“I’d need to beat winter. I’d like to leave as soon as I could get word to Charity and make sure it’s all right for me to come. Would you come too?”
“Goodness no, child! And if the weather is even the least bit threatening, I won’t hear of you going yet, either. You’ll have to ask Agnes to go.” Augusta saw LisBeth’s reaction. “You’re visiting her daughter, LisBeth. You must at least ask her. Joseph is getting too old to haul heavy trunks about. I’ll ask Jim Callaway to escort you to the mission. Jim Callaway’s a good man, and he’ll see to it that you get there and home safe.” Anticipating a protest, Augusta held up her hand. “He can bring that string of mares and his team to Asa Green’s. The rest of the homestead can be shut down for a short time. If I ask him to do it, he’ll do it.
“And you mustn’t run from David Braddock. It would break Abigail’s heart. She’s, well, we’ve both got our hearts set on the two of you—” Seeing LisBeth’s reaction, Augusta hastened to go on. “Now listen here, LisBeth. Neither one of us old ladies is going to say or do one thing to push you into anything you don’t want. I’m just not the type to be secretive about things, and you know it. So. You must give your heart a chance to heal. I understand that. But in the meantime, you must also give David Braddock a chance to become your friend.”
LisBeth leaned her head against the back of the rocker and contemplated Augusta’s demands. The two women rocked, filling the quiet room with a duet of creaking sounds. Then LisBeth said, “I wonder if David would still want to be my friend if he knew—”
She left the thought hanging in the air and returned to the subject of the trip. “You’re right about Agnes,” LisBeth agreed, “although I’ll admit that I sincerely pray she’ll say no.”
“What about David Braddock?” Augusta wanted to know.
“I’ll talk to David. I’ll make him understand.”
And she did.
“I understand, all right, LisBeth,” David said angrily. “I understand that you’re going on a two-week trip with Jim Callaway, and you won’t even go to dinner at the Rialto with me.” They were in the library at the mansion, and David turned his back on LisBeth. He walked over to a bookcase where he grasped the edge of a bookshelf and used all his willpower to keep from throwing a book through one of the leaded glass windows that looked out on the portico.
From the kitchen Sarah heard the anger in his voice and made a hasty retreat to Tom’s room where she set to energetically checking his socks for holes that might need darning.
From her private sitting room, Abigail Braddock heard the anger in her son’s voice and clucked sadly, “Oh, David. Be patient.”
LisBeth felt strangely calm as she answered, “I want to take this trip. I want to see the work Charity is doing for myself. It’s important to me.”
He kept his back to LisBeth as he retorted, “And you’re important to me.”
“Then you should understand and let me go.”
He wheeled about. “I’ll take you.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I want to understand, LisBeth. Can’t you explain it to me so that I will understand?” His brown eyes softened as he pleaded. There was no longer anger in his voice, and LisBeth drew in a deep breath and relaxed.
“I don’t think I can explain it. I’m not sure I understand it myself. I just need to see the mission and the work there. I’ve come to care deeply about the work there. I want to see it for myself.”
David reached out to take LisBeth’s hand. “I’ve come to care deeply for you. I’d like to take you there myself.”
“You wouldn’t be going for the right reasons. I’m going because I’m genuinely interested in the work there and because I need to find my place in the scheme of things. My husband is dead, my mother is dead, and somehow I think that visiting that mission may help me find my place.”
“But how could a visit to an Indian mission possibly help you with that?”
“By helping me to understand my past better, David. Maybe if I do, I’ll be able to get on with the future.”
“I still don’t understand. How can a visit to an Indian mission help you understand your past?”
“Because, David, my father was Sioux. Because I have a half brother I’ve never met—somewhere—among the Lakota.”
David blinked several times and dropped her hand.
“I want to know what they’re like. I want to understand what it was that held my mother’s love until the day she died. I want to know what it is that keeps Charity Bond at that mission. It’s a blank space in my past that I want filled in, David. So that’s why I’m going to the mission.”
LisBeth reached for the bonnet she had set on a chair. As she tied it in place and stepped toward the door, she looked back at David and said quietly. “And I have to go without you, because just now, when I told you I’m half Sioux, you let go of my hand.”
LisBeth left the library quickly and let herself out by the side door. She walked the mile back to Hathaway House and stopped in at Joseph’s livery. She was going up and down the main row of stalls, scratching the ears of her favorite horses and singing softly to herself when Jim Callaway strode into the livery, looking down at the scribbled message Augusta had sent out to the homestead by way of Asa Green. He called Joseph’s name and looked up to see LisBeth.
The old habit of pulling at his beard had not yet disappeared. He reached up to stroke his chin and smiled at LisBeth. Referring to the note in his hand, he said, “Says here a Mrs. LisBeth King Baird needs an escort for a trip north.”
Chapter 25
Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.
Psalm 119:165†
“I can’t abide Agnes Bond for two minutes, Augusta. How am I going to bear her for two weeks?” LisBeth moaned.
Augusta reminded her, “Agnes has had great difficulty accepting Charity’s decision. Perhaps the trip will help her. And Agnes’s presence as an escort will make it possible for you to go. Just keep those things in mind, and then pray for patience!”
Reluctantly, LisBeth agreed with Augusta. Reluctantly, she walked across town to do the inviting and miserably she walked back across town to inform Augusta that Agnes had agreed to go. “She fussed and fidgeted about it, but deep down I think she was pleased I’d asked.”
“Charity is her only child, LisBeth, and complain as she will, Agnes misses her desperately. You’re doing her a great kindness by putting up with her.”
“Maybe,” LisBeth replied, “but I wonder if I’m doing Charity any good—and heaven help poor Jim Callaway. I daresay Agnes will rattle even his calm and collected exterior.”
The trio drove out of town the following Monday. Agnes groused and complained, fidgeted and fumed, but Jim didn’t ruffle. When Agnes complained that the sun was hot, he jumped down to retrieve her parasol. When Agnes whined about the wind and thirst, he made a protected place for her in the wagon bed and took a detour to find fresh water. When Agnes announced she hadn’t slept a wink, Jim gave her his own thick blankets and slept on the ground, his head propped up on a roll of cloth.
Agnes feared snakes; Jim assured her he had an eagle eye and was a “dead shot.” Agnes feared the horses would bolt; Jim explained that Joseph had insisted they take his best-broken team for the trip. Finally, Agnes began to share her heartbrokenness over losing her only daughter to the mission.
Jim offered, “When I worry about things, there’s a psalm that always comes to my mind that helps: ‘When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Thy consolations delight my soul.’ Now, I don’t want to sound like a know-it-all, but there are some real comforting things in God’s Word, ma’am.” They were sitting around a campfire and Jim reached into his bedroll and pulled out his Bible. He handed it to Mrs. Bond. “Don’t mind the writing in it. I like to underline things now and then so I can find them later, when I need them.”
Agnes opened the
book and pursed her lips. “My, there’s a lot underlined here.”
Jim smiled gently. “Well, ma’am, there’ve been a lot of times when I’ve needed comfort.”
Agnes looked up curiously, “Now, what’s a fine-looking, healthy young man like you got to worry about? You’ve a good homestead and a bright future, I’d say. Of course, we need to get you a good wife.” She looked pointedly at LisBeth, who was studying the finer details of the dirt at her feet while the two talked.
Jim chuckled, “Hold on, Mrs. Bond. You’ve already got a child to worry about. You don’t need to be worrying yourself about me.” He slid his hat down over his eyes and leaned back on his bedroll, calling an end to the conversation.
Agnes turned the pages of the Bible, and LisBeth got up to take a walk. From beneath his hat Jim cautioned, “Don’t go too far, LisBeth. Rattlesnakes and wolves don’t hand out calling cards.”
“Why don’t you walk with me?” LisBeth invited.
Jim sprung up and set his hat straight. Then, solicitously, he asked, “Mrs. Bond, will you be all right if LisBeth and I walk a bit?”
To LisBeth’s amazement, Agnes Bond smiled kindly and, instead of whining, gave good-natured permission. “Run along, children. I’ll be fine. It looks like the good Lord’s about to give us a beautiful sunset.”
LisBeth looked at Jim with surprise and got her shawl from the wagon box. The two walked along without talking for a while. When Jim broke the silence, it was to compliment LisBeth. “It’s a fine thing you’ve done, LisBeth.”
“I hope the children can use all the things that have been sent.”
“Oh, I don’t mean the clothes. I mean having Mrs. Bond come.”
Lisbeth answered honestly, “Don’t compliment me about that. There had to be a chaperone. But inside I kicked and screamed all the way across town to ask Agnes. I didn’t think I could suffer her for this long.” She looked up at Jim. “You’ve made it easy, though. How can you be so patient with her?”
“Oh, it doesn’t take much patience, really. Once you look past the first layer, you see she’s just another of God’s children whose life hasn’t gone the way she dreamed it would. She’s frightened about what the future holds, and she tries to ignore it by getting into everybody else’s business so she doesn’t have to think about her own.”
LisBeth retorted, “And how, may I ask, did you figure all that out?”
“Well, when Mrs. Hathaway asked me about driving you out, I said yes right away. Then I learned about Mrs. Bond, and I wasn’t too keen on the idea.”
LisBeth laughed. “I’ll bet that’s an understatement.”
“But,” Jim continued, “I just prayed about it, and finally I got peace about it. I read that verse that says, ‘A man makes his plans, but the Lord directs his steps.’ I figured that God had a reason for sending Agnes Bond out here with us, and I decided I’d better go along with his plans. Things always go better when I go along with his plans and don’t rush for my own wants.”
“How do you know what his plans are?” LisBeth wanted to know.
“Sometimes I’m not sure. I just try to stay reading his Word, asking him to change me, and then I hope that what I end up wanting is in line with what he wants. I just go ahead and keep praying all the time that if it’s not his plan, he’ll slam a door shut.”
“I wish I could trust anyone like that.”
“LisBeth, the only One who deserves to be trusted that much is God.”
Lisbeth frowned. “I thought I could trust him once. When I was little, we trusted God for everything from clothes to a place to stay. I tried to keep trusting him after I grew up. It didn’t work out very well.”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
They had stopped walking and were standing on a small rise just as the sun set, casting one last golden glow over the prairie. LisBeth wrapped her arms about herself defensively. She looked up into Jim’s serious, concerned, gray-green eyes and shrugged. Jim took it for permission to continue.
“When you talk about loving God and trusting God, it’s always how much your mama loved him, how much your mama trusted him. I wonder, LisBeth, have you been trying to live on your mama’s faith in God? Do you have any faith of your own?” He hurried to explain. “See, that’s what happened to me. I grew up going to church and saying all the right things. Then, one day, when something . . . terrible happened, I found out something. I didn’t have any of my own faith to fall back on. There was just this terrible, dark chasm. And I fell into it. It wasn’t until I met Joseph and read that book I gave to Agnes that I finally got my own faith.”
“Tell me, Jim, is that what’s made the difference in you?” LisBeth clutched at the shawl that was slipping off one shoulder. Jim looked surprised. “Difference?”
“Yes, when you came to Lincoln you were so distant. Cold. Quiet. Like you were keeping yourself tucked away from everyone. Joseph said you weren’t living life. You were just enduring it. But something happened that changed you. That day you asked about buying the homestead—I noticed it then. There was something new about you, something new in your eyes.” LisBeth blushed. “I don’t know—it was like a light had come on inside you.”
Jim smiled. “That’s it. A light came on. God gave me a faith of my own, and it started healing the hurts inside.”
“But what if something awful were to happen again? You don’t know that everything is going to turn out the way you want it to. What if things just fall to pieces—you could lose the homestead or get hurt—what then?”
The answer was confident. “Well, now I’ve got something to fall back into instead of the dark chasm.”
“What’s that?”
“ ‘The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.’ I’ll just fall back into ‘the everlasting arms’ and let Him carry me through.”
“I could never do that.”
“Why not?”
“I asked him to keep Mac safe. Mac died. I asked him to help me hold things together until I could get me home to Mama. Mama died. I’m not asking him for anything else. He didn’t hear me.”
“Maybe he heard you and said no. Maybe he has a plan for your life that meant you just had to go through those tough times.”
LisBeth rejected the notion bitterly. “I don’t think I care to learn about a plan for my life that involves so much pain.”
Clearing his throat, Jim tried to answer. “I don’t have all the answers for you. I can only tell you the things that have helped me.” The sun dipped behind a hill and Jim took her arm. “It’s getting late. We’d better get back to the campsite.”
The two walked back across the prairie together and made preparations for their last night of camping out. Agnes turned in with only one small complaint about the fire not burning hot enough to make a really strong cup of coffee.
The campfire had burned low and Agnes was snoring softly in the wagon box when LisBeth gave up trying to sleep and sat up. Wrapping herself in a quilt, she picked up a stick and began scrawling in the dust while her mind whirled between anger with Jim for having an answer for every one of her doubts and admiration for him for having gotten past his own dark time and going on with life.
She jumped at the sound of his voice saying quietly, “Don’t fret, LisBeth. God loves you.”
Jim resisted the impulse to say, “And so do I.” Instead, he got up and set the coffee pot of water on the glowing coals. “I’ll make you some coffee.”
“Tell me about it, Jim,” LisBeth demanded abruptly. She looked at him, her dark eyes pleading. “Tell me about that dark chasm you fell into. Tell me how you climbed out.”
“I didn’t climb out. I was pulled out. By the good Lord.”
“I wish he’d pull me out of my dark chasm.”
His voice was tender. “I think he will, LisBeth. I think he will.”
Agnes snorted loudly and the two young people started at the sound, grinned at one another, and stifled laughter.
Ji
m poured two cups of coffee. “If you think it will help you, I’ll tell you about my dark chasm and how God pulled me out. Joseph is the only living soul I ever thought I’d be able to tell about it, but if it will help you, I’ll tell you.” Settling next to LisBeth he began. “I never wanted anything out of life but to be a military man, like my father. I had great plans to rise to brigadier general someday and make my family proud.” He told his story as briefly as he could. When he described Slim Buttes, LisBeth gasped, “Oh,” and grabbed his hand impulsively. His voice shook momentarily, but he kept talking until he brought himself to Mac’s homestead and to the night when he had found God’s forgiveness.
“I can’t explain the peace that flooded in. I have a feeling a person can’t really understand that until he experiences it for himself. But it’s real. And it doesn’t go away—at least it hasn’t gone away for me. Ever since that night in Joseph’s room, I’ve had a desire to know more about God. I figure the best place to get to know him is just to read the book he wrote. So I keep reading.”
Jim retrieved his Bible from the log where Agnes had laid it before retiring. “Now, there’s some things in here I don’t like much. But I figure they’re true, and so I accept them. Here’s one,” he turned to a worn page and read aloud, “ ‘Whatever the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places.’ Now, that’s pretty scary at first, but then I read, ‘You were precious in my sight . . . and I have loved you’ and ‘Even to your old age, shall be the same. And even to your graying years I shall bear you . . . and I shall deliver you.’ ”
“But, Jim,” LisBeth protested, focusing once again on herself. “God didn’t pull me out of my dark chasm to show he loved me. He did it for you, and I’m glad for you. But he let awful things happen to me, and then he just left me to figure out how to handle it.”
“You mean you feel like Job.”
LisBeth remembered the name. “Isn’t he the man who was so rich and then lost his whole family?”
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