Pony Express Christmas Read online

  Still, Grace had no right to take out her frustration and anger and sense of helplessness on her boys.

  She hugged Josiah, mortified at how close she had come to striking her own child in anger for the first time.

  Added to her growing guilt was her memory of her recent farewell. Only it had not been a farewell but a venting of the same bitterness and anger that filled her now. If only she hadn’t had words with her husband. He was a fool to go to town, but she should have hidden her doubt. Especially with all that had happened to them lately.

  Fool.

  The word echoed in her mind.

  Fool. Her last word to him had been fool. She had told him he was a hopeless dreamer, not much more than a fool, unable to provide properly for his family, and that he was especially a fool for leaving his family to go into town. Then she’d angrily repeated the word fool one final time for emphasis. With their oldest boy, Noah, listening to all of it.

  How could she have done that? Torn down her husband in front of the boy? It broke her heart now to think of the sad pain on her husband’s face as he turned away from her to go to the horse and wagon.

  What if she never had the chance to speak to him again? What if . . .

  “I am so sorry,” she murmured to Josiah. She would keep her mind off the past and give what she could to the boys with her now. She smoothed Josiah’s hair with one hand as she continued to hold him tight with her other. “So sorry. You don’t deserve that. Just promise me you won’t scare your brothers with more stories. Not now, all right?”

  Her tears, however, frightened the three boys more than her anger. Until now, she’d always managed to hide her frustration and sadness, choosing times when she was alone to let the tears flow.

  They’d never seen her cry before.

  Chapter 3

  Grady O’Neill swung off his horse at the top of the bank. He surveyed the man still sitting on the horseless wagon with the broken axle. He was looking in the opposite direction, not even aware of his return. The boy was off to the side looking for wood.

  Greenhorn, he thought about the man; he isn’t even making a move to get ready for the night. What does he expect, an angel?

  If so, he added to himself, the greenhorn is definitely in for disappointment. Grady had been called plenty of things, but angel was not one of them.

  He led his horse down toward the wagon, glad for the scarf that covered his face from the intense cold. The temperature had dropped considerably in the last half hour since Grady had first seen the wagon.

  Earlier, Grady had broken over the hill that led down to the creek. He’d seen the wagon without a horse and the man and the boy and told himself to keep his horse at full gallop. With the snowstorm ahead, night approaching, and twelve miles to go to the next way station, he couldn’t afford to stop.

  No Pony Express rider could. Not if he wanted to keep his job. Pony Express riders had simple and strict instructions: Deliver the mail at any cost. Grady knew just stopping his horse could get him fired.

  The settler, of course, had waved his hat as Grady thundered down the slope. Waved it valiantly as Grady swerved on entering the creek to go past the wagon. Grady hadn’t even lifted his hands from the reins to wave back. Riding at full gallop took concentration and perfect balance.

  “Hey, mister!” the man had shouted as soon as he began to understand that Grady meant to keep riding. “Hey, mister! I need help!”

  Not from me, Grady had told himself, shutting his ears against the man’s voice. But Grady had made the mistake of looking over as his horse slowed to step across the rocks on the up slope on the other side of the creek. Grady caught sight of the man’s face, the slump of his shoulders, like he’d just lost all hope because Grady was passing him by.

  Grady had pulled back on the reins.

  Just one minute, he’d told himself. He’d stop long enough to explain why he couldn’t help. This settler would understand. Everyone had heard of the Pony Express and how the riders were able to deliver a letter from California to Missouri in an unbelievable ten days.

  “Sorry, not much I can do,” Grady had said, pointing at the mailbags on his saddle. “I ride for the Express. They’re expecting me ahead. When I get there, I’ll send someone back.”

  Grady had galloped onward, pushing up the creek bank and following the wagon trail. Greenhorn or not, the man would know of the Pony Express station at the Weyburn ranch. So it wasn’t like he was leaving the man and the boy stranded without any hope of rescue.

  But within a couple of miles, Grady had known there would be no rescue this night. Not when he’d broken into the openness of the next valley and seen how big the storm clouds were against the horizon of the mountains. Grady guessed that in less than two hours, a man would be traveling blind with all the snow that would hit. Even if someone from the Weyburn ranch wanted to help out, it would be impossible. Nor was it likely, given the storm, that anyone else would pass by the man and boy.

  Grady had kept riding though, telling himself the man and boy would take care of themselves. Surely they had supplies and common sense. Besides, Grady had kept arguing with himself, if he turned back, he’d never make the Weyburn ranch. It would cost him his job if he failed to show up with the mail, because another rider was waiting to take it farther west. If he lost his job, how would he be able to continue to court Lucy Weyburn?

  Yet, much as he argued with himself, Grady had not been able to shake the image of the man’s slumped shoulders. Finally, fifteen minutes after leaving them, when the first real blast of snow had hit Grady, he’d reluctantly given in to what he’d known from the beginning he must do. A man just didn’t leave behind someone who needed help.

  He’d turned around just before reaching the pass and headed back to the man and the boy.

  Why did he have to be the one, Grady had griped again and again while galloping back to the creek. Why not anyone else who might have ridden past the stranded man and boy?

  Grady shook his head one final time before yelling hello downward to the wagon.

  Shoot, by now he could have already been five miles closer to Lucy Weyburn and her wonderful perfume and dazzling smile. And he’d still have a job.

  He kicked a rock as he led his horse to the wagon.

  This wasn’t going to be much of a Christmas, he grumbled in the silence of his mind. What rotten luck that he’d been forced to turn back.

  Chapter 4

  Swirling snow covered Kentucky and Reb on their horses as they slowly rode side by side on the wagon trail, away from the mountains and out of the valley.

  It had taken them five minutes to retrieve their horses and begin pursuit. Their rifles were riding on top of the saddlebags, which held precious little else. They were low on ammunition and had no more food or whiskey. Aside from blankets rolled and strapped behind their saddles, they were traveling as light as possible, not by choice.

  With the storm gaining force, however, they dared not chase the Pony Express rider at a gallop, much less a trot. Visibility had lessened to the point where the hills that outlined the valley had long been lost in the gray horizon, and at best they could only see thirty or forty feet ahead. Last thing either man wanted was a horse to step in a hole and break a leg.

  The only mercy was the fact that the wind was at their backs. The driven snow collected on their shoulders and rear brims of their hats.

  “What say we stop and build a fire,” Reb yelled above the wind. His shivering was almost unbearable. “There will be another time for this.”

  “Fire don’t do much good when a man’s belly is tight with hunger,” Kentucky yelled back. “This snow will slow him down too, and maybe we’ll find him at his own fire. Once we get that Pony Express mailbag, then our problems are over.”

  “We’ll have the law after us again,” Reb shouted. The effort it took dizzied him, and the edges of his vision blurred with darkness. He just wanted to crawl under his blanket and let the snow cover him. “I just don’t know th
at I’ll be much good in the saddle. This fever—”

  “Quit your whining!” Kentucky shouted back. “You been using that fever as an excuse for a week now, and I’m sick of you being sick! Hear me?”

  Like I been hearing you since we were boys, Reb thought. But he didn’t say it, just kept it inside like he always did.

  They rode on, with Reb trying to remember if ever he had made a suggestion that Kentucky agreed to. And now that Reb thought of it, he realized this life had been Kentucky’s decision, prompted by dreams of easy money and little work. Well, Reb thought, it had turned out just the opposite. They were on stolen horses and empty stomachs, and it had been that way for so long that some mornings Reb could hardly climb onto his saddle.

  Reb didn’t know that he could take this life much longer. He’d been dreaming lately about three square meals a day and a small but steady salary, even if it meant backbreaking work and listening to Kentucky go on and on how only fools made themselves slaves to a trail boss. Thing was, a man with folding money might even be able to court a lady.

  He wondered if he should bring that up with Kentucky but was having a difficult time finding the energy to say much more. So he concentrated on staying straight in his saddle. The darkness closed in on the edges of his vision again. Reb’s stomach clenched in agony, and he shivered harder, even as sweat pushed through the skin of his forehead and froze on his face.

  Kentucky and Reb continued east, pushed by the wind.

  It didn’t take long for snow to cake the hind ends of the horses. They began to falter. These animals had been pushed hard over the last month, and neither Kentucky nor Reb made it a habit to be overly concerned about the welfare of their horseflesh.

  “Just a few miles more!” Kentucky finally shouted. His own hands and face had become numb. “If we don’t find him by then, we’ll look for shelter. A warm fire and a tight belly are better than freezing to death!”

  Reb didn’t reply.

  Kentucky hadn’t noticed earlier, for he’d kept his head down as they plodded.

  Reb had fallen forward in his saddle, to clutch the neck of his horse.

  As Kentucky looked over to see why Reb hadn’t jumped at his new suggestion, Reb slid out of his saddle and hit the ground between the two horses.

  Chapter 5

  “Ma,” Josiah said. “Tell us how you and Pa met.”

  Grace looked over from the stove. She’d decided to keep herself busy by making biscuits with the last of the flour.

  Josiah had an earnest expression on his face. She well recognized it. It was almost identical to the look that often crossed her husband’s face.

  “You’ve heard me tell you that story a hundred times,” she said, suppressing a smile. She knew why Josiah was asking. He was only eight years old but, like his father, had a sensitive side that he could not keep hidden from the harshness of the world. Josiah, even at his young age, was fully aware of his mother’s troubled sadness and furthermore understood how much it cheered her to tell this familiar story.

  “Tell us, tell us,” Seth said. It came out like “telluth, telluth,” and Grace finally did smile.

  Caleb clapped his pudgy little hands. “Tell us. Tell us.”

  Grace knew she should fall down on her knees and thank God right then and there for how much she loved these boys. But God was so far away from her, and she felt all her prayers to him had been hollow words directed into the uncaring wilderness. Another thought occurred to her. It had been two weeks since she’d prayed quietly herself. Sure, she’d prayed aloud with the boys as she put them to sleep each night, but that was part of her duty.

  “Tell us! Tell us!” the boys shouted.

  With a wooden spoon, she slapped out the biscuit dough into dollops and put them into the stove. The stove was a Franklin, their last purchase with the inheritance that they’d brought into the West, and every day she was grateful for that stove.

  Grace wiped her hands on her apron, removed it, and walked over to the corn-shuck mattress in the corner, from where the three boys had been watching her with large, grave eyes.

  She sat beside them, and they crowded around her.

  “It was at a church social,” she said. “I was minding my own business, talking to some of my friends, and I heard the biggest commotion you could imagine. Some young man on the other side of the hall had just told a story, and everyone around him was laughing like there was no tomorrow. Naturally, my friends and I were curious. But being the ladies we were, we didn’t dare intrude.”

  “Tell us the story he told, Ma,” Caleb urged. “We love to hear about that.”

  Indeed they did. For all his shortcomings as a rancher and settler, their father had an amazing gift as a storyteller. Grace’s renditions, at best, were second rate, but it was still enough to captivate the boys, who never minded hearing her repeat stories that they had already heard a dozen times from their father.

  Grace’s best memories of the cabin—and there weren’t many—were of the nights when all of them sat inside, with a candle or two burning, and her husband leaning forward in the shadows to bestow upon them another whopper. Those were the times when she was able to forget all their troubles.

  Only now, those same memories flooded her as she began to retell the old story. Sadness infused her voice, for it only reminded her that already it was near dark, and there was no sign of Jeremiah or her oldest boy.

  What kind of Christmas, she wondered, was this going to be?

  Chapter 6

  “Mister,” the man said, “you’re an answer to prayer.”

  Grady snorted. “Then the Lord has a sense of humor I’ll never understand. My own prayers involved other matters.”

  Grady had walked his horse up to the wagon and introduced himself to the man and boy.

  He discovered the man’s name was Jeremiah Sparling. He wore a chewed-up floppy hat. His dark beard covered most of his face. His clothes were worn and ragged. The boy beside him, Noah, seemed large for the jacket and pants stretched short and tight.

  “I’m sorry for that,” Jeremiah said. “Truly sorry. If my leg wasn’t busted up like this . . .”

  Grady regretted his sour attempt at humor. He was in this too far to back out, and since it had to be done, he might as well be gracious about it.

  “Bad luck, huh?” Grady said, surveying the wagon.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” the man said. He described what had happened. While crossing the creek, the horse had broken through a skiff of ice and slipped on muddy rocks. The ice had cut the horse’s hock as it stumbled. In panic, the horse had tried to bolt.

  Because the man was unable to stand and balance without his crutches, he had mishandled the reins from his awkward sitting position on the bench of the wagon. The rear axle of the wagon had slammed into a rock as one of the back wheels fell through the ice into a hole hidden by the water. The horse’s momentum had taken the wagon out of the creek and onto land, but no farther.

  On the other side of the creek, the wagon had stopped dead among large rocks. The axle had snapped with the sickening sound of a breaking thighbone. The horse had reared in more panic, tangling the harness straps. This had led to the man’s next mistake due to inexperience.

  He tried cutting the horse loose from the tangled leather. His son was too small to control the horse, and as the man stumbled in small circles on his crutch, the clumsy handling had frightened the horse even more. The leather harness, slick from the water of the creek, had slipped through the man’s hands as the horse took this opportunity to gallop up the bank of the creek and out of sight.

  Grady listened, without commenting about a man with a broken leg traveling in this kind of weather, without commenting on all the mistakes the man had made with the horse and the wagon.

  “First thing,” Grady said, “is we build a fire. There’s maybe an hour of daylight left, and I don’t aim to get stuck here without one.”

  Jeremiah cleared his throat cautiously. “Mister O�
�Neill, what I hoped was you might take my boy home and leave me here. No sense all three of us spending the night in this storm.”

  “Wouldn’t be right,” Grady said. “Long’s we prepare right, won’t hurt none to wait out this snow. Probably clear up by morning or even sometime in the night.”

  “Please understand,” Jeremiah said, “it ain’t me I’m worried for. It’s my wife and my other three boys. We went into town yesterday and promised ’em we’d be home by tonight. If we don’t show, they’ll be scared I’m lost, or something worse.”

  Lost, Grady wondered. What kind of man might get lost going home from town? In his mind, he answered his own question. The same kind of man who’d head out on a day like this, the same kind of man who’d bust an axle, and the same kind of man who’d lose his horse, then wait helplessly on the seat of the wagon.

  “Thing is,” Jeremiah continued, “I’m afraid my wife might come looking for me. She’s strong-minded and would head out with a lantern if she thought it might do some good. I can’t see anything but bad happening if she leaves the cabin.”

  Grady thought it through. Only one horse—his. It could carry a man and a boy, only if Grady removed the mailbags. Even if Grady said he’d stay and guard the wagon and the mailbags, this Sparling fellow wouldn’t be able to ride home with his boy, not with that leg busted up like it was.

  Jeremiah mistook Grady’s silence for reluctance.

  “Mister, I can’t leave behind my wagon and all the supplies. Cash money’s real scarce right now. Anything happens to these supplies, we won’t last the winter.”

  Grady nibbled his lower lip. It was a habit of his when he didn’t know what to do.

  “Some five miles ahead and directly along the way,” Jeremiah told him, “you’ll see a rock tower guarded by a tall pine. Turn west, along the trail that follows the creek, and another few miles up is the homestead. With the horse you’ve got, it would take no time at all to get my oldest boy home and let my family know where I’m at.”