Showdown at Buffalo Jump (2 page)

The stage company would hear about this. Miss Catherine O'Dowd would speak, and the company would listen. The wives of captains of industry like Maxwell Bass, were, by God, listened to. The ears of that filthy driver would burn as she told him who she was about to be, and what she thought of him. Ladies did not put up with such treatment, and Catherine O'Dowd was about to become a lady.

Lady! The sound of that was sweet as the scent of heather on a soft breeze. Lady! There was precious little chance that she would have been called lady in her native Ireland, missus more likely. But by the end of the day, lady she would be.

Were it not for the fact that she was practicing the gentility necessary to that station, she would have called the driver to a stop and given him a tongue lashing that would sting more than that whip he was so fond of cracking.

Miss Catherine O'Dowd might be of little consequence to that foul creature in the driver's boot, but he would listen to Mrs. Maxwell Bass. Hat in hand, he would be, eyes averted as she sharply reminded him to take care when dealing with his betters.

Catherine knew about dealing with her betters. Once an heir to the estate on which her parents labored stopped outside the whitewashed stone cottage the O'Dowds called home. The boy and she were of like age, but he sat atop a blooded mare, dressed in the finest clothes Catherine had ever seen. And she stood barefoot in the mud, trying to hide the torn spots of her ragtag dress with her hands.

The young boy looked at her as though she were a creature beyond his ken, and she steeled herself to look him straight in the eye until he looked away. It was that day that she decided to leave Ireland.

Catherine was a patient girl. Whether she was born with that quality, or learned it over the next seven years is a matter of conjecture, and of little consequence. But patient she was, saving over those years a pitifully small purse, which she hid behind a stone in the fireplace. Sometimes, on those rare occasions when she was alone in the house, she would take the coins from their hiding place, hold them to her breast, and pray that she might leave Ireland before she was taken to wife.

And gradually, even though her feet still played across the cool, black soil of her native country, she began withdrawing from that place, preferring to live as a lady in her fantasies.

It was not that Catherine avoided her tasks. One cannot ignore obligations to family, no matter how helpless and unhappy one is. But when she was peeling potatoes for the evening meal, her mind would carry her beyond the hut to a place of blooded horse's, fine clothes, and ladies and gentlemen.

Her mother would watch Catherine those times and wonder at the decorum with which her daughter held her chin, wonder if somehow she had been delivered of the wrong baby. Never had there been majesty in her own life, only drudgery and child-bearing. She began to dream then, too. Not much, only a small dream that her daughter would have a better life than she had had. But there was little time for fantasy in her life, and within moments she would turn her calloused hands to another of the unending tasks that defined her life.

Catherine's aspirations defined her as “different.” The “differentness” was a shield, keeping the boys of the village at arm's length, their mothers cautioning them about girls who tended to daydream when their attention should be focused on more practical matters.

And perhaps it was her “differentness” that made Father O'Malley think of the O'Dowd girl, Catherine, after reading the letter from a wealthy Irish-American family who wanted a girl with the lilt of Old Eire in her voice to serve dinners at their mansion in Boston. The family would pay the girl's passage to America, the letter said, in return for three years' service.

Would she? Father O'Malley asked.

Would it not be sinful to turn down that which she had prayed for? Catherine answered.

Father O'Malley smiled and the bond was made.

Three years Catherine had spent in Boston, slowly coming to the realization that being a servant in America was not much different, after all, from being a tenant in Ireland. As those years crawled to a close, Catherine was filled with despondency.

But then came the advertisement!

Montana rancher and coal mine owner seeking younger woman with matrimony object of intentions. Interested parties may write Max Bass, General Delivery, Prairie Rose, Montana
.

Prairie Rose, Montana! The name fairly sang of romance and adventure. She had written and rewritten her letter until it was in her finest hand, and in language fit for the wife of a Montana entrepreneur, language fit for a lady.

A lady!

The notion nudged Catherine out of her reverie, and her anger surged, filling her throat with bile. That driver would get his comeuppance when the stage company learned, as it would, how the wife of Max Bass had been jolted about.

“First time West?”

The question pulled Catherine's attention from the blistering speech she would make to the stage driver to the man sitting across from her.

She had noticed him when he boarded the stage in Ingomar. He was of medium height, a bit pudgy with the soft, white skin that better fits a woman than a man. In compensation, he had cultivated a wispy beard to put some hard edges and a little maturity to his visage. The attempt was a failure, like growing mold on an egg to make it more attractive.

“First time?” he continued.

“Why, yes, it is,” she answered, the lilt of Ireland strong in her voice.

“Where you bound for?”

“My destination,” Catherine retorted, with the appropriate sharpness reserved for louts who meddle in a lady's affairs.

“Sorry, no offense meant.”

Catherine nodded.

“Me, I'm headed for Prairie Rose. Now there's a town for you. Isn't much yet, of course, but you just watch our smoke. Speakin' of which, do you mind?”

He pulled a cigar from a case in his coat and held it toward Catherine, awaiting her approval.

She nodded again, thinking the smell of a good cigar might be preferable to the dirty, dusty, baking air in the coach. He touched a match to the end of the stogie and sent a puff of smoke into the coach.

“Name's Phillips, Aloysius Phillips. Banker,” he said, punctuating the statement with another puff of smoke, “part owner and president of the Prairie Rose Bank.”

“President,” he continued, with his self-satisfaction obvious in his tone, “of the Prairie Rose Commercial Club, too,” he added, nodding for emphasis.

“It was me named Prairie Rose. Just like a flower unfolding on the prairie, I says. Prairie Rose it's got to be, I says, and they all saw how right I was. Smart men, they are in Prairie Rose.”

Catherine decided to trip the strutting popinjay.

“Since, sir,” she said, peering at him as though he were something she had found smeared on her shoe, “you are a businessman, perhaps you know of my fiancé, Maxwell Bass.”

“By jingo, I knew it was you,” Phillips retorted, slapping his knee. “Gents, I'd like you to meet Max Bass's mail-order bride. Came here all the way from Ireland, by way of Boston. Pretty little thing, isn't she though? Looks like Max snagged himself a keeper.”

Catherine froze. She pretended that Phillips was not in the coach, that he had not spoken to her. But pallor spread across her face like snow sifting across a Montana pasture. That was burned away by a pink stain hot as a brand. Catherine O'Dowd, the daughter of an Irish peasant family, had been caught pretending to be something she wasn't, pretending that a letter from a man in Montana had enough magic in it to make a maid into a lady.

She had been discovered for what she was. A woman with so few prospects that she chased a promise all the way from Boston to Prairie Rose, Montana. No lady that. Just Catherine O'Dowd: peasant, maid.

Phillips was grinning. He knew he had smeared her soul with dirt. He reveled in that. Speak uppity to him, would she, this shanty-Irish, mail-order bride?

“Must not have been enough men in Boston,” Phillips continued. “Or maybe there were too many?”

The banker blew a puff of smoke at Catherine, and for a moment, it obscured the sneer on his face, but only for a moment.

“Get my point?” he asked staring her full in the eyes.

And Catherine turned her face blindly to the window so the other passengers would not see the tear that coursed through the layer of dust on her face, leaving a streak of mud.

The driver banged on the roof of the coach with the butt of his whip. “Prairie Rose, five minutes,” he said, his voice disappearing behind the veil of dust the whip had dislodged from the ceiling.

Prairie Rose, Catherine thought, a blossom opening on the prairie. She tried very hard to conceal her tears from the other passengers, and they tried very hard to pretend they hadn't heard Phillips baiting her, hadn't seen her cry.

The remainder of the trip was in silence except for the creaking of leather, squeaking of wheels, drumming of hooves and the occasional pop of the driver's whip. The heat of Catherine's anger dried her tears, and she sat stony faced, waiting for the end of her journey.

“Whoa, you sonsabitches!” shouted the driver.

The stage lurched to a stop in a cloud of invective, the same way it had run. Even as he climbed off the seat, the driver continued his monologue. “Can't make these sway-backed, pea-brained, gas-passing horse's move, and once you get 'em moving, you can't get 'em to stop. Spend half their time fightin' each other and the other half fightin' me.”

Then louder, to the horse tender who had come with a fresh team, “Take good care of 'em, Billy. It was a good run.”

An uneasy patter of laughter ran through the coach at the driver's words. The passengers rose stiffly and patted dust from their clothes. Last to leave the coach were Catherine and Phillips.

“Mr. Phillips,” Catherine said. “I don't want you to leave with the wrong impression.”

Phillips smirked. The tone in Catherine's voice was diffident, much more to the banker's liking. He settled in his seat, awaiting the apology due him.

“I just want you to know that nothing I said to you was meant to convey my true feelings about what a pompous ass you are. Get my point?”

Then Catherine rammed her hat pin into the banker's leg. Phillips gasped, and Catherine leaned over until her nose was two inches from his. Her eyes, green as the sea on a sunny day, were lit with sparks.

“You move and I'll stick this pin into the bone. The doctor will have to remove it then, and I'll tell the town I was trying to protect myself from your advances. I don't think that would do your reputation much good, do you?”

Phillips shook his head, drops of sweat falling from the tip of his nose, little puffs of dust marking their arrival on his protruding vest.

“You should be kinder to ladies, Mr. Phillips. Don't you agree?”

Phillips nodded, eyes rolling back in his head as though he were about to faint.

“Speak to me again as you did today, Mr. Phillips, and I'll give the barbershop quartet in town a man who can sing high C.”

By now sweat was running off the banker's face in rivulets, and his collar was smeared with mud.

“You may go now, Mr. Phillips,” Catherine said, withdrawing the pin. He fled the coach, bent over, hand on his leg where Catherine had made her point.

Catherine stepped to the door, blinded for a moment by the harsh light of midday. As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, she realized that no man resembling the photograph she carried was waiting. Catherine had studied the photograph many times, seeking clues to the man who hid beneath. It was an open, honest face, the kind that people instinctively trust. There was determination, too, going to stubbornness along the line of the jaw, and a stiffness in the way he sat. Catherine could only guess whether that was because of an innate formality or simply because he wasn't accustomed to having his picture taken.

But how could the open, honest man in the picture leave his fiancée at the stage?

Catherine took two deep breaths, fighting desperately to control the panic she felt rising in her. Had it all been some cruel hoax? Had she been lured out to the prairies of eastern Montana by some false promise?

“Catherine? Catherine O'Dowd?”

Catherine's attention was pulled to a woman waiting on the boardwalk in front of the stage office. She was much older than Catherine, though perhaps not in years. Her face was brown and rough from too much sun, and her hands calloused and scarred from too much work. Still, she fairly glowed with excitement, and Catherine instinctively liked her.

“Name's Edna Lenington. Neighbor to Max … uh, Maxwell, I mean, Mr. Bass. He asked me to meet you so you could tidy up a bit before you two get together. That is before you two get married. I mean …” Chagrin spread over Edna's face. “Sorry, it's just that there isn't much that happens around here, and when it does, it's mostly bad. Something nice is … well, just so nice.”

Catherine smiled. “You can't be any more excited than I am,” she said.

Edna sent Catherine's bags ahead with two children and then motioned for Catherine to follow. “Few things you'll have to get used to out here,” she said, stepping up the walk briskly. “The first is that there aren't many priests. Come around three or four times a year for weddings and baptisms and such. No one in town to take confessions, so you have to try a little harder to play it straight. Not that I think you wouldn't anyway. I mean … I didn't mean anything by that.”

She stopped to take a breath and then opened up again. “Why, listen to me rattle on. I don't know what's got into me. I've been talking a blue streak since I met you, and I haven't let you get in a word. How was the trip?”

“It was just fine.”

Those four words apparently salved Edna's conscience, and she continued, “I imagined that it would be. Zeb, me, and a half dozen kids came out in an immigrant car. Now, that's not near so fancy as traveling coach the way you did. I saw your tickets, you know. Max showed them to me. First class all the way, I says. Nothing but first class for my bride, he says.”