Mary Connealy (74 page)

John looked up again, looking much steadier. “You’re right. And there are some kids from big families in Mosqueros. And they’ve all got mas.”

“That’s because it’s real unusual for a lady to die having a baby.” Grace tipped John’s chin up, and after giving him a long look, she glanced at the other boys gathered around her. “It was your ma’s time, boys. God is faithful to us. That’s something I learned when I came here.”

The thunder rumbled again, but it didn’t frighten her. She only heard the rumble of spring. In it was the rumble of new life. Grace loved the sound, just as she loved Daniel and her boys and this tiny new life inside her.

She reached out a hand and caressed Abe’s worried face, then Ike’s. Then she turned and smiled at sassy Mark and quiet Luke. “I came here purely by accident, not planning to be your ma, and you not wanting me for the job.”

“That’s for sure,” Mark muttered.

Grace smiled at him. “But God is faithful, Mark. God knew what He was doing. God knew you needed a ma, and more than that, He knew I needed a husband and five sons.”

“You needed us?” Mark’s brow furrowed.

“I needed you so much.” She grabbed him and gave him a hard hug as he tried to squirm away. She let him go with a little laugh. “Having you to take care of and having you to take care of me is the finest thing that ever happened in my life. The Bible says, ‘It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.’”

“God is faithful to us?” Abe asked. “I thought it was the other way around. I thought we were supposed to be faithful to God.”

Grace smiled and pulled John toward the house. All the other boys followed. She stepped inside, out of the rain. “We
are
supposed to be faithful to God. We are supposed to trust Him to take care of us, trust that Jesus died so we won’t have to.”

“We do have to die, Ma,” Ike said. “Everybody dies.”

“No, they don’t. They live their lives out on this earth, and then they go to heaven and live with God. Jesus died in our place.”

“So you don’t think our ma is really dead?” Mark asked.

“I know she isn’t. She was a good woman who put her faith in God. He’s got her right now in a safe, happy place. And He was so faithful to you that, knowing you wouldn’t pick me for a ma and knowing I’d never have picked you for my sons, He stuck us together. He even sent the parson to do the marriage ceremony. And He snowed us in together so we had the whole winter alone to get to know each other.”

“God did all that?” Luke sounded awestruck.

Grace nodded and gave Luke a quick kiss on the head. He hunched his shoulders as if the gesture of affection bothered him, but he stayed and took the kiss. He even grinned shyly at her.

“God is faithful. His loving-kindness never ceases. His compassion never fails. Great is God’s faithfulness. He knows how to take care of us long before we do. And He is sending us this baby. So we have to trust that God is being faithful to us in this, too. He knows what He’s doing.”

Mark shrugged. “God oughta know what He’s doing.”

Abe nodded. Ike joined in. John hugged Grace one more time then backed up and knocked into Luke, who stumbled sideways and fell against Abe, who shoved him away.

Grace caught hold of Luke before all five boys ended up tumbling to the floor. She hugged him, and he relaxed enough to hug her back.

Grace asked, “So who is left in this family who doesn’t know this baby is a gift from God?”

All five boys looked between each other; then they looked at Grace and said all at once, “Pa.”

Grace smiled. “Your pa needs to learn a lesson about being faithful to God, boys. Let’s go find him and drag him back down here and convince him God is faithful.”

The boys all turned.

“Hold it,” Grace ordered. “You get coats on and boots and we split up so we can cover the most area. We saw which way he went, but his tracks will disappear once he gets off the trail.”

The boys scrambled into their coats with a maximum of noise.

Grace pulled on Abe’s old buckskin jacket. “Ike, you take John and go up and to the north toward the sapling stand. Abe, you and Luke go straight up the hill. Mark, we’ll go south toward the cave. He’s just up there worrying. He’s not hiding. We’ll find him in a few minutes.”

They smiled, eager for a chance to run out in the spring rain. They turned and went outside on a pa hunt.

P
arrish spent the whole morning pushing his nag as fast as he could. He cut a switch from a low-hanging branch and whipped the beast until it trotted steadily. Parrish bounced in the saddle, taking the beating of a lifetime. As his backside took a pounding, he grew more and more irritated with Grace. He’d been mad when he’d gotten out of bed this morning. The need to slake his temper had been building steadily. If he could have knocked the sass out of that littlest McClellen girl, it would have taken the edge off, but that pleasure had been denied him, and now he burned.

“It’s high time we had this out, girl,” he yelled at the dripping sky. “You sent me to prison, and now you’re gonna pay.”

His horse snorted and looked over its shoulder at Parrish. They climbed steadily, following the trail Parrish had scouted a dozen times through the winter. They neared the steepest part, where that hillbilly Luther had said a man afoot could make it. Parrish sneered. This horse would take him all the way over this canyon wall and like it.

The horse balked at a particularly steep stretch of the trail. Parrish whipped the horse soundly. Fighting the bit, the horse charged at the slippery rocks. Parrish could see footholds large enough for a horse, even though the trail disappeared and the canyon wall swooped steeply enough that he could have touched the mountainside with his left hand while his right foot dangled over thin air.

The horse plunged up a step, then another. It slipped in the drizzling rain, regained its footing, and lurched forward again.

“You stupid brute. Get up there. Get up!” His whip lashed with all the strength in his arm. A rock dislodged under the horse’s hoof, and the horse reared up and back, sliding and rolling on its haunches. Parrish saw the horse coming over backward. He grabbed the steep edge of the cliff. The horse slid out from under him. The coarse grass and shifting rock Parrish grabbed caved under his weight, and he fell after the horse. Parrish landed on a narrow ledge in the soft mud. He saw the horse fall a few feet farther, then hit a level spot and stagger to its feet. The horse looked up the hill at Parrish. With a whinny that sounded like mocking laughter, the horse turned tail and ran down the slope it had just been forced to climb.

Parrish sat in the mud, screaming his rage as the animal raced away down the trail, heading for Mosqueros. Aching joints punishing him, Parrish staggered to his feet. His fury boiled over. He shook his fist at the dripping rain, howling with fury, then remembered whose fault this really was. He turned to look up the hill and, a burning need to punish riding him, continued on his mission to find Grace. He couldn’t get her out of here now, not on foot.

“So I won’t try to take you with me. I’ll settle with you here, girl. I’ll pay you back for doing me wrong. And I’ll make it hurt until you know what I suffered those months I spent in jail. Then I’ll get out of this miserable state of Texas.”

“Look, there’s Ike, way over on that rise,” Grace said to Mark.

Mark looked over and saw Ike and John waving at them. “Find him yet?” Mark’s voice echoed across the canyon.

“No!” came the shout back.

They waved at each other and kept searching.

“Where do you think he’s got his self off to, Ma?” Mark asked.

Grace looked down at her most difficult son. “I’m not too worried about him, Mark. He’s all upset because he thinks I’m going to die.”

Mark shrugged and glanced sideways at her. “Reckon you’re gonna, if Pa says. He knows everything.”

“Well, he doesn’t know this. Why, I can think of lots of women who have had children and not died.”

“Never three at onest though, Ma. That’s what’ll probably finish you off.”

Grace stopped and took hold of Mark’s shoulders and turned him to face her. “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.” She glared at him.

One corner of his mouth curled up as he smirked at her. He was worried about his foolish pa, who’d just gone for a walk and would be fine. But he wasn’t upset in the least about her dying.

He pulled against Grace’s grip, but she held on. “Mark, is this how it’s always going to be with us?”

“Whaddaya mean, how’s it gonna be?” Mark’s face was far too blank and innocent.

“Whatever else you are, Mark,” Grace said, “you’re not stupid. Well, guess what? Neither am I. I can tell you don’t like me. I want us to get along.”

Mark stared at her, his eyes cool, his expression faintly amused. It was an expression Grace could imagine hardening into real trouble as the years went by. But for now, this little scamp was only five. She could handle a five-year-old. She hoped.

She pulled him over to a fallen tree and had him sit down. The rustle of branches and the rain, now just a faint sprinkle, were the only sounds as she sat beside him and prayed for wisdom.
Lord, how do I make a child love me?
She meditated on it.

No still, small voice gave her an easy answer. And then she remembered.

“When John and I were trapped in that avalanche, we were really scared.”

Mark’s expression softened a bit as he seemed to think about the danger his brother had been in.

“It made me realize that I hadn’t been faithful to God the way I should be.”

“Now, Ma,”—Mark patted her on the hand—“I’m sure you’re not all that bad. I’m sure God’ll let you into heaven after you die having my next three brothers.”

Grace forced her eyes to remain straight forward even though she wanted to roll them in exasperation. “You’re not listening to me, young man,” she said sharply.

Mark’s eyes grew cool again. She’d never had any luck reaching him with stern words or threats. Confound it, why couldn’t this child be just the least bit afraid of her?

“It made me realize that I had to start living bravely for God.” That caught his attention. Bravery evidently appealed to him.

“How do you live bravely for God?” Mark asked, scooting just a hair closer to her on the tree trunk.

“When I was a child, I was really tough. I faced down bigger kids and even some grown-ups who wanted to hurt me. But then I got away from my—” Grace never had been able to call him her father. “From the man who adopted me.”

“You were an orphan, like us? I remember John saying that.”

“Except you aren’t an orphan. You always had your pa, but you know what I mean.” Grace nodded. “Then, once I got away from the man who adopted me, he chased after me. I spotted him in a town where I ran to. He was supposed to go to jail, but he must have wiggled out of it somehow. I saw him on the street before he saw me and sneaked away that very night, hiding out on the train.”

Mark’s eyes grew wide. “That sounds really brave.” He sounded impressed.

“Well, it was brave of me in some ways. But the thing is, from then on, I started running.” Grace turned Mark, her hands resting on his shoulders. “I learned to always be on the lookout. I watched behind me all the time. I saw him once in a while, too. I thought I’d gotten away for good in Mosqueros. It was so far from Chicago.”

“And then he got here, right?” Mark’s eyes narrowed.

Grace thought the boy looked as though he might be willing to fight Parrish for her. She didn’t know if it was because he liked her at least a little or because he just wanted an excuse to fight, but still, it was something.

“Yes, he got here, and I hid from him in your pa’s wagon, and the parson caught me with the lot of you, and it’s improper for a man and woman to stay together without being married.”

Mark piped up, “So the parson made you get hitched.”

Grace nodded. “And that’s okay, because I love being here with you. I love you boys and I love this canyon and I love your pa.”

Mark said in amazement, “You love us boys?”

“Yep,” Grace said, smiling.

“Not including me, right?” Mark looked a little guilty. “I haven’t been too nice. I don’t expect you to love me.”

“Well, you
have
been a handful, young man. But you’re smart and brave. You love your brothers, and you’ve got a good, honest heart.” Grace lifted one hand and rested it on Mark’s cheek. “How could I not love you?”

Mark was tough and stubborn, but he was, after all, five. Grace saw the longing in his heart for a mother to love him. She knew that longing because she had lived with it all her life.

She said gently, “We’ve talked about the Ten Commandments when your father reads the Bible to us at night, haven’t we?”

Mark nodded. He let her hand remain where it was. He even leaned into it a little.

“Well, Jesus said, a long time after Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from the mountain, that He had two new commandments. He said if you followed these commandments, then you would always follow all the others. Do you remember what they are? We’ve read those verses.”