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Chapter One
Location: Twin Pines, Central Montana Territory
Date: 1886
“You look awful,” Annie Kent grumbled as she eyed the sad state of the lone stagecoach sitting in the early morning shade along the west side of the barn. She shook her head, knowing that there was nothing she could do about that now. Money was tight and getting tighter with every month that passed. The other stagecoach was stored in the barn, needing a new rear axle and a new set of three-inch thick leather through brace suspension straps that offered passengers a gentler rocking motion over rough ground.
She stepped inside the barn, greeted by the soft snorts and nickers from their four Percheron draft horses. “Good morning, lovelies! Ready for another day?”
She grunted a snort herself. The sun had barely peaked its dome across the eastern horizon, bathing the prairie grass of west-central Montana Territory in a soft goldish-pink glow. To the southeast, the low mountains of the Little Belt range slowly turned from a dark green to lighter, the slopes dotted with the lighter spring leaves of cottonwoods.
To the west, the Big Belt Mountains still glowed in soft pinks and purples, and beyond them rose the distant peaks of the Sawtooth Range. A chill hung in the air, as it always did in springtime, sometimes well into May, and the rainy season would soon begin. She wasn’t sure she was ready to face another day. What would it bring? Another day of disappointment due to lack of passengers, or a passel of them? She hoped for the latter but braced herself for the former.
One by one she led the horses from the barn and hitched them to the stagecoach. One of the bay geldings that took the right front lead snorted and tried to back away, lifting his head repeatedly despite her efforts to settle the thick leather game ring over his head and onto his neck.
“Shame on you, Samson, for doing this to me this morning,” she scolded. “You’ll make me late getting into town!” He tossed his head again. “Samson, if you don’t behave right now, you’re not going to get a helping of oats when we get home today.” As if he understood, he settled down.
One of the mares also gave her fits, but she kept a handle on her temper, knowing that if she grew agitated, they would also. She tried humming Amazing Grace, a peaceful hymn that the horses seemed to like. She liked it, too, and when she began to sing the words in a soft, soothing voice, the horses settled down.
She was usually on the trail into the town of Twin Pines by now, but an hour before dawn, her father had woken coughing and gasping for breath. The sound had jolted her out of a deep sleep and taken nearly a half an hour to get under control before his breathing improved. Just the memory of it prompted her to squeeze her eyes tightly shut, preventing hot tears from flowing. She tightly grabbed onto Samson’s mane, her heart pounding as she murmured. ‘And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven… Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much…’
She opened her eyes and lifted her head, turning her eyes upward toward the roof of the barn. She sighed. That could use some repairs, too. “I’ve been praying, Lord. Have you been listening? Have you heard my prayers? Have I not done my best? Please, help my Papa.”
At fifty-six years of age, Samuel Kent was nothing more than stubborn, a trait he had inadvertently passed on to her, or so others often told her. He’d fallen ill months ago and was bedridden much of the time, leaving Annie to take over the brunt of their private stagecoach business.
Finally, she got the harnesses for Samson and Delilah, her lead team fitted, the gelding on the right, the mare on the left. The second pair, another mare and gelding that she named George and Martha after George and Martha Washington, didn’t give her any trouble, perhaps understanding the threat she had given to Samson.
Despite her dour mood, she forced a smile as she finally led the horses out of the barn and backed them toward the stagecoach and finished getting them hitched up. The lead and rear pair of horses were hooked to singletree yokes with trace straps and heel chains, which in turn to the yoke and finally the tongue. If the horses cooperated, she could have the task done in about ten to fifteen minutes, twice as fast as when she had harnessed them to the stagecoach the first time under her father’s watchful eye.
This morning she was late and in a hurry, hopefully to beat those darned Lockhart’s into town. Now the bane of her existence, the Lockhart’s were a relatively new family in the area who had arrived about four months ago. Unfortunately, they also owned a short-haul stagecoach line and were her competitors. Even thinking about the Lockhart’s prompted a frown. How dare they arrive in town and attempt to take over the Kent’s business! Unfortunately, they had, and were winning.
Her father had founded the short-haul stagecoach line decades ago, running mostly through Meagher County from north to south between the Big Belt Mountains to the west and the Little Belt and Crazy Mountains to the south. Most of their business though, was localized closer to Twin Pines and neighboring towns. Sometimes, before he got sick, her father had often taken passengers as far south as Bozeman and as far east as Billings.
Her father’s stagecoach company, known simply as Kent’s, had been in increasingly close competition with the Lockhart family since they’d arrived from Chicago. Only four months! Four months to nearly obliterate her father’s business! At first, the Kent’s had managed to remain competitive with two coaches and two drivers; her father and Tilson Wade. Since her father had grown ill though, Tilson had quit and now worked for the Lockhart’s. To make things worse, the Kent’s were now a one coach operation until they could scrape up enough money for the repairs to their second coach. Then her father got sick and it had been a gradual yet alarming downward slide since.
“Surely you saw what one of Jed Lockhart’s drivers did yesterday, Samson,” she said, double-checking their straps and buckles. “One of his drivers came out and snatched one of my clients right out from under my nose!” She shook her head, eyebrows pulled low. “I’m not gonna let that happen again this morning, no siree. If they think they can run roughshod over me just because I’m a woman, they’d better think again!”
Martha offered a snort and Annie smiled, scratching the mare behind her jaw. “I knew you’d understand, Martha.”
Annie tried not to resent the fact that she spent most of her time now overseeing her father’s slowly dying stagecoach business. She pushed away the fear that her father was dying as well. She’d always helped with the stage, even as a little girl, but since he’d fallen ill six months ago, the responsibility had increasingly fallen on her shoulders. Her father urged her to just let the company go, not because he didn’t want to pass it down to her, but because he felt guilty that he could no longer help out with it, placing the entire kit-and-caboodle on her slender shoulders. She refused to sell out. He’d worked too hard all these years to have it taken away by a bunch of city-bred newcomers! Yes, they owed money to the bank and due to the competition were barely getting by, but quitting was the last thing Annie wanted. Besides, they were here first.
“Annie!”
She stood and turned around to find her father standing in the doorway of their small home, slightly hunched over and tightly clinging to the threshold. She hurried toward him. Her heart leapt into her throat as she reached his side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Papa, what are you doing out of bed?”
“I wanted to remind you to stop by and see your sister. I want to know how she’s doing.”
It’s not like she can’t come out here to visit, Annie thought angrily. She hid a grimace and nodded instead. “I was planning on it, Papa.” She shook her head and reached for her father’s arm. “Okay, come on, let’s get you back in bed. You know the doctor has told you repeatedly that you have to rest if you expect to get better.”
“Oh, what does that old saw bones know?” he grumbled, his voice hoarse from coughing.
“Obviously more than you do, Papa.”
Though it was mid-spring, the mornings were still quite crisp and cold and the cold seemed to make her father cough not only more often, but harder. She was terribly worried about him but did her best to hide it. He very much disliked even a hint of pity or mollycoddling.
This morning however, he allowed her to help him back to the bedroom that he had shared with Annie’s mother until she passed away ten years ago when Annie was fourteen years old, her little sister, Mariah, twelve. Annie had taken on much of her mother’s duties after that. Though her mother had been gone a decade, Annie still grieved her loss and missed her more than words could ever say. Her father had never been the same after she’d died.
“Easy does it,” she cautioned as she helped get her father to his bed. He grumbled the entire way. He sank down onto the edge of the bed with a heavy sigh and reached for the blankets as she helped lift his legs onto the mattress, eyeing her.
“Why hasn’t she come to visit lately?”
“How should I know?” she replied. “She’s still practically a newlywed.” She eyed her father. “I’m sure you remember what that was like.” She regretted the words the moment they left her lips, followed by a grimace on her father’s face that had nothing to do with his physical condition. She brightened her voice. “Anyway, the last time I saw her, she looked content with Tyler, and I know she absolutely loves her new house in town.”
“Hmph! Don’t you think it’s about time you got married?” he asked, leaning back into the pillows piled at the head of the bed. “After all, you’re twenty-four years old, Annie. You wait much longer and it will be too late.”
Pulling the covers over her father’s spindly legs, she frowned. “I’ve been a little busy, Papa.” She hadn’t told her father what dire straits his business was in, through no fault of her own. It was those darned Lockhart’s! The news would not help him recover whatever it was he suffered from.
“Well, what about George?” he muttered, pulling the covers to his chin. “Why doesn’t he come around anymore?” He cleared his throat, a wet, raspy sound.
Was her father’s memory going, too? Annie cringed. She’d already told her father twice in the last month that things between her and George had broken off months ago.
“I thought you and George were going to get married any day now, but you don’t even talk about him anymore.”
How could she tell her father the entire truth about George Bates? She tried for half the truth. “I told you, Papa, he wanted to move away. I didn’t. So he left.”
George Bates, nearly three years older than herself, had indeed asked for her hand in marriage a couple of months ago. Without even waiting for her reply, he’d then announced that he wanted to move to New York City. Fancying herself in love with him, though she didn’t know for sure, she wanted to accept his proposal until he’d said that part. She didn’t want to leave her ill father all alone. Nor did she want to leave her sister, no matter how much Mariah irritated her. When she’d told him that, he’d grown irritated, blatantly taken back his offer and broken things off. It should have been a relief, but the worst part of it was that he had the audacity to tell her that her burdens were too much to take on and she wasn’t worth the trouble. He’d actually said that!
She still bristled when she recalled that no matter how hard she tried to pretend that she wasn’t, she had been deeply hurt by his words. She had come to the realization since then that she’d been – and still was – desperate for someone to love her.
“Love and marriage sometimes requires sacrifices, Annie,” her father said softly.
She nodded. “I know that, Papa, but I can’t leave you. I won’t. I like my home and we have a business to run. Now you rest so you can get better!”
He patted her hand, his wrinkled and soft skin a sharp contrast to her tanned fingers.
“Be patient, my girl. God will take care of you if you just bide your time and be patient.”
She gave him a smile though her mind roiled. How many times had she prayed to God to grant her deepest, most heartfelt desire? To find a man who would love her for who she was? Would she ever find a man who could accept her as she was and not who he wanted her to be? What difference did it make if she wore boy’s clothing more often than a dress? Since she had taken more and more responsibilities of her father’s business, a dress just got in the way. Besides, boy’s clothes were much more sensible – and comfortable.
She forced a grin. “I’ll tell you what, Papa. I’ll try to be more patient if you promise to stay in bed today and just get some rest. It’s too cold outside for you to even attempt any of the chores. The cold air will bother your lungs. I’ve already done some of them and I’ll do the rest when I get home.”
Her father gazed at her, his eyes sad. His hair had long ago grown gray, within a week after her mother’s death actually, but he’d still stood tall, taking care of his stagecoach business and raising his daughters all on his own. There had been a couple of women who had their eye on him over the years, but he never looked at one of them, not in the same way that he had always looked at her mother.
“You’re working too hard,” Annie,” he said softly. “I worry about you.”
“Well don’t,” she said. She added a little white lie to that. “I enjoy working the stage and running the lines. I meet so many interesting people.” Actually, she did enjoy doing what she did, but it was to help her father, not because it was a dream of hers to own a floundering stagecoach business.
“You shouldn’t have to be doing that. You should be moving on with your own life.”
“But I am, Papa,” she insisted. “This is what I want to do, to carry on all the hard work you put into building the Kent stagecoach business from scratch!”
He frowned, his gray caterpillar eyebrows meeting at the bridge of his nose. “Until Jed Lockhart came to town and started poaching our regular customers.”
Now who had gone and told him that? Probably the ‘old sawbones’ during his last visit.
What her father said was true. Jed Lockhart was about her father’s age. The man was no-nonsense, an imposing figure with piercing gray eyes and a way of looking down his nose at people who weren’t as well-off as him.
“No matter,” Annie shrugged. “We’ve been giving them a run for his money, Papa. We still have a lot of loyal customers.”
With that, she left her father, albeit with some hesitance. While she was in town waiting for customers or driving them here or there, her father was here all alone. What if he tried to get up and forego the chamber pot she’d put in his room and stubborn as he was, to make it to the outhouse all by himself? What if he fell, or needed her and she wasn’t there? She felt torn between staying home to take care of him and trying to prevent his business from crumbling. She felt guilty because she didn’t seem to be doing well at either.
She left the house and climbed up onto the stage, the leather through braces groaning. More leather oil for the braces, she sighed. In fact, this coach could use a new set as well. It could also use a good sanding and a new coat of paint. The benches inside could use more padding as well, the curtains replaced… the list went on and on.
She headed away from the yard and toward the path that would take her to the town of Twin Pines. The town stood at the north end of a valley that seem to go on forever. The trail from her home toward town ran down along on the northeastern side of the valley and usually took about a half an hour, but in bad weather or muddied roads, could take twice as long. Winter snows were worse. She sat easily on the bench seat, her body swaying from side to side, the multiple sets of reins held expertly in her hands. Over the past months, the horses had gotten used to her touch and commands. More often than not, they were well behaved although at times, Samson could be a bit recalcitrant. She was grateful that his bit of belligerence this morning in the barn had displayed his only fit of temper so far.
By the time she reached town, businesses were already open and the streets were busy. She slowed her coach as she rolled onto the wide, main dirt street that ran east to west. She usually parked her stage near the livery stable, which wasn’t far from the tiny stage depot that serviced longer stage hauls for travelers heading through Montana and then over the mountains into Utah or Idaho.
She pulled the horses to a halt off to the western side of the street. She had just started to climb down from the stage, more than willing to walk up and down the street drumming up business, when her sister emerged from the mercantile store across the street, carrying a couple of brown paper-wrapped parcels.
“Mariah!” Annie exclaimed, a smile curving her lips. “I didn’t expect to see you up and about so early.”
Mariah turned to her with a lifted eyebrow and barely eked out a return smile of her own. Annie sighed as Mariah swept a disapproving gaze over her garb, nostrils slightly flaring as she approached.
“Honestly, Annie, do you always have to dress like a boy?” She glanced around. “It’s embarrassing.”
Annie had grown up helping her father with the stagecoach business. She enjoyed that much more than the housework and the cooking and laundry. Though her sister had several lovely qualities, such as a beautiful singing voice and she could sew much better than Annie, she was a bit on the prissy side and didn’t like to get dirty. In Annie’s opinion, Mariah had been shamelessly spoiled by her father, who didn’t insist that Mariah help with yard chores or care of the stagecoach horses, their saddle horses, or the stagecoach itself.
She tried to tell herself that she wasn’t jealous that Mariah had grown up with a much easier life and fewer responsibilities. She especially tried not to begrudge Mariah having gotten married a year ago. She did her best not to be envious of the fact that Mariah had always had something she never enjoyed – freedom and a childhood.
“It’s practical,” Annie finally replied. “You think that by now you’d be tired of complaining about it.” She tried very hard not to begrudge her sister her attitudes. She had been fortunate to fall in love with Tyler Adams, the son of the town’s bank owner. Tyler made a comfortable living and provided a nice home for Mariah. Her sister seemed to have forgotten her own humble origins and looked down on her more often than not these days. It made her sad. They used to get along as children, but when Mariah turned sixteen, the sisters grew different as night and day.
“How’s Tyler doing?” Annie asked, if for no other reason to make conversation.
“He’s doing fine,” Mariah smiled, always glad to talk about her husband. “He got a nice raise from his father.” She lifted the packages. “So I went shopping. I bought a new dress and a shoulder cape.”
“That’s nice,” Annie remarked. “Papa was asking about you this morning. He wants to know when you’re going to come over for a visit.”
“I just haven’t had time,” Mariah replied. “We’re planning a trip down to Helena with his parents this coming week.” She looked up the street toward the bank. “Well, I’d better get going. Tyler’s waiting for me at the bank. We’re heading over to his parent’s house, where we’ll have a nice supper to celebrate.”
Annie knew better than to shake her head in disappointment at her sister’s lackadaisical attitude about their father. Didn’t she realize that she’d regret her avoidance of him? She knew that Mariah was uncomfortable being around anyone who was sick, but this was her own father! Didn’t she remember the loss of their mother? Perhaps not as much as Annie had. After all, her sister had been so little… She nodded instead and tried to smile. “Give my congratulations to Tyler.” With that, her sister flounced away, stepping daintily over ruts in the main road and an occasional pile of horse manure.
“Thou shall not covet,” she whispered. “Thou shall not covet—”
She groaned when she saw her competitor’s stagecoach pull into town, a practically brand-new looking coach with shiny black paint and gold curly cue letters displaying the Lockhart logo on the side of the door, a fancy cursive L surrounded by a gold circle.
She scowled. The Lockhart’s had arrived in town just months ago, letting it be known that he, all by himself, had risen from poverty to owning one of the most profitable stagecoach lines back in Chicago and now he was opening his second line here in the territory.
Truth be known, Annie had heard that from her best friend, Beth Manderly, who was now the sole proprietress of the town bakery after her own mother had passed two years prior. She had told Annie that Jed Lockhart viewed the Kent’s business as nothing more than a nuisance. Her friend even told her that Lockhart had even made a motion like he was flicking a fly or a bug when he’d said that.
The stage pulled up almost directly in front of the mercantile and stopped. She frowned. Of all the gall! Usually, the Lockhart stages – they had three, with maybe another one on the way, or so she had heard – had lately been pulling up to the stage depot right next to Annie’s stagecoach, which annoyed her to no end. The striking difference between the coaches didn’t do her any favors when it came to customers.
She was about to head over to it, to tell the driver that he shouldn’t be parking in front of a busy store but on a side street, like she did, so as to be courteous of horse and foot traffic. Then, much to her consternation, she lost her courage when she spied the driver. That handsome devil, Will Lockhart was the oldest son of their competitor. She mightily wanted to dislike him on sight, but found that difficult. He was tall and lean, with broad shoulders, handsome features, and longish dark brown hair. Yet it was his nearly cobalt blue eyes and that stupid, winning grin he used on the ladies all the time that made her feel funny inside every time. Try as she might to turn away, or glower at him, she couldn’t help but stare at him instead.
It was as if he felt his eyes on her. He turned and looked right at her, both staring at the other. Finally, she tugged her gaze away with an aggravated sigh.
“Drat!”
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