Calico Christmas at Dry Creek

Jake helped Elizabeth hand out four jars of pickles.

After the soldiers left the campsite, Elizabeth turned to Jake. “This marriage—it’s only for the baby?”

“I’ll bunk down in the lean-to and give the rest of the place to you and the girls.”

Elizabeth nodded. “I gave Mr. Miller my oxen in exchange for his promise to bury me when the time comes so—well—I expect him to do what he said. Even if he has to come to your place and get me.”

“You don’t need Mr. Miller now. You have me.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth looked at him skeptically. “Are you a God-fearing man, Mr. Hargrove?”

Jake was a little taken back. “Yes.”

She still looked suspicious. “The God of the Bible?”

Jake smiled. “Yes.”

“Well, then…” She paused as though weighing his words. “Do you promise to dig the burying hole yourself?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“I don’t want any easy promises here. I know I can’t come back and make sure you’ve done that particular job properly so I’d be relying on your word. I want you to dig the hole yourself and do it with prayer in your heart.”

“You’ve got my word.” Jake had seen peace pipes passed with less resolve than Elizabeth showed. “I’ll take care of you in good times and bad times. Dead or alive.”

“When I go, I’ll want to be buried beside my baby.”

“I’ll see to it. I’ll even leave room on the headstone for all three of you.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Then I think we should ask for the oxen back.”

Jake knew a battle could be lost if a man didn’t act quickly to secure his victory. “I’ll get the oxen and then we’ll head out. I know the minister in Miles City. The Reverend Olson. He’ll say the words for us.”

“Matthew and I never did get as far as Miles City. But I heard they had a fine preacher there. Mr. Miller promised to ask the man to come and say a few words over my grave when I—you know—” Elizabeth nodded to the grave “—when I died—which I guess isn’t going to be as soon as I thought.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together firmly.

Jake hoped that meant she was accepting her new life. “The reverend’s a good man.”

“If we’re going to see him about getting married, I’d like to have some time alone with him before I take my vows.”

Jake figured that meant she wasn’t accepting her new life at all. She was probably going to ask the minister about her funeral. He didn’t know what the Reverend Olson would think when Jake rode into town with a bride who was more intent on her funeral than she was on getting married to him.

Of course, she probably wouldn’t be content with just talking to the reverend about her worries. She might mention it to anyone who would listen until finally even the old trappers would hear about it. They’d have a fine time telling about the woman who’d rather go to her own funeral than marry up with Jake Hargrove.

Oh, well, Jake told himself with a wry grin; he never was one to begrudge others a good laugh around their evening fires. He just hoped they got a few things straight. Like the fact that his bride’s eyes were some of the most beautiful eyes a man was likely to see this side of the Missouri. He hadn’t expected that. They reminded him of the moss that grew on the side of those ponderosa pines high in the mountains where he’d lived as a boy.

Being married, even temporarily, to a woman with eyes like that couldn’t be all bad. He’d just have to think of ways to keep her happy until she decided to leave. Even his mother had taken a few months to judge this land before she decided that she hated it. His mother might have gone longer before making her decision if she’d had something to distract her. Women always liked new clothes. Maybe he should buy the woman a new dress to match those eyes of hers.

And a pretty brooch. His mother had set great store by her few jewels. Jake stopped himself. He wondered if he should offer to pay the woman outright. Eastern women were touchy about money, but even he wasn’t so sure about paying a woman to marry him. Of course, he’d see that she had plenty of money for her trouble; he’d panned a modest amount of gold in the Black Hills southeast of here this past spring so he had enough. But it just didn’t seem right somehow to bring up money quite yet.

Chapter Three

There was a cluster of cottonwood trees leading into the small town of Miles City. The trees were slender and not rooted very deep in the gray alkali soil, but they gave some relief from the vast emptiness that seemed to echo back and forth in this part of the territories. Elizabeth hadn’t been prepared for all of this vastness. It felt as though God could look right down and see her, not because He was searching her out, but just because there was so little else in sight. Well, if He wanted to look, she couldn’t stop Him. It did make her nervous, though.

She sat on the wagon seat next to Jake. It had rained some on the way here and the dampness had turned the ground dark. It wasn’t wet enough to slow down the wagon wheels, though, so Elizabeth had been holding the baby in her arms to protect the little one from the worst of the jostling as they bumped along the rough road. She looked down and smiled.

Elizabeth might not want God looking at her, but she was glad He knew about the baby. She adjusted the blanket covering the infant and, when she looked up again, Jake had turned the oxen team slightly to enter the town and she could see the main street for the first time.

The trip to Miles City had been slow. Jake had his horse tied to the back of the wagon, and Spotted Fawn had ridden her pony as far away from the wagon as she could while still riding with them.

“Why, it’s full of people.” Elizabeth couldn’t believe it. There were people everywhere and dozens of wagon wheels had made tracks down the street. Her first feeling was relief that she and Matthew hadn’t come through this town before he got the fever.

Matthew had everything so well planned. He’d told her it would be okay if he started his store by selling things from the back of their wagon. He figured most of the buildings would be thrown together with bits of canvas and mud-chinked logs so people would not expect to shop in a regular mercantile as they would if they were back East.

But Matthew had been wrong. There were no canvas and rough-hewn huts to be seen. The frame buildings were neatly painted and laid out on two sides of something called Richmond Square. There was even a sign naming the place. That meant someone had money. Miles City was not like the gold-mining towns Matthew had heard about that were thrown together haphazardly because everyone was looking for gold. The gnarled branches of the cottonwoods weren’t the kind of trees used to make the plank boards in these buildings.

“Somebody hauled in a lot of lumber.” Elizabeth wondered if maybe the town had been rough earlier, but had grown up without Matthew hearing about it.

Jake nodded. “It came in on the steamboats. I brought some of the lumber down from Fort Benton myself. I was going to add onto my place, but I gave it to the school instead.”

Elizabeth was glad no one could see the flannel union suits and unbleached muslin Matthew had packed so hopefully in the bottom of their wagon.

“We couldn’t afford to take a steamboat,” she said. “Not with all the goods Matthew wanted to bring. That’s why he got us our wagon. Fortunately, we found a few other wagons still going this way, so we came together.”

Elizabeth wondered what she would do with all of the things Matthew had packed in that wagon. Most of it was rough fabrics with little value. The best cloth they had was the red calico cotton she’d dyed herself. It was one of the few things in the bottom of the wagon that truly belonged to her.

Most people wouldn’t even have attempted what she’d done, but an old woman had told Elizabeth about the dye process and she’d decided to try it. She liked the name of it—Turkey red oil-boiled dye. It had all sounded so grand and exotic.

She’d been pregnant at the time and wanted some bright red yarn so she could knit a blanket for their baby’s first Christmas. Matthew had said it was foolish to give a present to a baby, but she didn’t think so. Most of the reds that were dyed in other ways would fade or bleed with each washing and she wanted a blanket that would hold its color for generations to come. She had pictured her baby showing the blanket to his or her own baby in the distant future and telling the little one that Grandma had made the red blanket for a very special Christmas years ago.

A lone rider passed their wagon and Elizabeth was jolted out of her memories. She’d gotten so caught up in thinking about the Christmas yarn that she’d forgotten that her whole reason for making it was now gone. She had no family. No husband to worry about pleasing. She had no use for a red blanket that held its color for generations.

Her life had changed once again and an unbleached gray was enough to mark her endless days. She was sure she could sell the red yarn, and the fabric she’d dyed, too, but she doubted there would be much of a market for the other things she and Matthew had brought west. The people walking in and out of the stores here were not wearing poor clothes. It was mostly men walking around, but there were women, too. And they were clearly used to getting good fabrics.

Matthew hadn’t had the money to buy any but the lowest quality. He thought that, by the time people demanded better goods, he would have the money to buy them. His heart would have been broken if he had lived to see his dream fall apart.

Nothing was turning out the way they had planned, Elizabeth told herself as she looked away from the busy street and back at the man sitting beside her on the wagon seat.

She couldn’t believe she was going to marry this man. She still felt married to Matthew.

She, Jake and the girls had left the fort before midday. She had put everything back in the wagon and Jake had managed to convince Mr. Miller to return the oxen that were now pulling it. The blacksmith had even thrown in a bag of oats for good wishes on their life together. Elizabeth hadn’t known what to say when the man carried out the oats so she’d unpacked six jars of her best canned green beans and given them to him in appreciation.

Jake grunted as he turned and motioned for Spotted Fawn to come closer.

Then he turned to Elizabeth. “This town gets busier every day. Someone put up that hotel hoping that the railroad will stop here. All of the surveying the army is doing has people on edge wondering what route the railroad will take when it comes this way. I tell people it’s years away, but no one knows for sure.”

Elizabeth thought Jake wanted to say more about the railroad, but he didn’t do it so she kept looking around. She noticed that the hotel was only one of several two-story buildings on the street. The rain had turned the top of the ground into a thick mud. Several horses and a buggy were making their way through the street. The wheels didn’t sink in far, but the boots of the men walking seemed to pick up a layer of mud.