Cheryl St.John - Badlands Bride

Hallie assisted her in moving the heavy kettle from the fire. Chumani ran green sticks through several sickly pale headless blobs of flesh with flopping appendages and hung them over the fire.

Hallie’s stomach turned. “What are those?”

“Gu-Que,” Chumani replied. At Hallie’s lack of comprehension, she tucked her arms in and flapped her elbows.

“Some kind of bird,” Hallie said with an uncharacteristic lack of appetite.

Yellow Eagle brought several pieces of bark and placed them beside the fire. Chumani stirred together a batter using the cornmeal and poured it into the concave bark strips. She placed them before the fire.

The birds turned a golden brown and the smells actually resembled an appealing dinner cooking. The batter in the bark bowls gradually turned into crusty cornbread.

Chumani spoke to Yellow Eagle and he ran toward the freight building. Several minutes later DeWitt and the two men—all properly clothed, thank heavens—appeared, and everyone traipsed into the sod house. DeWitt stood aside and allowed Hallie to enter ahead of him. Their eyes met briefly.

“Mr. Clark,” DeWitt said, indicating the middle-aged man with lank brown hair that hung to his shoulders. “And Mr. Gilman. They’re freighters from up north.”

The second man was younger, with shoulders as wide as DeWitt’s, and gray eyes that roamed her face and hair before she lowered her gaze, unwilling to witness the rest of his perusal.

None of them pulled out a chair for her; she did it herself, pretending she hadn’t noticed.

“Unusual to see a young gal like you in these parts,” Mr. Clark said. “How’d you come to be here?”

“Well, I—”

“She’s meeting her husband here,” DeWitt interrupted from the seat he’d taken beside Chumani. Hallie noticed he’d recently washed and the hair at his temples was damp. “They’ll be moving on to Colorado.”

Hallie glared at him, but he ate his food placidly. She kept silent through the rest of the meal, except to ask Yellow Eagle what kind of bird they were eating.

“Pheasant,” he replied curtly.

She’d eaten pheasant before, but their preparation gave the meal a whole new perspective.

The freighters thanked Chumani and headed out.

“Are you going to keep your word and speak with me?” Hallie asked DeWitt as he finished his coffee.

His blue gaze bored into her. “Go ahead.”

She glanced at Chumani. “May we go outside?”

He stood and ushered her ahead of him.

Hallie stopped behind his log house and turned. “First, why did you tell those men a he about me meeting a husband?”

“For your safety.”

“What do you think you’re protecting me from?”

“Men out here don’t live by the civilized rules you’re used to,” he said. “You should’ve learned that from your stage trip.”

The reminder of what could have happened to Olivia and the rest of them at the hands of those stage robbers squelched any other objections she may have had. Hallie rushed on to the real problem. “I’m disappointed in you.”

His expression didn’t change. He waited.

“I think it’s deplorable that you sent for a bride when you already have a wife!”

He frowned. “Chumani?” he asked.

“You know very well that I mean Chumani. Perhaps she doesn’t mind sharing a husband with another wife, but I can assure you that any wife you get from back East will have plenty of objections.”

His fair brows rose, wrinkling his forehead.

“What were you thinking of?” Hallie asked, waving her hand, inspired by her topic. “If the men out here expect women to endure the hardships of the travels and this land, then they’d better start living by more civilized rules.”

His expression didn’t flicker.

“The first rule being one wife per man.”

“She’s my brother’s wife, not mine.”

“I really thought you were serious about wanting a wife, the way you fixed up the house and all, but—what?”

“It’s the duty of a dead warrior’s brother to take his wife as his own.”

Hallie frowned, mulling over his words. His brother was an Indian? How could that be when he was as white as she was? The possibilities intrigued her. There was a story here, somewhere, and a fascinating one at that!

“Chumani agrees I should have a white wife. I provide for her, but she’s not my wife. Not in the way that you’re thinking.”

Hallie’s neck and cheeks grew warm. “I see.”

“May I work now?” he asked.

She nodded and he walked away. She would have to break through his reticence to get to the story inside.

She helped Chumani wash the dishes in a tub outdoors, more at ease beside the woman now that she knew she and Cooper weren’t...involved.

Returning to the afternoon’s work, she felt a calm sense of relief seeping into her pores along with the afternoon sun. Cooper didn’t have an Indian wife after all. The odd reassurance puzzled her. Why should she care?

She made it clear that she’d like to try her hand at pounding the corn. Chumani cooked more kernels in the kettle, throwing ashes into the water to give it that black color. She cooked and rinsed and carried water, and Hallie’s arms and shoulders grew numb from the repetitive and painful task of grinding. By supper she could barely raise her arm to lift the bone eating utensil.

“Miss Wainwright?”

Hallie jerked her head up, realizing she’d been drifting off to sleep sitting at the table. “Yes.”

“You can start earning your way,” DeWitt said.

Irritation wailed from her tired muscles. “I thought I did that today.”

“Did you?” Across the table he regarded her. Firelight bounced off the golden glints in his hair and shadowed the chiseled planes of his face. His cheeks showed the barest growth of stubble, like fine-grained sandpaper, and Hallie had the surprising urge to rub her knuckles across his jaw to discover its roughness.

With concentration, she relaxed her fingers on the fork. “I helped Chumani grind the corn. I carried water and rinsed and even pounded.”

“Chumani’s done that alone for years.”

“Well, I—I...” Unexplainably, his words hurt her. She’d failed to win his approval even though she’d learned quickly and shared a good portion of Chumani’s work. Why was his approval or disapproval important?

She was trying too hard, as usual. “I thought I was helping,” she said, carefully hiding her disappointment.

“You owe me. Don’t forget that.”

How could she forget a mistake like that?

“One of the reasons I sent for a wife was so Yellow Eagle would have someone to teach him to read and write.”

She set down her fork and glanced at the boy. He stiffened immediately. The worried look he shot Cooper turned into a glare when he regarded her.

“And the other reasons?” she asked.

DeWitt took the last bite of his supper and washed it down with coffee. “My business has grown fast. I can’t keep track of orders and payments and shipments like I should.”

“You need a bookkeeper?”

“Yes.”

She regarded Yellow Eagle. He had pursed his lips and sat defiantly, staring at his plate. “I’ll need his cooperation if I’m going to teach him.”

“He’ll cooperate,” DeWitt assured her.

Yellow Eagle said something in a tone that told her he had no intention of cooperating. DeWitt spoke back and the boy’s face reddened. He refused to look at either of them.

“He will cooperate,” DeWitt said pointedly.

Hallie didn’t know which of them would be more difficult to work with; the contemptuous nephew or his obstinate uncle. But she’d gotten herself into this mess; she would get herself out of it. If earning her keep and being able to pay him back so that she could get home meant swallowing a little pride and adhering to his demands, she could do it.