Sixteen Brides (36 page)

Lucas already said the boys were planning some sort of initiation rite for him at the spring roundup. She could just imagine the merciless teasing he’d get about his mama following him everywhere if she drove up there yet tonight. What was it that Lucas had said once . . . something about outfitting her with boots and a hat and letting her trail after him? She shook her head. “No. Just because Jackson’s being headstrong doesn’t mean you and I have to go charging across the prairie like two mother hens.”

“You sure?” Sally seemed disappointed. “ ’Cause I could be ready in a whip-snap-minute.” She grinned. “And ain’t it sorta nice to have an excuse to see . . . folks?”

Not if he’s going to tease me mercilessly about being an overprotective mother.

No, the more Ruth thought about it, the more it seemed right to stay put. Almost impossibly difficult, but right. Lucas already called Jackson a “young man,” not a “boy.” Ruth supposed she should let him be a young man in this case. His cattle were sick. He needed help. And he’d gone after it. She had to admit she liked very much the idea that Jackson’s first thought was to go to Lucas for help. With a sigh, she climbed down from the buggy. And then she remembered. “Caroline has some news. . . .”

She might have said all the right things in broad daylight, but now that the sun had gone down, and Jackson was “out there somewhere,” Ruth couldn’t sleep. He’d started for the ranch early enough in the day to have already arrived. He might even have run into one of the crews putting up fence. He knew the way. There was nothing to worry over. Still, in the night Ruth wished there was such a thing as an invisible telegraph wire that could send her a message. With a sigh, she turned over in bed. The moon was high now, the night so still she could hear the windmill creaking. Sometimes the rhythmic sound was comforting. Tonight was not one of those nights. She gave up.

Zita was sleeping up in the loft now, and so Ruth padded into the living area, lit a lamp, and sat down at the table with her Bible. She opened it and took out the cabinet photo of Lucas. It made her smile. She was flat-out, all-in, head-over-heels in love with that man. God was good. So very good.

Laying the photo aside, she stood up and walked to the front door and tiptoed outside. And that’s when she saw the fire. Not actual flames . . . but a red sky . . . the very kind of sky Will Haywood said signaled something they called a head fire . . . the kind of fire that raced across the prairie for miles, jumping creeks and lapping up everything in its wake . . .
sometimes even outracing the fastest horse.
Clutching at the door, Ruth barely stifled a scream, but she couldn’t scream because she couldn’t breathe.

Backing against the sod bricks that formed the front of the house, Ruth stared at the horizon, her hand at her heart.
You will not faint. If you faint, you’ll be of no use to your son. Don’t faint. Get back inside. Get dressed. Get . . . going. GO. GO. GO.

None of the women sleeping in the house behind her would knowingly let her race straight toward a fire. They’d tie
her
to a kitchen chair if they had to.
They mustn’t know. You have to go . . . but they mustn’t know.
As she made her way trembling across what they had started calling the parlor and caught sight of Lucas’s cabinet photo, Ruth whirled back about and looked toward the north.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think.
Just do.
She turned down the lamp and tiptoed into her room. Pulling yesterday’s dress off the hook by the door, she collected stockings and shoes off the floor and crept outside and toward the barn.

She dressed in the barn, barely managing to button the row of tiny buttons marching up the front of the red calico dress. Creeping about like a horse thief, she backed Calico between the traces, wishing she could trust herself to simply jump astride the little mare bareback, knowing that would be the height of this night’s foolish decisions. But she had to do this. If—
No. Do not think IF. Do the next thing. Buckle the harness. Check it again. Bring your nightgown so you can wrap the mare’s head if you get caught in the— If you need it.

As quietly as she could, Ruth led Calico and the buggy away from the barn, past the house, wincing with every turn of the squeaking wheel, watching for movement in the house, knowing that if anyone called out, she’d only hurry away faster.
Please don’t let them hear. Let them sleep. Let me go.

She’d crossed the firebreak before she dared climb aboard and take up the reins. Finally, she urged Calico into a lope. The hardest thing was not to crack the whip and set the mare to running. But she knew better. They had a long journey ahead, and she needed the mare to make it every step of the way. As the moon shone down on Four Corners, Ruth headed north toward the red sky.

CHAPTER
THIRTY

. . . Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning.

PSALM 30:5

T
his was nothing like that other desperate drive north to tend an injured rancher last spring. She’d been a different woman back then. A woman whose life centered on one thing in the future—getting her son an education. Lucas Gray had been little more than another human being who needed help she could give. That Ruth Dow was doing her duty like a good soldier’s wife should. This Ruth Dow was not only a desperate mother but also a woman in love. A woman so terrified that as the buggy wheeled across the hills, she began to weep.
Pay attention to the mare. Drive carefully. Here. Stop and let her drink. Yes, that’s it. Get a drink yourself.

If she pulled outside of herself and let Ruth Dow, the soldier’s wife, narrate the night . . . tell her what to do . . . if all she had to do was obey the voice in her head . . . then she would be all right. Snippets of things Zita had said over the months also came to mind. Things about hoping and God’s everlasting arms. Things about God being a shelter. A high tower. A solid rock.
The
solid rock. What was it Jeb Cooper always sang? It was absurd to sing along this desperate journey, but if it kept her from panicking— Ruth sang, “On Christ the solid Rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.”

Long before Ruth could smell the smoke, Calico stopped, tossed her head, and tried to turn back. “I’m sorry.” The buggy whip came out. “We can’t turn back. I can’t let you—” Ruth won the battle. The mare didn’t like it, but she kept going.

The first time a deer ran past, Ruth didn’t think much about it. A grunt, a flash, and the creature was past them before she realized what it was. But then came another and another. And then antelope. Antelope were shy. Flighty. In fact, until now all Ruth had seen of antelope was a flash of white as they lifted their tails and darted away far in the distance.

Calico stopped again. This time she would not be moved. She trembled. Suddenly the horse took off again, and it took all of Ruth’s skill to keep her from bolting. Ruth could smell it now.
If I can smell it, what must it be like for the horse?

She saw the first injured animal at dawn. A stag, one side of its coat singed, the flesh beneath it darkened. And then . . . oh, then . . . blackened earth as far as she could see. Calico whinnied when her hooves first touched the burnt prairie. Again, she stopped. This time, she refused to move until Ruth laid the whip on.

“I’m so sorry, Calico . . . so sorry . . . but we have to keep going. We have to keep going.” When the mare finally moved, it was more sideways than forward. Fearing the buggy would overturn, Ruth kept at it with the whip until finally they were headed north again . . . always north.

The first time she saw a dead bird she didn’t realize she was looking at a charred carcass.
The flames can catch up with a running horse.
She began to cry again. Unable to form words, she said God’s name over and over and over again. Calico trotted on.

Stop and rest or you’ll kill the horse.
Knowing it to be true didn’t mean she could do it. Everything in her screamed against it, but somehow Ruth listened to the inner voice, and when they came to the place where she thought Pete had stopped that long-ago night when they’d dashed toward an injured Lucas Gray, she pulled up and let Calico drink. Soaking her nightgown in the cool water, she wrapped it over the horse’s nose, entwining it through the bridle, hoping it would somehow obliterate at least some of the stench and keep the mare going.

Keep her going. Keep me going. Let me find Jackson. Let him be all right.
As she climbed back aboard the buggy, Ruth forced herself to envision Jackson and Lucas laughing at her ridiculous race through the night.
Yes, Lord. Let it be nothing more than an anecdote in some future pioneer’s memoir. Let them laugh at the stupid woman, so foolish to head into a fire when all the while her son and the man she loved were sitting on the front porch of a ranch house drinking coffee. Foolish woman. Panicked when there was no need.

Again, Calico stopped. Ruth raised the buggy whip. But she didn’t use it. Terrified as she was, the little mare had done it. Brought Ruth right where she wanted to be . . . through miles of scorched grass . . . along the trail and up the last hill to where the Graystone Ranch buildings had nestled in a green valley like an emerald set atop a bit of tan velvet.

Ruth dropped the buggy whip and climbed down. Trembling, she stumbled down the rise toward what had once been one of the prettiest places in the sandhills. It was gone. All of it. No cattle. No bunkhouse. No corrals. No horses. No barn. Nothing but charred remnants and black earth.

She didn’t know how long she stumbled about what was left of the place, from where the barn had once stood to the corral where Jackson had learned to ride and then back to the house. Her throat so parched she couldn’t scream, her last ounce of strength spent, Ruth fell to her knees. Curling onto one side, she lay on the burnt grass and wept.

Calico brought her back to her senses, snuffling at her hair and whickering.
Water.
The horse would have to find her own. For now, at least, Ruth would lie here beneath the wicked blue sky. How dare the sun rise on the earth as if nothing had happened? As if life should go on. How dare . . . Calico whickered again. “Go away,” Ruth croaked, but the horse was insistent, lipping her shoulder, and when still she did not respond, grasping a lock of her hair in its teeth and tugging.

Frowning, Ruth opened her eyes. Not Calico. Not a little roan mare, but a great gray—
Hannibal. Of course. They would have opened all the gates and stalls and sent the livestock and cattle ahead of the fire, hoping some would survive.
Hannibal had survived and come back home.

Ruth staggered to her feet. The stallion snuffled at her dress and snorted. She looked down at the filthy red dress and more tears flowed. The stallion stayed close. She buried her face in his mane and sobbed until she had no more tears. And then Hannibal lifted his head and gave an odd little grunt.

“What is it? What do you see?”

Two riders. No . . . three . . . maybe five . . . she didn’t know. She didn’t care. The only ones who mattered were the first two, because as they came closer and her eyes focused, Ruth saw a boy on a buckskin pony and a man astride a chestnut gelding.

Hannibal snorted and danced away. Lucas held back so that Jackson reached her first. “Oh, Ma,” he muttered. “I didn’t think. I just had to get help. There wasn’t any fire and then there was, but I was closer to the ranch by then, so I gave Sam his head. I didn’t know Sam could run so fast. When I got here Lucas and me and the boys we tore out for a rocky canyon.” He pointed east. “Lucas set a backfire and we just launched ourselves down into that canyon, Ma. I heard the fire go by. The roar . . . but we made it.”

As she listened to him jabber, Ruth closed her eyes and thanked God for ears to hear her son’s voice . . . surely one of the sweetest sounds on earth.

A leader of men.
That’s what people had said about General George Dow, and now, as Ruth watched Lucas react to the devastation around him, she saw the same qualities. He’d set aside what this all meant for him personally, and was operating at a level that his men—wranglers— needed. He made decisions quickly, and it wasn’t long before Pete and a dozen of “the boys” had headed for Frank Darby’s ranch. Lucas was fairly certain the line of fire wouldn’t have gotten that far, in which case Darby would be able to resupply the men, enabling them to get to rounding up whatever cattle might have survived.

As the men discussed rounding up cattle, Ruth and Jackson helped Wah Lo rummage along the edge of the buildings. Finally, with a shout of triumph, Wah Lo lifted a blackened pot out of the debris. Together he and Jackson rigged a way to haul fresh water up out of the well. They began to water the horses.

In an amazingly short amount of time, there was a plan for resurrecting the ranch. Three wranglers were assigned to head into Plum Grove for tents—Lucas gave a wry smile as he instructed the men making that supply run to tell Will Haywood his “operating cash” had been inside the rolltop desk in the parlor. Will would need to extend credit.

Finally, just as Ruth handed off a bucket of water to Jackson, Lucas came to where they stood and, taking her hand, asked Jackson if he minded “if I had a word with your mother.”

Jackson looked from Ruth to Lucas and back again. Something seemed to pass between boy and man before Jackson smiled. “Of course not,” he said, and went back to watering the horses with Wah Lo. Taking Ruth’s hand, Lucas led her away.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, gesturing toward the ruins of the house. “Everything you’ve worked so hard for—”

Lucas waved the comment away. “When I saw Jackson come tearing into the yard—when he told me he’d just left without telling you—I knew. I knew what you’d do. And there was nothing I could do. You were headed straight into a lake of fire and I couldn’t stop—” His voice broke.

They were a few rods away from the men working the ruins of the ranch now, and he pulled her close. Taking a long, ragged breath, he croaked, “Dear God in heaven, woman. If I’d lost you—” He stopped talking with words . . . and didn’t let go until the boys started hooting their approval and applauding. Glancing their way, Ruth saw one of them nudge Jackson, who was grinning for all he was worth.

Loosening his grip a bit, Lucas looked down at her. “Promise me you will never do anything that reckless—anything that foolish—again.”

She smiled up at him. “I don’t think I can promise
never
to be reckless or foolish again, Lucas.”

He cocked his head. Questioning. “And that’s because . . . ?”

“Because I need to be able to say yes when you propose.”

He laughed out loud and bent to kiss her again. This time, when the boys hooted and applauded, he looked over. Without releasing Ruth, he called out, “Nobody told you to give up on catching the horse.”

Indeed, Hannibal had spent the last several hours eluding any attempt to lasso him. It seemed obvious he wasn’t going to bolt and run off, but then again he wasn’t in the mood to be captured, either.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Ruth said. Slipping out of Lucas’s arms, she went to the chestnut gelding and pulled down Lucas’s lariat and headed to where Hannibal danced, just out of reach of anyone’s rope. At the sight of her, the stallion stood still. His ears came forward.

“I don’t think they should feed you to the coyotes anymore, you two-bit bag of wind,” she said, walking toward him as she talked. “But I really do think you should acquire an entirely new set of manners.” She held out the lariat. “I’d appreciate it if you’d behave yourself so these men could get something done. They’ve a ranch to rebuild.” She held the noose open with both hands. Hannibal lifted his head and put it through. As the boys stood openmouthed, Lucas walked up, put his arm around her waist, and pulled her close.

“And that, boys,” he said to them, “is how it’s done.”

Hope On
Hope Ever