It’s hot, Tildie,” Marilyn complained.
“That’s the truth, Mari.” Tildie reached over to wipe the sweat from the little brown face with an old faded scrap of calico. “You’re getting darker, and your hair’s getting lighter every day.”
“I want my hair to be blond and curly like yours.”
“It’s not such a blessing as you’d think, Cousin. And I don’t turn a golden tan, but rather red—like a ripe tomato.”
Marilyn giggled and squeezed her rag doll closer. Her legs hung over the back of the wooden seat and swung merrily. The worn canvas tarp covering the bowed frame of the buckboard provided blessed shade. Even so, the sun blazed in the sky, and they found it more and more difficult to ignore the discomfort of the wind, the heat, and the hard surface they sat upon.
The wagon lurched, and Tildie grabbed both the wooden seat and the shoulder of her littlest cousin, Evelyn, at the same time. How could the little cherub sleep with the sweltering heat and the unmerciful, jostling wagon wheels hitting every rut and ridge in the dirt trail?
The heat of Colorado’s summer sun permeated even the interior of their wagon. In the distance, the Rocky Mountains rose majestically, looking as if they could be reached by nightfall. It was an illusion. The lone wagon had many miles to travel before it even reached the foothills. Four days would just bring them to their destination, a fort on the Arkansas River.
The wagon hit a deep rut, and everyone held tight to keep from falling out. Marilyn turned a stormy face to scowl at her stepfather’s back. He drove the wagon in a slumped position, growling at the horses from time to time and never speaking to the woman who sat beside him.
Tildie followed her gaze, and her own lips thinned to a stern line. She had not expected the unhappy home she found after traveling to Aunt Matilda’s. Maybe she’d made a mistake in coming. She shook her head over her selfishness. It wasn’t the ideal situation she’d dreamed of, but she’d found love from the children and felt she helped her despairing aunt.
When she left Indiana, Tildie expected to join the only family she had. The situation in Lafayette was bleak, the memories hard to deal with. She’d been alone and desperate to be within the warm circle of family once more. Unfortunately, the decision to travel west had brought her to an even more unsatisfactory situation.
Aunt Matilda’s three little ones perched with Tildie on the wide shelf across the back tailgate of the old buckboard. The wind blew sporadically from the west, and each cloud of dirt kicked up by horses and wagon swirled away before it could settle on the children. Tildie braced herself against the pole that supported the covering. Evelyn’s wet little head rested on her lap. The toddler’s short, tawny curls clung in tight rings darkened by sweat. Tildie kept a hand on the babe’s shoulder for fear a bounce would toss the sleeping child to the hard, stony ground.
Four-year-old Marilyn, called Mari for her sweet, merry temperament, sat as a mirror image across from her grown cousin. The cousins favored each other with the same golden tresses, dark lashes and brows, small even features, and sparkling blue eyes. Once, they had gone to the Breakdon settlement and strangers had assumed Mari was Tildie’s little girl. Aunt Matilda didn’t care, or perhaps, she didn’t even notice. Nothing much penetrated the weary despondency that surrounded the older woman.
Tildie reached across to help Mari arrange her rag doll on the bench to lay much the way her sister Evelyn lay against Tildie. Mari patted her dolly’s shoulder and grinned at her big cousin.
Between the little girls sat Boister, whose real name was Henry. His father had been Aunt Matilda’s first husband—a kind and sturdy man who objected to his namesake being called Little Henry and called him Mister. Aunt Matilda laughingly called him Beau. Somehow, Beau and Mister got mixed and slurred together. The resulting “Boister” had been a good appellation for the energetic child full of rambunctious fun before his pa died.
A sudden jolt rocked them, and Tildie grabbed Evelyn into her arms. Marilyn screeched and clung to the seat. Her doll fell into the wagon. Boister fell in as well, but he scrambled back. The normally placid team lurched wildly before the wagon. The horses reared and backed erratically, causing the buckboard to pitch. They flailed their legs in the air and voiced their terror in high-pitched whinnies. Masters’s rough voice could be heard above the clamor as he fought for control. One last mighty jolt sent the four passengers in back tumbling to the ground. The horses bolted, leaving them in the dust.
“Snake!” Boister’s voice cracked.
Tildie’s head jerked around as her arms froze in their reach for Mari’s still form.
A large, menacing snake coiled by the trail ahead of them. The distinct buzzing of his rattle warned the humans to stay away. He unwound, stretching out to his full five feet. Evidently he’d had enough of the trail, horses, wagons, and humans. He slithered off into the brush, leaving the petrified cousins.
Tildie shuddered at the sight of the snake’s rattled tail disappearing under a bush. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply to calm herself and whispered, “Thank You, Lord.”
She dismissed her bruises. The fall had shaken her up but caused no permanent damage. Boister stood beside her. She handed him the crying Evelyn and crawled over to Mari. The child gasped for air, and Tildie hoped she’d find nothing more seriously wrong other than having the wind knocked out of her. Tildie spoke soothing words to the frightened child as she ran her hands over little arms and legs to feel for broken bones. Finally, the breathing became regular with only hiccuping sobs. Tildie, convinced that the injuries consisted of bumps, bruises, and a scare, rocked Mari gently in her arms.
She peered down the road after the disappearing wagon. Nothing blocked her view. They sat on the grasslands where nothing higher than thimbleweed, spring larkspur, and bristly crowfoot waved above the blue grama grasses. In a short distance the land changed abruptly. But for now, through the cloud of dust, she could see the wagon bouncing wildly behind the runaway team.
The trail rose on an incline. Surely the horses would tire and stop soon. Her assessment of her surroundings transpired in a breath of time.
Boister dumped the other wailing sister in her lap and sat down on a boulder to wait. He scowled after the disappearing wagon. “Didn’t want to go to Fort Reynald, anyway,” he said.
“Me needer.” Marilyn stuck out her lower lip in a childish pout. She squirmed around in Tildie’s lap to face her cousin on this very important issue. “I don’t want you to marry that man. I want you to stay with us.”
“I haven’t said I’m going to marry the man your stepfather picked out, but he might be nice.” Tildie tried to sound hopeful. In her heart, she knew any associate of John Masters could not be a suitable husband.
“Don’t you like being our cousin? Don’t you want to stay with us?” asked Marilyn.
Boister snorted. He knew better than to ask those baby questions. Wasn’t much any of them could do now that John Masters had made his decision.
His little sister ignored him and persisted in pestering her cousin. “How come you don’t have real children?”
“Not my time yet, Mari. And I shall always be your cousin.” Tildie planted a kiss on her cousin’s damp forehead.
She enjoyed mothering the children. With their own mother lost in a world of despondency, the children had adopted Tildie as the one to run to for everything from a torn sleeve to a hurting splinter.
“God will give me a husband first, then all the little ones I could possibly want.” She smiled with more assurance than she felt. John Masters’s attempt to interfere with God’s order might succeed. Between the two, Tildie would count on God to come out the stronger. It was just that sometimes it was hard to remember when, for all intents and purposes, it sure looked like she was heading down a dusty trail in the hot sun toward a mighty unpleasant future.
She shook her head, turning to God with her perplexing thoughts. I don’t see Your hand in this, Lord. Let me have faith in the things I cannot see.
“If you have babies will they be my sisters?” Mari demanded her attention.
“They’ll be your cousins,” Tildie answered with a brief smile. Mari’s chatter brought up the disturbing picture of a husband she might not like. She’d be sharing her life with a stranger if she wasn’t careful. John Masters’s schemes could be difficult to thwart, but God was on her side. No one could force her to marry anybody. She could get a job and just stay in Fort Reynald. That would mean being separated from these children, but that was a certainty anyway. John Masters had made it clear she was not welcome on the homestead any longer.
Tildie set Mari and Evie on their feet and scrambled up herself. The wagon had disappeared, clean out of sight. They might as well start walking. Sitting here in the sun with no shade might scorch them clear through. They’d just follow the tracks. Before long they’d be able to spot the wagon lumbering back to get them.
The trail barely distinguished itself from the rough terrain around it. The deep ruts held an overgrowth of thistle, weeds, and porcupine grass. In spite of this, Tildie felt confident that following the wagon was better than waiting in the searing sun.
“Come on, we’ll walk to meet them,” Tildie said with what cheerfulness she could muster. She looked over at Boister, still slumped on top of his rock. The boy looked too sober. He always looked too sober. He often acted like a grumpy old man instead of a six-year-old boy. He had his reasons, she figured.
Big Henry had died in a rockslide, and Boister had been the first to reach him. The little boy had found his father’s large familiar hand sticking out of the rubble and pulled with all his might. It took grown men two hours to remove the boulders that had crushed the life out of Henry Baskerman. Boister had been crushed in spirit, and the somber, haunted look masked a once-vital personality. Aunt Matilda’s letters had been full of the little pistol’s derring-do adventures before the death of her husband. Tildie wondered which was the greater tragedy: losing his father, or acquiring Masters as a stepfather.
Matilda had married John Masters within six months. She couldn’t handle adversity and thought John would take the weight of grief off her shoulders. She was mistaken. John Masters proved a burden of grief in himself, and he broke what little courage the widow had left. He acted surly to the children who were not his and later showed no more tolerance of the squalling babe that came out of his own union with Matilda.
The promising spread failed without Henry’s energetic enthusiasm for tilling the soil. Masters sold off the cattle to buy whiskey and poker chips. The sparkle of admiration in Masters’s eye as he courted Matilda turned out to be the gleam of greed. When his plans for a life of ease on an already established bit of land failed, he blamed everyone but himself. The children often took the brunt of his wrath.
Tildie tried an encouraging smile and held a hand out to Boister. “Come on. I’m glad you’re not still in the wagon. At least we have one strong man to protect us.”
Boister shot her a look, not accepting her false dependence on him. He didn’t outwardly scorn her puny attempt to make things seem better, but he didn’t take the offered hand. He started off without speaking, plodding ahead of the girls and Tildie.
Tildie sighed and took hold of each little girl’s hand. So far she hadn’t been able to soften Boister’s hardened heart. She would just keep trying and praying.
“Look.” She pointed to a bird in the dust several yards away from their path. “That’s a meadowlark. See his yellow vest and black cravat? Watch him bend over to touch the ground. Doesn’t it look like he’s bowing?”
They stopped in the trail to watch this strange performance.
“What’s he doing?” asked Mari.
“I don’t really know, but I’ve always thought he’s hiding. See, his back blends in with the dirt and dry plants. With his yellow front ducked down, he almost disappears.”
“You think he thought that out himself?” Boister sounded doubtful.
Tildie laughed. “No, not really. With that little bitty head there must be a little bitty brain within. God gives His creatures an instinct to protect themselves.”
“He’s not very well hidden,” Boister scoffed.
“Sometimes God lets humans laugh at His creatures’ funny ways,” she continued. “It’s all right to laugh. God says He gives us joy.”
Boister cast her one of his tolerant looks. He was telling her as clearly as if he had spoken that her nonsense wasn’t for him. He marched on.
As they returned to their hot walk, Tildie fell into her own thoughts. She’d been with the children six months. Orphaned in Indiana, she’d written to the aunt she was named after. Her mother’s sister lived in southern Colorado territory, near Kansas. Tildie longed to go to the aunt she remembered from her childhood. She didn’t get the letter that said not to come. She knew it existed, had known since the moment she walked across the wooden porch and knocked on the door. John Masters told her.
“Do you want to marry the grocer?” asked Mari, coming back to the topic than most disturbed her.
Her question startled Tildie.
“I don’t know if I do, or I don’t,” she answered truthfully. “Reckon I’ll decide that once I’ve met this Mr. Armand des Reaux.”
“I don’t want you to marry him. You’ll never get to visit us.” Marilyn couldn’t quite keep the whine out of her voice.
Tildie closed her eyes and prayed against the pain in her heart. How could she desert these children? Tildie knew what her absence would mean to them. It was she who sang at her chores. She told funny stories as they lay in bed at night. She hugged them, laughed, and said out loud she loved them. Tildie imitated her aunt Matilda as she had been years ago on an Indiana farm. Tildie had been the happy child. Matilda had been the almost grown playmate.
Now, Tildie’s aunt spoke rarely. She never laughed. She walked in a daze through the house. She sat in her rocker while Tildie did the chores. It made Tildie’s heart ache to think of her aunt, but a worse pain grabbed her when she considered the life the children would have in that house with John Masters and no one to act as a buffer.
Boister turned around and walked backwards. He’d listened to the three he pretended to ignore. Now he looked from his sister to his cousin. He spoke words to his sister, but his eyes bore a hole in Tildie. “She don’t have no reason to want to visit us. I wouldn’t come visit us.”
“Boister,” said Tildie earnestly, “if Mr. des Reaux turns out to be an agreeable man, I’ll ask him if you and your sisters can stay with me.”
“Won’t be,” Boister stated flatly. “He be a friend of him.” He jerked his head in the direction the wagon had taken.
The image of John Masters’s unkempt, hulking figure towering in rage over her aunt’s diminished form sprang up in Tildie’s mind. She shuddered. Secretly, she agreed with Boister’s estimate of the circumstance.
She’d been praying with all her might since John Masters returned from a trip with news he was getting rid of the extra mouth dumped on him. He told her he got her a husband, a Frenchie who owned his own store at a new fort established by some fur traders. It was close to the foothills of the Rockies on the Arkansas River.
Tildie yearned to see the mountains. She selfishly wanted to escape the atmosphere of oppression in her aunt’s home. She liked the idea of being somewhere where people came and went, providing more variety in company than her family, the drunken head of it, and a few cowhands. However, she had no desire to take up residence in a fort where she would very likely be the only white woman. She thought the Mexican and Indian women would be interesting, but she doubted they would speak English. What kind of fellowship could you have with someone you couldn’t talk to?
Her fear of traveling in the company of her uncouth uncle disappeared the day he announced the whole family was making the trip. Suspicion replaced her fear. Why would he bother taking everyone? He certainly never put himself out for anyone else’s pleasure. The mystery vanished when she heard him tell a silent Aunt Matilda that he’d show her he could provide for her and her brats. The Frenchie would give them clothes and winter supplies when they delivered the bride.
Tildie sighed and her eyes fell on the little boy trudging along a few feet ahead of them. He’d turned back around and stalwartly tramped in the heat. She called after him. “If Mr. des Reaux is impossible, Boister, then I won’t marry him, and I’ll get a job. It may take time, but you’re my family, and someday we’ll be together. Maybe Fort Reynald will have places I can work. I worked in a boardinghouse to get the money to come to you.”
“You’d better pray about that,” said Mari, her little voice echoing the exact tone Tildie often used.
Tildie smiled. She marveled at Marilyn. Mari absorbed the comfort of a loving Father God and the friendship and protection of His Son. Boister believed, too, but so far, the joy of the Lord had not released him from his sorrow. Tildie knew it would, but she was impatient, especially now that it looked like they would be separated. She wouldn’t be there to nourish the little ones with the Word of God.
Her faith had provoked this scheme to marry her off. John Masters might grumble about an extra mouth to feed, but his real complaint railed against the Lord Tildie knew so well. She received banishment from her aunt’s home because she stood for something which was vinegar and gall to her new uncle. John Masters enjoyed someone else doing the work, and Tildie did plenty. He might have kept her on for that reason, but Tildie’s love of God nearly drove him wild.
He had called her every name he could think of. His vocabulary did not extend to fancy words. In his raving, he couldn’t quite bring up the high-sounding names he needed to express his disgust. Tildie got the message, though. He thought her sanctimonious, self-righteous, and interfering.
The children loved her and flourished in the sunshine of her faith. She whispered prayers to them in the morning after they stretched, before they threw off the covers. She prayed with them when they ate, got hurt, or lost something. She tucked them in with a prayer. She even sang hymns.
As John Masters’s intolerance became louder and more abrasive, Tildie had tried to be less demonstrative in his presence, not wishing to bring on the distressing bouts of fury. But Masters chafed against her quietness, as well.
“I’ve been praying,” Tildie assured her little cousin. “Remember, God listens to your prayers, too. No matter what happens, you must talk to Him.”
Marilyn nodded, but Boister who had glanced back at them firmly turned his face to look away.
Troubled, Tildie prayed, Oh Father, please, I want them with me. I want to reach Boister.
“Let’s pray for God to direct our steps,” she said aloud. “Then I’ll tell you about some stepping-stones back in Lafayette, Indiana, that take you across a little creek to a lush meadow where fireflies blink at the end of day.”
“What’s fireflies?” asked Mari.
“First, we pray,” said Tildie.