Blessing in Disguise (34 page)

“I go dig some more.” Morning Dove checked the baby on her back and picked up the basket.

“You want these to boil?” Augusta indicated the stove. Even though her English was still so haphazard, she and Morning Dove managed to understand each other. Shame she and Kane couldn’t do as well.

Morning Dove nodded as she went back out the door.

Augusta dipped water from the reservoir into a kettle and set it on the hottest part of the stove. She cut the carrots in chunks and dumped them in the already steaming water, along with two pinches of salt from the salt cellar that sat on the upper warming shelf of the stove. With the lid in place, she tucked a couple of the carrots, a slab of meat from the leftover roast, and a half loaf of bread into a dish towel. Checking out the window to make sure Morning Dove was still busy, she flew to her room to get the wool jacket that matched her skirt. With a sigh of regret, she left her carpetbag tucked under the bed. Not that she had much in it, but it was one of her last links to home.

Perhaps someday Kane would send it to her.

You are married to him, you know
. The little voice that she’d been trying to ignore all morning managed to break through her barriers.

“So he says,” she muttered as she tucked a handkerchief up her sleeve. “But it sure enough wasn’t because I said yes.”

But you really do admire him, perhaps even have come to lo—
She cut that thought off before it could go any further. Love was more than tingles up the arm and the flushing of the face. Love was trust and caring and sharing and much more.

So hasn’t he been showing you those exact—
She cut that thought off too. She stopped and glanced a final time in the mirror. “I have to get to Blessing. I told Mor I was coming, and she must be half dead with worry by now. They’ve probably already had a funeral for me, at least in their minds.”

That thought made her feel even worse.
If only Kane had said he would take me there, as I thought he meant in the beginning
. “Uff da!” She spun away from her reflection and, gathering her few things, checked to make sure she was still alone in the house. There was not a sound.

Hurrying back to the kitchen, she set her parcel on the chair before the fireplace, then continued to slide the now boiling kettle of carrots to a cooler part of the stove. She stuck a couple of pieces of firewood in the stove, clattered the lid back in place, and with parcel in hand, out the front door she went, picking up her blanket as she passed.

The filly greeted her with a nicker and came trotting over as soon as she saw the carrot on Augusta’s palm. Saddling and bridling her took only minutes, but the entire time the argument raged in her head.

Go. Stay. Stay. Go
. No matter which, she’d make someone unhappy. Not that Kane would be too unhappy. At least she didn’t think so.

Once mounted she waved to Morning Dove and jogged out down the lane she and Kane had ridden before. When Morning Dove called something to her, she waved again. “Ja, I will be careful,” she called back. If only she could understand for sure what the woman had said. If only she could have said a real good-bye. After all, Morning Dove had been very good with and to her.

Augusta ignored the twinges of guilt, even after they grew to spear size.
Married
. She couldn’t be married, for heaven’s sake.

Once out of sight of the ranch, she kicked the filly into a lope. All she had to do now was follow the road back to the train station. About an hour out, time enough to begin to feel discomfort in her rear region, she came to a fork in the road. There were no signs anywhere. “So, girl, which way do we go?”

The filly snorted and blew. Dark patches on her neck reminded Augusta that she’d better slow down for a time and take it easy on her horse. “Which way, Lord? You have promised to guide the blind, and right now I might as well be blind.”

When the bush off to the side of the road failed to burst into fire and tell her which way, she took the left fork because it seemed to go more north. Something she remembered from her trip from the railroad station made her think they had come south.

“Or was it west?” The filly’s ears flicked at her words, but she kept up the gentle jog that could lull a person to sleep if they weren’t careful.

All the hills looked the same. Rolling, not much higher than a two-story house, and with a decided lack of trees. Or farmhouses.

A deer bounded out from a thicket, and if she hadn’t been alert, her horse would have bolted. As it was, Augusta brought the filly under control a ways down the road. Her heart pounded as though it wanted freedom from the confines of her chest.

While she’d already been thirsty, now her mouth felt drier than the sand that drifted on some of the hills. The breeze had kicked up when she wasn’t looking, and she thought of using the blanket she had tied on behind the saddle for a cover.

Glancing behind her she realized why it had gotten colder. Towering thunderheads purpled the western horizon, reaching for the sun with flimsy fingers. She shivered and buttoned the top button of her jacket. Hadn’t there been a creek that followed much of the road on their way out? At the pace she was going, surely she should have seen it by now.

“Why didn’t I bring a jug of water? What was the matter with my head?”

You’d think we would have met at least one other traveler by now
.

“Oh-oh. Something’s up,” Kane said to Lone Pine as he looked at the figure on horseback flying across the field toward them.

Morning Dove pulled her horse to a sliding stop in front of the two men. “She gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean ‘gone’?” Kane tipped the brim of his hat up so he could see her without getting a crick in his neck.

“She went riding and not come back.”

Kane glanced up at the sky, now more black than gray. “Go find the others,” he instructed Lone Pine. “Tell them to get back to the ranch as fast as they can.”

Lone Pine nodded and swung aboard his horse. “You want them to bring in the cattle?”

“No.” Kane grabbed the reins that had been ground-tying his horse. “What did she say?” he asked Morning Dove as he flipped one rein up from the other side, then gathered them both and stepped into his stirrup. He had his mount moving before he settled into the saddle.

“She said good-bye.” Morning Dove reined her horse around and kept pace with Kane.

“Not see you later, or—”

Morning Dove shook her head. “Good-bye—in English. She been practicing her English all the time.”

“I know.”
Fool woman, where could she have gone?
Surely she knew better than to go beyond the ranch. After all, that’s where they had ridden together and then she by herself. He’d shown her the boundaries. Not that anyone else would mind her riding on their land.

He felt a few drops on his hands and in his face. That’s all they needed. Rain to wash away her tracks.

“Did she take anything along?”

“Bread and meat.”

That in itself wasn’t unusual. Unless, of course, they had already eaten dinner. But when he asked Morning Dove, she shook her head. So maybe she’d planned on a picnic. He pulled his hat lower to keep the rising wind from snatching it away.

Wonderful weather for anyone to be lost.

By the time they loped into the ranch, he’d called himself every name in the book and made up a few new ones. He’d found himself being real creative with names for his wife too. Perhaps she’d returned.

But when they got to the corral, he knew that was a vain hope. The filly wasn’t in the corral, the barn, or out to pasture. While he waited for the others, he gathered up lanterns and filled them with kerosene, had Morning Dove fix food both for a fast supper and a meal on the trail, and tied a tarp around his blanket roll. By the time the men got there, he’d about worn a groove in the floor in front of the fireplace.

He took one man besides Lone Pine. While the wind pummeled them like a boxer attacking his foe, the rain held off, sending drops once in a while to keep them from getting too complacent.

At least there hadn’t been a lot of traffic on the road, none in fact but a lone horse with what he hoped was a lonely rider. The question he couldn’t answer was why? Had she been so unhappy that she had to run away?

But deep in his heart he thought he knew. She’d asked him to take her to Blessing, and he’d refused.

When they came to the fork, he held the lantern out so they could see better.

Lone Pine pointed to the left. “She go that way.”

Kane shook his head. “Now, why would she do that? If she’s going to Ipswich, it’s that way.” He nodded to the right arm of the Y.

“She lost for sure.”

Kane shivered. The wind seemed to be trying to divest them of whatever protection they had.
Dear Lord, please take care of this headstrong woman you have given me. Please forgive me for not trying harder to understand what she wanted—not that I would have let her go anyway. But I could have taken her where she wanted to go
. He pulled his hat down farther to keep the wind from ripping it off.

Was she even wearing a hat—a
real
hat?

Augusta untied the latigos and carefully unwrapped her bundle. While she’d eaten part of her food earlier, now she wanted the blanket more than bread. Even more than the blanket, she wanted water.

Seeing some trees to the left, she turned her horse off the narrowing road, hoping and praying there would be a creek or spring. The last time she’d tried, the swamp water was so muddy she didn’t dare drink from it. The horse, however, had no such compunctions and drank her fill. At least one of them was comfortable.

A tiny spring seeped into the ground about as fast as it trickled out between the two rocks. Augusta knelt on a rock beside it and cupped one hand beneath the trickle. With her other she clutched the reins. If her horse bolted now . . . She didn’t even dare contemplate the thought. Slurp by slurp she slaked her thirst. When she finally creaked to her feet again—she wasn’t sure which part of her anatomy hurt the worst—she leaned against the filly’s shoulder for warmth. The horse dropped her head and began grazing on the clumps of grass watered by the spring.

Augusta wished she could do likewise. There was no sense in going farther this night, and the little glade offered some protection from the elements. She hadn’t seen sign of any ranches or farms for hours, but then she hadn’t explored down the long lanes that led off from the main road.

If only she’d gone right at the Y. If only she hadn’t started out on such a foolhardy venture in the first place. She shivered and clutched the blanket closer. Surely she would find someone to point her in the right direction in the morning.

The wind roared around the hillside and snatched at her blanket.

“Father in heaven, if I’ve ever needed your protection, I surely do need it now.” She thought about her words. As if He hadn’t always been protecting her. But right now the warmth of His mighty hand would feel awful good.

She sat down with her back to a tree trunk and switched hands every now and then because the hand holding the reins turned blue rather quickly. “Do I let the horse graze, which means I leave this bit of comfort from the tree, or do I make her suffer too?” The wind lashing the tree branches made hearing herself difficult even though she had the blanket over her face.

“Why didn’t I think to bring a rope?” She shook her head. “Because I am one of the most hardheaded, stubborn, opinionated women I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.” A picture of Kane reading to her in front of a roaring fireplace came to mind.

“Uff da!” Right now stronger words were more appropriate, but even so, she couldn’t say them. “Uff da” did say it all.

A gust of rain rattled the bare branches overhead. Most likely it would start to pour soon, and then where would she be? “Right here, only soaking wet.” She clutched the blanket closer to her throat to block an errant draft. “Father, how do you put up with me?” The horse pulled against the reins, asking for more slack.

“Just like me, huh? Always asking for more slack so I can go my own way? And you let me. And then I have to beg you to deliver me from the cold and the wind and the rain.”