Sixteen Brides
Page 34
Stop and rest or you’ll kill the horse. Knowing it to be true didn’t mean she could do it. Everything in her screamed against it, but somehow Ruth listened to the inner voice, and when they came to the place where she thought Pete had stopped that long-ago night when they’d dashed toward an injured Lucas Gray, she pulled up and let Calico drink. Soaking her nightgown in the cool water, she wrapped it over the horse’s nose, entwining it through the bridle, hoping it would somehow obliterate at least some of the stench and keep the mare going.
Keep her going. Keep me going. Let me find Jackson. Let him be all right. As she climbed back aboard the buggy, Ruth forced herself to envision Jackson and Lucas laughing at her ridiculous race through the night. Yes, Lord. Let it be nothing more than an anecdote in some future pioneer’s memoir. Let them laugh at the stupid woman, so foolish to head into a fire when all the while her son and the man she loved were sitting on the front porch of a ranch house drinking coffee. Foolish woman. Panicked when there was no need.
Again, Calico stopped. Ruth raised the buggy whip. But she didn’t use it. Terrified as she was, the little mare had done it. Brought Ruth right where she wanted to be…through miles of scorched grass…along the trail and up the last hill to where the Graystone Ranch buildings had nestled in a green valley like an emerald set atop a bit of tan velvet.
Ruth dropped the buggy whip and climbed down. Trembling, she stumbled down the rise toward what had once been one of the prettiest places in the sandhills. It was gone. All of it. No cattle. No bunkhouse. No corrals. No horses. No barn. Nothing but charred remnants and black earth.
She didn’t know how long she stumbled about what was left of the place, from where the barn had once stood to the corral where Jackson had learned to ride and then back to the house. Her throat so parched she couldn’t scream, her last ounce of strength spent, Ruth fell to her knees. Curling onto one side, she lay on the burnt grass and wept.
Calico brought her back to her senses, snuffling at her hair and whickering. Water. The horse would have to find her own. For now, at least, Ruth would lie here beneath the wicked blue sky. How dare the sun rise on the earth as if nothing had happened? As if life should go on. How dare…Calico whickered again. “Go away,” Ruth croaked, but the horse was insistent, lipping her shoulder, and when still she did not respond, grasping a lock of her hair in its teeth and tugging.
Frowning, Ruth opened her eyes. Not Calico. Not a little roan mare, but a great gray—Hannibal. Of course. They would have opened all the gates and stalls and sent the livestock and cattle ahead of the fire, hoping some would survive. Hannibal had survived and come back home.
Ruth staggered to her feet. The stallion snuffled at her dress and snorted. She looked down at the filthy red dress and more tears flowed. The stallion stayed close. She buried her face in his mane and sobbed until she had no more tears. And then Hannibal lifted his head and gave an odd little grunt.
“What is it? What do you see?”
Two riders. No…three…maybe five…she didn’t know. She didn’t care. The only ones who mattered were the first two, because as they came closer and her eyes focused, Ruth saw a boy on a buckskin pony and a man astride a chestnut gelding.
Hannibal snorted and danced away. Lucas held back so that Jackson reached her first. “Oh, Ma,” he muttered. “I didn’t think. I just had to get help. There wasn’t any fire and then there was, but I was closer to the ranch by then, so I gave Sam his head. I didn’t know Sam could run so fast. When I got here Lucas and me and the boys we tore out for a rocky canyon.” He pointed east. “Lucas set a backfire and we just launched ourselves down into that canyon, Ma. I heard the fire go by. The roar…but we made it.”
As she listened to him jabber, Ruth closed her eyes and thanked God for ears to hear her son’s voice…surely one of the sweetest sounds on earth.
A leader of men. That’s what people had said about General George Dow, and now, as Ruth watched Lucas react to the devastation around him, she saw the same qualities. He’d set aside what this all meant for him personally, and was operating at a level that his men—wranglers—needed. He made decisions quickly, and it wasn’t long before Pete and a dozen of “the boys” had headed for Frank Darby’s ranch. Lucas was fairly certain the line of fire wouldn’t have gotten that far, in which case Darby would be able to resupply the men, enabling them to get to rounding up whatever cattle might have survived.
As the men discussed rounding up cattle, Ruth and Jackson helped Wah Lo rummage along the edge of the buildings. Finally, with a shout of triumph, Wah Lo lifted a blackened pot out of the debris. Together he and Jackson rigged a way to haul fresh water up out of the well. They began to water the horses.
In an amazingly short amount of time, there was a plan for resurrecting the ranch. Three wranglers were assigned to head into Plum Grove for tents—Lucas gave a wry smile as he instructed the men making that supply run to tell Will Haywood his “operating cash” had been inside the rolltop desk in the parlor. Will would need to extend credit.
Finally, just as Ruth handed off a bucket of water to Jackson, Lucas came to where they stood and, taking her hand, asked Jackson if he minded “if I had a word with your mother.”
Jackson looked from Ruth to Lucas and back again. Something seemed to pass between boy and man before Jackson smiled. “Of course not,” he said, and went back to watering the horses with Wah Lo. Taking Ruth’s hand, Lucas led her away.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, gesturing toward the ruins of the house. “Everything you’ve worked so hard for—”
Lucas waved the comment away. “When I saw Jackson come tearing into the yard—when he told me he’d just left without telling you—I knew. I knew what you’d do. And there was nothing I could do. You were headed straight into a lake of fire and I couldn’t stop—” His voice broke.
They were a few rods away from the men working the ruins of the ranch now, and he pulled her close. Taking a long, ragged breath, he croaked, “Dear God in heaven, woman. If I’d lost you—” He stopped talking with words…and didn’t let go until the boys started hooting their approval and applauding. Glancing their way, Ruth saw one of them nudge Jackson, who was grinning for all he was worth.
Loosening his grip a bit, Lucas looked down at her. “Promise me you will never do anything that reckless—anything that foolish—again.”
She smiled up at him. “I don’t think I can promise never to be reckless or foolish again, Lucas.”
He cocked his head. Questioning. “And that’s because…?”
“Because I need to be able to say yes when you propose.”
He laughed out loud and bent to kiss her again. This time, when the boys hooted and applauded, he looked over. Without releasing Ruth, he called out, “Nobody told you to give up on catching the horse.”
Indeed, Hannibal had spent the last several hours eluding any attempt to lasso him. It seemed obvious he wasn’t going to bolt and run off, but then again he wasn’t in the mood to be captured, either.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Ruth said. Slipping out of Lucas’s arms, she went to the chestnut gelding and pulled down Lucas’s lariat and headed to where Hannibal danced, just out of reach of anyone’s rope. At the sight of her, the stallion stood still. His ears came forward.
“I don’t think they should feed you to the coyotes anymore, you two-bit bag of wind,” she said, walking toward him as she talked. “But I really do think you should acquire an entirely new set of manners.” She held out the lariat. “I’d appreciate it if you’d behave yourself so these men could get something done. They’ve a ranch to rebuild.” She held the noose open with both hands. Hannibal lifted his head and put it through. As the boys stood openmouthed, Lucas walked up, put his arm around her waist, and pulled her close.
“And that, boys,” he said to them, “is how it’s done.”
Hope On Hope Ever
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
ATTRACTIVE WIDOWS
I was sitting at a d
esk at the Nebraska State Historical Society Archives researching a quilt documentation book when that headline caught my eye. “Another cargo of war widows arrived…” As questions like how and why and what if flew through my mind, I knew that I was on my way to a new adventure with imaginary friends who would eventually populate my next novel. When further research revealed that hundreds of single women successfully homesteaded in the west, Sally and Ruth and Caroline and Ella and Hettie became more and more real to me, and I couldn’t let them go.
Five women’s stories in one book? I’d never tried that before. Could I do it? Truth be told, there were times during the writing of Sixteen Brides when I felt more like I was wrestling a behemoth than telling a story. If you enjoyed reading about the women we came to call the “Fav-Five,” the credit goes to Ann Parrish and the other Bethany House editors who unselfishly gave of their time to help me win the wrestling match with the “biggest” story I’ve ever attempted.
Thank you, Bethany House Publishers, for continuing to believe in my work and support it. Thank you, Ann. Your friendship and editing expertise are among the best of God’s blessings to me. Thanks to Marge Caldwell and Brooke Reinhard for reading the early editions and pointing out flaws, and to the Kansas Eight who brainstorm and answer middle-of-the-night panicked emails with love and support and, best of all, faithful prayer. Thanks also to the women of Nebraska’s Dawson County Historical Society who helped me unearth “the real story” behind my imaginary tale. (Errors in the history are mine, not theirs.) Thank you, dear reader, for allowing me a novelist’s license to adjust a few—just a few, mind you—details and dates.
God has a way of yanking me into the unknown and bringing me to the end of myself for the express purpose of drawing me closer to him. Not surprisingly, that’s what he does with the women of the Ladies Emigration Society in Sixteen Brides. Thank you for making time to head west with them. I hope you found joy in the journey.
Grace and peace to you and yours,
Stephanie
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR