Rocky nodded and folded his arms. A grin threatened as the boy clenched his eyes shut and shoved his hands down into the flailing, pecking pack.
Jimmy came up with a double handful of feed though, and he tossed the corn as far as he could. His face lit up with wonder as several chickens squawked and flapped after it. The boy looked over, pleading in his expression.
Rocky pushed aside the inclination to step to his rescue. He pointed at the corn again and gestured that Jimmy should repeat the action.
Jimmy sighed.
After two more times, each followed by the pleading expression, Rocky decided that was enough and motioned the lad back toward him. He socked a punch to his shoulder. “You did good, Son.”
The glow that lit Jimmy’s face over the simple compliment made Rocky wonder if he’d been encouraged much in his life.
“I’ll do it right next time.”
“Glad to hear it. Now,” he sauntered over to the lariat the boy had left lying in the dirt by the corral, “would you like me to help you learn to rope?”
“Would you?!”
“First thing you need to learn is that you have to take care of your rope. You never leave it lying around in the dirt. You do that and it gets all kinds of grime in it that wears at the fibers and ruins a good rope.”
“Oh. Okay, I’ll remember.” Jimmy nodded in all sincerity, a look of pure adulation on his face.
Rocky swallowed away the lump forming in his throat. “Step over here and I’ll show you how to tie the knot so your rope will slip through nice and smooth.”
Jimmy studied his fingers as he formed the knot and proved to be an adept learner.
“Good.” Rocky shook out a loop and gave it a few easy swings around his head. “The next thing to learn is to keep your loop nice and smooth and steady. Just like this.” He held the rope out for the boy to see. “You hold it here. Like this.” He let the lad study how his hand lay on the rope, holding both the loop and the feed line in one hand.
Fifteen minutes later when Jimmy had learned how to keep a fairly steady loop and had even managed one fluke snag of the corral pole, Rocky stepped back. He needed to finish up the chores so they could go in to dinner. “You just keep practicing. You’ll be a regular cowboy before you know it.”
Jimmy’s face brightened. “Thanks!”
Rocky bumped the boy’s shoulder again. “You’re a quick learner.”
His enthusiasm flickered. “That’s not what my pa used to say.”
Rocky felt the words like a mule-kick to the chest. He shoved his hands into his back pockets. “He still alive? Your pa?”
One shoulder hitched. “Don’t know. Most likely.”
“How did you come to be riding the orphan train?”
The boy pulled the rope across his palm and a tremor laced his voice when he spoke. “Pa…, he said he couldn’t take care o’ me no more.” He gulped. “That I was too much trouble and I cost too much. So he took me down to the orphanage one night and left me there. I thought about striking out on my own, but,” he scuffed his toe, “I didn’t know where to go, so I just stayed and slept in the doorway. The next morning the orphanage people told me they didn’t have any room, but a kid who was supposed to ride the train that day, had died in the night.” His throat worked. “So they let me come in his place.”
Rocky clenched his fist on a wave of agony for the boy. “How long ago was that?”
Jimmy shrugged. “Not sure exactly. The days all sorta ran together like. However long it takes for the train to get from Chicago to here.”
Less than two weeks. The boy had been abandoned by his father less than two weeks ago. Then had been subjected to scrutiny, and subsequently passed over, at every stop between there and here. That explained a whole lot about his prickly behavior.
He cupped a hand to the back of the boy’s neck and gave him a jostle. “Well, I for one am glad that the Good Lord worked it out so that you and I could meet.”
Moisture shone in the lad’s eyes. He blinked rapidly and rubbed them. “I think I got some dust in my eyes.”
Rocky allowed him the small deception and started to turn back toward the barn.
“Sir?”
He paused.
Jimmy cleared his throat and dragged a toe through the dirt. “I never met anyone as nice as you and Mrs. Jordan.”
Rocky smiled and cuffed the boy’s head gently. “Well, I won’t be so nice the next time you feed the chickens the way you did today.”
Jimmy chuckled. “Don’t worry. I don’t ever want to have to reach down into a pile o’ pecking chickens again!”
A short bark of laughter escaped. He held his hand out for the lariat. “Go on and get washed up for dinner now. Let Victoria know I’m almost done and will be in momentarily. I’ll hang this back in the tack room for you”
As the boy bounded off toward the pump, Rocky angled a glance toward the heavens. Lord, for however long I have that boy in my care, help me to show him how special he is to You. The next thought, the one about what life would be like around here after the children found other homes, had him swallowing away his dread.
The Racklers, by all appearances, were indeed the perfect place for the girls to go. They had a well-run ranch with plenty of room in the house for the girls and plenty of money to provide for them. They’d been more than happy to answer all his questions and by the end of his time with them he knew that the girls would be well taken care of.
That didn’t mean he would miss them and Jimmy any less. He pushed the thought aside. He would deal with that moment when it came.
12
Dreading the news they would need to tell the children tonight, Victoria settled the platter of crisp fried chicken into the middle of the table just as Jimmy burst through the back door.
“Mr. Jordan says to tell you he’ll be along in just a few minutes. Did you see me roping?” His eyes sparkled with delight.
Using a towel, she opened the oven door and pulled out the bowl of mashed potatoes she’d put there to warm. “I’m sorry. I missed it. What were you roping?” She motioned with the bowl at the door he’d left wide open. “Get the door, please.”
He pushed it shut with the toe of one boot. “Just the corral pole, but Mr. Jordan showed me how to swing a loop and I’m getting better. I even caught it once.”
She smiled at him as she placed the potatoes on the table. “Well, if anyone can teach you to rope, it’s Rocky. He spent lots of summers working out on the Bennett’s ranch just outside of town. The girls and I will have to come out and watch you try again after dinner.”
“Aw, it’s no big deal.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, but she could see a spark of hope light his countenance.
“I’d love to watch. But dinner first. Call the girls, would you? Then wash up.”
“I already washed up, but I’ll get the girls.” He bounded through the living room and down the hall calling their names and all three bounced back into the kitchen just as Rocky came through the back door.
After they had all washed and everyone was seated at the table and the grace had been said, Victoria handed the platter of meat to Rocky. She noted that his face seemed tight as he studied the children. After a long moment he addressed them. “So how was your first day of school?”
“Great!” ChristyAnne’s eyes sparkled.
“Terrible.” Jimmy’s shoulders slumped.
Damera remained silent with an impassive shrug.
Rocky caught Victoria’s attention across the table and arched one brow. After a brief moment he looked at ChristyAnne. “So tell us about it.”
“Well, when we first got there she tested us and then she gave me a shiny slate for Mera and I to share, and Jimmy got one all to himself. We are supposed to do our sums on it at night and bring it back for her to see in the morning. And at recess Mera and I met Elsa and Daria Reed. Their dad is the banker in town and they had on the prettiest dresses you ever saw. And we played jump rope and pushed each other o
n the swing. And at lunch they shared a piece of penny candy with each of us!”
“I didn’t get no penny candy,” Jimmy grumbled. “And I got put up a grade higher than I’m supposed to be. The sums are going to be impossible!”
ChristyAnne sniffed. “You didn’t get any candy because you kept pulling Elsa’s pig-tails. What girl would want to give a boy candy when he does mean stuff like that?”
Rocky grinned and stuffed a huge bite of roll into his mouth. He met her gaze again and winked slyly. Tucking the food into his cheek he said, “I remember pulling on a certain pretty red-head’s braids a time or two, myself.”
Victoria concentrated on her plate and pushed away the memories of the pleasure that had given her.
“Well, I think it is dumb for boys to pull girls’ hair! And so does Elsa!”
“Aww,” Jimmy grinned, “I think she kinda likes it!”
Victoria didn’t dare meet Rocky’s gaze. “Just make sure you are acting like a gentleman and not a hooligan.”
ChristyAnne arched her brows and gave her a pointed look. “I think it is going to take some doing to get him to act like a gentleman!”
Rocky cleared his throat and ChristyAnne dropped her head guiltily and mumbled an apology into her mashed potatoes.
Jimmy sighed and angled a look toward Rocky to see if he had to make a response. At the stern quirk of Rocky’s brow his shoulders slumped. “It’s okay.”
Silence reigned for a time, but after a moment Damera plunked her milk back on the table and announced, “An’ dere is a boy who wikes ChrissyAnne.” She nodded her little head emphatically, curls bobbing.
“What boy?”
Victoria nearly choked on her potatoes at the look of fatherly concern that immediately etched Rocky’s face. She glanced around the table, then closed her eyes in dread. What would life be like when they were all gone? Could she and Rocky actually let them go? Couldn’t they be the family these children needed? She studied them again.
Jimmy laughing at the pretty blush on ChristyAnne’s cheeks. Damera with her perpetual milk mustache and dancing brown eyes laughing along. Rocky looking back and forth between them all and waiting for an answer to his question.
She studied the ring on her finger. If Rocky really meant to stay with her… well… she would talk to him about their options after dinner. She focused her attention on the conversation once more.
“…vorson!” Jimmy fanned his cheeks with one hand and pretended an attack of the vapors. “Charley Halvorson!” He crooned the word and made smooching noises across the table.
Rocky’s shoulders relaxed. And Victoria couldn’t deny that she felt a little of the same ease. The Halvorson’s were good, God fearing people.
“Charley Halvorson!”
Rocky gave one snap of his fingers. “That’ll be enough of that, Jimmy.”
When Jimmy lapsed into silence ChristyAnne made a little dismissive noise but there was still a pink tinge to her cheeks. “That boy is awful! He put an ugly, green, splotchy frog on my seat after lunch! And Miss Jordan had to—” She shuddered. “She had to pick it up and take it outside.”
“It was a cute fwog,” Damera countered around a bite of chicken.
Rocky grinned at Victoria across the table and she remembered the time he’d put a toad in her lunch pail right on top of her apple. She hadn’t been able to eat an apple for a whole month after that and she’d been wary of pulling the towel off her pail for the rest of that year.
“Frogs are not cute!” ChristyAnne scooped two peas onto her spoon and quickly swallowed them down with a chaser of milk.
“It was just a little ol’ thing. And it took us all lunch time to find one. Then you had to go and scream at the top of your lungs and have Miss Jordan let it go outside.” Jimmy shook his head in disgust as he shoveled in a mouthful of potatoes. “All your screeching and caterwauling probably scared the stuffing right out of the little guy.”
Rocky coughed and snatched up his coffee, hiding his mouth with a long sip, but his eyes twinkled at her over the rim of the blue tin cup.
“Let’s hope I scared it into hopping far away from the school so that Charley Halvorson can’t find it again tomorrow.” ChristyAnne rubbed her hands up and down her arms and made a face that could have curdled fresh-skimmed cream.
Victoria turned her escaped bit of laughter into a sneeze and hastened to the kitchen where she busied herself preparing a plate of cookies for dessert. They hadn’t turned out too bad, despite the fact she’d never figured out what went wrong with them earlier.
When she came back in Rocky’s face had turned serious. His tin cup clinked against the table. “Listen children, Victoria and I have some news that pertains to each of you.”
Victoria eased back into her chair and set the cookies down in the middle of the table.
“Cookies!” Jimmy scooped up three and a whole one disappeared into his mouth. Then he tossed Rocky a guilty look. “Sorry. I’m listenin’.”
“Ah…”
Victoria offered the plate to the girls as Rocky twisted his cup in a circle on the table.
“Well…” he looked at her for a moment then turned his focus on the girls, “there is a very nice family just near here that would like to adopt you both together.”
“Oh.” ChristyAnne’s cookie stopped halfway to her mouth.
Damera glanced uncertainly between her sister and Rocky with such a look of confusion that Victoria pressed her lips together and studied the blue calico of her skirt, willing the tears to remain locked away.
“So, who are they?” ChristyAnne’s voice sounded a little breathy and far too grown up.
“Well,” Rocky cleared his throat, “their name is Rackler and they have a fine ranch just east of here. They have… they have two other children, so you’ll have a brother and a sister right off, and there will be horses to ride, and you each will have your own room….”
The despair on Rocky’s face begged for intervention. Victoria leaned past Damera and covered ChristyAnne’s hand. “We know this is going to be hard, but after a few days you’ll know them just as well as you know us, and you’ll be just as happy with them as you are here.”
“Yes’m.” ChristyAnne mumbled the word into her plate.
Jimmy fidgeted in his chair and Rocky met her gaze miserably.
She made a snap decision. “Jimmy, no place has been found for you yet, so you’ll be with us yet awhile.”
Rocky blinked, but then nodded in agreement and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “I invited the Racklers to dinner when I was out at their place today. How does Friday evening sound to everyone?” He arched a brow in her direction and she nodded that it was fine.
ChristyAnne looked up. “You mean we don’t have to go right away?”
“No.” Rocky’s face softened and he shook his head. “We wanted to give you all a chance to get used to the idea. The Rackler’s children also need some time to adjust to having new siblings. We know you’ve already met the children, but we’d like you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Rackler on Friday and then we’ll see from there what day would be best to… make the transition.”
ChristyAnne threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin perceptibly. In just a few moments she’d turned from a little girl into the fierce protector they’d caught a glimpse of in the train station that first day. “Whatever you say, sir. And I’ll forever be grateful to you both for helping to keep Damera and me together. We’ll be alright.” She reached out and took her sister’s hand in her own trembling one and gave it a little shake. “We’ll be just fine. Friday for dinner. Yes, that sounds fine, doesn’t it, Mera?”
Damera nibbled on her cookie making no comment.
Jimmy shuffled his feet. The silence stretched so tight she thought she might hear it snap.
Finally Rocky said, “So Damera. You haven’t said too much. How did you like school today?”
She set her cookie down carefully and dusted her hands. “I wike Dawia an’ Miss Jowdan was ni
ce too…”
“But…?” Rocky questioned.
Jimmy snagged two more cookies.
Victoria frowned at him but a sniffle from Damera arrested her attention.
“Oh, honey.” She slid a hand over the little girl’s head. “It’s going to be okay.”
Scooting her chair back, Damera darted out of the room, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Victoria blinked at Rocky.
He rubbed a hand across his jaw and looked down at his plate.
ChristyAnne pressed her lips into a grim line. “Our mama used to teach us school. And Miss Jordan looks a lot like Mama did. That was a little hard, but….” She rubbed her hands together and Victoria felt a swell of emotion crash over her.
“Oh, honey.” She reached out and squeezed ChristyAnne’s hands. “I’m so sorry.”
The little girl sighed. “Best I go talk to her.”
She’d taken on quite a burden for a child so young. Life just wasn’t fair. Victoria met Rocky’s gaze briefly before she looked back and said, “Let me go talk to her this time, okay? You stay here with Rocky and Jimmy and have a cookie while I go see if there’s anything I can do for her.” At ChristyAnne’s attempted protest she added, “I’ll call you if I need anything. I promise.”
Damera was curled up on her side in the middle of the bed, her thumb in its usual position.
Victoria eased down by her side and fluffed a pillow as she rested back against the headboard. “Come here, Sweet Pea.” She patted her lap.
Damera rolled toward her and crawled up into her lap, resting her cheek against Victoria’s chest.
Wrapping comforting arms about her, Victoria simply held her, rocking gently. Father give her comfort. This little one has already experienced so much tragedy. Through me, wrap Your arms around her.
After several long moments Rocky peeked in the door and then came over to stand by the bed. He bent down to Damera’s eye level. “You alright?”
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