Rekindled

by Tamera Alexander

  Larson dove inside and kicked the door shut. Panting, he crawled to the wall farthest from the single window by the door. The cramped space inside the shack was stagnant and musty. A sharp tanginess he couldn’t define punctuated the frigid air.

  His eyes soon adjusted to the dim light slanting through the window. What looked to be stacks of barrels occupied the wall beside him. A pile of blankets and other items littered the wooden floor.

  Another shot fired and blasted out the window. At the same time, Larson heard something shatter beside him. Liquid sprayed his face and neck, and the floor beneath him grew wet. The pungent odor became more pronounced.

  A rapid fire of gun blasts punctured the cloak of night, and the shack ignited in blinding white light and flames. Intense heat engulfed the small space as a putrid stench filled his nostrils. Larson knew in that moment that he would die, and that his death would be deservedly painful. He only hoped it would be swift.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WITH THE BALL OF HER FIST, Kathryn rubbed a layer of frost from the icy pane and peered out the cabin window. More than two weeks had passed since she’d awakened to an empty bed to find Larson’s note on the mantel. Kathryn, gone to northern pastures. Back by week’s end.

  Though she’d sensed an urgency to pray for him the first few days, that hadn’t alarmed her. She was accustomed to the Spirit’s gentle nudges, especially when Larson journeyed during winter months.

  But it would be nightfall soon, again. And still Larson had not returned.

  Seeing movement behind the barn, Kathryn recognized Matthew Taylor’s stocky frame and casual saunter. She raced to open the door and called the ranch hand’s name. Matthew turned, his arms loaded down with supplies. He nodded her way before dumping the gear by the tethered packhorse.

  Kathryn shuddered at the bitter wind and motioned to him as he approached. “Why don’t you step inside for a minute? I have a fresh pot of coffee on.”

  A hesitant look clouded Matthew Taylor’s features, which were boyish despite the maturity of his thirty-odd years. He stopped within a few feet of the door. “Thank you for your kindness, Mrs. Jennings. I appreciate it.” He glanced down before looking back, his feet planted to the spot where he stood. “What can I do for you?”

  Kathryn wondered at his reluctance but quickly got to the point. “Have you seen my husband recently, Mr. Taylor?”

  He shook his head. “Not since before Christmas, ma’am. He gave orders for us to stay with the cattle holed up in the north pasture, and that’s where we’ve been all this time, me and some of the other men.” He squinted. “Is there a problem, ma’am?”

  Kathryn briefly debated how much to share with him. Matthew had been in Larson’s employ for over six years, longer than any other ranch hand. She quickly decided the situation warranted it.

  “Larson’s been gone since Christmas Day. He left a note stating that he was heading to the north pasture and that he’d be back by week’s end.” Kathryn felt a sinking feeling inside her chest. Somehow stating the situation out loud made it worse. “He hasn’t come home.”

  Matthew eyed her for a moment before answering. “Five or six feet of snow fell that night, Mrs. Jennings. It was bitter cold.” The look of warning in his eyes completed his thought. “I haven’t seen him. None of us has. I know because, well . . . we’ve been wonderin’ where he is.”

  He started to speak, then stopped. Kathryn encouraged him with a nod.

  “Me and the other men were due to be paid last Friday. We don’t mind havin’ to wait again, as long as we know it’s coming.”

  “What do you mean ‘again’?” Kathryn asked.

  A pained expression creased his forehead. “I don’t know if there’s anything to this, but some of the men . . . they’ve heard that the ranch isn’t doing so well.” He glanced away briefly, shifting his weight. He shook his head before looking back. “They’re worried about their jobs, Mrs. Jennings. Winter’s a hard time for a ranch hand to be out of work. Your husband . . .”

  “My husband what?” she encouraged softly.

  “Well, ’bout a month ago your husband fired Smitty right there on the spot. When I took up for Smitty, Mr. Jennings told me I’d get the same thing if he caught me snoopin’ around.” He shook his head again. “He was real mad.”

  The part about Larson losing his temper wasn’t unimaginable to Kathryn, and that her husband might fire a ranch hand wasn’t either. She didn’t know any of the men personally, except for Matthew. They never came around the cabin. She suddenly realized how very little she knew about the operation of the ranch.

  “Mr. Taylor, is there any chance the man actually did something wrong?”

  “A chance, maybe, but not likely. I’ve worked alongside him now for three years, and Smitty’s a pretty good man.” He glanced down. “You probably don’t know any of this, and maybe I shouldn’t be tellin’ you.”

  Kathryn took a step forward. “I’m concerned for my husband’s safety, Mr. Taylor. If you know something that would help me, I’d appreciate your telling me.”

  “There’s been more trouble.” His voice dropped low, and Kathryn strained to hear. “Just last week we found a portion of fencing torn down again. Cattle are missin’. Some of them are heifers due to drop come spring. The head gates on Fountain Creek are fine though. We shouldn’t have much trouble with that during winter months.”

  “Trouble with the head gates?”

  “Last summer our water supply ran low, and after we found that gate rider—”

  “Found him?”

  Matthew hesitated again, his mouth forming a firm line. “Yes, ma’am. By the looks of it, he drowned. We found him floatin’ upstream a ways, near the bend in the creek by the hot springs.”

  Something behind Matthew’s eyes, something he wasn’t saying, prompted Kathryn to question him. “But the water’s not that deep there. Did he slip? Or fall?”

  Matthew looked away, unwilling to meet her gaze. “The gate rider had told us he’d found proof that someone was tamperin’ with the water gates, takin’ more water than they’d a right to and leaving too little for downstream to town. The rider let your husband know he was goin’ to file a report. Then the next day . . . that’s when we found him.”

  Kathryn shook her head, shaken by the news but even more puzzled as to why Larson had never shared it with her. “Do you know who was taking the water?”

  “Never did find out. Two other ranches have rights to the water in this creek, plus it runs on through to Willow Springs, so the townsfolk have a claim too. But your husband has first rights, so his portions should be guaranteed.” He glanced away. “But with the drought the last few years, some don’t quite see it that way anymore.”

  “Do you think we’ll have more trouble this spring?”

  A spark of disbelief, as though she should have already known the answer, flashed in Matthew Taylor’s topaz brown eyes before he blinked it away. He nodded, and a shiver of warning passed through her.

  Larson fought to open his eyes but felt something pressing them closed. Darkness companioned the pain wracking his body—pain so intense he wanted to cry out. But with every fettered breath he drew, his lungs burned like liquid fire and the muscles in his chest spasmed in protest.

  He tried to lie still, thinking that might offer reprieve, but relief escaped him. He writhed as his flesh felt like it was being stripped from his body. Why would God not let him die?

  Blurred images swayed and jerked before his shuttered view. His mind grasped at one as though lunging for a lifeline.

  Kathryn. Her eyes the color of cream-laced coffee. Her skin like velvet beneath his hands. If only he could— Jagged pain ripped through his right thigh. The image of Kathryn vanished.

  A cry twisting up from his chest strangled in the parched lining of his throat, and he struggled to remember his last lucid thought before this nightmare began.

  Instinct kicked in again, and he was prey—a wounded field mouse cowering in muted t
error as talons sank deep into his tender flesh. His heart pounded out a chaotic rhythm against his ribs as a fresh wave of pain tore through him. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was in hell.

  But as the thought occurred, something cool touched his lips. Wetness slid down his throat, burning a trail to his belly. Then a sensation he craved swept through him.

  Liquid sleep.

  He waited for it. Yearned for it. It didn’t matter where it came from, only that it came. He floated on waves of painlessness, far above the suffering that he knew still existed. And would soon return.

  With scant minutes of daylight left, Kathryn fought the familiar swell of panic that tightened her chest with every nightfall. She pulled on her coat and gloves and, forcing one foot in front of the other, plodded through the fresh fallen snow for more firewood.

  Used to the warmth of the cabin, she winced as the cold air bit her cheeks. Her eyes watered. She took a deep breath and felt the frigid air all the way down to her toes. February’s temperatures had plummeted, and their descent brought twice the amount of snowfall as January. With her arms loaded down each time, Kathryn made five trips and turned to make one more.

  Her steps slowed as she let her gaze trail upward to the tip of the snow-flocked blue spruce towering beside their cabin. Seeing it almost brought a smile. At her request, Larson had planted the once twig of a tree ten summers ago, shortly after building the cabin.

  “I want it to grow closer to my kitchen window, Larson,” she’d told him, slowly dragging the evergreen with its balled root toward the desired spot.

  “If you plant it there, it’ll grow through your kitchen window.” The smirk on his handsome face told her he knew this was a game. “This spruce is going to grow a mite bigger than the potted bush your mother has in that fancy hallway of hers.”

  “It’s called a foyer.” Kathryn playfully corrected him using the French pronunciation.

  Larson hauled the tree back to the spot he’d measured and used his shirtsleeve to wipe the sweat from his brow. With a shovel, he traced a circle roughly two times the circumference of the balled root and began digging. Kathryn had stood to the side, enjoying the time with her new husband and amazed at the intensity of love filling her heart.

  She blinked as the memory faded. A sudden gust of wind blew flecks of snow and ice free from the spruce’s branches and onto her face, but she didn’t move. The pungent scent of pine settled around her, and she breathed its perfume. Larson had been right that day. He’d planted the tree in just the right spot. Far enough from the cabin to allow room for it to spread its roots and grow—where she could lean forward in her kitchen window and enjoy the magnitude of its towering beauty—yet close enough where she could still enjoy the birds flitting among its branches.

  She closed her eyes against renewed tears. Where are you, Larson? She’d gone over the events of their last day together countless times, each time hoping to uncover a sliver of a reason as to why he would leave and not return. Had he been displeased with her? She’d grown more discontent in their marriage in recent months. Had he as well, and she’d simply mistaken his reticence as worry over the ranch?

  Shaking her head, Kathryn forced herself to focus on what she knew for certain about Larson’s absence—not these imaginings born of fatigue and loneliness. She turned back for one last load of wood and, with each step, sifted possible reasons through the filter of truth.

  If he truly had planned to leave her, he wouldn’t have penned a note. Nor would he have replenished the wood supply that morning. Tracing her steps back to the cabin, she remembered their last night together.

  Intimate relations between them had been . . . well, better than she could remember in a long time. Larson’s tenderness had reminded her of their early years together. But even after sharing such physical intimacy with her husband, she had awakened during the night with a loneliness so vast that it pressed around her until she could hardly breathe. She’d turned her head into her pillow so Larson wouldn’t hear her cries. How would she have explained her tears to him when she scarcely understood them herself?

  As she stacked the logs on the woodpile, one last certainty cut through the blur of her thoughts, and its undeniable truth brought simultaneous hope and pain.

  Larson would never willingly give up this ranch, much less desert it.

  This ranch was his lifeblood. His dreams were wrapped up in its success or failure.

  The truth pricked a tender spot inside her, but Kathryn knew it to be true. Deep down, she’d always known that Larson’s making a success of the ranch came before her. However, in recent days, to her surprise, that understanding had nurtured a growing sense of ownership she’d not experienced before. A dogged determination on her part to see the ranch succeed.

  When Larson returned—and he would return, she told herself as her gloved hand touched the door latch—he would find the ranch holding its own or, by God’s grace, maybe even prospering. She would keep her husband’s dream alive, no matter the cost.

  Muffled pounding on the snow-packed trail leading up to the cabin brought Kathryn’s head around. She recognized Matthew Taylor astride his bay mare, but none of the four riders behind him. She swiped any trace of tears from her cheeks and took a step toward them.

  “Mrs. Jennings.” Matthew reined in and tipped his hat. The other men followed suit.

  Kathryn nodded, including the group in her gesture. She easily guessed the reason for their visit. “I gave you my word, Mr. Taylor, and I intend to keep it.” Though she didn’t know exactly how yet. “You and the other men will be paid, like we agreed.”

  She couldn’t tell if it was the cold or a blush, but Matthew’s face noticeably reddened. “I don’t doubt your intentions, ma’am. None of us do.” He motioned, including the men behind him. His gloved hands gripped his saddle horn. “Have you heard from your husband yet?”

  Kathryn shook her head but injected hope into her voice. “But I’m expecting to . . . any day now.”

  The men with Matthew muttered to each other, but with a backward glance from Matthew, they fell silent.

  “Mrs. Jennings, I understand you want to keep hopin’, but you have to face the possibility that your husband might not have made it out of the storm that night. He might have—”

  “My husband possesses an instinct for direction, Mr. Taylor.” Kathryn purposefully phrased it in the present. “He’s never owned a compass a day in his life and he’s never been lost. He knows this territory better than any man.”

  Matthew’s eyes softened. “And I’m not sayin’ otherwise, Mrs. Jennings, but—”

  One of the other ranch hands nudged his horse forward. He was a man slight of build but surly-looking—mean was the word that came to Kathryn’s mind. A ribbon of scarred ruddy flesh ran the length of his right jawline and disappeared beneath his shirt collar. Kathryn would not have wanted to be left alone with him. “Winter storms can make a man lose that sense of direction, Mrs. Jennings. It can blind you. Turn you ’round, where you don’t know where you are or where you been.” He laughed, and the shrill sound of it surprised her, set her defenses on edge. His eyes swept the full length of her. “You ever been out in a storm like that . . . Mrs. Jennings?”

  Matthew turned in his saddle. Kathryn couldn’t make out Matthew’s response to the man, but his manner was curt and harsh. With one last look at her, the ranch hand turned and rode back down the trail.

  Matthew slid from his horse and came to where Kathryn stood. From the concern etching his eyes, she had the distinct feeling that what he was about to say hurt him somehow.

  “I’m here to tell you that we’ve been offered jobs at another ranch.” His announcement felt like a physical blow to Kathryn’s midsection. “The rancher’s payin’ double what we get here, Mrs. Jennings.”

  “But, Matthew—Mr. Taylor,” she corrected. “You each have jobs here. You’ve agreed to work through the spring.” She knew they didn’t have formal agreements like her father did with
his employees back East. But still, wasn’t their word worth something? She took a step toward him. “You gave my husband your word to work through the spring, did you not?”

  “Yes, ma’am, we did. We made that agreement with your husband.” Kathryn didn’t miss the emphasis on his last words. “But he’s not here anymore.”

  “But he will be.” Her voice involuntarily rose an octave.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And I’ll have the payroll as promised for every man this week.”

  “Most of the men are taking the other offer, Mrs. Jennings.” At her protest, he raised a hand. “You have to understand that a lot of these men have families to feed. They got wives and children dependin’ on them. And I gotta tell you . . .” A sheepish look came over his face. “Couple of the men say they spotted an owl yesterday.”

  Kathryn’s confusion must have shown on her face.

  “It wasn’t just any owl, ma’am. They say it was pure white.” He shrugged. “I don’t hold much to the Indian lore around here, but the sayin’ goes that seein’ a white owl’s a bad sign. Means more snow’s coming, it’s gonna get colder. Things are gonna get worse before they get better.”

  Kathryn tried to mask her mounting frustration. She looked past him to the other men. “Mr. Taylor, if I ask them personally, will they stay?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “I said if I ask each of the men personally, will they stay and work my ranch?”

  A quizzical look swept his face. “Your ranch, ma’am?”

  Determination stiffened her spine. “Yes, it’s my husband’s and mine.”

  That simple declaration inspired courage and strength, and a hope she hadn’t known in nearly two months. Was this a small taste of what Larson felt for this land? If so, no wonder he had worked so tirelessly to keep it.

  Matthew laughed low and quick. “I don’t reckon it’d make much difference if you ask them. Most of them don’t take to the idea of workin’ for a woman anyhow.”