Messenger by Moonlight Part 1

Messenger by Moonlight.

Stephanie Grace Whitson.

Dedicated to the memory of the women of the Pony Express:.

Mrs. Tom Perry, Kennekuk Station, Kansas.

Mrs. John E. Smith, Seneca Station, Kansas.

Mrs. George Guittard, Guittard Ranch, Kansas.

Mrs. Sophia Hollenberg, Hollenberg Station, Kansas Mrs. George Comstock, Thirty-Two Mile Creek Station, Nebraska.

Mrs. Molly Slade, Horseshoe Station, Nebraska Mrs. Moore, Three Crossings Station, Utah.

The "three English women," Green River Station, Utah.

Mrs. David Lewis, Ham's Fork Station, Utah The "French Canadian Wife," Muddy Creek Station, Wyoming.

And those whose names were not recorded, but whose labor fueled the men who ran the race.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Thank you, Christina Boys, editor extraordinaire, for never losing faith in this story... or in me.

Thank you, Janet Kobobel Grant, for your continued encouragement and guidance.

Thank you, Daniel, for sharing my pa.s.sion for history, for listening to countless read-aloud sessions, and for allowing my imaginary friends to become yours, too.

Thank you, Judith McCoy Miller and Nancy Moser, for faithful prayers, treasured friendship, and brainstorming brilliance.

Thank you, Katherine McCartney, Site Administrator at Hollenberg Pony Express Station Historic Site in Hanover, Kansas, for your encouragement, knowledge, and selfless enthusiasm for this project.

I, ____________, do hereby swear, before the Great and Living G.o.d, that during my engagement, and while an employee of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, I will, under no circ.u.mstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me G.o.d.

-Pony Express Rider's Oath.

... the driver exclaims:.

"HERE HE COMES!"

Every neck is stretched further, and every eye strained wider. Away across the endless dead level of the prairie a black speck appears against the sky, and it is plain that it moves. Well, I should think so! In a second it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling-sweeping towards us nearer and nearer-growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined-nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear-another instant a whoop and a hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider's hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go swinging away like a belated fragment of a storm!

So sudden is it all, and so like a flash of unreal fancy, that... we might have doubted whether we had seen any horse and man at all...

-Mark Twain, Roughing It.

Prologue.

Buchanan County, Missouri, 1855.

After five years of hoping, fourteen-year-old Annie Paxton had finally stopped waiting for Pa to come back from wherever his soul had gone the day Ma died. Hunkered down in the lean-to, she pulled her pillow over her head to shut out the noise. In the next room, Pa yelled and swore while Emmet and Frank tried to calm him down, Annie willed herself to take in a deep breath while she recalled the sound of Ma's soothing voice reciting the Shepherd's Psalm. Annie knew the entire pa.s.sage, but she focused on the first few words, emphasizing a different word with each repet.i.tion. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd.

A thud in the other room signaled what Annie hoped would be the end of tonight's confrontation. She pulled the pillow away to listen. Emmet-always the peacemaker, always calm and quiet-was talking in low, mellow tones, and while Annie couldn't quite catch the words, she could imagine them. Let us help you to bed, Pa. Annie's already turned in. We don't want to wake her.

But Pa was bad tonight. Really bad. "We don't want to wake her? What you talking about, we? You don't speak for me. You got no idea what I want!" Pa blathered on with cursings Ma never would have allowed. Then again, Annie didn't remember Pa ever cursing when Ma was still alive.

The Lord is my shepherd. Shuffling footsteps approached the doorway between the cabin's all-purpose main room and the lean-to. Annie pressed herself as close to the log wall as she could manage. Pa was standing in the doorway. She could smell sweat and whiskey. She pressed her eyes closed, willing the tears away. They leaked out anyway. She held her breath.

"Pa." Emmet's voice again. Closer, this time. "She's asleep, Pa."

Pa mumbled something about a "poor little motherless gal" and how she didn't deserve to lose her ma.

Frank spoke up then, agreeing. They didn't deserve to lose Ma, he said. Frank wasn't like Emmet. Given a choice between backing down or fighting, Frank would fight.

Annie relaxed a little when she heard Pa moan, "I don't deserve you kids. Didn't deserve my Tennessee belle, and don't deserve you-ns."

A shard of bitterness pierced Annie's heart. Maybe Pa didn't "deserve" his kids, but couldn't he love them anyway? Couldn't he at least try? When Ma died, Emmet had taken up the farming Pa neglected, though he'd only been fourteen at the time. Nine-year-old Frank, Annie's twin, had helped, while Annie took on the cooking and cleaning and gardening and milking and chicken-tending. Neighbors had stepped up for a while, but Pa's penchant for drunken displays eventually ended that.

Pa began to cry, and Annie put the pillow back over her head. She didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to hear him say how sorry he was and how he'd do better. Sorry or not, he never did any better.

The Lord is my shepherd. Lately, Annie had focused on that phrase alone in the psalm, avoiding the rest, because all the questions she had about it made her feel guilty. Maybe she'd understand it better if they went to church. Maybe she could ask a preacher sometime. Emmet remembered going to church with Ma, but Annie didn't think he'd appreciate his younger sister questioning the Word of G.o.d. After Ma died, when Annie couldn't reason the answers to her questions about the Shepherd's Psalm, she just stopped reciting the whole thing. Instead, she clung to that first phrase, comforted by the vague notion of someone powerful being her shepherd.

She still thought about the rest of the pa.s.sage, though, and the mention of green pastures and goodness and mercy. It would be nice if the farm wouldn't grow so many weeds. Both the mules and the milk cow would surely enjoy green pastures. But the phrase that caused her the most trouble was the one right at the beginning. The words I shall not want just flat-out haunted her, because she did "want."

She wanted Pa to stop drinking and to help Emmet and Frank with the farm. She wanted a real home, with a front porch and curtains at the windows-real curtains, not the flour sacks Ma had decorated with embroidered bluebirds. She wanted to live somewhere where people didn't think of her as one of those "poor Paxton kids." She wanted to go to a nice church with a choir and maybe even a stained-gla.s.s window like the one she'd seen the only time she'd made the twenty-mile journey to St. Joseph. And she wanted friends.

It was quiet out in the main room now. She turned onto her back, staring toward the rafters. The Lord is my shepherd. She closed her eyes. Please don't be mad at me. I do want. So much.

Chapter 1.

Buchanan County, Missouri.

March 5, 1860.

Surprised by the emotion that welled up as she prepared to leave the ramshackle cabin for the last time, nineteen-year-old Ann Elizabeth Paxton hesitated before stepping across the threshold. Slowly, she turned about for a final look; at the rustic table where they'd eaten countless meals; at the two-burner stove she'd struggled with after Ma died; at the front door on the opposite side of the room, barred shut and perhaps never to be opened again. According to Frank, even the stock hands over at Hillsdale Farms lived in better places than this. Hiram Hillsdale wanted the land. He didn't care about the cabin.

Emmet and Frank had both said their good-byes to the cabin and its contents before sunup, wolfing down grits and gulping weak coffee before hauling their trunks out back on their way to hitch the mules to the wagon. While they were gone, Annie laid her own things in the trunk that was hers now-the trunk Ma had brought to Buchanan County years ago and that still contained a faded silk gown, dance slippers, lace mitts, and a few other treasures that had been Ma's.

By the time Frank and Emmet had driven the wagon up to the back door and loaded Annie's trunk, the sun was up. Emmet said they'd wait for her outside. He patted her on the shoulder and said she should take all the time she needed. Pulling her threadbare shawl close about her thin shoulders, Annie looked about the room and summoned the memory of Ma. This morning, it wasn't the Shepherd's Psalm she remembered. This morning, as Annie looked at the pieces of the only life she'd ever known, she remembered Ma saying that even on the darkest day, when all a body wants to do is cry, if she looks hard enough, she can find a sliver of light. The tightness in her chest eased up. Taking one last look, she stepped outside.

Emmet waited beside the team, but Frank had already climbed up to the wagon seat. An unseasonably warm March breeze ruffled his s.h.a.ggy auburn hair as he reached down to take Annie's hand and haul her up beside him. The minute Annie and Frank were settled, Emmet said something about taking his own last look. He went back inside.

Frank muttered, "I hope another gander finally convinces him we haven't lost much."

Annie was inclined to agree-at least when it came to the farm itself. The earth hadn't yielded much beyond weeds and poor crops for a long time now. She didn't really know why the neighbor, Mr. Hillsdale, even wanted it. Annie knew all about Hillsdale Farms, for working there from time to time had been part of Emmet and Frank's desperate attempts to save their home. Both men were good with horses. Neither could imagine Hiram Hillsdale's fine Thoroughbreds on Paxton land. Paxton land. She stifled a sigh. If only Ma hadn't died. If only Pa could have managed better. If only he hadn't become part of the trouble. If only he hadn't caused the worst of it.

Poor Pa. He never had recovered from losing the woman he called his "Tennessee belle." Oh, he'd determined time and again to "buck up" and "move on," but just when Annie and her brothers thought he might actually do it, Pa headed for town and one saloon or another. For ten years, she and her brothers had locked arms and kept things going. Somehow. But then, just two weeks ago, Pa had tried to find his way home through a late winter snowstorm-and failed. A few days after they laid him to rest beside Ma, the local banker knocked on the front door, and the three Paxton siblings learned that drinking hadn't been their father's only problem. He'd taken to gambling, too. And he always lost.

Thinking on it now while she sat beside Frank on the wagon seat and Emmet lingered inside invited a fresh wave of emotion. Oh... Pa. Annie flung another plea at heaven. Help Emmet. Please. All Emmet had ever wanted to do was farm. It had taken him several days to accept the truth delivered by the town banker. Earl Paxton had left his three children a farm with so much debt carried against it that the only thing to do was to sell it.

"That can't be right," Emmet protested. "We own the place, free and clear."

The banker shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He was sorry, but his hands were tied. Surely they could understand that under the circ.u.mstances, he simply could not give another extension. He seemed pleased with himself when he told them they were not left "without recourse." He was authorized to make an offer on behalf of their neighbor, Mr. Hiram Hillsdale. A "generous offer" the banker called it-one that would not only cancel the debt but also free Earl's adult children to "explore the world."

They would of course be able to keep things considered personal. Clothing and the like. Whatever would fit in a trunk-three trunks, since there were three of them. The team of ancient mules and the farm wagon would also be "overlooked," since they'd need transportation off the property. Mr. Hillsdale would give them a full forty-eight hours to vacate the premises once they'd accepted his offer.

Annie had never seen Emmet lose his temper, but he came close that day. His face flushed bright red. He spun about and strode to the open door of the cabin, standing there for a long while, his body fairly vibrating with emotion. Finally, he took a deep breath and turned back around. "Forty-eight hours to pack up the only life we've ever known? You can't be serious. We need more time."

The banker grimaced. "I suppose I could speak with Mr. Hillsdale-if you insist."

Frank intervened. "Don't bother." He scowled as he said, "We'll not be begging crumbs from the table of the ill.u.s.trious Hiram Hillsdale." Frank put one hand on Emmet's shoulder and gave it a little shake. "Remember how Annie blabbered about St. Joseph that time Pa took her to the city? We'll go there. It's March. The ice will be breaking up on the Missouri and that'll mean a lot of business coming into St. Jo. We shouldn't have any trouble finding jobs." He winked at Annie. "What d'ya say? Shall we give St. Joseph a try?"

It was strange to look back on that moment now and realize that Frank had been the one to make peace with their situation while Emmet struggled. No one who knew the Paxtons would ever have called Frank a peacemaker. His auburn hair and deep brown eyes were visible indications of a dark, stormy temperament. Blond, blue-eyed Emmet was the quiet, steady one who never wanted more than what already lay within reach.

Weathered boards and rusty hinges creaked as Emmet finally exited the cabin and pulled the door closed behind him. When he climbed aboard and lifted the reins to signal the mules to move out, the team refused to budge. Slapping their rumps with the reins, he called out, "Come on, now, Bart. Git up, there, Bill. You can retire the minute you pull us up to the livery in St. Joseph. And that's a promise."

Frank muttered something about retirement "courtesy of Mr. Winchester."

Annie frowned at him. "You don't mean that." When Frank only shrugged, she appealed to Emmet. "He doesn't mean that, does he? You can't let anyone hurt the mules. They can't help being old."

Emmet flashed a warning look at Frank as he said, "No one's going to hurt the mules, Annie. Not as long as I have a say." He flicked the reins across the team's flanks. With a brayed protest, they leaned into the creaking harness. The wagon began to move. "Now don't cry," Emmet said as they pulled onto the road. "We're going to be all right."

"Darned right we are," Frank said. He nudged Annie. "We've got us a fresh start, and we're going to make the most of it."

Annie nodded. She rather liked the idea of a fresh start, although it sometimes made her feel guilty to admit it, even to herself. After all, but for Pa's dying they might have been able to hang on. Maybe she shouldn't be glad to be leaving, but still-there were good things about moving on, not the least of which was an end to being seen as one of "that drunken Earl Paxton's poor kids." From what she remembered of St. Jo., it was as different from home as one of Mr. Hillsdale's fine Thoroughbreds was from Bart, the lop-eared mule. This time of year, thousands of travelers would be poised to begin spring journeys either to gold mines in the Rockies or homesteads in Oregon. The city would be bustling. If one job didn't work out, a body could try another and another and another, until finally he or she landed on whatever was just right. St. Jo. was the perfect place to get a fresh start.

Annie glanced over at poor Emmet, who wasn't the least bit interested in living somewhere different. All twenty-four-year-old Emmet cared about was farming, Luvina Aiken, and G.o.d-although probably not quite in that order. For Emmet, St. Joseph was only a temporary necessity. A place to earn the respectable living that would convince Luvina's father to consent to a wedding. A detour on a path that he hoped would lead him right back to farming-and to Luvina.

They'd been on the road for a while now, and Emmet had apparently mistaken Annie's silence for sadness. "I know things seem bleak," he said, "but G.o.d hasn't forgotten us. The Lord is our shepherd, and He still means everything for our good, whether we can see it or not. Thinking about our going to St. Joseph just now had me thinking about Joseph in the Bible. You remember that story? Ma used to tell it. I think it comforted her when she felt homesick for Tennessee."

"I remember Joseph," Annie said, although the memory didn't come from Ma. Compared to Emmet, she remembered so very little about Ma. She had a vague notion of warmth and feeling safe. A gentle voice. Sitting in church and liking the sound of Ma's voice singing hymns-although she wasn't sure if she actually remembered the part about church or if she'd just heard Emmet talk about it often enough that she thought she remembered. It especially bothered her that she didn't remember what Ma looked like. Emmet said if she wanted to know that, all she had to do was look in the mirror. Annie wasn't sure if that helped or hurt, because if Ma looked like her or she looked like Ma, then why didn't she remember her better? Then again, Emmet was five years older than she and Frank, and the extra years had given him more memories of Ma. Memories from a time when life was better and Pa was sober all the time. Sometimes Annie thought the hardness of the past ten years had put a jagged edge to her memories and cut away most of the good. Maybe that was why she couldn't remember Ma better.

"Joseph," Emmet was saying, "found himself in a far country because of terrible things he couldn't control. But G.o.d never lost track of Joseph." He paused. "He won't lose track of us, either."

Annie nodded. She remembered the story. She hoped it meant what Emmet said. She liked the way he could be counted on to share comfort from the Bible. Ma's Bible, actually. He read it morning and night. Sometimes he read it aloud, although most of the time he kept it to himself. Annie knew that was because Frank was like Pa when it came to religion. Neither of them had any use for it.

One thing she did remember clearly was the day after Ma's funeral, when Emmet brought Ma's Bible to breakfast with him, planning to read one of Ma's favorite pa.s.sages to the four of them. One she'd underlined, he said. But Emmet didn't so much as get the Bible opened before Pa grabbed it and threw it across the room. Then he stormed out the back door, leaving his eggs and grits to grow cold. After that, Emmet did his Bible reading when Pa wasn't around. When Annie mentioned remembering Ma reciting the Shepherd's Psalm, Emmet helped her learn it-on the sly. Frank never showed any interest.

Emmet had also talked about Joseph and G.o.d's keeping track of him when he'd told his sweetheart about the Paxtons' losing the farm. Sixteen-year-old Luvina Aiken had promised to wait, but Annie had witnessed that promise, and while she knew very little about love, she knew quite a lot about emotions, and it seemed to her that pale, prim Luvina's were decidedly lukewarm. She hadn't shed a tear. It seemed to Annie that a woman in love ought to show a little more enthusiasm.

Annie hoped she was wrong. For all she knew, the girl was making quilts for her hope chest and counting the days until she could keep house for Emmet. In the meantime, Annie had her own dreams, and they revolved around keeping house, too-for her brothers in St. Jo. As the wagon creaked along the rutted road, Annie closed her eyes and envisioned it. Four rooms would do, one for living and cooking, and three for sleeping. They would paint the exterior white and the trim blue. She would ask Frank to build window boxes where she'd plant sweet peas to spill out and down like a blooming waterfall.

When she really let her imagination fly, Annie envisioned a front porch where she could sit and have her morning coffee and keep an eye on everything going on just beyond a picket fence nearly hidden beneath yards of rambling rosebushes. She imagined a vegetable garden and a medium-sized dog to bark and announce company, and a cat to keep mice out of the pantry.

Once they had jobs and a new home in St. Jo., Emmet would realize that losing the farm was for the best. He certainly deserved better than a battered cabin and a drunken father and land that grew very little besides waist-high thistles. In St. Joseph, he could work toward something better-the future he wanted with Luvina. They could all work toward something better.

Annie hadn't said anything about it to Frank or Emmet yet, but she'd decided that as soon as they were settled she would see about getting a job as a cook. Ma had been a cook at a big hotel when she met Pa, and while the Paxtons had never been able to afford much in the way of cuisine-Ma said that meant fancy cooking-still, Annie remembered her doing things like sprinkling cinnamon on grits. She remembered bunches of herbs hanging from twine strung between the rafters of the cabin. She remembered smiles around the supper table.

She would get a job as a cook and learn new things and one day she would gather her family around the table and serve delicious food. Instead of gulping down whatever was before them for the sole purpose of staving off their ever-present hunger, they would take their time. They would smile and say things like, Trying something new? We love your cooking, Ma. How come everything's always so good? We love you, Ma. There was a shadowy "Pa" somewhere in that daydream, too, and now that they were leaving the farm, Annie let herself think about the possibilities. Maybe she'd meet "him" in St. Jo. She allowed a little smile. The Lord is my shepherd. As far as Annie was concerned, the farther they got from the farm, the more the future shimmered with bright promise.

The world seemed a little less "shimmery" as the day went on-mostly because of the growing concern that Bart and Bill might not make it to St. Jo. Annie felt bad for the poor mules, their heads hanging low, their hooves barely clearing the earth as they ambled along. What would they all do if Bart and Bill dropped in their traces?

Around midday, when Frank said they were going to have to walk, Annie immediately thought of the hole in the sole of her right boot. Emmet did, too. "You and I can walk," he said to Frank and proceeded to climb down. But when Annie moved to join her brothers, Emmet stayed her with his hand. "Those boots of yours won't take much walking. Besides, you don't add much to the load, little as you are. Bart and Bill can manage a few extra pounds."

Truth be told, there wasn't much to any of the Paxtons. They were a fine-boned, wiry lot, with twins Annie and Frank not quite five feet tall and Emmet not much taller. Still, with Bart and Bill almost on their last legs, Annie said that every pound would make a difference, and she wasn't going to be the reason they ended up stranded beside the road with three trunks and no way to move them.

"That's our girl," Frank said. He directed Annie to take off the boot with the biggest hole in the sole and then s.n.a.t.c.hed up dried gra.s.s to provide a little extra padding over the folded paper that already shielded her stocking from the earth.

Emmet slipped his hand beneath the throatlatch at Bart's head and pulled to keep the team moving. The sun was sinking fast when the wagon finally topped the last hill. The mules seemed to know they were near the end of the journey. They didn't move any faster, but they lifted their heads and picked up their feet a bit.

Annie took note of the scarlet-rimmed clouds in the western sky and smiled. Colorful slivers of light, even as night descended. She began to pay attention to the city itself. What she saw as they made their way into St. Joseph fascinated her. In one candlelit room where the drapes were drawn back, a family sat around their dining table. As Annie watched, a maid wearing a white ap.r.o.n presented something to the man sitting with his back to the window. So enthralled was Annie as she watched that she nearly fell when she encountered a rut in the road. She would have fallen if not for Frank's steadying hand.

"If you lived there," he groused, "you'd be the one in the ap.r.o.n-not the one sitting at that fancy table. You'd have a tiny room in the attic and you'd freeze all winter and swelter all summer. And be at some stranger's beck and call every hour of the day and night."

I wouldn't care. I bet their cook doesn't have to make do with a tiny stove in a corner. She probably doesn't have to worry about stretching the grits or making the mola.s.ses last, either. If I worked there, I'd be able to set the table with china. And polish the silver. Real silver.

She thought those things, but Annie didn't say them. It was pointless to argue with Frank when he was in one of his dark moods, and the set of his jaw and the way one corner of his mouth turned down were evidence enough that such a mood was fast descending. Poor Frank. Only nineteen years old and already sporting a permanent furrow between his eyebrows-a furrow that would only deepen if he didn't find a way to harvest happiness from life.

Tucking her hand beneath his elbow, Annie gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. "You're probably right, but once they tasted my apple dumplings, I bet they'd give me an extra day off and a bigger room, just to keep me on."

Frank snorted softly. "And plant you an apple orchard, I suppose." He was still grousing, but his downturned mouth didn't look quite so grim.

"Not an entire orchard, silly," she teased. "Just a couple of trees would be enough. After all, that yard wasn't all that big." She glanced behind them. "Although peach trees and a cherry tree or two would be nice."