Chapter Two
Montana
Hope jolted awake, her heart fluttering with panic as the shreds of her dream of Daniel’s desperate pleas slipped away from her. It had been almost a month since that day, but Daniel still haunted her in her sleep. She dabbed her damp face with a handkerchief.
“Are you alright, dear?” a woman asked, patting her arm gently.
Hope blinked at the women seated around her in the cramped and stuffy coach. They were all staring, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“I’m fine. Thank you, Betty,” Hope said, forcing a smile.
Eight days ago, Hope had left the noise and bustle of Dodge City behind, traveling across the country by railway.
After reaching Montana, she had boarded a stagecoach with five other women making their way to Virginia City.
At the time, she had felt her decision to be an exciting opportunity, but now it seemed reckless and desperate.
“You must have been dreaming about your husband-to-be,” Betty teased. “I hope he’s handsome enough for you.”
The other women in the coach chimed with nervous laughter. It was something they all wished for. Even Hope.
Ethan Blake. That was the name of the man Hope had written to in response to his advertisement for a bride.
In black and white print, Ethan had sounded sincere and safe.
More than that, he’d promised a quiet life on a ranch in Madison Valley where work was plenty, but meaningful.
Hope had felt it was a chance to build something that equated to far more than a strongbox full of dollars in a town surrounded by people who drank and gambled their lives away.
She also knew that it was her only way to escape the hole Daniel was trying to pull her into. She had begged him to join her in going West so that they could have a fresh start together, but he’d stubbornly refused, saying he needed to fight his own battles.
Hope had then made the impossible choice to save herself alone.
“There’s no way to know, Betty,” another woman said, chewing on her nails. “We’re marrying complete strangers! They could all be absolute toads!”
Hope chuckled at this, but she noticed the fear in some of the other expressions around her. On their journey so far they had talked for hours about the men they were to marry, and as they had drawn closer, excitement had turned to apprehension.
“Now, Dorothy, don’t fright the whole stagecoach. We’ve all got our worries,” Betty chided. “Oh, please don’t start crying again, Elizabeth!”
“I just hope he’s a kind man,” Elizabeth said in between sobs. “My cousin Flora said she knew a gal who ended up marrying a drinker! He hit her every day till she rode him over with her horse!”
“A drinker!” the other women murmured.
Hope thought of her own brother. He was a drinker, though never violent, but it had brought other dangers into her life.
She had no idea what Ethan’s vices might be.
What if he, too, was a gambler, or dishonest in some way?
Hope bit her lip to try suppress the surge of worries that flooded into her mind.
Betty squeezed her hand and smiled at all of them. “Mary, didn’t you say your cousin ended up married to a nice, handsome rancher?” Betty asked in desperation.
Mary nodded. “But her mother-in-law makes her wash the pigs every day.”
“Wash pigs!” Dorothy gasped in horror.
Hope could think of worse things. A stitch formed in the base of her stomach and no amount of shifting could ease it.
She was running away from a home, a job, and three steady meals a day.
All Ethan had offered were a few short sentences in the Sunday paper.
That was not enough to know a man, and especially not to hand her life over to him.
Hope felt like there was no air left in the carriage, so she pulled open the drapes to get to the window.
“Is that Virginia City?” Mary asked, pulling Hope back and pointing outside.
“Looks like it! Well,” Betty said with excitement, “there’s no turning back now!”
Elizabeth burst into noisy wails.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Dorothy said, holding her handkerchief to her mouth.
As the carriage swayed and jolted over the rutted roads, Hope felt her own stomach churn. Sweat dampened her collar, and sparks started to flit on the side of her vision. Had she made a terrible, inescapable decision?
“Here we go, dear,” Betty said, cooling Hope’s flushed face with her fan. “It’ll be alright.”
“Look at the mountains!” Mary breathed in awe.
Hope pushed her face through the window and took a deep breath of fresh air.
She opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by rugged mountains and dense pine forests, so unlike the flat, dusty prairie surrounding Dodge City.
Below them, an icy blue river snaked through the valley, and wildlife darted into the trees at the noise of their coach.
Ahead, she could just make out the clustered buildings of Virginia City, and thought them quite small against the vast and wild landscape.
The cool air calmed her thoughts and reassured her that she could make most any situation work, so long as it meant she was free to start a new life.
She had sent Daniel a farewell letter with a fair amount of her savings inside, partly hoping he would use it for a train ticket, but knowing he wouldn’t.
Then she had used the last of her savings to book her own train tickets and coach to Montana.
Now that she was so far from anything that resembled home, there was no returning.
All too soon, the coach pulled up alongside a small platform, and a loud man with a book under his arm led them to their boardinghouse. It was smaller than the one in Dodge City, but seemed to be bursting at the foundations with young women.
“Are they all in town for husbands?” Hope hissed at Betty.
She nodded.
“Mary Everest?” the man called, looking down at all of them around a rather large mustache.
“Here,” Mary said in a voice that trembled.
“Dorothy May?” he boomed again.
“Here!” Dorothy squeaked.
“Hope Caldwell? Hope?”
“Here,” Hope said as Betty jabbed her in the side with an elbow. She had been distracted as she looked around, trying to spy on the different people as they entered the boardinghouse.
“When do the men arrive?” Elizabeth asked, her small frame trembling from head to foot.
“Word was sent that your coach came in,” the man explained. “Your men’ll be along shortly, unless you made other arrangements.”
Hope saw Elizabeth grip onto Betty’s arm tightly.
“You’ll be alright, child, stop your worrying,” Betty soothed her in a whisper.
“The matron’ll show you to your rooms,” the mustached man said, closing his book with a snap.
Hope tried to remain composed, but she felt her nerves jangling just as keenly as Elizabeth did.
She thought back to hiding in her mother’s pantry, listening to thugs beating up her brother, and reminded herself that meeting yet another strange man was no more difficult a feat. She had gone through worse.
The difference was that this was a stranger she had agreed to marry.
She was led down a narrow hall filled with endless doors, the floorboards creaking beneath her feet. The boardinghouse smelled of coal smoke and burnt coffee, and was filled with the hushed chatter of nervous women.
“This is yours,” the matron said, unlocking the door for Hope and handing her the key.
As Hope walked into the room that held an iron bed and a chipped wash basin, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was no more than a cow in a herd of agitated cattle at an auction, waiting for her number to be called and hoping for a kind owner.