Ruffling Society

by Kay Moser

  CHAPTER 41

  Lee stood on the platform at the end of his railroad car, the cold air whipping his face, and watched the sun set on the horizon behind the growing Rocky Mountains. “Those mountains could still be a hundred miles away,” he cautioned himself, “but I’m getting closer. Every minute I’m getting closer.” He gripped the rail and bowed his head. “Don’t let me be too late, God. Please!”

  ***

  Ceci and Juli went to bed without the slightest resistance. Christine’s heart ached as she watched their dull eyes and downturned lips. Even though she had worked hard all day to divert their minds from Sarah’s plight, they believed they had lost Sarah, lost another loved one.

  “God is still in charge,” she insisted as she stroked their heads. “It’s way too early to give up.”

  When she returned to the small sitting room of the cottage, she found Victoria staring down at a telegram in her hand.

  “What is it?”

  Victoria crumpled the paper. “Just a telegram from Hayden asking for news for Mrs. Novak’s sake. The poor woman is frantic with worry. We have no news!”

  “That could be a good thing.”

  “You mean we haven’t heard that Sarah is dead.”

  Christine nodded.

  “Why can’t they find them?” Victoria’s face flushed with exasperation. “It sounds like they were only gone an hour or so from the group, yet they seemed to have dropped off the earth. If they were on a path the guide knows, why can’t he find them? People don’t just disappear.”

  An urgent-sounding knock stopped her tirade. She stared at the door a second while the knocking continued, then raced to it and flung it open.

  “They found them!” the porter exclaimed, his wrinkled face lit with enthusiasm. “Yes, ma’am, they found the ladies.”

  “Thanks be to God,” Christine exclaimed as she hurried forward. “Where? Oh, never mind that. It doesn’t matter. Are they okay?”

  The porter’s smile vanished.

  “They’re not okay?” Victoria demanded. “What’s happened?”

  “All I know is that one of them’s hurt real bad, and the men are gonna have to bring her up the side of the canyon on a stretcher. The other one’s okay, I think, but they gotta spend tonight in the canyon and wait for daylight before they bring them up.”

  “You don’t know which one is hurt?” Victoria asked. “Didn’t they say anything more? Is it the younger teacher or the older one who is hurt?”

  “They didn’t say, ma’am. A rider just came into town to gather the things they’ll need tomorrow.”

  “Thank you for coming to tell us so quickly,” Christine said as she glanced at Victoria. “I think Mrs. Hodges will want to send a telegram to Texas.”

  “Yes! Yes, Hayden must know as soon as possible, but what should he tell Mrs. Novak?”

  “That they are found, and they are alive, and we will know more tomorrow.”

  “Not that Sarah may be injured?”

  Christine shook her head.

  Victoria turned to the porter. “Would you wait while I write the message and then see that someone takes it to the telegraph office?”

  “You can count on me, ma’am.”

  “How I wish we could get a message to Lee,” Christine said.

  “Good heavens,” Victoria exclaimed. “I forgot all about Lee. The poor man … how slow that train must seem.”

  “At least he’ll find out that Sarah is alive when he arrives early in the morning.”

  ***

  Lee bounded off the train at the Boulder station at six the next morning, raced to the station master’s window seeking information, and received the same news Victoria and Christine had the night before. When the station master learned who Lee was, he called a boy from the back and told him to take Lee downtown where he could join the search team preparing to go into the canyon to look for the professor.

  An hour later, Lee found himself in a wagon jostling along a rutted road that led toward the mountains. The driver offered Lee some cold biscuits and turned out to be a real talker. With what Lee hoped were exaggerations, the man told him about several rescues he had been involved in. When they began the steeper part of the climb up the canyon road, he pointed out the beauties and wonders of the canyon, but Lee saw only dangerously high walls of sheer rock and imagined Sarah falling from them. In spite of objections from his conscience, he prayed that Sarah was not the injured party.

  After what seemed like a full day to Lee, they arrived at a wider spot in the valley where grassy acres sided the bounding creek. The driver stopped the wagon in a cluster of mules and other wagons where men were forming themselves into groups to head farther up the canyon to find Augustus. Lee insisted that someone take him to the spot where Sarah or her friend had fallen, but they refused.

  “Mountain Jack is bringing them down,” one of the men explained, “and he and the boys would’ve started working at it at first light. It’s right on to ten o’clock now, and we oughta be seeing them coming down real soon.”

  Lee could not bear to stand around and wait. “Well, just point the way, and I’ll start walking up to meet them.”

  “Listen, son, this ain’t the flatlands. Up here you gotta do a lot of waiting, and this is one of them times you gotta wait. That’s all there is to it.”

  “This Mountain Jack—you’re sure he knows his business?”

  The men laughed. “He’s the best. That girl you love can’t be in better hands.”

  “How do you know I love her?” Lee demanded, and the men laughed harder, slapping each other and Lee on the back. Lee nodded. “Guess that’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  The men sobered, looked at each other. “Listen, son, she may be hurt awful bad. One of them is, you know.”

  “I know.”

  He walked away and found a boulder to lean against that gave him a clear view up the trail.

  ***

  Sarah braced herself against the jostling and jolting of the mule-drawn wagon and held the hand of unconscious Bert. Only her fear for Bert kept her exhausted nerves in check and enabled her to remain vigilant. Watching Bert being lifted up the side of the canyon, her litter hanging from ropes and swaying from side to side, had petrified Sarah. She had collapsed down below the moment she knew Bert was safe.

  “Take a deep breath and recover yourself ’fore I take you up,” Mountain Jack had said.

  “Surely I don’t need to go up like Bert did!”

  “No, that ain’t gonna be necessary. We gotta plenty of rope, and I’ll take you up with me.”

  Sarah remembered his “walk” down the side of the mountain, his life dependent on a single rope, and she’d blanched.

  “Don’t you be worrying now. We got strong mules and strong men to pull us up. Just gotta get ourselves tied up securely, and we’ll be just fine.”

  Sarah had nodded. Anything to get Bert to a doctor. “What about Smoky?”

  “We’ll get him up the same way. Could just shoo him off, and he’d find his way down to the clearing, but seeing as he’s hurt, and we’re in a hurry—”

  “You mean he could have left us? He could have just gone down to the clearing at any time?”

  “Would have taken him quite a while, but ole Smoky could find his way back to town if he had to.”

  “But he didn’t leave us.”

  “I figure that’s one of them miracles you mentioned.”

  An especially rough rock of the wagon brought Sarah’s exhausted mind back to the present. She looked down at Bert’s dirty, bruised face and Smoky curled up beside her. Miracle on miracle. I’ll never even know how many. I know about the cat, but what other dangerous animals came close to us and were turned away? Her hand shook as she gingerly brushed Bert’s hair away from the gash in her forehead. And there is the miracle of revelation, of realignment of my priorities. My own private miracle, one I’ll share in several weeks with Lee when I see him again.

  As the wagon moved on, the scenery be
came more familiar to Sarah. We’re approaching the clearing where this whole nightmare began. She sighed. How good it would be to get back to Boulder, to see Victoria and Christine. How good to return to the normalcy of classes, meals in the dining hall surrounded by chattering teachers, and lectures and concerts in the auditorium. Her mind leapt to the future. How good it will be to step off the train in Riverford and be able to talk to Lee! I wonder … will he meet my train?

  Sarah closed her eyes and pictured him on the platform, waiting for the moment when she returned to his life. When I return to his arms …

  “Sarah!” The wagon rolled over a large stone and threw her to its wooden floor just as she heard her name called. Dazed, she sat up and peered around.

  “Sarah!” She heard her name again, and the voice sounded so much like Lee’s she assumed she was becoming delirious.

  Then someone jumped into the wagon bed, swaying the vehicle from side to side, and lifted her off the floor. She stared up at the owner of the strong hands and blinked in disbelief.

  “Sarah … oh, Sarah … my love. Thank God!”

  Tears sprang from her eyes as she gasped, “Lee? But how could you be—”

  He enfolded her in his arms and pressed her to his chest. “It’s a miracle,” he whispered into her hair. “A miracle!”

  She snuggled under his chin. “You have no idea … so many miracles.”

  Acknowledgments

  To God be the glory for the things He has done in my life and in my writing!

  Thank you to the 70,000+ Hearties (the fans of “When Calls the Heart”) for continuing to stand with me in our mutual fight for faith-friendly, family-friendly entertainment. We have shown the world that when a small group of determined people demand decent entertainment, they will be heard. Onward, Hearties!

  Thank you to my readers for your ongoing faithful support of my writing. May God continue to bless your lives, and may He allow me to play some small part in that blessing.

  Thank you to Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas for publishing the Aspiring Hearts Series and for providing me with a superior team of support staff. I am especially grateful for the skill, wisdom, and grace of Ann Tatlock. Thank you for having confidence in me, Ann. Denise Weimer provided many hours of editorial work which have improved this novel. Thank you, Denise.

  Thank you to Diana Flegal, my outstanding agent, for believing in my writing and for embracing God’s call on her life in spite of all obstacles.

  Other novels by Kay Moser

  The Celebration Series

  Celebration!

  Rachel D’Evereau has everything the world can offer—wealth and prestige, striking beauty, a successful husband, and a profession she loves. Yet, when a series of catastrophes begin to shatter the secure, comfortable walls that surround her life, she is forced to admit long-suppressed feelings of insecurity and worthlessness.

  Rachel returns to her ancestral plantation home where she confronts the painful secrets that have haunted and challenged members of her family for generations. Her quest to rekindle the spiritual flames that guided her as a child take her on an unexpected journey, a journey from darkness into light.

  Celebration! is a sweeping saga filled with characters whose lives blaze across the pages of history, from the genteel South of the early 1800’s to the tumultuous landscapes of modern America. It is also a powerful and moving novel that captures the journey each of us must take if we are to accept our true identity as God’s worthy children.

  Glimpse of Splendor

  Forever changed by a bullet, international journalist Mark Goodman redefines success: Live life—Walk again—Return home to Louisiana to claim his first and only love, Rachel D’Evereau.

  Recently widowed, Rachel has returned to her ancestral plantation, Belle St. Marie, to search for peace.

  Finally healed of his injury, Mark plans a surprise visit home to claim his beloved. The time is perfect. Or so Mark thinks.

  Upon his arrival, he encounters obstacles he never expected. A political race endangers his family’s longstanding honor. Rachel’s dysfunctional family and the infidelity of her deceased husband have left her feeling worthless, detached from God, and ready to marry Louis Simone, a wealthy suitor who offers her a life of ease.

  Has Mark arrived in time?

  Will Rachel find the true basis of her worth and be freed to love again?

  Set against the backdrop of Louisiana’s intriguing 20th century plantation culture, Glimpse of Splendor engulfs the reader in the sustained wind of steadfast love—both human and divine, the cleansing breeze of forgiveness, and the roar of Louisiana politics.

  The Charleston Series

  Counterfeit Legacy

  Caroline Bradford Randolph is a Dallas socialite who has discovered that neither her wealth nor the legacy of her famous Charleston, S.C. ancestors can satisfy her deepest longings. When a freakish storm gives Caroline the chance to hold the most cherished Bradford heirloom in her hands for the first time, she discovers that it contains a secret that may well destroy the prestigious legacy of the Bradfords. Since Caroline has based her life on this legacy, hard choices loom ahead for her.

  Should she cover up her discovery in order to protect her marriage to wealthy industrialist David Randolph? Or should she investigate the truth of her proud ancestry in hopes of finding the fulfillment she so desperately needs?

  Counterfeit Legacy will captivate you as you travel with Caroline through the trials and questions of her contemporary life into the secrets of her ancestors.

  David’s Gift

  David Randolph, owner of an international corporation, is one of Dallas’ most admired men. His enormous wealth and power give him control over thousands of lives, including that of his beautiful wife, Caroline. From Texas to London to Tokyo, David wields his power ruthlessly just as his father taught him to.

  However, behind his facade of bravado, David is crumbling and tormented by nightmares.

  What is disturbing him so drastically? Why the anxiety, the doubts, the shattered self-image?

  Only David knows the truth about his first marriage and the death of his first wife, Danielle.

  Can he continue to hide the truth about his past deeds from Caroline? If he does, will be miss out on the greatest gift of his life?

  Can anyone or anything teach David that happiness grows from one’s center to one’s surface and that joy comes only when one gives oneself away?

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