Pink Clouds
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“What do you think he’s doing?” Mary asked, looking around her. “I haven’t seen him since dinner.”
It was after eight o’clock in the evening and Mary had decided she would wait outside for him instead of going to bed. It wasn’t like him not to be back by now. He could have been arrested again. Maybe it would be better if he didn’t come back at all, she thought.
She sighed as she glanced up at the dark clouds above. It would rain tonight. The sky had looked gray from a distance but when they got closer to the ranch house there was no sign of precipitation. But that wasn’t unusual.
There were some nights when it rained during the day and then nothing at night. That would make things very uncomfortable tomorrow with his brother visiting the ranch. Tom would want to stay inside out of the rain while Tom wouldn’t care one way or another about the weather.
Mary sat down on an old log by the fence and watched the sun set behind the hills. Her mind kept returning to the man who’d kissed her. What did that mean? Did he feel something for her too? Was he attracted to her as well?
It seemed odd, but she hadn’t felt this kind of attraction toward anyone else before. No, not even toward Mr. Brown. When Tom said he wanted to hire a woman for help, Mary couldn’t say no to him.
Not only would it give her more freedom, but it also meant a chance to meet Mr. Smith, which was very appealing. Now it had become apparent why she hadn’t responded to Thomas when he made advances toward her last year.
It was because of the attraction she felt for this stranger. And what was more puzzling was the fact that Mr. Smith had taken off her clothes and put them back on her without ever touching her once. Could it be possible that he just liked women’s bodies and not their personals? If so, how much could one possibly know about a person before getting to the intimate stuff?
She sighed and looked up into the blackness of the heavens. The clouds still covered the starlit night sky but there was enough moonlight left to see the stars overhead. How long had it been since she last saw a real star? A few days ago, she and Tom rode to town after the rain stopped.
They went inside an opera house where Mary was impressed by all the beautiful costumes and scenery. Then they strolled through a nearby park to admire the city lights. After that, they walked along a canal where they listened to some musicians performing while people danced and socialized.
By the time they returned home, it was almost midnight. She’d fallen asleep in Tom’s bed and missed breakfast the following morning. It was a strange experience to live in a modern city like Chicago compared to being on a ranch. There were so many more things to see and do than working in the fields for weeks at a time.
“He’ll be here,” Tommy assured her as he pulled his hat off and scratched it under his chin. “Maybe he fell asleep in a saloon and woke up hours later.”
“That seems unlikely to me,” Mary said, watching as the clouds slowly dispersed from the moonlit heavens. “Mr. Smith is not the type to spend the night sleeping in a saloon.”
Tom laughed. “No, I don’t think he is either.”
She smiled at his remark. “What about those men who’ve been hanging around town lately? Are any of them connected with the law?”
Tom shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
His answer relieved Mary, but she couldn’t get her mind off Mr. Smith’s mysterious behavior. Why didn’t he just tell her about the other girl instead of trying to kiss her? And then there was that kiss itself; it wasn’t a friendly one, not by any means. He’d kissed her with such passion and desire. It was as though he couldn’t keep himself away from her lips.
Tom nudged her with his elbow. “You should go to sleep,” he said softly.
Mary turned and looked down at him. His face was illuminated by the moonlight shining through the window above the bed. “Don’t worry. Your father will be back soon.”
“Yes, and he has your clothes ready for tomorrow.”
She nodded then turned away. As she lay down and curled up against Tom’s chest, she thought about Mr. Smith and wondered why she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She hadn’t told Tom everything about his strange behavior in the alleyway.
The more she thought about it, the more puzzled she became. Had he really just wanted to get her alone and kiss her? Or did it have something to do with her being a detective? If that was true, it seemed odd that he’d try to get close enough to her to kiss her if he knew she was a private eye. It wasn’t as if he had a choice.
She sighed and closed her eyes, hoping that in the morning she’d find out what was going on. But she didn’t expect anything unusual. It never happened that way in her case, so what did it matter whether he was a criminal or not?
All that mattered was that Thomas hired her as his helper and allowed her to stay with the family. At least until the end of summer. Then she would return home again as promised. She’d given up on finding another job in Boston so it was time to leave.
In all likelihood, Mr. Smith wouldn’t even remember her by the time she arrived back in Boston. It was a pity, but she’d have to live with it—until she found another opportunity to prove herself.
***
The next day Mary stood outside waiting for the carriage. Her father had already driven over and waited by the side door where they climbed inside. He helped her buckle on the seat belt before they drove off and headed north toward a place called Wisconsin.
Her father glanced at her as they traveled down the dark road. “Your mother is worried sick about you.”
Mary frowned and looked down at her hands clenched in her lap.
“I know,” her father said quietly. “But it’s only for a few more weeks.”
“Do we have to go so far?” Mary asked, feeling a pang of homesickness for her old hometown. “Can’t we just take a train?”
“It’s not safe for us to ride public transportation anymore,” he said. “There are too many pickpockets and thieves lurking around these days.”
“How can anyone rob or murder someone without getting caught?”
“It happens more often than you might think,” he replied. “Some people even kill people for no reason at all.”
She looked out the window and noticed a few people walking along the sides of the narrow street. “Why do they do that?” she asked.
“A few years ago an entire family committed suicide because of some terrible tragedy. I heard their neighbors were afraid to go near their house for fear that some of the dead ones might come alive again.”
They rode on in silence after that. Mary watched as the scenery changed, from dark woodlands and rolling hills to grassy fields and farms. She was surprised how green everything still was considering the drought they’d endured. They must have gotten a lot of rain this spring.
Mary had never seen much of the country and didn’t expect to see a different climate in Wisconsin. But she was wrong. This land was almost as dry as Texas, and every day seemed hotter than the one before, with no sign of relief in sight.
It seemed as though everyone else in the world was enjoying summer while she and her parents traveled to a place that was neither warm nor pleasant. Not that they hadn’t visited other parts of the Midwest, but it made little difference if they didn’t like traveling by wagon.
There was nothing to distract them from the long, dusty roads except for the occasional small town to visit. And there was no entertainment or diversion in any of them.
By noon they finally reached the outskirts of Wisconsin, which meant they would arrive by evening. Tom had warned them earlier in the week that the trip was taking longer than expected. When they left Texas last month, Tom had planned to travel directly to St. Paul, which was only a hundred miles south.
Unfortunately, the road had been washed out by the floodwaters caused by the recent rains, forcing them to detour west and travel through Iowa to reach the capital city. Now that they were close, her father seemed anxious to get there and unload the wagon. The sooner they got the crops unloaded and sold, the better.
As they rolled along the dirt road, Mary tried to ignore the dust billowing out behind the wagons and horses. She was used to riding in such conditions, and the hot sun felt good after the cold and rainy weather in Texas.
Tom glanced at her occasionally but mostly kept quiet during their travels. After she’d finished her work for the day he usually let her rest and then offered her a meal or something to drink at suppertime. Sometimes he read her stories from a book, but most times he worked on the farm chores instead of talking to her.
After several hours, Mary glanced over at her father who was looking down at the road. She nudged him when she noticed his eyes on the ground.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
He glanced at her and shrugged. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Mary leaned closer. “Does this mean we’re nearly there?”
Her father nodded and looked back at the road ahead of them. “Yes. We should be arriving within the hour.”
At first light, the sun was bright and hot as Mary sat on the seat beside her father and stared out the window of the wagon. They had stopped to rest, and he handed her a glass of water.
“We should be at our destination now,” he told her. “It’s a place called Wisconsin.”
She gulped down the water and wiped her mouth. “That’s nice,” she said and glanced at the countryside. “Where is it?”
“Just a short drive away.” Her father paused and turned to look at her. “Are you ready?”
She nodded and swallowed nervously. “I guess so.”
The next time she opened her eyes they were driving into the city of Madison, Wisconsin. It wasn’t exactly what she expected. The landscape was more flat and open than anything else, and the area looked deserted. In Texas and New Mexico, it seemed that every mile brought new sights and people.
But in Wisconsin, there was no life, no signs of a town, and hardly a soul anywhere to be found.
“Is this Madison?” she whispered.
Her father nodded. “Yes.” He turned to face forward and drove on toward their destination. The houses that had once lined the streets were gone, either removed by the floods or knocked down by tornados. The road was also empty and abandoned, with nothing in sight to indicate there had ever been a town here.
Mary thought about asking Tom why the town was abandoned but didn’t want to interrupt his thoughts when he was lost in his work. And since she couldn’t understand him anyway, it probably wouldn’t matter. So she settled for watching everything pass by outside the wagon.
They spent the first night in an old abandoned church that was located on a hilltop overlooking the town. After supper her father gave her another reading assignment from the book he’d carried along for the trip, this one was titled The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
As her mother and sister slept upstairs, Mary listened intently to Mark Twain’s story of young Huck and escaped slave Jim and how they lived in a small shack without a roof or doors in Mississippi.
It was hard to believe she was sitting inside the church where she had attended Sunday services with her family and listened to her parents sing and pray to God. But here she was listening to a strange black man tell her about life on the river as they traveled to St. Paul.
Mary didn’t think much about religion after that night. Instead, she fell asleep while her father read on his lap.
***
The following morning Tom drove the oxen up a slight incline and parked near a barn that looked just like any other abandoned building on the prairie.
“We won’t stay long here,” Tom told her. “Just long enough to unload the wagon.”
“Unload? But isn’t this where we’ll spend the rest of our lives?”
Her father laughed quietly. “No, not really.”
Mary blinked her eyes. “How do you know?”
Her father smiled. “Because if we did, then I would have known it before now.”
Mary frowned, confused by his reply, and he shook his head. “Don’t worry. You’ll see.”
Tom jumped down from the wagon, and Mary followed and helped her father lift the supplies from the wagon and carry them into the barn. After making sure the animals were fed and watered, Mary waited inside while her father went out to check on the horses.
She heard the distant sounds of a horse snorting nearby, and she glanced up at the sky. It was still overcast, and she felt the rain coming down as soon as it started. The clouds hung low and gray around her, threatening to burst at any moment.
The first drops fell while she was in the barn, so she hurriedly put some straw on the floor and lay down, waiting for the storm to pass. She closed her eyes to listen, but all she could hear was the steady beat of the rain against the dirt-covered barn walls. She wondered how far they’d come since leaving her home and then tried to count the days in her mind.
She remembered that her family had arrived at their destination three weeks earlier. That meant they’d been traveling for four weeks straight, but there was no telling how many miles they’d covered since crossing state lines. It was impossible to keep track of the exact number of states they crossed because they rarely stopped at each border, only stopping to sleep.
And even when they did stop, the weather conditions never seemed to change or improve. They were always hot and dry, and the nights cold and wet. It must be awful, she thought, living in this miserable climate day in and day out. How can anyone endure it for very long?
When Tom returned from checking on the horses, he asked for her help carrying hay into the barn. While she worked, her father sat down on the wooden steps that led upstairs to the loft where the women slept. His backside had been sore lately, and she wondered if the pain was from sitting too long or maybe just getting older.
But she was glad Tom hadn’t stayed away for long, because she needed him now more than ever. When they finished feeding the animals, Tom climbed the ladder and entered the loft through an open trapdoor in the floor.
“I need you to stay with your mother and sister until I get back,” Tom told her. “You’re going to ride on my shoulders when I go to town.”
Mary stared blankly at him. “Why?”
Tom chuckled. “It’ll be easier for me to carry both of you at once that way.”
She bit her lower lip, thinking hard about his words, and finally nodded. He’d mentioned riding on his shoulders before, but she never imagined actually doing it. Now she understood why he wanted her to help. She also knew he had done things like this to protect his family during their travels. For example, he kept his shotgun close when driving the wagon and rode on top of his horses.
So she decided to wait for him in the loft with her mother and sister and try not to worry about Tom’s decision. It wasn’t like they could get hurt while working in the barn; besides, the barn’s roof was sturdy and well-built. No one would fall through it.
Mary was still standing on the ladder when Tom came back down. “I’m ready,” he said, and he held out his arms for Mary to climb onto his back.
Mary hesitated for a minute, wondering if he would turn her down, but when he didn’t say anything, she reached up and grabbed his thick forearms. She was taller than he was, and he bent down slightly to meet her eye level. She could see he was smiling beneath his broad forehead.
“Are you sure?” he asked again. “This might take a while, and I don’t want to tire you out.”
Mary smiled back. “I can handle it.”
He helped her step onto his shoulders and then lifted her feet off the ground so that she was hanging on to his neck with both hands. He carried her outside where the rain had already soaked everything and turned the earth red-brown.
But she was grateful for the warm wind blowing through her hair and over her face as she watched Tom walk down the dirt road to the main street, carrying her and her mother on his broad shoulders.
“Look!” Mary cried when she spotted several people walking toward them. “Do you see him?”
They all stopped and gawked at the man holding another woman over his shoulder, and a man in front walked forward to meet him.
Tom lowered Mary to the ground beside the stranger’s horse. The stranger dismounted, and they shook hands.
“I’ve seen her picture in the newspaper,” Tom said after shaking hands.
“We’re looking for someone who looks exactly like you, Mr. Larkin,” the stranger explained.
“What happened to her?” Tom asked.
“A train accident,” the stranger answered. “Her name is Margaret.”
Mary gasped. It couldn’t be! Her mother, Margaret, had been gone for two years. Why hadn’t Tom told her?
“Margaret’s alive?” Mary asked. She tried to catch her breath and steady her voice so she wouldn’t sound frightened. “Is she hurt?”
The man nodded. “Yes, she’s fine.” Then he pointed across the street. “We’re heading west. You should come along with us and meet her.”
The End