He let out a rueful laugh. “I’m not so sure of that.”
“I am.” She stopped again, searching for the right words. “It’s hard to say, actually. He doesn’t fight me anymore. He never says anything when I read the Book of Mormon to Matthew and Becca. It’s almost like we’ve called a truce for now.”
“Yes. That’s kind of how it is between us too.”
“He’s such a good man. If only he could see...” She left it unfinished. She knew that Benjamin could have made things a lot worse than they were. Though she continued to hope for better circumstances, she needed to be grateful for what she did have. There were a couple of sisters in the growing little group of Saints who weren’t nearly that fortunate.
“I’d like to talk to him about it. Think he’d mind?” She shook her head immediately. “Ben has a great deal of respect for you, Martin. And you know that if he don’t like it, he’ll let you know.”
Martin laughed heartily. “That’s for sure. There’s never any question about where you stand with Benjamin Steed.” His eyes grew more serious. “All right,” he went on. “I’ll wait until the time is right, but then I think I’m going to be a little pushy with him. I think it might do him some good to be challenged.”
Jessica Steed watched her husband through the window of the freight office as he unhitched the last of the teams and turned them over to the stable hands to lead away. It was nearly dark now, but it was like Joshua to stay and see to the work himself. He was the sole owner of the most prosperous freight hauling company along the western border of the United States, and yet he worked right alongside his teamsters, hitching and unhitching teams, lashing down the loads, hammering steel bands around the wagon wheels in the blacksmith shop. He was not even above grabbing a pitchfork from time to time and showing a new stable boy how to clean out a stall and get it fixed up with new straw. Doing all this not only kept him in touch with every aspect of the business but also created a strong loyalty on the part of his help.
He knew she was here. He had seen her in the office when he drove in the yard. There had been a quick nod on his part, a fleeting smile and small wave on hers. Anything more than that would have been an embarrassment to him. Not that it was Jessica’s nature to be showing her emotions openly either. One part of her ached to fling herself into his arms, but it had been a long while since she had given in to such girlish fantasies.
Joshua paused for a moment, the last of the teams gone now, and took a long drink from one of the jugs of beer Thomas Jefferson Thompson had brought from the tavern. A few months earlier the sight of Joshua drinking would have sent chills up and down Jessica’s soul. But happily those dark days seemed to be gone now. The desperate plunges into the bottle as an attempt to find escape seemed to have passed. But she would never forget those times, especially the night Joshua learned that his beloved Lydia, somewhere back in New York, had become engaged to be married to his brother. It was late that night that Joshua had come to her home, a bewildered and frightened preacher in tow, and had asked if Jessica wanted to marry him. Though it had hurt abominably to know he had come more in an attempt to escape the pain he felt over Lydia than out of love for Jessica, Jessica had loved Joshua quietly for a long time. She had accepted immediately.
Then had come the other even more horrible night. In her sixth month of pregnancy the awful cramping and the bleeding began. She could never forget the haunted look in Joshua’s eyes when she woke up, having passed out and lost the baby.
Jessica’s head came up. The final team was on its way to the barn; the last wagonload of freight was gone now. Joshua stood next to Thomas Jefferson Thompson, who was hovering around Joshua like an anxious butler waiting lest his master drop some article of clothing on the floor. Joshua reached in his jacket and pulled out something. Coins, judging from the grin on Thomas’s face as he handed them to him. Joshua slapped him affectionately across the buttocks, sending him off to the small cabin behind the barn where his family lived. Only then did Joshua turn and start toward the freight office.
Jessica moved away from the desk, her hands suddenly fluttering nervously at the buttons on her new dress. With an effort, she forced herself to let them drop to her side.
You’re his wife, for heaven’s sake, not some maiden waiting for her first glimpse of a suitor.
But if that was meant to calm her, it did little. It took a conscious act of will to make herself stand motionless and wait for the door to open.
“Joshua, tell me. Please!”
They were moving steadily up the main street of Independence, Joshua’s long strides making Jessica have to walk very quickly to keep up.
He shook his head firmly. “I told you it was a surprise.”
“From St. Louis?”
“From St. Louis,” he answered, using a tone that clearly indicated he was not going to give her any more information. Which was almost as shocking as the whole idea of a surprise. This just was not Joshua. Not the Joshua she knew. He was generous in the allowance he gave her, and never asked for an accounting from her. But in all his trips out he had never once brought her back a gift.
Her perplexity only deepened as Joshua led her past the courthouse and then past the only dress shop in the town; he didn’t so much as glance at it as they passed. Then to her further surprise, he finally slowed as they approached the Santa Fe Trail Hotel. It was not much to look at, not by Eastern standards, but it was the best there was in Independence. When Joshua turned in, Jessie broke loose from his grasp. “The hotel?”
He looked at her, grinning like a boy bringing his mother a special present. “I told you it was a surprise.”
The desk clerk looked up and smiled. He was a balding man. Jessie remembered him from the saloon, before she had stopped going. “Evenin’, Mr. Steed.” He looked up at the clock on the wall. It was almost eight o’clock. “Looks like you’re right on time.”
On time? On time for what?
She shot a questioning glance at her husband; but he paid it no mind, just grinned even more foolishly at her. This was so unlike Joshua. She was reeling, feeling a little giddy with the strangeness of it all.
“Which room?” Joshua asked.
“Room eight. Upstairs on the right.”
“Thanks.”
As they started up the stairs, Jessica tugged at Joshua’s coat. “Joshua, what is this?” she whispered. “What are we doing here?”
He shook his head. “You just hold on.”
The wooden floors creaked under their weight as they moved down the hall. They stopped in front of the door with a number eight hand-painted on it. Joshua knocked firmly, without hesitation.
There was a short pause, then heavy footsteps. The door opened. To Jessie’s total surprise, the man who stood there was as elegantly dressed as any man she had seen since she and her father first came to the frontier in 1826. He was a youngish man, probably no more than thirty, but obviously from the upper classes of society. He was fully dressed, as if for the street, and Jessie realized with a start that he had been waiting for them.
The man stepped forward, his hand outstretched. “Mr. Steed. Welcome.” He spoke with a pronounced New England accent.
“Thank you.” Joshua looked around the room quickly. “Everything here is all right?”
“Yes, in perfect order, thank you.” He stepped back, glancing quickly at Jessica but not speaking to her until Joshua chose to make formal introductions. He motioned them in. “Come, sit down. I have some tea from the boardinghouse next door.”
He wore a jacket with long tails. Beneath that was a ruffled shirt with a high collar that came right up to his chin. A double-breasted vest was complete with gold watch fob and chain. The trouser legs were tightly fitted and went clear to the floor at the back of the heel. Held down by loops under the boots, they made his legs seem longer and more slender than they really were. A black top hat and walking cane, now sitting on the small chest in the corner of the room, rounded out the attire.
Jessie had to fight herself to keep from gawking. She was accustomed to men in simple homespun pants, long woolen shirts, and boots that were for working, not mincing across the street.
Mincing.
She had once found that word in a book and looked it up in the dictionary. She loved it. It fit a few of the women in town. But she had never thought of it in connection with a man before.
No wonder they’re called Eastern dandies.
He poured two cups of tea and brought them to where they sat. Only when he had gotten one for himself and taken the chair facing them did Joshua finally speak. “Jessica, this is Doctor Jonathan Hathaway, from Boston.”
He smiled. “By way of St. Louis.”
Joshua acknowledged that with a nod and went on. “Doctor Hathaway, this is my wife, Jessica—Jessie, I call her.”
Jessie fought to keep her face impassive, but the bewilderment was starting to show in her eyes.
Doctor?
“It’s my pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Steed.” His voice was pleasant, cultured. So different from the rough-talking men she was accustomed to.
She felt herself nodding and forced a quick smile. “My pleasure, I’m sure.”
Joshua laughed. “Didn’t I tell you you’d be surprised?”
She just looked at him. Bewilderment was rapidly turning into total confusion.
Joshua turned back to Hathaway. “We’ll have to go a little slow at first. Doc Jones is a good man. Does his best. Wouldn’t want him to think we didn’t trust him.”
Jessica’s head came up slowly and she peered at Joshua. Doctor Jones, not much more than a horse doctor with a few herbal remedies and a lot of good common sense, had treated Jessie when she had first miscarried. She turned her eyes on Joshua, silently willing him to look at her.
No, Joshua. Not this. Not here. Not with him.
“There’s a couple of good midwives in town too. But their specialty’s helping the baby get out, not keeping ‘em in until the time’s right.” He reached across and patted Jessie’s hand. “Doctor Hathaway here, he studied medicine at Harvard. He’s learned all the latest stuff there is to know. We’re gonna get this fixed, Jess. Once and for all.”
She dropped her eyes and stared into the dark liquid, her face feeling as hot as the cup in her hands.
“Now, like we agreed,” Joshua went on, looking again at the man in the ruffled shirt, not noticing Jessica at all, “you’ll be free to start your practice here. There’ll be lots of folks glad that we got us a real doctor this far west. But Jessica gets first crack at your time. Anytime, day or night. She’s your first priority. I’ll see that you’re staked out well until you get established. I’ll show you the office we have for you over the barbershop. It’s got two large rooms, plus the living quarters.”
The man sipped his tea, nodding pleasantly. “It’s more than a fair deal you’ve offered me, Mr. Steed. I’ve got no complaints. No complaints at all.” He took another sip of his tea. “It will take me a while to get all my things unpacked.” He glanced quickly at Jessie, then away. “Then I’d like to start with a thorough examination. We’ll see if all the parts are working right.” He laughed—too quickly—but it instantly died when he saw the look on Jessie’s face. He turned back to Joshua quickly. “I guess I can reach you at the stables?”
“Anytime. I won’t be leaving again until we see what’s going on.”
Neither man seemed to take note that Jessica sat motionless in her chair, her head down, her face scarlet, her hands gripping her cup as if it were rope dangling over some bottomless chasm. They went on, sipping their tea, Joshua explaining about the previous miscarriage, the doctor speculating on what might be wrong “with the missus.” Numbed, dazed, shamed beyond measure, Jessica stared into the cup, feeling it slowly turn cold in her hands.
Chapter Three
It was Friday, the twenty-fifth of June, in the year eighteen hundred and thirty. In the southernmost part of New York State the sun had just set behind the hills to the west. The heat was already leaving the fields, and the first hint of the coolness of the evening could be felt on the breeze that had begun its first stirrings. The sky was still brightly blue, but the light that lay across the land was now muted and soft. The dozen or more shades of green—forested hillsides, new stands of sweet corn, meadow hay, the cottonwoods along the Susquehanna—were beginning to blend almost imperceptibly one into the other.
Like a farmer at the end of a long day’s labor, all of nature seemed to sense that the workday was over and that this was a moment to sit quietly and enjoy the evening before it was time to retire. Out beyond the barn, five or six milk cows dozed contentedly, their tails barely switching. A mare and her colt moved slowly along the line of a rail fence, heads down, grazing in the richer grass that grew there. Two swallows skimmed up, down, and around over the meadow, hunting mosquitoes, sometimes swooping low enough that their wings brushed the tops of the grass.
Nathan Steed watched it all from the swing that stood on the back porch of the Joseph Knight home in Colesville, Broome County, New York. He watched it all, part of him at peace and enjoying the scene before him, part of him hurting with the ache of missing Lydia.
Behind him, the door to the house opened. He turned. Polly Knight, wife of Joseph Knight, was standing there, smiling happily. Nathan smiled back. Mother Knight, as everyone called her, was a kindly woman, born before the revolutionary war, weathered more than a little by the years of labor alongside her husband. But along with the wrinkles and the leathered, calloused hands came eyes that warmed everyone they fell on, and a heart as open and wide as the Great Lakes.
“Hello, Mother Knight.”
Her eyes softened. “Thinking of Lydia again?” she asked.
A little chagrined that she could read him so easily, Nathan nodded.
“Well, I have a surprise to cheer you up.”
“What?”
She stepped out onto the porch, holding the door open wide. For a moment there was nothing; then a tall, lithe figure stepped out beside her. There was a brief pause while Nathan just stared, then he leaped to his feet. “Joseph!” he cried.