The wagon rolled into Boise with the first flurries of snow fluttering down from an iron grey sky. The three brides poked their heads out the back of the wagon. Maggie’s heart sank even further into her shoes at the sight of the town.
Not that she expected anything less. The back of Paul Chapman riding ahead of them drove her to the brink of tears as much as the cutting cold or the drab clapboard town. If, like Marion at her side, she was going to the church with a man who loved and admired her, she would probably gush over the displays in shop windows and brightly dressed women in the street just like Marion did.
A little voice whispered into her ear, telling her it wasn’t too late to get out of this. She could run away. She could go East, where no one knew her, where no one knew that two marriageable men wanted nothing to do with her, where people wouldn’t call her a tramp to her face.
But in her heart of hearts, she knew it was already too late. She wouldn’t find anywhere she felt as safe or as settled as the Chapman homestead. She wouldn’t find anyone, anywhere, who accepted her as much as Parker, Marion, Melody, and Prescott. No one would ever go out of their ways to help her and comfort her more than they had.
Maybe she better follow Paul’s recommendation to leave him alone. Maybe that was the best way to make peace with him and to ensure peace for everyone else at the same time.
The wagon swayed through the streets, attracting no more attention than any other. People exactly like the Chapmans populated the whole town. Men on coon-skinned caps and uncombed beards socialized outside the dry goods store, and cowboys in scarred leather chaps filed their horses’ hooves in front of the hotels.
On the way through the town, Maggie saw handfuls of covered wagons with women and children staring out of them, chattering away about everything in sight. Parker and Prescott called to a few people they recognized, but didn’t stop.
Parker reined the horses in front of a tiny, weathered church near the outskirts of town. “Here we are,” he announced. He set the brake on the wagon and wound the reins around the brake handle.
He and Prescott climbed down from the wagon seat. Paul dismounted and tied his horse to the hitching post near the corner of the church. Maggie and the other brides bundled out of the wagon, and the six of them fidgeted and faltered on the steps. Parker finally took command. “If you ladies will follow me, I’ll show you into the vestry. You can change your clothes there. We’ll meet you here on the steps afterward.”
“Where will you change clothes?” Marion asked.
“In the back of the wagon,” he told her. “But first, I’ll duck inside and let the parson know we’re here. That way, he’ll be ready for us when we come in for the official proceedings.”
Maggie giggled. The three brides followed Parker into the church. He showed them the little vestry room. It opened off to one side just inside the front door. The parson’s vestments hung on the walls and almost completely curtained the one small window so only a faint shaft of light illuminated the room.
Parker left them there. He disappeared to the other end of the church, and the three brides went back outside to unpack their things.
When they emerged from the church, Paul and Prescott were nowhere in sight. Maggie’s heart pattered out of control in her chest. What would happen when they came back out in their dresses? Would Paul be here, waiting for her, or not?
Her teeth chattered, more from anxiety than from cold, as she and her sister brides fished their bundles out from under the straw in the wagon bed. Marion carried her carpet bag inside, as Melody brought not only her carpet bag but also a hand-stitched quilt tied up in a ball. Maggie found her dress in its protective roll and took it, along with her own bag, into the vestry.
The three women each picked a corner of the cramped room to make their preparations. Maggie faced the corner, slipped out of Marion’s hand-me-down work dress, and donned her wedding clothes. She put on white stockings and under-linens from her bag and covered everything with the clean white shift. Only then did she unroll her wedding dress and pull it over her head.
She turned around to find Marion in her traveling costume, looking out the window. “Will you please give me a hand getting dressed?” Maggie called to her.
Marion hurried over to her gratefully. “What can I do?”
“Button up the back of my dress,” Maggie told her.
Marion fell to the buttoning with a will. All the attentions she neglected on her own attire, she poured into Maggie’s outfit. After she finished fastening the long row of buttons, Maggie enlisted her help putting on her veil. Marion draped it over her head with all the pride and appreciation Maggie would have expected from her own mother. With that accomplished, Maggie put on her jewelry.
When she finished dressing, Maggie looked down at herself. “I only wish we had a looking glass.”
“You look exquisite,” Marion assured her. Her eyes shone in the dusty light.
They turned to Melody, and they both gasped in astonishment when they saw her. Melody’s dress eclipsed Maggie’s by a hundred miles. Silver thread sparkled in the edges of her veil, and the front bodice of her dress dripped with a hundred perfect tear-drop pearls. A string of magnificent pearls hung around Melody’s neck, and rows of pearls accented the cuffs of her sleeves. Tiny silver ribbon bows dotted the silken overskirts of the dress, and silver buttons fastened her shoes to her feet.
“Have you been hiding that dress from us all this time?” Marion asked.
Melody laughed under her veil, her eyes damp and shining.
Marion took both Maggie and Melody by the hand, one on either side of her.
“Come on, girls,” she declared. “Let’s go get married.”
Marion escorted them out of the church to the steps, where all three brothers waited for them. Prescott wore the same suit, with the same polished boots, he wore to the coach stop in Twin Falls. Parker wore a brown woolen suit, not new but meticulously brushed, and his shaggy beard and hair lay neatly brushed against his head.
Paul wore the same dusty work clothes he always wore, along with the same sullen scowl. Maggie couldn’t stand to look at him. She admired Parker and Prescott instead. “You both look wonderful.”
Parker bowed to all three of them and swept his hat off. “It’s an honor to attend you ladies here.” He turned to Marion. “Madam, may I have the honor of your hand at the altar?”
Marion laughed through her tears. Parker held out a crooked elbow to her, and she hooked her hand through it. They gazed reverently into each other’s eyes, laughing and sniffing their tears away, as they swept into the church.
The door swung closed behind them.
Paul and Prescott, Maggie and Melody stood on the steps of the church, staring blankly at one another.
Maggie glanced back and forth between the two men. She stole a quick look at Melody and noticed her glancing back and forth between the two men, too. Neither of them knew what either man would do next.
Maggie expected Prescott to offer Melody his arm, just as Parker did, and invite her to join him inside the church. But he didn’t move. He looked back and forth between the two brides with the same vacant confusion.
He finally settled some question in his mind and fixed his eyes on Melody. Maggie’s resolution failed her. What man could resist this angel in that sensational dress?
But gazing on Melody in all her glory only set Prescott’s expression more firmly. He turned his gaze back to Maggie. She met his eyes with a soaring explosion of hope.
His eyes twinkled ever so slightly under his hat when he caught her looking at him.
Did she dare to hope? “Prescott….,” she stammered.
He didn’t hesitate a single instant longer. He darted forward, seized her by the hand, and pulled her toward the door. “Come on, Maggie!” he cried.
The next instant, the door banged shut behind them, leaving Paul and Melody alone on the steps of the church.