Mountain Rose

by Cheryl St. John

  “Didn’t know you had a niece, boss,” Coonie Boles said.

  “Neither did I.” Jules filled three bowls and placed them, along with biscuits and a small pitcher of milk, on a wooden tray, then headed out.

  Miss Rose must have been watching, because she opened the door as soon as he reached it and stood back. The table had been scrubbed cleaner than he’d ever seen it. She positioned the three bowls and took the utensils from him, arranging them neatly.

  “It’s stew,” he said, as if she couldn’t see that for herself. The woman had to wonder if all his lights were working.

  Miss Rose gestured for Emily to take a seat. The girl obediently took her place and sat with her hands folded in her lap.

  Miss Rose folded her hands above her bowl and lowered her head with her eyes closed. Emily’s eyes were closed, as well.

  Jules picked up his spoon and dipped into the stew.

  “Thank You, Lord, for delivering us safely to Mr. Parrish,” the woman began.

  He halted with the spoon halfway to his mouth and lowered it to the bowl. It had been a long time since he’d heard anyone pray aloud. Jules rested his spoon in the dish and bowed his head.

  “We are grateful for Your infinite mercy and grace and for Your watchful eye as we traveled to this distant land. Lord, bless the hands that prepared this meal set before us, and thank You for providing nourishment for our bodies. Watch over us this night and comfort us with Your Spirit. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Emily echoed, and picked up her spoon.

  Jules hesitantly lifted his gaze. Emily took a bite and chewed. Miss Rose did the same. Both reached for a biscuit at the same time. Obviously hungry and giving manners priority, Miss Rose gestured for Emily to go first, and then took her own biscuit, neatly breaking off a piece and taking a delicate bite.

  Jules took his first bite. Wayland had a way with game, so he often made deer and elk tender and tasty. This, however, was one of the nights the cook stubbornly insisted that squirrel made a good meal. The hands had learned not to grumble. Wayland said he needed variety to keep the job and the food interesting, and their complaints insulted him. As usual, the squirrel stew was greasy, the meat stringy.

  Apparently, the meal was no hardship compared to the travel conditions his two guests had endured. Neither female showed any indication that the food was less than adequate.

  The teacher’s prayer had humbled him. She was thankful for greasy squirrel stew and this drafty cabin. It was disturbing to imagine the risks she’d taken to get here. A hundred bad things could’ve happened, and no one would’ve been the wiser, because he sure hadn’t been expecting them.

  No doubt she did owe their safe arrival to God.

  Eating in silence, he thought back over their brief conversations and her obstinate refusal to help him relocate his niece.

  He slanted a glance at Emily. The child ate slowly, taking her cues for composure and conduct from her teacher.

  He’d been only a little older than her—ten, maybe—when his older sister had run off. Their home life had been chaotic. Their father had never behaved rationally, often lying in bed for days at a time, waking only to demand food and drink. Other times he took a job that lasted weeks, and those were rare days of peace. However, when he was in one of his better and more energetic moods, he often took a notion to move them to a new town.

  Jules remembered more than one time when his father had simply disappeared for months, leaving his mother to take in laundry and scrape by the best she could.

  Jules secretly liked his father’s absence better than the rest of the time, because his mother had been less on edge, and life had flattened into an even routine. But the man inevitably returned and soon had them packing yet again.

  Meriel hated moving, had cried and begged to stay at school, but their father scoffed at her. Their mother always appeased him and packed their belongings.

  His sister had been thirteen or fourteen when she’d had enough. She’d told Jules she was leaving, had given him several silver coins and disappeared. That was the last time he’d seen his sister.

  Their mother had been heartbroken, but nothing had stopped her from joining her husband in yet another move that same fall.

  That winter, during one of his spells of silent despair and sleep, the man had taken ill. He’d coughed and caught a fever that raged for days. He’d shouted in his delirium, thrown things at his wife and had eventually run out of the house and dropped dead in a snowdrift.

  Jules had stayed with his mother another year until she’d married again. And then he’d packed a bag, bought a rifle and a revolver and joined a cattle drive.

  In all these years he’d never heard from Meriel or known where to find her.

  He’d kept in touch with his mother off and on. She had loved him. He didn’t blame her for anything. What was done was done, and he’d grown up fine, discovering he liked pushing cows and taming horses. He’d learned as much around campfires as he ever had in school, and then his stint in the army had proven he wanted land and a herd of his own.

  At least he’d known his parents. He had some good memories of his mother. Emily had nothing of the like. Looking at her brought his childhood flooding back. What had hers been like? Had she been lonely at school? Had the other children treated her well, giving her the attention she’d never received from her family? It was disturbing to think she’d never known her mother. Fleetingly, he wondered about her father. But she was his kin. He should talk to her. He tried to remember what eight-year-olds thought about.

  “What was the academy like?” he asked.

  Emily stopped eating, set down her spoon and glanced from Miss Rose back to his face. “I enjoyed school, sir. I liked all the lessons, especially reading and history. I’m proficient with numbers and spelling.”

  “Did you have friends?”

  “Yes, I had classmates, sir.”

  He’d expected her to mention other children, but she said nothing more. She watched him with uncertainty. Sometimes, during brief months of normalcy, he and Meriel had played and laughed together like other children. They’d gone fishing and made sailboats from twigs and leaves. The memories were poignant. “You look just like your mother.”

  “I do?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Your eyes are like hers—dark and full of mystery. When a person looks into your eyes, they wonder what you’re thinking.”

  Emily returned his even gaze. “I was thinking about all the water we pumped today and wondering if I would have to go out to the trough in the dark to let enough water out to wash these dishes.”

  Taken aback by her practicality, Jules paused over his reply. “No,” he said finally. “Wayland, the cook, will take care of the dishes.”

  She nodded. “I’m not afraid. I just don’t much like the dark.”

  Jules glanced at Miss Rose, but she kept her gaze on her meal.

  “Are there wolves and coyotes out there?” Emily asked.

  “Not many this time of year,” he answered. “In the spring, a mountain lion took a couple of the calves.”

  Emily’s eyes widened.

  Miss Rose lifted her head and cast him a pointed glance.

  “It moved on, of course,” he added quickly.

  “It killed the calves?” Emily’s voice rose in horror.

  He had about as much tact talking to a kid as chickens had brains. He chastised himself. “Did you see my book on animal husbandry?” he asked quickly.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  Miss Rose cleared her throat this time.

  Maybe the silence had been better. He went back to his meal, and Emily picked up her spoon again.

  The quiet lasted another whole minute before a gunshot volleyed across the clearing and the echo reached them inside the cabin.

  Emily dropped her spoon into her bowl with a clatter. She looked to Miss Rose in horror. “What’s happening?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “It’s no cause for
concern,” he told her, pushing back his chair with the backs of his knees as he stood. But his hand went instinctively to the .44 on his hip to draw it from its holster, and Emily’s terrified eyes followed. “Stay put,” he cautioned unnecessarily.

  He headed for the door and loped toward the bunkhouse, where the side door stood open, illuminating a long rectangle of ground. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Judd shot hisself an elk!” Coonie called back, appearing from the darkness. “We won’t be eatin’ stringy squirrel meat tomorrow night.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a good squirrel stew,” Wayland grumbled from the bunkhouse doorway. “We need us some pheasants. Why don’t you complainers shoot pheasants?”

  Jules turned his back on the argument and headed back to the cabin. Emily had seated herself on the narrow bed under the window against the side wall. She put on a brave front, but fear was evident in her wide eyes and trembling lower lip. “Was it a mountain lion?”

  Miss Rose looked at him as if to say, Good job, terrifying the child with your story.

  “No, there aren’t any mountain lions this time of year. There’s plenty of food for them away from populated areas. One of the hands shot an elk.”

  “Was it attacking the ranch?”

  He blinked. “No. Elk don’t attack anything.”

  “Then why did he shoot it?”

  “For tomorrow’s supper.”

  She swallowed. Her large brown eyes moved to take in the table where they’d been eating and the bowls still sitting there. “What did we eat tonight?”

  Miss Rose moved into action then, stacking the bowls on the tray. “Thank you for bringing our supper, Mr. Parrish.”

  “Jules,” he said. “Call me Jules.”

  She nodded. “Jules. We will read for a few minutes and then retire. We’ve had an extremely long and tiring day.”

  Surely they had. They’d traveled quite a spell in the heat and then cleaned this entire cabin and did their laundry. They’d bathed, too, apparently, because Miss Rose’s red-gold hair shone in the lantern light and her burnt face glistened with some sort of salve. “What did you put on that sunburn?”

  “Glycerin.”

  “I have some salve that’ll take out the sting.” He rummaged in a coffee can on a shelf over the dry sink and located the small square tin.

  She took it from him. “Thank you. Emily, let’s apply it to your nose and cheeks, as well.”

  Emily approached Miss Rose and stood still beneath her touch as the woman dabbed the ointment on her skin. Then the girl’s gaze rolled to Jules. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “I’m going to sleep in the bunkhouse.”

  “What if a mountain lion comes close?”

  Apparently, his words hadn’t convinced her that there was no danger, and reasonably, there always was an unpredictable element of concern. He briefly considered telling her his rifle in the trunk against the wall was loaded, but that might scare her more, and Miss Rose didn’t seem the sort to know how to use a gun anyway.

  “We’re going to be safe here, Emily,” Miss Rose assured her, raising a finger to her own nose to apply the salve.

  Jules didn’t have a mirror in the cabin. The only one was beside the bunkhouse where he and the hands shaved. He pointed to her nose. “You missed…”

  She looked down her nose, and her eyes crossed.

  He chuckled and took the tin from her, their fingers grazing. He dotted his index finger in the salve and dabbed it on the spot she’d missed. The rest of her face blazed so red he couldn’t tell the difference between sunburn and embarrassment. He hadn’t meant to mortify her with the simple touch. Taking a step back, he recapped the tin and set it on the edge of the table.

  “What if a bear smells the dead elk and comes looking for food?” Emily asked.

  Her teacher’s gaze riveted on Jules for his reply, as well. Both females stared at him as if he was offering them up for lunch.

  “Can’t you stay here?” Emily asked. “Me and Miss Rose will sleep in one bed…or I will sleep on the floor.”

  “Miss Rose and I,” the teacher corrected, but she didn’t look either of them in the eye.

  “Wouldn’t be proper for me to stay in here with you two females,” he said.

  Emily went back to the bed, but not before he saw her lower lip quiver.

  “I have a couple more things to take from the clothesline,” Miss Rose told her. “Do you want to come with me?”

  Emily shook her head. “I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to go outside right now.”

  The child was terrified. Jules thought over the predicament. He sat down. “I’ll sit here for a minute.”

  Miss Rose went out of doors, leaving him stewing.

  When she returned, he said, “There’s a lean-to on the side of the cabin.”

  The woman nodded curiously and folded the clothing.

  “There’s a pile of firewood in there, but I’ll clean that out and sleep there.”

  “Tonight?” she asked.

  He gestured to a small square window covered by wooden shutters. “I’ll be sleeping right under that window.” He turned to Emily. “Will that make you feel safer?”

  She nodded, a look of relief lighting her features.

  He grabbed a lantern from a hook and struck a match to light it. “That’s my plan then.”

  Olivia experienced a rush of relief, not only for Emily’s sake, but also for her own. Sometime later, as she and Emily read their separate books, the sounds of Jules laboring on the other side of the cabin wall were comforting. Scrapes and thumps and an occasional grunt reached their ears, reminding them that he was there, close enough to keep them safe.

  Eventually, Olivia tucked Emily into bed and prepared the other bed for herself. She thought longingly about the small bag of tea leaves she had traded for apples in Oregon City. This would have been the perfect time for a relaxing cup of tea. Her thoughts wandered back to evenings at the academy before the war. The cook had always served afternoon and evening tea, often accompanied by cookies or a slice of fruit pie.

  Olivia had always been lonely and isolated, but she’d been comfortable. She suffered a pang of guilt over her longing for indulgent comfort, when Emily was her foremost concern at the moment. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.

  She reassured herself with the words of the psalm that promised she would be provided for, fed and protected. She had a heavenly Father Who loved her and cared about her every need. He would tend to her and guide her steps as He always had.

  The sounds from outside had stopped, so she assumed Jules had finished cleaning out the lean-to and had prepared himself a place to sleep. She changed into a cotton nightdress before checking on Emily, then lay on the wobbly bed and pulled a sheet over her legs. The cabin was still warm from the day’s heat. One of the two shuttered windows was directly over where their host slept, but now that the light was extinguished, she got back up and opened both to allow a breeze to flow through.

  Jules lay on his pallet with his hands stacked under his head. He’d dislodged a dozen spiders from their hiding places in the woodpile before sweeping the ground and walls and making his bed. He hoped none of them decided to come back and pay their old place a visit while he slept.

  Above his head, the shutter opened. Either Olivia Rose was hot or she was as frightened as Emily and wanted the comfort of knowing he was only a shout away.

  “Everything all right, Miss Rose?” he called.

  “Perfectly all right,” she replied. And then a moment later, “Thank you, Jules.”

  Her use of his name stirred something akin to embarrassment. But he’d liked the sound. “Sleep well,” he replied.

  * * *

  Olivia woke with a start. She’d slept straight through the night and part of the morning. Getting up, she padded to the door and cracked it open to peer out.

  A gray-haired man wearing trousers with suspenders over a union suit stood from where he’d been
sitting on a chair outside the door. She’d never seen a union suit other than the artists’ renditions in the Montgomery Ward catalogue, and she caught herself staring.

  “Mornin’, Mizz Rose.” He held a partially carved wooden animal of some sort in one hand, a pocketknife in the other. “You ladies ready to pump water? Boss set me to waitin’ for you to wake.”

  “Yes, water would be nice. Thank you.”

  He gave a nod. “Name’s Wayland George, mizz.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. George.”

  “After you’re washed up and such, I’m t’bring you pans and supplies. Boss says you kin cook breakfast fer yerseff?”

  “Yes, I can cook. Thank you.”

  He turned and walked toward the windmill.

  Olivia got a pail, padded to the dry sink and raised and lowered the pump handle repeatedly until the pail was full. She moved to the window and waved to let Mr. George know she had enough water.

  Emily woke, and after they had washed and dressed, the cook knocked on the door to present her with a basket of eggs and a slab of bacon, along with flour, sugar and other ingredients he’d carried in a crate. “This should get you started. Boss said I should take you into town for anythin’ else you need.”

  “I don’t think we need anything else.”

  “He said not to take no fer an answer, mizz. Said there’d be soap and the like you’d need. I’ll have the wagon ready in a hour.”

  Olivia unpacked the supplies and prepared a quick meal of scrambled eggs and bacon. When Wayland came for them they were ready. He’d donned a plaid shirt, but rolled the sleeves back, so the forearm portions of his union suit were still visible. Wasn’t he too warm in this weather?

  This time the distance between the ranch and town didn’t seem nearly as far. Mr. George was a chatty fellow, pointing out landmarks, wildlife and varieties of plants.

  Olivia had already seen Corbin’s Bend, but the town seemed less forbidding and the people more friendly when she showed up with Mr. George. She used her own money to make a few purchases in the mercantile, and then Emily accompanied her to the post office in the rear of the building, where she asked for pen and paper and wrote a brief note to Mrs. Hugh, letting her know she’d found Emily’s uncle.