Looking Back On a Good Life: Four Historical Romance Novellas

By Doreen Milstead

Emma Travels To Her Arizona Rancher, Malory, By Oxcart - A woman from an upper class English family decides to become a mail order bride to an Arizona rancher, but is shocked when she realizes the potentially harsh life ahead on the days-long journey to his remote ranch by oxcart; and it’s a lonely one – accompanied by his silent Native American ranch hand PLUS Eveline The Poor & Her Rancher James - An English woman fallen on hard times decides to travel to America and her soon to be husband, but along the way there are many hazards including a life-changing train journey PLUS For The Rest Of Their Lives - A biracial woman from Florida agrees to be a mail order bride to a Colorado rancher and is thrilled when he makes the long journey down south to pick her up PLUS On The Train To Their Future – A Texas cattle rancher decides to take a trip on the railroad, something he likes to do in order to relax occasionally, and meets a woman who becomes his travelling companion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387327553

Book preview

Looking Back On a Good Life: Four Historical Romance Novellas

Looking Back on a Good Life: Four Historical Romance Novellas

By

Doreen Milstead

Copyright 2017 Susan Hart

Emma Travels To Her Arizona Rancher, Malory, By Oxcart

Synopsis: Emma Travels To Her Arizona Rancher, Malory, By Oxcart - A woman from an upper class English family decides to become a mail order bride to an Arizona rancher, but is shocked when she realizes the potentially harsh life ahead on the days-long journey to his remote ranch by oxcart; and it’s a lonely one – accompanied by his silent Native American ranch hand.

Emma stood, smoothed down her skirts and made her way up the short incline, kicking dust as she went. At the top she turned and looked back over the valley and muttered, This is what Hell looks like. She nodded to herself, as if she might have expected it. The valley responded with hard, empty silence.

The canvas cover of the wagon stood white against a featureless, blue sky and the Indian sat motionless beneath his black hat. At the back of the wagon an arm grabbed her elbow and yanked her up.

Emma resumed her place on the bench, looking out the rear to avoid the gaze of the man opposite. The Indian called out and the oxen lumbered forward. The wheels turned over the stony surface, the dust rose and the rocking began. The man and woman involuntarily shook their heads at one another.

How do you like our bathroom facilities? he asked.

He said it flatly, with neither humor nor malice. It occurred to Emma that spite would have been preferable, for spite would come and go.

It's nice to be so close to nature, she replied without looking at him.

My advice is to keep a distance between you and the scorpions.

I don't believe they paid me any attention.

You would know it if they did.

They continued along the hard bedrock, the landscape bare and unrelenting, as if scorched clean of all affections other than occasional, scraggly weeds. They were going back to somewhere before civilization, before even grass and trees. Back to a place of primordial rock, with nothing more than petrified trees and whitened bones, the serpent and the lizard.

He loosened the lid from the barrel, squeezed out the towel and handed it to her. He removed his neckerchief, dunked it and put it back on.

She wiped the grit from her arms and face and said, The water is not as cool as it was.

He grunted to indicate the observation did not merit a reply.

They had been in the wagon since the early morning. Two days before he had met her at the station in Albuquerque. Said his name was Malory and took her to a hotel. He had business in town and she didn't see him until the next day. They married, she posted a letter to her solicitor and they continued to Flagstaff. There they disembarked and the Indian loaded her possessions on to the wagon. They wound their way out of the small shantytown and back down towards the hot, dry plain.

How far to the farm? she had asked.

Two days, he said and pulled his hat down over his eyes. It was only then she cried, bitter, angry tears.

Around noon they pulled into a dry gully. The Indian watered the oxen and let them find shade as best they could. He cooked beans and potatoes then crawled under the wagon to sleep.

Emma scraped the beans from her tin plate then washed it. Outside the rocks in the gully looked almost white in the noonday sun. Malory washed his plate also then fell asleep sitting upright, adopting the position he had spent almost all of their time together. Then there was nothing but the sound of the Indian snoring. She cleared a space on the bench for her shoulder and willed herself to sleep.

She thought of Larchwood and how it would look now in October. The morning mist low on the lawn and clinging to the oaks and elders. The rooks cawing in the highest branches and Henry sweeping up the wet leaves. She would take the chestnut bay out along the lanes, up through the wood and out onto the top fields, chasing the game birds out from the hedgerows.

She would feel the autumnal air upon her face ‘til both she and the horse were warm. She would pause to take in the view, down the newly furrowed fields and out across the downs. The village curled snugly against the foot of the hill, like a cat at her feet; the church tower poking above the yew trees.

She would go brambling, filling the saddles bags and then going down the ride back to the front of the house. There she would see him, coming back from his morning walk, head lowered, the familiar gait, as he conducted some obscure interior monologue. So engrossed would he be that she would be almost upon him before he turned and smiled. She would dismount and walk along with him and he would inquire after her ride and quiz her gently about all she could remember and say, yes, that was most in keeping with the season. She would tell him about the brambles, his eyes would light up with childish delight, and he would say, ‘Excellent, then bramble pie for dinner’.

She heard the Indian calling to the oxen and bringing them back into the harness. The bench shuddered beneath her and the light pressed harshly on her eyelids, and she knew that sleep would not come and sweep her back where to she longed to be.

She lay there as the wagon juddered its way out of the gully. For an hour she pressed her head on the bench, determined that sleep should find her. Finally, she sat up. Malory, eyes closed, sat impassive as a statue. The wagon was hot. She patted her forehead with the wet cloth, which was now quite hot too. Behind, the country rolled away, turning orange in the afternoon sunlight.

Malory made a sudden gesture, as if in some exotic dream he were dismissing a servant. More likely, it occurred to Emma, he was simply swatting a fly without going to the trouble of waking up. She realized that she had been aware of him without once actually looking at him. It had not seemed at all necessary; in the same way she was well aware of the weather without needing to look up into the sun.

As soon as she saw him on the platform at Albuquerque, she knew. It was obvious that all the misfortune that had befallen her was leading her down, inevitably to this man, who now, absurdly, was her husband.

Even now, sitting three feet away from him, she felt unable to look at him directly. She had read once that those poor unfortunate souls who choose to end their days in the path of a locomotive, always turned away before the impact.

This is how she felt now.

Looking out of the wagon, she tried to reconstruct him, She saw first the red spotted neckerchief, incongruous against the plain work shirt and trousers and his dusty hat. His hands bore the scars of work and his skin was stained by the elements. Around his eyes the skin was like creased old leather and the eyes themselves seemed to have retreated into a permanent squint. The result was he looked out at the world as if he couldn't quite believe it and had no intention of trusting it.

Emma watched the shadow of the wagon move along the land and noted, vaguely, that they were traveling south. She thought of taking the carriage out of from the house along the long, straight cinder track; a crisp, October morning, the grass white with frost, the coachman in his big coat and the two of them huddling together for warmth.

Perhaps it was Sunday and they would take the road curving down to the village, sit in the cold, stone church, and listen to the dreary sermon, desperately trying to stay awake. She thought of the relief of being back outside, waiting politely while he talked to the vicar. She thought of the coachman standing by the carriage smoking. She thought of the old gravestones, weathered and standing higgledy-piggledy in the long grass.

After some time she was aware that he was looking at her. She continued to stare out of the wagon, refusing to meet his eye. He looked at her evenly with no particular emotion. It went on like this as the shadow angled further away from the wagon and her irritation rose. It was revolting that he was waiting to make her break the silence, only so he could cruelly stamp down on whatever she tried to say.

She stared intently out of the wagon.

Finally, just as she decided she could stand it no more, he spoke.

Hungry?

She nodded, dimly wondering whether they had eaten the last of the beans.

He reached under his bench for his rifle and brought it onto his knee. He loaded a cartridge in the barrel and put another two in his shirt pocket.

Want to shoot dinner? he asked.

Certainly not, she replied.

Without stopping the wagon, he climbed out the back and began walking alongside in the late afternoon sunlight. He held the rifle over his head, stretching his back and shoulders. Revoltingly, she could hear him cracking the bones in his hands and neck.

The land to one side begin to break up and fall away in great sand-colored crags. There were small trees and spiky, pale bushes. Emma heard Malory speak to the Indian and the wagon came to a halt. She watched him step through the bushes and disappear. He walked towards the low sun where long, white clouds began to form on the horizon. She climbed down from the wagon.

To one side, the rocks rose upwards, colored red by the setting sun; to the other there was a broken incline, then the land rose again and spread out before them in an endless repetition of orange and sage. The rifle cracked once and echoed around the silent landscape and she climbed back into the wagon.

It was only when he came stooped with a large antelope slung over his shoulders that she realized she had expected him to bring back a rabbit. He pulled the end of the wagon down on its hinges and tied it to its supports so it lay horizontal, then set the body of the antelope on it. Its eyes were still wet and there was a large red hole on its neck where two flies buzzed. It occurred to Emma that amongst the scrub there was a watering hole where animals had come down to drink in the evening.

They drove away and up towards a small set of hills. Near the top the Indian pulled the wagon beneath a large rock and onto a patch of level ground. He watered and fed the animals and went searching for firewood. Malory skinned and gutted the antelope. He placed four or five cuts of meat in the skillet and hung the rest in long strands to dry. Then he wrapped the skin, bones and offal in a sack and carried it away. When he returned ten minutes later, he said, Wolves.

The Indian lit the fire and Malory made coffee. The sun set behind a bank of gray cloud then reappeared orange and large like an egg yoke sitting on the horizon. It cast long shadows that stretched across the plain towards them. It looked like the dark and pitted face of a small pox sufferer. Emma sipped the coffee, her mind blank and tired.

They cooked the cuts of meat in the pan and fried potato. The Indian had a bag of dried herbs, which Emma thought may have been thyme and rosemary. He sprinkled them between his dirty finger-ends into the pan and served the food on metal plates. The antelope tasted rich, like venison.

We forgot the wine, said Malory, and the Indian laughed.

They ate with only the sound of the crackle and spit of the fire. The night came over them and the plain turned to inky blackness below them. Above, a band of stars swirled across the sky. The Indian went to the wagon and brought back blankets. They sat watching the fire. Malory smoked. The Indian picked his teeth with a thorny twig and very soon he was asleep. Malory walked away and came back with his rifle. He let the fire burn, smoking the meat, and laid on his back with his boots on and slept. Emma wrapped herself in a blanket as best she could.

She woke with the sound of animals yowling. They were near and she could hear them snarling and moving through the undergrowth. The fire had burnt down to embers and Malory's face was red in the glow.

Coyotes, he said. Go back to sleep.

She heard the Indian moving around in the dark. It was very cold and all her body hurt. She shivered and tried to dig herself more deeply into the blankets. She heard the oxen and firewood being broken.

Its morning, she heard Malory say.