Bargain Bessie

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  BARGAIN BESSIE

  Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs

  Book 7

  ZINA ABBOTT

  Copyright © 2017 Robyn Echols writing as Zina Abbott

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to

  The hard-working authors of the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog who provide the world with sweet/clean historical romances about North Americans between 1820 and 1929.

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  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book is part of a multi-author series sponsored by the authors who write for the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog. My appreciation and thanks go to those other authors who helped develop the fictional mining town of

  Jubilee Springs along the Arkansas River in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

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  DISCLAIMER

  The town of Jubilee Springs, and all the characters described in this story are fictional. They are not based on any real persons, past or present. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintended.

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  TERRA HAUTE, indiana –july 4, 1881

  chapter 1

  ~o0o~

  Bessie Carlson pressed the back of her hand against her mother’s forehead. It felt so cold. She could not blame it on the weather. The humid July heat felt stifling, even with both windows in their room open to catch any available breeze. Bessie knew it was because her mother’s body was shutting down. Bessie knew her mother didn’t have much longer to live.

  In the distance Bessie heard the explosions of fireworks being shot into the sky. She sighed and walked to the window that looked out onto a narrow alley. Her view was of another window in the next ramshackle building over. Like the one in which she and her mother rented a room, it was another low-income boarding house. Like the one which Bessie called home, it had cheap cotton curtains covering the window to afford some modicum of privacy while the open sashing begged for a cooling breeze. Celebrating Independence Day seemed to have ended with her father’s death. She dare not leave her mother go out on the boardwalk to try to glimpse a few sparkles above the treetops. Her mother might wake up disoriented and in a fright if she found herself alone with the noise outside the window. Bessie would visualize the celestial display in her mind so she could stay close to her mother.

  With her hand, Bessie brushed locks of her thick brown hair away from her face where they clung to the sheen of perspiration on her forehead. She had been told since she was a child that her hair was one of her best features—that and her large brown eyes. She had noticed in recent weeks, ever since she and her mother began eating less and seldom any meat-rich in protein, more hair than usual ended up in her hairbrush. She could afford to lose some hair, but hoped before she could return to work and eat better she would not lose it to the point of it being thin and scraggly.

  Bessie turned to face towards the front of the building. A wall separating the room from the boarders in the front bedroom kept her from seeing the tree-lined street and the rooftops beyond until they were hidden by the leafy canopy that covered many of the buildings between the one she and her mother lived in and the Wabash River. What she saw instead was the battered dressing table with the bowl and ewer for personal care. The mirror reflected back to her the haggard face that seemed to be her reward for caring night and day for her mother.

  Bessie turned aside to face the scratched inexpensive chest of drawers that had come with the room. The nice furniture pieces along with their nice upper-middle class house the family had once owned had been sold long ago to pay for her father’s debts and medical care. On top rested the few mementos her mother had refused to part with, vowing to not sell them until and unless it was a matter of life for death for Bessie. In spite of the smaller items she had sold, including most of her mother’s jewelry of any value, Bessie had honored her mother’s wishes and not asked for permission to sell the heirloom pieces.

  Bessie had loved growing up in Terre Haute, Indiana. Her father, Wendell Carlson, had worked as an engineering manager for the Wabash and Erie Canal system headquartered in the city since before its opening in 1843. As she had grown older, she had suspected he had other sources of income since his job alone would not pay for the kind of home they once owned nor for the man who had come once a week to maintain the yard in all seasons.

  It was only after her father’s investments in the Wabash and Erie Canal failed due to the impending closure of the canal that she began to understand. He had invested in the canal, and his stocks that had provided the extra wealth beyond his work income was gone. Then, when the canal system closed in 1874, the stress of no longer having a job, and being too old to be considered for another position elsewhere resulted in him having a massive heart attack. He did not live to see the sale of the Wabash and Erie Canal in 1876.

  Bessie reflected on the series of events as the lives of her and her mother spiraled downward.

  Bessie’s sister, Martha, twelve years her senior, had been more of a mentor than a playmate. Bessie had been eight when Martha had gone to Indianapolis for a visit with their Aunt Desdemona, better known as Desi, and Uncle Simon Brinks. She ended up getting married to her handsome Irishman, not even a year before he left to fight in Indianapolis’s Irish Brigade to fight in the Civil War.

  Bessie had been thirteen when the family went for a visit after the war. Bessie had soon realized Martha was in for heartache when her brother-in-law had tried to be far too familiar with her. She had been old enough to understand the difference between a brotherly peck on the cheek and the full-mouth kiss Patrick O’Shea, already into his cups, had tried to give her while his hands roamed towards her bosom. She never told her sister, for she didn’t want to break Martha’s heart or take the chance Martha might accuse her of having encouraged Patrick. By that time the couple had four children--Lyam, the twins Ursula and Viola, and little Zephora. From that point on, she had avoided being too close to the couple when they came to visit. Now they had a family of six children, with Patrick working sporadically, but somehow managing to find money to pay for drinks at the local pub.

  Bessie turned and studied her mother. As much as she hated to admit it, she did not believe her mother had too much longer to live. It was not considered proper for a young woman to live by herself. However, she knew there was no help for her from Martha and Patrick. She would risk a poor reputation by living alone before she would share a house with her philandering brother-in-law.

  Bessie had been a young girl of nine when the Civil War broke out. Against the wishes of their parents, her oldest brother, Wendell, Jr., barely nineteen, had joined the Fourteenth Indiana Infantry when the recruite
rs came to Terre Haute. He somehow ended up being transferred to the Twentieth Indiana Infantry, although as a young girl, Bessie had not understood any of that. All she knew was her brother left the home, and the only news they had of him was an occasional letter or a newspaper article with sketchy details about the movements of his regiment. Her parents had worried over him and prayed for him daily. His letters had been irregular, but came until the Battle of Gettysburg where he met his end. In later years, the one good thing Bessie could see from his sacrifice, besides fighting to help preserve the Union, was he had not witnessed the downfall of the family.

  The only other sibling she could consider was Benjamin. Bessie suspected he had always resented her for coming along when he was six years old and displacing him as the baby of the family—the one who usually got the lion’s share of the attention and got their way. He had married several years before. He and his wife already had three small children in what she understood was the same one bedroom house they had moved into at the time they married.

  Bessie had never felt she could count on him. Ben had barely finished with his schooling in accounting when things had started to go bad for her parents. He had moved home, but as soon as their father had been forced to sell the house, he left. Instead of staying with them to get a job and help with finances, he fled to Indianapolis to Uncle Simon’s and Aunt Desi’s place. He obtained a clerk job, but not long after he had been fired for an incident of petty embezzlement. He had made arrangements to work the amount off. Unfortunately, he found news of his youthful indiscretion followed him. From that point on, he found it difficult to obtain a well-paying job. The couple’s progress seemed to be on hold except for the children added to the family.

  Bessie fought off the grimace of disgust she felt for her brother. In spite of his earlier mistakes which had stifled his career opportunities, he was still faring better than she and their mother were. She had written twice asking for him to at least pay the doctor’s fees, reminding him Emeline was his mother also. Bessie felt she dare not ask the doctor to attend their mother again unless something could be paid towards what he was already owed. All she had received from Ben were excuses and apologies. He was having a difficult time. They needed to add onto their house, for they were expecting again. He would do what he could as soon as possible, but for the time being, he couldn’t afford to send any money. That was Benjamin—always full of excuses for why he couldn’t do his share. It had been that way when they were children, and nothing had changed as he grew to adulthood and started his own family.

  At least I don’t have to be married to him.

  Bessie heaved a sigh and folded her arms across her middle. Her strong sense of integrity forbade her to even consider walking away from the family’s debts and obligations, even if her siblings either couldn’t or wouldn’t take some of the burden on themselves. Perhaps they felt it was a matter of out of sight, out of mind. Bessie knew she still had enough digitalis to last her mother for several weeks. However, if her mother grew worse, without help from either sibling, she didn’t know what she would do.

  Bessie didn’t know how she would be able to earn enough to live on and still pay towards everything that was owed. Yes, she could get another job like the one she had worked at the hotel before her mother had grown too ill to be left alone. However, the wages they paid women were so low, they barely covered living expenses. There was little left to pay off accumulated debts. But, somehow she would manage. She certainly couldn’t afford to continue living in the same room she and her mother now shared, but would have to find something smaller, something less expensive.

  For now, Bessie realized, what she had was too much time to think and to worry. She needed to focus on caring for her mother, and making her remaining parent’s last few days on earth as pleasant as possible. She needed to focus on her blessings. She still had her mother with her for now. Bessie held out her hands, fingers splayed, and looked at the backs of them. One good thing about not working at the hotel was that they no longer were as red and chapped as they had been when she had spent most of her days with her hands in either dishwater or laundry water. She had her health. She had her memories of better times.

  Bessie fought back the fear of what the future held for her once her mother had breathed her last and she was left alone.

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  MONARCH BEND, colorado –july 5, 1881

  CHAPTER 2

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  Zebulon Jacobson narrowed his blue-gray eyes as he stood on the front veranda. He felt great satisfaction about having built his big two-story wood siding ranch house with a varnish finish so the natural wood showed through. He watched his foreman cross the yard between the bunkhouse and the horse barn. If there was any truth to what Rusty, the kid who couldn’t have been more than fifteen when he had showed up at the ranch two years before looking for work, had excitedly blabbered to him the first thing that morning before he even got his first cup of coffee in him, then Eddie Joe Hampton was meddling where he had no business sticking his nose. Zeb decided then was as good a time as any for the showdown between the two.

  “Eddie Joe! Need you in the office. Have some things I need to discuss with you.”

  “Right away, Boss.”

  While Zeb made his slow turn to the west on his way to the separate outside entrance to the ranch office, he watched Eddie Joe hesitate and look in the direction of the barn. He had probably been on his way to talk to Rusty. The kid could get easily distracted, but there was no need for Eddie Joe to line his work out for him every day like he did. What was there to discuss about giving the horses their morning feed and making sure they had enough water before mucking out the stalls? Zeb guessed he did it as much to help the kid not get so lonely, or to not think Eddie Joe took him for granted.

  Zeb had no sooner reached the door when he heard a thud and then footsteps clatter along the wood deck of the veranda and through the office door. Edmund Joseph Hampton knew better than to deny his boss when Zebulon Jacobson ordered him to the ranch office for a meeting. He also was not inclined to walk over and climb the stairs if he could shorten his trip by cutting across the yard and leaping over the low bannister close to where he intended to end up.

  Zeb shook his head. He’d given up on trying to retrain the man when it came to leaping over the railing. Standing across the veranda from each other, Zeb intently fixed a glare on his foreman. From the way Eddie Joe stood straight and stiffened his spine, Zeb knew Eddie Joe had figured out Zeb had him dead to rights. Zeb hoped he hadn’t figured out yet exactly what he had him on—keep him off-balance as long as possible. He waited until he knew Eddie Joe was about a dozen feet behind him before he entered his office.

  Zeb fought back the annoyance. His thin, wiry foreman with his dark hair and eyes could move quickly and with a flexibility that eluded Zeb. Although at only a few inches under six feet, Zeb was far from short, he had a stockiness to him that worked better at pushing things through sure and steady as opposed to being quick and lithe. Zeb did have to admit with Eddie Joe, the man’s mind was as quick as his body, which has made him valuable as a foreman to Zeb.

  Zeb eased down into his wooden office chair with its contoured wooden slats holding up the back rest. He laced his fingers together as he placed them in front of him on the desk and leaned forward. He deliberately did not invite Eddie Joe to sit in one of the two chairs in front of the desk. He felt somewhat mollified when he saw his foreman had the sense to remain standing rather than assume he had an open invitation to set.

  Zeb studied Eddie Joe’s face and suppressed showing his satisfaction over the man’s discomfort. For, if what Rusty had told him was true, Zeb intended the discomfort to get more intense before it got better.

  Zeb kept his voice quiet and void of emotion. “Have a good time in Jubilee Springs yesterday?”

  “Yes I did. Reckon all the boys did, from what I could tell. Rusty, I think that was the first time he�
��s ever seen fireworks. He couldn’t get over it.” Eddie Joe’s response had been cautious.

  Zeb had always liked that about the man. He could act hurried and take shortcuts, Zeb’s wobbly veranda bannister being proof of that, but when a situation called for caution, Eddie Joe knew to be cautious. Most of the time. One exception being the previous day in Jubilee Springs if Rusty was to be believed.

  “Fireworks? Since when did Jubilee Springs start having fireworks?”

  “Since they started expanding the town. The Bainbridge brothers that own the mine, I hear they put on quite a production the whole weekend, although it was mostly for some of their own men. Still, the Independence Day celebration was worth going to. You should of come, Boss. It would have done you good to get away from the ranch for a bit.

  Zeb shook his head and groused. “Someone had to stay here and take care of things while all you yahoos went off playing.” Zeb stared hard at his foreman. “What else happened you’d like to tell me about?”

  Eddie Joe stuck his thumbs in his pockets and rocked back on his boot heels. He licked his lips. Zeb’s eyes narrowed at the sight. Yep. Ol’ Rusty, boy, hadn’t been talking through his hat, at least not completely.

  “You ever thought about getting married, Boss?”

  “Married?” Zeb slapped his palms flat on his desktop and jerked back in his chair so far he almost hit his head against the back wall. Him? Here he thought after what Rusty had said, it was Eddie Joe who had gone looking for a wife. “What on earth brought on a tom-fool question like that?”

  “Well, I was just noticing when I was in the Springs yesterday that there were more families than I’ve ever seen before, and a lot of businesses built up and all. The place has a real permanent feel to it, not like a town sprung up due to a silver rush that going to fade to nothing in five years or so. So, I was thinking, here you have this nice successful ranch you’ve built up over the years, but what’s going to happen to it when…you know…we don’t none of us live for forever.”