Gingham Mountain

by Mary Connealy

  Barely twenty, she felt like she’d been old since the day she was born. She was so tired of always having to be strong, beyond tired of all work and no play. Grim experience told her what Libby and Charlie were going through tonight and she wept. From the deepest part of her heart, she cried out to God through her tears.

  Forgive me for failing them and subjecting them to that hard, miserable life.

  SIX

  Let’s go sledding!”

  Grant was jerked out of a restless sleep when Benny tripped over his stomach.

  Benny fell with a terrible clatter against the kitchen table, hitting so hard he should have broken every bone in his body. The six-year-old bounced back to his feet and grinned down at Grant, who lay on his bedroll on the kitchen floor. “Can we get the sleds out, Pa? Can we, huh? Can we, please?”

  Benny’d been on the orphan train when it turned around here three years ago. He’d ridden all the way from New York with Martha and never been adopted because he was too young. Three when Grant got him, Benny was the closest to a baby Grant had ever taken, and Grant couldn’t have loved him any more if he’d been his own flesh and blood.

  Trying to shake off a lousy night’s sleep, he massaged his head to clear it. Grant rubbed a hand over his face. No bristles. Oh yeah, I shaved last night. Why had he shaved? Normally he’d do that Sunday morning not Saturday night. For that matter, what was he doing sleeping on the floor?

  Grant sat up straight. I adopted two more kids yesterday.

  Benny didn’t wait for an answer. He dashed to the little window beside the front door and pressed his nose against the frosty pane. “This is the bestest snow I’ve ever seen.” Benny glanced over his shoulder and gave Grant a sly look. “I mean, this is the worstest snow I’ve ever seen. We can’t get through it to church. No way! It’d be”—Benny paused for dramatic effect—“dangerous!”

  Grant grinned at Benny. Then he laughed out loud.

  The other children came pouring out of their rooms wearing their heavy nightgowns or union suits—depending on whether they were girls or boys. Even the older girls rushed to the window and crowded around fighting for a square inch of glass.

  Libby was right behind them, still as silent as a tomb. He wondered what it was the little girl couldn’t say.

  Marilyn turned and scooped Libby up in her arms so the little one could see the snow outside. Their two heads together, Libby’s dark and Marilyn’s fair, the expressions of joy and excitement matched until they looked almost like sisters.

  Before they’d covered the window with their rampaging herd of bodies, Grant had seen that the sun wasn’t even up yet. Only the faintest light glowed in the eastern sky. Grant couldn’t resist saying, “If the mountain pass is snowed in, we can still make it through the valley.”

  Grant heard Benny groan, which made Grant grin all the more. “I think there’s time for a couple of quick trips up and down the hill before church.”

  There was a collective gasp of joy, and the children vanished out of the room so quickly Grant might have thought he’d dreamed the whole thing if Benny hadn’t stepped on his stomach again in the stampede.

  If he let them go, he’d be stuck with all the morning chores. But in New York City, where Grant had grown up, there had been plenty of snow but never time for sledding. And here in Texas, it got cold, but the snow didn’t come this deep very often, and it never lasted for long. He wasn’t going to deny the children this pleasure.

  Thinking of the fight on his hands to get the young’uns ready for church, he heaved himself up off the floor and groaned. He was getting too old to sleep on a hardwood floor. He quit his groaning to smile at himself. He was twenty-six. Not too old for anything. Although, raising twenty children on his own, starting from the time he was seventeen, might have made him an old man before his time.

  He got to his feet and laid more wood on the fire before he did another thing. Then he adjusted his suspenders onto his shoulders and pulled on his boots over the thick socks he’d worn to bed. With a couple of quick scrapes of his fingers, he gathered his hair at his nape then tied it back with a leather thong to keep it out of his eyes, wondering if one of the older girls would mind whacking some of his mane off for him. Pulling on his buckskin coat, he grabbed the bucket to go for water.

  Benny beat him to the door, shouting with glee and running for the barn and the ragtag sleds Grant had collected over the years.

  By the time Grant hauled back the first bucket of water, all six kids were long gone sledding. He poured water into a pot for coffee and a basin for washing. He hustled to milk both cows, gather eggs, and make sure the livestock in his barnyard had gotten through the blizzard in one piece. Hefting an armload of firewood inside, he stoked the stove then reached for the boiling coffeepot to pour himself a cup before he went to wrangle with the children about coming back in to get ready for church.

  Then something snapped. He poured his untouched coffee back in, shoved the pot to a cooler spot so it wouldn’t burn. . .and ran.

  He got to the bottom of the sledding hill just as Marilyn and Libby sailed down the slope on the little toboggan. They upended the sled in a snowdrift and came rolling out of the snow, giggling hysterically.

  Grant shouted, “My turn!”

  The kids started shrieking and jumping up and down, yelling encouragement to him.

  Grant grabbed the rope of Marilyn’s sleek wooden toboggan, one that Grant had built himself last winter, and plunked Libby down on it. He trudged up the hill, giving his newest daughter a ride.

  Joshua passed him on a runner sled going down. Benny, Charlie, and Sadie were next on the big toboggan.

  He got to the top only a few paces ahead of Joshua.

  “I’m faster’n you, Pa,” Joshua taunted in his deep, adult voice. His black skin shone with melting snow, and icicles hung off his woolen cap. “I was way behind you when I went down.”

  Grant laughed at his seventeen-year-old son. “I gave Libby a ride. You made Benny walk. All the difference.”

  Joshua shoved Benny sideways, and the little boy plopped over into the snow. Benny came up hurling snowballs, and Joshua whooped and ran.

  Grant turned Libby around to face downhill. “Let’s get out of here, Lib, before we get attacked!”

  Libby laughed out loud, and Grant’s joy was so great to hear this solemn little girl laughing he wanted to dance. He jumped onto the back of the sled, tucking his long legs around her, and pushed off. Just as he started moving, he felt something heavy hit his back, and he glanced behind to see Benny tackling him. Grant pulled Benny over his shoulder while the boy laughed and wrestled. Libby started giggling again.

  Grant glanced sideways to see Charlie riding in front of Sadie and Marilyn, laughing. Charlie’s laughter meant the world to Grant. He knew the boy would be a tough nut to crack. Hostile and suspicious, Grant understood that the boy expected every moment in this house to be his last. He didn’t trust anyone. All of the new brothers and sisters hadn’t gone down well. He had especially hated sharing his tiny loft room with Benny.

  And now Charlie laughed and played. Grant’s heart danced even if he was too buried under kids to do it for real.

  The sled soared down the hill, completely out of control because Benny had a boot in Grant’s face. The wreck came as it always did against the drifts that had formed at the base of the slope.

  By the time Grant got the snow wiped out of his eyes, all six of his children were scattered around beside him, buried at all different depths. All of them laughing like loons.

  Grant knew he was pushing his luck, but he couldn’t make them quit yet. “Once more down the hill.”

  All the laughing stopped and the complaining began.

  “Pa,” Benny wailed, “it’s already warming up.”

  Charlie kicked at a clump of snow in front of him. “It’ll be gone by the time church is over.”

  “Two more times down the hill,” Grant amended. “If we hurry!”

  He caug
ht the sled rope and planted Libby back on the sled and raced Joshua, pulling Benny, to the top of the hill. Charlie was right beside him. The girls beat the rest of them to the top and jeered at Grant for being slow.

  The kids nagged him into four more times down the hill. Then they had to skip breakfast and head for church with their coats still wet and their hair straggling around their faces. Grant knew they were all a mess, but laughing was something none of them had known how to do when they’d first come to him. Enjoying family life was as much a kind of worship to an orphan as sitting in the Lord’s house.

  “The gap is filled up to the canyon rim.”

  Daniel’s announcement nearly broke Grace’s ear drums as he slammed the door open to their cabin. To knock the snow off his broad shoulders, he shook himself like a wet dog.

  “Daniel!” Grace held up both hands to ward off the flying snow. She risked a peek through her fingertips and saw him grinning at her.

  “No school till spring! The canyon’s snowed shut for sure.” Mark launched himself at Luke and the two of them slammed to the floor. “I thought it’d never happen. I thought we’d be stuck schoolin’ all winter.”

  Grace closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the breaking bones and blood. She peeked again. Of course no one broke. A Texas cyclone couldn’t play this rough, and yet the boys stayed in one piece more often than not.

  A cry out of the bedroom pulled Grace’s attention away from the riot in front of her.

  “I’ll get him. Your little brother’s up, boys!” Daniel ran toward the room with all five boys charging after him. Daniel beat the crowd through, but the boys clogged in the doorway and fought each other to be second.

  “Be gentle with him!” Grace used to be soft-spoken, but no one seemed to hear her. Now she hollered, and they still ignored her for the most part. But at least they now ignored her because they were rude, not because of any failure on her part to let them know what she wanted. So she could blame them fully when they didn’t mind her.

  Daniel appeared from the bedroom with Matt, still droopy-eyed from an unusual afternoon nap. The boy wasn’t inclined to unnecessary sleep. None of the men in this family were.

  Her three-year-old son was bald as an egg, but Daniel said all of his sons started out that way. He claimed it was real convenient to have no hair on a baby because it made mopping the food off their heads easier. Grace had found that to be the honest truth.

  Abe and Ike shoved through the door next. They’d shot up in the last year. Fourteen years old now, soon to turn fifteen, they were within inches of Daniel’s height but not nearly as broad. Their shoulders and chests hadn’t filled out yet, and they had a gaunt, hungry look, no matter how much food Grace poured down them.

  The boys were eating the herd down so fast, one of these days Grace expected to see the cattle making a break for it.

  Abe and Ike did the work of men, but they still played like kittens. Big kittens. One hundred-fifty-pound kittens who would sooner knock the furniture over than go around it.

  Mark, Luke, and John, the nine-year-old triplets, came in next. Luke tripped Mark because Mark dodged in front of him to get out of the baby’s bedroom. Mark smacked into his older brothers. As long as they were within reach, Mark made a point of knocking them sideways as he fell. The two of them turned and attacked. John, a step behind Luke, jumped on the pile of wriggling, screaming boys.

  Daniel ignored the ruckus, as did Grace to the extent she was able. They met in front of the fireplace, and Daniel handed little Matthew over. Grace settled into the rocking chair Daniel and the boys had built. Matthew lasted all of ten seconds on her lap, then he yelled and squirmed until she let go. He launched himself at his brothers. His high-pitched screams were deafening, so his brothers howled all the louder and proceeded to grab Matt and toss him in the air between each other. It was the baby’s favorite game.

  Grace covered her eyes.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” Daniel leaned down, resting one hand on the back of her rocker while he pressed his forehead to hers.

  She loved it when he touched her. She loved the way he smelled. On the rare occasion when she could get a sweet word out of the big lummox, she almost melted into a puddle at his feet. She breathed him in.

  Luke fell over the kitchen table and broke one of the legs off.

  Daniel yelled, “You boys go outside and fight!”

  Grace, her ears ringing, looked up at her grinning husband as the boys stormed through the outside door. She could tell that he was already planning to repair the table. He was good at it, thanks to all the practice.

  Thanks to the moment of silence, Grace could concentrate, and she realized what Daniel had said. “The gap’s snowed shut?” And oddly, her throat seemed to swell shut at the news. “We’re trapped here until spring again?”

  “Yep, but it held off a long time this year. We got in to Mosqueros for Christmas. But I’m tired of the run to town for school. Glad to be shut of it for the year. And it don’t matter none. We have supplies for the winter. I stocked up good and early. Plus, I married me our own private teacher.” Daniel grinned at her then took a step away toward the table.

  Grace caught his arm, choking on the idea of being trapped for months. “You’re sure it’s all the way snowed shut. Have you ever tried to shovel a path through? Just wide enough to walk out?”

  “Naw, it’s packed in tight, fifty feet deep. No gettin’ out. I s’pose we could get an early thaw, but that don’t usually happen. You know how slow that gap is to melt. Spring will have been here for a long time before we can get out.”

  Grace’s finger sank deep into Daniel’s sleeve. “Daniel, I think we’re going to have to get out of here once or twice this winter. You got a lot done on that high pass, didn’t you? We can get out of here once in a while, can’t we?”

  “We could, but why should we?”

  Something hit the front door so hard one of the hinges snapped. Grace saw Ike and Luke through the splintered wood before they fell to the ground.

  “Because I get a little. . .oh”—her fingers tore little holes in the fabric—“restless, I guess, not seeing another woman all winter. If we could just go to the McClellens every month or so. . .”

  Daniel went over and lifted the door back into place.

  “I’d go alone,” she offered. “I could just jump on a horse and ride up to the pass. I’d let the horse go and he’d come right home. Then I’d walk to Adam and Tillie’s. It can’t be more than five miles. I’d be fine on my own.”

  “You can’t get over that pass alone.”

  “Sure I can.” Grace felt her throat shutting tight, not unlike the gap. “Scaling that last cliff isn’t so hard.”

  “What do you mean it isn’t so hard?” Daniel set what was left of the table upright using the broken-off leg to prop it then came back to her side. “Even after all the work we done, we have to hang on by our fingernails. John fell almost a hundred feet when he went over the edge last summer.”

  Grace decided the sleeve hadn’t gotten his attention nearly enough. She grabbed Daniel’s skin beneath the cloth, picturing her hand on his neck. That wasn’t like her. “But he rolled most of the way. It’s not like it’s a dead drop. He had hardly a scratch. And besides, he was wrestling with Abe. I wouldn’t be reckless like the boys are.”

  Normally the winters didn’t bother her all that much. But for some reason, right now, it was driving her to panic. Her fingers sank into a hunk of Daniel’s skin. And speaking of claws. . . “I would just claw my way up and out. I’d be glad to go alone if you didn’t want to come along.”

  Mark screamed like he was being stabbed to death.

  Grace flinched. “In fact, I’d insist on going alone. I’d go see Sophie. I might stay for a day or two, just once a month.”

  Grace heard someone roll off the roof, shrieking like a banshee.

  “Once or twice a month, for two or three days each time.” Grace gave him her most fetching smile. The one that
often got her what she wanted, or rather got her Daniel, which was often what she wanted. “You could manage without me.”

  Daniel leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “No, we couldn’t, honey. What would we eat?”

  “You could have steak and eggs and biscuits and potatoes and milk?”

  He caught her hand and removed her fingers from his skin. “It’s good, but it has an extra sweetness when it’s made by your pretty little hands.”

  Grace heard more racket on the roof. Her pretty little hand formed a fist. A puff of soot whomped out of the fireplace and the flames danced wildly. She waited to see if one of the boys would fall through.

  “Oh.” Daniel slapped his forehead then reached for the back pocket of his broadcloth pants. “There was another letter for you in Mosqueros. I forgot. I’ve been carrying it around for a few days. It’s from your sister who writes from time to time.”

  “What?” Grace launched herself to her feet. “Hannah wrote and you forgot to tell me?”

  Daniel held the letter out then backed away as if a Texas cougar had just popped into the kitchen.

  Grace snatched it out of his hand, tore it open, and read. “She’s in Texas.” She read more, faster. She’d reread it a thousand times, savoring every word, but right now she just wanted to make sure her sister was alive and well.

  Grace looked up, her heart racing. “She’s just a short train ride away.” Well, most of the whole state, but still, only one state. . .a large one, granted.

  “That’s nice, honey.” Daniel turned his attention back to the table.

  “Daniel, she says she’s working. She can’t come the rest of the way. But we could go.”

  A vicious, half-wild longhorn stormed past the window, bellowing in terror. Three blond heads zipped right along behind it, as if they were after dinner on the hoof. Yes, her boys could scare a longhorn to death.