LITMIR.BIZ

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care, especially over La Veta Pass. Sometimes trains jump track or run into fallen trees.” His tone suggested he didn’t quite agree with his father. “He didn’t want to risk it.”

      At the mention of railroad tragedies, Susanna could think only of the stories she’d heard all her life. Sherman’s army destroyed the Confederacy’s entire rail line, digging up the tracks and wrapping them around trees, burning train stations and cutting telegraph wires. Maybe Colonel Northam participated in that same kind of destruction somewhere in the South. She shook off the memory and forced her thoughts to Mrs. Northam’s certain appreciation of her husband’s extraordinary gift. After all, Northern ladies hadn’t participated in the war, and surely nice things meant as much to them as they did to Southern ladies.

      “Maybe he wouldn’t mind just for the crossing?” She lifted her eyebrows with the question and smiled at Nate.

      He glanced between the bridge and her, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. This man liked her, she could tell. But she wouldn’t play with him, as she had some of the boys back home. Southern boys understood and even expected flirtation. Yankee boys might get the wrong idea if she behaved as she had back home, and so far their teasing had fallen short of real flirting.

      “I wouldn’t have you disobey your daddy, Nate, but isn’t the most important thing getting the china safely to your mother? That would honor both of them most of all, wouldn’t it?”

      He grinned in his boyish way. “Yes.” He eyed Zack. “Let’s unhitch Henry.” He nodded toward one of the lead horses. “I’ll ride up the tracks a ways and flag down the train to see if they’ll carry it over for us.”

      “It’ll cost you, boss.”

      Nate shrugged. “Broken china will cost me a lot more.”

      * * *

      The moment Nate rode away, Susanna heard her father’s faint call. Zack gave her a worried look as he helped her climb into the rear of the prairie schooner.

      “I’m sure he’s all right,” she whispered as she gave the cowboy a nod of appreciation. Then she ducked inside. “Yes, Daddy?” She knelt beside him and brushed the back of her hand over his cheek. “You’re hot. How do you feel?”

      “Don’t worry about me, sweet pea.” A glint in his eye contradicted the set of his jaw. “While Northam’s gone, you walk on up to that hotel and give that note to the desk clerk.”

      “What? Now?” She retrieved the envelope from beneath her tattered bedding. “Daddy, please tell me what this is all about.”

      “Now, daughter, you’ve never been one to question me.” He fumed briefly. “Oh, very well. I’m not partial to being laid up in some hotel in a tent city where no one knows or cares about us. I want that proprietor to turn us away. Then Northam won’t have any choice but to take us on to his place.” He coughed, then held his ribs and groaned with pain. When he recovered, he gave her an apologetic grimace. “Out here in this wild country, it’s hard for a man to be so helpless he can’t even take care of his own daughter. I trust Northam. He’ll do the right thing by us, he and his family.”

      Susanna studied him for several moments. He’d slept fitfully last night, and no doubt the river crossing had been hard on him. Maybe he wasn’t in his right mind. But that didn’t give her an excuse for disobeying him. Still, he had never asked her to do anything this close to lying in all her born days. Unless she counted his changing their last name and pretending to be poor. She still hadn’t reconciled herself to those ideas.

      “Will you go?” He tried to sit up. “If you won’t, I will.”

      “Shh.” She gently pushed him back down. “You rest, dearest. I’ll do as you asked.” Her stomach tightening, she climbed out of the wagon and tied on her bonnet. “Zack, please tell Mr. Northam I’ll be on up the road arranging tea and sandwiches for all of us.” At least that part wouldn’t be a lie.

      * * *

      Nate emerged from the hotel scratching his head over the manager’s refusal to take in Mr. Anders. He thought everybody out here in the West knew that when decent folks suffered terrible losses, other good men needed to help them out. But Nate’s offer of up-front payment and his promise to return in a day or two to check on them were rebuffed. Even mentioning his father had no effect because the man was new to the area and didn’t know the Colonel’s position in their burgeoning community to the west.

      Granted, the one-story wooden hotel wasn’t much to look at, but it was serviceable. New in late May when Nate and Zack had come through the tent city of Alamosa on their way to Pueblo, it already had a well-worn appearance. Like the other premade wooden structures lining the main street, the six-or seven-room establishment had been transported by train one room at a time and set up in haste. No doubt something more substantial would soon be needed to house the many travelers riding the newly laid Denver and Rio Grande railroad line, which would soon extend both south and west.

      Nate glanced across the dusty, rutted street and snorted in disgust. Of course, they’d brought in a building for a saloon to keep the railroad workers happy. There would be none of that over in his as-yet-unnamed community. The Colonel always made it clear up front to everyone who came to his settlement that no liquor would ever be allowed there. Apparently, the founders of Alamosa didn’t feel the same way. Even now in midmorning, several disreputable-looking men loitered outside the swinging doors, their posture indicating they’d already had a few drinks. Nate couldn’t help but think Mr. Anders and Susanna would have been better off in Fort Garland, Buffalo Soldiers notwithstanding. But he couldn’t take them back there now.

      Nor could he put off delivering the bad news about the hotel to Mr. Anders. Peering into the back of the prairie schooner, he waited until his eyes adjusted to the dimness before speaking.

      “Everything all right, Nate?” the old man croaked.

      “Yes, sir. No, sir. I mean—” He couldn’t manage to say the words. “Is Susanna back from getting her tea?” Foolish question. Obviously, she wasn’t in the wagon. “Maybe I’d better go check on her.”

      “You do that, son.” Mr. Anders lay back with a groan.

      His belly twisting, Nate turned back to the hotel just as Susanna came up the street carrying a tray laden with a teapot and sandwiches.

      “I finally found some refreshments at a cute little tent café down the road.” She tilted her head prettily in that direction. “I brought enough for everybody.” She held the tray out to Zack, who was eyeing the food like a hungry bear. “Help yourself.”

      “Much obliged, miss.” He tore off one leather glove and snatched up a sandwich with his grimy paw. “A mighty welcome change from all them beans.”

      At the sight of his dirty hand, Nate cringed, but Susanna didn’t seem to notice. Or chose to ignore it, as any lady would.

      “Did they give us a room?” Her expression revealed a hint of conflict, almost as if she hoped they hadn’t.

      Once again, that feeling of protectiveness welled up inside Nate, and his concerns vanished. He knew what he had to do. “No, ma’am, but don’t you worry your pretty head about it. It’s just a few more hours to my ranch. We’ll put you up until your father recuperates.”

      With some effort, he willed away his anxieties about the Colonel. Mother was hospitality itself, and she would more than make up for his father’s reaction. If worse came to worst, Nate could always take the Colonel aside and point out that Susanna was the one who insisted he take the china over the river by train. Otherwise, Nate would tell him, he wouldn’t have dared come home, because all the dishes would doubtless have been broken coming across the river’s rough bottom in the fast-flowing current. That should convince the Colonel she and her father deserved some help.

      For Nate’s part, he was grateful for the Denver and Rio Grande engineer and conductor, who had been more than obliging. Once they’d learned the shipment was for the Colonel, they’d ordered their own

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