Jo's Triumph by Nikki Tate

Chapter One

    â€œFaster, Marigold!”
    The chestnut mare galloped across the flats outside Salt Lake City.
    â€œGo!” I pressed my heels to her sides, wrapped my fingers in her wild tangle of mane, and urged her on, my own hair whipping about my face.
    I laughed, thinking of the warm biscuits and gravy Ma would have ready when I got home. I’d give Marigold’s legs a good rubdown when we got back to the farm. Already I could feel her muscles unknotting beneath my hands.
    Marigold took the bit between her teeth and bolted.
    â€œWatch out!” I screamed, hauling her head to the side, desperate to turn her so she didn’t step in the —
    Marigold lurched as her foot hit the rabbit hole. With a sickening
crack
, she stumbled. Down she went, her eyes wild. I sailed over her shoulder, my mouth gaping as I tried to scream. Only a harsh gargle came out as I hit the ground.
    Clip-clop-clip-clop
. For a moment I thought it was Marigold, trotting away without me. But the chink and jingle of harness and the rumble of a heavy cart made no sense.
    I opened my eyes to the shadowy gray shapes of the orphanage sleeping room. I swear, I didn’t know whether to laugh with joy because Marigold hadn’t really broken her leg or weep with the knowledge that I was still at the Carson City Home for Unfortunate Girls. There would be no warm biscuits and gravy, for my mother was dead, lost in childbirth along with my tinybaby sister, Grace. At the thought of my dear mother and sister, my eyes stung and I rolled onto my stomach and buried my face in the pillow.
    Sliding my hand along the rough sheet, I felt for my penknife hidden under the pillow. All around, thirteen other girls slept, their breathing deep and even. I envied them their last moments of rest. Heaven knows, Miss Critchett would be coming around soon enough to wake us.
    â€œSix o’clock, ladies,” she’d say. Then we’d pray and Mrs. Pinweather would deliver a solemn sermon about proper deportment and the evils of gin before we would be allowed to form two smart lines and march — in silence — to the eating hall.
    Breakfast was never a meal to get excited about. Porridge and weak tea filled our bellies, I suppose, but my, how I missed Ma’s biscuits and bacon. Worst of all, we had to eat that paltry meal without speaking a single word. Now why, I ask you, would the good Lord have put tongues in our headsif he didn’t mean for us to make good use of them?
    Miss Critchett and Mrs. Pinweather saw things otherwise. Both held the opinion that excessive chatter was one of many behaviors considered pernicious. They never explained exactly what
pernicious
meant, but they made it clear that it was neither
pious
nor
conducive to the development of good moral character
.
    Supposing nobody dropped dead of boredom during the morning lessons in reading, writing, and numbers, we were allowed an hour for a silent dinner before afternoon lessons in deportment and domestic studies. Those, I loathed more than anything. I’m no good at needlepoint and mending. Why should we be judged as valuable or not based on how perfectly we can stitch
Lord Bless This Home
? Nobody asked whether any of us could gentle a foal, handle a team, or start three-year-olds under saddle. At these I was as skilled as any boy, but at the orphanage it was considered most unladylike to beinterested in the work of men.
    Wide awake after my horrible dream about Marigold, I crept to the window and ran my fingers under the window ledge just as I had done every morning since July 8 th , 1859, the day my brothers left me behind. One notch for each day of my imprisonment.
Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine
. I dug the tip of my knife into the soft wood and made a slanted mark through the previous four.
    â€œOne hundred,” I whispered. One hundred days since my brothers had abandoned me. One hundred and two days since the death of my father on the wagon trail. Fifty-six