SHADOWS OF THE MOUNTAIN

by

K.B. ROSS

Elspath Kingsley traveled from England for a summer holiday on her father's ranch in the Wyoming Territory, America. The season brought friendship and romance, but circumstances force her to stay through the severe winter. Where would she find the physical and mental strength to survive the season of tragedy?

EXCERPT

Shadow of the Mountain 

By 

K. B. Ross

Chapter One

The locomotive puffed west from Laramie City sending smoke and sparks into May’s crisp, warm air. Elspath Kingsley stretched her long legs beneath the ankle length brown traveling suit. It had been a long trip from England to New York. Now, the rumbling, swaying train was taking her to her father’s cattle ranch in southern Wyoming. She grumbled at her tall, large boned frame squeezed against her plump, snoring nanny, Anna. She could not remember life without Anna. The nanny lived with the family since Elspath was born, twenty years ago. Although Elspath thought herself mature enough to let Anna go, the nanny persuaded Elspath’s mother to let her stay until Elspath married.

Until she married. Smiling, Elspath let her mind wonder to Richard Brady. They met at one of the many social events she attended. She pictured his tall, thin frame, dark hair and captivating smile.

A sharp jolt brought her back to the present. She wrinkled her nose at the thick tobacco smoke, the strong stench of liquor mingled with the odor of perspiring people bouncing their way west.

Trying to shut out the odors, she covered her nose with her hand and leaned her auburn head against the window. Her head ached and the vibrating window did not ease the pain. She closed her eyes trying to block the noise, the disgusting smells and the ceaseless clatter, clatter of the iron wheels on the narrow bands of steel.

Elspath could scarcely remember actually looking forward to getting away from her ordinary life in England. The trip to her father’s American ranch seemed exciting especially since her mother forbid her to go to the wild frontier. Her head bumped on the window. The excitement had splashed away as the ship crossed the ocean. Her expectation of an adventure into America’s Wyoming bumped away on the silver tracks leading west.

“Just for the summer,” she breathed. “Father said I’d stay only for the summer.”

“Oh, Father,” she remembered saying. “I’ll stay with you always.”

“No, no. Your life is in England,” her father had told her. “You’re to marry soon.”

To marry soon. Elspath watched the passing countryside, but her mind’s eye saw green meadows and Richard Brady jumping his horse over leafy hedges to impress her. The man’s superior horsemanship caused Elspath to gasp with excitement. She was not sure she loved Richard. Perhaps his being so acceptable to her mother caused her to think she did. At this moment, she wished he were holding her in his arms, that she were home in England.

Her head knocking against the window brought her back to the present. “Father was right,” she sighed softly. “I belong in England. I don’t think I’ll make it through the summer.” She tried to hide her disappointment, but a deep sigh escaped from her throat.

She watched Annas’s head jostle from side to side and land against Elspath’s shoulder. Elspath smiled, comforted by her nanny’s presence.

Anna insisted on coming. “I’m sure America’s no place for a lady,” she had said. “Your mother would never have let you go there.” Elspath always loved her bold attitude toward life.

Anna’s plump body squeezed Elspath closer to the window. The nanny smiled at something she was dreaming. Her graying blond hair, secured in a bun, was loosening with the movement of the train. She had grown up in a much less prestigious environment than Elspath. The smelly passenger car did not hinder Anna’s sleep. She had experienced this part of the world before and did not want Elspath to suffer the same experiences. In accompanying the younger woman, perhaps she could shield her from some of the roughness of this new land.

Elspath accepted the nanny’s closeness then gazed over her should at her father sleeping in the seat behind her. All she saw was the bushy white mustache beneath the Stetson hat. He had been in Wyoming most of the winter, but returned to England late in February when Elspath’s mother became ill. They had buried her beneath the oak outside the summer cottage near her beloved Forest of Dean.

She did not fully understand her father’s infatuation for this wild country. He told her it was all financial, but she knew it to be more just by looking at his beaming face as he talked about his ranch in Wyoming. She remembered her mother’s reaction to the land so far from England. Her eyes showed only disappointment and a bit of fear. Mother had accompanied him to the ranch only once, leaving Elspath with an aunt in England. Her mother never went again. She forbade her to ever go there. It was no place for a lady.

Elspath turned her head and looked out the window again. Anna was right. A bloody wasteland that’s all it is. Just a bloody wasteland.

“It will get better. I’m sure it will,” Elspath had assured Anna as they stretched their legs at Laramie City. But it hadn’t. It was the same. Miles of grassland stretching to the horizon like a broad tweed carpet dotted with buttercups and crocus peeking from behind miles of sagebrush.

Her father didn’t call it a wasteland. “Like a pot of gold,” he had said. “It can feed more cattle than all of England.” He was proud of the ranch he had developed in 1880 and now in 1886 he had a cattle kingdom.

Elspath knew nothing about cattle. Nor did she care. Her world revolved around society parties and social outings. She had even attended functions where royalty was present.

But she was tired of her life. Before she married Richard, she wanted to get away. Uncle George and Aunt Caroline said she should get out of the house. After the death of her mother, she spent too much time by herself. Uncle George invited her to go with them and hunt elephants in Africa, but Elspath remembered Aunt Caroline grumbling about all the insects. Elspath frowned and shivered at the thought.

Paris. That is where she wanted to go. Italy or even, perhaps, Spain. Aunt Caroline rejected these suggestions. These places could be visited after her marriage. For, of course, she needed a male escort to visit such locations. Elspath had only two choices, Africa or the wild country in America.

After her father’s constant insistence, she decided to travel with him. In so doing, Aunt Caroline demanded Anna go with them. After all, one could not expect an unattached young woman to travel without a female companion. Elspath complied after Anna, herself, insisted on accompanying her. Perhaps America’s Wyoming Territory would not be infested with insects. And, maybe, the wild land would add a bit of adventure to her placid life.

Nothing about this flattened countryside impressed her as yet. When did the adventure begin? Where was the excitement? This smelly, noisy train held neither. She almost wished she had accepted Uncle George’s offer, except for the bugs.

Elspath’s mother would not have wanted her to go either place. Mother had visited both and concluded neither was a fit place for her daughter.

But Elspath was not her mother and she wanted one exciting adventure before settling into what seemed, at the moment, the monotonous life of a social wife.

She watched the avocado tinted grass, but it did not seem green to one so new from England. The west wind, king now that winter was over, demanded the tall grass bow before it. In her mind, the blowing grass resembled the relentless waves on the shore of her homeland. Rising, falling, up and down. She fought back tears, but they slipped from her hazel eyes and sped down her porcelain cheeks. Searching for a handkerchief, she noticed one being handed to her.

“Can I help?” a deep, gentle voice asked.

Elspath took the handkerchief without looking up and wiped the dampness from her face. She hated to cry. Her nose always resembled a ripe cherry.

The handkerchief was not the cleanest she had seen. Nor was it white, but blue. It smelled of leather and musk and something else. She smelled the odor somewhere in England. Sniffing the blue cloth again, her eyebrows narrowed as she tried to remember.

Memories sped through her mind as she concentrated. No, it was no social gathering. The trips to the country? Yes. Mother loved taking trips to the country. Elspath remembered rain was falling and their carriage wheels slipped off the road. A dirty little man herding sheep helped get the carriage back onto the path. Elspath sniffed the cloth again. Sheep. The smell was sheep. She snapped the handkerchief from her face and cautiously glanced at its owner. She expected to see a dirty little man with a whiskered face. Her glance lengthened into an interested stare and she blinked her hazel eyes disbelieving what she saw standing in the swaying isle. This man held no resemblance to the dirty little fellow she had seen that rainy day in England.

The man was holding onto the seat in front of Anna to steady himself against the train’s swaying. He was tall with a leanness that was tempered by the harshness of the land. His movements were liquid like a cat’s. Self confidence leaped from his very being.

Elspath gazed into his clear blue eyes and felt a sudden chill. The man was looking intently at her waiting for some kind of response.

“Thank you,” she finally said. “I’ll be fine. I only felt a bit lost, I imagine.”

A broad smile flashed across his face and a chuckle escaped from his throat.

Elspath’s eyebrows narrowed and her face filled with question.

“I’m sorry,” the man apologized. “Your British accent. Just surprised me.”

Elspath wanted to take offense, but the honesty in his blue eyes only made her smile. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve just come from England.”

“Of course,” he sympathized. “It’s understandable you’d be upset.”

She dabbed the handkerchief at her eyes again. He was making her feel very uncomfortable. All her social training was of no value with such a man. He was not pretentious. Actually, he was somewhat like Uncle George. He is just what he is. She accepted that from this man who smelled of sheep and appreciated it.

“Then this is your first trip west?” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Then with a swift he motion, swept the mouse colored hat from his head. Wiping his forehead on his sleeve, he chuckled. “Warm in here.”

Elspath nodded then brushed at her hair with her hand. “Yes, my first time west.” She smiled uncomfortably.

His bright eyes looked tenderly into hers. “You gonna be all right now?”

Elspath nodded again, her gaze shifting from his face to the gun on his narrow hips nestled easily in the black holster. She had read about cowboys with guns in books in her father’s library. They were tough men of America’s Wild West. Then this was one of them. A smile pulled at her lips and a soft chuckle escaped from her throat. This was much better than elephants. Her gaze swept from his worn boots to the pistol then back to the corn colored hair.

“Something funny?” he asked, annoyed by her laugh.

“It’s just–” She wiped the smile away with the handkerchief. “I’d read about—” She motioned at his attire. “I didn’t really expect to see a cowboy.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. The laugh wasn’t making fun, but surprise.”

The man laughed out loud. “Guess we were both surprised.” He swept the mouse colored hat back onto his head. “Welcome to Wyoming Territory.”

“Thank you again,” she said, giving the handkerchief a little shake. “I’ll have it laundered and returned.”

His smile set of tiny sparkles in his eyes. “That’s all right.” He took the handkerchief from her. “I’m kinda hard to find.” He lifted the hat and Elspath saw the thick corn colored hair fall across his forehead as he returned to his seat across the aisle from the sleeping Anna. The conversation had not bothered her rest, for the noise of the clattering train concealed their voices. Elspath sat back in the seat. She did not dare lean forward for fear the man would think she was looking at him. She shook her head at the idea of her being with this man who smelled of sheep. Richard was waiting for her in England. When the summer was over she would marry him. She fought the sigh rising in her throat at the thought of a smelly handkerchief, corn colored hair and a mouse colored hat.

Leaning her head on the back of the seat, she closed her eyes. Anna’s head plopped against Elspath’s shoulder again and it felt warm and comforting to the younger woman. Her mind drifted back to rainy evenings, foggy mornings, dancing, feasts and charming fellows dressed in their very best. A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth as her mind wandered home.

The sun dropped behind the big blue mountain to the south and west. The clouds turned scarlet with shafts of light like golden arrows shot from a mighty bow. Elspath did not notice, for she had closed her eyes to this land. Nor did she see the rabbit darting from sagebrush to sagebrush followed closely by a fleet footed coyote. A large herd of antelope stopped their grazing as the train rumbled past. They had grown accustomed to the clatter of the iron wheels on the never ending bands of steel.

Someone at the party in Elspath’s dream was shouting and shaking her shoulder. She tried to shut out the noise and disturbance, but both persisted. Opening her eyes, she realized her father was shaking her and the shouting conductor was walking up and down the isle.

“Carbon, next stop. Carbon, next stop.”

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