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Chapter One
Wyoming Territory, Late Spring 1871
There was no station, no platform, not even a name. It was just a place on the boundless, spring-green plain where the Union Pacific train stopped to take on water and occasionally put off a passenger or two. But nobody would ever get off there unless somebody happened to be expecting him.
First to disembark were two soldiers, bound for Fort Laramie. One after the other their feet hit the dry brown hardpan, then they nearly tripped over each other as they turned, hands lifted like supplicants to the passenger car door. The young lady behind them had no patience for their assistance, but she uttered a "Thank you, gentlemen" as she hopped nimbly past them and mentally embraced the open spaces at last. Priscilla Twiss was bound for adventure.
"Dear girl, we have waited hours!"
The bellowing voice was music. Priscilla had seen his rubicund face through the window, and she'd waved, then lost sight of him as the train shuddered to a halt. He was shorter and wider than the other men gathered beside the tracks, but, as always, he let no one stand in his way. His arm shot past the gallant sergeant like a shepherd's crook, plucking his daughter from the small flock of men.
She sank into his plump, spongy embrace, forgetting herself briefly with the kind of delighted squeal that befit a girl less than half her age. But she had not seen Win in almost a year, and even though he'd been generous with his letters, no man's company pleased Priscilla more.
It was their customary hard, quick hug, too soon over. Her father patted her shoulder awkwardly as he cleared his throat. "Young soldierErikssen there will claim your luggage."
"That one is mine," she told the tall, dusty corporal who had accompanied Indian agent Charles Twiss to meet the train. The corporal watched as the freight was unloaded, furtively eyeing her all the while for her signal. "The leather-bound trunk. It was perfectly free of dents when I left Minneapolis. Be careful with it." She flashed her doting father the kind of smile any other woman her age might have turned on the hardy and handsome young Erikssen. "It was a gift from Aunt Margaret."
The slighted soldier loaded the trunk into Twiss's buckboard, then stood ready for a second notice.
"You managed with a single trunk?" Charles tugged at the front of his vest, adjusting it over his paunchy midsection. "Your mother would have brought half a dozen, at least."
"For a summer?" Priscilla tucked her hand in the crook of her father's elbow. Bits of information about her mother were always fondly squirreled away in her head in the hope that someday she might put the pieces together and have a whole person to remember. "Ah, but then would my mother have agreed to fill your list of special requests? Your cigars, your tin of sweets, your-"
Charles Twiss's aging eyes suddenly brightened boyishly. "You found the French mints?"
"And the books you wanted, along with a few other surprises." She squeezed her father's arm and patted the sleeve of his black frock coat. "Two new novels, Father. One written by a woman."
"That should provide some entertainment out here in the desert. I hope you had room for some clothes."
"Of course." She pointed to a box that had been unloaded from the train and glanced at the corporal, whose face expressed his readiness to do her bidding. "Yes, that crate. That's the goodie box. Thank you."
Clothes were not so important. What was important was that after much pleading her father had given his permission for her to spend the summer with him, that she had finally arrived, that she had brought some of his favorite amenities, and that now they would have time to talk over every curiosity that entered her mind, as they had since she was a child. Elated, Priscilla squeezed again, reassuring herself as she assured him, "I have all I need in my trunk and room to spare for the things I collect while I'm here."
Charles laughed merrily. "And what would you propose to collect out here, dear girl? Sod?"
"Perhaps. I might press some wildflowers, among other things."
"Flowers are among the things you'll sorely miss. And trees."
"Then I must discover what grows in their place."
"Thistles and cockleburrs."
"I can't believe that, Father." She turned her back on the puffing train and stretched her arm toward the distant meeting of the yellow-green hills and blue horizon. "And I can hardly believe I'm actually here. I've been watching through the window mile after mile, and I've seen that it's true. That sky goes on forever."
"So do the snakes. Rattlesnakes. Laid end to end, I expect they would reach the moon," he declared as he signaled the corporal to stand by.
"You won't discourage me, so don't bother to try. Had you denied your permission, I would have come anyway this time. 'Go where no one else will go and do what no one else will do.' That's my new motto."
"Of course, we both know it's hardly original," Twiss said absently as he glanced at the last piece of cargo that had been unloaded. "The founder of that female seminary you've set your sights on said it first."
"Mary Lyon, yes. One more year at Saint Catherine's, and then I intend to make my application. That box isn't mine," she added. "Your article in the North American Review made no mention of snakes or thistles."
"No, but my next one will. I must make it perfectly clear that this land is inhospitable. The hordes of immi grants with their plows and prospectors with their pickaxes .. ."
