Ashes and Ice (39 page)

“Well, what now?” he asked Adrik.

“Now we start over,” Adrik replied. “This is a new adventure. The old is passed away. We find a home or make one. We find a claim and work it. We settle ourselves in for the winter and do the best we can with what the good Lord has given us.”

Crispin looked back to the boat. “Someone should stay here. No sense in having our things taken.” He began to walk back to the boat.

“Doesn’t Crispin want to see the town?” Leah asked.

Adrik shook his head. “I think he needs some time to himself. But what say we all head up that way? Might as well begin checking things out.”

Leah rallied from her thoughts of Miranda and pulled on her brother’s arm. “Come on. There’s so much to see.”

“Oh my,” Grace said as it began to snow in earnest, “I forgot my bonnet.” She turned to go back to the scow, but Adrik stopped her.

“I’ll get it. You stay here.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking to Karen. “He’s a good man. He’ll be a wonderful husband.”

Karen nodded. “I know he will. But I know something else, as well.” She looped her arm through Grace’s. “You make me proud to call you friend. I so admire your strength and courage. You have been put through trials of fire and still your faith has grown.”

“I’m only putting into practice the things you taught me,” Grace said, her brown eyes meeting Karen’s gaze. “You planted the seeds within my heart, and God grew them. You should be proud of your job as a teacher, for you taught me much about life and about love.”

Karen felt tears sting her eyes. “Things will be better, you’ll see. God is not finished with this matter. He has a plan.”

“But there’s nothing left.”

“Then just as the stampeders did with Dawson City, God will create something out of nothing. He can do that, you know. He thawed my icy heart after I turned away from Him. He shattered my illusions of self-sufficiency and proved to me that He alone could see me through. He’ll do the same for you, Grace, because you’re His and He cares for His own.”

“Like He cared for Miranda?”

Karen saw the sorrow wash over Grace as she looked past Karen to the river. “He was with Miranda even when she fell. The Bible says that even the falling sparrow doesn’t escape His notice. I don’t know why God allows these things to happen, Grace. I don’t know why bad should plague the lives of people who desire only to do good, but my faith is restored, and I know that God in His infinite wisdom will have things as He wills.”

“Then there’s nothing we can do?”

Karen smiled. “We can trust Him. Trust Him to know the path and the way to go. Trust Him to raise us up from our worldly, daily deaths.”

Grace put her hand on her rounded abdomen. “I know He will keep us—I trust Him to deliver us.”

“Here’s your bonnet, Mrs. Colton,” Adrik said, coming back up the walk.

Grace looked to Karen for the briefest moment and smiled. Karen knew in her heart that God would make a way for all of them, but especially for Grace, who had tried so very hard to honor Him.

“Thank you, Adrik,” Grace murmured. She took the hat and started up the road toward the congestion of town.

Karen looked to her husband and saw the hope gleaming in his eyes. “Are you ready?” she asked.

He nodded. “Are you?”

“I’d follow you to the ends of the earth,” she said, embrac- ing him with great pride. “And I think I’ve proven that by coming here.”

He chuckled. “It’s not the end of the earth, but you can see it from here.”

Karen smiled and leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss her husband’s lips. “It’s not an ending at all,” she murmured. “It’s a beginning.”