“Christmas Eve? Are you sure?”
“I counted the marks. See for yourself.” Posy scooted over to a row of marks she’d lightly scratched on the rawhide of the tepee.
Juliet leaned forward in the fading light, her long braid falling over her shoulder, and followed the ticks with the tip of her finger. “I can’t believe it. Who would have thought our Christmas would be like this? Why, I don’t even know if we’re in Wyoming or Montana—or where we are at all.”
“And I guess we’ll be here awhile. Snow’s cut everybody off since last month, so I reckon we’ll be stuck till next summer.”
“But it’s not such a bad thing.” Juliet looked down at her hands, which were rough from pounding berries and dried buffalo. “It’s a pretty good life, if you think about it.” She picked at a rough nail. “Better than I would have guessed.”
“You look more at peace.” Posy smiled over at her. “I think we all do.”
Juliet didn’t answer as she thought back to her days in Maryland—the polished walnut tables and clink of metal trays. Servants that bowed and disappeared through the open doors, shadow-like, rarely speaking. The date cakes and oranges of Christmas; horses and carriages that clipped down cobblestone streets.
Here she could braid her own cane baskets—albeit lopsided ones—and form clay into pots with timid hands. She watched as Crow braves brought home a slaughtered buffalo and skinned it and tanned the hide, and she helped smoke and dry strips of meat for the winter. She’d held Áxxaashe’s newborn baby boy—rosy, with chubby cheeks of cinnamon cream—and helped the tribal leader recover from kidney stones and indigestion with her tinctures and dried herbs. She had stitched Wemilat’s hand when he gashed it open with a flint knife, nursed and scolded Arapoosh back from an alcohol-induced stupor, and taught English words and Bible stories to smiling, dark-eyed children who liked to pop out from behind tepees to surprise her.
She’d studied the herbs, roots, teas, and poultices of the herbalists—their snakebite cure that worked on the spotted dog Kajika when all her American remedies failed—and tried her best to replicate the intricate beadwork on a leather dress collar.
Even her clothing had shifted from the thin calicos and petticoats of sheltered, seaside Maryland to the borrowed buckskin dress of the Crow woman, complete with beaded moccasins and leather leggings tied just above her knees. Otherwise she would have frozen to death right there in her black stockings, the way the frigid winter wind tore across the plains—frosting twigs with ice.
“Come on, Juliet—let’s celebrate Christmas with the others.” Posy reached out her hand. “We can sing a song or two. Just to remember.”
To remember. Candied pears, fir trees, candles. Mistletoe and laughter and stolen kisses. Stars and good-byes, and carols sung with happy lips. All of it gone. Even her Christmas ornaments and green velvet dress, probably sold by bandits at some sleazy trading post.
Juliet let the pain come and sting and gently die. She followed Posy into the gray twilight, where snow whirled down like bits of goose down, lofty and floating. Posy held out a lantern but nearly ran into Silas.
“Sorry.” She ducked her head as if in embarrassment. “You gonna celebrate Christmas with us?”
Silas stood taller and more rugged than Juliet remembered. He was wearing a long, thick Crow tunic banded in reds and blues at the neck, leather trousers, and moccasins. His sun-bleached hair was the color of a dry cornfield. Snowflakes caught in his eyelashes.
“Well, what do you know? Christmas. You’re right.” He lowered the split pine lodge poles from his shoulder and rubbed his stubbly jaw. “I’d almost forgotten.”
“Not me.” Posy shook her head. “I’ve been dreaming about gingerbread for days now. I can almost taste it.”
“Well, I don’t have any, so I won’t be much help.”
“No, but you can remember with us. It makes it almost seem real.” Posy pushed Silas toward the tepee. “Come on. We’re looking for your pa now.”
“Papa’s out picking pine boughs. I saw him.”
“Pine boughs?” Posy clapped her hands in childlike joy. “Really? For Christmas?”
“He and Mama always loved Christmas.” Juliet smiled wistfully. “Our house smelled like oranges and cinnamon all through December.”
“Yeah, but the funny thing is, I think I almost like the smell of these outdoors better.” Silas scuffed at a spot on the earth with his leather moccasin.
“What, wood smoke, buffalo chips, and our body odor?” Posy wrinkled her nose. “You’re a funny one, Mr. James.”
Silas gave a sudden laugh then looked down at Posy with an expression that made Juliet’s heart skip a beat. The raw hunger of his gaze, like she’d seen in Robert’s eyes when love began to stir. “Well, no, that’s not all, Posy,” he said in an almost tender tone. “Freedom. The outdoors. Sometimes I hope nobody ever comes to rescue us. It’s almost like Eden, you know?”
Silas moved closer to Posy as if to say more. His breath misting in the snow.
And Juliet carefully backed away, shivering under her blanket. Her blood beating fast and joyous.
Papa caught up with Juliet, his arms full of fragrant green boughs, and the sharp, sweet scent of pine filled Juliet’s nostrils. “Merry Christmas, my dear.” He grinned and kissed Juliet lightly on the cheek. Snow gathered on the top of his head, making his gray curls look white—like a stocky, red-faced Father Christmas in his woven red Crow robe and blanket.
“Merry Christmas, Papa.” Juliet wrapped an arm around him and deftly steered him away from Silas and Posy. “You didn’t forget.”
“Of course not. How could we forget, of all days, the Lord’s birth? I bet He felt a bit like we do now—cold, far from home, and a bit out of place.”
“That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” said Juliet softly. “The birth of our Savior on Christmas Day. The greatest day of all.”
Christmas, and a Savior who called Himself the “bread of life.” Juliet needed to think—to clear her head of its whirl of memories—and ponder what Papa said. Something so simple, so obvious, that she couldn’t believe she’d overlooked it.
Christmas wasn’t ever about parties, or gingerbread, or anything like that. It was about Him—and always had been.
And strangely enough, it was also about upheaval. Loss. Grief.
In fact, the first Christmas probably looked far more like this one, right here among buffalo rawhide tepees, than it ever did in Juliet’s warm parlor, crowded with Christmas guests.
There was no fragrant cinnamon or hot cider for Mary and Joseph, and no festive violin. No doting aunts cooing over newborn rosy cheeks, and no proud grandmother to receive the little warm bundle with tears.
Instead, it had all been taken from them in an instant. In an unexpected whirl of events—a swollen belly, a blush of shamed red in the cheeks. Strange dreams and strange stories, and one by one the eyes turned cold and condemning.
Just Mary and Joseph now, alone, and the stench of livestock. Their numb fingers clumsily wrapping the rough swaddling cloths for the first time. And the raw, unspoken prayer of a broken heart: Why, Lord? Why me? Why us? Why this child, and why now? Why not a year from now, when the circumstances would be different, better, more acceptable?
This isn’t what I expected.
Is this really the way it has to be?
A raw part of me still wants to go home, and to have everything just the way it was—before this strange, divine interruption.
The first Christmas, colored with confusion and sorrow.
But miracles, too.
Juliet pulled the blanket over her mouth to hold back a sob.
Firelight rippled in shadows against the taut sides of the tepee as Juliet lifted the door flap. Two things hit her at once: beautiful warmth and the mouthwatering, unmistakable fragrance of Christmas bread. Sweet, fragrant, and pungent—like fruits and sugar.
It had been so long since Juliet smelled panettone that her hands began to tr
emble. But of course not—not here at the Crow camp. That was impossible.
“Jacob?” Juliet brushed the snowflakes from her hair as she bent through the opening. “What’s that smell? What are you making?” She jiggled the snow off her moccasins and shook out her blanket.
Jacob looked up from the fire, the amber-colored light playing on his auburn hair and the curves of his face and jaw. He grinned, and a puff of sparks showered behind him like golden fireworks.
“Christmas bread.” He poked a pan over the fire with his good arm. Two large, pale, fat loaves nestled there in honey-colored light. “The best I can make it under these circumstances. Have you had it before?”
“Christmas bread?” Juliet froze in midshake.
“My German grandma used to make it every year at Christmas until she died.” Jacob turned back to the fire with a pleasant wistfulness in his face. “It’s called stollen. The smell of my childhood.”
Juliet still stood there, not moving.
“What?” Jacob turned again. “You okay?”
“Yes.” Juliet put the blanket down. “It’s just … How did you know?”
“How did I know what? About stollen? I dunno. Watching her, I guess. It’s supposed to be a fruit bread—with raisins and orange peel, and maybe some almonds.”
Juliet could hardly swallow over her dry throat. “I can’t believe it. It’s just like our panettone from Italy. What could you possibly find here at camp to make Christmas bread?”
“I used the finest cornmeal and wheat flour they could give me here at the camp, and a little sugar—which is pretty impressive, because almost everything the Crow eat is meat. They must have bought it off a settler or at a trading post somewhere. I traded that knife I made for it.” He stoked the fire, sending up another shower of sparks that popped and snapped. “And the fruit? A few handfuls of dried plums and chokecherries and honey. I guess buffalo tallow will have to do in place of butter. But it smells good to me.”
Juliet’s heart beat faster. “It’s a yeast bread, Jacob—you can’t fool my nose. The Crow don’t even make much bread, except for that kind made with wild turnips. How’d you make yeast bread?”
“You’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“I’m Irish.” He winked. “And we know potatoes. Haven’t you ever cooked before?”
She felt color rush into her cheeks. “Not really. We employed a cook.”
“Well, yeast comes from potatoes. You feed it with sugar.”
“Where did you get potatoes?”
Jacob held up two fingers. “I found two left on the ground that the bandits didn’t take. Just two. They must have rolled out of my pack.”
“What! And you didn’t eat them?”
“I saved them for trade with the Crow, but they didn’t take anything in trade.”
Juliet looked down at her hands in embarrassment. “They’re better than us, you know that? Our people would have taken them.”
“Probably so.” Jacob sighed. “But anyway, two potatoes were enough to make yeast for the bread.”
“You know how to make yeast.” Juliet tried to smother a smile.
“My grandma taught me. And anybody on the farm who wanted to eat. We all pitched in.” Jacob poked at the coals. “When you’re hungry and poor, nobody really cares who does it, so long as it gets done.”
Juliet swallowed, thinking of her Maryland kitchen bursting with fresh chicken and parsley, crab and ripe plums. Imported lemons and cinnamon and tea. Until the war, and the wagon trek West, she’d never really known what it felt like to go hungry.
“Well, that’s exactly the same reason Daddy taught me medicine,” said Juliet softly. “He said it didn’t matter who did the mending and the healing, so long as someone did. Silas can’t stand the sight of blood, so that left me.” She shrugged. “I guess you and I have more in common than I thought.”
“Except I’m not as easy on the eyes.” Jacob smiled.
Juliet laughed. “Well, Christmas cake is a beautiful end for your potatoes, anyway.”
“The end? Don’t you know how yeast works? It’s made to multiply—to go out and breathe new life into something still and dead. All it takes is a pinch of starter, and if I feed it the right sugars, we can make bread for years.”
“So we can feed a thousand people, technically, from two potatoes.”
“That’s what my Grandma always said. It’s a divine arithmetic, Juliet—the way God intended it from the beginning. For the physical elements of our world to prove the eternal.”
Juliet’s mind whirled, and all the sermons she’d heard over the years came pouring back like a snowstorm, roaring bits and pieces into her ears. Things about miracles and faith and extraordinary multiplication.
“Like Jesus feeding the five thousand, Jacob.” She spoke suddenly without meaning to. “The fish and the bread.”
“Exactly. Because bread sustains life. And He is our bread.”
The Bread of Life. Juliet suddenly felt like smacking herself. How could she have missed it? How could she have missed Him—the most important thing of all, her breath, her whole heart—in all of her pain, her yesterdays and tomorrows?
He was there among the bloody stretchers, the groans of the dying—working through Juliet’s own fingers to suture and salve, to hold a shaking hand. And she had missed Him—refused to see Him. Let her heart harden with bitterness.
It was this same Jesus—the Bread of Life—that walked with her along the desolate plains of Wyoming, step by frozen step, holding her up in His arms. The same way He carried Carrie Ann and Elizabeth—and Robert, even—as they took their final journey to Him.
How could she not have believed He was there? And turned to Him, even for a moment?
For even the crumbs of His presence were enough to fill her deepest hunger.
Jesus, the Christ—Christmas Manna—Bread from heaven, scattered in the wilderness and lonely places for those who seek Him. Who hunger for Him. Who let Him lead them, even through the deserts and darkest paths.
“ ‘And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger,’ ” Juliet whispered, “ ‘and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only.’ ”
“You knew that.” Jacob lifted his eyes.
“Of course. One of my teachers made me memorize a chapter of Deuteronomy for every foolish prank I played.”
“How many chapters?”
Juliet spread her fingers, warming them by the flickering flames. “Don’t ask.”
“I’m asking.”
“Twenty-seven.”
“There are that many chapters in Deuteronomy?”
“Thirty-four.”
Jacob chuckled and scratched his hair with his good hand. “I guess you paid him back by making him listen while you recited, didn’t you?”
“There are lots of laws in Deuteronomy. Lots.” Juliet raised an eyebrow. “I can tell you all about the Feast of Weeks, if you want.”
“Well, right now the only feast I’m thinking about is our Christmas feast.” Jacob poked the bread with a piece of deer antler. “They’re done, except for rolling them in sugar. Granny would be proud, God rest her.”
He tipped his head as though to study his loaves. “Or not. My concoction might taste pretty awful. I’m not a chef, you know.”
“It’ll be wonderful. You’ll see.”
“Ha. You have more faith in me than I do.”
Juliet sat silently next to Jacob as he blew on his fingers from the chafing heat, and her eyes crept up to his wrinkled shirt sleeve and buckskin vest. “How’s your arm, Jacob?” she asked quietly. “Does it hurt much?”
“Nah.” Jacob looked away, and Juliet felt in the pit of her stomach that he wasn’t being completely honest. “Not so much that I can’t bear it, anyway.”
“Can you move it?”
He kept his face turned away. “Not much. It’ll probably be stiff like
this most of my life. Doc had to cut some tendons, apparently.”
Juliet looked down and traced the hem of her skirt with her finger. “You know we didn’t expect you to live, right?”
“It might be awhile until I get my strength back, but I’m alive. Guess it wasn’t my time to go yet.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment, and a log popped, sending up a shiver of sparks.
Jacob cleared his throat as shadows flickered on the lines in his suddenly serious face. “I never got to properly thank you, Juliet, for what you did. For me.” He swallowed. “Posy told me you gave away your engagement set.”
“It wasn’t doing me any good anyway, you know. Robert’s … well, he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sure you are. Juliet picked at a loose bead.
“No, really. I’m sorry you lost him. And I’m sorry for the whole war—for the whole mess of it. And what it’s done to you.” He reached out with his good hand and gently stroked a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
Juliet nearly flinched at his touch but managed to stay still.
“Don’t say it.” Tears swam in her eyes.
“Don’t say what?”
“All that ridiculous sap about what a wonderful fellow he must have been—and then change the subject. You can’t, and you won’t, understand. Ever. People just say that to shut me up so I won’t cry or blabber on about him—but I loved him, Jacob. Do you hear me? I loved him. I still do.”
“I know you do.” His voice sounded soft, aching. “And he provided for you, up to the very last moment with his gift.”
Juliet wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. “No, he provided for you—so I could hire the doctor.”
“You’ve got it backward.” Jacob sat up straighter then moved his bandaged arm. “It was always for you. With that exquisite piece of jewelry you could have bought your life from anyone—from raiders, bandits, even from the Cheyenne bent on revenge. Did you ever think of that? I’d wager that Robert of yours thought of the possibility of just such a thing when he had it crafted.”
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