Love Inspired Historical April 2014 Bundle: The Husband Campaign\The Preacher's Bride Claim\The Soldier's Secrets\Wyoming Promises (31 page)

As if she could hear his prayer, Alice raised her head and returned his gaze, her blue eyes beautiful in the flickering overhead light. He saw her check the small gold watch she wore pinned on the bodice of her flower-sprigged calico dress. “Elijah, perhaps we'd better get going on our rounds,” she murmured. “There were several who asked for prayer this morning for ailments, and I ought to check on the Lambert girl again and make sure she's getting the proper diet.”

He nodded his assent and stood, waiting while she gathered her medical bag from beneath the table.

Lord, You've brought Alice Hawthorne into my life, and at the moment, Your purpose in doing so isn't clear. She's made it plain that she only wants to be my friend, and I'd already decided I wanted to serve You, not to marry. Yet why is there this growing warmth in my heart for her, Father?

Elijah only hoped God would show him what He wanted him to do.

Chapter Eight

I
t was late by the time Alice and Elijah finished their last visit, a stop at the Ferguson sisters' campsite. Cordelia was down with a head cold and a fever, and was so hoarse Alice had finally encouraged her not to speak while Alice brewed her some willow bark tea. But her talkative sister, Carrie, had more than made up for her sister's silence.

“I think instead of crying as soon as they were born, those two started talking,” Alice remarked once she and Elijah had left the sisters.

Elijah chuckled. “I believe you're right—” Suddenly he stopped stock-still, holding up a hand. “Listen. Did you hear that?”

Alice stopped, and then she heard it—a child's frightened cries, interspersed with a man's angry shouts.

“Whatever can that be about? Come on, Elijah!” Alice cried, taking off at a run in the direction of the commotion. Was some parent going overboard in disciplining a child? But as they drew nearer, she realized that the child's shouted words were in some language she didn't recognize. A woman's voice pierced the night, adding to the cacophony. “Webster, stop! Just let him go!”

From behind her, Elijah cautioned her. “Miss Alice, please, let me go first. We don't know what sort of man—”

Heedless, she plunged ahead.
No one was going to mistreat a child, even if he was his father.

When they came around a wagon, she saw them—a red-faced man holding a struggling child by the hair and boxing his ears. Even in the dancing light of the fire, Alice could see the child was filthy and disheveled. A
n Indian,
she realized, seeing the boy's frightened obsidian eyes and darker skin. He was clad only in muddy rawhide leggings, his chest bare.

“Stop that! Stop that!” Alice shrieked, lunging at the man.

“Stop hitting that boy at once!” Elijah shouted, coming right behind her. “Miss Alice, be careful!”

Startled, the other man let go of the boy.

Alice was sure the boy would rabbit away into the darkness. But to her astonishment, he ran straight to her, clutching her around the waist and trembling.

“There, there,” she soothed, not knowing if the boy understood her as she ran a comforting hand down his shaking back.

“Mister, I'm within my rights,” she heard the man protest. “I caught this little redskin thief stealin' our food.”

“He's a
child,
” she heard Elijah retort. “It's never all right to beat a child, no matter what race he belongs to.”

“You're safe now,” Alice murmured to the clinging boy. “Oh, Elijah, look at him—he's skinny as a rail! He's obviously starving.”

“You're that Thornton preacher fellow the Chaucers were talkin' about,” the man growled. “The one whose family stole their land, and now he wants everyone to think he didn't do nothin' wrong.”

Alice groaned inwardly, while keeping a watchful eye on the man
. Another one who wants to hold the Thorntons accountable for long-ago wrongs and at the worst time.

“I'm Elijah Thornton, yes, but—”

“Webster, you let that child have that food,” called a woman—the man's wife, Alice assumed—from the wagon. “You weren't going to eat it, anyway. Now come to bed.”

Webster turned back to Elijah. “He kin have the vittles, providin' you go away and leave us in peace, all right?”

Elijah picked up the tin plate, motioning for Alice and the boy to follow. The man and his wife disappeared back into the wagon.

When they were a few yards away, Elijah handed the plate to the child, who fell on it like a famished wolf, apparently confident enough in the presence of his protectors.

Alice looked at Elijah over the boy's bent shoulders. The boy was too busy shoving biscuits into his cheeks to care about anything else.

She thought the boy was about seven years old, but she couldn't be sure.

“Elijah, what are we going to do with him? Where are his parents?”

He shrugged, staring at the child. “He's obviously an Indian—but not full-blooded, I think,” he said, peering more closely. He knelt next to the boy, who had finished gulping down the food and was gazing at him with wary eyes. Obviously the child trusted Alice but wasn't sure if this white man was capable of being as brutal as the other one.

“Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you,” Elijah told the boy, his tone gentle. “Do you speak English?”

The boy's shaking had stopped, but now that he had eaten, he once more clung to Alice's skirt. She could see from his expression that while he was curious about Elijah, he didn't understand what he was saying.

She touched him gently and knelt, too. “Alice,” she said, pointing to herself. “Elijah,” she said, pointing to him. Perhaps she should have said “Reverend Elijah,” she thought, but that was a long name for a little boy to say.

The boy cocked his head, then said,
“Da-ko-ta,”
and pointed to his bare chest.

“Your name is Dakota?”

She wasn't sure if he understood, but he said, “Dakota,” and pointed to himself again. Then he pointed at her. “
Alss,
” he said, and then he indicated Elijah. “'
Lijah.”

“Your mama? Your papa?” Alice asked.

The boy stared back at her, his eyes blank with incomprehension, then leaned toward her and said,
“Cattan rechid lossin?”

She must have looked as confused as he had, for he repeated the phrase again.

“I'm sorry, child. I don't know your language.” Compassion flared in her for the boy. “Elijah,” she said, “we have to take care of this child until we can find his parents.”

“
If
we can find his parents,” he countered, looking as worried as she felt, which touched her heart.

“Who knows when he ate last, and he's so
dirty,
” she said, peering at his hair and hoping he didn't have lice. “Where did he come from, do you suppose? Was he left behind because of his mixed blood when the Indians left this territory?”

“Possibly,” Elijah muttered. “I agree. We'll have to take care of him, see if we can find someone who speaks his language, so we can find out where he belongs. Poor boy.”

Alice watched as Elijah reached out a careful hand and stroked Dakota's arm. The boy no longer seemed afraid of him. As she watched, Dakota's mouth opened into a big yawn.

“He must be tired. But the first thing he needs is a bath,” Alice said. “Will you help me? I want to take him back to my tent, heat some water and give him a little scrubbing. I have a shirt that might fit him, if we roll up the sleeves.”

“Of course I'll help you,” Elijah said.

* * *

Dakota submitted with surprising equanimity to his washing, but perhaps it was because he was so exhausted by the events of the night—and by whatever he had endured before, Alice thought—so he was heavy-eyed and silent by the time she finished combing the tangles out of his shoulder-length hair. She'd been relieved to find that there was nothing living in it. Now that it was clean and drying, she could see that Dakota's hair was dark brown, not black, further proving Elijah's assertion that Dakota was of mixed blood.

While Alice had been washing the child, Elijah had spread out a pair of spare blankets and placed them on the ground near her cot, along with some folded towels for a pillow. Leaving the drowsy boy, she went to rummage through her trunk for the spare shirt she'd thought might fit him, but by the time she'd found it and turned around, Elijah was carrying the sleeping Dakota to the makeshift pallet.

The sight of the preacher laying the boy carefully down and smoothing a lock of hair away from his forehead did something to Alice's heart.
What a decent, kind man Elijah Thornton is,
she thought. Once more, she wondered why he hadn't married and had a flock of his own children. It was obvious he'd be a good father.

He could be carrying your son like that—yours and his,
a voice within her whispered, a voice she resolutely ignored, but the longing that echoed in her heart refused to be silenced.

“I'll be going now,” Elijah announced, breaking into her thoughts. “We'll talk tomorrow,” he said, nodding toward the boy. He turned, and started to lower his head to clear the low tent entrance, then turned back. “You know, he may leave while you're asleep,” he warned her gently. “I'm not sure what he's doing in Boomer Town, but he may be trying to find someone—his parents, for example—or some
thing.
”

Alice wrenched her gaze away from Elijah to stare at the sleeping child. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Oh, Elijah, I can't bear to think of him wandering and hungry again.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to distress you. I just didn't want you to be surprised if you wake and he's gone. You must rest yourself, Miss Alice, and leave this in God's hands while you sleep.”

She knew he was right, but the idea of waking and finding that Dakota had left haunted her. “That's why we must find someone who can talk to him as soon as possible,” she said. “Why, we don't even know what tribe he comes from. We need to find out who, or what, he's looking for. What happened to his parents—why he's alone.”

“I believe the Lord will provide the answers,” Elijah said. “I'll see you both tomorrow.”

It was hard for Alice to settle down to sleep after that. Would they find the child's parents, or was he indeed abandoned because he was partly white? If no mother or father showed up to claim the boy, what would they do? It wasn't as if she could adopt Dakota, a single woman alone and, so far, without a permanent home to offer him. A child deserved to have a mother and a father, and both she and Elijah were unmarried—and she intended to stay that way.

* * *

At dawn, Elijah gave up pursuing a deep, restful sleep and got up. It had been almost midnight by the time he'd helped Alice settle Dakota for the evening, too late to discuss the boy with his brothers. When they woke up this morning, though, he had coffee ready, and he wasted no time in giving them a brief explanation of what had happened.

“Maybe Lars could help you talk to the boy,” Clint said, stirring at least half a cup of sugar into the coffee. “At least he could tell you if the boy is Cheyenne. And if he isn't, maybe he could use that sign language the tribes use to communicate with each other to figure out what tribe he comes from.”

“Why didn't I think of that?” Elijah exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. He'd been right to think that answers would be easier to come by in the morning. “Perhaps I should go get Lars and take him to meet the boy.”

“You could,” Gideon said, “but not right now. He went hunting.”

“How long will he be gone?” Impatience was a personal failing of his, Elijah knew.

Clint shrugged. “Depends on when he gets lucky. He's been pretty fidgety, just sitting around Boomer Town waiting for the Land Rush.”

Elijah sighed. His brothers were both getting restless, too, being men of action. They didn't have the church and its growing congregation to keep them busy.

“I'm going to go hunt up some milk for Dakota before I go visit him,” he said, remembering a member of his congregation who had a milk cow. As rail-thin as the boy was, some milk would be good for him.

But as he left their campsite, he suddenly realized he had no reason to be certain that Dakota was still there. Had the boy sneaked away during the night, as Elijah had told Alice Dakota might? Worse yet, what if he had stolen things from Alice, too? Elijah didn't think the boy would do that, after the way he had clung to Alice as his protector, but what had Elijah been thinking to leave the boy with Alice? He should have taken Dakota with him. Between him and his brothers, they could've kept an eye on the boy until they found a more permanent solution.

Maybe he'd better go check on Alice before he went and got milk for an Indian boy who might be miles away by now. He reversed his steps and headed for Alice's at a trot.

His fears proved to be groundless. When he reached the campfire, the first sight that greeted his eyes was that of Dakota, devouring a tin plate heaped with bacon and eggs, and a sugared doughnut. He spotted a tin cup half-full of milk beside him, too. Alice had already seen to the boy's needs.

“Good morning, Reverend Elijah,” Alice said, catching sight of him as she reached into the frying pan with a long fork and pulled out four more freshly cooked doughnuts and dropped them into a bowl of sugar.

“Good morning. I see he's still here,” he said, nodding toward the boy, not quite successful at hiding his relieved sigh. “Good morning, Dakota.”

Dakota looked up from his plate long enough to give him a shy smile.

“No one leaves when there are doughnuts coming,” Alice said with a wink, though something in her eyes told him that she was relieved, too.

She leaned over and whispered something to the boy, who swallowed his food, put his plate down and crowed, “Gute mor-nin', Preechah 'Lijah!” then gave a boyish belly laugh at Elijah's astonishment.

Elijah chuckled. “I see you've accomplished a lot already today, Miss Alice.”

“Oh, he's just parroting sounds back, I think,” Alice said. “I'm sure he understands it's a greeting, at least. But I wish we could find out more from him.”

Elijah told her about Clint's suggestion of using Lars to try to communicate with the boy, and that Lars had gone hunting, the time of his return uncertain.

“Well, it seems we shall have to be patient,” Alice said. “But what if it turns out he has no one?” she asked Elijah, unconsciously twisting a fold of her apron. “I mean, long-term...” Her voice trailed off.

Elijah knew what she meant.
If Dakota was truly an orphan, what would they do then? A child needed a mother and a father
.