Christmas Mail Order Bride - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1) by Kate Whitsby

staunchly resisted the temptation. The men escorting her frowned at her when she stumbled and limped, but made no further effort to offer her the alternative footwear. Unlike her custodian, these men cared not a jot if she ruined her feet if she lacked the sense to accept a gift when it was offered.
    Later in the afternoon, the band climbed up into a series of foothills. At the top of one of these elevations, the men halted and exchanged words with each other, pointing in different directions as if consulting on which direction they should go. Suddenly, they all trained their gazes southward and flopped down onto their stomachs on the ground, hiding themselves behind the crest of the hill. The man carrying the boots dragged Penelope down next to him, pressing her into the dirt. Every pair of eyes studied the southern horizon, and in a moment, a line of mounted horsemen appeared from the trees lining a stream bed in the valley below them. The riders cantered out of the trees, onto the plane, and crossed their line of vision before disappearing into the trees on the other side of the valley. Penelope caught her breath, as the men did, and watched until the riders passed out of sight. Only after they vanished and the pounding of their horse’s hooves faded from hearing did she recall the cut of their hats and their saddles and realize those riders were white people. Calling out to them never occurred to her. Maybe they could have rescued her from these Indians and taken her home again. She sniffed back a tear as she thought of this scenario, but it was too late now. The band of men stood up and continued walking. Penelope noted that they retraced their steps back toward the encampment and before night fell, she found herself back in the same house, with the same people, and her same old custodian bending over her bleeding feet with her healing ointment.
    That night, after the fire died to a bed of glowing embers and the Indians snored in their blankets around her, Penelope buried her face in her own bedding and sobbed her helpless despair away. Would she spend the rest of her life with these people? Would she ever consent to change her clothes or wash her hair for grief at the loss of her former life? Would she one day give up all hope of returning to her own people? Would she forget how to speak English, as she once read happened to women and children taken to live for decades among the Indians? Would she, like them, fight off her rescuers and resist being taken home again? Her grief flowed out of her unabated, until she cried herself to sleep.
    The next morning, Penelope finished her breakfast and examined the faces and trimmings in the house with fresh consideration. She wondered at her own ability to appreciate them in their raw, polluted austerity. But just as she allowed herself to look kindly on her prison and her keepers, a great bustle of activity and animated voices rose up outside. Nearly half the able-bodied people in the room hastened out through the door. When they returned, talking and gesturing together in a flurry of excitement, Penelope almost jumped up from her seat when the last person entered the room and she recognized Caleb. He scanned the room until he found her. He nodded to her in an officious way, strolled over to her, and sat down cross-legged on the floor next to her.
    “I thought you’d be here,” he told her.
    “What are you doing here?” she stared at him in wonderment.
    “I thought you might be here. I came to get you.”
    He lifted his head and called out across the room. The custodian joined them and sat opposite them. She spoke to Caleb in her own language, pointing into different directions and then at Penelope. Caleb listened to her until she finished, then he addressed Penelope again.
    “She says they’ve been trying to figure out how to send you back home,” he related. “They weren’t sure how to do that. They’re very happy that I’m here, and that I know who you are and