Walk by Faith

by Rosanne Bittner

  “Thank God the skin isn’t broken,” she said aloud. That would mean a much greater chance of infection. She hurried back to Dawson, felt the bone again, then took a deep breath and yanked.

  Dawson let out a deep moan. She placed the board on the outside of his arm and started wrapping gauze around it to hold the board against his arm to help keep the bone in place. It was all she could think to do. His left hand was swollen, but that was to be expected with a broken arm. She could only pray that was the only broken bone other than a rib, and that his head injury wasn’t life threatening.

  Once the arm was set she retrieved towels and a bucket of water, taking them over to wash the blood and gravel from Dawson’s face and head. She noticed a bruise forming on his side, most likely from the broken rib. “Please don’t let it be something worse,” she prayed aloud through tears. She was a nurse, not a doctor. If he had something wrong internally, there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Don’t you die on me, Dawson Clements,” she said as she washed him. “Not now.” She finished cleaning his face and turned his head to see a cut through his thick, dark hair where blood had already dried. She decided to leave it alone rather than start it bleeding all over again.

  Gently she washed his torso, rinsed the rag, then washed his neck and watched his eyes slowly open. He frowned.

  “Clare?”

  She smiled. “Yes. I got you up here all by myself, Dawson. The mountain lion knocked you over the ledge.”

  He watched her a moment, noticed her torn sleeves and bleeding arms. With his good arm he lifted one wrist to see her bloody glove. “Look at you,” he said weakly. “How—”

  “It was God who did it. I could never have climbed down there and got you back up without His help. It’s an absolute miracle I got you up here. See how much God loves you? He wants us to be together always, Dawson. When I thought you’d been killed by that fall, I knew how much I love you.” She couldn’t stop the tears then.

  He grimaced. “Fine time…to tell me.” He started to lift his left arm and cried out with pain.

  “It’s broken,” she told him, wiping at tears. “I think you also have broken ribs. I’m not sure about your legs. You’ll have to let me know what else hurts. You also have a head injury, but your eyes look clear.” She laid the wet rag over his forehead. “If you want to lie inside a wagon, you’ll have to get to your feet yourself. This is as far as I could get you.”

  “I need…water.”

  Clarissa got up and half stumbled on aching legs to the water barrel, dipping a ladle into it and bringing it back to Dawson. She lifted his head and helped him drink. He let out another groan and looked toward the ledge, then back at her. “I remember…falling.” He closed his eyes. “I saw him lying there…screaming with pain.”

  She grasped his good hand. “The preacher?”

  He looked at her with terrible remorse in his eyes. “How do you know?”

  “You mumbled about it down there on the ledge.”

  “I’m sorry, Clare. I didn’t want you to know…what I did. I left him there. I just…left him there to die. Maybe God meant for you…to leave me down there to die, too.”

  “Never.” She pushed back some dark wisps of hair from his face. “Dawson, God forgave you for that a long time ago—the first time you felt terrible regret and remorse for it. You reacted as the child who for years had the feelings beat out of him. It’s taken years for you to get those feelings back, and everything that has happened on this trip, meeting Michael and having those long talks with him, God bringing us together, you learning to forgive yourself for what happened to your parents—it’s all been part of the healing. And I in turn have learned to trust again, through you. We’re going to be okay, you and me. We’re going to make it to Montana and build a home there and have children and be the family you haven’t had since you were eight years old. And my Sophie will have a real daddy.”

  He squeezed her hand. “You mean all that?”

  She leaned closer and kissed his lips lightly. “I mean it. Why else would I have gone through all this to rescue you? I am scraped and bleeding from head to foot, and the rope tore half the skin off my hands. I don’t doubt that when I wake up tomorrow I’ll hardly be able to move.”

  He grimaced with pain again as he tried to adjust his position. “Sophie. Where’s Sophie?”

  “She’s all right. She fell asleep in the wagon. Actually she cried herself to sleep, worried about her Dawson.”

  He managed a faint smile and met her gaze again. “Clare, there is something…I’ve already thought about doing, when we settle. I didn’t tell you because…first I wanted to know for sure…we’d be together.”

  Everything hurt as she shifted to sit down beside him. “Tell me,” she said, stroking his cheek.

  “I want…to build a church.”

  Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “A church?”

  “In Michael’s memory. That’s what he…wanted. At first…there won’t be many people around…to come. But they will come…and until we find a preacher…we’ll take turns just…reading from the Bible…things like that. I’m no preacher…that’s for sure. But…I want to do something…to remember Michael…and what he taught me. And it will be a way…for me to thank God…for bringing you into my life.”

  Her eyes teared anew with joy at how he’d changed. “Then we’ll build a church. Maybe we could call it something like Miracle Rescue Mission, for the miracle of my rescuing you from that ledge.”

  He watched her lovingly. “I’ve been rescued from more than that, Clare.”

  “Hello, there!” came a voice.

  Clare looked up in surprise. “Zeb!” she yelled. “Dawson, it’s Zeb!” She jumped up and ran to the old mountain man, who approached on foot, leading his horse. Clarissa surprised him with a firm hug. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”

  “Whoa! Hold up there, woman!” Zeb laughed. “I’m right glad to see you, too! What’s happened here? Look at you! You’re covered with blood!”

  “A mountain lion was threatening Sophie. Dawson shot at it, just as it leaped down on top of him. Zeb, the lion knocked Dawson over the edge! I managed to get down to him and pulled him up by tying rope to the back of the lead wagon and pulling him up that way. I don’t know how I did it, other than I prayed and prayed. I never could have got him up without God’s help!”

  Alarmed, Zeb left her and hurried over to Dawson, kneeling beside him. “Hey, old friend, how bad is it?”

  “Broken arm,” Dawson told him. “I think…maybe a cracked skull and a couple broken or bruised ribs. I’m not even sure yet. I’m…afraid to move.”

  “Well, you’re lucky to be alive. Takes a brave, smart woman to do what your wife just did.”

  Dawson managed a loving smile at Clarissa as she, too, knelt beside him. “How’d you…find us?” he asked Zeb then.

  “Well, those on the train decided to hold up for a few days and let me come back to see what happened to you folks. They was real concerned.” Zeb looked around. “Where’s the Harveys?”

  A lump rose in Clarissa’s throat. “They died, Zeb.”

  “All three of them?”

  Clarissa nodded, renewed pain gripping her heart.

  “Oh, that’s too bad. I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, Zeb, there is so much to tell you,” Clarissa said. “But for now, you have no idea how happy I am to have help! Thank goodness! You can help me get Dawson into a wagon. And you can lead the second wagon and get us down off this mountain.” She leaned closer to Dawson. “We’re going to make it, Dawson! We’re going to make it! Thanks be to God!” She kissed his forehead. “Oh, I love you! I love you!”

  “And I love you,” he whispered. “Yes. Thanks be to God.”

  Epilogue

  September 30, 1863

  Already a few snowflakes were falling. Clarissa wrapped her wool cape closer around her, and Dawson stood next to her with the collar of his wool jacket turned up. He held Sophie in his right
arm, his left arm still not completely healed. Sophie, her red curls popping out from under her woolen cap, hugged Dawson around the neck and put her head on her daddy’s shoulder.

  Settlers had come from distant settlements, most of them those who’d reached Montana on Dawson’s wagon train. There were twenty-four here all together, and they stood gazing at their little log church, which over the past month men had come here to build, knowing how much Dawson wanted this, and all grieving for the Harveys. They had also built a cozy, two-room cabin for Dawson and Clarissa, promising to keep them in food and firewood until Dawson was able to hunt and chop wood on his own.

  Their kindness was overwhelming, especially for Dawson, who’d never known such treatment. He and Clarissa felt blessed by God in so many ways.

  Will Krueger nailed a sign to the front of the little log church. He’d cut the sign out of pine and carved out the letters that read In Memory of Michael, Carolyn and Lena Harvey.

  “It’s a fine church, Dawson,” Otto Hensel told him. “Someday ve vill have a real preacher.”

  Dawson looked at Clarissa. “Yes, a real preacher.”

  Clarissa put her arm around him, feeling whole and loved again. Being with Dawson Clements proved to be the most fulfilling experience she’d known, for the love she shared with him was so much deeper and more meaningful than anything she’d shared with Chad.

  “Let’s sing a hymn.” Robert Trowbridge spoke up. “How about ‘Amazing Grace’?”

  It was difficult for Clarissa not to cry, as she pictured Michael and Carolyn joining them. They were here. She could feel it. Their spirit came out in the form of Dawson Clements’s voice as he joined in the hymn.

  “‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.’”

  It was the first time Clarissa had heard Dawson sing. He had a fine voice. The Dawson Clements she’d met back in St. Louis would never have dreamed of praying or building a church or singing a hymn.

  What miracles God could bring into peoples’ lives! They were here. They were home, and their journey here had been so much more than just a physical trip. It had been a journey of the heart, a walk of faith and hope for something much more than she’d expected to find here in Montana.

  “‘I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see.’”

  They finished two stanzas of the hymn, then Dawson turned to Clarissa. “Let’s go inside and have some celebration cake,” he told her.

  “Thank you for the church, Dawson.”

  He leaned down and kissed her tenderly. “Thank you for loving me.” He kissed her again, more deeply. Never had she felt more loved, and never had she trusted anyone more than she trusted Dawson Clements.

  They headed inside.

  “Look, Mommy,” Sophie called out. She pointed to the clouds. “It’s Lena!”

  Clarissa looked up to see brilliant golden rays where the sun was perched behind a cloud. “Yes,” she answered. “I see Michael and Carolyn, too.”

  “Uh-huh. They like our church.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Clarissa answered.

  Dawson grinned and led them inside. In the distance sat their little cabin, where they would spend their first, long Montana winter, in deep and abiding love.

  Home! They were home!

  I have told you this,

  So that my joy might be in you

  And your joy might be complete.

  This is my commandment:

  Love one another as I love you.

  No one has greater love than this,

  To lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

  It was not you who chose me,

  But I who chose you and appointed you

  To go and bear fruit that will remain,

  So that whatever you ask the Father in my name,

  He may give you.

  This I command you: Love one another.

  —John 15:11-13 and 16-17

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2240-7

  WALK BY FAITH

  Copyright © 2005 by Rosanne Bittner

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

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

  This edition published by arrangement with Steeple Hill Books.

  ® and TM are trademarks of Steeple Hill Books, used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.SteepleHill.com