Pony Express Christmas

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Pony Express Christmas

  Sigmund Brouwer

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2000 by Sigmund Brouwer. All rights reserved

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

  PROLOGUE

  Above the valley, no hawk drifted in the cold eastern wind in search of prey that December afternoon, for its efforts would have been in vain; ground squirrels slumbered deep in burrows, pressed each against the other for warmth; and jackrabbits huddled beneath thorny brush, ears tucked back in their thick fur to retain heat. All of the animals—from bedded-down deer to blue jays tucked among the branches of conifers to coyotes desperately scratching in the tall brown grass for mice—were served well by the instinct given them by God and knew a storm approached.

  Had there been a hawk in the wind, however, its view would have encompassed in the distance the jagged snow-topped granite of the range of mountains that splintered the Territory from this southern border all the way to the north. A river followed pine-dotted foothills down from those majestic mountains to this grassland valley, where water that had so recently tumbled over icy boulders began to freeze as it slowed and flattened between willow-lined banks before spilling onto the plains farther east.

  Great clouds of purple and gray rose in a huge blossom behind the jagged horizon. In height and width, the great clouds began to dwarf the mountains. These clouds were sustained by a growing wind, which threw bitter granules of snow that rose and fell with the gusts that grasped at the land miles and miles ahead of the storm. Here in the valley, this hard snow gave warning as it rattled bushes and grass and long-dead flowers that had once stretched so lovely and vibrant toward the peaceful suns of spring and summer days.

  With its keen eyes—had it been foolish enough to ride the winds that cold December afternoon—this hawk would most certainly have seen a drama about to unfold hundreds of feet below.

  At the western end of the valley, where eons of water had cut through low granite cliffs, the river first entered from the foothills. Because this was the most gradual slope, a wagon trail hugged the banks. This was the only route to and from a distant mountain pass.

  Two men crouched among the clefts of the granite. Although plainly visible from above—figures almost black in greasy long coats and battered hats—these men were well hidden from any who might travel out of this desolate valley. Indeed, farther up toward the foothills, away from where the cliffs squeezed the wagon trail into a shadowed gap, two stolen saddled army horses were tethered to a scrawny tree, ready for the return of these men.

  A hawk, of course, would not recognize the long thin objects cradled by these hidden men as rifles, nor would the hawk appreciate the deadliness and accuracy of those Winchester .44s. A hawk, then, would not have had any sense of foreboding had it been there, high above the valley in the storm’s wind.

  For there was a third man in the valley.

  He rode a big roan horse at full gallop along the wagon trail, heading directly toward those armed men who guarded the narrow gap between the cliffs.

  East and south of that desolate valley where two gunmen awaited a lone rider, nestled among hills that seemed to tremble in the fall with the whispering, shaking sunburnt leaves of hundreds of aspen saplings, there was a small log cabin built near a spring.

  The grass around the cabin had long since been trampled by the activities of children and horses and wagon wheels, so that the path that led to the spring from the cabin was a narrow rutted groove, slightly deeper than the dirt and rock on each side.

  A half-finished corral stood behind the cabin on one side, and on the other, an outhouse that leaned in one direction, although the wood used in its construction was store bought and still green.

  Against the north wall of the cabin, as added protection against the snow that would soon arrive, split logs had been stacked almost to the eaves of the roof. As proof of the reason for the logs, smoke rose from the chimney, to be snatched away immediately by the wind.

  Inside, a tired woman with three young children tried to keep busy with any activity that might take her thoughts away from the worry that swelled in her chest and shortened her breath the longer they were alone.

  One full day of travel east and north of this cabin with the woman and three boys, a collection of unpainted wooden buildings formed a small town where the river from the valley joined a larger river. It was the town closest to the mountains, one of the few towns in the Territory, the only civilization for hundreds upon hundreds of square miles in any direction.

  The roads to the town were merely wagon trails. The road that led west to the mountain pass from this town was the wagon trail that cut through the valley where two armed men waited in ambush for the third.

  This road split at a creek a few miles before that valley. From this divide, the main wagon trail continued toward the mountain pass; it was on this trail, a few miles from that spot, that the rider in full gallop proceeded toward cliff gaps.

  The other trail at that point was a smaller, less used trail, which meandered ten miles south to isolated ranch houses. One of those houses was the cabin among the hills where a woman anxiously waited with her three young children.

  And at the split of the two trails, a man and a boy sat on an open wagon—horseless and with a broken axle—stuck squarely on the far bank of the creek. The man lost in his thoughts, staring down at the splint on his right leg. The boy bewildered by the despondency of his father. Neither wanted to talk, both afraid it might bring them to the last words they’d heard before leaving the cabin, the woman, and the three other children.

  The first granules of snow from the approaching storm hit them squarely in their faces.

  Unlike the animals of the surrounding wilderness, this man had not had any awareness of the weather ahead. Other travelers, much wiser, had looked at the sky and decided against the risk.

  As the wind-driven snow raked across their exposed faces, the man bowed his head in prayer. It was all that he had left, this hope and trust.

  Chapter 1

  At five hundred yards away, the drumming of a horse’s hooves on frozen ground reached the two who waited in ambush. At four hundred yards, the horseman broke into view, still at full gallop.

  The rising clouds to the west had covered the weak December sun, giving the valley a uniform gray. The traveler and horse stood out clearly in contrast.

  Neither of the men in ambush moved.

  “That him?” The younger, smaller man coughed. “The Pony Express rider?”

  “No,” his older brother said. “That’s a schoolmarm.”

  “I was just asking.”

  “And I’m telling you I planned this good. He comes through like clockwork, which is why we’re here. So don’t ask dumb questions.”

  The horse continued closer.

  “Steady now,” the older brother said. He called himself Kentucky and never gave anyone his last name. Nor did he ever remove his hat, except to sleep. He was a large man and, despite missing several of his bottom front teeth, was vain enough about his appearance to hate the fact he was bald except for the long fringes of hair that hung below his hat. “With the fever you got, you’
re shaking so bad we best wait ’til he’s close enough we can see his eyes.”

  “If you told me that once, you told me that a hundred times already.” Reb, the other man, shivered. Reb figured if his older brother was able to give himself a name like Kentucky, he too could change his own name, Wilbur, to something more stylish. Reb was ten years younger and did the best he could to look older by growing a scraggly beard, which on occasion he’d been forced to shampoo with lye soap to rid his face of fleas. “Next you’re gonna say he’ll come through here so fast we’re only gonna get one shot, maybe two.”

  “Glad to find out you’ve been heeding my words,” Kentucky answered. “Now shut your yap and get ready.”

  Both men had earlier propped their rifles on the boulders that hid them. This had made the waiting easier and ensured steadier aim.

  Their prey was now two hundred and fifty yards away.

  Each eased back the hammer of his rifle.

  Kentucky drew a breath and held it, looking down the barrel of his rifle with both eyes open, for that was his manner of preparing to shoot. Reb squinted his left eye shut and peered through his sights with his right eye. Despite their mannerisms, neither could shoot well.

  Now the rider was two hundred yards away, the incline of the slope hardly slowing the horse.

  “Easy now,” Kentucky whispered, as if they were hunting deer. “Don’t spook him.”

  A thick gust of snow briefly obscured the vision of the shooters.

  When the snow passed a second later, they saw that the man had slowed to a trot. He was still one hundred and seventy-five yards away, clear in their sights so that they could see that his buckskin gloves were new enough to be an undirtied yellow.

  “What now?” Reb whispered back, his teeth clicking because of the cold and because of the fever that gripped him. “Surely, he don’t see us.”

  “Long as he’s still coming,” Kentucky grunted, “it only helps us that he’s dropped his pace.”

  The horse now slowed, approaching the incline with a halting gait. It was still one hundred and fifty yards away from the gap between the cliffs.

  Wind from the gap drove away the sound of the horse’s heavy gasps for air as its sides heaved, but the shooters saw the vapor from the horse’s lungs as it froze in the air.

  “He’s the Pony Express man sure enough,” Reb said, his voice almost inaudible. He shook violently, and it took him effort to stay crouched behind his rifle. “They ain’t supposed to slow up for nothing. It ain’t right, him taking the horse out of a gallop. He sees us. I know he sees us. Let’s shoot now.”

  A thicker gust of wind careened through the canyon gap, bringing another sheet of snow that blocked their vision.

  When the rider reappeared from the swirling snow, he and his horse were at a standstill. The horse pranced back and forth, as if the man could not decide to move ahead or backward.

  “He don’t see us,” Kentucky answered with equal quiet. “Otherwise, he’d be staring up here at the rocks instead of looking back over his shoulder.”

  The smaller man had no reply to this.

  The Pony Express man was looking backward into the dim gray of the valley.

  “Maybe he’s thinking of going back,” Kentucky said. “Now’s the time. But make it count. We miss him or wing him, we won’t get a chance like this again.”

  Yet a third blast of snow covered them.

  Only for a moment.

  It was as if that third blast of snow had been enough to drive away the man and his horse. In the next second, the Pony Express man was at full gallop again, in the opposite direction.

  Reb remained bent over his rifle. He was about to squeeze the trigger on his disappearing target when Kentucky pulled him off the rifle.

  “Don’t waste the shot,” Kentucky hissed. “We don’t have bullets to spare. Last thing we want to do is give him warning.”

  Reb straightened and coughed for a long spell and finally spit. It was a weak effort and rolled down his chin and onto his coat, showing blood. He slapped his hands together. His gloves were worn and gave little protection against the cold. “Well, I ain’t gonna wait here for him to come back. In this wind, it’ll kill me, I promise you. What are we gonna do?”

  “I know it wasn’t us that turned him around,” the first man said. “So we’re gonna follow and see what did.”

  Chapter 2

  At night the three small boys in the cabin shared a corn-shuck mattress in the corner farthest from the door. They sat on the mattress now, backs to the wall, with a thick blanket over their legs.

  The interior of the cabin was warm. For all that the family lacked, one of the items was not firewood. The black stove in the middle glowed with heat, and a pot of water rested on top of the stove to throw humidity into the air.

  Their ma knelt in front of a small fir tree. She had spent the afternoon cracking walnuts, then running a thread through the centers of the nut meats with a needle. When she had finished, she had a long string that she now draped over the branches of the tree.

  “Looks purty, Ma,” the middle boy said. Six years old, his name was Seth. He’d lost his front teeth in the previous couple of weeks, and as a result, had acquired a charming lisp that usually brought a smile to his ma’s face.

  Except for now. She was doing all she could to hide her fear.

  “It does at that,” she said, not realizing how tight- lipped and stern she appeared. Grace Sparling was a young woman, not even into her thirties, but at this moment she felt ancient.

  If she allowed herself to think about it, she would have admitted that it was not only in this moment that she felt ancient. For months, with growing frequency and in all sorts of unguarded moments, the phrase “godforsaken wilderness” had popped into her mind. Each time it happened, she forced the thought away, telling herself that a good wife and a good Christian did not complain. But did a good wife and a good Christian deserve the dirt that seeped through the cracks of the cabin and the mosquitoes that attacked all through the summer and the constant worry about a bear or cougar taking away one of her children?

  And now this—the fear that her husband and oldest son might not return. Ever.

  She had begun to feel old and bitter, and this sense alone added to her bitterness. She’d stopped looking in the cracked hand-held mirror because her black hair had started to show a few strands of gray, and wrinkles had begun to form at the edges of her eyes and mouth. She didn’t even have much for clothing to make her feel feminine, and now, as always, wore a faded dress, and to keep warm in the cabin, kept on a shirt of her husband’s, which flapped around her waist.

  “Ma, looks purty.” Caleb, the youngest, had just learned to talk and constantly echoed his brothers. “Looks real purty.”

  Not even Caleb’s sweet voice brought her any joy in this moment. She stepped back from the tree and shook her head at it, worry lines creasing her forehead.

  The tree was decorated with bits of colored rag that she’d torn from one of her two good dresses. The walnuts she’d been holding on to since the summer, keeping them hidden in a box behind the bed in the upstairs loft. In October, she’d managed to buy some hard-rock candy, and she would surprise the boys with that in the morning. Other than that, the Christmas season had promised little cheer.

  Now it was getting dark. A storm was about to hit. And Jeremiah, her busted-up husband, and her oldest boy, Noah, were somewhere out on the trail.

  She couldn’t help imagining all the worst.

  They’d run into Indian trouble, perhaps. She’d been told there had been no uprisings in the five years since the army cleaned up this portion of the Territory, but what if a couple of warriors had drifted back and found her husband and boy all alone on the trail?

  What about bears? In the fall, she’d walked into a clearing and startled a big black bear, which had run away instead of toward her, but she fell asleep nightly with visions of what that beast might have done to one of her boys. It was not much cons
olation when Grace remembered that bears hibernated; she hadn’t lived here long enough to fully know the habits of bears and was able to convince herself that they might venture out at any time.

  What if . . .

  Grace forced herself to block out any further thoughts. She found a candle and lit it. Although it wasn’t yet evening, the sky had darkened so much that the two meager glass windows didn’t bring in much light.

  Grace set one candle on the ledge of the window. Those panes of glass had cost dearly, more than they could afford. Perhaps tonight, she thought, the light of the candle through the window would bring her husband and boy home and justify what they had spent for the luxury of glass windows.

  “. . . sounded like maybe wolves,” she heard Josiah saying, the word wolves taking her out of her thoughts. “They grow big out in these parts. I heard the size of horses, with teeth like butcher knives and—”

  “That’s enough,” she snapped, turning back to the bed.

  She marched toward her eight-year-old and grabbed his ear between her thumb and forefinger. “You and I both know that noise is the wind. And you have no right trying to scare your two younger brothers!”

  She dropped her grip on his ear and raised her hand to slap his head.

  Grace caught the frightened look on Josiah’s face and realized in that moment that her fierceness had startled him badly. She also realized that she wasn’t angry at Josiah but at her husband. And at God. Just two years ago, they had lived in a comfortable house in Chicago. Now they had no money left and might not even make it through the winter. All because Jeremiah had some romantic notion about letting his boys grow up in the Wild West and giving the family a chance to build up a ranch that would someday be worth a hundred times more than he could save in a lifetime of school teaching. But this dream was ashes. Neither Jeremiah nor God had done much providing lately.