Dakota Bride

Dakota Bride

Joyce Armor

Copyright 2020 Joyce Armor

Smashwords Edition

Cover: Vila Design

Trusty Reader/Editor: Susie Cramer

Formatting: Jesse Gordon

Dakota Bride

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are purely fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Epilogue

About the Author

Prologue

Mid-Atlantic, Aboard the Frisia, 1867

Dw I’n dy garu di, Tad.

Ah, sweet Carys, You know…I love…you, too, my girl. And…and we agreed to speak English… on this voyage, didn’t we now? ‘Tis a bright new land you go to.

We’re both going to America, Tad. We are. It’s all planned. We’ll farm the land and sell some horses, too, and import a few sturdy Welsh ponies. Our house will have a big porch where we’ll sit and drink water from our crystal-clear spring and watch the sun set over the distant mountains.

’Tis…’tis a beautiful dream.

The last word faded out. She held her father’s bony hand as he lay on the modest steerage bunk struggling to breathe, looking so frail. Over the last week he had shrunken before her eyes. His black hair, streaked with gray, was limp and stringy. His lake blue eyes, so much like hers and usually shining with determination, and sometimes mischief, were cloudy and somehow sunken in. His skin was sallow, his lips dry and cracked. Even Mam’s special salve didn’t help anymore. She could hear his chest rattling as he sucked in a meager breath and wanted to scream out her frustration and fear. This couldn’t be happening, it just couldn’t.

She was only 15. She couldn’t lose her father. Had it only been a year since they had lost Mam, Gareth and Tomos to cholera? Carys and her father were going to start over in America. They would buy that farm and grow wheat and corn and potatoes and raise some cattle and horses. They’d have chickens as well. She’d attend school when they weren’t planting and harvesting. He promised life would get better. He promised.

Evan Rees coughed then, into the faded, light yellow handkerchief Mam had so lovingly sewed for him. Carys saw the blood, but there was more black than red on the threadbare square. The dreaded lung disease. She knew he was coughing before they’d traveled to Le Havre, France, to board the Frisia but thought it was just a passing cold. Maybe she didn’t want to know the truth. She sighed as one big tear made its way down her cheek. The mines. The damn mines. She almost smiled then. Mam would surely scold her and maybe whap her with her wooden spoon if she heard her blasphemous thoughts.

She aided her father in sitting up to help alleviate the coughing, vaguely noting the rustling of the straw stuffing in the mattress. The bunks were stacked so close together in steerage, it’s a wonder everyone wasn’t coughing. It must be a nice day, she absently thought, since the family section of steerage was fairly sparse. On the sunny days, most people headed up on deck. It seemed incongruous; how could it be a nice day when her tad was dying? She felt herself smile. He couldn’t keep her from thinking of him in Welsh.

You…you look so much like my Maire. Beautiful.

The thick ebony braid down her back was coming undone, and she hadn’t even washed her face today. Her modest tan dress was stained and wrinkled.

Carys.

Her name was almost a whisper. He wasn’t getting enough air and she couldn’t fix that. She couldn’t wish it away and hadn’t been able to pray it away. She’d certainly tried both. She willed her eyes not to well up again. She’d shed enough tears when her mother and brothers died. And her aunt and uncle, too. And Mam’s cousin.

My…my left pocket. Be…quick about it.

She knew what she’d find as she reached into the pocket of his gray and brown tweed trousers: his leather money pouch.

Keep…keep it on your person at all times, Carys love.

She didn’t want to. She really didn’t want to, as if it would be accepting the inevitable, but she didn’t want to agitate him. She put the pouch in her skirt pocket and gently took a pale hand in her two hands. I’ll give it back to you, Tad, when you’re feeling better.

Ah, my sweet daughter. We…we Reeses never fool ourselves, now do we?

Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me. Despite her best effort, another big tear escaped down her cheek, landing on their clasped hands.

The…the Rees family is strong, and you…you are the strongest of all of us. You’ll go to America as we planned. You’ll live and thrive and marry and raise a family. You’ll tell them of those who came before you. Always…always remember who you are and where you come from.

Just that small speech seemed to weaken him further.

I will, she sobbed. I promise.

The Switzers will…take you in. I’ve spoken to them.

But…but they’re first-class passengers. We barely know them.

It will…it will be fine. I’ve paid for your keep. You go see Mrs. Switzer after…after…

All right, Tad, I will. I love you.

And I love you, my fine daughter. You’re the shining star of…of our family. Now sing to me, daughter. You know my favorite hymn. In English.

Do you want me to get your fiddle?

He coughed into the handkerchief again. No…no, but you must take it with you. You know it…belonged to…to…

My great-grandfather. I know the story, Tad.

Ah, that fiddle. Carys could play it well enough, but not like Tad. He could make those strings sing. He would play a merry tune and his children would laugh and dance. She would cherish those memories and the family fiddle that was such a part of him.

Still holding his frail hand, she began to sing quietly, not noticing that heads turned, listening to her dulcet tones.

Abide with me, fast falls the evening tide, the darkness deepens, Lord with me abide. When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Her voice trailed off at the end, as her father’s hand became limp in hers.

Maire, he said softly through his parched lips, as if he could see his dead wife, and took his last rattling breath.

Only now did she hear the ship’s engine chugging along, a constant companion to the steerage passengers. It was relentlessly taking her to her destiny, when all she wanted was to be home again in Wales, with her parents and brothers and cousins and aunts and uncles, laughing and listening to Tad play his fiddle, smelling Mam’s cooking or riding her pony. Or sitting in the fragrant grass on the hillside near Port Talbot, overlooking the bay. Why did life have to be so hard? She laid her head down on her father’s chest and cried.

Chapter 1

Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, June, 1874

This was it. Her heart seemed about to pound out of her chest. It was inevitable, of course. She’d known it was coming, though she had hoped it would not be so soon. Alas, time had run out.

Cachu hwch! she hissed as she opened and closed her fists, trying to release the tension.

She almost chuckled then, despite the dire circumstances, or maybe because of them. Was she on the verge of hysteria? Why she thought of her mother just then, she didn’t know. Oh, yes. Mam would have her hide for saying pig’s poo in Welsh or any other language. Carys glanced at Trent writhing on the kitchen floor and thanked God she had seen the inevitable; she was as prepared as she could be, albeit a bit terrified.

An extraneous thought occurred to her then: His oh-so-fashionable, gray-striped, cotton twill trousers are wrinkled. And there’s a spot on his white shirt, just above the line of his waistcoat. It was unheard of. His clothing always appeared perfect, expensive and expertly pressed and starched. He was a pleasant-enough looking fellow, she supposed, with auburn hair, dark brown, wide-set eyes and a prominent nose. His teeth were fine, his chin not too weak. And yet when Cousin Trent first showed up at the Switzer residence, she felt something was off about him.

Mam thought she had the second sight, but that wasn’t it. Just as long as she could remember, though, she often felt a perception about people, almost as if she could see into their souls. It didn’t always happen, however, although it most obviously did with Trent. His soul was black as night, she was certain. Her other brief thought was that Kathleen was right; a sharp knee to the crotch could disable a man in a flash. As she hiked up the skirts on her modest green day dress and rushed from the room, she briefly reveled in Trent’s discomfort and the power it gave her until she heard him grit out, "You’ll pay for this, Carys. I’ll have you.