Walk by Faith

by Rosanne Bittner

  So much behind me, lost forever…

  Clarissa wrote in her diary, after writing down her awful experience with cholera and the loss of Michael and Carolyn.

  I’ll never see St. Louis again, and I’ve left so many graves on the way here. God is surely watching over me and Sophie to bring us this far and get us through that dreadful disease and leave us with a man so capable of taking us the rest of the way.

  Dawson is ever watchful, ever considerate, ever attentive. He is such a help with Sophie, and often he carries her on his back as we climb the passes. He understands how lonely and confused she is over Lena’s absence. She gets bored and sometimes cries. Dawson picks her up and talks to her and has a way of calming her and making her laugh.

  She still had not written that she and Dawson were married. She was careful to make sure whoever read her diary one day would understand they were in this situation by circumstance and that they were behaving properly, so as not to mar her reputation to her children and grandchildren. It was bad enough that they would know her as a divorced woman.

  “You writing about me in there?” Dawson came to sit on a rock near where Clarissa sat writing.

  Clarissa quickly closed the diary. “Maybe.”

  “Are you writing about how much you love me?”

  She smiled, setting the diary aside. “I’m not telling.”

  Dawson chuckled and poured himself some coffee. They both wore jackets in spite of the summer month. High in the Bighorns, the sun did not shed the same warmth as in the valleys, and a constant wind whined and howled through rocks and canyons.

  “I think we’ll stay right here the rest of the night,” Dawson told her. “I was only going to stop for some lunch, but you look a little pale. You need the rest.”

  “Dawson, look! Pwetty stones!” Sophie ran over with a handful of pink, sparkly stones. “Is it gold?”

  Dawson pretended seriousness as he studied them. “Could be. You’d better save these.”

  “Okay! I’m gonna get mo wocks. Lena said she’d help me!”

  Their smiles faded. “Lena?” Clarissa asked.

  “Yeah. We play all the time. She’s way up high and she waves to me.”

  Clarissa looked at Dawson, who shrugged. “Imagination,” he told her. “If it makes her happy, we might as well go along with it.”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  “She’s only three years old.”

  “Getting very close to four. Her birthday is in September.”

  Sophie ran off to find more rocks, and Clarissa sighed. “Poor little thing. She and Lena were like sisters. I feel so bad for her.”

  “So do I.” Dawson turned to look out past the ledge where their wagons sat on the mountainside, along the highest, narrowest roadway they’d followed so far. “This is the kind of country I love, Clare. Beautiful, isn’t it?” He sipped his coffee.

  Clarissa joined him in gazing out over a splendid scene of more mountains in the distance, beyond gaping canyons, eerie rock formations and gorgeous colors. “Yes, it’s truly God’s country. But I have to tell you, I’m not thrilled with these heights. I’ve always been afraid of high places.”

  “This is a solid road, and we’ll be headed back down soon. We’ll follow a valley then most of the way.” He looked her over lovingly. “Then we’ll be home.”

  Clarissa felt warmth move through her at what that could mean. She had to make up her mind about taking Dawson Clements as a husband in every way. “Home sounds good,” she answered, blushing. “Thank you for being so patient with me, Dawson.”

  He smiled. “I want you to know that no matter what you decide, I’ll stick around a good, long time, for Sophie’s sake, and to help you get settled.”

  She touched his arm. “You’re too good to me. I do love you, Dawson Clements. Maybe once we’re completely settled, and—”

  “Mommy! Look how high I am!”

  Sophie’s voice sounded much too far away. Both Clarissa and Dawson felt alarm as they turned to look where Sophie had been collecting rocks.

  “She’s not there,” Dawson said, jumping up and looking around.

  Clarissa felt a lurch to her heart as she, too, got up to search. “Can you see her?”

  “No!”

  Sophie had been told to play against the mountain wall away from the road’s edge, and she’d been very good about it, but Clarissa’s first thought was the worst. “Where is she?” She cupped her hands over her mouth. “Sophie!” she yelled. “Where are you?”

  “Sophie!” Dawson shouted.

  “Hi, Mommy.”

  Again the voice seemed far away, and they could not be sure at first where it was coming from. They searched the rocks above.

  “Sophie, call to Mommy again!” Clarissa ordered, her heart pounding.

  “Hewe I am! I’m going up to see Lena!”

  Clarissa and Dawson desperately studied the shadowed mountainside. They didn’t see her at first because she’d climbed much higher than they thought she could.

  Dawson finally spotted her. “How did she get that high that fast?”

  “Sophie! Stay there!” Clarissa screamed. “Don’t go any higher! Lena’s not up there!”

  “Sophie! Stay put and I’ll come get you!” Dawson yelled.

  He started toward the pathway upward, and that was when they all heard it, the chilling yowl of a mountain lion that was perched between the ledge where they stood and the place where Sophie waited.

  “Help us, Lord!” Clarissa moaned.

  “Don’t move!” Dawson told her. He slowly made his way to his wagon, where a rifle rested in brackets on the side of it.

  “Dawson, maybe he’s thinking of Sophie as a meal he needs to protect!”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  The lion screeched again, crouching and eyeing Dawson as though an enemy with whom it had to fight to keep its delectable meal for itself. Dawson grasped his rifle, and just as he raised it, the mountain lion leaped. Clarissa screamed as Dawson got off a shot a split second before the mountain lion landed on him with such force that it knocked Dawson backward…and over the edge.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Clarissa ran to the edge of the narrow mountain pathway and leaned on a rock to look for Dawson. There he lay, on a ledge below, and he was either unconscious or dead. Her mind whirled with desperation as to how to get to him.

  Sophie started crying and, fighting tears, Clarissa turned and ran to the mountain wall, climbing and scrambling up to where Sophie still stood, her fingers digging into rock and gravel, her feet sometimes slipping, until she finally reached her daughter.

  “Sophie!” She hugged the girl tightly. “Let’s go back to the wagon, Sophie. You have to stay there and wait for mommy while I try to help Dawson.”

  “Dawson fell down,” the girl sniffled. “Did the big cat get him?”

  “I don’t think so, but he’s hurt, Sophie. Mommy has to find a way to help him.” She sat down and clung to Sophie as she mostly slid on her rear down to the roadway, then hurried to the wagon with Sophie. “You must stay here,” she warned again. “Promise Mommy you will not get out of this wagon. Otherwise you could fall, too!”

  “Okay.” The girl pouted.

  “And don’t try to climb up after Lena again. Darling, Lena isn’t up there. She’s way, way up in the sky where you can’t reach her, so please promise Mommy you won’t try to climb up somewhere and find her again.”

  “I won’t.”

  Clarissa grabbed hold of the back of her skirt hemline and pulled it forward and up, then brought the two ends around and tied them together, forming a kind of diaper with her dress so her legs were free. Lord, forgive me for exposing myself this way, but how else am I going to make it down to that ledge?

  Frantically she tried to reason the best way to help Dawson. She ran and looked over the ledge again, this time noticing the mountain lion sprawled farther below, its side covered with blood. Dawson’s rifle had lik
ely tumbled even farther below.

  Shaking with terror, both for Dawson and her fear of heights, she ran back to the wagon, grateful that they had not yet unyoked the oxen. With everything else she had to do, she wasn’t sure she could add the work of hitching the oxen. Dawson’s wagon and oxen were closer to where Dawson fell. She decided that if she could get them to move forward a few feet, the back of the wagon would be closer to where Dawson lay below. They were near a curve in the mountain road. If she could get Dawson tied to a rope at the back of the wagon and then moved the oxen forward, she might be able to use that to pull Dawson up.

  “God help me,” she prayed aloud, grabbing two loops of rope. Still weak from being so sick, she wasn’t sure where she would find the strength to lower herself to Dawson, let alone manage to get a rope around his big frame and climb back up to the top. The drop to Dawson was straight down, a good half mile deep at the bottom. Thank goodness Dawson had landed on a ledge she might be able to reach, but how long would it hold? What moments ago she thought of as the most beautiful country God could make was now awesomely terrifying. If she fell, her precious Sophie would be left up here alone!

  She checked on Sophie once more. The little girl was lying in a quilt and crying. “Please don’t cry, Sophie. Everything will be all right.”

  “Dawson’s hoot,” she sobbed.

  “Mommy is going to help him. You remember to stay right here in this wagon no matter what. I can’t help him if I have to worry about you.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “Of course I will. You say a little prayer for Dawson. Mommy has to go help him now.”

  She hurried to the lead wagon and grabbed a switch, shouting for the oxen to “Giddap!” One lead ox tossed its head, then got under way. “Whoa! Whoa!” Clarissa shouted after they moved only a few feet. One of the ox snorted and pawed, and she prayed they would not decide to take off on their own before she was ready.

  Quickly she tied one end of a rope to the back of the wagon, making several knots to be sure it would hold. She moved to the edge of the road, her heart pounding with fear and dread. A mountain climber she was not, let alone having the upper-body strength for this, but she had no choice. She looked down at Dawson again and screamed his name, but he didn’t move. “Don’t let him be dead!”

  She knew now how much she loved him, truly loved him in every way. She knew now how devastated she would be to lose him to death, which helped her realize she didn’t want to lose him any other way, either. She could no more allow Dawson Clements to walk out of her life than she could stop breathing.

  She removed her jacket for more freedom of her arms, then slung one loop of rope over her shoulder. She wrapped the rope that was tied to the wagon around her waist, then lay down on her belly, slowly lowering herself backward over the edge.

  “God, help me,” she prayed again between quick breaths of terror. Her feet slid and she screamed, but then she caught a foot on a small sprig of pine growing out of the rock. She wondered at how anything alive could come out of a rock, but she was thankful it was there.

  She dared to look down again, then began sliding down using the rope. Once she slid too quickly, and rocks went tumbling. She tore skin off her hands, but terror overrode the pain. She worked her way ever downward, until finally she landed on the ledge where Dawson lay. She could only pray that whatever the both of them were perched on would hold while she knelt down beside Dawson.

  She felt for a pulse, thanking God that she found one. She turned his head faceup to see a good deal of blood on the left side of his head. “Dawson!” she said aloud. “Dawson, can you hear me?”

  He groaned. Clarissa began feeling around for broken bones. Miraculously his legs seemed all right, but through his jacket his left arm felt broken. She opened the jacket and felt his ribs, detecting one soft spot. He groaned when she touched it.

  “I’m going to get you to the top, Dawson,” she promised.

  He groaned again, then opened his eyes and stared at her with a rather blank look, as though he didn’t know her. “Leave me,” he muttered.

  She leaned close and kissed his forehead. “Don’t be silly. I can’t leave you here.”

  “…deserve it,” he said gruffly.

  “You’re out of your head from the fall.” Clarissa tied the second rope to his ankles, yanking on a knot and then wrapping the rope around and around his legs so they were tied together. She really had no idea how to do this. She just kept wrapping, grunting and grimacing as she moved his body back and forth so she could keep winding the rope around it, tying his arms to his sides, up to his shoulders, then back down to loop what was left of the rope through the part wound around his midsection. Once she started pulling on that rope, with God’s help, she could lift Dawson to the top. If only he weren’t such a big man. If her knots didn’t hold, Dawson would likely tumble to his death at the bottom of the canyon.

  “I’m going to bring you up now, Dawson,” she told him.

  His eyes were open, and this time he seemed to recognize her. “Leave me,” he told her again. “Too dangerous. Let me…die here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” She gently brushed some hair back from his gravel-encrusted face. “I love you, Dawson Clements. I never knew how much until now. I love you and I want to be your wife in every way. I want to go to Montana with you and settle there and spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t care anymore what Chad did to me. I forgive him because it doesn’t matter anymore. You are all that matters, Dawson, do you hear me?”

  “You don’t…understand,” he answered weakly. “I…left him.”

  “Left who?”

  He closed his eyes. “The preacher…I left the preacher…he fell from the…barn roof…hurt bad…begged me to get help…nobody home. That’s when I ran away…left him there…to die in terrible…pain. This is…my punishment.”

  She kissed him again, realizing what he just told her must be the thing he’d been afraid to tell her until now. It explained why he was always trying to help others, explained what he told her at the river and his devastation at not being able to save Eric Buettner after nearly drowning in the effort. Most of his life had been spent trying to make up for leaving the preacher—who’d abused him—to die. He probably thought God would never forgive him for it, and that she would hate him if she knew.

  There was no time to think about it now. “I’m getting you to the top no matter what it takes,” she told him. She rose and looked up, her heart falling at the sight of the steep climb. Somehow she had to get herself to the top before she could help Dawson. And little Sophie was up there waiting for her.

  She wrapped the rope around her hand and stepped up on another sprig. It snapped, and more small rocks tumbled, some spilling over Dawson’s face. She let out a little scream of terror, then found footing in a little ledge and started up again. Her hands were bleeding badly from rope burn, but desperation brought forth the adrenaline she needed to ignore the pain and keep climbing.

  A sprig of pine here, a little rock there, a crack in the earth. Surely God was giving her the strength she would never normally have to do this. She groaned and grunted with every grasp and pull, finally reaching a tiny ledge where she could place her knees and rest for a moment against the red rock wall.

  She panted as she clung to the rope, sweat now pouring down her face in spite of the cool mountain air. After a few minutes she started climbing again, her entire body screaming with pain, blood from her hands running down the rope and her arms. Fear of failure brought tears to her eyes, and she was not even aware of what she was using to brace herself or of the pain in her hands or even how high she’d gone. She only knew that by some miracle she saw flat ground, a wagon wheel, oxen.

  She scrambled over the edge and away from it far enough to lie down, panting and crying. She lay there a few minutes, then felt numb when she got up to realize her arms and legs were a bloody mess, her hands horribly skinned, but she still could not allow her own pain to ge
t in the way. She stumbled to her own wagon, grunting as she climbed inside, relieved to see Sophie had cried herself to sleep.

  She opened a small drawer in the top of a trunk and took out a pair of dress gloves. She had to get something over her hands so she could stand to touch things. She winced as she pulled them on, then climbed down and hurried to the lead wagon. A lone pine tree grew at the side of the roadway, and luckily the rope tied to Dawson was on this side of the tree. As the oxen moved forward and around the corner, the rope would catch on the tree so that Dawson would be pulled straight up and not sideways.

  She could do this. She untied her dress and hurried to the lead wagon, again taking up the switch. She snapped it over the oxen and again ordered them to move forward. Rather reluctantly, the beasts lumbered ahead. After several feet she stopped them again and ran to make sure her idea was working. The rope was taut. That meant there was weight at the end of it. She ran to the edge and looked over. There was Dawson, hanging in the air about halfway up.

  “Yes!” she cried. “Thank you, Lord!”

  Back she ran to the oxen, shouting and whipping at them to keep going. As they rounded the corner to the left, she could now see the pine tree without going to the back of the wagon first. She kept the oxen going until she saw Dawson’s body partway on the road.

  She laughed and cried at the same time, halting the oxen again and running back to Dawson. She tugged and grunted and pulled until he was completely on the roadway, then ran for a blanket and opened it nearby. She rolled him onto the blanket and began untying the ropes, noticing her gloves were stained with blood. Hastily she got the ropes off and again felt for a pulse, finding a strong one.

  She broke into exhausted tears then, lying down beside him and sobbing with happiness.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Clarissa managed to get Dawson’s jacket and shirt off, and his left arm flopped. Even though he seemed only semiconscious, he yelled with pain. She felt the arm and determined the break was in the forearm and would have to be set. She ran to the lead wagon, and using strength she didn’t even know she had, she yanked a thin piece of board off a crate, then climbed into the wagon and dug through supplies to find gauze.