Sweetwater Read online

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1998 by Dorothy Garlock

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Diane Luger

  Cover illustration by Michael Racz

  Warner Books

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  First eBook Edition: April 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56005-4

  A Time Warner Company

  “I WISH I DIDN’T HAVE TO GO.”

  “I … wish it too.”

  She looked at him with wide, clear eyes. As if vaporized, Virginia’s thoughts fled, and emotion took over. Feeling more daring than ever before in her life, she lifted her face to his. Their breaths mingled for an instant before he covered her mouth with his. Although his lips were soft and gentle, they entrapped hers with a fiery heat. There was such a sweet taste to his mouth!

  With a leap of joy, Trell realized he had actually kissed this angel of a woman. He could not speak above the sound of his thundering heart. Silently, he held her close.

  His voice came finally in a husky whisper. “I’ll watch until you’re back in the house. I’ll be back …”

  “VINTAGE GARLOCK … HER CHARACTERS ARE SUPERB AS THEY COME ALIVE.”

  —Rendezvous on Larkspur

  “WHEN YOU PICK UP A DOROTHY GARLOCK, YOU EXPECT THE VERY BEST, AND THAT IS WHAT YOU GET.”

  —Heartland Critiques

  “THE QUEEN OF THE WESTERN ROMANCE.”

  —B. Dalton’s Heart to Heart

  Books by Dorothy Garlock

  Annie Lash

  Dream River

  Forever Victoria

  A Gentle Giving

  Glorious Dawn

  Homeplace

  Lonesome River

  Love and Cherish

  Larkspur

  Midnight Blue

  Nightrose

  Restless Wind

  Ribbon in the Sky

  River of Tomorrow

  The Searching Hearts

  Sins of Summer

  Sweetwater

  Tenderness

  The Listening Sky

  This Loving Land

  Wayward Wind

  Wild Sweet Wilderness

  Wind of Promise

  Yesteryear

  Published by

  WARNER BOOKS

  In loving memory of my husband,

  HERBERT L. GARLOCK, SR.

  —forever in my heart.

  We are all visitors

  to this time, this place.

  We are just passing through.

  Our purpose here is to observe,

  to learn, to grow, to love …

  and then we return Home.

  —Aborigine Philosophy

  JOURNEY TO SWEETWATER

  Sweetwater!

  We’ll soon be there.

  We’ll brush the dust out of our hair,

  Drink God’s nectar, cold and clear,

  Quench our thirst, forget our fear.

  Sweetwater!

  Filthy town. Insulting leers.

  Pay no heed. Hide your ears.

  We’ll ride tomorrow toward our goal.

  Three sisters one—a family whole.

  Our wagon jolts; the road is brutal.

  I wonder if our scheme is futile:

  To teach, to farm, to own our land,

  To live in peace. That’s all we planned.

  The driver passes ’round a flask

  To serve us water when we ask.

  His mouth is foul—and he drinks first.

  We can’t refuse; we’ve such a thirst.

  At last, our house. We look inside.

  A wreck! We’d weep, but we have pride.

  We’ll clean, we’ll scrub; we’ll have our dream.

  See, yonder, there’s a sparkling stream.

  Stoney Creek

  Its rocky ledges rush the flow.

  So pure and clean. And now we know

  A surge of joy, the rise of hope.

  We run to drink, sure we can cope.

  Sweetwater!

  Home!

  —F.S.I.

  ALLENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA 1884

  Prologue

  Her throat tightened, and her mouth filled with the metallic taste of anxiety.

  The frenzied hammering of her heart was so loud that she thought Uncle Noah must hear it as he stood beside her concealed in the hedge of bridal-wreath bushes that edged the lane. She peered through the inky darkness toward the unlighted house that had been her childhood home.

  “Something has happened or they’d be here.”

  “Patience, ducks! It’s only an hour past midnight.” Noah flavored his speech with expressions he had picked up during his travels abroad. “Tululla said Cass got the message.”

  “What if they were locked in their rooms?”

  “Then I’ll get on my trusty steed, jump the moat, and rescue the fair damsels.”

  “Be serious, Uncle Noah.”

  “I am, love. I’m just so sure that Cassandra can pull it off.”

  The one reassuring fact that penetrated the whirl of Jenny’s thoughts was that her nine-year-old sister was far smarter than their half sister, Margaret, or that disgusting religious fanatic she had married. The child had had two days to plan on how to get herself and four-year-old Beatrice out of the house to meet them at this place.

  Jenny peered into the inkiness toward the house. May the Lord forgive me for not coming back home sooner to see how my little sisters were faring.

  Two weeks ago, after receiving a letter from Tululla, the cook, Jenny had taken leave from the academy in Baltimore where she was teaching and returned to her childhood home for the first time since her father’s death a year ago.

  She had not been welcomed.

  On their father’s dying bed he had made his oldest daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Charles Ransome, guardians of his two youngest daughters and executors of their sizable inheritance. Poor sweet Papa would have been heartsick if he had known what would happen to the business he had worked so hard to create and the treatment his young children would receive.

  Charles ruled the house with an iron fist. The girls were severely and cruelly punished for the slightest infraction of his rules. The day after Jenny arrived, Charles had slapped Beatrice so hard for dropping food on the tablecloth that he knocked her from her chair.

  More angry than she had ever been in her life, Jenny had loudly and furiously rebuked her brother-in-law for his actions. When Charles had stood over Beatrice, refusing to allow Jenny to comfort the sobbing child, and ordered Jenny from the house, Margaret had stood by her husband.

  According to Tululla, it was Cassandra who had borne the brunt of Charles’s cruelest discipline. She was allowed to read nothing but the Bible and forbidden to give her opinion on any subject. One of her duties was to empty the chamber pots each morning and scrub them. When religious friends came to call, she was commanded to recite long passages from the Bible; and if one word was wrong, she was whipped with a paddle or a willow switch. Sometimes she was banished to sleep alone in the barn at night.

  Jenny had been so outraged that, after leaving the house, she had immediately begun to plan for the girls’ escape. She had called on her Uncle Noah for help he had been glad to give.

  “Missy—” The whisper came out of the darkness.

  Jenny whirled around so fast she bumped into her uncle.

  “Sandy, you scared me.”

  “The buggy is down da road by dem willow trees.”

  “Thank you, Sandy.” She put her hand on the young man’s arm. “Is your mother all right? I don’t want either of you to get in trouble over this.”


  “Ma say, ‘Do it for the girls.’ Ma say this ain’t a good place for Mister H’s babes.”

  “I’ll never be able to thank her enough for getting in touch with me. Sandy, if the girls don’t manage to get out of the house tonight, we’ll be here tomorrow night. Will you try to get the message to Cassandra?”

  “Yes’m.” The boy turned and disappeared in the darkness.

  “Uncle Noah, what will Charles do if he finds out that Tululla and Sandy helped us?”

  “He’ll be madder than a wet hen, I’m sure. But Tululla’s been running this house for a long time, and he knows that Margaret’s incapable of doing it without her. The jackass is fond of eating, and Tululla is the best cook in the county. She’d have no trouble getting another position. The girls are the reason she’s been staying on.

  “And he does get work out of Sandy. He treats him like a slave, but not in Tululla’s presence. Sandy has always been kind of … dim-witted, but he’s harmless and devoted to the girls. Uncle Noah, I wish I could be sure that Charles will not be able to use the law to come after us when he finds out the children are with me.”

  “We’ve been over that, ducks. You’re going to a place where the bloody bastard can’t reach you. Meanwhile, the lawyers will be working for you to be given legal custody.”

  A half hour passed. The sky cleared, and a few stars appeared. The night breeze turned cold. It seemed to Jenny that she had been standing here in the bushes forever, although it couldn’t have been more than three or four hours. She backed against Uncle Noah for warmth.

  “They’re not going to get out tonight.” She whispered the words sorrowfully. Then, at a rustle of leaves, she instantly became alert. “I heard something.”

  “Shhh … shhh—”

  She turned her head to catch the sound and heard her name being called in a whisper.

  “Vir … gin … ia—”

  “Here I am, honey.”

  Out of the darkness emerged one small figure. Jenny’s heart sank, but only for a moment.

  Nine-year-old Cassandra, carrying her sister on her back, moved toward them. Jenny rushed to meet them, then stopped and gasped.

  Both girls were stark naked.

  “Oh, dear heaven!”

  “Margaret takes our clothes away every night, ’cause she’s ’fraid we’ll run off.”

  “That’s outrageous!”

  “They locked Beatrice in the closet ’cause she wet her drawers. But I found the keys. I locked their door. I … locked all the doors. And I dropped the keys down the well. Oh, I hate them. I wish they were … dead!”

  Jenny tried to lift Beatrice off Cassandra’s back, but the little girl let out a choking cry and clung desperately to her sister.

  “It’s Jenny, Bea,” Cassandra said gently. “Go to Jenny. We’ll be all right now.”

  Jenny took the child and wrapped her in her cape. Uncle Noah, still sputtering obscenities in a foreign language, wrapped his coat around Cassandra, and they hurried to the waiting buggy.

  Contents

  Copyright Page

  “I WISH I DIDN’T HAVE TO GO.”

  Books by Dorothy Garlock

  JOURNEY TO SWEETWATER

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  WYOMING TERRITORY

  Chapter One

  Virginia Hepperly Gray, her stomach churning from the rocking, lurching movements of the stagecoach, sighed with relief when it came to a jerking halt. She patted her dark auburn hair in place, adjusted the hatpin in the crown of her hat, and pulled on her gloves.

  The door opened. She took the hand offered by the driver, stepped down and surveyed the huddle of buildings that made up the town of Sweetwater. She had seen quite a few new towns on the way west, but none was as primitive as this. It was all very new to her—this raw, wild, sparsely settled country. But it was just the place for her and the two small girls who followed her from the coach with confused looks on their faces.

  “I’m thirsty.” The younger of the two whimpered as she had been doing for hours.

  The woman controlled her irritation and reminded herself that she couldn’t fault the little one for complaining. The children had been under a terrible strain for a year, and it had been only two weeks since they had escaped from their home in the middle of the night. So much had happened to them in such a short time.

  “We’ll get a drink of water at the hotel … if there is one.”

  Standing beside her trunks, which had been dumped onto the split-log porch of the unpainted building that served as the stage station, Virginia was aware of the stares of the crowd. Her stylish dark green blouse suit, trimmed with black satin strips around the lapels and the bottom of the skirt, marked her as different from the people lined up to watch the stage come in. Roughly dressed, whiskered men eyed her, but turned away when she sternly returned their inquisitive looks.

  A sign on an unpainted building caught her eye. Well! At least this ramshackle town had a hotel.

  The girls waited beside the baggage, the younger girl taking refuge behind the older one.

  “Cass, you and Beatrice stay here by our trunks while I get someone to take them to the hotel.”

  “Please call me Cassandra, Virginia. I’ve told you that I don’t like being called Cass. It’s something you’d name a dog … or a horse. I’m surprised you allow yourself to be addressed as … Jenny.”

  “I don’t mind in the least being called Jenny.”

  With a sigh, Cassandra wrinkled her brow and looked disgustedly around at the unpainted buildings, the rutted roadway littered with horse droppings and at the persons who stared at them rudely.

  “This is a poor excuse for a town. It isn’t at all what I expected.”

  “It isn’t exactly what I expected either, but it’s perfect for us. We agreed on that before we set out on this journey. Remember?”

  “I understand. They can’t extradite us back to Allentown from a territory.”

  At times Jenny was in awe of this little half sister who at nine years of age had such an adult grasp of their situation. She looked down into the upturned freckled face, exposed to the sunlight by the new blue velvet bonnet with the brim turned back. Both girls had the blue eyes of their mother, who had been their father’s third wife, and Beatrice had her blond hair. Cassandra had dark red hair, almost the same color as Jenny’s, inherited from their father.

  In the course of his three marriages George Hepperly had sired four daughters, all the while longing for a son to take over his shoe business and carry his name into the future. He had been wise with his investments but unwise in his choice of guardians for his children.

  When George remarried a year after Jenny’s mother died, Margaret had been ten years old and had resented Jenny from the day she was born. On the other hand, Jenny had loved the woman her father married next and had been delighted when her little sisters came along. She had not spent much time with them because she had been educated at a boarding school and had spent summer vacations with her mother’s relatives in Baltimore. After
finishing school, she had stayed on with an aging aunt and had been unaware of the situation that had developed back home after her father’s death until Tululla, George Hepperly’s cook for many years, had written to suggest a visit.

  “I’m thirsty.” Beatrice tugged on Jenny’s hand.

  “There’ll be water at the hotel, sweetheart.”

  “These unwashed barbarians obviously do not intend to help us with the baggage.” Cassandra’s voice rang out.

  “Shhh …”

  “They have no manners,” she continued, but this time more quietly.

  “That’s no reason for us not to use ours.”

  A man in a black serge suit emerged from the building. His coat was open, showing a gold watch chain stretched across a brocaded vest. His black boots were polished, but dust-covered. The men on the porch parted to make way for him. He eyed Jenny, and then the girls, with a frown before he carefully removed his hat. His hair was jet-black with wings of white at the temples. His mustache was sprinkled with gray and trimmed to slant down on each side of his mouth.

  “Mrs. Gray?”

  “I’m Virginia Gray.” Jenny, annoyed at the irritation apparent in his voice, grew even more so when he so limply shook the hand she offered.

  “Alvin Havelshell, ma’am.” Steely blue eyes went to the girls standing beside the baggage. “I didn’t know you were bringing your children.”

  “Is there a problem with that?”

  “No. It’s just that I expected a much older woman … ah … not a young married lady with children.”

  “Are you objecting to the children?”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Gray—”

  “Miss Gray. I’ve never been married.” Jenny was a tall woman. Even though she and Havelshell were of equal height, she managed to look down her nose at him and watch his face redden and his lips flatten in reaction.

  “It’s just that you’re not … not what I expected.” The frown on his face drew his brows together.

  “Where have I heard that before?” Cassandra murmured.

  Mr. Havelshell’s cold stare caused the child to move slightly behind Jenny.

  “I have a copy of my contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. My attorney went over it carefully. It specifies nothing about age or marital status. Would you like to see it?”