All Roads Lead Home

by Christine Johnson

  She and Anna crept into the tent and soon drifted off to a fitful sleep. Thunder rumbled and wolves howled. She tried to fend them off, and then…she awoke with a start. What had awakened her? Must have been the dreams, but then she heard it. A low rumble, like an animal’s growl. She shivered and looked to Anna, who didn’t make a sound.

  Again the low rumbling, closer this time. Mariah pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders, though that could offer no protection should a wolf or coyote consider her worth eating.

  “Anna,” she hissed.

  The girl murmured and stirred but didn’t awaken.

  Mariah felt a bit foolish. Here she was a grown woman looking to a nineteen-year-old girl for protection. She lifted the tent flap a few inches and spotted the car. It would be safer in there, except for the very different danger inside.

  “Anna,” she whispered again, “wake up.” She didn’t want to shake her, but she would if she had to.

  “Mmm-hmm,” the girl murmured without waking.

  How could anyone sleep so soundly? Mariah supposed that she had, too, at that age.

  A light tapping sound on the canvas set her already frayed nerves on edge. What if the animal was nuzzling the side of the tent? She scooted toward the center and felt around for the flashlight. She could crack it over the beast’s head if necessary.

  The tapping sound increased. Next she’d hear its claws ripping through the canvas.

  “Hendrick,” she cried, getting to her knees. “Anna, wake up.”

  This time she shook the girl, and Anna groggily asked what she was doing.

  “There’s a wild animal outside.”

  The tapping sound had increased in frequency, almost like… Oh, dear. Ashamed, she sat back on her heels. Rain. It was raining.

  “Did you see it?” Anna asked, sounding much more awake.

  “I, uh…” Mariah hated to admit how foolish she’d been, but she didn’t want to actually lie. “I think it’s probably gone now that the rain has begun.”

  The clouds let loose torrents, banging the tent like a drum.

  “Ugh,” Anna cried. “It’s leaking right down my neck.”

  Sure enough, the canvas had soaked up all the water it could hold and was now allowing the rain to stream unhindered into the tent. Mariah’s blanket was already damp.

  “We need to get to the car. We’ll have some shelter in there.” It had to be better than the tent, which was filling with water. She wrapped the wet blanket around her shoulders, and Anna did the same with hers. “On the count of three we’ll dash for the car. One, two, three.”

  They threw aside the tent flaps and crawled into the muddy grass. Anna hopped to her feet and raced to the car before Mariah had even cleared the tent. The deluge soaked through the blanket to the skin in moments.

  In the flashes from distant lightning, she saw Hendrick doing something with the canvas roof of the car. Oh, dear, that was leaking, too.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Anna asked from the backseat.

  “What’s the use?” Rainwater streamed down her face. The blanket was wet through and through. The ground had turned to muck, which oozed between her toes.

  “Hurry,” Hendrick said, opening the passenger-side door for her.

  “It’s too late.” She pushed the door shut. “What are you doing to the car?”

  “Nothing. I’m collecting water.” He held empty tins to the edge of the roof, where the rainwater streamed off.

  Of course. Here he was being practical while she fussed over getting wet. “Let me help.”

  He shook his head. “Get in the car in case it starts to hail or the lightning gets worse.”

  “I think it’s almost over.” Indeed, the rain had eased slightly.

  When a flash of lightning lit the landscape, Mariah spotted the canteen leaning against the front tire. She held it up to a stream flowing off the adjacent set of roof supports. Most of the liquid missed the narrow opening, but over time she got enough inside to fill it.

  “Drink,” Hendrick said, positioning his mouth under the stream.

  She did as instructed, delighting in the cool liquid. Water had never tasted so good. Anna followed suit on the other side of the car.

  Mariah laughed. “It’s wonderful, the best I’ve ever tasted.”

  Anna giggled and coughed. Even Hendrick chuckled.

  “You should laugh more often,” she said.

  He mumbled something indiscernible and set aside the last tin. “I think we have enough water for the radiator to get to the next town.” He opened the passenger-side door. “Let’s wait out the rest of the storm in the car.” Then he extended his hand to assist her.

  Her heart, caught off guard, leapt. After all their disagreements, he wanted to help her. He thought first of her. Tears rose as she placed her hand in his.

  In the backseat, Anna groaned. “Just get in. I’m getting soaked.”

  Mariah and Hendrick both laughed.

  “We probably have enough water to half-fill the radiator,” Hendrick announced.

  “Just from this rain?” Mariah gave a little awkward laugh as if she wasn’t quite comfortable. “I didn’t realize it was coming down that hard.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t realize it was coming down that hard?” Anna mimicked from the backseat. “We got soaked inside the tent.”

  “True, but…” Mariah’s voice trailed off.

  “But it’s hard to tell in the dark,” he finished for her.

  “Exactly.”

  Though he couldn’t see her smile, he could hear it in her voice.

  “We did it,” she mused, still sounding pleased. “We got the water we needed.”

  He felt her settling in beside him. “Should be enough.”

  “Do you think the problem can be repaired easily?”

  “Already made a temporary repair, but we should get a new hose down the road. All we have to do is add the water. I’ll check the hose and water in the next town while you refill our canteen.”

  “That would be wonderful.” She sighed. “Today’s trouble put us a bit behind schedule. I’d hoped to get to Brunley around midmonth.”

  “That’s pretty ambitious, isn’t it? How far do we have to go?” Hendrick asked, though he knew the answer. Too far.

  “Probably another eight hundred miles, but I’d have to look at a map to know the exact distance.”

  They couldn’t leave until morning, so for a long, long time they sat quietly as the rain turned to drizzle and then stopped altogether. A break appeared in the clouds, allowing them a peek at the blanket of stars above. Then another break opened and another. Before long, the clouds disappeared entirely and the moon’s glow lit the landscape.

  “There’s Cygnus,” he said softly.

  She leaned forward to look. “I don’t see it.”

  He pointed toward the constellation. “Remember two summers ago when we saw the shooting stars?” It had been a wonderful night, though she had seemed unusually quiet. He had thought she was thinking about how she’d miss living at the parsonage after her brother married, but she wouldn’t tell him her thoughts.

  Tonight she was just as quiet. “I didn’t see them at first. You had to point them out.”

  He remembered the thrill that had shot through him when he held her in his arms and guided her sight toward the spectacle. She’d felt so natural against his shoulder, like she was meant to be part of him. That was the first time he’d wanted to kiss her. No, that wasn’t true. He’d wanted to kiss her the moment he laid eyes on her, but that night had offered his first real chance. Her attention was on the stars, and he’d breathed in her excitement until he convinced himself she felt the same way he did. But then she pulled away, the moment passed and he never got up the courage to try to kiss her again.

  Tonight was no different. She kept to her side of the front seat. The narrow gap between them might as well have been one of those Badlands chasms.

  “There must have been thirty or forty s
hooting stars that night,” he mused.

  In the backseat, Anna murmured before her breathing deepened.

  “Shh,” Mariah said softly, “she’s sleeping.”

  At last they were alone. The thought made him nervous. What could he say that wouldn’t frighten her off? His tongue was tied, and he could do no more than stare at the stars.

  “And there’s the Big Dipper.” Mariah leaned toward him to point out his window.

  “You’re right,” he said, his voice husky.

  “And by following the two end stars of the cup, I can find Polaris, the North Star.” She ducked low to look out the windshield.

  He bent down, too, and lightly brushed against her hair, still damp. “Your hair is wet. You’ll catch cold.” He couldn’t believe he’d been so thoughtless. “There’s a dry blanket in the back.” He swiveled around to rummage for it, but she restrained him.

  “Don’t wake Anna. I’m fine. Just a little cool.”

  He saw her hand on the dash, silvered by the moonlight. Without considering her reaction, he touched it and, feeling how chilled it was, wrapped his large hand around her small one. “You’re cold.”

  She shook her head. “Just my fingers.” But she didn’t pull away.

  “Cold fingers must mean cold toes.”

  “They are a bit cold,” she admitted, “but it’s refreshing after today’s heat.”

  “Here.” He pulled off his outer shirt. The thin cotton had dried while they were talking. “Wrap it around your feet.”

  “No, they’re muddy,” she protested, trying to shove the shirt back at him.

  “Shh, you’ll wake Anna.”

  She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Hendrick Simmons, stop being so chivalrous.”

  Chivalrous. The word puffed up his pride enough for him to think that despite her protests to the contrary, she might admire him a little. “Any other man would do the same.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. And I can’t take it. Now put your shirt back on. We’re in mixed company here.”

  Hendrick hadn’t thought of that. Light fringed the eastern horizon. He certainly didn’t want Mariah to see him at less than his best.

  She yawned, and her eyelids fluttered, once, twice and then open. “I’m so sleepy.”

  He kept his disappointment to himself. “Sleep, then.”

  Moments later, she nodded off, but he couldn’t sleep, not with her so close. The moon gilded her features, making her look like a marble statue. How exquisite the curve of her cheeks. How perfect the tilt of her nose. The expressive lips now still. The lashes so long and curled at the ends. The brow so certain. Once upon a time, he thought she cared for him. They’d gone to church suppers together. People talked of them as a couple. Then, on that fateful night, she’d told him they could never be more than friends and walked away.

  Now she was back and just as perfect. He leaned closer to see the unblemished porcelain of her complexion. Her lips, so soft, beckoned, but he didn’t dare touch them. But her forehead. That wasn’t off-limits. Plus, she was asleep. She’d never know.

  He bent close, and then softly, with no more than the brush of a feather, he kissed her perfect brow. He brushed a hair from her forehead, and she jumped, eyes wide.

  “What are you doing?” She slapped his hand and retreated until her back was plastered against the door.

  He’d just ruined everything.

  Chapter Seven

  Mariah had let her guard down for only a few minutes and look what happened. If she hadn’t dozed off, if she’d taken the backseat, Hendrick wouldn’t have kissed her. True, it wasn’t much of a kiss, but he’d started down a path that could not be traveled.

  It wouldn’t happen again.

  They packed up camp at first light and decided to head west since the radiator was holding water. They reached the next town just as it was awakening for the day. The sole filling station didn’t have the right size rubber hose, so Hendrick slid under the car to see how his temporary fix had held.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Mariah suggested to Anna, leaving the men to deal with the car.

  The two wandered past the shop windows filled with curios and tourist mementos.

  Anna pressed her finger to the glass. “Look at that cowgirl hat, just like the one Annie Oakley wore,” she read from the sign perched beside it, “complete with Annie’s trademark sheriff’s pin.”

  Mariah smiled at the girl’s gullible enthusiasm. The hat might bear a passing resemblance to something Miss Oakley wore, but it was flimsily constructed of straw instead of bull hide or felt, and the drugstore had stamped its name on the hatband.

  “Would you like it?” she asked. “You could use a wide-brimmed hat in this heat.”

  Anna’s face fell. “I can’t afford it.”

  The hat cost only seventy-five cents. “I’d be glad to buy it for you.”

  “You’d do that?”

  Anna’s amazement touched Mariah. The girl must have received few gifts in her lifetime. Mariah wrapped her arm around Anna’s. “Let’s go inside.”

  After they’d made the purchase, they returned to the filling station with Anna sporting her new hat. A stiff breeze had come up, and they both had to hold their hats to keep them from flying away.

  “Your brother is going to wonder where we went,” Mariah remarked as they made their way down the street. The Overland still sat at the filling station, but neither Hendrick nor the attendant was around. “I hope he didn’t go looking for us.”

  That concern vanished when Hendrick stepped out of the station. Worry creased his brow. “Where were you?”

  “Shopping,” said Anna. “See my new hat?”

  Hendrick, looking stricken, drew Mariah aside. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Nonsense. She’s a dear girl who doesn’t get much new. Besides, the gift was mine to give.”

  He wiped his brow. “I wish you hadn’t.” Beads of perspiration dotted his upper lip.

  “The hat cost only seventy-five cents. That won’t bankrupt us.”

  “But I will.” He looked like a boy who’d broken his mother’s candy dish.

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked her square in the eye. “The money you gave me for fuel is gone.”

  “That’s not possible.” In that moment of shock, she let go of her hat, and it flew off her head.

  He lunged and caught it. “I’m afraid it is.” He subconsciously crushed the brim.

  She motioned for him to hand it back. “We couldn’t have spent all the money already.”

  “No,” he said miserably. “I think it fell out of my pocket yesterday when I was fixing the radiator hose.”

  “Fell out? And you didn’t notice until now?” Mariah battled anger and frustration. That money had to get them to Montana and back.

  “I’m sorry. I have more than $10 of my own left.” He held out the bills and coins.

  Her heart lurched. He’d offered her everything he had.

  “Keep your money.” She clutched her hat and handbag. Her remaining funds might get them to Brunley. Might. “Maybe we should go back and check to see if it’s still there.”

  Hendrick eyed the flagpole with its wind-whipped flag. “It’s probably gone.”

  He was right. Between the wind, the thunderstorm and the prairie dogs, they’d never find it.

  “Oh, dear.” She hovered between panic, anger and fear. “How much for today’s fuel and oil?”

  “I paid for it already.”

  She shook her head. That wasn’t his responsibility. “I’ll pay you back.”

  “Forget it.” He strode to the car and opened the driver’s-side door for her—right in front of the attendant and anyone else who cared to watch. “We’d better get going if we’re going to make any progress.”

  Careless, wonderful man. She didn’t know whether to bawl him out or admire his steadfast honor. In the end, she settled for letting him take the wheel.

  Montana proved flatter and
more barren than any of the land they’d traversed so far. For the most part, the towns were tiny, trees scarce and fellow travelers even more infrequent. For hours and hours each day, they traveled alone on an arrow-straight road that vanished into the horizon forward and aft. The few landmarks began to look the same, and Mariah longed for a house, a signpost, anything to vary the landscape.

  The emptiness drained her energy and her soul. Prayer became difficult. She couldn’t feel God near, as she did at home. Her heart grew heavier, followed by a deep sense of foreboding. Each day she tried to shake it off. Each night it grew worse.

  “Look at those colors,” Hendrick said one morning as they packed up their camp.

  Mariah followed his gaze to the sunrise, layered in rose and purple and tangerine and every color in between.

  “Takes your breath away,” he said quietly.

  She noticed how he saw the little things, details that she dismissed without thinking. To him, a different-colored grasshopper or the gradations of color in a sunrise not only pleased the eye but carried significance. To her, the sky looked ominous.

  “What’s the saying? Red sky in morning?” she asked.

  “Sailor take warning. Lucky we’re not sailing.”

  She laughed feebly but couldn’t shake the sense that something bad was about to happen.

  “Is it going to storm?” asked Anna while she folded the tent.

  “Not now, but that don’t—doesn’t—mean a storm isn’t on its way,” said Hendrick.

  Every once in a while he forgot to speak properly. When it happened, he’d stammer and flush until he got it right. Mariah didn’t know why it bothered him so much. The slips came infrequently, and, truth be told, she rather enjoyed the rhythm of his natural speech. It matched the cadence of Pearlman, slow and folksy, relaxing.

  “Well, it’s fine weather now, so let’s get on our way,” Mariah said, forcing past her apprehensions. “By my calculations, we should reach Brunley by early afternoon.”

  “We will?” Anna, who had been complaining about everything the past two days, perked up. “But I don’t see a town. All I can see is that bank of clouds way off.”