Ruffling Society

by Kay Moser

  “To Colorado!”

  Mrs. Logan turned to Hayden. “He can’t be serious. We have to stop him. It will take days.”

  “If he can catch the last train out of here, he can catch the early mail train from Fort Worth to Denver. Since the mail train makes very few stops, he could be there in a solid twenty-four hours.”

  “What about the bank?” Lavinia asked.

  “I’ll go alert General Gibbes. Tell Lee we’ll keep the bank going, and ask him to telegraph us any news.” Hayden turned to go.

  “Wait, Hayden.” Mrs. Logan reached for his arm. “Is Victoria all right?”

  “I don’t know. This can’t be good for her, I’m sure.”

  “In her last letter she wrote that she was feeling back to her normal self. You must hang on to that,” Mrs. Logan encouraged.

  Hayden nodded, made a cursory bow to her, and strode off the porch.

  “This is going to be a long night,” he heard Mrs. Logan tell Lavinia.

  “Several long nights,” he muttered.

  CHAPTER 40

  The night seemed endless to Sarah. The canyon had darkened early, just as she had predicted, and cold, damp air had settled in. Earlier Sarah had moved Bert to the best spot she could find, a group of rocks that had warmed all afternoon in the sun, well away from the creek’s bone-chilling mists. She pulled Smoky close to one side of Bert, while she hovered over the other side. Bert fell into a deep sleep, her breathing slowing to a pace that worried Sarah.

  As the minutes ticked away, Sarah’s senses strained to know what was happening around her. She could not hear over the constant rush of the creek; she could see little in the faint moonlight that lit the canyon. She watched Smoky. He must be my hearing, my sight. She looked up at the heavens. She quivered. With cold? With fear? Stay near, Lord!

  Every time Smoky’s head jerked up and his ears rose, a wave of panic washed through Sarah. Grasping a sizable tree limb, the closest thing to a club she had been able to find, she held her breath, but her mind filled with a list of possible dangers. She fought back with Scripture. “God is our hope and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear.” God is my hope, my strength. He is here!

  When Smoky settled back down to his restful pose, Sarah’s panic ebbed, but her watchfulness remained.

  Many hours into the darkness of the night, Smoky sprang to his feet and growled. Sarah sat bolt upright, her heart racing, her ears straining. The dog growled louder, and Sarah cringed at the reply of a large cat. Smoky sprang from the rock and raced into the darkness. A moment later, Sarah was sickened by the hideous sounds of the fight for supremacy between the dog and the wild cat. She sprang to her feet, club in hand, fear tearing through her body.

  A command roared into her mind. O clap your hands together, all ye peoples; O sing unto God … Shocked by the command, but determined to obey, she dropped the club and clapped her hands together with all her strength as she sang louder than she had ever sung before. “‘O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.’”

  “Sarah!” Bert cried out. “What’s wrong?”

  Over her friend’s frantic voice, Sarah heard the snarls and barks of the fight below her. She stood taller, clapped her hands harder, and forced her voice to boom into the darkness. “‘Under the shadow of Thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure; sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defense is sure.’”

  Bert began to clap, and, lifting her feeble voice, joined in.

  “‘A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone; short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun.’”

  Bert’s weakened voice dwindled, but Sarah blasted the darkness with the final verse. “‘O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, be Thou our guard while troubles last, and our eternal home.’”

  Both women stopped singing. Only the sound of the rushing creek remained below. No barks, no growls. No sound of Smoky.

  Bert grabbed at Sarah’s skirt. “Oh, Sarah! That cat has killed Smoky.”

  Sarah refused to look down or to turn away from the canyon. She raised her bruised hands and shouted, “‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?’” Then she waited, standing tall at the edge of the rock, her hands uplifted.

  Bert released her handful of Sarah’s skirt and sank back to the rock with a moan.

  Sarah listened, her ears straining to discern any sound other than the creek. Then she heard it … the sound of something slipping through the brush beneath the rock. Sarah peered into the darkness close by her feet. She raised her hands higher and shouted, “‘The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?’”

  Smoky emerged from the brush and, struggling valiantly, tried to climb onto the rock. Sarah reached down and helped him pull his bloodied body up. He slumped down at Bert’s side.

  “He’s alive,” Bert said. “What does this mean, Sarah? What about the cat? Smoky couldn’t possibly have killed a mountain cat.”

  “No, but with the help of God, he can stop one.”

  “Oh, poor brave Smoky,” Bert crooned. She looked up at Sarah. “What can we do to help him?”

  Sarah sank down beside the dog and sobbed as she stroked his head. “Nothing now,” she finally managed to croak out. “But when dawn comes—”

  “When dawn comes, you must go, Sarah.”

  “No, Bert, I won’t leave you.”

  “But you must! You cannot die here because of me. You must follow the creek down the slope. You know it will lead you to the clearing, to help. You cannot wait any longer; you will lose your strength.”

  “I will not leave you, Bert.”

  “Sarah, you are young. Your life is all ahead of you. You must save yourself and go on with your life. You have so much to contribute.”

  “I will not trade the life of a friend for a teaching career, Bert.”

  “There is so much more to life—so much more than you know, so much more than you’ve been told ...” Bert fell silent.

  “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Don’t listen to us old maids, Sarah. We insist our lives are full, but they are not. Don’t sacrifice love for a classroom of children who will hate you half the time and forget you soon after they graduate from your class.”

  “But all my life I have fought for my own education. My mother has fought; she has sacrificed. So many have sacrificed for me. Victoria, Christine, Maude … What are you saying? Turn my back on my own efforts? Ignore the price that has been paid for my education? Return to the farm?”

  “No!” Bert clutched at Sarah’s arm. “Move forward with your teaching vocation, but when love comes—and it will come to a girl as pretty as you are—grab it. Make it your first priority.”

  “And abandon teaching? You know society won’t let me do both.”

  “I don’t know that. Neither do you. Times are changing; women are rising and demanding their rights. The new century won’t be like this one. If you fight, you can have more, but if you have to choose, then choose love, Sarah. Choose love! Don’t end up like me.”

  Bert slumped back on the rock, and fear shot through Sarah. She scrambled to Bert’s side and, holding her own breath, struggled to hear Bert’s. She could not.

  Frantic, Sarah sprang to her feet and tilted her head up to the sky. She saw that the first light had come. Dove gray replaced the inky blackness, and at the highest tip of the craggy mountain, she detected a touch of pale yellow.

  “Dawn is coming,” she breathed, then raised her voice as she fell back to her knees by Bert’s side. “Don’t give up, Bert. Dawn is coming!” Sarah wrapped her fingers around Bert’s throat and felt the weak throbbing of her pulse. She lay down, covered Bert’s cold body with her own, and waited for the light to increase, the sun to warm them.

  ***

  At the sanitarium, Victoria stood arm in arm with Christine at the east-facing window of Christ
ine’s cottage and insisted that once dawn came, she was going to look for Sarah.

  Christine shook her head. “We are useless in the search; in fact, we may well slow them down.”

  Both fell silent, lost in their own prayers.

  ***

  Lee Logan stared out the train window at the bleakness of West Texas, longing to see mountains, trying to will the train to fly over the rails.

  ***

  In Riverford, Hayden stood on the front verandah waiting for General Gibbes to pass on his morning stroll. When the old man approached the gate of Hodges House, Hayden hurried down the sidewalk to join him. Neither man spoke; they just walked together.

  ***

  Mountain Jack crouched before a campfire, a tin cup of coffee in his hand, and waited for the volunteers coming from Boulder to help search for the missing teachers.

  ***

  When sunlight hit Sarah’s face, her eyes flashed open. Realizing where she was, she sat up so quickly her head swam.

  “How could I? How could I fall asleep?” She berated herself as she searched the sky, located the angle of the sun, and gasped, “It could be ten o’clock!”

  She made a quick examination of Bert, who slumbered on, her mouth open, her breathing raspy and shallow. On the rock beside Bert, she found blood.

  “Smoky! Where’s Smoky?” Sarah clamored to her feet and scanned the area. “Dear God! He helped save our lives. Don’t let him be—” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word dead. She scrambled down the hillside to the stream. “Smoky! Smoky! Where are you, boy?”

  A sharp bark answered her call, and she followed it until she found him sitting by the water licking a wound on his haunch. Sarah threw herself down by him, and he whined and barely thumped the rock with his tail. “Oh, poor boy! Brave boy, good boy,” Sarah murmured as Smoky turned back to licking his wounds. “You got us through the night.” She paused as the memory of the fight with the wildcat flooded over her. “You and God. In all my life I never imagined that one night I would be singing at the top of my lungs in a mountain canyon.” But it worked. Now what do I do?

  Sarah answered her own question. “Drink and take water up to Bert somehow. I don’t think she could ever get down to the creek, and even if she did, when night comes again—” Sarah stopped and swallowed hard. “Oh dear God! Help them find us. Don’t let us stay here another night.”

  Sarah brought water to Bert by soaking the cleanest remnant of her petticoat, carrying the dripping cloth to her friend, and wringing the creek water into her mouth. Once again Bert encouraged her to save herself by hiking downstream, and Sarah refused. Instead, she inspected the hillside up and down the creek, searching for a place she could climb up and be in a better position to attract the attention of anyone nearby.

  “They will find us before nightfall,” she repeatedly told Bert, but Bert grew weaker and less able to respond until finally she fell into what seemed to be a coma. By mid-afternoon, Sarah could no longer rouse her. She sat next to Bert’s side, stroking Smoky’s head, and remembering Bert’s advice about her life choices.

  If I were given another chance at life … if ... what would I do differently? What have I learned here in the depths of this canyon?

  She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, lowered her head, and concentrated. Images of farm life, especially the nightmare of her childhood, floated through her mind. The glare of the hot summer sun; the fields of blinding white cotton blazing all the way to the horizon; the hunger and thirst; her father’s angry desperation; her mother’s determination. She remembered Victoria’s welcoming smile, the books, the art, the security of Hodges House with its abundance of food, its certainty of ongoing order. Christine floated in and out of Sarah’s mind. Christine saving her mother from heat prostration and hunger in the church; Christine visiting the farm, always bringing gentleness and peace; Christine at the piano … oh, there were no words for the joy the music brought to Sarah! She had wanted everything they represented, so she had studied and manipulated her father and worked long nights until she earned her degree.

  “And now I have it! For what? To die in a mountain canyon?” Sarah stood, jumped off the rock, and paced. “For this?” She flung her arm at the roaring stream and the walls of rock. “For this I have worked so hard? For this I am to lose Lee? I am to lose my chance to teach?”

  Amazed by her own words, both hands flew to her mouth. “You said ‘Lee’ first!” she accused herself. “You did! I heard you.” She slumped down on a rock. “I heard you,” she repeated more softly.

  “Oh, dear God, that was my heart speaking, wasn’t it? I love him so much!” She burst into hysterical tears and made no effort to curb them. “I had to come here, to this desperate situation, to hear my heart. Oh God, I am such a stubborn fool! Bert and I had to be reduced to this before she would speak the truth, before I would hear it. And now it is too late.” The awfulness of their situation overwhelmed her, and she sobbed freely, allowing the tears to flow down her cheeks and drip off her nose and chin.

  Smoky whined and licked at her face, but she cried on until she exhausted herself. She fell over on her side and, thoroughly despondent, lay on the ground. The sun soon disappeared behind the highest rock, leaving her in the cold shade, but still she lay there, a captive of her depression and physical weakness. Smoky settled next to her, but she found no comfort in his presence; she was facing another night lost in the mountains, and she was certain Bert would not survive it. I cannot just lie here … I cannot give up … I cannot …

  Smoky jumped to his feet and barked loudly. Sarah’s heart leapt into a full gallop. Another cat! She sat up and watched in wonder as Smoky ran straight to the canyon wall and began trying to scramble up it. “Smoky,” Sarah called. “Smoky, what are you—”

  A new thought slammed into her mind. “He heard something. He heard someone.” She yelled as loudly as she could. “Here! Down here! Help!”

  No response, but Smoky continued his desperate attempt to climb the canyon wall. Every time he started up, he fell back to the ledge and nearly came tumbling over the side.

  “No, Smoky,” Sarah screamed. “Come back. You’ll fall. Come back!” Sarah began trying to climb up to him. “Stay, boy! Stay!”

  “You stay, miss!” a voice boomed back at her. From the top of the canyon, Mountain Jack waved his hat at her. “Go back down and wait. Everything’s gonna be all right. Quiet, Smoky!” He disappeared, and seconds later she heard a gunshot echo through the mountains.

  She sank to the ground, her hands clasped and raised to her lips. “Oh thank you, God! Thank you.” Tears sprang from her eyes and formed rivulets down her dusty face.

  When Mountain Jack returned, he backed off the cliff, a rope around his waist, a bundle on his back. Sarah watched in awe as he walked his way down the canyon side until he reached Smoky, where his rope ran out. He shouted down to her. “Get out of the way. I’m coming down and probably bringing a rock slide with me.”

  He picked up Smoky and slid down the hill on his side. When he landed hard, Sarah ran to him, and he grinned up at her through the dust whirling around him. “Well, that weren’t my best show, but I guess it’ll have to do.”

  He released Smoky, who began licking his face. “Ah, get on with you.” He shoved the dog off him and stood, smiling down at Sarah. “Well, you sure know how to hide, Miss. Outsmarted me good and proper.”

  Sarah flew at him and buried her face in his chest.

  “Hey there,” he exclaimed as he gingerly patted her shoulder. “Be careful, or you’ll send me back down on my backside, and it’s gonna be sore enough as it is. Where are your friends?”

  “Friends?”

  “The other lady teacher and the professor.”

  “Bert is over there; she’s injured and unconscious. But Dr. Wickham went back to the camp to get you.”

  “Ain’t seen hide nor hair of ‘im.” Mountain Joe shook his head. “Durn fool of a man! Ain’t nothing more dangerous than som
eone who thinks he knows the mountains when he don’t. Now I gotta send some of the boys out to look for him. Let’s see the lady.” Mountain Joe headed toward Bert.

  Sarah hovered as he examined her. “What do you think? Can we get her back to town in time to save her?”

  Mountain Jack looked up at the sky. “We ain’t going up that canyon wall today, that’s for sure. Light’s failing us, and we’re gonna need help. Gonna have to stay here tonight.”

  “But she won’t survive! We have to try to get her to town.”

  “We’re gonna have a hard enough time come morning, with more volunteers. You may be surprised what a little food and a warm fire will do for her.” He walked away from Sarah, and putting his fingers to his mouth, produced the loudest whistle she had ever heard, over and over until a gun fired in the distance. “Well, they know pretty much where we are. Take ’em an hour or so to get here. Let’s see what we can do for your friend. Wouldn’t hurt you none to eat too.”

  “Another night in this canyon?” Sarah shivered at the thought.

  Mountain Jack comforted her as he dug into the burlap sack he had brought down with him and produced a hunk of cornbread. “You won’t be alone this time.”

  Sarah nodded as she took the food. “I wasn’t alone last night either,” she murmured.

  “Well, of course your friend was here … and good ole Smoky. What happened to him anyway? Why’s he so bloodied up?”

  “He had a fight with some kind of big cat.”

  “And won? Well, I’ll be … Mountain lion can usually take out a dog with one swat. That’s some kind of miracle.”

  Tears filled Sarah’s eyes as she nodded. “We’ve had lots of miracles down here.”

  “Kinda hard to get lost from God, ain’t it?” Mountain Jack walked away but called back, “Let’s get a fire started, make some coffee.”

  Sarah looked up the canyon, letting her eyes rise slowly to the sunset-tinted sky around the highest craggy peak. O thank you, God! Never let me get lost from you. Never, please!