Prairie Storm Page 2

  “Abigail was famished!” Rosie said with a laugh. “Goodness, I don’t believe she’d been fed for hours.”

  “Whisht, Rosie,” Caitrin murmured. “The lady’s still weeping, can’t you see? There now, madam, you’ve got your baby once again. The wee thing will forget all about her hunger in a moment, and the pair of you can have a good night’s rest.”

  Lily tried to stop crying. Truly she did. But as the baby drank milk meant for little Abby, her pain and longing only intensified. All around her, the world drifted away—the two caring women, the rough blanket, even the preacher, whose voice droned like the hum of a lazy bee. The baby’s fingers were splayed across the bodice of Lily’s dress, and she knew they were not Abby’s fingers. The tiny head wreathed in a cloud of dark curls bore no resemblance to Abby with her golden wisps. The face was smaller, the cheeks sunken, the skin wrinkled. Abigail had been plump and round, at four months the picture of health. This was not Abby.

  “She’s still crying,” Rosie whispered to Caitrin. “I hate to leave her alone like this.”

  The Irishwoman glanced over her shoulder. “The preaching’s nearly finished for the evening, so it is. Sure, we’d best get back to our men.” She laid a hand on Lily’s arm. “Are you all right? I know you’re not from one of the homesteads around Hope, so you must have come traveling our way. Perhaps Rosie and I could have a look in the crowd for your husband.”

  “My husband is dead,” Lily whispered as she cupped the baby’s tiny head. The child was still nursing as though every drop of milk must be drained into her tiny, shrunken stomach. Lily shifted the baby into her other arm, and the child began to suckle again. “Three days ago. He’s buried near Topeka. My daughter lies beside him.”

  “Your daughter?”

  Lily brushed her damp cheek. “I buried her in a wooden box.”

  “Oh, dear,” Rosie said. “I’m so sorry. No wonder you’re upset—a husband and a daughter both gone. I couldn’t imagine how any woman could forget where she’d put her baby, but now I see you’ve been through a terrible trial. If I lost Seth and Chipper, I’d be just wild with grief. I couldn’t bear it. Oh, honey, do you and little Abigail need a place to sleep tonight? I hate to think of you out here on the prairie with nothing but a blanket and that old horse. Seth and I have a great big house, lots of space, and we’d be glad to put you and your daughter up for the night.”

  Lily could feel that the baby had finally drifted off to sleep, warm and content at last. “No, no, you don’t understand,” she murmured, drawing the tiny form out from beneath the purple cape and gazing down at the child’s blissful face. “This is … this is going to be all right. In a moment, I’ll leave.”

  “Leave?” Caitrin exclaimed. “But ’tis almost fully dark now. You’re a nursing mother and a frainey one at that. Sure, you can’t be tramping down the road in the middle of the night.”

  “Hey!” The preacher’s voice pealed out like a clap of thunder. “What’s going on here?”

  Lily’s head snapped up. Just beyond the blanket stood the two men who had accompanied Rosie and Caitrin. Between them, his boots planted a pace apart on the prairie grass, towered the preacher. He swept off his Stetson, took a step toward the women, and punched the air with his forefinger.

  “Look here, lady,” he snarled at Lily. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re up to, but you’d better hand over my baby. I’ve been given two jobs to do in this world. One of them is to preach the gospel. And the other is to take care of Samuel.”

  “Samuel?” Rosie and Caitrin said in unison. “Samuel?”

  Chapter 2

  YES, Samuel. That’s my baby.” Elijah stuffed his hat back onto his head and took another step toward the pretty blonde-haired woman in the purple cape. What was going on here? “Who’re you?”

  She looked up at him with big blue eyes and tearstained cheeks. “Lily Nolan,” she said softly, holding Samuel out in her arms. “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I reckon so.” He knelt on one knee and took the baby. The instant his big hands closed around the damp little bundle, Samuel’s eyes shot open and he let out a squall that could have shattered glass. Eli’s heart sank. “Aw, don’t start that again, fella. Come on, now, young’un, buck up.”

  He drew the baby close and awkwardly rocked him from side to side. Just like always, it didn’t do a bit of good. The baby kept on hollering, his little fists pumping the air in a rage.

  “Please,” the woman said, reaching out. Before Eli could react, she took the baby, turned him sideways, and tucked him into the crook of Eli’s elbow. “This is the way to hold your son,” she said, “and put your hand under his bottom.”

  “He’s wet!”

  “He certainly is. Where’s his mother? She ought to have changed and fed him hours ago. It’s no wonder this baby’s been crying his head off. He’s miserable. He wants his mother.”

  “We thought you were his mother, Mrs. Nolan,” the woman beside her said.

  “What’s going on here, Rosie?” Seth Hunter asked.

  “This woman told Caitrin and me that she’d lost her husband and her daughter in Topeka three days ago. She said she could hear Abigail crying, and when we found this baby in the saddlebag, she started feeding him.”

  “You fed Samuel?” Eli demanded of the blonde woman. He looked down at the baby, who had settled into a drowsy daze. As a matter of fact, this was the first time Sam had been quiet since Eli could remember. A miracle. “What did you feed him?”

  “She nursed him,” the other woman said. “She told us the baby was her daughter, Abigail.”

  “No … no, I didn’t.” Lily gathered her skirts and stood. “I said I had lost my baby. And I have. I’ve lost Abigail. Sometimes I think I hear her crying, but then I remember that she … that Abby is dead. My baby is gone … she’s dead….”

  Clapping her hand over her mouth, she fled. Eli frowned. A dead husband and a lost baby. A complete stranger nursing Sam.

  But the baby was quiet. Quiet for the first time ever. Sleeping.

  “Whoa, lady!” Eli bellowed. “Hold your horses there.”

  When she didn’t stop, he took off after her. Samuel jerked awake and went to wailing again, but Eli had gotten so used to the ruckus he hardly noticed as he loped through the tall prairie grass. God, his heart cried out, show me what to do here! You gave me this child, and I don’t want him to die. Maybe you sent along this gal, too. Please make her stop running away.

  Her purple cape billowing behind, the woman jogged on as if she had no idea where she was going. Eli easily caught up to her, snagged her elbow, and swung her around. To his dismay, he saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  “Ma’am,” he said over Sam’s screams, “listen, I didn’t aim to scare you. You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m just a preacher, and not much of one at that. Look, I don’t know a thing about babies, feeding them or holding them or anything, and I’m real sorry to hear about your husband and your young’un passing on. Fact is, I appreciate you taking care of Samuel here.”

  “What?” She wiped her cheek with the heel of her hand. “Where’s your wife?”

  “I don’t have a wife. I’m not married.”

  “You’re not marr—oh, give me that child.”

  She took the screaming baby out of his arms, rearranged the wrinkled blanket, and tucked Samuel’s head against the side of her neck. When she began to sway gently from side to side, the baby gave a big hiccup and fell silent.

  “Where is this child’s mother?” she demanded in a low voice.

  Eli took off his hat and tapped it on his thigh a couple of times. “Dead.” He spoke the word under his breath, as if the child could understand its significance. “A few days back when I was down south, inside the border of the Osage Indian reservation, I came upon a wagon on the trail. It had been shot full of arrows. I reckon you know the Osages don’t like the way squatters have been moving onto their land and petitioning the government to move the
tribe into Oklahoma. Anyhow, I saw right off that the man was already dead and the woman was a goner. She pushed the little fella into my arms and begged me to keep him safe. ‘Teach Samuel to love the Lord,’ she said, and then she breathed her last.”

  The swaying stopped. “How long ago?”

  “Four days.”

  “But this baby can’t be much more than a week old. What have you been feeding him?”

  Eli scratched the back of his neck. “I tried mashed potatoes,” he admitted. “He doesn’t like them much. He did better on scrambled eggs. I don’t have a bottle, and he’s not real good with a cup. I manage to get a little water down him now and then. I know he needs milk, but I’m a traveling man—”

  “The baby is starving. He’ll die without proper nourishment.” Her blue eyes flashed. “You’d better find this child some milk, Preacher-man, or you’ll have his soul on your conscience.”

  “Brother Elijah?” Seth Hunter, Jack Cornwall, and the other two women were striding across the prairie toward him. Right after the preaching service that evening, Seth and Jack had approached Eli with an interesting proposition, and he wanted to hear more. But now all he could think of was this woman’s prediction of doom.

  “Brother Elijah,” Seth called again. “I want you to meet my wife, Rose, and this is her friend Caitrin Murphy. Jack Cornwall here is engaged to marry Miss Murphy.”

  “Elijah Book,” he said, giving the women a nod. “Pleased to meet you, ladies.”

  “Reverend Book,” Rose Hunter addressed him. “It’s our privilege to have you in Hope.”

  “I’m not much of a reverend, ma’am. I’m just a cowhand from Amarillo who heard the voice of God calling him to preach. I’ve been on the trail since March, riding from one place to another and speaking the word of the Lord.”

  “I’ve asked Brother Elijah if he would be willing to stay on in Hope for a couple of weeks,” Seth told the women. “He could perform the wedding for Jack and Caitrin, and maybe he’d preach us a few sermons in our new church.”

  “A couple of weeks?” Rose Hunter cried. “Why not permanently? You could become our very own minister, Brother Elijah! You and your wife and son could live here in Hope while you minister to the homesteaders.”

  “I’m not married, ma’am,” Eli said. “Samuel’s parents were ambushed on the trail, and God put the boy into my hands to bring up.”

  “Then he’s a foundling like I am!” Rose exclaimed, wonder lighting her pretty face.

  “Brother Elijah, this is the answer to your prayers and ours,” Rose’s friend Caitrin said warmly. “Sure, you can raise little Samuel in a town filled with loving people who will look after him as though he were our own. And instead of making poor Seth search all over Topeka for a preacher willing to move to Hope, God has sent you to us.”

  “Now hold on a minute there,” Eli put in. “I appreciate the notion, and I know you folks mean well. But the truth is, I’m on my way to China.”

  “China?” Rose and Caitrin echoed each other again.

  “That’s right. I told the Lord I’d go wherever he sent me to preach his message of forgiveness and salvation, even across the seas to the farthest lands of the earth.”

  The woman holding Samuel gave a little grunt of laughter. “And what did God say to your grand offer?” she challenged him. “Look, Preacher-man, I’ve got to go. You’d better start feeding this baby on something better than mashed potatoes. And change his diaper now and then.”

  She held Samuel out to Eli. He shook his head and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “If God sent anyone, I believe it was this lady to Samuel.”

  “Oh no. I—”

  “You just gave Samuel a taste of manna from heaven. Look at him lying there in your arms. That boy hasn’t slept more than a wink since the day I found him. Now his belly’s full and warm, and he’s got the light of hope in his heart. Would you consider keeping it burning?”

  “What are you talking about? I can’t stay here. I have a job to do. I’ve got to earn enough money to get back home.”

  “Then I’ll pay you to feed him.”

  “You’re crazy.” She glanced away for a moment, hesitating in spite of herself.

  “Just a few days, ma’am. Just to get Sam on his feet.”

  Scorn flashed in her eyes. “He’s a baby. He won’t be on his feet for months—and it’ll take a lot longer than a few days to make him healthy again.”

  “Please.” Eli rolled his hat brim in his hand. “Please help me. Do it for the boy.”

  She gazed down at the baby in her arms, and Eli sensed her weakening. God, she’s a woman, he prayed silently, a tender, loving woman. Open her heart to Samuel. Touch her soul, please, Lord.

  “How much?” she asked, her voice flat. “I can make three dollars a day at my regular job, and that’s for just a few hours of work. How many of those tithes and offerings are you willing to turn loose of, Preacher-man?”

  Eli’s eyes narrowed at the harshness of her words. Would it even be right to let such a bitter woman tend to the boy? The fact was, he couldn’t come close to paying her three dollars a day. True, people often contributed to his ministry when he finished preaching a sermon. But he barely scraped enough money out of his hat to buy himself a little flour and a few mealy potatoes each week. Any extra money he could put aside, he kept in a pouch on his belt—the savings for his passage to China.

  “All right,” he said, untying the pouch. If God wanted to send him to China, he’d provide the means some other way. “You can take all I’ve got, ma’am. It’s four dollars and fifty cents. That’ll keep Samuel going for a day and a half.”

  He held out the pouch, pleading with God to make the woman take it. It didn’t matter that she had a hard heart, or that he ought to get back on his horse and ride to another town to preach, or even that this would clean out his entire missions treasury. What mattered was Samuel. The baby had to live.

  “Now hold on a minute there, Brother Elijah,” Seth Hunter said. “Let’s think the situation through. This woman needs pay. You need this woman. And we need you. Why not let us pay you to be our town preacher? Then you can pay her to feed the baby.”

  “The fact is, I’m on my way to China,” Eli said.

  “The fact is, I’m on my way back to Philadelphia,” the woman spoke up. “And I don’t intend to sit around all summer in a barren little town waiting hand and foot on some good-for-nothing preacher who thinks he can just pick a baby up off the road like an old discarded hat and … and feed it mashed potatoes and keep it in a saddlebag, when other people … other people’s babies die of diphtheria … and fever … and they have to be buried in little wooden boxes … and what do you know about God anyway, Preacher-man?” She had started crying again, heavy tears dripping onto Samuel’s blanket. “You don’t deserve this baby. You didn’t do anything to earn him. Nothing. You don’t have any idea what it means to suffer … and … and marry someone you don’t even love and live in a tent just so that … so that you can know the joy of one day holding your own baby … your own baby in your arms … and loving her …”

  “There now,” Rose Hunter said, slipping her arm around the sobbing woman. “Of course Brother Elijah doesn’t know the terrible pain you’ve suffered. All he knows is that he cares for this little baby, and he needs your help.”

  “Won’t you help?” Caitrin asked her. “Do it to honor the memory of your little Abigail. Do it for Samuel.”

  Stricken, Eli stared at the woman holding the child God had given him. Who was she? Why did anger bubble out of her like lava, searing everything it touched? She was beautiful, delicate-boned, as fragile as a porcelain teacup. Her golden hair gleamed in the lamplight, and her skin looked as soft as the petals of a white rose. Who had hurt her so deeply that raw pain tinged every word she spoke?

  “All I wanted was to hold Abigail again,” she was murmuring against Mrs. Hunter’s shoulder. “I thought it might be my own baby crying, but then … then it was this little …
this boy with dark hair and wrinkled skin … and he’s not Abby….”

  “No, he’s not,” Rose Hunter said. “But he’s alive, he’s hungry for life, and he deserves the chance to grow and learn and become a man someday.”

  “Sure, the best we could do for him here in Hope is feed him sugar water or cow’s milk,” Caitrin continued, “and you said yourself that he’s already far gone. Samuel needs what only you can give him. Please do this.”

  “Please?” Rose whispered.

  Elijah stared at the blonde woman as though by sheer willpower he could force her to agree to help. Care for the baby, he mentally ordered her. Care for him as much as I do.

  Growing up out in cattle country, Elijah had had only one person to look out for. Himself. He’d always lived a rootless life, as a child wandering with his father from job to job and then as a young man making his own way as a hired hand on one roundup or another. One night during the past winter, cold and hungry, he had broken into a settler’s cabin and stolen everything he could lay his hands on. Including a Bible.

  Three days and nights of nothing but reading the words in that book had broken him like a dried-up cottonwood limb. Down on his knees he had begged for God’s forgiveness and surrendered his soul to Jesus Christ. He had returned the stolen goods, ridden into the nearest town, found a preacher to guide him, and started walking on the path of a new life.

  And he’d realized that the world was not about Elijah Book. It was about other people—people who were hurting, empty, rebellious, and lost. People like this woman in the purple robe. Eli longed to reach out to her and touch her soul with the words of God. But he knew she held Samuel’s future in her hands, and one wrong move from him … one misspoken word … Please God, unlock her heart….

  “All right,” she said, nodding quickly. “All right, I’ll do it for a few days. But I have to have money.”