A Bride For The Asking -- (on hold)

Chapter 16--A Letter from Lillian

            “The coffee’s ready, Woodrow,” Rose announced to the two brothers sitting on the porch.

            As one they rose, and came into the cabin.  Rose stepped out of the way for them to enter.  They sat down at the table.  Rose poured them each a cup of coffee and brought it over to them.  Soundlessly, Rose slipped into a vacant chair.

            Woodrow took a sip of his coffee, then set his cup down. 

            “How did you find out Michael’s still alive, Ennis?”

            Ennis looked up at his brother out from under his shaggy brows.  “Well it was so late when we  got home last night, Pearl never went through the bundle of mail until this morning.  There was a letter from Lillian, of course.”  Ennis took a sip of his coffee, his hand shaking slightly.

            Rose glanced up at her husband.  He was scowling impatiently at his brother.  She cleared her throat, and smiled when she caught his eye.  His look softened when he saw her.  He winked at her and turned back to eyeing his brother from under scrunched brows.

            Woodrow wanted to grab Ennis and sling him bodily out of the cabin and bolt the door against him.  Ennis was sorely trying his patience this morning.  Woodrow gritted his teeth and asked the question Ennis had been waiting to hear.  “What did the letter say, Ennis?” 

            “Well,”  Ennis took another sip of coffee, caught Woodrow’s murderous look, and was hard put upon not to crack a smile, but realized he’d pushed him far enough.   “Hell, Woody, I thought somebody’d died the way Pearl was a carrying on.  She’d read a line or two, go to boo-hooing, read another line or two, and start all over with the boo-hooing.  She finally looked up and said, ‘Michael’s alive.’  Shocked me out of ten’s years growth, I tell you.”

            “Did the letter say how Lillian knew that, exactly?”  Woodrow was interested now.  He gazed out the open cabin door to hide his own emotions.             

            That boy had broken all their hearts the day he’d told his ma and pa he wanted to go to school.  He was just a young’un still, when he left.  He had to be about twenty-two, twenty-three by now, if he was a day.  Would they even recognize him if they met him on the street?

            “Lillian said he came by for a minute while he was in Savannah.  He’s still in the Army, can you believe it?”

            Rose felt light-headed all of a sudden.  In her mind’s eye, a vision of the lone soldier standing at the rail of the steamboat, filled her stomach with dread.
            “I didn’t think Michael liked the army all that much,” Woodrow commented, getting up and taking his empty cup over to the sink.

            “Me and Pearl didn’t either, Woody.”  Ennis got up and followed his brother over to the sink. 

            Ennis continued his story as the two wandered back out onto the porch. “According to Lillian,  the boy’s only got a few more months to go—and he’s not reenlisting again-- so he got himself a transfer out here, to Dakota territory, so’s he’d be close to home when he mustered out.”

             Woodrow began digging out his pipe and tobacco as he sat down on the stool again.  “Is that a fact?”

            “Yep,” grunted Ennis going back to the steps and sitting down.  He twisted around where he could face his brother while they talked; one leg dangling off the edge of the porch.  “They’ve transferred him to Fort Randall, can you believe it?  Lillian said he was coming on The Lilly Belle.”