The Heart's Frontier

by Lori Copeland;Virginia Smith

Her fingers wrapped themselves in Sugarfoot’s coarse mane, and she pulled herself upward at the same time Luke raised his hands. Almost on instinct, her right leg swung over the horse’s back, and in the next moment she sat high in the saddle, the faces of those gathered around turned up to look at her.

  Luke awarded her with a huge smile. He lifted his hand to pat her leg but then stopped before he touched her. A tickle erupted in her stomach. He brought his hand back to his side with an embarrassed expression and turned away. “Rebecca, you’re next.”

  Riding the horse wasn’t nearly as difficult as Emma feared. In fact, straddling Sugarfoot was much easier than clinging to Big Ed’s mane, trying to keep her balance with both legs on one side of the horse’s barrel chest. Rebecca whooped with delight when she successfully mounted her own horse, and Emma didn’t bother to control a grin that seemed insistent on plastering itself on her face.

  Even Papa seemed to enjoy his cowboy lesson. He sat astride his horse, a chestnut belonging to the recently deceased Willie, with an erect posture and a wide grin of his own.

  “You’re doing great, Jonas.” Mounted on Bo, Luke urged his horse to the front of his small cluster of students. “Okay, now I want you to let the reins lay loose in your hands while you grip the horse tightly with your knees. That’s how you will communicate, through the pressure of your legs.”

  Papa’s horse surged ahead of Emma’s to follow Luke. Emma admired the way he sat tall in the saddle, his posture straight and at the same time relaxed. While she clutched the reins with a death grip, Papa let the leather straps slide freely in his grip.

  Even Luke noticed the ease with which Papa rode. “You’re not a bad rider, Jonas.”

  The grin on Papa’s face tickled an answering grin from Emma.

  “I may be Plain,” Papa replied with dignity, “but I’m tough.”

  Emma laughed and then tightened her legs around Sugarfoot’s chest. Her heart thrilled when the mare surged forward in response.

  She urged the horse to Luke’s side. “When will we learn to lasso a cow?”

  Luke threw his head back and laughed, his expression the lightest she had seen it since they had caught up with him.

  “I’ll be happy if you can manage to keep yourself in the saddle,” he replied. “Leave the roping to us.”

  “Hmm.” Emma gave him a tight-lipped reply, and then she urged Sugarfoot forward with a tightening of her knees. Yes, the situation was serious, but before this herd was delivered in Hays, she intended to prove to Luke she could do more than keep her seat on a horse.

  SIXTEEN

  Six graves took a while to dig with only two shovels. While Luke taught the Switzers how to ride and move the herd, he assigned McCann and Charlie to dig and sent Griff and Morris riding off toward the southeast where Luke had seen a large number of cattle run during the earlier skirmish. The pair had instructions to ride hard for thirty minutes, gathering strays along the way, and then head back. Vic returned to camp shortly, having caught up with the scattered remuda a short distance away. He corralled his charges, and then he relieved McCann from digging duty so he could get a start on supper.

  The sun had started to sink in the western sky by the time Griff and Morris returned, driving a hundred and fifty head before them. The strays approached camp almost gratefully and quickly lost themselves in the anonymity of their herd.

  Griff’s horse galloped to the campfire, and the man dismounted near Luke. “We caught up with them not more than five miles from here, standing around like they were waiting for us to come and get them.”

  “They’re tired.” Luke examined the cattle closest to him, noting the way their heads drooped on their necks and the halfhearted way they grazed. “It’s been a long trail since El Paso, and I think that stampede the other night exhausted them. They don’t have another one in them.”

  “Which is why those rustlers chose this place.” Griff’s eyes hardened. “Right at the end of the Chisholm Trail within a few days of the railhead. That sure wasn’t an accident.”

  Luke felt certain the man was right. “Did you see any sign of them?”

  Griff shook his head. “Not a one.” His gaze shifted to the four fresh graves set off a distance from the other two, their occupants already in place and dirt mounded overtop. “They’re shorthanded now. Probably take a while for them to regroup.”

  “Yeah.” Luke heaved a bitter laugh. “But they have four men to run three hundred head of my cattle, which means they’re not nearly as shorthanded as we are.”

  The grizzled cowboy looked over Luke’s shoulder. “How are the replacements coming along?”

  Luke turned to where the Switzers sat near their wagon. Mrs. Switzer had requested that her rocking chair be set near the cook’s campfire, where she watched over a sleeping Jesse stretched out on a pallet in front of her. He’d pitched a fit when she insisted on using perfectly good whiskey to clean his wound, and when she ignored him, howled like a wounded coyote when she poured it over the gash in his leg. Under her instructions, McCann and Charlie set the bone, and Jesse had screamed until he passed out. She seemed unconcerned. At the moment she rocked in her chair as though she were in front of her own hearth at home. Emma and Rebecca sat on the ground nearby, Emma stitching on her own sewing project while Rebecca stared at the unconscious Jesse like a starved barn cat yearning for a bowl of cream set just out of reach.

  Good thing Jesse was out cold, or he’d be fit to be tied.

  “They did okay,” Luke told Griff. “They’re not going to be competing in any rodeos, that’s for sure, but as long as the herd stays docile they won’t have a problem riding flank from here to Hays.”

  Griff nodded and then jerked his head toward the two empty graves. “Looks like they’re ready for us.”

  Inside the second hole, Charlie tossed his shovel out onto the nearby ground and then Vic reached a hand down to pull him out. Luke shut his eyes and was swamped beneath a wave of sorrow. His first cattle drive as trail boss, and he was about to say a final farewell to two good men. Yes, Willie and Kirk had known the risks when they signed on, as every trail rider did, but that made no difference now. Not to them, and not to him either.

  When he opened his eyes, he found Emma watching him. Their gazes met and held. He saw compassion on her face, and understanding lay heavy in her kind eyes. A sad smile softened those lovely lips. She knew his pain. She understood. Though she didn’t speak a word, he somehow drew strength from their silent conversation.

  He squared his shoulders. “I guess they are,” he told Griff. He lifted his head and called in a voice loud enough to reach the entire camp, “It’s time to say goodbye to our friends.”

  Griff clapped him on the back as they headed toward the graves.

  Emma listened to the music echoing back to her from a rise in the land north of them. Luke’s voice, deep and vibrant, seemed to form a foundation for the others. It rumbled in her ears and in her heart. The tune of the song was unfamiliar, but the words were so touching that the sight of Charlie and Morris shoveling earth into the graves blurred behind a curtain of tears.

  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

  That saved a wretch like me.

  I once was lost, but now am found.

  Was blind, but now I see.

  The words reached into her soul with gentle fingers and tapped on a door to her inmost being. At times she felt as lost as a blind woman, stumbling around with her arms outstretched, searching for a safe path to travel. Did the song refer to the sight of those who have passed from this life to the next, when the veil would be torn away and the faithful would encounter the Savior face-to-face? Or did it mean something more imminent?

  I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.

  Emma glanced sideways at Papa, who stood with his head bowed, his hat in his hand. Her gaze switched to Maummi, who clutched her hands before her with a white-knuckled grip, eyes and lips tightly shut. Did they see, really see, right now? Did they ever
feel lost, as she did, wandering through life, looking for the place where they would encounter grace and happiness?

  This funeral service was so different from anything she had ever encountered before. The one seared into her memory was Mama’s. When Mama breathed her last breath, the Amish community had converged around Papa and Emma and the infant Rebecca. Though Emma had been only seven years old at the time, she remembered the sight of the plain wooden coffin being lowered into the ground with ropes. The memory was as vivid as if the funeral had happened this morning. Bishop Miller, who had been a figure of authority even though at that time he had not yet been called to serve the Apple Grove district as a bishop, held one end of the rope. Emma still remembered his tender smile toward her across the grave as he let out the line. No graveside words then, no songs. A sermon and Scripture and lots of talking by various ministers in the community, followed by mountains of food on miles of tabletops. And the soul-searing ache that accompanied the knowledge that her beloved mother lay inside that simple wooden box being covered up with dirt.

  I want songs at my funeral.

  The thought startled Emma. The only music in any Amish service was plain German hymns whispered in monotone voices. But this music, though offered by the rough voices of trail-weary men, refreshed her soul in a way the chants of her Amish brothers and sisters did not.

  “Amen.” Luke’s deep voice at the end of the song concluded the service.

  Emma looped arms with Rebecca, who was curiously subdued, and headed back toward the campfire with the rest of the funeral-goers.

  “After Mama’s funeral,” Emma whispered to her sister, “there was a big meal. That was the first time you tasted Mrs. Beachy’s apple pie. Though only a babe, you ate it as though you’d been starved for weeks.”

  Rebecca smiled up at her and hugged her arm close. “I liked the music at this one,” she whispered.

  “Me too,” Emma confessed, her voice low so as not to be overheard by Maummi or Papa. “And I like the way they spoke of Willie’s life. I feel as though I knew him and Kirk now.”

  “Me too.”

  They arrived at the campfire to find an argument in progress between Maummi and McCann.

  “Spice!” Maummi’s voice rang out over the prairie. “’Tis the difference between a plain cook and a good one.” She raised her finger and pointed in the cook’s face. “Merely plain you are, and not in the Amish way.”

  McCann drew himself up, his face a mottled purple, and stared her down with bulging eyes. “I’ll have you know I’ve been feeding cowpokes on the trail for more than twenty years and never had a single complaint. I’m the best trail cook west of the Mississippi!”

  “Starving men, their tongues dulled from dust and numb from cow stink.” Maummi stiffened her spine. “Little skill it takes to satisfy them.”

  McCann looked apoplectic. He cast around wildly for support from his fellow cowboys, but no man would meet his eye. Emma turned her head to hide a grin. She would not like to confront Maummi over the craft of cooking.

  She sucked in a gasp when the cook lifted a hand and shook a finger in Maummi’s face. “Leave me to do my job, madam. Stay away from my beans.”

  If Emma had dared to shake a finger at Maummi, no doubt she would have lost it within three seconds. McCann, however, escaped with all ten digits intact when he turned and glared at Luke. “Keep that woman away from me,” he shouted before stomping away to disappear within the confines of his chuck wagon.

  Luke spared a respectful glance toward Emma before escaping toward his horse.

  The moment McCann was out of sight and Luke’s back was turned, Maummi whipped a jar of spice out of her apron pocket. She rushed to the pot of beans simmering over the campfire and dumped the contents in. Then she picked up the long iron spoon and gave the contents a quick stir. By the time McCann reappeared, banging pans and glaring all around, Maummi was seated once again in her rocking chair, her hands busy with a mending project.

  Emma turned away again so the cook wouldn’t see her smile.

  “We’ll form up in two groups of three,” Luke told his strange little group of riders. “Nobody goes off alone, understand? Four of those rustlers are still out there somewhere, and a single man on horseback is an easy target.”

  “Or woman,” Rebecca added from the opposite end of the loose circle they had formed between the cook’s wagon and the Switzers’.

  The truth of her words brought grim concern to the face of every man. Luke glanced at Emma, who stood nearby, watching him. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. For that reason, he didn’t intend to let her out of his sight. Nor would he leave Rebecca’s safety to chance, either.

  “Or woman,” he agreed, solemn. “I’m counting on the fact that those surviving rustlers scattered nearly as widely as our cattle. It’ll take them a while to regroup and even longer to round up the strays, but if those strays are as tired as the bunch Griff and Morris brought in earlier, they won’t have run far. We might find a good number of them nearby.”

  Morris nodded, and Griff’s expression settled into one of agreement. Jonas’s eyes fixed on him with an unblinking stare, his expression as unreadable as ever. At least it was obvious where Emma inherited her intent focus.

  “Regardless, even if you don’t find a single steer, you get back here before nightfall. Come daybreak, we’re breaking camp with whatever herd we have. Griff, you, Charlie, and Jonas head north. We still have a couple of hours of daylight, so ride out for thirty minutes, then swing around to the west. Vic, Emma, and I will ride the other way and swing up to meet you, and then we’ll head back in.”

  “That means I’m going east?” Rebecca asked, her gaze straying in that direction behind Luke’s shoulder.

  “No, we’ve already covered the east. You’re staying here to guard the main herd.”

  Rebecca’s mouth pursed, her displeasure apparent in the angry eyes she fixed on him.

  “It’s the most important job we have,” Luke explained to the girl in a patient voice. “We have seventeen hundred head of beef left, and we can’t afford to lose a single one. You, Morris, and McCann will watch over them.”

  Morris nodded.

  A voice behind him joined the conversation. “I’ll stand guard too.”

  Surprised, Luke whirled around to find that Jesse had awoken and was struggling to lift himself up on one elbow, pain etched on every inch of his puckered brow.

  Mrs. Switzer sprang out of her rocking chair and sprinted to his side to stand towering over him, her hands on her hips. “Stand you will not!”

  Either he didn’t have the will to oppose his formidable nurse, or the pain of struggling to a sitting position convinced him. “Yeah, so I’ll sit guard.” With much wincing, he leaned sideways, grabbed his rifle out of his pack, and laid it across his lap. “Somebody help get me up in that wagon so I can see, and I’ll help keep watch.”

  Relieved to have an extra pair of eyes, Luke nodded toward Morris and Charlie to help Jesse. These cattle were his responsibility. He’d contracted with Mr. Hancock to deliver them to Hays, and he didn’t intend to sit idly by and watch those rustlers take a single one.

  When Jesse had been seated as comfortably as possible in the Switzers’ wagon, his back resting against the hutch and his rifle in his lap, Luke gave the order to mount up. He was walking toward Bo when Jonas caught up with him.

  “A word, please.”

  It didn’t take a genius to know what was on the man’s mind. Though he addressed Luke, he focused across the camp toward the place where Emma and Rebecca were being helped onto their mounts. Worried crevices were carved into Jonas’s brow, and his clean-shaven lips were tight.

  “You will watch after my girls.” Though he voiced a statement, Luke detected a tacit plea for reassurance in the man’s voice.

  Luke matched his quiet volume so they couldn’t be overheard. “Jonas, the rustlers won’t return, not this soon. And besides, with Morris and McCann and Jesse,
Rebecca and Mrs. Switzer are safer here than they have been since the day you left home.”

  “And my Emma?”

  Luke turned to look toward Emma. She sat atop Sugarfoot, her legs swathed in her father’s black trousers, and the bunched fabric of her wide skirt was settled into a modest yet comfortable position around her thighs. As though she felt his regard, she lifted her head. A smile lit her features when she saw him watching her, and a fierce protectiveness overtook him in response.

  “I will protect her with my life.” He looked Jonas in the eye. “You have my word.”

  Jonas held his gaze for a long moment, as if weighing the value of the word of an Englisch cowboy. Then he nodded and walked toward the horse he’d been assigned.

  Luke continued on to the corralled remuda, where Bo stood already saddled and ready to ride. His promise to Jonas resonated in his soul, the words somehow more real and weightier for having been spoken.

  He would protect Emma with his life, without a moment’s hesitation.

  Of course, that didn’t mean she was anything special. He’d do the same for any woman, or man, even, especially one who was helping out at a time when he needed all the help he could get. Right?

  He placed his foot in the stirrup and swung his other leg over Bo’s back. As soon as he was secure in the saddle, Emma nudged Sugarfoot alongside him.

  “I’m glad I am assigned to ride south.” Her head dropped demurely, but after a moment her eyes cut up sideways to lock with his. “With you.”

  Luke had seen a rodeo show once. He had watched, fascinated, while a man did tricks and flips on the back of a charging stallion. As a boy he’d been amazed, exhilarated, and inspired to do those and even greater feats of daring and courage.

  That was exactly the way he felt right now.

  SEVENTEEN