A Stone Creek Collection Volume 1

by Linda Lael Miller

  * * *

  LARK REFUSED Rowdy’s offer to walk her home to Mrs. Porter’s place, even though the snowstorm was already working itself up to a fine frenzy. If it kept this up, it would be a blizzard before nightfall.

  “Some of the children may have come to school,” she fretted.

  Rowdy supposed there was some substance to her concern. He’d seen this storm coming before dawn, felt it in his bones as he sat up through the night. He’d had no place to sleep, with his pa sprawled facedown across his bed like he was gut-shot. It seemed unlikely that farm and ranch people wouldn’t have seen the signs, and kept their kids home from school, but it was surely possible. The weather hadn’t stopped Franks from driving to town, after all.

  Rowdy had sent Gideon to the schoolhouse earlier, but he hadn’t seen him since, so he didn’t know whether any of the kids had showed up there or not. And there might have been a few stragglers, arriving after Gideon left.

  “All right,” Rowdy said, strapping on the gun belt he’d taken off earlier, thinking he might get the satisfaction of pounding the hell out of Franks, and reaching for his hat and coat. “We’ll go down there and make sure.”

  “I can get to the schoolhouse on my own,” Lark protested, but she didn’t look as though she really wanted to try it.

  “I reckon you can,” Rowdy agreed, opening the door.

  “But I’m going with you, just the same.” He was worried that Franks might still be around, waiting for a chance to press his case with Lark, and there was always the possibility that the storm would suddenly get a lot worse.

  He’d known folks to freeze to death in this kind of weather, rounding up cows in their own pastures, and even in the short distance between the house and the woodshed.

  Lark double-stepped to keep up when he took her arm and strode in the direction of the schoolhouse. Pardner joined them, snapping at the occasional snowflake like a pup, and his presence eased Rowdy’s tension a little.

  He’d been all wound up, ever since his pa had chosen his place as a rabbit hole.

  “About the dance on Saturday night,” Lark began, her breath huffing white in the snowy air as she hurried along at his side.

  Rowdy gave her a sidelong glance, reluctantly let go of her once they’d crossed the road. “You’re not about to back out on me, are you?”

  She looked at him in quick surprise. “I assumed you were only trying to help me out of a—situation.”

  He smiled to himself, but he knew by the flare of color in her cheeks that she’d seen his amusement. “Roland Franks is a ‘situation,’ all right,” he agreed. “If you care anything for his pride, you’ll be at the dance, just like you said you would be. And you’ll be with me.”

  “I can’t see how that would appease his pride.”

  “You don’t see a lot of things, Miss Morgan. What possessed you to let a full-grown man come to school?”

  “He wanted to learn!”

  “You can’t possibly be that innocent.”

  She stared at him, angry, but worried, too. “He said—”

  “He said, Miss Morgan, what he knew you wanted to hear.”

  “Stop calling me ‘Miss Morgan.’ I don’t like the way you say it—like you’re mocking me.”

  “I am mocking you—Lark. When are you going to tell me your real name?”

  “When you tell me yours,” Lark retorted. “Perhaps.”

  He was tired and, blizzard or none, he expected news of the train robbery his pa had told him about to arrive at any moment. Most likely there would be a telegram sent to Sam O’Ballivan or the major, and once it had been delivered to the ranch, they’d be riding in to demand some rangering of him.

  In the meantime, he had to pretend he didn’t know anything about it.

  The combination of circumstances made him prickly.

  “I do not have the time,” he said, “to keep you out of trouble, Lark, so I would appreciate it if you would use your head for something other than a decoration. Franks didn’t come to school so he could learn the three Rs.”

  She blushed. “You have no responsibility to keep me out of trouble,” she blustered. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t make disparaging remarks about my intelligence. I have read Shakespeare, Mr. Rhodes, and all the Greek and Roman myths—”

  “So have I,” he said, enjoying the look of surprise that sprang into her eyes. “And I’ve got to say, I haven’t found that accomplishment real handy, out here at the tail end of noplace.”

  Lark bit her lower lip. “Knowledge,” she said firmly, blowing out the words because the wind was against her, “is valuable everywhere.”

  “Not if you don’t use it,” Rowdy argued.

  She fell silent, and he hoped he hadn’t hurt her feelings. Somebody else had done plenty of that, in some other time and place, and he didn’t want to add to it.

  “I’m sorry, Lark,” he said, as they reached the hill above the schoolhouse. Even with its belfry and bright red walls, it barely showed through the swirling snow.

  “I’ve got some things on my mind, but I shouldn’t have taken that out on you.”

  She blinked, then smiled. Snowflakes gathered on her thick lashes, and she raised the hood of her cloak in a graceful motion of both hands.

  “That was a very nice apology,” she said.

  He grinned at her.

  They descended the hill and rounded the edge of the schoolyard, the tops of the fence posts already mounded with snow, and there, on the front step, sure as death and taxes, huddled Pardner’s little friend, shivering.

  “Lydia!” Lark cried, horrified.

  Rowdy barely managed to get the gate open before she would have vaulted over it in her haste to reach the child.

  Lydia smiled at them through the tumbling, blowing snow.

  Lark sat down beside the little girl, opened her cloak to enclose her inside it, then rummaged in her pocket for the key. Rowdy took that from her, stepped past them to unlock the door and open it.

  Lark got to her feet and hurried Lydia into the schoolhouse.

  Rowdy went straight to the stove and got a fire started.

  “Lydia,” Lark said, chafing the child’s bare hands between her own, “why didn’t you go home when you arrived and no one was here? And where are your mittens?”

  “I lost one of them.” Lydia batted her eyelashes, on the verge of tears. “Did I do wrong coming to school, Miss Morgan?”

  Lark hugged her, and the sight made Rowdy’s throat hurt, the same way it did when he thought of riding out and leaving Pardner behind with Gideon.

  “No, sweetheart,” she said quickly, glancing once at Rowdy, in a silent I-told-you-so kind of way. “No, you didn’t do a single thing wrong.”

  Rowdy felt knee-high to a bedbug. Lydia probably would have sat there on that step until she iced up solid if Lark hadn’t insisted on making sure none of her charges had come to school.

  He got the fire going, then took off his coat and wrapped it gently around Lydia’s tiny form. She looked lost in the dark folds, and smiled up out of the garment with beatific trust.

  “Lydia,” Lark repeated, sitting down beside the child on one of the long benches students normally occupied, “why did you stay?”

  Lydia’s lower lip wobbled. “Mabel’s feeling poorly,” she said, her voice very small, even for somebody the size of a newly hatched barn sparrow. “She told me not to come home until I could be quiet, and I don’t reckon I’m ever going to be able to do that.”

  Lark raised her eyes to Rowdy’s face, and something passed between them, though neither of them spoke right away.

  “Lydia,” Lark asked presently, “where is your father?”

  “Papa’s way out to the Bennington ranch,” Lydia answered. “He went yesterday, in his buggy. They’re having a baby out there.” Her small face brightened.

  “It’s the first one, so they wanted a doctor to come. Papa helped them pull a stuck calf out of a cow last spring, and they gave him a wh
ole bag of sweet potatoes.”

  Lark blushed, probably because of the stuck-calf image. “Let’s sit a little closer to the fire,” she told Lydia, “now that Marshal Rhodes has been so kind as to start it.”

  Lydia allowed herself to be steered to another seat, but her eyes were wide and suddenly pensive as she looked up at Rowdy. “Marshal, do you suppose my papa will be able to get home, with all this snow?”

  “Tell you what,” Rowdy said. “If he’s not back in the next little while, I’ll go out looking for him.”

  Lark spared him a grateful look, unwrapped Lydia from his coat and replaced it with her cloak. “We’ll stay here for a little while,” she said. “But I think Marshal Rhodes has things to do.”

  Rowdy didn’t want to leave them, but Lark was right. He did have things to do, and searching the road between Stone Creek and the Bennington ranch, wherever that was, would be one of them, if the doc didn’t show up pretty soon.

  “Lock the door when I’m gone,” he said, resigned, as he put the coat back on. He checked the wood supply and found it adequate.

  “We never lock the schoolhouse,” Lydia said, earnestly helpful. “Not when there’s somebody inside.”

  “Just this once,” Lark told her softly. “Later, when you’re warm, we’ll go to Mrs. Porter’s and sit in her kitchen by the stove and drink tea.”

  Lydia’s small, thin face went luminous at the prospect.

  Rowdy headed for the door, and Lark followed.

  “Perhaps you ought to stay,” she whispered. “I know I said you had work to do, but the weather—”

  “I’ll be fine,” Rowdy answered, wanting to touch her. Maybe brush her cheek lightly with the backs of his fingers. He didn’t, of course, because they were in a schoolhouse, and Lydia was there, and both those things made it more than improper. “You’ve got plenty of firewood, and I could send Gideon to get you in a wagon from the livery stable. I’ll come myself, if I don’t have to leave town to look for the doctor.”

  Lark moved a little closer to him, lowered her voice another notch, until it was barely more than a breath. “You might stop at Dr. Fairmont’s house and see about Mabel,” she suggested.

  Rowdy’s jaw tightened. “Oh, I’ll speak to Mabel, all right,” he promised.

  Lark nodded. “If she answers the door, and she might not, tell her I will keep Lydia with me overnight.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Rowdy confirmed. Then he cleared his throat and said quietly, “Lock this door, Lark. Franks is probably home, sitting close by the fire, but if he’s not—”

  “I’ll lock the door,” Lark promised. She touched his face, her fingertips light and smooth and still cold from outside. Then she pulled them back, as though she’d done something inexcusably bold.

  He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to but didn’t, for the same reasons he hadn’t caressed her cheek moments before.

  “About Gideon and the wagon—”

  “We’ll be fine on our own, Rowdy. Really.”

  He nodded, opened the door, careful not to let the bitter wind sweep inside the schoolhouse, and went outside.

  Waited until he heard her key turn in the lock.

  Then, not wanting to leave, he did anyway.

  * * *

  LYDIA, STILL SNUGGLED in Lark’s cloak, yawned, lay down on the long bench closest to the stove and went to sleep. Lark straightened all the books and dusted all the shelves and desks, and watched through the windows as the snow spun against the glass.

  The big clock behind her desk ticked ponderously.

  Lark checked the level of water in the drinking pail and found it nearly empty. She had tea leaves and a kettle on hand, but Lydia was swaddled in her cloak, and she knew the cold air would bite into her flesh if she went out without it to the well.

  She was hungry, too, and she’d left her lunch in Roland’s wagon, along with her lesson books. Remembering the morning’s incident, she cringed.

  Then she felt ashamed.

  She was making too much of this.

  Roland would probably show up for school tomorrow and bring back the things she’d left behind in his wagon. He would surely apologize, and Lark, keeping in mind that she had contributed to the misunderstanding by accepting a ride to school in his buckboard, would accept graciously.

  Franks didn’t come to school so he could learn the three Rs, she heard Rowdy say.

  A momentary disquiet rose up in Lark, and she frowned.

  Rowdy didn’t understand, that was all. He couldn’t put himself in Roland’s place, imagine what it would be like to be full grown and still unable to read. It was a dreadful hardship, and Roland, instead of pretending to be literate, as other people did, had had the courage to come to school and ask for help.

  No, Rowdy simply didn’t understand.

  Feeling much better now that she’d reasoned things through, Lark decided to brew a pot of tea. There was still a little water in the pail, after all, and she could put on her cloak and go outside for more after Lydia woke up.

  Lydia did not wake up when the tea was ready.

  Lark added wood to the fire, sat down at her desk and sipped from the cup she’d found on a shelf in the storeroom the day she’d undertaken her duties as Stone Creek’s one and only schoolteacher.

  Darkness began to gather at the windows.

  Lark bent over Lydia, frowning, and touched a hand to the child’s forehead. Her flesh was so hot that Lark actually flinched.

  “Lydia?” she said softly, not wanting to frighten the little girl.

  Lydia moaned, opened her eyes halfway. The whites glittered eerily in the dimness.

  Hastily Lark found the lanterns she kept on hand for dark winter afternoons and lit one.

  “Lydia?” she repeated, drawing closer to the child.

  “Sweetheart, wake up. I’ve made you some tea.”

  Lydia’s eyelids fluttered, and she made a slight whimpering sound, but she didn’t respond in any other way.

  Lark set the lantern aside and cupped Lydia’s face in the palms of both hands. Dear God, the child was ablaze with fever.

  Lark took her gently by the shoulders. “Lydia!” she whispered hoarsely, “Lydia, please—”

  “Water,” Lydia pleaded, her voice so small and raw and dry that Lark’s panic deepened with a lurch.

  She’d used the last of the water to prepare her tea.

  “Just a minute,” she told Lydia, as calmly as she could. “I’ll get you some water right away.”

  Lydia began to shiver violently, even though her flesh was hot to the touch. Lark wrapped the cloak more closely around the child, who flailed weakly against it, then rushed to fetch the bucket. She’d never drawn water from a well—she’d always sent one of the bigger boys out to do that.

  What if she couldn’t make the mechanism work?

  What if the well was already frozen over?

  She paused on the schoolhouse threshold, braced by the rush of wind that slammed into her the instant she opened the door.

  Rowdy. Where was Rowdy?

  Why hadn’t he come back, or sent Gideon?

  Because she’d told him she and Lydia would be all right, and he’d believed her. By now he was probably out in this awful storm himself, looking for Dr. Fairmont.

  Lark pulled the door closed against the heavy force of the wind, and dashed to the well. Dropped the bucket and grabbed the handle attached to the crank.

  It wouldn’t turn.

  She struggled.

  The handle wouldn’t budge.

  Panic seized her again—she wanted to scream, but who would hear her? The storm muffled all sound, and she could barely see the schoolhouse, near as it was. The town beyond was cloaked in darkness and snow.

  Snow.

  Desperately exultant, Lark began gathering up handfuls of the stuff, plopping them into the bucket she’d brought from inside. When she had it half-full, she hoisted it—it was heavy in her numb hands—and hurried back toward the door.

  Coll
ided with a huge form on the steps.

  Roland.

  For all her high-minded attitude earlier, when she’d decided to accept Roland’s apology, should he offer one, and go on with his education as if nothing had happened, fear scalded through her like venom.

  “Miss Morgan?”

  But it wasn’t Roland.

  It was Gideon, looming there, barely discernible.

  A sob escaped Lark, tore itself painfully from her throat. “Gideon,” she wept. “Oh, Gideon—”

  He took the bucket from her hand, opened the door and steered her inside, much as his older brother had done, when they’d come to the schoolhouse together and found Lydia sitting on the step.

  “Lydia—she’s one of my students. She’s sick.”

  Gideon looked into the bucket. “What do you want snow for?”

  “Water. Lydia needs water, and I couldn’t make the well handle turn. When it melts…”

  “I’ll get the water,” Gideon said. “You go stand by the stove. You shouldn’t have been out there without a coat or anything.”

  Lark nodded. Sat down and gathered Lydia in her arms, cloak and all.

  Gideon returned quickly with the water.

  “There’s a ladle on the bench,” Lark told him, rocking the child. Lydia’s clothes were drenched in perspiration. Even if Gideon had a wagon, they wouldn’t be able to take her out in this cold.

  He fetched the ladle.

  Her hand shaking, Lark dunked it into the bucket, lifted it to Lydia’s mouth so she could take a sip. She lay immobile in Lark’s arms, though, her eyes still partially open, beyond the ability to drink.

  Frantic, Lark dipped her index finger into the ladle, and placed it on Lydia’s tongue. The child stirred. Lark dunked her finger again. If she had to give Lydia that whole bucket of water, drop by drop, she’d do it.

  “I’d fetch Rowdy, but he’s gone,” Gideon said uncertainly. “I was just passing by, on my way to Flagstaff, and I saw the lantern light and wondered what you were doing here so late—”

  “I’m thankful that you came, Gideon,” Lark said, trying the ladle again, because Lydia seemed to be rallying, though only slightly. “Do you happen to know if Dr. Fairmont has returned to town?”

  “I think that’s who Rowdy went looking for,” Gideon answered, after shaking his head once. His eyes widened as he watched Lydia struggle to take even a sip of the water she needed so desperately. “That’s why I—”