Healing Montana Sky

by Debra Holland

  Although Pepe dropped his gaze, when he looked up, a wide grin broke over his round face. He glanced at Camilla. “My Lucia, she. . .she’s. . . .”

  “Come on, boy,” Mack cackled, rubbing his hands together. “Spit it out. We’ve been telling people all day. I’d have thought you got it all down pat by now.”

  Antonia decided to put the stable hand out of his misery. “A babe?” she guessed.

  “Yep.” Mack grinned showing tobacco-stained teeth.

  Erik buffeted Pepe’s shoulder. “Congratulations!”

  “I’m gunna be a grandpappy.” Mack tottered out several jig steps.

  Her husband’s eyebrows raised in apparent surprise. “Well, then, congratulations to you as well, Grandpa Mack.”

  The man slapped his knee. “I like the sound of that, I do.”

  Antonia looked back and forth between Mack and Pepe. No two men could look more different—elderly Mack, with his reedy body and voice, white-haired, and a tobacco-stained beard. Pepe—dark-skinned, stocky, low-voiced, and apparently shy. But she could see the obvious bond between the two.

  “I’m going to be a papá,” Pepe said, awe in his tone.

  His words echoed a bittersweet memory of Jean-Claude saying something very similar when he heard she was with child. Antonia remembered how he’d swung her around, and how she’d laughed, her heart full. With a nostalgic smile, she glanced at Erik, reckoning he might have had a similar reaction to Daisy’s pregnancy.

  Antonia didn’t know how long Pepe had been married, but she could see he hadn’t lost the wonder. “May your wife have a healthy time carryin’ the babe and a safe birthin’ for ma and child.”

  Her words, meant to be a blessing, had the opposite effect. Discomfiture settled in the air, everyone obviously remembering Daisy’s death.

  Pepe shot Erik a worried look.

  Mack’s eyes lost their gleam. He rubbed his beard and glanced at Erik’s wagon. “You’re all hitched and ready to go.”

  Erik held up a hand in a wait gesture and gave Pepe a reassuring smile.

  Antonia figured only she could see the hint of sadness underneath.

  “I’m sure all will be well with Lucia,” Erik said. “Don’t waste time worrying about what will be, for the future’s in God’s hands. Focus on the loving now—the excitement and anticipation of your babe.”

  The man ducked his head in a gesture of obvious respect. “Will do, Señor Muth.”

  Erik looked toward the livery. “Are the puppies ready to leave their ma?”

  “They are, at that. Little rascals.” His expression relieved, Mack grabbed for the change of topic.

  “Puppies?” Henri said with an imploring look.

  Mack jerked a thumb in the direction of the open stable door. “I put them in the first stall, but with all the people in and out of here playing with the critters, who knows where they ended up.”

  Puppies! Antonia thought in excitement, remembering a litter of fat mongrels she’d loved as a girl. All one summer, she’d played with them, until the soldier who’d owned them found new homes for each one, breaking her young heart.

  Mack motioned toward the stable. “You all go on in and see.”

  Erik led the way inside, Henri almost skipping beside him in excitement. The building was empty of horses, but the smell of straw and manure lingered.

  When they opened the stall gate, the puppies surged out, tumbling around their feet. They frolicked the wide aisle under the watchful eyes of their dam, a large hound with beautiful gray and black fur.

  “Maman!” said Henri, obviously throwing his heart right into the midst of the bunch.

  “Look at the size of their paws,” Erik marveled. “They’ve gotten a lot bigger since last I saw them.”

  A quick glance at his eager expression made Antonia think he’d set aside his sorrow, and she relaxed. The pups had at least three-months’ growth, she figured by their leggy look.

  “They’ll grow monster-size.” Erik shot her an amused glance. “Sure are appealing little creatures, aren’t they?”

  “They be,” she agreed, instantly captivated by a fuzzy gray and black whelp. Only holding Camilla stopped her from picking one up. I wish we could take one home. Having a pup around the place is just what the boys need.

  Erik jiggled Jacques, pointing to the puppies. “Dog. Can you say dog?”

  The little boy gazed at the puppies, entranced.

  “Oh, oh!” Henri jumped up and down in excitement. “Can I play with ’em?” He glanced at Erik for permission, his eyes pleading.

  Nodding, Erik chuckled. “Go ahead, son.”

  Henri squatted and held out his hands to the dogs.

  Seeing the invitation, three of the puppies raced toward him. A fourth followed more slowly, and the other had no interest in Henri, being preoccupied with chasing his tail.

  “Look out,” Antonia warned her son, enjoying the puppies’ playful antics. “Here be comin’ the herd.”

  The three jumped on the boy, scrambling into his lap. In their efforts to reach his face, they toppled him backward onto the floor.

  He lay there, giggling.

  Triumphant, the puppies scrambled over his chest, licking his face and shaking their stubby tails so hard, their hind ends wiggled. One chewed on Henri’s nose.

  Her son shrieked with glee.

  Erik bellowed out a belly laugh, the likes of which she’d never heard from him before. Seeing his enjoyment lightened her heart.

  “Daaag.” Jacques squirmed to get down.

  “Yes, dog.” Erik crouched to lower Jacques to the ground. With one hand, he kept the child back from attacking the dogs while he scooped up the tail-chaser and held him in front of the boy.

  The puppy was already so big, his legs spilled over Erik’s arms.

  “Daaag!” Jacques grabbed for a paw.

  Erik lifted the dog out of the way. “Gentle, boy. Be gentle.”

  Jacques knew what gentle meant. They certainly used the word with him enough when he played near Camilla.

  The puppy found Jacques’s nose even more interesting than his tail, and he swiped the boy’s face with a pink tongue.

  Jacques screamed in merriment.

  The infectious sound of her children’s pleasure swirled gaiety through Antonia. Something seemed to break loose deep inside her, bubbling up until she couldn’t hold back any longer. Laughter burst out of her, joyous and freeing.

  Erik glanced over. The smile of delight on his face crinkled the skin around his eyes. His chuckle was obviously as much from amusement at her as from enjoying the boys.

  Her chest expanded, released from months of tightness. This feels wonderful! Antonia laughed so hard that tears came to her eyes. She wiped them away, thinking how much she’d rather cry from happiness than sorrow.

  I never dreamed I’d be this happy again.

  Guilt followed that thought, making her clamp down on her good feelings.

  She paused, reconsidering.

  My Jean-Claude, a man full of laughter and stories, would not chide me. He, of all people, would not have me shrouded in black, grim, and sorrowing.

  “Life is for the living,” her late husband had said more than once. “Laugh while you can.”

  She’d always thought he referred to those who’d died, but perhaps Jean-Claude was preparing her for his own leaving. Antonia felt a light touch on the back of her shoulder, but when she turned she saw nothing that could account for the feeling.

  Perhaps Jean-Claude stood at her side—an invisible specter—relishing the sight of their boys playing with puppies and encouraging her to laugh. . .to love. The idea eased her guilt.

  Mack marched in, his rheumy green eyes gleaming. “You all leavin’ me out of the fun?”

  “We are, indeed,” Erik drawled. “And we’re readying to head out and leave you with one less of the little monsters.”

  Mack winked at Antonia. “’Bout time. The critters are eating me out of house and home. The Thomps
ons took their puppy home earlier. Two less mouths to feed.”

  They untangled the boys from the dogs, Jacques protesting all the while.

  Erik crouched to Henri’s eye level. “Would you like to take a puppy home?”

  The boy’s eyes grew big. “Oui! Yes!”

  “You’ve been such a big help to your maman and me, and you’ve studied hard in school. I think you’re old enough to take care of a dog, eh?”

  Antonia watched her son’s excitement, and happy tears again pricked her eyes. If Henri had a tail, he’d be waggin’ it as hard as the pups.

  Henri pointed to the puppy who’d beaten her two littermates in the race to him.

  Erik nodded. “I think that little gal will make a good watchdog and companion. What say you, son?”

  “Oh, yes, Pa!” Henri gathered the pup into his arms, barely able to hold her. He buried his face in the fur, setting the bond.

  Everyone laughed.

  They allowed Henri to carry his puppy to the wagon.

  Jacques toddled after his brother, the excitement of chasing Henri and the daag enough to keep him on his feet without any help.

  They retrieved their bucket from where they’d left the food to chill in the livery’s springhouse, bade good-bye to Mack and Pepe, and climbed on board the wagon, the boys in the back with the dog.

  Once they drove out of town, Antonia settled Camilla at her breast. “It be feelin’. . .It feels good to laugh.” She glanced at Erik, saw a troubled look in his eyes, and understood all too well what he was feeling.

  “Very good. Until the guilt hits.”

  “For me, too. Then I told myself Jean-Claude would want me to be happy. He be. . .was a man who laughed often, and because he did, we did as well.”

  “Daisy and I didn’t laugh much together.” Erik’s mouth turned up in a wry smile. “You might have noticed I’m the serious sort.”

  Antonia shrugged. “You have cause to be serious.”

  “We talked about the future a lot, Daisy and I.” His smile died away. “The future that never came for us.” He hesitated, gazing into the distance. “’Cept for that time at haying, you and I don’t really do that. Perhaps that’s just as well. Daisy and I concentrated too hard on what will be instead of taking the time to enjoy what is now.”

  “We’ve learned our lesson then,” Antonia said. Despite the seriousness of the conversation, she tried hard to speak properly. “Now we just need to remember it.”

  His nod told her he agreed.

  Laughter from the boys made her turn to watch them.

  Although she handed out food, the first part of the drive passed with everyone’s attention on the puppy. So far, the boys were too excited to eat, and she’d let them be, figuring they’d settle down in a bit.

  As she nursed Camilla, Antonia kept twisting to watch the children, then facing forward and gaily describing to Erik what the boys were doing. She wasn’t sure who was enjoying the puppy more—Henri and Jacques, or she and Erik.

  Finally, the boys wore out the puppy, and she fell asleep. No amount of attention from either child woke up the dog.

  “Leave her be, you two,” Antonia told them. “She needs a nap. She’ll wake when we get home and be ready to play again.” She had to give Henri a stern glance before he subsided. “You and Jacques eat now.”

  “I’ll help him,” Henri said.

  “Good.” Antonia turned forward, and they lapsed into silence, finishing the cold pheasant, washed down with milk in jars.

  While she ate, Antonia thought through her encounters with everyone that day, feeling proud in how she’d managed to use proper speech during the whole time in town. Or as proper as I know.

  The highlight of her day was talking with Mrs. Gordon and Natalia. She’d been nervous to meet them, in awe of their book learning. But both lauded Henry, as they called him, to the skies—saying the boy was intelligent; showed an excellent grasp of concepts, whatever that meant; was a hard worker; well-mannered; and so considerate of others. In the glow from their praise, Antonia had forgotten her discomfort about her poor speech and lack of education.

  She exhaled a happy breath. In her prior life, she couldn’t have even dreamed of such a wonderful day. As always, remembering Jean-Claude cost her heart a pang. But the feeling wasn’t as strong as before. She wished he could have heard what Henri’s teachers said about their son. But maybe he wouldn’t have valued their opinions as much as she did.

  But Erik will. She nudged her husband with her elbow.

  When he looked her way, Antonia told him about the conversation with Mrs. Gordon and Natalia, enjoying the way his eyes lit up and his nods of agreement.

  “Doesn’t surprise me a bit,” he said when she’d finished. “A bright boy, our Henri, Henry.”

  She slipped her hand around his arm and squeezed, feeling the strength of his muscles. “Hearin’ such from you makes me feel just as good as from ’em.”

  He slanted her his lazy grin. “Then I’m in excellent company.” His expression became thoughtful. “We should think of college for him.”

  College? She gave him a questioning glance.

  “More schooling after he finishes learning all Mrs. Gordon can teach him.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Much more. If he wants to be a doctor or minister or lawyer, he’ll need a lot of education.”

  The glory of such possibilities blazed through her mind, and Antonia wanted that for Henri with an intensity that almost ached.

  “From the time I was a boy, I wanted to be a farmer like my pa,” Erik said in a reminiscing tone. “Had no mind to go off to college, although I think I’d have enjoyed my studies. No more land was available near my folks in Indiana, at least not any that I could get ahold of without paying top dollar. So I came out west to make my own way. Maybe Henri will want to be a farmer, maybe something else. I’d like him to have the choice.”

  The sun burst through the clouds, brightening the vast dusky sky and sending golden rays of light into the heavens. After living so long in the tree-shaded mountains, Antonia never tired of watching the wide-open prairie sky.

  No matter what she was doing, or how she was feeling, Antonia liked to stop and look up, feeling as if the beauty of the sky uplifted and sustained her, offering a promise of hope. . .of healing. I’ve journeyed far. Not just the trip from the mountains to Sweetwater Springs to the farm, but from the agony of Jean-Claude’s death to remembering him with warmth.

  Erik cleared his throat. “Did you see me talking to John Carter and Nick Sanders and a few others?”

  “I saw.”

  “The sheriff was there, too.”

  Her interest quickened. She’d only noticed a group of men, no female in the bunch. “John said the sheriff be a woman.”

  “Yep. Sheriff Granger was the one in the gray three-piece suit. ’Bout the same height as Nick Sanders.”

  She pictured the group. Even knowing about the sheriff, Antonia still couldn’t believe she was a woman. “Why ain’t she wearin’ a dress?”

  “Now don’t go getting any ideas, wife. She’s not wearing one for the same reason you didn’t when we cut hay.”

  “Be that allowed?”

  He tossed her a smile. “It’s not against the law. Probably isn’t even against the law to walk stark naked down Main Street.”

  She laughed. “That be a sight.”

  “Sheriff Granger came to us dressed as a man.” He slid into his storytelling voice.

  Erik’s way wasn’t as dramatic as Jean-Claude’s—no exaggeration, speaking with his hands, comical faces, or different voices. But she’d learned to appreciate how he stuck to the facts yet still held her interest.

  “She already was a sheriff in Wyoming. Some low-down varmint murdered a bunch of people in her town, and she trailed him all the way to the outskirts of Sweetwater Springs before catching up with him. Saved a little girl in the process,” he said, pride in his voice. “Showing up in town with the desperado woun
ded and handcuffed was enough to get her the offer of a job, practically on the spot.”

  “What happened to the bad man?”

  “Doc Cameron fixed him up so he could stand trial. The sheriff hauled him back to Wyoming where they strung him up right quick.”

  The very idea of such a woman awed her. “I want to meet her.”

  “I’ll introduce you,” Erik promised. “Anyway, wife, you’re distracting me from what I wanted to tell you,” he said in a teasing tone.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “The man in the group with us—the one who towered over me—is Ant Gordon. He owns the newspaper.” His voice sobered. “Well, his neighbor brought word. . .”

  As he relayed the story, Antonia’s stomach turned tighter, and her peaceful feelings fled. She thought of the suffering the Blackfoot tribe must be enduring and felt helpless. Her arms tightened about the baby. “Do you think it be the Indians stealin’?”

  “I don’t know. Probably.”

  The urge to help the tribe was so strong her body trembled from the pull. Even though she hadn’t seen the Indians in two years, Antonia remembered those she’d come to know, especially the children, so quick to make Henri one of their own. She wondered if she could take her money, buy food, and haul it out to the reservation—a journey of several days’ travel. But even as she mulled over all the tasks—borrowing the wagon, taking Camilla with her, leaving the boys, wondering if Henrietta would watch Jacques—Antonia realized how complicated the plan was. At least by myself. She cast a speculative look at her husband. But with Erik?

  “We have to do somethin’.”

  “What?”

  Speaking quickly, she outlined her plan.

  He let out a frustrated breath. “Let’s just suppose I go along with your idea, which I’m not saying I will.”

  His resistance made her feel rock-stubborn. Her muscles tensed.

  “We fill the wagon with bags of beans, flour, cornmeal, and other supplies. We drive it out to the reservation. Then what?”

  “We give the Indians the food.”

  “And then?”

  “They eat it.”

  “What happens after that?”

  Antonia looked at him, baffled. “Why be you askin’ these questions?” She thought the answer obvious. “They not be thievin’ then. No more problems with them and us.”