Julianne MacLean Read online

  So this was his land. But where was the house? she wondered, looking all around. She hopped down from the wagon and splashed into a fresh, wet pile of manure that soiled the hem of her petticoat.

  “Oh,” she groaned, lifting her skirt and stepping back to examine the sole of her boot.

  “You gotta watch where you step around here,” Briggs said. He disappeared into the barn, then returned a moment later towing a white goat. “Go stretch your legs, Gertrude, but stay away from my trousers on the line.” He let her loose to wander the yard.

  Sarah, still scraping the bottom of her boot on the hard ground, watched Briggs walk back into the barn. She heard him apologizing to someone. “Sorry, Maddie. Didn’t mean to be gone all night.” He stayed in the barn a while this time, and after a few minutes, Sarah wondered what she should do. Should she get her bag and find her own way to the house, or should she wait for him to escort her? Most definitely, she did not want to invade his home without his permission.

  But she was his wife. It was her home, too.

  Feeling an overall uneasiness, Sarah wandered around the yard while a rhythmic squirting sound reverberated from inside the barn. She entered the fenced pen that was attached to it, then peeked through the door to see Briggs sitting on a small wooden stool, milking a cow. He had removed his coat and had draped it over the side of the stall, and now sat with his loose white shirt stretched across his back.

  Leaning forward, he squeezed and pulled at the poor thing’s feminine underparts while milk squirted out in thin, forceful streams. Sarah stood watching, entranced by the muscles in Briggs’s back, tensing and relaxing in unison with the steady sound of milk striking the wooden bucket. She realized with some surprise that she’d never really watched anyone milk a cow before.

  All of a sudden, a brown flash came bounding out of the barn and tackled her. Tired and less alert than she ought to have been, she toppled backward into the mud, only then realizing her face, sunburned and stinging from the long drive, was being licked clean with unbridled enthusiasm. The dog snorted, his long, wet tongue making its aggressive way up her nose. “Ugh!” she screamed, trying to cover her face with her white-gloved hands.

  “Shadow!” Briggs hollered, emerging from the barn. “Get off her!”

  The big dog skulked away with his ears pressed back and his tail between his legs, while the pig watched the entire spectacle with interest.

  “Sorry about that,” Biggs said, striding through the mud and wrapping his strong hand around Sarah’s elbow. “Look what he did.” He pulled her swiftly to her feet, but she lost her balance and fell forward on one knee into the mud before he scooped her up again.

  Sarah fought to control her temper. She tried to catch her breath, but it seemed no use. All her troubles were catching up with her. She picked at her skirt with shaky, muddy fingers. “My Sunday dress. It’s covered with mud.” It was the least of her worries, but it seemed the only problem she could talk about.

  “It ain’t mud,” Briggs said matter-of-factly.

  “It’s not mud,” she repeated, refusing to accept what possibilities remained.

  “Aw, hell,” he said again. “You’re gonna have to go down to the creek.”

  “The creek? Don’t you have a tub?”

  “A tub?”

  Had he never heard the word before?

  “Not out here, I’m afraid.” He turned away from her, then pointed. “Creek’s that way. You’ll find soap on the big rock.”

  Sarah glanced hopelessly in the direction of his outstretched finger, and guessed the water was just over the hill. Struggling to mentally prepare herself to wash out of doors with the animals and insects, she staggered out of the pen alone. At least the dog had followed Briggs back into the barn and was no longer a threat.

  She treaded across the yard, and with no shortage of grunts and groans, lifted her valise out of the wagon. She lugged it in the direction she hoped would bring her to water.

  When she approached the top of a small hill, she saw the creek in the distance. It was at least a half a mile away. She certainly wasn’t about to lug her bag all the way there.

  Whispering an oath, she set it down and withdrew a clean skirt and bodice. She left the bag in the grass and hobbled wearily the rest of the way.

  After stumbling down the creek bank, she found the soap in a battered tin bowl. How was she going to do this? she wondered, turning to check if anyone could see her. Of course not. There wasn’t another soul for miles.

  She unlaced her boots and kicked them off, then removed her dress and underclothing, feeling one level beyond nakedness. She was outdoors, stepping into a creek with God-knows-what kind of creatures swimming in it. She forced those thoughts from her muddled brain as she waded in, shivering at the sudden ice-cold shock upon her skin. Gooseflesh covered every part of her body that had a name, so she decided to bite the bullet and plunge in headfirst with a splash.

  Her body soon adjusted to the cool temperature, and she began to swim around in circles, feeling uncommonly refreshed, but nevertheless wondering how she was ever going to live here. Surely Briggs would not expect her to crack the ice and bathe here in the winter. There must be some alternative plan.

  Treading water and looking in all directions, she realized she had not once imagined it would be like this. She’d honestly believed there would be other farms nearby. She’d thought it would be a small community with charming country houses painted yellow, a church and a school within walking distance. Children playing games together. She’d fantasized about quilting bees and spelling bees and honey bees. There was none of that here or anywhere near here.

  Nevertheless—and she was sure some would be surprised by this—she felt lucky and blessed. Maybe there weren’t any quilting bees, but there was hope for a new beginning.

  Feeling encouraged, she stepped out of the water and reached for the soap, bringing it to a cool lather between her palms. She washed her hair, her face, and her body, then dove into the water and swam beneath the surface to rinse herself clean. When she emerged, she took one look at her dung-covered dress, and groaned.

  Briggs carried the bucket of milk around the back of the barn and into the house. When he walked through the door and descended the five steps, he saw, perhaps for the first time, the primitive conditions he’d been living in for the past year. A fly buzzed around his ear, and he swatted it away with his free hand, then set the bucket on the table.

  What was Sarah going to say when she walked in here with her white gloves and her fancy purple hat? Briggs took one look at the narrow bed, felt his insides spin, then turned and walked toward the door.

  She’d have to accept it, that was all. She didn’t have much choice. He’d advertised for a farm wife, not some giddy, vain city girl who didn’t know a harness from a grasshopper plow. If she didn’t like his way of life, it was her own fault for answering his ad in the first place. Isabelle had been the same way, all desperate to get married no matter what, not thinking for a second about what she was getting herself into. When it finally hit her, off she went first chance she got, with that no-good, smooth-talking, randy gambler who had promised her the fine life.

  And Briggs had let her go without a fight.

  Not this time, he thought, climbing back up the steps and remembering Sarah out on the prairie in the middle of nowhere, suggesting a divorce. A divorce! First sign of trouble and, just like Isabelle, she wanted out. Well, out wouldn’t come so easily this time.

  Briggs stopped just outside the door. How would Sarah stand up to the challenges that faced her? He rubbed the back of his neck, stiff after the long drive from town. Would she see his home as a damp, dark hole in the ground and want to leave? How would he stop her if she demanded he take her back to Dodge for a divorce?

  That was just what he didn’t need—another scandal setting more tongues flapping in the wind. The whole town would probably think he was cursed.

  He was beginning to think that himself.

&n
bsp; Sweeping that notion away, he decided it was time to show Sarah the house. For every moment he stood stalling, he was wasting daylight hours that should be spent preparing for the harvest.

  He walked to the creek and strolled down the bank, then spotted her and froze. She stood with her back to him, fastening the back button on her pale-blue floral skirt. Her shiny, wet hair flowed down her back in a torrent of midnight waves, the tips of the dripping curls grazing her tiny waist. He stood in bewildered awe of this woman he had brought to this remote, uncivilized place. She just did not fit. She stood out like a red rose in a field of snow.

  Just then, Sarah turned around. When her gentle gaze lifted, her eyes narrowed. She folded her arms in front of her. “You have the most inconvenient habit of sneaking up on me when I’m half-dressed, Mr. Brigman.”

  Briggs shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I just came down to remind you there’s work to be done. And you’re more than half-dressed, Mrs. Brigman. You look fully dressed to me.”

  Sarah unfolded her arms. “What kind of work?”

  “Chores. All day, every day. You didn’t expect to bathe and primp and brush that hair for hours on end while I do everything around here, did you?”

  “Why would you assume I’d want to do that?”

  Briggs paused a moment, realizing he was being unreasonable, but knowing it was too late to take it back. All he could do was stand there and stumble over a dozen possible retorts.

  Sarah raised her chin. “I did read your advertisement. I know what hard work is about, even though for some reason you think I don’t.”

  Feeling a little guilty for being so hard on her, Briggs closed the distance between them and noticed the smell of lye soap in her hair and on her skin. “When you’re done cleaning your dress, I’ll show you the house.”

  “Thank you.”

  He cringed when he imagined what she would think when she saw it, then he chastised himself for caring, for being ashamed of his home.

  Briggs started up the bank, but stopped. “By the way.” He turned to point at her clothes. “Those are more practical out here.”

  She glanced down at her simple calico bodice and skirt.

  “If I were you, I’d pack up that purple thing and save it for Sundays.”

  Sarah gathered her hair in her hands and wrung it out like a wet towel. “Fine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some laundry to do.”

  Feeling as if he’d just been dismissed, Briggs resisted the petty urge to have the last word. When he saw Sarah pick up her dress and scrub hard enough to wear a hole in it, he knew she didn’t want to hear anything he had to say anyway.

  Chapter Six

  Gathering her skirt in one hand, her heavy wet gown draped over the other arm, Sarah climbed the steep bank toward the yard. Finally she would see her new home. The place she would whip into shape. As soon as she got to work, Mr. Briggs Brigman wouldn’t have one more thing to complain about.

  And what a pity for him. Complaining seemed to be his favorite activity.

  On her way back, however, she lost some time, unable to find her valise. She hadn’t thought to mark the spot. Mentally kicking herself, she wandered in circles until she found an imprint in the grass about the size of her bag. Confused, she glanced toward the homestead and reasoned that Briggs must have picked it up and carried it back. At least, that was what she hoped. Otherwise, she’d have to return for it later, giving him one more excuse to criticize her.

  Crossing the yard toward the barn where Briggs was leaning one shoulder against the door frame, his arms folded in front of him, Sarah felt her insides flutter with nervousness. She glanced down to see her valise on the ground at his feet, then resolved not to let this man intimidate her. She was ready to take on her role as prairie wife with all its challenges and hardships. He wasn’t going to break her.

  “It’s about time,” Briggs said, stepping out of the shady doorway and picking up her bag. “I thought you were waiting for your dress to dry, too.”

  Sarah smiled cooly. “Of course I wasn’t. Let’s not forget it was your rambunctious dog who did this.”

  Ignoring her, Briggs walked past. “The house is this way.”

  Sarah turned. That way? There was nothing that way but more prairie. Withholding her skepticism, Sarah followed her husband away from the barn.

  “It’s right here,” Briggs said, climbing a knoll. He disappeared over the other side, and when Sarah reached the top, she realized with horror that she was standing on a roof.

  This wasn’t a house. It was a mound of dirt.

  She stood dumbfounded, looking down at her husband.

  “It’s called a dugout,” he explained, “because it’s—”

  “Because it’s dug out of a hill,” Sarah finished for him. Gulping back her astonishment, she ambled across the roof and down the side. “Do many people live in dugouts?” She struggled to appear unruffled.

  “At first. Until they earn enough to buy timber for a real place. As you can see, there’s nothing out here for building material except sod.”

  “Yes,” she replied, gazing across the obstinate ocean of grass. “I see that.”

  “The door is here.” He wrapped his hand around her elbow and hurried her along.

  Sarah looked more closely at the outside walls. She was amazed by the construction and the resourcefulness of a man determined to build a house in a land without wood. They reached the door and had to walk down five steps carved out of dirt. The inside, about four feet below ground level, seemed dark at first until Sarah’s eyes adjusted. Coolness swept over her skin as she breathed in the damp scent of earth and grass. Still doing her best to appear calm and composed, she smiled at Briggs, who walked into the one-room house, dropped her valise by the table, and spread his arms wide.

  “This is it,” he said proudly, but it was a pride Sarah suspected was less than genuine. He expected her disapproval. In fact, he seemed to want it!

  “It’s very…solid,” she commented, determined to prove his infuriating expectations wrong. She tapped her foot three times on the dirt floor.

  “The dirt was like putty when I dug the hole. It dried nicely though, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Very nicely.”

  They stood in silence a moment while Sarah glanced around at the furniture. A nail keg and soap box stood against the wall, and two mismatched chairs accompanied a weathered plank table. A rude bed with shaved tree trunks as bedposts stood in the corner.

  She walked to the table and set her dress down next to the bucket of milk. At least there was an iron stove, she noticed, her gaze following the steel chimney to the ceiling. She scanned the back wall, carved out of the side of the hill, then the front and side walls which were made of chunks of sod, each block laid with the grass side down, staggered like brickwork.

  Briggs stepped into her line of vision, as if he had been watching her reactions, waiting expectantly for the first teardrop to fall. “The constant wind may rattle the window and door,” he said, “but not the walls. They’re about thirty-six inches thick.”

  “Thirty-six inches,” Sarah repeated. “My, my.” She looked up at the roof, wondering if she should worry about it caving in. “What’s that made of?”

  “A lattice of willow poles. Then there’s brush, long grass, a layer of clay from the creek bank, and a final dressing of sod. Strong enough for you to stand on.”

  “How reassuring,” she said, fearing her composure was reaching its last limit.

  But she would not let him know.

  She turned and looked at the bed. “Is that, uh…?”

  “The bed. It’s too small, I know. I was planning to build another one before you got here, but things got behind in the haying and I just didn’t get the chance.”

  Sarah swallowed the throbbing lump in her throat, wondering with concern when he intended to find the time, and what they were going to do until then.

  “Don’t worry. The bedbugs are minimal.
”

  “Bedbugs?” she echoed, feeling her skin prickle all over.

  Briggs walked toward the door. “Now that you’re settled in, I gotta get to work. You’ll find all the food I got in that box over there and in the garden. You can expect me back around dusk.” He walked up the dirt steps without looking back, then disappeared into the daylight.

  Sarah stood wearily, wondering if he realized his house was a dark dungeon. She felt a sudden tickling at her neck and slapped at it, inspecting her palm for some foreign creature, but finding nothing, assured herself she had imagined the sensation. It was probably just a loose sprig of hair.

  Sarah looked around with uncertainty. Briggs had given her no direction as to her duties, but had said there was plenty to do. The obvious chore at the moment was to unpack her bag, then prepare dinner before he returned from the field. That couldn’t be too difficult, could it?

  She carried her bag to the bed, but when she found nothing that resembled a chest of drawers, she had little choice but to leave everything packed for the time being.

  Next, she went to the cupboard—an open wooden box by the stove—and knelt down to see what it contained. She found a sack of cornmeal, a small jar of sorghum molasses and another one of fat, coffee, flour and some salt pork. A bag of potatoes sat next to the box, and beside that was a barrel of salt, half-full.

  How had Briggs survived before she’d arrived? No wonder he’d advertised for a wife.

  From this moment on, she decided, meals would improve around here. Tonight, he would bite into the best biscuits he’d ever tasted in his life. Sarah would find a way to make that salt pork into something mouthwatering, and her surly, stubborn husband wouldn’t be able to deny it.

  All she had to do now was light a fire and start working on the biscuits. She went to the stove and pulled open the door. Ashes. She sighed. Wondering when Briggs had last cleaned them out, she looked around for a shovel. Unable to find one, she scooped the residue out with a soup ladle and filled a bucket. When the stove was empty, she proudly swiped her palms together and looked around for some kindling.