A Lady Like Sarah (19 page)

Sarah learned from her brothers to stay off the main routes, but as they drew nearer to the Texas state line, stayÂing off the beaten path was no longer an option. As the trails began to merge, the way grew more crowded and they met other travelers.

They stopped to speak to a Scottish drummer parked along the side of the trail. He, too, was heading for Texas, his horse-drawn wagon piled high with pots and pans and other household goods. Gilt scrollwork decorated the sides of his wagon along with a wintry scene that seemed as out of place on the flat prairie land as a grizzly on a train.

The man introduced himself as Alastair McKinley.

"Do you happen to have anything for an infant?" Justin asked.

"Aye,"
came
the welcome reply. The man was dressed in gray pants and a gold-trimmed vest. He opened the back of his wagon and produced a green glass bottle with a cork nipple, along with cotton nappies. "I
s'pect
this is something as ye little one needs."

A baby bottle.
Sarah couldn't believe their good fortune.

"You won't find better in Monkey Ward's," the peddler said, an edge of bitterness in his voice. The Montgomery Ward mail-order catalog had cut into the profits of traveling salesmen. For that reason, Justin purchased two bottles, just to show his appreciation.

At first, Elizabeth refused to take the cork in her mouth. She scrunched up her round face and pushed it away with her little pink tongue. But Sarah persisted until the baby finally caught on, and feeding became less of a chore.

They passed crews of Chinese railroad workers. Justin seemed fascinated with the men and kept stopping to talk to them, but few could speak English.

"I never saw such hard workers," he said, guiding his horse next to hers. Elizabeth, asleep in her sling, was nestled against his chest. "I guess Charles Crocker wasn't crazy after all."

Sarah frowned. "Who's Charles Crocker?"

"He's a railroad contractor who suggested hiring immiÂgrants from China to build railroads. It was the only way he could think to combat the shortage of American workers. Many thought the Chinese were lazy and weak."

"Some say the same about preachers," she said with a wry smile.

He grinned.
"Never thought I'd have something in comÂmon with the Chinese."

With a click of his tongue, he pulled ahead of her to make room for the steady flow of wagons filled with buffalo bones coming from the opposite direction. The sun-bleached bones were being hauled to Kansas where they would be turned into fertilizer or bone china.

Most of the bone hunters regarded them with suspicion until they were satisfied that Justin and Sarah had no interest in stealing their haul.

They traveled past another one of the many Indian reserÂvations set up by the government. The tepees were made of woven willows covered with thin sheets of elm bark. A group of scantily dressed children watched them with dark, probing eyes. No matter how hard Justin tried to convince them he was a friend, they continued to regard him with suspicion.

By noon it was so hot they searched for a place to escape the midday sun. Sarah rode her horse up a hill to check out the terrain ahead.

Justin, who had been trailing behind, coaxed his horse to her side.

"We're only two days from the Texas border," she said.

The air seemed to still at the sound of her words. They both knew what that meant. It had seemed they'd been travÂeling forever, but now with the end in sight, forever hadn't been long enough.

"Sarah, come with me to Texas," Justin pleaded.

"You know I can't."

"I can't bear the thought of not knowing where you are. What you're doing."

"Don't," she pleaded. Silently, she told herself,
Dont
think about him. Don't look at him. Don
h
make saying good-bye any harder than it already is.

She rode away, taking the lead, her heart so filled with pain it hurt to breathe.

Late that afternoon, a dust cloud on the trail ahead made her bring her horse to a halt. She pointed and yelled, "Cattle.
Probably on the way to the shipping pens in Kansas."

"Is that a problem?" he called from behind.

"Depends on whether they're longhorns or shorthorns," she said. "Longhorns are more likely to cause trouble."

A mile up the road, they came to a dugout that had been cut into the rocky hills by Chinese railroad workers.

The dugout was a good ten feet off the ground. Sarah disÂmounted and climbed up to check it out, leaving Justin on die trail below to watch the animals, Elizabeth asleep in her sling.

The cave used for storage was stocked with supplies. Boxes of candles, hard tack, canned food, and dried buffalo meat were stacked in a corner. There was a table and chairs and best of all, a couple of cots.

She stood on the edge of the rocky outcrop overlooking the trail below. "It's as good or better than most of the hotels I've stayed at," she called.

The cave offered little if any protection against thieves, as it could easily be seen from the trail, but it was dry and cool
and they decided to spend the night there. They made a bed for Elizabeth out of a wooden crate.

Sarah sat on one of several cots. The tick mattress was thin and the springs felt hard as rock, but it was better than sleeping on the ground.

Just before dusk, they heard
hoofbeats
on the trail. Justin walked to the entrance with Elizabeth in his arms and called down a greeting.

Afraid to show her face until she knew the identity of the horsemen below, Sarah hung back where she could see without being seen.

There were two men. One, a Mexican, greeted Justin with a nod but said nothing. He wore a large straw hat and a colorful body blanket draped over the saddle in front of him. A cheÂroot hung out the side of his mouth.

The other rider touched the brim of his dark gray Stetson with a gauntlet gloved hand. "Howdy.
Name's Wade Frazier.
I'm a point rider for the Circle K ranch."

Sarah edged closer to Justin, and Frazier acknowledged her with a tip of his hat. He had a dark ruddy complexion and a sweeping mustache. He wore leather chaps over brown canvas pants, a pin-striped cotton shirt, a dark vest, and red bandana.

"You
folks been
traveling long?"

Justin nodded.
"All the way from Boston."

Frazier pushed his hat back and stared at the baby in Justin's arms. "Boston?" He glanced at Sarah,
then
turned back to Justin. "Seems like a hard way for a family man to travel.
You running
from
somethin
'?"

"I'm Rocky Creek's new preacher."

"A preacher, eh?
I reckon that accounts for it, then. Only a saint would attempt to travel across country on horseback with a wife and
young'un
in tow."

Justin made no effort to correct him.

"You and your family best stay off the trail till we get the herd through. It
don't
take much to spook '
em
. We crossed the Red River four days ago, and already we've had two stamÂpedes. Fortunately, we didn't lose any of '
em
, but we lost time
roundin
' '
em
up. Once they get in the habit of running, there's no
stoppin
' '
em
."

"What do we do if there's a stampede?" Justin asked.

"They ain't much you can do. You got fifteen thousand tons of hide heading your
way,
you best give them a clear path. The trail narrows through these hills, so we're not
gonna
be able to circle '
em
around until they hit the open range. You should be safe inside the cave. But if you
wanna
help, you can sing."

"I'm sorry?"

"Hearing a human voice helps keep them calm."

"Well, in that case, I hope they like hymns," Justin said.

Frazier tugged on the brim of his hat. "Lucky for you, Reverend, cattle ain't choosy about the lyrics." With that he rode off, the Mexican close behind.

Justin
wasn't sure what woke him. He rolled on his back, eyes wide open. Something . . .

Leaving the comfort of his bedroll, he fumbled in the dark until he found the candle on the wooden table. He lit it and the flickering light sent shadows fleeing across the creviced walls, but all he could see was Sarah's empty cot.

His heart sank. She left—left without so much as a goodÂbye.
Left never to be seen again.
The very thought turned his blood cold. He could hardly breathe.

For weeks, he'd fought his feelings for Sarah, refusing to believe what his heart knew was true. Now that she was gone, all
pretense
left him. He covered his face with his hands but he couldn't hold back his anguished cry.

That's when he heard it—the voice of an angel.

Checking to make certain Elizabeth was still
asleep,
he rushed to the mouth of the cave and peered into the darkness. From the distance came the braying of cattle. No stars could
be seen, but a glimmer of the waxing moon peeked through fast moving clouds.

Her voice was clear now.
Sarah's voice . . .

Unable to see her, he reached for the lit candle, but a breeze blew it out, bringing with it the musty smell of damp earth. He grabbed a lantern that had been left by railroad workers and lit it with shaking hands. He held it up over his head, moving it back and forth until he could pick out her slight figure.

She stood on the rocky cliffs opposite the cave, singing. Though clear and sweet, her voice seemed at odds with the lyrics of an old Irish drinking song.

What was she doing? Why was she standing atop a boulÂder in the middle of the night singing her heart out? But then he saw it, in the distance: lightning, followed by the low rumble of thunder. Recalling Frazier's warning about a posÂsible stampede, a chill shot down his spine.

From behind the cave, Noah neighed and Blizzard whickÂered. Moses made a long rasping sound. Their animals were tethered high above the trail, out of harm's way, but obviously they, too, sensed danger.

Another bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, and the air crackled around him.

After a while, Sarah's voice stilled and he felt like he was in a wilderness with only the sky to keep him company.

He opened his mouth in song. "A . . .
maz
. . .
ing
grace . . ."

It had been so long since he'd sung, so long since he'd wanted to.

He wanted to sing now, not only because he hoped to avert a disaster, but because he wanted to reach across the chasm to where Sarah stood all alone.

His baritone voice floated between them. After he'd sung the lyrics all the way through, he began again and this time
she joined him. Her voice grew stronger as the words and tune became more familiar to her.

And he liked it. Liked the way their voices blended together. Like the music they made, the bond they created.

". . .
How sweet the
sound . . ."

A flash of light zigzagged across the sky, followed by a loud boom.

The ground shook. Rocks rained down from the upper cliffs, barely missing him. He quickly ducked beneath the overhang.

"Sarah!" he called, motioning her to safety, but it was too late. The first of the stampeding longhorns had arrived. The falling rocks forced him farther back into the cave.

Soon, a moving mass of panicked cattle swept through the canyon below. The heat of their bodies combined with swirling dust clouds made it nearly impossible to breathe.

The beeves didn't utter a sound, but the clash of horns and thumps of flying hooves bounced off the canyon walls with a deafening roar.

He glanced at Elizabeth's makeshift bed. The baby stirred and cried out, but there was no time to comfort her, not with Sarah's life in danger.

Sarah scrambled away from the edge of the cliff. She lost her footing and slid down the slick granite on her stomach.

Justin's breath caught in his throat, his body frozen in horror.

At the last possible moment, she grabbed hold of a slenÂder tree. The sapling bent dangerously beneath her weight. Her feet dangled over the cliff, mere inches above the churnÂing long horns. She searched for a foothold in the rocky cliff, her boots scrambling furiously against the granite wall.

"Hold on!" he shouted, "Hold on!" But the pounding hooves, claps of thunder, and blazing guns of cowhands trying to head the herd to safety all but drowned out his shouts.

Dust stung his eyes, and he coughed. Keeping his gaze glued on her, he covered his mouth with his neckerchief.

The stampede seemed to go on forever. Time stood still. At one point the dust was so
thick,
he could barely make out Sarah's slender form dangling helplessly from the side of the cliff.

Finally, finally, the ground grew still and the sound of beatÂing hooves faded away.

He jumped to the ground and scrambled up the other side, crawling on hands and knees until he was able to grab Sarah's wrist and pull her to safety. The lantern he'd left at the dugout entrance provided a warm circle of light.

She was shaking so hard, it was all he could do to wrap his arms around her. Holding her tight, he buried his face in her hair. "If anything had happened to you—"