A Whisper of Peace (22 page)

Lizzie snorted. She hated to dash the boy’s pride, but his knife wouldn’t intimidate a gopher. “A knife like that would only tickle a bear and make him mad.” She shook her head. “Etu, you need to use good judgment. Naibi depends on you.”

Naibi pulled on her lower lip with one finger and rocked from side to side. The little flowered dress, its hem now torn and muddied, swayed above her dirty bare feet. “Etu takes good care of me. That is why he brought me here.”

Etu nudged her, his brows forming a V.

Naibi shifted away from him, her expression guileless. “He remembered you said you had lots of food. And we are hungry.”

Compassion filled Lizzie, followed by a rush of concern. “Did you tell Vivian about the food I left in the bushes?”

Etu nodded his head hard. “We showed her where you put it. And we helped her carry it into the log house Mister Clay builds.” Then he shrugged. “But she gave us none of it.”

Lizzie wondered why Vivian would be so thoughtless. Didn’t she realize the children were hungry? Or was she too busy taking care of Clay to think about anyone else? “I do have food, and I will feed you today. But”—she forced a firm tone—“you may not come here whenever you choose for something to eat. It is unsafe for you to be in the woods on your own, and members of the tribe are not supposed to visit me. So do not come again, do you hear me?”

Both children nodded. Etu said, “We will not come here on our own again.”

Naibi skipped forward and clasped Lizzie’s hand, beaming up with her gap-toothed grin. She swung Lizzie’s hand. “Can we go eat now?”

Lizzie curled her fingers tightly around the little girl’s hand. The contact felt good. Her lips lifted into a smile. “Do you like baked acorn squash? And smoked salmon?” She didn’t mention the sugar cookies that filled a crock on her shelf. She’d surprise them with the treat.

Naibi licked her lips, and Etu’s eyebrows rose in anticipation.

“Then come.” As Lizzie led the skipping children across the yard to her cabin, she told herself she mustn’t grow attached to them. She wasn’t staying, and they were members of a village in which she wasn’t welcome. But even as she composed the inner warnings, she feared it was too late. Naibi and Etu had already captured a portion of her heart.

Chapter Eighteen

V
ivian deliberately stayed away from Clay’s hut and allowed him the day to rest. And to think. She wanted to advise him on how to respond to Shruh’s demand for them to reject Lizzie the way the rest of the village had done, but harping at him would only lead to resentment. Clay was stubborn—maybe even more stubborn than she. So she busied herself using the flour the Mission Committee had sent to bake several loaves of bread, cleaning and roasting the grouse that had been foolish enough to get its foot caught in her snare, and carting all of her nonpersonal items from her hut to the mission building to give herself a little more space in her tiny dwelling.

By midafternoon, she’d given away most of the bread. Although she hated to lose so much of the food she’d prepared, she could hardly blame the natives for requesting a portion—the aroma was enticing and so different from the usual scents surrounding the village. But she wrapped the last two loaves in burlap and hid them in the bottom of a crate so she and Clay would at least get to enjoy some of her bounty.

She’d just sent two natives away empty-handed when a rough-looking trapper leading a gray-muzzled pack mule ambled through the middle of the village and approached the mission. Vivian stifled a groan. Had the scent of baking bread brought him from the woods?

“Good afternoon,” Vivian said when the man stopped outside the mission doors. “Is there something I can do for you?”

The man swept his battered hat from his head, revealing salt-and-pepper hair badly in need of a cut. “I be huntin’ a white woman name o’ Vivian Selby. I got a package for her—mercantile owner in Fort Yukon sent it out with me yesterday.” He turned his head and coughed.

Vivian waited for the coughing spell to pass, and then she moved a few inches closer to the man. “I’m Vivian Selby.”

His grin broadened, exposing shreds of chewing tobacco caught in crooked, yellowed teeth. “Well, then, right nice to make your acquaintance, Miz Selby. Here now . . .” He unbuckled one of the straps securing an odd assortment of items onto the poor mule’s bowed back. “Feller in town told me the writin’ on the box says it came all the way from Massy-chusetts, Yoo-nited States of America.”

He paused to touch his hand to his chest and look skyward, his expression reverent. Then he jerked a good-sized wooden crate free and plunked it on the ground at Vivian’s feet. It took great self-control to resist diving on the crate immediately. If it came from Massachusetts, it held gifts from Aunt Vesta and Uncle Matthew. Anticipation made her giddy.

But she coiled her fingers together and waited while the man adjusted the remaining straps, gave the mule’s rump a whack, and aimed another smile at Vivian. “Yes, ma’am, I told that mercantile feller I didn’t mind a bit makin’ a delivery—wouldn’t even charge him, seein’ as how the box was comin’ to a white woman.”

He laughed, but the laugh turned into another coughing spell. He stomped the ground, bringing the cough under control, then offered a sly grin. “An’ you don’t need to be payin’ me nothin’, neither. It’s enough of a treat just to take a gander at you, purdy lady.” He waggled his wiry brows. Tipping sideways, he let loose a stream of tobacco-colored spittle that landed very near the crate.

Vivian scuttled forward and pulled the box away from the man. She wished Clay were with her. The way the trapper looked her up and down made her uncomfortable. “Thank you for delivering my crate. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to examine the contents.”

The man cackled as if she’d made a joke. “’Course you do, ’course you do.” He jerked on the mule’s reins, and the big animal stumbled forward a step. The man plopped his hat in place. “I’ll be moseyin’ on now. You have a good day, ma’am.”

Vivian waited until he rounded the bend at the far side of the village before retrieving Clay’s claw hammer and prying the top off the crate. She pawed past a layer of straw, then gasped in delight. A beautiful teapot and a pair of matching cups and saucers painted with pink rosebuds nestled within the folds of a mint green gown lovely enough to grace the high society luncheons in Boston.

Vivian lifted out the teapot and ran her fingers over the delicate blooms, her eyes misting as she remembered sweet tea parties with Aunt Vesta in her fine parlor. She scanned the beautiful but rugged landscape surrounding the mission. The tea set certainly didn’t fit the surroundings, but holding it gave her such a feeling of home. She hugged the little pot to her chest and sighed. “Thank you, Aunt Vesta.”

She set the pot aside and reached into the box again. A second gown, daffodil yellow with yards of snow-white lace, unfolded in her hands. “Oh my . . .” She’d thought the green gown lovely, but this one must be the loveliest ever sewn. Holding it brought another rush of remembrances, ending with a strong desire to return to the years she’d spent with her aunt and uncle. Away from the untamed prairie lands, she’d felt secure and safe.

Guilt fell over her so abruptly she drew in a strangled gasp. She didn’t deserve to hide away, secure and safe—she had restitution to make. And she would make it here, on a frontier even more rugged than the one of her childhood homestead. She started to shove the dress back into the box, but desire stilled her movement. Instead, she held the gown against her front and looked down its length. Her gaze drifted past lovely yellow flounces to a double row of creamy lace . . . to the toes of her scuffed brown shoes. A laugh trickled from her throat—such an incongruous pairing!

Sighing, Vivian crushed the dress to her aching heart. She would never wear this gown, or the mint one—they were far too fine for a missionary teacher on the Alaskan frontier. She gave a little jolt. But what about . . . ? She examined the gown again, her heart pounding in happy speculation. This was exactly the kind of gown that would fit well in the upper social classes of San Francisco.

She’d had Clay post a letter to her mother, requesting dresses, but nothing Vivian left behind in Oklahoma compared to the daffodil gown. Lizzie would have no need to hide in shame if she entered the city attired in the delightful, regal gown, with her hair pinned up. This evening, Vivian would pen an exuberantly worded letter of thanks to her dear aunt, try each dress on one time for the sheer enjoyment of it, and then find a way to present them to Lizzie.

“I shall keep the teapot and teacups, however,” she vowed aloud. Perhaps they’d improve the flavor of the herb teas she and Clay drank in lieu of imported black pekoe.

She folded the pair of dresses and began to place them back in the crate, but she spotted an envelope lying in the bottom of the wood-slatted box. Black, scrolled script formed a single line on its front:
For my dear Vivian
. The sight of Aunt Vesta’s familiar handwriting sent a coil of homesickness through Vivian’s breast. Even though she’d been sent to her aunt and uncle in disgrace, they’d never treated her unkindly. Returning to Mother when she’d finished school had been difficult, and when she thought of home, Aunt Vesta and Uncle Matt’s charming, gingerbread-bedecked bungalow on the edge of Huntington’s town square always came to mind.

Squatting beside the box, she ripped open the envelope and eagerly unfolded the pages. As she read, her hands began to shake. By the time she’d finished, the pages rustled as if caught in a stiff breeze, and tears coursed down her face. She crushed the pages to her heart, her head low. “What should I do? Oh, what should I do?”

What should she do? Lizzie stood at the pathway’s foot with Naibi clinging to her hand as if she never wanted to let go. She’d told the children they shouldn’t venture into the woods alone, yet she had to send them back. Given the hour of the afternoon, the villagers would be in their yards—the women preparing an evening meal, the youngest children playing, and men gathering in groups to visit. The likelihood of being seen was increased with the activity at this hour. Being seen would create problems.

Naibi pulled on her hand. “Walk with us, Lizzie.”

Even Etu, brave boy that he was, looked at Lizzie expectantly.

Lizzie chuckled to herself. Had there ever been any choice? “Let’s go.”

The path was too narrow for three abreast, and even two made a tight fit when one of the two was a full-grown woman wearing a wide-skirted dress. But Naibi refused to release Lizzie’s hand and walk on her own, unlike Etu, who prowled the path ahead, his hand on the little knife sheath and his fierce gaze searching the bushes for any animal brazen enough to attack. Branches tickled Lizzie’s arm and tried to tear the skirt of her blue-checked dress. She caught a handful of fabric and tucked the skirt closer to her body rather than sending Naibi ahead.

The little girl hummed, occasionally flashing a bright smile upward, which Lizzie couldn’t resist returning. She hadn’t smiled as much in the past two years as she had during the two hours Naibi and Etu visited. She’d laughed aloud, watching them frolic on the grass with Martha and two other dogs. Naibi had admired the beadwork on the coat, and Etu’s eyes widened in amazement when she showed him her cache of furs ready for market. Having them there—talking with them, listening to their childish babble, seeing wonder in their eyes—had given her such a lift.

Her heart ached as she considered the children’s bleak future. If their vitse was as old and feeble as the children had indicated, they might be completely alone soon. But Clay and Vivian were building their mission school. Even though Lizzie still believed they should be cautious in placing too much knowledge of the white world in the children’s heads, surely this pair would benefit from the missionaries being in the village. Someone would be available to provide for Etu and Naibi.

Jealousy twined through Lizzie’s heart—a foolish emotion, but an honest one. Her hours with them had proved Etu and Naibi were fine, good-hearted children, and a part of her wished she could claim them as her own. But she was leaving—and she couldn’t take them with her. She must arrive in San Francisco completely unencumbered to begin her new life. Her father had intimated Athabascan ways had no place in California. She must leave every vestige of her past behind.