This time, there was no parson to rescue him. Wherever Charlie Pender was spending the winter, it wasn’t in these parts. Lydia Hart had said something about Charlie making another run at Dobytown and then heading west. Good old Charlie. He meant well, but he’d been wrong about something. Frank Paxton wasn’t a candidate for “God’s amazing grace.” I once was lost… and won’t be found.
He took another drink. He’d wagered his horse to stay in the game. Not his horse, exactly, but that was okay, because he was about to make up for everything. Annie might not forgive him for coming back to Dobytown, but she’d take the money he was about to win. With a flourish, he spread the straight flush on the table before him. And then, Rotten Luck landed the best knock-out punch of Frank’s lifetime. With a last puff on his cigar, the stranger across the table showed his hand. A royal flush.
What were the chances of that? For a moment, Frank thought his eyes were fooling him. He looked again. Nope. Clear as a bell. Shoulders back, head up, he looked across the table at the flinty-eyed, red-faced personification of Rotten Luck. If it took his last breath, he would not let anyone see the truth about how he felt just now. He finished his drink and set the glass down with a flourish. Next, he settled his hat back on his head at a jaunty angle.
“It would appear,” he said to the gambler across from him, “that you have just won yourself a horse.” Placing both palms on the poker table, he pushed himself upright. “Congratulations.”
The stranger took another drag on the monstrous cigar and then blew a stream of smoke across the table in Frank’s direction. Frank made a show of brushing first one sleeve and then the other, as if to rid himself of the stench of the smoke. His chin held high, he exited the saloon.
The stranger followed to where the bay Pony Express mare waited, hitched with only a halter and a lead rope. Rotten Luck had already seen to it that Frank had lost the saddle, the bridle, and the saddle blanket. The straight flush was supposed to have redeemed it all. The gambler unhitched the bay mare and his own horse and mounted up. “Nice horse,” he said and rode away, laughing.
Frank stood outside for a long moment, watching horse and rider disappear into the night. He shuddered. Bracing himself with one hand, he doubled over and vomited. Backing away from the saloon door, he scooped up a handful of fresh snow and swiped at his face. For a few minutes, he stood in the dim light shining through the saloon window, wondering what to do. The moon had gone behind some clouds. The wind had picked up.
The redhead Frank had spent much of the day drinking with appeared in the doorway to the saloon. “Hey honey,” she called. “You’re gonna freeze to death out here. Whyn’t you come back inside? Marley’s closing up. He won’t mind if you sleep it off in a corner.”
“I’m aw’ right,” Frank said. He was surprisingly clear-headed. Clearheaded enough to realize he’d had his fill of painted women and poker, at least for a while. He looked about him at the expanse of snow stretching away to the horizon in all directions. How far was it to Fort Kearny, anyway? He could catch the stage—if he had money, which he didn’t. Although if Whiskey John happened to be the driver, he could probably hitch a ride without paying the fare. Then again, the last thing he wanted right now was to run into Hart. He looked past Fort Kearny and a little north. That was it. He’d trek over to the Pony Express station just off the military reservation. What was the station keeper’s name, anyway? Conroy, he thought. He’d offer to work in exchange for a meal. And think. He needed to think.
Back inside, Frank retrieved his saddlebags from the floor beneath the poker table. Slinging them over his shoulder, he called to the barkeep. “I appreciate what you did for me when that army boy wanted to haul me outta here.”
Marley nodded. When Frank turned to go, he called after him. “You’d best do what Shirley says and sleep here. It hasn’t snowed much in the last few days. We’re due. Not a good night to be walking anywhere.”
“I’m much obliged,” Frank said, “but I’m not going far. Just up to the relay station. Can’t be more’n a couple miles. I’ll be all right.”
The barkeep shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He grabbed a broom and began to sweep.
“Don’t do it,” the girl pleaded.
Frank noticed the dark smudges beneath her eyes. Her bad breath. The foul smells in the place. The filth on the floor. His head swam. He was going to be sick if he didn’t get out of here. “Like I said, I’m not going far.”
The girl skittered through the door behind the bar and returned with a frayed blanket. “At least take this.”
Frank recoiled from the stink of cheap perfume, but the girl persisted and so he took it. Muttering an insincere Thanks, he stumbled into the night, suddenly eager to leave Dobytown behind. Take that, Rotten Luck.
Chapter 25
At last, on a gray morning a week after he’d staggered through the front door at Clearwater, Badger was well enough to sit up. For a few days he tottered about the station, his thin frame housed in one of George’s shirts and a pair of pants held up with a piece of rope for a belt. Annie realized that small pox had ravaged a face that had once been quite handsome, and she wondered anew at the miracle of Badger’s and Billy’s survival.
And then he disappeared.
“He’ll be back in the spring,” George said with a slow smile. “And this time, you’ll be ready. Thank you for everything you did for him.” He took a deep breath. “And now I’m going to try to do something for you.” He reached for the coat and hat hanging on a peg by the door. “Billy will see to the livestock. The stage isn’t due for a couple of days, and there shouldn’t be any riders coming through, either. I want you to bar the doors and stay put until I get back. It’ll probably be sometime tomorrow.”
“Where are you going?”
“After Frank.”
Finally. Wrapped in the stinking blanket he’d almost rejected, Frank saw it. The faintest glimmer of light. The relay station. It had started to snow a little while ago. No more than an occasional flake. Still, he’d made a giant triangle of the blanket and draped it over his head, grateful for a way to keep the wind off his neck. When a blast of cold air pierced the blanket, he stopped long enough to adjust his bandanna, pulling it up over his mouth—just as he had when he was still a Pony Express rider. It helped some, but he was quickly losing feeling in his feet. That light in the distance was a good thing.
A good thing. The phrase sent a pang of regret through him. Aside from the fact that he wasn’t going to freeze to death—assuming a blizzard didn’t come up in the next few minutes—there wasn’t much good in the world. Except, of course, Annie. She was good. So was Emmet. Goodness had skipped right over Frank. He’d spent a lot of time at Dobytown proving it.
Unbidden, Charlie Pender’s voice sounded in his head. Not a sermon, for Frank hadn’t paid all that much attention to those. What Frank “heard” was the song Charlie seemed to think everyone should know. “Amazing Grace.” He remembered taking issue with the words and the idea of a holy God letting “just anyone” ask for grace.
Charlie had just laughed. “That’s good, son. Frank Paxton telling the Almighty God how to arrange His universe. Just be forewarned that if He listens, He’ll want you to rewrite the Bible for Him, too. If it isn’t a ‘gift of God’ there’s a passage in Ephesians that will have to go.” Charlie had paused. “Romans will be problematic, too. And you’ll need to rework a lot of what Jesus taught. He was big on the word whosoever.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Frank said. “‘God so loved the world’ you said the other day. All right. He loves the world. But shouldn’t folks have to make up for all the bad they’ve done before God hands out ten thousand years in heaven?”
“A fair exchange, you mean?”
“Something like that.”
“All right. Let’s say that’s the way it works. Who decides what’s fair? How does a person know when he’s made up for what he did?”
Frank frowned. “What d’ya mean?”
Frank nodded. “That’d probably do it. Maybe offer to pay for it.”
“What if I broke it?”
“Then you’d have to pay for it.”
“All right. Say I killed somebody. How do I pay for that?”
“You can’t.”
“So I can earn grace—and heaven with it—if I only sin a little, but if I sin big, I’m outta luck. I’ve sinned bigger than God can forgive. Is that what you’re saying?”
Frank huffed frustration. “I’m saying it shouldn’t be free.”
“Well we agree on that, son, because it wasn’t free. It cost more than any of us will ever be able to appreciate. It took the sinless, guiltless Son of God’s life—poured out after He was declared guilty in a Roman court, nailed to a cross outside the city, and left to die.” Charlie’s voice wavered. “That’s what it took to make God’s amazing grace free to the likes of Charlie Pender and Frank Paxton.”
Frank stumbled. It was snowing harder. His fingers were numb. He drew the blanket tighter and walked on. Amazing grace. How sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me. At least he had the wretch part right. I once was lost but now am found. He was lost, too. In just about every way a man could be. He peered into the night, relieved to see the light still shining in the distance. Not that far away now. Good thing.
He stared at the expanse of white separating him from the light and went back to thinking about the song as he walked. Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come, ’tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. A blast of frigid air picked up the snow and swirled it around him. Frank stumbled again, but avoided falling and trudged on. It wasn’t far now. He imagined the light shining through a window from a room where he could thaw out. It would feel good to be warm again.
When swirling snow erased the light from view, he was tempted to panic. I once was lost but now am found. Was it possible for someone like him to find the kind of hope that had sounded in Charlie’s voice when he sang those words? Ten thousand years in heaven sounded good, but what about the rest of life here on earth? Would Annie ever forgive him for what he’d done? Would God? I’m lost. I need help.
Pulling the bandanna away from his mouth, Frank yelled into the storm. “Hello! Can anybody hear me? Hello at the station!”
He trudged on. Now that he couldn’t see the light, he wasn’t certain he was headed the right way. If he didn’t get there soon, he was going to find out if Charlie Pender was right about a lot of things. The notion terrified him. He called out again. “Hello! Can anybody hear me? Hello at the station!” I’m lost. I need help. If Charlie’s right… if grace is free… I need some.
As if in answer to the unspoken prayer, the storm picked up. Frank grimaced. So this was it. Frank Paxton, the “famous” Pony Express rider, was about to die in the middle of a Nebraska storm. He opened his mouth to holler for help, but the words were knocked back when he slammed into something solid and floundered in a drift deep enough to get him out of the wind. Hunh. It felt warmer down here, wherever he was. Hadn’t Billy said something about the Indians digging into deep snow to survive a storm? He sure hoped that was right, because he couldn’t feel his feet anymore and he had no idea which way to walk. He was exhausted. He’d just close his eyes for a minute. Just a minute. I’m lost. Help.
With a start, Frank opened his eyes. It was still snowing, but there must have been a break in the clouds, because moonlight was shining off the snow and… the creature that had bounded across his lap had awakened him. Or maybe he hadn’t really fallen asleep. Except it had to be a dream. Rabbits did not emerge from snowdrifts and hop across human laps. Unless—Frank blinked a few times and peered at the animal sitting a few feet away, poised to make a quick getaway.
He felt behind him. Dried earth, laid up like bricks. He’d slammed into a sod wall.
Clutching at the blanket, Frank staggered to his feet. The rabbit bounded away, but not before Frank got a good look. He inched along the sod wall until it ended. He peered around the corner. At a corral. And the relay station, a short distance away to his right. He gazed up at the sliver of moon shining through a break in the clouds. Was that You? He didn’t hear a voice, but Frank knew the answer, just as surely as he knew that everything Charlie Pender had ever said about amazing grace was true.
Annie sat bolt upright in bed and peered into the dark, listening as the wind rattled her bedroom window. Unbarring the shutter with a trembling hand, she stared into the night, hoping against hope for moonlight to illuminate the landscape. Sitting back, she closed her eyes. Please. George is out there looking for Frank. It can’t storm. Not tonight. The wind whistled as if to reply, It can. It is.
There was no point in huddling here in bed. She wasn’t going to sleep. She dressed in the dark, unbarred her bedroom door, and went into the kitchen, lighting the lamp on her worktable and then moving on into the main room. The quiet in the station had never frightened her… until now. A creak overhead made her jump. She set the lamp on a table near the one window looking out on the back lot. Unbarring the back door, she opened it just enough to peer out into the dark. Billy was down there in the soddy, but all Annie could see was swirling snow. It was as if the soddy and the barn, the corrals and the creatures huddled together inside them did not exist.
Closing the door, Annie left the lamp on the table near the window and grabbed another to carry back into the kitchen. She hoped Billy would see it. Hoped he’d bring reassurance that George was not out in the gathering storm. That he had undoubtedly reached Fort Kearny before the storm hit.
She set water on to boil, and wished for dawn so she could tend the chickens. So she could see the horizon and Please, God, blue sky. Retrieving her knitting basket from where she’d left it on the store counter the night before, she set it on the worktable in the kitchen while she made coffee. Because of the cold, the bread she’d set to rise before retiring was still little more than a lump of dough. Still, she formed loaves and put it in the oven, moving through her morning routine, all the while listening. Mindful of the wind. Watching for dawn through the north-facing window. Reciting the Isaiah verse about fear, which by now had become almost as dear as the Shepherd’s Psalm.
At last, the back door opened and Billy stepped inside. “Coffee’s on,” she called.
“Smells good,” Billy said as he crossed to the kitchen. “You’re up early.”
“The wind,” Annie said and waited for reassurance that did not come.
“Do you want me to help bring the chickens in?”
She glanced toward the window. “You think it’s going to be that bad a storm?”
“Impossible to know.”
“I’ll do it,” Annie said. “With George gone, you have so much more to handle.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t help you.”
Annie shook her head. “No, I—I need to keep busy. I was just waiting for dawn.” Her voice wavered. “Hoping for blue sky on the horizon.”
“That’s a good hope,” Billy said. “Hold on to it.” He headed back outside, but then turned back around. “He’ll know what to do.”
Annie cleared her throat. “I know. I just—I wish there was a way to notify Lieutenant Hart at Fort Kearny. To send out a search party.”
Billy gave a low, barking laugh. “George doesn’t need help from any blue coats. He’s forgotten more about living out here than they’ll ever know.”
The stagecoach had just left the Pony Express relay station near Fort Kearny when it lurched dangerously. Frank barely managed to stay in the seat next to Whiskey John. The driver swore cheerfully and hauled on the reins. “Got off the trail a bit there. Happens from time to time.” He glanced over at Frank. “Sure you don’t want to ride inside?”
Frank shook his head. “Thanks, but I like it up here.” He did, too. He marve
led at the skill demonstrated as Whiskey John managed six sets of reins as deftly as Frank had ever handled a single horse. Besides that, now that the sun was shining, the view from atop the Concord coach was something he didn’t want to miss. He looked back toward the relay station, little more than a dot on the prairie. It was a pure miracle that he’d ever found it in that storm. And the rabbit? He didn’t know if he’d ever tell anyone about that. Who’d ever believe it—well, besides Charlie Pender.
When the coach pulled up to the telegraph office at Fort Kearny, Frank stayed put. From his perch, he scanned the grounds, smiling at the memory of dancing with Lydia Hart and wondering how she was faring through her first long, hard winter in the West. When he caught a glimpse of a soldier who might be Wade Hart, he ducked his head and pulled the bandanna up. He’d have to face the lieutenant sooner or later and probably even thank him for trying to drag him out of Dobytown. But he wasn’t ready.
When Whiskey John climbed back up beside Frank, he brought all kinds of news. William Russell of the freighting company that had founded the Pony Express had been in all kinds of trouble since the first of the year. Congress had agreed to spend $800,000 to keep the Pony Express going. They’d also decreed that the Union would not pay any company on a mail contract that would take the route through a state that had seceded from the Union.
Whiskey John looked over at Frank with a smile and a wink. “You know what that means? Means those of us chasing across Nebraska Territory are more important than ever.” He shouted at the team before relating how Pony Bob Haslam out in Nevada had been attacked by Indians and wounded while carrying President Lincoln’s inaugural address westward. “Still finished the hundred and twenty miles, though,” the driver said. “Set a record, too. Eight hours and twenty minutes.” And then he added a profanity-laced, albeit kind word to Frank. “Don’t you worry, son. You’ll be back in the saddle before long.”
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