The Bride Lottery

Traveling without a ticket proved easier than Miranda had expected. Days turned into nights and nights into days. The train made frequent stops, in small towns and at water towers, and she used them to move from car to car, to minimize the chances of getting caught.

Twice, she charmed a conductor into believing she’d misplaced her ticket. Another conductor proved immune to feminine allure, and Miranda burst into tears, pretending to be too distraught by the loss of her husband to produce her documents.

Despite her success in evading exposure, an uneasy feeling prickled at the back of her neck. A sensation of being watched. Miranda told herself it was only natural. She had become a lawbreaker, and the guilty conscience put her nerves on edge.

Through the window, fields and meadows gave way to run-down tenements and warehouses. The glass-paneled door at the end of the car swung open. The conductor—the small, potbellied man who had been immune to her charms—strutted up the aisle.

“Chicago!” he yelled. “Next stop Chicago. Everyone change. Southern Pacific Railroad to St. Louis and all towns south. Union Pacific Railroad to all towns west.”

Miranda gathered up her sailcloth bag. To economize, she’d avoided the dining car, instead taking the opportunity to buy bread and cheese and stuffed pies from platform vendors. Even then, she had less than a dollar left.

She followed the stream of passengers down the metal steps. The platform teemed with life. Between a farmer with a pushcart full of potatoes and a donkey with two heaped panniers, Miranda glimpsed a man—and felt a blow in her gut.

Her frantic eyes took in the fawn trousers, the peacock blue coat. The tall hat, the silver-topped walking stick. Light brown hair and long sideburns. Pale skin and the sullen features of a man who drank too much, gambled too much and seemed to harbor a bitter grudge against life.

It couldn’t be. But it was. Cousin Gareth.

He must be following her. And whatever she did, she must not lead him to Charlotte. Miranda spun around and set off running in the opposite direction. She knocked into the pushcart, sent a flurry of potatoes rolling over the platform. The farmer burst into an angry bellow. Passengers tripped over the spill, crying out complaints. Miranda dipped and darted through the throng, bumping into people as she hurtled along.

A train was pulling away. With an extra spurt of speed, Miranda raced after it, her boot heels clicking a frantic beat against the concrete platform. The whistle blew. A cloud of steam billowed from the engine. The train left the station but Miranda kept up her chase, leaping down to the tracks. Her canvas pouch fell off her shoulder. Not pausing to pick it up, she forced her legs to move faster.

Lungs bursting, arms pumping at her sides, skirts flapping around her feet, she hurtled along. She was gaining on the train, the gap shrinking. Five yards. Four. Three. Another merry whistle, and the train clattered onto another set of rails, slowing down for an instant while the wheels negotiated the junction.

With a desperate burst of effort, Miranda threw herself forward and grabbed the handrail around the small platform at the end of the last car. Her feet lost contact with the ground. Grimly, she hung on, the toes of her button-up boots bouncing against the timber sleepers, her fingers locked in a death grip around the iron handrail.

The train increased its speed. Pain tore at Miranda’s arms. Inch by inch, she dragged herself upward, her body like a coiled spring, her muscles vibrating with the effort. A violent shaking seized her. She almost lost her grip but managed to swing one foot up on the iron steps. Another foot. With a final jerk of her arms and shoulders, Miranda flung herself onto the platform and collapsed there, panting for breath, exhaustion and relief coursing through her.

When finally her senses sprang back to life, Miranda looked up. She could see the Chicago skyline disappearing off into the distance. Beneath her, the train rocked with a steady motion. The sun baked down on her black clothing, adding to the perspiration that coated her skin. She reached up one hand, found her bonnet dangling by its ribbons.

Slowly, she scrambled to her feet, her fingers clutching the handrail. She tried the handle on the door at the end of the car. Unlocked. Miranda went through. It was the mail car, with boxes and parcels stacked on both sides of the narrow passageway. A thin man in a white shirt with sleeve garters was sorting letters into slots on a wooden rack.

He stared at her. “Where did you come from?”

Miranda gave him a shaky smile. “I almost missed the train.”

He puffed out his narrow chest with an air of authority common to petty bureaucrats all over the world. “You can’t stay here,” he said. “This car is for authorized personnel only.”

Miranda sank onto a wooden crate. She could see the man wanted to tell her sitting on mail items was against the rules. She peered up at him from between her lashes. “May I rest here for a moment?” she pleaded. “I promise to move into another car at the first stop.”

The man bristled but appeared mollified. He resumed sorting letters into the wooden pigeonholes mounted on the wall. “How far are you going?” he asked. “Are you going all the way to San Francisco?”

“No. I’m going to the Arizona Territory.”

The man grinned with the smug satisfaction of someone who possesses superior knowledge and intends to gloat with it. “In that case, you’re on the wrong train,” he replied with thinly disguised glee. “This is a Union Pacific Railroad express service to San Francisco and all towns west.”

* * *

Miranda had never known hunger could cause such pain, as if tiny teeth were gnawing at her insides. She had lost the last of her money with her bag, and for three days she had eaten nothing but leftovers from meal trays waiting for collection outside the compartments in the first-class Pullman car.

At least she was safe from Cousin Gareth, for it would be impossible for him to catch up the express service. If she continued to San Francisco, she could take a southbound train to the Arizona Territory. The roundabout journey added to the distance, but she would eventually get to Gold Crossing—if she didn’t die of starvation first.

Already, the train had chugged through Iowa and Nebraska, where the endless prairie landscape could almost make one believe the world might be flat after all. So far, Miranda had been successful in dodging conductors, but the most recent one—a big, rawboned man with a bushy moustache—had his eye on her, she could tell.

At the next stop, Miranda switched to a second-class car and spent a moment inside the convenience, unstitching the ruby-and-diamond brooch sewn into her petticoats. Then she walked up and down the aisle, assessing the female passengers.

She chose a buxom woman who sat by herself, dressed in tight corsets and a gaudy purple gown. No respectable woman would buy anything from a stranger on a train, but this female possessed the right mix of expensive clothing and a common touch.

Miranda slipped into the empty seat on the padded bench beside her quarry. She clamped down on her scruples and opened her fist to display the lure of the jewel. “Excuse me for approaching you so boldly, but I am in urgent need of funds. I have a family heirloom I wish to sell. I thought perhaps you might be interested.” She gestured at the woman’s purple gown. “The rubies would match your dress.”

The woman peered down at the brooch, then returned her attention to Miranda. There was no mistaking the greed that flashed in her eyes. “What’s your name, darling?” The words came in a coarse accent, the voice raspy with whiskey and tobacco. The heavy scent of perfume failed to mask the stale, unwashed smell.

“I am Miss Fai—Mrs. Woods.”

Plump fingers fumbled at Miranda’s palm as the woman picked up the brooch. She inspected the jewel carefully. “It is real gold,” Miranda hurried to reassure her. “And the stones are genuine diamonds and rubies.”

“It says Fairfax here. I thought you said your name’s Woods.” The woman pointed at the engraving. To my darling wife. H. Fairfax.

Miranda swallowed. She was leaving a trail, but it could not be helped. “The brooch belonged to my mother,” she explained. “Woods is my married name.”

“I see.” The woman spent another moment examining the brooch. Then, as if losing interest, she dropped the jewel back in Miranda’s palm. “No, thank you.” She made a flapping motion with her hand, ushering the intrusion away.

Baffled, Miranda rose to her feet. She could see the shine of covetousness in the woman’s eyes, could see all her chins wobble with the eagerness to possess, and yet the matron had not even asked for the price.

“Thirty dollars,” Miranda said. “It’s worth three times as much.”

Ignoring her, the woman turned to look out the window. Miranda walked away, blinking back tears of defeat. She settled on an empty bench and rested her head against the wall, in the hope that sleep might offer a moment of respite from the gnawing hunger.

It seemed only seconds later the conductor was shaking her awake. It was the big, rawboned man with a bushy moustache, and he was scowling down at her. Behind him, the woman in a purple gown was standing in the aisle, gripping the seatbacks for support, her ample frame wobbling with the motion of the train.

“Search her,” the matron demanded. “She stole my brooch.”

The conductor’s large hand clamped around Miranda’s arm. “Stand up.”

“She came and sat beside me,” the woman went on. “All friendly like. Just plopped down next to me and started talking. I knew something was wrong right away. A respectable person does not approach strangers like that. It took me no time to realize she’d walked off with my ruby-and-diamond brooch.”

“Empty your pockets,” the conductor told her.

Not a request, with a polite miss or ma’am at the end of it. An order, harshly spoken, the sharp tone already classifying her as a criminal.

Anger flared in Miranda, fizzled out again. Hunger, fatigue, the hopelessness of her situation, all succeeded in curbing an outburst of temper where common sense might have failed in the past. She could see the lecherous glint in the man’s eyes. With a shudder Miranda realized that if she resisted the order, he might use her refusal as an opportunity to insist on a bodily search.

Not voicing a single word of protest, Miranda reached into the pocket on her gown, pulled out her mother’s brooch and displayed it in her palm.

“It has an engraving,” the matron said. “‘To my darling wife. H. Fairfax.’ Fairfax was my mother’s name. Nearly a hundred dollars it is worth. Real diamonds and rubies.”

The conductor put his hand out. “Let’s see your ticket.”

Miranda could hear the note of triumph in his voice. The man knew she didn’t have a ticket. Instinct told her he’d been harboring his own plans to benefit from her plight. If the woman hadn’t come up with her brazen scheme to acquire the brooch without paying for it, the conductor would have cornered her into an empty compartment, demanding intimate favors in exchange for a free passage.

The flare of anger finally won. “Here,” Miranda said. “Take it.”

She flung the brooch at the matron, hitting her squarely on the nose. The woman screamed, pretended to collapse into a swoon, but the real purpose of her fainting fit was to duck down and snatch up the brooch. She managed the motion with surprising agility for someone so amply built. The jewel safely clasped in her fist, she scurried back down the aisle to her own seat.

The conductor pulled out a pair of handcuffs from a pocket on his uniform. Forcing Miranda’s wrists together, he slapped the irons on her. “Next stop is Fort Rock, Wyoming. I’ll hand you over to the town marshal. He’ll hold you until you’ve paid the fine. One hundred dollars.”

One hundred dollars. Miranda closed her eyes as she felt the cold steel bite into her skin. There was no way she could raise such a sum. The man might as well be asking her for the Crown Jewels of the British monarchy, and the treasure of the Spanish Crown on top of it.

Chapter Three

The marshal’s office was in the small concrete jailhouse next to the station. Miranda didn’t resist when the conductor escorted her over during the fifteen-minute stop. She could feel people staring at her, on the platform, from the train windows. She didn’t care. She was too hungry. Too tired. Too defeated. Let them lock her up. At least they’d have to feed her, unless they wanted a dead woman in their jail.

“Marshal! Bringing in a prisoner!” the conductor bellowed, relishing his role as a lawman. He was holding on to the chain that linked the cuffs, leading her behind him like a dog.

Her temper rising once more, Miranda jerked free from his grasp. The conductor grinned. He fell back a step and gave her a shove on the buttocks, nothing but a poorly disguised grope. Miranda tried to kick him on the shins but almost stumbled and ended up lurching headlong across the jailhouse threshold.

Cool air greeted her. Built like a square block with thick concrete walls, the jail only had one tiny window high up in the rear of the single cell. The front office contained a desk and two chairs, both of them occupied. The cell behind the iron bars was twice as big and empty. Miranda eyed the narrow cot with longing.

“What is this?” The marshal straightened in the wooden chair behind the desk. He was young, barely in his thirties. Dressed in a dark suit, with neatly cut sandy hair and even features, he looked more like a merchant than a man who spent his life fighting crime. If it hadn’t been for the tin star on his chest and a gun in a holster at his hip, Miranda would never have guessed his profession.

“Caught her stealing on the train and traveling without a ticket.”

Miranda listened in silence as the conductor enumerated her transgressions. She didn’t even try to argue her case. She was guilty of traveling without a ticket, and no one would believe her if she protested her innocence to the theft of the brooch.

The marshal pulled open a desk drawer, counted out a hundred dollars and demanded a receipt. The conductor pocketed the money and removed the handcuffs. He raked one more lascivious look over Miranda before hurrying back to the train.

Miranda rubbed her wrists. Her ears perked up when the marshal turned to his teenage deputy, who was loitering in the second chair, balancing on two legs against the unpainted cement wall.

“Fetch Lucille,” the marshal said. “Tell her I have one for her.”

The chair crashed down to four legs. The innocent blue eyes of the fresh-faced deputy snapped wide. “Lucille?” His gaze shuttled to Miranda. “But this one looks like a lady...”

“She’s a lawbreaker who owes the town a hundred dollars.” The marshal made a shooing motion with one hand while using his other hand to lock the receipt in the desk drawer.

The young deputy—in Miranda’s opinion his posterior should still be wearing out a school desk—loped off. The marshal turned to face her. He eyed her up and down. Now that she thought of it, his short, straight nose and wide mouth resembled those of his teenage deputy. Father and son, Miranda guessed, which made the lawman older than she’d assumed at first glance.

The marshal lifted his brows at her. “Hungry?”

Miranda nodded. He gestured for her to sit down in the chair his son had vacated and reached for a parcel in a linen napkin on the desk. Unwrapping a slice of crusty pie, he dumped it on a tin plate and carried the plate over to her. Perched on the edge of the chair, Miranda closed her eyes and took a deep inhale. Oh, the heavenly smell of it!

“My wife bakes the best pies in town,” the marshal said.

Miranda blinked her eyes open and gave the food one more appraising glance before she took a big bite. Remembering her manners, she muttered a thank-you through the mouthful. She crammed in another bite. The marshal reached over and tried to take the plate away from her. Miranda craned forward in the seat and nearly toppled over, her fingers clinging to the plate, as if glued to it. The marshal tore the plate free from her grasp.

“If you’ve been starving, you got to eat slowly.”

He stood in front of her and waited for her to chew and swallow before he allowed her another bite. Miranda had barely finished devouring every morsel when two sets of footsteps rang outside. A shadow blocked the sunlight through the open doorway.

Miranda squinted. Lucille—for it could be none other—evidently shared the fashion sense of the lady who had stolen her brooch. Scarlet gown, tight corset, rouged cheeks, red hair in an elaborate twist, all topped with a frilly pink parasol.

Lucille moved inside, taking up most of the space. She snapped her parasol shut, ran an assessing gaze over Miranda, then glanced over her shoulder at the marshal.

“How much?”

“A hundred.”

“I can do that.” Lucille pointed with her parasol, almost poking Miranda in the gut. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

Miranda shrank back in the hard wooden seat. “I can’t—”

The marshal cut her short with an ushering motion. “Go,” he told her. “I have a bounty hunter with four bank robbers arriving before nightfall. If you stay, you’ll have to share the cell with them. Wouldn’t wager much for your chances.”

Lucille smiled and pointed to the open doorway with her parasol.

“I’m not a prostitute,” Miranda said through gritted teeth, but she followed the woman, blinking when they emerged into the bright sunlight.

The train was just leaving, the whistle blowing, steam rising in the air. In the window, the matron in purple was watching. Miranda’s hands fisted. The cow! She was wearing Mama’s brooch on her bulky chest! Miranda looked about for something to throw, but there was nothing suitable in sight. A cart full of potatoes would have served her well now.

The tip of the parasol poked into her ribs. “Come along, darling.”

Miranda turned back to Lucille. “I am not going to work for you.”

Lucille’s eyes narrowed. “Until I’ve made a hundred dollars from you, you’ll do exactly what I tell you. If I tell you to jump, you ask how high. If I tell you to run, you ask how fast. If I tell you to take your clothes off, you ask if I want it quick or slow. Do you understand?”

The parasol plunged into Miranda’s ribs, hard enough to bruise. Miranda nodded. She was getting the impression that Lucille’s parasol had no more to do with blocking out the sun than Cousin Gareth’s silver-topped cane had to do with assisting walking. They were weapons, pure and simple.

She followed Lucille down the street. Fort Rock was a decent-size town, with a central row of timber buildings with false fronts that made them look taller. There were two side streets, both flanked with unpainted log cabins. They were in Wyoming now, Miranda recalled. A cool breeze stirred the air and a line of snowcapped mountains rose on the horizon.

They entered a saloon through the swinging doors. Four young women in various stages of undress lolled about on padded chairs. Two were smoking and playing cards. A petite blonde was knitting what appeared to be an endless scarf, and a dark-skinned girl was reading aloud from a book that sounded like a penny dreadful.

The sting of smoke sent Miranda into a coughing fit. She flapped a hand in front of her face to disperse the thick cloud that saturated the air.

“Oh, we have a delicate one here,” one of the smoking girls said. Tall and thin, with dark hair and a sullen expression, she blew out another plume of smoke.

“Not fresh meat again,” another one drawled. “Business is slow as it is.”

“She’s not competition.” Lucille used her parasol to prod Miranda into the center of the room. “Girls, what do we do when business is slack?”

The black girl who’d been reading grinned. “We run a promotion.”

Lucille nodded, pointed at Miranda with her parasol. “This one owes me a hundred dollars. But with business so slow, it’s not worth the effort to break in a new girl. We’ll do something to bring in the decent men. The ones who might drink and gamble but won’t pay for a woman unless they get to keep her.”

Two of the girls burst into a loud cheer. A shiver ran over Miranda. It sounded like they were talking about selling her into slavery. She gathered her courage. Papa had defeated a mutiny on one of his ships and he’d drilled it into his daughters never to show fear.

She feigned a bored tone. “May I ask, what is this promotion you’re planning?”

“Well, a bride lottery, of course,” Lucille replied.

“And you’ll be the prize,” added the knitting blonde.

* * *

Miranda had to admit Lucille was an astute businesswoman. The madam instructed the girls to set up a low platform by the window near the entrance. A hooked rug and a rocking chair went on the platform, and Miranda’s task was to sit in the rocking chair.

All day. All evening.

Instead of her black mourning gown, she wore a soft wool dress in pale blue, modest in cut, with lace ruffles at the collar and cuffs. Her hair was twisted into an elegant upsweep, the formal look softened by a few strands left loose to flutter around her face.

During the day, sunshine through the window gilded her, like an impressionist painting. In the evenings, an oil lamp burned on the small table beside her. She was allowed to pass the time sewing or reading. Sometimes, the tabby cat that lived on kitchen scraps would come in and sit on her lap, and she’d stroke the animal, drawing comfort from the gentle vibration of its contented purring.

Next to this scene of domestic harmony, separated with a hemp rope from the saloon floor, the way a valuable exhibit might be guarded in a museum, stood a sign.

Bride Lottery

Tickets $10

One ticket per person only

The rule to limit the number of entries had been subject to much debate among Lucille’s girls. In the end they had agreed that the banker, Stuart Hooperman, was known to be eager to acquire a wife. If he bought a dozen tickets, it would reduce the odds for anyone else, which might dampen wider interest.

During the day, most of the men who came into the saloon were polite enough not to stare. Instead, they stole covert glances at her while they sipped their drinks or ate their meals. At night, when the whiskey flowed, some grew bolder and crowded by the rope, ogling at her, whispering comments to each other.

Miranda blocked them all out of her mind. Growing up with servants, she had developed the skill of ignoring their obtrusive presence, and now she put that skill to use. Mostly, her thoughts dwelled on her sisters, and on Cousin Gareth.

Was he still pursuing her, or had he given up and returned to Merlin’s Leap? Or had he figured out the message in Charlotte’s letter and was on his way to Gold Crossing? How was Annabel faring alone at Merlin’s Leap? Had she managed to write to Charlotte, alerting their eldest sister that she was presumed dead?

“Who do you want to win?” asked Shanna, the black girl, as she drained whiskey from the barrels behind the counter, getting ready for the evening. She was the most talkative of the girls, the most eager to find out about Miranda’s past.

Miranda lowered the canvas fabric she was sewing. In truth, she had not allowed her thoughts to dwell on the prospect of marriage. When she was not thinking of her sisters, her mind was occupied with escape plans. Lucille, of course, had seen right through her, had pointed out the marshal kept an eye on the trains, Miranda would die in the wilderness if she tried to flee on foot, and anyone who stole a horse was hanged, female or not.

“Makes no difference to me who wins,” Miranda replied.

Shanna straightened behind the counter. She was solidly built, with big breasts and wide hips, yet she moved with grace. Her face was a perfect oval, her eyes large and almond shaped. She would have been a beauty, had it not been for the jagged scar at the corner of her mouth and two missing front teeth.