by Nan O'Berry
She sighed. “I hope Uncle Bartholomew remembers us. Before Mother died, she’d received a letter from him. He said he was doing well in the town of Rattlesnake Ridge. What a name for a town.”
Joe swung his horse around to ride beside her. “Maybe he’s the town mayor. Anyway, it’s a good thing that he’ll be able to help us.” He stopped under a tree. “Let’s rest the horses a bit.”
Tess studied her brother. Before this morning, he’d been a happy-go-lucky boy who didn’t have a care in the world. Now, she could see the worry in his blue eyes. They were icy-blue like Father’s. Joe was a handsome, tall, muscular man, but his face was still boyish. Not hardened like men who’d faced hard lives.
She faced him. “Joe, I think we should pray.”
He stared at her as anger and sorrow flitted across his face. “Didn’t help Mother much.”
Tess took great comfort in her faith and wasn’t going to let her brother’s doubts stop her. “From what we know, I think we could use some Divine guidance and protection.”
He looked away. “Go ahead. I won’t stop you. We’re resting the horses anyway.”
“Joe, it’s important.”
“Go ahead.”
She bowed her head. “Father in heaven, watch over us. Protect us and guide us to Rattlesnake Ridge. Prepare Uncle Bartholomew’s heart to receive us and help us. Take care of Father for us. Amen.”
Tess thought she heard a whispered "amen" from Joe, but she didn't want to press him. She'd struggled since Mother's death and the hard times, too. But Tess always knew the Lord was with her and could feel His Presence in the quiet times. She said a silent prayer for Joe that he'd remember the faith Mother had instilled in them since they were little. She had a feeling they were going to need it.
“Let’s go.” Joe moved out from under the trees and looked to make sure she was following.
Tess rode up beside him. “I think we should send a letter to Uncle Bartholomew, so he knows that we’re coming. I don’t want to send him Father’s letter. I want us to have a fresh start in the town.”
“All right. You write it.” He started to say more but instead shook his head, and then looked back over the trail they’d taken.
His actions unsettled her. Did he really believe someone would be following them? “How long before we reach Dallas?”
Joe shrugged and then stopped. "I got a feeling that's not where we should go. We have the money. I think we'd be better off to go to Arkansas. Catch a train north to Kansas and then go west." He grinned. "First thing we need to do is figure out where Rattlesnake Ridge is."
Tess sighed. “A long way away is all I know.”
“Carl, or anyone following won’t expect us to go east.”
“I wish I could have talked to Carl. We were kind of close. In time, I even thought he might ask me to marry him.”
Joe stared at her. “I never liked him.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure. He didn’t seem truthful. Like he was always hiding something. Forget about him.”
Tess considered her brother's words. There had been something about Carl that had kept her from trusting him. But then again, in light of what had happened today, it might be hard for her to trust anyone again. “I did like him.”
Joe nailed her with a serious look. “Best if you put him out of your mind. Doubtful you’ll ever see him again anyway.”
Angry at being pushed around, Tess grabbed his reins. “You might be responsible for my safety, but you are not my boss. I don’t like you telling me what to do.”
He shook his head. “You are the feisty one.” He touched the tip of her nose. “Probably one of the reasons Carl hadn’t asked for your hand yet.” He turned serious again. “After today, I’m glad he didn’t.”
“I mean it, Joe. We’re equal in this. I want to be a part of our plans.”
Joe yanked his reins from her hand and took several steps away before he stopped and turned to face her. “All right, we’re partners. Equal partners. Not like I could imagine telling you what to do anyway. God help the man who sets his sights on you.”
She gasped. “How dare you talk to me like that.”
He grinned. “It’s truthful. You’re one independent woman. A pretty one though.” He pulled her horse along. “Come on. We need to work together. Let’s get to a train station that can get us north.”
He was right. If men were after them, it was prudent to be on the move. She kicked the horse and surged past Joe. “Catch me if you can.” She galloped along the trail, dodging tree limbs, and jumping fallen logs and ditches. She loved to ride and ride fast.
Today she needed to. She needed to leave behind the heartache. To ride fast away from losing her father, her home, even Carl.
Finally, she slowed and waited for Joe. He had stayed back and was in no hurry. He caught up to her and ushered her behind a stand of trees. He put his fingers to his lips and took the rifle from the scabbard.
Tess tried to see between the branches. "Did you spot a deer?" Her stomach rumbled, and she thought about how they did need to eat.
Joe shook his head.
She started to move beyond the trees to see better when Joe grabbed her reins.
“Stay. Someone’s following us.”
A chill swept through her. “Who?”
He shook his head and gestured for her to be quiet. Joe dismounted and put his hands over the muzzles of both horses.
The April sun beat through the trees pouring heat down on them. Tess closed her eyes and prayed. Surely, they wouldn’t be caught this soon. And how could anyone know the direction they’d have taken?
She heard the steady clop of a trotting horse and held her breath. Through the leaves, she caught sight of a gray horse with black socks. She knew that horse. And as she watched, she saw Carl ride past them.
Joe looked at her and mouthed for her to stay put. Rifle in hand, he walked out of the trees and onto the trail. “Carl.”
Carl whirled his horse around. “Joe, I was looking for Tess. Her father—”
“We know.”
“I had to find out if Tess was all right.” Carl looked around. “Is she with you?”
Tess kept quiet. Something about the way Carl was looking around bothered her. Carl looked concerned, but even from where she was standing, she doubted he was worried about her. He was after the money.
“Where is she? I stopped by your house.”
Joe stood his ground, keeping the rifle ready. “She’s visiting a relative. Father’s death hit her hard.”
“You drop her off in Fort Worth?”
“What do you want Carl?”
“Your father said she might have something of mine, and I care about your sister. I want to make sure she’s all right.”
Joe nodded. “I’ll tell her. She’ll contact you when she’s through mourning our father’s death.”
Carl frowned, finally shrugged, and turned his horse. “Tell her I’ll be in touch.” He rode away, never looking back.
Joe waited out in the open with rifle in hand.
After Carl had ridden out of view, Tess led the horses to Joe. “Why didn’t you want me to talk to him?”
“Just a feeling. Things I’ve heard.”
Tess’s knees were weak. “He had Father’s pipe in his pocket. Did you see that? He must have been at our house looking for the money.”
Joe nodded with sadness in his eyes. He ushered her and the horses back behind the trees. “Just the other day at Kit’s, Carl came into the saloon with another man. One I hadn’t seen before. He was bragging about the bank. Said he knew things. Then he saw me and hushed up.”
She darted a look down the trail. Carl was coming back, but this time he had a gun drawn.
Joe swung her up on her horse and then mounted his. “Go, don’t look back. Meet me at the lazy oak. If I don’t come, you go on to Uncle Bartholomew’s.” He took the satchel from his saddle and handed it to her. “Take it and go. I’ll me
et up with you.” He slapped her horse.
Tess looked back and saw Joe riding away from her. She darted through the brush on the faint trail that she and Joe knew so well. Growing up they'd played on horseback. Chasing one another. Hiding and then trailing each other for practice.
Periodically, she stopped and listened, but no one was following her. Finally, she saw the lazy oak. The tree was bent and growing parallel to the ground. As kids, she and Joe had made up stories as to what had happened to the tree.
Her favorite story had been of a dragon who wanted to rest and leaned on the tree and his great weight bent it until he fashioned it a chair and sat on, forcing it to go perpendicular to the ground before finally reaching for the skies.
Two shots rumbled in the distance. Tess bowed her head and prayed, hoping her brother was safe. Her heart raced as time slid by, her fear mounting. The sun slipped behind the ridge casting shadows along the land and on her hopes.
The moon was rising when she heard hoofbeats in the distance. They came closer.
Wishing she had a gun, Tess peered through the branches.
Joe rode to the tree and jumped down. His lip and cheek were bloody. But it was the sad look in his eyes that scared her.
“You didn’t hurt Carl?”
“Not much. Just enough to learn what I needed to know.” He took his canteen and sipped a long drink. “He said he was in on it with Father to take that money. That we owe him half of it.”
“I don’t believe it.” Tess’s heart reeled from the love for her father mixed with anger and betrayal.
“It’s what Carl said. What he said with a gun in his face. We better go. I don't trust Carl not to follow us.”
Tess took a hanky and dabbed at his bloodied lip. “Carl wouldn’t hurt me.”
Joe stared at her. “I don’t want you to ever think about him again. He’s not to be trusted.”
The harsh way Joe spoke made his words count in her mind. She did trust Joe. “What are we going to do?”
He stared at her. “We’re going to Rattlesnake Ridge and find Uncle Bartholomew. Then we’ll be safe.”
Tess shuddered at the way her brother spoke. She leaned against the old tree and prepared to live a new life. Watching the bright moon, she prayed that Uncle Bartholomew could help them. She prayed Joe would stay out of trouble in the new town. Finally, she prayed that the Lord would give them a fresh start.
What happens next?
Don’t wait to find out…
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Read the first chapter of LOVE’S JOURNEY, book 1 of the SWEET GROVE HISTORICAL ROMANCES…
“Stop! Stop right here!”
Elizabeth Morrison didn’t mean to bark the order, but her voice was hardly audible over the carriage’s rattle as it was, and she had to tap the driver on the back of his shirt to get his attention.
“We have to stop!”
She couldn’t see the four horses that had been pulling them through the Texan countryside for more than three hours, but she felt the carriage slowing down, and she breathed a sigh. If what she saw out of the corner of the window had truly been there – if she was right . . .
“Leave the door, madam – you will do yourself an injury! See now, let me give you a hand, and be careful. Comanche Indians could be anywhere,” were the ignored words of the driver as he struggled to pull his top hat and greatcoat on before stepping down to open the door.
Elizabeth was already gone, door flung wide open and long skirts gathered in her arms as she ran back down the dirt track that passed for a road in this wild place. What care she for Comanches? Surely it could not be she – it seemed too ridiculous that just as she had given up hope of ever finding her, she would drive past her on the way to El Seco.
“Kitty!” She called to the figure who was walking away from her, struggling with the skirts heavy with embroidery, far grander than she was accustomed to. “Katherine!”
Her heart started to sink as she got closer; Katherine was taller than that, surely, and her hair wasn’t that color. But the journey had been long, and there was just enough desperation in her heart to convince herself that it was her sister.
“Katherine?” Elizabeth was close enough now to reach out to the woman, and the moment before her hand touched the shoulder of the stranger, she knew it wasn’t her. She snatched her hand away in embarrassment.
“Katherine?” The woman blinked at her. “I do not know a Katherine, I am afraid.”
She looked startled, and somewhat afraid. Elizabeth realized what she must look like: a complete mad woman. This was 1840, for goodness sake; no respectable woman threw herself from a carriage and raced after a complete stranger shouting someone else’s name at the top of her lungs. Even in Texas.
“My apologies,” Elizabeth offered gently, her hand falling back to her side. “You . . . you reminded me of someone that I know. That I used to know. I thought . . .”
The embarrassment was still strong on the woman’s features, and Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders hopelessly. “It does not matter. I am sorry to have disturbed you, Miss . . ?”
The girl – and now that Elizabeth looked more closely at her, it was probably a more accurate description. Although dressed formally in the long skirt and tight bodice of the time, it was a little out of date; a hand me down from an older sister to a younger, if Elizabeth was any judge.
“Abigail. Abigail Bryant.” The words were almost a whisper, and fingers twisted the ribbon of her bonnet, falling from her hands, into knots.
It was quite clear to Elizabeth that the poor child just wanted to be left alone. “Good day to you, Miss Bryant – and again, my apologies for disturbing your walk.”
Turning, she faced the carriage and sighed. It had been five years since her sister had disappeared; what made her think that she would be able to even recognize her anymore? Five years had certainly changed her own features, moving it from childhood to adulthood, and Katherine had always had that fairylike trick of looking different in different lights.
There was nothing for it than get back into the carriage and continue. The search for a new home, and for her sister, was not yet over. Elizabeth closed her eyes in silent pain and sent a quick prayer to the Lord – the same prayer that had weighed upon her heart for five years. Please, Father, keep her safe. Wherever she is.
Elizabeth took a deep breath to fortify herself for the journey and found that, instead of the damp leather smell of the seats or the dry sandy smell of the road, she could smell . . . surely that could not be . . . apples?
“I am going to explore,” she called out to the driver, eyes snapping open. The last thing she wanted to do in this Texan heat was return to that stuffy carriage. Not now she was wearing three petticoats instead of her usual one, as newfound decorum dictated. “I can never resist an apple, and I think there is a tree somewhere here.”
“More’n a tree,” was the grunt that she received in response, top hat placed back beside him and handkerchief now mopping his brow. “I reckon that there’s the orchard.”
The orchard? They didn’t seem to be any closer to El Seco than when they had left, and yet if Elizabeth craned her neck, she could see just over the brow of the hill –
Not just an orchard indeed. Fields upon fields of orchards, all wild and overgrown, like a palace that had been forgotten. The apple trees were overladen with fruit, some of it spilt onto the ground, much of it rotting. Each tree seemed arched over as though trying to embrace the ground. There were some buildings a little way off, all higgled together, and even from this distance she could see they were in disrepair.
But this was the opposite of where she had come from; the smoke and the noise of San Antonio, the loneliness of the house, the harshness of her grandparents, the emptiness of her heart without Katherine. And even beyond her there was the war with Mexico, the disputes
with the United States of America, and the debate on slavery that went around and around in circles. Elizabeth sighed loudly. She wanted out of the whirlpool that was life, always threatening at any moment to drag her down and envelop her in its crashing waves. This was sanctuary from the world and all its troubles. This was a gentle life, where she could be fully alive, and the sweet smell of the growing apples danced across the breeze. She had not even realized that her journey was taking her here, until she had arrived.
“This is it,” Elizabeth murmured to herself. “This is what I will spend my inheritance on – there is no one else to share it with now, so why not spend it on a little piece of paradise?”
Just a few steps forward brought her to the first line of trees, and just by her shoulder was a juicy red apple, just crying out to be picked. It had been nothing but dried ham and pork pie to eat that day, as the last coaching inn was not particularly obliging when it came to prepared luncheon.
Elizabeth’s stomach gurgled. Well, it was not as though it was stealing, after all; this place was obviously abandoned, and it would be hers soon anyway. The vast fortune she had inherited from her grandparents was surely enough to buy the entire orchard.
Lifting her travelling cloak from the ground where it had fallen when her mouth had dropped open, she pulled out a small pocketknife and cut the apple from the tree.
“What in blazes do you think you are doing?”
The woman, whoever she was, didn’t seem to have any care for trespassing at all – she just walked straight up to the nearest tree and cut down an apple.
“Cannot you read?” Jonathan Bryant stormed towards the intruder, his voice loud so it would carry over the distance before he did. For some reason, his hands were shaking as he tried to button up his waistcoat over his linen shirt, and retain some element of respectability. “This is Sweet Grove, and snoopers are not welcome.”
“Snoopers?” The woman’s nose crinkled as she beheld him, and he was suddenly very aware that he was in his working clothes, and the shirt he was currently wearing was rather stained with oil and sweat. “I do not think I have been a snooper a single day of my life.”