High Plains Bride

“Yeah, boss,” the lanky cowhand replied. “It ain’t gonna be pretty, that’s a fact. You want a fresh mount?”

“Yes.” Will threw a stirrup over his saddle horn and began to loosen his cinch. “Where’s Hank?”

“Already forded the river to try to round up the stragglers over there.”

“Good man.”

Clint nodded and passed the reins of the extra horse to Will, then spurred his mount and headed south with his partner as instructed.

Left alone, Will switched his saddle to the fresh horse, turned his tired sorrel into a corral and mounted up. He’d thought about taking the time to close the storm shutters on the house but had decided he shouldn’t delay getting to the herd. A building could be replaced fairly easily and besides, Hank was no longer inside where he could be hurt if it collapsed. Should this weather spawn a tornado, as Will feared it might, the old ranch cook would be much safer riding the range with him and the others, anyway.

Spurring the new horse, he raced toward open country. “Thank the good Lord I don’t have a wife and family to look after, too,” he muttered prayerfully.

His mind immediately jumped to the settlers in town, and the ones in the wagon train—to the pretty young woman in charge of so many children. Surely her father, or whoever was leading their party, would be wise enough to tarry in High Plains until the weather improved.

Emmeline was walking beside the family’s slowly moving, ox-pulled wagon while her mother lay inside on a narrow tick filled with straw and covered by a quilt.

Ruts in the trail made the wagon’s wooden wheels and axles bind and squeal as they bounced in and out of the depressions and jarred everyone and everything. Pots rattled. Chickens hanging in handmade crates along the outside of the wagon panted, squawked and jockeyed for space and footing on the slatted floors of their wooden boxes. The team plodded along, slow but sure, barely working to move the heavy wagon on the fairly level terrain.

Glory had quickly tired of walking. Emmeline had carried her on one hip for a while, then put her inside with their mother, in spite of the ailing woman’s protests that she simply could not cope with even one of her offspring.

Hoping that her father couldn’t hear her softly speaking, Emmeline gripped the top of the rear tailboard to steady herself and whispered hoarsely, “Hush.” She raised her head and gestured toward the man walking beside the oxen and prodding them with a staff when they faltered. “You know you’ll make Papa mad again if you raise a fuss.”

She hated having to be so cautious all the time, but the alternative was a beating for anyone within the wiry, older man’s reach, and she felt bound to try to protect the others. She’d had to do that more and more frequently, of late.

The sky was so dark at the horizon it seemed almost black, with a ribbon of pale sky showing beneath, as if a table sat atop a thin strip of the heavens visible only nearest the ground. Emmeline had seen weather like this back in Missouri, although not often. If she had been at home she would have gathered her siblings and shooed them into the root cellar for safety. Here on the plains she had no such option, much to her chagrin.

She hiked her skirts slightly to facilitate faster movement. A dozen swift steps brought her even with Amos and she easily kept pace. “Papa?”

“What do you want, girl?”

“Look at that sky. I’m worried.”

“I seen it. Don’t you go tellin’ me how to think, you hear? I been in storms worse’n this before and I’m still kickin’.”

“Yes, but—”

“Hush. Just because you’re nearly growed that don’t make you smarter’n me. I’ve been takin’ care of this family for longer than you’ve been on this earth and we’re all still here.” He glowered at her. “Well? You gonna waste the whole day naggin’ me or are you gonna go look after your mama?”

“Mama’s fine,” Emmeline insisted bravely, although she did put more distance between herself and the reach of her father’s heavy wooden staff. “She and Glory are taking a nap.”

Amos cursed under his breath. “Useless woman. I should’ve got me a younger wife long ago.”

It wasn’t the first time Emmeline had heard him say such mean-spirited things. She couldn’t imagine what her poor mama felt like when Papa talked like that. Little wonder Mama stayed in a sickbed so much. If and when she did arise, she had to face her husband and take more of his verbal—and physical—abuse.

Shading her eyes beneath the brim of her bonnet and squinting into the distance, Emmeline tensed. She hadn’t thought those clouds could possibly look any worse but they did. Rain was falling in the far distance, evidenced by slanted sheets of gray that streamed from the solid cloud layer toward the prairie in visible waves, indicating a downpour ahead.

She spun to scan the surrounding terrain. Darkness at midday was everywhere. Encroaching. Threatening. And the wind from the southwest was increasing, heralding the kind of destructive, unpredictable storm that she’d dreaded.

Emmeline shivered and pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. If all they got from this weather was soaked to the skin and muddy, she’d count it a boon. In similar storms that she’d experienced back home, such signs of impending peril were not taken lightly.

She squinted. The kinds of menacing clouds she was looking at right now were capable of dealing a blow that could mean serious injury, loss of property—and perhaps even death.

Chapter Two

Now that Will was riding the high ground and could see for literally miles, his concern for High Plains increased. If he’d been a gambling man, which he was not, he’d have given even odds that his friends and their families would soon be in mortal danger.

Wind from the west and south was increasing, driving bits of stinging dirt and broken vegetation against his clothing and exposed hands and face. He crammed his hat on tighter, turned his back to the onslaught and fought to quiet his horse while he unrolled the slicker that had been tied behind the cantle of his saddle. The animal was clearly agitated, and well it should be under these circumstances, Will reasoned.

“Easy boy. Easy. We’ll be fine.”

As soon as he’d donned the slicker, he leaned low in the saddle and patted the horse’s lathered neck to try to reassure it, wishing he believed his own placating words.

Looking south, he saw that Clint and Bob had rounded up a large portion of his herd and were driving them in a tight circle to keep them controlled. Off to his right by about twenty degrees, an immense dust cloud was rising to meet the gray, somber heavens. The wind carried the sounds of shrill bleating and the rumbling drum of hundreds of cloven hooves.

So that’s what has my horse so riled up. Will put voice to his conclusion and patted the nervous animal again. “Buffalo. No wonder you’re so jumpy, boy. I am, too, now that I can tell what you smelled.”

Reining hard, he kicked the horse into a gallop and raced to join his men. This was just the beginning of what promised to be one of the wildest days he’d experienced since settling in the flint hills. He just hoped he and his men survived whatever test the weather had in store.

Amos had finally halted the Carters’ covered wagon, much to Emmeline’s relief. By that point, she had to shout at him to be heard over the howling wind. If she had not been wearing her bonnet she knew her cheeks would have already been blasted raw by the wind-driven prairie dirt and bits of broken vegetation that stung in spite of her clothing.

“What about the other wagons?” she screeched. “They stopped a half hour ago. Are we going to turn back and join them?”

“No need,” her father insisted. “We’ll just wait here a bit till the dust settles.”

She couldn’t believe his stubbornness. Not now. Not when they were in the middle of nowhere and basically alone. If it had been up to her she’d have at least tried to find a rock outcropping or gulley in which to shelter. Anything had to be better than just standing out in the open and taking so much punishment.

Hurrying to the rear of the wagon, she called to her sister Bess, who had taken up a position on the leeward side and was holding Missy’s and Mikey’s hands. “Take the twins off the trail and try to find some safe place to hunker down. I’ll bring Mama and Glory,” Emmeline shouted.

“What about Johnny?” Bess replied.

“Papa needs him to help calm the team.” Besides, she added to herself, instantly penitent, Johnny’s like Papa, too mean to get hurt.

She knew such thoughts had to be a sin, but she couldn’t help herself. If there was ever a mirror image of her father, it was her thirteen-year-old brother. Thank the Lord Bess and Glory were girls!

Emmeline watched as Bess tugged the fair-haired twins off the wide, rutted trail and into the thick stands of big and little bluestem. Surely there would be some hidey-hole out there. There had to be. Even the shallow depression of a buffalo wallow would be better than remaining in the wagon, which was already being rocked sideways by the strong winds.

She leaned her head and shoulders in over the tailboard and shouted, “Come with me, Mama. You and Glory will be safer outside.”

Joanna vehemently resisted as she clung to the five-year-old. “No. We’re staying right here. Your papa will take care of us.”

“Against this?”

Emmeline knew she was screeching at her poor mother, but she felt such tactics were necessary, given the dire circumstances. With the wind catching the fabric of her dress and petticoats and whipping them like an unfettered sail, she could barely stay on her feet. Soon, it would be impossible for any of them to successfully flee. If it wasn’t already too late.

“Yes,” Joanna said. “I’m not moving from this wagon and neither is my baby. If you want to run off and desert us, then go. I’m not holding you here.”

“Yes, you are,” Emmeline told her. “I won’t leave you.”