Violet: Bride of North Dakota (American Mail-Order Bride 39) Read Online Free PDF Page B

big noses and weak chins.”
    “Oh, Mother, his nose isn’t that big.”
    Violet noticed that Amelia didn’t deny the weak chin.
    Disappointed, she realized that James had exaggerated in his letter. Misrepresented himself, even.
    But hadn’t Daniel called James “pretty boy Evans”?
    Now she didn’t know what to expect.
    She was more nervous than when she’d first stepped on the train, four days before.

 
    James Evans is a boy, and a foolish one at that. A man would have been at the station to meet his bride and made her feel welcome, not abandoned. If need be, I will make it my mission to find Miss Keating another man in Minot to marry, as I am sure there are many here who would be glad to do so. Even I have urges in that direction, though I will fight them back. I am too old for her, too jaded... too afraid of another betrayal.
    (Journal Entry, Daniel Lund, October 15, 1890)
     
    DANIEL DROVE THE HORSES DOWN the lane.
    He’d stopped first at the Evans home—the home of James’s parents, where James still resided while he fixed up the house he’d apparently purchased two months before. For his new wife—the same one he’d abandoned at the train station. His parents claimed they didn’t know where James was—but Daniel wasn’t sure he believed them.
    Next he’d checked both the church—which was empty—and the pastor’s home. Pastor Winter hadn’t heard anything from James since he arranged for the wedding several weeks before. The good pastor had been glad to have someone to complain to about having waited all afternoon and into the evening—and no happy couple had arrived. He’d arranged for witnesses, whom he’d finally sent home. And Daniel didn’t have the heart to cut him off, though he finally had to because the need to find James compelled him to move on.
    He’d also asked everyone he’d passed by if they’d seen or heard from James. No news.
    Now, having left the wagon and horses tied up partway down the block, he was stomping through the snow toward Minot’s most famous saloon—Jack Doyle’s—a brick building on the corner of Central Avenue and Main Street. He’d start bar-hopping here because he figured it was most likely he’d find the shirker’s ne’er-do-well friends here, if not the groom himself.
    Four years before, Minot’s first Christmas tree had been set up in Jack Doyle’s saloon and all residents invited to a party, where they were given gifts. It had been a memorable evening, complete with music and singing.
    He wasn’t feeling nearly so festive tonight.
    Daniel pushed through the door, grateful for the warmth inside the rough building. He brushed snow from his clothing before he went in any farther.
    The room was partially lit, but some of the booths lining the wall were in shadow. The bar nearly split the room from left to right, and Daniel’s gaze followed the bar and then the booths.
    Sure enough, they were seated at the last booth. The three Hansen brothers were inseparable from each other and from James Evans because none of them had to work, so they had plenty of time and money to get into trouble. Together with James, they spent more money on drink than most men spent on supporting their families.
    Shaking his head in disgust, Daniel headed over. When he stood at the end of the booth, the three looked up at him.
    Stewart Hansen put his arm around the back of the booth next to him in a movement of casual nonchalance. “What’s up, Lund?”
    “I’m looking for James.”
    “Won’t find him here.” Stewart looked at his brothers. “Right, boys?”
    The other two nodded, Mitchell lifting a mug of beer to his lips and Samuel shrugging.
    Daniel smiled as though he actually liked the spineless buffoons. “Where is he, then?”
    They exchanged glances, then laughed.
    Stewart cleared his throat, sat up straighter, and said, “Join us for a round, and we’ll tell you what we know. If you can convince us why we should tell you.”
    “Yeah,” said