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Prairie Bride

By Helen Gray

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Chapter 1
Dodge City, Kansas
November, 1885

Bryn Farrell tucked her chin down into the lapels of her long blue coat and accompanied Darcy, her oldest sister, from the Dodge House Hotel into the cold November evening. They rounded the corner of the building and hurried to the wagon Darcy had parked on the side of Railroad Street. North Front Street was lined with businesses and small shops. South Front Street, the other side of the Santa Fe Railroad tracks, was populated mostly with saloons.
“Thanks for the party. It was fun,” Bryn said as they climbed onto the wagon seat. What was supposed to be a quiet dinner with just the two of them had turned out to be a surprise party for her nineteenth birthday.
“It was Gabe’s idea,” Darcy said as she slid over beside Bryn and picked up the reins. Her husband worked at the hotel and had reserved a room for them.
“I noticed Andy Graham keeping an eye on you the whole time.”
The sudden change of subject caught Bryn off guard. “You look too hard for things that aren’t there.” She brushed stray strands of hair back inside her blue woolen scarf, making light of Darcy’s attempt at matchmaking.
Renewed grief swept over her. Like her friends and sisters, Bryn had dreamed of marrying and sharing her life with someone. And she had found that person. She and Billy Bob Baxter had been kindred spirits, sharing common likes and dislikes, good times and secrets—including one that Darcy would be horrified to know they knew. They had planned to marry as soon as Billy Bob saved enough to buy a piece of property and build a house for them. But he had died in a tragic riding accident and left her alone. Bryn could not envision a future with anyone else, nor could she risk that kind of loss again. She would remain single.
Darcy clicked to the horses. “I understand how you feel, but you’re too young to give up on …”
The raucous clanging of a bell brought her big-sister speech to an abrupt halt.
“Fire,” Bryn said on an indrawn breath of fear. In mid-January a fire had broken out in a grocery store on the north side of Front Street and burned all but three buildings in the block between Second and Third Avenues. Surely that kind of thing could not happen again. She hopped off the already moving wagon and broke into a run.
When she rounded the building back onto Front Street, Bryn collided with a solid wall of humanity. An instant later, frigid water doused her as she landed in a heap on the boardwalk. Buckets clanged on the boardwalk, and a man staggered to keep from falling on top of her. She wiped freezing water from her face and flung it from her hands and arms.
Angry eyes peered down at her in the hazy evening dusk. Then the man jerked backward, his jaw locking into an angry clench. Dark brown eyes glinted at her. “Bryn Farrell. I might have known. What are you doing out here in the way?”
She bit back a groan of dismay. Ty Shelton.
Bryn pushed upright and slapped away the hand that reached out to pull her up. She scooted backward and scrambled to her feet, hindered by the weight of her water soaked skirts. “I’m so …s …s …sorry,” she stammered, shivering until she could hardly speak. Her eyes darted to the sight of flames billowing from the roof of a building next to the Opera House Saloon.
Ty looked back over his shoulder. Tall and muscular, he wore denim pants, a heavy coat and a black hat that she knew covered straight dark hair—typical garb for a wheat farmer. She grimaced.
“Go on.” She shouted to be heard over the clanging fire bell. “Help the fire company fight it.”
He gathered the upturned buckets, speaking irritably. “I’ll have to go back for more water.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated as he ran back the way he had come.
“Come on, let’s get you to the house and out of those soaked clothes.” Darcy pulled Bryn to her feet and guided her back to the wagon.
Bryn clutched her coat to her, but it was wet and icy cold. “Kit’s house … is c … c …closer,” she stammered. Darcy and Gabe lived three miles east of town, but Kit and Jim lived a few blocks from the edge of town, not far from Jim’s wagon shop.
“She’s so tiny that you can’t wear her clothes, but you’re right. We have to get you to warmth fast.” Darcy boosted her up onto the wagon seat and ran around to the other side.
By the time they got to their middle sister’s house, Bryn was so frozen she could hardly move. Darcy helped her down from the wagon and half steered, half dragged her into the house. Inside a bedroom, she stripped Bryn’s sodden clothes from her and wrapped her in a blanket.
“I need clothes,” Bryn managed to say without stammering when the blanket began to warm her.
Kit, who had joined them, considered for a moment. “If I get you some suspenders to hold them up, you could wear Jim’s pants and shirt. His old coat is in pretty bad shape, but I’ll get that for you, too.”
Bryn nodded, willing to wear anything that would keep her warm. “Okay.”
“You can wear my hat.” Four-year-old, tow-headed Kenny trailed his mother into the room. Now he whirled and trotted after her back out of the room. Kit’s pace was more of a waddle than a walk, with her second baby due in a few days.
When they returned moments later, Kit carried a pair of pants and a shirt. The old brown coat in the crook of her arm looked like it had gotten tangled in a barbed wire fence. Kenny held up a long scarf. “Mama said you want this ‘stead of my hat.”
Bryn smiled and took it. “That’s right, and the coat is perfect. I won’t have to worry about ruining it.”
As soon as Kit took Kenny from the room, Bryn dressed quickly and shoved her arms into the coat. It hung below her hands, so she rolled up the sleeves before buttoning it up the front. “You coming?” she asked Darcy as she finished.
“Of course.”
They headed to the living room at a run.
“I wanta go.” Kenny caught up to them at the door, his face flushed with excitement. The loud sound of the fire bell could be heard from across town. He bounced up and down as he shoved his arms into his coat.
“No, you have to stay here.” Kit gripped his arm as Bryn and Darcy raced out the door.
“She has her hands full with that one. I don’t know how she’ll manage if this new one is like him.” Darcy shook her head as they hurried to the wagon and headed back to Front Street where a bucket brigade had formed.
Flames that had been coming from the roof of one building were now a billowing orange conflagration. There was no wind, but sparks from the roaring fire showered the night air. As the girls got near, the roof of Wright’s building caught fire. They squinted through the haze of smoke and inhaled soot particles that made Bryn cough into her mittens. But they kept moving.
All up and down the block between First and Second Avenues, citizens were pulling valuables from burning buildings, while others raced back and forth with buckets of water from the whiskey barrels kept filled along Front Street for just such a purpose.
As they neared the scene, a big man bumped shoulders with Bryn. He halted for a moment and glared back at them. “You gals better get off the street,” he snarled, revealing broken, discolored teeth.
“That’s Clay Thurman,” Darcy said with a shudder of distaste as he turned and ran on ahead of them. “He’s more likely to steal everything of value he can get his hands on than to help put out the fire.”
“I remember hearing you talk about him,” Bryn said as they kept running.
“He was a sneak, and the biggest bully in school. Everyone was glad when he dropped out and later left town. I didn’t know he had come back.”

As Ty handed his buckets of water to the man at the back of the brigade and turned to go back for more, a young couple came toward him. When they were alongside him, he recognized Darcy Farrell. Then he did a double take as he realized that the ‘boy’ with her was actually Bryn. “Go home,” he ordered crossly. “Stay out of the way.”
“You need all the help you can get,” Bryn snapped, looking over her shoulder to where ladders had been run up onto the roof of the Globe building. She grabbed her sister’s hand and pulled her that way.
Ty went on and refilled his buckets. When he got back and emptied them again onto the fire, he saw the Farrell sisters spreading salt on the roof, while others spread blankets and tried to keep them wet in an effort to prevent sparks and embers from starting more blazes.
Recognizing the futility of such small amounts of water on the now roaring fire, Ty eyed the men stationed at the upstairs windows of non-burning buildings. He joined the smallest group as they tried to keep the scorching, blistering building from catching fire. The Fire Company was out in full force, but their equipment of a hose cart and hand pumper had no chance against this inferno, even if there had been water. The town had no water-works system, and most of the pumps were frozen.
Late that night, Ty trudged wearily to his horse and rode to his married sister’s house at the west end of town where he and his mother had been visiting with Fiona and Ray when the fire bell rang. He rubbed his face that felt seared from the heat.
Mom’s worried face appeared in the doorway as he reached it, her gray hair straggling from its bun. “How bad is it?”
“Real bad.” He took off his hat and stepped inside. “Almost the entire block between First and Second Avenues is gone. There’s talk that a coal-oil lamp in an upstairs room at the Junction saloon exploded or broke from a fall and started the fire.”
She gave a little moan and covered her eyes with her hands. “What is happening to this town? The cattle drives ended when the government moved the quarantine line to include all of Kansas, and then that fire in January was awful. Now this.”
Ty put his arms awkwardly around her. “I don’t know, Mom. But it doesn’t have to be the end. Bob Wright is already ordering a contractor to start work on a new building for his business. Others seem as determined to carry on. The town can survive.”
He knew that there were thousands of Shorthorn around, so Dodge could still be a good cattle market and shipping point. And wheat farming was becoming wider spread.
She rubbed her eyes and stepped back. “I hope you’re right. If you can’t do any more here, we best be gettin’ on home before Travis starves to death.”
Ty managed a grin. His sixteen-year-old brother wasn’t exactly self-sufficient inside the house. Restless and active, he stayed outdoors as much as possible, and made no attempt to cook.
“I’m happy you came, Mom.” Fiona came from another room to see them off. “Ray hasn’t come in yet.” She gave Ty a worried, questioning look.
“He should be here soon. I’m sure he’s all right, because I saw him not long before I left.” Ty was glad he could reassure his sister of that much.
On the way home he couldn’t get pictures of the fire out of his mind. And mixed in with those images were ones of Bryn Farrell. A bit spoiled by her two older sisters, she had always been a fun loving girl, and too pretty for her own good. She had paired off with Billy Bob Baxter when she was only fourteen, leaving Ty with no hopes of claiming her attention. So he had teased and criticized her to keep a distance between them, and protect himself from the way she affected his feelings.
An image of her face when that icy water hit her made a grin tug at his mouth. He felt a twinge of remorse at dousing her, but then he admitted wryly that it hadn’t quenched her spirit. She had returned and fought the flames right along with her sister and the men.
Sometimes he wished he had more of her outgoing ways. But God had made him quieter, practical and more serious minded. Which had to be a good thing, because he had a widowed mother and younger brother who needed him to look after them. He didn’t have time for anything else. He had courted a couple of young ladies in the past, but they were married now, and he had concluded that his lot was to take his dad’s place running the farm. At least the ranchers didn’t look down on farmers as much as they had back when Dad switched from ranching to wheat farming.

Bryn jerked the sooty scarf from her head and tossed it on a chair as she and Darcy reentered Kit’s house. Kenny came barreling from the kitchen to greet them.
“What happened? Where did you go? What burned?” He did an excited little jig as he peppered them with questions.
Bryn shook her head in despair. “A bunch of buildings.”
Kit followed Kenny into the room, but at a slow pace. She sank into the first chair she reached, hands pressing against her rounded stomach and looking like she was about to collapse.
“You’re feeling bad again.” Bryn squatted before the chair and looked into Kit’s wan face. Then she glanced back at the over-energetic child.
Darcy came and took Kit by the arm. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“I can’t.” Kit lolled her head back against the chair. “No telling what Kenny might get up to if I leave him alone.”
“You go on to bed,” Darcy ordered, eyeing the rambunctious child who stood at the window, peering out into the night. “I’ll stay here until Jim gets home.”
Bryn spoke up. “I’ll take Mr. Kenny home with me so you can get some rest. Now, do as our bossy big sister says.”
Kenny, whose sharp ears never missed much, turned and trotted over to Kit. “Can I, Mommy? Can I, Mommy? I wanta go with Auntie Bryn.”
Bryn exchanged a quick glance with Darcy. They both knew that what the boy really wanted was to get out of the house, hoping to catch sight of the fire site. No way was that going to happen.
Kit nodded wearily. “If you’ll be good.”
Kenny clapped his hands. “I will. I will.”
Bryn lowered her eyelids and rolled her eyeballs behind them. Kenny’s definition of good differed greatly from hers. But his mother clearly wasn’t up to going over a long list of instructions with him. “I’ll deal with him. If anyone should know how to do that, it’s me.”
That elicited a tiny smile from Kit. “He does kind of remind me of you as a little girl.”
Darcy chuckled and helped Kit to her feet.
Bryn ignored them and focused on Kenny. “Get your coat and some extra clothes.”
On the way home, Bryn was thankful she had driven the buggy. No way could she have kept the overactive boy on Dandy’s back with her all the way to the ranch. At least she didn’t have time to think about Ty Shelton, and how good he had looked compared to the bothersome boy who gave her a hard time about her flighty ways when they were in school.
Over the next week, Bryn’s patience was sorely tried. Kenny kept her so busy that she worried about how Kit would ever be able to take care of him when she had a new baby to care for as well.
Trina Farrell entered the house and hung her coat on the rack by the door. “Jim says he’ll be staying close to home for the next few days and to bring Kenny home.”
“How’s Kit feeling?” Mom had been spending most of the past few days with her while her husband worked at his wagon shop.
“She’s more rested now. I’ll take Kenny with me when I go back in the morning.”
“I’ll go with you.” Bryn scooped the boy up into her arms as he scuttled past her, reaching for the door handle. “Nope, it’s too cold for you to go out there without a coat.”
He looked up at her, his face puckered with pleading. “I’ll put it on.”
“No. I’ll take you out for a while later.”
Trina eyed both of them in a measuring way. “That’s probably a good idea. Rance can follow us to Kit’s after he gets his chores done in the morning, and I’ll cook for us all there. Kit doesn’t need to be on her feet.” She and Rance had married four years ago, both having remained single for several years after the death of their spouses.
The next morning they drove to town right after breakfast and stopped at the Dodge House on the way to Kit’s. “I won’t be but a few minutes,” Trina said as she climbed out of the buggy. She took the package of yard goods she meant to leave with Gabe for him to deliver to Darcy. Kenny jumped down beside her. She took his hand and led him along beside her.
As Bryn waited for her mother to return, she saw Carl Thurman emerge from the hotel and pause to look up and down the street. His brown coat looked like it had never been washed in its long life. She looked the other direction, hoping he would not recognize her.
But footsteps came toward the buggy. “Hey, I just figgered out who you are. Ain’t you the youngest of them Farrell girls?”
Bryn turned her face toward him, and cringed at the way his eyes raked over her. Gaps appeared where teeth were missing between the broken snags he still had. “I’m Bryn,” she acknowledged briefly, without offering a handshake.
He stood in place, studying her. Then he nodded. “Yep, I ‘member seein’ you ‘round town with that Baxter boy.”
Bryn didn’t respond, wishing he would leave.
He frowned. “I also ‘member seein’ the one older one, name of Darcy, always with that Laughton girl.”
Bryn’s spine went rigid with alarm. There was no way he could know about Darcy and Jackie. Was there?
“They were sly things,” he continued, his eyes narrowing. “They always seemed to be in the middle of anything goin’ on.” He rubbed a dirty palm over his mouth.
Bryn was happy to see her mother and Kenny come from the hotel. She picked up the reins. “We have to be going,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even.
It was a relief when he stepped back from the buggy. But her skin crawled at the way he kept watching while Mom lifted Kenny into the seat and got in beside him. Clay continued to stand there, watching as they drove away.
When they arrived at her house, Kit seemed in good spirits and insisted she didn’t need to be waited on like a baby. She bustled around, flitting from one task to another. Later in the day, Bryn fed the chickens and gathered the eggs while her mother fixed supper. After they ate, Trina sent Kit to bed and Jim went to do evening chores. Later, when everyone was in bed, sounds woke Bryn. She put her clothes back on and went to the living room where a lamp was lit. To her surprise, Trina sat on the sofa with Kenny on her lap, occupied with drawing on a piece of paper.
“Where’s Kit?” she asked, covering a yawn with a hand.
Her mother looked up. “She couldn’t sleep.”
So of course Kenny couldn’t either.
“Mama’s in the kitchen.” He hopped down and took off that direction.
Bryn and her mother followed.
“What are you doing in here in the middle of the night?” Trina demanded, hands on her hips when they found Kit.
“Baking a cake.” Kit reached up into the cabinet for a can of baking powder. But then she gasped and dropped it. The lid popped off, and baking powder puffed over the floor. She placed her hands across her stomach and closed her eyes, her mouth twisted in pain.
“Mama!” Kenny wrapped his arms around her left leg and clung to her.
Trina put her arms around Kit’s shoulders to steady her. “Let’s get you to bed.” She looked over at Bryn. “Get the doctor.”
Kenny began to wail.
“Go on. I’ll deal with him.” Trina waved Bryn on when she hesitated, debating for a moment if she should take Kenny with her. No. She got her coat and dashed out the door. She ran the few blocks to Front Street, figuring it was faster than taking time to saddle a horse. At the doctor’s office, Bryn pounded on the door. But it was locked. She ran to Omega Montgomery’s house on a back street, but found no one home there either.
What should she do? Bryn peered around at the glow of lights in the darkness, wondering where to look for Doc. In that moment the clang of the fire bell rent the air.
She began to run.

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