Chapter 3
Three
There was no spring.
Della leaned closer to the window as the train rattled down the last mile toward Grand Springs.
For six months, she had pictured the place. Something green, she supposed. A broad pool of clear water shaded by cottonwoods, with the town gathered around it. After the last thousand miles, her mind had turned away from what her new home might look like, to the man waiting for her.
But now, as the train slowed, what she saw instead was dust.
Plumes of it. The brown ribbon of the river, glinting in the afternoon sun, lay some distance beyond the tracks. Closer in stood the railroad water tank, high on its timber frame, with a squat pump house beneath it. Freight sheds and sidings crowded with wagons and carriages.
And now the cause of the dust cloud: a writhing brown mass, undulating.
Cows packed tightly into small pens, the rows blending under the yellowy haze. More cattle than she had ever seen, shoulder to shoulder. Men in brown pants and wide-brimmed hats, faces obscured by scarves, moved with purpose as the train puffed, hissed, and made one final jerk to a complete stop.
The whistle went. The brakes took hold.
Grand Springs itself ran back from the railroad. She tugged her gloves on, gaze inspecting her new home. A church steeple rose above the roofline. Beyond that, in every direction, the land simply went, flat and green and enormous, out to a horizon so far away, it made her feel queasy.
She was used to the noise and bustle. Every station had been the same; a sudden resurgence of activity. Men moving with energy to exchange goods, unload supplies. Passengers flowing. She edged her way along the busy corridor and stood at the open doorway.
The noise was incredible. The platform ahead was already crowded.
But more than that: the bawling. She leaned out, narrowing her eyes through the chaos.
The cattle in the pens all complained at the same time, in a low continuous roar that went through the boards of the car and up through her shoes.
At one chute, steers were being driven toward a waiting cattle car.
At another, two men were wrestling sacks of feed down from the wagons.
Voices bellowing. Dogs barking. The engine vented steam in long shrieks that made her flinch every time.
The heat came up off the platform boards and met her under her skirts.
This was her good dress, put on that morning in the sleeper car with a great deal of care, because a woman ought to arrive looking nice for her future husband.
But now, with the heavy velvet doing its work with tremendous efficiency in the Montana heat, she wished she’d chosen differently.
“Miss?”
A porter held out his hand. Della offered him a smile and took it, stepping down to the platform. “Thank you.”
A woman in a dark bonnet held tight to two small boys while another child sat on top of a trunk. Someone was shouting instructions near the freight house. A cowboy led a nervous horse along the far end of the platform, the animal tossing its head at every hiss from the engine.
So, this was Grand Springs.
“Help you with your bags, Miss?”
“Yes,” Della blinked, being buffeted around. She held out the three brass checks she had to hand. “Warner. Three pieces. A trunk and two cases.” Another nudge and a bump, as the crowd surged around her. The man took the tags and went off in the direction of the baggage car.
For a moment she simply stood, clutching her reticule, trying to take it all in.
Men everywhere. Men in shirtsleeves rolling barrels off a flatcar. Leaning on the depot wall, standing in the doorway of the freight office, sitting on a stack of hides that smelled so strongly she took a step sideways.
I am tall, he had written, and I will be wearing a hat.
She studied them, and a few met her with an interested look. They all wore hats. How would she know if any of them were Mr. Beau Hawkins?
“Out the way!” Two boys ran past her carrying a crate between them, and one of them said something she did not catch, and the other laughed. Another shout and a sack struck the board next to her, bursting its contents all over her.
She leaped back, straight into a warm body. Someone's shoulder took her hard in the back.
“Watch it!”
She turned to apologize, and bounced off another. The wave of movement around her and she was turned around. Her heel caught, and she came off it, striking another person. She was shoved, and heard the short comment. Turned half around, and the platform rolled as if she were on a ship.
The strong arms came around her, stopping her before she fell. She was righted, her hands fisted in the soft material of a shirt, her cheek mere inches from a wall of chest.
She looked up. And up.
Eyes like her mother’s bluest sapphires looked down at her, framed with long dark lashes. An unsmiling face. And the faintest whiff of soap.
"Ma'am," his voice was low, rumbling, and sent a ripple shivering along her spine.
Aware that she was still hanging onto him, she uncurled her fingers. And was thrown forward into him, both hands flat against his chest, which did not give at all.
“All right,” he murmured, and shouldered a space through the crowd, two hands around her waist as he guided her into the lee of a stack of freight where the flow of people broke and went round them.
He let go the moment she was out of the flow. “Are you hurt?”
It took her a moment to find her voice. “N-no,” she brushed at the loose hairs that had slithered from the pins and tickled her face. “No, I’m not hurt. I… I’m very sorry to have… I was knocked.”
"It's market day," he said. "It ain’t always like this. But cattle are being moved. And there's shipping, and the usual passengers."
"Oh."
"Four hundred head going out at once. Everybody in the county's here."
"So, it would seem,” she flicked a glance at the flow, then back at him.
A hard face. tanned and in shadow under the brim of his black hat. A faint dimple in his right cheek, and she wondered what he looked like when he smiled. If the dimple deepened.
She was breathing far too quickly, and she was staring at him. He watched her carefully.
"Forgive me," she said. "I've been too long on a train, and I believe I've left my manners in Bismarck."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth. It was not quite a smile. Her stomach quivered nonetheless.
"Anything else I can help you with, ma'am?"
"No. Thank you. You've been?—"
"Miss Warner!"
The porter came at her sideways through the crowd with his cap pushed back, and his face flushed and shining. "Miss Warner. We've your trunk and the two cases off, ma'am; they're at the end there by the office. Will you be wanting a hand with them, or is there somebody meeting you?"
Della dragged her gaze and her thoughts to more practical matters. "Yes," she said. "Yes, thank you. A hand would be very welcome, if it isn't a problem."
"No trouble at all."
She looked back. The man was now staring. Intensely. Her mouth ran dry under the scrutiny, as a roasted hog might feel at a dance hall.
"You're Adele Warner?”
She swallowed, her brows moving as he studied her. “Why, yes, I am.”
Behind her, the engine let off a great shriek of steam, though Della did not flinch at all this time, because every part of her had gone very still.
Tall. Wearing a hat that he now pulled off, as if just remembering manners of his own.
"Beau Hawkins?" she said.