| |
“IT'S BEEN A WEEK, ELY.” Lena stood by the window staring out at a field of sparkling snow, wondrous and pure.
“Ja, Lena. Would you want him traveling in such a snow?”
She stood like a statue, her arms wrapped tight against her body, answering simply. “No.”
“He is a savvy man. I'm sure he's waiting somewhere warm and dry until the snow stops falling.”
“You're probably right. Of course, you're right. Jessie and Bart and Evan are settled before a warm fire tonight.” She took comfort in the belief.
“But so are we.” Ely called her attention to Daniel sitting on the rug before a crackling fire. Tom Sawyer lay in his lap, his mouth working out the words, face pinched with the effort.
She looked back at the window where moonlight made shadow play on the fresh piles of snow. “How can something so beautiful be so deadly?”
“You make the mountain sound as though it could reason,” Ely said with a hint of bemusement. “It does not think. It only does what the Creator gave it a nature to do.”
“Perhaps.” Lena frowned, unwilling to consider God as an agent of destruction.
A thunderous crack broke the silence of the muffled night. Lena grabbed Ely's arm, her hand viselike. “What was that?” A thunderous roar rolled from the mountain, echoing and rebounding off the cliff faces.
Heedless of the frigid night, she tore open the door and plunged into the unblemished snow. The Sawtooths rose sharp and fearsome in the moonlight. What started as a small white puff, rising like smoke on a distant mountain slope, grew, swelling, expanding as it billowed, plummeting into the valley below. Gathering not only size, but momentum, the phenomena became more terrifying to Lena in its foreignness. The world of her past held no such terrors. Frozen in place to the ground beneath her feet, she whispered. “What is it?”
In a hushed, thin voice, Daniel answered, “Avalanche.”
Lena experienced the sudden chill of frozen night air enter her lungs as she took in a sharp breath. All of Evan's warnings came back in an avalanche of memories. A wordless prayer to a power greater than the mountains rose from her soul. As naturally as the snow falling on the mountain, her heart cried out for two things—mercy for Evan and grace for herself.
The mountain, standing immovable as it had for thousands of years, did not care one way or the other if the lone traveler passed unharmed along its rocky face. Carved by winters, springs, summers, and autumns, each season marked by an artist with a design of his own. Each chipped away at the face as any other master sculptor chips at stone. Summer often ruined the efforts of Winter by filling in those landslides with bits of grass and decomposing granite. And Spring responded to Summer's interference with cascading waterfalls that washed away to the valley floor, her months' long efforts to restore what Winter had destroyed. Like a sculptor of clay, Summer added to the mountain's face, while Winter took away.
Without the cover of clouds, the sun shone brilliant, blinding Evan to a degree where at times the hazy path appeared even less distinct. Unfortunately, the sun did little to warm the biting air. Without the clouds, the temperature plummeted. Every hair of Evan's beard and mustache froze. Icicles dripped onto his lips.
The Galena station owner confirmed the need to leave the pony stabled there. Snow was already too deep, but the snowshoes he'd purchased kept him stable upon the crust. The skis strapped to his back would be used later on the downward slope. As the atmosphere thinned, his pace slowed and his breath became more labored, each step an undertaking. His face burned with the cold while his back dripped with sweat. Wisdom gleaned from more experienced mountain trekkers cautioned him to stop to drink water from his canteen. Blowing on the metal lip to keep from losing skin on the frozen opening, he sipped slowly.
The forest thinned as he climbed higher, opening a vista to the snaking river in the valley far below. Under different circumstances, he might have stopped to appreciate the beauty, but the sun's journey across the sky became a relentless reminder of the urgency to mount the summit and begin the descent before noon. He raced the sun, and his memories. Spring had brought Evan to this pass not to witness the waking of the forest floor, but to uncover the remains of his brother. He thanked God that the obscuring drifts of snow and newly felled trees rendered the exact spot indistinguishable. But he still felt its nearness in his bones.
He pressed on, locking away all fear and unnecessary thought. One misstep could send him plunging down the precipitous cliff to his death. One shrug of the mountain could shift the invisible balance of powder and ice and send everything sliding toward the valley in one thunderous moment. One avalanche would carry not only snow but rocks and building-sized boulders tumbling at mind-numbing speeds, sweeping with it all life in its path. Heedless of ancient trees or innocent beasts, it would take everything in one blinding white explosion of energy. The only warning he might have would be a crack. If he was lucky, he'd hear it seconds before it happened.
The summit came as a surprise. Shielding his eyes with his gloved hand, he looked out over a frozen world of white upon white, rolling and stretching farther than a man could see. Even as he stared out at the vast wilderness stripped of color, reaching miles beyond the river, his thoughts snaked back to Lena. Would she return to Chicago, walking out of his life forever? He needed to know if Jessie's words were true.
Separated from her, for even these few days, had peeled away all the ambiguity from his ambitions. Ranches and rocks were a dull prospect compared with his desire to simply be near her forever. Only in her presence could dreams take on real substance. He wanted to know her. Every detail, every quirk, every heartache and desire, so he could soothe them and fulfill them. As he considered the few miles of trail snaking away to the valley below, he believed he would make it. He also promised himself that no mountains must ever again separate them. These new thoughts pushed back his fear of the mountain, the snow, the threatening winter storms. All that remained was his determination to return to Lena.
After resting there for just moments, he felt the wind shift, the air taking on an even sharper bite. Seeming to lift from the valley floor, he watched as a billowing cloud of snow blew up the mountain. Winds drove the powder of the last snowfall in a rush, up and south to meet him. In the moment it took him to comprehend what was occurring, the wind fell upon him, as if determined to keep him at the summit and out of the valley. Pulling his collar tight to his neck and lowering his head to the onslaught of driven snow, he plunged forward, ready for a battle of the wills, one agonizing step at a time.
Obscuring the trail, snow swirled like angry bees about his head. Evan lifted his hand once to bat at the biting pellets of snow as if he could swat them away as he would a pesky insect, but the swarm was all encompassing. No longer able to track the sun, Evan lost track of time. All that remained was his determination to descend the mountain and return to Lena. The trail disappeared, the sky vanished, all he had to guide him was his hand, flat to the cliff wall. Inch-by-inch, his fingers guided him.
Deprived of senses, he cried out, railing against the roar of wind and ice, “God, if you've got use for this poor pilgrim, I'd appreciate a little help.”
Stumbling over some hidden obstacle, he fell to his knees, striking his shin painfully against a rock. The snowshoe slipped from his foot. He groped for it in the powdered snow. His fingers felt the wood a few feet away. Pulling it to him, he squinted, trying to focus his stinging eyes on the laces. He could feel them, but why couldn't he see them? Lifting his hand before his eyes and seeing nothing, he realized in one terrifying instant that his blindness was more than just the storm of white.
As the stinging in his eyes increased, he took stock of his predicament. Survival instincts took hold, reason and logic became his guide, and panic damped to a cold lump in his gut. Consciously, slowing his racing heart, he pulled up memories of experiences he'd heard from those who'd found themselves in dire circumstances in these mountains. Snow blindness was just one and what he recalled gave him hope. The condition was temporary, passing in hours, days at the most. Although he could probably not survive days in this climate, he might reasonably be able to wait out hours until some vision was restored.
So, he hunkered down against the rock face, using the tip of the snowshoe to dig out a snow cave to protect himself from the wind. Sweating by the time he'd carved a space large enough to pull himself out of the elements, he closed his eyes, resting his head against the hard rock wall of the mountain. Exhaustion pulled him into a fitful sleep. A nightmare of being buried alive by a mountain of snow brought him almost to the point of wakefulness before slipping back into yet another dream where his brother was calling out to him from beneath a field of ice, only his face showing, twisted into a frozen scream.
By the time he came fully awake, the sun had passed from the sky, revealing to anyone with sight, a velvet sky sprinkled with diamonds. If he had thought it cold before, it was nothing compared to night. If he hadn't been frozen with knees tight to his chest, he feared he might simply shatter into icy shards with the violence of his shivering. An hour passed and yet another. Evan's head nodded, his body struggling to conserve energy. When he at last came fully awake, mouth dry, he pulled the canteen from his satchel. Throwing back his head, he tipped the canteen to his lips. Nothing. He stupidly shook the canteen. Frozen, of course.
With his head tipped back, he perceived a pinpoint of light through the curtain of black surrounding him. He blinked back the tears flooding his burning eyes, straining to see that phantom pin of light. Frustrated, he squeezed his eyes shut again, slouching against the back wall of his cave. It wasn't permanent, they'd said. He'd just have to wait and hope.
Lena sat upright in bed as though drawn by some invisible string. She shivered. Pulling the quilt around her shoulders, she dropped her bare feet to the floor and made her way across the cold wood to the window on the mountain. Silver clouds drifted across the moon, giving it the appearance of some incorporeal being and not the familiar celestial form. Dread gripped her heart. Evan was in trouble. She knew it. The reality of his need was as real and as solid as the wood of the window sill beneath her cold fingers.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she whispered a second prayer. “Oh Lord, help him find his way.” Standing there, the cold creeping up her legs and spine, she sensed the light behind her eyelids. Opening her eyes again, she looked out upon the frozen landscape where the familiar peaks were now bathed in brilliant moonlight. Every crag stood out in sharp detail under the silver light of the full moon. Moon shadows stretched out from every cedar, alder, and pine, as though an enormous lantern had been lit in the heavens.
Lena's hands fluttered to her breast, the quilt falling to the floor. She stood transfixed by the beauty, confident that somehow her prayer had been answered. With no thought to the hour, she dressed and hurried downstairs.
Waking suddenly from yet another nightmare, Evan opened his eyes instinctively, then closed them immediately. Afraid he was still dreaming, he pinched his cheek hard and when he felt it, slowly opened his eyes again. This time there was no mistaking the shades of gray that gave the snow dimensions. Looking heavenward, a shimmering orb shone upon the rock face, illuminating the trail. He rose stiffly to his feet, trying out his cold limbs, stamping his feet to restore circulation. His body worked. His mind was alert. More important, his sight was returning.
His cold fingers fumbled with the leather ties on his skis. Next, he strapped the snow shoes to his back. At last, he straightened, cautiously moving forward in the powdery snow disguising the trail. All that stood between him and Lena was a slow ski down the mountain guided now by the full moon.
It was that strange hour before dawn when the world seems to hold its breath. With a lantern in her hand, Lena stepped onto the porch. She hung the lamp on a nail she'd pounded into the sturdy beam by the top step a week ago. Its flame cast warm yellow, fingers of light across the snow. Wrapping her shawl tight to her shoulders, she stared out at the darkened windows of empty buildings in the town below. Just weeks ago, those windows would have been lit by the early risers, the cooks, the men with early shifts. Now they were black and as lifeless as the town. As she had done for the last five days, she spoke into the darkness. “Come home, Evan. You promised. Come home.”
Somewhere a wolf bayed to its pack. The answering call came from across the valley. She remained, listening, mesmerized by the lonely voices, knowing they would find each other in the night. She turned aside, desiring the warmth of the fire within the house. But a shadow moved on the road, a wolf perhaps. She waited, watching.
The shape resolved itself to be, not a wolf, but human. A man on snow shoes, trudging up the road, bent, struggling against the drifts. Her breath caught as she grabbed for the railing, straining to see into the darkness. With a cry, she grabbed for the lantern, running in the direction of the figure. Her feet, slowed by drifts of snow, caused her to stumble. Falling on one knee, she scrambled back to her feet, and started again toward the figure. The man so fully wrapped in coat and hat and ragged beard could not be known. But she knew. She knew and she stumbled through the snow until her fingers wrapped around his arm.
Evan inclined his head to her, his eyes squinting and oddly unfocused. With the efforts of a man moving in slow motion, he brought up his gloved hand to reach for her cheek. The frost on his glove nipped at her skin. “Lena, this is you,” he rasped. His tone seemed to indicate uncertainty as if he needed her to affirm that she was not a part of a dream.
“Yes, Evan.” She took his hand in hers, coaxing off the stiff glove and placing his palm to her cheek. His eyes kept roving, searching, never quite meeting hers. She heard the bang of the front door slamming open against the wall, Ely's voice calling out for her.
“We're here, Ely!”
Ely staggered through the deep snow, puffing great white clouds, still dressed in his nightclothes.
“What's wrong with his eyes, Ely?”
Ely stood beside him, supporting him as the Evan's strength began to crumble. “Snow blindness, I suspect. Is that it, Evan?”
Too exhausted to speak, Evan simply nodded, allowing them to remove his snow shoes. Then they were guiding him into the house. Evan reached for a chair as Lena slipped from under his arm.
“Daniel get some towels. Ely get that wet jacket off him.
Evan looked up at Daniel, standing bleary-eyed in the hall. “Daniel, you here?”
“Hey, Mr. Hartmann. Glad you come back.” Daniel gave him a lopsided grin and scurried down the hall to obey Lena.
“Why?” Evan said in a raspy slur.
Ely, tugging on the snow encrusted arm of Evan's jacket, answered, “The boy and his pa have moved into Donal and Carrick’s old room. Lena took them in. She’s been caring for the boy’s father, Tom.”
Evan half fell, half sat in the chair, not protesting the ministrations of Ely as he pulled his outer clothing off his stiff body. Evan's body began to react to the shock, trembling uncontrollably.
Lena returned with a quilt to wrap around Evan's exposed chest. Kneeling beside him, she tucked the edges snugly about him. She remained there, kneeling before him, her face pinched with concern while Ely inspected Evan's feet and fingers for frostbite. She followed Ely's instructions and began vigorously rubbing Evan's feet and hands, coaxing blood back into them.
“You're mighty lucky fellow, ja? I do not think you will lose any of these.” He straightened, looking at Evan with a broad smile pushing his wrinkles deeper into familiar grooves. “Perhaps Someone was looking out for you, ja?”
Teeth still chattering, Evan mumbled softly, “Ja.”
Laying his hand on Evan's shoulder, his voice serious once more, Ely added, “It is good you have come home.”
Ely stayed with them until Evan's shivering had subsided and he'd seen the man consume a full mug of coffee. Putting his hands to the small of his back and stretching with a groan, Ely said, “This is too much excitement for an old man. Now that I am certain you will live, I crawl back into my warm bed.” Then he quietly slipped from the room leaving Lena to care for Evan there in the warmth and familiarity of the great room before the roaring fire.
As Lena adjusted the blanket around Evan's shoulders, he reached for her hands wrapping his stiff fingers around her supple ones. “Lena, I came back for you, only you.” His voice still sounded unnatural.
Although Evan still shivered before the blaze, Lena felt a rising warmth in her cheeks, not fueled by the fire behind her. His words stunned her. For you, only you.
Still unable to meet his gaze, she remained frozen in place before him. Time slowed, the crackling fire the only sound apart from the pounding of her heart.
Ely had asked that of her. What do you want, Lena? She could answer now as she had not then.
Evan leaned forward and touched her face. “Will you get something from my pocket? In the jacket.”
She rose reluctantly to her feet and pulled from the pocket a small package wrapped in a familiar handkerchief, her own. Without unwrapping it, she could feel the shape of the brooch inside. She met Evan's solemn gaze with a startled expression.
“It's your brooch,” Evan whispered.
Hands trembling, she unwrapping the linen to reveal the silver pin. “But why?”
“He couldn't keep it. He wouldn't keep it in light of the news . . .”
“You spoke to Mr. Baxter?”
“I'm so sorry, Lena. He heard from Miss Nash.” His hands twitched ever so slightly, his face clouded as he gathered strength to continue. Evan reached out to her with one trembling hand. “Come closer, Lena.”
She dropped to her knees beside him, her hands resting on his arm.
“She's given him instructions to sell it for scrap.” He took in ragged breath. “I'm so sorry.” The last words came as a gravelly whisper. “I tried . . . I offered him more money as a down-payment, but she'd already decided. Your dream . . .”
Reaching up with one hand, she touched his lips with two fingers and gave him a wan smile. Neither spoke for some time. She could feel his pulse hammering beneath her fingers. “You gave most of what you had to Vicki and I suspect to Naomi as well. What . . .” She looked to the bookshelf beside the fireplace where the volumes of Ivanhoe had been placed weeks ago. “You sold the books,” she said softly, shaking her head.
He gave a half-hearted shrug. Lena lifted her hand to his shoulder, hesitating as her fingers touched his skin.
“You dear man. Has there ever been created such a heart as yours? You've given away everything that you could have used to buy your ranch.” She shook her head as a tear pooled in the corner of her eye.
“But this place . . . You made it a home for us, for Ely, Carrick, Donal, Jessie, Bart and I. We became different people, better people, after you came,” Evan whispered.
Gripping his arm again with both her hands, she rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I was a fool to stay here. I should have gone with you. My foolishness nearly cost you your life, Evan.” Her throat constricted. “I'm so sorry.”
What do you want, Lena? “This house isn't what I want.” She stopped, suddenly aware of every moment that had cemented this new longing, every smile and kindness that Evan had shown not just to her but to everyone he knew. How could she possibly express her heart's deepest desire?
Fingers still clumsy from the cold, he reached out to her with one hand to cup her cheek. “What do you want, Lena?”
For once, she found all the words she needed to express her heart. She leaned her face against his palm and whispered a single, precious word, “You.”
“You lovely, wonderful, incorrigible woman, can that be true? It's all that kept my feet moving forward down the mountain, the thought that you might be able to love me. But I know you, maybe better than you know yourself. You need more than me to love. I'd be selfish to keep it for myself alone.”
She laughed lightly at that, the thought of Evan describing himself as selfish.
“It's true. You have so much love to share with others.”
“I think your snow blindness has affected more than your green eyes, Evan Hartmann. I've been cool and afraid to reveal my affections for anyone, for so many years.”
“That's not how I see it. In so many ways, not just words, you poured out love on all of us—learning what to cook to please each of us, mending clothes when you saw the need, making us feel like we were part of a family here. You took in Daniel and cared for his father. You have a tender, beautiful heart.”
There were arguments that settled into her mind, but this picture he painted of her was new. She remained motionless before him as he stroked her hair with rough hands.
“I want to help you make a new start. Maybe it isn't here. But caring for people is what you were designed to do. You'll bring in new people to pour out your love on, people like Daniel and his father. You can't help it. We could start with a small ranch, run cattle and invite folks to stay like Nash had planned. Add on rooms as we can. Maybe it'd be in Ketchum, where the winters aren't so fearsome, a place where the trains can bring folks from the East for touring.”
Enthusiasm lit his face, and his voice grew stronger. The dream that he unfolded for her seemed as natural for him as snow falling on the mountain. But it would be a dream they could make together. He wove himself into the dream, and she with him. Once more, she would have a hearth, and those she would come to love to share it. There would be late-night conversations and laughter. And there would always be love expressed in all the ways her heart could devise.
Worn out from his dream weaving, he held her face in his hands, “Sometimes the road we start down takes a turn we didn't see coming. I know that's true for me. You're my bend in the road. The view I see ahead is better because of you.” Breathless, he whispered, “I love you, Lena.”
As he held her eyes with his, she saw there that this love, his love, was for her and her alone. She saw there the truth, a clear picture that gave her the full portrait of herself, undistorted by her doubts.
“Can you love me?” Fine lines creased his brow, his eyes searching hers for the answer.
With the snow mounding in deep drifts against the doors and chilling winds moaning through the pines outside the windows, winter had come, its power beating in full force against the sturdy log house. The warmth within stood firmly against it. Spring would come in its time, bringing rays of the first brilliant sunrise to melt the mountain snow fields, forcing winter to release its grip upon the land.
There would be no waiting for Lena. Her heart’s winter was over and spring had come.
She answered his question with quiet assurance, pressing her palm to his heart. “I do love you, you wonderful man.”
He lowered his face to hers and sealed her honest declaration with a kiss.
––––––––
just the beginning
DEAR READER,
Thank you for coming along on Lena and Evan’s journey. I hope you enjoyed reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it. The best way to thank an author for a good read is to leave a review.
You might also enjoy the next book in this series, where the Hartmanns, Jessie and Bart, along with a new cast of characters can be found in the romantic suspense, Redeeming Lies
Redeeming Lies
To live the honest life she’s always wanted, she’ll be forced to weave a web of credible lies and deceive an honorable man.
Maddie Jennings pressed back against the brick wall, taking in a sharp breath and swallowing hard. She removed the pin from her hair and pulled off her wide-brimmed hat, taking a moment to slow her hammering heart before lifting a gloved hand to the corner of the building. She peered across the street once again. Everything about the man screamed out to her, lawman. The bulge just below his hip kept his oilskin duster from falling close to his body as it should. He wore a gun strapped down to his thigh, probably a Colt.
She discerned him to be a man who paid particular attention to his appearance, but not so much as to be mistaken for a dandy or a gambler. His black hat, free of trail dust indicated he’d traveled by rail as she and her father had and not on horseback. That deduction was further confirmed by his boots which appeared polished. He wore the hat low on his brow, shadowing keen eyes that swept the crowded train platform, the look of a man on the hunt.
––––––––
I LOVE TO HEAR FROM readers. Sign up for my infrequent newsletters and get this FREE STORY from the Whitcomb Springs series!
Logan Craig made a promise to return by harvest to Montana and the woman he loved, Micheline McDonald, but the War Between the States ended four years ago. Most have given up hope of seeing him again. Only Micheline continues to believe he’s a man of his word and she’ll hold him to his promise.
––––––––
COMING 2020 – A HARTMANN Ranch Christmas
It's Christmas at The Hartmann Guest Ranch, and along with getting ready to celebrate the holiday in grand style, Jessie and Maddie are playing matchmakers for their new Scottish shepherd, Graham Kincaid and Maddie's bookshop clerk, Milicent Baxter. Although the two 'lovers' can't seem to agree on much, including the Dicken's Christmas window display, the ladies are convinced they're perfect for each other. All they have to do is convince them.
Follow me here: Samanthastclaire.com, FaceBook, BookBub or Goodreads
