Christmas Under Western Skies (2 page)

T
his land is so different from home. No trees, few streams, and the wind is as relentless as the unending, barren landscape. And then this evening, just as the sun was setting, I stumbled across what back home might have been an orchard of apple or pear trees. It was such a beautiful sight after so many long days of nothing but fields of dead grasses and withered crops, that tears sprang to my eyes. I climbed down from Salt and walked among the low branches and saw the shape of a few hardy leafs undeterred by either the wind or the cold. Oak leaves. I had to smile, then laugh aloud, as I thought of the mighty oak trees that dominate the hills back home.

Julianne glanced at the sleeping man, his breath coming a little easier these last few days. He had been here—right outside. Hers was the only farm in this area that fit the setting he'd described. While she and the children had stayed the night with Sam and Glory, he
had passed this way. What if she'd been here? Alone with the children? And yet, he had not broken in. The storm had come on suddenly at dawn, as such things did here on the plains—and passed just as quickly.

As if he felt her watching him, he opened his eyes. “Ma'am?” His voice was raspy.

Julianne started and snapped the journal shut, placing it in her apron pocket.

“Right here,” she replied, edging cautiously closer to the bed.

He was lying on his side, and for the first time since Sam had carried him inside his eyes were clear. Only the occasional coughing fit told the story of how very ill he still was.

“Don't want to impose,” he managed between coughing jags. “Could I have a little water?”

“Of course,” Julianne hurried to the bucket and dipped water into a tin cup. When she turned, he had pushed himself to a position of half-sitting, his weight resting on one forearm.

“Appreciate that,” he said when she handed him the cup. His drawl was unmistakable.

“You're Virginian?” she guessed.

He nodded. “How did you know?”

“I grew up there—in the western part of the state.”

“Hill country.” He grinned and sipped the water. In spite of several day's growth of a thick, black beard, his smile was disarming and at the same time captivating.

“And you?” she asked, forcing her attention anywhere but on those white, even teeth and eyes that were now
wide open, and the most startling shade of green—like spring grasses come to life on the plains.

“Just outside Richmond,” he managed before the coughing started again. The water sloshed from the cup onto the bedding. “Sorry,” he mumbled as he tried ineffectively to clean up the spill.

“Never mind.” She took the cup from him. “Are you hungry?”

“Famished,” he admitted, “but I don't mean to trouble you—I mean, any more then I already have.”

She ignored that and stirred the stew, then ladled up half a bowl and handed it to him.

“What day is it?”

“Monday.”

She saw him mentally calculating the lost time. “I've been here a week already?”

“As of yesterday, yes.” She handed him the soup and could not help noticing the way he seemed to savor every bite. She would have expected him to gobble it down.

After all, it had been days since he'd eaten anything of substance.

“Where are you heading?” she asked.

“California, God willing.”

“Well, God seems to have led you straight into the eye of the worst early winter storm we've seen for this time of year.” Julianne had little patience with people who placed their lives in God's hands. After all, that's what she'd done with Luke, and he'd died.

Nathan Cook paused with the spoon poised over the
bowl, his eyes searching hers. “God has His reasons for whatever comes our way, ma'am.”

It was her turn to shrug. Once a woman of deep, abiding faith, the events of her life over the last few years had convinced Julianne that she could rely on neither man nor God. She had only herself. “We found your papers, Captain Cook. They were quite sodden but we managed to salvage them along with your Bible.”

“We?”

“My neighbor and I found you lying in the snow. We brought you here and stabled your horse with the other livestock.” She busied herself peeling potatoes to add to the stew.

“May I know your name?”

“I am Mrs. Cooper.” Best withhold the fact that she was widowed for as long as possible, Julianne decided.

“And Mr. Cooper?”

“Is not here,” she said, satisfied that she had not told an outright lie. “If you'll tell me who to contact, I can see that your family receives word that you are safe.”

Julianne was riveted by the expression of abject sadness that briefly shuttered his eyes. “No need,” he replied, and turned his face away, whether because of a fresh coughing jag or because he could not bear for her to witness his pain, she could not say.

Just then the door banged in on its hinges, admitting nine-year-old twins engaged in one of their never-ending debates. “I'm telling you that he was on the losing side,” Laura insisted. “The papers said that…”

“Children,” Julianne interrupted, and the twins stopped in midsentence as they stared past their mother to the stranger smiling at them. “Captain Cook is feeling somewhat better, but still recovering. Please close the door and lower your voices.”

Laura did as she was asked while Luke moved closer to Nathan. “Did you fight for the army that won or the one that lost?”

“Luke Cooper, Junior.” Julianne knew she did not need to raise her voice. Using the boy's full name never failed to remind him of his manners.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and took a sudden interest in looking at the tips of his wet boots.

“Everybody loses in war, son,” Nathan said.

It was so close to the answer that Big Luke would have given the boy, that Julianne felt her breath catch, and she was relieved to hear the creak of the wagon wheels on the frozen ground announcing Sam's return. “Go help Mr. Foster unhitch Dusty,” she told her son, as she gently guided him toward the door where she could hear another wagon arriving. “Laura, please finish peeling these potatoes while I see who's come calling.”

 

Nathan watched the woman hurry across the room and peek through one of several small holes in the heavily oiled paper that covered the house's only two windows.

“Oh, no,” she muttered to herself as she straightened, they pressed her palms over the front of her apron before heading to the door.

Under the spotless bibbed apron made of a calico material, she wore a wool dress of dark gray. It suited her in its simplicity, but seemed exceptionally austere for one so young and vibrant. With her golden hair and pale blue eyes, and cheekbones freckled and kissed by the sun, she was like a ray of sunshine in the otherwise gloomy surroundings.

He saw her glance back at him once she'd recognized her visitors. “Everything will be fine,” she assured him in a voice intended to placate and soothe. It was almost as if she expected him to make a run for it.

Within moments, the room was filled with cold air, as well as three women who placed prepared dishes of food on the table. They then surrendered their outer garments to the boy who hung them on pegs. An older black man hung up his hat and coat and stood near the door, as if waiting for the women to settle somewhere.

One of the three—a tall, heavyset woman with a voice that could shatter glass—stood by the door and focused her attention on him as she spoke to the Cooper woman. “I don't know what you could possibly have been thinking, my dear.” She clucked her tongue against uneven teeth, and the other two women sidled a little closer to her until they formed what Nathan could only view as a solid line of defense against him.

“You take in a complete stranger, and you all alone here with these dear children?” the woman continued.

“How did you hear of—”

“You were not at services yesterday, and so, naturally, I told Jacob something must be wrong. I thought perhaps
the children were ill, or you, yourself. Mind you, the way you insist on living out here alone like this—”

“Sorry,” the man by the door said to Julianne. “She came straight to us, and, well…” He shrugged and Julianne nodded.

The older woman ignored this, turning her full attention back to Nathan. “Why have you come here, young man?” she demanded, pointing one stubby finger at him.

“I…” Nathan was not at all sure how to best answer that.

“The man was passed out in the snow,” the black man drawled, moving fully into the room now and tapping the bowl of his pipe on the hearth. “There was a choice, that's certain. Leave him where he dropped or take him in.”

Nathan was speechless that a black man—an ex-slave by his accent—would speak to a white person with such sarcasm and confidence.

“Just hush, Sam Foster. I am addressing this man here. Well?”

Nathan was thinking a coughing fit might save him, when the Cooper woman stepped forward.

“Captain Cook became disoriented during the storm, Emma,” she explained. “He, like so many who have passed our way, is on his way west, to California. Ill as he was, there was little choice but to take him in until he could be moved.”

The woman called Emma peered more closely at Nathan. “He certainly won't be going to California until
spring—not with an early winter already upon us,” she announced. “What's your trade, mister?”

Nathan was speechless at the woman's sudden shift in questioning. “I…”

“The captain served as a chaplain during the war.”

All eyes turned to Laura, who was adding onion to the pile of apples and chopped potatoes, as if she hadn't spoken.

“Is that right?” Emma demanded of Julianne.

“According to his papers,” she replied.

“Mother, a minister,” one of the other two women said, as if this were some sort of good news.

“Hush. And from your accent, may I assume that you are Southern?”

“Virginia, born and bred. Same as Mrs. Cooper here.” He had no idea why he'd added that, but it seemed an important point to make.

“Well, I suppose it's true. You had no choice but to do your Christian duty,” Mrs. Putnam said, backing away. “Sam, I am assuming that you and Glory will see that Mrs. Cooper—”

“I'm staying in the lean-to for the duration,” Sam assured her. “You ladies can rest easy that she and the children won't be alone,” he added.

“Very well. But make no mistake, young man,” she added, turning her attention back to Nathan, “someone
will
be watching you.” She reached for her cloak as the other two women prepared to leave.

“It'll be all right,” Sam assured the ladies as he escorted them from the cabin.

Nathan processed this newest bit of information as the women huddled on the stoop, communicating with Sam Foster in urgent and worried whispers.
Where was the husband?
He glanced at the boy and girl—twins by the looks of them. The girl kept casting him curious glances, while the boy edged his way closer to her as if to protect her should Nathan try anything.

Outside, a horse snorted and he heard a wagon pull away, then the black man came back inside with Mrs. Cooper. He folded his arms and studied Nathan while she took the freshly peeled vegetables and added them to a pot over the fire. “Children, it's time for you to work on your spelling,” she said, as she put away the bread and cake the women had brought.

“Glad to see you're feeling some better, mister, but just keep in mind that I'm right here,” the man the Putnam woman had called Sam Foster warned, as he settled himself in the lone chair close to the door.

“Understood,” Nathan said and collapsed back onto the bed, his head spinning. Nothing about these people was making any sense. Neither Mrs. Cooper, whose protector was not her husband but this elderly man, nor the woman from town who had interrogated him and then left. Mrs. Cooper looked as fragile as a china doll, and yet left the definite impression that she could take care of herself. The one thing that he'd heard since regaining consciousness that made any sense at all was the Putnam woman's proclamation that he was going nowhere until spring. He stared up at the makeshift canopy, constructed no doubt to protect the Coopers
from bugs and such that might fall from the ceiling of the sod house as he considered his options.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“They named the town Homestead,” the girl replied, ignoring her mother's look of warning.

“We're a long way from California,” Sam Foster commented, as if making an observation about the weather. “Why are you going there?”

“My brother's there,” Nathan replied, not yet ready to give them the whole story.

“Well, there's no hope that you're going to find your way across those mountains before spring—late spring at that.” The man lit his pipe and drew on it. “I reckon you could stay with me and Mrs. Foster until you figure out your next move. That would probably be best all around.”

“I can work, Mr. Foster,” he said, seizing this opportunity God had surely placed before him.

“What'd you say was your trade?”

“I was a chaplain during the war. Before the war my family owned a…” He hesitated to call his family's land by its true name.

“Plantation?” Foster asked.

Nathan nodded.

“Things are different out here,” the woman murmured. She glanced at him. “In many ways—not just farming.”

“I can see that,” he told her, cutting his eyes from her to Foster and back again. “After all I saw these last years, it'd be a nice change.”

“You might be thinking about helping out some around here,” Sam said. “Those windows could do with some fresh oiled paper if they're expected to keep out the wind and cold this winter.”