The WESTWARD Christmas BRIDES COLLECTION: 9 Historical Romances Answer the Call of the American West

by Wanda E. Brunstetter, Susan Page Davis, Melanie Dobson, Cathy Liggett, Vickie McDonough, Olivia Newport, Janet Spaeth, Jennifer Rogers Spinola

  She felt nothing—no wind, no cold. Nothing. Numb as ice. Just the slow crumpling of her knees and a light-headedness that swirled like clouds around her vision. “She was warm,” Juliet whispered. Tears dripped off her cheeks. “Just a few hours ago. I felt her.”

  “Juliet.” A male voice spoke to her.

  She looked up with unseeing eyes.

  “Give her to me.” Jacob knelt beside her, reaching out his arms. A grim look shadowed his usually cheerful face.

  Juliet didn’t move.

  “Give her to me, Juliet,” said Jacob, his voice stronger this time. “It’s time for her to go.”

  “Go?”

  Juliet saw tears in his eyes. “Back to the earth from where she came.”

  She saw Jacob reach for the stiff bundle and started to resist, but her muscles seemed leaden, slow—and he lifted Carrie Ann easily. Her arms felt cold, empty, without the blanket, without Carrie Ann’s weight.

  “What are you going to do with her?” Juliet’s mouth could barely form the words.

  “You go get warm.” Jacob spoke in the tone he used when ordering one of his horses. “I’ll take care of her.”

  “Warm?” The words made no sense, even though her teeth rattled together in the cold. Not when Carrie Ann would never open her walnut-brown eyes, never raise her downy head.

  “Now. Go. Or you’ll freeze to death, Juliet. Posy, get her something warm to drink.”

  Posy took her arm and tried to lead her away, but Juliet held back, pulling the quilt tightly around her neck to keep from shivering.

  “Where are you going to put her, Jacob?” she asked as she sponged her nose with a proffered handkerchief. “Put her on the hillside. Where she can see the sunrise.”

  He had turned his back to her so that she could no longer see Carrie Ann’s face, but Juliet could smell the wood smoke from his jacket and the faint scent of leather and shave lather that she recognized as distinctly Jacob’s.

  “She won’t see any of that.” Jacob spoke tenderly. “You know that as well as I do. She’s seeing heavenly light shine brighter and more beautiful than she ever could on this earth—right this minute.”

  “Put her there anyway. Outside of this horrible camp where we’ve been stuck for so long. At least she can be free.”

  “Can’t do it.” Jacob shook his head. “I don’t want to upset you, but we can’t even make a headstone. The Indians will dig her up for the cloth she’s buried in. And then the wild animals might … well, trust me.”

  Juliet sniffled. “Where’s she going to go, then?”

  “Under the ruts of the wagon wheels. Nothing will find her there. Believe me—I’ll lay her down as gently as I can.”

  “Come on, my friend, and have some tea,” Posy whispered, pulling her away. “Standing around and watching won’t do us any good. Just be thankful that the ground’s not frozen yet.”

  It was nightfall when Juliet finally looked up from the spot where she’d sat with Posy. She stayed there, stiff and spent, and watched the sunlight shift and fade along the wagon’s slats. The light and shadows stilled as Silas came and sat next to her on the cold ground, not speaking for a long time.

  “Jacob’s right, you know,” he finally said in low tones. “About leaving. We’ve got to get out of here. I don’t want to say this the wrong way, but what if Carrie Ann had had access to better food? Don’t you think she might have … well, hung on a little longer?”

  Juliet didn’t want to hear about Jacob again—not with the memory of him holding Carrie Ann in his arms.

  “Don’t talk about Jacob,” she whispered. “Please.”

  Silas picked at a dried piece of grass, avoiding her eyes. “He found flowers for her,” said Silas gently. “Some dried coneflowers and daisies, up on the hillside. I helped him pick them.”

  Juliet squeezed her fingers together and forced the tears down, willing herself not to cry.

  “Come with us.” Silas touched her arm. “I don’t think Jacob will lead us wrong. And if he does, at least we tried.”

  “Fine.” Juliet spat out the word. What else was there to say? Not when Papa had made up his mind as well—there would be no changing it. And besides, who else could help him if his heart went weak again?

  “So you’ll come?” Silas sounded hopeful.

  “What choice do I have?”

  “Well, get ready, then. Jacob says to bring anything valuable that we might be able to trade for our lives—any hair combs you brought, any beads or glass, like your Christmas ornaments. Your mirrors. Everything—even your jewelry from Robert.”

  Juliet felt angry heat rush to her face. “How does he know about the brooch and the ring?”

  “I told him.”

  “You didn’t!” Juliet turned to him. “Jacob’s got precious little to give, while we sacrifice everything? Sorry, but he’s not getting Robert’s jewelry. I’d die first.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Oh, I do.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Who else is coming with us?”

  “Posy. But her aunt and uncle are staying. They don’t think their health can take the trek. Mrs. Van Dame isn’t well. But they want us to take Posy and bring back help—and the Diamonds told us to take the twins. The Parks said to take Elijah.”

  Juliet’s hand flew to her mouth. “Is it really that bad, Silas?”

  He looked at her with mournful eyes, and for a moment he appeared young and vulnerable again, the way he had as a child when he’d crawled next to her in bed at night, afraid of the dark. Afraid of the silence in the large James house and the shadows that sneaked across the polished bedroom floor from the curtains.

  “The Cheyenne are building fortifications all over the area. Most people don’t expect to make it out of here alive.”

  Chapter 6

  Night wind blew sharp and cold across the plains as Juliet crept forward on her knees with the others. Her breath sounded loud in her ears, fast and frightened as she pressed her face to the grass, braced for a warning shout from the marooned wagon train behind them. Beaded necklaces, coins, and glass Christmas ornaments in her pockets clinked together, and the sharp point of a pendant poked her through all the layers of wool and muslin and calico.

  Papa grunted behind them on his knees, his heavy frame making a low shuffling sound, and Juliet listened to the rhythm of his breath to make sure he was all right.

  “Keep going,” Silas whispered over his shoulder. “Up to the ridge, and we’ll be free and clear.”

  “Come on, Elijah.” Juliet held out her hand. “You can do it. Keep crawling.”

  Something squeaked—a mouse, a flicker of movement in the grass—where they’d startled it from its hiding place, and an owl swooped over the plain in a flicker of black against stars.

  A rifle blast shattered the quiet darkness, and Juliet dropped flat on her stomach as she threw an arm over Elijah and Violet. The air reeked of black powder.

  “It’s the owl,” whispered Papa. “They shot it.”

  Juliet craned her neck to see behind her and caught a faint flicker of moonlight from Papa’s round glasses. Too embarrassed to admit that her mouth watered as he said it.

  “Where’d that mouse go?” she whispered to Posy, trying to calm the rising rumble of her empty stomach.

  “If I find it, I’m not sharing,” Posy whispered back.

  “Hush,” Jacob snapped from up ahead—one of the first times she’d heard him speak since they’d crept away from camp. “You want them to hear us?”

  “If they’ll share the owl,” Juliet whispered back. “Then yes, maybe.”

  Elijah snickered. Silas shushed her again with a hiss, and Juliet dropped her head back to the ground with a heavy, silent sigh.

  “Come on.” Jacob motioned with his head. “Let’s go while they’re distracted. And there’s not much meat on an owl anyway, Juliet. Forget it.”

  Juliet pushed herself forward over lumps and hollows in the cold ground, over tangles of
roots and hard soil. The rippling plain, which looked so smooth and sea-like from above, hid pieces of broken wagon wheels, discarded rabbit and pheasant bones tossed from the campsite, and even pieces of tin food cans and bumpy wheel ruts from previous travelers crossing the plains.

  No wonder people died of disease along trails like these—stepping through trash in overcrowded campsites, oxen and horses polluting the water. No cover over their heads by night, and no protection from mosquitoes, insect bites, or the occasional bat that swooped down on unsuspecting children.

  As the ridge loomed closer, the dry slopes grew rougher and arched upward. Clumps of hard clay dug into Juliet’s hands and knees, and she found herself pulling on dry tree roots and rough boulders, carrying the younger children in her free arm. Smatters of stones trickled down the dry soil with a tinkling sound, and Juliet sank back on her heels, out of breath.

  Her pack weighed her down—her herb bottles and medical kit, the last bits of burned biscuits and cheese she could find in the wagon. A jug of water shut tight with a stopper.

  “Come on,” came Jacob’s whispered voice near her ear. “You can do it.”

  “Hmm?” Juliet lifted her head as she blinked bleary, sleep-swollen eyes. It seemed that she’d dozed a few moments as she’d rested her head on her arm.

  Jacob held out his hand, while little Violet clung to his other shoulder. “We’re almost to the top. Just a few more yards.”

  Juliet hesitated then reached up and reluctantly grasped his hand and let him pull her to her aching feet.

  They trudged up the steep bank, with little rains of soil trickling down, breath by hard breath. Around a coil of pine roots and then up through a gap in the pines where the stars prickled through the bristly black of a few scraggly Ponderosa pines.

  Jacob awkwardly released her hand, and she stood there at the top next to Victoria, looking back at the distant reddish fire glow of the campsite, pricked by a few dim lanterns. So lost and lonely in the vast expanse of the endless dark plain, like scattered rubies on the ocean floor.

  Jacob ducked under a pine branch and stood next to her, fixing his battered hat. He ran his hand through his wild hair, making it stand up on end.

  “It’s hard to leave what you know behind, isn’t it?” he said softly as he patted Violet’s back. “It’s always a risk.”

  Juliet couldn’t answer, thinking of Carrie Ann. Of the flowers Jacob had plucked from the hillside. Even Maryland, so far away in her distant memory that it seemed like a dream, the fuzzy bits of a story she’d invented in another life.

  Jacob’s profile was shadowed in silver, speckled with moonlight that filtered through thick pine boughs. “But without risk, there’s no adventure. And there’s no miracle.”

  Juliet spun around, hugging Victoria to her waist. “There’s no miracle, Jacob. We’ve left everything behind, and we might die between here and the Crow outpost. There’s no miracle in any of it. No meaning.”

  “Oh yes there is. I’ll wager there’s a miracle or two in store if we wait long enough. There’s always death before birth, you know.”

  “No. There’s just death.”

  “You’re wrong. The Israelites had to endure four hundred years of slavery before God parted the Red Sea and set them free. And Jesus lay in the tomb for three days before the angel announced He’d risen. Death before birth. Would Moses’ staff that budded be a miracle if it was still attached to the tree? No. It had to die first.”

  Juliet didn’t answer, thinking of Carrie Ann’s quiet gravesite under the ruts of the wagons. She cleared her throat. “I don’t know if I believe that the way I used to.”

  “You will.” Jacob ran his knuckles lightly across her cheek.

  Juliet stiffened at his unexpected tender touch, feeling her heart beat loud in her throat. She tried to keep her breathing still. A Confederate.

  She ducked under a branch, moving away slightly.

  “I know you’ll believe again,” said Jacob. “Ask God, and He’ll show you it’s possible.”

  Juliet studied the outlines of the children’s tiny faces in the moonlight and swallowed the grief down, not ready to speak yet. Jacob stood quiet a minute as he rubbed the tender flesh of his wounded arm. He sucked air through his teeth while he flexed his fingers, grimacing in pain.

  “Well, let’s go, then,” he said in that low Southern drawl, finally slapping his hat back on his head. “The moon won’t be up all night, and we’d better get as far as we can by morning. Here. Gimme that pack you’re carrying. You’ll never make it with all that stuff. What are you, a turtle carrying your home on your back?”

  “It’s my medical kit. You’ll break everything.” Juliet held on tight.

  “And what if I do? Who needs all that anyway?”

  “You will, sir, if I have to amputate that arm.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, that sounds a whole lot better than having to carry you the whole way when your back gives out.”

  Juliet snorted her disgust and shoved the pack at him, too tired to argue. Let gangrene eat his arm off, then, if that’s what he wanted.

  She gave one last glance over her shoulder at the circled camp where she’d lived for so many weeks, at the place where Carrie Ann had taken her last breath.

  “Good-bye, little one,” she whispered, touching her fingers to her lips in a kiss.

  Then she followed Jacob down the ridge, not trusting herself to look back.

  Chapter 7

  Jacob lit the lantern in the shadows of the other side of the ridge and coaxed the wobbly flame into a bright flicker. The glow reflected on his cupped hands and thinly bearded cheeks, and when he looked up at Juliet with little laugh crinkles in the corner of his eyes, those eyes gleamed with golden stars.

  Juliet felt her cheeks heat and looked away, unnerved by his direct manner. Too direct, as if he thought he knew her somehow.

  Foolishness. Juliet took a long drink of water from the jug and wondered what Robert would have thought of Jacob—brash, cheerful, and stubborn, as opposed to Robert’s quiet gentleness. Not to mention the hateful gray uniform that he’d fought in, which tore the Union apart at the seams. His ragged clothes and rolling twang. Everything Juliet despised in a man, in one manner or another.

  It didn’t matter. Juliet put down the water jug, too tired and too heartsick to think about Jacob. Not when cold and exhaustion bit into her bones like a yapping coyote and all she wanted to do was sleep—and sleep—and forget.

  “Up again,” said Papa with a grunt. “We’ve only got a few more hours of moonlight left.”

  Juliet stood and followed Papa, lifting Violet onto her shoulder.

  Night melted into weary morning, with streaks of robin’s egg blue and pink along the horizon, and Juliet walked as if in sleep—hardly seeing or comprehending. Just one aching foot in front of the other. She had no breath left, no sense. Her bones felt like jelly, water-like, feeble.

  When Jacob found them a shrubby spot by a river at dawn, they dropped into it like felled ducks, limp and motionless. Juliet lay the children down on a blanket, tucked them in, then curled on her side next to Posy in the briery reeds—not caring that cold mud soaked through her skirts.

  She awoke at the sound of rifle shots in the distance, blasting and echoing against the barren hills. Jacob’s dirty face watched the sky, and he gestured for her to keep her head low.

  “We’re too close to the fighting,” he whispered. “They must have fanned out toward the southwest. Stay quiet and keep the kids down. The Cheyenne will kill us, and I’m not taking my chances with the cavalry either. They’re so nervous they’d shoot us by mistake.” He moved a shrubby dried stalk ever so slightly, peering between the leaves. “In fact, if we rattle around too much in the bushes, somebody’s bound to think we’re food.”

  “You needn’t worry about me moving around.” Juliet ran her fingers over the children’s windblown hair as they slept. “I could sleep for a week.”

  “Ha. R
ight.” Jacob touched a finger to his lip, which had a bloody crack in the corner. “And what do you propose to do when it snows a couple of feet on top of us all, then, huh?”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We’ll go around the bluff over there instead of through the pass, which would have been easier. But we’ll make it.”

  Thirst clawed at her throat, and Juliet crawled forward through the reeds and cupped some river water in her hands. At least there was water—polluted and stagnant as it might be. Strands of light brown hair fell over her shoulder and tickled the skin of the water into shimmering rings. But not before she’d caught a faint reflection of her face: cheeks hollowed, eyes too large for her forehead.

  “You said there was birth after death, Jacob,” she said as she wiped her mouth with her fingertips.

  He turned on his elbow, his brown eyes meeting hers. “Oh, there is. I promise you that.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You will.”

  “You’re so sure of yourself.”

  “I’m sure of Him. There’s a difference.”

  Juliet crawled to Papa, where he lay curled in a heap and breathed noisily. Long snores, open-mouthed, with his whiskers twitching. She pressed her head to his chest and listened to the low, steady tick of his heart.

  You’re still alive, Jacob had told her before as they huddled by the wagons, praying for one more moment, for salvation and rescue. Even now, Papa still slept with his chest rising and falling, and the sound of the children’s quiet breathing whispered through the leaves.

  Juliet let her eyelids fall closed and slipped into blessed quiet.

  When Juliet awoke at midday, briefly, Jacob sat nearby with the others, rummaging in his rucksack, his hair messy and disheveled. She watched through bleary eyes as he broke a hard loaf of bread in his hands and passed it around. As Juliet swallowed her bites, chewing them as long as possible to savor the sensation of fragrant wheat on her tongue, she felt—strangely—the way she had at the communion table back at her church in Maryland. The breaking of bread, the silent thanks.