A Big Sky Christmas (21 page)

The weather held for several days as the wagon train continued northward. A glittering blanket of frost covered the ground every morning, but it melted away when the sun came up. Chilly winds blew from the north, sending towering white clouds scudding through the blue sky like tall-masted ships. The thick wool and sheepskin coats worn by the immigrants kept them from getting too cold.

The brisk air didn't bother Jamie. After the rugged life he had led and the iron constitution it had given him, he was practically immune to the weather unless it became really extreme. He enjoyed the cold, clear conditions.

For one thing, the wagon train was making good time again, and he was satisfied with the number of miles they covered every day. There was still a slim chance they would reach Eagle Valley by Christmas.

One of the teenage boys in the group had been recruited to drive R.G. Hamilton's wagon. R.G. had no family and had been traveling alone until romance had blossomed between him and Alice and they had wound up getting married in Kansas City.

Alice insisted on staying with the wagon, even though she could have gone back to traveling with her family. Savannah rode with the grieving widow sometimes, keeping her company. After several days, Jamie sought her out at the Bingham wagon one evening to ask how Alice was doing.

Not surprising, Bodie Cantrell was having supper with Savannah, Edward, and Leticia. Any time he wasn't out scouting, Bodie could be found somewhere near the Bingham wagon. He was so head-over-heels in love with Savannah that Jamie sometimes had a hard time not chuckling at the moonstruck look on the young man's face.

The good thing was that Savannah seemed to return the feeling. There weren't many things worse in this world than being desperately in love with somebody who didn't really give a darn about you.

At least, Jamie supposed that to be the case. He had never experienced such unrequited love himself, since he and Kate had been soul mates right from the start and that feeling hadn't lessened a whit over the years.

It had taken an outlaw's bullet to part them, and Jamie would carry that loss with him for the rest of his life.

“Would you like something to eat, Mr. MacCallister?” Leticia Bingham asked him as he came up to the wagon.

Jamie shook his head. “No, ma'am, but I'm obliged to you for the offer. Moses and I already had supper a little while ago.” He grinned. “I'm teaching him how to cook trail grub.”

“How's he taking to that?” Bodie asked with a smile.

“Not bad. He's a pretty smart fella. Can do most anything he puts his mind to.” Jamie tipped his hat back. “I really came to talk to you, Savannah, and ask how Alice Hamilton is getting on.”

Savannah's pretty face wore a solemn expression. “It's been really hard on her, Mr. MacCallister. That's not surprising, of course, losing her husband like that so soon after they were married . . . although I suppose it would be difficult no matter how long it had been.”

“Has she said anything about wanting to go back? She might be able to manage that, come spring.”

Savannah shook her head. “No, it was R.G.'s dream for them to have a place of their own in Eagle Valley, and Alice seems determined to go through with that. She says she's going to take up the homestead R.G. intended to file. But other times . . .” Savannah looked worried. “Other times she acts like she's too overwhelmed with grief to go on. She says she doesn't think she can make it.”

“Probably be a good idea for you to keep an eye on her as much as you can,” Jamie said.

“You don't think she'd . . . hurt herself, do you, Mr. MacCallister?”

“I hope not, but you never know what folks might do when they've suffered a bad loss.” Some folks might even set out to hunt down an entire gang of vicious killers and outlaws, he thought.

He put that out of his mind and went on. “If you get a chance, tell Alice's folks about how she's acting.”

“They already know,” Savannah said. “They're worried about her, too. Her mother keeps trying to talk her into coming back to their wagon, but Alice won't hear of it. She insists she's going to stay in the wagon she shared with R.G., because that's where she was happy.”

“Seems to me like there would be too many reminders of him in that wagon,” Bodie commented.

“People never really know what they'll do until they're faced with something. Then it's too late to prepare. You've just got to do what it takes to survive.” That was something Jamie Ian MacCallister knew all about—survival.

The next day dawned clear, but by noon there was a dark blue line on the northern horizon. Within an hour it had grown into a low cloud bank that seemed to be rushing toward the wagon train. To Jamie it looked closer with every minute that passed. He pointed it out to Bodie, who was riding ahead of the wagons with him. “Blue Norther.”

“A snowstorm, you mean?”

“Might be some snow with it, might not be. At this time of year, it's hard to say until the blasted thing is right on top of you. But whether it snows or not, we need to stop and hunker down until it's passed us by.”

They turned and rode back to the lead wagon. At Jamie's command, Bodie headed on along the line of vehicles, telling the drivers to stop and form up in a circle.

“What's going on here?” Captain Hendricks asked.

Jamie leveled a finger at the onrushing clouds. “We're in for a bad blow. The wind's going to be so hard it'll seem like these prairie schooners of yours are about to lift up off the ground and fly. The temperature's liable to drop forty degrees in an hour, too.”

“But it's not much above freezing now,” Hendricks protested. “If it drops forty degrees . . .” His eyes widened at the thought.

Jamie grunted. “Yeah. That's what happens when you start out on a trip like this so late in the year.”

Hendricks's face hardened angrily, but he said, “What do we need to do?”

“We'll go ahead and make camp. Build fires now while we still can and get some hot food and coffee in everybody. Then tie everything down tight to keep it from blowing away, climb in the wagons, and heap as many blankets and quilts as you can on top of you. It'll be a mighty cold night, but we ought to make it through all right.”

Hendricks nodded. “I'll make sure everybody gets busy and does what you said.”

For the next hour, as the Blue Norther rampaged closer and closer, the camp was a beehive of activity. Everyone seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation. As the cloud bank swept in, it grew darker and more sinister.

The wind, which had been fairly light, died down to almost nothing as Jamie walked around the circle of wagons, checking to make sure everything was secured as much as possible. Most of the immigrants were worried. He tried to reassure them. They had all been through cold snaps back where they came from, he told them. A great plains norther was a mite more . . . enthusiastic, he explained, but they could ride it out.

“Keep everybody close,” he said again and again. “And huddle up together. You'll need the warmth by morning.”

Satisfied that the immigrants were as ready as they were going to be, he headed for Moses's wagon. The clouds had swallowed up the sun, and even though the hour was just past mid-afternoon, it was almost dark as night.

The wind hit while Jamie was walking across the camp.

He reached up quickly and grabbed his hat to keep it from blowing away. The wind smacked into his face like an icy fist. By the time he reached the wagon he was leaning forward into it, struggling against the violent gusts.

He climbed into the wagon, ducked through the opening, and pulled the canvas flap tightly closed behind him, tying it in place with the cords attached to it. He could feel the wagon vibrating from the wind pushing against it.

“You know, I've seen some bad blizzards back in Poland,” Moses said. “Is this one going to be worse, Jamie?”

“Don't know. I've never been to Poland. I don't smell any snow in the air, though. I think we're just going to get the cold wind. But it's going to be mighty cold.”

“You can smell snow?” Moses sounded like he found that hard to believe.

“Sure. Snow, rain, dust storms . . . you get to where you can smell what the weather's going to do if you stay out here on the frontier long enough.”

“Somehow I don't doubt it. I don't think I'd doubt anything you had to tell me, Jamie.”

“Oh, I can spin a few windies when the mood strikes me,” Jamie said with a smile. “But when it comes to getting by out here, I won't steer you wrong.”

The wind began to howl in mindless shrieks that sounded like lost souls being tormented in hell. It made the cold seem even more numbing. Jamie dug an old buffalo robe he'd had for more than thirty years out of his gear and wrapped himself in it. Night closed down quickly, and he slept the way any frontiersman would sleep when he had the chance.

He woke to shouts, stirred himself, crawled out of the buffalo robe, and untied the flap over the back of the wagon. He had just stuck his head out when Savannah McCoy came running toward the vehicle, carrying a lantern and calling urgently, “Mr. MacCallister! Mr. MacCallister!”

“What is it?”

Savannah lifted her stricken face toward him. “It's Alice Hamilton, Mr. MacCallister. She's gone!”

“What do you mean, gone?” he asked Savannah as he climbed out of Moses's wagon.

“I decided she shouldn't be alone tonight and went over to her wagon right after the wind hit. Alice seemed glad to see me. We put our bedrolls next to each other on the floor. I . . . I tried to stay awake, but I dozed off. When I woke up, she wasn't there anymore.” Tears began to roll down Savannah's cheeks. “I'm so, so sorry—”

“Stop that. It's not your fault. Anything you did to watch out for that gal was from the goodness of your heart, and nobody's going to blame you for what's happened.”

“Do you think something has . . . happened?”

Jamie didn't answer that question directly. “Let's go take a look around. Maybe we can find her.”

Moses was leaning out the back of the wagon. He had overheard what Savannah said, and asked, “Should I rouse everyone else, Jamie, to help you look?”

Jamie considered for a second. The wind was bitingly cold, and it was only going to get worse. Everybody was hunkered down in their wagons, buried in quilts and blankets, and that was where they needed to stay.

“Get Bodie and that fella Lucas,” Jamie decided. “We won't tell anybody else for now.” He reached back into the wagon, got his hat, and tugged it down tight on his head. He pulled out the buffalo robe as well and wrapped it around his shoulders. Then he took the lantern from Savannah and headed for Alice Hamilton's wagon.

He studied the ground around the wagon for tracks, but it had dried out since the rain several days earlier and he didn't see any footprints. He found a place where he thought the dry grass had been disturbed, but he couldn't be sure about that.

Bodie and Jake Lucas arrived, looking half-frozen already even though they had blankets wrapped tightly around themselves. Bodie asked, “What can we do to help, Jamie?”

“We're going to look for Miz Hamilton, but we don't want anybody else wandering off and getting lost, so stay close together while we search.”

“Do you think that's what happened to her?” Savannah asked. “Do you think she got lost?”

“More than likely. She might've stepped out of the wagon to tend to some personal business, gotten turned around, and started off in the wrong direction, thinking she was coming back. By the time she figured out she was going the wrong way, she couldn't locate the camp anymore.”

That explanation was entirely possible, Jamie thought. But his gut told him it wasn't the only explanation.

Since her husband's death, Alice Hamilton had been trying to drag herself up out of a pit of despair. Maybe it had pulled her down so deep she couldn't escape from it.

“I'll help you look,” Savannah said.

“No!” Jamie and Bodie said at the same time.

“Get back in the wagon, out of the wind,” Jamie told her. “The four of us will find her.”

As he, Moses, Bodie, and Jake spread out in a fan shape from the Hamilton wagon, Jamie thought about how the chances of finding Alice would be increased if more people were searching for her.

But the chances of somebody else getting lost and freezing to death would be greater, too. It was like the old saying about being caught between a rock and a hard place. Whatever he did increased the risk of
somebody
dying.

With the temperature dropping the way it was and the savage wind ripping away any trace of warmth, a person could freeze to death in an hour, maybe less. The frigid cold wouldn't kill as quickly as that flooded creek had, but it could kill just as surely.

Jamie cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Mrs. Hamilton! Alice!” The other men began calling her name, too. Somebody at the wagon train might hear the shouting and wonder what was going on, but that couldn't be helped. If Alice was lost and truly wanted to be found, the sound of their voices might save her life.

The yelling helped Jamie keep track of the other men, too. He didn't want to lose anybody else.

They spread out away from the wagon for what seemed like a long time. When Jamie estimated that they had covered close to a mile, he called his three companions to him. “I don't think she could have gotten this far. We've missed her somewhere.”

“She could have headed off from the wagons at any angle,” Bodie pointed out.

Moses suggested, “Maybe we should go back and start over, taking a different direction this time.”

“That's all we can do,” Jamie said. “Come on.”

The night dragged past. First one hour, then two, then three. Jamie's worry had grown with every minute that ticked by. Somebody could survive in the wind for this long—he and his companions were doing it, after all—but they were all bundled up in thick jackets and blankets. Even so, they were suffering. Jamie knew he was going to have to call off the search soon or else risk the men suffering from frostbite.

“I . . . I can't feel my fingers and toes anymore,” Moses said, reinforcing Jamie's concern for their safety.

“Let's head on back,” he said with a heavy sigh. “We can't do any more.”

“Wait a minute,” Bodie protested. “You can't mean to just leave poor Mrs. Hamilton out here.”

“I don't mean to let you three fellas freeze to death, either. Or lose your fingers and toes.”

Moses gulped. “Is that what's going to happen?”

“It could if we don't get you warmed up.” Jamie herded them back to the wagon train.

Savannah met them, and the lantern light revealed the worry etched into her face. Her expression fell when she saw that the men were alone. “You didn't find her.” It wasn't a question.

“We can't stay out there anymore,” Jamie said. “Maybe she found a place to get out of the wind and hole up for a while. There are little gullies and such—”

“You know she didn't,” Savannah said. “She didn't get turned around so that she couldn't find her way back to the wagons, either.”

“What do you mean?” Jake Lucas asked.

Moses said gently, “I suppose she didn't want to live without her husband. She thought the pain was too much for her to bear and she couldn't go on. So she walked off into the night, never intending to come back.”

Savannah started to cry again. Bodie took her in his arms and drew her against him.

Jamie let the young man comfort Savannah for a few moments, then told her, “You'd better go back to the Bingham wagon. The rest of us will hunker down in Moses's wagon. We can start searching again at first light. It'll be easier then.”

They would be able to see better in the morning, he thought, but the chances of finding Alice Hamilton alive then would be practically nonexistent.

He didn't sleep much the rest of the night. Along toward dawn, the wind died down, ceasing its eerie howling. The stars came out as the overcast broke. And the temperature dropped harder and faster, like the bottom had fallen out of the thermometer.

Jamie and his companions resumed the search in the gray light of dawn. The air was so cold it seemed to burn their lungs with every breath. Huge clouds of steam fogged the air in front of the men's faces every time they exhaled. It looked like smoke wreathing their upper bodies.

They found Alice about half a mile from the wagons. She was in a small gully, all right, but from the way she was lying there it appeared that she had stumbled and fallen into it instead of seeking shelter. It hadn't saved her. Frost glittered on her open, sightless eyes, and her flesh was cold and hard as stone.

By the time they got back with her body, everybody in the wagon train knew that Alice was missing. Sobs filled the air as the men carried in her blanket-wrapped form. Alice's mother threw herself on her daughter's body and wailed piteously.

Jamie felt the grief that gripped the camp, but didn't show it. In his life he had seen so much death and suffering that he knew it was inevitable. He drew Captain Hendricks and several other men aside. “It hasn't been cold enough long enough to freeze the ground. We'd better get a grave dug while we can.”

“It's a shame the poor girl couldn't be laid to rest beside her husband,” Hendricks said.

“I reckon it's a big country on the other side of the divide,” Jamie said, “but not so big that the two of them won't be able to find each other.”