Brides of Grasshopper Creek Read online

  "I have. Joseph just does not seem to want to accept it."

  "So, you try harder. He is a good man, Charlotte. It is in there. You just have to find it."

  As I left the hotel, Hannah's words repeated through my mind. I didn't doubt that Joseph was a good man. Though quiet and standoffish, he was polite and the hardest worker I had ever known. Sometimes I would catch his eye and I could see a hint of something there, something that he was not able to express.

  Perhaps that was what Hannah meant. I thought that God had led Victor and me here to Bannack and that that was the end of the journey, but perhaps it wasn't. Maybe my journey was still moving forward and it was up to me to follow it.

  Chapter 14

  The next morning, I woke to the sound of the bell on the clock in Joseph's bedroom. I lay still, listening to him shuffling around as he prepared for the day. His footsteps sounded in the large room and then I heard them coming close to my door, slowing as if trying not to make much sound. I closed my eyes, assuming the look of sleep again, and listened to the soft creak of my door opening.

  Several seconds passed and then the door closed again before I heard him start the coffee on the stove and head downstairs to the bakery. I felt suddenly breathless. This had been the first morning in the month that I had been in Bannack that I had been awake early enough to listen to his morning routine. Was it possible that he glanced in on me every day? Was checking on me part of what he did to prepare himself each morning for what lie ahead?

  The thought brought a smile to my lips and for the first time I realized that it was not just the tension of someone not speaking to me that was bothering me. It was that it was Joseph not speaking to me. I wanted him to want to talk to me.

  I climbed out of bed and dressed quickly. Taking care not to burn myself on the pot, I poured the fresh coffee into Joseph's mug and carried it downstairs to the bakery. I placed it on the corner of the table where he was kneading dough as he always was, pausing long enough to watch his hands working deep into the lofty white mound that would become fresh, sweet bread in just a few hours.

  It took a moment for him to notice the mug, but when he did, he stopped kneading and looked up at me. I offered a smile, turned, and climbed back up the stairs to the apartment, lingering on the stairs just long enough to hear him take a sip and let out a sigh.

  I left the apartment as I always did by way of the door into the alley and hurried down the main street toward the houses collected just outside of the town center. The air had a distinct chill and I pulled my cloak close. It was not even sunrise yet when I turned the doorknob to Victor's door and stepped inside.

  It was nearly as cold inside the house as it was outside and I hurried to his stove to start a fire. After a few minutes, I heard my brother stumbling around in the loft above the main room of the house and he came down, rubbing his eyes.

  "Charlotte," he said, the sleep making his voice sound coarse and croaking, "What are you doing?"

  "I'm starting a fire," I told him, "It is freezing in here. Why didn't you have one going last night?"

  "I did. It must have gone out. I have enough quilts to keep me warm."

  I laughed.

  "Ah, yes. All of the quilts that Mama and I made over the years. I noticed that they mysteriously disappeared from my trunks."

  He gave me a boyish grin and shrugged.

  "What are you doing here so early?"

  "It is not really so early. Joseph has already been up and at work for nearly an hour."

  "Joseph is a baker. He goes to bed at lunchtime. I am an apprentice blacksmith. I still had at least another hour that I could have been curled up under all of those quilts."

  "Joseph does not go to bed at lunchtime," I laughed, "I just came to check on you. I haven't seen you in a few days."

  "I've been working. There have been more orders than Brian has been able to keep up with and he is letting me handle more projects on my own."

  "That's wonderful."

  Victor shrugged.

  "Considering I am twice the age of most apprentices, I suppose it is only fair that I progress a little more quickly through my training."

  "I don't think that all the same rules apply out here, Victor. No one in this town was born here but the babies. All the adults are from somewhere else, and they are all looking for a new life. No one looks down on you because you are an apprentice."

  "Thank you, Charlotte."

  After eating breakfast Victor and I left the house together and I walked with him to the blacksmith's shop before going to the general store to check on an order for fabric that I had made the week before. I was planning on starting some new quilts since I had only noticed two in Joseph's apartment and knew that that would not be enough to sustain us through the cold weather to come.

  To my delight, the fabric had already arrived and I was cradling it in my arms when I climbed the stairs back into the apartment above the bakery. It was quiet and empty just as I had expected it to be, but in the center of the table was a small loaf of bread and a plate with a pat of butter decorated with a rose.

  Chapter 15

  October, 1863

  I would never have thought it possible to speak without using words. Joseph, however, has taught me that it is not the words that someone speaks that truly matter. Without saying anything, he has told me so much more than I could ever have imagined.

  Every morning now I make his coffee for him. He has even stopped putting the pot on the stove when he first wakes up. I wait until I have heard him come to the door to glance in at me and then go downstairs to the bakery to get up, prepare his coffee, and bring it down to him. Sometimes he says 'good morning' or 'thank you', and sometimes he says nothing at all. When I return home from my errands and visits in the late morning or early afternoon, however, there is always something waiting for me on the table.

  They are just bits of food, a loaf of bread, a muffin, a cookie, but I know that he crafts each one specifically for me. It may be the tiny size of the loaf or the shape of a 'C' that he makes in raisins on the cookie, but he always does something to show me that he was thinking of me specifically when he made that little offering.

  Two weeks ago, we had lunch together for the first time. It seems so strange to say that after six weeks of marriage, but he had maintained his usual routine up until then of going across the street to the restaurant for lunch or having them bring something over to him. I always prepare something, and when he would not eat it, I would simply bring it over to Victor. My brother can never get enough to eat, so what I cooked never went to waste.

  One afternoon, however, I was just dishing out a bowl of soup to enjoy with the rolls Joseph had left for me when the door to the staircase opened and he walked into the apartment. He did not say a word, but took off the over-shirt that he wears when he is baking and sat down at the table. We ate in silence, but it was the most beautiful, comfortable silence that I could have imagined.

  Since then he has come and eaten with me every afternoon and some evenings. There are still times when he will go to the restaurant or someone will bring him something, forgetting, as I am sure it is easy to do considering we have yet to go anywhere together, that he is married now. I do not mind, though, I can see him changing. We talk some now. It is just little bits at a time, a few words, a short story from his day, a question or two about my life before I came here.

  It is almost as though our courtship happened so quickly that his mind did not have the chance to catch up with it and he is still, in a way, corresponding with me. His occasional words and his simple treats are his letters to me, expressing to me what he does not know how to in words.

  I never thought it would happen, Diary, but I am beginning to feel such fondness for this man. He has such intensity and dedication, yet there is still something soft and tender behind his eyes and when I have the chance to see it in the morning when I bring him his cup of coffee, it is all I can think of for the rest of the day.

  I reme
mbering saying that when Victor spoke of our parents at Christmas last year it felt like something had begun. I am feeling that again now, Diary. Something is changing, or perhaps it already has changed. Is this what I have been waiting for?

  Charlotte

  Chapter 16

  "I don't care that he was elected sheriff. He's dirty."

  I could hear Joseph hissing at someone down in the bakery as I started down the stairs with his coffee. His voice sounded sharp and angry, something that I had never heard from him. I paused on the steps so that I could listen to the response of whoever was with him.

  "We don't know that for sure, Joseph. All we have is rumors."

  I didn't recognize the voice, but I crept forward more, intrigued by the conversation. I felt guilty for listening to them, but the mention of the sheriff had pricked my ears. Just the week before I had had lunch with Emily and she told me about the articles she had read in an underground newspaper accusing Henry Plummer, the sheriff of Bannack, of leading a gang of road criminals.

  I had found it incredibly hard to believe that a man who had earned enough respect from the town to be appointed their highest lawman could actually do the things that the newspaper accused, and worried that if she was caught with such a paper it could lead to dire consequences. Now that I heard Joseph sounding so intense, I wondered if what the paper said could actually be true.

  "You heard what that boy Henry Tilden said. Just last week he was attacked by road agents. He cleanly identified Plummer as one of the men who caught up to him while he was looking for those horses. He didn't have much on him, but they didn't think twice about threatening his life."

  "But he talked and nothing has happened to him."

  "Of course not! They aren't going to go kill him just a few days after he talked to everyone who would listen about who threatened him. Plummer may be corrupt, but he isn't stupid."

  "Even if that's true, nobody believes Tilden. There's just too much respect in this town for Plummer for anyone to believe that he is doing those things."

  "Why? It's not like he left the priesthood to be our sheriff. People seem to forget that it is on record he has killed at least four men."

  "Those cases were self-defense."

  "So he says."

  "What is it that you think should be done about this?"

  Joseph let out a long sigh and it was as if the sound cut through me. I hated hearing so much pain in his voice.

  "I don't know, but something has to be done. I can't abide living in a town where the man who is supposed to be protecting everyone and keeping the bad out and the good safe is one of the worst that there is. Some of the men are getting together tonight and we're going to talk about what we can do about Plummer and his men. He might have gotten this far on his charm, but he's not going to be able to charm his way out of a posse's grasp."

  "Why the sudden determination? I know you've thought Plummer was dirty since he got elected, but you've never said much about it. Why are you suddenly so adamant about raising up a vigilante posse and going after him? What makes you want to fight now?"

  There was a long moment of silence, and then Joseph replied in a voice so calm and steady it was even more intimidating than his anger.

  "Because now I have something that is worth fighting for."

  Chapter 17

  I waited until I heard whoever Joseph had been talking to leave the bakery before coming down the rest of the steps with his coffee, being careful not to step too loudly or it would give away that I was not walking down the full flight of stairs. I didn't know if he knew that I had been standing there listening to him, and I lowered the mug cautiously to the corner of the table. He glanced up at me and then back to his dough.

  His hands were coated in flour and I wondered not for the first time at his ability to use those large, powerful hands to create things that were so delicious and so lovely.

  "Thank you," he said without any indication that that morning was different than any others.

  I hesitated a moment longer, but he didn't look up at me again, so I turned and climbed the stairs back into the apartment. It was one of those cold mornings I had thought about when I first got to Bannack and felt the heat rising from the bakery, and the warmth was comforting as I stood in the middle of the main room. I didn't have any errands to run that morning or plans to visit Victor or any of the ladies, so I decided that I would put a stew on to cook for lunch and then work on the quilt I had been making.

  I made my way out to the pump for water and when I stepped back into the apartment, Joseph was at the stove pouring fresh coffee into his mug. I stopped short so quickly that water splashed from the bucket in my hand onto the floor. I gasped and set the bucket down, reaching for one of the rags that I kept on the counter for my daily cleaning.

  "Are you alright?" Joseph asked, stepping toward me.

  "Yes," I said, soaking up the spill and tossing the rag into the basin, "You just startled me. I wasn't expecting you to be in here."

  "The coffee was cold," he said and I felt a tinge of embarrassment.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Were you listening to me talking with David?"

  I didn't know how to respond. I obviously couldn't lie to him, but I also felt ashamed to admit that I had been standing on the steps eavesdropping for so long that I had allowed his coffee to get cold.

  "Yes," I finally admitted, looking down at my hands. They were red and cold from the water, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, I just…"

  I trailed off and Joseph stepped up to me. He took one of the rags from the counter and reached forward to take my hands in his.

  "It's alright," he said.

  His hands felt strong and warm around mine, taking the chill off of my skin and making me feel safe and calm.

  "What were you talking about?" I asked softly, hoping my question wouldn't stop the gentle way he was drying my hands.

  "Henry Plummer," Joseph answered as if even the name was too bitter to say, "He is sheriff here."

  "I know."

  "Well, some of us aren't too happy about that, considering he was an outlaw long before he made his way here. We believe that he has been using his position here to run a gang of road agents. He knows when stages and deliveries are headed this way, and he is able to tell the members of his gang where to intercept them."

  "You said that you had something to fight for now and that is why you are so angry about him. Is it your bakery?"

  I didn't know how long Joseph had been in Bannack or how long he had had his bakery, but I could imagine that the thought of a ruthless man taking up position as sheriff and threatening all those who stood in his way could make him concerned about losing everything he had worked so hard to build.

  Joseph didn't answer but unfolded the rag and looked down at my hands.

  "They look better. Are they warmer?"

  I nodded.

  "Yes. Thank you."

  I withdrew my hands from his and he glanced over at the coffee pot that was boiling on the stove.

  "I should get back to the bakery," he said, "I'm going to be meeting some of the men at the saloon later, so I won't be here for supper."

  "Alright."

  He poured himself a mug of the fresh coffee and went back into the bakery without another word. I took what was left of the bucket of water and poured into the large pot I had positioned on the stove, moving the coffee pot out of the way. I sat at the table chopping vegetables from the root closet and tossing them into the water.

  I knew that I would be alone for the stew that night. Victor had already told me that he was planning on meeting a young lady for dinner at the hotel. I hated to admit that the thought made me slightly uncomfortable. Even though I was happy for him and hoped that he would find great happiness with a wife of his own, I couldn't help but feel that he was, in a way, replacing me.

  I suddenly felt lonelier than I had in a long time.

  Chapter 18

  I didn't hear Joseph get back home th
at night. I stayed awake as long as I could, but the cold has always made me tired and the first quilt I had made that season was warm and soothing on my bed. I fell asleep before he returned, and when I opened my eyes again, the door to my bedroom was standing slightly open. He had either already gone to bed and awoken for his morning routine, or had stayed out so late that he had only had time to glance in at me before going down to the bakery.

  I climbed out of bed and hissed at the cold of the floor beneath my feet. The heat from the ovens downstairs kept the main living room of the apartment far warmer than my bedroom and I often wished for some of the warmth to thaw the chill from the wood floors. Perhaps come spring I would tear up some of Joseph's old shirts and my old dresses into rags and make a rug for the floor so it would not be so bitterly cold.

  I dressed as hurriedly as I could and went out into the apartment to make Joseph's coffee as usual. When I opened the door the delectable smell of cinnamon and sugar filled my lungs. It was rich and comforting, reminding me of the holidays that were drawing close. I was nearly to the stove to start the coffee when I noticed the plate in the center of the table.

  The light from my lamp danced across a wreath-shaped loaf of bread, the curved shape created by two pieces twisted carefully together. One part was slightly darker than the other and I knew that was what was creating the wonderful smell throughout the apartment.

  A folded piece of paper beside the plate caught my eye and I picked it up. My name was written across the front in the same handwriting that had beckoned me to Bannack in those few short letters, and I unfolded the paper with trembling hands.