Chapter 5
Cherryville, Louisiana
Sitting on the driver’s seat beside Alice, Kyle couldn’t stop smiling.
He had come to enjoy her company. When she agreed to ride with them instead of some stranger, Kyle’s heart leaped in his chest. He didn’t believe in love at first sight, but he certainly did believe in there being an undeniable connection between folks.
“So, what do you folks do in your little town in Texas?” Alice asked. “You’ve mentioned it a lot but never told me what you do there.”
“We have a copper mine,” Warren said. “I’m the mine accountant and sometimes the town treasurer.”
“I tend to take care of the town more than the mine. The mine is largely our friend Andrew’s project,” Michael said. “And Kyle here looks after all the animals.”
“All the animals?” she repeated.
Kyle nodded. “I live on a dairy farm with some friends, Kevin and Anita. We keep the town’s horses there, along with some cows. I mostly look after them.”
Alice smiled.
“What?” Kyle asked.
“Chrissie and I lost our folks when we were young, and some family friends took us in,” Alice said, still smiling. “They owned an inn, and I spent a lot of my time looking after the horses. Well, when I wasn’t cleaning and tending the bar.”
“Oh?” Kyle asked. “Did you enjoy looking after them?”
Alice nodded. “Sometimes I think horses are better people than people.”
His still-aching ribs were suddenly forgotten as he realized this was truly a woman after his own heart.
“Oh, don’t say that,” Michael said with a chuckle. “Kyle thinks the same kind of thing and he has a whole lecture on it. I’ve heard it many times.”
That made Alice laugh. She looked at him with a different expression in her eyes that he found hard to read. Was it admiration? Whatever it was, it was good since it kept her smiling and chatting with him.
They drove out of Grunnersberg and into the surrounding countryside.
“It’s funny how different this area is to Texas,” Kyle commented as they passed field on field of what looked like long green grass stems waving in the breeze.
“That’s sugarcane,” Alice said without hesitation.
“Oh,” Kyle said in confusion. “We grow corn, wheat, and vegetables.” He wondered if sugar came from sugarcane. He really didn’t know and figured he wouldn’t ask, because Warren would undoubtedly have a lecture of his own prepared on the subject.
“I don’t know if it’s inappropriate to ask,” Warren said, leaning forward from the back of the cart. “But what happened with your sister? From what you’ve told us, we thought you two were close.”
Alice hesitated and then seemed to decide she could talk to Kyle and his friends.
“Chrissie answered an advertisement in the Matrimonial News,” Alice said.
“Oh, I wish someone would answer mine,” Warren said a little dejectedly. “Don’t you wish that too, Kyle? You’ve also spent a fair amount of time and money on those advertisements.”
Kyle could have slapped him. Sometimes Warren didn’t think about what he was saying. Kyle hastily cleared his throat and looked away. How could he recover from this one? Alice thought it ridiculous that anyone might feel the need to put such an advertisement in the paper.
She eyed him but didn’t say anything in regard to their previous conversation about the subject. Only a playful smile lingered on her lips.
“Well, Chrissie found the advertisement from a sugarcane farmer by the name of Jason Holt,” she said.
“She let me read his first couple of letters to her. It seemed that he was a good man. He wrote well. Our family friend was pleased that Chrissie had found someone and encouraged her to build a relationship with this man via their letters. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but wouldn’t you know it, the one day Chrissie decided to be stubborn was when it came to courting by letter!
Then, one day, Jason sent her a marriage proposal along with a train ticket. ”
Kyle nodded, his embarrassment fading as she told the story.
“Chrissie was so excited,” Alice continued. “She practically ran out of the inn, shouting for all the world to hear.”
“And you? Were you excited?” Kyle asked uncertainly.
Alice shook her head. “I think I was jealous. I mean, she’s my little sister, and she was getting married before I’d even had time to consider such a thing.
Also, I didn’t like the idea of her moving so far away from me.
I’d spent my whole life looking out for her.
How was I supposed to just stop?” She shrugged.
“It can be very challenging to let younger siblings live their own lives,” Michael said with a nod. “I have a younger brother and sometimes I forget he’s a grown man.”
“It can be tricky,” Alice agreed. “I tried to be happy for Chrissie, but it was hard. I had this feeling in my gut that she shouldn’t come out here. I don’t know what it was, but I kept feeling that something wasn’t right, that something was off about this Jason.”
“Did you tell her?” Warren asked, peering at Alice through his mended glasses, which were still slightly crooked.
Alice nodded. “I most assuredly did.”
“She didn’t take kindly to it, did she?” Kyle asked.
Alice laughed without a hint of humor in it. “That’s one way of putting it. She told me to mind my own business, and some horrible things were said on both sides. I’m not proud of the way I handled that. I shouldn’t have gotten so angry.”
She slipped into silence.
“Did you make up?” Michael asked softly.
After a moment, Alice nodded. “I apologized to her, and she said she forgave me. Then she said sorry to me, and we cried. I thought we were okay then. We even got her things packed together. We went and bought some lace for her to sew on a dress while she was traveling so that she would have something fancy to get married in. Uncle Bert and I put Chrissie on the train the next Monday. She promised she would write.”
“I take it she didn’t keep that promise,” Michael said.
“I got a telegram from her saying she had arrived in Grunnersberg and that she was fine. She met Jason, and they were going to get married right away. That was the last I heard of her.”
Alice had a faraway look in her eyes now, as though she was seeing through time to the memory.
“I waited for weeks, and then suddenly a month had gone by, and there was no word from her. Then I got really worried. It’s not like Chrissie to disappear like that.
She spent most of her life telling me everything.
I can’t imagine she suddenly decided not to speak to me again because of one little fight.
It wasn’t even the worst fight we’d ever had. ”
Even though he was an only child, Kyle thought he understood. Since moving to Texas and living so closely with his friends, it was like having siblings. They would squabble and disagree, but they always made up in the end.
“Anyway, I bought myself a train ticket to come out here, hoping to find out what happened,” Alice said. “I thought it would be quick, you know? I would arrive and ask someone where this Jason Holt lived, and then I would find Chrissie and things would be right again.”
“Didn’t you have his address from the letters?” Warren asked. “Or were they sent to the post office directly and then he would collect them from there?”
“The post office. He would fetch the letters from there,” Alice said. “And before you ask, Jason Holt hasn’t been into town to fetch his mail in months. I asked. In fact, Alex, who works there, asked me to please tell Jason to come and get his letters.”
Michael frowned. “That is odd.”
“Yes, now I think you understand why I’m so worried about Chrissie,” Alice said. “This sounds strange, doesn’t it?”
“Oh yes,” Kyle said with a nod. “This is very odd indeed.”
Alice nodded and a relieved look settled on her face. “I thought perhaps I was going a little crazy. That I was obsessing over this for no reason. But I feel better now.”
“Well, we’re about halfway to Cherryville,” Warren said, pointing to a place on a map. “Hopefully there’s a simple explanation for all of this. I tend to find that if civil and levelheaded folks just take the time to sit down and talk, almost anything can be resolved.”
“Which is Warren’s way of saying that he’s optimistic you’ll be able to patch things up with your sister,” Kyle said.
“That’s precisely what I said,” Warren said, looking confused.
“Yes, it is,” Alice said kindly, but she smiled at Kyle, making his heart thud a little harder in his chest.
The rest of the journey to Cherryville was punctuated by bouts of conversation as the mostly uniform landscape rolled by.
In the areas between the farms, the vegetation looked lush and overgrown.
They crossed swiftly flowing streams and had to duck under the boughs of large trees dripping with moss.
Everywhere, things seemed to be blooming, bustling, and busy.
Birds swooped and dove, catching the many different insects that hummed and buzzed.
Kyle delighted in a colorful butterfly flitting from flower to flower, only to see it snatched from the air by a colorful bird.
Funny how, although Texas liked to pride itself on being bigger in every way, these birds looked rather larger than some of the ones that frequented the prairie.
And then, before Kyle was expecting it, they came to several small homesteads. The houses were quaint and set back from the road, with large trees spreading their branches over them. They entered Cherryville with only a small sign next to the road.
It was abundantly clear from the get-go that the sign hadn’t welcomed many visitors over the years.
At least not visitors with plenty of money to spend in a tiny town.
Still, as they drove down the main road, the horse’s hooves clopping on the hard-packed earth, Kyle thought the place had a certain charm.
“So, where should we ask about Mr. Holt?” Kyle asked, looking from one little store’s front window to the next.
“I should think the general store owner would know everyone in the area,” Michael said. “Although I’ll bet folks in these parts are largely self-sufficient, they still need to buy things sometimes.”
“That’s true,” Kyle said. “Maybe it should just be me and Alice who go inside and ask questions.”
“And we just wait on the cart?” Michael asked. He shook his head. “We’re coming in. We won’t speak to anyone, but I would like to get a feel for the place and the people.”
“Suit yourselves,” Alice said as she enthusiastically slid from the seat to the ground.
Kyle followed, and his ribs hurt when the jolt of his landing hit them. He winced but quickly recovered when Alice turned with a knowing look.
“You should still be resting.”
“No,” he said with a head shake. “I should be right here.”
She smiled at that. “You know, you’re quite charming.”
Kyle grinned foolishly. “I am? That’s got to be the first time anyone has ever said that to me.”
“Don’t make me regret my words,” Alice teased.
“No, ma’am,” he promised, feeling his smile reach his ears.
They both reached up and patted the horse’s neck as they left the cart. Michael tied the horse up at a water trough. Kyle heard the beast drinking loudly and smiled. Pulling a cart was thirsty work, and he was glad the people in this town had the good sense to be kind to horses.
They headed for the general store’s steps that led to the porch. Kyle opened the door for Alice, and she nodded as she walked into the room.
The interior of the general store was dimly lit, but there was enough light to see everything by. Alice and Kyle walked up to the long wooden counter. A balding man stood behind it, writing something in a book.
“Can I help you?’ he asked without looking up.
“I’m hoping you can,” Alice said. “We’re looking for someone.”
“Is that so?” the man asked. “Does this person have a name?”
“Yes,” Alice said. “Chrissie Emmerson.”
“Although she might be going by Chrissie Holt now,” Kyle added.
“Oh yes, that’s right,” Alice said. “Anyway, I’m her sister.”
The man eyed them both. He looked as though he was about to ask them something but thought better of it. “All right,” he said. “Well, sister of Chrissie Holt, if you really are her relative, then surely you know that they live out of town on a farm.”
“She neglected to send me her new address,” Alice said. “Can you help?”
“I don’t know,” the man said. “I’m not in the habit of handing out addresses to folks I don’t know.”
“We just want to talk to her,” Kyle said.
The man shrugged. “Well, the Holt farm is out east from here. You’ll have to ride for about thirty to forty minutes to reach it.”
Warren suddenly appeared out of nowhere and, smiling, placed his map on the counter. “I don’t suppose you could make a mark on the map where it is?”
The man stabbed the spot with his pen.
“And if you find out why he hasn’t come in to pay his tab like he’s supposed to, you make sure you come back and tell me,” the man commanded.
“With pleasure,” Warren agreed.
A short while later, they were back on the cart, but this time with bottles of lemonade that Michael had found in the general store. They downed the tart, sweet liquid. It was delicious and refreshing.
As they drove along, several men came riding by.
“That’s a fair amount of shooting iron on their hips,” Warren said when the men went past.
“Yes, I noticed that too,” Michael said. “Perhaps they also have a bandit problem. It tends to make the pistols come out.”
“That is true,” Warren agreed with a nod.
“Let’s hope that’s all it is,” Kyle said.
His gut was unhappy. He felt that something was wrong.
There hadn’t been enough people in the street.
It was the middle of the day, but there had been hardly anyone.
Then again, his gut had been wrong about the bank robbery, thank God.
Maybe he was just overly cautious after having his home under attack by the bandits for such a long time.
Soon they reached their destination. The farm was set in some rolling hills, and they were green and covered with sugarcane.
“Let’s see if we can find a spot to watch for a little while,” Kyle said. “Before we head in there.”
“Yes, let’s not walk into anything,” Michael agreed.
“What are you talking about? My sister is most likely right there,” Alice protested.
“We’ve had bad experiences with riding in without checking things first. Trust me, this will be better,” Kyle said.
He steered the horse and cart up a hill from which they could spy on the farm. The farmyard was beautifully visible from their vantage point. They settled down to watch under the boughs of tall, moss-dripping trees.
“This is a waste of time,” Alice said.
Nevertheless, they watched until Alice became restless. “We should just go down there?—”
“No,” Kyle said, sitting up suddenly. A woman was walking out into the yard with a basket on her hip. And a man walked behind her with a gun pointed at her back.
There. Right there was proof that his gut had been right this time, at least.
Kyle’s breath caught in his throat. What had they stumbled onto?