Bill
Word had sure spread fast. Bill entered Athol’s restaurant—sent there by Hugh Briggs—and men swarmed him, all talking at once. He glanced around the crowded room in amazement. Seemed every able-bodied man in and around town had left their home, ranch, or workplace.
Miss Grant got swept along in front of the throng, and she held both hands to him. He took hold and tipped his head to catch her words.
“I’m ready, Sheriff. Let’s go.”
She might be ready, but he had some planning to do first. He squeezed her hands, then let go and waved both arms over his head. “Quiet! You hear me? Quit your yammerin’.”
It took a few seconds, but the noise dimmed. Took another second or two for Bill’s ears to stop ringing. The fellas had sure raised a ruckus. He planted his fists on his hips and pasted on his sheriff face. “All right, Hugh filled me in on the kidnapper’s demands, an’ I reckon you’re all here thinkin’ you’re gonna be part of an army who goes after Miz Bingham.”
Vern puffed out his chest and patted his sidearm. “We’re ready, Sheriff. You just say the word.” The crowd murmured in agreement.
Miss Grant stuck a piece of paper in Bill’s face. “You have to make them stay here, Sheriff Thorn. The letter says if I don’t come alone, I’ll never see Mrs. Bingham again.”
Bill yanked off his hat and tossed it onto the nearest table. “We ain’t sendin’ an army.”
Miss Grant sagged. “Thank you.”
“But neither are you goin’ alone.”
Her spine went straight. “But—”
Bill pointed at her freckled nose. “An’ I ain’t gonna listen to so much as a word of argumentin’.”
She clamped her lips, but boy did she glower. And that was just fine. No little gal’s frown would change his mind. He held up his palms. “Ever’body, find a chair. Or a leanin’ spot. Wherever you can land, get there. Then I needja to listen.”
Grumbles and mumbles broke out, but the men obeyed. Miss Grant didn’t seem inclined to budge, though. Mack whispered in her ear and then led her to a table. She sat, and Mack stayed close, his hands on her shoulders.
Bill caught himself fighting back a grin. That Mack, he was real took with Miss Grant. No sense in trying to keep him from going along on the rescue. But Bill had thought it over on the ride back to town, and he had a plan. If his plan went well, neither of the ladies would be hurt and he’d be able to arrest the kidnapper.
Now that everybody was calm and paying attention, Bill let himself smile a little. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate you wantin’ to help. You’re good men—all o’ you—an’ Miz Bingham would be right proud o’ the way you’re steppin’ up. But if we all go ridin’ in there, the kidnapper’s likely to panic. Might start shootin’. An’ when bullets start flyin’, people get hurt. I ain’t gonna risk that. Not with two women involved.”
“So,” Mack said, “you’re gonna let Miss Grant go to the Addison well house?” He sounded plenty disbelieving, and Bill couldn’t blame him.
Bill scrunched his face. “I ain’t happy about it, Mack, but I don’t see no other way. He’s wantin’ to trade, so Miss Grant here is what it’ll take to coax the kidnapper into the open.”
Mutters started up again, and Bill sliced his hand through the air. “Don’t get your danders up. I ain’t gonna send her alone no matter what the letter says.”
The men calmed. W. C. pushed off from his place along the wall. “Who’s goin’ with her? Needs to be somebody with a sure shot, just in case. I’m willin’.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ll go!”
“Count me in, Sheriff.”
Bill stifled a groan. “Fellas, fellas, will you listen to me, please?” He waited until everybody got quiet again. “I already picked who I’m takin’. Doc Kettering in case Miz Bingham needs some doctorin’ when we find her, an’ ”—he hoped he wouldn’t regret the second choice—“Mack Cleveland.”
W. C. grunted and bounced his fist on the old bar. “Why Mack? I’m a better shot’n him.” Several others echoed W. C.’s claim.
Bill stared them down. “I picked Mack ’cause he ain’t already married or on the list o’ grooms waitin’ for brides. Things could get ugly out there, an’ I don’t aim to leave widows behind.” He turned a look he hoped asked the right question on Mack. “Unless somethin’s changed.”
Mack’s jaw muscles twitched. He shook his head. “No, Sheriff. Nothing’s changed.”
If Bill hadn’t lost his ability to read faces, there was hurt in Miss Grant’s eyes. If things worked out all right, the two young people could sort out their feelings later. For now, they needed to stay focused on the rescue.
“All right, then. Tomorrow mornin’, well before daybreak, me, Hiram, Mack, an’ Miss Grant’ll set out.” Bill gritted his teeth. His next request might be considered lily livered by some, but he’d make it anyway. “The rest o’ you who ain’t goin’, you can help us out by prayin’ ever’thing goes smooth.” He sure didn’t want to lose anybody in this trade.
Helena
“I won!”
Helena couldn’t hold back a smile even though tears stung her eyes. The elation on Buster’s face—a face that normally reflected sadness and apprehension—cheered her more than she could measure. After supper, with little else to do to pass the time, she’d drawn cross marks on the floor and engaged the boys in tic-tac-toe. For an hour they’d sat in a circle on the floor, taking turns scratching Xs and Os in the dirt with a butter knife. She or Dolan had won every game not claimed by the cat. Until this one.
She pointed to the game board. “Draw a line through the Os to show your victory.”
His tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, Buster used the butter knife and carved an uneven line from top to bottom over the Os. Dolan frowned.
Helena touched Dolan’s tousled head. “Aren’t you going to congratulate your brother?”
Dolan folded his arms over his skinny chest. “Ain’t fair. He’s littler’n me. He hadn’t oughta beat me at nothin’.”
Buster blinked, his smile fading.
She arched her brows. “Well, now, you’re littler than me, and you won in at least two of our contests. Should I say those matches weren’t fair?”
He curled his lip, a perfect imitation of his father. “Aw, that ain’t the same.”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause you’re a girl.”
The scorn in the boy’s tone stung. Helena tipped her head. “Are you telling me you believe girls are inferior to boys?”
Both boys scrunched up their faces. Buster said, “What’s inferior?”
“Not as valuable.”
Their expressions didn’t clear.
She searched for a simpler explanation. “Unworthy. Not important.”
Dolan nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m sayin’. Girls…they don’t matter much.”
Helena didn’t need to ask to know where he’d learned such a lesson. “You listen to me, Dolan and Buster. Girls matter. As do boys, whether big or little. Every person matters. Do you know why?”
They shook their heads in unison.
“We are all created in God’s image. He crafted male and female, and He breathed His very own breath of life into them. He loves His creation. What God sees as valuable and important is valuable and important.”
Dolan squinched his eyes to slits, distrust oozing from him. “How do you know?”
“Because it says so in the Bible, which is God’s holy book. Has anyone ever read to you from the Bible?”
Buster nodded hard. “Uh-huh. Our ma did.”
Dolan nudged his brother on the arm, and Buster hung his head.
Such an intriguing piece of their puzzle. A woman who wanted her boys to be educated and who read to them from a Bible didn’t match one who would abandon those same children. She put her hands on the boys’ shoulders. “Well, then, you should know that the Bible doesn’t lie. If the Bible says all men and women are important, then it’s true.”
Dolan stared at her for a long time, as if trying to discern her importance, then snorted and grabbed the butter knife from Buster. “I bet not even God thinks Pa matters. Pa’s nothin’ but a—”
She cupped his chin and lifted his face to her. “You’re wrong, Dolan. God loves your pa. The same way He loves you and Buster and me.” The same way He loved these children’s mother despite her unfathomable decision. “Remember what I told you about the Bible?”
Dolan ground his teeth together, but Buster nodded. “If the Bible says it, it’s true.”
“That’s exactly right.” Helena flashed a smile at the younger boy and then pinned her attention on Dolan again. “This is something else the Bible says, John 3:16—‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ The world, Dolan.” She gave his cheek a gentle stroke with her fingers. “That means God loves everyone who has ever been born and will ever be born. He loves them so much He sent His very own Son into this world to take the punishment for the sins, the wrong things, that we do.”
The truth of God’s grace swept through her with a warmth she couldn’t deny. Oh, how she wanted these boys—and their irascible father—to understand the depth and breadth and fullness of God’s love. “In Hebrews 8:12, God tells us, ‘I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.’ The sins of anyone who believes that Jesus is God’s Son, sent to be the Savior, will be forgiven. Wiped away!” She leaned forward and scrubbed out the tic-tac-toe game with the heel of her hand. “Just like that. Forgiven…and forgotten.”
Buster stared at the smooth spot in the dirt. “All the wrong things? Even the really big ones?”
Helena followed her instincts and pulled the little boy into her lap. She hugged him hard, and to her joy, he snuggled against her. “Every single one, Buster. There’s nothing we can do that’s so bad God won’t forgive it, because God’s love is bigger than any sin.”
The boy tilted his head and stared straight into Helena’s eyes. He licked his lips. “E-even killin’ one o’ God’s creation?”
Dolan jumped up and clenched his fists. “Pa made us promise not to tell! You broke a promise, Buster! You’re gonna be in so much trouble not even God can save you.”
Buster burrowed his face against Helena’s throat. She wrapped her arms tightly around the boy and stared at Dolan. “Wasn’t supposed to tell what?”
Dolan growled and pressed his fists against his temples. “It don’t matter. She don’t matter. Pa can get another one. He said so. But we wasn’t s’posed to tell. Now Pa’s gonna…” The boy moaned as if gripped by unbearable pain.
Helena shifted Buster from her lap and grabbed Dolan’s cold hands. “Did…did your father…” She couldn’t complete the sentence. She didn’t want to complete the thought.
Dolan’s face contorted horribly. “I killed Ma.”
Had she not been sitting on the floor, she would have collapsed. She tugged Dolan’s hands, and the boy dropped to his knees. He began to sob, and Buster joined in with the most heartbreaking wails.
“I—I forgot to close the cellar door. I’m always s’posed to close it when I come up, but my hands was full, an’ I figgered I’d go back an’ close it, but I forgot, an’ Ma…Ma was holdin’ a basket o’ dirty clothes an’ she didn’t see the hole an’—” He fell forward, rear in the air, and buried his face in her lap. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Buster huddled against Helena’s side, still crying. She rubbed Dolan’s heaving back, stroked Buster’s hair, and inwardly prayed for guidance. She didn’t try to hush their expressions of grief. Deep hurts needed purging. Purging came from tears. And oh, such a deep hurt the boys held. Deeper, even, than she’d imagined. But God could heal, if only the children would accept His loving touch.
It seemed hours passed until the boys ran out of tears. Dolan sat back on his haunches and swiped his nose with his sleeve. Buster snuffled and rubbed his face on Helena’s dress. She opened her arms, and the children scooted in. She closed her arms around them, the way a mother duck sheltered her ducklings beneath her wings. The boys smelled of sweat and dirt and tears, but she deposited a kiss first on Dolan’s head and then on Buster’s. With them snug in her embrace, she sent up one more prayer, gathered her courage, and spoke as gently and sweetly as if they were newborn babes.
“Dolan, you did not kill your ma. The fall killed her.”
He shuddered. “Pa said I did. He said I’d hafta go to jail if folks found out what I done.”
“Your pa was probably shocked and hurting. When people are hurting, they say things they don’t mean. But no matter what he said, you won’t have to go to jail because you did not kill her. You’re only a boy, and boys sometimes forget things. They make mistakes.” She pressed her lips to his sweaty temple. “Did you leave the door open with the idea that someone might fall and get hurt?”
“No.” The word choked out.
“Then you can’t say you killed her. Killing is intentional—done on purpose. This was an accident, Dolan. Only an accident.”
He slumped against her, his chin quivering. “But she’s gone.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry.” She kissed him again, wishing it was enough to cure his hurt. “But if your ma read to you from the Bible, then she must have believed it, including what it says in John 3:16 about Jesus. People who believe in Jesus have eternal life with Him. She’s gone from earth, Dolan, but she’s alive in heaven, and if you believe in Jesus, too, you’ll see her again someday.”
The boy sat up abruptly, the first hint of hope she’d witnessed glimmering in his tear-filled eyes. “I will?”
“You will.”
Tears spilled down his face, but his lips formed a quavering smile. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Thank You, God.