Gabriel's Atonement

by Vickie McDonough

  Gabe rode past the last of the tents in the makeshift village on the outskirts of Caldwell and gave Tempest his head. The eager horse leaped forward, charging down the lane. Gabe enjoyed the feel of the cool morning air whipping at his face and clothing. There was little sign of last night’s rainfall as the thirsty land had sucked up every last drop. The hard-packed dirt of the trail wasn’t even muddy.

  After a few minutes, he reined Tempest back to a walk. The turnoff to Lara Talbot’s land was close, and he didn’t want to miss it. The day he drove her home, he’d noted an odd redbud tree that had most likely been hit by lightning. The small tree had split, and though one part of it rested on the ground, it was still covered in fresh buds. It was a tribute to the determination needed to survive on the harsh but lovely prairie.

  Gabe spied the tree, although instead of buds, tiny pink flowers now covered it. He reined Tempest down the narrow trail. The grass was crushed, revealing the tracks of a wagon that had recently passed this way.

  As he came to the final bend before reaching Lara Talbot’s soddy, he pulled Tempest to a stop and took a deep breath. He patted his coat pocket, knowing the stash of cash was still there. He wished he’d planned out what to say to her—how to explain the sack of gold coins he was giving her, but he’d never been able to come up with anything that he thought she’d believe—and he didn’t want to lie to her. If he told her the coins belonged to her husband, she’d want to know how he ended up with them. And then he’d have to tell her that he killed her husband—and he didn’t think he could do that. He didn’t want to see hate in her eyes as she glared at him.

  Perhaps this was a bad idea. Could he somehow leave the money without her knowing he’d come?

  He shook his head and started to turn Tempest around when the chatter of voices stopped him. Had someone come in the wagon to visit Mrs. Talbot?

  Curiosity compelled him to nudge his horse forward. As he rounded the bend, Gabe spied an older couple. The man was working on the front door while the woman watered the garden. Both straightened and turned his way as he rode toward the house. The man pushed his hat back on his forehead, eyeing Gabe, then walked toward him. Gabe guessed the overall-clad stranger was probably in his early fifties, and he seemed friendly. But where were Mrs. Talbot and her son?

  “Howdy, mister. What can I do for you?”

  Gabe smiled and dismounted, hoping to show he wasn’t a threat. “I’m Gabe Coulter, and I’m looking for Mrs. Talbot. Is she home, by chance?”

  The man pursed his lips and shook his head. “Herman Hancock.” He held out his hand, and Gabe shook it. “They’re gone.” Mr. Hancock hung his head. “I sure hated turning them out, but our son and his family are arriving tomorrow, and they needed a place to live. Didn’t seem right for our own young’uns to live in a tent when we had this nice soddy. Wish I had more than one, but I don’t, and so I had no choice but to tell Mrs. Talbot they needed to leave.”

  Gabe gritted his teeth. As if her situation weren’t bad enough, living in a dirt house. Where were Lara and her son now? It wasn’t likely she’d find a better place to live, not with thousands of newcomers swarming the town. “Do you know where they went?”

  Mr. Hancock took off his hat and scratched his head. “I heard tell that Mrs. Talbot registered for the land rush. I imagine they headed for the state border. It only makes sense with the date gettin’ closer.”

  The woman ambled over and joined her husband. She shook her head. “What’s this world comin’ to when a woman rides in a race to get land? It just ain’t right, I tell you.”

  “Desperation drives people to do things they wouldn’t normally do, Maudie. It makes perfect sense to me that she’d want to own land that no one could evict her off of.”

  The woman harrumphed and turned to her husband. “I need you to fetch more water, Herman. Can’t let those vegetables wither. Not with Gavin and the kids comin’.”

  In spite of his anger that Mr. Hancock had evicted Mrs. Talbot and her son, he nodded at the couple and mounted Tempest. He rode back the way he had come, trying to figure out what to do next. When he got to the turnoff to head back toward town, he studied the wagon tracks, leading away from Caldwell. Were they Lara’s tracks? He didn’t want her driving out of his life. He wasn’t done helping her.

  The thought of her and her young son heading for the border alone made his gut swirl. Tonight, they’d most likely be sleeping outside, possibly in a tent. With all the rain they’d had lately, her boy could take sick. And she was a pretty woman. What if some unsavory cad found her alone? There’d be no one to protect her.

  He reined Tempest toward Caldwell and kicked the gelding’s sides. He lunged forward like an eager racehorse and galloped toward town. Gabe had a lot to do. He needed to buy a tent and supplies. Tomorrow, another load of horses was scheduled to arrive. If he hired a cowboy to help, they could move the horses toward the border, where he could get top dollar for the coveted animals.

  Plan decided, he enjoyed the rest of his ride. The only problem he could see in locating Lara and her son was if there were as many people at the border as there were in Caldwell. He had to find her. He wasn’t ready to say good-bye to the pretty green-eyed widow.

  Late in the afternoon, Jo finally found a reason to grin. As the wagon rolled into the creek, the goats, tied with ten-foot ropes to the back, pitched a conniption fit about getting wet. Goats may like a lot of things, but one thing they hated was water. They bleated louder than she’d ever heard and jerked at their tethers, but as the wagon rolled on, the furry trio was pulled into the water, and they had no choice.

  Jo nudged Sunny into the creek, following the wagon Grandpa drove that had almost finished fording the creek. Water traveled up the rotating wheels, creating an interesting paddle-wheel effect—the most interesting thing on this trip so far. Well, except for the numerous young men who’d winked and smiled at her as they passed by.

  She yawned, wishing she could curl up in the back of the wagon like Michael and take a nap. At first, her charming nephew had waved and hollered at her, but he’d soon grown bored and finally laid down at Lara’s insistence.

  Traveling wasn’t as much fun as she’d expected, and they still had a ways to go to reach the Unassigned Lands. When she first heard about the land rush, it sounded like a big adventure, but each step the horse took, she ventured farther into untamed land. They had passed the last of the farmhouses an hour ago and were probably halfway to the border of Indian Territory.

  Jo flipped her braid over her shoulder. Would they encounter any of the red-skinned natives? Did they still collect scalps? She shivered at the thought. Obviously, she hadn’t fully considered what participating in the land rush meant. She had to leave Caldwell, the town where she’d mostly grown up and attended school. Leave Alma Lou and her other friends, and the stores she enjoyed walking through and dreaming of what she’d buy if she were rich. At least she had the hope of seeing charming Mark Hillborne again. She sighed. What a handsome man he was. And wealthy, from the look of his clothing.

  If Grandpa was fortunate enough to get land and it wasn’t too far from the Guthrie Station, perhaps she could get a job working in Mark’s store. Wouldn’t that be a delight! Rubbing elbows and spending all day in the presence of the comely man would be a dream come true. And to think, even though he was older than Lara, he thought she was pretty. She still found it hard to imagine that he knew what color best suited her—blue. It had always been her favorite, next to purple, but her sister rarely bought new fabric, and on the rare occasion she did, Lara purchased bland colors—to help hide soiled spots.

  Jo tightened her knees and held on to the saddle horn as Sunny slogged out of the water and up the hill. Grandpa drove the wagon several yards ahead and stopped under a tall oak tree. Stomach grumbling, she nudged Sunny to a trot and hurried to join her family, glad it was finally time to set up camp and start supper.

  As she hobbled the horse in a patch of fresh grass, she gazed back across
the wide creek they’d just crossed. She’d never been this far south before. Part of her wanted to jump back on Sunny and ride for Caldwell, but another part was still excited about the race and the prospect of winning land. If they did, they could build a proper house, with wooden floors and a roof that didn’t allow critters and mud to fall on them. And she could have a real bed to sleep in, possibly even a room of her own. Oh, how heavenly that would be.

  “Hurry up, Jo. I’ll need your help preparing supper.”

  “I have to unsaddle Sunny and groom him,” she shouted back at her sister.

  She loosened the cinch. “Jo, do this,” she mumbled. “Jo, do that.” Why did Lara have to hurt her hand? It just made more work for her.

  Footsteps sounded behind her, and she spun, her heart pounding. She relaxed when she realized it was Grandpa, leading the mule, and not Lara. He had trouble hearing somewhat, so it was unlikely he’d heard her murmuring.

  “Go on and help your sister. I’ll tend to the animals.”

  “But I like working with them.”

  Grandpa lifted his hat and looked at her. Wrinkles creased his face, and his expression revealed a tired man. “Lara wouldn’t ask you if she didn’t need your help. It’s not her fault that she hurt her hand. She bears a heavy burden for this family, and you should respect her more.”

  Jo’s eyes widened. Grandpa rarely scolded her. She wanted to offer a rebuttal, but she knew he must be exhausted, and the last thing she wanted was for him to have another swamp fever attack and not be able to ride in the race. “Yes, sir.”

  As she moseyed toward their campsite, she dragged her feet. She loved her sister, but why did Lara have to be so bossy? If she’d been born first, she would have treated her younger sister more kindly.

  Jo blew out a sigh. In all fairness, Lara was never unkind. She just worked all the time and didn’t know how to relax. Even in the evenings when all the chores were done, dinner was over and the dishes washed, her sister would mend clothes until she ran out of daylight.

  Jo hopped over a rut in the grass as she plotted how she would marry a wealthy man. Then she could hire a maid and no longer have to be an indentured servant with no deadline to her servitude.

  Chapter 12

  By the time Lara had Michael in bed for the night and put away all the supplies, several dozen tents had gone up around theirs. Campfires dotted the darkness. The soft buzz of conversation blended with the trill of tree frogs and the distant hum of a fiddle. With so many people crowding into the area, Grandpa had moved the animals closer to the wagon and plopped his mat alongside them to be nearby in case anyone decided to steal one of them. She’d argued that he should sleep in the tent and not outside in the cool night, but he said if anything happened to any of their animals, they’d be in trouble. And she couldn’t argue with that.

  Lara relaxed against a tree trunk. Her hands felt empty without the mending she normally tended to. She looked across to the camp next to them and saw Jo sitting beside Melinda, the daughter of Bill and Emma Jean Parker, whom they’d met earlier. Leave it to Jo to make friends so quickly. Lara envied her sister’s easygoing manner. But then Jo didn’t have the weight of the family on her shoulders. Grandpa being healthy again certainly helped soften her load, but his malaria could flare up at any time, putting him flat on his back again. She hoped he didn’t have another attack until after they staked a claim.

  She yawned and checked on Jo again, wishing she’d take her leave and come back so Lara could go to sleep. Morning would come far too quickly. Grandpa wanted them up by sunrise and rolling shortly after, in hopes that they could get a spot right on the border. The better their position at the start of the race, the more likely he was to get a claim.

  She closed her eyes and imagined the perfect place for a home. A small bluff near a creek. A place with a view but also with fertile flatland for farming. Though the promoters of the land run promised millions of acres of good farmland, she’d heard cowboys in town saying that some places were too sandy for growing crops and other sections had no water source. They needed water to survive, for their animals and garden. They had to find a place with a creek or large pond. In the beginning, they’d probably have to build a soddy to live in, but she hoped that one day they could have a two-story clapboard house with lots of windows. But that dream was years away.

  She’d never pictured Tom in the house of her dreams. That seemed odd now that she thought about it. Had she had a premonition that he would die—or was it simply because he so rarely came home? Jo, although too young, would have been a better match for her adventure-loving husband. Lara wasn’t the best wife. Maybe if she’d tried harder to please him…

  No, she couldn’t travel down that path. She’d tried her best, but Tom had itchy feet.

  Her brother had been the same. Jack was almost seventeen when their parents died. He’d taken their deaths hard, like Jo. Grandma and Grandpa had tried to help him through his pain, but when Grandma died suddenly after a cut became severely infected, less than a year after their parents’ deaths, Jack left. He’d said he couldn’t stand to watch someone else he loved die. Lara knew he’d always wanted to be a cowboy on a big ranch, and imagined that’s where he was. They received a few sporadic letters from him the first few years but none in a very long while. He’d be twenty-eight by now. Was he even still alive?

  She blew out a sigh. Was Gabe Coulter the same type of man? Did he also crave adventure? She couldn’t remember him ever stating what kind of work he did, although it really was none of her business. Her stomach swirled at thoughts of the kindhearted dandy with the dark, twinkling eyes. It made no sense why he wanted to help her so much. Did he simply see her as needy? She glanced down at her worn dress—a castoff Mrs. Henry had given her several years ago. The brown striped fabric had faded to the color of dirty dishwater, and the cuffs and hem were ragged, but if she raised the hem any more, the length would be indecent. No wonder he found her lacking. She exhaled a loud breath. It hardly mattered. She would never see Gabriel Coulter again.

  Late afternoon on their second day of travel, Lara guided the mule behind Grandpa, who rode Sunny, weaving the wagon through the tents that had already been pitched. As far as she could see in both directions, campsites, buckboards, covered wagons, and buggies littered the plains with horses, oxen, and mules grazing alongside. She wanted to camp on the outskirts of the massive tent city, but he insisted they needed to try to get as close to the border as possible.

  An elderly woman smiled and waved, while a man she passed frowned at them. Finally, Grandpa motioned for her to stop in a tiny clearing.

  She set the brake then stood and looked around as she rubbed the aching spot in the small of her back. If she hazarded a guess, she’d say there were more people here than still in and around Caldwell. How could the nearby creeks supply enough water for so many people?

  Michael tugged on her skirt. “Can I get down, Mama?”

  “Yes, but stay close.” If he wandered off, finding him would be nearly impossible in such a mass of humanity.

  Jo hopped off the end of the wagon and walked around to the side, reaching up for Michael. “C’mon, Shorty.”

  Grandpa tied Sunny to a sapling and looked around. “I hadn’t counted on so many folks bein’ here already.” He scratched his head behind his ear. “The goats may be a problem. No place to pen them up, and they don’t like bein’ tied for long.”

  “What if they chew through the ropes?” Jo leaned against the wagon wheel.

  “They didn’t last night, so maybe we’ll be okay for another night. They’re most likely worn out from all the walkin’.” He untied Bad Billy, led the goat to another small tree near the mule and tied him to it. “Good thing there’s shrubs and grass here similar to what they’re used to eatin’,” he said as he untied the female goats. “We won’t have to worry about them bloating.”

  Lara nodded. “That’s good. One less thing to be concerned about.” The makeshift fence they used for the go
at pen back at the soddy had been packed into the wagon, serving as the sides that kept the crates from falling out. Once they settled somewhere for more than a night, they’d have to rebuild the pen. The goats certainly could be a noisy nuisance when traveling, but their milk was a blessing—if they gave any after their long trek.

  Lara slowly climbed down, stiff after sitting on the hard bench seat for so long. With the land rush still a week away, at least they’d have time to work out their stiffness before moving on. At the rear of the wagon, she pulled the crate with her cooking utensils toward her then looked for her sister. “Jo, come and help me unload this, please. It’s rather heavy.”

  Jo did as requested, but Lara could see the stiffness in her shoulders. Why did her sister resent helping so much? One day she’d have her own place and need to know how to cook and sew. And Lara did say please.

  Together, they lifted the crate. “Let’s put it over in that clearing. I’ll start a fire with the wood I collected today,” Lara said.

  “I told Grandpa I’d groom Sunny.”

  Lara searched for Michael and found him lying across Mildred’s back. She turned back to her sister. “I wondered if you might want to go find some water. I know we filled the barrel this morning, but with so many people around drawing from the same water source, I’d like to keep it full if we can.”

  Jo perked up. “I can do that after I groom Sunny.”

  Lara nodded. Her sister jumped at any opportunity to get away from home—or camp—and be around other people. Lara was happy at home and had never understood her sister’s need to wander and visit. At least Jo could meander around while doing something useful.

  “Howdy, neighbor.”

  She spun around to see a portly red-faced woman waddling toward her. Lara smiled and nodded. “Good day.”

  “It is at that. I’m thankful the weather isn’t too cold for this time of year, because it can be.”