Dakota Dusk (14 page)

Rebekka could feel the shepherds quaking and the glories streaming down. The room, her heart, seemed full of the glories of Christmas.

“Thank you.” His words blended with the notes hanging in the room as if loathe to part. Other words hung on the air between the two young people, unspoken words but feelings deep enough to withstand the not telling.

After the new year, Rebekka started reading
The Pilgrim’s Progress,
since the storms continued unabated and everyone was virtually housebound. One night they remained in the sitting room after the reading when Mrs. Sampson asked what they thought the story meant.

“Nothing,” Jude said, looking up from his carving. “It’s just a fine story, that’s all.”

“No, it’s an allegory.” Rebekka kept her finger in the place. “And all allegories have a meaning.” Jude just shook his head.

“This is the story of all of us who fail and fall,” Mrs. Sampson said with certainty. “It shows how God always comes to meet us. He picks up his fallen children, dusts us off, and sets us on the right path again. We can never be so bad that He gives up on us.” Jude snorted, the shake of his head nearly negligible.

“It’s true.” Mrs. Knutson joined the discussion. “All we have to do is ask for forgiveness and He gives it. That’s why Jesus died, for our sins.”

“Well, it’s a good story.” Jude held the piece of wood he worked with up to the light. “A real fine story.”

“Remember that God even forgave Paul after he helped kill Christians, made him into a real leader in the church and for all of us.” Mrs. Sampson laid her knitting in her lap. “I’m just grateful that He did it, that’s all, or I wouldn’t be here.”

Jude looked up at her in surprise. Surely a woman such as she had done nothing serious enough to think about leaving life?

But when he climbed the stairs that night, he couldn’t shake the thought. Would God really forgive all that he’d done wrong?

School resumed in mid-February. Rebekka stood before her pupils. “Welcome back and let’s pray that’s the last of the bad weather.”

“When ith the pageant?” Emily raised her hand from the front row. Her feet could now touch the floor as she sat so straight in her new desk.

“How about the first of March? That will give us two weeks to prepare.” The children cheered and fell to their lessons with a vengeance so they could have time to practice.

The pageant went off without a hitch. The curtain pulled back when it was supposed to, no one forgot their parts, and, at the end, the audience cheered for five minutes. But Jude’s smile was the best accolade Rebekka could have wished for.

One morning Rebekka awoke to the music of dripping icicles. The chinook blew in during the night and was turning the snow to mush as rapidly as it could. The snow seemed to disappear almost overnight.

But when the rains came in torrents, the town began to worry. The Missouri was still frozen, there hadn’t been time for the ice to melt, and now, with all the rain, there could be trouble.

Rebekka grumbled on her way to school one morning. First the prairie fire, then the blizzards and the terrible cold, now rains that seemed to be reenacting the forty days and forty nights of Genesis.

Bryde Creek rushed under the bridge but just barely. Another six inches and the bridge to the school would be impassible.

How was she supposed to prepare her students for the examinations when they hadn’t been in school for half of the year?

Saturday, a watery sun peeped through the clouds. Sunday, Jude rode Prince out over the prairie rather than take up Rebekka’s invitation to join them in church. When he rode past the church, he heard the congregation singing; he pulled Prince to a halt.

“Throw out the lifeline, throw out the lifeline, someone is drifting awa-a-y . . .” The words poured out of the cracks and crevices of the country church as if sung for his ears alone. He nudged his mount into a trot. Maybe next time the pastor was in town, he’d go with Rebekka. Couldn’t hurt.

Monday, the rains returned, drenching the land and running off the ground still frozen under the mud.

Some of her students had stayed home and, by one o’clock, Rebekka toyed with the idea of sending everyone home. But she hated to make them walk in the downpour. Perhaps it would stop by the time school was to let out.

She could feel the tension in the room, the children sneaking peeks at the windows just like she was. “All right, that’s enough.” She rose to her feet and headed for the piano that had been donated at Christmastime. “We can take an hour out and call this getting ready for the last day of school’s concert.”

The children cheered and gathered around her, the little ones in front and the taller in the back. They ran through some drills with Rebekka striking chords up a half each time. The “la, la, la, la, la, la, las” rang clear to the rafters. When she swung into “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain When She Comes,” everyone laughed and joined in all the funny sounds.

Their “toot toot” stopped in midsound. Rebekka listened. Who was hollering? What was that roar? It sounded like three freight trains bearing down on them.

She leaped to her feet and ran to the windows facing south. In horror she saw gray water surging between them and the town. Waves rolled before chunks of ice, tearing at the banks and already climbing up to the schoolhouse steps. Out in the main channel of the Missouri, trees ripped past, tumbling in the flash flood that rose by inches each minute.

How would she get the children out?

“Everyone, over here. John, you get the jump ropes from the cloakroom. Everyone, grab your coats. And let us pray. “Father God, please help us. Amen.”

She checked the windows on the north. A rise just beyond them was their only chance. Could the big ones help get the little ones there?

“Rebekka, Rebekka!” A male voice sounded from outside. “Help me open the door.” Water that had begun seeping under the door, gushed in when it opened.

“Jude!” Rebekka had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

“Okay, children, follow the instructions exactly!” Rebekka lined them up, little ones held by the bigger.

“Okay, kids, we have ropes out here and men to help you. Come on out. John, you stay there to help Miss Stenesrude.” He grabbed Emily around the waist and handed her off to the next in line, the water lapping at his hips.

Rebekka kept her voice calm, even though she was screaming inside. “That’s right. Next.” One by one, the children were passed the long distance between the school and the rise.

The water covered the floor. Rebekka could feel a rocking motion, as if she were standing on the deck of a ship. The men stood in waist-deep water.

Rebekka didn’t dare look at Jude for fear he’d see the panic in her eyes. “Thank You, God. Okay, John, you go now.”

“You, too. Here, take my hand.”

“Get out of here!” Jude yelled this time.

Rebekka felt the building shift again. Like a grand ship on her maiden voyage, the school slipped from its pilings and tipped forward.

“Jude!” Rebekka couldn’t tell if she screamed or just thought it.

“Rebekka!” Jude pulled himself up into the cloakroom. “I have the rope. We have to swim for it.” He grabbed her around the waist and flung them both into the swirling river.

Rebekka clung to his neck, trying to keep her head above the freezing water.

Jude’s face had the gray cast of one who was cold beyond endurance.

She found the rope with one hand and kept her other around his rib cage.

“Hang on, my dearest,” Jude said. “We’re almost there.” Three men waded out in the water and pulled the two ashore. Rebekka had never been so cold in her life. Her teeth chattered like castanets and she fell into the arms that held out blankets. “Jude, where’s Jude?”

“Over there,” someone answered. “We’re trying to get him warmed. He’s been in that freezing water longer than anyone.”

“The children?” She could hardly force the words past her clacking teeth.

“Cold, but all right.”

“Willowford?” She felt herself slipping into a gray place where she would sleep the pain in her feet away. She thought she heard a voice but could no longer answer. Peace and oblivion.

When she woke up, the lamp reminded her of sunrise. She opened her eyes and looked around. She lay in her room at the boarding-house. Had the flood been a dream?

“Here, drink this,” Mrs. Sampson ordered as she held a cup to Rebekka’s lips.

Rebekka sipped, then pushed herself to a sitting position. “I’m fine. Where’s Jude?”

“Sleeping in his room. He has some frostbite on his feet, but he’ll be okay.”

“What about the flood?”

“Like all flash floods, as soon as they crest, they’re gone. The Missouri is plenty high and still flooding, but the town is safe again.” Mrs. Sampson turned at the sound of another voice. “There’s that man again. He’da been in here hours ago if I’da let him.”

“Jude?” Rebekka felt her cheeks widen. She could no longer keep the grin from busting forth. “How’s the school?”

“Fine, or so they tell me.” Jude stood in the door. “Just off its pinnings and downstream about two hundred yards. We built it good and sturdy. Should last a hundred years or so.” He stared at the woman propped against the pillows. He’d come close to losing her and he’d never told her how much he loved her.

He gave the two widows a look that sent them laughing from the room. When he sat down on the bed, he took Rebekka’s hand in his. “I asked God to save us.”

“And He did.”

“I can’t ask you to marry me until I go home and make things right with my family.”

“Marry you?”

“And I need to explain what happened in my life.” He stroked the tender skin on the back of her hand.

“Jude.”

“I know God forgives me now. I—”

“Jude.” She placed her fingers gently against his lips. He raised his gaze from her hand to her face.

“I have one question.” She studied the lines of his beloved face.

“What?”

“Do you love me?” She could feel the lump threatening to cut off her breathing.

“What kind of a question is that? Of course, I love you. What do you think I’ve been saying? But you have to know everything—”

“Then, yes.” She reached for his strength, that formidable strength that had saved her and the children from the flood’s waters. “I already know all the important things. What happened before has nothing to do with us.” When he wrapped his arms around her, she snuggled into his chest. As she raised her face to look up at him, she caught a sheen in his eyes.

“That hymn you sang a while ago—‘Throw out the lifeline . . .’” Rebekka nodded.

“Well, seems we needed one right bad and there it was.” He kissed her eyes. “But I’m home now.” He found her lips. “I almost lost you,” he muttered into the side of her neck.

“I’m glad I found you,” Rebekka answered.

The kiss they shared was all she’d dreamed of and feared never to experience. Together, they looked out the window to watch the sun sink into the horizon. Dusk settled into the room, bringing the peace of evening. But Rebekka knew. And now Jude knew, too. For every dusk there is a sunrise, and together they would face anything that came their way. They and the Savior who promised a bright new morning after the end of a long hard day.

Lauraine Snelling is the best-selling author of over seventy books, both fiction and nonfiction, historical and contemporary for adults and young readers. Lauraine and her husband Wayne live in California with a Basset Hound named Winston. To learn more about the author, you can visit
www.laurainesnelling.com
.

Read the other stories in this series:

Dakota Dawn

Dakota Dream

Dakota Dusk

Dakota December and Dakota Destiny

Dakota Dusk

© Copyright 1994, 2012 by Lauraine Snelling. All right reserved.

Previously published as
Dakota Stories II: Dakota Dusk, Dakota December, and Dakota Destiny
by Smoky Water Press, Post Office Box 2322, Bismarck, ND 58502-2322. Smoky Water Press is a division of Capital Communications, Inc. Bismarck, North Dakota. Former ISBN: 978-0-9820752-1-0

First electronic printing in 2012 by eChristian, Inc.

eChristian, Inc.

2235 Enterprise Street, Suite 140

Escondido, CA 92029

http://echristian.com

Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370,
www.booksandsuch.com
.

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover and interior design by Larry Taylor.

Produced with the assistance of Livingstone, the Publishing Services Division of eChristian, Inc. Project staff includes Dan Balow, Afton Rorvik, Linda Taylor, Tom Luke Taylor, Jami Taylor, Ashley Taylor, Lois Jackson, and Tom Shumaker.

ISBN: EPUB 978-1-61-843199-8

ISBN: MOBI 978-1-61-843200-1