Their Frontier Family Read online

  She felt Noah push the linen towel into her wet hands. She accepted it and dried her face. Looking up, she met his dark eyes. She tried to read his expression, but couldn’t. The shutters he’d put up once again concealed everything from her. The weight over her heart pressed down harder.

  As he walked back into the cabin, Sunny realized this was just more evidence of Noah’s constant courtesy. Distracted, she’d come out without a towel, so he’d brought her one. She held it in her hands, touched by his thoughtfulness.

  Inside again, Sunny continued making breakfast. She still wore her old everyday housedress. Did that make Noah think she wasn’t going to the meeting in town?

  Without thinking, she grabbed the handle of the cast-iron pot. Then yanked it back, scorched. She waved her hand and snapped her mouth shut so no ill words slipped out. She bowed her head. God, please, I want to do what’s right. Is going to the meeting the right thing?

  Of course no answer came. She used a quilted potholder and then stirred the oatmeal that had been simmering all night over the banked fire. After a sprinkle of fragrant cinnamon, she stirred in some sugar. “It’s done.”

  As usual at meals, she sat in the rocker holding Dawn while Noah sat on the three-legged stool. Silence. She couldn’t think of anything to discuss but the unanswered question plaguing her. She ate and the oatmeal sat on the top of her uneasy stomach. The sun was gleaming around the shutters and she must get ready if she was going. It was time.

  Noah finished his oatmeal and rose. “Going to let the oxen out to graze.”

  Then she was alone. Dawn squirmed and Sunny let her down so she could crawl around on the floor. Dawn’s teething distress appeared to have abated. She cooed and gurgled. As Sunny watched her daughter, she suddenly knew what she had to do. This wasn’t just about Noah.

  She stood and opened the chest, and drew out the simple gray dress she had always worn to the Quaker meetinghouse. She also drew out a colorful paisley shawl she’d bought in Idaho. It would brighten up the drab dress. In the past, from a distance, she’d watched people go to church and they had all dressed up fine.

  Within minutes she was ironing the dress and trying not to think too much about her decision so she wouldn’t lose her breakfast to nerves. Before long she stood at the mirror, dressing her hair. The mirror was small so she couldn’t see more than her head and neck. She smoothed her bodice and skirt, still warm from the iron. Then she lifted Dawn and quickly dressed her in a freshly pressed white dress.

  Through the open door Sunny heard the jingling of a harness. Her ride to church was coming. Before she stepped outside, she tied her bonnet strings and collected a fresh handkerchief and a sugar baby in case Dawn fussed. Sweeping her shawl around her shoulders, she took a deep breath and carried Dawn outside.

  Noah waited near the door, watching the Fitzhughs’ wagon come nearer.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to come?” Sunny murmured just for his ears. Her voice quavered.

  Please, come.

  He shook his head but wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Her stomach roiling, she waited for the wagon to draw up to her. She exchanged greetings with the neighbors. The Fitzhughs were obviously trying not to stare at Noah, who was obviously not dressed for church. She approached the wagon and handed Dawn up into Caroline’s arms.

  “We can’t persuade you to come with us?” Charles asked Noah with an encouraging smile.

  “God doesn’t want to see me,” Noah said in a sour tone. However, with his usual courtesy, he had come to help Sunny climb up onto the bench.

  She turned and leaned close to his ear and whispered, “I’m doing this for Dawn—and for us.”

  She sat beside Caroline and accepted her daughter back. She didn’t dare look at Noah. The wagon started up, creaking and straining.

  Though her heart beat like she’d run a race, Sunny knew in her soul that she was doing the right thing. She could feel it. She couldn’t wait for Noah to come to terms with whatever troubled him. Life passed quickly day by day, and she must do what was needed.

  * * *

  Noah stood stock-still, watching his wife, perched stiffly on the wagon bench, disappear among the trees. Sunny’s whispered words tightened around him like bonds. Us. She’d said us.

  All at once the unseen chains holding back the past released. Cannon roared in his ears and men, horses, screamed. Noah staggered as if he’d taken a blow. He sat down hard on a nearby stump. A whirlwind swept through him, an inner storm of anguish. He bent his pounding head into his hands and swallowed down dry heaves. How could the simple words at parting stir up the past and swamp him so?

  When he was able, he forced himself to his feet. “I have work to do,” he said to the surrounding silence. His feeble words vanished in the air. He was alone—completely.

  He headed to wide boards he’d split from an oak. “Dawn will want to sit on that three-legged stool soon. I better have a place for me to sit.”

  Why was he speaking out loud when no one could hear him? Was he losing his mind? Did he think he was chasing away the past? Determined to overcome the weakness, he stood one of the wide boards on end and ran his trembling hand over its rough surface. From the fine grain of the wood, he figured that the oak must have been over a hundred years old. He sucked in the cool breeze, trying to keep his inner hurricane at bay.

  He’d constructed two sawhorses and now he lay the first board across them and began stripping the bark from the sides. Then he unearthed his plane from his tool chest and began planing the wood smooth for the tabletop. The slow rhythm steadied his nerves. But each time he guided the plane over the wood, sending up a ribbon, he heard his wife’s whisper again. I’m doing this for Dawn—and for us.

  He couldn’t make sense of this. Did she mean that she wanted Dawn to be raised a Christian? Did she think that taking a baby to church would accomplish this? Did she want him to be a churchgoer? What did that mean to her? His father had attended meeting every Sunday, but had it changed, softened his hard heart? He slid the plane in a steady rhythm while images of Sunny’s face slid through his memory.

  The total lack of human presence crowded in on him. Though he fought it, he recalled that awful unspoken, crushing tension that had pressed down on him and all his company as another battle loomed before them. He felt a phantom sensation—a soldier pinning a paper lettered with Noah’s name and his company on the back of his collar. This was the only way soldiers could be identified if something happened to them in the upcoming carnage. The sense of impending death blasted him once again.

  The strength went out of Noah’s legs. The plane fell from his hands and he slid to the ground. Leaning on an elbow, he gasped for breath. Why was this happening to him?

  He looked upward, letting the sun warm his face. Then he shuddered violently once and let gravity take him down to the moist earth, to the wild grasses. Near his hand he noticed a tiny violet. He touched the petal and it made him think of Sunny—soft and delicate.

  Why had she married him, a man so inadequate in every way?

  * * *

  As the wagon neared town, Sunny’s heart was now racing at the prospect of being in a meeting with proper people who thought she was just like them. Could she pull this off?

  “Just a perfect day for the meeting,” Caroline murmured.

  “Let’s hope the preacher doesn’t put us to sleep standing up,” Charles said with a quirk to the side of his mouth.

  Caroline tapped his arm, scolding in a low voice, “Charles, the children will hear you.”

  Little Mary and Laura rode in the back, holding on to the side of the buckboard. Dawn, half asleep, lay in Sunny’s arms, lulled by the rocking of the wagon.

  From the corner of her eye Sunny watched the interaction between the husband and wife beside her on the bench. She’d never really been around many
married folk. These two were more lively than Constance and Adam Gabriel, but was that personality? Or was it that the Fitzhughs weren’t Quakers?

  This brought her back to the fact that she had no idea how she was to behave or what she was expected to do at this outdoor meeting. She’d only been to the Quaker meeting and the Gabriels had told her that it was different than a regular church service. She’d never told them she had never been inside a church and wouldn’t have known the difference. Sunny’s stomach rolled into a ball.

  What if she did something no “Christian” would do at a meeting?

  The wagon broke free of the shelter of the forest, rocking down the bluff to the flat ground beside the wide blue river. She had never given thought to how many people lived hereabouts. Now she saw around twenty or so men and women in family groups standing in front of the Ashford’s General Store.

  Charles helped Sunny down and then Caroline. In turn, the Fitzhughs each lifted out a daughter from the wagon bed. Holding Dawn still half asleep on her shoulder, Sunny stayed a bit behind using them as a shield. Nan and Gordy Osbourne waved and gravitated toward them. Sunny gratefully concealed herself within this group of neighbors.

  A constant buzz of conversation made audible the buzz of excitement running through this wilderness gathering. Sunny’s stomach tightened another turn.

  An old man, very thin and with long white hair pulled back as it had been worn in the olden days, and in an old-fashioned black suit, sat on a straight chair on the store’s porch. Before she could get more than a glance at him, he pulled an old watch from his vest, glanced at it and then stood. He raised both hands and everyone turned toward him, hushing children, expectant.

  Sunny braced herself and heightened her awareness so she wouldn’t miss a cue or fail in some way.

  “My name is Old Saul and don’t call me Mister or Pastor. I’m going to be seventy-one this year and Old Saul or Preacher is good enough for me.” He held up a thick, well-worn black book. “And God’s Holy Word is enough for me to base my life upon.”

  A man in the rear said quietly, “Amen.”

  Sunny stared at the Bible, wishing she were better with letters so she could read it and make more sense of its words.

  “And I won’t fly under false colors. I was not always a preacher, but was a sinner. I won’t tell you about my sins. And I won’t ask you about yours.”

  Sunny trembled with relief. But her taut nerves didn’t relax. An eagle flew overhead, casting its shadow over them.

  “We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But John tells us, ‘if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’”

  At these words a fire burned through Sunny—a good fire, a cleansing fire. She was able to draw breath more freely.

  “My prayer is that this meeting will give all of you hope. That’s what Christ is all about. If we don’t have him, we have no hope.”

  “Amen,” Sunny whispered reverently with many others the first time she’d spoken this aloud. She felt a pull toward this man and his good, plain words.

  “I’m an old man and can’t preach for long, so listen up!” Old Saul grinned at them. Something about him was working its way not only in Sunny but in those standing around her. Everyone was smiling and moving closer to catch every word.

  “John goes on to say ‘the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now...because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.’”

  Forgiven, Sunny repeated to herself. Oh, could that be so?

  Old Saul was true to his word and spoke only a few more minutes. Then he introduced his son and daughter-in-law, who led the gathering in a few hymns. They sang a line and the congregation echoed it.

  Sunny kept quiet at first but soon was singing along. She had missed music. Saloons most always had a piano and someone to play it. Sunny caught herself, glad no one could read these thoughts. She shouldn’t be thinking of saloon music here and now.

  As the hymn ended, Old Saul stepped forward and asked for prayer requests. People spoke up where they stood. And the old preacher prayed for each. Then he led them in the Lord’s Prayer, which Sunny had never heard before. It struck her as lovely.

  When the meeting was over, Sunny followed everyone as they lined up to shake the old man’s hand and greet his family. When it came her turn, she lowered her eyes and curtsied, mimicking softly what she’d heard others say. “Thank you for the preaching.”

  “Look up.”

  Sunny did, startled. Frightened.

  “I like to see a pretty woman’s face,” Old Saul said, grinning. A few around them chuckled.

  Sunny blushed warmly.

  “Now don’t take that wrong. I’m not flirting with you.”

  More people chuckled. Sunny wished she could slip back into the shelter of the crowd.

  “Your husband didn’t come with you?” Old Saul lifted a bushy white eyebrow.

  Sunny was mortified, and couldn’t think of a word of reply.

  “No, sir, he didn’t,” Charles spoke up behind her. “He’s a good man, though.”

  “I have no doubt,” Old Saul said. “I’ll come visit him if I’m able, Mrs. Whitmore.”

  Sunny inhaled sharply. Noah would think she’d set him up, which surely would cause trouble.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am. I’ll let him know it was my idea, not yours,” the preacher assured her as if he’d read her caution.

  Sunny tried to smile as she stepped aside to let Charles and Caroline take their turn greeting the old man. She stood back and watched, wondering what Old Saul would have said if she—or another woman—had come out of the saloon in a red satin dress to listen to him. Did he mean what he said about all having sinned? Or did he believe that some sins—like living upstairs at a saloon—couldn’t be forgiven or forgotten?

  * * *

  On the next day, midmorning, axes echoed in the forest clearing. Sunny walked toward the sound, her baby in her arms. Dawn squirmed, wanting down. “No, honey, we’re going to see where Martin will bring his bride. We’re almost there.”

  To distract Dawn she began to sing a silly song about a girl named Susannah. Dawn stared at her, an endearing look in her wide blue eyes.

  “Yes, your mama can sing silly songs if she wants to.”

  Dawn crowed.

  Sunny wished she felt as cheery as she was acting. When she’d arrived home, Noah had not asked about the Sunday meeting, but had merely talked a bit to Charles who’d given him a gentle scold. Noah had just half smiled and shaken his head.

  She had been feeling such a bleak sense of separation from Noah, even though she was glad she’d gone to church. How could she reconnect with him? How could she make him understand why she’d done it?

  Weighed down with this heavy burden, she followed the narrow track made by wagon wheels that had crushed the wild grass. Four men labored in the clearing. Nan’s husband, Gordy, had joined the effort to build Martin’s cabin.

  Under the blue sky, she paused to watch the four of them working together. Noah was chopping in rhythm with Charles Fitzhugh while Gordy and Martin worked on another tree across the clearing from them.

  Sunny waited at the edge of the green woods. She didn’t want to startle the men during such dangerous work. In fact, she didn’t really want to be here. But she’d been drawn to seek out Noah, to bring something warm for the men to drink as a kind of peace offering. The distance she felt between her and Noah made her feel lost and scared. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone to the preaching in town after all.

  She shook the thought from her head—she was glad she’d gone. It had been...important.<
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  When she’d arrived home yesterday she’d wanted to share about the white-haired and kind-eyed preacher who called himself Old Saul. She’d come home aching to let it all out but Noah had silently warned her away. He’d barely spoken six words to her all afternoon and evening. Her husband had gone deep within himself, even more than usual. At first she thought it was anger at her, but that didn’t feel quite right. It was more like Noah was angry at himself.

  Or perhaps...God?

  “Timber!” Charles shouted. Their tree fell. Sunny stepped back farther into the shelter of trees, breathlessly watching the felled tree bounce and bounce, branches whipping back and forth. The ground under her feet shook. Finally it lay on the ground, shuddering still. Her husband and Charles moved to it and began stripping the branches off with hatchets.

  How did they have the courage to do this terrifying work? Shaking her head, she ventured into the clearing. “I brought fresh hot coffee!” she called, holding up a jug wrapped in old cloth.

  Her voice was drowned out by another voice.

  “Timber!” Gordy yelled.

  Sunny stepped back within the forest again. The second tree creaked, cracked, plummeting to the earth. It bounced, once, twice—and headed straight toward Noah and Charles.

  Sunny shrieked, threw the jug down and ran forward heedlessly. “Noah!”

  The huge log bounced high and sailed over Charles. Then it began dropping. In a rush of branches and leaves, it clipped her husband.

  He fell.

  “Noah!” she shrieked again. Sunny’s heart pounded as she pelted toward her husband, now lying on the ground. Dawn began to cry as Sunny clutched her tightly.

  The logged tree careened on till it slammed into the trees ringing the clearing. It dropped then—hard.

  Sunny fell to her knees beside her husband. He lay, gasping, on the still dewy grass. He clutched his left shoulder as a moan was wrenched from him. “Is it broken?” she asked.

  “Can you move your shoulder and arm, Noah?” Charles asked, standing at her side, leaning over.