He waved away her objection. “No. Andrew and I had always planned to jointly harvest our fields, and I intend to see it through. I will not let your private battles, whatever they may be, ruin this for Andrew.”
“How long do we have?”
“Probably two hours.”
She didn’t have time for thought. There was no choice in her decision. She must now choose for Andrew and not for her.
And she knew her decision was right.
She nodded. “Let’s do it.”
As they headed out into the final section together, Catherine put her whole body and mind into the task at hand. This was her final test.
The rows had never seemed this long, nor had Orion ever moved so slowly.
She couldn’t see the storm yet, but she could feel the electricity of its approach. Apparently Orion could, too. He neighed uneasily, and she tried to calm him as she urged him on.
The mosquitoes clung to her arms and bit mercilessly, but she didn’t take the time to shoo them away. As quickly as she could, she gathered the bundles and shocked them.
Her hands were sliced and bleeding. She should have worn gloves, but going back to the house now would mean sacrificing minutes they didn’t have.
Bundle after bundle. Shock after shock.
Still she persevered. Somewhere on this expansive field Micah was working; she didn’t know where. She didn’t have time to lift her head and look.
She mopped the sweat from her forehead. Every muscle in her body ached. Still she could not stop.
Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes, and she wiped them away. There was no time to cry.
But her efforts were futile.
They were losing to the storm. She knew it. The fact was as clear as the endless rows before her.
What she had left to finish would require a good four days’ work. Even with their combined efforts. Even with Micah’s skill. There was no way they could beat the weather that would soon bear down on them.
There was no time to stop. She prayed as she drove Orion onward. What she prayed, what syllables she used, what requests she made, she had no idea. Her prayer was a wordless petition, springing from intense need.
Oh God. Dear God. My God. Please, God. God. God. God.
“Look!” Micah’s shout called her attention to his side of the field.
From the distance, slowly but surely, more wagons, more horses, more threshers, and more people headed for Andrew’s fields.
“What are they doing?” she shouted back at him. The wind was beginning to whip up, snatching the words from her lips.
“They’re your neighbors. They’re coming to help.”
There was no time to ask questions. The newcomers fell quickly to work, efficiently and collectively shocking the bundles, taking the bundles to the threshers now stationed around the field, and beginning the process of threshing the wheat.
She didn’t know these people. Maybe they were Micah’s friends or Andrew’s friends. She had no idea.
But they came, and even more followed them. Despite the gathering storm, which she could now see on the horizon, they continued to stream across the prairie, risking their own lives, and possibly their own crops, to save hers.
The field seemed to swarm with strangers and their machinery. Some had sophisticated engines that worked quickly and efficiently. Others had self-created mechanisms, similar to what Andrew and Micah had, that worked slowly but surely.
Together they toiled, each an individual but working as one.
Suddenly she realized that Micah was at her side. “Let’s yoke our horses together,” he shouted over the gathering wind. “We can do it even faster.”
She knew he was at her side. She felt his strong male presence, a bulwark against the storm, and she was pleased.
Together they worked the fields, until at last, as the first hailstones pelted her arms, Catherine realized that they were done.
The others were already leaving, rushing to the safety of their own homes, and she tried to thank them. But there were too many, and they were too hurried. She would have to tell them of her appreciation later.
“Unhook the horses!” Micah shouted, and Catherine automatically obeyed the command. The hailstones were coming rapidly now, larger and faster.
They ran to the barn with the horses, and from the safety of the barn, they watched the last figures on the horizon as they headed for home.
“Will they be safe?” she asked as she brushed Orion’s coat. He had worked so hard that he was dripping with sweat. She had to move quickly before he got chilled.
He nodded. “The horses can take refuge under a tree—“
“A tree?” she interrupted, laughing. “Where would you find a tree here?”
He grinned in wry agreement. “Good point. There are a few, and trust me, these folks know every one. They can tie their horses under one of those trees, and they can take cover under the wagons. This isn’t going to be a long storm, just a nasty one. After the storm passes, I’ll go out and take care of their equipment.”
“We’ll go out,” she corrected him, and she was rewarded with a smile. “Who are they?”
“They’re your neighbors, all good people. Most of them join together when they can to worship with us.”
“Where? I don’t see a church around here.”
“Andrew and I were going to take part of our profits this year and build one. But that’s your call now, at least until Andrew returns. We were going to break ground on it after the harvest.” His voice was guarded, and he ducked his head behind his horse’s broad back as he curried it.
Catherine paused and thought about his words.
Money. The crop was in and, to her eyes at least, it looked good. It should sell for a nice profit.
Initially she’d planned to use it to bring Andrew home, to Massachusetts.
Now she couldn’t imagine going back there. Her soul, in less than one month, had found its home in Dakota.
“The money should be used as Andrew wants it used. There will be hospital bills, of course, but if it is possible, yes, I would like for some of the profit to go toward building a church.”
Micah’s head popped up over the side of his horse, and she almost laughed at the open delight apparent in his face.
“You would, of course, be consulted until Andrew is able to make his own decisions,” Micah said.
“I trust you.” The words were true, and merely speaking them brought rest to her worn heart.
There was another question in Micah’s eyes, one she would have liked to answer, but it was too soon. When Andrew’s condition was stabilized, when she had asked and answered all the questions in her own heart, when all was secure, then and only then would she answer.
Would he wait?
She didn’t have to respond.
She trusted, and she believed. And there was no more fear.
The sun never shines as brightly as it does after a storm, he thought while cleaning the threshers the neighbors had left. He would return them the next day when the ground had dried.
The hailstones were melting quickly in the August sun, and he pitched one across the harvested field. They’d be gone within the hour.
The birds had come out of their refuges, and the insects buzzed hungrily around his head.
All creation was back to normal.
A rainbow was poised over the horizon, a shimmering vision of God’s promise.
He stopped in midaction as he realized that the rainbow came after the rain, and not before it. There was a farmer’s explanation for this: Trust in the Lord, but bring your harvest in before the storm.
God didn’t want him to be foolish, just to trust Him as a working partner.
“Lord, I want a partner here on earth, someone with whom I can share my love of the land and for You. Someone who will work with me and laugh with me and worship with me. Someone who will love me and love You. Someone, dear Father, like Catherine.”
Chapter 7
/> The hospital was cooler than Catherine had expected. A heat wave made the city shimmer through the tall paned windows as she and Micah walked down the long, high-ceilinged hallway toward Andrew.
Andrew, who had regained consciousness two days earlier.
Automatically she reached for Micah’s hand. It was the first time they had touched so purposely. His fingers wrapped around hers securely, and she thought she felt a slight telltale tremble in his own hand. He was worried more than he let on.
The nurse led them onward, her heavily starched dress moving above her feet like a white bell.
She swung sharply into a large room with four beds, two on each side.
And, at last, Catherine was at her brother’s bedside.
She thought she had prepared herself for what she might see, steadied her nerves so she’d show nothing except joy, but when she saw her brother’s pallid face under the snowy bandages, she crumpled against Micah.
He moved to support her, and he began to say something, but the words died on his lips when Andrew’s eyes fluttered open.
“Did I miss the wedding?” Andrew’s words were careful, spoken from parched lips that had difficulty forming the syllables. Immediately the nurse was at his side, helping him take a sip of water.
Micah laughed. “Hello, Andrew.”
Andrew focused on him. “I’ve forgotten, so you’ll have to remind me again. How many children do you two have?”
Catherine smoothed the lines in his too-pale forehead. “We don’t have any children. We’re not married.”
Her brother became agitated. “You’re not getting married?”
“I didn’t say that,” she soothed, easing him back onto the fluffy pillow. “I didn’t say that at all.”
Andrew smiled. “That’s good, because you belong together. I know.” His words faded out, and his eyes slowly shut. He was asleep.
The nurse straightened Andrew’s sheets. “He is still exhausted from this. He needs a good deal of sleep. You might as well leave. He’ll sleep for a couple of hours, I suspect.”
She led them back to the waiting room of St. Elizabeth’s. “You are certainly welcome to stay here. If you’re hungry, there’s a fine eating establishment two blocks away. I’ll check back here when he’s awake again.”
The nurse left them alone in the black-and-white-tiled room. Catherine reached into her bag and pulled out her embroidery.
“Are you hungry?” Micah asked.
She shook her head. “I couldn’t eat right now.”
“Me either,” he agreed.
“Micah, he’s so pale!” The tears she’d held back so long finally started to flow, and he took her in his arms.
“There, there,” he hushed her as his work-roughened fingers stroked her hair.
“He’s so thin, and so weak.”
“But he’s getting better,” he soothed. “The doctor told us he would be back with us, probably within six weeks, perhaps a month.”
“I know,” she said, sniffling, “but I wish there were something more I could do.”
“We can pray,” he offered simply.
There in the starkly tiled room, they bent their heads and silently asked the Lord to visit His presence and His healing hand upon Andrew.
Their fingers knit together, and their heads almost touched as they joined their hearts in love for her brother.
The thread slipped through the cloth easily, this time pulling a golden strand as luminous as the morning sun.
“You’ve been working on that since we left St. Paul,” Micah said. “May I see it?”
“It’s not finished,” she said, but she handed it to him.
“It’s beautiful. ‘Be not afraid, only believe.’ He is going to treasure this, you know.” Micah studied it. “You stitch very well. I’ve been watching you. You do this with a confidence that astonishes me. If I were to do this, I’d be all thumbs and toes and my thread would be knotted immediately.”
She laughed as she took the sampler back from him. “I’ve had some practice with this. It’s not unlike when I watched you start the harvest, and then I made my clumsy attempts. If you want to learn to embroider—“
“Oh no!” He waved her offer away. “These hands are meant for horses and wheat, not for fine stitchery.”
The train jolted them along, and they passed the time in friendly companionship, he reading a newspaper, she embroidering, until, at last, he laid his paper aside.
“I’m going to stretch my legs,” he said, standing up. “I’ll be back shortly.”
He walked away, and Catherine laid the cloth she was embroidering on her lap and rubbed her eyes. She usually didn’t stitch this long, and her eyes were tired.
She held her hands against her eyes, hoping the darkness would soothe the irritation.
Images began to flash before her. Andrew in the hospital bed, so waxen against the white sheets. The limpness of his hand as she touched him. The words that came so slowly and painfully from swollen lips.
She’d been taking things day by day, never looking forward and certainly never looking back.
But now she remembered standing in Andrew’s house for the first time. The cold, empty house was so clearly Andrew’s, but yet an Andrew she didn’t know. She had always held tightly to their closeness. So the sudden, awful awareness that this untamed prairie was a part of him, yet did not belong to her, staggered her.
She had moved on. Always looking forward and never back.
Everything, everything had been for Andrew. What if the doctors were wrong? What if he never returned?
She couldn’t stop the sobs that broke free from her heart. She kept her hands over her eyes and wept as though there was nothing else in the world.
She was only faintly aware that strong arms wrapped around her shoulders and gathered her in, and that a familiar voice comforted her: “‘Be not afraid. Only believe.’”
Micah.
“Shh, shh, shh,” he said, his lips pressed against her hair. “Cry it out.”
At last the tears ran themselves dry, and with one last shuddering sob, she was through. “I’m so sorry,” she said to him, her voice muffled against the handkerchief he’d handed her. “I let myself succumb to weakness for a moment.”
“Don’t apologize. You needed to do that. I suspect you’ve needed to do that for a long, long time.”
“Probably,” she admitted, “but I hadn’t intended to do so on a train.”
He laughed.
The crying had made her tired, and she was glad of Micah’s offer of his rolled- up coat as a pillow.
As she drifted off to sleep, she glanced out the window and watched the landscape go by. They were still in the rolling hills of Minnesota, and she was suddenly, desperately, homesick—but not for Massachusetts. She wanted to be home—in Dakota.
Micah deposited her traveling bag inside the living room.
They were back on Andrew’s claim, and she busied herself with lighting a fire to take the chill out of the room.
“Brrr,” she said, rubbing her arms and moving closer to the fledgling fire.
“There’s a special coldness in a house where no one’s been. This fire should take that edge off. Come on over and warm up.”
He joined her. “I was glad to see Andrew. It did my soul good to see him move, to hear him talk.”
“He’s so pale and so weak.” Catherine cringed at the image.
“He’s had a major head injury,” Micah said. “It takes time.”
“Well, it’s that,” she said, “and more. Micah, tell me the truth. Is he going to be, well, totally all right?”
“What do you mean?” Micah frowned.
“He did have a head injury, and that’s where his brain is.”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Will it affect his thinking?” She took a deep breath and blurted it out. “He speaks so slowly, and he seems, well, confused. Micah, he doesn’t seem to be quite right in his mind.”
“Because
he said we were getting married?” Micah’s voice was only a whisper in her ear.
She pulled away and wiped furiously at her eyes. “Oh, Micah, I’ve known about that all along. It was a foolish idea he had and—“
The sudden hurt in Micah’s eyes told her everything she had wanted to know.
“Micah,” she said gently, touching his face, “is it really what you want? Please tell me.”
He took her hand from his cheek and held it tightly. “From the first time Andrew spoke about you, I began to imagine what you must be like. And from that grew a dream, a foolish dream, that someday you might be my wife.”
Foolish dream? Catherine’s heart suspended beating. It was as she had feared— he didn’t want her after all.
“But then,” he continued, “you came out here, and I realized that my dream had been just that—a dream—but you were real, flesh and blood.”
“You didn’t want me.” There. She had said the words he was afraid to say. He began to speak, but she waved his words away. “No, no. I know I’m no beauty. You can’t hurt me with that. I know it’s a fact.”
“That’s not it at all.” He held her hand even tighter. “You were better and so perfect that I had to abandon the dream. And I realized that you wouldn’t want to stay here with me, a wheat farmer in Dakota….”
Her heart began to beat again.
“What are your plans when your brother comes home?” he asked, his voice husky.
She hadn’t planned for it to happen this way. She had wanted to tell him in her own way, in her own time, once she had figured it all out herself.
But she went to her bag and took out the sampler. “It’s done,” she said, and she handed it to him.
He didn’t speak, and for a moment she was afraid he didn’t understand what she was trying to say.
“Does this mean—?” His chocolate-drop eyes asked her the question, too.
She ran her finger along the edge. “I added this on the way home.”
There was a new border. An amber wheat field in full grain against a vivid Dakota sunset ran around the edge.
“You did all this on the way home?”
“It goes quickly when the heart is in it.”
Prairie Romance Collection Page 53
