Trail of Hope (Hot on the Trail Book 2)

by Merry Farmer

  His heart seemed to swell in his chest. “That’s all right.” Hesitantly, he put a hand over hers and squeezed. “We all have bad days.”

  She moved her hands so that she could squeeze his in return, but didn’t say anything. Her shoulder bumped his lightly.

  He could go with the waves today or he could stay here with Callie. He had married her. He could build a life with her, take her to see the ocean someday, take her home. The idea was so new to his grief-deadened heart that he didn’t know what he wanted. Shannon was waiting. Shannon was dead.

  As the train got started, they rode in silence. The river and its scrubby trees droned on to the left and the unchanging prairie to the right. Callie looked around as John drove, but there wasn’t much to see. It was all the same, and today it was gray and threatening.

  John cleared his throat. “As I understand it, we’ll reach the junction of the North and South Platte rivers in a few days, maybe a week. Then we’ll cross over and start the last leg of the journey to Denver City.”

  Callie grunted in answer. “I hope the scenery changes.”

  “Denver City is in the mountains.”

  “Mmm hmm,” she replied.

  The only mountains John had ever seen were the Appalachians he and Shannon had crossed to get to Missouri. The Rockies were far, far grander. He had heard stories of their size and beauty. As he scanned the horizon, he was certain he could see them already. They were there, dark shapes on the horizon, like mountains or monstrous waves. They were coming closer.

  “Those aren’t mountains,” he spoke aloud in the middle of his thought.

  “What?” Callie squinted, then her eyes widened. “It’s a storm.”

  All around them, wagons stopped as their neighbors gaped at the clouds. Pete came riding back through the wagon train. “Storm’s coming,” he shouted his warning. “Storm’s coming. Stop the wagons. Take cover.”

  John called out and flicked his long whip to stop the oxen. He and Callie both jumped out of the wagon as the train slowly ground to a halt and steered closer to the tree line near the riverbank. John’s dream poked around the edges of his thought. They had seen storms in the last several weeks. Some had been bad. But there was something dark and sinister about the clouds that were surging toward them now. Lightning slashed across the distance, through a thick wall of black. The animals were far more skittish than usual. He could go with the waves today, if he wanted to.

  “Maybe we should unyoke the oxen,” Callie called across to him as they led the wagons toward the blowing trees. The wind had picked up so fast that Callie’s hair and skirts whipped wildly around her. “If they get upset, won’t they run off with the wagons?”

  John glanced to the oxen. He checked to see what the others were doing. The wagon train was slipping into chaos as people secured their coverings and tried to settle their animals. Then he glanced forward to the approaching storm. The sky was turning a sickly yellow-green, rolling and churning like waves. They were coming for him.

  “We’re going to get wet anyhow,” John reasoned. “If we stay here with them we could keep them calm.”

  Callie nodded, looking like she needed someone to keep her calm. John stroked the neck of the ox nearest him, then made his way around the anxious animals to Callie. Some of the others on their train had untied their animals and the poor beasts were already running helter-skelter. The storm was picking up speed, rumbling now. John had seen storms at sea, but this was a whole new monster. The sky was angry. The clouds churned with lightening.

  And then a funnel formed from the cloud-swirl and slowly reached down out of the clouds. Callie screamed. She wasn’t the only one. All around them their neighbors were panicking. The tornado was still far off in the distance, still forming, but that didn’t make John feel better. Today. It could all be over for him today. The clouds around the tornado spun and sank into the vortex as the tip of the funnel tore ravenously for the ground. Coming for him.

  The oxen bucked.

  “Get them free of the yoke!” John shouted as the noise of the wind picked up. He jumped to unfasten the straps holding the oxen in place, heart pounding. Callie tried to help him, hands fumbling, panting in terror. The first yoke came undone, the front pair of oxen scrambling to get away.

  The funnel grew thicker, the rush of the wind harsher, as it inched closer. Callie couldn’t take her eyes off of it. She dropped her arms to her side and stood staring while John worked at the second yoke. The tornado was growing darker, bigger, coming nearer. It was heading right for them.

  He freed the second pair of oxen, then dodged them as they bolted in panic to scoop his arm around Callie. She gasped and jolted out of her stupor at his touch. “We have to run!” he shouted above the din of the storm. The noise was almost deafening.

  The funnel-cloud roared toward them, more massive by the second. Smaller funnels began to rotate around it. Today. It could all end today. All he had to do was let go of Callie and run toward the tornado. He didn’t even have to take his own life. Nature would do it for him.

  But he couldn’t let the storm take Callie.

  He grabbed Callie’s hand and pulled her away from the wagon, running with her toward the riverbank. Panic was painted on every line of her face. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. Nothing else mattered. People were running everywhere now, crying and screaming. Lightning shot through the clouds above them, around them. Rain began to hammer down, but as the tornado crept ever closer, it pounded on them from all directions, raining sideways. John’s grip on Callie’s hand was tight enough to be painful, but she held on to him with white knuckles.

  As they drew near the riverbank, a bright bolt of lightning slashed down to one of the trees. The tree exploded with a deafening boom, taking John’s breath away. Today. Today could be the day. He skittered to a halt and searched for somewhere else to hide. The others from their wagon train were scattered like ants. Another bolt of lightning crashed down, hitting someone’s wagon. The wind whipped so angrily that it snatched Greg’s hat from Callie’s head. She yelped as her hair scattered in every direction.

  The dark, swirling wall of the tornado was so close John could make out tree limbs and clumps of dirt in its depths. Its rumbling shook his bones, squeezed his chest. The power and the vengeance in front of him called out to him. Come. End your pain today. This is what you wanted. There was no place left to run.

  “No!” John shouted at the twister as though it were only the two of them, face-to-face. He wanted to live. It may have been hard, his heart may never be the same after the pain and loss he’d been through, but he wanted to live. He wanted to see the beauty around him. He wanted to embrace summer and spring, fall and winter. He wanted to build a life, a business, something he could call his own and be proud of. He wanted to hold Callie, treasure her, feel her lips on his and her body around him. He wanted to cradle their children, laugh with them and cry with them and watch them grow into fine adults. He wanted to live.

  Heart full to bursting, he threw his arms around Callie and dropped to the ground. He pressed his body over hers, covering his head and hers with his arms. Callie lay flat, frightened and trembling, eyes stuck wide in terror. The storm couldn’t touch them for all its rage and noise. It wouldn’t dare. He wanted to live.

  The great, dark funnel roared toward them. Callie had never felt wind so strong. It had ripped at her from all sides until John hugged her and pushed her to the ground. His body over hers was the only thing keeping her from being sucked up into the tornado. She felt the thundering of John’s heart against her back, more powerful than all the winds and rumblings of the storm, kept her from losing her mind. He was the only thing that stood between her and death.

  Wagons toppled every which way on the prairie ahead of them and the trees by the river flailed helplessly. The pain in Callie’s ears from the thundering was almost unbearable. She watched as the tornado bore down on them, watched the ground across the prairie in front of her churn up. She couldn�
�t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t think. All she could feel was the heat and weight of John above her and the cool sting of rain and dirt biting at her face. The roar seemed to last forever.

  But then the hellish chaos began to subside, inch by slow, slow inch. The next moment, she could see the battered grassland spread out behind the tornado. The rain grew thick and heavy, poured down from above instead of flying at them from all directions. The tornado had passed. It had devastated the land just in front of them, maybe half a mile away, but it had missed them. Somehow, they were alive.

  Callie was still rigid with terror, even once she was able to breathe again. She could feel John trembling on top of her. His face was tucked against her neck and the hot moisture of his breath pressed in uneven pants against her skin. The noise of the storm lessened, the beating of the rain took over, a constant drumming. He was heavy, but she didn’t want John’s weight to leave her. It felt like it was the only thing holding her to the ground.

  Gradually John’s limbs loosened and his breathing steadied. He still shook like one of the battered trees, but he made an effort to pull himself off of Callie, to rock back and sit heavily. Callie didn’t want to be apart from him. Her fear flared to a pitch and she twisted, launching herself into a pile in his arms. She sobbed wildly and clung to his shirt, knuckles white, burying her face against his shoulder. His arms were instantly tight around her and he let out a sigh of such relief that it was almost joyful. They sat there clinging desperately to each other as the rain pounded.

  “I don’t want to be here,” Callie wailed against his chest. “I never wanted to leave home. I’m not strong enough for this life. I don’t want to be a pioneer. I can’t do this, I can’t do this.”

  She sucked in a shuddering breath as one of John’s hands moved up to cradle the back of her head.

  “Why did Greg die and leave me here? Why? How could he do that to me? How could he leave me alone? I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t do this.”

  “Shh.” His gentle, trembling comfort overrode the rain. “You can do this. You are strong enough.”

  “No.” She shook her head against him, rubbing her streaming eyes against his already soaked shirt. “I’m not that kind of woman.”

  “You’re a strong, beautiful woman, Callysta Rye. You can do this,” he insisted, holding her so close that she was warm in spite of the chill of the rain. She shook her head no. “You can do this. We can do this together.”

  His words penetrated. Callie held still, hands gripping his shirt for all she was worth.

  “We can do this.” He stroked his fingers clumsily across her wet hair and the side of her face. “We’re not alone. We are alive and we can do this. You’re not alone. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m going to live a long, long time.”

  There was so much more to his words than the words themselves. He knew that her fear went beyond the storm, that her homesickness went beyond leaving Pennsylvania. He knew. They were not alone. They’d each lost everything, but they had each other. They had hope.

  Callie let go of his shirt to clamp her arms around his back. Her tears flowed freely now, great gulping sobs to go with them. John shifted to sit more comfortably, holding her fully in his lap, cradling her against his chest. He didn’t say anything, just held her and let her cry until she didn’t have a single tear left. And then he just held her, silently, in the rain.

  Callie didn’t know how long they stayed there like that. When she was able to think beyond her pain, she started to hear the sounds of the rest of the people around them. Oxen were lowing, and here and there a horse whinnied. People were shouting—men barking orders and women calling after their children. People were crying.

  Callie didn’t know when she’d shut her eyes, but she opened them now and looked around. The tornado had left destruction in its wake, even if it hadn’t hit their wagon train directly. Trees had been knocked over and more than half of the wagons lay scattered and broken, their contents spilled around them like lost blood. Pots and washboards, quilts, clothing, and toys spread haphazardly across the area. Animals, from oxen to chickens, wandered in confusion. Those people who had recovered first were already chasing after them, rounding them up no matter who they belonged to.

  “Look,” Callie gasped against John’s shoulder as she surveyed the damage. “Our wagons!”

  John turned his head to see what she saw. About a hundred yards away their wagons still stood upright. They weren’t the only ones to make it through in one piece, but to see both of them standing there solidly was a shock.

  Slowly, and a little painfully, they untangled from each other. They’d been sitting like that, close and tense, for so long enough that Callie’s muscles had cramped. Once they were standing, John took her hand and they started slowly and stiffly across the soaked prairie. Everyone else was so distracted with their own traumas that they left the two of them alone as they reached the wagons.

  They hadn’t escaped unscathed. Both canopies had been ripped in several places. The wagons had been buffeted by the winds hard enough that the neatly stacked boxes and belongings inside had toppled and spilled. A few things that were lightweight and hadn’t been strapped down, like clothing and a quilt, had blown out the back. Callie caught sight of one of her dresses several yards away, tangled in another wagon’s wheels. But most of their things were intact.

  Callie turned to John, mind working slowly. “We’d better pick up our things.”

  He nodded, wiping a hand through his wet hair and glancing around at the devastation. As he moved past her to begin the clean-up, he caught her hand for a moment, squeezing it wordlessly. Then he smiled.

  Chapter Ten

  The tornado had passed somewhere between a quarter and half a mile to the side of the train. A few people who had watched after it passed said that it got even bigger as it disappeared in the distance, to the east. The storm continued to blow for half an hour or so, but an hour after the destruction ended, the rain stopped, and the sun came out as if lives hadn’t been changed.

  Callie wiped damp hair out of her face as she bent to pick up a lone coffee pot in the middle of the grass. The air was heavy and humid as people milled around searching through scattered belongings, retrieving livestock, and assessing the situation. Lynne wandered not far from Callie, hugging herself and looking forlorn. Three people had been killed. One had been under the tree that had been struck by lightning. Another had been hit on the head by a piece of flying debris. A small child was found nearly a mile away with a broken neck, perhaps a victim of the tornado itself.

  Most of the livestock had been located by the end of the day. John managed to find their oxen in the herd that all the men—even the miners—had rounded up together. They didn’t have any other animals to worry about, but some families lost chickens or pigs or horses that had either been killed or had run off and not been found.

  Almost everyone had suffered some damage to their wagon. The canopies covering Callie’s and John’s wagons were ripped. John helped Callie take them off so that she could sew up the tears while he restacked their supplies and personal belongings.

  “We should move as much as possible into one wagon so that we can sleep in the other, off the ground,” he said, moving one of the crates of goods he was taking to Denver City.

  “I suppose so.” Callie watched him in wonder. He moved with energy and purpose. A light shone in his eyes that hadn’t been there before the storm. He even smiled as he worked, as if they hadn’t just waded through a disaster. In truth, he glowed. “Are you sure you weren’t hurt while you were protecting me?” she asked as she watched him.

  “I’m fine.” He returned her curious stare with a bright smile. “Never better.”

  She believed him, in spite of how strange it seemed.

  A few of Callie’s things had been broken—some china plates and glasses—and the teapot from her mother’s tea service had been dented, but she and John were extraordinarily lucky. Others in the wagon train h
ad lost up to half of their belongings. Lynne had her things scattered. Emma had been injured when her family’s wagon blew over as they sheltered inside. Mrs. Weingarten’s wooden chest, which had come all the way from Prussia with her, was smashed into kindling. It had belonged to her grandmother. All through the wagon train people had suffered similar losses. Perhaps most complicated of all was the number of broken wagons. Some had lost wheels, others had had the curved slats that supported the canopy snapped, and a few had been smashed nearly beyond repair.

  “Pete says we’re going to stay here for at least a day,” John told her as he joined her by a hastily lit campfire for a bite to eat.

  “Right here?” Callie shielded her eyes as she looked around at the battered prairie. “So exposed?”

  John shrugged, almost cheerful. He chewed a piece of the cornbread Callie handed him. “All of the prairie is exposed. And too many of the wagons are in need of extensive repairs to try to move the whole train. I’ve offered to help wherever I can.”

  Callie’s brow flew up. John. Her John. Helping their neighbors with repairs, smiling and chatting with them as they worked. It was a far cry from the closed off, mourning man she had married. It also warmed her heart.

  “I can help too,” she said, catching his smile.

  That was how she found herself sewing up canopy cloths after lunch while John helped a group of men hammer wagon boards back in place and change broken wagon wheels for new ones. Callie had never seen him so… so alive. It was unusual seeing him as a part of something larger and not like a lone tumbleweed blowing across the prairie. She smiled at the thought.

  When she was done with the canopy covers, she set out across the rolling prairie again to help the people searching for missing belongings. She looped a large basket over her arm to put found items in and kicked her way through damp grass. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it. She picked up pieces of clothing, toys, keepsake boxes, tools—anything and everything that had been blown away from the wagons. She picked up a Bible and brushed it off. It was far heavier than a book should have been.