by Annie Boone
“Well, you’re just in time for supper and I’m pretty sure we can stretch it far enough to feed us all.” Jude offered her his hand so she might alight from the back of the cart. Zach jumped down and ran off towards the fire.
They could hear him even from a distance as he demanded answer after answer from Pete. “Are you a real cowboy? Can I see the herd? Do you like it?”
“What’s with all the questions?” Pete teased. “You aiming to be sheriff some day?”
“Maybe,” Zach said. “Mr. Ellison says curiosity is a good thing.”
“It certainly is,” Jude said, smiling at the lad. So, this was Nate and Mae’s foundling. Zach certainly seemed cheerful enough, and it was clear he thought the world of them both. His eyes were filled with affection whenever he spoke of them, or even so much as glanced at them.
“What a perfect spot,” Miss Fletcher said, sighing as she took in the view. “You were quite right, Mrs. Ellison, it is truly spectacular.”
Jude squirmed a little. He would have liked to have known she was coming up here, so he could have made it all look more presentable. To have her see how he lived seemed somehow shameful. Whatever liking for him she might have possessed, it would not survive the reality of his tiny shack. No woman he’d ever known would choose a place out here in the wild over a nice, neat home in town.
Chapter Eighteen
The fire gave off a fierce heat. Ellie felt flushed, and even a little lightheaded. But, that may just have been because she was alone with Jude Rigsby. Zach had wanted to see the ledge where Mr. Gideon had been rescued from, so Mr. and Mrs. Ellison had taken him there. They’d said it was because they were interested, too, but Ellie wondered if it was more to stop the curious and exuberant young boy from trying to climb down there himself.
Pete, the cowboy staying with Mr. Rigsby for the night had gone to make a final check on his herd, before bunking down for the night.
The sky was filled with stars, and there was barely a cloud in the sky. If she hadn’t been so nervous, Ellie would even have said it was the most perfect moment she had ever known. “You love it here, don’t you?” she asked. “I can see why you’d choose it for your home.”
“You can?” he asked, giving her a searching look, as if he doubted her honesty.
“I can,” she assured him. It’s quite spectacular, and so quiet. I’ve not ever lived anywhere but Fort Worth, well until now, anyway. There’s nothing like this in Fort Worth.”
“But, you’ve travelled all over with your father. You’ve certainly been through Springville before.”
“This isn’t Springville. And, yes, the mountains look wonderful from down in the valley, but it’s different from what I expected. Better than I expected. Looking up from Springville, I had no idea that this,” she gestured to the majestic landscape around them, “is just a short ride away.”
Mr. Rigsby chuckled. “I never really thought of it that way.”
“I envy you this,” she said, truthfully.
Ellie had never considered where she wished to live. It had always been simple. For some reason, she’d always assumed that her place was with her father, that she should do everything she could to make his life easier since her mother was gone. She’d obviously believed that someday she might marry, but she’d assumed that her life with a husband would simply be adding him to her life with her father.
She’d never even considered that her life could be very different to the life she had now. Once the idea that she could have a different life started taking root, she like it. Living here, in the wild hills, miles from anything could be such an adventure, she almost wished she could be so bold as to tell Mr. Rigsby her thoughts, but she didn’t think that would be prudent.
“I don’t believe that,” he said. “I doubt there’s many folk who’d want to be so cut off from friends and kinfolk. It can be right lonely up here.”
“But surely that’s part of its allure?” she asked. “I am surrounded by people, from dusk until dawn. The idea of having even a moment to stop and think and simply breathe seems impossible. But here, well, the air is so fresh and clean, and the space is so liberating, don’t you think?”
“I do,” Mr. Rigsby said quietly. His eyes held her gaze, and she hoped that he could read just how much she truly meant every word she’d uttered. She loved this place, not just because of the room to breathe, but because she could breathe the same air as he did here. She was free to be whatever she wanted, to choose whoever she wanted. Down in town, or in Fort Worth there would always be expectations and rules for her to follow.
She couldn’t tear herself away, and the two of them sat silently, just drinking each other in for what seemed like an eternity, though it was probably no more than a few minutes. The moment, however, was abruptly snatched from them as Zach came rushing towards them, his face alight with wonder. “You truly scaled that rock in the dark?”
Jude chuckled. Ellie loved to see him smile, his eyes crinkled up and his cheeks dimpled in an utterly appealing way. “Oh, I’m glad I didn’t go to the edge to see it myself. I fear I might have become scared for your survival, Mr. Rigsby. Even though it’s clear you made it back in one piece.” She tried to sound lighthearted, but the idea that she might have lost him before she had even truly found him nearly took her breath away.
“I was as safe as I could make myself, though I have an idea to make it more so should I need to ever do the same thing again,” he assured her. Zach looked at him admiringly.
“It’s definitely quite a drop,” Nate Ellison said, as he and Mae sauntered back towards them. “But, I’ve seen Jude tackle much harder trudges–and with the body of another slung over his shoulder.”
Jude blushed. “Nate, you promised me,” he growled.
“You are the strangest man I have ever known. You’re more than happy for everyone to think of you as a Godless heathen, a recluse and an outcast. Heaven forbid anyone tell stories of your true character.” Nate threw Jude an affectionate, but exasperated look.
“Nate Ellison, for the last time, it was nothing.”
“Well,” Mae said firmly. “I don’t think it nothing that my husband returned home from the war in one piece nothing. Now Jude, if you don’t want either of us to tell everyone what a good man you are, perhaps you shouldn’t have moved to the town where we live.” She winked at Mr. Rigsby, and Ellie began to wonder how often this disagreement had been shared.
“So, will someone please tell Zach and I what happened?” she asked, feigning innocence. She knew full well Mr. Rigsby wished everyone would be quiet and go home. She’d suspected he had secrets, but now she knew he was definitely hiding something about his past, Ellie was determined to know more.
Chapter Nineteen
Nate grinned, clearly more than happy to elaborate. “We served together, in the war. Jude here, well he was always the first to volunteer for the toughest assignments, disappearing off behind enemy lines for weeks and even months on end. Sometimes we worked in pairs, occasionally in small groups, but mostly we were out there alone. We needed to find out what we could about where the Yankees were camped, how many of them there were, what firepower they held, and any other information we could find.”
“Nate, please, stop it.” Jude’s tone was firm, and it was clear he was uncomfortable and unhappy.
“This isn’t a story about how terrible you are. Most men would be crowing about such things to everyone they met. Miss Fletcher, Jude’s too modest and too hard on himself.”
“I am coming to see that,” Ellie said, giving Mr. Rigsby a soft smile, hoping he knew that she wasn’t asking to know to be cruel, but simply because she wanted to know more about him. More and more it was becoming clear to her that he was one of the best men she’d ever known.
She gathered that he felt abandoned by God. She could understand his lack of faith, given what he’d been through. And she was coming to believe she didn’t know the half of his troubled past. She was confident she could help him find hi
s way back to God, and she wanted to be with him on that journey. And beyond that, she knew she was rapidly falling head over heels in love with Jude Rigsby.
“Well, young Jude and I had been sent on separate missions. But, I messed up. When the news got back to our camp that I had been captured, and faced certain death the next day, General Stuart ordered that I be left to my fate. He didn’t want to run the risk of losing all of our men, just to save one. And he was quite right to do so. I would have given the same order myself,” Nate said.
Ellie noticed that Mae blanched at the thought, even after all this time. She moved closer to the other woman and placed her hand over Mae’s. Mae turned to Ellie and a solitary tear had run down her cheek. Ellie brushed it away.
“I so nearly lost him,” Mae whispered, her voice choked with emotion.
“So, you took matters into your own hands?” Ellie slipped her arm around Mae and looked at Jude.
“I did. Nate’s, a good man. My friend. He deserved better than to be abandoned,” Mr. Rigsby said dismissively.
“He’s leaving out the fact that I had been beaten and whipped. I could barely walk. They’d tied me to a stake right in the middle of the Yankee camp,” Nate said drily. “How he snuck through that entire regiment and got me out of there I still don’t know. I was delirious. It turned out the wounds they had inflicted on me were infected, and I had a fever. I was too weak to do anything to help.”
He paused, and everyone looked with admiration at Jude, who just looked awkward, as if he wished the ground might open up and swallow him. Ellie wished she could move to comfort him, as easily as she had been able to do for Mae, but even up here, there were rules she must obey.
“He carried me over five miles, back to our own camp, at night,” Nate said, raw emotion in his voice, and sheer love for his friend and rescuer vivid in his expression. “I’ll never be able to repay him.”
“You already have, many times over,” Jude said softly. “You stood between me and a bullet that surely had my name on it. You could have been killed saving me, too.”
“Ah, that was an accident,” Nate said with a hearty laugh. “I know you will never believe me, but I lost my balance and just happened to knock you out of the way of that shot.”
“See, you get just as embarrassed when I talk of your heroics. Now, can we let the war rest? We have the future to look forward to and we shouldn’t be dwelling upon the past.”
Nate draped an arm around Mae’s shoulders, and she snuggled up against his body. Ellie wished she could do the same with Mr. Rigsby.
“We should be heading back,” Nate said, looking over at Zach who was yawning widely, and rubbing his eyes. “We all need our rest and your father is probably worried sick about where you are, Miss Fletcher.”
“I doubt he has even gotten home, yet,” Ellie said with a grin.
Nate nudged Zach to his feet and lifted the little lad up onto the back of the cart before he turned to help Mae. Mr. Rigsby walked with Ellie to the rear of the cart. They stood in silence for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes.
Ellie sucked in a breath when he put his hands on her waist and effortlessly lifted her onto the cart beside Zach’s prone form. “I’ll see you on Sunday,” he whispered, so close to her ear that she could feel his breath against her skin. She shivered a little at the sensation, willing him to press a kiss to her lips, her cheeks, her forehead. But, he stepped back, and waved.
“Sunday?” she said, pulling herself together, as best she could.
“I thought I might see if God and I might find each other once again. I seem to be surrounded by good people who all think He just might have something to offer me.” His eyes twinkled just a bit mischievously.
“I will be glad to see you there,” Ellie breathed.
As they trundled down the hillside, Ellie could still make out Mr. Rigsby’s tall and muscular frame. She couldn’t take her eyes from him, and she wondered if he was staring down at her as intently. Sunday seemed to be a million miles away even though it was only a few short days. She wondered how she would be able to wait that long to see him again.
She thought about his words. He said he hopes that he and God might find each other again. She thought briefly about how things had changed. She hoped this was a sincere change for Jude, not just a quick decision to impress her father. She hoped he understood that his faith was between him and God.
Chapter Twenty
“We have barely been in town for five minutes, and already you are courting scandal?” Her father shouted at her loudly just as Ellie closed the front door behind her.
“I’m doing what?” Ellie retorted, amazed at how unreasonable, and how agitated Daddy seemed. “I have never courted scandal in my life.”
“You aren’t living in the city now, my girl. A small town like this, word spreads quickly.”
“What word? What is it, exactly, am I meant to have done that is so scandalous?”
“Going up the mountain to visit with that heathen man,” Daddy said, his eyes bulging so much in his anger that they looked about ready to burst out of their sockets. A vein in his neck, and another in his forehead were pulsing fiercely. Ellie had never seen him so agitated.
“I went for a perfectly respectable drive, with Mae Ellison, who you know very well and I thought you liked very much. Her husband, Nate, was with us along with the child they have taken in. We drove to the top of the mountain to see the sunset.”
“And you saw Jude Rigsby, don’t deny it,” Daddy almost screamed.
“It would be hard not to, given that he lives at the very top of the trail,” she said, quite truthfully. Now was clearly not the time to confide in her father just how much she had enjoyed visiting with the man, or how much she longed to do so again.
“I won’t have it,” Daddy said firmly. “If you can’t promise me you won’t see him again, then I shall have to send you back to Fort Worth to live with your aunt.”
“Aunt Augusta would not want me. And she hardly has room for her own family in that tiny house.”
“I will gladly give her the deeds to our house, if it means I can keep you safe from that man.”
“What has he done that is so terribly wrong, Daddy?” Ellie asked, not sure how such hatred could have been stirred up for anyone in her father’s usually warm and loving heart.
“He’s not good enough for you and he’ll never be good enough for you.”
“Well, I cannot promise to never see him again,” Ellie said provocatively. “After all, as you said yourself, it is a small town. He’s bound to be in church, or I might bump into him in the street, in one of the stores…”
“Don’t be so obtuse.” Her father rolled his eyes in exasperation. “You know precisely what I mean. And just for the record, I doubt that man will ever be found in any church. He’s made it quite clear to everyone who knows him that he despises God, along with everything you and I stand for.”
“Daddy, I disagree. Just because his faith has been tested, does not mean that he cannot find his way back. I believe it’s a matter of time with loving kindness and patience before he rediscovers his love of God. After all, he has certainly never lost his love for his fellow man. Why, just tonight, Mr. Ellison, was telling us about how Mr. Rigsby save his life during the war. And the entire town can’t stop talking about how he rescued Mr. Gideon. He’s a good man, Daddy. He acts with more Christian charity than anyone I know. Except you, of course. I refuse to believe that he is beyond redemption.”
“Well,” Daddy huffed, clearly exasperated with Ellie’s calm and rational rejection of his instinctual dislike of Mr. Rigsby. “In that case, I shall write to your aunt immediately. You may stay until the weekend, to see the church dedicated and hear my first sermon, but immediately afterwards you are to travel back to Fort Worth.”
“But, we have already agreed to join the Ellison’s for lunch,” Ellie protested. Her father usually hated to turn down, or not attend any arranged event.
“And
I shall attend as planned,” he said firmly.
Knowing she had no chance of changing his mind, Ellie turned and fled upstairs to her room. She threw herself down onto her bed, sobbing. Her father was doing all he could to make sure she’d never see Mr. Rigsby ever again.
How could she convince him that Mr. Rigsby was exactly the kind of man he’d always hoped that Ellie might one day find? What was truly behind her father’s vehement dislike and condemnation of him? She had seen nothing in Mr. Rigsby’s character that could possibly deserve such censure. There had to be a way that Daddy might see just how good a man Jude Rigsby was if only she could find a way to show him.
Chapter Twenty-One
“How do I look?” Jude asked Hal Warburton, kicking the trapper’s booted feet away from the fire. Jude smoothed down his shirt, and brushed off his pants, hoping he looked good enough for the dedication of the new church. It had been so long since he’d attended services, he wasn’t sure what to expect.
“You look mighty fine,” the old man said, with a grin. “I’m guessing there’s a girl down there you want to impress?”
“I think I need to impress her daddy more,” Jude admitted. “But, it would be nice if she would think kindly of me.”
“Given you live in a shack, miles from anywhere, you look as good as any man in that situation can,” Hal said. “I’ll be gone by the time you return, but I can assure you I will definitely be back. Maybe even tonight depending on how things go.”
“You’ll be more than welcome, Hal,” Jude said. The trapper had enjoyed good hunting nearby over the past two nights, and his company had been a welcome distraction from Jude’s wayward thoughts about Ellie Fletcher.
Every time he had a moment to himself, Jude had to be careful of his thoughts. Her sweet smile would peek in and he’d lose track of what he was doing. His dreams were filled with scenes of him placing a ring on her finger and making her his bride. He knew it was unlikely Parson Fletcher would give his permission, but that seemed to make his thoughts of Ellie more tenacious.
