“Still just five foot three.” Columbine’s fair skin flushed. “I look taller in boots, though, don’t I?”
“You really do.” Softened by her own thoughts of romance and growing up, Rose curbed her impatience at Columbine and gave her sister a hug. “You may be short, but you’re a lot more grown up than you used to be.”
“So are you,” Columbine told her. She glanced down and her dark lashes made little half-moons on her pink cheeks. “Ever since you started getting letters from Nate’s friend and teacher you’ve been well, nicer.” She looked up and Rose saw sincerity in the brown eyes.
At that, Rose swiftly looked in the mirror. Had she really changed? Her image denied it: same auburn hair in a fat braid with the end curling, same dark brown eyes. Or were they really the same?
Rose shivered but quickly hid it from her observant sister by shrugging her shoulders under her worn riding shirt. Her little pretense did not fool Columbine.
“We all change, Rose. Remember when Paul said he put childish things away when he became a man?” She set her sombrero on her brown curls and finished, “I’ll be sixteen in mid-September. You’ll be eighteen less than two months later. Many girls our age are married and some have babies.” Her face glowed. “Who knows when God will send a special someone like Dad or Uncle Nathaniel, or even like Nate?” Laughter bubbled from her and died. “We have to be ready.”
What if God already had sent someone, a teacher named Michael? Rose crushed the thought but a rich blush caught her unaware.
Chapter 5
Alone with his thoughts and unable to sleep, Nate Birchfield had at last fled the Double B into a starry Wyoming night. In the distance faint snatches of song could be heard, most likely night riders checking their herds. Several neighboring ranchers had reported missing cattle recently and rumors that a new and daring rustler band had moved into the area were adrift. Increased efforts to protect the animals were in place because as one wise rancher put it, “The way I see it, if a man steals our cattle he strips the food off our tables.”
Tonight, however, Nate’s mind could not be troubled with livestock. The smell of sage and wildflowers, the crooning of the night wind and soft neighing from the corral called him. Fifteen minutes later Piebald and his rider quietly walked away from the Double B and broke into a trot, then a canter, and at last a full gallop. Nate knew the dangers of galloping a horse at night—gopher holes and unexpected shadows that made a horse nervous—so he kept to the well-traveled road to Antelope. Long before reaching its outskirts, he slowed Piebald and turned toward a patch where the faithful horse could graze.
Rose’s question haunted him. Although Nate had determined to have the summer free, he hadn’t been able to outride or outrun God. More and more he felt the challenge of the ministry.
“Never could understand how folks could think a preacher’s a weakling,” he mumbled to the swaying evergreen branches. “Seems to me if a fellow’s going to work for God, it will take everything he’s got.” He found a fallen limb and dug the end of it into the ground. A great lump came to his throat. How many times had he seen his father down the town’s worst men with courage and flashing dark eyes? A view from a crack in a building or a partly drawn shade showed much. Nate had watched Antelope’s minister comfort the dying, tell the story of Jesus to a scantily clad woman dying from a careless gunshot in the saloon where she worked, and pray with parents whose only child died of fever.
If he lived to be older than Methuselah, Nate wouldn’t forget that last scene. He had sneaked out of the house the way he often did when his father was called in the night, following at a discreet distance. He never knew what compelled him to go, perhaps fear for his father’s safety or the desire to be on hand in case he needed him.
That night he shivered in the cold outside the crude log home that held tragedy, and more, and listened.
“Don’t talk to me about God,” bellowed the young father who always smiled at Nate and Sam. “What does God know about how I feel? Why didn’t He make my boy get well? He’s my only son, you hear me? God didn’t spare my only son!”
Nate stood awed at the grief, forgetting how cold he was, waiting for his father’s answer. When it came, it nearly rocked the young boy out of his shoes.
“God knows exactly how you feel.” No mumbled apology or stumbling comfort but truth, raw and searing. “God lost His only Son, too. He could have spared Jesus but He didn’t. He watched the very people He loved enough to send that only Son hang Him up on a cross and spit on Him. Oh yes, God knows what it is like to lose an only Son, and because He has gone through it, He can and will help you, if you let Him.”
A loud cry mingled with the softer weeping of the bereaved mother. “It’s all right, Steve,” Nathaniel continued. “God understands your pain and anger. He knows it’s like the poison my brother, Adam, has to get out of festered wounds before they heal. Don’t be ashamed. Right this minute God is probably weeping right along with you.”
Nate vanished into the night. He never told his father what he heard but neither did he forget it. Now on a far different kind of night years later, Nate wondered. Had his soul been touched that moment that seemed like days ago? Had God placed it into his heart to trail his beloved father for this purpose?
The peaceful night offered no answers; God would choose the time and place for further revelation. Nate led Piebald back to the road, mounted, and again built up to a full gallop, his hair streaming back and his face aglow. Perhaps he imagined it, but when he silently prayed for answers the wind seemed to respond sooon, sooon, and home at last he tumbled back into bed content to wait.
Nate didn’t awaken until Sam’s eager hand shook him with the reminder that fences waited and so did the girls.
A collective gasp went up from the cousins when they reined in on the crest of a hill that gave them a view of the Circle 5.
“It looks like an anthill I saw after I accidentally stepped on it,” Sam told them.
Rose glued her gaze on the multitude of men working below her. “Mercy, how did Mr. Prentice get so many so fast?” she gasped, almost unable to believe her own vision. “Why, they’ve already torn down the old corral and refenced. Look!” She pointed to the barn. “It’s been shored up.”
“And it’s getting a new roof,” Nate said with obvious satisfaction.
“They aren’t doing anything to the house,” Columbine complained. She patted her horse with pretty, gloved fingers and giggled. “There can’t be a Mrs. Prentice or she’d insist that the house be repaired first!”
“I wouldn’t,” Rose cried indignantly. “If new stock is coming in, especially horses, the corral and barn are more important. Once they’re done, there’s plenty of time before winter to fix the house.”
“I can just see Mr. Prentice,” Columbine retorted. “He’s probably a paunchy, middle-aged retired banker who reads western stories. He won’t take kindly to sleeping in a house with a leaky roof.”
“How do you know it leaks?” Rose demanded, her cheeks on fire. “It looks all right to me.” She glanced at the shabby cabin. “Besides, your paunchy, middle-aged retired banker will be a whole lot healthier if he will throw down some blankets under one of those big pine trees and roll up in them for a few nights.”
Nate had a sudden coughing spell that left him red-faced and panting. He finally croaked, “Let’s ride down and see what the workers have to say.”
The clatter of hooves announced the visitors’ arrival even above pounding hammers and chewing saws. First to notice and greet them was a blond-haired, amber-eyed man who appeared to be in his early forties. At perhaps five feet nine inches he looked taller because of his heeled boots. Rose wondered why his eyes narrowed almost to slits when he looked first at her, then at Columbine.
“Welcome to the Circle 5.” He doffed a new-looking sombrero and stooped gracefully into a low bow. “You are—?”
“Nate and Sam Birchfield and our cousins Desert Rose and Columbine.” Nate swung ou
t of the saddle and held out his hand. “Are you the new foreman?”
“You might say that.” He laughed carelessly. “Won’t you step down? I’m Daniel Sharpe. Glad to meet you.”
A little bell rang deep in Rose’s mind. She looked at Nate, whose puzzled face reflected her own uncertainty. Surely she had heard the name before in a way that made her glad Nate was there.
“You’re really fixing the old place up, I see.” Sam broke the awkward silence. In the moments that had passed, a look from Nate told Rose Nate had remembered Daniel Sharpe. A spate of explanations by the new Circle 5 foreman ended when Nate interrupted at the first possible moment.
“Sorry to rush off.” The words rolled out easily but Nate herded his little band back to their horses. “We have quite a ways to ride.”
“Of course you do,” Dan Sharpe agreed amiably. Yet Rose felt the sarcastic flick of his look toward her with its hint of boldness.
“Goodbye, Mr. Sharpe.” Columbine never let an opportunity pass to practice her innocent wiles. “Do come and visit us. We’re staying at the Double B and—” A sharp jab in her ribs brought a look of astonishment toward her sister but effectively ended the farewell. “Why did you do that?” Columbine demanded the moment they were out of earshot.
“Don’t tell the story of your life to every stranger you meet,” Rose snapped.
“Why not? He seemed nice and he’s going to be our neighbor and—”
“Some neighbor!” Nate exploded. “Don’t you know who Dan Sharpe is?”
“The new foreman of the Circle 5,” Sam put in and laughed. It faded into the mountain air when Nate glared at him.
“Who is Daniel or Dan Sharpe?” Rose asked. “The name sounds familiar but I can’t remember where I’ve heard it.”
“I didn’t either, at first.” Nate’s lips set in a white line. “Then it hit me. He’s the crook who robbed the Rock Springs bank almost twenty years ago.”
“That nice man?” Columbine’s brown eyes looked disbelieving.
Nate spit out his words. “That nice man also kidnapped Aunt Laurel and held her in a lonely mountain cabin, along with my mother who trailed them! If Dad and Uncle Adam hadn’t gotten Running Deer to track them, who knows what might have happened!”
“I remember now that Dad said a man named Dan Sharpe went to prison for robbing a bank, but I never heard the rest of the story,” Rose cried. “How could anyone be so wicked?”
“I guess he fell for Aunt Laurel then Mom when they first came out here,” Nate continued. “You probably wouldn’t have heard the rest of the story, so keep your mouths shut. It’s coming back now. You know when I was little kid how I used to hide under the couch and listen to everything?”
“Last year?” Rose inquired sweetly.
He ignored her. “Well, what happened was that Dan got hurt at the cabin and after Aunt Laurel and Mom found the bank loot they got him tied up. They knew if Antelope found out Dan had held them prisoner some of the men would hang him. They couldn’t stand that so they made a deal that Dan would admit the robbery but they swore not to tell about the kidnapping. I remember Aunt Laurel saying she was so glad they had because otherwise they would always have been filled with hate and Christians aren’t supposed to hate people. Mom and Aunt Laurel never told anyone.”
“My stars, how romantic!” Columbine breathed. “Just imagine, getting kidnapped and carried off, then forgiving the perpetrator of the dark deed!”
Rose’s new sympathy for her sister died with what had to be a direct quote from one of Columbine’s syrupy novels. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Columbine’s eyes opened wide. “I think the poor man shows in his eyes how much he’s suffered.” She gave Sam a dark look when he snorted. “Well, he does. All that time in prison. They must have let him go for good behavior.”
“Or because his sentence was up,” Nate put in. “If you have any idea of seeing Dan Sharpe, Columbine, forget it right now.”
She tossed her head. “I still feel sorry him. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if he came back to show everyone he had repented? We’re told to love our enemies, aren’t we?” She giggled. “Since we don’t have any real enemies, does he count?”
“You won’t be seeing anything of him,” Rose told her. “He wouldn’t have the nerve to face Mother and Aunt Ivy.” She touched her heels to her horse, eager to put miles between her and the man whose amber eyes had glowed like a mountain lion’s.
Rose’s evaluation proved to be false. On the next Sunday afternoon Dan Sharpe rode in to the Double B and hitched his shining buckskin horse to the rail as if he worked there.
The usual Sunday afternoon gathering of family and friends lounged on the wide porch. Hardwick, the grizzled owner of the nearby Lazy H, sat tilted back in a chair. When the visitor appeared, the chair crashed to the porch floor and the sturdy man leaped to his feet. “By the powers, is it—it can’t be Dan Sharpe?”
In the frozen silence that seemed to chill the warm afternoon, Dan Sharpe slid from his saddle with pantherlike grace. “Howdy, folks.” H pushed his spotless Stetson to the back of his shining head and removed it in one easy motion. “Glad to see so many of you congregated here.”
Rose quickly glanced at Nate, who shook his head in warning. Sam and Columbine stared open mouthed, but Rose didn’t trust the look in her pretty sister’s face.
“Sharpe.” Thomas Brown offered a noncommittal greeting then slowly got up, but Rose noticed he didn’t offer his hand. Neither did anyone else.
Dan’s gaze traveled from Nathaniel and Adam Birchfield to their wives, Ivy Ann and Laurel. A sardonic smile vanished so quickly Rose wondered if it had really been there. “I just wanted to come tell you all that I had a lot of time of think these past years in my, er, accommodations. This is by way of an apology for the wrong trails I rode in the past.” Dan’s frankness of speech and manner brought surprised gasps from his listeners.
He’s enjoying playing the prodigal son. Rose could almost hear the words. I don’t think he’s sorry at all. For some reason it’s necessary to him to put on this humility.
Columbine’s I-told-you-so smirk and the fatuous smile she bestowed on the penitent man left Rose trembling with rage. Couldn’t she see through Dan Sharpe, standing there hat in hand?
To Rose’s amazement, Uncle Nat crossed the porch and held out his hand in welcome. “This is good news for all of us, Dan.”
Rose thought she would explode when the self-invited guest had the audacity to murmur, “The influence of the two Mrs. Birchfields long ago is what made me realize how much I’d left my early teachings.”
“So what are you doing back in these parts?” Hardwick squinted, and Rose had the feeling he was no more convinced of Sharpe’s sincerity than she.
“When I no longer needed my former accommodations I looked around for a job.” Innocence and gratitude didn’t quite erase the preying look from Dan’s amber eyes. “The word got out about the Circle 5 being sold. I went straight to the Rock Springs lawyer who is handling the sale and threw myself on his mercy.”
Rose felt laughter bubble inside her when she compared the literary tastes of Dan and Columbine. Threw myself on his mercy faithfully appeared and reappeared in Columbine’s stories, at least the few Rose had been able to wade through.
“So you’re getting another chance.” Nate’s voice sounded hoarse but deceptively bland. One dark eyebrow raised slightly, a sure signal to Rose how her cousin felt.
“I think it’s wonderful, Mr. Sharpe,” Columbine gushed. Her carefully nurtured complexion blended perfectly with the rosy gown she wore.
“Thank you, Miss Columbine.” Dan turned Rose’s way. “Well, Miss Birchfield, aren’t you going to welcome your new neighbor?” Little devils seemed to dance in his strange eyes.
“Welcome, Mr. Sharpe,” Rose obediently repeated then lightly jumped to her feet. “Here, take my chair. Nate and I are going to fix cold lemonade. It’s such a warm afternoon.” Her plain white dress that she
wore under protest on Sundays fluttered about her.
“May I help?”
“Oh no, thank you. Nate is the only one I need.” Let him find the hidden meaning in that if he can get the look from his eyes that she detested. Admiration from the range riders always carried respect. The measuring examination of her by Dan Sharpe did not.
Before she and Nate stepped inside, Rose heard Dan begin another verse of how sorry he was and that he planned to make the Circle 5 a paying proposition. “For himself, not for the new owner, I bet.” Nate attacked the lemons as though he had Sharpe in his two strong hands. A worried look showed his concern for that new owner. “Mr. Prentice may find himself broke and ruined if my instincts are true.”
“I can’t understand why Uncle Nat treated him so warmly.” Rose took glasses from the cupboard and put them on a tray.
“Dad feels there’s a spark of God in every person and we must always try to fan that spark until it grows into a fire that purifies even the blackest heart,” Nate told her.
“Columbine certainly seems to agree,” Rose said bitterly. “Just listen.” She and Nate leaned closer to the screened kitchen window, open to capture what little breeze there was. Dan Sharpe had shifted his chair closer to the girl and his bent head showed rapt attention.
“It’s truly an inspiration for someone who has been bad, well, mistaken, to admit it and go on from there.” Columbine’s high, clear voice made Rose feel sick.
“We’ll stop that in a hurry.” Nate finished squeezing the lemons as if his life depended on it, dumped in sugar and cold water, and vigorously stirred the pitcherful until Rose warned him it would break from the onslaught. A few minutes later Nate marched back out onto the porch followed by Rose with the glasses. “Come and get it, folks.” He glanced at Columbine. “Say, are any of those delicious cookies left you baked yesterday?”
“Of course.”
“Would you mind getting them, Columbine? Rose and I will pour and pass.”
Wildflower Harvest: Includes Bonus Story of Desert Rose Page 19