Prologue

Spring, 1870

Hope Springs, Texas

It was not uncommon for a small crowd to be gathered in front of Porter’s General Store, but that was typically when folks were waiting for Amos to open the doors. However, the store had opened for business an hour before. It was not a quest for merchandise inside that had captured the attention of those outside. It was a horse.

Thomas Webber was about to join his brother, already inside the store, when he saw Sheriff Peter White dismount from a horse the likes of which Thomas didn’t recall ever seeing before.

But not just a horse. This was a steed, a beast that belonged in the pages of a heroic tale of bravery and courage and derring-do. This horse had a coat that was the color of gleaming red brick, with a mane and tail that might have been spun from humble stable straw into fairy-tale gold. Thomas had no complaints to make regarding his own horse, but compared to this magnificent creature, Grenadier was second-best.

Thomas followed the sheriff inside, tilting the brim of his hat forward to block the bright sun casting daylight gold over the street, gilding the dust and laminating the buildings with a gleaming patina. When he entered the general store, the darkness within rendered him day-blind momentarily.

“That’s a fine example of horse flesh you got there, Sheriff,” someone said, in a leading tone that invited conversation.

“Mayor Burton,” Sheriff White answered with acknowledgment rather than greeting as he went over to the shelves where cans of food were stacked. Sheriff White was a bachelor and no cook, which made the canned food inventory of the Porter General Store his primary source of nourishment.

Thomas went past the sheriff, not without sympathy. He didn’t have a wife, but the Webber family employed a resourceful young woman named Annie Thompson who could, in the words of Thomas’ stepmother, work magic in the kitchen. If not for Annie, and the comfort of his living in the family ranch, Thomas reckoned that he, too, might have been dependent upon canned beans and hash for his victuals.

“Seems to me the town must be paying you too much,” Mayor Burton said in the jocular tone he used at election time as he positioned himself before the mountain of canned baked beans, impeding the sheriff’s access to them. “If you can afford a fine-looking horse like that.”

Sheriff White’s face revealed nothing of the emotions beneath the sunburned skin. Impassively, he reached his brawny arm across the canned meat to pick three cans of beans. “Magnus Frasier sold me the horse.”

“Frasier?” The major picked a fleck of tobacco off his tongue. “Where’d he get a horse like that?”

“You’ll have to ask him,” the sheriff replied.

Thomas was listening closely to the exchange as he went by the shelves where women were clustering to examine the newly arrived bolts of cloth. Amos was a widower, but he had a daughter and Thomas supposed her instincts helped guide her father in how to buy what ladies would be seeking when spring inspired a desire for a new frock.

“You ain’t turned horse thief, have you?” the major jested, looking around to include any of the shoppers in on his joke.

“Frasier has horses for selling,” Sheriff White replied, picking up cans of meat after the sheriff shifted his position.

“Magnus Frasier is so poor he’s like to shove a horse out of the way to get hay for his own eating,” Mayor Burton said.

Sheriff White didn’t answer. He gathered up his cans of food and carried them to the counter where Amos Porter waited to tally up the bill.

Thomas Webber spotted his twin brother, who should have been putting their order together but instead was gazing out the window at Sheriff White’s horse. Theo Webber’s hair was dark brown to Thomas’ blond, and his eyes were hazel to Thomas’ green. They were unalike in looks and in personality, but they were a rancher’s sons and had a rancher’s priorities.

“Magnus Frasier?” Theo asked quietly, keeping his voice low so that he wasn’t overheard expressing interest in a horse that belonged to someone else.

Mayor Burton wasn’t the only man who had seen Sheriff White alighting from the back of the copper-red horse with a mane and tail the color of dried corn husks. The sun poured its brilliant rays upon the horse, turning the coat to molten bronze, stirring in the Webbers’ rancher souls a yearning for a horse that should have belonged to Alexander the Great or Perseus the Olympian hero rather than Magnus Frasier.

Thomas gave the pocketknives on the table all of his attention as he spoke to the brother beside him. “You know them. They sit in the back pew at church, like they’re in a hurry to leave. They’re in church every Sunday. They have a daughter. Her name is Bonnie.”

Theo turned his head to look at his brother as if there was something more than information in the sentence.

Thomas shook his head, answering the unasked question. “I don’t know her,” he said.

He didn’t need to add that he wasn’t of a mind to be noticing anyone’s daughter, not after how Lorinda Lockwood had played him for a fool. He didn’t have to; Theo knew.

“Maybe the Frasiers might be folks worth knowing better,” Theo offered, “if they raise up horses like that one.”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” Thomas said. He gauged the weight of the knife in the palm of his hand. Light enough to wield easily, heavy enough to do what it was designed to do. Every now and then, when the day’s work was done, a block of wood and a good knife in hand and daylight lingering outside, Thomas liked nothing better than to sit out on the front steps and do some whittling. It kept him from thinking thoughts that went far enough back in his memory to singe his pride all over again and remind him that a broken heart didn’t heal any too quickly.

“Pa’s likely to say you can just sharpen the knife you have and it’ll be good as new,” Theo said.

Thomas shook his head. “Sometimes even a good knife wears out,” he said. “My knife belonged to Pa first. It’s time for a new one.”

Their father John was a good man, but as he got older, he seemed reluctant to accept his sons as grown men capable of coming up with their own opinions without asking their father for his advice. Nonetheless, Thomas wanted the knife and he was going to buy it. But as he turned toward the counter where the storekeeper waited, he saw the sunlight pouring its gold over the copper-red sorrel tethered outside to the hitching post. John Webber didn’t understand the longings that a young man could have for a horse that was more than something to put a saddle on, any more than he understood why it was time for a new knife for whittling.

Amos Porter surveyed his crowded store from behind the counter and nodded with satisfaction. Then the door opened to admit another customer and Amos’ eyes narrowed.

***

Reginald Burton paused upon entering to look back at the horse tied to the hitching post. His thoughts were so plain upon his elegant features that anyone could read them. Reginald admired and coveted the horse while his lip curled at the sight of the sheriff’s worn saddle on the horse’s back. If the mayor’s son owned that horse, Reginald’s scowl indicated, the mount would have a new saddle of fine, polished leather that could give back to the sun its own luster.

He strode into the store, propelled by indignation that someone had the audacity to own a horse that by all rights, ought to be Reginald’s. As he was entering, out walked the sheriff with his purchases in paper sacks. Sheriff White gave the mayor’s son a cursory nod and went on his way.

“What a waste,” Reginald muttered. “Porter!” he called. “Has my pomade come in?”

“Not yet, Mr. Burton,” the storekeeper said. “I’m expecting it on the Wednesday train.”

“I need it now.”

“Ain’t here, Mr. Burton,” Mr. Porter replied uneasily. “I thought it would be.”

“You told me it would be.”

“I said I ‘spected it would be,” Mr. Porter corrected him. He wiped his hands on the white apron he wore over his white shirt and brown trousers. “I can’t answer for the trains.”

“Everyone gets what they want except folks in Hopeless Springs,” Reginald said. “Pa, can’t you have a talk with the railroad men?”

Thomas exchanged glances with his brother. Reginald was dressed in fancy clothes, the kind of suit that a man wore if he didn’t intend to do any work. His hair and mustache were oiled as if not a hair could be out of place. Thomas supposed that he, with his rough blue trousers and simple cotton shirt, and blond hair that got no more attention than what water and a comb could offer, must have seemed like a ruffian in comparison to the mayor’s son. That didn’t trouble him. He stifled a snicker at the thought of what he’d look like with pomade in his hair.

Mayor Burton, who had been standing at the window, turned around. “I can’t move Hope Springs up the line,” he said. “We’re after Chesterton, Crockett’s Corner, Comanche Run, and Elliott. You want I should tell the train to start here?”

“One day,” Reginald said through a tight jaw, “Hopeless Springs will be more than a thought some railroad man forgot about. Where did that horse come from?” he demanded with the startling change of subject that was as restless as his moods.

His father knew what horse he was talking about. “Magnus Frasier,” he said as if he were the source of the information.

“Frasier? Who’s he?”

“He has a small ranch about five miles out of town,” the mayor told him.

“Does he have more horses like that one?”

Thomas’ eyebrows rose. It was seldom that Mayor Burton’s son had anything favorable to say about Hope Springs, regarding the small Texas town as a rustic backwater ill suited for Reginald’s grand vision of prosperity and success. “Maybe.”

Father and son looked at each other and had a rare moment of tacit understanding. “He has a daughter,” Mayor Burton said. “Pretty, too.”

Thomas brought to mind the timid, slender girl who sat between her parents every Sunday in church. The Frasiers weren’t the sort of folks who would want their daughter’s appearance to be discussed in public by a man like Reginald Burton. They were stern and strict, unsmiling and plain. Bonnie Frasier looked like she’d be downright beautiful if she didn’t always have that harried expression on her face.

But it was none of his business. The Webbers had horses enough. They wouldn’t be buying from Magnus Frasier, even if he’d managed to breed the finest-looking horse that Hope Springs had ever seen.

Chapter One

Spring, 1870

The Magnus Frasier Household

Hope Springs, Texas

Bonnie knew she was fortunate to have grown up in a household where her parents were devoted to God. Her mother, Beth Frasier, concurred with God and the Bible which held that the man was head of the household. She bowed her head, dutiful to her marriage vows, as Magnus settled into the supper prayer while, on the table, small pats of butter melted stingily into the fluffy mounds of mashed potatoes, the thin slices of pork gave off aromatic heat, and the green beans glistened with the leftover bacon dressing in which they’d been cooked.

Bonnie remained standing by the fireplace because she’d ill-timed the applesauce and had not yet sat down when her father embarked upon the lengthy supper prayer. From her lowered lids, Bonnie watched her mother, the obedient wife giving her duty to her husband’s primacy. But her mother was also mindful of the food she had cooked. When she thought that the length of the prayer was an impediment to the temperature of the food, she coughed. It was just a brief, surreptitious cough, but it was a signal.

“Amen,” Magnus concluded.

“Amen,” Beth repeated.

“Amen,” Bonnie concluded as she filled a bowl with the sweet, cinnamon-scented applesauce and placed it on the table.

Beth Frasier’s nose gave a delicate sniff.

“Is something wrong, Ma?” Bonnie asked anxiously.

“A mite heavy-handed on the cinnamon, were you?” Beth asked.

“Only what the recipe calls for, Ma,” Bonnie said, but her tone was apologetic.

Beth frowned. “More than what’s needed is waste,” she chided. “We don’t have money for extravagance.”

Magnus Frasier dug the serving spoon into the potatoes and delivered a heaping amount to his plate. “A little extra might not be extravagance in a bit,” he said enigmatically.

His wife, her hands held up to receive the plain ceramic bowl that had belonged to her grandmother, forgot about the potatoes as she leveled a dark stare at her husband. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Magnus didn’t often have the opportunity to deliver news of significance, and his satisfied smile hinted that he was reveling in the novelty. With his fork, he speared the two thickest slices of pork, his due for being the head of the household.

“You’ll never guess who came by the stable today,” he said.

Beth shook a small mound of potatoes loose from the spoon onto her plate. “I won’t.”

Bonnie, trying to humor her father in his happy mood, said, “Pa, who came by?” Her blue eyes were lively with anticipation of his answer. It was rare that anything that betokened levity was permitted to intrude upon a family meal. The fact that Pa had a secret that he clearly longed to share with his family was exhilarating.

He smiled at his daughter. “Guess,” he teased.

Beth’s thin lips stretched longer and thinner. “Food’s getting cold,” she warned.

“No time for that,” Magnus said, smiling as he scooped up a forkful of green beans. “I’ll eat your fine cooking before it gets cool.” After he had chewed and swallowed, he couldn’t resist another enticement. “But could be that we won’t be fretting over too much cinnamon in the applesauce,” he predicted, grinning, his round cheekbones plump above the thick black beard.

“The recipe only calls for what it calls for,” was Beth’s stern response, her intonation demonstrating that she was not prey to temptation and she would not be swayed by her husband’s hints. Beth’s faded brown hair was tightly bound in a bun. She was only forty-one, but the severity that tightened her jawline and narrowed her eyes made her look older. Beth’s life was a daily stand against sin and sin was rampant everywhere. It was in an excessive amount of cinnamon in applesauce, it was in misplaced levity, and a woman’s place was to fortify her household so that sin gained no ground.

“The Lord loveth not extravagance,” she warned.

Bonnie felt her mother’s disapproving gaze upon her and lowered her head, abashed that, once again, she’d offended her mother’s piety with an unintentional violation of God’s will. It was difficult, sometimes, to know exactly what God expected. Pastor Claridge preached from scripture that spoke of God’s unfailing love and mercy, but in the Frasier household, God was a demanding king who disapproved of even the most insignificant transgression from a path to perfection.. But there could be no doubting Ma’s devotion to God. Everything that her family did, from their meals to their clothing to their prayers, was weighed in the balance of Beth Frasier’s fierce faith and came up wanting.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” Bonnie said contritely.

“Oh, no harm done,” Magnus said generously. He was adding another helping of potatoes to his plate and did not see the indignant glare that his wife threw in his direction, her gray eyes as effective as artillery cannon. As if he felt the force of the visual cannon balls, Magnus looked up from his plate. “I only meant that we’ll be looking at some prosperity, maybe, in the months to come.”

“Death may come like a thief in the night to take our souls and consign our bodies to the cold earth,” Beth reminded him. “Think on the state of your soul, Magnus, not prosperity.”

Magnus inhaled deeply. His wife had a wide knowledge of scripture that far surpassed his own. “I do think on my soul, Beth. But I don’t think the Lord begrudges any of us a joyful moment or two amidst the travails of our lives.” Then, as if fearful of being interrupted with another doleful reference to death, Magnus rushed on, his countenance animated with the news. “Mayor Burton came by the stables,” he informed them proudly.

“All men are as dust,” Beth said dismissively as she applied her knife and fork to a slice of pork. “Mayors and princes alike.”

“He saw Sheriff White’s horse,” Magnus announced. “He wants to buy one for his son. I told you that buying that mare was a wise move for us,” he said, looking to Bonnie for reinforcement.

“Truly it was, Ma,” Bonnie said earnestly. “She delivered a fine colt, and now we know that others of her line will bring profit. Everyone in town will see Sheriff White on his horse, and they’ll want to know how he came by such a magnificent steed.” Bonnie smiled at her father, knowing that the praise meant much to him in a house where compliments were less forthcoming than money.

“Our Lord, the Prince of Peace, rode on a donkey and did not consider it amiss.”

Magnus’ shoulders slumped in defeat. “Mayor Burton’s support will make it possible for me to breed more horses,” he said stubbornly. “It’ll mean the difference between going hungry in the winter and having enough to eat. It’ll mean enough for fabric for you and Bonnie to make new dresses for yourselves. It’ll mean—”

Beth rose from the table. “It will mean that you must choose, Magnus, between satisfying the hunger for things that nourish the soul or those that nourish earthly appetites. I’ll sit no longer and listen to godless talk at my table.”

Magnus’ gaze darted from his wife to his daughter. “We’ll speak of it later,” he said resignedly.

“Sit down, Beth. You’ve prepared a fine meal out of what we have and you nourish our souls and bodies alike with your hard work. I’m grateful to you and to God for giving me such a helpmate.”

Beth sat down again, the stern line of her jaw growing softer. “It looks like rain tomorrow. Bonnie will be churning butter, with the weather being cooler,” she told Magnus, as if the previous discussion had never taken place. “There will be buttermilk to drink.”

Magnus smiled in appreciation now that the mood had eased. “A tall glass of buttermilk, now that is riches enough,” he nodded. “There’s nothing pleases a husband so much as fresh buttermilk made by his wife’s churning.” But he was not looking at Beth as he spoke. He was looking at Bonnie.

***

Bonnie’s hands moved in practiced rhythm as she churned the butter. She knew that there were more modern ways to make butter using a crank which did the work. She had seen such contraptions in Porter General Store. But the Frasiers, having no money for what Beth regarded as a tool designed for the Devil’s idleness, continued to use the wooden butter churn which had belonged to Beth’s grandmother.

Bonnie knew that there were songs and rhymes that womenfolk chanted as they churned so that the monotony of the task of churning the cream was eased. But her mother didn’t hold with what she called pagan practices. She had insisted that Bonnie learn all the verses of Proverbs 31 and recite them by memory as she turned the handle of the churn so that the paddles would circle through the cream until the butter fat separated from the buttermilk.

Bonnie had been churning butter for a long time and, at the age of twenty-two years, she knew the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs by heart. Sometimes, she envied the respected wife who was prized above rubies. What would it be like to be such a wife, Bonnie privately wondered. She was sure that the woman in Proverbs was beautiful. Bonnie knew that her eyes were blue because when she was younger, her father had called her ‘Bonnie Blue Eyes’ until Ma explained to him that he was encouraging vanity. Maybe the wife in Proverbs had blue eyes. But she probably wasn’t slender, like Bonnie, and she probably didn’t have light brown hair, like Bonnie. The wife in Proverbs was beautiful, of that, Bonnie was certain, even if Ma disapproved of beauty.

“’Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household—”

“Bonnie, girl, where’s your Ma?”

Bonnie looked up from the churn. “She’s inside,” she answered her father, who had come through the barn and found her underneath the overhang where the churning was done. The gentle rain that was falling cooled the late spring warmth and gave the air a freshness that effectively neutralized the earthy odors coming from the faded red barn where cows were stalled and chickens roamed freely.

Her father seemed oblivious to the rain. His hat was dotted with rain drops and his shirtsleeves were damp. But what Bonnie noticed was the excited expression enlivening his face. “I’ve just been talking to Mayor Burton,” he said. “I’ve got to talk to your Ma.”

“She’s doing the ironing from yesterday’s laundry,” Bonnie told him.

Magnus frowned. Bonnie understood why. When her mother was attending to household tasks such as baking bread, or ironing, or anything which demanded her full concentration, she didn’t want to be distracted. Ironing required her complete attention, lest a moment’s lapse lead to a singe or even a burn in the garment.

“This is too important to wait,” he decided with a reckless air. “Bonnie, I’ll have good news for you as well, after your mother hears what I have to say.”

Recalling her mother’s obdurate refusal to listen to Pa’s news the previous day, Bonnie was doubtful that anything would have changed in so short a time, but she smiled in encouragement.

Pa gave her a quick embrace, a rare display of affection for him. “Bonnie girl, you know I always want the best for you,” he said. Then he took off for the house, walking with his wide-legged, rolling gait that made him look like a sailor just on land after a long voyage.

Bonnie’s smile faded the closer her father approached the ranch house. As he passed the chicken coop, and the broad garden which was already yielding its bounty in May, Bonnie could see her father’s shoulders hunch forward. He seemed to deflate as he neared their home, his generous girth shrinking as he left her sight.

Bonnie sighed and returned to the churning, beginning anew with Proverbs 31. “’ Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. . .’”

***

“Bonnie,” Ma said after Magnus had said the blessing over the evening meal. “Your Pa has important news for you.”

Bonnie looked up from her plate in surprise. She had noticed that there seemed to be a different atmosphere at supper tonight. It reminded her of a sauce simmering over the fireplace, as the heat of the flames blended the ingredients together until they were no longer separate. Instead of the usual scriptural admonitions that her mother favored during eating, she had commented on the pleasant coolness of the weather and the benefits of the rain to the garden. Pa, basking in his wife’s unaccustomed benevolence, had vigorously agreed with all her pronouncements.

Although Ma had voiced the opinion that Bonnie had been too sparing in the amount of salt she added to the butter she had churned that day, there had not been the usual sharpness in her tone. Ma had even baked a berry cobbler for dessert, a distinct departure from the customary menu, for Beth Frasier did not approve of sweets.

Pa licked his lips in anticipation as his wife cut a generous piece of cobbler for him and placed the plate in front of him. She delivered a smaller piece to Bonnie, and a section so small it would barely constitute a bite for herself. The rest, Bonnie knew, would be given to the Widow Dorset, their neighbor, who was a poor woman dependent upon the generosity of her neighbors. Beth Frasier would deliver the dessert, and scripture, to the sickly woman in the morning, as she did every day, giving the remains of their meal to those less fortunate. As long as there were others needier than the Frasiers, Ma had said more than once, her family knew they were not poor.

It was sound moral advice, Bonnie knew, although she sometimes wished that Ma allowed them to have second helpings of the food served at meals. But as she dipped her fork into the flaky crust of the cobbler, she was barely listening to her father’s words. The aroma of the tart berries reached her nostrils and she brought the fork to her lips, anticipating the taste.

“Mayor Burton and me did business today,” Pa said, fixing his gaze upon his daughter seated to his right. “He’s going to back me in horse breeding. Not only that, but he wants our two families to join together.”

Bonnie stared, perplexed. How could the two families possibly join together, and why would the affluent, prominent Burtons want to join with the humble Frasiers?

“His son Reginald is going to marry you, Bonnie! We’ve found you a husband!”