Bride's Flight from Virginia City, Montana Read online

  “They’re too far.”

  “I know they’re too far. But Custer’s keen. If Raber sets foot in Dakota again, they’ll send a platoon of troopers to run him down. A personal guarantee.”

  Zeph shrugged. “He’ll cut straight down to Utah and the railroad once he knows the kids aren’t in Iron Springs.”

  “Or try to head you off through Wyoming.” Matt pulled another scrap of telegram paper from his shirt pocket. “We heard back from Fort Laramie. They keep on eye on the railway anyhow. Said they’ll be ready to respond if they hear from us. They’re harboring a grudge against Raber. Appears he shot down two of their troopers last fall.”

  “Good to know the bluecoats’ll be out and around. Thank you, brother.”

  “I guess you’d better have a talk with Byrd and Holly about the Bar Zee. No telling when you’ll be back from Pennsylvania. See you at Spence’s at eight?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there. Gentlemen.”

  Dunning and Doede both raised a hand.

  When Zeph had Cricket a mile out of town and headed for Two Back Valley, he reined up, twisted his body around, and dug into the saddlebag on his left. He came up with his dad’s pistol and holster. Pulling the gun, he flipped open the cylinder gate and pushed against the ejector rod under the barrel. One, two, three, four, five rounds. That was all his dad loaded into the Remington. The hammer was always on an empty chamber, so he didn’t shoot his foot off when he tugged the gun free. He stuck the Remington back in its holster and shoved both into the saddlebag as deep as they would go. Then he cinched the bag down tight.

  He kept riding toward the Bar Zee. Behind him the bullets were scattered in a circle and sinking into the mud and snowmelt and hoofprints. The sun was going down red. He’d see Charlotte Spence in two or three hours and then spend maybe three or four months with her if he was lucky. Or blessed. Now that would be a mighty nice way to spend the winter and spring, if it’s okay with You, Lord. Zeph began to whistle as Cricket jogged toward the mountains.

  Chapter 7

  Charlotte pulled aside one of the drapes at her third-floor bedroom window and looked down into the yard at the front of her house. Several men were riding up. Laycock held a lantern toward their faces. His other hand held a shotgun. She wasn’t alarmed. She had spotted Zeph right away.

  He was taller than Matt, but Jude had a few inches on him. His teeth were whiter and straighter than either of his brothers and his shoulders broader. His hair was a nicer shade of brown. She made a face. His shoulders and teeth and height weren’t the important things. She liked his spirit. All the brothers had nice smiles and easy voices and pleasant personalities, but Zeph was something special.

  She’d known it from the time he’d helped her brother Ricky on that posse. No, she’d known it before that. And when Cody and Cheyenne told her how he’d rescued them, how gentle he’d been, how he’d named them, it only confirmed what she already believed—that Zeph was strong, gentle, and caring, a true man. She had thanked God in her prayers that evening that he was the one accompanying her to Lancaster County and not a pair of strangers with badges and guns.

  Years ago she had hoped to spend more time with him. But Ricky’s long illness and death had made that impossible. So had all the years since then she’d spent running the ranch from dawn to dusk. There had been no opportunity for long evening rides and talks; she could only dream about such things.

  Until now. Circumstances had combined to bring Zeph and her together in such a way they would have plenty of time not only to talk, but to see what the other person was like under all sorts of conditions and in all kinds of moods. Now she would truly get to know him and find out if he was the man she thought he was. What Raber had done to Cody and Cheyenne’s family was unspeakable. But the good that God was starting to bring out of it was a gift.

  Still, there was the promise she had made, a promise she could not break. There was a war going on inside her, and it had been going on for years. She had always liked Zephaniah. One moment she desperately wanted something to happen between them. The next she knew they could never be a couple, ever. It was why she had always kept Zephaniah at arm’s length. She had to. A promise had been made at her brother’s deathbed. Yet she still wanted to be close to Zephaniah. She shook her head. There was no easy way to solve her dilemma.

  She fixed a bonnet on her head, her long blond hair already pinned up. The luggage was by the front door with Martin who, to all appearances, was guarding it with an old buffalo gun his grandfather had owned. She carried a lamp into Cheyenne’s room. The girl was sitting on her bed in a charcoal dress and bonnet like Charlotte’s, no ribbons. Together they knocked on Cody’s door. He opened it, dressed in the same clothes he had worn to the funeral that afternoon, but the hat on his head was not a Stetson; it was flat-crowned and broad-brimmed, not nearly as interesting to look at. Charlotte nodded and smiled even though Cody was pouting about the hat. I don’t want people to find you or your clothing interesting, she thought. I don’t want any of them to notice you at all.

  “Miss Spence?” Martin called up the staircase.

  “We’re coming!” “They’re here.”

  The three of them descended the staircase. Marshal Parker stood just inside the open door, hat in his hands. “How are you, Charlotte?” “Perfectly fine, Marshal.”

  “We have the girl riding with you. We can fit a side saddle if—”

  “Not at all. I’m dressed for riding under my skirts. Perhaps I’ll be mistaken for a man by anyone who’s out looking for us.”

  “Maybe. The bonnet will be a giveaway though, even in the dark.”

  “Then I’ll take mine off. And Cheyenne’s.” “That’s fine. We also have a couple of packhorses to carry your luggage.”

  “Thank you, Matt. There is a good amount of it. But I am thinking of three or four months. My, it’s getting chilly.”

  “There’s a cold front moving in from the northeast. I brought some sheep-fleece jackets along. It might make the ride more comfortable for the three of you.”

  She laughed. “And I’ll look even more like a man.”

  Matt smiled. “It’ll help.”

  They came down the front steps. Zeph had the jackets ready for her and the children. He helped Cheyenne with hers and then held Charlotte’s open. She liked his touch as he tugged the sleeves over her arms. Cody had already pulled his on over his suit.

  “Cody,” said Zeph, “Cheyenne, you know Mister King, and these two deputies are Mister Dunning and Mister Doede. They’ll be riding with us tonight.”

  The deputies raised their derby hats.

  “You two have handsome mustaches,” said Charlotte.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” they responded, one after the other.

  “And this is Pastor Jude,” continued Zeph. “He’s also riding with us to Virginia City. You remember him?”

  “He prayed for everyone,” said Cheyenne.

  “That’s right. Cody, this is your horse over here, Raincloud. Think you can handle him?”

  In the lantern light all of them could see Cody’s pleasure at being given the tall dapple gray. “Yes, sir.”

  “Charlotte, this is your buckskin. What do you think, Cheyenne? Isn’t she a beauty?”

  Cheyenne nodded and smiled. “Yah, sir.”

  “Her name’s Marigold.” He helped Cheyenne into the saddle. “There you go, m’lady.”

  Charlotte put her left boot into the stirrup. “Will you ride beside us, Mister Parker? Or should I say Deputy Marshal Parker?” She had caught sight of the badge.

  “Matt’s idea,” he muttered, “and only temporary.”

  Charlotte looked down from Marigold at Laycock and Martin. “Tell the men I appreciate all they are doing for the Spence Ranch. But I do not wish that to include getting themselves shot. If Raber’s men show up, I don’t want any of you to stand in the way. Let Raber do what he wants, so long as no one is hurt.”

  They touched the brims of their hats.

&nbs
p; “Yes, ma’am,” said Laycock. “We’ll look forward to the day you return.”

  “As will I.”

  She walked Marigold over to Matt. “Marshal, I have spoken with the children. They are looking forward to seeing their aunt Rosa again, so this long trip is something they are glad to take. As for drawing likenesses of the men, well, that is not something they feel they are able to do right now. But they understand how it might help you, and they are going to try and remember what some of them looked like and put charcoal to paper. When that happens, and I believe it will, I shall have the sketches sent to you by the fastest means at my disposal.”

  Matt nodded.

  As Charlotte turned her horse toward the road, she said in a quiet voice, “None of the men were masked, Matt, and neither was the leader that they called Angel.”

  As she headed out with the others, Charlotte wondered if her ranch hands would listen to what she had told Martin and Laycock. Somehow she doubted it. She prayed they would make it through the next few days without a scratch. Then she wondered if that was too much to ask of God under the circumstances, given the kind of men who worked for her—loyal to a fault, hardworking, proud and brave—and the kind of men they would be facing—vicious, treacherous, and bloodthirsty. She shook her head and wished, not for the first time, that God would scour evil from the earth the way she scoured grime from her pots and pans. Then a place like Sweet Blue Meadow, already a jewel, would be a paradise without end.

  But that’s heaven, Charlotte, she said to herself, and you’re not in heaven yet.

  A mile from her ranch, they veered west toward the Rockies and a stretch of forest, taking a little-used track left over from the gold rush days. This route would bypass the town and any of its citizens who might be up and watching the main roads. Who would be watching for us? she wondered again. Who would help a man like Seraph Raber harm two innocent children?

  She felt someone’s eyes on her. It was not an unpleasant sensation, as sometimes it could be, so she let the feeling linger a moment before she turned her head. She hoped it would be Zephaniah Parker, and she was rewarded with his concerned face and smile.

  “Are you worried about me, Mister Parker?” she asked.

  “No more than usual, considering what we’re going through right now,” Zeph answered, “but you did seem awfully faraway.”

  “Did I? Perhaps I’m missing Sweet Blue already and wishing we were to Pennsylvania and back again. Do you recall the day you first came to this place?”

  They spoke softly in the dark, and their horses trotted quietly through the rocks and pines alongside the others.

  She saw Zeph nod slightly. “It was ‘69. Thousands of people living up and down the valleys here then. Some had gone up to Helena when they had their strike in ‘64, but men were still pulling a decent amount of gold out of the hills in Iron Springs and Virginia City. Matt was already here. He had dreams of making it rich and buying a big spread in Texas. When Jude and I showed up, he was a deputy, and it’s been the law for him ever since.”

  “What about you?”

  “Jude was talking about being a circuit rider with the Methodist Church, and I guess I just wanted to make enough gold to get my own place in California. We hit pay dirt all right, not a lot, but Jude decided to start a church with his cut. He put that whole building up on his own, and I bought the land I turned into the Bar Zee. Funny, I never thought about California again, and he never thought about circuit riding. This place got a hold of all three of us and never let go. Maybe it’s the water.”

  She was sure he was smiling in the dark; she could feel him smiling in the dark. “Your mother and father never wanted to join their sons?”

  “Well, Mom passed away just after the war—at least she got to see us home to our little ranch safe and sound, and Dad, it seemed as if he never wanted to leave her side. So we’d visit him once a year, stage and train we never could talk him into leaving Wyoming. Died in ‘73. I believe he would have loved all the mountains here and the valleys and the streams. He was always one for hunting and getting away from the crowds.”

  He glanced up at the stars, and she knew he was wondering how the view would have made his father feel.

  “I guess I’m talking too much,” he apologized.

  “Not at all,” she responded. “It makes the time pass. Please, go on.”

  “Well, Cheyenne was growing too cramped for Dad. They started her up in ‘67, just south of our place. He liked going into town at first, but he must’ve seen where it was heading, four thousand people in the first few months.” Now, she thought, he is shrugging his shoulders in that cute way he has. “Couldn’t get him out here, though. Matt got married in Cheyenne for Dad’s sake, and Sally didn’t mind. I would like for Dad to have seen the Bar Zee, and he would have been proud to watch Jude preach at his own pulpit in his own church. These things don’t always work out, do they?”

  “No,” she said, and she thought of her father and brothers never coming home from the war, never stepping through the door again, only Ricky making it out with a bullet in his lung, a bullet that wouldn’t let him alone until it had finished what it started.

  “I hate war,” she said suddenly and more loudly than she meant.

  Zeph was silent for a bit, and then he said to her, “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I believe your family would have liked the Sweet Blue.”

  Charlotte wrestled with all kinds of memories and feelings that usually she would just hold inside. But this was the ride she’d wanted to take with Zeph for years, this was the time God had given her, and she felt she needed to make as much use of it as she could.

  “You warm enough, Cheyenne?” she suddenly asked the girl snuggled up against her.

  “Yah, Miss Charlotte.”

  “All this grown-up talk isn’t boring you?”

  “I don’t listen to much of it.”

  Charlotte laughed. “The perfect audience, Z.”

  They rode for a while without talking. She glanced around her and finally found Cody riding with Billy King. King was leading one of the packhorses, and she spotted Jude leading the other. Then she returned to the thoughts she’d thrust away a few minutes before and decided it was time to offer them to Zephaniah Parker to see what he would make of them, and of her, once she’d finished.

  “Do you know what Amish is?” she asked him.

  “No, I don’t,” he answered.

  “Mennonite?”

  He seemed to hesitate. “A fellow in our platoon during the war said he had Mennonite roots. Said they didn’t believe in wars and violence and that his family had been real disappointed in him for joining up.”

  She nodded. “It’s like that. The Amish broke away from the Mennonites because they wanted to be even more strict. Jacob Amman felt people should be shunned if they broke the rules of the church. Ignored. Not spoken to. Cut off. Until they repented of what they’d done wrong, and then they could be brought back into fellowship again.”

  She looked over at him. He had brought Cricket in closer. She took a deep breath. “I’m Amish, Z, Amish born and raised. You said once I had a sweet accent. I grew up speaking Pennsylvania Dutch. English was my second language. We were part of an Amish community in Bird in Hand in Lancaster County, the same community Cody and Cheyenne are from. I had a happy childhood, Z. There is a great deal of gentleness and love among the Amish. But my father felt it was wrong for the South to force slavery on other people. So he joined the Union army to resist them. And my brothers did, too.”

  She rode in silence for several minutes. All of a sudden she felt a reluctance to continue talking about her family. It was more painful to bring it up than she’d thought it would be.

  “I suppose I’m boring you,” she said, with an irritability she didn’t mean to direct at him.

  “No, ma’am. Nothing that interests you could be boring to me.”

  “Is that right?” she snapped. Calm down, Charlotte, she told herself, there’s no need to get your Spence u
p. “Please do not call me ma’am again.”

  He was quiet for a moment and then said, “I won’t.”

  Still irritable, she decided to plunge on in defiance of her misgivings for starting the conversation at all.

  “Perhaps it wasn’t all about the South bullying people. My father did not feel there should be two countries. He was very much against that. But the church was against war and warned Father that if he left to fight he would be shunned, our whole family would be shunned. He was a proud man and was convinced that God had told him to take up arms against slavery. Told the elders he was done with being Amish and being part of the colony. Took steps to make sure his family would be taken care of if the elders really did turn the church against his family. Then he and my brothers went to Philadelphia to enlist.”

  Again she grew silent, struggling with her memories.

  Zephaniah thought she was done. “Did the church turn its back on you?”

  Charlotte flared. “I will tell this in my own way and my own time. I am not a rush ahead, restless spirit like you.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Just stop. Yes, the church turned its back on us. Satisfied? From that time on, my mother and I and my sister, Mary, were shunned by the other Amish. No one would even say hello to us. We still lived among them—Mother wouldn’t leave the house Father had built—but there was no friendship, no sense of family or community or love. Mother might have taken us to Virginia if Virginia hadn’t been one great battlefield during those years. She had family there. I saw a few acts of kindness from the Amish, usually from the family Father had asked to keep an eye on us. But even when my sister, Mary, grew ill and died, there was little support.”

  Charlotte had been telling her story without looking at Zeph. Now she stole a glance to see if he was even listening. His eyes were locked onto her. It was obvious he was taking in every word she spoke.

  “I watched Mother wither. When we received the news that Father had been killed, and then the same terrible news about each of my brothers, it was just as if the Confederate army had plunged a bayonet into her own chest. She gave up and lay down, and would not rise. An Amish family took me in after her death. These were the people Father had asked to help us. I was thirteen, and I remember how very lonely I felt, and frightened, but they were kind to me and did not seem to care that my family was excommunicated.”