by Amanda Cabot
“Believe it,” she said as firmly as if she were admonishing one of her pupils. “I didn’t understand the dream at first. I thought God might be telling me to abandon my plan to go to Europe, but now I believe I was meant to assure you that you couldn’t have stopped Geraldine. Believe me, Austin. There was nothing you could have done.”
As the words registered, his expression changed from skepticism to acceptance. “I feel as if you’ve knocked a burden off my shoulders. Thank you, Catherine.”
She nodded and managed a small smile. “I feel better too.” For the first time, her memory of the nightmare did not fill her with dread.
Austin hoisted himself to his feet and stared out the window. “I may not have been able to save Geraldine, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t help Hannah. Somehow, I have to break through her shell. I just need to find a way.”
Catherine walked to his side. She wouldn’t touch him again, but she wanted to be close when she gave him the only advice she knew would work. “You could ask for God’s help.”
Catherine had never seen the weather change so quickly. She had prayed and prayed, asking God to show Austin or her a way to reach Hannah. She had not prayed for this. Though the sky had been cloudy when she’d released the children for lunch, the air had been warm. Now, less than an hour later, freezing rain was pelting the schoolhouse, and ice had begun to form on the windows. If this continued, within minutes everything would be covered with ice.
Catherine tapped her pointer on the floor, her signal that she wanted her pupils’ attention. “Children, you need to listen carefully.” She gestured toward one of the windows. “That’s a blue norther out there, and it’s dangerous. I’m going to dismiss you early today. Those of you who live in town are to go directly home. No stops at Cimarron Sweets.”
Though the children’s faces had brightened at the idea of an early closing, a few groans accompanied Catherine’s admonition to not visit the candy shop. She doubted Lydia would have opened it today, anyway, but she wasn’t taking any chances with her charges’ safety.
“Be very careful walking. The roads will be slippery. The rest of you will stay here until your parents arrive.” Catherine prayed that the parents would recognize the changing weather and come before the roads became impassible.
Rebecca raised her hand. “Mama had lunch with Aunt Mary, so she’s in town already. We can take everyone home who lives on our side of town.”
“Thank you, Rebecca. That’s a good idea.” Catherine addressed the four youngsters who lived south of Cimarron Creek. “When we leave, go with Rebecca. Mrs. Henderson will drive you home.” That left only two pupils stranded.
Rebecca raised her hand again. “Will we have school tomorrow?” Though the girl was one of her best students, Catherine could see that she was looking forward to a long weekend. Today was Thursday, meaning that if Catherine agreed to cancel school tomorrow, the students would have three days off.
Looking at the sky, she made her decision. “No school tomorrow. We’ll have extra lessons next week.” As she had expected, cheers greeted her announcement. “Get your coats and remember to be careful.” Catherine looked at the girl seated next to Rebecca and the boy in the back row. “Hannah and Seth, I need to see you both.”
Once the other students had crowded into the cloakroom, Catherine addressed the two remaining children. “I doubt Mr. Goddard will be able to get into town today.”
When she’d seen him this morning, Austin had mentioned being concerned about some of the cattle on the far side of the ranch. Even if he’d reached the cattle before the storm began, riding back to the house through the sleet would be much slower than normal, and driving a wagon into town would be decidedly dangerous. Only one thing made sense. “You can stay with me tonight.”
Though Hannah said nothing, she appeared wary. It was Seth who shook his head, his eyes darkening with fear as they had the day he’d been so ill. “I gotta get home. Pa needs those cows milked.” He wrapped his arms around his ribs in a protective gesture that told Catherine more clearly than words what would happen if Seth didn’t perform his chores to his father’s satisfaction.
“You’ll never make it on foot. Look at the sky.” What had been rain was now sleet, and the ground was shiny with ice. “You could easily fall and break an arm or leg. If that happened, it could be weeks before you were able to help your father.”
Though Seth nodded, he was still apprehensive. “He’ll be mad.”
“He’d be angrier if you needed Doc Harrington to set a broken bone.” Not that Catherine would have allowed that. If Seth had fractured a limb, she would have set it herself, following the illustrations she’d found in one of the medical books she’d bought last year. But when she spoke to Boone Dalton, she wouldn’t say that. She’d let him think that she’d done him a favor by saving him a hefty doctor’s fee.
“When the roads are clear, I’ll rent a buggy and take you home. That way I can explain the situation to your father.” She wouldn’t ask Austin to be her messenger this time. He had enough worries of his own without dealing with a fractious neighbor.
Seth was unconvinced. “I gotta go now, Miss Whitfield.”
“I can’t let you do that. As your teacher, I’m responsible for you. It’s called in loco parentis.”
Though Hannah remained silent, her eyes sparkled with interest at the unfamiliar words, but she left it to Seth to ask what they meant.
“That’s a Latin phrase,” Catherine explained. “The translation is ‘in place of parents.’ What that means is that when you’re at school, I have the responsibility of keeping you safe just as if I were your parent.” She could see that Seth wasn’t impressed, probably because safety wasn’t a word he associated with his father. One way or another, she had to convince him to remain with her. She pulled out the big guns.
“You wouldn’t want me to lose my job, would you?”
Seth’s response was immediate. “No.”
“Then it’s settled. You’ll both come home with me.”
As they left the schoolhouse, she tacked a note to the door, explaining where Hannah and Seth were, then locked the door behind them, shaking her head slightly at the necessity. The lock had been installed last year when the town had experienced a string of thefts. Though the person responsible had been caught, the residents were still wary, and Cousin Jacob’s mercantile had sold more locks in a single week than in the whole previous year. Travis himself had insisted on Catherine securing the schoolhouse, pointing out the value of the desks.
“Come, Hannah, take my hand.”
Hannah ignored Catherine until she slid on the ice. Then she gripped the extended hand so tightly Catherine almost winced.
“What are we going to do at your house?” Seth asked as they walked north on Main Street. As Catherine had expected, Lydia’s shop was closed, and there were no lights on in the mayor’s office. Cimarron Creek’s residents were taking no chances with the weather but were staying indoors.
“I thought we might make popcorn and read a story,” she told both children.
The furrows that formed between Seth’s eyes had nothing to do with the ice he was so carefully traversing. “I’ve never had popcorn.”
Catherine knew she shouldn’t be surprised. From everything she’d heard about Boone Dalton, he wasn’t a man to provide anything more than basic sustenance to his son, and judging from what she’d seen, he’d provided very little of that.
“Popcorn is one of my favorite treats,” she said. Turning her attention to the girl who gripped her hand like a lifeline, she asked, “What about you, Hannah? Have you eaten popcorn?” Surely Austin had introduced his daughter to that simple pleasure. But Hannah shook her head.
“Then we definitely need to make some.” As they turned west on Mesquite, Catherine gave a silent prayer of thanksgiving that they were no longer walking into the wind. Though the sleet continued to pelt them, at least it was not hitting their faces.
“Seth, you’re
going to be the man of the house, so I’ll show you how to make popcorn. Hannah and I will be ladies of leisure while you work.” She’d no sooner spoken the words than Catherine regretted them. Her comment, which she’d meant to be innocent, probably reminded Seth of life at home where work was the one constant. She looked at the boy, hoping he wasn’t distressed, and was surprised to see a broad grin creasing his face.
“That means I get the first taste.”
“It does indeed.”
When they reached the house, Catherine unlocked the side door and led them into the kitchen. After hanging their wet clothes on hooks near the door, she gestured toward the woodpile that she’d brought indoors yesterday. “Seth, would you put more wood in the stove?”
As they’d walked, she had decided that they’d spend the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen. Seth could read or sketch at the table, and Hannah could . . . Catherine’s thoughts had reached a dead end. She wasn’t certain what Hannah would do. In all likelihood, the girl would simply sit silently in a corner.
“Will I sleep in the same room as before?” Seth asked as he struggled to carry more logs than Catherine would ever have considered lifting.
“Yes. That’s my spare room.”
“What about her?” Seth raised his chin in Hannah’s direction.
Catherine hesitated. Hannah could share her room. The bed was certainly large enough, but since neither of them was accustomed to sharing a bed, it might be uncomfortable. There was an alternative; it was simply one Catherine hadn’t considered until Seth raised the question.
Taking a quick breath, she smiled at Hannah. “I have another room specially for you.” No one had used Mama’s room since she’d died, but Catherine knew her mother would have been the first to offer it to Hannah. “Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping. Seth, I’ll be back in a minute to teach you how to make popcorn.”
Hannah followed her down the hall into the room that had been unused for six months. It was an ordinary room, a bit crowded with the mahogany bed, bureau, armoire, and nightstands. Mama had claimed that made it cozy and had painted the walls a pale green and placed light-colored rag rugs on most of the exposed floor to counteract the heaviness of the furniture.
Catherine turned to Hannah, trying to see the room through her eyes. It was an older woman’s room with nothing to interest a young girl. “This is where you’ll sleep tonight. Do you want to put your schoolbag there?” She gestured toward the bureau. Hannah nodded.
“I’m ready!”
Hearing the excitement in Seth’s voice, Catherine returned to the kitchen, leaving Hannah to get settled in her room. She pulled a saucepan from one of the cabinets and retrieved a bag of popcorn from the pantry.
“First we melt a little butter.” She drew the butter plate from the icebox and handed it and a knife to Seth. “About this much,” she said, pointing to the tip of her pinky.
Seth eyed the butter as if the fate of the world depended on his measuring the correct amount. Catherine started to tell him that precision didn’t matter when she noticed that he was holding the knife in his right hand.
“I thought you were left-handed.” When he wrote his lessons or sketched, he used his left hand.
Color flooded Seth’s face. “I am, but I eat with my right hand. Pa didn’t like it when I used the other one. He said something’s wrong with lefties, so I learned to do everything except write with my right hand.”
And that had been enough to pacify Boone.
When the butter was melted, Catherine handed Seth the corn. “You need to keep shaking the pan so the kernels heat evenly and don’t burn.”
Seth nodded, as if this were an everyday occurrence for him. “I can do that. You don’t have to watch.”
But Catherine did, for she wasn’t sure how much experience he had with stoves. Rather than quench his enthusiasm, she nodded. “I’ll get our milk ready.” It wasn’t what she would have drunk with popcorn—water would have been her choice—but both children needed extra nourishment. She placed glasses, bowls, and napkins on the table as the corn started to pop, darting glances at Seth whenever she thought he’d be unaware of her oversight.
A delighted chuckle told Catherine Seth was enjoying the transformation of ordinary kernels of corn into a puffy treat. “Look, Miss Whitfield. They’re turning big and white.”
“That’s what happens when they pop.”
He grinned. “This is fun.”
Catherine relished the sight of simple pleasure lighting Seth’s face and wondered if the ice storm had been a gift from God. Perhaps God had known Seth had had far too few experiences that could be considered fun and had given Catherine this opportunity to introduce the boy to one.
“Eating it is even more fun,” she told Seth. As the pan filled with the fluffy white pieces of corn, Catherine turned and called out for Hannah. There was no response.
“Hannah, the popcorn is almost ready.” When there was still no response, she turned off the stove and asked Seth to pour the popped corn into their bowls while she brought Hannah back to the kitchen.
Catherine moved quickly down the short hall, stopping when she discovered that the door to Mama’s room, which she was certain she had left open, was closed. Turning the knob, Catherine walked inside and discovered Hannah sitting on the floor, oblivious to her arrival. This was the girl she’d taught for two months, and yet she looked so different that Catherine blinked in astonishment. An expression of pure joy transformed Hannah’s face, making the girl almost radiantly beautiful. The reason wasn’t difficult to find. Mama’s music box sat on the floor in front of her, its familiar tune filling the room with music and memories.
Catherine bit her lip, trying to control her emotions. She’d hidden the music box in the top drawer of the bureau the day Mama had died, not wanting additional memories of her mother’s final months. During the worst of her illness, Mama had wound the music box with ever more frail fingers, claiming that the sweet melody would cheer her after one of Doc Harrington’s treatments. At the end, when Mama had been too weak to turn the knob and wind it, Catherine had done it, placing the music box on the nightstand closest to her mother.
She wanted no reminders of those days and the fact that thanks to Doc Harrington, her mother no longer walked the earth. That was why Catherine had put the music box away, never intending to play it again.
The music wound down, ending as it always seemed to in the middle of a bar. For the first time since Catherine had entered the room, Hannah looked up, suddenly aware that she was not alone. Her hands reached out to clasp the music box, then dropped to her side.
“I’m sorry, Miss Whitfield. I know I shouldn’t snoop. Papa told me ladies don’t do that.” Her face turned red with embarrassment, and Catherine feared tears would soon fall. “I couldn’t help it. When I looked at the bureau, I just had to see what was inside. I was only going to peek, but when I saw the music box, I had to play it.”
Hannah picked up the music box, her expression almost reverent. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
It was indeed. The intricately carved mahogany box had been Mama’s most treasured possession, a gift from Papa their first Christmas as husband and wife.
Hannah’s brown eyes radiated joy. “It looks like the one I had before, but the song is different.” When Catherine said nothing, her smile faded. “Please don’t be mad, Miss Whitfield. I didn’t hurt it.”
Catherine couldn’t be angry, not at this girl who bore so little resemblance to the previously sad and silent child who’d caused both Catherine and Austin so much worry. Her prayers had been answered, at least for the moment. Now, instead of sitting without saying a word, Hannah was acting as if an internal dam had broken, letting words tumble out.
“I can see that you didn’t hurt it.” Catherine seized on one part of Hannah’s explanation. “You said there was another music box. What happened to it?”
Tears filled Hannah’s eyes. “I had to leave it. Don’t tell my papa. He doesn’t k
now I found it. I wasn’t supposed to go into the attic, but I did. I had nothing to do one day, so I snuck up there. That’s when I found a big trunk there with pretty dresses,” she said, her expression beseeching Catherine to understand. “I think they were my mama’s. I found the music box in the middle, wrapped in a long piece of white cloth. There were dresses and shoes, but I didn’t care about them. I only wanted the music box. Nobody knew, but I used to go to the attic and play it when I was lonely.”
Catherine’s heart ached, for she suspected that Hannah’s loneliness and her trips to the attic had been frequent. Despite the girl’s pleas for secrecy, Catherine knew she would have to talk to Austin. He needed to know about Geraldine’s music box and how much Hannah missed it, but right now, Catherine would do nothing to diminish the child’s pleasure.
She gestured toward the music box that Hannah still cradled in her hands.
“That was my mother’s. Like you, she played it when she was sad, and it made her feel better. I know she’d be glad you’re enjoying it.”
“Then you’re not mad at me?”
“No, Hannah, I’m not.”
11
At least he didn’t have to worry about whether his daughter was safe. The animals were a different story. Austin stared at the thick coating of ice on the chickens’ water. They didn’t have enough strength to break through it, which was why he was out here with a mallet as well as some extra grain for the poultry. Hopefully, the cattle would know how to reach the life-giving water. Kevin claimed that they’d done that before, using their hooves to break the ice. Austin could only pray that today would be no different.
Weather. It was one of the things he had disliked most about ranching. You couldn’t predict it; you couldn’t control it; all you could do was endure. That was part of the reason he had not wanted to continue the family tradition of ranching, but here he was with a ranch of his own.
“You shouldn’t go out without eating,” Mrs. Moore announced when he returned to the house for a warmer coat. “Nothing’s gonna change in the next fifteen minutes except that your stomach will get emptier.”
