Mountain Rose

by Cheryl St. John

  The name of the school meant nothing to him, but at the mention of her home state, unwelcome images of Gettysburg clouded his vision. He closed his eyes, willing the gruesome memories to fade, then snapped them open to study her.

  Her bonnet hid most of her hair, but the drooping ringlets visible underneath were a shiny reddish-blond. She wore long sleeves and white gloves to protect her arms and hands from the sun, but the pale skin of her cheeks and nose had burned. “You’re a long way from home.”

  “Yes, well…” She glanced back over her shoulder at the girl who watched them, and he studied her delicate profile for that moment. “My young charge is Emily Sadler.”

  She seemed overly interested in his reaction, evident in the way she turned and studied him intently.

  “What are the two of you doin’ way out here?” he asked again, impatient to move on with his work.

  “Emily is the daughter of Meriel Sadler.”

  She had his attention now. Sadler meant nothing to him, but he hadn’t heard his sister’s name in years. Meriel.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “You’re listed in Emily’s file as her uncle. The academy was forced to close, and her mother didn’t respond to our letters. We’re here because I thought Emily should be with family.”

  His sister’s child? Jules turned and quickly led the two horses toward the stable, where he rolled back the door, urged them inside with slaps on their rumps and closed off the entrance. They’d be fine until he came back to tend them.

  He covered the ground to the hemlock with long strides, the woman close behind.

  The child widened her eyes in surprise and took a step back. Her teacher slid up protectively close to the girl, but without touching her. The girl wore a bonnet, too, one with a broad brim that partially hid her face. He glanced at the ribbons that held it on. “Take off the hat.”

  Obediently, Emily untied the satin bow and pulled the bonnet away from her face.

  Her dark hair was thick and lustrous, her eyes the color of a strong cup of chicory. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose and full, unsmiling lips.

  Jules felt as though he’d been transported back twenty years. This child could have been his sister standing there staring back at him. For a moment he smelled the lemon wax that had always permeated his childhood home, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear his father’s voice raised in a tirade.

  Her expression of stoic determination was like Meriel’s, as well, and he detected the familiar look of well-disguised fear. There was no denying their relationship.

  He turned to study the teacher more closely. “What are you doing with her?”

  Her face flushed bright pink, probably due to the heat and anxiety, but the color made her eyes vividly blue, even in the filtering shade of the tree. “Emily has been my student since I first acquired a teaching position more than three years ago. When the headmistress could no longer afford to keep the academy running, we contacted all the parents to come for their children.”

  “No one came for me.” Emily’s pronouncement came out of the blue, apparently surprising her teacher, as well as Jules.

  “When was the last time you saw her—or heard from her?”

  Emily gave him a blank look.

  “Your mother?” he clarified.

  She said nothing this time.

  “I don’t believe Emily remembers her mother,” Miss Rose told him.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “How was her schooling paid?”

  “By cashier’s note regularly, even during the war,” she replied.

  “You still haven’t explained what you’re doin’ here.”

  The teacher glanced at Emily and back. “May we speak in private?”

  “There’s a whole lot of private,” he pointed out. “But it’s all blazing sun, and you look ready to wilt.” Her face had become as red as a ripe tomato.

  “I assure you I’m fine.”

  He turned to Emily and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Head for the cabin. It’s cooler in there.”

  Emily looked to the woman for affirmation before gathering her skirts and walking away.

  “You’re her family,” Miss Rose told him matter-of-factly once Emily was inside. “I was hoping you and your wife would want to—”

  “Hold it, missy. I don’t know where you got the idea, but I don’t have a wife.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “I just assumed that you—I’m not sure why I—My mistake.” She recovered and continued. “Regardless, you’re the only family she has, so I brought her to you.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “You’re listed as her next of kin.”

  “But how’d you find me here? I only got out of the army eight months ago.”

  “Her file listed your location as Oregon City, Montana, so that’s where we went. I checked at the post office first, then finally found a record at the deeds office that placed you in Corbin’s Bend. I cleaned and cooked for the telegraph man for two weeks to pay for a room and earn more train fare. We hired a ride to the ranch.”

  “The two of you have been alone out West for weeks?”

  “Decidedly so.”

  Jules got a little sick to his stomach at the thought of two helpless females traipsing around this wild land. There’d been recent attacks by Cheyenne; women and girls were vulnerable to being taken captive. “That’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time.”

  She flattened dry but prettily shaped lips into a straight line and avoided his eyes. “You’d rather we were tossed out on our ears in the streets to survive any way we could?”

  “There’s nothing out here for the two of you. And it’s dangerous. Not just the trip, but being out here at all. What would you have done if I’d stayed out with the herd and not come home tonight? No, this is no place for Emily. We’ll find her a new school.”

  The teacher’s blue eyes blazed at his words. “I suppose she’s too much of an inconvenience. You would prefer to palm her off as someone else’s worry, just as her mother did. Even the fact she’s flesh and blood makes no difference.”

  He scowled and drew a breath to deny her words.

  Her eyes took on a glazed, unfocused look.

  “Look, lady,” he said. “I—”

  Before he could finish the sentence, her eyelids fluttered and she slumped sideways.

  Jules grabbed her before she hit the ground. She didn’t weigh much more than his saddle. He adjusted her in his arms and carried her toward the cabin.

  The door wasn’t barred, so he kicked it open, and it flew back against the wall.

  The little girl jumped up from where she’d been sitting on a wooden chair and gasped. “What did you do to Miss Rose?”

  “She fainted.” He placed her on the rope bed, which was covered with a Hudson Bay blanket.

  Emily moved to her teacher’s side and leaned to peer into her face. “Miss Rose?”

  “I’ll get some water.” He strode out, filled a pail from the trough and returned. “It’s warm, but it’s wet.”

  After wringing out a cloth, he bathed her face, then removed her gloves, so he could moisten her wrists and hands.

  Emily took off the woman’s bonnet, and her curls spread across the blanket in a strawberry-gold wave. “Miss Rose?” she said softly, then looked him dead in the eye. “This happened yesterday, too. She gave me her food.”

  The woman’s sacrifice made Jules’s stomach dip. She’d forfeited a lot to get his niece to him, in hopes he’d be able to help. “Let’s sit her up. We’ll get her to drink, and then I’ll find something for you both to eat.”

  “May I have a drink, too, please?”

  “Of course.” Her simple request stabbed him with remorse. She shouldn’t have had to ask—he should have offered. He grabbed a dented tin cup from an open shelf and dipped it in the bucket. After the harsh journey they’d endured, he never should have left them standing in the sun so he could ask questions. “Have as much a
s you like.”

  Together, they sat Miss Rose up and got her to drink two cups of water. She roused, flushed in embarrassment, and tried to stand.

  “Stay put until you’ve eaten,” he ordered.

  Miss Rose glanced at Emily and then nodded.

  He sliced ham and bread, and the two of them shared a sandwich. He found an apple and cut it in half.

  After they’d eaten, he asked Miss Rose if she felt up to taking a walk out to the stable.

  “Yes, of course,” she replied. “I assure you I’m not usually prone to spells of vapors. I apologize for my light-headedness.”

  “May I look at your books, Mr. Parrish?” Emily asked.

  Meriel had always liked books, too, getting caught up in fairy tales and stories of faraway lands. He didn’t have books like that, but she was welcome to what he did own. “Help yourself.”

  Olivia felt much better after the food and water. How embarrassing to have fainted in the presence of this imposing man who, for now, held Emily’s future in his hands.

  He opened a door in the side of the enormous barn and ushered her inside. The interior smelled strongly of hay and horses, odors completely foreign, but not unpleasant.

  Still saddled, the horse Mr. Parrish had ridden up on clomped over to greet him. The man stroked the animal’s neck, and then turned it away. The beast walked over to a stall gate and stood nose to nose with another horse.

  “I’m afraid the situation is such that Emily has nowhere to go and no one to look out for her,” Olivia explained. “When her mother didn’t reply, the headmistress sent a wire to Oregon City in hopes of reaching you.”

  He took off his hat and raked his fingers through hair as dark and wavy as Emily’s. No wonder he hadn’t questioned his relationship to the girl.

  “You don’t doubt that Emily is your niece.”

  He shook his head. “Plain as day that she’s my sister’s. That look in her eyes—like she’s scared to death, but not about to let it show—just like Meriel’s. She has a little of my mother around her nose and mouth, too.”

  His perceptiveness touched Olivia. “Then you’ll make a home for her?”

  “Lady, I spend every waking hour working horses and cows. I eat under the sky, and when I come back here, I sleep in a one-room cabin. You saw it. That’s all there is. Sometimes I sleep out there with the herd. I don’t know anything about kids—and especially not girls.”

  Olivia’s disappointment was nearly crushing. She’d come an awfully long way to get nowhere. “What do you suggest?”

  He hung his hat on a protruding nail and sat on a hay bale, resting his forearms on his knees. “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think. You just sprung this on me.” He ran his palm down his jaw. “All I know is, she can’t stay here. The best thing will be to find a new school. I have no idea how to go about that. You can help.”

  He glanced at her again. “What are your plans? Did you think to dump her here and take off?”

  “Of course not. I intend to stay until she’s settled.”

  He shook his head to indicate the thought of two females was worse than one. “How long?”

  “I—I don’t know. As long as it takes.”

  “No one’s expecting you? You don’t have family to get back to or a job lined up?”

  She answered matter-of-factly and without revealing the pain his words caused. “No. No one. I grew up at the academy like Emily did.”

  He appeared to think that over.

  “Then you can help.”

  Olivia knew exactly what it felt like to be unwanted and rejected, and her heart ached for Emily. She raised her chin to say, “I won’t take part in abandoning a child.”

  “Wouldn’t be abandonment,” he argued. “I’ll take responsibility, make sure she’s taken care of. I just can’t take care of her here by myself. It’s impossible. She needs to be somewhere civilized, where she can learn and be safe.”

  Olivia stubbornly shook her head. “I won’t be an accomplice.”

  She was going to change his mind, no matter what it took. As long as Olivia was drawing breath, Emily would not be swept under the rug.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “You make finding a school sound like a crime.”

  Olivia said nothing. In her opinion, deserting a child was a crime. She didn’t want Emily to feel as unwanted as she always had. Not having parents made a person feel insignificant. At least Emily had some family, and she knew her name and her mother’s name. Olivia swallowed hard. She had none of those things. If she fell into a pool of water, she wouldn’t even make a ripple. But that was all the more reason for her to convince Mr. Parrish to let Emily stay. The last thing she wanted was for Emily to feel the same rejection.

  At her silence, Emily’s uncle shook his head. “I’ll wire my mother for help. It’s possible she knows where Meriel is.”

  Olivia stared at him in surprise. “Your mother?”

  He nodded. “Last I knew she was in Ohio with her husband. She may have heard from my sister.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Ten years, maybe. I wrote her a couple times during the war to let her know I was alive, but I’m not sure the letters reached her. Afterward, I didn’t let her know where I was settling.”

  Ten years? “Why not?”

  “Long story.” He stood. “I have to tend this animal, and then I’ll ride into town to send a wire.” As though remembering Emily back in the cabin, he thrust his fingers into his hair. “I can’t leave her alone.”

  “I’m not going to abandon her,” Olivia assured him. “I’ll stay with Emily while you figure out what to do.”

  “It could be a week or more before I even hear back from her.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know.” He glanced toward the horse. “I have work I can’t let go. Men and animals to oversee. I can’t take her with me.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Olivia assured him. She had nowhere else to go.

  He looked at her. “I’m going to build a house eventually, but all I have is that cabin. One of my hands has a family, and they live in the wagon you saw out a ways, but they and the hands are the only people within miles. Soon as I tend this horse, I’ll take your trunks into the cabin. I’ll stay in the bunkhouse.”

  “We don’t need much,” she assured him. “We’ve slept aboard the train and even at station houses for the past few weeks. Shelter and privacy will be adequate.”

  He nodded, dismissing her, and turned to the horse.

  Olivia walked back to the cabin.

  Emily sat reading at the table. She laid down the book and looked up, her question plain in her dark eyes.

  “We’re going to stay here, in this cabin, for now. Mr. Parrish is going to send a wire to his mother—your grandmother—in hopes that she will know how to reach your mother.”

  “I have a grandmother?”

  “Apparently so.”

  Emily seemed to digest that information slowly.

  Olivia could almost imagine the questions spinning in her head. Did the grandmother know about her? If she did, why hadn’t she ever visited or sent for her during holidays? Those were the things Olivia was wondering, as well.

  “So.” Olivia placed her hands on her hips and glanced around the dusty interior. “I guess the first thing we need to do is clean. Mr. Parrish is going to bring in our trunks. We can change into clean work dresses. I’ll ask him where the washtub is, and we can do our laundry and then bathe.”

  It felt good to have a plan and work to do. Olivia was taking care of Emily, yes, but she would also be staying under Mr. Parrish’s roof and eating his food, and she would earn her keep. It was a good feeling to be needed.

  * * *

  Jules hitched a wagon. All the way to Corbin’s Bend, turbulent thoughts kicked up a tornado in his head. Already his supplies and accommodations were inadequate. The Rose woman had started asking him about laundry tubs and soap and clotheslines before he
left. He’d scrounged up a galvanized tub, but he would have to buy more supplies while he was in town.

  After sending a telegram to Ohio, he paid extra to have the message delivered to the ranch if he should get a reply. Then he made a trip to the mercantile and the hardware store, paying for an assortment of items and storing them in the bed of the wagon.

  Upon returning, he showed Olivia how to let water through the troughs fed from the windmill to the pump in the cabin, and then dug a hole for a post. For a clothesline, he strung heavy cord from the tree to the post. He’d always taken his laundry to town. He didn’t have time to do all this, but here he was making concessions for his unexpected guests.

  But she and Emily looked busy and content when he left them scrubbing and rinsing clothing and headed back to the herd.

  He didn’t return until the sun had set. There were a few items waving on the line, but most must’ve dried and been put away.

  Jules stood outside awkwardly, finally knocking on his own cabin door.

  The door opened and Miss Rose stepped back. “Mr. Parrish.”

  Behind her the room had been transformed. The floor was clean, the bed and narrow cot made up with fresh bedding and all the items on the open shelves were neatly arranged.

  “I came for my clothes.”

  She gestured for him to enter.

  He stacked two crates with his belongings. “I’ll just move these to the bunkhouse.” As he moved past, he happened to think about a meal. “The cook fixes supper for the hands. I’ll bring you each a plate.”

  He washed at the tank on the opposite side of the stable, where the hands bathed and shaved. By the time he’d donned a clean shirt, Wayland, a tall, bearded fellow, had a kettle of stew and stacks of bowls on the end of the bunkhouse table. The tired men stood in line for their grub.

  “There are ladies stayin’ in the cabin,” Jules told them. “My niece and her teacher. Until I figure out what to do with them, is all. I expect you to stay clear and mind your own business. If you do run across one of them, behave like gentlemen.”

  The hands gave each other looks, and a few replied with compliance. No doubt they’d already seen the clothing on the line and had been curious.