Love's Rescue (35 page)

Edmund glanced up at her hat, which she hadn’t removed. “I suppose you came to retrieve your brother’s letters, then.”

Jess bit her lip. She stood only feet away from the longed-for keepsakes. “Yes, Edmund. Are they still in the safe?” She was already rounding the corner into the stockroom where it waited.

Edmund bent over to pick up the papers. “They are. Do you remember the combination?” He sat down at the desk.

Jess’s heart trembled. She felt as if she had walked a long, long road and was finally nearing the end of it. Waiting for her were the last tangible memories of her brother. They were only letters, but they were all hers. “I remember it, Edmund,” she heard herself say.

Jess knelt down and slid her palms smoothly down the cool, painted surface of the safe, shutting out everything else. Jake and Edmund disappeared; the world went away. For her, the safe’s contents were everything. She lifted trembling fingers to the dial and spun it. From far off, Edmund murmured sadly that one last letter had found its way since the fire. To Jess, his words felt like the thrust of a bayonet, though she didn’t blame him for the unfairness of it; she blamed the war. Firming her grip on the handle, she pulled open the thick metal door.

Stacked in the bottom were the old account books she had once kept for the store. On a shelf above them sat four pouches of gold coins, earnings her father had paid her that she had set aside long ago for a future need.

To one side, just as she had left them, lay the bundles of letters Ambrose had written, letters she had been forced to hide from her father in the bookkeeping safe. She reached in and pulled the bundles out onto her lap.

She paged through them, finding that all the envelopes were there, along with all the letters. Some she had bundled with string, others with ribbons. When each stack had grown too large, she had begun another.

With a brief frown at the dimness of the back room, Jess pushed off her hat, letting it hang on its strings down her back. She pulled out a few letters at random and opened them to see the words Ambrose had written to her. She smiled over this letter, grew pensive over that, and skimmed over the progress of the war, long outdated, as he had lived it. Finally, Jess checked the safe one last time before standing up. As she did so, a few of the letters slipped from the stack and scattered on the floor.

Jake stepped in. “I’ll get those, Jess.” He picked them up and tapped them together, then pulled one to the top. “I think this is the one that hasn’t been opened yet.”

With a glance at the hopelessly cluttered desk, Jess handed the larger bundle of letters to Jake. She took the letter from him, allowing her gaze to pass over her brother’s handwriting on the envelope.

“Edmund, the postmark says Chicago,” she murmured in confusion, holding it closer, “but the rest of the markings
are smudged.”

“Chicago?” Jake eyed the older man. “When did this arrive?”

Edmund was distracted, frowning at some numbers. “A week or more ago, I think.”

Jess shrugged at Jake, then patiently dug for a letter opener on the desk. Finally, she slit the envelope and unfolded the letter.

My dearest Jessica, it began, as always. She smiled and read on. All at once, her heart quickened, and her world grew dark, except for three beautiful words: I am alive.

Jess!” Jake dropped the letters and grabbed hold of her. “Jess!”

Edmund abandoned his stool and came to her side. “What is it?”

Jess’s vision cleared and filled with a brown hat, piercing brown eyes, and bristly cheeks that needed a shave. She raised a soft hand to his face. Never had he looked so precious.

“Talk to me,” he urged her.

“Ambrose…is…alive,” she breathed, then started to laugh. Joyous tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, and all at once, she firmly gained her feet, laughing to the skies in pure elation. “Ambrose is alive!” she shouted, then grabbed Jake’s shoulders and shook him. “Do you hear me, Bennett?”

Stunned, Edmund wrenched the letter from her hand, not caring whose name was on the envelope.

Jess threw herself into Jake’s arms. “I told you, Bennett, Hales don’t die easy!”

Jake smiled at her, but when he looked over her head at Edmund, his smile slowly faded. Jess glanced between the two men, her heart sinking.

“Listen to this,” Edmund said. “Ambrose writes that he was captured by Union forces during a cavalry raid in Ohio. He and his men were taken to a prison called Camp Douglas, in Chicago.”

Jess felt herself transformed from butterfly to badger in a matter of seconds. “How long, Edmund? How long has my brother been in prison?”

Edmund looked worriedly at her, then scanned the lines. “He arrived August twenty-seventh. Three weeks ago.”

“What happened that he didn’t write Jess since last October?” Jake asked.

“He says that he was ill for quite some time.”

“No, he wasn’t. He’s just protecting me. Ambrose doesn’t get ill.”

Edmund frowned. “Conditions during wartime are very hard. He may have been ill.”

Jess knew better. “Ambrose was shot, Edmund.”

“He seems fully recovered now,” Edmund offered.

“Yes,” she said distractedly, “he does.”

Jake stepped directly in front of her. “What are you thinking, Jess?”

“I’m…just overwhelmed,” she lied, and not very well. Then she arrived at a decision. “Excuse me a moment.”

She hurried out to where the horses were tied and returned with her saddlebags. Without a word, she stuffed all of Ambrose’s letters into one of the two side pouches. Going behind the door of the safe, she added leather pouches to the other. Slinging the bags over her arm, she closed the safe with a final spin of the dial.

Jake was watching her. “Would you like to wire the prison, Jess? Ask if they’ll give Ambrose a message for you?”

“Thank you, no. I’ll communicate with Ambrose in my own way. Edmund?” She gave Edmund a parting kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for everything. I’ll come to see you again in the spring.”

She didn’t mention whether she would come back to stay. She didn’t know herself, and for now, future decisions had ceased to matter.

Ambrose was alive.

“Edmund.” Jake extended his hand and shook the ink-stained hand of the other. He turned to follow Jess out.

“Jake?”

He faced the man again.

“I’d like to tell Miriam about Jess…maybe come for a visit.”

“You’d both be welcome, Edmund, but I think it would be best to keep Jess’s whereabouts between you and Miriam, for now. Only two of the nine men who attacked her were caught.”

Edmund held up a hand. “Enough said, my friend. Miriam is as gabby as ever, and if she finds out that Jess is alive, she’ll tell the whole town. I’ll keep this to myself until Jess returns.”

“I’m obliged.”

“Take care of her, Jake. She’s very dear to me.”

“And to me,” Jake assured him, then stepped out into the sun.

***

Within minutes, Jake and Jess had left Carson City, Cielos and Meg stretching their legs and quickly covering the miles. Jake didn’t try to slow down, didn’t ask Jess her thoughts. Apparently, he knew she needed to run out her emotions, and she was grateful.

They were two-thirds of the way back to the ranch when it became too dark to ride any further. The horses needed to rest, Jake told her—they’d been running them hard. Determined to press on, she didn’t answer. It took the threat of the rope in Jake’s hand to convince her to camp for the night.

The next morning, they were on their way before sunrise. Jess hardly spoke a word. She was so intent on her goal of getting to the ranch that the horses began to foam from her pushing them. Jake had to warn her to slow the pace. Twice.

It was still early—about nine, by Jess’s calculation—when they finally approached the ranch. She glanced east, gauging the distance she could cover by nightfall.

Several men called out greetings when they dismounted in front of the stable. Jake answered them, but Jess merely waved, then quickly unsaddled Meg.

The entire ride home, she had thought of Ambrose, rejoicing that he was alive, even if he was in prison. While she had stood listening to Edmund read the letter, her mind had locked on the fact that Union generals were no longer allowing prisoner exchanges. Then she recalled from newspaper articles that conditions at most prisons, in the North and the South alike, were deplorable—little or no food, bad water, rampant disease. Men died by the thousands. She had known before she left the store what she had to do. It was the reason she had left Jake and Edmund staring at her while she fetched her saddlebags, and it was the reason she had returned to the safe.

Jess untied her saddlebags and laid them to the side with her bedroll. In the worst prisons, she knew, the armed guards were little more than a deathwatch, and the war raged on. Ambrose’s starving or freezing, therefore, was not to be tolerated.

Jake approached her with an inquiry on his face, but before he could speak, a mustang galloped around the corner of the stable and halted abruptly. Lone Wolf reined it in dangerously close, and Jess started as the Indian man said emphatically, “Friend of Red Deer, come!”

By the intensity in the man’s face and the urgency in his voice, Jess could tell that Red Deer’s time had come. Lone Wolf reached down and pulled her up onto the palomino’s back, holding the reins from behind her.

“Reese!” Jess cried. “Bring the orange blanket from my room to Red Deer’s lodge, please!”

Jake was looking up at them in alarm. “What happened?”

“It is Red Deer,” the Indian said.

No sooner had Lone Wolf spoken than the two of them were flying out of the yard.

Jess felt her heart breaking all over again. For weeks, she had prayed that Red Deer would live through the birthing, along with the child, but she realized that God’s will could very well be different from her own. The agony she had glimpsed in Lone Wolf’s face told her that he knew just what she had feared—that his wife would not survive.

As great as the urge was to cry, Jess held it back. Red Deer needed Jess’s strength in her last hours—she needed the comfort of knowing that she was in the Lord’s hands, even in death.

They were in the village and then the lodge before Jess realized it. She paused to let her eyes adjust to the shadows. There was an odd, smoky smell, and several women were singing quietly or speaking softly to Red Deer in Paiute, encouraging her to bring the baby.

Red Deer wore a short tunic and knelt weakly on a mat between two women who were holding her. She was alarmingly pale. Suddenly, Jess saw that her friend didn’t have hours left. She had arrived just in time to be with her in her final minutes.

“Red Deer?” Jess said softly, sinking to her knees in front of her. She touched a hand to Red Deer’s damp cheek. Her eyelids parted.

When she saw Jess, her eyes closed again in a smile of gratitude. Red Deer pulled away from her supportive friends to hold instead to Jess. “Oh, my friend,” she breathed, “my friend. So glad…you are here. What would I have done these past months without you?” She drew in her breath, then groaned horribly as birthing pains raked her.

To keep her from falling, Jess shifted her own position and held Red Deer tightly. When Jess laid her cheek on her friend’s black hair, she noticed a large pool of blood soaking into the mat beneath Red Deer.

“Do you remember, Jessica, the first day…we went to the creek?” Jess sensed a smile in Red Deer’s voice. “You told me…of your beloved Kentucky, and I told you I would have a son.”

Jess spoke past the tightness in her throat. “I remember.” She recalled the time they had spent playing in the creek, splashing each other and reliving the joys of youth.

“You…became my friend that day. That was the happiest day I remember.”

“It was for me, as well,” Jess whispered. It was true. Jess recalled Red Deer’s laughter and the water running from her hair. It would be how she would always remember her.

When Red Deer said nothing more, Lone Wolf knelt beside his wife to share Jess’s burden. Red Deer laid her head against his shoulder.

Several more spasms came, each more brutal than the one before. Helplessly, Jess stroked the short, black hair, agonizing that Red Deer’s nightmares were coming true. She would be taken from her son.

Red Deer shuddered. All at once, Jess looked around wildly, desperate for a way to save her. They were losing her.

“Bring your child,” Lone Wolf bade his wife softly. “Let your eyes rest on him and his on you. Let me tell him how strong you were for him. Let me tell him of your great love.”

It was all Red Deer needed. When the next pain came, she pulled together her strength and, with a terrible, anguished cry, brought forth her child.

One of the women received him.

“It’s a son,” Jess cried shakily. “You have a son!”

With joyous tears in her eyes, Red Deer collapsed against her. Lone Wolf pulled his wife into his arms, held her close against him, and laid his big hand alongside her face. After a seemingly endless moment, he gently laid Red Deer down.

Jake’s low voice drifted in from outside. Another woman entered the lodge. She brought the orange blanket Jess had spent months weaving for her friend. The woman handed it to Jess, then quietly ducked out again.

As her own tears began to run, Jess hugged it against her, wishing she could cling instead to Jake. But she knew he would leave Red Deer with her family and friends now and would wait outside for her.

Jess sat down beside Red Deer just as the boy was laid in her friend’s unmoving arms. He was sweet with his tiny, round face and silky, black hair. He yawned, his mouth impossibly little.

Blinking to hold back death, Red Deer turned her head to memorize his face. “He is red.” She smiled softly to Jess. Seeing her need, Lone Wolf moved the infant against her.

The beautiful mother this child would never know kissed his brow. Red Deer’s damp eyes moved to Jess. “Is he healthy?” she asked.

Jess bent over him and nodded, unable to answer. She felt like she herself was dying inside. “He’s perfect,” she finally managed. Knowing her friend was fading, Jess leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Then she unfolded the blanket.