Riddle of the Prairie Bride Page 9

  “Oh, Papa, may I go with you?” begged Ida Kate. “Please, I’d love a day in town. I have to talk to you—” She broke off as Papa shook his head.

  “No, my sweet potato. I’ve got people to see and buying to do, and you’ve got school. You’ve been back only a few days, and there’s no sense missing any more than you already have.”

  A swirl of wind outside threw pebbles and dirt from the yard against the windowpanes. The gust rattled the door on its hinges.

  “Goodness mercy!” cried the impostor. “And here I thought it was spring in Kansas!”

  “It was what we call a false spring,” Papa explained. “We often get some very nice warm weather just after Easter, and it lulls everyone into thinking it’s safe to unpack the warm-weather garments and fold away all the woolens. But the false spring lasts only a week or two—then the masquerade is over and winter’s back.”

  Unlike the false spring, the false bride was still with them. “Please, Papa! Take me with you.” Ida Kate felt she couldn’t bear having to spend the afternoon alone with the impostor. When would this masquerade be over?

  “No, dear,” Papa said firmly. Again he peered out the window. “Looks like a real storm is brewing, but if I hurry, I should get to town and back before the snow comes.”

  His words made Ida Kate’s stomach clench. Ever since Mama’s death, Ida Kate had hated snow. She hated the smallest fluttering of lacy flakes just as much as she hated the huge mounding drifts. She hated early autumn flurries just as much as late spring surprise blizzards. She wished Papa would not leave, but he was struggling into his greatcoat now. He kissed her on the cheek, promising to be home as soon as he could. He bent down and touched the top of the baby’s red curly head. Then he held out one hand to the impostor.

  She placed her hand in his, and he raised it slowly to his lips. “Till we meet again, my lady,” he said with teasing gallantry, but his eyes were earnest.

  “Godspeed, my good sir,” she replied lightly. And then he was gone in a burst of frigid wind, and the door slammed shut behind him.

  Ida Kate whirled around and ran back into the darkness of the storeroom, ignoring the woman who called herself Caroline, who was urging her to come back and sit down and eat a proper breakfast.

  Ida Kate dressed quickly in her warm flannel dress and black woolen stockings. She had hoped not to need these stockings again until autumn—but the false spring was over. She tied on her pinafore, checking that her evidence was safely in the pockets. She laced her sturdy walking shoes. Her stomach was still clenched tightly, and she knew there was no way she could eat a thing under the impostor’s appraising eyes.

  There had been that quick moment of elation when Ida Kate thought the false Caroline was saying good-bye, was leaving them this very morning. Then the sinking realization that it was Papa, not Caroline, on his way to Hays City. But if the impostor could be made to leave of her own accord …

  It would spare Papa the heartache of knowing the truth.

  Ida Kate stepped out of the chilly storeroom and closed the door behind her. The false Caroline stood by the table with the frying pan. “Would you like one egg or two, dear?”

  Ida Kate took a deep breath, summoning her courage. With her eyes she measured the distance between where she stood and the door to the yard—a mere five paces. It was now or never. Never mind that this was the same woman who had brought laughter and song back into their home. Never mind, Ida Kate told herself firmly. You can’t have it both ways. It was time to take a stand.

  “I know you aren’t Caroline Fairchild!” Ida Kate’s accusation burst out like a gunshot. “You’re somebody named Lucy—”

  The woman gasped.

  “There’s no use pretending,” Ida Kate continued, outrage making her voice grow louder and colder with every word. But why were tears streaming down her face as well? “You thought to trick us, but I’ve figured you out. You’re a liar and a kidnapper!” She dashed the tears away with her hand. “And a murderess!”

  The impostor looked stunned. She set down the pan and moved toward Ida Kate, hands outstretched. Ida Kate ran to the door and wrenched it open. She backed out the door into the wind. Every pore of her body was tingling with panic, with triumph, with despair.

  “Wait! Ida Kate, you come back in here!” cried the woman who was not Caroline Fairchild.

  Ida Kate hugged her school slate to her chest. “Just pack up now and go!” she screamed at the impostor. “I don’t want you marrying Papa. I have proof! You can be sure that soon everyone will know of your crimes.”

  The impostor staggered toward Ida Kate. She pressed her hands to her face—“Oh, no, Ida Kate, no! You can’t believe … Oh, surely you don’t believe that!”—and burst into tears. Then she turned and ran through the house to her bedroom.

  Ida Kate turned and ran in the other direction. She ran as fast as she could, head down, legs pumping along the trail to school. She was angry and victorious—surely the impostor’s tears proved her guilt!

  She did not stop for Martha. Her anger propelled her on past the Ruppenthals’ farm, on past the turnoff to Hays City where her father was, even now, riding farther and farther away from her. The sky was darkening steadily, and the wind blew even colder than before. By the time Ida Kate arrived at school, wispy snowflakes began drifting across the prairie.

  The first hour of school passed slowly, and the children were distracted by the wind rattling the window-panes. No one could recall the oceans of the world. Finally Miss Butler stepped outside. She was back in seconds, announcing breathlessly that she would close school for the day. “We’ll be snowed in here, if those flakes keep piling up so fast. But if you all set off now, you’ll get home safely before it turns into a real blizzard.”

  The teacher gave Martha, the twins, and Ida Kate a ride in her wagon as far as the turnoff. The twins raced on ahead, and the girls followed. Ida Kate had to take deep breaths to keep at bay the panicky feeling that snow always caused in her. She could see all too well in her mind’s eye how Mama had looked when they’d brought her in from the snow. No one would ever know why Mama had wandered outside into the blizzard while Ida Kate and Papa were in the barn tending the animals. Perhaps her fever had made her delirious. It had been nearly an hour before Papa and Ida Kate found her by the barn, snow-flakes melting on her hot skin, her hair frosted with a lacy veil of ice. She’d grown sicker that night, and yet the doctor could not be summoned. Mama had never recovered from that illness. She was dead before the three-day blizzard was over.

  As Ida Kate walked with Martha toward the Ruppenthals’ farm, she thought she could hear Mama’s voice in her head reciting lines from their favorite Whittier poem about the snowstorm:

  Unwarmed by any sunset light

  The gray day darkened into night,

  A night made hoary with the swarm

  And whirl-dance of the blinding storm.

  The words rang in Ida Kate’s mind as if Mama had really spoken them. She felt so strange … as if something were just waiting to happen. It was the sudden snowstorm making her feel this way, Ida Kate told herself, and also the unpleasant scene that morning. She was unsettled, that was all. She heard Mama’s angel voice calling to her now: Hurry home, my sweet girl!

  Ida Kate walked faster. She took Martha’s arm as they hurried along and told her what had happened that morning.

  “You mustn’t go home,” Martha told Ida Kate. “Because with this snow, she probably hasn’t left yet. What if she’s still there—waiting for you? You could be in terrible danger. Stay with us, Ida Kate, until your father comes.”

  It was sound advice, but as Ida Kate pressed on through the falling snow, her mind replayed the scene at their house that morning, and she saw again the shocked expression on the impostor’s face; she remembered again how the woman had staggered, how she’d gasped at the accusation of murder, how she’d cried out, “Surely you don’t believe that!”

  As Ida Kate walked with Martha at her side, snow began
swirling in blinding sheets around them, and she remembered other things: The impostor’s lovely voice singing hymns or crooning lullabies to the baby. Her gentle hands crimping pie pastry, or making the perkiest hair bows from even the limpest ribbons, or altering her own pretty dress to fit Ida Kate. Her excitement over Ida Kate’s favorite kitten, Millie. How often Papa laughed now that his mail-order bride had come …

  Martha’s excited voice chattered on in Ida Kate’s ear, though the two friends could barely see each other now in the blizzard. “Remember the dagger, and the hair! Remember the lies! And how she killed that snake with a single blow!”

  Ida Kate was remembering that single blow—how quickly the impostor was there to save the baby, how she didn’t flinch from the deadly rattler but struck swiftly, keeping everyone safe.

  Ida Kate heard Mama’s voice again now as Mama had always said in the past: Know your own mind, my sweet girl. Keep your own counsel. And as she walked through the snow, Ida Kate felt a pinprick of conscience. Could it be she had let Martha’s version of things take over? It would not be the first time she had followed Martha’s lead even when her own nature cautioned her to behave differently. Mama used to chide her, in fact, for going along with Martha’s boisterous games and wild schemes.

  At the Ruppenthals’ house, Ida Kate let go of Martha’s arm. Mama’s words had strengthened her. “I’ll be all right,” she told her friend, hoping it would be true. “But I’ve got to go home.”

  “Don’t be crazy, Ida Kate! You know she’s an impostor and a killer!”

  “I know she’s an impostor,” Ida Kate agreed. “But that’s all I know for sure.” And she waved good-bye and struggled on toward home.

  Hurry home! Hurry home!

  The snow was a sheet of white, and the wind swirled the sheet around her, up and over like a heavy petticoat twisting on the clothesline. It was hard to see, but Ida Kate ran her hand along the wire of the Ruppenthals’ fence that connected to her own fence, her hand bumping up and down again whenever it passed over one of the limestone fence posts. At last she arrived home—though she could scarcely make out the house through the snow. How simple it would be, she reflected uneasily, to wander in the wrong direction, bearings lost.

  A muffled bark startled her. “Hickory!” she shouted. The dog, his shaggy hair matted with snow, crawled out from behind the woodpile where he had been sheltering. “Poor boy!”

  Outside the house, Ida Kate could hear Hanky crying even over the wind and through the thick sod walls. She lifted the latch and stepped inside, and a billow of snow followed her. She pushed the door closed with difficulty and latched it. She didn’t know what sort of greeting she could expect from the false Caroline after the morning’s scene, but she felt determined now to give her a fair chance to explain. Mama would want her to.

  “Hello …” she called out. “Caroline?” She let the shivering dog come in and hurried through the house, nearly stumbling over Millie, who twined herself around Ida Kate’s feet. “Lucy!” Ida Kate called again and again. But no one was home except Hanky, who screamed for her from the bedroom. She found him standing in his crib, desperately wailing. The whole house was chilly; the fire was out.

  Caroline wasn’t there.

  Ida Kate’s first thought as she comforted the baby was that the impostor had indeed packed her bags and left. Certainly Martha would have said that’s what happened, and good thing, too. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

  But Ida Kate was thinking more clearly now than she had been since the bride arrived, and she knew that no matter who the impostor really was, she cared about Hanky and would not have left him alone. A quick glance around the bedroom convinced Ida Kate that their visitor was still with them. Her trunk was in the corner by the window, and her dresses hung on the hooks. In the main room, her apron hung on the peg by the stove. But her coat was gone.

  Surely she wouldn’t go out in this blizzard! Ida Kate told herself. But maybe she had gone to check on the animals and couldn’t find her way back from the barn? Ida Kate bundled Hanky up in his quilt and bit back a cry of panic as she ventured out into the swirling white with him in her arms. It was madness to take a baby out into this weather—but he’d been so frightened, left on his own, it would be cruel to walk out on him. And after all, they were going only as far as the barn.

  “Don’t cry,” she told him. “It will be all right.” She wished desperately that she could believe what she was saying.

  It was now impossible to see anything at all. The wind howled in her ears, and the icy flakes stung her skin. Ida Kate shifted the baby in her arms and stooped to grab hold of the old rope Papa kept tied between the house and the barn all winter; how lucky for her that he had not taken it down yet. Several times in bad storms like this one, they had needed the rope to find their way between the house and the barn. Carefully pulling her way along the rope, Ida Kate finally arrived at the barn. She heaved open the door and slipped inside. Her father had taken Thunder and the mare, Philly; their stalls were empty. The two cows mooed at her, but she could not stop to tend them now. The pigs grunted, but she could not stop to feed them.

  Caroline was not there.

  Ida Kate’s breath felt tight in her chest. Her fear of the snowstorm was wound up inside her. She told herself what she really should do was just run back to the house, build up the fire, and sit with Hanky on her lap until Papa returned. She had wanted the impostor to leave—and the woman was gone. So Ida Kate should be glad.

  But she was not glad. She felt that the knot inside her would never unwind—she would never breathe freely again—until she found the missing bride. Again the vision of Mama after they’d found her out in the blizzard flashed in Ida Kate’s memory, and she knew she could not let Caroline—or whoever she was—stay lost in a prairie blizzard if there was any way at all to find her. Ida Kate shifted the heavy bundle of Hanky and struggled to untie the tight knot at the end of the guide rope. Then, clutching the baby, she followed the rope back to the house.

  Inside, she quickly set the baby in his crib and tossed in some of the Noah’s ark animals for him to play with. “Sorry,” she told him. “But I’ll be back soon.”

  I hope, she thought fearfully, gasping as she opened the door and the wind nearly knocked her down. She dragged the door shut behind her and picked up the rope again. Now she started walking away from the house, away from safety, pulling the rope taut as she went. She was walking in the radius of a circle, shouting out into the wind: “Caroline! Caroline! Caroline!”

  Only the roar of the wind answered her. She had to walk with her head down, but that didn’t matter—it was impossible to see anything anyway. She called for Caroline until she was hoarse, but heard no response. Then she tripped over something covered with snow.

  A body? Caroline’s frozen body?

  But no, it was only the wicker laundry basket, filled with snow-coated sheets. Caroline—Lucy—must have been out here, Ida Kate realized. Why had she left the basket?

  Walking on, Ida Kate called out again and again. Finally she heard an answering cry. She could make out a shadowy figure ahead through all the white. Caroline!

  Ida Kate reluctantly dropped the end of the rope—her line to safety—and struggled on through the wind and snow without it. She followed the cry and at last reached Caroline standing in the snow, holding fast to one of the limestone fence posts at the edge of the Demings’ property.

  “Ida Kate! Oh, I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life!” Caroline hugged her in relief.

  “I’ve been searching and searching,” Ida Kate said, and tears welled in her eyes, only to freeze on her cheeks. She had to shout to hear her own words.

  “I’m frantic about Hanky,” Caroline gasped, pressing her head against Ida Kate’s. “He’s alone—oh, Ida Kate, the poor little lamb alone all this time!”

  “I found him. He’s all right.” Ida Kate spoke right into Caroline’s ear.

  “Oh, thank the Lord. It seems I’ve been out h
ere forever.”

  The swift, swirling snow obscured everything around them, even the fence post right where they stood. Ida Kate pulled her heavy shawl tighter with fingers that felt like lead. They turned together and struggled back the way Ida Kate had come, toward the rope she’d had to drop. Ida Kate looked for her footprints, but they were obliterated already. The guide rope was also lost under the fast-falling snow.

  Over the howling wind, Caroline shouted that she had gone out to the yard to bring in the laundry that had been hanging out all night. Some of it had blown away. She’d started searching for the missing garments—and soon was lost in the blinding snow. Ida Kate could hardly hear the words over the wind, and snow crusted on her eyelids and in her mouth every time she lifted her head.

  Caroline stumbled in the snow, and Ida Kate steadied her. The woman was sobbing as she walked, gasping out her story—how she’d headed back toward the house but couldn’t see it. How she’d started walking the other way—until she realized she had gone too far. How she’d been desperate to get back to the baby. “But I just couldn’t get my bearings,” she cried. Another gust of wind threw snow in their faces.

  Ida Kate was numb. She could barely see. And what if this wasn’t the right way back to the house? It seemed they had been walking a year already. Surely they should be there by now … They pressed on as the wild giant that was this snowstorm dumped drifts all around them. She tried to warm herself by picturing a fire—a hot fire blazing in the safe haven of their little house. Her teeth were chattering now, and her feet were completely numb. But there was a warmth, too, in the place where only shortly before the knot of fear had been. A thawing, she realized, was already under way, and had been since the moment she decided to search for the mail-order bride.

  The panic was gone, too, even though the snow still swirled dangerously around them. Here she was—out in a blizzard like the one that had killed her mother, out with a woman who was not who she said she was. And yet the fear was gone. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense but that they had to plow on together in hopes of reaching the house.