Emmeline's Exile (The Alphabet Mail-Order Brides Book 5) Read online

  He waited a moment, and she nodded, wiping at her streaming eyes.

  “I do not take my vows lightly, Emmeline Aldridge, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you promise to love me?”

  Emmeline nodded again.

  “Tell me, Emmeline, what else did you promise me?”

  Her husband’s eyes were not demanding, they were not unkind, but his gaze was stern as he waited for her to respond.

  She took a shaky breath. “I promised… to honor you.”

  “And what else?”

  She sighed. “I promised to obey you. To have and to hold you and to forsake all others until death shall part us.”

  “You promised to obey me, Emmeline,” Lawson repeated. “Now, I am asking you, as your husband, to tell me the truth.”

  She let out her breath and felt it shimmer in the air before her as though it were the very last tangible form of her resistance. The rest fell away. Somewhere, in the room beyond, the fire gave a loud crackle.

  “I am not blind,” she whispered, and she felt tears begin their slow trickle down her cheeks once more. “But I will be, soon, I think.” She ducked her head away from Lawson, held her breath, and waited for the blow to fall.

  Her husband sat there for a moment, and then to Emmeline’s bewilderment, he tucked her back into his arms, folding her beneath his chin like a child. “What did you think?” he whispered to her. “Did you think I would not have you if you do not have your sight?”

  Then the sobs began. They shook her entire body with their force, and Lawson sat there and held her to his chest. He even swayed back and forth a bit. “Shh. Emmeline. Shh. You are not all alone in this world. You will never be alone, not ever again.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and waited for her sobs to quiet. “I will take care of you,” he murmured. “Let me take care of you.”

  Emmeline had never imagined she could feel such relief, never in her life. For a moment, she was not Emmeline. She was not an orphan girl who had been abandoned because of her mother’s blindness. She was Emmeline and Lawson Aldridge, part of a corresponding set. One of two. She was not alone. She would never be alone. Never again.

  She never knew how long Lawson held her to him. They slid into the bed beside one another and stayed there beneath the quilt, wrapped in each other. When the dawn finally rose, Emmeline’s heart rose with it in a way it never had before.

  Lawson wanted to take her out for dinner the following night. It was Friday evening, and the weather was at odds with Emmeline’s buoyant spirits. Rain prickled at the rim of the pretty, flowered hat she had chosen to wear that evening as she made her way to the Pharmacy. Lawson had taken extra care to tell her exactly how many steps it was from their house to his shop when he came to the schoolhouse to have lunch with her that afternoon. Her insides had flooded with pleasure at his thoughtfulness.

  She was becoming more and more comfortable in her classroom. The children were responding well to her teaching methods, and she had just written her first letter and sent it back to New York, informing Wiggie that she had accomplished the task she had been set. Her school was functioning just as it should, she had found herself a man, and she was happily settling into her new life. She knew Wiggie would be delighted. She had inquired about the old woman’s health, about the school, and about the friends she had left behind. Lawson had taken it to the post office for her on his way back to the Pharmacy.

  Now, school was finished for the day. Her students had all run along home, and Emmeline’s only remaining concern was whether she would see any familiar faces when they visited the only restaurant in town that evening.

  Emmeline counted out forty three steps once she had turned off the side road that led to her house and found herself right in front of the Pharmacy door. She peered through the glass and spotted Lawson’s blur, just behind the counter.

  “Closing up for the—Oh, good evening, my dear,” he said as the bell above the door rang.

  Emmeline grinned at her husband. “Almost ready?”

  “Just closing up,” he said. Emmeline thought she saw him tucking something away in a drawer, but could not make out what it was.

  She waited patiently, and within a few moments, they were striding off down the street.

  “What sort of food does this restaurant have?” Emmeline queried. She had never been one for fine dining, but something told her that a town like Buffalo Creek would have very little in the way of what one might consider “fine” dining. She was anticipating smoked meats of some sort, and possibly mashed potatoes, and that was all right with her. It was pleasant to have a night off from cooking, and really, anywhere Lawson wanted to be was somewhere she wanted to be as well.

  Her husband didn’t answer her. Emmeline looked around. “Lawson?”

  He held a finger to his lips. “Do you hear something?”

  Emmeline listened. For a moment, the only sounds she could hear were the sounds of the wind blowing through the trees that surrounded Buffalo Creek, and then she heard it. Screaming. Somewhere in the distance, people were screaming.

  At the same moment, Lawson and Emmeline began to run toward the sound. “It’s coming from the new miner’s homes!” he exclaimed.

  Emmeline’s heart was racing. What was going on? What could have happened? As they tore around the corner, a scene of total devastation met their eyes. Emmeline stopped dead, standing rigid on the edge of the chaos, unable to make sense of the blurred images before her eyes. Fire.

  In Emmeline’s confused perception, the flames were dancing and leaping from building to building and then she heard the gunfire and the thundering of hooves. The town was under attack.

  “Indians!” Lawson bellowed. “Emmeline,” he grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to turn away from the destruction unfolding before them. “Emmeline, I need you to run.”

  “What?!”

  “Run! Emmeline! The women will be in the church. Go around the back, come in the side door. Don’t let anyone see you.”

  “Lawson, no, I won’t leave—.”

  “Do as I say, woman!”

  The terror in Lawson’s voice and the shove he gave to her lower back made Emmeline dart forward down Main Street. She glanced back over her shoulder as she ran, but she could no longer identify the blur that was her husband.

  The church, the church. Her heart was pounding frantically against her rib cage, and she could not feel terror, she could not feel anything except her feet pounding over the earth. Because she had to run, because Lawson had told her to run, and she had to obey her husband.

  The journey through the darkened streets to the church was petrifying. She passed glowing windows and men shouting to one another across the street. In the darkness and the blurs, people were rushing past her. She could hear a child crying somewhere ahead.

  “Mrs. Aldridge?”

  Unable to see him, Emmeline nearly fell over the little boy that stepped in front of her. “Mrs. Aldridge, where is everyone going?”

  “Thomas? Is that you?”

  “Yes, Missus.”

  Emmeline reached out for the boy’s shoulders and gripped them. “Where is your mother and father?”

  “They’re home,” he whispered, alarmed. “I came into town to see Markum Hanes. I was making my way back when—.”

  Emmeline seized the boy’s hand. “You must come with me, Thomas. We must get to the church.”

  They rushed on, Thomas gripping Emmeline’s hand and unknowingly guiding her to the place they needed to be. Behind them, Emmeline could hear the sound of more screams echoing through the night. When she looked back over her shoulder, even her eyes could spot the distant orange glow that cast the rooftops below into shadow.

  “Not the front,” Emmeline murmured. “Look sharp Thomas, is there anyone else around?”

  The boy’s hand was trembling in hers. She saw his head twist side to side. “I don’t see anyone, Missus,” he breathed, terrified.

  Emmeli
ne nodded and tugged Thomas down the same side alley she had followed Pastor Fields down the first day they had met. She ran her hand along the wall in the darkness, fearing discovery at any moment. Her fingers dipped over a doorframe and she fumbled for the knob. “In here,” she said. “Quickly.”

  Thomas held her hand as she pushed open the door and stepped through. If the darkness outside the church had been difficult to see through, the pitch black inside the building was impossible. She gripped Thomas’ hand tightly.

  “Thomas, I cannot see anything, can you?”

  “No, Ma’am.”

  Emmeline stretched out her hand in the blackness, feeling for a wall and together, she and Thomas moved forward.

  “Is anyone else here?” Thomas’ little voice was wavering slightly.

  “I think… we may be the first ones to arrive,” Emmeline said. “Lawson—I mean Mr. Aldridge—told me that all of the women and children would go to the church.”

  “That’s right,” Thomas confirmed. “This is where my parents will come to look for me. We all go to the church if something bad is happening in town. But what happened, Mrs. Aldridge? Why was everyone screaming?”

  “There was a fire,” Emmeline mumbled, and she shivered. Her leg bumped into a pew, and she sank down onto it, pulling Thomas down alongside her. “A terrible fire.”

  “Then we should get the buckets,” the little boy said. “The kids can help get the buckets from the well when there’s a fire.”

  “There were…” she hesitated, remembering that Thomas was a Brittler and that his uncle was… “There were Indians. It was the Indians that were setting the fires, Thomas.”

  “Those lousy Sioux,” Thomas growled.

  Emmeline hesitated, curiosity piqued. “Thomas, isn’t your uncle an—an Indian man?”

  Thomas’ hand slipped from her own. “My uncle is nothing like those men out there,” he said. “My uncle Shiye fought those type of men. He doesn’t think violence is the answer to any problems at all.”

  Emmeline smiled. “I should very much like to meet your uncle sometime, Thomas. He sounds like a good man.”

  “He is, Missus.”

  She had never met an Indian before. She had never seen one before, apart from crude drawings in the New York papers.

  They were silent for a long moment. Inside the church, it was impossible to distinguish any sounds from outside. As Emmeline’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could just make out the faint outline of the windows on either side of the church.

  Thomas got to his feet a little while later. “Should we go see what is happening?” he asked, striding over to peer out of the window.

  Before Emmeline could respond, the door they had come through creaked open for a second time and in the faint, rectangle of blue blackness, she saw a several people moving into the church.

  “Anyone here?” a voice whispered.

  “Oh, Mrs. Fields,” Emmeline sighed in relief, getting to her feet. “Thank goodness. Who do you have with you?”

  “Lue,” the pastor’s wife corrected sharply. “It’s just Lue, Emmeline, darling. I’ve Georgia and Felicity here, and Mary-Lou is on her way with her children. I tapped on every door I passed on my way here. The men have all gone to help, and the women were coming here, just like the last time.”

  “Was it the Sioux again?” Thomas’ small voice came from beside the window.

  “Yes, boy, I believe it was,” Mrs. Fields declared.

  “Is this an ongoing issue?” Emmeline asked, sitting back down on the pew she had just vacated and frowning toward the denser patch of darkness from which Mrs. Field’s voice was emanating.

  “Oh yes,” whispered a voice that Emmeline recognized as Felicity Darling. “Yes, this is the third time they’ve attacked the town in these last few years.”

  Emmeline shuddered. “What do they want?”

  The rest of the women fell silent, and Emmeline wondered if any of them would have an answer for her.

  She tried again. “Has anyone attempted reasoning with them?”

  Thomas’ voice floated over from the window. “My uncle,” he said. “They hurt him real bad when he went. He had to see Dr. Valentine and everything. Mr. Aldridge gave him some stuff that made him feel better, but Uncle Shiye said there would be no reasoning with them. They just don’t like white folks that well,” he said. “They weren’t here when my family moved here from Manhattan.”

  “No, they were not, Thomas,” said Mrs. Fields. “An angry bunch of fellows, they are, and they’re even worse when they’ve been at the drink. Shame on whoever sells it to them.”

  “Someone is selling whiskey to the Indians?” Emmeline confirmed, astounded.

  “Been at it for a long while now,” said Felicity Darling. “A hanging offense, that is.”

  Emmeline winced. “That is barbaric.”

  “It’s true,” said Mrs. Fields. The three women had made their way through the darkness to take seats around Emmeline. “If I could catch whoever is at it, I would toss them in the jailhouse and throw away the key. We’ve lost good men because of them.”

  “How awful,” Emmeline whispered. “I had no idea. Lawson never mentioned…”

  “How is Mr. Aldridge?” Mrs. Fields asked, in a transparent attempt to change the subject. “How is marriage suiting the two of you?”

  “Well, it’s rather wonderful, if truth be told,” Emmeline said, unable to help the small smile that spread over her lips, but her happiness was dashed almost instantly by the realization that her husband was out there in the darkness, dealing with a hoard of drunken Indians that would likely not think twice about killing him.

  The side door to the church opened once more, and Mrs. Fields leapt to her feet to help chivy the other women and children inside.

  “It’s so dark!” said a small voice. “Can we not have a candle?”

  “No, dear, we’re hiding,” whispered the mother’s voice.

  “Hello Betty,” Emmeline said, recognizing the child’s voice. “Why don’t you come over here and I’ll tell you a story?”

  She had no concept of just how long they waited in the church. Emmeline wasn’t aware of silly things like time passing. She was only aware of every frantic heartbeat in her chest that meant that Lawson was still somewhere out there in the black night, in terrible danger.

  “Can you tell the one about the little billy goat, Mrs. Aldridge,” asked one of her students through a yawn as Emmeline finished telling her fifth or sixth story. She was beginning to lose count. “I suppose so,” Emmeline whispered. Her students had gathered around her. On the benches behind Emmeline, their mothers were conversing in terse whispers.

  “Once upon a time, there was a little—.”

  She broke off as the church doors swung open on their hinges and crashed into the walls. A motley collection of soot-blackened men tumbled through the opening, lanterns held high in their fists.

  All around the room, the fifteen or so women gave cries of relief. Husbands stepped forward, embracing their wives and children. Emmeline leapt to her feet, straining her ears for the sound of Lawson’s voice, unable to make out any distinct faces.

  “We sent those savages running for the hills,” declared a young man to whom Emmeline had never been introduced.

  “What a mess that was,” said another.

  Emmeline struggled not to shout for her husband in the crowd. Her heart was pounding so loudly she thought it might burst. Where was he? She listened hard, but might have had better luck attempting to locate an ant upon the floor in the shadows.

  “Is everyone all right?” she asked hesitantly.

  The men looked around at her. “Few nicks and bruises,” said one. “Think I saw somebody take a nasty arrow to his arm.”

  “That was me,” shouted a man from the back. “Doc patched me up!”

  “Has anyone seen my husband?” She couldn’t help the panic. It flooded into her voice the longer she stood there, not knowing if he was alive or dead. />
  “Emmeline, I’m right here.”

  She turned. Lawson had evidently come in through the back entrance. He was standing just behind her. Without thinking, Emmeline pulled back her fist and smacked him hard in the shoulder. “Lawson Aldridge, don’t you ever do that to me again,” she said, and she threw herself into her husband’s arms.

  This time, it was Lawson who was in need of a washing. Emmeline started the fire in the sitting room while he bathed, and began heating the remnants of the dinner they had had the night before. It was a long time before Lawson emerged from the back bedroom, heavy-eyed and tousle-haired from his bath.

  Emmeline wanted to ask more questions about the Indians, but on glimpsing her husband’s exhausted frame, she knew they could wait. Lawson joined her before the fire, smiling at the sight of Emmeline sitting cross-legged beside the hearth.

  When his familiar blur formed into his handsome face, Emmeline gasped and reached for him. “What happened?”

  A thin, jagged cut had split the skin over his left brow, sliding down his face and narrowly missing his eye.

  “Red-skin with a knife,” he said with a shrug, bending forward to snatch a biscuit from the plate beside the fire . “A decent one, by the look of the thing. I wonder if he didn’t get it from the man that’s been selling the Sioux whiskey.”

  “I heard about that,” Emmeline said. “I didn’t know Buffalo Creek was having trouble with the Indians.”

  “We weren’t,” Lawson said around a mouthful of biscuit. “That’s to say, we haven’t. Not for a while. I think it’s been a year since they were this riled up. Wonder what’s upset them.”

  “Why do they attack the town?” Emmeline asked, taking a biscuit of her own and smearing butter and marmalade over its crispy brown surface.

  “It’s not so much the town as it is the miners in the town. I think the noise and racket from the mine scares off some of the animals they like to hunt or something.” Lawson shrugged. “Not much of a reason to attack a whole crowd of people from where I’m standing, but maybe they don’t see it that way.”

  Emmeline reached for a chicken leg and smiled sadly. “No, I don’t suppose they do.”