Chapter 10 - Wagons Ho

By Marina Kelly and Monica Rose
Editor: Qmodo

The book was still on the table bedside the bed when they wheeled him back to his room. While he wasn't restricted to his room, considering that he was only an observation patient, Pat didn't feel like wandering around the hospital wearing only a drafty gown.

It would be an hour or two before the doctor would have time to review the scans that had been taken of his head and neck. To kill the time, Pat decided to learn a bit more about Yolanda Petalengro. He opened the book with great care as the parchment seemed rather fragile. The conformist that he was he started reading from the beginning.

April 1897
The wagon train has stopped for the night and this is the first time I have had a chance to write my thoughts down since the wagon train left home two weeks ago.

Before she left me, Mama gave me a bundle of herbs that she had stored up over the winter and told me that I could use them to help Mrs. Wilson. She also gave me a pouch of special herbs, just for me. Because I must appear to be a girl, she told me that I must take some of the herbs as a tea every day. She explained that when my supply runs out I must find more as I will have to continue to take it the rest of my life. She said that because I looked a bit girlie already, the herbs would work quickly to help me appear as a girl, she did warn me that my behavior must also match my physical appearance. I will need to be on guard at all times. Mama told me to watch how the other young women behaved and to mimic them. She warned me that I must never let anyone know that I am a boy. It could get me thrown off the wagon train or killed. She hugged me tightly and told me that she loved me. We were both crying when she hurried off into the dark.

Pat looked up from the page that he had been reading. He was surprised to see that the exceptional young woman Yolanda that he and Mary had been researching wasn't what they thought at first. Some folks would have been turned off by the fact that Yolanda appeared to have been either a cross-dressing boy or a transgendered boy. But in reality he was disguised as a woman merely as a way to save his life. This fact made his/her accomplishments all the more memorable. Then he paused to realize that there was no reason why there could not have been transgendered individuals before the present day. Pat had some idea of how hard it was in current society to have a gender identity disorder; he couldn't even begin to understand how difficult it would have been on a young man in the 1800's when such things were never spoken of. Yolanda appeared to have been a good person and the tales that had been told about Yolanda bore that impression out.

Mama was right about the herbs. The most important one is called field violets and I have been using them since we left Independence. I think that I am changing a little because I seem to want to cry whenever Mr. Wilson scolds me for something and my voice does not sound quite right. I can't believe that the herbs are working this quickly though, I wonder if mother knew something and she was already feeding the herb to me.

Mrs. Wilson spends most of her time in the wagon resting. The train boss, Mr. Bridger, was angry when he found out that she wasn't as strong as he thought she was and he yelled at Mr. Wilson. Because I am here as a helper, he decided not to make Mr. Wilson leave the train. I sleep in a blanket under the wagon. I get up early to prepare the family's meal, help pack everything up and walk behind the wagon.

Pat laid back in his bed and thought about what he had read, ‘There were some passages that described how the land changed as they journeyed, and even a day's worth of travel seemed to present them with a different landscape. It sounded like Yolanda's life was very pretty tiring. It was interesting that the life of a pioneer wasn't all glamour or exciting like Hollywood would have us believe.’ He picked up the journal and continued to read.

Hiram and Lorraine are good children. They ride at the back of the wagon while I walk behind with the cow. Even though I am walking, I am able to help them with learning their letters and how to do their numbers. When the children are resting, I fall back and practice talking like a woman. At first it was hard, but after a few weeks my normal voice now sounds just like some of the other girls here.

At night, I help Hiram learn to read from the Bible and he reads to his mother. Before bed time, I have started gathering with some of the other girls my age and I have made a few friends despite the fact all they want to talk about are the boys in the train. My best friend Nina has fallen in love with one of the drovers. She is funny to listen to.

Pat smiled when he read that teenage love was not something invented in the 20th century. Yolanda sounded like someone he would have liked to have met and made a friend of.

The water stored in a barrel on the back side of the wagon is almost gone. I don't know how many days it has been with no rain, maybe a couple of weeks. The water holes have been dry. It it's been hot and dusty, and we have not come across anybody, no farms, no towns, for days!

Pat smiled as he put down the journal. Here was a young man who had run away from a murder charge masquerading as a young girl on a wagon train. He had gone from being a nanny, to a daughter, to a self-taught doctor of sorts. This was a real-life success story.

The thunderstorm must have caused a flood somewhere up river because it took us 3 days to cross the river we came to. Mr. Bridger was unhappy about that, but we all worked as hard as we could to get across the river. We lost one wagon and the horses got drowned. Because I could not help with the wagons, I tried to keep the younger children out of the way of the teams moving wagons across the river by gathering them together and I worked to teach them their letters. Some of them already knew how to read a little, so I had a reading class with the little ones that I was helping.

I was able to save all but 3 of them. We just got done burying Constance Dahlman and her little girl. I couldn't stop crying during their funeral services. Mr. Bridger thanked me for what I did for the train and said that I was like an angel. I wish that I felt like one. An angel would have saved everyone.

The emotions just this little passage seemed to convey made Pat pause to blink back some tears. Whether Yolanda was a boy or a girl, she cared deeply for everyone around her. She would have been a great friend. He was getting sleepy but couldn't put the book down. He kept reading about how Yolanda continued to change during the journey and how she was coming to think and act more and more like a young woman.

When the train reached Fort Laramie, everyone realized that the wagon train could not continue on to Oregon and that they would be forced to winter over in Laramie. A yellowed newspaper clipping was stuck between the pages that spoke about how the mother in the family Yolanda was caring for died and that Yolanda was listed as a member of the family. That wasn't something that had been common back then. What he found interesting was that the family decided to remain in Laramie and that the last name was familiar. He wondered if this was Hiram the mechanic's family.

He read on to the end of the journal to discover that Yolanda had become the school teacher.

So Yolanda had been the school teacher and she had a thing for violets. It was interesting that violets often seemed to be found in the school house. That was one of the reasons the place had been locked up. It would have been demolished, but it was a landmark. There had been at least two incidents in the recent past involving arson at the school house. The reason anyone knew about them was that both firebugs had experienced burns that required hospitalization. No one believed their fantastic stories about a ghost. They told stories of the place being haunted and the ghost and burned them instead of allowing the flames to hurt the building. After their medical treatment, both had been taken to jail in Casper. Neither had returned after their incarceration.

Pat thought it interesting that Tom Kaylock was adamant about keeping the building locked and everyone out. There was no reason for it really. The place was a state landmark and the town would have no liability issues. Tom must have some personal reason to keep the public out.

* * * * *

Liz dropped Mary off at Pat's house so that she could get the truck and they met up again at the diner. Liz had jumped to help with the end of breakfast rush and hurried over to Mary when she came in.

"Come sit back here," she said and led Mary to a booth at the back of the dining room. There were a few looks from the men still finishing their meal. Mary didn't know if they were admiring her figure or if there was a darker reason. It was a bit ironic that she would be happier if they were undressing her in their imaginations instead of planning some kind of assault like what happened to Pat.

When they reached the back, Mary realized that being unable to see her transportation made her uncomfortable. She tried to explain the problem to Liz, but the woman just patted her on the shoulder and led her back to the front and put her at a table where she could easily keep an eye on the truck.

"I completely understand honey," Liz said as she put the glass of water she carried down in front of Mary. "You just need a chance to completely relax. If you like you could come upstairs...for a nap." Mary smiled her thanks at the invitation but shook her head no.

"I need to get out to the hospital to check on Pat." Liz asked her several times if Mary had heard anything about who the chief suspect was for the Pat’s assault. Mary told her she had no idea, and was sure the local cops would never solve the case.

Even though she was hungry, she could only make a half-hearted attempt to do any damage to the omelet and hash browns Liz had slid in front of her. When Liz saw that Mary really had not eaten anything, she scolded the younger girl. "You need to eat. You can't live on black coffee! Going all day without food isn't good for you."

"I know. I'm just not hungry," Mary answered. Considering what has been going on over the past few days, she thought that she was entitled to feel a little down. Liz came up behind her and began a neck/shoulder massage that Mary thought was wonderful, but a little intimate. After a few minutes, Liz patted her on the shoulder and told her to try to eat a bit more before she had to check on someone sitting at the counter.

As badly as she wanted her degree, Mary was seriously wondering if the subject she had chosen to write on was worth the aggravation and obvious danger she was dealing with.

First, there was a law officer who decided on his own what crimes were worth his attention and appeared to regard the county as his personal fiefdom. Then there was the Kaylock family that could have been lifted from a soap opera.

Then there had been the fire at the library. The fact that they had been locked in said that their deaths were acceptable fallout. But the arsonist had to have known that they could escape. It was possible that locking them in had been intended to keep them from putting the fire out before it did any damage.

The attack on Pat had been a warning, but it could still have resulted in serious damage. But the problem with her car was really too convenient to be a coincidence. Luckily, Mary wasn’t a speeder, if she had been, heaven only knows how things would have turned out. She really wanted it be nothing other than a simple malfunction. The alternative was that someone had tampered with the car and they were just as willing to kill her as they were to only scare her.

As moody as the whole situation made her feel, Mary couldn't help but review everything that she already knew.

First, no one wanted her to research the town's history and they were willing to destroy a historical landmark to do it. The fact that they were willing to risk killing the two of them meant that the arsonist did not even want it know what Mary might already have found.

Second was Ron Kaylock's attempted assault in the pub last night. She thought it telling that Pat had been arrested for disturbing the peace and not Ron. She was willing to bet that no one inside the bar had called the sheriff. All that followed by the fact that Pat was mugged at his very doorstep. She speculated that Pat’s assault could have been payback for the bar skirmish. If she had to point fingers, she would pick Ron Kaylock as Pat's attacker.

Third, was the problem with her car. Even though there was no evidence, she was sure that they were all related. It was the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

The more she thought about it, the more the decision to back away from what was happening here made sense. If things kept on the way they were, someone was going to be seriously hurt and she did not want to put anyone else in danger.

Once she had made her decision, she knew that she had to tell Pat. He had been willing to help her and it was only right to tell him before she left. Then once her car was fixed she would just leave town, maybe under the cover of darkness. She wasn't going to give the assholes the pleasure of laughing at her as she retreated.

* * * * *

She thanked Liz for all of her help and found that Liz wouldn't let her pay for breakfast.

"Honey, you've had a couple of bad days. You needed some comfort food and I couldn't think of anything better than that. Don't worry about paying for it. I'll tell Mel that it fell on the floor." Liz gave her a wink. Mary knew enough to graciously accept Liz's generosity and thanked her with a hug. Then she was out the door to return to the hospital, still driving Pat’s truck.

She could see the back of her car on the left in Hiram's garage. She had gotten the impression that he was a pretty good mechanic, but a little creepy. Even so, she was glad that her little Volkswagen was an older model so that there wasn't much in the way of electronics to go wrong. She hoped he would have the car ready for her so that she would be able to head home fairly soon.

On the way out of town, she passed the sheriff's office. She saw a pair of state police cruisers parked in front. She could only assume that they were touching base with the local constabulary. It stood to reason that the different levels of law enforcement would communicate with each other. Mary idly wondered what the staties thought of the job the sheriff did around here. She wished she could stop in to tell them what had been going on around here. With the way her luck has been going though, the state police would support him and she might find herself in even deeper trouble.

Once at the hospital, she found her way back to Pat's room without any difficulty. She paused in the hall and just looked into the room. She saw him reclining on his bed one end raised so that he could read. She watched as he studied the journal.

The thought that she would have to say goodbye to Pat made her feel bad enough to cry. Being here now made it all the more real to her. She had only been in town for a few days, but she and Pat had bonded far more quickly than she would have believed possible. She didn't know how Pat felt about her, but she had wanted to see if things could have gone further. Now, she wouldn't have that chance.

She couldn't bring herself to sneak away. The journal Pat was reading was important to her dissertation. She had enough to complete her research here and continue on the path of the wagon train. Solving the secrets that were here in this town really meant nothing to her degree, at most it was worthy of only a footnote.

She knocked on the door to announce her presence and stepped into the room. She looked at how he was positioned on the bed and said, "Wouldn't you be more comfortable in the armchair?"

He smiled up at her and answered, "Yes, but I didn't want to flash my privates to everyone while I was sitting. He closed the journal and sat a bit straighter. "Did you know that they don't provide patients with undergarments?"

She just blinked at the statement for a moment and said, "No. I never wondered about that. Does that mean that you will be walking around with nothing on under that gown all day?" She smiled broadly at the thought.

"Well, yes. Unless I can get someone to bring me some more clothes." He looked at her expectantly. "You know...There's that old saying that when you save someone's life, you're responsible for them forever."

"Yes...I remember that one. Does that mean that you're my pet? I could get you a basket so that you could curl up and sleep at the foot of my bed." She waggled her eyebrows at him and smiled.

"On the floor at the end of your bed?" Pat managed to make it sound forlorn.

"We could work something out," she said with a smile. "Anyway, I can bring you some more clothes. As long as you don't mind having me rummaging through your drawers.”

“Come on, let me help you get into the chair. Remember I have seen the whole package, so I promise I won’t be scandalized.”

They shared a long look and a smile. For the moment, Mary Sue forgot about the fact that she intended to leave here. She snapped back to reality when she remembered.

Her attention was drawn to a potted plant of violets on the table beside Pat's bed.

"Those flowers are pretty. Who sent them?"

Pat looked at them for a moment and said, "I don't know. They were just there when I woke up."

"That's interesting. I saw a potted plant like that when I was looking around the schoolhouse. All I could smell for a minute was violets."

"They're pretty common around here. You wouldn't think that they would grow very well with how cold we get in the winter. But that reminds me, the journal talks about violets several times."

Mary was looking at the plant and pulled a small card out from under the edge of the pot.

"Look. I think this card came with the flowers." She held it out so that Pat could take it and read it.

He looked at it for a minute or two and held it out to Mary, his hand shaking slightly.

"What is it?" She took the card from him and looked. She saw a handwritten message: GET WELL SOON.

Frowning, she looked up and said, "This writing looks familiar, but I'm not sure where I've seen it."

Pat said, "I'm sure. I just got done reading it." He tapped the journal sitting on the table beside him. Mary blinked for a moment and Pat continued, "Yes. I'm sure that it's the same handwriting, or an excellent facsimile. Why would anyone go to all that trouble? "

Mary felt a chill run down her back. Someone had to be pulling a prank here. She shook her head and asked, "Have they said when you can go home?"

”The doctor was in about half an hour ago." he said. "I took a pretty good shot to the head and that is what gave me the bruise." He gestured to the side of his head. "I only have a mild concussion, it just looked worse than it was. If I'd been hit any harder, I would have been more likely to have a skull fracture instead. I guess my mother was right when she used to say that I was hardheaded."

Mary winced as the described his inquiry. "I'm glad that it wasn't worse than that."

"The doc said that I might have to deal with some dizziness for a few days and still have some headaches, but I can manage them with aspirin or Tylenol."

"I'm really glad that it wasn't worse." She didn't even notice that she was repeating herself. She was trying to get the courage to break her news that she was leaving.

Before she could start though, Pat started speaking again. "I finished reading through this journal." He held the book up. "Yolanda was really an interesting person."

"Does the journal give any idea of what happened to her?"

"Not really," Pat said. "But, at the same time, it might. At the end of the entries, it appears that the doctor from the fort discovered Yolanda's secret. The doctor apparently wasn’t familiar with the concept of patient confidentiality. He didn’t keep her secret. "According to the journal, she was happily married at that point, and her husband went off to confront the doctor.

"You mean that everyone found out that Yolanda was not actually a woman?

Pat nodded and he continued with a smile. "That isn't the best part of her story though. Her husband was a Kaylock. From what I can tell, he was gay and very much in love with Yolanda. A love that was reciprocated by our heroine. Same sex marriages were certainly not well received in the 19th century. It must have created a tremendous scandal for the Kaylock family."

Mary Sue's eyes widened and her mouth made an O. Suddenly things were making sense. Someone already knew Yolanda's secret and didn't want it known.

"I didn't realize the issue of gay marriage went back that far. Her husband obviously knew she was a man, that means the Kaylock's have a skeleton in their closet that they are ashamed of. That would explain a lot of what's been happening."

A knock at the door interrupted them. Turning, Mary saw a woman in a police uniform, holding her hat in one hand. What really drew their attention was her other hand. The one resting on the butt of her service revolver.