Riddle of the Prairie Bride Read online

  “I don’t know,” Ida Kate said softly. She scuffed her boots along the track and watched the dust fly up. “I just couldn’t, somehow, not in front of her.”

  “Well, I think you’re probably right to stay quiet for a while,” Martha replied slowly. “Because someone who can pull a ruse like this is very clever—and probably dangerous, too. And your father is so sweet on her, he’ll likely think you’re just turning against her because you don’t want another woman taking your mother’s place. It will be the impostor’s word against yours, and he’s not going to want to believe you. So you need to uncover more facts. And then you can confront her—and your father will have to believe.”

  “I still think these handwriting samples are pretty strong proof …” began Ida Kate. But Martha was shaking her head.

  “We’ll need to find even better proof. I know! We’ll go to your house after school and try to discover more facts about this—this stranger. Then, once we know what’s what, we can tell your father in time to stop him from marrying a fraud! What do you say, Ida Kate?”

  Ida Kate usually loved following Martha into adventure, riding along on her friend’s enthusiasm. But now Ida Kate simply felt exhausted. And underneath her fatigue was sadness. She had liked Caroline Fairchild—liked her very much indeed. That Caroline was not who she said she was seemed a terrible betrayal.

  “I still think I should just tell Papa,” Ida Kate mumbled.

  “Not yet! Not till we investigate,” Martha pressed. “After all, if the woman living in your house isn’t Caroline, then shouldn’t we find out where the real Caroline Fairchild is? Your father will certainly want to know. We should wait to tell him until we have proof of who this woman and the baby really are.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Ida Kate, a quiet dread welling up inside her. “The baby is just Hanky—” But then she broke off. Oh no.

  What if the baby isn’t really Hanky at all?

  If the woman wasn’t the real Caroline Fairchild, then how could the baby be Caroline’s baby? Or—had the impostor somehow kidnapped Hanky from the real Caroline? That would explain the strange awkwardness Ida Kate had noticed between the false Caroline and the baby.

  A shiver slithered down Ida Kate’s back. Was the real Caroline searching even now for her baby? For surely a mother would come searching—unless she couldn’t …

  They had reached the school yard now and heard the shouts of their friends greeting them. Martha raised her arm in a cheerful wave, but Ida Kate could barely smile.

  The thought thudded in her head: What has become of the real Caroline?

  The morning passed in a march of the usual subjects—geography, arithmetic, recitation, and spelling—but Ida Kate couldn’t concentrate. Miss Butler frowned at her when she misspelled the word outrageous during the spelling bee. At lunchtime Ida Kate and Martha carried their lunch pails to their favorite bench behind the school building. Mabel, Maisie, and Clara all came running to sit with them, full of questions about Ida Kate’s mail-order bride. But Ida Kate didn’t want to talk about Caroline with the other girls. She gave Martha a kick on the ankle to warn her to keep her mouth shut.

  Martha kicked her back, and Ida Kate winced.

  “When is the wedding?” asked Mabel. “May we all come?”

  “Ooh! I love weddings!” squealed Clara. “Will you be her bridesmaid?”

  But there would be no wedding, Ida Kate realized sadly. Papa must not marry somebody who was only posing as Caroline Fairchild.

  The afternoon of lessons dragged on, until finally Ida Kate and Martha were on their way home. Martha’s twin brothers raced ahead, but the girls walked slowly. Ida Kate watched the prairie grasses blowing in the wind.

  “What I can’t understand,” Martha began, “is why someone would bother pretending to be someone else.”

  “I’m figuring she must want something,” Ida Kate replied. “Something she thinks Papa can give her.”

  “Marriage? A farm on the prairie? What?” asked Martha.

  “I think she wants his fortune.”

  “Does he have a fortune?” gasped Martha.

  “No—but maybe the impostor thinks he does. When Caroline Fairchild wrote that she’d been a wealthy southern girl until the War Between the States, Papa replied that he, too, had been brought up in luxury—until he gave it all up to follow his dream of working the land. Papa probably isn’t ever going to see a penny of Grandfather’s money—and he doesn’t care.”

  “So why do you think this impostor wants to marry him for a fortune he won’t ever have?” asked Martha, her voice puzzled.

  “Maybe she believes my grandfather will change his mind. After all, he’s still alive back in Philadelphia. She might know that.”

  “Hmmm,” said Martha. “But didn’t you say she’d been living in some factory town in Massachusetts? Not Philadelphia.”

  “The real Caroline Fairchild was living in Massachusetts. Who knows where this stranger has been living!” Ida Kate stared around her at the billowing grasses. She knew that all sorts of animals made their homes beneath the prairie grasses, hidden from sight. Where was the real Caroline Fairchild hidden away right now?

  Ida Kate watched a jackrabbit leap through the rustling grasses and bound away into the distance. Was this impostor also running from something?

  It was as if Martha had read her mind. “I know! Perhaps she’s a criminal escaping from justice! She did away with the real Caroline, took the baby, and now she’s on the run. When she marries and takes the name of Deming, the law won’t be able to track her down …”

  “Maybe,” said Ida Kate slowly. She rubbed her hand over her forehead and felt the furrows of a deep frown. It all sounded so improbable that Caroline Fairchild should be anything but what she said she was: a young woman coming to Kansas to marry the man she’d promised to marry. And yet … What to do about it? How to trap an impostor? How to keep Papa from marrying the wrong woman?

  They had reached the turnoff for the Hays City track. A wagon loaded with hay was lumbering toward them, and they had to skip to the side of the road to let it pass. The driver was Jack Groninger, Maisie’s oldest brother, who tipped his hat to them and called down, “Good afternoon, ladies!”

  “Good afternoon,” Ida Kate said politely, but Martha sang out the little rhyme that children always called when they saw a hay wagon:

  “Load of hay, load of hay!

  Make a wish and turn away!”

  Laughing, Martha turned her back on Jack until the wagon had passed.

  “What did you wish?” asked Ida Kate. She had forgotten to make a wish. And anyway, what would she wish for? That the impostor would turn out to be Caroline after all? That Ida Kate would wake up and find this was all a dream and the mail-order bride hadn’t even arrived at the depot yet? That—somehow—Mama hadn’t died during that blizzard, and so there had never been any thought of a new bride?

  “I wished we would solve the riddle of Caroline Fairchild this very day,” said Martha. “And what did you wish?”

  “I didn’t wish anything,” Ida Kate admitted. She resumed walking along with Martha at her side. “But I wish I had. I would wish most of all that Papa won’t get hurt. It’s so wonderful seeing him happy again.”

  “Well, let’s make my wish come true, and then maybe yours can come true.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Ida Kate.

  “I mean let me come home with you now,” Martha begged. “We can start by searching her belongings …”

  Snooping … the way the impostor was already snooping around their house. It’s fighting fire with fire! Ida Kate decided. Snooping wasn’t snooping if it was for a good cause. Her anger, slow to start, was fanning out now like a prairie brushfire. How dare someone come into Ida Kate and Papa’s home and pretend to be someone else!

  Martha’s eyes were sparkling the way they always did when she was playing a game and hoped to win. But fingers of fear fluttered up Ida Kate’s spine despite her surge of rig
hteous anger, for she knew this was no game.

  This was really happening, and it was happening to Ida Kate and Papa. The woman in their house was a liar and a stranger—somebody they did not really know at all. Somebody who would not want to be unmasked.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE BATTLE FOR TRUTH

  Just over the next rise, the girls reached Martha’s sod house, and Martha ran inside for permission to walk on with Ida Kate. She would not stay long, she promised her stepmother. Please, please? She would come home by suppertime and would make up for not doing her chores by playing with baby Gloria until bedtime.

  Ida Kate listened to her friend cajole Mrs. Ruppenthal and wished she, too, might someday have the same sort of easygoing relationship with a stepmother. If only Caroline were the one … But such thoughts were useless now.

  The girls left Martha’s house holding pieces of cornbread. “For strength,” Martha said solemnly, biting into her snack. “As we go into battle!”

  “It’s not a battle, Martha,” interrupted Ida Kate. People were killed in battles.

  “Oh, yes–it’s a battle for Truth!”

  Ida Kate wished Martha were not so eager to take action. But as the girls trudged on, Ida Kate’s spirits rose. Papa had gone to war for something he believed in. Ida Kate would fight this battle, for she believed that Papa must not be duped.

  The grasses on either side of the track swished back and forth in the wind. Ida Kate could hear humming in the grass and hoped the grasshoppers weren’t back. But maybe a plague of grasshoppers would be the very thing they needed—something to scare the bride away before they had to confront her.

  The girls reached the Deming homestead and saw Papa leading the two milk cows back from the far field, where they had been grazing with the other cattle. Old Hickory was at Papa’s side but broke into a run when he saw Ida Kate. Papa waved to the girls as he reached the barnyard. “Hello there,” he called. “How was school?”

  “It was just fine, Papa,” Ida Kate called back.

  “I’m sure you’re enjoying seeing your friends again,” Papa said. The cows stamped their feet and blew out of their big, soft noses. “I was just back at the house telling Caroline that you had probably stopped at Martha’s house on your way home—but I see you’ve brought Martha to us instead. Run along now to Caroline; I’m sure there’s something good to eat. That accomplished lady has been baking again today, and there’s something bubbling in the stew pot that surely does smell delicious.” He rubbed his hands together. “Caroline will spoil us entirely, Ida Kate, I have no doubt about it.” He beamed at the girls, happiness shining in his eyes.

  Ida Kate gave Papa a quick hug. He smelled of sweat and animals, and his dark beard tickled her cheek. She thought how much she loved him, how good he was, and how she would not let some false bride hurt him.

  Help me, Mama! Show me what to do!

  “Come out to the barn when you’re through in the house,” Papa said, “and I’ll harness up Thunder and drive Martha back home while you help get supper ready.”

  “Yes, Papa,” said Ida Kate. You keep watch over Papa, too, don’t you, Mama? You won’t let anyone hurt him, will you?

  “Thank you, Mr. Deming,” said Martha. “Thunder is so strong and fast, he probably really can run me home and return to his stall before Ida Kate gets done with her chores!”

  “We’ll test him on that,” promised Papa, his black beard twitching as he smiled.

  The girls walked on toward the house with Old Hickory bounding along. “Stay outside,” Ida Kate whispered to the dog. “Good boy.”

  She took a deep breath and opened the door. There was no one standing over the stove, although the delicious smell Papa had spoken of wafted toward them from the bubbling cast-iron pot. There was no baby playing on the blanket spread near the window. The girls entered the house and shut the door quietly. They stood there listening. All was silent.

  Ida Kate had a sudden, terrible certainty that danger lurked in this silence. She tried to summon back the feeling that her mama was hovering close by—an angel with wings outstretched—but the feeling was gone.

  There was a faint mewing sound from Caroline’s bedroom. Caroline must be with the baby, Ida Kate decided, and she bravely led the way to say hello. The important thing now was to act as if everything were normal, as if there were no suspicions. Then, when the impostor was busy somewhere else, they would search through her things.

  The door to Caroline’s bedroom was ajar, so Ida Kate pushed the door open silently. Millie the kitten slept curled on the bed’s blue and white coverlet—the one carefully quilted by Ida Kate’s mother. The mirror over the dresser reflected the otherwise empty room.

  But no—not empty after all: little Hanky snored gently in the crib. He stirred as they watched him. Ida Kate stared down at him, searching for a resemblance to the woman who called herself his mother. The baby had red curls; his mother’s hair was straight and brown. But maybe the father’s hair had been red …?

  “Caroline’s not here,” whispered Ida Kate. “She’s probably in Papa’s room again, reading the letters the real Caroline wrote so that she’ll know the details of the part she’s playing!” Ida Kate’s heart thudded. Would Caroline notice that one of the letters was missing? The one Ida Kate had taken to show Martha was folded up in Ida Kate’s pinafore pocket along with the recipe.

  “Perhaps she’s just gone out to the privy,” Martha said. She moved to peer out the window. “No, there she is—over in the vegetable garden! We won’t have much time. Is this where she sleeps?”

  “Yes,” whispered Ida Kate. “Now we must hurry. You guard the door, and I’ll get started.” Ida Kate slid open the top dresser drawer. “While she’s out—it’s our perfect chance.”

  “Oh, Ida Kate …” Martha, usually so brave, looked nervous. But she walked over and carefully closed the bedroom door till only a crack remained through which she could peer out.

  Ida Kate could feel her heartbeat now, rhythmically thumping in her chest. She knew she would have to search fast. It would be a great help to know what I was searching for, she thought, then took a deep breath and set to work.

  She lifted out the folded garments and checked inside the layers of clothing and in the corners of the drawers. She found nothing unusual. She quickly explored the pockets of Caroline’s three dresses and woolen coat hanging on the pegs along the wall. Nothing there, either.

  Ida Kate hurriedly sifted through the things laid out on the dresser top: the hairbrush and comb, two tortoiseshell hair combs, a bottle of rose water, a pair of sharp sewing scissors, a small, heart-shaped china dish with a lid—only pins and a slender brass key inside—and a toothbrush standing in a glass next to a tin of tooth powder. Nothing more.

  Out the window now there was no sign of Caroline. What if Caroline were coming in? What excuse could Ida Kate make for being in here? Perhaps she could say she was looking for a book she’d left behind when she’d moved to the storeroom? Anxiety made Ida Kate feel shaky, but she pressed on with her search.

  She crossed to the large trunk standing beneath the window. She tried to lift the heavy lid, but it was locked. Of course, she thought. People who had something to hide wouldn’t just leave it out to be found! “Martha,” she whispered. “The trunk is locked.”

  “There must be a key …” Martha hissed from her post by the door.

  “And there is!” whispered Ida Kate. She ran to scoop the brass key out of the heart-shaped dish on the dresser.

  Then Hanky stirred again, and she sucked in her breath raggedly. What if Caroline heard him! Ida Kate felt faint, sure they would be caught at any second.

  Martha spoke up from her post at the door, shaking her head as Ida Kate fitted the key into the trunk. “Well, there won’t be anything important hidden in there if she’s just left the key right on the dresser …”

  And when Ida Kate opened the heavy lid of the trunk, all she found were some folded blankets smelling of cedar, some croc
heted tablecloths, and a pair of woolen gloves. She searched quickly through the folds of the blankets, but again found nothing.

  Martha snorted in disgust. “Neat as a pin and completely innocent. But how come I don’t believe it?”

  “I don’t believe it either,” said Ida Kate, replacing everything into the trunk. “Let’s keep looking.” There had to be something here that would prove who their visitor really was.

  Anger surged in Ida Kate again. She shouldn’t have to feel so frightened in her own house. She shouldn’t have to creep around like a criminal, furtive and anxious. She scanned the room. What had they overlooked?

  With a flash of inspiration, she knelt beside the bed and pulled up the coverlet to peer underneath. Aha!

  The reticule.

  Ida Kate pulled it out, hissing for Martha to help. Martha closed the door firmly, and then they knelt together next to the bed and unbuckled the stiff leather straps of the heavy canvas bag. Then they lifted out the contents piece by piece: A thick photograph album covered in elegant blue velvet. A large round tin, its top printed with a picture of swans on a lake and the words Kauffman’s Finest Biscuits. And last of all, a small object wrapped in green felt.

  Ida Kate unwrapped the felt bundle—and gasped. She was holding a dagger.

  It was a small, very sharp looking dagger with a gleaming silver blade and a carved wooden handle. The carving was a vine, with lacy little leaves—a strangely pleasant sort of decoration on something so lethal, she thought.

  Then she heard footsteps outside the bedroom door. She and Martha frantically shoved the reticule, album, and tin box under the bed just as the latch was lifting. Ida Kate dropped the dagger into her pinafore pocket as the door opened and Caroline stepped inside.

  “Oh!” Caroline cried in surprise.

  “We thought we heard Hanky,” Martha said loudly. “He started to fuss.”

  All three of them glanced at the crib, where Hanky, his nap disturbed now, was stretching and moving under his cotton blanket. “I didn’t hear you come in from school,” Caroline said slowly. Was Ida Kate imagining it, or did the woman sound suspicious?