Kaki Warner

by Miracle in New Hope

  “What did you want to talk to me about, ma’am?”

  A nice voice, too. Low and unhurried, with the cadence of the South in the soft r’s and drawn-out syllables. A ferocious countenance and a gentle demeanor. Another contradiction.

  Uneasy with him looming over her, she looked toward the creek, where tiny surface ripples caught the last of the day’s light. “My brother wants to go back to New Hope tomorrow. But if there is a compelling reason not to, I could convince him to continue looking.”

  When he didn’t respond, she looked up to find his gaze fixed on her in an almost intrusive way. She was unused to such intense scrutiny, and found it a bit unnerving. Yet flattering. It had been a long time since a man had looked at her with such interest.

  “I don’t have any answers for you, Mrs. Ellis. Wish I did.”

  She let out a sigh. “I see. Will you go back with us then?”

  Reaching down, he loosened a pebble lodged in the splintered top of the stump. He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger for a moment, then flicked it into the water. “Think I’ll head west to the fort. See what they have to say.”

  “We searched up there last year.”

  He shrugged.

  “But you have a reason to question them again,” she guessed. “Why?”

  “It probably won’t amount to anything.”

  “Tell me anyway. Please.”

  Lowering his foot to the ground, he straightened and thrust his hands back into the pockets of his shearling jacket. “The storekeeper said there were a lot of wagons in town that day. Eight or ten strung along the creek.”

  She nodded. “Pilgrims heading west. Many spoke a different language. German, I think. Or maybe Swiss. There was quite a crowd waiting by the door when he opened the store.”

  “Did you see a cat? Big calico?”

  A cat? She frowned, picturing the scene in her mind as she had so many times over the last year. The cold, damp wind. The roughness of the burlap sack in her grip. Hannah tugging at her other hand, reaching toward a cat as it darted past. “Yes. When the door opened, it ran out toward the creek. Hannah wanted to stop and pet it, but I was in a hurry. A storm was coming, and Tom wanted to leave before it hit.” Had there been no storm, or had she stopped to let Hannah pet the cat, would it have made a difference?

  “Anything else?”

  She remembered customers crowding the doorway. Being jostled as they surged into the store. Finding the shelf with the canned beans. “I was trying to fill a sack with the supplies we needed, but I couldn’t with Hannah holding my hand. I told her to hold onto my skirt, instead.”

  “Then what?”

  Images flashed through her mind. Her heart began to pound. “I was looking for a tin of molasses, but it was hard to move around with so many people crowding the aisles. Then I saw it on a high shelf. I reached up to get it and . . . ” Her voice faltered. She realized she was twisting her hands together in her lap and forced herself to stop.

  “And what?” he prodded.

  “S-Someone bumped me. I dropped the sack and cans rolled across the floor. When I bent to pick them up, I saw . . . ” Her chest tightened. Tears clogged her throat.

  “Saw what, Mrs. Ellis?”

  Words burst out of her. “That Hannah was gone—I don’t even know when. I never even felt her let go of my skirt.” Deflated by her outburst, she sagged, tears spilling in hot streaks down her cheeks. “How could I not have known? How could I have just let her slip away?”

  A big hand closed over hers, stopped the frantic twisting of her fingers. It felt warm and solid, a lifeline amid the tempest in her mind. “It wasn’t your fault, Mrs. Ellis. Kids wander. Don’t blame yourself for that.”

  His kindness undid her, broke through the carefully constructed wall that held the anguish at bay. Gasping, she bent over, her fingers digging in to the hand that held hers, a part of her astonished by her outburst, but another part relieved to surrender to the grief she’d locked inside for so long.

  ***

  Daniel stood frozen, her tears burning like hot brands on the cold skin of his hand. Each muffled sob was a kick to his chest. “Lacy,” he murmured, not sure what to do or say. The rawness of her pain awakened his own and triggered a rush of memories that brought an ache to his throat. “Please. Don’t cry.”

  She began to rock.

  His fingers still gripping hers, he hunkered beside her and rested his free hand on her bowed back. “I’ll find her, Lacy. I’ll find Hannah and bring her back to you. I swear it.”

  She lifted her head. She looked shattered, her face a grimace of despair, her eyes savage in their pain. “How, Daniel?”

  He had never expected to hear his name on her lips. The sound of it made his heart soar. “I’ll find a way.”

  “But if she’s dead . . . ”

  “She’s not.”

  “What are you doing, Hobart?” a voice barked.

  Looking over his shoulder, Daniel saw Tom Jackson stomping toward them.

  “Get your hands off my sister!”

  Reluctantly, Daniel did. Rising, he turned to face the approaching man, ready to put himself between brother and sister if necessary. This suffering woman didn’t need any more distress right now.

  Swiping the tears away, Lacy straightened and looked wearily up at her brother. “It’s not what you think, Tom.”

  “Oh, no? You—crying like you never do—and him with his hands all over you? What the hell am I supposed to think?”

  Knowing this wasn’t the time for a confrontation, Daniel worked to keep his tone mild. “Your sister says you want to leave for New Hope tomorrow. If you hear what I have to say, you might change your mind.”

  ***

  “A cat?” Jackson threw his hands up in disbelief. “You’re basing all this on a cat?”

  “Hush, Tom. Let him finish.”

  The sun had gone down, and the cold had driven the three of them back to the fire. Jackson had built it up to a crackling blaze, and now, bundled in coats and scarves, they huddled upwind of the smoke, Lacy Ellis sharing a log with her brother, Daniel sitting on a rock on her other side.

  He was still rattled by that scene earlier at the creek. It tangled his thinking, made him wonder if his drive to continue the search for Hannah was based on a true conviction that she was still alive, or a desire to keep her mother beside him a little longer. He was smitten, for sure. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

  “Go on, Daniel. Finish what you were saying.”

  If her brother noticed Lacy’s use of Daniel’s given name, he made no comment. Daniel was relieved. The situation was awkward enough as it was.

  Forcing his errant thoughts away from the woman beside him, Daniel picked up where he’d left off. “We know your daughter likes cats. And we know there was a cat in the store—a cat the proprietor said spends most of its time hunting frogs at the creek, the same creek where all the pilgrims’ wagons were parked.”

  “Ours, too,” Tom Jackson reminded him.

  “Did your wagon look much different from the others?”

  “Not particularly.” As he spoke, Jackson absently reached down to scratch Roscoe’s ear, who had become his new best friend ever since they had started sharing supper plates. “There were a couple of big Conestogas from Pennsylvania, but most were canvas-topped farm wagons like ours.”

  “And that morning you and Harvey were putting on the new wheel?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Could you see the store from where your wagon was parked?”

  Jackson looked at his sister and shrugged.

  “Not well,” Lacy answered. “And anyway, the wheel they were repairing was on the far side of the wagon.”

  Daniel nodded as his idea began to take shape. “So you wouldn’t have seen Hannah if she had left the store and followed the cat to the creek where the wagons were lined up?”

  “Well . . . no. Probably not.”

  “Oh, God.” Lacy pressed a hand to he
r throat. “Do think that’s what happened, Daniel? That she went to the creek and fell in and—”

  “No,” he cut in sharply. “I don’t believe that. Nor should you.”

  “She couldn’t have fallen in,” her brother protested. “We checked the creek. Up and down. Besides, the water was shallow enough that we would have seen her if . . . ” His voice trailed off. “We would have seen her,” he finished lamely.

  “If she didn’t fall in the creek,” Lacy said, “what do you think happened?”

  Daniel went through it in his mind. It was only a hunch. But there was some logic to it, and it all fit neatly together. He looked at the anxious faces turned toward him and hoped he wasn’t setting them up for another bitter disappointment.

  “I think when Hannah got separated from you in the store,” he began, “she wandered outside. Maybe she saw the cat and followed it to the creek, or went there looking for it. Either way, after a while, she probably got tired and cold, and seeing what she thought was the right wagon, she climbed in and went to sleep.”

  They looked at him in silence, then Jackson shook his head. “People searched all along the creek. Called her name. She would have heard.”

  “She’s a light sleeper then?”

  “Just the opposite,” Lacy answered. “Once she fell asleep, you could pick her up without even waking her. You often remarked on it, remember, Tom?”

  “But we checked the wagons. We would have seen her.”

  “Even curled up under a blanket?” Lacy’s voice rose on a wobble. “What if it’s true, Tom? What if some other people have her and she’s waiting for us to come get her, just like Daniel said?”

  “I don’t know, Sis. Seems far-fetched to me.” Jackson tossed a small branch onto the fire, then stared thoughtfully into the flames. “But for the sake of argument,” he said after a moment, “let’s say Hobart is right and Hannah fell asleep in a stranger’s wagon. Wouldn’t whoever owned it notice her and say something?”

  “You said a storm was coming,” Daniel reminded him. “Maybe they left in a hurry without even knowing she was back there.”

  “Maybe. But eventually they would have stopped or she would have woken up. Why didn’t they bring her back then?”

  “They might have thought she was with one of the other wagons heading west, like they were,” Daniel offered. “Maybe they planned to hand her over to her parents when they reached the fort.”

  “How?” Lacy looked from one to the other, her beautiful eyes awash with tears again. “How would they have known who her parents were? Hannah couldn’t have told them. She doesn’t speak, remember?”

  Yet she spoke to me. But Daniel had no reasonable explanation of how that happened, or why she would appear to him and not her family, so he kept that thought to himself. These two were barely listening to him now. No use arousing more doubts about his sanity.

  The fire sizzled and hissed, the glowing bed of coals pulsing like a beating heart. Over on the picket line, a horse snorted and stomped. Merlin, probably, trying to kick his way out of the hobbles. Farther off, in the direction of the cantina, an out-of-tune piano plinked a sad tune.

  Defeat weighted the chill air.

  Tom sighed, his discouragement evident in the sag of his shoulders.

  Daniel understood his frustration. They might want to believe him, but there were too many missing pieces. Too many questions unanswered. And too many disappointments in the past.

  He was disheartened, too. Doubts pricked at him, slowly chipping away at his resolve. Even so, nothing thus far had changed his sure belief that Hannah Ellis was alive somewhere and waiting for someone—for him—to come get her.

  “Well.” Rising, he stretched muscles stiffened from sitting in the cold too long, then looked up into the sky. Not a star shone. The moon was just a faint glow behind a thick layer of clouds, and the air tasted like snow. “Guess tomorrow I’ll go up to the fort. Ask around. See if anyone remembers a wagon coming through with a little blonde girl who wouldn’t talk.”

  Lacy looked up at him. Firelight danced across her features, emphasizing the weary smudges beneath her eyes, the tense set of her mouth. Yet she looked as beautiful to him as any woman ever had. “You still believe she’s alive, Daniel?”

  Daniel. Hearing the way she said his name in her gentle voice and seeing the hopeful trust in her face, made Daniel almost desperate to touch her, to smooth the worry from her brow and bring the light back into her fine eyes. Instead, he jammed his cold hands into his pockets and forced a smile. “I do.”

  “Then I’m going with you.”

  Tom let go another long sigh. “We’d best leave early then. It’s a long ride.”

  ***

  The next afternoon, they were five miles short of the fort when the storm hit. Within minutes, wind was howling out of the west, driving snow into their faces, and visibility had dropped to less than twenty feet. The horses grew fractious, slowing to find their footing and tucking their heads against the chilling blast. Squinting against the sting of icy pellets, Daniel studied Lacy, who rode ahead of him. She could barely stay upright, but hunched over the pommel, both hands clutching the horn for balance. Shivers ran down her bowed back.

  “Jackson!” he called, moving up beside her, ready to catch her if she started to slide.

  Jackson turned and shouted something. But between the noise of the wind and his bad hearing, Daniel couldn’t make it out. “We have to stop!” he yelled and pointed at Lacy.

  Jackson nodded and angled toward several large boulders beside a stand of firs. Three of the giant stones were clustered together so that they formed a three-sided windbreak with a narrow space in between. After helping Lacy dismount, Daniel sent her and Roscoe to wait between the boulders and out of the wind while he and her brother set up a shelter.

  Jackson untied the saddlebags and emergency supplies. Tossing several lengths of rope and the canvas to Daniel, he shouted, “Tie that over the tops of the boulders. I’ll picket the horses over there.” He pointed toward a small stand of wide-limbed spruces that would offer at least partial protection from the wind.

  Daniel nodded and set to work. By the time Jackson returned with an armful of firewood, the canvas was secure and he had a small fire ring waiting at the entrance of the makeshift shelter. While Jackson jammed fir boughs into the gaps between the boulders and Lacy cleared the area under the canopy of snow and rocks and sticks, Daniel started a fire and cooked supper.

  It wasn’t much. Leftover hardtack, a can of beans cooked with salt pork and onion, and dried apricots he softened in boiling water. When he saw that Lacy was still shivering, he gathered more snow and boiled the last of his jerky to make a broth in one of the mugs. “Be careful,” he said, holding it out. “It’s hot.”

  She flashed him a weary smile as she cupped the warm metal in her gloved hands. “Thank you.”

  They ate in silence, serenaded by the wind and the sizzle of snowflakes hitting the coals. But deeper under the canopy they stayed dry and relatively warm. Even Roscoe stopped shivering.

  After wiping out his dirty plate with snow, Daniel left the others to figure out how they would all fit in that tiny space under the canopy, and went to check on the horses. They were huddled together under the trees, butts turned toward the wind. He fed each of them a measure of grain out of his hat and checked that the picket line was tied securely. Then, forgoing the hobbles, he told Merlin to behave, and went back to the shelter, gathering firewood along the way.

  Jackson was waiting at the entrance. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to sleep out here?”

  Daniel dumped the wood, then straightened and looked at him.

  “Thought not.” Jackson glanced over his shoulder at the bundled form in the shadows, then turned back to Daniel with his usual scowl. “All right. You can sleep inside, Hobart, but if I catch your hands on my sister—”

  “For crissakes.”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

  “S
he complaining?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then butt out.”

  To keep himself from hitting the idiot, Daniel knelt and tossed sticks onto the flames. “I’m not a fool, you know,” he said once he’d gotten his temper in hand. “Your sister’s a beautiful woman, and I’m . . . well, with this face I could be Frankenstein’s twin brother. I know she would never—”

  “Frank who?”

  Daniel looked up. “Frankenstein. A sewn-together monster in a book. Don’t you read?”

  “Not unless I have to. Lacy’s the reader. But if you’re talking about your scars, you’re wrong if you think that would matter to her. Lacy’s not like that.” He started to say something more when a noise from inside the shelter brought his head around. He listened for a moment, then sighed. “Hell.”

  “What’s wrong?” Daniel rose and peered in the shadows. He could barely make out the blanketed lump that was probably Lacy and the hound curled up against her. The noise came again. Cocking his good ear, he tried to make it out. High-pitched. Female. Panicky. “Is that your sister?”

  “It’s not for you to worry about,” Jackson said, brusquely.

  “Like hell.” Daniel started to shove past him.

  Jackson grabbed his arm. “There’s nothing you can do, Hobart. It’s just a dream. She’ll stop soon.”

  “Stop what? What’s she doing?”

  Daniel thought he wouldn’t answer.

  Then, in a weary voice, Jackson said, “She’s calling for Hannah.”

  They slept mashed between the stones, shoulder to shoulder, lined up like cordwood. Jackson, his sister, Roscoe, then Daniel. It was one of the longest nights of Daniel’s life. Not because of the storm, or the flap of the canvas over their heads, or Tom Jackson’s snoring, or Roscoe’s stink. Not even because of the woman sleeping on the other side of the hound. It was because his mind wouldn’t stop circling around a single astounding thought: If Tom Jackson was right, and his scars didn’t matter to his sister . . . well, that changed everything.

  ***

  Lacy rose out of her night terror to the murmur of deep voices and a hand stroking her back. Remnants of her dream swirled through her mind, but she couldn’t make sense of it. Something about Hannah, and Daniel Hobart, and a dead cat trapped in a frozen creek.