Red Bird (Prairie Winds Book 2)

by Whitson, Stephanie Grace

  He had read only a few lines before he sat up abruptly, frowning and grasping the letter tightly, reading and rereading.

  We pray that you were safely indoors when the blizzard struck. Please try to write as soon as you can and let us know if you are well. Jim was halfway home from Lincoln when the storm hit, but by tying himself to his team, he made his way home unharmed.

  Carrie Brown was not so fortunate. She managed to get two of her students to safety, through the wisdom of your mare, Lakota, who brought them home. But she herself was lost in the storm, spending the night in a haystack that God miraculously provided just when her strength had failed her.

  Dr. Gilbert and Sarah Biddle have given her excellent care, but it was necessary —

  Soaring Eagle blinked his eyes, and read again. He laid the letter down and wiped tears from his eyes. Red Bird —caught in the storm. Red Bird —afraid and alone —hurt —and now, recovering, but never the same.

  Charity Bond had said that things were all right, that he would read some disturbing news, but that things were all right. How did she know? It was late, so Soaring Eagle waited through a sleepless night before riding back to Santee. He was watching when a lighted lamp appeared in the kitchen at the Birds’ Nest.

  Charity jumped at the sound of a knock at the door. He didn’t wait for her to answer, but opened the door. “You said that it is better now. What is better? Tell me what you have learned.” His face was lined with sadness, his voice tinged with something Charity had never heard before.

  “LisBeth has written that Carrie is back in Lincoln. The surgery was a success. She is doing very well, Soaring Eagle. You don’t need to worry. LisBeth says that her progress has been remarkable. She’s planning to return to the school to teach as soon as possible.”

  Charity had been building a fire to begin heating water for coffee. At the earnestness in Soaring Eagle’s voice she paused and looked at him. He was standing just inside the back door, with a look on his face that Charity had never seen. “Sit down, Soaring Eagle, please. I’ll make you coffee.”

  Soaring Eagle obeyed mechanically. While Charity tried to collect her thoughts, Soaring Eagle said, “It was her caring that brought me to Christ.”

  “Yes, I know,” Charity said softly.

  “Her spirit has always—” he fumbled to explain, “has always been here.” He indicated his heart. “Somehow she has always been with me, a little girl who looked past the wild Indian.” He stopped and looked at Charity. “It is foolish for me to speak this way.” Standing up he said, “I only wanted to know that she was all right.”

  Looking at Soaring Eagle, Charity Bond knew what she must say. “Soaring Eagle, I think that you should go visit Carrie and see for yourself how she is doing. LisBeth wrote that you had mentioned going to meet your nephew. He’s probably walking by now. Perhaps it is time you went to see him,” Charity added with meaning, “and Carrie.”

  “Yes. I think you are right.” Soaring Eagle left as abruptly as he had come.

  As soon as he had gone, David Gray Cloud bounded up onto the porch and invited himself in for coffee. “Since your first suitor didn’t stay for coffee, may I join you?”

  Somewhat flustered, Charity invited David in and poured coffee. “There goes a tortured man,” David said, indicating Soaring Eagle.

  “Tortured?”

  “Needs a wife and can’t seem to realize it. I, on the other hand, am wise with the wisdom of my people.” Setting his coffee cup down, David Gray Cloud looked up at Charity. “Please, Miss Bond, won’t you be seated?”

  Charity sat down, a quizzical expression on her face.

  “Did you enjoy your work on the Cheyenne River, Miss Bond?”

  Charity smiled sincerely. “Oh, yes.”

  “And would you be interested in returning in the spring for a further season of work?”

  “Has Dr. Riggs said that I might go? I’ll have to write Carrie and see if she can come. We work so well together.”

  “Miss Bond, I had another partner in mind for you.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  “You?”

  “Me.”

  Charity looked at David Gray Cloud in amazement. “But—”

  “Does the idea revolt you?”

  Charity blushed. “Far from it, but—”

  “Can we pray for a season and see what God will do?”

  Charity hesitated. “I don’t quite know what to say, David.”

  “Don’t say anything, Charity. Just pray. Dr. Riggs told me long ago to get myself a wife. This is a rather unromantic way to begin, but good marriages have begun in much stranger ways.”

  “Yes. I suppose they have.” As a single woman and a matron at Santee, Charity Bond had long ago learned to conduct herself with irreproachable inattention to the men she encountered. Suddenly she looked at David Gray Cloud as a woman observing a man. She liked what she saw. She had always liked what she saw when David Gray Cloud entered a room, but she had never allowed herself to admit it. But David had given her permission to admit it. She realized that she should, indeed, pray about things for a season. Still, she had the distinct impression that it would be a very short season before she realized that she could love David Gray Cloud.

  Chapter 29

  We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

  Romans 5:3–5

  C arrie Brown woke early after a nearly sleepless night and made her way slowly into the Callaway’s kitchen, where she tried in vain to start a fire and boil water for coffee without waking LisBeth. No sooner had she settled in a chair than LisBeth stood at the door asking, “Are you all right, Carrie?”

  Carrie looked up from the Bible that lay open on the table before her and sighed, “I’m sorry, LisBeth. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “A mother’s ears, Carrie. Actually, it wasn’t you I heard first. J.W. must have been having a bad dream. He’s back asleep now.” With a smile, LisBeth looked out the window towards the east. “It’s near daylight now, anyway. Time I was up too.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down opposite Carrie. “Are you nervous about today?”

  “Scared to death,” Carrie admitted. “More frightened than I was that first day last fall.” She took a gulp of coffee. “I wish I could have learned to do without the canes sooner. It would have been easier for the children, and,” she admitted, “much easier for me. We could have pretended nothing was different for a few minutes.”

  “Carrie,” LisBeth said sincerely, “if you don’t act awkward about the change, then the children will follow your lead. Take all the mystery out of everything. Just be open and honest. Let them ask questions. You’re going to do fine.”

  LisBeth reached across the table and patted Carrie’s hand. “And don’t forget, Carrie, you are our local heroine. You saved Tess and Ned Carter’s lives.”

  Carrie shook her head. “I think that honor goes to Lakota. That little horse just wouldn’t give up. When I headed the wrong way, she threw a fit. I really had no choice but to let her lead.” Carrie smiled. “Who would have thought God would use that little mare in such a way?”

  Carrie looked out the window at the pink-tinged sky. “I could almost hear Soaring Eagle’s voice saying follow the horse, Carrie, follow the horse. I never would have thought to do it. We’d have floundered around in the blizzard and likely died. I’ll have to write him and thank him for that.”

  “You won’t need to write it, Carrie. You can tell him yourself. He’ll be here any day.”

  Carrie’s face remained expressionless, but she pulled her left hand away from LisBeth and put in her lap, shifting nervously in her chair.

  LisBeth explained, “You got in so late last night from town, I forgot to tell you. Jim had a letter from Charity with him. She said that Soaring Eagle and the othe
rs had just come back from the Cheyenne River.” LisBeth got up and left the kitchen, returning momentarily with a letter in hand. “Thank God now we know they are all safe. Here, Carrie, you need to read this.”

  Carrie read Charity’s account of the trouble at the Cheyenne River and the plans to return in the spring. Her heart ached as she thought of Soaring Eagle and the others working so hard and losing so many to smallpox. Then she read something that made her heart beat a little more quickly.

  They came in late in the morning and met with Dr. Riggs. I gave Soaring Eagle your letter just as they road out toward the Red Wings’ . I told him that I would write you and let you know that he was safe. But he was waiting outside the Birds’ Nest when I lit the lamp in the kitchen the next morning. He must have been watting for me to get up. I’ve never seen him so upset. I actually think he had tears in his eyes when he spoke of her.

  I hope I didn’t misspeak, LisBeth, but I encouraged him to come to you and to see for himself how Carrie is doing. His face shows the effects of his season’s work. It is lined with care and, somehow, he doesn’t look healthy. I’m glad he is coming to you. A few weeks with J. W. and your cooking, some time working out-of-doors with Jim away from the cares of a missionary can only have a positive effect.

  You will, of course, want to prepare him for the physical changes in Carrie, but the spiritual changes I read in her letters encourage me so much. It is such a blessing to know that she has adapted without bitterness. I know this is in at least some way due to your shar ing your mother’s Bible with her, LisBeth. Praise be to the Lord who put it in your heart to turn Carrie’s attention from herself and to her blessed Lord.

  This morning I read 1 Peter 4:19, “Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.” We have all seen that verse lived out in Carrie Brawn, and I hope you let her read this letter so that she will know how much I am encouraged by her testimony. I am still praying that she will be able to return with us to the Cheyenne River in the spring.

  With us, you say? Well, that is the other news that I have to share. Just after Soaring Eagle left the Birds’ Nest, who should come into my kitchen but David Gray Cloud. And what do you suppose he wanted ? He had been to talk with Dr. Riggs, and apparently Dr. Rig gs had encouraged him. LisBeth, he has asked me to consider returning to the Cheyenne River with him in the spring —as his wife! Now if you are amazed, you are no more amazed than I. I had always thought that my life would be spent among my children here at Santee. I stopped dreaming of being a bride long ago. Isn’t it amazing that just when we have given up our own plans, God pours out “exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think ”? Do you suppose that He only wants us to let go, and stop trying to make things happen for ourselves, and then He can pour out blessings? I do not understand it all theologically, but I am once again humbled and amazed by His workings.

  You will be even more amazed to hear that I have agreed to consider. It isn’t very romantic, I know, but I think many happy marriages are made between good friends, and David Gray Cloud is quickly becoming my very good friend. We have many months to build this friendship. And yet I admit that when I see him coming up the trail to join me for coffee (in plain view of everyone, of course), something does happen to this old maid’s heart. He makes me laugh. He has even said that he admires me.

  I have thought often of the night that mother demanded that LisBeth and Augusta talk me out of coming to Santee. Had she known then that I would live to be courted by a Santee Sioux, she probably would have tied me to the bedstead! But God has His time for everything, and when I finally got the courage to write her about David, she only asked if there was a possibility that she, too, could come to the Cheyenne River. She worded it this way: “Do you suppose that an old woman could be of any use in such a work? It breaks my heart to think of you so far away and me alone here in Lincoln. I am still in good health, and perhaps I could help with things like the sewing society —or even the garden .”

  Can you believe it? My mother who never weeded her own garden and never wanted to let her child go away from Lincoln, is now offering to follow her daughter and Indian son-in-law into the wild west, and to keep their garden! I think perhaps God has done a miracle in us all, hasn’t He? Please pray for us as we call upon God for His direction. I am already beginning to have a bit of difficulty praying objectively. David Gray Cloud may not be as handsome as Soaring Eagle, but there is a light in his eyes, and something about his smile.

  Carrie handed the letter back to LisBeth without making any comment. Jim came into the kitchen and she asked, “Jim, as soon as you can, if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like to get to the school before the children.” She looked at LisBeth and continued, “I wanted to be seated at my desk for the first day, let them get used to things.”

  Jim interrupted, his voice encouraging, “Why, Carrie, you don’t have to worry a minute about those children. You’re a heroine to every one of them. What you did for Ned and Tess, sacrificing yourself that way.”

  “Just the same, Jim, I’m a little nervous, and I’d feel better about doing it this way.”

  Jim nodded and made his way to the door. “It’ll only take a few minutes to get the team hitched up. I’ll do chores when I get back.”

  “Thanks, Jim.” Carrie sat at the table, rubbing the back of her hand, absentmindedly tracing along the neat scar where Dr. Gilbert had had to remove two frozen fingers. She didn’t want to admit it, but a knot was beginning to form in her stomach at the prospect of seeing Soaring Eagle again. Why’d he have to hurry so fast? If he’d only waited until later in the spring, I could have been without the canes. She cross-examined herself. And why should that matter? He’s just a friend coming to see a friend, so why should it matter?

  The sound of the wagon rattling up to the house brought her out of deep thought. She made her way to the back door and pulled on her coat and mittens.

  “It’s going to be a nice day, Carrie,” LisBeth offered. “Don’t be afraid. It’s going to be fine.”

  Carrie nodded wordlessly and hobbled slowly out the door and across the porch. Jim lifted her up onto the wagon seat. She took a deep breath. “Thanks. Wish I could figure a way to get up on a wagon without help.”

  “A gentleman always helps a lady in and out of wagon, Miss Brown.” Jim slapped the team with the reins and they jolted off towards school. Three miles of nearly spring air did much to relax Carrie. She looked at the schoolhouse smokestack and was relieved to see that no one had come early to surprise the teacher by building a fire.

  “Do you mind carrying in some firewood? I’ll get a student to volunteer after today.”

  “My pleasure. No problem at all.” Jim pulled the wagon up to the school door. “You know, Carrie, if it really bothers you, let me see how close I can get to the steps. Maybe if I pull up just right—” Jim maneuvered the wagon so that Carrie was able to get down herself, landing on the second step from the top.

  She smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Jim.”

  Only a few moments before Carrie descended from Jim’s wagon Ned Carter had called out from his place at the schoolhouse door to warn his classmates of Miss Brown’s arrival. “They’re coming!” he had called, rushing away from the door and taking his place at the front of the room where his classmates already stood in two rows, stretched out behind the teacher’s desk.

  Miss Brown was concentrating so much on managing her canes and her coat, her bonnet and her mittens, that she didn’t glance towards the front of the schoolroom. She took off her cloak and managed to hang it up before something made her look towards the desk. There were two rows of beaming faces looking back at her.

  Carrie blushed furiously and wobbled about, trying to get her skirt out of the way so she could position her canes properly. Before she could get turned all the way around, the students burst into song. The young voices warbled uncertainly and finished on a decidedly flat not
e, but never before had Carrie Brown heard more beautiful music. She blinked back tears and mumbled nervously to thank the children, but they didn’t hear, for they were flocking down the center aisle of the schoolroom and around her, eagerly offering help.

  Tess Carter reached out and covered Carrie’s hand with her own. “Can I help you walk up front, Miss Brown?”

  “No!” said Matthew Glenn. “You’re too little. I’ll help her.”

  “No, let me.”

  “You said I could help!”

  “Children!” Carrie almost shouted in mock anger. When they quieted she said softly, “Thank you very much, Matthew, Philip, Tess, Ned. But if you will all be seated.” She hadn’t even finished her sentence before every child had obediently taken his place at the desk. They turned sideways, watching Carrie.

  Carrie took small steps down the aisle, keeping her back erect and her head up, placing the canes carefully. When she finally reached her desk, the children sat quietly, waiting. Peering down at the drawer in her desk Carrie asked suspiciously, “Ned Carter, if I open this desk drawer is there going to be a surprise in it?”

  The children giggled and Ned blushed, standing up. “No, ma’am, the snakes are all still hibernated, ma’am.”

  When the laughter subsided, Carrie grew suddenly serious. “I am so grateful to the dear Lord that each one of you has come back to our school. That day of the blizzard, as I was falling asleep in the haystack, I was praying that God would take care of each one of you.” Carrie swallowed hard. “Now, you all know that I had to have some surgery after the storm. I am still walking with canes, but the doctor says that if I work hard, I should be able to throw them away soon. I hope you can all be here the day I burn them in that stove. Which reminds me, no one has started a fire yet.”