by Regina Scott
“Cattan rechid lossin—Captain Richard Lawson!” Alice breathed. “Of course! He’s been trying to tell us that name ever since we found him. That’s why he wanted to talk to the Security Patrol privates—he saw their uniforms. His people must have told him how the soldiers dressed, or perhaps this Lawson left some clothing behind.”
“You said his name was Richard Lawson. Is he dead, too?” Elijah asked Lars.
Lars spoke to Dakota again.
A puzzled expression crossed over the boy’s face. He shrugged, then uttered another spate of Cheyenne to Lars.
“He doesn’t know,” Lars translated. “His aunt told him only the man’s name, and when Dakota heard that there were soldiers here guarding the borders of the territory, he ran away from the tribe to come and find his father.”
“So he wasn’t abandoned,” Alice said. It was a relief to hear, but what were they to do about that? Help him find his father, who hadn’t wanted him as a baby, or help him return to his home and his people?
Lars spoke to the boy again.
“No, he wasn’t thrown out of the band, but he says he always felt as if he wasn’t fully accepted because of his white blood. He wants to see if his father will let him stay with him now that he is almost grown to manhood.”
Alice’s heart ached for the boy. How hard it must have been, growing up a little different from the other boys in his village, abandoned by his own father, who’d apparently used his mother and then cast her aside. Her own childhood, in comparison, had been so full of love from both her parents.
“I could make inquiries of the army officers stationed along the border,” Elijah said. “Surely someone will know if Lawson is still in the territory. I suppose he must be given the chance to step up and accept responsibility for the boy.”
From his voice, Alice could tell Elijah didn’t think that was likely any more than she did.
“Please tell the boy I’ll go to the army officers at the border and inquire tomorrow,” Elijah said to Lars.
Dakota looked pleased when Lars relayed the news. And warily hopeful. Alice was all too afraid that anything Elijah was likely to find out would only crush that fragile hope. If Richard Lawson hadn’t wanted his infant mixed-blood son, why would he want him now? She felt fiercely protective of this child, and resentful of the man who’d apparently carelessly taken his pleasure and left when the situation became difficult.
More proof that men are not to be trusted.
Well, she shouldn’t make assumptions, she supposed. They would have to wait for that answer.
“We have another question,” she said to Lars. “I kept the boy last night, but the Gilberts have offered to take Dakota in, at least until his situation is made clear. Could you ask Dakota if that’s all right with him?”
She could see Cassie and Keith Gilbert hold their breaths as the question was put to the child through Lars, but they needn’t have. The boy’s mercurial smile lit his face.
“Dakota says ‘it is well,’” Lars reported. “He likes the Gilberts and is fond of Mrs. Gilbert’s cooking, too. He says he hopes there will be more fried chicken.”
Cassie Gilbert laughed. “You tell him, just as soon as Keith buys another at the butcher’s tent!” Both Gilberts looked happy enough to burst.
Alice was happy for the boy, of course, but she couldn’t help feeling wistful, too. Even for such a brief time, she had felt good taking care of someone besides herself.
As if he read her mind, Dakota came to her then, and placed his hand softly on her cheek. “Néá’eše, Alss.”
It was as clear a thank-you as she’d ever received. As she watched, her eyes stinging with tears, Dakota went to Elijah, too, laid a hand on his shoulder and said the same thing. Maybe independence wasn’t to be prized as much as she had thought.
Chapter Ten
“They look so happy,” Alice murmured later, as she cast a backward glance at the Gilberts and Dakota. Lars had already departed.
She looked a little melancholy, Elijah thought. Had Dakota filled a void in her life, even for that short period of time? This was a woman who should have children, and a husband, he thought, though he knew better than to say so. She’d already made her feelings clear on that score.
“The Lord is so good to us,” he said, determined to share the thankfulness that had welled up in him when he’d first spotted Lars and even more when their friend was able to break down the language barrier between themselves and Dakota. Perhaps it would distract her from her sadness. “Just think—He sent Lars along right when we needed him as a translator, and He provided the Gilberts to watch over the boy, which will be a godsend for Dakota as much as for Keith and Cassie.”
“Yes….” Alice murmured.
Her face was in profile to him as they walked along, but he could see her expression was still pensive. “‘All things work for good,’ it says in Romans, and we have to believe He will work out Dakota’s circumstances for good, too.”
“I do,” she said, a little too politely and lifelessly.
“There I go again, throwing Scripture verses at someone, just like a preacher.”
That made her lips curve upward. “You are a preacher.”
“Yes, but I try to avoid stepping over the line into sanctimoniousness.”
“You do avoid it,” she assured him. “Elijah, could I ride out with you to see the army officers tomorrow? Just for something to do,” she added. “Before Dakota came along, I’d planned to ride Cheyenne some more….”
The thought that she would be with him made him happy, even though he supposed her request might be motivated more from a sense of being at loose ends now that she wouldn’t be responsible for Dakota than a desire for his own company.
“Of course,” he said. “Tomorrow being Saturday, there’s no chapel service, so we can leave in the morning while it’s still cool.” It had grown steadily hotter as April wore on, so perhaps they could find out what they needed to know and return before the temperature climbed too high.
Her expression brightened somewhat. “I’ll make us breakfast before we go.”
*
Alice spent the rest of the day quietly. Before chapel this morning, she’d poured water over dried beans, and now she added vegetables she’d purchased at the greengrocer’s tent and set the pot to simmering over a low fire. Vegetable soup would make a nourishing light dinner—if she ever got hungry after the delicious noontime feast with the Gilberts. At the moment, it didn’t seem possible.
She had a lot to think about while the soup simmered. The past twenty-four hours had been eventful, to say the least—she and Elijah had found a starving Indian boy; fed and bathed him; found him a new, if temporary, home; and through an amazing combination of events, found out why he had come.
Elijah was right. The Lord had been good to them in sending Lars right when He did, so that they could leave Dakota with the Gilberts with a clear conscience, knowing Dakota would not feel rejected by the change. And through Lars’s translation, they now had direction as to where to seek information about Dakota’s father. She was fairly certain their inquiry would be fruitless. The U.S. Army was made up of thousands of soldiers—what was the likelihood that he’d still be in Oklahoma Territory and that any of those guarding the border would know Captain Richard Lawson? They could but try, she supposed, in the hopes of finding some answers for Dakota.
But if they weren’t able to find Lawson, or Lawson had no interest in the boy, were they honor bound to try to send word to Dakota’s band of Cheyenne, in case they wanted to take the boy back? Lars could take the message, she supposed, either before or after the Land Rush, for he would be able to explain in their own tongue what had happened. She did not like to think of family members—hadn’t Lars said that Dakota had been raised by an aunt?—worrying over the boy’s disappearance, fearing he was dead.
What Alice wasn’t so certain about were her feelings regarding Elijah. Yes, she’d indicated to him that her independence was her most p
rized possession. And he’d professed that he had felt called by God to remain celibate to serve Him. Neither one of them was looking to marry.
So if that was true, why was there such a definite pull between them? She couldn’t ignore it, any more than she could ignore the fact of gravity. After all, she’d invited herself along on his errand tomorrow like a shameless hussy! Now she regretted having done so, even if she could claim it was because of her interest in Dakota.
It made her protestations of craving independence pretty unconvincing, didn’t it? No one would believe she meant it, not when the preacher was single just as she was, and they spent so much time together. Yet she couldn’t seem to help herself. The request to accompany him had just tumbled out of her mouth seemingly by its own volition.
She should write a letter to her mother, Alice thought. That had always had a way of sorting out her thoughts when she’d been at Bellevue for her nurses’ training, and afterward, when she took on the daily challenge of being a nurse in the busy wards of the hospital.
She’d written her mother the evening she’d arrived in Boomer Town, reassuring her of her safety and describing the setup of the tent city and the variety of “homestead hopefuls,” as she had called them, of all ages and nationalities, who populated it. She’d mailed the letter from the temporary U.S. Post Office operating in—what else?—a tent.
This letter would be longer. She’d explain her decision to obtain a horse and describe the fine Appaloosa. She’d tell about her attendance at the daily chapel prayer meetings—which would please her mother, she knew.
Mary Margaret Hawthorne was a devout woman, despite the fact that her faith had been tested by the loss of her husband and the looming threat of the loss of the farm they’d worked together. She’d fretted about Alice’s safety when she’d been in New York City, training and then working as a nurse. Mary had been even more anxious, Alice knew, when Alice had announced her plan to gain land in Oklahoma. Not only did it mean such a long journey alone for her only child, there was the danger of the Land Rush itself.
She’d describe her medical rounds in Boomer Town, which doubtless would surprise her mother, since Alice had been adamant that she had left nursing behind the moment she’d left Bellevue for her father’s deathbed.
She’d describe the people she’d met in the camp, including the Thornton brothers, of course, and in particular, the eldest Thornton, the preacher—though she wouldn’t tell her mother how conflicted she was about Elijah. Alice didn’t want to give her mother a reason to think she might have found love at last when she hadn’t decided how she felt about him herself yet. Did she love him, or was she going to bury that feeling and stick to her original plan? She hoped the very act of writing the letter would help her sort those feelings out.
She’d spent a good hour writing all these things and was resharpening her pencil with a paring knife when she heard the soft sound of footsteps approaching her tent.
“Alice? Are you within?” a voice asked diffidently, a voice that was female and heavily accented.
“Yes, Katrine, come in,” she said, happy for the interruption.
The Danish girl ducked her head and entered. “I hope you’re not busy. I won’t stay if you are….”
“Of course not. I’m never too busy for a friend. What can I do for you?”
“I need nothing, thank you. Lars told me about the Indian boy you and Reverend Thornton found and all that happened with that.”
“Yes. It was most fortunate Lars happened along when he did.”
“The Gilberts are kind people. The boy will be blessed, whatever time he can pass with them. But I really came to invite you to supper with us. We will have venison steaks, now that Lars is back, but as soon as he eats, he will be at work salting the rest of the meat, tanning the hide and so forth long past dark. He will be like a man obsessed. I will have no one to talk to, so I thought if you came, we could make girl talk, ja? I am cutting out a new dress, and I want your o-pin-ion—” she pronounced the word very carefully “—about the trim for it.”
Alice laughed, glad that Katrine’s idea of “girl talk” didn’t seem to include a discussion of men, as it always had back at Bellevue when she was a probationer nurse and the other probationers could only chatter about the handsome doctors on the ward. “Yes, some girl talk would be very good.” No one at chapel had reported a need for nursing tonight, so she was happy to have something to fill her evening. “And I can contribute to the supper,” she said, and told Katrine about the soup.
“Ah, so that’s what I smelled simmering over your fire. Ja, that would be good.”
“I’ll just leave a note in case anyone comes looking for me,” Alice said, putting away her letter to finish later. She was actually glad of the reprieve—she’d examine her feelings for Elijah more closely another time.
*
“Halt!” cried a cavalry officer, holding up his gloved hand and setting his horse into a trot. He unsheathed his saber and held it aloft, then used it to point to the west at a line apparently only he could see. “No prospective settlers are allowed to go past this point, not till noon on the twenty-second.”
Elijah pulled up his reins and signaled for Alice to do the same. He thought the young soldier’s manner rather officious—surely it would’ve been sufficient to use his finger to point out the boundary, rather than the saber. But with the troops spread so thin along the border in the attempt to keep back the Sooners, he could understand that the soldiers’ tempers were getting a mite frayed.
“We weren’t desiring to, I assure you, Lieutenant,” Elijah assured the red-cheeked young officer, after taking note of his shoulder insignia. “I am Reverend Thornton, and this is Miss Hawthorne—” He gestured toward Alice, sitting her Appaloosa mare beside him.
The soldier touched the brim of his hat respectfully in Alice’s direction. “Lieutenant George Marsh.” His voice was brisk and no-nonsense, with a faint get-on-with-it edge.
“We were merely trying to locate a particular captain, known to be in Oklahoma—or at least he was. His name is Captain Richard Lawson.”
Marsh shrugged. “Don’t know him.” The soldier’s eyes were slits under the hand he held under his brim to shade them from the powerful sun. “That’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack, Reverend. Do you know how many troops are massed along the territory perimeter? Why, the Fifth Cavalry alone—”
“We understand the difficulty, Lieutenant,” Alice interrupted smoothly, and so sweetly that Elijah thought Lieutenant Marsh didn’t even realize he’d been interrupted. “But we have to start somewhere. Could you steer us to the officer in charge? He must have served some time in the army to be a ranking officer, am I right? He might know the man we’re seeking, and if he doesn’t, perhaps he could start an official inquiry?”
Bright spots of color had bloomed on the young officer’s cheeks while Alice spoke. Elijah guessed it had been a good while since Lieutenant Marsh had spent any time with a lady. He seemed to melt in the face of Alice Hawthorne’s smile. Elijah himself knew the feeling.
“Why are you looking for him, ma’am?” Marsh asked, visibly trying to keep that brisk, official tone, but failing miserably.
Elijah tensed. If she mentioned Dakota’s name or his mixed blood, and said the boy was Lawson’s son, they might be summarily dismissed. The cavalry had spent years battling Indians, and despite the fact that Oklahoma had once been given entirely to the Indians, many soldiers didn’t think very much of them.
“We’re searching for him on behalf of his son, Lieutenant, an eight-year-old boy.”
Elijah smothered a sigh of relief. Very wisely said, Alice.
Marsh was silent for a moment, studying them, then he nodded to a small frame building surrounded by a cluster of tents some hundred yards up the line. “My commanding officer’d be Major Bliss, ma’am. You can find him in that guard shack, yonder.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. We appreciate your help,” she said, smiling as if the
young officer had actually produced Captain Richard Lawson on the spot. Elijah could imagine her using that smile on crusty, temperamental surgeons with amazing results.
Marsh fingered his hat brim again and wheeled his horse around with an unnecessary flourish. “Good day, Reverend, ma’am. I hope you find him.”
They trotted their horses in the direction of the building. “Remind me to appoint you head of our future church fund-raising committee,” Elijah said, letting his admiration show in his voice, once they were out of earshot.
“My mother always said you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” Alice said with a wink.
Despite her success with the young lieutenant, Elijah realized Marsh was right. The chances of finding Captain Lawson with a simple inquiry at the border were abysmally small. Probably the best they could hope for was setting an inquiry in motion, if the commanding officer in the area could be persuaded the need of a small boy to find his father was important. Should the matter of Dakota’s race became known, Elijah prayed this Major Bliss was free of anti-Indian bigotry.
They served an all-powerful God, Elijah reminded himself, who was capable of finding one particular grain of sand in a desert. One who had no prejudice, and who considered the needs of a small boy as important as the prayers of kings.
There were not one but two officers sitting at facing desks in the small frame building when they entered. Each had been bent over a stack of papers, but they rose immediately at the sight of a lady.
“We were told we could find the commanding officer for this sector here,” Elijah said.
“I’m Major Bliss,” said the older man. He had silver at his temples, but his military bearing was proud and erect. “And this is Captain Fairchild,” he said, indicating the younger man. “And you are?”
Elijah made the introductions. Alice explained their mission, again avoiding any mention of Dakota’s name.