Heartbreak Trail

Seattle, WA

Camel Press

Seattle, Washington

PO Box 70515

Seattle, WA 98127

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover design by Sabrina Sun

Contact: [email protected]

Copyright © 2011 by Shirley Kennedy

ISBN: 978-1-60381-831-5 (Paper)
ISBN: 978-1-60381-832-2 (Cloth)
ISBN: 978-1-60381-833-9 (ePub)

 
My thanks go to Jackie Rowland, president of the Oatman Historical Society, for her help in the research of my novel. Jackie, an expert on Old West history, lives in the historic mining town of Oatman, Arizona, where she owns and runs a remarkable store called Fast Fanny’s.  

 
My thanks also go to artist and gun expert, Andy Kohut, of Laughlin, Nevada, who told me what I needed to know about how to load and fire a rifle in 1851.

Boston, Massachusetts

September, 1850

In the dining room of her family’s mansion on Beacon Hill, Lucy Parker Schneider bowed her head for grace. She had much to be grateful for. In fact, she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been happier than at this very moment. What could be more gratifying than being a new bride, having dinner with her family on a Sunday afternoon, her handsome husband by her side?

“
Bless us, oh Lord, and these your gifts which we are about to receive from your bounty. Through Christ our Lord, Amen. Pass the potatoes.” From the head of the dinner table, Elihu Parker gazed fondly at his older daughter. “You’re looking well. It appears marriage suits you.”

Lucy cast a loving glance at Jacob, her tall, golden-haired husband who sat beside her. “Marriage suits me well enough, Father.”

A suppressed snicker came from across the table where Sarah, Lucy’s younger sister, sat. The knowing glance she sent Lucy spoke volumes. Only Sarah knew of the turmoil in Lucy’s heart the day her easy-going, widowed father announced he planned to marry Pernelia Robinson, iron-minded leader of the Lady’s Benevolent Society as well as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Since her mother’s death eight years before, Lucy had run the household and done a good job of it, too. Shocked and dismayed, Lucy couldn’t believe her beloved father would marry a woman like Pernelia, who hid a ruthless desire to get her own way behind an angelic smile, coupled with a barbed tongue wrapped in velvet. Lucy had always assumed her father also saw through Pernelia’s false facade of sweetness. Obviously, he hadn’t.

“
Don’t you worry.” Pernelia batted her eyelashes. “You’ll always have a place here. In fact, you and I shall run the household together in perfect harmony, won’t we, dear?”

Sick inside, Lucy managed a nod but clearly saw her future. Pernelia and her iron hand would soon be running the household while she, already twenty-six years old, would become that most lowly of creatures—the worthless daughter who never found a husband. Though only eighteen, her sister, Sarah, thought the same.

As predicted, after Pernelia became Mrs. Elihu Parker, she swept through the house like a little Napoleon, crushing every obstacle in her path. Sarah soon became betrothed, mercifully to a man she loved. In a state of quiet desperation, Lucy wondered how she could possibly live her life under the same roof as her overbearing stepmother. Then a miracle happened. At Sarah’s wedding, she met recently widowed Jacob Schneider. How handsome he was, and a rich farmer besides! She instantly fell in love with him. He’d been courting his dowdy Cousin Winifred, but when Lucy revived her long-unused flirting skills, he didn’t have a chance.

Three months later, she became his bride.

So now, on this lovely September Sunday at her father’s mansion, Lucy counted her blessings. She had escaped Pernelia. She could hold her head high, the wife of a prosperous farmer, stepmother to his adorable five-year-old son, and mistress of a home of her own—a beautiful old farmhouse so close to Boston she could visit her family whenever she pleased.

Wrapped in a warm glow of happiness, Lucy fondly looked around the table at the two younger brothers she’d help raise, Sarah and her new husband Daniel, her dear father, and her stepson Noah, whom she already thought of as her own. Even pudgy-faced Pernelia didn’t look so bad on a beautiful day like this.

While they ate, the talk centered on the recent news about the California gold rush. Lucy was surprised at the fervor with which the three men at the table had taken over the conversation.

“
I’d go in a minute,” Daniel declared. “Why, I hear there are gold nuggets lying in the streets just waiting for you to come along and pick them up.”

Sarah sat up straight and glared at her young husband. “Daniel Williams! How can you even think such a thing? I would never leave Boston to traipse off to the middle of nowhere.”

“
Many are going.” Lucy’s father spoke in his usual quiet, authoritative way. “You’d be surprised at the number of farm sales my bank has handled. They use the money to buy oxen and a wagon. Then off they go to the land of gold.”

“
They’re fools.” Jacob Schneider’s square jaw tensed visibly. “You’d never catch me selling everything I owned to go on a wild goose chase for gold.”

“
My view exactly,” Father replied. “Just look at your neighbor, John Potts. He’s pulling up stakes, selling his farm lock, stock, and barrel, and leaving for California in one of those flimsy covered wagons, family and all. Such folly!”

Jacob nodded in somber agreement. “He doesn’t care that the risks are huge, what with Indians, drownings, starvation, and God knows what. From what I hear, some of them suffer so many hardships they turn around and come back. Though I must say, Abner thinks differently.”

Lucy felt a ripple of apprehension at Jacob’s mention of his older brother. She slanted a worried glance at her husband. “Just what does Abner think?”

Jacob flashed a reassuring smile. “He’s talked some about going to California. Just talk, though. You know my brother.”

Indeed, she did know Jacob’s brother, an intensely religious man who, as far as she knew, had never cracked a smile in his entire life. Unfortunately for her, he and Jacob jointly owned their farm, so Lucy was forced to deal daily with Abner and his shy wife, Martha, who lived on the plot of land next to their own. “Tell me he’s not serious.”

Jacob smiled in that reassuring way he had. “Of course Abner’s not serious. We have no intention of joining the fools headed to California.”

No need to worry.
Lucy felt relieved. Not that she had even considered the possibility Jacob might want to go, but she was glad to hear that he positively did not.

And yet ...

When she’d married Jacob, she had put him on a pedestal. Soon after, she realized her perfect husband had one little fault: he deferred to his older brother in all matters. What if ...? Oh, no! Such a thought was ridiculous. Jacob had just confirmed that he never wanted to go to California, so she had absolutely nothing to worry about.

Two weeks later, Jacob’s neighbors, John and Bessie Potts, were about to leave. They’d sold their farm and most of their possessions and bought mules and a wagon. They planned to travel to Independence, Missouri, one of the popular jumping-off places to the West, where supplies would be bought and the wagon train formed. In mid-April, when the mud on the roads began to harden, they would begin the arduous trek west. Lucy hated to see them go. Neither Jacob nor his brother cared much for John Potts, whom they considered too loud and boisterous, and not nearly pious enough. However, she’d made good friends with Bessie, a likeable, down-to-earth woman, originally from the little town of Possum Creek, Tennessee. Bessie was afraid to embark on such a dangerous journey.

“
They say it’ll take six to eight months to get to California,” she wailed one day while visiting Lucy. “Me with six children and expecting the seventh, and there’ll be nothing but a covered wagon to call home.” Her small frame shuddered with dread. “‘Twill be a miracle if we get there alive.”

Lucy asked the one question that deeply puzzled her. “Why does your husband want to give up his farm and go west? Is it just the gold?”

“
It’s mostly the gold strike. John is crazy to go. He thinks he’s going to get rich just picking up gold nuggets off the ground. Also, the farm’s been losing money these past few years. Lots of farms are losing money.”

“
I had no idea.”

“
Ain’t you heard? The country’s been in a major depression. Farms all over are going broke.”

Of course she knew about the depression, but Jacob hadn’t said a word about any of the local farmers being in trouble, nor had Abner. Actually, Jacob didn’t tell her much of anything. But surely he would have told her if their farm was losing money. She searched for something optimistic to say. “Perhaps you could think of your trip as an adventure, something to write about and tell your grandchildren.”

Tears glistened in Bessie’s eyes. “If I ever have any grandchildren. If we ain’t all scalped by the Indians, drowned in a river, or bit by snakes.”

“
Haven’t you told John how you feel?”

“
My whole life is being ripped apart, but do you think he would listen? I’m only his wife, after all. I must do as he says.” Bessie’s shoulders slumped in despair. “That’s the way of it. Our husbands rule. We wives are like oxen, waiting for a whip to be cracked over our heads.” She gave Lucy a meaningful stare. “If you ain’t found that out yet, you soon will.”