“That’s how I feel about Elsa,” Jamie said. “Temper and all.”
George seemed to recover from the shock of the moment and got back to his feet. He walked to the horse and resumed brushing the animal. “You realize you can never say anything about this. Too many people stand to be hurt.”
“Of course. But does she know? Does Cole?”
George smiled sadly. “I think they both know. They also know that I would never do anything to come between them.”
“It wouldn’t be honorable,” Jamie murmured.
George met his gaze. “No, it wouldn’t be honorable.”
“How do you bear it? How can you be here—seeing her all the time?”
Shrugging, George continued to work on the horse. “I give it to God. I will always care deeply for her, but she is not mine to love. I will never love another, but God has shown me how to bear this.”
“How?”
“By keeping my eyes on Him … instead of her,” George said without hesitation.
Jamie thought on his uncle’s words long after they parted company. He’d never known a man with more honor than Takes Many Horses. Jamie couldn’t even fathom what it might feel like to be so deeply in love with someone yet know you could never have them for your own. When he thought of Elsa that way, it tore him in two.
I’ve lost my heart so completely to her. I can’t bear the thought of her not being here with me. He looked to the skies overhead. “God, I know I’m not very good at this praying, but here’s my heart. I want to please you. I know I’m a sinner and that I haven’t always done things as I should. But I want to try. I want to be yours first and then I want to be Elsa’s. I hope that’s not a heathen thing to say.” He looked away, almost as if God’s face might appear before him.
“I love her, Lord. I love her, and I want her to be my wife. I don’t want to spend my life like my uncle. I couldn’t bear to see her every day and know that she belonged to someone else.”
“I want to go back to the ranch,” Elsa told Mara. “I hate Anaconda.”
Mara laughed. “Not as much as you love Jamie Vandyke.”She finished dusting the front sitting room and looked to where her sister was supposed to be sweeping up. Elsa leaned against the broom, looking all moon-eyed and dreamy. Mara shook her head. “I’ve never seen anybody act the way you do.”
“Oh, I suppose you never acted this way over Zane,” Elsa said, snapping to attention. She met her sister’s laughter by making a face and sticking out her tongue.
“Look, you’re twenty-one now. Father has no claim to you. So go back to the ranch and see if Jamie will have you.”
“If he’ll have me?” Elsa asked in disbelief. “He’ll have me.
He’d better. He’s the one that made me go and fall in love with him. He’d better not back out now.”
Mara looked surprised. “Back out of what? Has he proposed?”
Elsa shrugged and looked toward the ceiling. “Well, not exactly. But I know he wanted me to wait for him.”
“Sounds to me like you’d better go back to the ranch and see what he really wants. He might have taken on other notions by now.”
“You’re no help!” Elsa declared, starting to sweep with a vengeance. “You could at least dream a little with me. Encourage me.”
“Dreaming gets nothing accomplished, and encouraging folks can be dangerous. You know me to be a woman of action,” Mara said quite seriously. “If you intend to marry this man, then you’d best start laying in plans for a wedding. That’s what I did.”
Elsa stopped again. “You did, didn’t you? You made a wedding dress before there was even a husband to marry.”
Mara laughed. “Sometimes that’s how God works things. Seek Him out, Elsa. Let God tell you what to do about Jamie.”
Elsa knew her sister was right. She’d continued reading the Bible every night since she’d parted company with Jamie. She hoped and prayed he’d done the same. It made her feel closer to him somehow.
“Do you suppose Zane would take us to the ranch—I mean, if I pray about it?”
Mara laughed again. “If you pray about it, God can put it on Zane’s heart to do exactly that—if it’s what God wants for you.”
Elsa closed her eyes and prayed with such fervency she was certain God must have heard. I just want to go back to the ranch and be with him, Lord. I want to be his wife and live our lives together. She’d no sooner concluded her prayer and begun sweeping again when Zane came through the front door.
“Mara!” he panted. “Mara!”
“What in the world is wrong?” Mara asked, rushing for the door. Elsa was right behind her.
“You need to pack your things. We’re going to the Diamond V.”
The girls exchanged a look, but Elsa quickly cast her gaze to the ceiling. “That was certainly fast,” she murmured.
Mara only laughed. “Sometimes God is like that. Come on—we’d best get packed.”
CHAPTER 26
CHESTER LAWRENCE LOOKED AT THE SIX MEN WHO STOOD across from him. The news they’d brought was inconceivable.
“You can’t be serious,” he said in disbelief.
“Boss, it’s the same for everyone,” one of the men ventured to say.
“It’s not the same for everyone!” Chester countered. “Not everyone started the winter out with over eight thousand head of cattle. Now you’re telling me that I’ve lost all but about fifteen hundred.”
“There could be a few more. The boys are still in the process of rounding them up,” the man offered. “There’s no hope for the calves, what few were born. The elements were just too harsh.”
“What did I hire the lot of you for?” Chester asked in complete exasperation. He had notes due at the bank by the first of June. He’d depended on that herd to produce in large numbers. He’d figured on at least another two thousand calves being born, and that had been a conservative estimate. Now he faced his financial obligations without enough livestock to sell—even if he auctioned off the entire herd.
“We could hardly raise the temperatures or eliminate the snow,” one of the other cowhands snarled. “A couple of men ran off, and we lost a good man out there to the cold. You need to arrange a proper funeral for him.”
“I’ll arrange nothing! You no-goods have lost me my ranch. Now get out of here.”
“You can’t treat us like that,” a large man said, stepping forward. “You owe us winter pay, and I intend to see you hand it over.”
Chester realized he was helpless to fight the man. He hadn’t bothered to strap on his gun when the housekeeper had announced that there were men at the front door. In retrospect, he should have done just that. Then these no-account cowboys wouldn’t be trying to force his hand. Instead, they’d be staring down the barrel of a revolver.
“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll pay you, but I expect you to bring in the remaining herd quickly. I want to see those animals for myself. No doubt they’re skin and bones.”
“No problem, boss. We’re bringing them down and collecting the strays. Shouldn’t have to worry much with branding this year—like I said, I don’t think any of the calves made it through.”
“You get those animals here and then—and only then—will I pay you,” Chester said, staring hard at the big man.
The man who acted as his foreman nudged the larger man. “We’ll do that, boss.” The men followed their leader’s direction and stepped down from the porch and went to remount their horses.
Chester watched them with a scowl on his face. If Jerrod and Roy were still here, those men would have minded their places. Now I’m just an old man with a bad temper. Few people will even concern themselves with me. Chester seethed at the thought. All of his life he’d been the man to get attention—to get things done. People respected him … or at least feared him. Now he couldn’t even get his children to respect or fear him. They’d all left him. He’d figured at least the mean ones would stay on. He’d counted on their greed, but they were gone too. Off to
make their fortunes.
“Like I didn’t give them more than they deserved,” Chester said, then spat as if to rid himself of the bad taste they left in his mouth.
He stormed back into the house, slamming the door behind him. There wasn’t enough money to pay those cowhands and be able to come anywhere near paying his notes. If he took everything he could get his hands on, he might be able to at least get the bank to hold off on foreclosing. But he wasn’t liked at the bank. Last fall he’d been downright threatening, and the bank president would surely remember his ill temper. Had it not been for Chester’s well-known reputation for retribution, he seriously doubted the bank would have agreed to lend him the large amount he had demanded.
Chester went into his office and locked the door behind him.He didn’t want to be disturbed. There was a great deal to think about and plans to be made. He intended to maintain his role as the cattle king of southwest Montana. He deserved that title. He deserved to rule his domain with an iron fist.
But there are nearly seven thousand cattle lying dead on my domain. Dead cattle were no good to him. He cursed the weather, then cursed God just in case He really did exist. After all, if He did exist, then all of this was His fault.
It didn’t help that Chester realized the Selby-Vandyke group would have come through the winter relatively unscathed. They had very few animals to worry over. It would have been simple to gather them in close to the house and feed them by hand. He knew for a fact that the boy and his uncle had harvested quite a bit of hay over the summer months.
“They had precious little else to worry themselves with,”
Chester muttered. The very thought of his enemy faring well was more than he could stand.
He pounded both fists down on the desk. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Dianne gently caressed the rough wooden box as though she could somehow reach through to the baby inside. The devastation of the winter months had left its mark on the Diamond V. Perhaps not in the same way as it had to other ranchers, but the loss was just as deep.
Isaiah would be buried today. The ground had finally thawed enough to make that possible. She knew there was no possible way to know Isaiah—to see him—but her heart still longed for that glimpse.
“I’m so sorry you aren’t going to be with us,” she murmured. “I promise you, you would have been loved. You are loved.” She toyed with the locket around her neck. It contained the baby’s hair George had given her. It was all she had of this child.
Dianne looked to the crystal blue skies overhead. “Oh, Father, forgive me for all that I’ve done wrong. Help me to heal. Ease this pain so that I might not lose the joy that I have with my other children.”
She dropped her gaze to see her boys climbing up and down on the new corral fence the men had put in place. The boys loved to be busy, and play was hard work. Dianne smiled. Soon they would be young men and then grown. How quickly time could pass. Isaiah would have happily joined them—taking his place beside his brothers—struggling to earn their respect.
“Are you ready?” Cole asked softly.
Dianne drew a deep breath and nodded. She didn’t turn around to greet him, but instead leaned hard against him when he came up behind her. His arms encircled her and pulled her close.
“As ready as a mother can ever be for something like this.”
“We’ll see him again—someday,” Cole whispered.
“I’ve never seen him at all. And that is so very hard.”
“It would serve no purpose now. He wouldn’t look anything like what you’d expect. It’s better to remember him like the others. George said he looked a lot like Lia, so maybe reflect on that.”
She knew he was right. She knew, too, there was absolutely nothing she could do to change things. She would have to accept the situation as it was or suffer the rest of her life. There was no sense in that. It wasn’t what God would want for her.
“How do you think it works? Heaven, I mean,” she said softly. “Is there some great nursery where children go when they die?” She liked to think of her baby son being happy with other children who’d gone before him. Her own sister Betsy and their unborn sibling, Ardith’s baby and Faith’s lost children. She could well imagine them all being together, tenderly cared for by some celestial being.
“I don’t know,” Cole admitted. “But I know that God loves us. I know that He loves Isaiah and all other children. I’m sure He has a special place for them—a place where they’re cared for and treated real special.”
“I just wish I knew,” she said. “It’s hard not knowing.”
He turned her around and stepped back a pace. “But you know your Father in heaven. You know He is always loving. His very nature is love, so we have to know that those babies are loved—they’re safe and nothing and no one can grieve them.”
“And they never have to worry about being hungry or cold.”
“Or tired or in pain.”
Tears streamed down Dianne’s face. “I know he’s gone to a better place. I keep reminding myself of that. But my arms are still empty.”
Cole pulled her close. “They aren’t now, and they never will be if I have anything to say about it.”
George saw Luke walking around the outer edges of the yard and wondered what the boy was thinking. They were nearly ready for the funeral, and George couldn’t help but wonder if the boy was feeling out of sorts about it all.
Walking over to the corral and pretending to check on the structure, George motioned to Luke. “You doing all right?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know why people gotta die.”
George nodded. “It can be kind of confusing.”
“My baby brother didn’t do nothing wrong. He shouldn’t get punished.”
“Luke, death isn’t a punishment.” George squatted down. “Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Well, sure. Bad people get killed—like when the law catches them and hangs them. Ma said that people sometimes die when they are doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.”
“Both things are true,” George agreed, “but death doesn’t always come as a punishment. Sometimes people just get old and die. Sometimes they get sick and die. Death is in the world because of sin, that much is true, but God isn’t standing by waiting to punish us with it because we’re sinful folks.”
“My brother wasn’t even born when he died. He couldn’t have been sinful,” Luke protested.
George felt he’d gotten in over his head, but he tried to stumble through. “Luke, some things are a mystery. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, there have been consequences.”
“That don’t hardly seem fair,” he said. “I wasn’t there. My brother wasn’t there. How can that be fair to punish my brother for what Adam and Eve did?”
“I’ve often wondered that myself. But God knew the choices they’d make—He knows the choices we make. We’re sinful by nature, but we can be redeemed with Jesus. Jesus can help us not to want to sin. As for your baby brother, well, I can’t say that I have the answer for why he had to die, but I trust that God knows. God isn’t trying to hurt us by taking baby Isaiah away, and He isn’t trying to punish us. These things just happen because we are human. People get sick and die, like I said earlier. Your baby brother got sick inside your mother. Nobody knew he was sick, so nobody could help him.”
“But you said God knows everything—so He knew my brother was sick.”
“True, and maybe taking him to heaven was the best way to make him well. Did you ever think about that?”
Luke cocked his head to one side. “You think that’s what happened?”
“I think it’s very possible. Sometimes God fixes folks right here on earth—like your Mama. She was real sick and almost died, but God healed her body so that she could stay here and be with you children. Sometimes God takes folks home to be with Him, however. You gotta know that He still loves them as much as the folks he leaves here to keep on living. It’s not a punishment, Luke.
”
“I guess not.”
George got to his feet and put his arm around Luke’s shoulders. “All through your life there are going to be times when you don’t understand why God is doing things the way He is. The Bible says our thoughts aren’t His thoughts and our ways aren’t His ways. That sometimes makes it hard for us to understand why things are happening the way they are. But God doesn’t call us to understand, Luke. He calls us to trust Him. Can you do that?”
He looked up thoughtfully. “I want to.”
George smiled. “That’s a start. Keep looking to God, Luke. He won’t let you down, and someday we’re gonna understand why things happen the way they do.” He looked across the yard to where Cole and Dianne had just appeared. Cole carried the tiny coffin.
“You ready?” George asked Luke.
The boy nodded and started off to join his parents. He stopped abruptly and turned back. “Thanks, George. My heart doesn’t hurt so much now.”
The funeral was simple, with Ben giving a loving tribute to the child no one ever knew. Isaiah Daniel Selby was buried beside his great uncle Bram, uncle Levi, and Gus. The day was bright and full of the hope of spring. The children were subdued during the funeral, but afterward they seemed to quickly recover and tore out across the yard with squeals of delight. Luke and Winona seemed more sober, walking together and talking, but even they seemed to be accepting of the event without too much grief.
“They seem to be taking this well,” Dianne said, watching them go off to play.
“Children sometimes seem better able than adults to accept death,” Ben said as he joined her and Charity. “Sometimes they don’t, of course. They expect a father or mother who has died to reappear. Even now, I’m sure the depth of this situation is impossible for them to comprehend.”
“True,” Charity said. “The baby hardly seemed real to them. It would be different if it were, say, John who’d passed on. They all know him and share memories with him.”
“I know it’s true even for me,” Dianne had to admit. “I can barely stand the pain of losing Isaiah, but the thought of losing Lia or the others would completely devastate me, I’m sure. Like you said, I have memories with them and it would be hard to just walk away from that.”
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