grin spread across Clint’s tanned face. “Yes, and I was mighty upset at him for a couple of seconds for killing my antelope. I was out on the prairie east of here, lying on a bluff next to some rocks, drawing a bead on a prairie antelope down below. But before I could shoot, Lars, here, shot from the bluff across from me at the rocks right next to me.
“Well, I jumped up, mad as thunder, sure this fellow here was trying to murder me. But then he pointed below the rocks, and curled up amid them, there was the body of a rattlesnake, split right in two. I hadn’t spotted it when I’d settled in there. If I’d shot at the antelope or maybe even moved the wrong way, that snake was close enough to strike me easy. I might’ve died!”
Clint’s recital had been dramatic, but there was sobering truth in what he’d said. Clint might have been found on the prairie later, after he’d gone missing, dead of snakebite, but for the Dane’s quick action.
Elijah had been sitting next to Lars, and now Elijah laid a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Mr. Brinkerhoff, we are most deeply in your debt. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Please, you must all call me Lars,” the other man said, grinning. “I was—” it came out vas “—happy to do it.”
“Better yet,” piped up Clint from across the table, “Brinkerhoff didn’t let the antelope get away, either. While I was still gaping at the rattlesnake and pondering how I had almost died, this fellow shot the antelope that had run fifty yards away! Then after he had retrieved it, he was kind enough to offer to share the meat with us tonight,” he said, pointing his fork at what remained on the spit.
“Why did you brothers decide to come to Oklahoma? If you do not mind that I ask, of course,” Lars added.
“Of course it’s all right,” Elijah said. “We hail from Virginia, originally. Our parents had a plantation there before the war, Thornton Hall. You’re familiar with our American Civil War?” he asked.
“The Northern states fought to free the slaves that the South held, ja?” Lars asked.
“Basically, yes, though there were other issues, as well,” Elijah said. “Our pa sent us North to live with a cousin to avoid the unpleasantries of being loyal Unionists in the rebel South.”
Elijah and Gideon were the only ones who clearly remembered leaving home. Clint had been only four, but Elijah and Gideon had told him stories of the middle-of-the-night flight from Thornton Hall, leaving behind all they knew, including their playmates, the Chaucer boys from the neighboring plantation. Elijah felt a twinge of pain as he always did when he thought of their former friends, but it seemed worse now because of the incident today.
Perhaps because Elijah had been lost in thought, Clint now picked up the story. “Pa died in battle, so we went on living with Cousin Obadiah in Pennsylvania,” Clint went on.
Elijah saw the involuntary twist of distaste on both Clint’s and Gideon’s mouths at the mention of their father’s distant cousin, who’d hated all things Southern, including the innocent boys. He’d grudgingly allowed them space in his home, but not his heart.
“Then we sold the plantation for a good profit,” Clint said, “since we were no longer welcome in Virginia, and bought a place in Kansas, where Elijah went to seminary, Gideon worked on a ranch and I became a sheriff. It was all right...but when we heard about the opportunity opening up in the territory, we knew we wanted to come here and start over on our own homesteads.”
“You plan to start a church on your land, Reverend?” Lars asked Elijah.
Elijah nodded. “That is my purpose in coming to Oklahoma,” he said. “God willing, and with the help of God’s people, I mean to use my land to build a church in which our community of faith can be united in purpose. Together we can make Oklahoma a great state someday.”
He felt that same inner certainty he’d been feeling for some time that his goal was in line with God’s will for him as well as the territory. But once again, he said a quick prayer that if his feelings were in error, the Lord would show him—either by that still, small voice that He used, or by the way events unfolded.
Chapter Three
Had he sounded too pompous? Too stuffy? But a glance at Lars and Katrine showed only approval shining from their blue eyes.
“May the good Lord bless your efforts,” Lars said fervently.
“Thank you,” Elijah said. “And now, may I ask you the same question? Why did you leave your home? Clint tells me you have been in this country for ten years. What brought you to Oklahoma, from wherever you first settled?”
“America is the land of opportunity, is it not?” Lars said in reply. “When we arrived in America, we were not content for long in the East. We decided to journey to the West and see the ‘wide open spaces,’ as you Americans say. It was harder than we thought it would be. Perhaps we were naive, but the ‘land of milk and honey’ did not seem to be there for everyone.”
“You mentioned living with the Indians, Lars,” Clint said. “Miss Brinkerhoff, did you live with them, too?”
Katrine shook her head. “Lars did not want to expose me to danger and hardship, so I stayed in the city to work,” she said, and then Elijah saw her duck her head.
Something had happened to Katrine while the siblings had been parted, Elijah thought. Something she did not want to talk about.
But Clint didn’t seem to notice. “What kind of job did you take, Miss Brinkerhoff?”
She looked away. “I minded the children of a prosperous businessman and his wife for a time,” she said, “but then I...left that and worked in some...ah, restaurants as a waitress...” Her voice trailed off as her eyes lost focus. “Then Lars returned from the Indians and told me of the Land Rush. We also thought it was a chance to make a fresh start, and—how do you say it?—wipe the slate clean. And here we are.
“I hope you have saved room for dessert, gentlemen,” Katrine said brightly then. “I have made ableskiver, which is a kind of doughnut.”
The brothers groaned when she uncovered a plateful of the Danish doughnuts, which were each topped with a dollop of blackberry jam. Elijah had thought his stomach couldn’t possibly hold anything more, but he found himself reaching for one just as his brothers did. Lars and Katrine each took one, too. In seconds there wasn’t so much as a crumb left.
The Brinkerhoffs answered their questions about life in Denmark, and Lars regaled them with tales of life among the Cheyenne until it grew dark. Then, full of good food and the pleasure of making congenial new friends, the Thornton brothers headed back to their tent. The sounds of the tent city settling in for the night were all around them—the faint tinkling of piano music from one of the many whiskey tents, the occasional nicker of a horse, the sleepy whine of a child who did not want to go to bed yet.
Elijah waited until they were back at their campfire, having a last cup of coffee, to discuss the unpleasant incident at the chapel this morning. He hadn’t wanted to end the evening on a sour note, but he thought he’d better warn his brothers about the Chaucers.
Gideon looked up from the embers of the fire he’d just stirred up. “The Chaucers are here?”
Elijah nodded. “Figured I’d better tell you both, in case you run into them
