Chapter 10: It’s the West, Miss Preston

~There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.~ —Willa Cather

The next morning dawned without much incident. Jake and Dannie had breakfast and then packed up the wagon and set out for the last stretch of their journey.

“You seem very tight today,” Jake said, noticing how Dannie was nervously playing with the fabric of her dress.

“I can’t help it. By tonight, I should be at Hopewing. I don’t know anyone there.”

“What will you do if the teaching job don’t work out, after all?”

Dannie became thoughtful. “I’m not really sure. I hope it will work out long enough for me to put away some money.”

“Why did you come out West with no money?”

She laughed at the question. “I spent most of it on the train ticket and the journey. The agreement with Justice Lawrence was that he would provide me with room and board, and I never in my wildest dreams thought I would find him dead.”

“But why come out here in the first place? Don’t ya have any family back in England?”

Dannie sighed. “My father does have a cousin, but he ran off to America in his youth and disappeared. There has been no word from him in over twenty years. I also have an uncle, my mother’s brother, living in Australia.”

“Sheesh, they sure are scattered all over the world. What does yer uncle do in Australia?”

“I’m not exactly sure. He was sent there as a convict when I was twelve. Come to think of it, I haven’t even written to him of Mamma’s death. Perhaps, if I can save up enough money, I’ll journey to Australia and see what has become of him.”

“Now, hold yer horses, lady.” Jake couldn’t believe what she was telling him. “There is no way you are going half way around the world to search out some convict living in some God-forsaken place.”

“Number one, it is not God-forsaken. Number two, who knows, perhaps he has changed his ways. He wasn’t a bad man, just got mixed up in the wrong company. For all we know, he’s sorry and ready to reform.”

“We don’t know, and there is no way you are going to find out. No, if for some reason the minister don’t like ya, or whatever, and the work don’t turn out, I’ll find you a place. I’m sure there are plenty of jobs you could find. Maybe you could go back East or we’ll find another school. Heck, if bad comes to worse, you could be a mail order bride.”

“A mail order bride?” Dannie was confused. “I’ve heard someone say that before. What is a mail order bride, exactly?”

“I should think the name says everything. It’s a bride someone orders through the mail.”

“~What~?”

“Oh, come, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of such a thing? Back East there are ads in the newspaper placed by men looking for wives. Women answer these ads. Letters pass between the two of them, and then the girls come over by train and marry the men.”

Dannie couldn’t believe her ears. “People actually do that?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty popular out here.”

“I cannot believe it! No, I cannot! Men have the audacity to ‘order’ a woman by mail as though she were something out of a catalog? And what is more, women actually go for it? What sort of a place is this?”

“It’s the West, Miss Preston.” Jake’s answer was as frank as the expression on his face. “Women can be rather scarce, but a man does get lonely—so, more often than not, a mail-order bride is the only option he has.”

“I wonder, Jake, have ~you~ ever considered ordering a bride for yourself?”

“Hell no, I’ll never marry in that way—or any other.” Jake vehemently shook his head. “If you didn’t notice, I’m not the marryin’ sort. I’ve always said lightnin’ would have to strike me from heaven before I could be induced to marry.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Dani remembered, “you have a very low opinion of women due to frequent crucifixions by past sweethearts.” Her lips quirked in a smile.

“My opinions are well grounded,” Jake reminded her. “Not to mention, I’m just not the family sort of man. Let’s just say I value my freedom. But, on the off-chance that lightnin’ did happen to strike me, and I got it into my mind to marry, it wouldn’t be a mail order bride. In my opinion, you don’t marry someone you don’t know, and you can’t get to know a girl over the mail.

“Heck, she could make up an entire story and write things that aren’t true. Then when she showed up, you’d find out she’s not at all what you thought she was.”

“It goes the other way, too,” Dannie pointed out. “Which is why, Jake, I can tell you I will never be a mail order bride. I’d sooner travel to Australia.”

“Over my dead body, you will,” Jake retorted. “There is no way I’d let an innocent little thing like you travel to a place filled with criminals to search out some convict of an uncle.”

Dannie’s eyes widened, and she stared at Jake in confusion. His reaction had caught her completely by surprise. Jake didn’t seem to notice.

“I take it that yer brave and all, but you should also be smart,” he continued. “And I don’t mean book smart. I still can’t understand why you bothered to come all the way out to America in the first place.”

“Paul is from New York. I came here to marry him, but as you know, that didn’t work out.”

“But wouldn’t it be easier to find work in New York, or in some other big city?”

“I wanted to try something I’d never done before. I knew if I stayed, I would fall prey to a life I did not want to lead.”

“What do you mean?” By now, Jake wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he was fascinated by the life story of his traveling companion.

“If I had stayed in the city, I would most likely have become governess to some rich family. I’d be expected to raise their daughters to be everything high society demanded of them. I’d make them proficient in foreign languages, music, art, proper conduct, proper etiquette, all the things that would turn them into little models of decorum.

“There might have been trips to Europe, and then, when the ladies were of age to come out, the balls would begin. Once my charges were safely married off, I would move on to the next family—and the circle would start again.

“I don’t want that sort of life. I don’t want to live something so predictable. I want something new, something I have never done before. That’s why I came out here. I wanted to try and start my life all over again. Oh, I know this probably doesn’t make sense to you, and it probably never will, but—”

“No,” he cut in, “I think I’m beginning to understand, though I still find it hard to believe there are women who will trade comfort and security to travel out into the middle of nowhere with a man they don’t know.”

“It’s not like we are nowhere. We are always ~somewhere~, after all. And since I don’t know anyone out here, I had to take my chances.” Dannie smiled and stifled a yawn. She tried not to show how tired she was, but this was her third day out on the road, and the dust and heat were beginning to wear on her.

“Is it gonna make ya angry if I ask why you folks never kept communication with yer relatives?” Jake didn’t seem to notice Dannie’s exhaustion.

“It wasn’t my parents’ fault,” Dannie said softly. “Papa’s cousin and Mamma’s brother both ceased to communicate with us. None of us knew where they were, or how to get word to them. Mamma did have one address that she would send letters to, but she never received a reply.

“As for Papa’s cousin, as I said earlier, he ran away and vanished into thin air. Papa assumed it was America because he had always wanted to go there. All this happened years before I was born. Papa was still studying at Oxford and hadn’t even met Mamma.”

There was a pause as Dannie tried her best to shrug off the drowsiness that was wrapping around her like a thick blanket. She wouldn’t look weak and frail in Jake’s eyes. She had to be a strong and independent woman when she was around him.

Something heavy settled on Jake’s right side, constricting his arm movement slightly.

Dannie was leaning on his right arm, her head resting on his shoulder. He widened his eyes in surprise. Dannie was certainly not the sort of woman who would lean on him.

Looking more closely, he stifled a chuckle.

She was asleep.

Jake considered his options. He could either wake her up and have her sit up straight again, or he could let her rest a bit on his shoulder. After a moment, he decided to let her sleep. She wasn’t that heavy, after all, and he could bear the weight a little.

Turning his eyes back toward the road, he pondered all that had happened to him.

Who would have thought, the day he left the Cora Belle Ranch, that he would end up escorting an English girl to Hopewing—and all for no pay?

The men back at the ranch would never believe him when he told them of his adventures. And yet, if they were to see Dannie, they would probably understand.

Jake gave another chuckle. This woman was one of a kind, no doubt about that.