The Coming Storm (5 page)

Faith sniffed and nodded. “Lamentations.”

Dianne patted her hand. “Yes. Lamentations chapter three. ‘It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.’ ”

Faith continued the quote, picking up where Dianne stopped. “‘The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.’ ” Her voice was soft, but her tone suggested her convictions were just as strong as they had been when she’d first shared those verses with Dianne.

“Yes,” Dianne whispered. “We have to wait for the Lord and hope in Him. He won’t leave you, Faith. He’s never asked you to bear this on your own.”

“I wish He’d never asked me to bear it at all.”

“I wish He hadn’t either.”

“I just don’t understand,” Faith said, shaking her head. “I would have loved that baby good. I would have given him a loving home. Malachi would have been a good father. I just don’t understand.”

Dianne smiled. “You sound just like me most days. I don’t understand why God allows half the things He does. Why did Ardith fall in the river? Why didn’t someone save her? Why did Betsy have to get kicked in the head by a mule? Wasn’t God able to still the animals—keep that mule from kicking? Surely that wasn’t too big a job for Him. Then my mother died, just days before she was to give birth, taking my baby brother or sister with her. I don’t understand a good portion of what God allows.”

Faith nodded and for the first time since Dianne had entered the room, her expression seemed one of compassion and tenderness rather than sadness. “It’s hard to trust when bad times come. It’s hard to have hope when hope keeps getting killed along the trail.” She gripped Dianne’s hands. “I’m glad God brought us to you. Glad we found you when we did. We might have frozen to death out there, but beyond that, I know my heart would have froze shut. You and little Suzy have kept that from happening.”

“It’s hard to hurt this much,” Dianne said, meeting her friend’s dark eyes. “But the alternative is to feel nothing at all, and that’s hardly the answer. I guess in spite of everything, I’d rather go through life feeling everything in all its intensity than feeling nothing whatsoever.”

Faith nodded. “I suppose I feel the same way. It’s just so . . . so hard.”

“But you have people here who love you—people who will help you through this. And there’s always work.” She grinned. “There’s always plenty of work around this place.”

Faith smiled back. “There’s always work.”

Dianne sobered. “Faith, you are a dear sister to me. I hope you know that I love you as such. You will always have a home with me for as long as you desire.”

“I know you care, and I cherish you too. I never would have imagined being friends with any white woman—it didn’t seem likely that a white woman would want to be friends with a slave, even an educated one. But when we met up on the trail, I liked you from the start. You weren’t like other white girls. You didn’t seem to care about any of the things that others worried over. I remember talking to the Lord and telling Him that if there were more people like you, we’d have never had to fight the War Between the States.”

“I don’t deserve such praise,” Dianne said. “I didn’t even care about the war except to hope that my brothers would stay out of it. I never gave slavery much of a thought at all, though I grieve that now. No man should be slave to another. No man has the right to own another man, yet I turned a blind eye like so many folks. It didn’t concern me—at least I didn’t think it did—so I ignored it. We had such a good life in Missouri; my father had his own business and the people of the town were good neighbors. Then the war came and all of that changed. We all changed.”

“But you changed for the better.”

“Maybe I just grew up—opened my eyes to the realities of the world.”

“It’s a hard world to wake up to, that’s for sure,” Faith said. “Not everyone had a change of heart. Malachi and I still face people’s hatred.”

“Well, you won’t here. Life here will be different. Malachi can earn his keep and do the job he loves. Folks here won’t care what color your skin is—Uncle Bram’s made sure of that. Because of Koko.”

“And you don’t mind that your aunt is half Indian?”

Dianne shook her head. “No. I don’t mind at all. Koko is the dearest and sweetest woman. Her love for people runs deep, no matter the color of their skin. I know she loves having you here as well. Uncle Bram has been planning to build a big house. Seems like he’s been planning it forever. But in truth, he wants it to be perfect. He wants it to honor Koko.”

“Making provision for your family is important. That was why Malachi wanted to leave Virginia City all those years ago when I was expecting our first child. He didn’t want his baby born in a shack no better than what he’d lived in on the plantation.” Faith sighed. “Now he doesn’t have to worry about that.”

They were back to the sorrow of Faith’s lost children, and Dianne had no idea what to say. She knew she couldn’t just snap her fingers and eliminate the woman’s grief, but for a moment she’d been confident that Faith’s sadness had lifted just a bit. Now they were steeped in it again.

Dianne got to her feet, struggling for the right thing to say. “Faith, I know it’s hard right now, but God will ease your pain. You have to fight against it, though. You can’t just give in to it. Koko still needs help. We need you to help with the baby and with Jamie. I even need your help with the house so I can be freed up to help more with the livestock. We don’t have a full crew right now—winter is always the time when Uncle Bram lets men go. And some of the men are up north with the cattle.” She felt almost cruel for suggesting Faith stop grieving enough to be useful, but the words just poured out of Dianne’s mouth.

“I need you, Faith. I can’t do this alone. Koko did the work of ten women, and with her sick, everything has suffered.”

Faith drew a deep breath and stood. “You don’t have to do this alone,” she whispered.

Dianne looked deep into the woman’s eyes and smiled. “Neither do you. Not so long as I’m around. Not so long as you remember that God will never leave you.”

CHAPTER 4

M
ARCH BURST ON THE SCENE WITH BLUSTERY COLD DAYS
that reminded Dianne of January. After a week or so, however, the weather tempered and the air warmed with the promise of spring. By the last week of the month the snow melted and there were hints of green in the grass. Dianne generally refused to let herself get too excited about these early thaws. Back in Missouri the farmers were already planting and enjoying spring flowers and greening trees, but here in Montana, especially in the mountains, the weather was completely unpredictable. Dianne had even seen it snow in July. Of course it didn’t last, but it snowed nevertheless.

March also meant that Cole would soon be home. Dianne hadn’t allowed herself to dwell too often on how much she missed him. Faith’s arrival and the new baby helped to keep Dianne’s thoughts occupied, but on days like this she couldn’t help but think of a lovely summer wedding and Cole by her side for the rest of their lives.

Taking Pepper, the gray-and-white she’d worked with since he was a colt, to the top of the ridge, Dianne felt the exhilaration of a land about to be reborn. She shared the sentiment. Winters were hard and long, but there came a frantic release with each new spring. As if all creation in the Madison River valley recognized its potential all at once and knew it must act fast or lose its chance.

Shifting in the saddle, Dianne imagined the ranch as it would be in another month. By then it would be nearly May. Cole had written her to say that he should be back to the ranch by July. Her heart quickened at the thought, and Dianne allowed her mind to wander for a time. She wondered what he would look like—how he’d changed. She knew she had changed—hopefully for the better. She’d lost most of her youthful chubbiness, and at twenty-two, she bore the mark of hard work in a slimmer, more muscled figure. Faith had told her she’d grown into a handsome woman, but Dianne only cared that Cole might think so.

“I miss him so much, Lord. Some days are much harder than others,” she said, looking up. “When I think of all the time that has passed, I worry that he won’t feel the same. That he’ll change his mind and remain in Kansas.” She smiled and added, “Then I worry that he’ll come back a different man, that he won’t have resolved his differences and that he will have given up on you, Lord. That makes me worried that I’ll change my mind.”

Shaking her head, she urged Pepper back down the path toward home. “I’m a silly woman, Father. I don’t mean to fuss and fret. I think that’s why I’ve tried not to even give it consideration. But it’s so hard.”

Dianne took her time making her way home. She had plenty to think about, not the least of which was her longing for materials to make a wedding dress. Faith had brought up the idea of making plans for the big event just the other day, and up until then, Dianne had tried not to even think about the wedding for fear it might not come true.

She didn’t know when she’d become so cynical about day- dreaming, but she’d been afraid of putting much store in her wedding. In the frontier it was difficult to plan. You never knew what problem or complication might arise. Dianne had been disappointed so many times when she’d plotted and planned for a specific event, only to have it fall apart on her because of the weather, sick animals, warring Indians, or some other interference. Uncle Bram said that in this land it was better to take one day at a time. It was okay to make your plans, but you couldn’t allow yourself to get caught up in them. Now Dianne carried that same mindset into preparations for her wedding. Several times Faith had asked her about the arrangements, and Dianne had to admit she’d made no plans.

Truth be told, it was Faith who set Dianne’s mind to thinking about a wedding dress. Dianne imagined something simple yet lovely. She didn’t want to be married in her old everyday clothes. Koko and Faith had both promised to help her design and make a gown as soon as Dianne felt the time was right.

“Well, maybe this is the day,” she mused, imagining yards and yards of soft material flowing gracefully from her slender frame. “Maybe working on the gown will keep my mind busy for a time—at least a couple of months. And after that, maybe he’ll be home. Maybe Cole will finally be here and my waiting will come to an end.”

“Koko, I believe this baby is going to take after you,” Dianne declared, lifting Susannah. The baby yawned and looked up at Dianne as if to consider her words.

“I think so too,” Faith agreed. “She sure has grown.”

Koko smiled at the two women and went back to her leatherwork. “She’d never have made it without the two of you. I’ve never really had a chance to thank you properly.”

“No need,” Dianne said, putting Susannah back down beside her mother. “That’s what family is for.”

“And friends,” Faith threw in.

“Faith is right. It’s the way Jesus tells us to be. To love our neighbor as ourselves. Living all cramped up here,” Dianne said with a smile, “it doesn’t get much more neighborly.”

Koko laughed and so did Faith. “Bram says he’ll start the cabin for Faith and Malachi as soon as he can get the cattle back and settled. It won’t take long,” Koko declared. A new two-room cabin was Bram’s gift to the Montgomery family for all they’d done. Half of the structure was to provide housing, while the remaining half would be the new blacksmith shop.

Dianne finished tidying the kitchen area. “I know. He told me about a shipment of housing materials coming up from Virginia City. He plans to start the new house this summer as well. He told me that if everything goes well, he’ll have the main structure built by fall. He even plans to have some of the rooms ready so we can move in before the first snows. Isn’t that exciting?” “I wish he wouldn’t worry about such things. He wants a nice big house for all of us, and I completely agree with that. But he wants so many nice things that we just don’t need. Lots of windows and special lamps built into the wall. I told him he didn’t need to fuss about such things, but he won’t listen.”

Dianne smiled at her aunt. “He wants you happy. That’s all.”

“But he knows me well enough to know that I am happy. This is all I could have wanted from life. I don’t need lamps built into the wall.”

Dianne laughed. “I’m sure one day we’ll all come to appreciate Uncle Bram’s efforts and wonder how we could ever do without him.”

Koko put down her needle, and her expression became quite serious. “I couldn’t do without him.”

Dianne recognized the look of panic on Koko’s face. “You aren’t going to do without him, Koko. I didn’t mean to upset you . . . it was just a figure of speech.”

“You don’t understand,” Koko said softly. “I’ve had this dream. It’s always the same. It’s always dark and frightening and Bram is wounded.” She shuddered.

Dianne gently squeezed Koko’s shoulder. “It was just a bad dream. I sometimes have them about Cole, but I refuse to give them any credence. Both men are in God’s hands and we mustn’t fret.”