3. Rocheport #5
Just as she was considering the idea, Fred Shultz strolled through the closed dining car. Seeing her, he slowed down, giving her a quizzical look.
“What’re you doing in here, Miss Walker?” He looked from her to the Saloon and back again.
An idea occurred to her. “Would Mrs. Shultz like some company while you’re,” Kizzy looked at the door, “busy?”
“She might at that,” he agreed. He smiled and showed her to their car, where small family groups lay scattered among the open benches.
Kizzy grabbed her bag and followed, correct in assuming their presence would end the unwanted attention from the bachelors.
After explaining the situation, Ethel nodded in sympathy.
“Men are like that, dearie. And believe you me, they’re not all bachelors, no matter what they tell you.
They don’t know respectable from otherwise.
To their minds, a pretty young woman like you, traveling without a chaperone, is fair game.
” She smiled. “Stay in here near us to be safe.”
Kizzy hadn’t taken that into consideration. Being a woman alone among men might not have been the smartest idea, but that’s what she was. So how was she going to deal with it?
Fred left them to return to the saloon car. “Got a hot table waitin’,” he explained before shambling off.
“Card game,” interpreted Ethel. “He loves his poker.”
They spent an hour swapping recipes, then Kizzy made herself a little nest on the bench across the aisle from Mrs. Shultz.
Not wanting to look like a child but in need of comfort, she left Dollie in her suitcase, but clutched the whole thing to her chest. Pillowing her head as best she could, she curled up on the bare wood to while away the hours of darkness.
As the train rocked on its trestles, and she tried to figure out what to do, the wheels raced down the tracks repeating an endless refrain. On your own. On your own. On your own.
Restless, unable to focus her thoughts, she tossed and turned on the hard bench until just before dawn, when she drifted off for a bit. Her eyes sprang open, and she sat straight up when a hand touched her ankle. Ethel Shultz was looking at her while fastening a day bonnet on her head.
“The mister and me are going to breakfast, dearie. Would you like to come along?”
She shook her head no. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” she said with a yawn, lying back down on the bench. “I’ll see you when you get back.” She waved the pleasant couple off.
As soon as they were gone, she opened her suitcase, rummaging through the items she’d gathered.
Among the clothing she located a pair of stockings.
Tucked in one were the twenty-six dollar bills she’d saved up, and deep in the other lay her piggy bank, heavy with coins, which she’d have to break open as soon as possible.
She had no idea how much money it held. She’d been feeding coins to the clay piggy as long as she could remember.
Maybe another twenty, or even thirty dollars, she figured.
That gave her at least a hundred and seventy-five dollars not counting Mama’s money.
She went through her suitcase with care, finding her mother had tucked in a neat stack of menstrual rags, a pair of warm slippers, a packet of recipe cards in both her mother’s and grandmother’s handwriting, a jar of rhubarb and strawberry preserves Kizzy helped put up last spring, ribbons and combs for her long hair, an extra sunbonnet, and the bible she’d taken to every church service since she turned twelve.
She visited the WC and unpinned from her pantaloons the small bulging bag Mama thrust into her hands just before she boarded the train.
Returning to the relative privacy of the family filled train car, Kizzy’s memory sparked as she turned the pretty thing over in her hands.
Mama let her play with it when she was very young, and her fingers picked out the colorful beaded patterns she’d traced so often.
She opened the clasp and turned the bag upside down, spilling its contents in her lap.
Out tumbled a beautiful pearl necklace with matching earrings, a bundle of bills tied together with twine, Kizzy’s baptism certificate with her date of birth and legal name, and a hastily scrawled note that read:
I wish I were as brave as you when I had the chance. You are the kind of woman who can do great things.
I’ve been saving this six hundred dollars since the day you were born for your dowry. Do whatever you need with it to get a good start.
Your grandmother also left me this set of pearls, which Grandfather brought back for her when he visited Japan. Wear them whenever you have the chance. Keep them and your money in this bag, and keep it pinned to the inside of your waistband so you always know where it is.
Now, go west, my brave, intelligent, sensitive, beautiful, young daughter. Live a life to be proud of.
All my love,
Mama
Feeling a little better, she spent the rest of the trip with the Shultzes. Fred bought her lunch with his winnings from the night before.