From His Prairie Duchess ....
Clear Creek, Oregon 1858. Thirty-eight days until the Duke’s stipulated
deadline.
On the First day...
Cozette
Duprie was up a tree.
She
always did like the sound of that. How
her name so easily rhymed with what came naturally to her. For if not a tree she would climb something
else. A ladder. A lattice.
And most recently the backside of a building. Albeit with the help of her father’s grappling
hook. It was getting down that proved to
be more difficult. But she suffered fewer injuries than the Dunnigan girl she
rescued, so all in all Cozette couldn’t complain. She just hoped her latest feat didn’t draw
too much attention to herself. That, of
course, was the last thing she needed. For either herself or her father.
She
settled in amongst the branches and watched as a wagon train slowly wound its
way across the prairie in the distance.
It would set up camp most likely.
She heard Mr. Van Cleet tell her father they often camped a mile or so
south of town to rest and restock any supplies before continuing on to Oregon
City. Unfortunately for this wagon
train, any restocking of supplies might prove difficult. The mercantile in Clear Creek burned down
three weeks ago.
Cozette
glanced at her bandaged hand. Her father
had tended the burns she’d incurred while rescuing Belle Dunnigan and they were
healing nicely. In fact, today she could
take the bandage off, but would wait until she returned to camp outside of town
to do so. Watching the wagon train was
more interesting. Especially since this
one seemed a bit odd.
It
wasn’t very big, only six wagons in all.
But that wasn’t what was different.
It was the fact the wagons were pulled by draft horses instead of
oxen. Perhaps they hadn’t traveled far
and so used horses instead. They could
be coming from the Wyoming territory, or lost their oxen and could only get
horses to replace them. Whatever the reason, Cozette enjoyed watching as they
stopped and began to set up camp. She
often wondered what it would be like to travel with a wagon train for months
and spend time with families around a nightly campfire.
But
then, Cozette often wondered what it would be like to do a lot of things.
Like
wear a dress with a pretty hat, one with lots of flowers and feathers. Or shop
in a mercantile for a bonnet covered in ribbons. Maybe have her very own house. One with
wallpaper covered in delicate flower petal designs and furniture with colors to
match. And lace, lots of lace. She loved
to study the intricate designs of it. She was highly attracted to the delicate
patterns of china and fine cloth as well.
She wanted to cook something on a stove instead of over a campfire and
be able to bake something in an oven.
But what Cozette wanted most of all, was to sleep in a bed. A real
bed. All the rest of her days.
She
often imagined a huge four poster canopied bed, one fit for a Queen. With lots of pillows and a mattress she could
sink into and lose herself night after night in dream-filled slumber.
Cozette
sighed. For a dream is all it was. And probably always would be.
Not
that her current life was horrible, it wasn’t.
She was free, incredibly so. She
didn’t suffer the conventional constraints other women had. She could hunt, fish, shoot, and if need
be... kill. She’d even helped her father take down a buffalo.
But
none of it seemed to matter when the gnawing began. A pulsating yearning that started in the
deepest part of her, and would soon grow until she laid upon her bedroll at
night and wept in silence. Her voice
wouldn’t even produce a decent sob. But
then, her voice hadn’t produced anything for years. It died, along with the
rest of her hopes and dreams, the night her mother died. A night Cozette wished she could forget.
Maybe
if she did, she’d get her voice back.
Her
father didn’t know about her ‘spells’ as she came to call them. And because he never heard her suffering in
the middle of the night, he most likely wouldn’t come to know. But the spells came more frequently of late,
and she wished she knew what caused them.
And they were getting worse, the something
that gnawed away at her heart, the deep longing. But for what?
Perhaps
she missed her mother. Yes, that was
probably it. But to think of her mother
brought great sadness, and Cozette feared the memories that came to haunt her
in the dark of night. She didn’t want to remember. She didn’t want to see in her mind’s eye the
horrible things that happened to her mother, or remember the sounds of her
screaming...
Cozette
closed her eyes and forced her memories to still. She concentrated on watching
the wagon train set up camp instead and wondered how long they would stay
before moving on. And no doubt her
father would have her remain hidden for as long as it took them to do so. But at this point in her life, she'd grown
used to it.
