Chapter 12
“Here.” Emmitt’s eyes were rimmed with red as he handed Ben the hammer.
“Thank you. Can you give me a some more nails?”
Emmitt scooped them from the box and passed them up.
“Shane, are you doing okay holding the ladder?”
“Yes,” he replied sullenly. Shane had his hands on either side of the ladder, but he rested his head against it, keeping it steady with his weight more than anything.
Ben positioned a few of the nails in the corner of his mouth so they’d be ready as he moved the next board into place. The wood had been set aside to fix a few places in the barn, but getting the pantry weatherproof was far more important.
“Do you boys need to go rest?” Ben asked after he hammered in one side. “Some of the other boys can come out and help me.”
“No,” Emmitt insisted quickly.
“You must be tired, though, after your trip back,” Ben pointed out. He’d managed to extract from Emmitt that Cutter and his men had found them in Antelope Springs and had waited only long enough to be sure the party was from St. Thomas before they ambushed them just outside their hotel.
They’d stayed in the woods for a few extra days before coming back, trying to decide what to do with their new charges. Anger boiled through Ben every time he thought about it, which was every time he looked at the boys or hammered in a nail.
He tried to tamp down his frustration before it caused him more trouble than just emotional turmoil.
Father Tillman had made him promise not to take his revenge.
Not long ago, before he’d run away to join the army, it would’ve been a much easier promise to make. Now, Ben wasn’t sure he could keep it.
“It’s better to do the work,” Shane said, an uncharacteristic statement for the boy. “If I close my eyes, I’ll just think I’m back in the woods with them.”
Ben came down a rung and examined the next section of the pantry. He’d cut away as many of the burned parts as he was able, still warm from the fire. It would’ve been better to let it all dry out before he put on new siding, but there was no chance of that.
The snow that’d been littering down on them for about the past hour was beginning to thicken. It landed on the pile of burned wood nearby on the ground, slowly obliterating the evidence.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked quietly.
Emmitt scuffed his shoe in the snow. “Just knocked us around a little, that’s all.”
Ben’s nostrils flared, and he readjusted his grip on the hammer.
“We tried to protect Sister Matthews,” Shane murmured. “They kept asking her questions, and they’d hurt her no matter what she said. We tried to stop them. We really did.”
Ben finished hammering in one last nail and stepped down, his boots sinking into the snow. He put his hand on each boy’s shoulder. “I know you did. You were very brave. I’m sure Sister Andrews is very grateful to you, and I know I am.”
That earned him an exhausted smile from Shane and a grim nod from Emmitt.
“That’s the last of it, for now,” Ben told them. “Help me get the tools back into the barn, and we’ll rest.”
“Won’t we have to fix the inside?” Emmitt asked. He wavered slightly on his feet as he picked up the box of nails, completely spent.
“Later.” Ben, too, wanted to keep going. He wanted to erase everything that showed Cutter had been there. But he couldn’t get rid of the bruise around Sister Andrews’ eye, nor could he bring Father Tillman back to life.
“Let’s just get inside, get warm, and get some food.”
But the dinner table wasn’t the lively affair that it usually was.
Sister Andrews, much like Emmitt and Shane, had insisted on carrying on with life as though nothing had happened.
There was very little food left for her to work with, however.
She managed to put together a bit of meat, some potatoes, and a little bread that was slightly stale.
The children sat with their shoulders slumped, bringing the food to their mouths out of obligation rather than interest or hunger. Ben never thought he’d miss them arguing over who got which cut of meat or where they would sit.
Father Tillman’s chair sat empty, a simple but constant reminder of all that they had lost.
When the meal was finished, the girls stepped wordlessly into the kitchen to help Sister Andrews. The boys brought in firewood for the night, and they even cleaned up the snow they tracked inside.
“I’ve already fed the livestock,” Sister Matthews said as Ben reached for the handle on the back door. The children had gone to their beds early, and the kitchen was quiet. “No need to get back out into this weather. We should rest.”
His shoulders were sore and his feet were still chilled from fixing the outside of the pantry. A calm evening in front of the fireplace sounded wonderful, but Ben wouldn’t have been able to enjoy it even if he tried. “I have to go to Antelope Springs.”
“What?” She clutched her crucifix as her eyes darted to the window, where the snow had accumulated in a frosty arc against the pane. “You can’t be serious!”
“I am. Just look.” Ben crossed the kitchen. Black marks blazed out around the pantry door. The smell of burned food and wet wood had already permeated the kitchen, but a new waft of it swept through the room when he opened the door.
“That was everything we had,” Ben said, gesturing to the pitiful remains of the pantry.
It was a small room, but the shelves had efficiently held all the canned goods the sisters had put up from the garden over the summer, as well as the sacks of flour and sugar they’d brought from town.
The shelves were mostly still intact, made of hard and sturdy wood that hadn’t quite burned through. They were laden with broken glass. Bits of food were still visible in the charred rubble, a tomato here or a pickle there, saved from the worst of the fire by their brine but no good for the table.
“We can’t make it like this. We won’t even get through the next few weeks with as many mouths as there are to feed here.”
Sister Matthews ran her fingers up and down over her crucifix, lines of worry plowed across her forehead. “We’ll find a way. We always do.”
Ben shook his head firmly. “We can’t grow anything right now. We can’t ask any of the nearby farmers for assistance, since they’ve already put up what they need for their families. I don’t see a choice.”
She bit her lip. “Maybe you could repair the inside of the pantry first, before you go. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a place to put any food or supplies once you went to town.”
“They can go anywhere. That won’t matter that much.” He studied Sister Matthews. She was always so logical, a woman who understood exactly what needed to happen next and why. But Father Tillman’s death had changed her.
Hadn’t it changed them all?
“Ben.” She closed the pantry door, shutting away the worrying scene, and she put her hand on his arm. “The snow is only getting worse.”
“That’s why I have to go now,” he reasoned. “I can probably still make it through the pass before the snow closes it off completely.”
“The pass!” She curled a fold of her habit in her fist. “Ben, do you hear what you’re saying?
Even in good weather, that’s dangerous. Natives and outlaws use that pass because it’s too hazardous for any of the deputies to come through it regularly.
There are probably any number of wild animals, too. ”
“Yes, and the terrain is difficult,” he agreed, “but it’ll shave some time off the trip and I’ll get back sooner.”
In the short amount of time that Ben had contemplated the trip, he’d considered his options. The narrow pass to the east was difficult to find and even harder to traverse. He was crazy to consider hauling a wagon across it during a storm.
But taking the easier route meant it’d be another couple of weeks before he could get out and back again. “It’s a risk worth taking.”
Sister Matthews looked old and frail, worn down with worry. “I know things look bleak here, but it’s too dangerous to go out there. We can’t—we can’t lose you, too.”
He glanced toward the door that led to the church, where Father Tillman had been washed, dressed, and laid out. Ben had gone in to see him earlier. He’d looked so serene, and Ben hoped that he truly was at peace.
There was no peace to be found within his own heart, though.
“He asked me not to go after Cutter and avenge his death,” Ben reminded her. “He also asked me to take care of the orphanage. If he was still here, then he’d be getting the wagon ready right now.”
Sister Matthews’ mouth pinched, and her eyes glistened. “He cares so much about the children. Any man in his position should, but not everyone who serves the church is truly pure of heart. He loves them all like his own. Do you know he weeps every time one is adopted?”
She spoke of Father Tillman as though he was still alive and simply in the other room, but Ben wouldn’t correct her. It was better to think of him that way. “I didn’t know that,” he said gruffly, trying to hold back yet another round of tears.
“Oh, yes. He’s so sad that he’s lost them, but he’s so happy that they’ve found a new family. It’s always one of the hardest moments for him.”
Ben vaguely remembered Father Tillman shutting himself in his room for a few hours after a child was pulled from the orphanage. He’d always assumed the old man was doing paperwork or praying, all of the boring things that a priest who runs an orphanage must do.
“Then he would understand that this is worth the risk,” Ben told her. “I have to go, and I can’t wait. The weather is going to slow me down enough.”
“Very well,” Sister Matthews relented. “Come with me, then.”
He followed her down the hall. She lifted her fist to knock on Father Tillman’s door, paused as she remembered she no longer had to do that, and opened it.
It felt strange to intrude on his space without his permission, but they could no longer get it from him.
The room was small and simple, as all the other spaces within the orphanage were.
Father Tillman had kept it neat and tidy, without so much as a speck of dust. The storage boxes Ben had helped him move in when Hattie had arrived looked strange by contrast.
Sister Matthews bent down and pulled a long wooden box out from under the bed. She opened the lid and pulled out a rifle. “You should take this with you.”
The wooden stock had been worn smooth with age and use, but the barrel had been kept clean and oiled. Ben tested the action and found it more than serviceable. “I didn’t know he had this.”
Sister Matthews bent down again, fetching a box of bullets and a rather large knife in a leather sheath. “He never told you about his life before the church, did he?”
Ben swallowed, remembering Father Tillman’s words to him about being like Cutter. It was impossible to believe that the gentle, loving priest who cared so much about orphans that he wept over them could be anything like that demon. “No.”
Her smile was small and sad. “It wasn’t something he liked to talk about. He wasn’t proud of it, and he didn’t want the children to believe it was any way to live.”
“He couldn’t have been that bad,” Ben insisted.
“I wasn’t there to witness any of it,” she admitted, “but he confessed to me a few times over the years. Drinking, gambling, women. He got mixed up with some men who were a very bad influence, the kind of men who are easy to find out here on the frontier.”
Ben’s stomach felt as though it was coated in lead. Father Tillman hadn’t wanted any of the children in his care to live that way. How disappointed would he be if he knew the truth about Ben?
“They were a bad influence on him, and before he knew it he was running from the law.”
He couldn’t picture it. His imagination had put Father Tillman into the scene when he’d tried to understand what Elliot’s family life had been like, and it was just as impossible to see now even while holding his gun. “What did he do? He couldn’t have been like Cutter.”
“Cattle rustling.” She crossed to the window and cleared a spot of frost so she could peer out into the darkness. “Well, he didn’t do it. The men he was with were guilty, and he was associated with them. That’s enough, for most sheriffs.
“He didn’t like the strain of living with the law breathing down his neck, always having to watch over his shoulder.
More than that, he didn’t want someone else to starve for his own gain.
He turned himself in and told the police everything they wanted to know.
He worked with them and didn’t have to go to jail. ”
“I’ve never even seen him on a horse,” Ben noted. Father Tillman would drive the wagon occasionally, but that was it.
“He vowed he never would again.” Sister Matthews turned back to him. “He wanted to get as far away from his old life as he could, and not just physically. Father Tillman gave up anything that would remind him of those days.”
“I hardly know what to say.” Ben ran his thumb along the barrel of the gun.
“Say you’ll be safe when you go to Antelope Springs,” Sister Matthews pleaded softly. “Say that you’ll protect yourself if you need to, and that you’ll come back to us.”
“I will,” he promised.
“Then you have my blessing.” She squeezed his arm and moved past him into the hallway. “I’ll help you get everything together.”