He looked unsure. “It’s irregular.”
“It seems sensible to me. They are, after all, my papers.”
“Very well. When you arrive in town, simply leave them with Josiah Melbourne.” He started to close his satchel when he stopped. “Oh, yes. Here’s one more item.” He withdrew a small box and handed it to her.
The crude wooden box was the size of a small rectangle jewelry case and without any decoration. She turned it over. Her husband’s initials—DLS—were burned into the bottom. “Where did this come from?”
“Mayor Melbourne said it was found among your late husband’s papers.”
She frowned. “Why am I only seeing it now?”
“We thought it an oddity,” Mother said quickly. “It’s just an ugly box. Nothing of consequence.”
“But it was important enough to Douglas that he kept it with his legal papers.” Cassandra smoothed her fingertips over the letters. The box was an amateur attempt at woodworking. Was it Douglas’s first attempt? She knew so little of that part of his life. Now she guessed it made scant difference.
“I took the liberty of opening it, thinking it might hold something of import regarding your late husband’s estate,” the attorney said, indicating she should go ahead and open the box. “As you will see that was not the case.”
She opened the lid.
A folded piece of paper lay on top of a few small assorted items—a lock of auburn hair tied with a bow, a bullet and a leather thong with a small turquoise stone. On the very bottom was a feather. Mementos, she supposed. She wished Doug were here to explain their meaning.
She opened the paper and found a note in her husband’s script, written with a steady, strong hand.
Wáse’ekhaar’a—
You will know what to do.
Wira’a
“This isn’t for me,” she murmured, confused. They certainly were strange names.
“We could put it in the post,” Mother suggested. “There is no reason for you to hand carry it all the way to Kansas. You belong here.”
Cassandra closed her eyes. “Mother. Please. I will simply take it with me. Someone there will surely know what it is all about.” She turned to the attorney. “I’m sorry to have brought you all this way only to stop short at the last moment.”
“Quite all right.” He leaned toward her, his gray eyes kind. “Your mother and father do have your best interests at heart. You are obviously still recovering from your illness, and it is an arduous journey to travel so far.” He stuffed the papers and the box carefully back in the satchel. “If you change your mind and end up staying here, then send me word and we will talk again.”
“Thank you, Mr. Edelman.”
He stood, as did her parents. At the library door, he stopped. “Please consider, Mrs. Stewart. A promise made to a man on his deathbed isn’t legally binding. God would not hold you accountable for trying to ease the last few hours of your husband’s life. Good day.” He turned and headed down the hall, followed by her mother and father.
They would, as a matter of course, hold a whispered conversation out of her hearing, trying desperately to figure out a way to keep her here. Whatever plan they hatched would come to naught. She was getting stronger. She had to do what she thought was best.
“God might not hold me accountable,” she whispered into the empty room. “But I do.”
Autumn, 1879
The Kansas Pacific train blew its whistle, announcing its arrival into Oak Grove. Cassandra Stewart gripped her reticule tightly against her chest, her nerves on edge. The squeal of brakes and the sudden hiss of steam as the engine slowed did not help to ease her anxiety.
It had taken all her courage to remain on the train at the last station in Salina. All she’d wanted to do was disembark and wait for the next train back to Alexandria. Nothing here was as she imagined. There were no trees, no beautiful parks or lovely brick buildings, no rolling hills or quiet waters. Only prairie on one side of the train and stockyards—empty at the moment—on the other side.
What have you brought me to? she asked silently, thinking of her late husband. She didn’t expect him to answer her from across the chasm; it was just that she felt so very alone now. If he had accompanied her as they’d first planned, this journey would have been a great adventure. Without him, she could no longer view it as such. It was only a duty.
Thus far, regard for his memory had kept her on the train and steady to her course. It hadn’t been so long ago that she was the bold one in her family and among her friends. What other woman at twenty-one years of age did she know who skipped the traditional year of waiting and married a man after only five weeks? Tongues had wagged. The gossips in town had had their day, and she hadn’t cared. In her mind, love had its own calendar and could not be denied.
Her father viewed her penchant for adventure differently. To him, she was simply impulsive and willful. Or—as her dearest friend, Chloe, had been quick to point out—foolish. Cassandra had scoffed at her words then, but after all that had happened, maybe her friend was right and her great-aunts too. Maybe, as Aunt Tilly had said when she was little, she was being punished.
She remembered the day. She had scrambled through the fence after a cat, tearing her dress on a nail and muddying her stockings and shoes. She had crossed two streets and become lost by the time she finally caught the frightened animal. The cat had clawed her neck and tore her pinafore in an effort to get away from her. After wandering the streets for what seemed like hours, the grocer’s wife had helped her find her way back to the house.
A hellion—that’s what you have on your hands, Aunt Tilly had told her mother. You must curb her penchant for constant adventure and excitement. It is unbecoming in a woman.
If her great-aunts were right, and it was her willful choices that had brought on all her heartache, then maybe doing this would fix it in some small way. The loss of Douglas and their baby had been retribution almost more than she could bear. When her month was completed, she would return home and bow to the wishes of her family. Perhaps then life would go on.
Doug’s death had tamed her right down. Now all that remained was to keep the promise she’d made to him. There were so many other things in their short life together that she had been unable to control. This, his last request, was something she could do. She would keep her promise, and then perhaps once it was accomplished and she was released from it, she would be able to move on with her life.
“Ma’am?” The conductor walked down the aisle toward her. “This is your stop. It’s as far as your ticket takes you.”
She glanced out the window once more at the rustic wooden buildings and the dirt street. “It may as well be the ends of the earth.”
He gave his short beard a thoughtful stroke. “Now, Oak Grove ain’t all that. It must have a few good points or people wouldn’t stay.” He brought her hatbox and parasol down from the overhead compartment, and handed them to her and then headed back to the door.
She squared her shoulders. She could do this. Moving to the doorway, she let the conductor help her down to a box he’d placed for the purpose of disembarking, and then down again to the wide planks of the platform. The harsh wind whipped the black ribbons of her bonnet and blew a small tumbleweed across her path. No one else on the train got off. Her trunk and carpetbag were the only luggage sitting there—a forlorn statement in her mind.
The conductor released her arm and tipped the brim of his cap. “Good day, ma’am.”