“You don’t have to tell us the rest, if you don’t want to.”
Charley went on. “When Uncle Nate came out of the house, his clothes were on fire.” His voice was hollow, remembering.
Olivia hid her face in Sarah’s dress. “I could hear Mama,” she whispered. “She and Papa were still in the house.”
“But Uncle Nate,” Charley said, his voice strengthening, “he didn’t want to give up. He kept trying to go back inside, to save them, but the neighbors were there, and they wouldn’t let him. And then the roof fell down and everything was gone.”
“Uncle Nate was hurt awful bad.” Olivia sat up and took Charley’s hand. “He almost died, too.”
“That’s when the ladies at church said we should go to the home.” Charley wiped at his eyes. “But Uncle Nate just kept saying no.”
“It sounds like your uncle loves you very much.” James laid his hand on Charley’s shoulder.
Charley leaned against Uncle James’s knee. The children fell silent, looking into the fire.
Sarah watched Lucy. She didn’t look at her sister or brother, and she hadn’t seemed to hear what they had been talking about. She sat on the folded blanket, staring at the flames, lost in a world of her own. During their walk from the crippled wagon to the cabin, the little girl hadn’t made a sound, but had passively held Sarah’s hand as they walked.
At the time, Sarah had thought Lucy was cold and only wanted to get to the cabin. But now with the others talking and in the warm room, she was still closed into her own thoughts. Could it be that she was deaf? Or was something else wrong?
The biscuits baked quickly in the Dutch oven, and supper was soon ready. Everyone ate in front of the fire, and Sarah was glad to see how quickly the biscuits disappeared, except the ones Olivia had insisted they save for their uncle along with a portion of the stew.
After they were done eating, Lucy climbed into Sarah’s lap. The little one melted into her arms without a word, the ever-present thumb stuck in her mouth.
“You stay where you are,” Margaret said as Sarah started to put Lucy back on the floor so she could help clean up from the meal. “Her eyes are closing already.”
Sarah settled back in her chair, enjoying the soft sweetness of holding a child in her arms. These children had suffered so much, and their story brought memories of her own losses to the surface. How well she remembered the awful loneliness the day her parents had died, even though she had been much younger than Olivia and Charley. She had been about Lucy’s age when she had gone to the orphanage.
She laid her cheek on Lucy’s head, the girl’s curly hair tickling Sarah’s skin, pulling an old longing out from the corner where she had buried it long ago. The room blurred as she held Lucy tighter.
All those years in the orphanage, until Uncle James returned from the mission field when she was seventeen years old, she had never had the thought that she would marry and have children. She had changed enough diapers, cleaned enough dirty ears and soothed enough sore hearts to have been mother to a dozen families.
Marriage and children meant opening her heart to love, and she refused to consider that possibility. Loving someone meant only pain and heartache when they died. She wouldn’t willingly put herself through that misery again.
She still enjoyed children, but only when they belonged to someone else. Teaching filled that desire quite nicely.
Sarah hummed under her breath as Lucy relaxed into sleep. Charley and Olivia had settled on the floor in front of the fire, where they were setting up Uncle James’s checkers game.
Where was their uncle? She prayed again for his safety in the blowing storm.
* * *
Nate stood in the abandoned camp. His hastily built fire was already dying down, and the empty canvas flapped behind him. Snow swirled. Before too long any traces of where the children had gone would be covered.
The wind swung around to the north, bringing the smell of wood smoke. A fire. People. Friends? A mining camp?
Or an Indian encampment.
He needed to find the children. He had to take the risk.
Setting his face to the wind, he followed the smoke trail to a line of cottonwoods along Whitewood Creek. He had reached the outskirts of the mining camp, and the thin thread of smoke had turned into a heavy cloud hanging in the gulch. He paused on the creek bank. Ice lined the edges of the water. The children had either been taken away, or they had run off to hide. It wouldn’t take long for them to freeze to death on an evening like this one.
There. Hoofprints in the mud. Nate followed the trail up away from the creek until he came to a cabin sheltered among a few trees at the edge of the rimrock. A lean-to built against the steep hill behind the cabin was crowded with horses. Even in the fading light, he recognized Scout and Ginger. Pete’s and Dan’s bay rumps were next to them, and then the mule’s black flank.
Nate tried not to think of what kind of men he might find in this cabin. This was where the horses were, so horse thieves, most likely. But were they kidnappers? Murderers?
He pounded on the heavy wooden door and then stepped back, gripping his rifle.
The middle-aged man who cracked open the door wasn’t the rough outlaw he expected. The white shirt, wool vest and string tie would fit in back home in Michigan, but Nate hadn’t seen a man dressed this fancy since they left Chicago in March.
“Yes, can I help you?” The man poked his head out the door.
“I’m looking for some children.”
“Uncle Nate! That’s Uncle Nate out there!”
Charley’s voice. Relief washed over Nate, leaving his knees weak.
The man smiled and he opened the door. “Come in. We’ve been expecting you.”
Nate stepped into the warmth. Charley jumped up from a checkers game on the floor in front of the fireplace and ran toward him, wrapping his arms around Nate’s middle without regard to his soaking and icy clothes. Olivia joined her brother in a hug, but Lucy stayed where she was, asleep on the lap of...
Nate dropped his gaze to the floor. Lucy was in the lap of the young woman from the stagecoach. Willowy, soft, her dark hair gleaming in the lamplight, the young woman held the sleeping child close in a loving embrace. He couldn’t think of a more peaceful scene.
A round woman dressed in stylish brown bustled up to the little group. “Oh my, you must be frozen. You just come right in and change out of those wet clothes. We saved some supper for you.”
Nate ran his fingers over the cheeks of both the older children. Yes, they were here, safe, sound and warm. It was hard to see their faces, his eyes had filled so suddenly.
“I thank you, ma’am, for caring for the children like this. I can’t tell you how I felt when I got back to the wagon and they were gone.”
“Didn’t you get our note?”
Nate
