Whispers from Yesterday

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  He was still at it at nine-thirty that evening when Karen stepped onto the porch.

  The sky had clouded over, obscuring the sun as it sank in the west. A cooling breeze swept across the rolling countryside, bringing with it the scent of sage and rain.

  Karen crossed her arms over her chest and watched as he worked off his frustration. She was actually glad to see his anger—it made him seem more approachable.

  What makes him so different from other men I’ve known?

  Dusty leaned his ax against a nearby bench, then picked up the garden hose, turned the faucet, and drank his fill. When he was finished, he bent forward at the waist and held the hose above his head, letting the water drench him.

  She couldn’t help smiling as she observed him. There were models and actors in Los Angeles who would sell their souls to look as ruggedly handsome as Dusty looked right then.

  Drawn as irresistibly as a moth to a flame, Karen left the porch and strode across the yard. When Dusty straightened and their eyes met, he dropped the hose and turned off the faucet, then used both hands to push his damp hair back from his face.

  I’m in love with you, Dusty. Do you find me desirable at all? Do you like me just the least little bit?

  Those thoughts tumbled through her mind, but she didn’t say any of them aloud. Instead, she asked, “Care to talk about it?”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready yet.” He reached for his T-shirt and slipped it over his head. “I’m too blasted mad.”

  “You can’t chop wood all night long.”

  “I might need to.” He looked up at the clouds. “But I guess you’re right. Looks like it’s going to dump rain on me pretty soon.”

  “Patty went to bed. I think she’s asleep now.”

  “Poor kid. I’ll never understand how a father can reject his daughter like that. No matter what she’s done. No matter how often I see it, I can’t understand it.”

  Karen stuffed her fingers into the back pockets of her Levi’s, determined not to think of her own father. “Dusty, I’m sorry for what I said earlier. About religious fanatics.”

  “I wasn’t insulted.” He surprised her with a brief smile. “It’s the truth. I’d like to change the world to my way of thinking. If that makes me a fanatic, I guess I’ll accept the moniker.”

  “I’ve never known anyone like you,” she muttered, echoing her earlier thought.

  “Karen?” He stepped closer. “You were wonderful this afternoon.”

  She wasn’t sure what he was talking about. She was too aware of how near he was standing and the way the shadow of a beard darkened his jaw. Would his skin feel rough if she ran her fingertips over his cheek?

  “Let’s find out,” he said huskily. “Shall we?”

  “Find out what?”

  “This.” He lowered his head toward hers. Slowly … Oh, so slowly.

  When their lips met, Karen felt a quiver run the length of her. It stole the breath from her lungs and the strength from her knees.

  She was no stranger to sexual attraction, but she was a complete neophyte when it came to true matters of the heart. Love changed everything, she realized now. And it frightened her.

  Perhaps Dusty sensed her uncertainty, for he broke the kiss and drew back. Not far enough. She could still feel the heat of his body, still see the pulse in his throat.

  “I guess that answered that,” he said.

  She meant to reply, but it appeared he’d stolen her ability to speak, too.

  “It complicates things, Karen.”

  “What does?”

  “Falling in love.”

  He couldn’t possibly be saying he loved her. And she wasn’t ready for him to know she loved him. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

  Before she could make a huge mistake, she spun on her heel and walked away from him as quickly as her legs would carry her.

  Wednesday, May 10, 1939

  Dear Diary,

  I received a letter from Mama today. Delphia is engaged to Dutch. They are planning a wedding for the Fourth of July. Sam Draker bought a big new tractor, and almost every farmer in the county showed up at the Draker farm the day it was delivered. The church elders have finally hired a new pastor, and he will arrive soon, much to Mama’s relief since she says Elder Trenton’s sermons are dry as toast.

  Papa has been talking about selling the farm and moving to Boise in order to be closer to Sophia, Mama said he seems to be tired much of the time, and she fears for his health.

  How would I imagine them as living anywhere else than our big old house on the farm? It would be so strange, as if I had lost something. When I am sad and homesick, I can close my eyes and see Mama in the kitchen, preparing one of her wonderful dinners. Or Papa sitting in the corner, smoking his pipe, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he scours the newspaper.

  Often I wish we could go home to America, but Mikkel is certain this is where God has planted us.

  Why that is, I couldn’t say, but here we will remain for now.

  Esther

  Thursday, June 8, 1939

  Dear Diary,

  Today Hannah was delivered of a beautiful baby girl, and I was with her when it happened. I had never helped at a birthing before and, while I have given birth myself, had never witnessed the miracle. Oh, praise God in the highest! If ever I had doubted the existence of our Creator, that doubt would have ended in the early hours of this morning.

  What promise it holds, to see new life begin.

  But the world is troubled, and Mikkel believes darker days are ahead of us. Germany has annexed Czechoslovakia, and Italy has annexed Albania. The threat to neighboring countries is clear, even to someone like me. Anti-Semitism is spreading at an alarming rate as Hitler’s Nazi forces grow and strengthen. There are even some signs of it here in Denmark, although it is an unusual thing for these loving, caring people.

  Yet despite all that is happening in the outside world, for this day we have seen the hand of God at work. A child has been born, healthy and squalling. A daughter for Hannah and Isaac. A sister for Ben and Ruth. A beautiful child with a future already foreseen by God.

  Dear Father in heaven, You have promised that you will give the desires of our hearts to those of us who seek Your face. I have tried to do so. I have tried to know your calling and to walk as Jesus walked when He was here on this earth. Now I come to You, asking You to bless me with another child, a baby to hold in my arms and to love as I was loved by my own mother, as Hannah loves her children. Amen.

  Esther

  NINETEEN

  By morning, Karen had made up her mind. She had to leave this ranch on the edge of nowhere. She must look for employment and another place to live. If she had to, she would flip burgers at the local fast-food joint, but she was going to get out of here before it was too late.

  It complicates things, Karen.

  Maybe it was already too late.

  “I’m not going to love him,” she whispered, lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling as dawn’s light crept across it. “Because he’s right. It does complicate things, and I don’t need complications. I’m not going to love him or these kids or even my grandmother.”

  Could anyone she knew—in the wildest stretch of their imaginations—picture her remaining at this joke of a ranch one moment longer than was absolutely necessary? Of course not. She was an outsider. She didn’t think the way Sophia and Dusty did. She missed the parties and glitter and beautiful people.

  What did those beautiful people ever do for me?

  She winced.

  And what did I ever do for any of them?

  She rolled over, covered her head with her pillow, and tried to blank out her thoughts. She was tired of this soul-searching. Life was simpler when she went through each day unawares, seeking nothing beyond the pleasure of the moment.

  And what would I have to give up?

  Everything, Karen.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”

  Dusty didn’t he
ar much of the sermon that Sunday morning. His thoughts were back at the Golden T … with Karen. For the first time since her arrival, she hadn’t come with them to church. She’d claimed she had a headache.

  He suspected he was the cause of her headache, whether real or imagined.

  Lord, I love her. I want her to work with me with these kids. Look how good she’s been with Patty and with Billy. She’s got a lot to give. I know she does. All she needs is You. So what should I do next?

  He’d learned early in his Christian walk the importance of prayer. He’d learned to pray for things great and small, and he’d learned to watch with expectation to see how God answered. But suddenly he felt adrift at sea, as if he’d broken loose from his anchor.

  Jesus … what’s the answer?

  Sophia’s hand alighted on the back of his. He glanced at her and was comforted by the serenity he saw in her eyes. Blessed assurance. That was what he saw there. He wanted to know that same peace.

  But I won’t as long as I want my own way more than I want God’s will.

  He shifted his gaze forward again, toward the large cross hanging high above the pulpit, the focal point of the sanctuary. He knew he’d discovered the root of his disquiet. He didn’t truly want God’s answer unless it meant getting his own way.

  Sold out to Me. Ah, Lord, I am. I have been. Do you trust Me, beloved? You know I do, Lord.

  Do you believe I love you with an everlasting love?

  Yes.

  Do you believe I love Karen with the same love?

  Yes.

  Then give her to Me.

  Dusty’s old pickup truck ran rough, and Karen wasn’t an expert with a stick shift. But somehow she managed to drive without killing herself.

  She’d found two hundred dollars in the lower drawer of her grandmother’s dresser. It was now tucked safely in her purse. Her suitcase was in the truck bed, and Esther’s diaries and the Bible Sophia had given her were lying on the seat beside her. She’d left a note, promising to repay the money as soon as she could. She’d also promised to return the truck, though why anyone in their right mind would want this piece of junk, she couldn’t say.

  At least she knew they wouldn’t call the cops and have her arrested for car theft. That wasn’t her grandmother’s or Dusty’s indent. They would probably sit at the kitchen table and pray for her.

  “I don’t want their prayers. I’m sick to death of prayers.”

  Two hundred dollars wasn’t going to last long. She would have to find an inexpensive room for the night, then start job hunting in the morning.

  Doing what? Flipping those proverbial burgers?

  She groaned. She’d learned to cook a few things since arriving at the Golden T, but she couldn’t say she enjoyed it enough to do it eight hours a day, five days a week.

  I can ask Mac for help.

  She pressed her lips together, fighting the sudden urge to cry.

  “Why? Why did this have to happen to me?”

  She wasn’t certain what she meant by this. Did she mean her father’s suicide and her sudden loss of all her material possessions? Did she mean never knowing the love of her parents, no matter how hard she’d tried to earn it? Did she mean leaving behind California and everything familiar to her? Did she mean Grandmother Sophia? Or the boys, especially Billy? Or poor, distraught Patty?

  Or did she mean Dusty?

  “Oh, Dusty.”

  Tears swam before her eyes, blinding her. She quickly flicked them away. All she needed was to wreck his truck. Besides, if she was going to die, she didn’t want it to be in a hunk of junk like this.

  Seeing an exit up ahead, she made a quick decision, flipped on her turn signal, and drove off the freeway. She hadn’t a clue where she was, but she didn’t think it mattered much. Wherever it was, she was still lost.

  So very lost.

  Dusty wasn’t surprised when Sophia brought him a slip of paper with Karen’s meticulous handwriting on it. He didn’t have to read it to know what it said. He read it anyway.

  Karen had left them. She’d taken his truck and Sophia’s meager savings, and she’d left them all.

  “Don’t lose hope,” Sophia said softly after he’d finished. “No,” he answered, although he didn’t feel hopeful. “She took the Bible I bought her. And Esther’s journals.” He nodded.

  “Remember, you and I ran away too. But God was there to meet us in His own way, in His own timing. He’ll do no less for Karen.”

  Dusty closed his hands into fists at his sides. “She doesn’t even know she’s running. Or what she’s running from.”

  “Give her time. Give the Lord time to work in her.” “Sold out to Him,” he whispered. “Complete trust.” “What?”

  He met her gaze. “Just something the Lord told me this morning.”

  Sophia didn’t press him to explain.

  Dusty glanced toward the bunkhouse. “I’ll have to tell the boys.”

  “And Patty.”

  All of a sudden, he felt like cursing. “How could she do this to them? She ought to know how much these kids love her. Especially Billy. And Patty. That girl went to her yesterday like a magnet. You saw how it was.”

  “Yes, I saw.”

  “Maybe getting Karen out of here was God’s way of keeping me from making a mistake.” He regretted the words the instant they were out of his mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you.”

  She squeezed his upper arm with frail fingers, smiling sadly. “I understand, Dusty.” Then she turned and walked toward the house, leaving him standing in the yard.

  He closed his eyes as the memory of Karen’s voice played in his head. You can’t save them all. His fingers crinkled the note in his hand into a small ball.

  I turned loose of all that, Jesus, he silently protested. Remember?

  No one can come to Me unless the father who sent Me draws him, just as you were drawn.

  He sighed as the argument drained out of him. He knew what God was speaking to his heart. This was about trusting Him. This was about faith. Believing the unseen even when everything inside him said there was no hope.

  “For who has known the mind of the LORD,” he quoted softly, “or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.”

  With those words, he finally and completely relinquished the woman he loved, the woman he hoped to marry, to God.

  The tiny motel room had stained, olive green shag carpet, curtains that sagged over one small window, an air conditioner that sounded as if it was about to explode, and a lumpy mattress. But it was the best Karen could afford if the two hundred dollars she’d stolen from her grandmother—correct that; the money she’d borrowed—was going to last until she got a job.

  The busy street outside the motel whirred with traffic even this late on a Sunday night, and lights from the passing cars flashed through a tear in the curtains.

  Unable to sleep, Karen switched on the lamp, sat up in bed, and turned on the television. The reception was poor; there was little more than fuzz on the screen. She would find no diversion there.

  She glanced at the books on the table beside the bed. She’d been reading Esther’s diaries for several weeks. It had surprised her, the way those simplistic entries had drawn her into the life of a woman she’d never known. She hadn’t been able to leave the ranch without bringing the journals along. For some strange reason, she wanted to know what had happened to Esther.

  But it was Sophia’s other gift that drew her gaze tonight.

  How many times this summer had she seen Sophia and Dusty reading their well-used Bibles, seen them turn those curling pages, pages filled with underlined and highlighted passages and personal notations in the margins? What, she wondered, caused them to do it, to read those same chapters and verses time and time again? She couldn’t recall reading any book more than once. Not even the ones she’d raved about to others.

  She rea
ched out, touched the Bible, traced the lettering on the cover with the tip of her index finger. Study Bible, it read.

  Her grandmother couldn’t afford to buy this for her. It had been a sacrifice. One she’d gladly made because she loved Karen.

  She lifted the book onto her lap. Ancient writings for an ancient religion—she’d heard a friend describe the Bible that way. And Christianity, he’d said, was a religion that had little to do with today’s world. These were modern times, a time of science and knowledge, a period of history when the human race no longer needed to believe in something bigger, in someone omniscient.

  But that isn’t what Dusty and Grandmother believe. Why is that? What is it they find inside this book?

  She drew the Bible against her chest as she closed her eyes. She imagined Dusty as he worked with those boys. His patience. His smile. His love for them even when they were unlovable. She pictured Sophia, old and frail, a woman who had few creature comforts in her latter years and yet who had an aura of joy for the life she led.

  “I’ve been happy too,” Karen whispered.

  She remembered the day she’d been released from the desire to take her own life. It wasn’t that things had become suddenly easier. It wasn’t that her fortunes had been restored. No, there had simply been a lifting of oppression.

  She recalled the way Billy’s hand felt whenever it had slipped into hers. Dear, darling Billy. He loved Dusty and Sophia’s God too. But he was young and moldable. He hadn’t suffered life’s many disappointments yet. As soon as that thought passed through her mind, she knew it was a lie. Billy had suffered, but he’d also overcome.

  “Miracles. They all believe in miracles. But I don’t. I can’t.” She opened her eyes, glancing toward the diaries on the table. The story within them painted a picture of Sophia as an angry, bitter young woman, bitter because Mikkel had loved Esther and not her. Karen’s mother had described Sophia in much the same way. Yet, that wasn’t the woman Karen knew. Maybe it was a miracle.

  She looked up at the water-stained ceiling. “So tell me,” she said softly. “Just where does a person have to go to get a miracle?”