Constance turned the last of the butter she’d churned into a small square dish and pressed it down with a wooden paddle. “Nettie, take this over to Mrs. Ramsey, would you? And here…” She poured the remaining milky liquid into a jar. “This is for the baby.”
Nettie eyed the container. “Oh, I do so love buttermilk. Couldn’t we…?”
“Sister, that baby needs nourishment, more than that poor overworked woman can provide. You take it right on over this minute.”
Nettie sent her a sulky look, and Constance bit her lower lip. She shouldn’t have spoken so sharply. Reproaching her sister only made things worse: Nettie did not suffer even implied criticism with grace.
“I’ll take it over,” Nettie muttered, “but if I get invited to stay to their nooning, I will accept.”
Constance lifted the dasher from the churn and dumped in a bucket of hot water. “You will do no such thing.” She kept her voice gentle, but it was an effort. “Clara Ramsey has her hands full with six children and an almost empty larder. The last thing she needs is another mouth to feed.”
“Cissy, you think too much. Don’t you ever just do what feels good at the moment?”
Constance leveled a look at her sister. Nettie needed a stiff talking-to, but after driving the wagon since dawn and churning Molly’s cream, she was too tired to broach even one of the difficulties she needed to sort out with her sister.
Oh, that is a run-away-and-hide excuse, and I know it. True, she was tired, her arms and shoulders stiff and achy from long hours keeping the oxen plodding forward. She’d dealt with Nettie’s whims before, back in Liberty Corners when she’d spent the day boiling laundry or scrubbing floors. She didn’t know why things were different now, but they were. Maybe it was crossing the land in a jouncing wagon and camping out on the endless, lonely plain every night. By day’s end she was completely worn-out, her throat so parched that swallowing was an effort. She had no strength left to talk—argue more often than not—with her sister.
Another run-and-hide excuse. She scoured the inside of the churn with a boar bristle brush. The truth was, Nettie had changed. Right before her eyes, Nettie was growing prettier. And more self-absorbed.
“Just take the milk and butter to Clara,” Constance said in a weary voice. “I haven’t the energy to argue with you. And no,” she added, “I do not do what ‘feels good at the moment.’ If I did, we would both starve.”
Nettie grabbed up the dish of butter and the milk jar and flounced away across the camp toward the Ramsey wagon while Constance scrubbed the brush up and down the side of the wooden dasher. If she stays for a meal with that struggling family I will…I will…
What? Nettie was too big now to physically discipline, and words rolled off her like so many raindrops. “Besides,” she muttered, “I’m not her mother anymore. I am her sister. We should be partners. Or at least friends.” She forced back the tears that stung under her lids.
That was what she needed more than anything—a friend.
An empty feeling yawned in her belly. God in heaven, I feel so alone.
She clattered the lid on the churn and started for the back of the wagon. She’d just stow it and then cobble up some dinner. Beans again. Biscuits and beans. Corn bread and beans. Cold beans. Hot beans. Nettie was beginning to turn quite green at the sight of them.
Well, it couldn’t be helped. It was all they had left until they reached Fort Kearny.
“Sufferin’ fireflies, what’re you doing with that old relic?”
Constance turned to see Billy West sitting on his paint-splashed pony, regarding her with snapping blue eyes.
“Churning butter. That ‘old relic’ is the best butter churn in Liberty Corners. My father made it.”
“Sakes alive, woman, that’s the plumb stupidest thing I ever seed you do. Jes’ pour yer cream into a jar and tie it on the side of the wagon. Come suppertime, you’ll have a hunk of butter big as a loaf of bread.”
Billy’s words brought her up short. Yes, she guessed it was stupid to labor over something that could be accomplished with little effort. Despite his forwardness, Constance paid attention to the man’s advice. Billy West was trail-smart and intelligent. Besides, she rather liked his straight-talking manner. In fact, she relished the outspoken army man’s company. When Mr. West came to supper, a sense of well-being filled her.
When it was Major Montgomery’s turn to eat with them, her body turned to mush and her mind sizzled with tension. She felt clumsy and slow, and usually she managed to spill something on him. Last night it was a whole platter of corn bread.
“Thank you, Billy. I will try out your butter-jar idea.”
“Oh, ain’t my idea, ma’am. ’Twas my superior officer taught it to me.”
“Well, thank you anyway.” His superior? Could he mean Major Montgomery? The major could churn butter?
“Miss Nettie around?”
“She took some of my butter over to Clara Ramsey.”
“Then I’ll stay a mite longer, that is if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Would you care to noon with us?” How on earth had Major Montgomery learned to churn butter?
“Oh, no, ma’am. The major’d have my hide mounted on a drying rack if I enjoyed myself much before sundown.”
Constance stared at him. “Why is that, Billy?”
“Well, truth is, the major don’t have much taste for the finer things of life. He’d rather bust his—uh, behind in the saddle eatin’ hardtack and jerky than gettin’ a whiff of perfume now and again. We had a big argument ’bout it last night.”
Perfume? She could just imagine whose. She turned to the shallow fire pit she’d dug and filled with buffalo chips. “I’m just making corn bread and…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
“Corn bread’s good.” Billy nodded with enthusiasm. “Got any jam?”
“I’m afraid not.” The last jar of strawberry preserves she’d put up the summer before had been eaten two nights ago.
“Got any molasses?”
“A little, yes.”
“I’d fergit the beans, then. Spread a bit of molasses over the top and it’ll remind you of beans and fill you up just the same, but without the…just the same.”
“Did the major come up with this idea also?”
A puzzled look crossed Billy’s clean-shaven face. “Heck, no. The major don’t like molasses. He likes his food ‘straight,’ if you take my meaning.”
“Straight?”
Billy leaned toward her. “You know, Miss Constance,” he said, his tone confidential. “The major ain’t like other men. Nothin’ on his bread. Nothin’ in his coffee. Nothin’ fancy in his conversation. Just…straight.”
The word sent a shiver into her belly. Did he like his women “straight” as well?
Billy touched his hat. “Afternoon, Miss Constance. You tell Miss Nettie I stopped by. I’ll be back around supper time—it’s my turn tonight.”
“You’re always welcome, Billy.”
He clicked his tongue at the pony. “I’ll see if I can rustle up some coffee beans. That da—durn fool Duquette left half a sack settin’ by the trail. Said it was moldy, but one time in the winter, John ’n me…”
He trotted off, still talking. Constance gazed after him until he reached the lead wagon where Joshua Duquette paced back and forth. She knew the man was in a frenzy to get rolling again. Nettie had told her Duquette and the major had had words. Duquette wanted to skip the noon rest stop; the major had prevailed with superior logic. With a midday break to eat and rest the oxen, they could travel another eight miles before dark. “Mr. Duquette was so mad he was shaking,” Nettie had reported. “The major just stared him down. Oh, Cissy, it was thrilling!”
All at once she wasn’t hungry for corn bread or molasses or anything else. She had to think what to cook for tomorrow’s supper, when the major would join them.
No butter on his corn bread, hah! Well, then, she’d make a pie. Out of…something or other.
In the meantime she would decide what to say to Nettie when she returned. It was plain as the sunburned nose on her face that her sister had disobeyed and stayed to eat with the Ramseys after all. Oh, that girl. Constance was responsible for her sister, but at times like these she no longer understood her.
As soon as she could slip away after supper, Constance left Nettie and Billy West to wash up the dishes and walked out onto the darkened prairie. The night seemed blacker, more impenetrable than before, but perhaps it was just her fear of the unknown.
She stumbled over a clump of dandelions and was suddenly aware of how much noise she was making. An Indian could find her with his eyes closed.
She raised her head and sucked in a breath. A figure stood some distance away. A man. Hatless, so she couldn’t tell who—or what—he was.
Her heart began to pound. She pressed one hand to her chest, then glanced down at her feet. If she lifted her boots very, very carefully, she could walk back to the wagons in silence.
At the first step her toe scraped against a rock.
The man did not move, but stood looking up, his head tipped back in a way that was familiar.
Major Montgomery. Oh, thank the Lord. She wouldn’t disturb him. He knew she was there. She could tell by the sudden stiffening of his shoulders.
What was he doing out here, just staring at the sky?
In a heartbeat, she knew. Her chest felt as if an ox had stepped on it.
Quietly she approached him and stood to his right.
He said nothing, just glanced at her and then looked back at the sky.
Without conscious effort, her lips opened. “You must have loved her very much.” She spoke the words in a murmur, not expecting an answer.
He bowed his head.
She stood beside him in silence for minute after minute. They did not speak. After a while, close to a quarter of an hour, she guessed, they turned back toward the wagons at the same moment.
She took two steps and tripped over a patch of weeds. He slipped his hand under her elbow. The warmth of his hand on her bare skin sent a shiver all the way up to her scalp.
He had loved someone. The thought careened through her mind as she walked beside him, and all at once tears burned her eyes. A man and a woman who loved each other shut the rest of the world out. Even when they were no longer together, they still belonged to each other in some way.
She wanted that. She wanted to love a man. To belong to him in that way. To give herself.
Oh, Lord, what was she thinking? Not this man. He loves another, and even though they are no longer together, he still belongs to her.
Pain ripped through her chest like a shard of hot iron. I will not let it matter. She could love whom she pleased. He did not have to love her in return.
She loved Nettie, but her sister did not really love her. Nettie merely needed her. And she loved this tall, silent man beside her.
The jolt of truth made her breath hiss in through her teeth. The major sent her an inquiring look, his eyes midnight-dark, his mouth opening to speak.
Constance shook her head.
And nearly tripped over a hillock of chickweed when he slipped his fingers from her elbow and took her hand.