A Creed Country Christmas

by Linda Lael Miller

  Lincoln lit lanterns. Left the cabin again to make sure the children were all right and the barn chores got done.

  Juliana, as preoccupied with tending to Rose-of-Sharon as she was, barely breathed until he came back.

  It was well into the night when the crisis finally came; too exhausted to scream, Rose-of-Sharon convulsed instead, her eyes rolling back into her head, her back curved high off the mattress in an impossible arch.

  The baby slipped from her then, a tiny, bluish creature, soundless and still.

  Tom caught the little form in his cupped hands.

  Was the child dead? Juliana waited to know, felt Lincoln waiting, too.

  And then Tom smiled, grabbed up one of the discarded blankets and wrapped the baby in a clean corner of the cloth. “Welcome, little man,” he said. “Welcome.”

  The infant boy squalled, such a small sound. So full of life and power.

  Tears slipped down Juliana’s cheeks.

  Rose-of-Sharon, spent as she was, seemed lit from within, like a Madonna. She reached out for the baby, and Tom laid him gently in her arms.

  “Get Ben,” Rose-of-Sharon murmured. “Please get my Ben.”

  Juliana heard the door open as Lincoln rushed to do the girl’s bidding, felt a rush of cold air, and shielded mother and child from the draft as best she could. Only minutes later, Lincoln returned with the new father.

  Ben approached the bed slowly, a man enthralled, hardly daring to believe his own eyes.

  “Come see,” Rose-of-Sharon said, the last shreds of her strength going into her wobbly smile. “Come and see your son, Ben Gainer.”

  The room seemed to tilt all of the sudden, and the world went dark. Juliana was barely aware of being lifted out of her chair next to the bed, bundled tightly into her cloak, lifted into strong arms.

  Lincoln’s arms.

  She felt his coat enfold her, too, the way it had in the wagon, on the way out from town. “I’ve got to stay,” she managed to say, blinking against the blinding fatigue that had risen up around her between one moment and the next. “They’ll need—”

  “Hush,” Lincoln said.

  Even in the bitter cold, she felt only the warmth of him as he carried her through the snow and into the main house. A single lantern burned in the middle of the kitchen table, but the room was empty. What time was it?

  “The children…?”

  “Theresa put them to bed hours ago,” Lincoln said, making no move to set her on her feet. Instead, he took her through the house, along the corridor, into a room several doors down from hers.

  He laid her on the bed, covered her quickly with a quilt, tucked it in tightly around her.

  The fatigue reached deep into her mind, into her very marrow. She tried to get a handhold on consciousness, but the strange darkness kept swallowing her down again.

  She was aware of Lincoln moving about, now removing her shoes, now opening a bureau drawer.

  “Lincoln?” she asked, scrambling back up the monster’s throat only to be swallowed once more.

  She knew when he left the room, knew when he came back, after what seemed like a long time, but could not have said which of her senses had alerted her to the leaving and the returning. She could not seem to fix on anything; she wasn’t asleep, and yet she wasn’t fully awake, either.

  Lincoln was lifting her again, carrying her again, still cocooned in the quilt. When had she last felt so safe, so cared-for? Surely not since early childhood, when she’d had two loving parents and a brother.

  “Where…?”

  “Shh,” he said.

  The sound of running water and the misty caress of steam roused her a little. Lincoln stood her on her feet, supporting her with one arm, peeling away her clothes with the other hand.

  He was undressing her.

  But suddenly it seemed the most normal thing in the world for him to be doing. There was no fear in her, no resistance.

  He helped her into the bathtub, and the warmth of the water, the soothing, blessed heat, encompassed her. Of course, she thought, drifting. She’d been soaked in poor Rose-of-Sharon’s blood.

  Her dress had surely been ruined, and she could not spare it.

  Helpless tears welled in her eyes.

  “My dress,” she lamented in a despairing whisper. In that moment, she was grieving over so much more than the best of her three calico gowns. Her mother, her father. Grandmama and Clay. She had lost them all, and she could bear no more of such losing.

  “There are other dresses,” Lincoln told her, lifting her again, drying off her bare skin with soft swipes of a rough towel, pulling a nightgown on over her head. It felt soft and worn, and the scent—rosewater and talcum powder—was not her own.

  Supporting her with one arm around her waist—why was she so weak?—he guided her out into the corridor again. Past the door to the room she’d been sharing with Billy-Moses and Daisy.

  “The children,” she protested.

  “Theresa’s with them,” he told her.

  He took her back to his room—a slight, wicked thrill flickered through her at the realization—and put her into his bed.

  She began to weep, with weariness and with relief, because, out in the little cabin, sorrow had drawn so near and then passed on. For now.

  Lincoln sat down on the edge of the mattress. Kicked off his boots. In the next moment, he was under the covers with her, fully clothed, holding her close. Just then, Juliana knew only two things: she’d be ruined for sure, and she’d die if he let her go.

  He did not let her go—several times during the night, she awakened, gradually growing more coherent, and felt his arms around her, felt his chest warm beneath her cheek.

  When she opened her eyes the next time, all weariness gone, she found herself looking straight into Lincoln’s face. By the thinning darkness, she knew dawn would be breaking soon.

  “Since we just spent the night in the same bed,” Lincoln said reasonably, as though they’d been discussing the subject for hours and now he was putting his foot down, “I think we’d better get married.”

  Juliana stared at him, her eyes widening until they hurt. “Married?”

  He merely smiled.

  She swallowed. “But—surely—”

  The door creaked open. “Papa?” Gracie’s voice chimed. “Theresa can’t find Miss Mitchell and—”

  Juliana wanted to pull the covers up over her head, hide, but it was too late. Gracie, fleet as a fairy, was beside the bed now.

  “Oh,” she said, in a tone of merry innocence, “there you are!”

  “Gracie—” Lincoln began.

  But she cut him off by shouting, “Theresa! I found Miss Mitchell! She’s right here in Papa’s bed!”

  Juliana groaned.

  Lincoln laughed. “Miss Mitchell has something to tell you, Gracie,” he said.

  “What?” Gracie asked curiously.

  Juliana drew a very deep breath, let it out slowly. “Your father and I are getting married,” she said.

  “I’m going to have a mama?” Gracie enthused. “That’s even better than a dictionary!”

  “You go on back to bed now,” Lincoln told his daughter.

  She obeyed with surprising alacrity, fairly dancing through the shadows toward the door.

  “That,” Juliana told Lincoln, in a righteous whisper, “was a very underhanded thing to do.”

  He sat up, clothes rumpled, swung his legs over the side of the bed, then leaned to pull his boots back on. He was humming under his breath, a sound like muted laughter, or creek water burbling along under a spring sky.

  “Soon as the snow melts off a little,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken at all, “I’ll send for somebody to marry us. Probably be the justice of the peace, since the circuit preacher only comes through when the spirit moves him.”

  She could have protested, but for some reason, she didn’t.

  Lincoln added wood to the hearth fire and got it crackling again. “You might as well go bac
k to sleep,” he said. “Rest up a little.”

  Juliana lay there, the covers pulled up to her chin, and reviewed what had just happened. She’d accepted a proposal of marriage—of sorts. It was as unlike what she’d imagined, both as a girl and as a grown woman, as it could possibly have been.

  It was all wrong.

  It was wildly unromantic.

  Why, then, did she feel this peculiar, taut-string excitement, this desire to sing?

  Sleeping proved impossible. The children were up; she could hear their voices and footsteps. Besides, she was rested.

  She must get dressed, do something with her hair, put on her cloak and go out to the cabin to look in on Rose-of-Sharon and the baby. Suppose the fire had gone out and they took a chill?

  Rising, she realized that yesterday’s calico, no doubt beyond salvaging anyhow, had disappeared. A pretty blue woolen frock with black piping lay across the foot of the bed—Lincoln’s doing, she reflected with a blush. A garment his wife must have owned, since it did not look matronly enough to belong to his mother, as the oversize nightgown probably did.

  For a moment, she considered her remaining dresses, both frayed at the seams and oft-mended, both worn threadbare. Both inadequate for winter weather.

  She put on the lovely blue woolen, buttoned it up the front. Except at the bosom, where it was a little too tight, it fit remarkably well.

  The children, she soon discovered, had assembled in the kitchen. Seated around the table, they all stared at her as though she’d grown horns during the night. Lincoln was making breakfast—eggs and hotcakes—and Tom was just stepping through the back door, stomping snow off his boots.

  Juliana forgot her embarrassment. “Rose-of-Sharon?” she asked, her breath catching. “How is she? How is the baby?”

  Tom’s smile flashed, bright as sunshine on snow. “She’s just fine, and so is the little man,” he said. “I don’t reckon she’d mind some female company, though.”

  Juliana nodded, looking back at the children. “No lessons today,” she said. With the exception of Gracie, they looked delighted. “And I expect you all to behave yourselves.”

  They all nodded solemnly, from Joseph right on down to Billy-Moses and Daisy. Their eyes were huge, though whether that was due to the blue dress or the fact that she’d spent the night in Lincoln Creed’s bedroom and everyone in the household seemed to know it, she could not begin to say.

  She looked about for her cloak, realized that it had probably been hopelessly stained, like her dress.

  “Take my coat,” Lincoln said.

  Juliana hesitated, then lifted the long and surprisingly heavy black coat from its peg and put it on, nearly enveloped by it. With one hand, she held up the hem, so she wouldn’t trip or drag the cloth on the ground.

  She stepped outside into the first timorous light of day, and immediately noticed that the eaves were dripping. The snow was slushy beneath her feet.

  Would Lincoln ride to town and fetch back the justice of the peace, now that the weather was changing? A quivery, delicious dread overtook her as she hurried toward the Gainers’ cabin. Light glowed in the single window, and smoke curled from the stovepipe chimney.

  She could refuse to marry Lincoln, of course—even though she’d slept in his room, in his bed, nothing untoward had taken place. Why, he hadn’t even kissed her.

  She blushed furiously and walked faster, remembering the bath, trying to outdistance the recollection. He’d undressed her, seen her naked flesh, washed her. At the time, she had been too dazed by exhaustion and the delivery of Rose-of-Sharon’s baby to protest. The experience hadn’t seemed—well—real.

  Now, however, she felt the slickness of the soap, the heat of the water, the tender touch of Lincoln’s hand, just as if it were all happening right then. She quickened her steps again, but the sensations kept up with her.

  It was a relief when Ben Gainer opened the cabin door to greet her, smiling from ear to ear.

  “Rose-of-Sharon’s been asking for you,” he said.

  Juliana hurried inside so the door could be closed against the soggy chill of the morning. A fire crackled in the stove, and the cabin was cozy, scented with fresh coffee and just-baked biscuits. Even the pitiful little Christmas tree had taken on a certain scruffy splendor. Rose-of-Sharon sat up in bed, pillows plumped behind her back, nursing her baby behind a draped blanket.

  The girl’s face shone with a light all her own, and Juliana felt a swift pang of pure envy.

  Ben took Lincoln’s coat from Juliana’s shoulders and told her to help herself to coffee and biscuits, explaining that Tom had done the baking.

  “I’ll be back as soon as we’ve fed those cattle,” he added, putting on his own coat and hat and leaving the cabin.

  Ravenous, Juliana poured coffee into a mug, took a steaming biscuit from the covered pan on top of the stove. She sat beside the bed, in last night’s chair, while she ate.

  When she’d finished nursing the baby, Rose-of-Sharon righted her nightgown and lowered the quilt to show Juliana her son. He was wrapped in a pretty crocheted blanket.

  He seemed impossibly small, frighteningly delicate. His skin was very nearly translucent.

  “Do you want to hold him?” Rose-of-Sharon asked when Juliana had finished the biscuit and brushed fallen crumbs from the skirt of the blue dress.

  The only thing greater than Juliana’s trepidation was her desire to take that baby into her arms. Carefully, she did so, her heart beating a little faster.

  “My mama sent that blanket,” Rose-of-Sharon said. “All the way from Cheyenne. Ben says he’ll take me and the baby home to Wyoming for a visit come spring so we can show him off to the family.”

  The baby gave an infinitesimal hiccup. He weighed no more than a feather. “Have you given him a name?”

  Rose-of-Sharon smiled. “I wanted to call him Benjamin, for his daddy, but Ben’ll have none of it. Never liked the name much. So we picked one out of the Good Book—Joshua.”

  “Joshua,” Juliana repeated softly. She pictured the walls of Jericho tumbling down. “That’s a fine, strong name.”

  “Joshua Thomas Gainer,” Rose-of-Sharon said.

  Juliana looked up.

  “Yes,” Rose-of-Sharon told her. “For Tom Dancingstar. Did Ben tell you I didn’t want him looking after me, because it ain’t proper for an Indian to tend a white woman?”

  Juliana didn’t speak. She did shake her head, though. Ben hadn’t told her, and she was glad.

  “If Joshua had been a girl,” Rose-of-Sharon went on, more softly now, holding out her arms for the baby again, “I’d have chosen your name.” She wrinkled her brow curiously, and Juliana, surrendering Joshua with some reluctance, thought of Angelique, wondered if she and Blue Johnston had gotten married. “What is your name, anyhow?”

  She laughed. “Juliana.”

  “That’s right pretty.”

  “Thank you. So is Rose-of-Sharon.”

  Rose-of-Sharon blushed a little. “I’m obliged to you,” she said. “The hardest thing about having a baby was being so far from Mama—or at least that’s what I thought until it started hurting.”

  Juliana smiled, tucked the blankets in more snugly around both Rose-of-Sharon and the baby. “You’ll forget the pain with time,” she said.

  “I ain’t yet,” Rose-of-Sharon said devoutly, and with a little shudder for emphasis. She yawned, and her eyelids drooped a little. “I’m plum worn down to a nubbin,” she added.

  “Get some rest,” Juliana urged gently.

  “What if I roll over on Joshua while I’m sleeping?” Rose-of-Sharon fretted. “He’s such a little thing.”

  “I’ll make sure you don’t,” Juliana promised. There was no cradle, but she spotted a small chest of drawers in a corner of the cabin. Removing one drawer, she lined it with a folded quilt, set it next to the bed where Rose-of-Sharon could see and reach, and carefully placed the baby inside.

  With no more quilts or blankets on hand, Juliana used s
everal of Ben’s heavy flannel shirts to cover little Joshua.

  Satisfied that her baby was safe, Rose-of-Sharon slept.

  Juliana sat quietly through the morning, her mood introspective.

  At half past one that afternoon, the men returned, chilled and red-faced from the brisk wind, and Ben took over the care of his wife and son.

  Juliana wore Lincoln’s coat, and as they stood in front of the cabin door, he carefully did up the buttons, his gloved hands, smelling of hay, lingering on the collar, close against her face.

  “Tom will ride to town and ask after the justice of the peace,” he said, “if you’re agreeable to that.”

  Juliana gazed up at him. She had not had time to fall in love with this man—he certainly hadn’t swept her off her feet, not in the romantic sense, anyway—but she respected him. She liked him.

  Was that enough?

  It seemed that someone else spoke up in her place. “I’m agreeable,” she said.

  His smile was so sudden, so dazzling, that it nearly knocked her back on her heels. “Good,” he said huskily. “That’s good.”

  A cloud crossed an inner sun. “This—this dress—”

  “Beth’s mother sent crates full of them, every so often,” he told her, his eyes gentle, perceptive. “She never got around to wearing it.”

  Juliana absorbed that, nodded.

  Lincoln took her hand. “Let’s get that Christmas tree set up,” he said with a laugh, “before Gracie pesters me into an early grave.”

  Minutes later, while Juliana and the children took boxes of delicate ornaments from the shelves of a small storage room off the parlor, Lincoln went to the woodshed to get the tree, Joseph right on his heels.

  It was so big that it took both of them to wrestle it through the front door, its branches exuding the piney scent Juliana had always associated with Christmas.

  Billy-Moses and Daisy stared at the tree in wonder, huddled so close together that their shoulders touched, and holding hands. Juliana remembered Mr. Philbert, and knew in a flash of certainty that he would come for them one day soon.

  Tears filled her eyes.

  She would be Mrs. Lincoln Creed by then, most likely, and with a husband to take her part, it wasn’t likely she’d be arrested. Still, when Mr. Philbert took Daisy and Billy-Moses away, it would be as if he’d torn out her heart and dragged it, bruised and bouncing, down the road behind his departing buggy.