The wind paused, as if catching its breath before another attack, and Eric took advantage of the increased visibility to lead Big Ole and Rose to the haven of the barn. They picked their way through the snow, which was deceptive with its constantly changing patterns. One spot might look flat when actually it was the top of a drift.
Sir Gray greeted them with a gentle whinny. “Yes, it’s your old friend, Big Ole. He’s a brave horse, so treat him nicely.”
With great care, he lifted Rose from Big Ole’s broad back and wrapped her in the horse blankets that were draped across the stable’s edge. “They don’t smell great, but they’re warm,” he whispered to Rose.
He threw clean hay onto the floor outside the stable and made a bed for her. “I’m sorry,” he said as he moved her blanketed form into the hay. “I wish I had better for you, but this is the best I can do right now.”
Her gloves were frozen, and he peeled them off and tucked her hands inside the blanket. “That should help. We need to get you some real gloves if you’re going to stay in Jubilee.”
The words struck his heart like icicles. If she stayed in Jubilee. He couldn’t think about her not being here.
He began to check her for broken bones, and she moaned in pain when he touched her ankle.
“I’ve got to do this,” he said aloud as he began to remove her boot. Once again she was wearing those absurd little shoes no thicker than a moth’s wing. The right shoe wouldn’t come off.
“Sorry,” he said to her unconscious form, and with a sympathetic wince, he tore the leather apart.
Her ankle was swollen and discolored. His experienced fingers probed tentatively, and at last he covered her foot with the blanket, convinced she had only a bad sprain.
When he saw that she was settled and breathing easily, he swiftly tended to Big Ole, rewarding him with a scoop of oats and draping him with another blanket. “You’re quite the hero,” he said, rubbing the horse’s ears. “Stay here, rest a bit, and I’ll take you back tomorrow or whenever we can get through again. But right now, I need to get back to my Rose.”
Rose stirred a bit in the bed of hay, and he went to her. Her face and hands were alabaster white and extremely cold. The danger of hypothermia was very real, and as a doctor, he knew that the most effective treatment was to hold her next to him, to share his body heat with hers. Tenderly he picked her up and cradled her in his arms.
He put his lips against her head. Strands of her hair, usually so completely tamed in the strict bun she wore, had escaped their confines, and he smoothed them down.
God, now that I’ve got her back, let her live.
Taking her away from him now would be unbearably cruel. He clutched her closer and, his words like a litany, asked God one thing: Let her live. Let her live.
Outside, the storm abated until only an occasional blast rattled the wooden boards of the barn, while inside a woman slept and a man prayed.
Chapter 15
Trust is the oddest animal on the prairie. It follows us, dogging our footsteps but always lagging back, just out of reach. Coaxing it to us takes patience and endurance.
At last the storm broke entirely. Early blizzards, Eric knew, often ran out of strength quickly, and this one was no exception. It had been ferocious, though, for seven or eight hours, long enough to remind them of the power of snow and wind.
Eric gently moved Rose back to the hay. She murmured slightly but didn’t wake up. His legs were asleep, he discovered as he tried to take a few steps. He frowned. This was happening entirely too often.
“You’re getting to be an old man, Johansen,” he said aloud.
A drift had built up outside the barn, and Eric had to struggle to get the door open. Finally a mighty shove released it far enough for him to slip out.
He gasped at what he saw. The aftermath of a blizzard never failed to awe him. The last rays of the day’s sun glimmered across the dazzling white landscape, and Eric had to shield his eyes against the glare. The snow had lost its threat, and now the ground looked like nothing more than wave after wave of powdered diamonds.
Rose’s wagon was just on the other side of the barn. It was stopped at an angle, half-buried in a drift. He shuddered as he thought of how close she had come to dying.
She was going to be fine. The swelling on her ankle had diminished greatly. Her pulse and respiration were nearly normal, and except for a few spots on her face and her fingertips, and possibly her toes, she had escaped frostbite.
There was a bruise on her head, too, where she must have hit it. Her unconsciousness was, he knew from experience, probably due more to the cold than to the head injury. People caught in extreme cold tended to fall asleep, and they often died from it.
A duck quacked loudly, objecting to something inside the barn, and the others joined in. They’d awaken Rose for sure if he didn’t make the cacophony stop.
He raced inside and smiled at what he saw. Rose was propped up, with Downy, at her feet, glaring at her with indignation. “I think I rolled over on him.”
Eric shooed the duck away and knelt beside her. He ran his hand over her forehead and picked up her hand, wrapping her wrist with his long fingers.
She smiled, a bit lopsidedly, but it was a smile. “Do I have a fever? Is my pulse all right, Doctor?”
“Was I that obvious?” He let the reference to his past as a doctor slide by. That would be taken care of as soon as she was back on her feet.
Rose looked around and frowned. “What am I doing in your barn?”
“You had an accident, but you’re all right.”
She shook her head and stopped suddenly, putting her hand to her temple. “Ouch. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Hurts?” His trained fingers probed in her hair. “No swellings or cuts except for the abrasion and contusion over your eyebrow.”
She grinned. “Scrape and bruise, huh?”
Downy watched the proceedings with diminishing interest, until at last he waddled to her feet and bit the tip of her left shoe.
“You rascal!” Rose chided as Downy left them to join his fellow ducks in an exploration of the snow-covered world outside. “He bit my—Eric! Did you see my ankle? It looks terrible! And where’s my shoe?”
“You’ve got a badly sprained ankle. As for where your shoe is…” He held it up and showed her the torn leather. “I couldn’t get it off you any other way.”
Rose smiled. “That’s okay. I don’t think I could have worn them again anyway, not after getting them this wet.”
“Are you ready to stand?” Eric asked, and she nodded. His heart felt so light that it seemed it could fly. “Let me help you. Don’t put your weight on your bad ankle. Lean on me.”
Rose’s hair was straggling free of its usually tidy bun, and her coat was missing a button. The bright scarf was half tucked in her collar and half hanging free. Yet she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
“I think I can do it.” She took a few tentative steps with his help and stopped. “I’m a bit shaky.”
He needed no invitation. He swept her up his arms and carried her to the barn door.
“I was just going to ask if I could lean more on you when I walked,” she said with a wink, “but this is good. This is very good.”
If he had his way, he’d never let her out of his arms.
Or so he thought. By the time he reached the door of his house, he’d waded through drifts that came up nearly to his waist, he’d stumbled over a limb that was partially buried in the snow, and his hat had fallen off. His nose was running dreadfully, and his fingers were numb.
Yet he would not let his dear burden down for the world. He carried her inside and put her in the rocking chair. The fire had gone out earlier in the day, but the room seemed immediately warmer with her there.
He got a blanket and wrapped it around her. She smiled weakly and shut her eyes. “Nice.”
“Let me build a new fire.”
The kindling caught immediately, and soo
n the logs crackled heartily. He made tea for both of them. “Do you want some lefse, too?” he asked. “I have some. Mrs. Jenkins also gave me some stew this morning. I’d nearly forgotten. Stew and lefse sure would hit the spot, don’t you think?”
She nodded.
As he prepared their supper, he asked her, “Do you remember what happened?”
“To me?”
He chuckled. “Yes, you goose. How did you end up with Big Ole as your tent out there?”
“I don’t recall everything,” she said. “The wagon—oh, the harness. Something about the harness.”
“Clanahan’s cheap harnesses come apart way too often,” he growled.
“Yes! That’s it! I do remember!” She sat forward, her hands cradling the mug of steaming tea. “But then we got stuck in the snow, and I decided to come back here, and I had to unhook the wagon.”
He rocked back on his heels. “Rose, that doesn’t make sense. Why would you unhitch the wagon? How were you planning to get here? You weren’t going to walk, were you?”
“No,” she said. “I was going to ride Big Ole.”
He didn’t mean to laugh, but the image of her tiny person atop Big Ole’s wide back was too much. “You…were going to ride Big Ole?” he asked as he fought for control of his laughter.
Her chin lifted proudly. “Yes, I was. What’s wrong with that?”
He pressed his lips together tightly and then said, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So how far did you get on Big Ole’s back?”
“I didn’t even get there. I went back to get my bag, and I lost my footing, and—” She paused. “And I think I fell and hit my head.”
“And Big Ole came back to stand over you and protect you,” he finished softly for her.
Tears pooled in her eyes. “God was certainly watching over me.”
He reached across and touched the back of her hand. “He was, indeed.”
“How did you find me? You didn’t go out in the storm looking for me, did you?” Her forehead wrinkled with concern.
“A bit,” he said. “You were just outside the barn—not far away at all.”
The creases in her brow deepened.
“The only way I can figure it,” Eric said, squeezing her hand, “is that Big Ole was smarter than either you or I, and he started taking you in a circle from the beginning, intending to bring you back here where you’d be safe. And he did. And you are.”
She didn’t say anything. Instead, she sat in the late afternoon sunlight, her fingers knotting and unknotting as she blinked rapidly.
“I’ll attend to the stew,” he said quietly. “You just rest.”
Rose must have fallen asleep again, for when she woke, the room was bathed in early moonlight.
“Hello, sleepyhead,” Eric said. Her eyes adjusted to the diminished light, and she saw that he was sitting in the corner, his legs stretched out in front of him.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“You needed it. How are you feeling?”
“Much better, thank you. My head still aches but not as bad.”
“You hungry?”
“Very much.”
She watched as he stood and went into the kitchen. When he came out, he had a bowl with a spoon. “Stew from Mrs. Jenkins.”
He didn’t look like a murderer, she thought as she looked into his clear blue eyes. He couldn’t be a killer. He just couldn’t be. Not and risk his own life to save her after all she’d done. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d just left her outside to die.
The stew was wonderful, rich and hearty. “Did you have some?”
“I did.”
Neither of them spoke until at last Eric said, “Rose, I owe you an explanation. I hope what I tell you will make you see why I didn’t share this with you earlier.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she began, “and—”
He held up one hand. “No. I have to.”
“I’ll listen.”
He stood in front of the fireplace and stared reflectively at the flames. “I was a doctor in Boston. I did pretty well with my practice, and some of the most influential families came to me for medical care.”
Rose put the bowl in her lap, the stew untouched, as he continued his story.
“But my favorite patients were those whose lives weren’t touched by grandeur or opulence. I treated many who had no way to pay me at all except with their thanks. It was payment enough.”
“Eric—”
“One of those patients was a woman, a young mother. Her husband had died in a factory accident before their child was even born, and the woman and her child lived in a grimy apartment in the dirtiest part of town. Yet she kept her rooms and her child and herself cleaner than many of Boston’s finest families.”
He sighed. “Then one day she got a cold that settled into her lungs. She coughed fiercely, and I begged her to go to the hospital. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t leave her son alone. He was just a little fellow, barely four.”
“There wasn’t anyone who could take him, even for a while?” Rose asked.
“It wasn’t that. Other family members offered. I offered to watch him myself, but she had a failing. She was proud. No one—not I, not her own mother—could take care of her son the way she could.”
“She must have been terrified.”
“I think she was. So I did what I could. I left medicine for her. I…” His voice broke, and he visibly struggled with the memory before he could speak again. “I left her extra, in case the first doses didn’t bring it under control, as often happens. I knew she’d be too proud—and too ashamed that she couldn’t pay me—to call me again if she got sick.”
He braced his arms on the mantel, his back still to her. “She was sick, so sick. Her fever was out of control, and I know she must have been delirious. Then…her son saw the medicine and decided that if one spoon made her feel better, the whole bottle would make her feel really good, and both bottles would cure her entirely.”
“Oh no!” Rose breathed, already seeing where this story was going.
“Yes.” His head dropped. “The boy gave her all of it, both bottles. She must have been so feverish that she didn’t realize what was happening.”
“But why would you…? I mean, how did the story…? That’s not murder.” Her head was starting to spin, partially from the injury, partially from not eating, but mainly from his revelation.
“No, it isn’t.”
“So why don’t you tell the story? The worst thing you did was have a lapse in judgment, but that’s only obvious in hindsight.”
He turned around and faced her. The moonlight was bright against the snow, and the illumination that came through the uncurtained window outlined his anguish. “I couldn’t let a little boy go through life thinking he’d killed his mother, Rose. He had his whole life ahead of him. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.”
She held out her hands to him, and he came to her side and knelt. “I lied on the death certificate. I said she’d died from a lung infection, which was, in a roundabout way, the truth. Her family, though, blamed me, and they were right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I never should have left her there, that sick, with just the child to watch over her. I shouldn’t have left that much medicine. I was wrong, so wrong. I should have insisted she go to the hospital, insisted her son stay with me, something, anything other than what I did.”
“No, no,” she said. ‘You didn’t know. How did the murder charge come about, though? I don’t understand.”
“I was never charged with murder, but there were enough raised eyebrows and innuendos from her relatives to finish off my medical career. Besides, I just didn’t have the heart to stay in Boston and pretend to heal people when I’d just killed someone.”
“You didn’t kill her.”
He shrugged. “That’s splitting hairs. No one would expect a child that small to know what to do, and she was so desperately ill. Tha
t’s why I came here, to Jubilee, to start a new life.”
“What happened to her son?”
He looked up at her, a knowingly gentle smile on his face. “Only you, Rose, would think to ask that. I’m glad to say that the little boy has found a good home with a couple who wanted a child very badly. They love him very much, and he’s doing quite well.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she understood. “You did it, didn’t you? You found him a home.”
“God did that. I was just His hands.”
She picked up his hands and held them to her lips. “They’re extraordinary hands, Eric. They can deliver a baby or plant a seed.”
“Rose,” he said, gazing earnestly into her eyes, “you can’t tell anyone. What I’ve told you must stay between us. I promised God that I would always protect that little boy, and I intend to go to my grave keeping my word.”
“I won’t,” she assured him. “It goes to my grave, too.”
“Good. And I also will not lie about it. That was part of the promise. I pledged to God that I would tell this one falsehood but never again.”
She clasped his hands tightly. “You can trust me. I won’t tell anyone. I know that what you’ve told me tonight is an act of faith. I’ve done everything in the world to make you not trust me, yet here you’re entrusting me with the most important secret you hold.”
“There’s another secret,” he said, his eyes glowing with reflected firelight. “I’ve fought it every inch of the way, but I won’t anymore. Rose, I love you. I think I loved you the moment you stepped off the train and into my heart.”
“And you caught me, and you’ve held me ever since,” she finished. “I love you, Eric Johansen. With every ounce of my being, I love you.”
Chapter 16
The starlit prairie has no comparison on earth.
Each glowing star is a kiss from our Creator.
The moonlit ride back into Jubilee was spectacular. Eric had put Big Ole in his barn for the evening and had hitched Sir Gray to his sleigh.
Such peace had come over him that he could almost imagine the stars singing. Rose looked at him and smiled, and he realized that the sound wasn’t coming from the heavens. He was humming.
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