Amethyst (24 page)

“Pa!” Joel leaped from the porch of the Robertson house and came charging across the mud to reach him.

“Hello to you too.” Jacob leaned down, grasped his son’s outstretched hands, and swung the boy up behind him.

“So how you been?”

“Good. School started again. Mister Finch said he isn’t coming back in the fall.”

“Really?” At the soddy they dismounted, and Jacob flipped the reins over the hitching rail.

“Said he ain’t never seen such a winter, and he don’t never want to see one again.”

“Ain’t? Did he really say he
ain’t
never seen such a winter?”

Joel thought for a moment, then shook his head. A grin tickled his cheekbones. “Prob’ly not.” He took the bedroll after Jacob untied the latigos, holding it behind the saddle.

How’s Opal?
Jacob wanted desperately to ask the question. “Careful, don’t drop all the stuff I have in there.” He untied his saddlebags and his scabbard. Not that he’d needed it or the rifle in it. There was nothing out on the range to shoot. They pushed open the wooden door, and the odor of packed dirt greeted them. Jacob had forgotten the smell after living out on the open prairie like he had the last weeks. He set a chair in front of the door to keep it open and let the room air out. The woodbox yawned empty, and the hay-filled ticks on the wooden beds needed plumping.

“Mrs. Robertson said to tell you to come on up to the house for dinner. She has plenty of leftovers. We ate about an hour ago.”

“How about you put my horse away, and I’ll get a fire started. When the sun goes down, it can turn mighty cold.”

“Sure. I’ll bring my bedroll down after supper. You going back up on the line?”

“No. Beans says we’re done for this year. What has gone on while I’ve been up there?”

“Well, school, chores…Ada Mae brought home a lamb, a bummer someone gave her. We keep it in the house ’cause it’s too little to go in the barn yet. We’re feeding it with a bottle.”

“You mean the sheep are already having their lambs during this cold and miserable weather?”

“I guess so. I don’t know anything about sheep, but we have one.”

Jacob lifted the lids off the stove and set them to the side. The ashes needed to be hauled out. “You take care of the horse and come on back. We need the woodbox filled and a bucket of water brought in.”

Joel flipped the reins around the horse’s neck and mounted with a bit of difficulty since his legs weren’t anywhere near as long as his father’s. He turned the horse away and trotted off to the barn.

Jacob watched his son handle a horse as if he’d been doing so all his life instead of less than a year. He’d stretched not only in height since they arrived but in experience. The only one he knew who worked harder on learning and perfecting ranching skills was Opal, and she’d done her best to teach them and the Robertson girls how to ride, rope, and round up cattle since Ward Robertson died in the shootout.
Opal, when will I see you?

Loading his arm with cut wood, Jacob returned to the soddy, blinking in the dimness. He dumped the wood in the box and picked out a piece with plenty of oozed pitch. Using a bit of dried pine needles for fire starter, he shaved off slivers to lay over the broken needles, and then picking the flint and a granite rock from the shelf, he held the two pieces together right near the starter and struck to get a spark. The third one continued to glow, and a minute spiral of smoke rose. Blowing gently, he encouraged the spark to spread and smiled when a flame licked the pitch and burst into flame. Bit by bit he added larger pieces, and once the fire was consuming them all, he set the lids back in place and adjusted the damper to full open. It would take some doing to get this small house warm.

At least he had kerosene for the lamp again, even if the chimney did need washing. Ah, the things one took for granted.

“Welcome home, Mr. Chandler.” Cora Robertson looked up from the batter she was beating in a large crockery bowl. Dough dots marred the white apron that covered her from neck to foot, and when she brushed back a lock of hair falling from the knot she always wore on the back of her head, flour dusted her cheek.

“Thank you.” Jacob inhaled. “I don’t know how you do it, but this house always smells of good food and a warm welcome.”

“See my lamb?” Ada Mae held up the wooly creature with pipestem legs, black face, and a long tail.

“I sure do. I thought sheep had short tails.”

“We have to dock it, but I can’t bear to do that.” Ada Mae cuddled the creature under her chin.

“Cut it off?”

“Yes, and the sooner the better.” Mrs. Robertson pulled a full plate out of the oven. “Before it gets a lot of feeling in the tail. Take your place there. Ada Mae, put that lamb down and get Mr. Chandler some bread and butter. Coffee will be ready in a minute.”

Jacob sat down as instructed and admired the plate put before him. “Sure beats beans.”

“Had you run out of food?”

“Nope, still had beans, flour, lard, and cornmeal.” He picked up the piece of bread Ada Mae set in front of him and smiled as he sniffed that too. “I did learn how not to burn cornmeal cakes in the frying pan.”

“Uff da. I’m sorry about that. Should have tried harder to get more supplies up there.”

“What? And lose someone’s life in the process? No. I managed, and I know Chaps did too. But I tell you, this was the most unusual winter I ever spent.”
And the worst
.

“You can say that again, for all of us.”

“Where are Emily and Virginia?”

“They stopped by the Heglands. Pearl is teaching them to play the piano.”

“I didn’t want to learn. I’d rather play the guitar like Rand.” Ada Mae turned to Joel. “You done your homework yet?”

He shook his head. “I hate memorizing poems.”

“Me too.”

“So get on it and get it done.” Cora rolled her eyes. “You’d think they had to learn the complete works of Shakespeare.”

“You could always memorize Bible verses. The psalms are ancient Hebrew poems,” Jacob commented.

“Ma made us do that during the blizzards.” Ada Mae brought a book out and laid it on the table.

“Not there. You’ll get flour on it.”

“Sorry.” Ada Mae sat down and opened the book at the marker. “Do you want to do ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ or ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’?”

Joel heaved a sigh. “I’d rather rope a steer any day.”

“Too bad. Begin.”

Jacob watched his son close his eyes, scrunch up his face, and swallow hard. “Surely it can’t be that bad.” He fought to keep a straight face. “Come on…. ‘Listen my children and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, / On the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five; / Hardly a man is now alive / Who remembers that famous day and year…”’

The three of them chanted their way through that famous ride. “‘One if by land, and two if by sea…”’ When one stumbled, the others kept going, and they finished with a flourish.

Joel looked to his father, admiration shining in his eyes. “You knew the whole thing.”

“I learned it long, long ago. Things like that stay with you.” Jacob finished off his plate. “Thank you, Mrs. Robertson. I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate your good cooking.”

“Can I get you anything else?”

“Not if I want to do justice to supper.” He turned to Joel and Ada Mae. “I’ll go on down to the barn and feed so you two can get through ‘Hiawatha’ too. Be ready to recite when I get back.”

Jacob shrugged into his coat again. “Do I need to milk the cow too?”

“No,” Cora said, “she dried up during the blizzards. We are rationing the hay so the cow doesn’t lose her calf. It’s thanks to Mr. McHenry that we have any at all. He brought out a load on the train for his horse.” Her eyes darkened. “So much loss around here.”

“I know.” Jacob pulled on his gloves. “Joel, you need to bring in water.”

Joel nodded. “Right now?”

“After ‘Hiawatha.”’

Both Joel and Ada Mae groaned, setting Cora to laughing.

What was Opal doing now? Strange how being closer to the Harrison ranch brought her to mind so much more often. As if he hadn’t been thinking about her half the time anyway.

But most important, was there a way he could help her in her sorrow?

It might be easier when the ground thawed enough so they could dig the graves and have the funerals.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“I don’t want to go.”

“Neither do I, but for Linc’s sake, we need to do this.” Ruby sighed. “I’m sorry, Opal, this is a terrible time for all of us.”

Opal tried to fight the tears, but as usual, her efforts failed. She didn’t bother mopping the stream running down her face. “How can this help him?”

“You ask such hard questions. But something about a funeral helps with the grieving. All of us together calling on our heavenly Father to bring us and Linc comfort. This is the final act one can do for someone they love.”

“Some of the Indian tribes burn their dead or put them up in trees.”

“But Linc asked for a funeral.”

“Do you believe Little Squirrel believed in Jesus?” Opal sniffed and finally wiped her eyes.

“Yes.”

“So she’s in heaven now?”

“I believe so.”

“And the baby.”

“Oh yes. God makes special provisions for babies.” Ruby glanced down at her infant daughter nursing under the blanket. She looked up to Opal. “I know you don’t understand, and I have to tell you, I don’t either. All this death around us doesn’t make any sense, but I believe that God makes sense and He has not left us. He loves us and is right here, crying with us.”

Opal snorted. “But He could have fixed it. All He needed to do was make the blizzards stop.”

“I know.” Ruby held Mary to her shoulder and patted her back. “But some things we have to take on faith, no matter how hard that faith is to come by.” She sighed. “This is one of those times.”

“I don’t think he’ll stay here—Linc, I mean.”
Not God. Do I believe you are still here? Yes, and I know you are listening. But…
Sometimes she wished He couldn’t read her thoughts. Like now, when she wanted to scream at Him and say bad things. And climb up in His lap and be held close no matter how mad she was.

“It’s too much.”

The men had built a fire to melt the ground enough to dig the grave. Even so, they still had to use pickaxes to break through the frozen ground. Rand and Linc had built the box that now sat beside the hole.

Jacob stood at the head of the grave, his Bible open, looking as sad as the rest of them. When silence fell, he raised his voice. “Dear friends, family, for we are all God’s family, let us pray. Father in heaven, look down on us with compassion, for times are hard, and this is the hardest. We give thee Little Squirrel and her baby, and we thank thee for the time she was with us here on earth. We thank thee for keeping her safe. Thou sayest that our days are numbered, but thou knowest even the numbers of the hairs on our heads. We matter to thee—thou hast called us by name. Bring comfort to Linc and be thou his staff and his guide. Amen.”

He looked out to them all. “The Bible says there is a time for everything under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to sing. It also says that weeping tarries for the night, but joy cometh with the morning.” He bent down and picked up some of the earth. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Little Squirrel and your child, we commit you to the earth from which you will be raised again on that last day.