“Keep your money. I’m thinking on heading to Montana. Heard the cows almost raise themselves up there.”
The man was a dreamer. Not a bad thing unless it consumed you. Drake glanced at the curtain. He had all he’d dreamed and more.
Chapter 10
Christmas morning! Annie leaped from bed, eager for breakfast—flapjacks with the last of their honey. Drake had shot some quail the day before, and she would prepare them for their Christmas dinner.
Hayward had left for his own place the day before, and Drake no longer slept curled on the floor beside his cot. Annie glanced at the kitchen table where she’d stuck wrapped packages around the tiny tree. She’d stayed up late many nights working on the scarves and mittens.
Oh! A small square she didn’t recognize sat among the others. Her heart leaped. Had Drake gotten her a gift? Would today finally be the day when she found the opportunity to tell him how much she loved him? With the cramped space and their unwanted guest, the opportunity hadn’t presented itself again after Hayward showed up with his men.
Annie grabbed a mixing bowl from the shelf and measured out the ingredients for breakfast. May would be so excited to find hair ribbons in her stockings when she went to pull them on, not to mention the wooden horse Drake had carved for her. The little girl was in for a day she wouldn’t forget, probably her first real Christmas. And definitely the most enjoyable one for Annie in a good long while.
She hummed a new carol she’d heard right before moving to Arizona—“What Child Is This?”—and thought about Drake’s response when she put on the red gown. If the way his eyes lit up when she donned the yellow one was any indication, he’d be speechless.
She couldn’t count the number of blessings God had bestowed on her in the last few months. A husband, a home, and a child, food on the table, and money in the bank in the form of cattle. She knew other blessings would come to mind later, but these were the most important ones. She was a blessed woman indeed.
Hot water boiled for coffee, and flapjacks sizzled. She moved to wake May while glancing to where Drake slept. Why hadn’t he awoken yet? Most mornings he rose and slid aside the curtain before she got out of bed, completing morning chores then coming in to breakfast.
“Merry Christmas, honey.” Annie pulled the quilt off May. “Breakfast then presents. How does that sound?”
“Wonderful, Mama.” May bounded to the table. She reached for the presents then withdrew her hands and sat on them.
Annie grinned. That was as good a way of not grabbing things as anything she could think of. She skirted the table and stood in front of Drake’s quilt. “Drake?”
When he didn’t answer, she moved aside the curtain. His cot was empty, the blankets pulled up. He must have forgotten to slide the quilt aside in his hurry to get outside. Well, she’d finish making breakfast and have things ready when he returned.
She rubbed her hands together, as excited as a child. She’d never given anyone gifts before and only received them when the church back home took pity on her and her parents. She couldn’t wait to see May and Drake in their new clothes or see May hug her doll. Breakfast ready, she locked the door and hurried to dress in her Christmas finery.
Drake pounded the last nail in the bed frame. It might not be as big a piece of furniture as he hoped to have some day, but it would do for now. Tonight, God willing, Annie would become his wife in every way. Once he got a proper cabin built, then May could have this bed and he’d make a much larger one for himself and Annie. For now, the mattress would have to be filled with straw, but soon he’d start collecting feathers and give Annie something as soft as a cloud to sleep on.
The bed would also have to serve as seating. He grinned. It would take up a lot of space, but with the table shoved against it, the bed would make a fine bench.
Snowflakes danced like angels as he straightened from under the tarp and grabbed one end of the bed. If he hefted and dragged slowly, he ought to make it to the dugout with the frame in one piece.
Perspiration dotted his forehead. The cold air cut into his lungs. He leaned against the dugout door to catch his breath, slipped, and then rolled down the steps, landing in a heap at the feet of a queen in red.
“I’m sorry.” Tears welled in Annie’s eyes. “I opened the door to call you to breakfast. I had no idea you were leaning against it.” She held out a hand to help him up.
He lay like a stranded fish, mouth opening and closing in an attempt to breathe. Finally, he pulled forth words. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Her cheeks pinked. “You hit your head when you fell.” She turned. “Come eat. May is waiting for her presents.”
Once they’d eaten and the dishes were cleared, Drake folded his hands. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to do once I got a family, and that’s read from the book of Luke at Christmastime. But my Bible burned in the fire, so I’ll have to recite it the best I can.”
“I’ve my ma’s Bible.” Annie jumped up and dragged her trunk from under the bed. “I think that’s a wonderful tradition to start.”
His face flushed. Whatever made Annie happy, he’d do to the best of his ability. He especially loved it when she was pleased with one of his ideas. Nothing built up a man more or made him feel stronger than the encouragement of a good woman.
She handed him a Bible with a worn leather cover and opened it to the Christmas story. “Ma didn’t read out loud from it much, but I found this story once when I was hoping for presents. No gifts came that year, but the story filled an empty spot in my heart.”
Drake would make sure she had gifts every year of their lives. Never again would sweet Annie want for anything, not if it was in his power to give it. He started to read, “ ‘And it came to pass in those days, that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed… And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.’ ”
Like their dugout, Bethlehem had been bursting at the seams, and the same as in that town of long ago, God provided the room needed for the celebration of Christ’s birth. Drake finished reading of the angel’s visit and closed the Bible.
“Now, presents?” May asked.
“Yes, now the presents.” Drake ruffled her hair, noting the shiny blue ribbon. “You got new ribbons?”
“They were in my stocking.” She wrinkled her brow. “Isn’t that a strange place for them?”
“Very.” He laughed then sobered as Annie handed him his gifts. He opened them, more than pleased with the shirt and muffler. “You are a fine seamstress, Annie.” He stood. “I’ve something to show you that will test your skills if you don’t mind a little snow.”
“I love snow.”
What could he possibly have for her that he couldn’t bring in? Annie headed for the stairs, anticipation adding a skip to her steps.
“Wait. There’s something else I want to give you first.” Drake reached for the box on the table.
With trembling fingers, Annie peeled off the thin slices of bark he’d tied on in place of paper. Inside was a small wood box with a gold clasp. The type of box that one might keep small treasures in. Holding her breath, she opened the box. Tears sprang to her eyes at the sight of the ring. “It’s beautiful.”
“No more so than the woman on whose finger I hope to place it.” Drake took the box from her. “Will you wear it?”
She put her hand over her mouth and nodded, tears falling in steady rivulets down her cheeks.
“No longer are you the woman I married to save our land, but the woman of my heart. The other half of me.” He slid the ring on her left ring finger.
Sobs shook her shoulders. He loved her as a husband loved his wife. She could hardly see through her tears. “I don’t know what to say.”
His eyes glistened. “Your response to the next gift will tell me all I need to know.” Taking her hand, he led her up the steps and outsid
e.
Waiting for them was a pine bed, big enough for two. When the implications of the bed occurred to her, Annie didn’t need a coat to warm her. Her face burned. “How will we fit it in the house?”
“I’ve thought of that.” Still holding her hand, Drake turned her to face him. “Will you share this gift with me?” His Adam’s apple bobbed, showing his nervousness.
Knowing his emotions mirrored hers made Annie’s decision that much easier to make. “Yes, I’d be most pleased to share my gift with you.”
“I wish I had a finer place to share this day with you.” He took her other hand in his and pulled her close.
“Anywhere that you are is a castle to me, my husband.” She peered into his face. “I love you. I tried to tell you the other—”
He put a finger over her lips. “Merry Christmas. I love you.” He bent and claimed her lips.
Annie felt like the most important woman in the world. She didn’t care that she stood with snow covering her head and catching on her lashes or that the wind bit through the fabric of her dress. Drake’s kiss warmed her to her toes and made her feel like the richest woman in Arizona.
The Cowboy’s Angel
Lauraine Snelling
Prologue
Sod house somewhere southwest of Fargo
1875
But Pa, don’t want you to go.”
Anson Stedman picked up his four-year-old son and hugged him close. “I will be home soon. You must take good care of your ma.”
“I will, but don’t want you to go.”
Belle smiled up at her husband, the firelight glinting off the blond strands in her hair. “Pa will be home soon, Abel. We need to take care of the cow and chickens, or they might freeze.”
“I keep the fire going.” He slid to the floor and hugged Rusty, his best friend in all the world. “You take care of Pa now, you hear me?”
Rusty, named for his color, cocked his head, one ear standing up, one flopping forward. He kissed Abel’s cheek and wagged his feathered tail so hard he created a breeze.
Belle stood in the circle of her husband’s arm, as they both smiled at the antics of boy and dog. She didn’t want Anson to leave either, but he needed to make a trip for the much-needed supplies. He had planned to go earlier but various trials kept him home until they were desperate, and even now a storm could hit any day.
“I don’t want to go, but if I don’t, we and our animals won’t make it through the winter.” He hugged Belle one more time and, heaving a sigh, settled his knitted wool cap on his head and his flat-brimmed felt hat over it. With the scarf she last knitted for him tucked around his neck and under his wool coat, he waved good-bye. “Now don’t you go standing on the stoop. You keep that baby inside where it’s warm.” His smile brought a return one from his wife, who with one hand on her mountainous belly and the other on her son’s shoulder, smiled bravely. “And keep that rifle handy. You know how to use it if you have to.” Together mother and son moved to the window to watch him drive the wagon hitched to their remaining mule toward the sun showing half a disk above the horizon.
The thought of using the rifle against a two-footed intruder had not entered her mind until they had one sometime before.
“Hurry home,” she whispered. “Dear God, please keep him safe.”
Chapter 1
Three weeks later
Two days before Christmas
When is Pa coming home?”
“Anytime now.” Belle sucked in a deep breath. She looked at the calendar nailed to the bottom shelf on the wall of their sod house. She had marked off the days, every terrible, slow day, even though she kept busy enough for two people. That was the only way she could handle the terror.
Anson was more than two weeks overdue. He should have been gone ten or eleven days at the most. But when the big storm hit, she prayed he would stay in Fargo where he was safe. When it lasted for three of the longest days of her life, she reminded herself that God could see through a storm and protect her Anson. “Thou art my rock and firm foundation. I will not be afraid.” She repeated the verse over and over and had finally set it to a tune to hum and sing. Singing it seemed the only way she knew to keep from going crazy. The weather never had really let up after that, but for one sunny day that seemed to be a promise that the storms wouldn’t last forever.
But that depended on one’s definition of forever.
In one lull, she and Abel had brought the cow and the ten chickens from the sod barn to the lean-to she and Anson had added the summer before. That way she could manage to care for them. Bringing in hay on the sled had taken much of an afternoon. At least Anson had prepared for winter storms by stringing a rope from the house to the barn. Like her, the cow was expecting any day.
“I should never have let him go,” she reminded herself for the fiftieth time. As if she had had any choice in the matter. On the Dakota Territory plains in 1875, one did what had to be done, no matter what, if one wanted to stay alive. Winters were especially unforgiving. She’d heard tell that the wind drove some of the homesteaders outside to their deaths. After those three days of constant howling, screeching wind with no other adults around, she understood their desperation. But for her son and the baby she carried, she might have been tempted to do the same.
She added wood to the stove Anson had purchased in spite of her remonstrances that they couldn’t afford it. While she kept the fireplace going for extra heat, she now cooked on the top of the woodstove. The stove was another thing to be thankful for since Abel could feed the woodstove more easily than the fireplace. In case he needed to.
“Lord, please bring Anson home soon.” Digging her fists into her aching back, she tried to stretch and relieve the pain that came intermittently. So far she’d not given a name to the fear. Surely the pains were too soon.
“Ma?”
“Ja, Son.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Is it that time already?”
Abel nodded, the blond lock of hair falling over his forehead. He needed a haircut again. At least something around here besides her belly was growing.
“Did you look for eggs?”
He nodded and shrugged at the same time. Hens did not like to be moved, and not laying was their best revenge.
“When Tulip has her calf, we will have milk again.”
“Ja, that is so.” Belle brought the kettle of soup in from the box in the leanto where she kept things cold. The skim of ice on top of the kettle was mute testimony to the cold even inside sod walls.
When she lifted the kettle to set it on the stove, a sharp pain started in her back and circled around the front, making her catch her breath. The baby was coming, no doubt about it now. When the soup was hot, she was not surprised that she no longer felt like eating.
At least she was as prepared as she could be. A folded cloth for a diaper, a knit wool soaker, a tiny gown and a strip of cloth to wrap around the baby’s belly. Scissors to cut the cord and tiny ties for tying it off. Anson was prepared to serve as her midwife. Abel was too young. The packet was all wrapped and waiting.
The baby inside of her was not waiting. Over the next hours as the pains grew worse, she walked and gave Abel instructions to keep the fire burning. To melt water for the animals if the buckets of snow she’d brought in ran out. She only filled the line of buckets behind the stove half full so Abel could carry them. Good thing he took after his father in size and strength.
Almost Christmas and she was having a baby. Had Mary felt as she did right now? Was she afraid? At least she wasn’t dealing with a Dakota snowstorm at the same time, and she’d not been alone. She’d had Joseph there.
Belle and Abel sat in the rocking chair together, and as she read to him the Christmas story, somehow the words found their way around her heart, too.
When the pains grew too strong, she told him, “You sit here, and Ma will walk and be right back.” She paced the room from end to end, and when the spasm passed, they finished the story with the sh
epherds going back to tell everyone they met what they had seen. “Be not afraid,” the angels commanded.
When Abel’s eyes fluttered, she tucked him into the pallet on the floor by the stove where he would be warmest.
“Ma, I love you.”
“And I love you. If you wake up and it’s cold, you get up and put wood in the stove, all right?”
“Where will you be?”
“Right here. But you might wake up before I do.”
He nodded and snuggled down.
She unrolled her pallet from the bed that was too far from the heat on a night like this and laid it beside his. And walked. Terror tore at her mind while the birthing pains ripped at her body. Surely it had not been this bad when Abel had been born. She muffled a scream with her hand. Oh God, I can’t do this. Walk. I can’t walk. She staggered back across the room, stopping to lean against the bedpost, using her breathing to help control the onslaught. Pain, waves of pain. Her mind tried to drift off.
“Put wood in the stove. Put wood in the fireplace.” If she did both, they would run out of wood more quickly. The stove would have to do. Lord, what do I do? Anson, where are you? Why did you leave me? Just when I finally learned to care for you, is God taking you away? Rage fueled one trip across the room. But it was not his fault he had to leave. She gritted her teeth, and when that wasn’t sufficient, she clamped down on a piece of cloth.
You cannot fall down! You cannot fall down. Through the blur of pain, she filled the stove again, set the damper to make the wood last longer, and collapsed on the pallet. The coals in the fireplace blinked like eyes, evil eyes waiting to pounce. God help me!
Chapter 2
Halloo the camp. Can I come in?”
Jeremiah Jensen waited for a reply. He’d known too many people who got blasted entering a stranger’s camp. The fire was burning low, but he could see a form lying near it.
A Pioneer Christmas Collection Page 31
