Log Cabin Christmas

by Margaret Brownley

  At least Sam assumed the garish thing squatting alongside his table used to be his bench. Now swathed in a heap of what looked to be every kind of fur, the thing boasted a swaying skirt of raccoon tails. He sank onto it, ignoring the women, and ignoring the traitorous thought that the bench had never felt half so comfortable before.

  Some things a man can’t approve.

  Some things a woman couldn’t ignore. That night Mina stared at the ceiling, desperately hoping for sleep. But time stretched on, measured by Belinda’s peculiar breathing, until Mina felt forced to face the unvarnished, unsavory truth.

  She needed the necessary. Unfortunately, no conceivable contortion produced the chamber pot from beneath the pallet.

  When her guardian had hauled their luggage out of the old dugout and banished as many pieces as he possibly could to wedge within the already-small loft, Mina had kept quiet. Stewing over his unreasonable rage and ludicrous accusations that she’d stolen—stolen!—both furs and space did no good. But arguments and recriminations would make things worse. Silence did no harm.

  Until now. After prolonged discomfort, Mina wriggled out of the bedclothes and slipped into one of Belinda’s dresses. Her own wouldn’t fit without proper undergarments to cinch her in, but her nurse’s more generously cut items wouldn’t require any assistance. That done, Mina swiftly laced her boots and crept down the ladder.

  Stealth never numbered amongst her strong suits, but she fancied she’d mastered some level of proficiency since her father’s death. Mina’s cousin kept a gimlet eye on her fortune, and thus her every move. Anything she accomplished, she managed by balancing secrecy, smiles, and soundless steps. The practice should serve her well this night, since Mina was still bent on proving to Mr. Carver that space couldn’t be stolen; and that meant she’d never admit his moving the luggage into the loft presented a problem. A rearrangement would serve to correct the issue in the morning.

  Moving slowly, remaining silent, and disturbing as little as possible reigned as Mina’s chief goals. Mina refused to even consider the ensuing conversation should she awaken her already-irked guardian while sneaking out in the dead of night.

  Some things, she fervently believed, ought never be explained. Of course, this situation shouldn’t even exist. Casting blame—no matter how rightfully aimed—brought no comfort or solution beyond her decided course. Sidling past Mr. Carver’s sleeping area toward the door, Mina kept her eyes averted.

  Her ears, however, readily informed her that her guardian slept soundly and well upon the warm cushion of furs she’d laid atop his bed earlier that day. Snug and silent now, those furs were the one thing he’d not protested earlier. Mina allowed a smug smile, knowing her additions made him more comfortable. I wonder whether he didn’t notice them at first, and then was too tired after hauling all the baggage? For that matter, I wonder whether all men will prove as stubborn, or if his disagreeable tendencies are his alone.

  She couldn’t really speculate and wouldn’t waste the time to do so. Her cloak provided welcome warmth, a tangible reassurance. Sliding back the bolt proved challenging; it scraped loudly enough to make Mina fear discovery. When no one roused, she eased open the door and darted through, shutting it again quickly.

  Cold air knifed through her clothing, stabbing with icy blades where her flesh was exposed to the elements. She halted, senses shivering with something more than the chill of the night. An awareness of something … strange.

  No sounds layered the darkness as she might have expected. It was eerily windless, and branches didn’t sway. No hoots called from their recesses above. As hard as she focused—and Mina focused with absolute determination that no creature should catch her unawares in the dead of night—she made out no skittering nearby. Not so much as a rustle among the trees.

  By the time Mina began heading back from the outhouse—thank heaven there was one!—needles of cold pricked about her nose and ears, alternating stings with numbness. Soon she’d be inside, warmed by the fire and protected from any creatures lurking in the darkness.

  Though it wasn’t, she puzzled, as dark as one would expect. The moon held back its guidance; the stars’ glow, shielded by fog, looked as muted as back in London, where a dense miasma of coal dust and fog obscured them. Yet Mina found no difficulty picking her way through the unfamiliar territory. The realization made her clutch her cloak more tightly around herself and seek the dawn on the horizon.

  No warm glows in umber or russet. Golden rays didn’t peak aloft to light her way. She fought the fanciful notion that the earth somehow swallowed the moon, and its pearly polish worked forth from below. How else to explain this luminous sheen blanketed across the earth? The ghostly glow, coupled with the night’s still silence, struck her as alarmingly unnatural.

  Mina picked up her pace, eager for the security of the loft and Belinda’s snurgles. All about, the glow grew brighter until everything even up to the sky seemed illuminated. Then a great, roaring rumble swept toward her from all sides, freezing her in her place as the earth convulsed.

  Chapter 6

  The very ground heaved and rocked, shaking so violently Mina fell flat. The noise and motion carried on, emptying her stomach and filling her heart with dread. She might have stayed clutching the ground were it not for one driving thought.

  Belinda’s in the loft. Oh Lord. The mountain will surely rend in two, collapsing around us, and Belinda is trapped in the least-protected place of all. Please, please, please … Her desperate prayer devolved to the one word as she struggled to her feet, only to be pitched forward again.

  Mina crawled, hampered by her nurse’s large skirts, until able to stand and stagger forward. She finally made it to the doorway of the cabin. Still unbarred, the door flapped open and shut with great fury, snapping at her hands each time she grabbed for the handle. Finally, she caught it, shoved against the wood.

  Powered by the groundswells, the door shoved back with far more force, knocking her to her knees then dragging her forward by dint of her determined clutch to the handle. Once within, Mina let it go, only to have the thing batter her side until strong arms closed around her and jerked her out of the way.

  She spied the fallen ladder and reached for it, snagged by her guardian’s arms still held fast about her waist. “Let go!”

  “Wait, Mina!” Sam tried to argue with her, but she was beyond reason. “There’s nothing you can do now.”

  Mina strained for the ladder as luggage slid around the cabin to block her path and stub her fingers. At the last, the largest trunk came crashing from above mere inches from her outstretched hand. Had Mr. Carver not given her midriff a particularly hard yank, she would have been struck by it.

  Winded, she faltered. When her breath came without gasping, Mina realized the severe quaking had lessened to occasional tremors. Up she sprang, snatching the ladder from Sam’s hands.

  “Belinda!” she shrieked. “Are you all right?” She would have begun up the steps had he not intervened—and Belinda’s reddened face popped over the side.

  “Don’t you go up,” Carver ordered. “Mrs. Banks, best you come down at once.” He nudged Mina aside, kindly keeping his eyes shut and holding the ladder steady as Belinda climbed down.

  Mina enveloped her nurse in her cloak and a tight hug the instant after she touched ground. She found no words to express her worry, her relief, or even her gratitude to Mr. Carver. So after a long moment, she blindly reached out, found his arm, and tugged him close to say, “Thank God. I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  Anyone could see how swiftly the quake laid bare any hidden flaws. Sam surveyed the chaos of his cabin, gaze drawn to Mina as she tended Mrs. Banks. And exposed secret strength.

  But now wasn’t the time to think about that. With the shaking stopped, Sam needed to assess the situation and start making decisions. Middle of the night or not, none of them would manage to sleep again. Too much excitement lingered; too many questions cluttered their thoughts for any hope of rest.


  Was it over? What would they find when they left the relative safety of the cabin come morning? Sam’s gaze snagged on the loft. Now the riot of doubts and questions swirled more slowly, stabbed into the background by sharp fragments of memory.

  The icy whisper a nighttime draft … but the vein of chill air, muffled by the plush furs piled atop his pallet, didn’t prod him fully awake. The cozy cocoon fashioned by his ward slowed Sam’s senses as he blearily sought the source of his discomfort. His makeshift window coverings—not curtains; Sam Carver didn’t rig up anything half so fancy as curtains—lay still, no sign of an errant breeze disturbing a loosened corner.

  A whitish glow seeping around the edges of the window … strangely bright and curiously contrasting against the golden hues thrown by the fire. By the time Sam wrestled his drowsy thoughts and pinned down the source of his unease, that tonight’s new moon shed no light at all, it was too late.

  The warning roared through his nerves with the first rumbling.

  Throwing off the blankets, leaping out of bed, muscles tensed against an invisible threat.

  Then, the pandemonium had thwarted Sam’s attempt to decipher the danger. Now, those jumbled impressions mocked him as he pieced events together.

  The deafening sound rushed toward him as though from all sides, a mass of groaning sod, scraping rocks, and the rumble of rending earth. But the whole thing had rippled from the east, else Sam knew they would have heard the familiar sounds of avalanches from the mountains before the quaking had begun.

  A gasping cry from above … the women in the loft!

  Now, looking back, toward where his ward tucked a shawl around her nurse’s shoulders, Sam scarcely believed it had taken that long to remember the women in the loft. Even if it had been a matter of seconds since the sound had started, a larger principle was at stake.

  Weren’t the women always a man’s first thought when danger struck? No matter how sudden their arrival, no matter that the man just woke from a sound sleep, and no matter how used that man might have become to fending for himself? Sam lowered himself onto a nearby trunk and rubbed the back of his neck.

  A sudden shriek sent him shooting to his feet, hand on his gun. Mrs. Banks abandoned decorum and her earlier complaints of advanced age to scramble atop the bench. But no one knocked at the door. Nothing large remained in the loft to tumble down. No errant sparks shot from the fireplace to light the ladies’ gowns. Mrs. Banks, standing upon the bench—with its new raccoon-tail skirt swaying from her efforts—looked desperately out of place.

  “She saw a mouse.” Mina pointed toward a new chink beside the fireplace where the creature must have disappeared.

  Or have I got it wrong? Sam shook his head and hunkered back down. It could be that his abandonment of polite society and years spent isolated in the wild left him at a disadvantage here. Maybe polite men think of the women first because usually their caterwauling raises the first alarm? After all, how often was the trouble itself louder than the upset lady? The vindicating answer came winging back immediately—not often.

  “‘Twas a rat.” Mrs. Banks spanned her hands ten inches wide before clambering down. “And make no mistake. The thing gave me a start, though normally I’m not given to missish fits.”

  “As well I know,” Mina soothed. “We don’t fault your unsettled nerves tonight, and I can only envy your keen eyes.”

  “Indeed. When I woke to that apocalyptic clamor then realized you were missing, Mina … I feared …” Miss Banks trailed off as though unable to find words to describe her horror.

  They all fell into silence. The idea that the women were reliving the same moments playing in his head, each from a different view, flitted through Sam’s mind before the memories submersed him.

  “Mina!” The older woman’s unearthly shriek blotted out the cacophony, the single word a freezing terror and a call to action. Sam sprung toward the loft ladder, only to be thrown to the floor as the ground buckled beneath him and then heaved upward.

  He had to get them to safety…. Sam swallowed his fear, his pride, and focused. The ladder lay on the ground, coated in dust and continuously pelted with detritus from above. They’d never make it down the ladder, even if he could get it up….

  He couldn’t distinguish whether the furious beating of his blood roared in his ears or if the incredible rumble all around continued as Sam fought his way to his feet onlyto be pitched against the wall. The older woman continued screaming for his ward. Mina …

  “Is she hurt?” He bellowed back to her screeching, no longer standing but crawling toward the ladder. At least he knew his ward didn’t lay crumpled on the ground, flung from the loft.

  Not yet.

  Sickening images of the luggage he’d hefted and shoved in every nook and cranny of those eaves that very afternoon struck him with a fury of guilt and dread. Those trunks, empty of anything to hold them in place, now flew about the cabin, tumbling from above to strike the walls and crash against the floor. Had one—or more—of those pieces of his pride crushed Mina?

  Bile surged into his throat at the thought, choking him.

  “I don’t know!” Mrs. Banks’ scream tore through him. “She’s not here! Where is she? Mina!” The sound of scrabbling accompanied her calls, and Sam suddenly knew the old woman was trying to reach the edge of the loft. If she made it there, he knew she’d be thrown down in an instant.

  “She hasn’t fallen!” He yelled, suddenly frantic to know where his ward was. “Stay where you are!” Only then did he notice the front door wildly flapping open and shut, impossible had it been barred.

  He headed toward it, dodging winged books from above and smoldering logs from the fireplace. Dust and the rolling put them out before the things set the cabin ablaze, but the smoking missiles held a burning heat, making them even more dangerous should someone step on one.

  A muffled shriek of frustration and pain caught his attention as he made out Mina, clinging to the door handle as it dragged her back and forth. She let go, dropping to her hands and knees as the door continued to batter her. Sam pounced forward, grabbing the woman and jerking her out of the door’s swing. The warmth of her, alive and muttering breathlessly, gave him the first dose of relief since he’d heard Mrs. Banks’s cries.

  Until the daft woman started struggling, reaching for the fallen ladder and ordering him to let her go. Obviously, she’d lost any pretense of good sense in her desperation to reach her nurse. Sam’s orders that she wait fell on deaf ears. His arguments that she could do nothing were to no avail.

  Until he spotted the massive trunk as it came crashing down, intent on Mina’s outstretched fingers. Sam wasted no more time on arguments. He simply tightened his grip around her and yanked her back. Blessedly, her fingers remained intact. Even better, she sat, winded, as the groundswells lessened….

  His ward might be a strange creature who packed up and traveled across a continent without male supervision, thwarted scheming relatives, and set him onhis ear by arriving without warning. She might be uppity with terrible taste in wall hangings and no appreciation for how to treat fine furs.

  But Mina surprised him with her courage, her loyalty, and her perseverance. More than anything, she’d reached out and grabbed ahold of a part of him that he’d thought long dead when she included him in her exhausted embrace with her beloved nurse. Her words of gratitude were the most simple, heartfelt prayer Sam had ever heard. “I’m so glad you’re all right….”

  There’d been no warning before the earth lumbered up and began to heave, trying to buck free of the heavy load of humanity. But the real surprise, Sam decided as Mina began bustling about their home, was how shaking up a man’s thoughts left room to appreciate what he might have taken for granted.

  Chapter 7

  Everything was out of place. Every blessed item she and Belinda had so carefully unpacked earlier that day—or had it been yesterday?—had chosen a new home to settle into. Without her permission.

  Mina gradually
took in the extent of the damage as she hunted down her books. Rescuing each of her darlings gave her a purpose. Smoothing bent pages, wiping dust from leather covers, closing broken spines allowed her to restore some sense of order and account for the smallest, and most precious, contingent of her belongings. By the time she’d set them in neat piles atop the table, Mina had allowed herself to look wider and see more.

  Jars of preserves crouched beneath the table, huddled in gooey broken heaps alongside misplaced fire logs, which sank into the protection of calico sacks of flour lining the far wall. The still-sewn sacks, at least. Those bags of flour, cornmeal, coffee, and sugar already in use had burst open in the frenzy of movement, strewing their precious contents across the far reaches of the cabin. Tumbling trunks had ground loose coffee beans into the hard-packed dirt floor, where their flavor could do no good.

  Cloaks, no longer hung on pegs, blanketed unknown odds and ends. The table lamp lay smashed on the floor. Gridirons clattered atop one another as though exhausted from battle. The door hung drunkenly from battered hinges, lopsided even while closed and bolted within its frame. Nothing remained as it had been.

  Except the furs she’d hung. Those, oddly enough, clung to the walls as though afraid to climb down or so proud at having weathered the storm they’d never abandon their posts. Mina’s peculiar spurt of pride spluttered out as Sam started stacking trunks and crates in corners. She rather thought he appreciated the tenacity with which the embellishments held to the cabin walls about as much as he’d welcomed Belinda’s frenzied reaction to the mouse. Namely, not much.

  He’d looked so thunderstruck by the older woman’s revulsion, Mina wondered whether he’d noticed its cause. Not the mouse itself, but that the chimney had shifted enough to allow the creature inside. Should I mention it? Will he take it as an insult to his construction of the cabin he built?