Twice a Bride by Mona Hodgson Page A

stepped carefully on the window frames, wending her way past the seats and through the mishmash.
    A shuffling sound stopped her. Had she heard someone, or had she only imagined the sound in her desperation to find Cherise and appease her father?
    “Is someone in here?”
    Silence.
    “Cherise?” Ida stepped over a broken lamp. “Cherise, I am Mr. Sinclair’s daughter. Are you in here?”
    Dark eyes peered at her from around a seat. As a tentative child emerged from her hiding place, Ida saw a curtain of long black hair. Red rimmed the young girl’s eyes. Tears streaked her round face.
    “You are Cherise?”
    “Oui , Cherise. Vous connaissez mon Monsieur Sinclair?” The child sniffled. “Pardon. You know my Monsieur Sinclair?” Her accent was thick, but understandable.
    Father had brought a little girl with him from France?
    The man waiting outside wasn’t the father she knew.

T renton set up his tripod on a hillock in the dry wash above the twisted train. He’d received news of the derailment by telephone from the president of the Florence and Cripple Creek Railroad, who had asked him to take pictures for their investigation. Before Trenton had gotten out of the studio door with his equipment, Bart Gardner, editor of the Cripple Creek Times , nearly ran him down. Bart had come to ask Trenton to capture a couple of crisp photographs for display in the newspaper office.
    Folks from nearby farms had come to help. At least one doctor had come out to treat the injured. He’d heard of at least one death already, an elderly man whose wife was frail and confused. He’d seen two Catholic nuns comforting the frightened and handing out food to the hungry. He’d watched a matronly woman gather children about her. She’d soon had them laughing at her stories. He’d even witnessed a young woman climbing into one of the tipped passenger cars to rescue a panicked little girl.
    Trenton positioned the cape on the camera and inserted the frosted glass. Perhaps his choice to photograph people rather than landscapes wasn’t completely driven by his need to make a dollar. He’d all but forgotten there were benevolent people in the world. The photographs he planned to take of the participants here today would champion the human spirit—their tenacity and their compassion.
    Some folks who knew his struggle would say he had spirit. Others wouldcall him hopeless. Swallowing his mother’s bitter indictment once again, he ducked under the cape and framed the scene before calling for all to be still.

    “After that day, I didn’t want to see another cow. Ever.”
    Hattie watched as the eight children gathered around her waited for another story. Their laughter was sweet music to her heart.
    “Another one, Miss Hattie.” The request came from Bucky, the oldest of three siblings. “Tell another one.”
    Hattie glanced up the tracks. The switch engine had started its descent toward them. “I’d love to, but it’ll soon be my turn to go home.”
    “Me too!” A pigtailed girl clapped and ran to her mother. The children began to scatter, reuniting with their families.
    Hattie’s smile was bittersweet. She loved telling the tales of her younger self—Adeline Pemberton. Soon the Sinclair sisters’ sons and daughters would be old enough to gather at her knee for a story.
    She glanced around the wreckage for any sign of Ida, who was probably more than ready to head back to town and join her sisters in welcoming her father to Colorado. The last time Hattie had seen the oldest Sinclair sister, Ida was handing a little girl down from a train car.
    Even if Mr. Sinclair didn’t like frills or making a fuss over things, he should be proud of his daughters.
    “Group Two.” Mr. Updike stood on the bridge, shouting into a megaphone. “Group Two: line up here.” Using the megaphone as a pointer, the banker directed the crowd already forming.
    The stock car creaked as it was pulled around the corner, ready for its second run into town.