Softly Falling (36 page)

An hour passed and another. As Jack began to wonder if he should have been more frugal with that final desk, someone banged on the door. Informing him that it was her turn to be the door monitor, Luella opened the door and ushered in Preacher and Will, bundled to their eyebrows and snow covered.

“Need a little help with your classroom, Miss Carteret?” Preacher teased.

Lily was sitting cross-legged with her students on Pierre’s winter count, which Jack knew had saved their lives, that and the wisdom to burn the desks. “They’re a rowdy lot,” she teased back, which made her students look at each other and grin. Chantal lay with her head on Lily’s thigh, and Luella sat close on her other side.

“We were just biding our time until more knights in shining armor arrived,” she said. “It appears that our wish is granted, gentlemen. Do help us tidy things.”

Jack couldn’t help smiling. Lily had that effect on the average cowhand, and probably vagabonds and rustlers, for all he knew. They all looked at her expectantly.

Lily clasped her hands in front of her and took a deep breath. “My dears, it seems that we must close the Bar Dot School.”

Amelie burst into tears. Jack had wondered when the sum of two terrifying days would sink in, and here it was before him. He shouldn’t have worried. Lily wrapped Amelie in a fierce embrace and held her. She looked over the child’s head to her other students, who looked equally solemn, with Chantal sniffing back tears.

“My darlings, here is the wonderful thing about schools: they don’t disappear just because the building does! We’ll take the school with us.” She kissed Amelie’s cheek. In true Gallic fashion, the child turned her other cheek toward Lily, who laughed and kissed that one too. “Now then, let us gather our books and slates and whatever papers we have. Preacher, will you roll up our maps?”

Everyone did as she said. Soon there was a small pile on the winter count, the painted surface showing, now that the furry side had done its duty and kept the children alive. Lily stuffed the chalk in her coat pocket and walked slowly around the room, near tears herself. Jack tried to see it through her eyes, a magic place where children learned. He vaguely remembered his Georgia childhood, planting cotton, chopping cotton, and getting beaten for mistaking weeds for the tender plants. Black and white, bond and free, they hoed through humid summers where the air was heavy enough to drink, then harvested, dragging huge burlap sacks behind.

There had been no Temple of Education for him. As he watched more favored children carry books and slates down the dirt track toward the Methodist school, he had told himself that learning was for sissies, even as he yearned to walk with them. His envy showed only once, and his father had beaten him for that too. He hadn’t understood that beating then, but he did now: his father had wanted to learn as much as his oldest son.

He watched as Preacher and Will bundled up the buffalo robe and tied it with what looked like a canvas rope, knotted over and over, that they had found just outside the door.

Lily stood beside him. “We ripped up our own winter counts and tied them together to make a rope. Nick and I bound ourselves together and went for wood.”

“I can find more canvas,” he told her, grateful all over again at the common sense and courage of the woman beside him.

She nodded. “I hated to do that, but we had to survive.”

Will surprised him by shouldering the heavy bundle without being asked. Maybe there was hope for such a useless cowhand, after all.

Still the children stood in the nearly empty room.

“You can set up shop again in a corner of the dining hall,” he told them, which brought smiles, but not for long.

“We can’t just leave the Wyoming Kid,” Luella said.

“The what?” he asked, amused.

“We named our pack rat the Wyoming Kid,” Lily explained. “Oh, dear.”

No one moved. Without a word, Lily put the rest of her loaf of bread and the remaining dried apples by the Little Man of the Prairie’s hole.

“That’s not enough for a whole winter,” Luella said mournfully.

Lily took her hand. “We’ll have to trust that The Kid is wise and capable and tough.” She gave Luella’s hand in hers a little shake. “Like you, my child. We have to leave now.”

“What about Freak?” Jack said.

“Francis,” Lily told him.

The cat sat near the barely warm stove, watching them. Lily held out her hand—Jack had given her his too-large mittens—and spoke softly. “Francis, I have to close the door.”

“He can’t understand you,” Luella said.

The cat was still no fool. He looked at them all with vast disdain and made his way slowly toward Lily.

“He’ll do you damage,” Jack warned as she picked up the feral stray who had taken refuge in the Temple of Education.

“No, he won’t,” she contradicted. “We kept each other warm last night. There now, Francis. Be a good cat.” She settled the bedraggled veteran of many winters along her arm and tucked him close to her side. He growled deep in his throat, which only made her say, “Oh, you.” Jack closed the door and they started down the slope, walking past dead cattle, snow-covered and anchored to frozen ground, killed by their frantic efforts to breathe.

Nick stared at the mounds. The wind had picked up as evening approached, uncovering some of the cattle. Chantal cried out in fright, so Preacher swooped her up and settled her on his shoulders. “Eyes ahead,” he told her. “You’re safe.”

Jack came last, his eyes open for stragglers. They slipped and slid toward the ranch buildings, all of them looking puny and ready to collapse, and this was only the first storm.

Fothering was watching for them as they came close to the Buxton house, bearing its heavy weight of snow on the roof. He met them at what used to be the picket fence, but which was now just another mound of snow.

Jack felt no surprise at Luella’s reluctance to turn loose of Lily’s hand. “We have to hurry inside,” Fothering told her, his eyes kind. “Your mother is hungry for the sight of you.”

As if to emphasize his words, Mrs. Buxton began to wail from her upstairs bedroom, Chantal and Amelie looked at each other in alarm, then in sympathy at Luella.

“We’ll have school again quite soon,” Lily said in a soothing voice. She waved to Luella as the child turned around to watch her.

“I’d hate to live there,” Jack muttered to Lily.

“Surely it isn’t all that terrible,” Lily replied, but he heard no conviction in her low voice.

Pierre joined them as they passed the horse barn. He shook his head at Jack. No Stretch.

They trudged to the cookshack. Like thirsty horses heading toward the water trough, Amelie and Nick broke into a run. Chantal started to clamber down from Preacher’s shoulders, so he helped her. The kitchen door opened and with cries of delight, Madeleine welcomed in her little brood. Her arms around her little ones, she raised one hand to gesture them all toward her. Preacher and Will started in her direction.

Might as well broach the matter with Lily right now, especially as she was looking at the other buildings, trying to discern which one was the house she shared with Clarence Carteret. He took her arm when she started toward what he knew was an old tack shed, and not her house.

“Lily, it’s too far to your house from the rest of the buildings.”

“Yes, but I . . .”

“I’ve already moved into the bunkhouse. You and your father will be in my old place. It’s closer and I won’t have an argument.”

From the look of exhaustion on her face, an argument was the last thing Lily seemed to be entertaining. She nodded. “All I want to do is sleep.”

“Did you stay up all night, feeding the fire?”

She nodded again. “Mostly I want to be warm. Will I have to wait until spring for that?”

“I fear so,” he told her. This was no woman to lie to.

“Very well. I do need to my clothes, and there’s
Ivanhoe
.”

Jack took Lily’s hand. “We haven’t had time to shovel, so just be careful.”

Silent, they crossed the open space between the horse barn and the old tack shed to the Carteret’s place. Jack whistled softly under his breath. The first blizzard of 1886 had caved in the tack shed’s feeble roof. “That was the first building here in ’69, so Mr. Buxton claims,” he said.

He tugged on Lily’s hand because he could see she was flagging. “Tell you what,” he started, “how about you just tell me what you want and I’ll go ahead and . . .”

He had turned to talk to her, kept walking, and staggered sideways into a small mound of snow. He dragged her down with him, and they both foundered against what felt like a log at first, but which a horrible feeling told him it wasn’t. He let go of Lily and pawed into the mound.

He should have waited until Lily had her clothes and was safe in the cookshack before investigating. A few more swipes of snow, and there lay Stretch.

C
HAPTER
33

J
ack knew he was no gentleman, but the gentleman in him tried to thrust Lily behind him to spare her the sight of his cowhand from Connecticut, mouth ajar in a twisted scream, his frozen hands clutching his open shirt, as if to rip it off.

They both stared down at the dead man. Lily started to breathe faster and faster. Jack took her gently by the neck and gave her a little shake. “Deep breaths, Lily,” he ordered, and she obeyed.

He was almost afraid to look at the woman who was even now trying to burrow into his armpit, which was no easy task, because he was wearing nearly everything warm that he owned. He looked into her eyes, and she continued to amaze him. Behind the obvious fear was something he had not expected—compassion, and it seemed to be directed at him and not the frozen man.

“Jack, do what you need to. If you want to take me to my house, I can get my clothes ready. I’ll just wait there for you or someone.” She tried to smile but failed singularly.

It was a generous offer that touched his heart, because he knew she meant it. She probably already knew what a practical man he was.

“I can’t do a thing for Stretch right now, and you’re cold, tired, and hungry. Keep walking.”

Her little shack was as cold inside as outside, but at least the wind wasn’t blowing snow through it. He opened her portmanteau as she looked around. Then she put in books first before clothing because that was Lily. He helped her, because she was starting to shiver noticeably.

The pictures went in next, followed by petticoats and underwear—glory, it
was
silk—and shoes. She closed the lid and pulled out a smaller suitcase from under her bed. Her corsets and dresses went in, and nightgowns—again that silky material. Working as quickly as she could, she spread out a blanket on the floor and bundled in all of her bedding and her father’s.

“I don’t feel very good, so it’s enough for now.”

As he thought about it later, in the relative warmth of the cookshack, that was the first time he ever heard Lily Carteret complain. She had no interest in food, even though he knew she was hungry. He took her straight to his two-room shack, sat her down, removed her shoes while she shivered uncontrollably, and told her to get in bed, clothes and all. He pulled the blankets high around her neck and went for help.

When he returned with two pigs and Amelie, Pierre and Preacher were already digging in the snow, trying to free Stretch, frozen solid and welded to the ground. Jack walked on Amelie’s other side so she couldn’t see what they were doing, but she knew.

“Did he suffer?” she asked.

“I sincerely doubt it,” he lied. “He probably just lay down and went to sleep.”

Amelie nodded, satisfied. It was probably going to be his best lie of the winter.

Why wouldn’t people leave her alone? Lily had voiced her objections forcefully, but no one listened. Obviously nothing had changed from Bristol to the Bar Dot. She didn’t want to sit up, but Jack insisted.

Amelie stood beside him, her eyes serious. “Do what he says,” she said in the same firm voice she had used on Nick.

Dutifully, Lily held out one arm and then the other, until she found herself down to that union suit he had helped her into in the schoolhouse.

“Stop!” she ordered, and he stopped. She stared him in the eyes. “You are not to take my clothes off,” she told him.