D orothy stared out her bedroom window, trying not to think about the next day. The late March breeze blew past her, and the scent of desert flowers mixed with dust, drifted gently into her room.
A finch landed on her sill, cocking his head up toward her. She knelt down to his eye level and rather than fly away, he merely hopped in place and looked at her.
Dorothy sighed. “What am I going to do?” She spoke to the finch in a whisper that no one could overhear. “Mr. Sinclair terrifies me. I’ve never met his sons before, but I’ve heard him talk about them. I don’t want to go.”
The finch chirped and hopped again.
Dorothy shook her head. “I don’t have a choice. I can’t argue with Father. He has decided that I have to go. I just don’t know if I can make myself walk out the door tomorrow morning.”
The finch hopped, this time to the edge of the sill. He chirped at Dorothy and cocked his head around quite comically.
Dorothy looked beyond the tiny bird where the cacti and brush covered land sloped upward into the majestic range of the Superstition Mountains. The mountains with red rock, beautiful beneath the mid-morning sun, seemed to beckon to Dorothy as she sat staring at them. A snake slithered beneath a nearby bush, and a family of quail took off running.
The finch chirped, and Dorothy turned back to him. “Maybe I need a few hours in the mountains. What do you think?”
She looked back at the Superstitions once more and the sight decided for her. She smiled a bit at the finch, though the effort was, of course, lost on him. Dorothy tied back her hair, packed a bag, and filled a canteen. Her father didn’t even look up as she slung the sack over her shoulder, kissed his cheek, and told him where she planned to go. He merely nodded and kept carving his roadrunner. With a partial sigh, Dorothy pushed a sheathed knife into her belt as she marched outside.
The wind blew a few tendrils of hair free, and they danced about her eyes and neck. Dorothy pushed them out of her way and started for the mountain base at a steady pace.
She hadn’t bothered with shoes. A lifetime of experience and practice running around the desert barefoot made it easier to go without. Shoes in her childhood had been reserved for Sundays, and Sundays only. Her feet clung to rocks and earth the higher she climbed.
Dorothy jumped from rock to rock, listening for rattlers, and stopping now and then to drink from her canteen.
Why would he send me alone to meet a Sinclair? He’s my father. Why would he do such a thing?
The cacti stood at attention all about her, a pronged forest ready to stand their ground. Dorothy preferred the saguaro to the cholla but thought them both beautiful. The red mountains grew larger before her as the valley melted away beneath her feet. The shack she lived in grew smaller and smaller, sinking away with every step.
A family of quail trailed through the brush, the parents leading the race.
Isn’t my father supposed to protect me? Sending me to meet a Sinclair hardly feels like protection.
She thought that she heard a growl in response to her thoughts and put a hand to her knife, but nothing materialized. With an extra watchful eye, she kept going.
At last, she veered off to one side, climbing a rather steeper corner of the mountain range. Tucking into a crevice between rock and cacti, Dorothy dropped her sack and took in the view.
To her left, the valley spread out in a beauty so vast that it never failed to take her breath away. All about her lay the tumbled and piled rocks of the Superstitions; red rock with roots deep in the earth, reaching their long pinnacles toward the heavens, and boulders of black that looked as if they began tumbling and rolling during an enormous game of marbles, eventually slowing into places of permanency.
“Thy works are beautiful, oh Lord.”
She finally sank against the sheer wall of red rock, leaning back her head and closing her eyes. Her attempts at being brave over, she sighed and then shuddered.
Father in Heaven, why would my father send me? What shall I do? I tremble to meet the son of Charles Sinclair tomorrow. Must I go?
She opened her eyes again, staring up at the pale blue sky where wisps of clouds slipped by. She felt so small in the corner of the mountain. As if her troubles mightn’t be as enormous as she thought before, though neither did they altogether disappear.
Taking a drink from her canteen, she pulled her mother’s Bible from the sack. Dorothy rubbed the shabby leather cover, the worn patches discolored and frayed.
Lord, where wouldst Thou have me read? My thoughts are so disordered…
After some aimless turning of the pages, Dorothy fell upon the Book of John. Beginning in the first chapter, the sun shifted across the sky while she read. Birds sang, reptiles slithered, and a curious bunny peeped out from a scrubby bush. Dorothy pulled out her lunch and continued to read.
As the sun moved closer to the west, Dorothy finally reached the last verses of the book. She closed the Bible and looked toward the sky again.
“Lord, the reading of Thy Word draws me nearer to Thee, but it doesn’t alter tomorrow or eliminate my forebodings. I still sit here, fearful and wishing to avoid my task.”
She turned her head to stare out into the valley.
“‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.’”
A hint of a smile touched Dorothy’s weary face. “Such a consideration brings comfort. If all things came into being through Thy hand—and nothing came into being apart from Thee—then even my circumstances fall into Thy realm and can’t have come about apart from Thee.”
She couldn’t be quite certain of her theology—or at least, the manner in which she reached her conclusions—and she wished that she had someone to ask. Nevertheless, she thought she had it right, and she had more peace than she had done.
She watched the sun begin the downward descent toward the distant mountains and calculated the time.
“Lord, I am frightened still. I cannot comprehend why my father has decided upon sending me. Mr. Sinclair fills me with fear and dread. His sons frighten me. I do not want to meet with any of them, but I fear that I must do so. Wouldst Thou grant me the courage to do what I must? Wouldst Thou grant me protection as I go about this task?”
She preferred to be well down the mountain before night fully set in, so she didn’t stay much longer. Despite her precautions, dusk had fallen heavily, and bats began to fly overhead before she reached her own door. A piece of paper jammed into the door handle made Dorothy’s blood run cold. She pulled it out but couldn’t see it well enough to read.
Inside the shack, only emptiness greeted her. Another pang of dread struck her as she dropped her sack on the table.
“Father?”
Not even a grunt in response. She looked into his room, only large enough for a bed and dresser. She looked into her own room. Nothing. He’d taken his sack from beside the fireplace and his bedroll from behind the door.
He said that he would be busy. She sighed. Apparently, he means the Lost Dutchman has him busy again. He must have passed near me, and I didn’t even see him.
She looked down at the paper she still held in her hand, then struck a candle to better read by.
Joe.
Remember Dorothy’s errand tomorrow. You wouldn’t want anything painful to happen to either of you because she didn’t show.
Dorothy sank into her father’s chair, staring at the flickering flame of the candle. She had seen similar notes in the past, but never fully read them before her father threw them into the fire.
“I must go.” She looked down at the paper again. “I must go. Lord, grant me courage, I pray Thee, because I am certain that I must go, though my hands are trembling and my heart shrinks.”
She stood, lit the fire with still shaking hands, and gathered her dinner together. As she set down her plate, her eyes fell back onto the paper lying in her father’s usual spot.
“Grant me courage, Almighty Lord, and protect me, I pray Thee.”