CHAPTER THREE

TWO HOURS LATER, tired and thirsty, the tourists returned to the livery stable to return the horses and surrey.

“It has been a pleasure,” John told the Maxwells, shaking hands.

“And for me, as well,” Ellen added.

The older couple smiled indulgently. “We leave for New York in the morning,” Maxwell said regretfully, “and then we sail to Scotland. It has been a pleasure to meet you both, although I wish we could have done so sooner.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Maxwell said solemnly. “How sad to make friends just as we must say goodbye to them.”

“We will keep in touch,” John said.

“Indeed we will. You must leave your address for us at the desk, and we will leave ours for you,” Maxwell told John. “When you have made your fortune, I hope very much to return with my wife to visit you both.”

Ellen flushed, because she had a sudden vivid picture of herself with John and several children on a grand estate. John was seeing the same picture. He grinned broadly. “We will look forward to it,” he said to them both.

The Maxwells went up to their rooms and John stopped with Ellen at the foot of the stairs, because it would have been unseemly for a gentleman to accompany a lady all the way to her bedroom.

He took her hand in his and held it firmly. “I enjoyed today,” he said. “Even in company, you are unique.”

“As you are.” She smiled up at him from a radiant face surrounded by wisps of loose dark hair that had escaped her bun and the hatpins that held on her wide-brimmed hat.

“We must make sure that we build a proper empire,” he teased, “so that the Maxwells can come back to visit.”

“I shall do my utmost to assist you,” she replied with teasing eyes.

He chuckled. “I have no doubt of that.”

“I will see you tomorrow?” she fished.

“Indeed you will. It will be in the afternoon, though,” he added regretfully. “I must help move cattle into a new pasture first. It is very dry and we must shift them closer to water.”

“Good evening, then,” she said gently.

“Good evening.” He lifted her hand to his lips in a gesture he’d learned in polite company during his travels.

It had a giddy effect on Ellen. She blushed and laughed nervously and almost stumbled over her own feet going up the staircase.

“Oh, dear,” she said, righting herself.

“Not to worry,” John assured her, hat in hand, green eyes brimming with mirth. “See?” He looked around his feet and back up at her. “No mud puddles!”

She gave him an exasperated, but amused, look, and went quickly up the staircase. When she made the landing, he was still there, watching.

* * *

JOHN AND ELLEN SAW EACH other daily for a week, during which they grew closer. Ellen waited for John in the hotel dining room late the next Friday afternoon, but to her dismay, it was not John who walked directly to her table. It was her father, home unexpectedly early. Nor was he smiling.

He pulled out a chair and sat down, motioning imperiously to a waiter, from whom he ordered coffee and nothing else.

“You are home early,” Ellen stammered.

“I am home to prevent a scandal!” he replied curtly. “I’ve had word from an acquaintance of Sir Sydney’s that you were seen flagrantly defying my instructions that you should stay in this hotel during my absence! You have been riding, in the country, alone, with Mr. Jacobs! How dare you create a scandal here!”

The Ellen of only a week ago would have bowed her head meekly and agreed never to disobey him again. But her association with John Jacobs had already stiffened her backbone. He had offered her a new life, a free life, away from the endless social conventions and rules of conduct that kept her father so occupied.

She lifted her eyebrows with hauteur. “And what business of Sir Sydney’s friend is my behavior?” she wanted to know.

Her father’s eyes widened in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“I have no intention of being coupled with Sir Sydney in any way whatsoever,” she informed him. “In fact, the man is repulsive and ill-mannered.”

It was a rare hint of rebellion, one of just a few he had ever seen in Ellen. He just stared at her, confused and amused, all at once.

“It would seem that your acquaintance with Mr. Jacobs is corrupting you.”

“I intend to be further corrupted,” she replied coolly. “He has asked me to marry him.”

“Child, that is out of the question,” he said sharply.

She held up a dainty hand. “I am no child,” she informed him, blue eyes flashing. “I am a woman grown. Most of my friends are married with families of their own. I am a spinster, an encumbrance to hear you tell it, of a sort whom men do not rush to escort. I am neither pretty nor accomplished…”

“You are quite wealthy,” he inserted bluntly. “Which is, no doubt, why Mr. Jacobs finds you so attractive.”

In fact, it was a railroad spur, not money, that John wanted, but she wasn’t ready to tell her father that. Let him think what he liked. She knew that John Jacobs found her attractive. It gave her confidence to stand up to her parent for the first time in memory.

“You may disinherit me whenever you like,” she said easily, sipping coffee with a steady hand. Her eyes twinkled. “I promise you, it will make no difference to him. He is the sort of man who builds empires from nothing more than hard work and determination. In time, his fortune will rival yours, I daresay.”

Terrance Colby was listening now, not blustering. “You are considering his proposal.”

She nodded, smiling. “He has painted me a delightful picture of muddy roads, kitchen gardens, heavy labor, cooking over open fires and branding cattle.” She chuckled. “In fact, he has offered to let me help him brand cattle in the fall when his second crop of calves drop.”

Terrance caught his breath. He waited to speak until the waiter brought his coffee. He glowered after the retreating figure. “I should have asked for a teacup of whiskey instead,” he muttered to himself. His eyes went back to his daughter’s face. “Brand cattle?”

She nodded. “Ride horses, shoot a gun…he offered to teach me no end of disgusting and socially unacceptable forms of recreation.”

He sat back with an expulsion of breath. “I could have him arrested.”

“For what?” she replied.

He was disconcerted by the question. “I haven’t decided yet. Corrupting a minor,” he ventured.

“I am far beyond the age of consent, Father,” she reminded him. She sipped coffee again. “You may disinherit me at will. I will not even need the elegant wardrobes you have purchased for me. I will wear dungarees and high-heeled boots.”

His look of horror was now all-consuming. “You will not! Remember your place, Ellen!”

Her eyes narrowed. “My place is what I say it is. I am not property, to be sold or bartered for material gain!”

He was formulating a reply when the sound of heavy footfalls disturbed him into looking up. John Jacobs was standing just to his side, wearing his working gear, including that sinister revolver slung low in a holster slanted across his lean hips.

“Ah,” Colby said curtly. “The villain of the piece!”

“I am no villain,” John replied tersely. He glanced at Ellen with budding feelings of protectiveness. She looked flushed and angry. “Certainly, I have never given Ellen such pain as that I see now on her face.” He looked back at Colby with a cold glare.

Colby began to be impressed. This steely young man was not impressed by either his wealth or position when Ellen was distressed.

“Do you intend to call me out?” he asked John.

The younger man glanced again at Ellen. “It would be high folly to kill the father of my prospective bride,” he said finally. “Of course, I don’t have to kill you,” he added, pursing his lips and giving Colby’s shoulder a quiet scrutiny. “I could simply wing you.”

Colby’s gaze went to that worn pistol butt. “Do you know how to shoot that hog leg?”

“I could give you references,” John drawled. “Or a demonstration, if you prefer.”

Colby actually laughed. “I imagine you could. Stop bristling like an angry dog and sit down, Mr. Jacobs. I have ridden hard to get here, thinking my daughter was about to be seduced by a bounder. And I find only an honest suitor who would fight even her own father to protect her. I am quite impressed. Do sit down,” he emphasized. “That gentleman by the window looks fit to jump through it. He has not taken his eyes off your gun since you approached me!”

John’s hard face broke into a sheepish grin. He pulled out a chair and sat down close to Ellen, his green eyes soft now and possessive as they sketched her flushed, happy face. He smiled at her, tenderly.

Colby ordered coffee for John as well and then sat back to study the determined young man.

“She said you wish to teach her to shoot a gun and brand cattle,” Colby began.

“If she wants to, yes,” John replied. “I assume you would object…?”

Colby chuckled. “My grandmother shot a gun and once chased a would-be robber down the streets of a North Carolina town with it. She was a local legend.”

“You never told me!” Ellen exclaimed.

He grimaced. “Your mother was very straitlaced, Ellen, like your grandmother Greene,” he said. “She wanted no image of my unconventional mother to tempt you into indiscretion.” He pursed his lips and chuckled. “Apparently blood will out, as they say.” He looked at her with kind eyes. “You have been pampered all your life. Nothing that money could buy has ever been beyond your pocket. It will not be such a life with this man,” he indicated John. “Not for a few years, at least,” he added with a chuckle. “You remind me of myself, Mr. Jacobs. I did not inherit my wealth. I worked as a farm laborer in my youth,” he added, shocking his daughter. “I mucked out stables and slopped hogs for a rich man in our small North Carolina town. There were eight of us children, and no money to be handed down. When I was twelve, I jumped on a freight train and was arrested in New York when I was found in a stock car. I was taken to the manager’s office where the owner of the railroad had chanced to venture on a matter of business. I was rude and arrogant, but he must have seen something in me that impressed him. He had a wife, but no children. He took me home with him, had his wife clean me up and dress me properly, and I became his adoptive child. When he died, he left the business to me. By then, I was more than capable of running it.”

“Father!” Ellen exclaimed. “You never spoke of your parents. I had no idea…!”

“My parents died of typhoid soon after I left the farm,” he confessed. “My brothers and sisters were taken in by cousins. When I made my own fortune, I made sure that they were provided for.”

“You wanted a son,” she said sorrowfully, “to inherit what you had. And all you got was me.”

“Your mother died giving birth to a stillborn son,” he confessed. “You were told that she died of a fever, which is partially correct. I felt that you were too young for the whole truth. And your maternal grandmother was horrified when I thought to tell you. Grandmother Greene is very correct and formal.” He sighed. “When she knows what you have done, I expect she will be here on the next train to save you, along with however many grandsons she can convince to accompany her.”

She nodded slowly, feeling nervous. “She is formidable.”

“I wouldn’t mind a son, but I do like little girls,” John said with a warm smile. “I won’t mind if we have daughters.”

She flushed, embarrassed.

“Let us speak first of marriage, if you please,” Colby said with a wry smile. “What would you like for a wedding present, Mr. Jacobs?”

John was overwhelmed. He hesitated.

“We would like a spur line run down to our ranch,” Ellen said for him, with a wicked grin. “So that we don’t have to drive our cattle all the way to Kansas to get them shipped to Chicago. We are going to raise extraordinary beef.”

John sighed. “Indeed we are,” he nodded, watching her with delight.

“That may take some little time,” Colby mused. “What would you like in the meantime?”

“A sidesaddle rig for Ellen, so that she can be comfortable in the saddle,” John said surprisingly.

“I do not want a sidesaddle,” she informed him curtly. “I intend to ride astride, as I have seen other women do since I came here.”

“I have never seen a woman ride in such a manner!” Colby exploded.

“She’s thinking of Tess Wallace,” John confessed. “She’s the wife of old man Tick Wallace, who owns the stagecoach line here. She drives the team and even rides shotgun sometimes. He’s twenty years older than she is, but nobody doubts what they feel for each other. She’s crazy for him.”

“An unconventional woman,” Colby muttered.

“As I intend to become. You may give me away at the wedding, and it must be a small, intimate one, and very soon,” she added. “I do not wish my husband embarrassed by a gathering of snobby aristocrats.”

Her father’s jaw dropped. “But the suddenness of the wedding…!”

“I am sorry, Father, but it will be my wedding, and I feel I have a right to ask for what I wish,” Ellen said stubbornly. “I have done nothing wrong, so I have nothing to fear. Besides,” she added logically, “none of our friends live here, or are in attendance here at the Springs.”

Her father sighed. “As you wish, my dear,” he said finally, and his real affection for her was evident in the smile he gave her.

John was tremendously impressed, not only by her show of spirit, but by her consideration for him. He was getting quite a bargain, he thought. Then he stopped to ask himself what she was getting, save for a hard life that would age her prematurely, maybe even kill her. He began to frown.

“It will be a harder life than you realize now,” John said abruptly, and with a scowl. “We have no conveniences at all….”

“I am not afraid of hard work,” Ellen interrupted.

John and Colby exchanged concerned glances. They both knew deprivation intimately. Ellen had never been without a maid or the most luxurious accommodations in her entire life.

“I’ll spare you as much as I can,” John said after a minute. “But most empires operate sparsely at first.”

“I will learn to cook,” Ellen said with a chuckle.

“Can you clean a game hen?” her father wanted to know.

She didn’t waver. “I can learn.”

“Can you haul water from the river and hoe in a garden?” her father persisted. “Because I have no doubt that you will have to do it.”

“There will be men to do the lifting,” John promised him. “And we will take excellent care of her, sir.”

Her father hesitated, but Ellen’s face was stiff with determination. She wasn’t backing down an inch.

“Very well,” he said on a heavy breath. “But if it becomes too much for you, I want to know,” he added firmly. “You must promise that, or I cannot sanction your wedding.”

“I promise,” she said at once, knowing that she would never go to him for help.

He relaxed a little. “Then I will give you a wedding present that will not make your prospective bridegroom chafe too much,” he continued. “I’ll open an account for you both at the mercantile store. You will need dry goods to furnish your home.”

“Oh, Father, thank you!” Ellen exclaimed.

John chuckled. “Thank you, indeed. Ellen will be grateful, but I’ll consider it a loan.”

“Of course, my boy,” Colby replied complacently.

John knew the man didn’t believe him. But he was capable of building an empire, even if he was the only one at the table who knew it at that moment. He reached over to shake hands with the older man.

“Within ten years,” he told Colby, “we will entertain you in the style to which you are accustomed.”

Colby nodded, but he still had reservations. He only hoped he wasn’t doing Ellen a disservice. And he still had to explain this to her maternal grandmother, who was going to have a heart attack when she knew what he’d let Ellen do.

But all he said to the couple was, “We shall see.”

* * *

THEY WERE MARRIED by a justice of the peace, with Terrance Colby and the minister’s wife as witnesses. Colby had found a logical reason for the haste of the wedding, pleading his forthcoming trip home and Ellen’s refusal to leave Sutherland Springs. The minister, an easygoing, romantic man, was willing to defy convention for a good cause. Colby congratulated John, kissed Ellen, and led them to a buckboard which he’d already had filled with enough provisions to last a month. He’d even included a treadle sewing machine, cloth for dresses and the sewing notions that went with them. Nor had he forgotten Ellen’s precious knitting needles and wool yarn, with which she whiled away quiet evenings.

“Father, thank you very much!” Ellen exclaimed when she saw the rig.

“Thank you very much, indeed,” John added with a handshake. “I shall take excellent care of her,” he promised.

“I’m sure you’ll do your best,” Colby replied, but he was worried, and it showed.

Ellen kissed him. “You must not be concerned for me,” she said firmly, her blue eyes full of censure. “You think I am a lily, but I mean to prove to you that I am like a cactus flower, able to bloom in the most unlikely places.”

He kissed her cheek. “If you ever need me…”

“I do know where to send a telegram,” she interrupted, and chuckled. “Have a safe trip home.”

“I will have your trunks sent out before I leave town,” he added.

John helped Ellen into the buckboard in the lacy white dress and veil she’d worn for her wedding, and he climbed up beside her in the only good suit he owned. They were an odd couple, he thought. And considering the shock she was likely to get when she saw where she must live, it would only get worse. He felt guilty for what he was doing. He prayed that the ends would justify the means. He had promised little, and she had asked for nothing. But many couples had started with even less and made a go of their marriages. He meant to keep Ellen happy, whatever it took.

* * *

ELLEN JACOBS’S FIRST glimpse of her future home would have been enough to discourage many a young woman from getting out of the buckboard. The shade trees shaded a large, rough log cabin with only one door and a single window and a chimney. Nearby were cactus plants and brush. But there were tiny pink climbing roses in full bloom, and John confessed that he’d brought the bushes here from Georgia planted in a syrup can. The roses delighted her, and made the wilderness look less wild.

Outside the cabin stood a Mexican couple and a black couple, surrounded by children of all ages. They stared and looked very nervous as John helped Ellen down out of the buckboard.

She had rarely interacted with people of color, except as servants in the homes she had visited most of her life. It was new, and rather exciting, to live among them.

“I am Ellen Colby,” she introduced herself, and then colored. “I do beg your pardon! I am Ellen Jacobs!”

She laughed, and then they laughed as well.

“We’re pleased to meet you, señora,” the Mexican man said, holding his broad sombrero in front of him. He grinned as he introduced himself and his small family. “I am Luis Rodriguez. This is my family—my wife Juana, my son Alvaro and my daughters Juanita, Elena and Lupita.” They all nodded and smiled.

“And I am Mary Brown,” the black woman said gently. “My husband is Isaac. These are my boys, Ben, the oldest, and Joe, the youngest, and my little girl Libby, who is the middle child. We are glad to have you here.”

“I am glad to be here,” Ellen said.

“But right now, you need to get into some comfortable clothing, Mrs. Jacobs,” Mary said. “Come along in. You men go to work and leave us to our own chores,” she said, shooing them off.

“Mary, I can’t work in these!” John exclaimed defensively.

She reached into a box and pulled out a freshly ironed shirt and patched pants. “You go off behind a tree and put those on, and I’ll do my best to chase the moths out of this box so’s I can put your suit in it. And mind you don’t get red mud in this shirt!”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a sheepish grin. “See you later, Ellen.”

Mary shut the door on him, grinning widely at Ellen. “He is a good man,” she told Ellen in all seriousness as she produced the best dress she had and offered it to Ellen.

“No,” Ellen said gently, smiling. “I thank you very much for the offer of your dress, but I not only brought a cotton dress of my own—I have brought bolts of fabric and a sewing machine.”

There were looks of unadulterated pleasure on all the feminine faces. “New…fabric?” Mary asked haltingly.

“Sewing machine?” her daughter exclaimed.

“In the buckboard,” Ellen assured them with a grin.

They vanished like summer mist, out the door. Ellen followed behind them, still laughing at their delight. She’d done the right thing, it seemed—rather, her father had. She might have thought of it first if she’d had the opportunity.

The women and girls went wild over the material, tearing it out of its brown paper wrapping without even bothering to cut the string that held it.

“Alvaro, you and Ben get this sewing machine and Mrs. Jacobs’s suitcase into the house right this minute! Girls, bring the notions and the fabric! I’ll get the coffee and sugar, but Ben will have to come back for the lard bucket and the flour sack.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they echoed, and burst out laughing.

* * *

THREE HOURS LATER, Ellen was wearing a simple navy skirt with an indigo blouse, fastened high at the neck. She had on lace-up shoes, but she could see that she was going to have to have boots if she was to be any help to John. The cabin was very small, and all of the families would sleep inside, because there were varmints out at night. And not just crawly ones or four-legged ones, she suspected. Mary had told her about the Comanches John and Luis and Isaac had been hunting when a calf was taken. She noted that a loaded shotgun was kept in a corner of the room, and she had no doubt that either of her companions could wield it if necessary. But she would ask John to teach her to shoot it, as well.

“You will have very pretty dresses from this material,” Mary sighed as she touched the colored cottons of many prints and designs.

“We will have many pretty dresses,” Ellen said, busily filling a bobbin for the sewing machine. She looked up at stunned expressions. “Surely you did not think I could use this much fabric by myself? There is enough here for all of us, I should imagine. And it will take less for the girls,” she added, with a warm smile at them.

Mary actually turned away, and Ellen was horrified that she’d hurt the other woman’s feelings. She jumped up from the makeshift chair John had cobbled together from tree limbs. “Mary, I’m sorry, I…!”

Mary turned back to her, tears running down her cheeks. “It’s just, I haven’t had a dress of my own, a new dress, in my whole life. Only hand-me-downs from my mistress, and they had to be torn up or used up first.”

Ellen didn’t know what to say. Her face was shocked.

Mary wiped away the tears. She looked at the other woman curiously. “You don’t know about slaves, do you, Mrs. Ellen?”

“I know enough to be very sorry that some people think they can own other people,” she replied carefully. “My family never did.”

Mary forced a smile. “Mr. John brought us out here after the war. We been lucky. Two of our kids are lost forever, you know,” she added matter-of-factly. “They got sold just before the war. And one of them got beat to death.”

Ellen’s eyes closed. She shuddered. It was overwhelming. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“Oh, now, Mrs., don’t you…don’t you do that!” Mary gathered her close and rocked her. “Don’t you cry. Wherever my babies gone, they free now, don’t you see. Alive or dead, they free.”

The tears ran even harder.

“It was just as bad for Juana,” Mary said through her own tears. “Two of her little boys got shot. This man got drunk and thought they was Indians. He just killed them right there in the road where they was playing, and he didn’t even look back. He rode off laughing. Luis told the federales, but they couldn’t find the man. That was years ago, before Mr. John’s uncle hired Luis to work here, but Juana never forgot them little boys.”

Ellen drew back and pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve. She wiped Mary’s eyes and smiled sadly. “We live in a bad world.”

Mary smiled. “It’s gonna get better,” she said. “You wait and see.”

“Better,” Juana echoed, nodding, smiling. “Mas bueno.”

“Mas…bueno?” Ellen repeated.

Juana chuckled. “¡!Vaya! Muy bien! Very good!”

Mary smiled. “You just spoke your first words of Spanish!”

“Perhaps you can teach me to speak Spanish,” Ellen said to Juana.

“Señora, it will be my pleasure!” the woman answered, and smiled beautifully.

“I expect to learn a great deal, and very soon,” Ellen replied.

* * *

THAT WAS AN understatement. During her first week of residence, she became an integral part of John’s extended family. She learned quite a few words of Spanish, including some range language that shocked John when she repeated it to him with a wicked grin.

“You stop that,” he chastised. “Your father will have me shot if he hears you!”

She only chuckled, helping Mary put bread on the table. She was learning to make bread that didn’t bounce, but it was early days yet. “My father thinks I will be begging him to come and get me within two weeks. He is in for a surprise!”

“I got the surprise,” John had to admit, smiling at her. “You fit right in that first day.” He looked from her to the other women, all wearing new dresses that they’d pieced on Ellen’s sewing machine. He shook his head. “You three ought to open a dress shop in town.”

Ellen glanced at Mary and Juana with pursed lips and twinkling eyes. “You know, that’s not really such a bad idea, John,” she said after a minute. “It would make us a little extra money. We could buy more barbed wire and we might even be able to afford a milk cow!”

John started to speak, but Mary and Juana jumped right in, and before he ate the first piece of bread, the women were already making plans.