Singing Montana Sky (The Montana Sky Series Book 7)

by Debra Holland

  Kael gave them a mock salute. “I’m on my way.”

  The hot spring was one of the reasons his parents had settled in this area. The other was because his father loved living in the forest, among nature. In winter, he ran a trap line and sold furs for summer cash. Not having horses or mules, most times, the family could go weeks without sight of another human being.

  The Kelleys lived in the forest north of Green Valley Ranch, which belonged to his friend Tyler Dunn. To reach the boundary of the Dunns’ spread from the Kelley homestead took a walk of an hour or so—depending on weather conditions—through the woods to the grassland and then another hour to reach the ranch house.

  But their home wasn’t too far from their neighbors for a boy who’d like to run through the paths of the forest pretending he was an Indian. A few hours alternating running and walking would find him at the Dunn ranch or, heading a different direction, to Jonah and Lina Barrett’s home for pasta and red sauce dinner, or Gideon and Darcy Walker’s place, where he’d often borrow books to take home.

  The Walkers sometimes put him up for several days at a time, for the couple possessed a natural enjoyment of literature and philosophy and relished sharing their information. From them, he’d gathered up a store of quotes for every occasion and enjoyed pulling out the nuggets of wisdom and using them on his men to further their education. Most of the time, he received blank looks in return, but he persevered anyway.

  Growing up, Kael had often wintered for days at a time with the Dunns, so he could ride into town with his best friend, Tyler, on a borrowed horse, or, if weather kept the boys on the ranch, they had lessons with Mrs. Dunn. Although he’d sensed his parents were reluctant for their only son to spend so much time away, the two were barely literate, and they wanted better for him. Yet I became a lumberjack, just like Pa.

  Kael looked down at himself and sighed, his good spirits draining away. He’d worn the same clothing home that he lived in every day—a blue-and-black plaid wool shirt over long johns, and pants tucked into his boots so the hems wouldn’t catch on branches, a safety hazard. The pants had become muddy and dried so many times, a brown glaze had formed on the material. No sense in washing his pants, and the wool shirt and his long johns needed to be cleaned in cold water, which wouldn’t kill the bedbugs. He stripped, folded his clothes, and set them aside.

  Aside from washing his face and hands, he hadn’t bathed in the three weeks since last he’d visited his family. As for the bugs he carried…. Kael remembered what his father had said on his very first trip home after going to work at the lumber camp.

  “It’s no disgrace to get ’em, son. Everyone working in that flea-and-bedbug-infested camp does. The disgrace is to keep ’em, and even worse to bring ’em home to live with us.”

  He thought of Sophia Maxwell…. If she saw me now, she’d probably either hold her nose or turn and run screaming from him.

  Maybe both.

  The thought made him wince.

  * * *

  The next morning, used to sleeping through the sounds of thirty snoring men, Kael didn’t wake when his parents did. When the sun slanted through the only window to move across the floor until a ray hit his face, he awoke and lay there for a minute, savoring not having to wake abruptly and vault out of bed and into his clothes to chivvy tired, grumbling men from bed at five-thirty in the morning and out the door to the mess hall for breakfast at six. From the quality of the light, he suspected the time was about seven o’clock.

  He smelled bacon and was surprised the scent hadn’t woken him. He looked around for signs of his parents.

  The faded patchwork quilt over the big bed wedged in the corner was neatly made, with Kael’s best clothes laid out on top. Four chairs were placed around a square table that had one place setting. A cloth lay over a plate of food. A Mason jar in the center held wildflowers.

  Sophia Maxwell! He remembered what day this was, and a surge of expectation made him yank back the sheet and quilt covering him then leap to his feet. Clad only in his long johns, Kael pulled out a long square box from under his parent’s bed and lifted the top, folding his pallet inside, with the sheets, quilt, and pillow resting neatly on top.

  Kael padded on bare feet over to the stove to wash up, grateful for hot water in the kettle. Once clean, he moved over to lift the cloth over his plate to discover his mother had made an enormous roll and tucked bacon and eggs inside. He took a bite and, chewing, went to get dressed.

  He quickly changed into his best white shirt and trousers. His suspenders were held up by ribbons embroidered by his ma as a Christmas gift. The red-leaf pattern on the brown grosgrain made for a festive touch, and he felt quite spiffy as he slung each one over a shoulder and hitched up his trousers an inch.

  He went outside and around the house to use the outhouse. When he returned, he washed his hands and shaved, paying more attention than usual to soaping his face and scraping the razor across his skin.

  Afterwards, he stood at the window looking out over the garden and the forest beyond, and ate the rest of the roll, washing it down with a mug of coffee.

  Once finished and the plate and cup cleaned and put away, Kael set his new straw hat on his head, the one his mother had braided for him on his last visit. He wished for a mirror to see himself—not because he was vain, but because he wanted to look his best for Sophia Maxwell. Shaking his head at his foolishness—as if she would even notice me—he strode out the door to find his parents.

  Stepping out onto the porch, Kael saw his mother strolling over, the handle of a woven basket over her arm. She wore an apron to protect her Sunday best, a ten-year-old navy-colored calico with a crocheted lace collar. Three budding red roses were pinned over her breast.

  Nina held up the basket. “I’ve been picking strawberries to take as our contribution.”

  “None sweeter than what we grow.” Careful not to wrinkle her dress or squash the roses, Kael hugged her. “You look mighty fine, Ma. You’ll outshine the bride.”

  She swatted him. “No one will outshine Delia Bellaire. I’ve heard her dress cost more than a hundred dollars.”

  “Money can’t buy beauty.”

  “Kael Leith Kelley,” Nina exclaimed in a scandalized tone. “As if that nice Reverend Joshua would do any such thing as purchase a wife. I’ve seen Delia Bellaire. Not only is she beautiful, I’m told she’s a kind lady, the perfect wife for a young minister.”

  “I’m just teasing you, Ma.” Still Kael couldn’t help feeling a twinge of envy. Most lumberjacks weren’t married because the need for a husband and father to live apart most of the year was too hard on a family. He knew how difficult and painful life had been for him and his mother when his father had taken up the occupation in the lean years when Kael was a boy.

  After that, Kael had only ventured to the Dunns or Walkers for short visits, because he didn’t want to leave his mother by herself overnight. Most of the time, he struggled on alone with his studies, reading the borrowed books, and working the sums Tyler’s mother would send home on a precious piece of paper.

  So after Kael also became a lumberjack, he’d given up the idea of a wife and children. He’d broken his rule by allowing himself to fall in love with Sophia—if he even had a choice in the matter—because she was only a dream. A man needs some kind of dream to hold in his heart, else why go on living?

  Ma nudged his arm. “You all ready?”

  “Yep. On my way to use the outhouse.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Did you wash behind your ears?”

  “Geez, Ma. You think I don’t know that? After you nagged at me for years?” He was only partly teasing. “I washed all over yesterday, all right? And my face and hands are as clean as soap and water can make them.”

  She laughed. “Git along with you. The Dunns are waiting for us.”

  Kael tilted his head toward the path leading to the Dunns. Tyler arranged to have a wagon waiting for them on the outskirts of the forest, but they still had a long walk ahe
ad of them.

  Pa moved more slowly than usual. He caught Kael’s worried glance. “Touch of rheumatism, that’s all. I’ll be fine once I walk it out.”

  Kael doubted that was the case. His father’s worn-out body had paid the price for his years as a lumberjack, the stiffness and pain in his joints getting worse every year. “Remember when I was little and I’d hang onto your arm with both hands? How I’d skip along, and you’d lift me?”

  “You sure did laugh.”

  He flashed a grin. “I thought you were the strongest man in the world.”

  “Good memories.”

  Kael crooked his elbow toward his father. “Hang onto me, Pa, and let me pull you along.”

  Pa took his arm. “I ain’t doing no skippin’.”

  “Now, you on the other side, Ma.” He held out his other arm.

  “Don’t mind if I do—at least while the path is wide.”

  Linked with both parents, his heart filled with love and anticipation, Kael guided his family in the direction of the Dunn ranch.

  At the slow pace, the walk through the forest took over two hours. Kael watched with concern as his father’s breathing grew heavier. Pa leaned on Kael more and more.

  From time to time, he exchanged a worried glance with his mother. He didn’t say anything, though. This far away from home, there was nothing they could do.

  But fear for his father tainted the excitement of the day.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Several hours later, Kael rode to the ranch house in the back of the wagon, well-padded with fresh straw, so his parents could have the seat next to the driver. When they’d emerged from the forest to the edge of Green Valley Ranch, they’d found Hank, the driver, napping in the back in the shade while the horses grazed. From there, they still had a long drive over the grassland to the Dunn’s home.

  From a distance, Kael spied cattle spread out, grazing. Closer to the house, he saw a wagon already hitched and saddled horses tied to the hitching rail outside the barn. A few other horses, including the two miniature Falabellas Tyler had bought as a present for his wife when baby Adeline was born, crowded the corral fence watching the preparations.

  Oliver, Tyler Dunn’s seven-year-old son, spotted the Kelleys and let out a sharp whistle.

  Two dogs raced toward them, barking. Patches was a black-and-tan shepherd mix and the other was Dove, the spoiled spaniel Lily had brought with her from Chicago.

  At the alert, cowboys spilled from the big weathered barn and the bunkhouse, and the family came from the long, low ranch house.

  Oliver raced to meet them. “Hiya, Mrs. Kelley and Mr. Leith Kelley and Mr. Kael Kelley.” He trotted alongside the wagon. “Ma says if I get dirty, she’ll dunk me in the horse trough and scour me with the scrub brush she uses on the kitchen floor. So I gotta be careful. Just ’til after the wedding and the reception at the hotel.” He pulled a face. “I’m not sure I can last that long.”

  Kael laughed. “Me, neither. Guess we’ll have to just do our best.” He stood and vaulted over the side, brushing straw from his britches. He stooped to pet Patches and Dove, and then strode to the front to help his parents climb down from the seat. Gone were the days his father could nimbly manage on his own.

  Remembering, Kael swallowed a lump in his throat. When they’d borrowed the Dunns’ wagon in the past, Leith would reach up and clasp his hands around his wife’s waist and lift her down. The two would always smile and stare into each other’s eyes for a few seconds before breaking apart. Those times were gone, too.

  Kael gazed at the ranch house, along with Tyler’s parents. He could still remember the welcome Tyler’s parents, Harrison and Addie, would give him every time he visited. The couple treated him like another son, and he missed them still.

  Tyler’s wife, Lily, stepped out onto the porch with baby Adeline in her arms, followed by Mrs. Pendell, their elderly housekeeper, who carried a cloth-covered dish in her hand, no doubt her famous peach cobbler.

  Lily welcomed them with a warm, gentle smile. She looked much like her sister Sophia, with the same violet eyes and dark hair, although she had a narrower face and a slighter frame than her famous sister. She walked with a limp caused by an old riding accident. “Mrs. Kelley,” she called to Kael’s mother. “Welcome.”

  Nina released Kael’s arm and hurried over to peer down at the baby. “My, how a little one can change in only a few weeks. Oh, how Harrison and Addie would have adored her.” She clasped her hands together. “Why, I believe she’ll have your eyes, Lily.”

  “Tyler hopes so, but I’ll be happy with whatever color she’ll have.” Lily held out the baby to Nina. “Why don’t you take Adeline for me and come into the house while I fetch my hat and a wrap. Everything else is ready to go.” She transferred the infant into his mother’s waiting arms.

  Watching his mother coo at Adeline made Kael realize that by his choice to eschew marriage, he was denying her grandchildren. He glanced at his father, who watched his wife with a tender light in his eyes. Denying them both. Myself, too.

  But where else could I work that was nearby and paid as well?

  Not that logging pays well, but the job does pay.

  And even if I gave up being a lumberjack, found other work, and took a wife, would it be fair to the woman to wed her knowing I loved Sophia, even if she is only a dream?

  “Mr. Kelley, Mrs. Kelley, Kael.” Tyler Dunn’s hearty welcome brought Kael out of his ruminations. “I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.”

  With a grin, Kael held out a hand to his friend since boyhood. He and Tyler were a year apart in age, only children, and each other’s closest neighbors. As adults, they didn’t see each other often, for the distance from the ranch to the logging camp was too far to travel, especially in winter.

  Tyler glanced at Kael. “You want to ride in the wagon with your parents, or on Big Brute?”

  Normally, Kael would have chosen to ride, a rare opportunity. But he didn’t want to appear before Sophia—if he even got a chance to get close to her—walking bowlegged and smelling of horse. Then again, what were the chances of him getting close enough for her to sniff? “I’ll ride.”

  Tyler flashed Kael a quick grin. “I figured. I have Big Brute already saddled up.” He jerked a finger. “He’s next to Domino,” he said, referring to his black-and-white Pinto.

  Big Brute wasn’t so named due to a bad temperament, but because the large gelding was as homely as a horse could be—a muddy brown color, with an ungainly body and boxy face. He had an even gait and good disposition—a perfect match for a man Kael’s size, who only occasionally rode a horse.

  If ever he was in a position to afford a horse—a goal that seemed almost as distant as a blue moon, given that he had his parents to support and acreage around the house he wanted to buy—Kael hoped to purchase Big Brute from Tyler.

  The two men rode side by side on the road to town, exchanging information about the ranch and the mining camp. From time to time, his friend dropped back to the wagon driven by the Dunns’ elderly foreman, Habakkuk Pendell, to check on Lily and Adeline and keep an eye on Oliver, riding his pony in the middle of the group of ranch hands.

  The town was packed with people who’d come for the wedding—wagons were parked up and down the street and horses lined the hitching rails outside the businesses. He’d bet the press of vehicles and horses was even greater near the livery, where people customarily left their horses and wagons when they intended to spend much time in town. Kael had never seen so many people in his life and found he relished the excited energy buzzing about the street.

  Tyler glanced over at Kael and shook his head. “Chicago must be like this, only bigger. Crowds everywhere.”

  As they rode down the street, they waved and nodded at those who called greetings.

  Curious, Kael asked, “You going to visit Lily’s family in Chicago? See Sophia perform?”

  “Someday when Adeline is bigger.”

  Envy stabbed him—not that he
begrudged Tyler his current good fortune, especially when he knew the pain his friend had suffered at the abandonment of his first wife when she’d run off with another man. But Kael wanted the life Tyler had—a Maxwell wife, a family, a job that suited him.

  Tyler jerked his head at the church. “We’ll leave everyone here, while Lily, Oliver, and I head over to the hotel. Sophia is dying to see the baby.”

  “She probably wants to see Lily and Oliver, too,” Kael drawled in a teasing tone. “Although not your ugly face.”

  Tyler grinned and then raised his head in a haughty tilt. “I’ll have you know, Sophia adores me. She gives me—” he thumped his chest with his fist “—all the credit for Lily’s happiness.”

  “And so she should.” Kael’s tone turned serious.

  Tyler slanted him a decisive look. “After Laura left me, you never once said I told you so. Never rubbed my nose in my bad decision. You just stood by me. Never thanked you for that.”

  “Well, you were a fool in love,” Kael said in a light tone. “Why rub your nose in your mistake, when you already carried pain?” He shrugged, embarrassed by the emotion he was about to admit, but knowing this topic was important. “Seeing you hurting bothered me. I didn’t like how you changed, became somber and bitter. I missed….” He stopped not quite knowing how to put his feelings into words.

  “I wasn’t a good friend, was I?”

  “That never changed. Just your outlook on life. Remember those times you rode to the logging camp with the cookies Ma had baked and Mrs. Pendell’s peach cobbler? Even knowing the men would mob you.”

  Tyler laughed. “Took my life in my hands.”

  “Meant a lot to me, especially that first year when I had to adjust to everything.”

  “I said it before, and I’ll say it again. You can always come and work on the ranch. Cows and horses beat trees any day.”

  “You don’t need another ranch hand, and I’m not taking pity work.”

  Tyler shrugged. “You’re too stubborn.”