Treasure Reborn, page 7
“Whoa now.” Derek’s voice came low. His hand went to the other side of her waist and he pulled her close to his side. “Easy there.”
He spoke to her as if to an unbroken filly, but she didn’t take offense. Penny placed her hand on his chest near his shoulder and worked to regain steadiness in her mind and limbs.
“Olivia’s fine,” he reassured. “Nothing happened.”
She glanced toward Olivia, whom Christa now hugged fiercely.
“I was trying to get some rocks to practice with for my slingshot,” Olivia explained as if knowing she’d be asked, her eyes on Penny. “When I turned over that big one, that thing came running from under it toward me. It ran so fast.”
“Scorpions can be fast.” The words rumbled in Derek’s chest, the vibrations they made soothing against Penny, though his message evoked caution. “Best to be more careful from now on. Try not to pick up any rocks larger than a pebble.”
“I will,” Olivia promised. “Thank you, Mr. Burke.”
“Glad to help.”
“Aye, thank you.” Penny stepped away from Derek, confused by her heart’s strange reaction, skipping beats, and the way her breath caught in her throat. She felt even more perplexed that she missed his warm strength and wanted to retrace that step back into his arms to be held by him a moment longer. There she’d felt safe, an emotion she hadn’t felt in a long while. To cover her confusion, she took charge.
“Girls, get on back to the wagon and ready yourselves for bed,” she ordered, thankful to find her voice again. “The scare is over.”
“Yes, Mama.” Both girls ran for the wagon.
“You all right?” Derek asked when Penny remained fixed. She sensed his gaze intent on her face, however she couldn’t look at him, not with her emotions still in a whirl.
“ ’Twas a momentary spell. Rather inane when I think of the many hardships we’ve faced. I’ve encountered scorpions before. And to react so strongly at such an occurrence when all worked out well in the end—well, that was foolish. I’ve never come so close to swooning in my life.”
“Don’t take on so,” he soothed. “I expect every man or woman has that staggering moment when they come up against the unexpected and it knocks their feet right out from under them. I imagine the heat today didn’t help matters, either. It takes time to get accustomed to traveling in it. Have you been drinking water?”
“Aye.” She wondered if he’d forgotten this was her home. True, four days away and not as barren as the land through which they now traveled, and she’d possessed a roof to give her shelter from the unforgiving sun, though it had seldom been as hot. Nonetheless, it was a land with which she was familiar.
The rest of the evening passed without occasion. After she’d cleaned up from supper and stored the utensils, she returned the small crate to the wagon. Her gaze went past her sleeping children to the trunk that took up a third of the wagon bed; it had taken all three of them to load it, and they’d had to empty it beforehand. Penny thought a moment, then grabbed the lantern hanging outside the wagon, climbed within the shielding canvas, and pulled up the heavy lid.
With care, she lifted a fold of her mother’s wedding dress from the trunk, admiring the intricate beadwork that both her grandmother and mother had sewn at the neck and hem. Symbols that told her mother’s story and of meeting Penny’s father, symbols of happiness for their future. She pulled the dress all the way out, and a fall of the soft, tanned deerskin poured down in light brown folds to her lap. Her fingertips rested over one rectangle of many in the cobalt, green, and white seed and stone beads, and her mind wandered as it had often done of late.
A long time had elapsed since she’d felt or behaved like a woman with a woman’s soft qualities; she wondered if any such traits still existed inside her. For what seemed endless months, she had needed to assume the fierce, protective, and fighting characteristics of a man and taken on a man’s job to protect what was hers. In the process, she felt her womanliness had dissolved. Had her da or husband been alive, she doubted they would even recognize her. She’d been astounded when Derek referred to her as a lady on their first day of traveling together.
Penny thought about their quiet guide and the odd desire she experienced to be near him. She had long hoped for a God-fearing, faithful companion, a hard worker, someone to become a good father to her girls, and had made the request for months in prayer. She’d loved her husband, but time dulled the pain of losing him and helped her to let go. She felt prepared not only to accept the notion of marrying again but also to picture her future with another man. The more she learned of Derek Burke—however difficult the task to piece together such information—the less she believed any man other than Derek could take the place of Oliver.
She’d heard tales from her father of God-fearing men and women who married for convenience’s sake, some barely knowing the other. Some men sent for brides from the East, sight unseen. With that knowledge, she didn’t discount the possibility of a union despite their scant time together. But Derek made it clear he planned to remain a drifter, more or less stating flat out that he didn’t have it in his mind to settle down with any woman. Could she change his heart to reconsider the idea? Did she truly wish to? Or were such ideas nonsense and too soon in their acquaintance to broach or even ponder?
“What’s that you’re holding, Mama?” Olivia questioned.
Surprised, Penny looked her daughter’s way. “I thought you were asleep.”
Olivia’s tousled, dark braids swept her nightdress, one falling over her shoulder to the small of her back as she rose to sit in the cramped wagon. “The light got in my eyes when they was shut, but I couldn’t sleep anyhow.”
“Were shut.” Recalling her daughter’s earlier scare, Penny wasn’t surprised. She noticed Christa’s face bore a slight smile as she slumbered like an angel curled up beside Olivia and felt grateful that one of her children invited sweet dreams. Her gaze returned to the velvety cloth in her lap. “This was your grandmother’s dress. She wore it for her wedding and other special occasions.”
“Did you wear it when you married Papa?”
“No, I made another.” Penny’s remark came distant, her mind still wrapped up in Derek.
“Why didn’t you wear this one? It’s so pretty.”
“Aye.” She couldn’t explain to her daughter that Oliver’s parents had never accepted her because of her heritage. Out of respect to Oliver, she’d foregone wearing to the ceremony anything native that might provoke disapproval from them, but often since then, she’d regretted her decision.
“You going to wear it tomorrow?”
“What?” Penny looked at her eldest daughter in surprise.
“You should wear it, Mama. It would look nice on you.”
“This isn’t a dress one would wear to travel through the wilds.”
“Why not?”
Why not, indeed!
“Mr. Burke might think it’s pretty, too.”
Christa giggled, and Penny sent a sharp glance her way. Her youngest child had one eye opened and quickly shut it.
“So, Christabel Louise, are you playing possum, too?” Penny asked, deciding to ignore Olivia’s last comment.
“Playing possum?” Christa pushed herself up to sit beside her sister.
“What your grandda said to me when I was your age. It means pretending to sleep.”
“I did try—honest.” She covered her mouth with her hand to smother another giggle.
“Of course you did,” Penny agreed with mock sternness, doubting it. She imagined both girls had been whispering together as they often did at night. Yet this night, she would not scold. This night felt oddly different, as if a strange weight of import had come to rest on her shoulders. Catching sight of the sacred book in her trunk, she thought she understood in part and resolved to resume a lost tradition in full.
She folded the dress, setting it back in its sheltered place, and pulled out the book. “Do you girls know what this is?”
Christa shook her head no, and Olivia drew closer to peer at the leather-bound cover.
“You don’t recall when your papa would read to you from the Holy Bible?”
“I remember,” Olivia answered quietly.
“Aye, you did love to sit at his knee.” Penny sighed with bittersweet fondness at the mental image her words evoked. “This belonged to my mother. My da sent for it from back East during a trip to town. He taught my mother to read from these pages just as a parson’s wife taught him from one similar when he was newly come from Edinburgh to Boston as a youth. He stayed with the parson and his wife for a time. Not many people then or now receive the privilege of such instruction—to read and write. And sadly others, though they can read, never learn the words from this book. My parents were two of the fortunate ones, and what they taught me, I now teach you.”
The girls’ eyes widened as Penny spoke, and they each gave a solemn nod.
She opened the cover and caressed the thin, onionskin-like page with tender remembrance. A dried flower stem stuck out from between the bottom of some pages, and she turned to that section of the New Testament. She couldn’t recall having seen the stem before or how it got there, and wondered if it had been her mother’s. “I want to renew the tradition of reading from this book each night. I think it would be pleasing to God, and we should strive to please Him in all that we do. We want to start out our new life as it should be.” And should have been all along.
Penny had attempted to carry on with the readings after Oliver died, and for a while, she had succeeded. But the cares of the world weighed upon her, until one evening she forgot to retrieve the Bible from its place in her trunk. With the difficulties that continued to beset her daily, forgetting had become easier with the passage of time.
Forgive me, Father, for disobeying Your Word and not keeping up the custom of sharing with my girls what lies within Your Holy Book.
After issuing her silent prayer, she drew the kerosene lamp close. It would probably be wisest to conserve oil and use the dawn’s light to read the tiny print, and after this night, she planned to do just that. But now that she’d retrieved the family Bible from her trunk and the pages lay open, she didn’t wish to put it off any longer. A long-fermented seed of eagerness sprouted within her heart to again turn its pages and look upon the stirring words. She instructed her girls to lie down but to keep their eyes open.
“This isn’t a bedtime tale,” she explained while they did as they were told. “Not one like your grandda told you, before he went to live in glory. There are accounts of adventure within, ’tis true, much like your grandda’s stories were—but this is the Almighty God’s Word and His message. It’s important you not only hear these words but that you act on them so your life will be blessed.”
“Yes, Mama,” her daughters said one after the other. Their brown eyes big and full of curious anticipation, they again pulled the quilt of hides over them as they prepared to listen.
In a low, soothing voice, Penny read the page on which the dried flower marker rested, figuring it as good a place as any to start. She read to them parables that Jesus Christ told. But when she reached the Lord’s instruction to forgive a man seventy times seven, she grew troubled and ended the reading.
The girls’ eyes were heavy-lidded as she smoothed their hair and kissed them good night, each of them soon falling into trouble-free slumber.
However, her burden did not ease.
❧
Derek watched the back of the wagon where Penny had disappeared, no longer interested in his map. It told him nothing he needed from the day’s travel, and again he speculated on whether he’d been fooled into some wild goose chase for a nonexistent fortune in silver.
He recalled Penny’s words, muted but understandable, as she’d read to her girls just like his ma had done with him when he was a boy. He’d recognized the stories and felt a sweet nostalgia upon hearing them again, remembering how his ma chided him when she’d caught him in some mischief and often compared his misdeeds to one of the parables Jesus taught. At one point, Derek had begun to think of himself as the prodigal son, though he wasn’t the one who’d left home—his pa had done that. But as often as his ma recounted that story, he’d figured she was trying to get some sort of message across.
A stir at the canvas brought his attention from the fire where it had wandered back to the wagon. Hurriedly, he folded the map sections and tucked them inside his buckskin jacket under one of his suspenders as the Widow Crawder climbed down from the wagon bed. She looked his way, as if uncertain, before approaching him.
“I want to express my thanks once more for what you did for Olivia,” she explained.
“Well, ma’am.” He rose to stand, a bit embarrassed by all the fuss she made out of the incident. “Isn’t that what you hired me for? As an extra gun for protection?”
“Aye. Be that as it may, when I asked you to join us and thought of the girls needing protection, I had in mind the two-legged variety of predator, not the. . .however many-legged thing that vile creature was. I never stopped to consider that the dangers are unending no matter how careful we are.” She looked off to the side in the direction of a black mass of hills that blocked out part of the nighttime sky as if trying to search out the answers to her problems there.
After a moment, she cleared her throat, returning her attention to him. “Also, I want to say. . .that is, I wish to tell you. . .” She took a deep breath and rolled her glance up to the stars, clearly ill at ease. “I wish to apologize for prying into your affairs yet again. Three times I’ve done so, and I haven’t the right. ’Tis a fact, one shouldn’t judge a man by his past, as my da used to say. . .whatever your past may be. So it is irrelevant. You’ve proven to me twice over that you’re a man who can be trusted.”
He studied her, mystified as to what she had in mind now. “I appreciate the apology, but there’s no need. I wouldn’t have told you anything if I hadn’t wanted to.”
She blinked. “Oh. All right then. Well, I’ll be wishing you a pleasant evening, Mr. Burke.” She nodded a hasty farewell and turned to go, then turned around, her motion as swift. “One last matter, then I’ll be leavin’ you to your. . .whatever you may have been doing. Not that I’m asking.” She paused to allow a response, but when he offered none, she cleared her throat and continued. “Aye, well I plan to read to the girls from the Bible of a morning before we break the fast, and I’d like to issue an invitation for you to join us. Only if you’d care to attend; I’m not forcing the matter.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll consider it.”
Derek watched her retrace her steps to her wagon and wondered if she considered him a soul in need of reforming and if that had been the driving force behind her sudden invitation. He feared God but didn’t trust Him, nor did he believe God cared anything about him. And he doubted if the Widow Crawder could change his mind in that regard. Even so, he supposed it would be impolite to decline her charitable, if awkward, offer. Besides, likely nothing existed in the Good Book that he hadn’t heard his mother tell him before.
Seven
The miles of tedium progressed, and their sightings of game diminished. With no meat, Penny made do with johnnycakes cooked in her three-legged, cast-iron spider. What stores remained of flour, coffee, and other staples had been acquired during Oliver’s trip into Silverton last year, and she hoped to replenish her supplies once she arrived in Carson City—or perhaps at a trading post if they came across a town. At least the blisters on her fingers from holding the reins had toughened, and she felt thankful for small blessings.
Each morning, Penny read a chapter aloud from the Bible. She’d decided against doing so before breakfast, with the hope that everyone could then concentrate on the readings and not the rumblings in their stomachs. Nevertheless, Derek still seemed jittery when she read, and she wondered if he didn’t often get a chance to hear the Good Book’s wisdom. Or perhaps he felt uncomfortable standing for so long in respect for the occasion. No matter, Penny couldn’t place blame. She should have furthered her girls’ spiritual instruction instead of distancing herself from God. On this journey through nowhere, she felt as if she was once more beginning to find Him.
On the seventh morning, they reached a bluff and had to leave the river behind to take a cutoff. For what seemed like endless miles, they traveled up and down some of the steepest and most stony terrain Penny had ever encountered. At times, she wasn’t sure the horses could manage the hills, and Derek needed to lead her team on foot, his horse tied to the wagon.
Through her da’s tales, she’d learned of the cutoff and also that an additional day’s journey would bring them to a canyon with a treasure. Not silver or even gold. But instead, hidden at the edge of a hill, a sheltered pool of heated water bubbled up from beneath the earth, protected from the sun’s rays.
At this point, any water would be welcome water, even hot.
Finally, they came to a spring that, although fresh, turned out to be muddy. Seeing no feed for the horses, they rested only long enough for Penny to collect and boil water for their containers and for the horses to take their fill from the watering place. They traveled another few miles and returned to the river where, exhausted, they stayed the night.
❧
Long before the rising sun glazed the rocks with vibrant rose, Penny awoke, weary but determined, and set to work making breakfast. Grateful to note the cloud banks to the west, thicker than the wispy trails of the past week, she hoped they would act as a shield against the sun since she doubted they would produce rain. The land seldom received it.
While the wagon rolled forward along the plain, her mind revisited former years. She replayed memorable events: the happy ones when she’d married Oliver and given birth to each of her children, and the most tragic moments when she’d buried her stillborn son and two years later her husband, after bites from a rattlesnake had killed him. Even if she’d reached Oliver in time, she doubted she could have saved him with her plant cures.
