Colleen wrapped her finger around the trigger and frowned. If she were to shoot this man, every lawman for miles around would be here, and all of this boy’s relatives as well. She knew he was part of the families with the vendetta. “Please leave!” she barked.
When he leapt towards her she squeezed the trigger and fell back from the recoil.
“Son of a bitch!” Lem struggled back as the bullet grazed his shoulder and he lunged at her again.
Colleen squeezed the trigger yet again, and her bullet tore into Lem’s upper arm.
“The next shot goes through your heart!” Colleen stood up and held the big gun with both hands, training the barrel on the man’s chest.
Lem McHerlong stumbled towards the door, swearing under his breath.
“Leave!” Colleen screamed.
Mark awoke to what sounded like the crack of a gunshot and sat upright suddenly.
He wondered if he were only dreaming until the second shot rang out. He jumped to his feet certain that the sound came from the house. He ran across the hard packed floor and pulled open the heavy door.
As he leapt outside he stopped, briefly. He had not been out in the open for weeks and he hurried to the side of the barn. If he were seen by whoever had fired the gun he would be an easy target in the open barnyard. He ran along the outer walls of the barn and sprinted across the yard to the house and flung himself up against the building, panting hard. He had not moved so quickly in too long a time and he could feel it in every muscle in his body.
As he stood, pressed against the outer wall of the house, he saw Lem McHerlong, staggering away from the house, towards the woodland.
Mark ran to the open doorway of the house and as he stepped up the wood of the doorjamb exploded from Colleen’s next shot.
Mark fell to the ground outside of the house.
“Stop shooting!” he called out.
“Mark?” Colleen let her arm fall to her side and rushed to him.
“Are you alright?” she whispered.
“I think so,” Mark scowled and pulled himself upright.
“Hush, you’ll wake my father. I think that hill man is gone, there.” Colleen pointed the gun in the direction of the woods.
“Give me that,” Mark took the revolver from the girl and tried to lead her into the house.
“No. My father!” she protested.
“It’s time, Colleen.” Mark figured that as soon as her father had heard the gunshots it had all begun to unravel.
He took Colleen’s arm and led her into the tiny house.
The girl pulled her arm free angrily. “Father?” she called out with her jaw set firmly. The man had not moved.
Colleen ran to the side of the bed and stopped suddenly. Her hand flew to her face and she wailed loudly, falling to her knees beside the bed. “No!”
Mark picked up the lantern and crossed the room. The man was clearly dead. He showed no signs of trauma, and Mark gently pulled back the threadbare blanket.
Shane Muldoon lay in his worn nightclothes and he gripped his gown over his chest.
“He did this to him!” Colleen spat and ran to the door crying and consumed with anger.
“I don’t think so.” Mark went to her.
“He killed my father!” Colleen looked up at him, her face red with rage.
“No, Colleen. I think your father may have had a bad heart. I don’t think Lem killed him.”
Colleen began to sob uncontrollably and Mark pulled her to his chest.
He looked around as he listened to her heartbreaking cries. The room was freezing. The stove seemed to give off some warmth though it was extremely small. But it certainly was not big enough to heat even the small space. There were two rickety cots on one end of the room and no running water inside that he could make out, not even a pump of any kind.
The dirt floor was swept clean, the one window boarded closed to keep out the weather. It became obvious that the conditions in the house were not much better than in the barn.
Colleen went to her father’s side and continued to weep pathetically and Mark walked slowly around the room. Beside the stove were a few slivers of timber and he opened the stove door and tossed in the wood.
“No, no.” Colleen hurried to him. “If you burn that there’ll be none for tomorrow.”
“It’s okay,” he assured her.
Colleen looked up at him, her eyes red and filled with pain. Mark put his arm around her shoulder and continued to survey the room. He saw three potatoes in a bowl on the roughhewn table in the center of the room and a few loaves of bread, but it was clear there was barely any food in the house. Now he understood why he never saw her eat.
“Colleen,” he said, looking down at her and lifting her chin with his fingertip. “What have you eaten today?”
The young woman frowned. “I’ll eat when I’m hungry.” She looked away from him angrily.
It occurred to him that there was more than her fear of her father that was keeping Colleen from bringing him to the house. He looked down at the girl and it was clear she was extremely embarrassed.
He led her to the one chair in the house and indicated that she sit down.
Colleen plunked into the chair and buried her face in her hands.
Mark tore open one of the loaves of bread and handed her a piece. “Don’t argue with me. Eat this.”
Colleen glared at him and took the bread angrily.
“Stop being stubborn,” he scolded.
Colleen bit into the bread and sighed. Her father had often told her to curb her willfulness in a similar tone and she took a bite reluctantly.
Mark could see by the way she chewed the bread that she had to be starving.
“I’m sorry, Colleen. I’m sorry about your father.”
“You’re right,” she furrowed her brow. “His heart was very bad. I was going to take over everything right after the holidays. I was going to make all of the deliveries myself, just a little while longer,” she sighed. “If he were alive a little longer, everything would have gotten better. I would have gotten more customers.”
“That doesn’t matter now,” Mark’s mind raced. He doubted that Lem would tell anyone the girl had shot him, but he likely would return. With Colleen’s father dead he could see more than ever now that he had to take the girl away, home to Stavewood, with him.
When she had eaten a full loaf of bread and cried herself into exhaustion, Mark led her to the empty cot and covered her gently, kneeling on the floor beside her until she drifted off. Then he sat in the chair in the center of the room and formulated his plan.
Chapter Forty-Three
Bernadette Shofield stood outside of the variety store, clutching the newspaper in her hand. The snow fell onto her woolen cape and she could feel the cold through her laced boots. She walked home, as if in a trance, stopping once to unfold the paper and read the obituary once again.
Bernadette kept to herself most of the time now. Jude had made her so many promises, but had left her with nothing but her unborn child and shame. At one time she had Mark to talk to, and Jude to buy her pretty things, but all the time what she had really wanted was Sam Evens. Sam was the one who made her heart skip a beat and who set her imagination soaring. She tried so hard to get his attention, but it never seemed to work. She began to date Mark because she thought Sam might see her as being more worthwhile and not just a plain simple girl from school.
Now Bernadette understood that Jude Thomas had only used her to hurt the Elgerson family. She knew he never really loved her. And Mark probably hated her now, since she had told everyone he was the father of her child. Both her and Mark knew all along that it was impossible.
Those realizations left her feeling lonely and depressed. But what broke her heart were the plain black and white lines in the Billington Bugle, the simply printed words that said that Sam Evens was dead. They said he had died in Missouri where she knew he had gone with Mark. They said his body was returned home. They said he had been buried
.
Bernadette changed direction and crossed the street to the station and waited for the next train to Elgerson Mills. If Sam had died while he and Mark were on their trip, Mark would be home now and he could tell her what happened. Maybe the newspaper was wrong, somehow, and her Sam was still alive.
She had been waiting for his return. She had decided that when he came home she would tell him all the things she had felt all along. She would tell him that he was the one she really loved and that she needed him now more than ever. Bernadette was certain he would understand how she felt and he’d want to be with her. He’d even want to be a father to her baby and she wouldn’t have to live in shame any more.
If he was alive and he just came home, she was certain it would all work out. The paper just had to be wrong.
The snow drifted down around her as she left the train and thought of Sam’s pleasant face and she smiled.
Bernadette stepped from the platform and stood looking up at the mill. She had not returned since that day, the day her lies were all revealed. Now she was back sewing at the dressmaker’s and waiting for her baby to be born. When that happened she would make her final decision. If Sam was alive she might not have to consider the orphanage at all.
Bernadette squared her shoulders and climbed the stairs to the mill offices.
Roland looked up from where he stood behind the desk and saw Bernadette standing in the doorway, her cape covered in snow.
Seeing the look of surprise on the foreman’s face, Bernadette took a deep breath and forced a stiff smile.
“Hello, Mr. Vancouver. I would like to speak to Mark if I could.” Bernadette was not sure why, but she found herself choking back tears.
Roland’s face darkened and he studied the girl’s face. “Mark is not here, Bernadette.”
“Is he at the house?”
“No.” Roland pointed to the chair and walked across the office, closing the door.
Bernadette sat down slowly and pulled out the newspaper, spreading it open on the desk. “I saw this and…” Her voice trailed off.
Roland read the obituary and handed her back the paper. “We don’t know where Mark is. They found Sam’s body, but we haven’t found Mark yet.”
“He’s dead too?” Bernadette sat up in shock.
“We don’t know.” Roland tried to be kind to the girl.
“But, he went away because of me, they both did!” Bernadette gasped. She could feel the room closing in around her and she felt faint.
Roland knelt down beside her and patted her cheek until her eyes fluttered open.
“Thank you Mr. Vancouver. I’m sorry I got so upset before.” Bernadette sat beside the man in the wagon as he drove her home.
“When is your baby due?” he asked boldly.
“In the spring,” Bernadette looked down at her hands.
“My wife is expecting about the same time.” He nodded to her.
“Mr. Vancouver, can I ask you a question?”
Roland faced her frankly.
“Have you ever been to the orphanage in Billington?”
“Yes,” he replied and furrowed his brow.
“I think maybe my baby would be best off there. They said the new babies get adopted sometimes.” Bernadette sighed.
Roland pulled the wagon to a stop in front of the girl’s home and walked around the wagon to help her to the ground.
Bernadette nodded and hurried inside.
Roland Vancouver climbed back into the wagon and sat silently, shaking his head.
Chapter Forty-Four
Rebecca regained her strength slowly, the warmth of Timothy beside her every night and his loving arms around her during the day.
He had vowed in the beginning he would do anything to make her happy and he devoted himself to the task, showering her in gifts and attention, waiting on her when she was too tired to do anything on her own and taking her for brief carriage rides on sunny days.
Emma and Roland took Ottland and Émigré home and began to think about the arrival of their own child.
“Bernadette came into the mill today.” Roland sat at the dinner table, his son dropping bits of food to the dog at his side.
“Bernadette?” Emma set a tureen of stew on the table and sat down herself, looking at the man seriously.
“She saw the obituary for Sam in the Billington paper and she came looking for Mark. I explained what I could.”
Emma sighed and ladled out the meal.
“She’s thinking of putting her baby in the orphanage.”
Emma looked up at Roland’s face with worry. “No!”
“It sounds that way. Maybe she thought Mark might help her out. I don’t know.”
Emma stirred Ottland’s supper in the porringer so that it would cool and watched his tiny face as he sat expectantly awaiting his food. She looked up to her husband and then back to the child, noticing how similar they were.
“It seems so unfair,” Emma remarked. “Rebecca and Timothy’s hearts broken over losing a child they wanted and at the same time Bernadette Shofield is giving hers away.”
“Her child is Jude’s as well,” Roland reminded.
“I know,” Emma sighed. “Should that matter to a baby?”
Roland recalled his own childhood without a father, remembering his mother’s struggles to raise him alone. Over the years he had imagined his father in a hundred different ways. Sometimes he saw him as a kind man who loved him, but life had somehow kept him away all those years. Other times he would envision a selfish man who didn’t care if he had a son who missed him. He shuddered to think of a father like Jude Thomas. “Any family who was to take that child would face the risk that Jude would come looking for him in time. Emma, I wouldn’t even want to imagine what would happen if he ever came back to find any of us had a child of his. Not just to us, but to the child as well.”
“I know,” Emma had imagined the ramifications herself.
“Roland,” she said softly and he looked up to her, still captivated by the way she said his name. “I love you.” Emma smiled at him warmly and then turned and kissed her son softly on the forehead.
Ottland grinned and smiled. “Dada!” he babbled and Roland shook his head.
Chapter Forty-Five
The Muldoon house remained bitterly cold through the night, although Mark fed the stove every bit of wood he could find. He ventured out into the darkness and brought back several armfuls of firewood and then slipped out to the barns to do the milking before daylight.
In the yawning darkness within the stalls he set down the battered lantern and shook his head at the shame of it all. The pitiful cows produced little milk, which did not surprise him, judging by their gaunt appearance. Their pelvic bones protruded from their hips pointedly, their pathetic faces scrawny and miserable. Although he was a stranger to them, they did not fuss over his milking. He expected that it was because they lacked the energy to put up a fight. When he finished he turned them out into the corral, but no grass remained there. He took what milk he did get back to the house. He knew that Colleen and her father would not be delivering this one day of the year, and he thought they’d drink what they could of the milk and find some way to carry as much as they could for food. Mark Elgerson was leaving Barite, with Colleen beside him as quickly as possible.
He visited the tiny coop, where he gathered four eggs, the shells thin and light. He examined the chickens. They were not much better and they might not be very good eating, but he planned to slaughter them and ask Colleen to cook them up for their trip.
When Mark returned to the house he boiled the eggs and woke Colleen gently.
She rubbed her eyes in exhaustion and sat on the edge of the cot despondently, looking at the covered body of her father in the corner.
“Come eat something.” Mark gestured to the chair.
Colleen pulled the cot to the table, as she always did to sit, and peered at the eggs. “Are they all from today?”
“Yes and the cows are m
ilked. I wanted to do it before daylight.”
“But you cooked them all? I like to save a few if I can.” Colleen frowned.
“We are saving nothing. Eat up. You’re going to need your strength.”
Colleen peered up at him through puffy eyes. “There are no deliveries today. It’s Christmas.”
“I know. Merry Christmas, by the way. We’re going to spend the day getting ready. We are leaving in the morning.”
“Leaving?” Colleen sat up in confusion.
“I have a plan. I need to know if there is any money. Not just your savings, but all of it, even money you might have used for change for customers. Does anyone owe you anything? We will need it all.”
Colleen looked hungrily at the eggs and walked over to a dark corner in the tiny house. She pulled away a board set into the dirt floor and extracted a rusty tin can.
“Here.” She handed it to him. “I’ll make more without him I guess anyway.” She slumped onto the cot and ate one egg.
Mark pried open the can and poured the contents out on the table. There was not much there, but it would do, he figured. They would need to bring any food they could, there would not be enough to buy anything along the route, but if they could get tickets to get at least close to home they might make it.
“Colleen, look at me.” He sat in the chair across from her and ate quickly. “You need to listen to me now. Go wash your face and wake up and then we need to talk.”
The young woman stood up and stumbled out the door, quickly returning with her face bright from the icy washing and sat before him dully.
“We are leaving and you are going with me,” he began.
“But, you don’t need to take…” she interrupted.
“Just listen. You cannot stay here and I will not leave you. You are coming home to Stavewood with me and if I have my way about it you’re going to stay there with me and become my wife.”
“Wife?” she sat up. “You want to marry me?”
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