I have not received any letters from Carrie Mae since the war ended, not that she was a regular correspondent before then, either.
Thaddeus has grown so big, and Peter John, at fifteen months, follows him everywhere, on unsteady little legs. Mary Louisa is three months old and such a joy. Wolf dotes so on her. I am busy training horses when I get the chance. You would be amazed at the
things I have learned about horses since I married Wolf.
We have our own little community here. Jane Ellen is married to Henry Arsdale, a fine young man she met at the fort. He joined her here on the piece she had homesteaded, so they are our neighbors to the north. Meshach and Ophelia send their love. He has pretty much taken over as our pastor and to some of the members of Red Cloud’s tribe also. I do hope and pray that we will be together one of these days. Always remember that I love you.
Jesselynn
E
PILOGUE
Wyoming Territory
Spring 1867
‘‘Now, Thaddeus, you have to sit still.’’
‘‘I know. I’m tryin’.’’ Thaddeus blew the hair off his face and sneezed as some tickled his nose.
Jesselynn lifted another curl with the comb and snipped it off. Since they would soon be leaving for Cheyenne to catch the train east on their journey to Twin Oaks, she wanted him to look his best. While the letter from Zachary had demanded she bring Thaddeus back to Twin Oaks to live, she had no intention of leaving him there, not unless he really wanted to stay. She knew that would break her heart, but right was right.
‘‘The horses are ready.’’ Wolf stopped in the doorway of their stone house, built three summers before.
‘‘Thaddeus, if you keep squirming like that, it’ll be tomorrow before we leave.’’ Jesselynn ran the comb through his hair again and trimmed another spot. ‘‘There.’’ She untied the towel from around his neck. ‘‘Go outside to brush off.’’ She reached down to pick up Mary Louisa, who’d been playing with the curls of hair on the floor. Jesselynn brushed her off and kissed her freckled cheek. ‘‘Whatever will we do with you?’’ She kissed her daughter again.
‘‘Now don’t you go worryin’ about the young’uns. They’ll be fine with me.’’ Mrs. Mac swung Peter John up on her hip. ‘‘Won’t you, honey?’’ When he screwed up his round face readying to wail, she handed him a cookie. Sunshine returned.
Jesselynn had knit a sweater for Wolf and started a matching one for Peter John by the time the train pulled into Frankfort, Kentucky. What they thought would take three or four days took more than a week. They’d changed trains so many times, she’d come to the point she wasn’t sure where they were going. At times she envied Wolf and Daniel in the boxcars with the horses. Thaddeus had alternated between the horses and sitting with her. As they drew further east, he’d chosen the men and horses over the boring sitting. When the train finally screeched to a stop, they unloaded the horses, and Wolf went to find a buggy.
I’d rather ride in on horseback than a buggy,
Jesselyn thought, but here in civilization she had to be proper. No britches and no riding astride.
She chewed on her bottom lip.
Lord, what are we heading into this time? Has that brother of mine improved any?
Not according to Lucinda’s last letter, but they’d all been praying for a miracle. And miracles did still happen, did they not?
She answered that question with a smile. After all, she and Louisa had seen each other not once but twice. Surely that counted as miraculous.
A tall shadow brought her out of her reverie. She looked up to see Wolf blocking the sun. ‘‘We’re ready then?’’ she asked.
‘‘The bags are loaded.’’ He held out his arm, and when she put her hand through the crook of his elbow, he patted her hand. The smile he gave her warmed her heart and put starch in her backbone.
The nearer they drew to Twin Oaks, the more Jesselynn’s heart speeded up.
‘‘The trees are still here.’’ She pointed to the two ancient oaks that held sentinel on either side of the drive. But when they trotted the rented buggy between them, she had to shut her eyes. No white house stood at the end. While she’d been preparing herself, still the pain caught in her throat. The big house of Twin Oaks really was gone.
Wolf stopped the buggy to give her time to recover. ‘‘Even though the house is not there, I can see it clearly, thanks to your descriptions.’’
‘‘Don’ look de same, do it?’’ Daniel leaned on his horse’s withers. ‘‘But dere’s tobacco growin’ green.’’
‘‘Zachary must have more help now.’’ Jesselynn tucked her handkerchief back in her bag. ‘‘Let’s go.’’
Wolf clucked the horse, and they trotted between the trees that still lined the drive, grown some bigger since she left.
A dog ran out to bark at their arrival. Smoke rose from a log cabin set back behind where the summer kitchen used to stand. But while Louisa had told of the brick chimneys remaining upright, they were now only piles of bricks.
A thin black woman came to the door of the cabin, shaded her eyes, then threw her apron over her head.
‘‘Lucinda, we’ve come home.’’ Jesselynn didn’t wait for the buggy to come to a full halt before leaping to the ground and running to throw her arms around the turbaned woman. Together they laughed and cried, hugging, stepping back, and then hugging again.
‘‘I din’t think dis day would ever come.’’ Lucinda wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron as Thaddeus and Wolf came to stand beside Jesselynn. ‘‘And is dis big boy my baby, Thaddeus?’’
She put her hands up to her cheeks. ‘‘Lawd above, he near to grown.’’
‘‘Lucinda, this is my husband, Gray Wolf Torstead.’’ Jesselynn slipped her arm through her husband’s and finished the introductions. Then looking around, she asked, ‘‘Where’s Zachary? Didn’t he get the telegram?’’
‘‘Oh, he did.’’ Lucinda’s face lost its smile.
‘‘Has he a place ready for the horses?’’
‘‘He do.’’ She nodded to where the barns used to be. ‘‘Down dere.’’
Something’s sure wrong here
. Jesselynn turned to Wolf. ‘‘You and Daniel want to take the horses down there?’’
Wolf looked from Lucinda to the pole building he took to be the barn.
‘‘You better go wid.’’ Lucinda shook her head. ‘‘I have supper ready when you comes back.’’
‘‘I’m comin’ too.’’ Thaddeus kept within touching range of Jesselynn’s arm, as if sensing things weren’t quite what she had promised him.
Each of them leading one of the horses, they walked on down the track to what looked more like sheds than barns. Rosebushes so overgrown they were hardly recognizable still bloomed pink and white in what had been the rose garden.
Louisa said she trimmed them back before she left. Looks like Zachary cares not a whit for beauty
.
‘‘Perhaps I can take some cuttings back with me. How I would love to have one of Mama’s roses growin’ by our house. See that old burnt tree there by the house, Thaddy? That’s a magnolia. I used to climb out my window and down that tree when I wanted to be at the barn.’’
‘‘Why not use the door?’’
‘‘Because my mother didn’t want me down riding Ahab or the other Thoroughbreds. She said that wasn’t ladylike, and Lucinda was worse than Mama.’’ Jesselynn started to laugh but stopped when she saw a man leaning on a crutch step out of the pole building.
‘‘Zachary?’’
Oh, dear Lord, can that really be my handsome brother?
She forced a smile to lips that quivered and ran forward to greet him.
Hugging him was like hugging a stone. She stepped back. Lines crevassed his face, his eye bloodshot, the black patch slightly askew. He smelled like he’d taken a bath in a whiskey barrel.
‘‘We brought you pure Thoroughbreds, no crossbreeding.’’
‘‘Only four?’’
‘‘The two mares are bred to Domino. I couldn’t come until we weaned their babies, and those two fillies were too young to have made the trip well. Joker is the older stallion. He’s by Ahab, Dulcie’s foal when we were traveling west. Their papers are up in my bag.’’
‘‘Tie ’em in there.’’ He turned to look down at Thaddeus. ‘‘Can you ride?’’
‘‘Yes, sir.’’
‘‘Like all the Highwoods, he is a natural horseman.’’ Jesselynn nodded to Thaddeus. ‘‘Come tie your horse in that stall.’’
After settling the horses, the four of them stepped back out into the soft air of late afternoon. One of the horses whinnied.
‘‘I’ll feed and water them if you like.’’ Wolf nodded to the man still standing in the same place as though the post might fall over if he moved.
‘‘Why? You think I can’t?’’
‘‘Just being neighborly.’’ Wolf took a step closer to Jesselynn.
‘‘So you a breed, then?’’
‘‘Zachary!’’ Jesselynn only stopped because of Wolf ’s hand on her arm.
The one eye burned into her. ‘‘I had three sisters, and now I got one. One married a Northerner; one a breed. I ain’t got no truck with Northerners nor breeds. You can leave Thaddeus. He belongs here.’’
Jesselynn squeezed the small hand that had crept into hers. ‘‘We’ll be up at the cabin if you have any questions about the horses.’’ She turned and, taking Wolf ’s arm, led the way back to the cabin. ‘‘Daniel, if you want, you can stay here.’’
‘‘No, not to work for the likes of him. I got land in Wyomin’, free land.’’
‘‘For a free man.’’ Jesselynn finished the quote they all used from Meshach. She imagined daggers assaulting her shoulder blades but kept on walking. In spite of all Louisa had said, she’d hoped and prayed the return of the horses would melt the anger her brother carried. After all their work to bring the horses back, he didn’t even say thank-you or comment on how wonderful they looked.
‘‘I don’t have to stay here, do I?’’ Thaddeus tugged on her hand.
‘‘No, darlin’, you don’t have to stay here.’’
She stopped to gaze over the growing tobacco fields and the green, shimmering pasture. Tears made her sniff. ‘‘I . . . I’m sorry, Wolf.’’
‘‘Not your fault. Nothing to apologize for. Like Meshach warned us, we got to pray for our brother Zachary, pray that someone or something will help him see what he’s doing. We’ve got room in our hearts for that.’’
Jesselynn looked up at the man beside her. ‘‘How come I am so blessed to be married to you?’’
‘‘Because you had the foresight to hook up with a wagon train going to Oregon, whether the fool wagon master wanted you to or not.’’
Thaddeus giggled beside her. The story had been told many times, always to his delight.
Jesselynn glanced over her shoulder to see that Zachary no longer leaned against the post. ‘‘How will he handle those horses, take care of them?’’ She’d seen his hands shaking in spite of the tough show he put on. And the look of despair that flashed across his face so quickly she almost missed it spoke louder than his words. Northerners and breeds, eh? She sighed, this time for him. She and Louisa were both so happy, and Carrie Mae too, still in Richmond.
‘‘Someday we’ll be back. God says He answers the prayers of His people. Zachary will come out of this. We must believe it,’’ Wolf said, taking her arm.
‘‘God willing,’’ she responded.
‘‘Yes, God willing.’’
After eating the meal Lucinda prepared, they gathered their things. ‘‘I do wish you would consider coming with us. We have plenty of room for you, Lucinda,’’ Jesselynn entreated.
‘‘I stay here in my home. ’Sides, dese old bones need warm-in’, not cold winters like you tole me.’’
‘‘Write to me and tell me if you need anything, promise?’’
Lucinda nodded, and the two women hugged as if they’d never let go. Lucinda stood waving as they climbed back in the buggy. Daniel and Thaddeus squeezed in between the bags in the rear.
Jesselynn waved again, then looked toward the barns. Sure enough, Zachary stood there watching them leave. ‘‘I love you, brother, no matter what. We all do.’’ She sighed. ‘‘Please, Lord, heal my brother.’’ She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
‘‘It’s a long way home.’’ Thaddeus leaned on the seat back in front of him.
‘‘Not really. With the fine trains and all, we’ll be there before you know it.’’ Wolf slapped the reins on the horse’s rump. ‘‘Get up there, horse. We got to get on home.’’