Silas turned back and looked down in his arms at Sarah with her eyes open, smiling up at him. He boosted her around so she sat, looking forward, while he minded his horse. The vast canyon where Belle had held her steers before the drive was before them. There was still a long climb down to get below the snow line and another ten-mile ride to get to the cabin, but they were home. Silas felt a weight lift off his back.
After the first dangerously steep yards off the peak, the trail widened. In the heavily falling snow, Silas was able to ride back and untie the horses. He unhitched them from Belle’s saddle and from each other. “Hyah!” he yelled and slapped the closest horse on the rump. These critters were almost asleep, too. Just like the people traveling with them. First they walked, speeding up on the wider trail. They passed Belle and Emma. Then they picked up speed, trotting at first, then, when Silas saw them pass the snow-clad ground far below and gain more solid footing, they broke into a gallop. They charged down the mountain. He knew they’d run until they got to the cabin. There was no longer a need to watch them.
He looked down at Sarah in his arms and chucked one gloved hand under her chin. “We made it home, Sarie.”
She smiled and nodded then lay her head back against his chest and went back to sleep.
He rode on up to Belle’s side. “We’re almost below the storm. I don’t have it in me to ride until we get home. I’ll find a place and we’ll camp one more night on the trail.”
Belle nodded.
Sarah stirred slightly and murmured, “‘K, Pa.”
Silas dropped a quick kiss on her curly red head and hugged her close as the horse dropped down out of the rugged peak.
Finally, the snow was behind them.
Belle rode up beside him. “I know where to camp.”
“Lead on, darlin’.”
Belle smiled at him and urged her mount ahead. Belle didn’t go much farther. She picked a well-sheltered spot with an icy cold spring trickling down out of a crack in the mountain.
Silas used the last energy he possessed to get the horses picketed for fear they’d head for home with the other horses. Silas had no interest in taking a ten-mile hike in the morning. Then he built up a roaring fire to make the bitterly cold night bearable.
Belle sat feeding Betsy, both of them mostly asleep, while he did everything to prepare the camp, including finding the last of the beef jerky and urging them to eat it and drink some water.
He settled Emma and Sarah next to each other and covered them with a blanket to share their body heat. He found Belle asleep with a dozing Betsy in her arms. He woke her enough to urge her into the nest of warmth with her girls, resenting that he didn’t have the right to share that warmth.
He intended to fix that—and soon.
Belle stirred awake as Silas covered her, and struggled to sit up. In a voice rusty with sleep, she said, “Silas, we’re home. We made it. Thanks to you.”
“We’re going to be married, Belle, just as soon as I can figure out how to get us to a preacher.”
“But Silas—”
“Go to sleep. Just sleep. Tomorrow we’ll be home, and we’ll figure everything out then.” He stalked away from her, knowing he was already her husband in his heart. But they needed the vows to be said before God.
Belle murmured, “Home.” From across the camp he heard her utter, “I love you.”
Silas lay awake for several minutes trying to believe the other lower pass, nearer Belle’s cabin, would still be open and he could risk taking her to Divide for a wedding. He knew, unless it was completely impossible, he was going to try first thing tomorrow, because he knew he had reached the day when he could no longer be near Belle Tanner and not be her husband.
Rather than having even the slightest twinge of regret at the loss of his freedom, he fell asleep excited about the future and eager to get on with it.
The wind moaned and howled, and the snow fell in the high altitudes, but they were safe. Silas and his girls had made it home.
God, help me get out of here tomorrow. Help me find a way to marry this woman now.
CHAPTER 21
Belle slept late the next morning.
The sun was already brightening the horizon in the east when her eyes flickered open. The first sight she saw was Silas, crouching by the fire, lifting a coffeepot.
They’d made it. This was her valley.
“Silas, we’re home.”
He looked up and smiled. His face was wind burned, his hair knotted and flattened by his Stetson, though he wasn’t wearing it now. He had a week’s worth of stubble on his face because he hadn’t shaved since the day Lindsay had gotten married.
And he was the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen.
“We made it, didn’t we, darlin’?” A dark look in his eyes reminded her of warm words she’d dreamed in the night.
“Because of you.” She pressed against the ground to sit up, wondering what kind of mess she must be. It was a wonder the man didn’t turn tail and run. She smiled and wondered when the last time was she’d cared about her appearance.
“Because of all of us.” His eyes went past Belle’s shoulders.
Nodding, she glanced to see all three of her girls, still fast asleep. And with the sun well up in the sky. Shameful. “A pretty tough bunch, huh?” She looked back at him and smiled.
He was wonderful and brave and strong. He was everything a man should be.
And she might have dreamed it, but she thought the man had asked her to marry him last night. She wondered if he’d ask again just so she could be sure. Lowering the coffeepot back onto the fire, their eyes held. “So are you going to quit wasting the day away and get going?” Belle challenged.
A smile spread wider. “So we can get married?”
Silas hadn’t spent much time smiling on this cattle drive. All things considered, that was understandable. Belle hadn’t done much of it herself. So now she looked at his smiling face and noticed for the first time that he had a dimple. A single dimple on the left side that for some reason fascinated her. Then she shook off her bemused state as she thought of what he’d said. Belle sat all the way up. “Silas Harden, I’ve had a lot of proposals in my day.”
Silas said dryly, “I’ll bet that’s right.”
“And that is the worst one I’ve ever heard, bar none.”
“Is that so?” He stood and came straight for her.
Belle’s eyes widened. “Now, Silas. I haven’t said yes yet.”
Dropping to his knees, he leaned in and kissed her hard with his whiskery face, still grinning. Then staring straight into her eyes, he asked, “Don’t you think I oughta marry her, Emma?”
Belle thought that seemed like yet another strange proposal.
“I think you’re gonna hafta, Pa,” Emma said solemnly.
Belle looked over her shoulder and saw Sarah and Emma had joined the living. They were standing behind her, watching the man kiss the living daylights out of her. Even Betsy was awake and watching.
“We talked it over, Ma,” Sarah said earnestly. “We think you and Pa oughta get married. I mean, I know we didn’t want anymore husbands. Heaven knows up till now you’ve picked a useless lot. But we’re all fond of Pa and kind of used to calling him Pa, and we talked it over with Lindsay, and she’s for it. So we vote for you marryin’ him.”
“You talked it over with Lindsay?” How long ago? she wondered.
Emma said gravely, “It was unanimous.”
Betsy, perched in Sarah’s arms, waved wildly and bounced until Sarah almost dropped her. She yelled, “Papa! Papa!”
Sarah tilted her head in Betsy’s direction and nodded ruefully. “Completely unanimous.”
“Thanks.” Silas smiled at the girls. “I’m mighty proud to be your pa, too. And I’m glad to hear I’ve won the election. Majority rules.” Then he looked back at Belle. “You don’t even have to vote. I am their pa. You heard ’em, and that’s the way it is. Now, Ma, isn’t it high time you married their pa?”
“Silas, you’re not their…mmmph …”
When Silas quit kissing her into silence, he said, “And you hadn’t oughta carry on, kissin’ and such, in front of youngsters. Not with any man, but for sure not with a man you don’t plan to marry. So, it’s settled.”
“Can I say something?” Belle snapped.
Eyeing her mouth as if prepared to silence her again, Silas said warily, “Depends.”
Belle narrowed her eyes at him. “I had no intention of letting you get away without marryin’ me, Silas Harden.”
Then Silas laughed out loud and kissed the daylights out of her, and the girls jumped on his back, and pretty soon the whole family was within a gnat’s eyelash of rolling right off the mountainside.
When the jubilee was over, Silas poured coffee all around and doused the fire. Then he started saddling horses while the women gathered bedrolls. Then he herded them all toward the horses. “We’ve got to get back to the ranch and get to Divide before winter closes in. I’m not spendin’ the winter in the barn. And while we’re there, we can get some lumber to patch up that sad excuse for a cabin.”
“Silas,” Belle said uncertainly. His eyes dropped to her lips again, so she thought over what she had to say with some care. “The thing is, what if we get snowed away? I can’t risk leaving the herd, and I can’t drag these girls over that south pass when they’re so exhausted. But I dare not leave them, in case we don’t get back.”
Silas said shortly, “Just get in the saddle. We’ll be home in four hours…three and a half if we push hard. And we can talk about it then. But we’re going to be married if we have to ordain Emma and have her perform the ceremony.”
Sarah said pertly, “I want to perform the ceremony. I’m more religiouser than Emma.”
Emma slapped Sarah on the arm. “You’re not religiouser than me. Why, I’m the most Bible-believin’ person in this family by far. And I’m oldest.”
“You’re not oldest. Lindsay’s oldest.”
“Lindsay’s not oldest no more, ‘cuz Lindsay’s not here. In a family where the ma and pa ain’t married, it’s the oldest child’s job to do everything she can to fetch ’em both around to doing the right thing.”
Belle interrupted, “Emma, you shouldn’t say your ma and pa ain’t married.”
Emma said, “I know, I know. My ma and pa aren’t married. I knows grammar rightly enough.”
“No, it’s not the grammar. It’s saying Silas is your pa but I’m not married to him. That makes it sound like I’ve got a twelve-year-old child and have had …” Belle shut up before she dug herself in any deeper.
Emma went back to fighting with Sarah.
Silas dug a few forgotten, beat-up pieces of jerky out of one of the packs, picked the horse hair off of them, and gave them to Sarah and Emma.
The girls still bickered as the family started down the trail.
It occurred to Belle that the girls didn’t fight much. The good-natured sniping seemed childish to her. Her daughters had never had much chance to be children. Maybe with Silas to carry part of the load, her girls could have a little taste of being young before they found themselves married with adult responsibilities to shoulder.
Belle thought of Lindsay and had a wave of loneliness for her oldest child. Lindsay had been forced to grow up far too soon. But on the other hand, if ever a fifteen-year-old was mature enough for marriage, Lindsay was.
Belle breathed in and out evenly until any risk of sentimental tears passed. Th en she spurred her horse into a trot and passed Silas on the trail. As she went by him, she grinned. “A woman might think you’re not in that all-fired of a hurry to get married, the way you’re doggin’ it.”
He laughed. “Don’t you believe it, woman.” He urged his horse to a faster pace to keep up with her.
She set her horse to a ground-eating trot, and proving Silas didn’t know her range as well as he thought he did, they were home in two and a half hours.
Silas told all his girls to get in the cabin and go to sleep. He’d be back before nightfall with a preacher if he had to crawl a hundred miles on his hands and knees across bitter cold snow.
Belle said, “No, I’ll just go along. But I’ll have to take Betsy. She’ll need to eat.”
Silas dragged Belle out of hearing distance of the girls. “Here’s how it is, Belle. If we go together, there is a chance we won’t get back and the girls could spend the winter alone. They’d probably survive it because they’re good strong girls, but neither of us wants to test that. If we take the girls, there’s a chance the whole family won’t get back and the cattle won’t survive the winter, which wipes out your years of work, and I won’t let our marriage cost you so much.”
Then Silas lifted Belle onto her tiptoes. “If I don’t go, there is no way I can spend the winter here with you and not…not be…be with you as a husband. It would be better if I go alone, and if I can’t get back, at least the snow would preserve your honor. If I can get back, we’ll be married and I’ll hustle the preacher out of here the minute the ceremony is over. You can ride out to the low pass and meet me and the parson. Figuring a six-hour ride, I should be back about midafternoon. Me going alone is the only thing that makes sense.”
“But what if you get to the pass and can’t get out?” Belle asked worriedly. “I love you, and I don’t want you to risk your life trying to get us married.”
It was all Silas could do not to drag her into his arms and kiss her, but he just didn’t have the time. Instead, he tugged his hat low on his forehead. “I’ll be back before nightfall with a preacher. Be waiting at the pass so we can send the poor man straightaway back to Divide. If I don’t make it, I’ll be in here the minute the pass opens up in the spring. Whatever it takes, however long I have to wait, I’m marrying you.”
He gave her one hard kiss because he couldn’t resist; then he turned his back, grabbed up a horse, saddled it, and was running it at a full gallop before he was out of the ranch yard.
She’d had a lot of men eager to marry her. Dozens. Hundreds! But none more so than Silas Harden. And for a fact, she’d never been anywhere near so eager to marry one of them.
She shooed the girls into the house and started heating water for baths. One by one she dunked her girls in the water and scrubbed a month’s worth of trail dust off of them. By the time she was done, their nails were clean, their hair squeaked, and even the tips of their toes were shining. They all went to sleep with very little urging, even though it was the middle of the day.
Then Belle, knowing she had hours before the time came to leave for the south pass, rode out and inspected her herd. She rounded up the horses Silas had sent running ahead and herded them into the corral. She found the milk cow and roped her and coaxed her back to the barn so the animal would gentle down some before her baby came and she needed milking again. She found a goodly number of the chickens brooding in the barn. She moved the ones who weren’t nesting back to the chicken coop so she could be sure any eggs they laid were fresh. She found enough work to do to keep her busy all afternoon and into the next week, but finally she had to turn her back on it and take her own bath and get the girls moving, because she wanted them at the wedding.
She dressed all of them, including herself, in their prettiest dresses—which weren’t all that pretty, but it was all they had—and headed out. They were just starting the steep climb toward the snow line when she saw Silas coming down the hill with another man. A thrill of excitement made Belle shiver, and she tried to control the smile that kept breaking out on her face.
“You really love him, don’t ya, Ma?” Emma asked with hushed pleasure.
Belle watched him come, still over a mile away on the winding path. She knew the minute he spotted her, because his horse broke into a trot. It warmed her heart till she thought it might catch on fire. She said quietly, “I think I finally got it right, girls. I think I’ve found a husband to be proud of and a father for the lot of you to love.”
“I hope it’
s the other way around, Ma,” Sarah said. “I want him to be a husband for you to love and a father for us to be proud of.”
Belle laughed. “Maybe we can have it all.”
She saw Sarah nodding with quiet satisfaction, and at the same instant, all three of them, with Betsy on Emma’s back, started trotting forward.
The two parties met at an unlikely spot on the trail. Th ere wasn’t a spot wide enough for them to dismount and stand before the preacher. And the preacher had a disgruntled, kidnapped look to him. The horses looked exhausted, and there was snow clinging to the preacher’s boots.
“It’s snowing in the highlands. Let’s make this quick so the man can get back through the pass,” Silas said.
It might not have been the shortest wedding ceremony on record, but that’s only because no one kept records of such things. It had to be in contention.
The preacher was still pulling his horse to a stop when he said, “Silas Harden, do you take this woman to be your lawful-wedded wife?”
Silas grinned as he dragged his Stetson off his head, “Well, why else did I drag you all the way up here?”
“Just answer, ‘I do.’” The preacher glared at him in a way that didn’t strike Belle as all that holy.
“I do.”
“And do you, Belle Tanner, take this man to be your lawful-wedded husband?” The preacher wheeled his horse to face Belle who was just riding up and turning her horse so she was beside Silas. She’d heard the first question put to Silas, though, so it counted.
Before she could answer, Silas reached over and grabbed her hand. “Aren’t you gonna tell her to obey me? I think you oughta say it ‘cuz she’s a headstrong little thing.”
The preacher snapped at Belle, “Are you gonna obey him?” His horse danced sideways toward the edge of a fifty-foot drop-off at the unusually testy voice coming from the peaceful, God-loving man who sat on his back.
Belle leaned across her horse and subdued the fractious mount before they lost their parson. “Not likely, unless he orders me to do something I was gonna do anyway.”
The preacher looked at Silas. “I’ve known Belle for a while now. I could have told you that.”
Mary Connealy Page 50