Arriving From Arkansas (The Pioneer Brides 0f Rattlesnake Ridge Book 1) Read online

  “In here, Barb,” Miz May called to the woman who’d spoken. “Josie is here.”

  “Oh, wonderful!” A tall blonde woman appeared in the narrow entry to the vestibule. She could be my older sister, Josie thought as she looked the woman over. She was indeed a few inches taller than Josie, with hair a similar shade to her own, though Josie would call this woman’s hair more of a honey hue than her own straw-colored locks.

  “Nice to meet you, Josie. I’m Barbara Jones—Barb for short. I’ve been filling in in the kitchens while Miz May searched for a new full-time cook.” She held out a hand for Josie to shake. It was slightly sticky. “I’m just doing some baking,” said the woman with a laugh. “You’ll have fresh rolls to serve with dinner tonight.”

  “Barb lives upstairs with her children, Ishmael and Isabelle,” Miz May explained. “She’s been staying with us since her husband passed on a couple years back. The twins are six now, so they’re a bit of a handful, as you can imagine. And Barb also works evenings at the saloon across the way and seeing as we’re lacking a schoolteacher at the moment, she’s been seeing to the twins’ education herself as well.”

  “You do have your hands full,” Josie said sympathetically.

  “Just a bit,” Barb replied with a laugh. “It was a godsend when you replied to our advertisement. We definitely need the help and getting someone with your qualifications was beyond what we ever could have hoped for.”

  Josie hoped her red face wasn’t visible in the semi-darkness of the vestibule. “Yes, well,” she said quickly, “I’ll work hard.”

  “That’s all we ask for,” Barb said cheerfully. She sniffed the air. “Better get back to that before it burns.”

  “I’ll get Josie situated in her room and then we’ll be down to help,” Miz May said. She led Josie down the short hall to the stairs as Barb hurried back in the direction of the kitchen. “Barb did the milking this morning, but we’ll need some churning done this afternoon. Barb will need help with the washing up, too. Do you think you’ll be up to cooking tonight, or are you too tired from the trip?” She smiled at Josie’s expression. “You have been on the road for a long time, haven’t you? Barb’s at the saloon tonight, but I think I can manage supper if you need to rest.”

  Josie shook her head. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t put it off forever. She’d been more bone tired than this. “I can do it, Miz May.”

  The shorter woman smiled appreciatively. “You do have the pioneer spirit. Thank you, Josie. Your room’s just in here…”

  She withdrew a skeleton key from the pocket of her skirt and unlocked the room. The walls were papered in a cheery yellow with delicate flowers. A simple four-poster bed stood against one wall; across from it was a commode with a wash basin and a small mirror hanging above it. A kerosene lamp stood on a table beside the bed. Across from the door was a narrow double-hung window looking out over the pasture. Josie went over to this and looked down at the yard. In the pasture two small children with golden brown hair were chasing each other around a scraggly ash tree. These must be Barb’s twins.

  “I’ll let you get cleaned up and settled. I’m sure you must be hungry, too. We’ve got some leftover chicken from lunch if you’d like,” Miz May said from the doorway.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Josie. Miz May closed the door, and Josie let out a sigh and sank onto the bed. She’d done it. She was here. And there was a pile of work waiting for her.

  That’s no different from back home, she reminded herself. But now you’re here on your own terms. And once your work is done, your time is your own. The thought gave her a rush of energy. Grinning to herself, she removed her sunbonnet and tossed her dusty carpet bag onto the bed—an action she regretted an instant later when a cloud of silt rose up around the bag and settled on the fresh bedspread—and opened it. Inside were her meager belongings: her good Sunday dress, a warm woolen shawl for the winter, a fresh set of undergarments, and her nightclothes. She folded these neatly into the drawers in the commode.

  Nestled at the bottom of the bag were two books: her mother’s worn copy of the Bible, and a smaller book, even more tatty, leather-bound and monogrammed on the front cover with the initials GZK.

  Gideon Zebedee Kingsley. Her uncle’s journal.

  Everything she needed was right there in those pages.

  She smiled to herself, running a finger across the soft leather. Then she tucked it into the commode among her clothes, set the Bible down on her night table, and turned to face her reflection in the looking glass on the wall. She looked a fright, but it was nothing a little soap and water wouldn’t cure.

  “I’m here, Rattlesnake Ridge,” she said to the empty air. “You’d better be ready for me.”

  Chapter 2

  Jim watched the two women disappear into the boarding house, the door shutting quietly behind them. That Josephine Lane was an odd one, he thought with a smile. She’d been jumpier than the Calaveras County frog on the stagecoach. Her nerves had been so bad that for a few minutes Jim had thought his secret was out and that she knew who he really was. People had a tendency to act nervous around U.S. marshals, even if they hadn’t done anything wrong—especially then, in fact. He’d sat there making idle conversation and trying to run through his mind whether he’d ever met this woman before—surely not, he would remember a tall, pretty blonde like her—or if there were any possible way word could have gotten out that he was coming to Rattlesnake Ridge.

  But it soon became apparent that she was nervous about herself, not him specifically. She was keeping secrets, that one. Not that he had room to talk. His life was one long string of secrets; it came with the job. Still, he couldn’t help but be intrigued by whatever Miss Lane was trying to hide. When she’d first started talking, she’d spoken with an accent he couldn’t quite peg, almost like an imitation of a society matron who’d lived up on Beacon Hill thirty years ago. But as they’d chatted more, it had begun to slip into something a bit folksier, with a slight bit of a drawl, that made him suspect the initial accent was false. And there was the eager spark in her eyes as she looked out the window when the coach driver announced they were pulling into town. He doubted a wealthy, well-bred lady would be so excited about coming to a desert ghost town like this one. Nor would one need to travel here for employment purposes. No, it was plain to see that she was definitely not who she was pretending to be, but it was almost like she was trying to make an impression.

  Not that there were many folks out here who needed impressing. She’d learn that before long, he thought with a wistful chuckle. Jim had heard enough about the Ridge from Winthrop to know that. And Jim himself had seen his fair share of these dirtwater frontier towns—these days, the easiest method for a fugitive to make a quick getaway was to hop on a train and head out west, so he’d found himself spending more and more time away from Massachusetts the last few years. The frontier was nothing like home, that was for sure. Truth be told, though, he preferred it to being back in Boston. The people were more easygoing, which suited Jim’s own natural disposition. When you had to work to scrape a living out of an untamed wilderness, you had far less time to concern yourself with propriety. And with Will gone and Kathleen living in Illinois now, there was little holding him there. He’d considered asking for a transfer to a different district, maybe in one of the territories like Washington or Idaho. But he had one last case he needed to solve first. One last fugitive needing capturing for the state of Massachusetts.

  And for himself.

  But if all went well, after four long years of searching, his journey would finally be at an end. And then he could bid good old Boston a fond farewell.

  He was sorry he’d had to lie to Miss Lane about who he really was, though. A young lady like that, traveling on her own, nervous and eager to make an impression, to appear perhaps more worldly or cultured—he would have liked to have been able to tell her that she didn’t need any of that, especially not out here. That she could just be herself.

  Bu
t how could he have done that when he’d just finished saying his name was Jim Griffin, lumber foreman, of Michigan when he was actually James McCullough, deputy U.S. marshal, of Boston? “Honesty for thee but not for me”? He’d have come off as a hypocrite.

  And he had a good reason for keeping his identity a secret. If he was going to catch Will’s killer—if Ezra Boucher really was here in Rattlesnake Ridge like the report had indicated—nobody could know who he really was. Boucher had managed to stay one step ahead of him for four years now. Jim wouldn’t let him get away again.

  No, there was nothing worth sacrificing the chance to bring his brother’s murderer to justice. Not even an especially pretty blue-eyed woman. Miss Lane would be fine.

  He looked up at the sun. He still had plenty of time to make it out to the mill. But first he needed to check in with the one man in town who knew he was coming besides Winthrop. The man who’d sent him the tip about Boucher’s presence in Rattlesnake Ridge in the first place, Sierra County Sheriff Eli Pierce.

  It had been Pierce who’d sent the telegram to the head marshal in response to the district of Massachusetts’ latest wanted bulletin that a man fitting Boucher’s description had recently moved to the Ridge and was working at Winthrop’s new lumber mill. It was a series of coincidences too strong to be anything other than divine providence: Deputy Marshal McCullough had just returned to Boston after completing his last investigation and was in need of an assignment. His knowledge of the West, his training background and his ability to blend in in just about any situation made him an obvious choice for the job. And best of all, he had a connection to Jacob Winthrop: his youngest sister was married to Winthrop’s brother, an attorney in Chicago. Winthrop could provide the perfect cover for the investigation and, more crucially, could be relied upon for his discretion. The fact that this case was of personal significance to Jim was just the icing on the cake.

  It was providence, plain and simple. And Jim wasn’t about to take it for granted.

  The sheriff’s office was adjacent to the town hall on Main Street; they’d passed it as the stage pulled into town. A few minutes later, Jim stood outside the building, assessing it. It was primarily brick, a security measure to ensure the sturdiness of the jail, but its front façade had been faced with clapboard to fit more seamlessly with the other buildings on the row. It looked to be a new construction, especially compared to the aging boarding house and the saloon he’d just passed. This was one of the buildings Winthrop had constructed after his purchase of the town. Part of his plan to clean up Rattlesnake Ridge. Jim had thought it odd when he’d heard his sister’s brother-in-law had up and decided to move out to Nevada when he already had a large, successful timber operation in Michigan. But the thing about the rich was that they always seemed to be looking for ways to get richer. That’s what had led Winthrop out west, looking for investment opportunities. The Truckee area already had a bustling logging industry, but when Winthrop’s stage had broken down outside the Ridge and he’d had a chance to stop in the town—such as it was—for a few hours and had heard about the silver mine that nature had brought to an untimely close eight years previous… well, it seemed that fate had dropped a new business venture directly into Winthrop’s lap. He had the funds to take this bankrupt town of ranchers and dirt farmers and transform it into a jewel to rival Virginia City.

  That was how he’d pitched it to Jim the last time they’d spoken in person, Christmas of ’66 in Chicago. The first Christmas without Will. Winthrop’s wife Allyn had still been alive then, heavily pregnant with their daughter Genevieve Rose. She hadn’t lived to see the town her husband had bought out with the intention of transforming. Looking around him now, Jim wondered if maybe that was for the best. It had been four years, but the Ridge didn’t look much like the bustling city Winthrop had fantasized. He didn’t know what it had looked like when Winthrop had started, but from the looks of things, there was still quite a bit of transforming left to do.

  Jim opened the painted door of the sheriff’s office and poked his head inside. The main office was brightly lit, with freshly whitewashed walls and a leaded window over a desk that currently stood empty. A bulletin board on the left-hand wall was littered with tacked-up wanted notices, some regional, some circulated by the various federal districts. Jim noticed that the memo his department had sent out about Ezra Boucher was missing from the board. Good. If Boucher was here in town, it was smart of Sheriff Pierce to keep any bulletin about him quiet. Boucher was slippery; Jim didn’t want him to have even the slightest hint of suspicion that the law may be on his tail, lest he slip away again.

  Down a narrow hallway were two jail cells. Jim heard voices echoing from these, and he took a step closer.

  “I said wake up, Jenkins!” said a man’s deep voice in a tone laden with annoyance. “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon! You’ve slept it off more than enough for one day.”

  The sluggish response was so slurred that Jim suspected that the drunkard had not, in fact, slept it off. He took a few steps down the hall to find a tall, lean man standing in an open cell, prodding a scraggly-looking man who lay sprawled on the bench beneath the small barred window.

  “Need some help there, friend? Looks like it might take some doing to get that one back on his feet,” Jim offered.

  The tall man turned to face him. His eyes were dark, as was his hair. He looked young, probably a couple years younger than Jim himself. A neatly-polished silver star with the words Deputy Sheriff - Sierra County engraved on its face was pinned to his left breast. He wore a gray suit, pressed white shirt collar buttoned to the top, with a narrow black string ribbon tie. Jim resisted the urge to grimace. He didn’t usually see lawmen dressed like dandies west of the Rockies.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the deputy asked.

  “Yes, I was hoping to speak with the sheriff,” Jim replied, smiling affably.

  “I’m afraid Sheriff Pierce was called away. I’m Deputy Grant Watson. Is there something I can help you with?” The deputy sneered slightly as he spoke, looking Jim up and down, taking in his road-worn appearance, his eyes lingering first on the gun belt at Jim’s waist, then drifting up to the travel pack slung over his shoulder.

  For a brief instant, Jim blanked. He hadn’t taken into consideration that the sheriff might not be here when he arrived. Behind Deputy Watson, the drunkard was stirring, slowly shoving himself up onto his elbows. Whether because of the presence of the drunk man or because of the disdainful look on the deputy’s face, Jim felt uneasy about telling Grant Watson about his true business here in Rattlesnake Ridge.

  So he lied.

  “I’m new to town and was hoping there might be an opening here at the sheriff’s office,” Jim said.

  “Ah.” If possible, Watson’s expression of superiority deepened. “I’m afraid not, friend,” he said, mimicking Jim’s earlier choice of words in a tone that could be described as less than cordial. “Sheriff’s already got his deputy, and you’re looking at him.”

  “I see,” Jim said, the urge to grimace only growing stronger. He’d spoken three sentences to the man and he already was convinced that Grant Watson was one of the most insufferable people he’d ever encountered. “Well, thank you for your time.”

  He turned to leave, but Watson’s deep voice stopped him. “Now hold on there, stranger.” He came out into the hallway, leaving the drunkard slumping against the wall. “What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Watson’s expression hardened, but Jim didn’t flinch. They eyed each other for a long moment. When Jim didn’t yield, Watson squared his shoulders. He was a tall man, but so was Jim. They were about an even match for height, so Watson’s intimidation tactics did little, but he gave it the old college try, Jim gave him that.

  “I’m only going to say this once, so you better pay attention,” Watson said. “You’re new in town, and I don’t want any trouble out of you. The sheriff and I run a tight ship around here. Winthrop’s been
bringing in all sorts of riffraff with this operation of his, lumberjacks and mill workers and miners. He thinks he’s going to transform this place. But I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told every other feckless drifter that’s blown into this town since he took over: this is a God-fearing town. This may be a new state, but we follow the law here. They might turn a blind eye to lawlessness in Virginia City, or in Reno, but not here. So, if you’re planning on causing any trouble, you can move right along. No one here will miss you.”

  Jim held the man’s gaze a moment longer before offering him a small, wry smile. “Whatever you say, deputy. You won’t get any trouble out of me.”

  He turned on his heel and left the sheriff’s office, feeling the eyes of the deputy on him as he went. Once back out on the street, he felt his jaw clench involuntarily. The man was less appealing than a horse’s backside. He spared one glance back at the building, half expecting to see Grant Watson staring at him through the bars of drunk Jenkins’ jail cell. But there was nothing.

  He sighed, removing his hat to run a frustrated hand through his hair. As he headed back down to the Hill Street crossroads, one thought played over in his mind:

  What sort of man was Sheriff Eli Pierce that he’d choose someone like Watson for his deputy?

  * * *

  The late afternoon sun was shining down over the valley by the time Jim was nearing the lumber mill. It hadn’t been a difficult trip, which was fortunate since he’d gotten a late start of it. He’d stopped in at the saloon before heading out of town—after his encounter with Grant Watson, he’d found he needed to fortify himself.

  The saloon had been crowded, particularly for a weekday afternoon. A boisterous group of men, most of them wearing flannel shirts and wide-brimmed hats, were seated on barrels around a large wooden table. One of the men said something Jim couldn’t quite make out, and the group laughed, their voices echoing to the rafters.