Читать книгу A Home for His Family - Jan Drexler - Страница 10
ОглавлениеThe walk back to the cabin wasn’t more than a half mile, but Sarah’s feet were frozen by the time they climbed the final slope up from the trail at the edge of town. The wind pierced her wool dress.
Charley and Uncle James took the horses and mule into the lean-to where they would get some shelter, as Aunt Margaret led the way into the house. Warmth enveloped Sarah as she stopped just inside the door. She took the cloak from Olivia and guided the girls closer to the fireplace.
Lucy watched the glowing coals while Olivia folded the blanket her sister had been using as a wrap and laid it on the wood plank floor.
“You girls must be frozen.” Aunt Margaret added a few sticks to the fire and swung the kettle over the flames. “Sit right here while we warm up the stew. Supper will be ready soon enough.”
She left the girls to get settled on the blanket while she pulled Sarah to the side of the cabin where Uncle James had built a cupboard and small table.
“What can we feed them? I do wish we had been able to bring Cook out West with us, and Susan. They’d know what to do.”
She wrung her hands, but Sarah stopped her with a touch. “You said you wouldn’t complain about leaving the servants behind in Boston.”
“That was before I found out we would be cooking over an open fireplace. How can we have guests in conditions like this?”
Sarah put one arm around the shorter woman’s shoulders. “We’ll put another can of vegetables in the pot and some water to stretch it out. Meanwhile, we’ll make a batch of biscuits. That will fill everyone’s stomachs.”
“I’m so glad you know your way around a kitchen.” Margaret glanced at the girls, content to sit near the fire. “I’ll learn as quickly as I can, but I don’t think I could make a biscuit if my life depended on it!”
“Then we’ll do it together.” Sarah put a bowl on the table, along with a can of flour and Uncle James’s jar of sourdough starter. She squelched the irritation that always rose whenever Aunt Margaret’s helplessness showed its face. One thing Dr. Amelia Bennett had expounded upon frequently at her Sunday afternoon meetings was the careless way women of the privileged classes in Boston wasted the hours of their days, while their less fortunate sisters in the mills and saloons longed for the advantages denied them because of lack of education. But with all the education available to her, Aunt Margaret had never even learned to do a simple task like baking.
Sarah took a deep breath. Dr. Bennett wasn’t here, but she was. She would help her aunt in any way she could, even if it was only to teach her how to make sourdough biscuits.
While they mixed the dough, James and Charley came in the door, bringing a fresh blast of cold air and stomping feet.
“It’s getting even colder out there as the sun goes down.” James sat in his chair near the fireplace and pulled off his boots.
“But Loretta and the horses will be safe in the lean-to, won’t they?” Charley hung his coat on a hook and joined his sisters by the fireplace.
“Sure they will. Animals can survive pretty well as long as they have food and shelter.”
“What about Uncle Nate?” Olivia turned to Uncle James, and then looked at Sarah. “Will he be all right?”
Sarah smiled at her. “We’ll pray he will be.”
A dull ache spread across her forehead as she rolled out the dough and cut biscuits. Nate’s crooked smile swam in her memory. Was he warm enough? Would he be able to find the cabin? She didn’t have any choice but to trust God for his safety.
“What made your uncle decide to bring you to Deadwood?” Uncle James asked.
The two children exchanged glances.
“There were some ladies in our church who wanted us to go to the orphans’ home,” Olivia said. “Uncle Nate said he wouldn’t do that. He said he could take care of us.”
“They called the sheriff to arrest Uncle Nate.” Charley scooted closer to the fire.
“Charley, don’t exaggerate. They only said they might. They said will’s fare was at stake.” Olivia looked at Sarah. “What does that mean?”
Sarah laid the biscuits in the bottom of the Dutch oven. “I think they meant welfare. That your welfare was at stake. It sounds like they wanted what was best for you.”
“Yes, that’s it. That’s what they said. But Uncle Nate said they didn’t know the situation and he’d see what was what if they tried to take us away from him.”
Aunt Margaret cleared her throat and Sarah saw her exchange glances with Uncle James.
“What was your situation?” Uncle James leaned back in his chair, ready to hear the children’s version of the event.
“There was a fire...” Olivia bit her lip.
“Our house burned.” Charley picked up the story as Olivia fell silent. “Pa and Uncle Nate got the three of us out of the house and then went back in to get Mama.”
The children stared at the fireplace. Sarah set the Dutch oven in the coals and then sat next to Olivia with her arm around the girl’s shoulders.
“You don’t have to tell us the rest, if you don’t want to.”
Charley went on. “When Uncle Nate came out of the house, his clothes were on fire.” His voice was hollow, remembering.
Olivia hid her face in Sarah’s dress. “I could hear Mama,” she whispered. “She and Papa were still in the house.”
“But Uncle Nate,” Charley said, his voice strengthening, “he didn’t want to give up. He kept trying to go back inside, to save them, but the neighbors were there, and they wouldn’t let him. And then the roof fell down and everything was gone.”
“Uncle Nate was hurt awful bad.” Olivia sat up and took Charley’s hand. “He almost died, too.”
“That’s when the ladies at church said we should go to the home.” Charley wiped at his eyes. “But Uncle Nate just kept saying no.”
“It sounds like your uncle loves you very much.” James laid his hand on Charley’s shoulder.
Charley leaned against Uncle James’s knee. The children fell silent, looking into the fire.
Sarah watched Lucy. She didn’t look at her sister or brother, and she hadn’t seemed to hear what they had been talking about. She sat on the folded blanket, staring at the flames, lost in a world of her own. During their walk from the crippled wagon to the cabin, the little girl hadn’t made a sound, but had passively held Sarah’s hand as they walked.
At the time, Sarah had thought Lucy was cold and only wanted to get to the cabin. But now with the others talking and in the warm room, she was still closed into her own thoughts. Could it be that she was deaf? Or was something else wrong?
The biscuits baked quickly in the Dutch oven, and supper was soon ready. Everyone ate in front of the fire, and Sarah was glad to see how quickly the biscuits disappeared, except the ones Olivia had insisted they save for their uncle along with a portion of the stew.
After they were done eating, Lucy climbed into Sarah’s lap. The little one melted into her arms without a word, the ever-present thumb stuck in her mouth.
“You stay where you are,” Margaret said as Sarah started to put Lucy back on the floor so she could help clean up from the meal. “Her eyes are closing already.”
Sarah settled back in her chair, enjoying the soft sweetness of holding a child in her arms. These children had suffered so much, and their story brought memories of her own losses to the surface. How well she remembered the awful loneliness the day her parents had died, even though she had been much younger than Olivia and Charley. She had been about Lucy’s age when she had gone to the orphanage.
She laid her cheek on Lucy’s head, the girl’s curly hair tickling Sarah’s skin, pulling an old longing out from the corner where she had buried it long ago. The room blurred as she held Lucy tighter.
All those years in the orphanage, until Uncle James returned from the mission field when she was seventeen years old, she had never had the thought that she would marry and have children. She had changed enough diapers, cleaned enough dirty ears and soothed enough sore hearts to have been mother to a dozen families.
Marriage and children meant opening her heart to love, and she refused to consider that possibility. Loving someone meant only pain and heartache when they died. She wouldn’t willingly put herself through that misery again.
She still enjoyed children, but only when they belonged to someone else. Teaching filled that desire quite nicely.
Sarah hummed under her breath as Lucy relaxed into sleep. Charley and Olivia had settled on the floor in front of the fire, where they were setting up Uncle James’s checkers game.
Where was their uncle? She prayed again for his safety in the blowing storm.
* * *
Nate stood in the abandoned camp. His hastily built fire was already dying down, and the empty canvas flapped behind him. Snow swirled. Before too long any traces of where the children had gone would be covered.
The wind swung around to the north, bringing the smell of wood smoke. A fire. People. Friends? A mining camp?
Or an Indian encampment.
He needed to find the children. He had to take the risk.
Setting his face to the wind, he followed the smoke trail to a line of cottonwoods along Whitewood Creek. He had reached the outskirts of the mining camp, and the thin thread of smoke had turned into a heavy cloud hanging in the gulch. He paused on the creek bank. Ice lined the edges of the water. The children had either been taken away, or they had run off to hide. It wouldn’t take long for them to freeze to death on an evening like this one.
There. Hoofprints in the mud. Nate followed the trail up away from the creek until he came to a cabin sheltered among a few trees at the edge of the rimrock. A lean-to built against the steep hill behind the cabin was crowded with horses. Even in the fading light, he recognized Scout and Ginger. Pete’s and Dan’s bay rumps were next to them, and then the mule’s black flank.
Nate tried not to think of what kind of men he might find in this cabin. This was where the horses were, so horse thieves, most likely. But were they kidnappers? Murderers?
He pounded on the heavy wooden door and then stepped back, gripping his rifle.
The middle-aged man who cracked open the door wasn’t the rough outlaw he expected. The white shirt, wool vest and string tie would fit in back home in Michigan, but Nate hadn’t seen a man dressed this fancy since they left Chicago in March.
“Yes, can I help you?” The man poked his head out the door.
“I’m looking for some children.”
“Uncle Nate! That’s Uncle Nate out there!”
Charley’s voice. Relief washed over Nate, leaving his knees weak.
The man smiled and he opened the door. “Come in. We’ve been expecting you.”
Nate stepped into the warmth. Charley jumped up from a checkers game on the floor in front of the fireplace and ran toward him, wrapping his arms around Nate’s middle without regard to his soaking and icy clothes. Olivia joined her brother in a hug, but Lucy stayed where she was, asleep on the lap of...
Nate dropped his gaze to the floor. Lucy was in the lap of the young woman from the stagecoach. Willowy, soft, her dark hair gleaming in the lamplight, the young woman held the sleeping child close in a loving embrace. He couldn’t think of a more peaceful scene.
A round woman dressed in stylish brown bustled up to the little group. “Oh my, you must be frozen. You just come right in and change out of those wet clothes. We saved some supper for you.”
Nate ran his fingers over the cheeks of both the older children. Yes, they were here, safe, sound and warm. It was hard to see their faces, his eyes had filled so suddenly.
“I thank you, ma’am, for caring for the children like this. I can’t tell you how I felt when I got back to the wagon and they were gone.”
“Didn’t you get our note?”
Nate met the young woman’s deep blue eyes.
“Uh, no, miss. I didn’t see any note.”
“We found the children alone with the storm coming up, so we brought them here.” Pink tinged her cheeks as she spoke, her voice as soft as feathers. “I left word of where we were going on a broken plank. I leaned it against the rocks around the fire.”
“A piece of wood?” The piece of wood he had laid on the fire when the wolves were howling. He could have saved himself some worry if only he had taken the time. Then Nate looked back at Charley and Olivia, their arms still holding him tight around the waist. If he had lost them, after all they had been through, he would never have forgiven himself.
“No matter. You’re here now,” said the man. He put his arm around the shorter woman. “I suppose some introductions are in order. I’m James MacFarland, and this is my wife, Margaret.”
“Ma’am.” Nate snatched the worn hat off his head and nodded to her.
“And our niece, Sarah MacFarland.”
She had a name. He nodded in her direction.
“I’m Nate Colby.”
“Well, Mr. Colby, there are dry clothes waiting for you behind that curtain. While you’re changing, I’ll dish up some stew for you.” Mrs. MacFarland waved her hand toward the corner of the little cabin where a space had been curtained off.
Nate untangled himself from Charley’s and Olivia’s arms and ducked behind the curtains. On the small bed were a shirt and trousers, faded and worn, but clean. When he slipped the faded gray shirt over his head, he paused. There was no collar. Nothing to cover his neck.
The children had gotten used to the angry red scars left by the burns that had nearly killed him, but these people—Sarah...Miss MacFarland—what would they say?
“Uncle Nate, aren’t you hungry?” Charley was waiting for him.
Nate pulled the collarless shirt up as high as he could and gathered his wet things. He didn’t really have a choice.
* * *
Sarah stroked Lucy’s soft hair, surprised she still slept after all the noise Olivia and Charley had made when Nate came in. She had felt like shouting along with the children, she was so relieved to see him safe.
When he stepped out from behind the makeshift curtain, Sarah couldn’t keep her gaze from flitting to his collar line. When the children had told of how their uncle had been burned in the fire, she hadn’t realized how badly he had been injured. Scars covered the backs of his hands and the left side of his neck like splashes of blood shining bright red in the light. Suddenly aware she was staring, Sarah turned her attention back to the girl in her lap, but not before she saw Nate’s self-conscious tug at the shirt’s neckline, as if he were ashamed of the evidence of his heroism.
“Come sit here, Uncle Nate.” Charley directed his uncle to the chair closest to the fireplace and Olivia gave him a plate of stew and two biscuits she had saved for him. Nate didn’t hesitate, but dug his spoon into the rich, brown gravy and chunks of potato.
Uncle James pulled a footstool closer to the fire while Olivia and Charley went back to their checkers game on the floor, relaxed and happy now that their uncle was here. Aunt Margaret settled in the rocking chair with her ever-present knitting.
“The children tell us you’ve had quite a trip,” James said after their visitor had wiped the bottom of his plate with the biscuit. “You’ve come to get your share of the gold?”
Nate reached out to tousle Charley’s hair. The boy leaned his head against his uncle’s knee.
“Not gold, but land. My plan is to raise horses, and this is the perfect place. When the government opened up western Dakota to homesteading, I knew it was time.”
“You’ve been out here before?”
Nate’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the fire. “I’ve made a few trips out West since the war.” He glanced at the children. “It’s a different world out here than it is back East. A man can live on his own terms.”
“I’m gonna be a first-class cowboy.” Charley grinned up at Nate.
When Nate caressed the boy’s head, Sarah’s eyes filled. No one could question that he loved the children as much as they loved him.
“That’s the boy’s dream.” Nate leaned back in his chair and smiled at his nephew. “Providing remounts for the cavalry is my goal, but I need a stake first. We’ll start out with cattle. With the gold rush, I won’t have to go far to sell the beef.”
“There’s plenty of land around here, if you’re looking for a ranch.” James was warming up to his favorite subject—the settling of the Western desert. “The government has opened this part of Dakota Territory up to homesteading, but with the gold rush going on, not too many are interested in land or cattle.”
Margaret rose to refill Nate’s plate, her face pinched with disapproval. She hated the greed ruling and ruining the lives of the men they had met on their journey to Deadwood. Would she keep her comments to herself this time?
“Have you struck it rich yet?” Nate asked James between bites of stew.
James glanced at Margaret. His work here had been a bone of contention between them ever since Uncle James had decided to move west. “It depends on what you mean by rich. I’m a preacher, seeking to bring the gospel to lost souls.”
“If Deadwood is like other gold towns I’ve heard about, there are plenty of those here.”
Margaret let loose with one of her “humphs” and Lucy stirred on Sarah’s lap. The little girl opened her eyes and gazed at Sarah’s face with a solemn stare before sticking her thumb in her mouth again and settling back to watch Nate eat. There was still no sound from her. Sarah smoothed her dress and buried her nose in her soft curls again.
Nate saw Lucy was awake and winked at her, and then his eyes met Sarah’s. His smile softened before he went back to eating his stew.
James went on. “Deadwood is the worst of the worst. Too many murders, too many thieves, too many claim jumpers, too many...” He paused when Margaret cleared her throat. “Ah, yes,” he said, glancing at the children, “too many professional ladies.”
Oh yes, those “professional ladies.” Sarah had heard Aunt Margaret’s opinion of them all the way from Boston. There were few enough women in a mining camp like Deadwood, but most of them wouldn’t think to darken the door of a church. Sarah shifted Lucy on her lap and glanced at Margaret. What would her aunt do if one of those poor girls showed up on a Sunday morning? Or if she knew of Sarah’s plan to provide an education for them?
“Have you had any success?”
“We have a small group of settlers, families like yours, who meet together. I’ve recently rented a building in town, and now that Margaret and Sarah have arrived, I hope more families will come. You and the children are welcome to join us.”
Nate shoveled another spoonful into his mouth.
“Could we?” Olivia looked into Nate’s face. “Oh, could we? We haven’t been to church ever since...”
Charley gave his sister a jab with his elbow, but Nate, scraping the bottom of his second plate of stew, didn’t seem to notice. Aunt Margaret took the empty dish.
What had happened? One moment Nate was discussing Uncle James’s work, and the next Olivia and Charley were fidgeting in the uncomfortable silence. Lucy slid off Sarah’s lap and crossed to Nate. He took her onto his lap and stroked her hair while he stared at the fire.
“We’ll be busy building the ranch,” he said, looking sideways at James. “I doubt if we’ll have time for church.”
He shifted his left shoulder up, as if he wanted to hide the scars, and glanced at Sarah. It sounded as if going to church was the last thing he wanted to do.
* * *
Nate woke with a jerk, the familiar metallic taste in his mouth. He willed his breathing to slow, forcing his eyes open, trying to get his bearings. The MacFarlands’ cabin. They were safe.
Head aching from the ravaging nightmare, he rolled onto his back, waiting for his trembling muscles to relax. He might go one, or even two, nights without the sight of the fire haunting him. Before Jenny and Andrew died last fall, the nightmares had almost stopped—but now they were back with a vengeance. Whenever he closed his eyes, he knew what he would see and hear: the cavalry supply barn going up in flames. Horses screaming. The distant puff and boom of cannon fire. The fire devouring hay, wood, boxes of supplies, reaching ever closer to the ammunition he had managed to load onto the wagon. And those mules. Those ridiculous mules hitched to that wagon, refusing to budge. Over and over, night after night, he fought with those mules. And night after night the flames drew ever closer to the barrels of gunpowder. And since last fall, Andrew had been part of the nightmare. He stood behind the wagon, in the flames, yelling at him, telling him to hurry...hurry...to leave him...don’t look back...
And then Nate would jerk awake, shaking and sweaty.
He glanced at Charley, lying beside him on the pallet in front of the fireplace. At least the boy hadn’t woken up this time.
Nate looked around the cabin. Still dark, but with a gray light showing through a crack in the wooden shutters. Close to dawn. Almost time to get the day started.
Above him, in the loft, the girls slept with Sarah MacFarland. He hadn’t missed how quickly Olivia and Lucy had become attached to her. Lucy had even let Sarah hold her, something she hadn’t let anyone do except himself in more than six months. They were safe here. Safer and warmer than they had been since they left home eight weeks ago.
Was he wrong to bring the children to Deadwood? Was this any place to raise them?
The women of their church back in Michigan had made it clear the only right thing for him to do would be to put the children in the orphanage. The Roberts Home for Orphaned and Abandoned Children. As if they had no one to care for them.
Absolutely not. They would take these children from him over his dead body.
Charley turned toward him in his sleep and snuggled close. Nate put his arm around the boy and pulled him in to share the warmth of his blanket.
The sound of dripping water outside the cabin caught his attention. The wind had died down, and the temperature was climbing. The storm was over, and from the sounds of things, the snow was melting already. And that meant mud. As if he didn’t have enough problems.
Shifting away from Charley, Nate sat up. He pulled on his boots and stepped to the door, opening it as quietly as he could. No use waking everyone else up. Standing on the flat stone James used for a front step, he surveyed the little clearing.
Last night, James had told him he had been in Deadwood since last summer, building this cabin before sending for the women back in Boston. He had built on the side of the gulch, since every inch of ground near the creek at the bottom had already been claimed by the gold seekers. This cabin and a few others were perched on the rimrock above the mining camp, as if at the edge of a cesspool. Up here the sun was just lifting over the tops of the eastern mountains, while the mining camp below was still shrouded in predawn darkness.
Saloons lined the dirt street that wound through the narrow gulch. The sight was too familiar. Every Western town he had been in had been the same, and he had stopped in every saloon and other unsavory business looking for his sister. But Mattie’s trail had gone cold a few years ago. No one had seen her since that place in Dodge City where the madam had recognized the picture he carried. She had to be somewhere. Could she have made her way to Deadwood? Fire smoldered in his gut at the thought of where Mattie’s choices had taken her.
The door opened behind him.
“Oh, Mr. Colby. I didn’t realize you were out here.”
Nate moved aside to make room for Sarah on the step. The only dry spot in sight. She had already dressed with care, her black hair caught up in a soft bun. Her cheeks were dewy fresh and she smelled of violets. He resisted the urge to lean closer to her.
“I’m an early riser, I guess.” He chanced a glance at her. “I heard water moving and thought I’d check on the state of things. Our wagon is still on the trail back there, mired in the mud by now.”
“I had to see what the weather was like, too.” She smiled at him, and his breath caught. “After yesterday’s storm, this morning seems like a different world. I’ve never seen weather change so quickly.”
“That’s the Northern Plains for you. It can be balmy spring one day, and then below zero the next.”
“I suppose we’ll have to get used to it.” Sarah pushed at a pile of slush with one toe. She wore stylish kid-leather boots with jet buttons in a row up the side. They would be ruined with her first step off the porch. “Your children are so sweet. I’ve enjoyed getting to know them.”
Nate rubbed at his whiskers. “They seem to like you, too. You have a way with children. I’ve never seen Lucy take to anyone so quickly.”
“I hope you’ll reconsider sending them to school when I open the academy next week.”
He shot another glance at her, wary. “They won’t have time to attend any school. They’ll be with me all day. I’ll see they get the learning they need.”
She leveled her gaze at him, tilting her chin up slightly. Nate straightened to his full height, forcing her chin up farther. “Mr. Colby, I’m sure you know children do best when learning in a safe, secure environment. Can you provide that for them while you work to find your ranch?”
“I can provide the best environment they need, and that’s with me.” Nate felt the familiar bile rising in his throat. The busybodies back in Michigan had used the same arguments.
“But what about school?”
“President Lincoln learned at night after a day’s work. Charley and Olivia can do the same.”
“But surely you don’t think—”
“Surely I do think I know what’s best for these children. They’re my responsibility, and I’m going to take care of them.”
She stared at him, her eyes growing bluer as the sun rose higher over the distant hills. And here he’d thought he’d escape these do-gooders when he came west. No one was going to take his children away from him. He slammed his hat on his head.
“I’ll be waking the children up now. We need to work on getting the wagon repaired and head on into town.”
“You can leave the girls here, if you like, while you and Charley take care of the wagon.” She reached out one slim hand and laid it on his sleeve. “You are right, that the children are your responsibility, but that doesn’t mean you can’t let others help you now and then.”
Nate considered her words. She was right, of course. With all the mud and the slogging to town and back to get that axle repaired, it would be best for the girls to stay here and enjoy a day in the company of women, in a clean, safe house. But it galled him to admit it.
He nodded his agreement to her plan. “I’ll take Charley with me. But only for today.” He lifted a warning finger, shielding him from those gentle eyes. “The children stay with me. They’re my responsibility and I aim to do my best by them.”
“Of course you want the best for them. So do I.”
She turned to look down into the mining camp as it stirred to life in the early-morning light. Somehow, he didn’t think her version of what was best for the children would be the same as his.
