By Kirsten
Copyright 1999
Lou put her hands on her hips in a scolding manner and wrinkled her brow. That made absolutely no sense whatsoever, why would a man with a perfectly good name go and change it? “Mark Train? I mean the Mark part isn’t all that bad, but ‘Train’??” She smiled at him gleefully with a teasing smirk. It felt good to be the one on the other side of a joke for a change.
Mark grinned and sat back down at the table. Kid and Jimmy looked at each other, while the latter shrugged and sat down as well. Kid chose to remain standing...this had better be a good explanation. They hadn’t even known the man for five minutes, and already he seemed like an odd character.
“‘Twain’, not ‘Train’...it’s my pen-name,” he turned his attention back to Lou, “You see once I stopped teaching at the orphanage, I decided that I wanted to work for a newspaper...maybe even do some of my own writing. But things changed, and I winded up driving riverboats instead. I never liked the name ‘Samuel’ anyway. It’s too formal.”
Lou realized that when he began tutoring the children at the orphanage there was something odd about him...now she was convinced. Still, his personality was hard not to love. It was probably the way he would act so natural, even over the strangest issues...especially life! “‘Mark Twain’, huh? Well, I can’t honestly say that sounds like a writer, but who knows...one day you’ll be famous and I’ll be able to say that I knew you,” Lou sighed and made it all sound dreamy.
Mark looked at the two men who still appeared to be tongue-tied, and winked. “You never know...”
Marisa was about to give up on this whole idiotic venture anyway. The wind was picking up, and the gray clouds overhead didn’t have a friendly countenance at all. It would be so easy just to turn around and tell her boss that she was quitting. But, she knew she was too stubborn for that. Returning so soon would give the impression that she didn’t think she could handle it.
Suddenly, a streak of lightning crossed the sky and the thunder boomed overhead. Her horse barely flinched, having seen and heard such a thing many times. Then without a interlude between the bright light and raging noise, the rain fell, mercilessly. Marisa hastily pulled her jacket around her and held it securely. No point in even worrying about it messing up her hair or soiling her clothes, because in the time she had taken to blink, the water had instantly drenched her.
She knew what this kind of weather brought about...which was another reason that she needed to find shelter, and fast!
Cody had barely made it to the next station before the rain began. The clouds overhead were the first warning sign that he should find a place to just sit and wait it out, but he couldn’t. The stationmaster had said that the letter they needed taken to Rock Creek was of the utmost importance, and that if he valued his job, he better see that it arrived later that evening.
He knew that was absurd...I mean seriously, who needed a letter taken to Rock Creek? It was a small town, nearly in the middle of nowhere. Personally, he just thought that the stationmaster hated his face...or even still...hated him. But he was in no position to argue, so he did as he was told.
Fierce winds beat against him from all directions as he made his journey back towards home. The sky was almost as black as midnight, and he could no longer hear the rhythmic sound of his horse’s hooves as they raced across the prairie. Hail began falling, mixing with the rain to form a painful, stinging combination as it struck his uncovered hands.
Cody looked up at the sky, “Just stay right there for 15 more miles,” he pleaded. There were a lot of things that he could outrun...but even William F. Cody knew that there would be no way he could exceed the avenging wind speeds of a twister...
Marisa sighed as she plopped backwards onto her bed at the hotel. She was mentally kicking herself for being so foolish as to even suggest that she turn back. After seeing this pitiful town, she knew that it would be so easy to find the man she was looking for and get on with her duty. See, I knew the storm wouldn’t slow me down, she thought to herself.
It was pure luck that her deceased husband had left his letters in such an obvious place. She smiled at the ceiling, remembering the day that she’d met Seth. He was nothing more than a timid little farmboy with nothing better to do than herd foul-smelling animals. He was the kind of man that she wouldn’t have given a second glance...of course that was before she knew that he had been sitting on a fortune in property.
Having to put up with him for two years hadn’t been so bad. After all, she’d given three years of her life to that older man, Howard, just six months before she met Seth. After having to smell his stinky cigars...the odor of Seth’s pitiful cooking was a step up in quality. But now that he was gone...she was well-off, and happy to be alone. Not that Seth had been that bad, mind you, in fact he had simply adored Marisa...it’s just that he wasn’t exactly her type.
She nervously began twisting her hair around her finger as she remembered the rejected look on his face as he felt a stabbing pain through his heart. He’d looked at her, almost as if he knew that she had killed him. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes as she thought back on that night. There were days that she almost surrendered her life of deception when she lived with Seth. He had brought out some of the best times she’d ever known...and when she had poisoned him, she couldn’t bare to watch him eat the food which she had used to end his life.
Closing her eyes to will away the sickness in the memory, she traded her regret for a clear picture of his tender face right before he died. “Marisa...” he began cheerfully, wanting to tell her about the surprise that he had planned for her. But instead, that one word had become the last thing he ever said and after he fell to the floor, overtaken by an inability to breathe, or move. It was that day that she did something she had never done over a man before.....she cried.
A few nights later, Marisa talked herself out of missing him, and instead focused on finding the will and deed that she knew he had been working on, and had recently completed. She smiled all the way to the desk drawer, knowing that it was in there amongst the papers, somewhere.
Marisa could remember the anger and hatred that she felt when she read the first few lines. “KID!?” She screamed, not worried about anyone hearing her out in the abandoned countryside. “HE LEFT IT ALL TO KID!?” Slamming the entire drawer to the floor, she fell to her knees, smashing a porcelain vase on the way down, furious at herself for not seeing it sooner. Seth had been talking about wanting to go see his childhood friend, Kid, for months now. In fact, now that she thought back on it, she remembered him mentioning something about possibly leaving the farm to him.
Rising from the bed, wanting to escape the memories, she walked over to the wash basin and brushed the dirt from her face. If she had any intention of getting back what was rightfully her’s, it was about time that she made her presence known to Kid. If things went exactly as she had planned...Kid would fall right into her trap of seduction and she would have no problem obtaining all that she wanted. And why shouldn’t she? After all, she had never lost one of these battles yet, and the fact that she knew all about Kid and his life, would make it that much easier.
Men could never resist her charm or beauty. Before they even saw the malice in her eyes, they would be on their knees, begging for her hand in marriage. It had happened three times before, and she had absolute confidence that it would happen again.
On to Chapter Four
