“I just hope we can get away without any shooting,” Mike told him soberly. Joe looked wise and replied, “It all d’pends on how surprised everyone is.”
The next day Mike stayed in town at Moffatt’s direction. The rustler said, “Keep your eyes open and mouth shut.” Mike wanted to laugh; the advice echoed his Rock Springs lawyer’s statement exactly. Yet the impending events made Mike restless. He walked up and down the streets for a time then saddled Peso and rode out toward the Double B as he had done a hundred times in the past few months. Every time the truth had trembled on his lips only to be bitten back. No one, not even Desert Rose Birchfield Blake-Jones, must know his plan. One careless word could destroy all he had worked so hard to set up.
Spring with all its shades of green softened the range. Mike and Peso climbed to the bald knob overlook and Mike dismounted. The drumming of hooves warned him, but it was too late. Before he could remount and ride off, Rose and Mesquite topped the rise and slid to a stop.
“Hello, Rose.” Mike had no choice but to remain strong at all cost.
Her face pale in spite of her fast ride, she slid from the saddle. “I came to find you.” She stepped close and clutched his arms with strong hands. Her fearless dark eyes gazed into his. “Once you said you loved me. Is it still true?”
“It is.” He didn’t move a muscle.
“Then ride away from Antelope and don’t stop until Peso gives out.” Her words fell like small icicles into the late afternoon.
“I can’t.”
Her self-control broke. “You must!” she cried. “Don’t you know what happens to rustlers? You’ll spend years in jail. Mike, you said you loved God. If you won’t leave for my sake, will you go for His?”
A passing cloud dimmed the sun’s increasing rays. Birds hushed their songs. Mike could only shake his head.
Rich color replaced her pallor, but her steady and searching gaze never left his face. “I’ll go with you if you’ll go now.”
He jerked back as if struck. “You’d do that for me? Why?”
“I can’t bear to have you turn from God and be dishonorable.” Her long eyelashes drooped and so did her shoulders. Her nerveless hands fell from his arms.
“Why should it matter so much to you?” Mike’s head spun. “Why, Rose?” he repeated but she didn’t answer.
With a magnificent toss of her head, she stepped back and demanded, “What difference does it make? Isn’t it enough that I will go with you? I’m your wife.” She paled again and her dark eyes grew enormous.
“You would sacrifice yourself to save me,” Mike marveled. For one mad moment he almost gave in. To ride away with Rose offered the strongest temptation he had ever known. Only his inner call to a trait passed down from Puritan ancestors, duty, stopped him. He caught her hands in his. “I’d give everything on earth to do what you ask, my darling, but I can’t.” He felt the shudder that rocked her body.
“Rose, dearest, trust me for a little longer. I swear before God I am not doing anything wrong or wicked. Will you believe me and go back to the Double B?”
She stared at him, and Mike saw the awful struggle within her soul. Seconds crawled into minutes, but at last she whispered, “I trust you.”
With a triumphant cry he encircled her with his arms and kissed her as he would have liked the night they married. Then he tore himself free, led Mesquite close, and waited until Rose mounted. “I promise you will never regret your trust,” he told her. “Very soon I can explain everything.”
She lifted the reins, but he laid one hand on the pommel. “Rose, are you learning to care?”
Her sweet lips trembled. She patted his hand then removed it from the pommel. Not until Mesquite danced away with her did she reply in a low call that thrilled Mike to his boots. “Perhaps.” Her laughing face turned rosy. She waved and rode away, leaving him shaken and thanking God.
Hours later Rose paced her room. She had come back to the Double B as Mike asked but she never promised to stay there. A quick look out the window revealed dark forms gathering in the starlight. Fear clutched the watching girl’s throat. She could not bear the long night of waiting. The moment the riders started, she slipped downstairs to where she had tied Mesquite, already saddled, and mingled with the others. Her sombrero and the heavy coat of her grandfather’s she had donned effectively hid her identity. Only her wildly beating heart threatened to betray her.
The surprise Joe mentioned worked in the posse’s favor. Moffatt and his men had no suspicions and rode practically into the arms of the posse, whose presence paralyzed them.
Hardwick’s stentorian, “Hands up or we’ll shoot!” and the zing of well-placed lassos rid the range of the outlaws who had plagued ranchers for months.
“Well, just see who’s here!” Thomas Brown whirled toward the big buckskin that had dashed into the circle of men around the prisoners.
“I want every one of these men and Mike Carey arrested for rustling,” Dan Sharpe’s voice boomed out. “I’ve been watching them for weeks and—”
“You don’t leave us holdin’ the gunnysack,” Moffatt bellowed. “Me and my men’ll take our medicine, but we ain’t standin’ by while you get away with it.” A string of profanity followed. “Sheriff, Sharpe’s behind us. We’d akept still if he’d paid us like he promised. Now he can go to jail along with the rest of us and Carey.”
“Carey?” The sheriff glanced at Mike, rigid in the starlight.
Joe Perkins stepped down from his pinto, Splotch, and faced Sharpe. “My pard ain’t no rustler an’ never has been. He was sworn in as a special dep’ty months ago, on purpose to stop this here stealin’ of yours.”
A gasp ran through the crowd of men. Sharpe’s jaw sagged then he reached for his revolver. “Liar! You’re in this, too, and I’m going to…”
“Go, Peso!” Mike spurred on his quarter horse. Peso’s flying leap knocked Sharpe flat. He cursed, aimed, and fired. Mike felt a hard blow in his chest and slumped in the saddle.
Released from their stupor by the shot, a dozen men piled onto Sharpe with Joe Perkins going first. Willing hands hauled Mike from the saddle. Barely conscious, his last thought was, I fought the good fight and kept the faith. Then, blackness pierced only by a girl’s scream….
While stories of his heroism swept the valley, Mike Carey lay fighting for his life. All the skill Adam Birchfield possessed, the power of special prayer meetings on Mike’s behalf, and Desert Rose’s refusal to let him go combined in a mighty effort. Day and night Rose hovered close by. When alone on watch, she let the love in her heart overflow and clung to her husband’s hands, willing him to live.
Five days after the shooting, Adam took his daughter aside. “He’s very near the crisis. If he lives through the night he has a slim chance.”
“He isn’t going to die.” Wan but determined, Rose proudly lifted her tired head.
“Would you have his suffering go on and on?” Adam asked and stroked his daughter’s auburn braid.
Rose shook her head as she clung to her father. Yet for hours she prayed Mike might be spared. Not until he sighed deep in his coma, his face waxen, could Rose come to the point where she changed her prayer. “Thy will, Lord, not mine.” Better for his suffering to end and hers to go on. She rested her head on his pillow, so weary she could not longer hold it up. Adam found her there an hour later.
“Rose.” He gently shook her awake.
She lifted heavy, tear-swollen eyelids. “Is he gone?”
“No, praise God. He’s sleeping naturally. Now you must rest.” He held out his arms and she flew into their comfort after a quick confirming look at their patient. A few minutes later she fell into a deep, untroubled sleep and didn’t awaken until early evening. Adam warned her not to stay long now that Mike had begun the long trail back. He must not talk.
So Rose only said when he opened his eyes, “You were shot. Everything is over and you’re going to be better.”
Satisfied, he slept again while his body heale
d. When Rose came into the room, his gaze never left her. Something in his look disturbed her, a shadow she couldn’t describe. He said little about the fight except to express gladness the rustlers and Sharpe had been sent to prison. He never mentioned their encounter on the bald knob.
Not until the end of May would Adam pronounce Mike fit enough to ride. The shadow in his eyes grew deeper. Even the welcome news that Nate would be coming soon did not erase it. “Will you ride with me?” he asked when Adam agreed to a short outing.
“Of course,” Rose couldn’t understand why her heart pounded so at the prospect of a mere ride. They didn’t go clear to the bald knob but to a secluded spot by a rushing stream where the cottonwoods seemed to whisper their secrets.
“Rose,” Mike began after they seated themselves on a big rock, “will you tell me about Carmichael Blake-Jones, please?”
“Nate told you!” Misery made her stammer. “It was a dare and I never meant any harm. I feel so ashamed.” She bit her lip and stared at the churning water, feeling tossed like the leaves that fell and whirled downward.
“Nate says he owns the Circle 5 and intends to run it. Are you in love with him?” Mike shifted position.
“No.” She turned and met the blue gaze fixed on her. “Once I thought I might be.” She couldn’t continue.
He gently took her hand and the poignant light she loved filled his eyes. “Then would plain Mike Carey, the man you married, have a chance at capturing your heart?”
False pride faded. Too many hours of uncertainty and fear had driven it away. “Yes, Mike.” She courageously continued to look straight into his face.
“Whoopee!” Mike roared. He dropped her hands, threw his hat into the air, and jumped until she wondered if he had gone mad.
“Stop, stop, Mike. Dad would never have let you come if he’d known you wouldn’t be careful. What’s wrong with you?” She sprang to her feet only to be caught and swung around. “Mike, stop it. What possesses you?”
“I have a confession too. My full name is Carmichael Carey Blake-Jones.” Mischief danced in his every movement.
“You!” Desert Rose wondered if she had heard right. “Then, all this time…” Her voice stumbled over her rising anger.
“I never lied to you, Rose. I just didn’t tell all the truth. I promise never to deceive you again.” He held her away from him. “I also want you to know that I would never have agreed to Nate’s prank if I hadn’t fallen in love with your photograph.”
“But you didn’t have a photograph when I wrote the advertisement,” she protested, too stunned by the revelation to make sense of it.
“Nate sent your letter directly to me with one enclosed.”
“How he must have crowed,” she said bitterly and jerked free. “I hate being made a fool of, and that’s what you’ve done.”
The same poignant blue light returned. “Desert Rose, far from it. The more I got to know the wonderful girl, the more I hated the underhanded way I met her. Won’t you forgive me?” Spent from the exertion, he laughed unsteadily. “I think I’d better sit down again.” He seated himself crosslegged on the ground, his face suddenly pale.
Rose’s anger vanished forever with a rush of memories that brought back those desperate hours when she saw Mike fading in spite of all she could do. Now she threw herself down and confessed, “When I knew Carmichael Blake-Jones would live in the new home on the Circle 5 I felt jealous of the girl he would marry even though by then I knew I loved a cantankerous cowboy named Mike Carey.”
His kiss silenced her. Then Mike pointed toward the mountains. “Soon the snows will be gone from the peaks, probably about the time Nate comes. The wildflowers will be gorgeous. We must finish supervising the building on the Circle 5 now, but God willing, would my wife like a camping honeymoon a little later?”
Rose felt her throat tighten at the prospect. “She would.” She stayed quiet within his arms for a moment then said. “Michael, do you think God planned this all along? I could forgive Nate better if I thought that.”
“God certainly knew it would happen,” he soberly told her. “If I had known just a year ago what a harvest I would reap—” His arms tightened. “There’s still a harvest of souls waiting, and what better way to gather them than by Christian living and example? We’re just links in the strong chain of His followers who have been given a white field. Our children and grandchildren must be taught the only happiness is in serving our Lord and Master.”
“They will be,” she assured and rested her head on his shoulder. “If God can take the thorns from a desert rose, He will surely guide us.” She gently freed herself, stood, and held out her tanned hand. “Come, we must go home.” Hand in hand they walked toward Peso and Mesquite and began their life’s journey together.
Mercy Curtis never kept house for her uncle, but she did come to Wyoming a year later. As Mrs. Nate Birchfield, she put to good use all the housewifely skills she had cultivated. She and Columbine Perkins joined Rose in the many tasks pioneer and ranch women performed that helped their husbands proclaim the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sam followed in Dr. Adam Birchfield’s footsteps as a medical doctor while Nate and Reverend Nat Birchfield tended to the souls of the Wind River Range.
Colleen L. Reece was born and raised in a small western Washington logging town. She learned to read by kerosene lamplight and dreamed of someday writing a book. God has multiplied Colleen’s “someday” book into more than 150 titles that have sold six million copies. Colleen was twice voted Heartsong Presents’ Favorite Author and later inducted into Heartsong’s Hall of Fame. Several of her books have appeared on the CBA Bestseller list.
Wildflower Harvest: Includes Bonus Story of Desert Rose Page 29