by Nerys Leigh
She’d been working for close to two hours, her hands becoming progressively chillier from the cold mountain water, when she finally saw a flash of reflected light amongst the black sand coating the base of her pan.
“Gabriel?”
He looked up from where he was working the rocker box a little way away. “Hmm?”
“I think I might have found something.”
She didn’t move her eyes from the tiny shining dot as he approached, afraid that if she moved, or even blinked, it would vanish. When he crouched beside her, she pointed a trembling finger.
“Is that gold?”
He took a pair of tweezers from his pocket and gently picked the speck from the pan. Then he grinned. “It sure is.”
She waited for him to deposit her find in a small glass jar, only when it was safely inside throwing her arms around him with a squeal.
He hugged her back, laughing. “Got the bug now, haven’t you?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I want to find more.”
“Now you’re getting good with the pan, want to help me with the rocker?”
“Yes!”
~ ~ ~
They took a break at around midday, spreading out a blanket in a shaded spot beneath a low tree and listening to the gentle bubbling of the stream as they ate the boiled egg and ham sandwiches Grace had made for them.
Brutus sprawled in the grass beside them, chewing on strips of dried beef, while R.B. had his own meal of scrambled egg.
Finishing her last bite, Grace folded up the napkin her sandwich had been wrapped in and leaned back against Gabriel’s chest. He wrapped his arms around her and she sighed in contentment. She was sure nothing could ever feel as good as being in her husband’s arms. His embrace seemed to have been designed just for her, so perfectly did they fit together.
Unbidden, a thought came to her that had been bothering her for several days - how many other women had he held like this? It was ridiculous to even entertain the notion. What did it matter? His love was hers now, and only hers.
And yet the idea kept niggling at her. He was her first and only love. Was she his?
Giving in to the need to know, she broke the comfortable hush. “Can I ask you something?”
“You can ask me anything you want.”
She took his left hand and ran her thumb over the gold ring that marked him as hers. “Did you court any other women before me? Apart from Jo, I mean.”
“Nope, never did.”
“Did you want to?”
There was a long pause during which a mild sense of panic fluttered through her chest.
“There was one girl,” he finally admitted, “when I was seventeen. But her family was rich and mine wasn’t. She only paid me attention to rile her father, but I was too young and stupid to realize that. It didn’t go anywhere.”
“Did you love her?”
“Thought I did, but it turns out I didn’t know what love was. Not until you.”
There was a minute of silence during which she reveled in the feeling of relief. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had loved someone before her, but she was very happy that he hadn’t. This was new for both of them. She liked that he was learning as much as she was.
“Grace,” he said after a while, “you do know that I... that you’re not the first woman I’ve been with, don’t you?”
“I know.” She sat up and shuffled round to look at him, smiling a little as she remembered the first night after she arrived. “Urges.”
“Yeah.” His smile turned to a faint frown. “Do you think that was wrong?”
“Do you?”
He shrugged. “The way I figured it, they were offering and I paid, so what was wrong with that? Except...” His frown deepened and his eyes drifted to one side, as if he was trying to work out a puzzle. “My ma would have been disappointed in me, if she knew.”
Maybe this was also the time to ask something else she’d been wanting to for a while. “Do you believe in God?”
“I reckon. My ma does. She goes to church and prays. It’s important to her.” His gaze returned to her. “You think I need God to forgive me for what I’ve done?”
“I think we all need forgiveness. It’s what the Bible says, that Jesus died for our sins so we could be forgiven.”
“Even you?”
“Definitely me. I don’t always do what I know I should, and I get angry and think bad things of people.” She smiled. “Sometimes I even punch them.”
He ducked his head, lips pressed together against an obvious smile. “Reckon I deserved it.”
“Oh, you certainly deserved it,” she said, to his laughter.
His gaze drifted to where R.B., having finished his egg, was now trying to steal Brutus’ final strip of beef. Grace waited. She’d come to learn that, even though it sometimes took him a while to come to the right conclusion, he always did.
Eventually, he nodded slowly. “I reckon I’ll need time to think on it, what you said.” He returned his eyes to her and smiled. “My ma will be so happy when I write her and my pa about you. She’d love you.”
“I’d like to meet her and your father one day.” She meant it. If nothing else, she felt the need to thank them for their son.
“I’d be real proud for them to meet you.”
Brutus stood, tugged the strip of beef from R.B.’s clutches, walked away to a flat area beside the river, and lay down again to eat the rest of his lunch in peace.
R.B. watched him go. If a cat could pout, he managed it.
Gabriel sighed. “I guess we should get back to work. I just need to do one thing first.”
“What’s that?”
Sitting up, he pulled her close and gave her a kiss that sent warmth right down to her toes.
“Now I’m ready.”
Chapter 20
Gabriel stared up at the ceiling above him, even though he could barely see it in the dark house.
Grace rested beside him, the rhythm of her breathing slow and steady. She’d been asleep for a while now, but he didn’t seem to be able to join her.
He kept thinking about what she’d said about God and how Jesus had died for his sins. He’d heard all that before, of course, but it hadn’t truly sunk in, until now. His sins were as big as anyone’s. Now he really thought about it, if anyone needed forgiveness, it was him. Maybe it was time he did something about it.
He slid carefully from under the covers and pushed his feet into his boots. Checking that Grace was still sound asleep, he stood, crept to the door, and slipped outside.
The night air was cool but not uncomfortably so and he sat on the bench in silence for a while, elbows resting on his knees as he gazed out over the moonlit valley.
“I suppose You know everything I’ve done wrong in my life,” he said after a while. “I haven’t exactly been a good person. I’ve gotten angry, thrown a few punches. More than a few, if I’m honest. Lain with a lot of women I didn’t care about. And in the war... well, You know all the men I killed. I hope they’re with You now. I never wanted to...” He stopped, his voice failing, and swallowed. “Well, You know all that. And I reckon there’s a lot more I’ve done besides.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry. I can’t say any more than that, but You know I mean it. I just want to say, I know how much You’ve blessed me, especially with Grace, and I want to be a better man from now on. I want to follow You, like Grace does. That’s all.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “Amen.”
Had he done it right? He didn’t feel any different, but he wasn’t sure that he was supposed to. He’d done it, and it seemed to him that was what mattered.
He would have stayed outside for longer, but he hadn’t brought his coat out and the cold was starting to bite. So he crept back inside, removed his boots, and climbed back into bed.
Grace opened her eyes, blinking sleepily at him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m all right.” As he said the words, the full truth of them filled him. He w
as all right. A depth of peace he hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever, filled his heart. “I’m completely all right.”
She gave him a bemused smile, snaking one hand from beneath the blankets to touch his face. “Ooh, you’re cold.”
He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. “You can warm me up, if you’re worried.”
Laughing softly, she snuggled in closer to him and he wrapped his arms around her.
And, closing his eyes, he silently thanked God for forgiving him.
Chapter 21
Gabriel was humming. He didn’t remember being a hummer before meeting Grace, but now he found himself doing it more and more, often without even thinking about it. Turned out, when he was happy, he hummed. He would never have suspected that.
He thought over his plans for the day as he rode up to his claim. With a wife, not to mention the prospect of children sometime in their future, he was going to need to increase the amount of gold he was finding.
Since he’d progressed from using only a pan to building his own rocker box, he hadn’t really done anything more. He’d become comfortable with the amount of money he was making, not having the need for any more. Now that he did, he was considering increasing the volume of material he could get through daily. That meant a sluice.
He already had a sluice box, although he didn’t use it too often because of its tendency to trap less of the gold than he could with a rocker, but he was now planning something bigger and more permanent. If he diverted some of the river, he could build a longer box that would sift more material in a faster time. And with a sluice gate he could control the flow of water, enabling him to minimize the loss of the smaller particles of gold that might otherwise escape. So today he planned on making a start on laying the groundwork for his new sluice.
It would be hard work, but he was extra motivated now. He wanted to add a couple more rooms onto the house and dig a well, with a pump and sink indoors so they wouldn’t have to fetch water from the stream anymore. Maybe one day he’d even be able to afford an indoor bathroom. He smiled as he imagined how pleased Grace would be at being able to take a bath every day. He smiled even more at the idea that he could take them with her.
He emerged from the small stand of trees that marked the edge of his claim and his humming came to an abrupt halt, the smile falling from his face.
For at least half a minute he sat unmoving on Jed’s back, numb, mind rebelling at the sight before him. Finally, he slid to the ground and walked slowly to the place where his cabin had stood.
He nudged a blackened, charred lump of wood with his foot. It sent up a small puff of ash.
When he’d first bought the claim, the cabin on this spot had been all but collapsing. He’d had to rebuild it from the ground up. It wasn’t big or fancy, but it contained everything he needed for his work.
All that was left now were the charred remains of the thick wooden frame and a thick, lumpy layer of ash.
He looked around, searching for some clue as to how the cabin could have burned down. There had been no storm during the night, no lightning that could have struck. What else could it have been?
And then something caught his eye.
He walked upstream, past the remains of the cabin, to where a mangled, broken pile of wood lay at the edge of the water. Bending down, he lifted it from the rocky ground. It was his rocker box. No burning at all marred the twisted remains. Its destruction was intentional, and all too human.
He looked back at the cabin. No accidental fire was responsible for its devastation. This was deliberate. More than two years of work, all his dreams for his future with Grace, gone. And he knew exactly who had done it.
Hurling the shattered box aside, he strode back to where Jed was nibbling at a tuft of weeds and swung into the saddle.
Without looking back, he started down the track for home.
~ ~ ~
Grace pegged up the final damp shirt and ran her eyes along the clothesline. There was something satisfying about seeing laundry flapping gently in the breeze, the evidence of a good morning’s work. Not that she’d call it fun, exactly, but it was comforting to see it done.
She stretched her back and picked up the empty laundry basket. A rest was in order. Perhaps a slice of the molasses cake she’d baked the day before, sitting on the bench on the porch with a good book, before she did some more work in the barn.
In the pasture, Fred trotted to the gate, lifting his head and nickering. From beyond the trees bounding the stream, another horse replied. It sounded like Jed.
Grace placed the basket on the porch and took a few anxious steps in that direction. If it was Jed, something must be wrong. She breathed out when he emerged from the trees, Gabriel in the saddle. She’d been worried that he could have fallen and been injured and Jed had returned on his own.
He brought Jed to a halt by the barn and sat motionless, staring across the valley. She approached slowly, her apprehension returning. He wasn’t injured that she could see, but something was definitely wrong.
Reaching Jed’s side, she reached up to touch her husband’s knee. “Gabriel?”
When he lowered his gaze to her she almost took a step back at the sight of his eyes shining with moisture. She’d never seen him cry before. If anyone had told her, she wouldn’t have believed he could.
His eyes moved to her hand on his knee and he laid his over it, drawing in a breath that seemed to shudder through his whole body. Then he climbed from Jed’s back and, without a word, wound his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder.
Wrapping her arms around him, she held him tight, tears pricking at her own eyes without any idea what had happened.
“It’s all gone,” he whispered after a while, his voice trembling.
She stroked one hand over his hair. “What’s gone?”
“All of it. The cabin, my tools, everything.”
She pulled back to stare at him in shock. “What? How?”
He raised achingly sad eyes to hers. “Burned, mostly, all except for the rocker. That was smashed, as a message. He wanted me to know he’d done it.”
“Someone did it on purpose? Why would anyone do such a thing?” Even as she spoke, she knew the answer.
“Fowler.” His voice was flat, but she could hear the anger behind it.
As if on cue, the sound of a horse approaching came from behind her. Gabriel looked up and his eyes turned to steel.
She turned, already knowing what she would see.
“Good morning.” Mr. Fowler waved to them as he rode into the yard, smiling as if nothing was wrong and he was merely paying them a friendly visit.
On the porch, Brutus stood and padded down the steps.
Eyes fixed on Fowler, Gabriel released her and reached for the rifle in the scabbard on his saddle.
“Gabriel, no.”
Ignoring her protestations, he pulled the rifle free and strode towards Fowler, swinging the weapon up to brace against his shoulder.
Fowler raised his hands. “Hey now, don’t do anything rash.”
“I should have done this a long time ago,” Gabriel growled.
Grace ran in front of him, forcing him to stop or walk over her. She put her hand on the rifle’s barrel. “Don’t, please.”
His eyes didn’t leave Fowler. “Get out of my way, Grace.”
Keeping one hand on the rifle, she reached out her other to cradle his jaw. “Please don’t,” she pleaded softly. “I need you.”
Finally, he looked at her, gazing into her eyes for long seconds before giving a small nod and lowering the rifle.
“Sensible wife you’ve got there, Silversmith,” Fowler said. “You should listen to her.”
Grace spun around and marched towards him. Brutus followed her, a low growl rumbling deep in his chest. Fowler’s horse took a nervous step back.
“I have something to say to you,” she said when she reached him, beckoning him towards her.
He leaned down in his saddle. “Ye
s?”
Clenching her fist, she slammed it into his face.
He jerked back, his hand flying to his nose. Brutus gave a sharp bark and his horse danced backwards, almost dislodging him from the saddle.
“If you don’t leave now, I’ll shoot you myself,” Grace snapped. “And don’t you dare come back!”
He took his hand from his nose and looked at the blood smeared on it. “You should have taken my offer, Silversmith.”
With a final glare at Grace, he turned his nervous horse and left.
Brutus barked again then sat, looking pleased with himself.
Gabriel walked up to her. “I didn’t think it was possible I could love you more, but looks like I was wrong.”
“I made his nose bleed.” She may have been a little in shock. She’d never injured anyone before.
“He deserved it. How’s your hand?”
She unclenched her right fist, only then noticing the throbbing of her knuckles. “It hurts.”
Winding his arms around her, he kissed her forehead. “Come on, let’s go inside and I’ll get some cold water for it. That’ll help.”
“I’ve never made anyone bleed before,” she said as they headed for the house.
“Guess I got off easy when you punched me then.”
Chapter 22
On Grace’s insistence, they drove into town to report the destruction of Gabriel’s cabin and equipment to the marshal. Gabriel told her he didn’t see the point, with there being no evidence, but he went anyway.
Marshal Cade was very sympathetic, but he agreed that there was little he could do. Still, Grace was glad they went. It made her feel they’d at least done something.
She hesitantly related what she’d done to Fowler, slightly worried she’d be charged for assault, but all Marshal Cade did was laugh and jokingly offer her a position as one of his deputies. She felt better after that.
By the time they reached home, the wind had picked up and clouds were gathering.
“Storm’s coming,” Gabriel announced, looking up into the darkening sky as they pulled into the yard.