Prairie Romance Collection

by Cathy Marie Hake

  “Where did she get those clothes?” he asked.

  “We have an attic full of little girl clothes, Sheriff Moore,” answered Pamela. “Remember, I am one of five sisters.”

  Jake tossed her a charming smile with both dimples showing in his broad masculine cheeks.

  “Miss Amanda,” he called, standing up and walking down the steps to his little friend. “You must entice the chicken to come to you.” He stooped to talk to Amanda, putting his arm around the chubby shoulders covered with a plain brown smock dress. “Here, stand very still and sprinkle the grain over the ground around you. The hens have very small brains and will soon forget you’ve been trying to catch them. Look, see how they’re eyeing your bag of grain? They’ll come up and peck the feed right at your feet.”

  The fat hens soothed down their ruffled feathers and scuttled closer to the feed. Jake eased himself to a stand and backed off, returning to his seat beside Miss Pamela.

  “You’re not a town boy after all,” she said.

  Jake smiled easily at her, taking in the way little wisps of hair curled around her forehead with the moist heat of the day.

  “No, I spent ten years on a farm in Indiana.” He leaned back in the rocker, and his eyes moved to admire the field of corn just beyond the barn. “It was my uncle Will’s place. I went to live there after my folks died. We raised corn but nothing as fine as this strain your father has developed.”

  “He’d like hearing that. He has a lot of pride in Kotchkis Kansas Corn.”

  “Rightly so,” Jake said.

  “So you didn’t like farming and looked for a town job?” Pamela asked.

  “Not exactly,” said Jake, rubbing his hand across his chin. “Uncle Will never made a secret of the fact the farm was for his boys. He has two, Bill and George. They had ten years on me and always carried fifty to a hundred pounds more muscle.”

  Pamela let the pink apron she was hemming rest in her lap. Jake’s voice held a note of regret. She studied his profile while he peered out over her father’s latest test field. The hybrid flourished with strong green stalks and heavy, full ears sporting golden tassels.

  “So you liked farming?” she prompted.

  Sheriff Moore nodded. “Funny thing was that of the three of us, Bill, George, and skinny Jake, I was the one who took to the fields. I liked the smell of the dirt, the sight of the seedlings popping up in rows along a furrow.”

  “But you left the farm?”

  “I left the farm.” He nodded toward the field. “Your father and I talk about the corn. It brings up the old ache inside me. I get him talking about predestinationso I don’t have to think about it.” Jake tossed the farmer’s daughter a mischievous grin.

  Pamela laughed and plied her needle once more. Jake watched her. It was a comforting sight, the pretty young woman doing something domestic, calmly rocking on the front porch. At Uncle Will’s there had been no woman’s touch since Uncle Will’s wife had died some years earlier. A hired woman came in and did the laundry and some other chores twice a week.

  In those bleak days, Jake had escaped to the fields to relish the beauty of tender shoots breaking through the dark soil and swaying in the gentle breeze. Out there he talked to God as his mother had done before her death. Out there he felt the presence of a loving Father who delighted in a young boy’s company. In Jake’s early childhood, his father had lifted him onto muscled shoulders and carried him down rows of fully grown corn. Even on top of his pa’s broad shoulders, only Jake’s head peeked over the crop.

  Living with Uncle Will had been a dry time. Young Jake Moore received his nourishment in the fields. There, memories of his past and the comfort of his Lord watered his thirsty soul.

  A sudden gust of wind brought a spattering of mammoth plops of rain. Pamela jumped to her feet, throwing the apron into the empty rocker. Jake grabbed his hat as the wind shuffled it across the wooden porch. Pamela’s skirts brushed past him as she hurried out into the yard. He looked up to see her gather Amanda into her arms. Amanda dug her fists into her eyes. Wind whipped dirt up into the air and it swirled against the little girl. She cried that it was stinging her skin and hurting her eyes. Pamela wrapped her body around the child, sheltering her from the bluster.

  Jake took two steps down the wooden stairs and heard the distant roar of a train. For a split second he froze, knowing that no train ran close enough to the Kotchkis place to be heard. Then it dawned on him—a tornado.

  Dancer reared, his high-pitched whinny shrieking with fear. Jake sprang into action, and with difficulty, he stripped away the saddle and dropped it to the ground. He worked against the nervous horse to remove the bridle and halter. Once free, Dancer rose up on his hind legs and beat the air with his hooves. With one last roll of panicked eyes, he charged out of the yard down the lane, removing himself from danger. The wind had beaten Pamela and Amanda into a ball huddled against the ground. Jake fought against the brutal strength of the wind’s onslaught and the flotsam flying with deadly velocity. Holding his arms up to block the debris, he managed to fall to his knees beside Pamela. He put strong arms around her, using his body to shield her, and pressed his face against her hair.

  “Storm shelter?” he yelled.

  She nodded and tried to rise. Jake scooped up Amanda, and she clung to him with her arms around his neck, her face buried in his chest, and her legs wrappedaround his waist. Pamela pressed against his other side. He had a strong arm around each female, but the force of the wind threatened to tear them from his grasp. A branch hurled across the yard and assaulted them. Jake and Pamela beat the whipping limbs off. The wind caught it and carried it away.

  Stooped against the aggressive force, the three pushed around the side of the building where two slanted doors covered steps into the basement. Jake handed Amanda to Pamela and wrestled the door open. Turning back, he took hold of Pamela’s arm to guide her down the stone steps. Just as he had the two far enough down to be out of the most severe gusts, a blast against the wooden door heaved it against Jake. He catapulted down the stairs. His head whacked a beam, and his unconscious body smashed against Amanda and Pamela, slamming them to the dirt floor of the cellar.

  The roar of the tornado above did not diminish in the recesses of the cellar. Instead, the sound of the wooden structure swaying added to the horrible cacophony. Pamela covered her ears and prayed, “Lord, help us!”

  She squirmed out from under the heavy sheriff and managed to roll him over onto his back. Amanda scrambled into Pamela’s lap and threw her arms around her neck. Pamela could feel her shaking and knew the words of comfort she mumbled into her little ear could not be heard.

  The impact of some flying object jarred the house. The wood above them squealed, straining.

  The house is going to go, thought Pamela. What should I do? Oh Lord, what should I do? Where is the safest place?

  Pamela searched the dark recesses of the cellar. We’ve got to be against the wall, she thought. Which wall, Father? she asked in prayer. The darkest corner where only a child’s mattress stood against the wall beckoned her.

  Pamela forced Amanda to let go of her. Then, pushing her arms under Jake’s shoulders and grabbing what she could of his shirt, Pamela began to drag Jake toward the corner of the cellar room.

  Amanda took hold of Jake’s belt and began to tug as well. Pamela realized with surprise the little girl was helping move the man to safety. With the winds howling, fear gave Pamela strength, and she soon dragged Jake across the dirt floor. She put Amanda right against the stone corner and then positioned her body in front of the child’s. She pulled on Jake until she had his upper body in her lap, his head against her chest. Then she prayed.

  The crescendo of the storm pounded on their senses. The house shuddered; the noise peaked. Amanda covered her ears and curled into a tighter ball. Pamela squeezed Jake in her arms and fought the terror by repeating a single sentence. Lord, help! She couldn’t make her brain function any further to provide details. It seemed enough to j
ust hold on to that lifeline to the heavenly Father.

  The timbre of the roar changed. Pamela raised her head to listen. The clamor receded and the drone of torrential rain dominated. She turned slightly and gathered Amanda in her arms.

  “We’re safe,” she said.

  Amanda hugged her fiercely and whimpered softly against Pamela’s side.

  “It’ll be all right now. Those kinds of storms only go in one direction. It won’t turn around to batter us again. We’re safe.” Pamela kept up the flow of soothing words until the rain slackened. “We’ve got to see to the sheriff,” Pamela told Amanda. She gently pushed the child away from her.

  “Sheriff Jake.” Pamela bent over the form still draped across her legs. She gently shook his shoulder. No response. She put her trembling hand behind his head and drew back when she touched something warm and sticky. “Oh, you’re bleeding.” She shifted him to one side, trying to see the wound.

  “He’s hurt bad,” said Amanda in a small voice.

  “Maybe not,” said Pamela. “It’s a head wound, and cuts on the scalp bleed a lot, even when it isn’t serious. I need to stop the bleeding.”

  “He needs a bandage?”

  “Yes,” said Pamela. “Here, Amanda, you hold his head in your lap, and I’ll try to find something clean to press against the wound.”

  Pamela managed to shift Jake’s heavy body, laying just his head in the little girl’s lap. Then she crawled directly to a stack of trunks. Finding the one she wanted, she opened it and rummaged through the contents. She came back with an old tablecloth, tore a strip off using her teeth to get it started, then folded the strip into a pad. She pressed it against the sticky place on the back of Jake’s head.

  “Is it going to rain forever?” asked Amanda.

  “No, honey,” answered Pamela.

  “Will someone come help us?”

  For the first time Pamela thought of her father. He’d been out in the south field. Had he found shelter?

  “Let’s pray,” said Pamela. “Let’s pray for all the people who were out in that storm.”

  Amanda obediently folded her little hands, resting them on Jake’s face. His head still lay in her lap.

  “Dear Lord, that was a scary wind, and it’s raining awful hard,” Amanda said. “We thank You that we’re safe and ask that You help Sheriff Moore wake up from sleeping because of his head wound and that his scalp will quit bleeding all over the place. And for the chickens to be safe because they haven’t finished eating their breakfast yet, and for me and Miss Kottis to wait patiently while You do all the things You have to do to undo all the things that the scary wind did, and please make it stop raining soon so we can get out of this dark place without getting all wet. Amen.”

  “Father in heaven,” said Pamela, “thank You for keeping us safe, and I ask that You take care of my father and all the other people in the path of the tornado. Amen.”

  Slowly the sound of the heavy rain abated to a drizzle.

  Jake groaned and lifted his head only to let it drop again. Amanda patted his face.

  “You are going to be all right,” she said. “We prayed.”

  Pamela changed the pad pressed against his bleeding scalp. His eyes flickered open.

  “You hit your head when we fell into the cellar,” she explained.

  “Help me sit up,” said Jake.

  “Maybe you should just lie still for a while,” suggested Pamela.

  “No, there are people out there who need help. My head’s hard. I can make it.”

  Both Pamela and Amanda helped the sheriff sit. Once up, he had to rest against Pamela as the room swayed and darkness threatened to engulf him once more.

  As soon as his head quit swimming, he tried to stand.

  “Wait,” said Pamela. “Move over closer to the steps where it’s lighter. I’ll bind a bandage to that thick skull, and then you can try to get up.”

  Jake obediently crawled across the dirt floor of the cellar and collapsed against the wooden boxes next to the steps. A fine mist from the still falling rain blew in. Everything was wet and debris covered the steps.

  While Pamela affixed a fresh pad to the oozing wound and wrapped a narrow strip of the tablecloth around Jake’s head to tie it on, Amanda began pulling bits and pieces of wood, tree limbs, hay, and shredded plants off the lowest steps.

  Just as Pamela tied off the ends of the cloth, Amanda stopped and dug around in the clutter.

  “Look,” she said, holding up her find, “a china teacup.”

  Amanda held it out to Pamela. She sat back on her heels and took it carefully in her hands. Pamela examined the blue forget-me-nots decorating one side and the fluted handle with a thin line of blue accenting the curve. The small bone china cup had not a nick or crack.

  “Gladys Sence,” she said. “This belongs to Gladys Sence.”

  The picture of Gladys Sence proudly pouring out tea from the matching teapot sprang into Pamela’s mind. The Sunday school teachers met once a month in Gladys’s homey little kitchen. The cup in Pamela’s hand proved with a certainty that the Sence home had been shattered by the tornado.

  She put the cup on a wooden crate so her shaking hands wouldn’t drop it. Then she stared at the unharmed cup and imagined the wind ripping through her friend’s home and carrying it here. She shuddered, wrapping her arms around her waist and bending forward to ward off the horror. She began to sob.

  Jake’s strong arms gathered her up. He rocked her and spoke words of comfort just as she had rocked and soothed Amanda almost an hour before.

  Amanda put down the limb she used as a little broom to knock things off the step. She settled down beside the two adults and leaned against them. With one chubby, grubby hand, she stroked Pamela’s arm.

  “We should pray again,” Amanda said, looking up at Jake’s pale face.

  He nodded, and his soothing baritone filled the dim and dank cellar with hope.

  Chapter 5

  Pamela! Pamela!” Mel Kotchkis’s voice boomed across the empty farmyard.

  Pamela jerked out ofJake’s arms and scrambled to the steps. She peered up at the opening, disregarding the light rain misting over her upturned face.

  “Here, Pa,” she called. “We’re in here.”

  Mel appeared at the top, his scratched and dirty face beaming relief with a wide grin.

  “Jake is hurt,” she called.

  Mel’s smile disappeared, and he plunged down the steps, pushing branches and debris out of his way.

  The older man knelt beside the sheriff.

  “It’s nothing but a knock on the head, Mel,” reassured Jake. “How is it out there?”

  Mel leaned back and inspected the sheriff with a knowing eye. Satisfied that the young man didn’t seem to be seriously hurt, he turned his mind to what he’d seen, and his huge work-hardened hand went up to his forehead. He made a swipe downward across his face as if to wipe the memory away.

  “It’s bad,” he said. “Let’s get you up into the house.” He reached to support Jake as he stood. “Our house has some broken windows, and there’s a huge sycamore standing upside down, leaning against the back. But the roof is still on, and even the porch doesn’t look like it’s suffered much. I want to get over to the barn and see to the animals now that I know my Pamela and our little guest are all right.”

  They struggled up the steps.

  “Do you know which way it went?” asked Jake.

  “I don’t think it hit town, but I’d say the railroad track is gone.”

  “Why is that?”

  “My south field is riveted with railroad ties stuck in the ground like so many toothpicks. When I crawled out of the ditch and saw those heavy ties poked in the

  ground, some buried two or three feet by the force the tornado hurled them at the ground…” Mel paused and shook his head, still in a daze by the power in that awful wind. He shook his head again and cleared his throat. “Well, I praised God for protection and then hightailed it back to the house.
I had to see if Pamela was all right.” He laid a hand on Amanda’s curly head. “And our Miss Amanda.”

  She beamed at him with the smile of a little girl who’d fallen in love with a grandpa. She took his hand, and they went around the house to the front porch. One rocker out of the three still stood. The flowerpots filled with marigolds were gone. A bedraggled set of long johns dangled from the eaves.

  Mel chortled as they passed the red underwear. “I sure hope those were hanging on somebody’s clothesline this morning and not on one of my neighbors’ skinny hides.”

  Inside the house they found water standing on the floor where rain had blown in through the broken windows.

  Amanda let go of Pamela’s hand and raced upstairs. A moment later she came down carrying her doll and the square basket.

  “I won’t go to Big Springs today, will I?” She cast a worried glance at Sheriff Moore.

  Jake squatted to put a hand on her shoulder and look her directly in the eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Amanda,” he said. “I can’t return you to your family today. I can’t put you on the train as we planned, and I can’t take you myself. I need to go help some people.”

  She patted his arm. “That’s all right. I need to help Miss Kottis clean up this mess.”

  Impulsively Jake gathered the dirty little mite into his arms and gave her a big hug. Amanda returned the hug full force.

  “I was scared,” she whispered in his ear.

  “I was, too,” he admitted. He leaned back from their embrace and looked into the solemn little face. “Right now Mr. Kotchkis and I have to go see if there are some other scared people who need our help.”

  She gave him a serious nod and released him. Jake stood up and looked at Pamela. He stood transfixed by the beauty of her eyes. What was it the Bible said? In Genesis, wasn’t it? “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” Never before had Jake felt those words were for him. Now as he looked into the clear blue gaze of Pamela Kotchkis, he felt the terrible aloneness God never meant for His children to endure. He suppressed the urge to take her in his arms with the same ease he had gathered up the little girl. He knew that to give and receive comfort from Mel Kotchkis’s daughter was not his privilege. He’d held her in the cellar, and it had felt right. Now he had to turn away and get busy with the things God had set before him to do this day.