Free Summer's Fury by tba

Scene 1
    “He sounds like a nice enough young man.”
    Summer glanced at her seat mate, Martha, an older woman in her fifties smiling kindly at her. “I suppose,” she said. “He did send me a daguerreotype,” she continued, reaching inside the reticule on her lap, her fingers twisted nervously in the thin straps. “He said it was about ten years old, taken just after the war.”
    Summer slowly opened her bag and retrieved the small daguerreotype. It was old, creased and weathered, and she idly wondered how it had gotten that way. The small image of her future husband fit into the palm of her hand as she showed it to Martha, who had boarded the train in Chicago. They’d been sitting together ever since.
    “Oh, a fine figure of a man, isn’t he?” Martha commented.
    Summer stared down at the photograph again and nodded. The man staring back at her looked stern. Not surprising. She did get the impression that Beauregard Kearny looked rather uncomfortable in his officer’s uniform. Obviously taken during the latter years of the War Between the States, all she knew about her future husband was that he had left the Union Army as a captain and then headed out west, where he eventually settled in Laramie and became a US marshal.
    She felt exhausted by the time the Union Pacific Railway train reached the border of Colorado and Wyoming in Cheyenne. The train came to a halt, the rumbling of the seat under her finally stopping with the release of a huge amount of steam from the engine. Her head pounded, her back ached, and once again she felt a brief surge of panic. What in heaven’s name had she been thinking to answer that ad for a wife, especially with the secret she held so close to her heart? She must’ve asked herself that question at least every few hours since she had left her hometown back in western Pennsylvania nearly three weeks ago.
    “You know, I had an arranged marriage,” Martha said, handing the photograph back to Summer.
    Summer looked at her temporary traveling companion in surprise. “You did?”
    “Very common back in my day,” Martha nodded. “I had no dowry to speak of, but my parents made a good match, although I didn’t think so at first.” She laughed. “For the first few months, the two of us fought like cats and dogs.” She sobered, then she turned to Summer, tears brimming in her eyes. “My Albert passed away two years ago. We were married for almost thirty years. I loved him more than anything in the world.”
    Summer reached out a comforting hand and placed it on Martha’s. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Martha,” she said. “I can only pray that I made the right decision to become a mail order bride, and that I can make as good of a marriage as you did.”
    She watched idly as several passengers moved down the aisle between the train seats to disembark. Would she find what she was looking here in Wyoming? After her father’s passing in a carriage accident the previous winter, Summer was alone now, afraid, and with no way to support herself. Her father’s debts had taken their home, his meager life savings, and left her with nothing but a trunk full of clothes and memories. Her sense of adventure had kicked in.
    “May I give you one bit of advice, dear?” Martha asked as several of the passengers walked past them to the door.
    Summer nodded. “Of course, Martha,” she said. “I need all the advice I can get. I’m so nervous I don’t know what to do.”
    “Don’t hide your emotions,” Martha offered. “If there’s something you don’t like, say so. Don’t beat around the bush. Start your relationship by being completely honest with each other. That’s the only way that you learn to trust.”
    Summer’s heart skipped a beat. Honesty. She hadn’t been completely honest with Mister Kearny, had she? Would it change things when she finally divulged the truth?
    Martha took Summer’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Give it time. Love takes time to develop, but once it