A Pioneer Christmas Collection

by Kathleen Fuller

  She wrapped the meat in a cloth with its ends tied together to make a sack of sorts and took it back to the reverend. “Tell the missus it weren’t your fault. You gave it your best, but as Anson always said, ‘Claribelle Stedman was just another name for stubborn.’ ”

  She showed him to the door with a smile. The wind tried to grab the door, but she held tight. “You sure you should go out in this?”

  “Not snowing yet, but that old horse of mine would find his way back to the feed box in a blizzard in the middle of the night.” He tucked his scarf in around his neck and over the lower part of his face. “Fact is, he has. The good Lord makes sure I get where I need to go.”

  He mounted and rode off the way he came.

  Belle shut the door and dropped the bar in place. The storm wasn’t really on them yet—if it did indeed attack like the others had. Sometimes they just blew on by. Weather could be downright capricious.

  She looked up to see Jeremiah shaking his head. “I can take you somewhere else soon as the weather lets up. You know that.”

  “I know, but I will tell you the same. I am staying here.”

  “What’s so all-fired important about this piece of land that you won’t leave even for a time?” He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. After all, this was none of his business really, but the look she gave him let him know she got the point.

  “I know you can’t see it through the snow, but all our blood, sweat, and tears for four years watered this land. Anson has died for this land.”

  “Well, not exactly.” He started to say something else and thought the better of it. “Think I’ll go milk Tulip.”

  “Don’t throw the colostrum away. The calf can drink it later, and the chickens will like it.”

  “My ma used to say colostrum was good for whatever ailed you.”

  “I’ll make a pudding, and we even have sugar to put in it, thanks to Reverend Swenson. Oh such a treat this will be.” She almost sang. She spun around. “We could even put a dollop of jam on top. Something lovely.” She glanced at Jeremiah, to see him staring at her, a half smile in place, slightly shaking his head. “What?”

  “Who were you before you married Anson and moved to the frontier?”

  “This isn’t exactly a frontier, you know. Why Dakota Territory might become a state sometime soon.”

  “Be that as it may…” He raised an eyebrow, along with a bucket, used and scrubbed so much it almost shone inside. “Use this for milking?”

  “Yes. If it is big enough. I can make cheese, too. Ma used to make good cheese from the early milk.” A cloud tried to darken the sunshine. “Before.” She sucked in a breath and smiled down at her son. “Pretty soon you will have to learn to milk, too. If your hands are strong enough.”

  “Pa said I am strong.”

  “Ma said it, too.”

  He nodded. “Will the calf mind?”

  “He might mind, but it will do no good. He will have to learn to drink from a bucket or Tulip won’t keep producing enough milk for all of us.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the calf can’t drink as much milk as Tulip can make.”

  “Oh.” His brow wrinkled as he nodded. Then he looked up at his mother with a sun-kissed grin. “But we can.”

  “We can. We will have butter and cheese and cream in our coffee and buttermilk for us and the chickens and—”

  Angel announced her displeasure at being ignored.

  Belle blew up a breath from her lower lip that lifted the wisps of hair framing her face. And Anson wasn’t there to enjoy this with them. The cloud tried to descend again. But Jeremiah was. He would like the pudding. And the cheese. If he stayed. He said he had to leave.

  But I don’t want him to leave. Where had that thought come from? Of course she didn’t want him to leave in the middle of the storm, danger, all the things that were sure to assail him on his way north and west. She would be concerned for anyone going out in this.

  So why did you not protest when Reverend Swenson left? Now that was a silly question. He had a home not more than three or four miles away, while Jeremiah was not exactly sure even where he was going. Well, he had a map, but he’d not been there before. Like when she and Anson came to the stakes he had set out when he filed his homestead papers.

  She picked up Angel, and they nestled into the chair. Feeding her baby was one of the most pleasurable things she had ever done, even though it got a bit uncomfortable at times. But she remembered from nursing Abel that the discomfort went away—a small price to pay for the joy of a baby. With her toe, she pushed just enough to rock gently. Angel nursed like she’d not been fed for two days. Already she waved her tiny fist. Belle didn’t remember Abel doing that until he was weeks or more old. Angel did not act like a three-day-old baby, that was for sure.

  She could hear Abel talking to Jeremiah out in the lean-to. Peace filled the room and her heart. What if Jeremiah would stay? He couldn’t stay here; that wasn’t proper. What few neighbors she had would be terribly offended, first that someone beside Anson was living here, and second that she’d not honored the year-long decree of mourning behavior for a widow. Lord God, I don’t even own a black dress. A dark blue one but not black. Anson used to make remarks about the strictures of society. He’d wanted no part of that.

  But he was gone. That was the final line. Had she loved him? He had never said he loved her. Being a man of few words meant not wasting any. Was telling your wife that you loved her a waste of words?

  Lord, why am I thinking all these outrageous thoughts now? I’ve never thought them before. Where did they come from?

  “Ma!” Abel burst through the door. “The calf sucked on my fingers!” He held up his hand. “He liked them.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I put my fingers into the milk like Mr. Jennings said.” He wiggled his fingers and giggled.

  Little boy laughter was entirely contagious, so she smiled back and then laughed, too. Laughter was a much-needed commodity in this household. Life was too serious. And death even more so. But today they could laugh. Was that a gift from the angel, too?

  Chapter 7

  That was really good,” Jeremiah said as he leaned back in his chair after their delayed meal of fried liver.

  “Thank you. I’m glad you liked it.” Belle glanced over to the cradle where her daughter was making noises.

  “Angel’s crying,” Abel said as if his mother should answer immediately.

  “Thank you, but she’s just waking up.”

  Angel took that moment to break into a wail.

  Abel looked at his mother and shook his head, just the tiniest amount.

  Belle stared at her son. “She wasn’t really crying, you know.”

  His eyebrows twitched.

  Belle rose and picked up her infant from the cradle, snuggling the baby against her shoulder. Angel calmed long enough to be laid down, but when Belle removed her diaper, she started in again. “Sh, sh, little one. I’m hurrying.” Bundling her back up, she sat down in the rocker and, blanket over her shoulder, positioned the baby for nursing.

  Jeremiah almost laughed at the byplay between mother and son. What made the boy so conscious of the baby? Was it because he’d never had a baby around before? He rose and gathered the dishes together, setting them in the pan of soapy water steaming on the stove.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  “I know. Abel and I are goin’ to the barn this afternoon to check on that deer. Maybe bringing it up to the lean-to so it won’t freeze, but the smell of blood might upset the new mother out there.”

  “Would it be terrible if the deer froze?”

  “Need to cut it up first, and it should hang at least a day before we do that.”

  “I see.”

  She looked so peaceful he wanted to just sit and watch, but that wouldn’t be polite, least ways the way he understood proper behavior. Not that handling cattle and living with other cowboys reminded one of pol
ite behavior. But his mother had done her best to instill some sense of propriety in her family in spite of the sparseness of their lives.

  So he pushed himself to his feet and, retrieving his coat while Abel did the same, stepped out into the lean-to. “We need to build some kind of a pen for that little varmint there so he can be shut away as his mother’s real milk comes in.”

  “The white kind?”

  “Right.”

  “But why can’t he nurse anyway?”

  “Cows, like other animals, have a way of making enough milk for their own baby, and we want her to make enough milk for your family. So if we pen the calf, she will keep producing more.”

  Abel stared at the cow, then up at the man. “How does she know all that? Who told her?”

  “That’s one of God’s secrets, I guess.”

  “He can talk cow, too?”

  The desire to laugh out loud felt so good, but instead Jeremiah nodded and smiled. “God can talk any kind of language He wants.”

  “Dog, too?”

  “Dog, too.” Jeremiah handed him the carved wooden pitchfork. “You want to clean out the manure? We’ll put it by the house for now—helps keep the house warmer—but later it goes out in the garden. You do have a garden, right?”

  Abel nodded and almost jabbed Jeremiah with the end of the pitchfork since the space was so crowded. “We got to fill the buckets with snow, too.”

  So many things he’d not had to do in Texas. While it snowed there a few times, it never stayed around long enough for more than a passing acquaintance. Not like this, where the snow took up residence for months on end. What would this country look like, all greened up for spring? Was the ranch he was heading for like this, or would it be more like Texas?

  The urge to get on the trail again caught him by surprise. He’d given his word, and as far as Mr. Stubb knew, he was already there. He’d thought he heard the lonesome whistle of a train weeping out across the snowdrifted prairie. If he had any money, he’d have taken the train, but they’d been told it didn’t go north and south yet, so what good would it do? The map he’d studied before leaving didn’t begin to show him how far the ranch really was.

  “You know if there are any boards out in the barn?”

  “Some poles Pa brought back from the river one day.”

  “That’ll work. Come on, you can show me.”

  By the time they had cut and pounded two rails into the sod wall across the corner and attached them to a movable post, dusk had blued the snowbanks. They watered the cow and horse and refilled all the buckets to melt again.

  A small tub steamed on the stove.

  “What you making, Ma?”

  “Your baby sister needs clean diapers.”

  “You cook them?” He stared at her, making both adults chuckle.

  “Don’t worry, I made real food for us. We can eat as soon as you are ready.”

  Abel shook his head and glanced down at the cradle. “Babies are a lot of work.”

  Jeremiah laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get Tulip milked, and you can feed the calf. What are you goin’ to name him?” They stepped back out into the nearly dark lean-to.

  Abel shook his head. “I don’t know.” He stopped. “What about Nosey? He’s always nosing for more to eat.”

  “Nosey it is.”

  The jerky-flavored beans made for a good meal. But that night in his bedroll, Jeremiah’s mind would not shut down no matter how tired his body was. The realization was heavy with no easy answers. How would he ever be able to leave this woman and her children alone out here on the prairie with no near neighbors and not even a mule to go for help if needed? Yet he had given his word to take over the northern spread. Dear Lord, what am I to do?

  Chapter 8

  The next morning, Jeremiah couldn’t decide whether the snow was still coming down or only blowing up from the earlier snowfall. Today was the day he absolutely should leave. But first he had to cut up that deer. If he quartered it, Belle could at least handle the sections, but even that would not be easy. Did she have a smokehouse? A box to let it freeze in? What should he do with the hide? Did she know how to tan a hide? So many questions and no easy answers.

  He folded up his bedroll once he heard her in the kitchen. Now he could get a bucket to milk the cow again. After making pudding, Belle had set a pot of the colostrum to heating by the fire to make cheese. Once it turned to curd, she’d hang it to drain, and she said she’d start another pot. She was so thrilled to have the colostrum, he’d begun to realize she was happy to have anything. Instead of asking for more, she rejoiced over what she had just been given. He knew for certain there was a lesson there for him, too.

  How can I leave her?

  He kept coming back to that terrible, horrible question. He had to convince her to either get someone else to stay with them out here or go stay with someone else. Someone would make room at their house; that was the way things were done in the West.

  “Good morning, Mr. Jennings. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  “I was already awake.”

  “The coffee will be hot soon.”

  “Thank you.” Such a stilted conversation. “How is Angel this morning?”

  “She was hungry. That baby eats like none else I have known.”

  “She seems older than four days.”

  “Seems that way to me, too.” She reached for one of the cups on the shelf and, cup in hand, turned to look at him. “I have to confess something.”

  “You do?” Seems upside down to me. I’m the one who needs to confess—not just something, but a whole lot.

  “Yes.” She looked down at the cup in her hand. “I feel so guilty that you are missing out on your job because you feel the need to stay here and take care of us. We will be all right. You have to believe that.”

  Jeremiah tipped his head back to stare at the rafters above. No wonder this house was cold—all the heat went up to the roof. The thought made him shake his head. As if that had anything to do with the fix they were in.

  “The only way I can leave you here is if someone else comes to stay or you move into another house until spring comes.”

  “If I had a horse or mule, then I would be able to ride for help. Surely that would suffice.”

  “But what if you were the one who was sick? How would Abel, small as he is, go for help?”

  “True.” She stared into the empty cup.

  He watched her face grow stern. When she looked at him, he saw a whole different person staring back at him.

  “You are not responsible for me, for us, Jeremiah Jennings. Since Anson has gone to his reward, God and I are responsible for us. You keep your word, and I will keep mine.”

  He gritted his teeth, the urge to yell at her almost more than he could handle. “I am going to milk the cow. She at least will listen to reason. This can be used to water her, right?”

  “Right!”

  But he couldn’t do it. He lost the inner battle. “You have to have help! You can—not—live—here—by—your—self !” He knew he was shouting, or at least raising his voice. He knew he cut each word with a sword. A sharp sword.

  The baby started to cry. Abel woke up, crying and rubbing his eyes. Even the cow mooed and the rooster crowed.

  “Why are you yelling at me? You have no—”

  “Because I love you!”

  You could have heard a feather float.

  She paused in the act of lifting the baby and stared at him.

  He stared at her.

  A pint-sized warrior planted himself in front of Jeremiah. “Why are you yelling at my ma?” How could one small person, too little to mount a horse, pack so much venom into a simple sentence?

  His mind screamed, Run! His body screamed, Run!

  But Jeremiah Jennings could not run or turn or—

  He took two steps forward, around the warrior with tears streaming down his cheeks and his fists planted firmly on his skinny hips, and three more steps to do a m
ilitary halt in front of the woman who could never be his enemy and right now didn’t believe he was a friend.

  “Marry me!”

  Tears erupted. “No one has ever said those words to me—‘I love you.’ ”

  “Well, I never said them before either, so that makes us even. But I have never meant anything more in my life. I love you. I love Abel and Angel. And I want to marry all of you. Right now, today.”

  She closed her eyes, but the tears refused to stop. “I—I can’t.”

  “You can’t what? Love me? Marry me? Pour the coffee? You can’t what?” He didn’t dare touch her, or he knew he would kiss her until they couldn’t breathe. So he carefully set the bucket on the floor and glued his hands to his sides. Lord, I need some real help here, right now! He sniffed. “Please stop cryin’. I can’t bear to see you cry. What can I do?”

  “I—I c–can’t.”

  He waited. Leaned forward. “You can’t what?” Love me? I’ll wait. Marry me? I’ll wait. Quit crying? He dug in his pocket and brought out a handkerchief that had surely seen better days. He started to offer that to her but changed his mind. His handkerchief might make her throw up. He leaned over by the stove and snatched a cloth then mopped her cheeks, his touch like that of angel wings.

  “Sh-sh-sh. Don’t cry. All will be well. Don’t cry.” His mother always said that—“All will be well.” He had come to believe every word of it through the years.

  He repeated it, more strongly. He looked down to see Abel, fist wrapped in his mother’s apron, staring up at him, question marks all over his face.

  “It’s all right, son. All will be well.”

  He guided Belle so her legs backed against the chair, and he lowered her into it. He mopped her tears again and smiled when she finally opened her eyes. “All right now?”

  She nodded, swallowed, and swallowed again.

  Angel whimpered.

  Jeremiah sucked in a deep breath and squatted down to eye level with Abel. “Come on. Let’s get you dressed before your feet freeze off.”

  The boy glanced down at his feet and nodded. He stuck his hand into Jeremiah’s. “Can I help you milk Tulip?”