble. We had been arguing just before I ran off that night. Remember? Seth was ordering me not to marry Rolf Rustemeyer, and I was telling him I could marry whoever I pleased. I didn’t think it would make him so furious. But it did.”