A Promise to Believe in (34 page)

Lacy leaned in to her sister and allowed herself to be enfolded in a tight embrace. She sobbed against Gwen’s shoulder for what seemed a very long, comforting time.

“I love you, Gwen. I want to do what’s right, but it always seems like I do what’s wrong.”

“We all have that problem from time to time. Even Paul spoke of it in the Bible.”

Lacy straightened. “But I feel like I’ll never overcome it. I just don’t think I’m strong enough to do it on my own.”

Gwen smiled and gently wiped Lacy’s face. “Who ever said you’d have to do it on your own?”

“But I feel alone. I feel like I’m the only one who cares about Pa’s death. I feel like the law has given up and so have you and Beth.”

“Lacy, I don’t see things the same way you do. Pa is dead, and I feel terrible that he’s gone. I miss him so much sometimes. He was a great comfort to me after Harvey died, and now he lies in a grave right next to him. It’s hard to see that grave and know that he’s gone.”

“It just seems to me that if we could find the man responsible, then . . .”

“Then what, Lacy?” Gwen looked at her with such compassion that Lacy felt surely this must be the kind of tenderness their mother would have had for them.

“I don’t know,” she finally whispered. “I just keep thinking it would help me.”

“But how?”

Lacy pulled away and got to her feet. “I really can’t say. I can’t explain it, but it just seems to drive me.”

“It terrifies me, Lacy.” Gone was Gwen’s tender expression. In its place she wore a look of panic. “I think about what might happen to you, and it kills me inside. Men can be so cruel. I fear that you’ll get yourself in a situation where you won’t have help—where someone will hurt you.”

For the first time, Lacy felt grieved over her actions and attitudes regarding their father’s killer. “I’m sorry. I’ve been very selfish in all of this.”

“I’d just like for you to leave off with this search. At least for now. We need time to heal from our hurt—not cause more of it.”

Lacy felt a band tighten around her chest. She didn’t want to promise anything but knew that she’d come here in hopes of making amends with Gwen. The only thing she truly had to offer was her willingness to stop investigating their father’s death.

“I’ll try, Gwen. I don’t want to say that I won’t mess up, but I’ll try to let it go. I don’t want to cause you further worry.”

Gwen got to her feet and went to her sister. Pulling Lacy into her arms, she hugged her tight. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I know what a sacrifice this is to you.”

Lacy forced a smile as they separated. “I guess I’d better get back to bed. Morning will come soon enough.”

“I’m sure we’ll both sleep a whole lot easier with this behind us,” Gwen said as Lacy opened the door.

Outside in the hall, Lacy pulled Gwen’s door shut and hurried back to her own room. She closed the door and slid the latch into place to keep out the world and all its woes.

“If only I could lock away my thoughts as easily,” she muttered, knowing that while Gwen’s mind had been eased, hers was far from settled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Gwen had already determined to say nothing to Beth or Lacy about Hank and his proposal of marriage. She thought of her decision as she worked around the kitchen. There was always the possibility that once Hank went east, he would remember his life there and want to recapture it. She could hardly expect to hold him to his proposal if he found that life in Boston was what he really longed for.

I could be nothing more than a diversion,
she thought.

And if she was only that, Gwen had no desire to work her sisters into a frenzy planning a wedding that might never take place. She also didn’t want to worry about their future. After all, she and Hank had scarcely discussed what that future would hold. If he did return and desired to continue with his plans for the store, then perhaps things could go along as they always had. Maybe there wouldn’t need to be any big changes to their lives.

She opened the oven door and took out a tray of plump cinnamon rolls. The aroma nearly enticed Gwen to sneak a bite or two. She remembered that when Lacy was little, she would often walk right in and grab up freshly baked cookies and gobble them down. Gwen told her that stealing was not acceptable, but Lacy merely countered with her childish reasoning that if she was doing the deed right in front of Gwen, it wasn’t stealing at all.

We always have our ways of reasoning out our wrongdoings,
Gwen mused. She put another pan of rolls into the oven, then checked the fire and added a few more pieces of wood. She had just finished when Beth appeared.

“Smells mighty good. Can I help you frost those?”

Gwen nodded. “They’re all yours.”

“Did you see that Hank and Brewster Sherman are working to mark out where the store will be?” Beth asked as she tied on an apron.

“No, I hadn’t noticed. I’m surprised Mr. Sherman is here so early. That’s quite a ride from Bozeman.”

Beth shrugged and took up the bowl of frosting Gwen had already prepared. “Maybe he stayed at one of the ranches. He drove his wagon, so he might have brought out supplies for someone.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

Just then Lacy came running in through the back door. She was breathless and her hair flew wildly around her face. “We have . . . there are . . .” She bent over to draw her breath.

“What is it?” Gwen asked, hurrying to close the back door behind her sister in case she’d been running from a bear.

“The survey team is back,” Lacy managed to gasp out. “They’re coming for breakfast.”

“Oh goodness,” Gwen said, looking around the kitchen rather fretfully. She’d made no plans for a large breakfast. On days when it was just the three or them, or four including Hank, she had a rather slow-paced meal of oatmeal or flapjacks. Today she had actually decided to get up early and make the cinnamon rolls, but they had been planned for tomorrow morning when she knew she’d have at least three of her regular freight drivers coming through.

Beth put down the bowl of frosting. “I’ll get the eggs and bacon.” She headed for the cellar door and called over her shoulder, “Or would you rather I bring up the last of the ham?”

“The bacon is fine.” Gwen motioned Lacy to the rolls. “They’re still warm, but go ahead and frost them. Then set the table. How soon will they be here?”

“They were seeing to their horses and gear over at the Lassiters’ place. From what I heard, they plan to head out again after they eat.”

Gwen took up the coffeepot. It was still pretty full, so she relaxed a bit. “I guess we’ll start them on the rolls, and by then we should have some eggs and bacon ready.”

The hubbub that followed was something akin to a circus gone amok. The men were more than grateful to be taken in and cared for, but they were smelly and dirty from their weeks on the trail. Adrian Murphy suggested they all wash up prior to descending on the girls’ breakfast table. This suited Gwen just fine, as it gave them extra time to prepare the food, but it also added the problem of seeing everyone had supplies for bathing.

“Why don’t you have them go wash up in the stream where the hot springs overflow pours out of our pool?” Beth suggested. “I’ll get them several bars of soap, and there are fresh towels ready and waiting on the back porch.”

“That sounds like the perfect idea, Miss Beth,” Adrian said, giving her a smile. “I should have known a beautiful young woman such as yourself would also be smart.”

And so the chaos continued. The men lined up and headed out to the hot springs, with Adrian bringing soap and towels for everyone. Meanwhile, Gwen and her sisters went back to work preparing breakfast. By the time the men shuffled back into the house, they were fairly clean and half starved.

Adrian Murphy seemed as enthralled with Beth as he had been during their last trip. He was ever so concerned to hear about her fall but glad that her subsequent recovery had been a quick one.

“We had to send one of the men home,” he told them, “after he took a fall into a ravine east of Bozeman. He was busted up pretty bad.”

Gwen shuddered at the thought that such a fate could have been Beth’s, as well. “We are grateful to God that Beth was spared any breaks.”

“But you can be sure I’ll hold on to the rail when descending the stairs from now on,” Beth added.

The men ate their fill amid discussions about the Northern Pacific Railroad. Gwen found it all rather fascinating to hear how routes were chosen based on the availability of water, the quality of the ground, and the ease of the passage.

“Folks often think we plot out the line based on the available towns along the way, but that’s not necessarily so. Most towns do have a good water source, which is absolutely necessary to the railroad, but if the location is too isolated or difficult to reach, we have to look at a better route. If we have to do a great deal to prepare the land in order to lay tracks,” Adrian told them, “it will send the railroad over budget and cause another stall.”

“And I suppose until the railroad is actually running trains, they can’t make any money,” Gwen commented.

Adrian smiled and picked up a piece of crisp bacon. “They do make some money in bond sales and investments, but once the line is actually moving freight and passengers, then you will have regular revenues. One of the smartest things the railroad has done is extend the line from Tacoma to the coal fields in Wilkeson, Washington. They found four good-sized veins in the foothills of the Cascades, and now that coal is being sent south to the Central Pacific in California and earning the Northern Pacific some much-needed revenue.”

“Has the route been decided through our area?” Lacy asked.

“No, but we’re coming closer to finalizing ideas for some of the trickier passages. You have to remember, there are a lot of mountains to deal with in this area. Building into Bozeman or Butte is going to test the patience of even the most saintly man.”

“That’s for sure,” one of the other men agreed. “When you have to add in blasting through rock and diggin’ out tunnels, it starts adding up real fast.”

Gwen nodded. “I can well imagine.”

“Would you happen to have rooms available for us?” Adrian asked. “We’ll be scouting the area for the next couple of days and figured this would be a nice place to call home. We’ll be gone through the day and not back until evening, so we would need you to pack a lunch of sorts for us.”

Considering the six men at her table, Gwen calculated the work involved and nodded. “I believe we could handle it, Mr. Murphy, although the packed lunches would be simple fare. At this time of year, with the heat and all, we don’t keep a lot of fresh meat.”

“That’s quite all right. We can hunt whatever else we need—even bring you some of the kill, as well. It would just be nice not to have to live off canned beans and jerked meat.”

“We can give you a little better fare than that,” Gwen said with a smile. The extra money would definitely help them to lay up supplies for winter. Maybe she could even pay Cubby to come cut wood for them.

“Well, if you’ll show us where to stow our extra gear, we’ll be on our way.” Adrian got up from the table, and his men did likewise. He smiled at Beth. “We’ll take care of ourselves for lunch today, so there’s no need to concern yourselves.”

“I’ll show them to the big room upstairs,” Beth declared.

Gwen nodded. “That would be good. There should be enough space for everyone there.”

The man who had approached Gwen on their previous trip about tearing newsprint from the outhouse wall came to her again. “I see, ma’am, that the damage I caused in the outhouse has not yet been repaired. If you would give me some glue and paper, I’d be happy to rectify that before we head out.”

He seemed so concerned and sincere, that Gwen couldn’t help but smile. “That’s quite all right. I’ve meant to get to it all along but figured with the weather good, it wasn’t much of an issue. Please don’t concern yourself about it. I already have plans to see to it.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Come on, Barnaby,” Adrian called from the doorway, “let’s get a move on.”

With Lacy and Beth hard at work and the men on their way to other projects, Gwen thought it the perfect time to see to the outhouse papering.

“I’m going out back to see to the men’s outhouse,” she told her sisters. Gwen took the glue bottle down from the cupboard and headed out the back door. She picked up a stack of newspapers on the way and glanced to the north to see that Hank and Mr. Sherman were still hard at work staking out the dimensions of the store. Major followed Hank from one end of the property to the other. He certainly had taken to Hank.

“Well, it’s only fitting, since I have, too,” Gwen said with a laugh.

It would definitely be nice to have a mercantile next door. How handy to be able to just go a few feet, instead of having to drive all the way into Bozeman. She supposed that once she and Hank married, they would continue to live at Gallatin House, but she couldn’t be sure. After all, they hadn’t ever discussed their living arrangements.

Gwen propped the outhouse door open with a rock to allow fresh air and sunshine into the stall. She quickly noted the large spot where the paper had been ripped away. She put the stack of newspapers down and opened the bottle of glue. It would be a quick and simple job, and then she could put that poor Mr. Barnaby’s mind at ease.