Providence

by Karen Noland

  “He was my friend.” It was said quietly and with a great deal of reverence. “And I miss him.”

  Luke said nothing, though his heart ached for her loss, and for himself, who had never known that kind of love.

  The mare grew restless and began pawing the floor in agitation. Luke opened the gate, stepping into the large stall, while Kate went to the tack room for iodine and gunny sacks. By the time she returned, the mare was laying down, and two small feet were just visible emerging from the birth canal. The birth was an easy one and soon a dark wet foal lay in the straw beside his mother. Kate rubbed the burlap roughly over his small body to help dry him and keep him from catching a chill while Luke applied the iodine to the umbilical stump.

  Within moments the large healthy colt began the first efforts to stand. Kate laughed at his antics and was filled with joy as he finally found a wobbly footing. His dam stood and sniffed him, and encouraged him to nurse. It wasn’t long before he found the full udder and began noisily suckling the warm rich milk.

  Luke and Kate stood together outside the stall watching the contented pair within. “I believe that is going to be a grullo, if I’m not mistaken.” Luke commented. Grullos were highly sought after horses. Many believed that they were stronger or carried some special power, possibly because it was such a rare color. The little colt was a dark, smoky gray with a prominent black stripe running down the length of his spine; another dark stripe ran across his shoulders and there was black barring on his legs. The coat was fuzzy and soft, and Kate knew that the color could change as the colt grew, but she hoped Luke was right and that this was truly a grullo.

  “I hope so. I had heard of them before, but I’ve never actually seen one. Isn’t it beautiful?” She asked with wonder in her voice.

  “Yes,” Luke replied softly, though his eyes weren’t on the colt.

  Chapter eight

  The days passed quickly, and they slipped into an easy routine. Luke and Jon rode out each morning to tend the cattle, checking as they went for any further signs of rustlers. No more fences had been found cut and all the cattle remained accounted for, to Kate’s great relief. Their afternoons were spent on repairs and building, and the fences of the corrals and catch pens began to look like new.

  Jake watched over his fields like an old mother hen, as the new sprouts emerged from the warming soil, growing and flourishing in the sun and the abundant spring rains that finally came. He plowed up the larger garden patch close to the house for the women to begin the spring vegetables.

  Kate and Jo planted row after row of snap beans, carrots, peas, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and many other favorites. The strawberries in beds along the front of the house had already shed their pretty white blossoms and the green berries that appeared in their place were growing plump and shading to red. Wild plum and choke cherry trees were laden with new buds, promising a fruitful harvest later in the summer. Kate watched with thanksgiving in her heart as her family blossomed into life in imitation of the world around them. It was as if a shroud had been lifted, and the darkness surrounding them in the months since Will’s death was pierced by the brilliant light of life.

  Kate arose early on the morning of the proposed trip to Fallis. She dressed quickly in a blue cotton skirt and fitted white shirtwaist. Taking a warm shawl from the peg near the fireplace she hurried out into the early morning mist before anyone else awoke. Walking silently along a seldom used path from the house, she came at last to a willow tree growing alone in a secluded area. Beneath the tree was a small picket fence surrounding two graves, each covered in new spring grass and adorned by a simple cross.

  Kneeling, she prayed openly, lifting her face to the heavens, a prayer of thanks and praise. Turning her eyes back to the graves, she still felt the burden of grief, but it had changed. It was no longer a bitter gall, but now a sweet aching memory of her husband and their baby son, who had died in infancy three years earlier.

  “Oh, Will, there’s so much I want to tell you, to share with you. Jo is growing so big, and more beautiful every day. She still looks just like you. How I wish you could see her grow and change. Are you there with our son? How is he? I’ll bet he’s big and strong and handsome. I’m so glad he has his daddy now. I never thought of it that way before, but Caleb isn’t alone anymore, is he? I miss you both so much, but I’m glad you have each other.” Her tears flowed freely now, but they were the tears that brought with them healing and peace.

  She rose from the peaceful garden and felt the burgeoning of joy beginning anew in her soul as she walked serenely back down the path toward home. The early morning sun was playing hide and seek behind a bank of large white clouds that held the promise of more rains to come. Kate hoped that the rain would hold off until after they returned tonight. The air was already tinged with warmth, and it promised to be a very hot day.

  Jake had her buggy hitched up to one of his mares by the time she returned. Only she and Jo would be making the trip today, and the buggy made better time, while still having enough room for the supplies she would purchase. Jo had climbed the garden fence and was swinging on the gate. Her brilliant white apron covered a worn calico dress, and she wore a simple sunbonnet tied tightly over her red curls. She was altogether charming. Kate scooped her up off the gate and covered her face with kisses while tickling her ribs.

  Jo squealed with delight, squirming to get away from her mother’s tickles, and they both ended up in heap on the grass. Kate lay on her back laughing and gasping for breath. Seizing the opportunity, Jo pounced and began tickling her mother until they were both exhausted and lay together quietly, eyes closed, giggling sporadically.

  Opening her eyes at last, Kate found herself staring up into Luke’s handsome smiling face, green eyes alight with suppressed mirth. She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks as she quickly sat up, pulling her shawl around her and straightening her disarrayed skirts.

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Josey!” Jo piped up beside her. “Have you come for breakfast? Nana made oatmeal, and I got the milk from the spring house all by myself. I found enough red strawberries for us each to have two on our cereal. Do you like strawberries? Momma says they taste like sunshine melting in your mouth.”

  “Does she now?” Luke asked, offering his hand to Kate. “I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted sunshine before, but I am partial to fresh sweet strawberries.”

  She took his hand and he lifted her to her feet as though she weighed nothing. His hand was large and strong, sending sweet warmth coursing through her. Instead of releasing her, his eyes held hers as he tucked her arm beneath his and escorted both mother and daughter to breakfast.

  ***

  Luke watched as Kate and Jo settled themselves into the buggy for the drive to town. Kate picked up the reins, clucked once, and the mare trotted off. Jo waved merrily goodbye, clutching her only doll tightly in one hand. They would be gone most of the day, and Luke felt an unexpected sadness at their leaving. Shaking his head, he realized that he was becoming far too attached to these people. Jo had his heart wrapped around her little finger. He found himself looking for her in the mornings, smiling at her fresh innocence as she gathered eggs in her basket, or rolled on the dew wet grass with her pup. He thought about the small unfinished doll cradle hidden beneath his bunk. It was slowly taking shape as he carved a little more each evening on it. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he surprised her with it. Perhaps he could enlist Mrs. Insley’s help to fashion a small blanket and pillow for the cradle.

  How will I ever be able to leave Providence? Luke thought with a stabbing pain of regret. He had only been hired through the fall, and was planning to leave then, head on to a larger ranch down south somewhere, hire on as an outrider. It would be better, then, if he could remove himself from these growing feelings for Jo, the Insleys, and Kate. At the thought of her name, an image of Kate rose in his mind so real and intense it made him shudder. He could see her face, calm and strong, but always with that undercurrent of emotion held s
o tightly in check, yet every so often breaking the surface of her features like ripples on a pond, sometimes bringing tears, other times that radiant, glowing smile. Will had been a lucky man, a very fortunate man.

  Jon appeared from the barn leading two horses already saddled and a third pack animal loaded with tools and other supplies. “Luke, are you ready?” he called.

  “Just coming, Jon.” Luke replied, striding toward the boy. They mounted up and started off.

  “Where are we riding today? And why so many tools and such like on old Maude?”

  “First, I want to check the west herd, then I have a bit of a surprise for you.”

  “Oh, what is it?”

  “Patience, Jon!” Luke laughed.

  They rode to the west, Jon’s dog Smokey bounding ahead, until the herd was sighted grazing in a meadow far beyond their normal range. Something must have spooked them in the night, Luke thought, for them to have moved this far.

  “Why do you s’pose they’re way over here?” Jon asked, echoing Luke’s thoughts aloud.

  “Hard to say. Something moved them, though, that’s certain.”

  “Look, over there!”

  Luke peered in the direction Jon indicated, at first seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Riding on a short distance, he could see Smokey worrying over something. Then he saw it, the carcass of a small calf, torn, bloody, and badly mangled.

  Luke searched the ground in vain for any traces or signs of what attacked the poor calf. The thick grass and hard ground yielded no testimony to what had transpired.

  “Wolves?” Jon asked.

  “It would appear that way.”

  “Miss Kate sure ain’t gonna like this.”

  “No, I don’t expect she will.” Luke paused, “Have you had problems with wolves before?”

  “I can’t rightly recall. I believe Mr. Will shot a few when they first come here. That was a long time ago, and I was jest little then, but I remember my Pa sayin’ something about a big hunt. All the neighbors got together and killed ‘bout forty of ‘em at one time. Don’t recall any trouble in recent times.”

  “I didn’t think there were any around. Guess I better start carrying my Winchester, just in case.” Luke sighed. “We’d best bury the rest of the carcass so as not to attract any other vermin.”

  They worked silently, digging a pit, and hauling the remains into it. When they had filled the hole, they found as many large rocks as they could to cover it further, thereby discouraging other scavengers from digging it back up.

  “Nothing else we can do here for now. Let’s go.” Luke said dryly.

  They rode back in the direction of the ranch, until Luke spotted the tree he was looking for.

  “Jon, do you see that, about halfway up the trunk?”

  “What is it?”

  “Bee tree!”

  “Honey! Let’s cut it.”

  “No, I’ve got a better idea.” Luke rode ahead into a small clearing he had scouted out previously. There he found an old deadfall. The tree had obviously been down for several months. “Do you know what this is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a black gum tree. If we cut through, you’ll see it’s hollow.”

  “So what?”

  “We can set up a bee gum.”

  “What’s that?”

  Luke though for a minute. “Kind of like farming your own honey, you might say.”

  “Really? You mean have honey anytime we want it?” Jon’s sweet tooth fairly ached at this idea.

  “Pretty much. If we do it right, you can rob it a couple times a year and get near fifteen pounds of honey at a time.” Luke unloaded a crosscut saw from the pack on Maude, and he and Jon set to work on the trunk. They soon had a section of hollow trunk about thirty inches long. “Now we need a couple of sticks, nice and straight, about as big around as my finger, and maybe two feet long. You find those while I smooth the inside out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  By the time Jon returned with the sticks, Luke had finished smoothing the inside of their new beegum and had bored four holes opposite one another about half way down. Taking the sticks, he fitted them into the holes, through the trunk at right angles to each other. “This is where the bees will hang the brood combs. They’ll keep the honey comb up top where we’ll be able to get it out, nice and clean. See, we’ll take this, fix it over the top, “ Luke pulled a plank from the pack and fit it over the top of the gum, “and they’ll hang the honeycomb right from here.”

  “You knew we was going to do this today?” Jon said with awe as Luke seemed to have everything they needed packed in those bags.

  “I spotted that tree a few days ago, been thinking on it.” Luke grinned.

  “How’re we gonna get the bees in there?”

  “That’s the tricky part,” Luke agreed. “See, I’ve cut a notch here at the bottom. That’s their door, you might say.”

  Jon nodded, “But what’s gonna make ‘em come in here?”

  “We’re going to put them in there.”

  Jon’s eyes grew very round.

  They set to work, first building a smoky fire, then felling the bee tree. Using some old rags, they began smoking the hive to pacify the bees, though they both suffered a few stings. As they cut into the trunk near the opening, they found the brood combs. Luke stood, victoriously holding the queen carefully in his hand. Other bees began to swarm and light on his hand, and he carried them reverently to the new bee gum, shaking them off on the base in front of the notch. The queen and several attendant bees immediately entered their new home. Luke and Jon wore identical smiles of triumph as they placed a covering over the gum to keep off rain and other predators, and carefully lifted it up onto a platform resting in the remains of the fallen black gum.

  “We’ll check it once a week or so, and in a couple of months we ought to have our first batch of honey. For now, go find that tin in the pack. We’ll take Nana a heap of comb and honey from the old hive.”

  “I brung the biscuits from our lunch, too,” Jon said returning to the fallen tree where Luke was busy widening the opening to find the clean honeycomb.

  “Well now, biscuits and honey sound mighty fine right about now, don’t they?”

  They quickly scooped the golden liquid and bits of broken comb into the clean tin until it was nearly overflowing. Licking their fingers of the sticky treat they dipped their biscuits right into the hive and bit into the sweet satisfying flavor.

  ***

  The buggy bounced along the rutted paths on the way to Fallis. The birds were chirruping in the trees, but the gray, lowering clouds obscured the sun. Jo chatted incessantly commenting on everything she could see.

  “Jo, what do you think of Mr. Josey?” Kate asked taking advantage of one Jo’s infrequent lulls in her nonstop dialog.

  “What do you mean? He’s wonderful, of course!”

  “Well, I mean.... I don’t know what I mean. Forget I asked!” Kate laughed.

  Jo shrugged. Adults could be very strange sometimes. “Are we going to eat lunch with Mrs. Jansen today?”

  “I would think so. I have some shopping to do there, and she usually invites us, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, and she always has candy for me. Do you think she’s ever going to have a baby? I think she really wants one. Mrs. Hall is going to have another baby. Kathy told me so.” Jo paused to take a breath and clutched her little doll close to her breast. “I miss our baby sometimes.”

  Kate’s heart skipped a beat. Jo seldom spoke of Caleb. Sometimes she wondered if her daughter had any memories of his short life with them. “He’s with God now, sweetheart.”

  “I know, and daddy, too,” Jo spoke slowly, but she did not cry.

  “Do you think about them often?”

  “Um-hmm. Do you think God has a big rocking chair, like the one you used to rock the baby in?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll bet he does.” Kate looked over at Jo, who was staring straight ahead. “Did you know that Cale
b would have been three years old today?”

  “Really? Then today would have been daddy’s birthday, too!”

  “That’s right.” Will had been so proud to share his birthday with his son, and he had been so brokenhearted when the baby died mysteriously only a month later. They had cried and clung to one another, until they were able to lay their son and their grief to rest in God’s peace. The following year’s birthday had been a day of quiet celebration, not only of birth, but of the peace God had given them, and the sure knowledge that their son was in His care.

  Her early morning visit to the small graveyard had been her only plans to celebrate this year, the first one since Will’s death, but now that it was out in the open, her grief given over to her Heavenly Father, she felt like sharing her joy, “What do you say we have cake and ice cream at the Hotel today, kind of our own little birthday party?”

  “Oh, yes, momma!” Jo clapped her hands together in delight. “Daddy would have liked that. I’m going to have chocolate cake, that was his favorite. Do you think they would put a candle on it if I asked them?”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  “Look, I can see the town, we’re almost there!”

  A few minutes later, they were pulling up in front of the mercantile. Jo jumped down, and dashed inside while Kate made sure the mare was tied securely at the hitching rail. Reaching into the back of the buggy, she pulled out the baskets of eggs and jars of preserves that Nana had sent. Entering the store, she found Jo sitting on the counter engrossed in conversation with Martha while Lars was busy stocking shelves behind them.

  “Well, don’t you two look mighty cozy!”

  “Kate, it’s so good to see you,” Martha said, coming around the end of the counter to embrace her friend.

  “You, too.” Kate smiled. “Business first!”

  “All right, whatever you say.”

  “First, I have four dozen large brown eggs, I hope you can use them, and there are six pints of blackberry jam, and six of strawberry.” She unpacked the glass canning jars from one basket, and opened the lid on the basket of eggs for Martha to inspect them.