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.
“Maybe Matthew could have gotten a job clerking in one of these places,” Elizabeth said looking down the length of the street. In her heart, though, she knew he would have refused to work for someone else. He would have given up. They would have been even poorer here than they had been back in Kansas. She would have had to take in laundry again and there would have been no one to watch the baby while she lifted the tubs of scalding water.
The laundry itself would have been difficult, too. No one seemed to be wearing simple clothes. The woman hurrying across the street in front of them was holding up skirts that showed lace-trimmed petticoats. Ruffles like that required a hot iron at the end of it all. And the skirt over the petticoats looked as if it was made of blue French serge. It would take extra brushing to keep the double weave looking nice. And no one wanted to pay extra for any of it.
A modest blue hat sat atop the woman’s brilliant copper hair. Elizabeth looked at the hair closely. The hair was so colorful she wondered, at first, if it had been dyed with henna. But surely the woman could not get those tones with the dye, so the hair must be natural. Elizabeth almost envied her until the woman lifted her head and finally saw Elizabeth and Jake. The woman glanced up with a vague smile, but as she looked fully at Jake, her expression turned to shock and then to an indignant frown. Elizabeth wondered if the woman was angry with them for some reason, but she hurried off before Elizabeth could ask Jake about her.
“I’ll send a note down to the reverend while we buy a few things at the store,” Jake said as he slowed the wagon.
Elizabeth forced her attention back to the man beside her. “Oh, you don’t need to do that—buy anything, I mean. Not for me.”
“You’ll still need things for the girls. Dresses and all.”
Elizabeth wondered if Jake knew how much things like that cost. A man who wore buckskin wasn’t likely to know how dear fabric was. If it was gingham or calico, the price might not be too bad. But a twill silk or French serge material was impossible. Still, it was nice of him to think of what they needed. It was more than Matthew had ever done. “I know how to get by. We won’t need much that’s store-bought.”
“I want the girls to look like ladies.”
“Surely they won’t need to—” Elizabeth stumbled when she saw she was giving offense. “Not because they’re Indian girls. That’s not what I meant.”
“They have white blood in them, too. Red Tail was half-white.”
“Of course. It’s just that they’re only girls.”
“I want them to have the best dresses possible. We’ll order from San Francisco if we have to.”
Elizabeth nodded. Now she’d gotten his pride involved. He was probably going to spend money on dresses that they should be saving for winter food. But she knew men well enough to know that she’d only make matters worse by continuing to press him on it. She would sew the dresses herself, of course, and she’d only pick out the cheaper fabrics. Maybe she could even use some of the muslin they had in the wagon. The bark of an oak tree made a light yellow dye that would set the muslin well and the girls wouldn’t even notice the material wasn’t store-bought.
“You should get a new dress, too,” Jake added. “Maybe something in a deep moss green to match your eyes.”
She didn’t have any dyes that went to a deep green. She had the leavings of some indigo that she could mix with wood ash to make black, but she’d have to buy bolted material to have any kind of a green. “I’d rather have some tea. And maybe a lid to cover my pan so I can steep it properly. “
Tea was cheaper and more to her liking than color-pressed fabric anyway. She’d had the luxury of real tea for a week or so now. A tin of it had been left on the seat of her wagon one morning with the hardtack. She hadn’t been able to brew it properly because she only had an open pan to hold it, but she’d enjoyed it immensely. Her conviction that she was dying had made her reckless and she’d used more of the tea than she had intended so she didn’t have much left.
Elizabeth felt Jake pull the wagon to a complete halt in front of a building with a large sign that read The Broadwater, Bubbel and Company Mercantile. The store was fronted by a small section of wooden walkway and she could look right into the windows. She had never seen so much merchandise, not even in any of the stores she’d gone to back in Kansas. She was glad she was still wearing her gray silk dress even though she didn’t have a proper hat to wear with it.
Jake jumped off the wagon and walked around to take the baby. He slipped the baby into his fur sling before reaching up with the other arm to offer Elizabeth help in stepping down from the wagon. Elizabeth was grateful for the assistance, more to impress anyone who might be watching them than because she needed the help. If they were going to do business in this town, Elizabeth wanted them to look respectable.
The warm smell of spices greeted Elizabeth when she walked through the door that Jake had opened for her. This time Elizabeth didn’t