“I see,” she said quietly. “Where will you go?”
“I’ll winter in Fort Laramie. Head to California in the spring.” He nodded, his face a stony mask. “You’re right, ’course.”
“About what?”
“We’d never be happy together.”
Kate just nodded.
“I’m gonna leave this place. Maybe get rich on California gold.” He laughed sardonically. “Now that you’re here, I doubt you’d ever leave this valley.”
Kate looked down, trying not to feel the sting that laced his words. “If that’s the life you truly want, you should go find it. I want you to be happy, Andrew.”
“Yeah, it’ll be good to be on my own again, not tied down. Your family’s got a good thing started here. They’ll take care of you.”
She glanced up at him. His face had softened just a little. She smiled sadly. Their hearts might be chipped and bruised, but they weren’t shattered. In time they would heal. Kate stuck out a hand. “Friends?”
He looked at her hand, then her face. He clasped her hand briefly. “Friends.”
Kate felt a sad sort of relief. Relieved that it didn’t need to be any more complicated than this. Saddened that he didn’t even try to fight for her. It confirmed everything though. If he truly knew her, truly loved her, he wouldn’t let her go so easily. Her heart clenched in a different kind of pain as she thought of the miles of wilderness Jacob had crossed just to tell her he loved her. Yet despite all the heartache she’d just endured, Kate had peace. And that was enough. She left Andrew standing stoically in the barn and walked back to the cabin. He didn’t watch her go.
She quietly stepped inside, returning her family’s questioning looks with a small smile and turning to her room, needing to be alone, needing to process all that her life had been and all the vast unknown of what itnow could be. Kate sat down on the edge of her small bed and released a long breath. What now?
Her eyes lit upon the fiddle case sitting dusty and forlorn on the high shelf above the door. She stood and slowly brought it down to place it on her lap. Undoing the clasps, she opened the lid and gazed at the rich mahogany fiddle nestled in the worn and faded velvet. She hesitated. It had been so long since she’d played. It was like sitting with an old friend that she’d ignored for months. How do you start again?
As her fingers caressed the nicks and scratches etched on the beloved instrument’s surface, a song rose up from deep inside, and a soft smile played on her lips. She reverently lifted the fiddle from its bed and placed it under her chin. It was a feeling as familiar as slipping into a perfectly worn pair of shoes. She deftly tuned the neglected strings and drew resin across her bow. Then she began to play.
The rich tones of the gently vibrating strings filled the little room just as surely as the words of the hymn filled her heart and soul and mind with their truth.
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly,
while the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high;
hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past;
safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last!
Kate played with all the pent-up passion she had buried deep inside when Danny died and Jacob left and she had shut away part of herself to do the right thing and make it through the endless days of toil and grief. As she played, she heard the deep voice of her father singing along in the other room and she smiled, tears welling up and slipping down her cheeks to join their salty timbre to the notes that wafted around her like delicious smells and sweet memories.
The peace of the Lord settled on her, reaching down to her very marrow and soul. And she knew that, whether she found love again or not, she was a cherished child of God, valued beyond measure, and that no matter what her future held, she would do all that she could to glorify Him.
Chapter 32
Pain.
Itwasthefirstthing in Jacob’s awareness. His whole body hurt. His head pounded, his leg felt like it was caught in a grinding millstone, and every breath sent searing pain through his chest. He tried to struggle out of the miry blackness that clung to his consciousness like groping, sticky hands. He had to push through; it didn’t matter if his ribs were hurt. Kate needed him. That brute was going to attack her! If he didn’t wake up in time, she’d be hurt! But no, that had happened long ago. She was okay now. She was safe. But she could never be his. He groaned softly and slipped back into the blackness.
Some time later, Jacob came back to consciousness, his thoughts a little clearer this time. The storm. The cold. The panicked flight into the blizzard. Then nothing. He forced his eyes to crack open. Shafts of light sent shards of pain into his head. He winced and struggled to sit up, and when his sight had finally adjusted, he took stock of his surroundings.
He sat on a rough bed covered in heavy, musty-smelling buffalo hides in the corner of a squat, one-room log cabin. A fire was banked in the river-rock hearth, and some meager sunlight fell into the room through the slats of the shutters covering its one tiny, rawhide window. Every inch of the rough-hewn log walls was covered in a diverse collection of supplies and tools and animal skins stretched tight on their frames. A trapper’s cabin. A single chair and a tiny table stood in the corner, upon which sat a gleaming pipe that had obviously seen years of useand meticulous care. The place smelled of furs and man and smoke, but the dirt floor was level and uniform and swept free of debris. On the mantle above the fire, in pride of place amongst an eclectic assortment of knickknacks, stood two large books. Jacob’s brow furrowed. A literate trapper’s cabin.
Without thinking, Jacob tried to stand and collapsed in a heap, cursing, sweat popping out on his forehead as waves of stabbing pain shot up from his left leg. Looking down, he saw it thickly wrapped in strips of cloth, the numerous rods of an extensive splint making ridges from his knee to his ankle. Jaw clenched, breathing hard, he pulled himself back onto the bed just as the door burst open, the bright morning light silhouetting the shape of a wiry man swathed head to toe in thick furs.
“Well, if it isn’t Lazarus up from the grave!” the man cried.
Jacob winced and shielded his eyes from the bright light. “Who?”
The small man bustled into the room. Closing the door with his moccasined foot, he dumped his armload of wood next to the fire and propped a long, knotty walking staff against the wall. “Lazarus!” he said again, his voice gravelly and thin. “Raised by our Lord after four days dead. You’ve been out cold almost as long as that, and while you didn’t quite make it to the grave, you came mighty close. The Lord saved you just as surely as He did Lazarus, for here you are, brought back from the brink into the light of this glorious mornin’.”
