Gingham Mountain (15 page)

Watching the flesh-eating animal circle high above, Horace laughed. “Well, there’s proof.”

Horace made his way down the steep trail, gloating at getting rid of the first of those worthless ophans. Glad for an excuse to quit working and get away from the stinking springs, he untied his horse,
hitching it to the buckboard and headed for LaMont.

He carefully wiped out his faint tracks on the rocky ground as he left. He’d earned a break with this day’s work.

“Where’s Joshua?” Grant went into the cabin for breakfast. “I sent him to scout for that stubborn roan longhorn. The one who thinks she’s a mountain goat. She’s probably wandered off to have her calf.”

Marilyn shrugged as she stirred the oatmeal. “He must be late, Pa.”

Sadie, picking up a stack of bowls, paused. A furrow cut between her brows. “He wasn’t going far. He should have been back.”

Grant nodded and realized he had an itch between his shoulder blades that made him feel like someone had a rifle trained on his back. “I’ll ride out and check. I’ve got the wagon hitched. Marilyn, can you and Sadie drive yourselves to school?”

“Sure, Pa.” Marilyn looked up from her steaming pot. “But don’t you want us to help hunt?”

“No, he probably just found that stubborn old cow and he can’t get her in. I’ll meet him coming home, trying to drive her. I’ll let him ride the buckskin into school. He’ll probably catch you before you get to town.”

“No, I don’t think so, Pa.” Sadie set the stack of bowls down with a hard crack. “Joshua isn’t one to be late. You know him better’n that.”

Grant knew a person could get held up working cattle, but Joshua was a boy...man...who was always ahead of time. It wasn’t something Grant had taught; it was just part of the boy’s character. A niggle of worry grew to about ten times its size. Grant’s calm snapped.

“Set the breakfast aside, Marilyn.” Grant raised his voice. “Kids, I need help.”

Charlie poked his head out of the loft above. Benny came running in from the back bedroom. Libby limped into the kitchen. Grant
couldn’t leave her and he couldn’t let her hike. He plucked the child up and wrapped her coat around her.

“You’ll ride with me.” He looked at the other children. “We’re gonna hunt down Joshua. If we find him along the trail with no trouble, we can all enjoy pestering him for being late. If there’s trouble, I might need extra hands.”

Marilyn shoved the pan of oatmeal off the heat and efficiently stripped off her apron. All of the children scrambled into their outer things with Marilyn helping.

Sadie strode toward the door, pulling on her coat. “I’ll start saddling the horses.”

“Libby and I’ll head out now in the buckboard. Benny, you ride along with us.” Grant followed Sadie out the door, fear goading him to hurry. Sadie was right. Joshua wouldn’t be late.

There was trouble.

Standing in the entrance to the little schoolhouse, Hannah hesitated. This mess in Sour Springs had sidetracked her from her plan to move to Mosqueros and search for Grace.

When Chicago had gotten too cold and miserable for Hannah to bear, she and Libby had begun their odyssey to save her sister. First stowing away on a train headed to Omaha, they’d found themselves on a car carrying orphans. Hannah realized that rather than hide for the whole trip they could move around the car, pretending to the conductor that they were with the orphan train and pretending to the orphans that they were passengers. They’d mixed with the huge unruly crowd of children, even so far as sharing their food. The first stop to meet prospective parents was in Omaha. Then, because the train was going on west and Grace was south of them, they slipped away.

There was no opportunity in Omaha to hitch a train ride south.
The security was too tight, especially because nothing like that orphan train came through again. Hannah and Libby lived in cold alleys and tried to earn enough for two tickets.

Libby had stood on street corners wearing a sign asking for money. Hannah had carried groceries and washed clothes. She’d swept sidewalks and washed windows. None of the jobs lasted. None of her bosses were interested in Hannah’s problems, and she learned to keep them to herself. Hannah was none too clean, and she knew there was a desperate gleam in her eyes that she couldn’t quite suppress...and that didn’t inspire many to give her a chance.

Hannah and Libby wore rags and starved themselves trying to scrape together cash enough for tickets. They lived in alleys and sheds rather than spend their precious earnings on themselves. It had taken them a year.

Finally they got to Kansas City. The money was harder to come by, and it took them a long time to raise a few pennies. Despairing of paying their way, with luck and a ridiculous amount of risk and with a determined sheriff on their trail, Hannah and Libby snuck onto a train and made it to St. Louis. It was a step in the wrong direction, but they’d needed to get out of Kansas City.

In St. Louis, after working and struggling until it looked as if they’d never afford the next step of their journey, they ran into another trainload of orphans, this group headed for Texas—a giant step toward Grace. They fell in with them, and it went well until Martha identified Libby as being an orphan. She’d pulled Libby in with the group. Hannah had stood by and let her because Martha was feeding the other children, and for the first time in years, Libby ate well.

No one would adopt Libby, of course, not with her limp and her unnatural silence. She had planned for Libby to slip away from the train in a bigger town, much as she’d done in Omaha on the first leg of their arduous journey to find Grace. From there, they’d plan the final journey to Mosqueros.

Then Grant had done the unthinkable and adopted a little girl who wasn’t perfect. They’d made it this far, after all these years, and there was no way to get Libby away from Grant and head on toward west Texas.

And now Hannah had a school to teach. She took one step into the school and almost turned around and ran. She’d been teaching children all of her life, but she didn’t have the slightest idea how a school worked since she’d never been in one.

Before she completely lost her nerve, she hustled to the front of the room. She started the stove going first, pleased to see that the school was supplied with plenty of wood. When the fire was crackling cheerfully, she found a stack of books on the teacher’s desk.

From her own satchel, she produced careful notes she’d made for her Easter pageant. It was the dearest dream of her heart to watch the children singing and acting out the parts of the Resurrection story. She’d heard a new name for such a pageant, a passion play, and she’d always wanted to be part of telling the story of Jesus’ victory over death. These notes and papers, which she’d written so carefully for children, had stayed with her as she’d traveled across the country.

She laid the papers aside and studied the room. There were fourteen desks in two neat rows of seven, with a center aisle between them. Each desk held two children, although three students could be squeezed in a two-person desk if the students were small.

If Mabel’s estimate was correct, this room was going to overflow. Hannah spent the next hour looking through each book, knowing she’d have to find out where all of the students were in their studies before she could set their lessons.

She had the school warm and her confidence fully in place an hour before the first child came in the door.

She said a prayer that Grant would let his children attend school. If they didn’t show up, she’d go after them. There was no reason good enough to excuse them from being here.

J
osh!” Grant yelled over the roaring in his ears. He dragged the team to a halt, locked on the brake, leapt off the high buckboard seat, and ran.

His son.

Joshua had been with the first children Grant had adopted.

Now here he lay, coated in blood. Broken. Dead.

“Josh, can you hear me?” Grant skidded to his knees beside the boy. Pressing his ear against the boy’s chest, Grant prayed. Nothing, no heartbeat.

Grant tore Joshua’s coat and shirt open. The acrid smell of blood sent Grant’s stomach churning.

Benny dropped to the ground on the opposite side of Joshua’s inert body. He reached to help Libby down to her knees.

Grant listened to Joshua’s chest and finally caught a faint noise. “He’s alive.” Grant looked up. “Josh is alive! His heart’s still beating.” Grant looked at the steep bluff looming overhead and knew the boy must have fallen. He’d been trailing that agile, wild cow, or possibly looking for a high spot to study the terrain. Most likely the latter. The boy loved to climb.

Grant jerked off his gloves and tucked them under his belt, threw off his coat, tore at the buttons on his shirt, and then dragged it off. He ripped the shirt in half and pressed the worn fabric gently against Joshua’s bleeding head.

The cold bit into Grant through his tattered union suit and he shuddered. But it wasn’t from cold. So much blood. Grant’s makeshift bandage was soon soaked.

“What’ll we do, Pa?”

“Can you run back for the girls? We need— No, wait.” Grant looked straight at Benny. For the first time ever, Grant was scared to send one of his children off on his own. Something had happened out here. Something bad. No way did his nimble son fall off a cliff. A bird had a better chance of forgetting how to fly.

“What, Pa? I can help.”

Think. Think. Think.
Grant’s heart pounded. He couldn’t catch his breath, driven by fear he needed to control now of all times.

He inspected Joshua’s battered body. His head and neck were scraped badly, his clothing cut to ribbons. The gash on Joshua’s forehead bled crimson against his son’s coffee-dark skin. It looked like Josh’d been struck over the head. Joshua’s left arm hung at an odd angle. The boy’s heartbeat was weak but steady.

“I know you can help. There’s just no point telling the girls to go for bandages. We’ll have to get Joshua back to the house.” Grant nodded at the rags of his shirt. “Can you hold this bandage?”

Benny reached his small hands in and held the cloth.

“Something else you can both do.” Grant staggered to his feet.

Benny and Libby looked up.

“Pray. Joshua needs all our prayers.”

Libby clutched her hands together and closed her eyes. Her lips moved silently.

Stomach twisting with dread, Grant eased the broken arm across the boy’s chest. Binding it with remnants of his shirt, Grant jostled his son as little as possible.

Once the task was done, he dared to breathe again. “Okay, Benny, Lib, I’m going to lift him into the wagon box. I need you to step back.” Grant took over with the bandage.

Benny put his hand on Libby’s shoulder and the two of them rose to their feet and stepped away.

Grant bent down. His son was reed thin but muscular from long hours of hard work on the ranch. And he was as tall as a grown man. Grant said a prayer for strength, then slid his arms under Joshua’s shoulders and knees and lifted the boy, grunting with the effort. Doing his best not to disturb the arm, it took every ounce of Grant’s strength to lift him. Grant eased his son onto the wagon bed.

He turned to the young’uns. “Benny, Libby, hop in. I’m going to start for home. You watch Joshua.”

Benny boosted Libby up over the side of the wagon. Grant stepped over and hoisted the little girl the last few inches while Benny practically took flight over the edge of the box.

Grant fastened the tailgate, the hinges creaking as he lifted the flat slab of wood, the metal sounding rusty as he shoved the five-inch-long pins into the iron hooks that held the gate closed. He’d left Joshua close to the back end, to avoid moving him one inch more than necessary.

Grant vaulted to the wagon seat and gave a tiny shake to the long leather reins, holding the horses to a slow start. They headed toward the Rocking C. The horses had caught Grant’s terror and tried to speed up. Pulling them to a walk, Grant feared every jounce might shake something inside of Josh and kill him. Grant glanced over his shoulder every few steps.

They met the girls riding toward them. Charlie peeked out from behind Sadie.