Prairie Rose

by Catherine Palmer

  “I’m already wet.”

  “You won’t sleep.”

  “I’ll make my bed under the wagon where it’s dry.”

  “But the snake—”

  “I will not sleep in your house,” she said firmly. “It’s bad enough you find my hair shameful to look at. I won’t have people saying evil things about me for staying in a house with two unmarried men.”

  Lifting the latch, she slipped out the door. Seth glanced at Chipper. The boy was staring at him, blue eyes accusing. Rolf Rustemeyer wore a grin of pity mixed with triumph. Seeing that, Seth made up his mind to follow Rosie. He threw open the door and stepped into the rain. She was hurrying ahead of him through the sheets of water, her feet splashing from puddle to puddle as she raced toward the barn. A bolt of lightning cracked like a whip across the prairie, and she paused, startled.

  His heart hammering against his ribs, Seth used the moment to catch up with her. “Miss Mills.”

  She swung around. “Mr. Hunter? You should go back inside. You need to watch over Chipper. What if Jack Cornwall shows up?”

  “Rustemeyer’s with the boy.” Breathing hard, Seth studied her damp face. Her features were lit by pale moonlight shining through the rain clouds. “We made a plan tonight, Jimmy and I. We’re going to send word to all the coach stations along the trail. If anyone spots Cornwall, we’ll have advance warning.”

  She nodded and looked at the barn. “Then I’d better go on. It’s late.”

  “Wait. About … about your hair.” He shifted from one foot to the other. It was bad enough to stand outside in such a downpour. Bad enough to force his presence on a woman who was clearly anxious to get away from him. And now that he had Rosie alone—all to himself—he didn’t even know what to say.

  “My hair?” she repeated.

  “I … I just don’t think a man like Rustemeyer ought to take on airs like he does.”

  “Airs?”

  “The way he looks at you. As though he thinks he has a right to see your hair.”

  Seth rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. This wasn’t coming off well at all. Rosie stared up at him, water running down her cheeks and dripping off the end of her nose.

  “What I’m trying to say is that it’s Rustemeyer that bothers me,” Seth tried again. “Not your hair. Not that it’s hanging down. Loose.”

  “I lost my bonnet.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “He picked me up.”

  “He shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t his place.”

  “Well, he didn’t want me to get … wet.” As she said the word, the humor of the situation lit up her brown eyes. Her mouth twitched. “I guess I’m wet anyway.”

  “Are you sure you won’t sleep in the house?”

  “No. I’ll be fine.” She gave him a smile. “Good night, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Good night, Miss Mills.” As she turned to walk away, he caught her hand. “About your hair—”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t cut it. You could make a bonnet out of grain sacks. For the sun, I mean. Just to keep the heat off your face. Not because I don’t like to see your hair down. I don’t think it’s shameful. That wasn’t what I meant.”

  Rosie tilted her head to one side. “Mr. Hunter, are you trying to tell me that you like my hair?”

  “I reckon it’s not too bad.” He cleared his throat. Though he was wet and shivering, he felt exactly like a chicken roasting on a skewer. With Mary Cornwall, conversation had been so different. She had giggled and teased and flirted around him until he could hardly think. Truth to tell, Mary hadn’t thought much either. She was all air and light. A serious thought never crossed her brain. But Rosie demanded honesty. Those brown eyes confronted him with an expectation of truth. He squared his shoulders.

  “Miss Mills, the fact is you have the prettiest hair I ever laid eyes on,” he burst out. “The shame would be if you cut it off just because Rolf Rustemeyer was careless enough to lose your bonnet. If you like, you can sew yourself a new bonnet to keep off the sun and wind. But as far as I’m concerned, you can leave your hair loose from now until kingdom come. If the truth be known, you’ve prettied up my homestead a lot since you came. And I’m not just talking about the new curtains.”

  As he finished speaking, Seth realized he was still holding Rosie’s hand. She was staring up at him, her eyes shining beneath the droplets beaded on the ends of her lashes. Before he could further embarrass himself, Seth loosed her hand and turned back toward the house. He knew his boots were slogging through mud, but for some reason he had the strangest sense that he was walking on air.

  CHAPTER 8

  ROSIE woke under the wagon to find three chickens, a rooster, seven baby chicks, and a very wet puppy cuddled up beside her. A puppy? Where had it come from? She reached out to touch the ball of yellow fur, and the rooster let out a squawk. Feathers flew. The puppy yipped. The barn snake slithered from a clump of hay near Rosie’s shoulder. At the unexpected sight of the black, shiny undulation, she sat up and banged her head against the axle—in the exact spot she had hit it the day she fell from the tree into Seth Hunter’s arms.

  “Ouch!” Clutching the bump and ruefully recalling the tumult of her life since that first moment with Seth, she straggled out from under the wagon. The puppy regarded her with sleepy eyes. Then it began to wag a short, stumpy tail. “Well, good morning to you, too. Where’s your mama, little fella?”

  The puppy waddled forward and pushed its wet black nose against Rosie’s palm. She rubbed the soft fur, aware that the movement of sharp ribs beneath meant the creature hadn’t been eating regularly. A bowl of fresh milk would help that.

  “Come on, then,” she said, hoisting the wiggly bundle into the crook of her arm. “You might as well join the rest of us misfits here on this forlorn prairie. You and I have no parents. Chipper has lost his mama. Seth doesn’t have the first notion how to be a good father. And who knows what became of his folks? Not one of us understands how to make a family, so you might as well join in the muddle.”

  Rosie stepped out of the barn into a bright, hot morning. Steam rose from the plowed fields around the dugout. My, but the neat furrows were a beautiful sight! The promise of a bountiful harvest and a future of hope filled her heart with an unspeakable joy. She started for the soddy, but at the sound of regular pounding coming from the direction of the creek, she stopped. The bridge. Seth and Rolf were building the bridge. On a Sunday!

  Picking up her skirts, Rosie marched down the bank toward the water’s edge. “Mr. Hunter! Mr. Rustemeyer! Have you forgotten what day this is? It’s Sunday!”

  The two men stopped their hammering and gaped at her. For the first time that morning, Rosie realized how she must look. Her dress was damp, hemmed in mud, and stuck with bits of straw. Her hair hung in a long tangle past her waist. In between licking her cheek with a soft pink tongue, the little yellow puppy nipped at her chin with his tiny milk teeth.

  “It’s Sunday,” she repeated, attempting to hold the puppy back.

  “I told you there’s no church around here.” Seth set down his hammer. “Until we get this bridge built and cut a trail to the main road, the circuit preacher won’t even come by.”

  “All the same—I think it’s only right to honor the Sabbath. Sing. Read the Scriptures. Pray. Don’t you agree?”

  As Seth gazed at her, Rosie felt the heat rise in her cheeks. What was he staring at? Did she look so appalling in her muddy dress? Or was her long hair distracting him again? Maybe it was the puppy.

  “He was sleeping with me this morning,” she said, holding up the little ball of fluff. “Under the wagon.”

  Seth gave the dog a quick glance; then he focused on Rosie again. “Did you sleep all right? You look cold.”

  “I’m all right. But it’s Sunday, Mr. Hunter. You really shouldn’t be hammering, should you?”

  “I can’t see how it matters.”

  “Of course it matters. You’re working. We are to
honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.”

  “I’m building a bridge.”

  Rosie stroked her hand over the puppy’s head as she studied the pile of lumber near the water’s edge. Bridges linked people together. Bridges brought circuit preachers. Missionaries. Church builders. Building a bridge on the Sabbath might not be too great a sin in the eyes of the Lord. Still, it couldn’t please him to ignore a holy day.

  “I think we should turn our hearts to God,” she insisted. “I think we should read the Bible.”

  In Seth’s blue eyes, she recognized the flicker of anger. She knew what he was thinking. His skinny, mule-headed farmhand was contradicting him again. Being stubborn. Willful. He clenched his jaw, and she steeled herself against his wrath.

  “All right,” he said, slapping his hands on his thighs. “I reckon our angel of mercy has spoken. Rustemeyer, it’s time for church.”

  “Was ist los?”

  “Church.” Seth pronounced the word loudly to the German as they followed Rosie toward the soddy. He didn’t much like the idea of stopping their work on the bridge just to sit around reading and singing hymns all morning. The creek was running full after the rain the night before; the high water had prevented Jimmy O’Toole from crossing to help with construction. If they hoped to have the bridge built before the crushing heat of summer set in, they would need to work on it every day.

  On the other hand, Seth was beginning to sense that Miss Rosenbloom Cotton Mills had a good head on her shoulders when it came to how things ought to be done around a homestead. Maybe she was a fatherless foundling who had grown up in an orphanage. But since she’d come out to the prairie, Seth had eaten three square meals a day, slept on clean sheets at night, and lived in a house with curtains at the windows, a cloth on the table, and flowers in a jug. More important, in Rosie’s presence, Chipper’s sullen attitude had begun to fade. If she thought it was right to pray before meals and sing on Sundays, who was Seth to argue?

  “It’s Sunday,” he said to Rustemeyer. Then he pointed at heaven and folded his hands. “Time to pray. To God.”

  “Gott. Ja, ja.”

  “We’ll sit in the sunshine,” Rosie said. “That way we can dry off.”

  As they approached the soddy, Chipper came dancing through the front door. He was wearing the nightshirt Rosie had sewn, and at the early hour his hair was still rumpled from sleep. “A puppy! Rosie, you have a puppy! Can I pet him? Can I hold him?”

  Chuckling at the utter delight in the child’s eyes, she handed over the pup. “He’s hungry now. We must feed him some milk right away.”

  “What’s his name? Where did you find him? Where did he come from?”

  “God sent him to us. He’s our gift from heaven. He has no mama, no papa, and no name. But he’s a very special treasure all the same.”

  “Like you, Rosie!” Chipper said. Then he turned to his father. “He’s just like her, isn’t he?”

  At the implications behind the question, Seth stiffened for a moment. Then he gave his son a deliberate grin. “Muddy and damp, you mean? With lots of tangled hair?”

  “Not that!” Chipper said, breaking into a giggle. “I meant that the puppy has no mama or papa, and neither does Rosie.”

  “I reckon you’re right.” Seth rubbed a hand roughly between the puppy’s two perky ears. “Miss Mills is wet, homeless … and a very special treasure. Our gift from heaven.”

  Rosie’s mouth dropped open, and Seth couldn’t resist giving her a wink as he sauntered toward the soddy. But inside the darkened room, he could hear his heart hammering in his chest. Now why had he gone and done that? Why did the opportunity to tease and disconcert her give him such amusement? Why couldn’t he keep his focus on practical matters—instead of on Rosie’s long brown hair and warm smile? What was happening to him?

  Last night Seth had followed her into the pouring rain like some lovesick fool. He had held her hand. He had told her he liked her hair. It was pretty, he had said. She was pretty. Now he had all but admitted she had become special to him. How could such foolishness have come about? He felt half-dizzy inside. Light-headed. Off-balance.

  He had to put a stop to this, or she would get ideas. Wrong ideas. Carrying the heavy, black, leather-bound Bible his mother had given him, Seth strode back outside. He arranged himself on a big stump near the woodpile and spread the book open across one knee. Rosie crouched on a log, draping her skirts out to dry in the sunshine. Rustemeyer sat down near her. Chipper stroked the puppy as it lapped at a saucer of milk.

  “All right,” Seth began, determined to take control—of himself and the entire situation. “We’ll start at the beginning. Genesis.”

  “Deuteronomy,” Rosie said. “Please.”

  Seth frowned. “That’s a bunch of laws and rules, isn’t it? I think we should start at the beginning—the way a book ought to be read.”

  “But Mr. Holloway said there’s a verse about … about foundlings.” Her voice was small, wounded. “He told me I’m not supposed to go to church. It’s forbidden … for people like me.”

  “What’s wrong with you, Rosie?” Chipper asked. “Why shouldn’t you go to church?”

  “Whoever my mama and papa were, I don’t expect they were married to each other. God likes for people to marry each other before they have babies, Chipper. He wants … families.” She swallowed, and Seth thought his heart was going to tear open at the pain written so visibly in her brown eyes. “You know, I’ve been to church all my life, but now I wonder if I’ve done wrong. Maybe … maybe God hates the sight of people like me in his house. Mr. Hunter, would you find that verse? It’s in Deuteronomy. I want to know what it says. I want to try to understand.”

  Seth scratched his head. It couldn’t be right to talk about touchy subjects like illegitimacy with children around. Could it? And Rustemeyer was getting restless. The German didn’t understand a word of the conversation. He kept glancing in the direction of the unfinished bridge. Worst of all, Seth couldn’t even remember where Deuteronomy was situated in the Bible.

  “Maybe we should just read a psalm and be done with it,” he said. “My mama used to read them to us kids all the time after Papa went off and … when she was feeling lonely. Or sad.”

  “Deuteronomy,” Rosie repeated. “Please, Mr. Hunter.”

  What could he say to those brown eyes? Seth flipped around through the pages until he found the book. It was near the beginning of the Bible—almost like starting in Genesis.

  The first batch of chapters had to do with the Israelites wandering in the desert. He bypassed that part as too boring. Then came the Ten Commandments. Those had been hanging on the wall in the house where Seth grew up. The neat sampler sewn by his mother had stated God’s laws in bold black cross-stitch. And Seth had watched his father methodically break every one of them. He elected to skip over that part of Deuteronomy, too.

  “All right, chapter six,” he said. “Maybe Holloway’s verse is in here. ‘And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.’ That sounds good enough to me. Okay, who wants to pray?”

  Rosie blinked. “But that’s not the part about the foundlings.”

  “It’s about children. It says to love God and teach your children about the Bible.”

  “It’s not what Mr. Holloway was talking about.”

  “All right, all right.” Seth lifted his hat and raked a hand through his hair. To tell the truth, he didn’t really want to find the part about the foundlings. It might upset Rosie. Seth couldn’t stand the thought of her eyes filling with tears the way they had in Holloway’s station. Fact is, if the Bible made Rosie cry, Seth would be tempted to chuck the book in the creek. Though he believed in God—Jesus’ death on the c
ross, the resurrection, and all that—he’d never seen much good come of religion in his own life.

  After his papa had run off, Seth used to pray every day for God to bring the man back. But he never did come back. Seth had longed for a father—a good, strong father—more than anything in the world. But all his praying hadn’t done a lick of good.

  “You know there are an awful lot of verses in here,” he told Rosie as he flipped through the pages. “Chances of finding that particular one are mighty slim.”

  “I’m praying for you to find it,” Rosie said. “The Lord will lead you there.”

  Seth shrugged in resignation. “Here’s something about the church. Chapter 12. ‘But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose … thither thou shalt come. … And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee.’ Sounds to me like God wants everybody to go to church—and even have a good time eating and rejoicing. Okay, now who wants to pray?”

  “Keep reading,” Rosie said. “You haven’t found it yet.”

  Seth turned through passage after passage about which animals to eat, what to do about murder, and who ought to marry whom. Just when he was ready to shut the book and get back to the bridge, his eye fell on Deuteronomy 23:2. He read it silently. Read it again. Finally, he looked up at Rosie.

  “Go on,” she whispered.

  “‘A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.’ I don’t believe that,” he exploded. “What’s a child got to do with how his parents behave? It’s not right to blame a child for what his father did. You can’t hold innocent children accountable for their ancestors’ sins and failures. That’s a bunch of bunk.”

  He dropped the Bible to the ground. “Enough,” he went on. “We’ve got to get to work on the bridge. Pray, Rustemeyer. Do it in German. I don’t care to understand it anyhow.”