The Prettiest Girl in the Land (The Traherns #3) Read online

  THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN THE LAND

  by Nancy Radke

  Table of Contents

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  1

  The fiddle music zinged its song up my spine, an insistent call to dance. I scooted deeper into the shadows, making sure some mountain lad didn’t see me and pull me into the noisy fray. We’uns know how to have a good time, whether it be a barn raisin’, a Bible meeting, or in this case, a wedding. I knew how to dance, but my heart wasn’t into it.

  They were shaking the barn roof, a’stompin and a’dancin all get out, with my brother Jonas Trahern and my younger sister, Mary Elizabeth, being in the middle of it.

  I watched Mary, a smile lighting her face, being spun around the circle of men. Most of them had courted her, trying to catch the most popular gal in this neck of the Tennessee woods.

  Well, my brother had finally gotten her married off. And to a Yankee, of all things. Charles, a ship captain, whom Jonas had business with. He come through, set eyes on Mary, spoke some sort of witchery to her, and she up and gave him her hand.

  She had always been the prettier sister, and able to talk a bird out of a tree. I was the plain sister, and overly shy around boys my age. I knew it was my fault, because now and then some lad would try sparkin me, but I didn’t know what to say to ‘em and would turn them away.

  “Ruth?” It was Jonas standing there, his face all crinkled up. “There’s lots of fellers here, more than gals. They need you to join the dancin.”

  Jonas had stayed home with us girls while the rest of our brothers taken’ off over the years. Now Jonas only had me to marry off, then he could go into the world himself.

  I felt sorry for him. He’d be stuck here with me the rest of his life.

  But the loud, boisterous, drunken group of boys had no appeal to me, who loved the quiet of the woods, and I shrunk away. “Please, Jonas, don’t ask me.”

  He shook his head and rejoined the wedding party. I saw Mary leave her new husband and come my way.

  “Come on, Ruth. People want you. I want you. I’ll be leaving in a bit, and you’re all the sister I got. They’re a’goin to start the toasts.”

  She took my hand and pulled me into the more crowded area of the barn.

  They toasted the couple and I smiled and wished them well, feeling the emptiness of her going already. She called to me to help her change, which I did.

  We walked up to the house together and I helped her take off her frillery and pack it away. She stood there admiring her traveling dress, which had come from Paris, a gift from Charles. Then she turned to me and hugged me tight, like she warn’t going to leave after all.

  “Ruth,” she said, “you can come visit me, later on, if’n you want to. Charles says there are plenty of extry rooms in our house. You’re welcome to come and stay for a bit. Our family would be your family.”

  I just nodded. I wanted a man and a family of my own. I had my own dreams. I just didn’t know how to open my mouth and make them happen.

  “Thanks, Mary.”

  “You know, I need to tell you one thing before I go. While we were growing up, I gave you a rough time, when you made me do things I didn’t want to do. It took me a long time before I realized how hard it was on you, with Ma gone, to have to take her place in our house. Cooking and a’cleanin and helping Trey and Harrison take care of the other boys until they became men. They helped each other, doing Pa’s work, but I would run off and play, while you couldn’t. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. You brought sunshine into our lives. Your happiness made everyone happy. Including me.”

  “I saw my suitors as an excuse to leave you with the work.”

  “But look at the fine husband you ended up with.”

  “Ruth, you’re a wonderful person, and there’s going to be men coming here to see you. You have a tender heart. Don’t settle for second best. Promise me.”

  “I don’t think I would.”

  “You undervalue yourself.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  Charles said so. He said you were the most worthy woman he’d ever met. I’d be jealous of you, except he fell in love with me.”

  “You, jealous of me?”

  “Yes. You have the respect of the entire settlement. It took Charles to open my eyes. I don’t think you realize it. That’s why I don’t want you to settle for just any ole man who asks you to marry him. He’s got to be someone special. Like my Charles.”

  “Well, I never.”

  “I’m a’goin to miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too, Mary.”

  “Promise me. Only the best.”

  “I promise.” I said it, but I didn’t believe her. I’d be lucky if old man Thorn proposed to me. He had seven kids, chewed tobacco and could never hit his spittoon,

  That was one thing many mountain men—and some of the women—did that really jerked a knot in my tail. I couldn’t take the spittin. Jonas smoked a pipe and I could stand the smell of pipe smoke, but spittin was downright unclean looking. It stained everything.

  Before Pa passed, he spit, and I could never get the rugs to look clean. I’d scrub them and beat them and the stain stayed, mocking me.

  To me, a chewin, spittin man was lower than the low. I decided then and there that I warn’t a’goin to settle for no man who spit. If’n he couldn’t keep from doing that, I didn’t need him.

  So I said to Mary, “I promise.”

  She was openhearted, the goodness of our family. She made everyone welcome, and now I was losing her.

  We returned to the barn and her new husband. Their marriage had been fast. Onct she declared she chose him, they tied the knot. I know I wasn’t the only one in shock. Those boys had been fighting over her for as long as I could remember.

  Then in a flurry of well wishings, the new couple was gone.

  I moved to the back of the room and sat on a bundle of hay next to three women who were twattling about their neighbors. I ignored them and thought about my brother Jonas. He was puttin’ off marryin’ Josephine, the gal two hollers over from us, and that warn’t right. No one should have to wait for me. But I warn’t no gold key on a ribbon, to be won at the fair. Jonas would probably have to see what he could get in trade.

  “Ruth?”

  I looked up. It were the preacher man, the one who had married off my sister. He rode the circuit on a small spotted pony, staying at different homes along the way. We put him up many times, and I’d fed him and even helped him by listening to him practice his sermons.

  He was so old, I didn’t think he’d need practicin, but he said you needed to work out a speech before making it, lest you opened your mouth and no words came out.

  He was a friend, and I’d never had no trouble talking to him. He also knew his Bible inside out and backwards and when he spoke of Bible folks, he spoke of them as good friends.

  “Remember Rachel and Leah?”

  “Yes. The sisters. The plain one and the pretty one.”

  “You make too much of the fact that Mary is pretty. You are a good-looking woman yourself, it’s just that you always compare yourself to her. Now that’s she’s gone, I want you to promise me something.”

  Another promise? “What, Preacher Rowe?”

  “I want you to live up to your name, and go out into a foreign land and look for your Boaz.”

  “Foreign?”

  “Just get out of these mountains and look around.”

  “I don’t know...”

  “I believe that for every Ruth, there is a Boaz. For every good woman, God has a mate. You are a good woman. You just need to go
forth and let God lead you to your Boaz.”

  “How?”

  “Pray for guidance, and follow where He leads.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Very sure. Let me know when the wedding is, I’d love to do it for you.”

  He smiled and squeezed my hand, then left me thinking there.

  I knew he was happily married. Did he consider himself to be the Boaz to his wife?

  Where could I go and how would I feel like it was the right thing to do? I’d never prayed for God to guide me. How would He show me what He wanted me to do? It were a puzzlement.

  I prayed, “Lord, show me where my Boaz is.” It was the first time I prayed that little prayer, but not the last.

  That next day, the preacher held a gospel meeting. Most of my kin were still in the settlement, so they joined the others who lived in that area for four hours of preaching and three hours of baptizing.

  We were all making a day of it when my cousin, Luke, brought a tall man over to see me.

  “Ruth, remember Gage Courtney? One of Abigail’s sons? He’s looking for her.”

  “Hello, Mr. Courtney. I remember you.” Of course I remembered him. He was so handsome he’d made all the girls swoon. He was a mite older than many of them, but that didn’t matter in the hill country.

  “Hello, Ma’am. Call me Gage, please.”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, searching this part of the country, Mr. Courtney. Your ma done headed out to California. With your pa.”

  “Pa? He’s alive?”

  “Tweren’t his haunt I saw. He was a’standin there as straight and tall as those trees he kept talkin about. Left their cow and pigs with the Higgins family and the goose with me. Have you ever been to California?”

  “No. Guess I’m going there next. I never believed anyone could get Ma to leave here. Y’all can stay in these mountains, if you please, but I’m a’tellin you, there’s a big country out there, full of wonders, if’n a body has the courage to take a looksee.”

  “Where all you been?” I asked. So he commenced telling me, about the canyons of the Colorado and the Great American Desert, of the Indian Territory and the Canada Rockies. “There’s talk of building the railroad from one ocean to the other. I don’t know if it would follow the Butterfield trail or not. They have to get across the Rocky Mountains at some point. There’s places that would be too steep for a train.”

  “Someday,” I said, “I’d like to see some of these things you speak about. They don’t sound real.”

  “If you wait for someday, you’ll never see them,” Gage said.

  “But how would I go, if Jonas refuses to? He’s taken’ over the farm. I expect him to take a wife soon.”

  “Go without him.”

  “A young woman, traveling alone? It’s not proper.”

  “Did you know Mally Buchanan?”

  “No. Just her name.”

  “Well, let me tell you that she left these hills with a gun and her wits, and ended up marrying as fine a man as you’ll chance to meet. Your brother.”

  “Which one?”

  “Trey.”

  “Trey is married?”

  “Yep. Living in Washington territory. Place called Walla Walla.”

  “We all figured Trey would be the last to get married. She must’ve been a special girl.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Nothin special ‘bout me.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Nobody in particular. Everybody. I’m just Ruth.”

  “Then prove them wrong, ‘just Ruth.’”

  “I’m not brave enough.”

  “Aren’t you the gal who took a rifle and held off wolves from a newborn foal till her pa could get to them? And you all of six years old?”

  “Well, yes. But I had to. That there foal’s mama had died, and I warn’t gonna let no wolves eat her.”

  “And was determined enough to git some schoolin, that you walked that mountain trail every winter, whether they be sun, rain, or blizzard?”

  “Yes, but...”

  “We loved to tease you, but you could out-do any of us boys in numbers.”

  “Numbers, for sure.”

  “You were mighty intimidating.”

  “I were?”

  “You don’t lack courage, Ruth. You just lack push.”

  He winked at me. Now I knew Gage was a rollin’ stone. He didn’t need any push. I also knew he had had his eye on Mary, and not on me. He was always so handsome, all the girls set their caps for him. Ceptin’ me. So I just shook my head at him and refused to read anything into what that wink meant. He was too good looking to want a plain woman like me, but I think it bothered him some when a woman refused to swoon when he came around. He laughed, grabbed me and spun me around until I was dizzy.

  “A push, Ruth. I’m a’pushin.” And he gave me a little shove that staggered me across the floor to where the Johnston boys were stompin’ their feet to the music. They spun me out and I ducked the next pair of arms and stormed out of that group like a wet hen with ruffled feathers.

  I looked back, and there was Gage, a’laughin at me. He waved and then caught the first pretty girl who walked by and started talking to her.

  “Sorry, Ruth.” Luke came up to join me and leaned back against the hitching rail. “You know Gage.”

  “Yes. But he’s been tellin’ me about those lands out west. I’d like to see some of them. What’ll I do, Luke? Jonas aint about to leave these mountains. He’s got ever thing here he wants.”

  Luke straightened up from where he was leaning on the rail. “Do you want to leave, Ruth?”

  “Yes.” I got me a Boaz to find. “I want to see what’s out there.”

  “Well, I never thought you’d be the wanderer. Mark and I are planning on taking off soon. Matthew came home and helped Pa and Ma last year. We figured we should help a little before we leave in a few months. We could see you down the river. But what would you do?”

  Gage said Mally had done it. With just her rifle and her wits. I had me a rifle. And I could take numbers and make them dance. There must be some sort of work a woman could do who could do that.

  “I can calculate numbers, Luke. In my head. I’m sure someone would need a woman who can calculate.”

  “That’s a man’s job.”

  “Says who?”

  He shrugged. “People. It wouldn’t be proper. No one would hire you.”

  I sighed. “So if’n I can’t get a husband, I can’t see any of this here land Gage was talking about?”

  “That’s about right.”

  “Hum. What does John plan to do?” Luke’s brother had come back from the war with one arm gone, cut off short by a cannonball.

  “John’s been talking to Simon Higgins. He’s been giving John tips on how to handle things. Simon lost his hand when he was five and does quite well at farming, actually. First thing he done, he sent John to the shoemaker to have some protection made for his stump. John’s been doing a lot better since. He talks like he wants to settle with the folks, at least for awhile. There’s not much farm left. Soil is thin. I told him when we’d gotten us a place, we’d send for him and the folks.”

  I went on home, thinkin’ hard, walking behind Jonas as we travelled back to our farm that clung to the steep hillside like an insect stuck in resin on an old pine tree.

  I looked around at it. Just a two-room cabin. When more children arrived, Pa built a shed where him and the boys slept at night while us girls slept inside. It took care of all of us without the house having to grow any.

  Now we were back to just two. I could see me, growing old, taking care of Jonas’ children or Mary’s. I wanted my own. I wanted my Boaz.

  The house was lifeless and dull without Mary. She had always been singing and dancing around, with boundless energy and an unconquerable spirit. The men had lined up at the door, interested only in her. With her gone, the life was gone. The mountain seemed empty.

  I took some gra
in and threw it to the goose Abigail and Jacob had left behind. Gage’s parents had brought us the goose just before they left the mountains.

  The goose ran up and commenced to eat. I stood watching her, but thinking about those there tall trees Jacob had talked about. I could stay here and take care of the goose, or I could leave the goose and head for California, same as them. I looked at her, concerned with nothing except the next grain of oats she could find.

  I could grow old, taking care of geese, and never get off this mountain. Or I could do as the preacher said, and leave. Go find my Boaz. What should I take? What should I leave? I’d seen travelers before. If you were walking, you took only what you needed.

  A gun, bullets, some money, and extra socks. A coat big and heavy enough to wrap up and sleep in. A rain hat. Gloves. Walking boots. A small flask for water. Some dried food. A knife.

  I started making a pile, adding to it, then taking away. I got out needle and thread and sewed my few coins into my underskirt at various places, where they would not be noticed or in my way.

  After three weeks of watching Jonas settle himself back into Pa’s old rocker every evening, cut himself some terbaccy and spit past the corner post, just like Pa had done, I packed a few clothes into a bag, picked up my rifle, put a hat on my head and headed out. I could wait until Jonas took a wife, but right now it was springtime and the best time to travel. Mark wouldn’t be ready to leave for at least two months. I was itchin to go, so I up and went.

  It took all the gumption I had, but Jonas starting to chew helped me decide. As soon as my monthly time was past, I left Jonas a note on the kitchen table and some beans in a pot on the back of the stove. I picked a beautiful morning when Jonas left early and would be gone all day. Mary was eighteen and already wed. I was nineteen years old, chasing down twenty, and had no prospects.

  I waved to the goose and walked off that mountain, down the mountain trail and through the holler, down to the store where I thought Gage might be. I’d get him to walk with me out to the open lands. I got there just before nightfall.

  But Gage wasn’t there. He’d left two days after Mary’s wedding.