Bittner, Rosanne (19 page)

"It's a boy," she told him. "I named him Tyler, after my grandfather. I hope that's all right."

Luke looked away, but Lettie caught sight of the tears that were beginning to trickle down his cheeks. "He's dead, Lettie," he said quietly. "He drowned. I'm not going to go into details about it right now. There's no sense in it." His body jerked oddly, and Lettie heard a choking sound. Suddenly he broke into bitter sobbing. Lettie hesitantly touched his shoulder, noticing his hair had grown past his shoulders while he'd been away. Part of her wanted to hate him, to blame him; but she knew better. This was no one's fault. It was a matter of circumstances, of savagery, of an age-old battle between two cultures. "I loved him... as though he were my own." Luke groaned. "God forgive me."

Somehow Lettie had known all along that he would come back without her son. She felt surprisingly calm as she rubbed his back. "There is nothing to forgive, Luke. You couldn't have stopped it, and you did all you could to find him. I was afraid I had lost you, too."

He wept for several minutes before pulling away from her and taking a handkerchief from the back pocket of his denim pants. He turned away and wiped at his eyes. "I did everything I could."

"I know that."

He breathed deeply, walking a few feet away and grasping a support post. "We'll leave. You've never really liked it here. I'll take you to Denver if you want, so you can be with your family. I'll find a job there."

Lettie looked down at her little son, a strong, healthy boy whose birth had helped soothe her broken heart. "No. We're staying." Luke turned around in surprise, and she studied the terrible agony in his bloodshot eyes.

"How can you want to stay after what happened?" he asked.

Lettie held out the baby. "Take him, Luke." Hesitantly he reached out and took his new son into his arms.

"Someday all of this will belong to him, and his brothers and sisters. We're not leaving, Luke, because God led you here, because your dreams are here. Our children were born here, and this is our home now. No wild animals or wild Indians or outlaws or the elements are going to make us leave." She turned and looked out at the valley below. "My son is not dead. I feel it in my bones. Whatever happened, whatever you learned from the Sioux, I know in my heart my son is not dead." She faced him again. "That is
my
reason for staying. Someday my son is going to come home. I intend to be here when that happens."

Luke shook his head. "Lettie—"

"No! I don't want to hear it. All we can do now is pray that if Half Nose or some other warrior has Nathan, they will treat him with love, take good care of him; and pray that he never forgets us, that somewhere in his memory when he's grown, there will be a place for us."

"Lettie, we found his clothes by the river. We actually found Half Nose, and he told us the boy drowned."

"Did you find his stuffed horse?"

The words ripped at his insides. "No. Half Nose said it was lost along the way."

"You know Nathan would never let go of that horse, especially if he was afraid. He is alive and he has that horse with him. I know it, and that's why I'm never leaving Montana."

Luke stepped a little closer. "What about us?"

Lettie frowned, confused by the question. "I don't know what you mean."

"Lettie, every bit of this is my fault. I'd understand if you didn't want me around."

She closed her eyes. "Oh, Luke, I need you now more than ever." She looked up at him then. "And you are the father of my other two children. I married you for better or for worse, Luke. I married you because I love you. We can't always control the things that happen, and we can't let fear of what
might
happen stop us from living. Just don't ever try to tell me again that Nathan is dead. I can't and won't believe it. He is alive, and someday he will come back to us."

Luke looked into her green eyes, ached at the deep sorrow there. If it helped for her to believe Nathan was alive, then so be it. He looked past her at the valley below, at the few horses that were left. The two new men were herding those he and Will had brought back into a corral. It was a beautiful day, warm, sunny, flowers blooming in the foothills, bees buzzing, birds singing. All his buildings were still intact, and he held a healthy new son in his arms. He looked back down at Lettie. "You really want to stay?"

She took the baby from him, kissing its forehead. "Yes."

Luke took a deep breath. "All right. We stay. I want you to know that from here on there will be no more broken promises. You'll have everything you ever wanted if I have to work myself into the grave to get it. No man, red or white, is ever again going to get the better of Luke Fontaine or try to steal anything from me. If a man has to set his own laws out here, then that's the way it will have to be—no room for pity, no hesitation. On Fontaine land men will live by Fontaine law. And
no
one will ever hurt my wife or any of my children again!
No
one!"

"No one but God himself can make such guarantees, Luke."

He pulled her and the baby into his arms. He wasn't sure anymore if he even believed in a God who would let a sweet child like Nathan be carried off by savages. Out here a man had only himself to depend on. Out here sometimes a man had to play God himself.

"I'll find some way to make up for all the hurt, Lettie."

She did not answer. There was an emptiness in her heart now that nothing could ever fill, no matter how many more children she had, no matter how wealthy they might become. The only way to bear that emptiness was to believe that someday, somehow, she would find her son, hold him again, bring him back into the fold of her arms and tell him he was always loved, never forgotten.

PART TWO

We hold that happenings which may even compel the heart to break, cannot break the human spirit....

—May Kendall

The New Joy of Words

CHAPTER 11

August 1872

Lettie ran out of the house after the hired hand told her who had come visiting, driven to the ranch in a buggy by Will Doolan. "Mama!" She reached up for the woman before Will could even bring the buggy to a halt, then ran alongside it until it stopped and Katie MacBride could climb down. "Oh, Mama, I don't believe it!"

The two women embraced, laughed, cried. Lettie's sister, Louise, also climbed out of the buggy, followed by a slender man of perhaps thirty, wearing eyeglasses and a neat suit. Louise joined in the hugging while Lettie's several children gathered around to stare at the visitor.

"It must be our grandma," eight-year-old Katie told her sister, Pearl, who was five. Two of their brothers also watched curiously, seven-year-old Tyler holding the littlest brother, Paul, only two, while four-year-old Robert ran off after one of several dogs that roamed the Fontaine ranch. For several minutes the MacBride women clung to each other. As they finally pulled apart, they were all wiping at tears. It had been nine years since they had last seen each other on the Oregon Trail.

"Well, this is quite a reunion," Will said with a grin. "Too bad Luke's not here."

Henny climbed down from the two-seater buggy Will had rented in town to bring Lettie's mother and sister to the ranch. She had come along just to see the joy on Lettie's face. A round of introductions followed, then laughter when Lettie realized her mother had of course already met Will and Henny.

"We never would have survived those first two or three years without Will and Henny," Lettie told her mother. "Out here, dependable friends are worth more than all the gold most people come to Montana to find." She hugged her mother again. "Oh, Mama, why didn't you tell me you were coming? After all the letters... you should have written. Luke would so much have wanted to be here. We would have told you to come earlier in the spring, or later in the fall. In the summer Luke is gone on the cattle drive to Cheyenne."

"I know, dear, but..." Her smile faded. "I had a special reason for coming now."

Lettie studied the woman, her hair so much grayer, her skin more wrinkled, but it was the same beautiful face, her lovely complexion as pretty as ever against the soft pink dress she wore. She saw the deep sorrow in the woman's dark eyes then, and she realized what her father's absence must mean. "It's Father, isn't it?"

Katie nodded, unable to speak.

"Daddy died about six weeks ago, Lettie," Louise told her quietly. "Mother thought, after all these years... well, we'd been meaning to visit anyway. She thought it might be easier just to come here in person and be together, rather than write you the news in a letter."

Lettie felt a terrible sorrow. It had been nine years since she had felt her father's embrace, and now she would never do so again. What hurt the most was that she could hardly remember what he'd looked like except for the red hair and the green eyes so like her own. A whirlwind of joy and sorrow, hellos and good-byes, that's all life was. "Oh, Mama," She fell into her mother's arms and the two wept again.

"James wanted so much to come, too," Louise told Lettie, referring to their brother. "But he had to take over

Father's stores, and he's so busy. His wife, Sara, just had a baby girl. That makes three children for them, two nephews and one niece you've never seen, and of course my own two daughters. They're too small for such a rough trip so we left them with James and Sara." She turned to the man who had come with her. "Lettie, this is my husband, Kenneth Brown."

Keeping an arm around her mother, Lettie wiped tears from her eyes and studied her brother-in-law. A banker, Louise had explained in letters. It was difficult to think of her little sister as married, the mother of two daughters already. But Louise was twenty-three now, a grown-up woman, and their brother was twenty-eight. She was twenty-seven herself, and Luke thirty-seven! It seemed impossible. "Hello, Kenneth."

Louise's husband smiled and shook her hand. Lettie was surprised at how soft his hand was, how limp the handshake. Accustomed as she was to the burly, rough, rugged men on the ranch, Kenneth looked small and delicate to her and his suit and spectacles were a strange sight. It hit her then how much she had changed over the years, for there had been a time when most of the men she knew wore suits and drove fancy buggies. "I'm glad to meet you finally, Let-tie," Kenneth was saying. "We've all tried to imagine what it's like here, tried to picture the ranch, the house. Your letters have taken us on some wonderful adventures!"

Lettie laughed through tears. "Yes, life certainly is that here. One adventure after another." Her smile faded as her thoughts turned to Nathan. He had not been found or heard from in seven years. Maybe he really was dead. "Some more exciting than others." She nodded toward the sad little shack that sat farther up the hill. "That's where we spent our first terrible winter. We use the shack now to store feed."

"Dear Lord," Louise whispered.

Lettie gave her mother a squeeze. "Mama, I want you to meet your grandchildren. Ty, run and get Robert and bring him back here."

After setting little Paul on his feet, Tyler ran down the hill past a wandering milk cow to chase after his brother. "Robbie, get over here. Our grandma's here," he shouted.

Lettie picked up Paul. "This is Paul Lucas, Mama. He's two. He's the only baby I had who was delivered by a real doctor. Billings finally got a doctor three years ago, and it's a good thing." Her smile faded. "It was a very difficult birth. I almost died, and probably would have if Dr. Manning hadn't been there. He ended up having to operate. I can't have any more children."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Lettie," Katie said sympathetically. "You should have told me in your letters."

"I didn't want to worry you. Luke feels it's probably for the best. This last birth gave him quite a scare."

Katie studied her handsome grandson. "He has his father's dark hair and your green eyes," she told Lettie. "Oh, let me hold him."

Paul went to her readily, as though he'd always known his grandmother. He rested his head on her shoulder while Lettie introduced the rest of the children.

"This is our oldest, Katherine Lynn," Lettie told her mother. "She's named after you, of course. She's eight years old already."

"And tall for eight years old!" the elder Katie said with a smile.

"She takes after her father in build, has his dark hair, too, but her eyes aren't green or blue."

"I have hazel eyes," the girl spoke up, holding her chin proudly. She gave her grandmother a smile. "I'm glad you came, Grandma. Mother has told me all about you, and what it was like back in St. Joseph. Will you tell me all about Denver?"

"Oh, it's a big city and growing bigger every day. There are even some buildings four and five stories high, hotels, theaters. They've even built a railroad from Denver to Cheyenne. That's how we got here. We took the train first, then a stagecoach from Cheyenne to Billings. It was quite an exciting trip, and it's all such beautiful country."

"Hi, Grandma!" A very pretty, fragile-looking little girl with braided red hair and green eyes interrupted the conver-

sation then, offering her grandmother a kiss. "I'm Pearl Louise. I'm five years old!" she said proudly. She turned to Lettie's sister and kissed her, too. "I'm named after you, Aunt Louise."

"Pearl is a bold little thing, and you should hear her sing!" Lettie told them, touching her daughter's hair. "Almost every night after supper she sings and dances and does anything she can to entertain us. I'd like to try getting a piano someday, find a way to give her lessons. I think she's very musically inclined."

"A piano! Can you get a piano clear out here?" her mother asked.

"Where there is a will, there is a way, Luke always says. He says if I want a piano, he'll get me one." Her heart ached at the words. Ever since Nathan was taken away, Luke had worked like a demon to build the ranch and give her anything she needed. She knew he had never stopped blaming himself for losing Nathan.

Tyler came running back to them then, dragging Robert with him.