Chapter 38
Cora found the first gift, a gutted deer, in late September, on the far side of the garden, a few feet from her largest pumpkin.
An arrow lay beside the animal, like a calling card.
Mr. Franklin had said nothing of an intruder, had probably not noticed the giver who must have climbed over the palisade wall, probably from horseback.
As soon as Charlie saw the arrow, he confirmed her suspicions. It was Wolf Heart’s arrow.
No use starting trouble. They were safer if they kept Wolf Heart on friendly terms. She said nothing to Mr. Franklin who still came every evening, and occasionally stayed for the day to help out.
With only the five longhorns and the garden to care for, she and Charlie could manage the daily workload.
Her heart ached every time she looked at the stable loft where Franklin slept now instead of Ben.
A hollowness akin to homesickness plagued her day and night.
A second gift, a dressed-out buffalo loin, appeared in mid-October.
In between, Charlie reported a couple of visits from Wolf Heart while the boy was on the far side of the ranch.
The third gift came the first week of November—a pair of buckskin moccasins, lined with fur.
Too big for Charlie. She’d taken them into her house, set them by the coat rack in the hallway, but hadn’t put her feet in them.
“Tell him I can accept no more gifts,” she said to Charlie. She didn’t want to think about what the gifts meant.
“He only wants to help us.”
What if he aimed to fill Ben’s place in more ways than one? “Ben wouldn’t want me to take the moccasins.”
Charlie studied her for a moment. “Maybe Wolf Heart and Ben could be friends.”
“I don’t think so.”
“When is Ben coming back?”
She rubbed her arms. “I don’t know.” Never?
“His father is still recovering. Ben has to take care of his father’s newspaper.
His mother and sister are temporarily dependent on him.
” Temporarily? More like a permanent entrenchment, encasing his feet in cement.
He was probably too kind to come out and tell her that his heart had cooled toward her.
His second letter had contained more money than she’d dared expect, but it was Ben McKenzie she wanted, not bank notes.
“You tell Wolf Heart we appreciate the meat, but Ben sends provisions from afar. He’s still looking after us. ”
Charlie frowned and scuffed his own moccasin. If she didn’t take action, Wolf Heart would have him wearing a breechclout next.
“You tell him that.” She placed her hand under his chin and lifted it.
“All right.”
That evening, after she’d put Charlie to bed, she stood on the porch, hugging herself and staring at the swing.
She hadn’t sat in it since Ben’s departure more than three-and-a-half months before.
He poured himself into making it for her as a gift.
Yet they’d only had one evening on it before LeBeau’s letter had destroyed everything.
Correction. Before she’d allowed the letter to destroy everything.
A stiff wind blew across the yard, creaking the swing. She shivered and went inside.
The parlor sofa wasn’t much better, treasured memories of the few evenings between the Comanche attack and Ben’s leaving for the widow’s when they cuddled close. Arms folded, she drifted through the house. He’d only been here four months, but it wasn’t home without him.
Her heart as lifeless as an empty sack, she slipped Ben’s journal from beneath her pillow and returned to the parlor.
Feet curled beneath her on the sofa, she opened the notebook to the last entry she’d read.
She’d halted at the night before Ben and Jeb’s escape attempt.
It had not succeeded. She knew that much.
The parchment bookmark, made of much cleaner paper, obviously added after the war, contained a scribbled note in Ben’s hand.
Read no further unless you want to know the truth.
Had he written the note specifically for her?
It had stopped her in August, but now she needed to know. She turned the page.
….I tripped on a log. My leg twisted. I could go no farther.
The dogs were coming. I begged Jeb to continue without me, but he wouldn’t.
We used sticks to defend ourselves. Jeb was bitten, keeping them off me.
The guards called the dogs off and hauled us back.
By the time we were punished and thrown into the stockade again, Jeb’s leg was infected.
God forgive me. It was my fault. My fault.
I should never have agreed to be part of the escape party.
I should have insisted he go without me.
Then came several brief entries dated over several weeks.
Jeb continues to weaken. He’s out of his head with fever.
His leg is puffed up. I can hardly do more than crawl.
My legs are bent with scurvy. I pay everything Jeb and I have left—a coat, our makeshift washboard, both Jeb’s and my threadbare trousers that stopped reaching below our knees months ago, and more—for any scrap of sustenance I can buy for him.
Only a couple of men in our mess are well enough to fetch water, and they bring it for all of us…
My heart breaks as I watch the life wane from Jeb.
He won’t reach home again. He’ll never see the mother and sister he loves so dearly, or the father he wishes to make amends with.
I have vowed to go in his stead, and I pray that the Lord will make it so.
I will look after his family. I can do nothing less for my best friend.
Dear Lord God in heaven, forgive me. Please let me survive to fulfill my pledge.
Tears slid down her cheeks. Her poor, suffering brother died because he’d stood by a friend. It wasn’t Ben’s fault. Her generous-hearted brother would not have gone on without him no matter what he did.
She hugged the journal to her chest. Why had the Lord not healed Jeb and allowed him to return home?
When Jeb had left all those years ago, none of them knew he’d never see home again.
She shivered. The future wasn’t guaranteed.
Her mother had always encouraged her to say “I love you” freely to those who mattered most. For only the Lord knows what tomorrow holds.
What if she never saw Ben again? Was she going to allow fear and mistrust to rob her of every hope of happiness? Rob her of the possibility for a lifetime of love?
Aweek later, beneath a sky filled with white puffs and an occasional hawk, Cora rode back from church with Charlie.
She didn’t make it into town every time the circuit rider held Sunday service.
Often, she and Charlie would have devotions at their kitchen table, but today, she’d wanted to hear the preacher’s words.
His sermon had been on Abraham about how long he’d had to wait after God’s promise of a son and many descendants before Isaac was born.
Twenty-five years. What must that have been like?
She was only twenty-four years old herself.
Years of waiting and uncertainty, doubt as well, for Abraham and Sarah, and them trying to take things into their own hands and make the promise happen their own misguided way.
They made a mess that carried across generations.
But God was faithful. God fulfilled his promise in the fullness of time.
Would the Lord eventually answer her prayers about Ben? But what if His answer was no?
A rider walked his horse out from a patch of scrub oak and hickory down by the creek.
Cora stiffened and drew rein.
“Wolf Heart.” Charlie shot Cora a quick glance and rode off to meet the warrior.
She touched the small revolver tucked in her skirt pocket that she carried as a precaution while on the road, then nudged her horse forward.
There had been another raid two weeks before on three homesteads. Horses stolen, two men shot, and a child taken captive. But there were thousands of Comanche. No reason to lay the deed at Wolf Heart’s feet.
“Haaa, Cora Scott.” Wolf Heart nodded to her as she approached.
Today his dark hair hung loose against his buckskin hunting shirt, well past his shoulders. His eyes simmered.
“Look at the arrow he gave me.” Charlie grinned as he ran his finger along the thin wood.
“Cora walk with me.” Wolf Heart swung out of the saddle without waiting for her agreement. “Little Wolf watch horses.”
Walk beside him? She’d prefer to stay atop her mare, more distance between him and her, less intimate.
“I’ll let them drink from the creek.” Charlie dismounted.
Nerves on edge, Cora followed suit. She stuffed her hands in her pockets as she walked alongside the warrior whose fringed hunting shirt flopped against his breechclout and bare muscular legs.
He was older than her, maybe by about ten years.
With his sun-weathered skin, it was difficult to tell, but he was still very much a man.
She kept her eyes straight ahead and inhaled the scents of bear grease and horse.
The creek bubbled beside them, having recently sprung to life again after a parched summer.
She should thank him for the gifts, but her lips remained silent. This man needed no encouragement.
Wolf Heart’s moccasins crunched against the grass. “The boy needs a father to teach him.” That topic again. Direct and to the point.
She braced herself. “Ben will be back. His father is ill, as I said.”
Up ahead, a blue-winged teal landed in the creek with a splash. Another teal paddled from around the bend.
“Birds know it best not to be alone.” Wolf Heart pointed at the pair.
Her swallow worked its way down to the pit of her tumbled stomach. “Even birds have their time alone.”
They walked on in silence.
She needed to get out of here. “I should head home soon. I have chores.”
He flexed his hands at his sides. “Not good for woman and child to be on own. Could come with me. To live. Life on horizon instead of stuck to dirt patch.”