Prairie Fire (11 page)

A chorus of hurrahs followed the toast. Caitrin glanced around, wondering who would stand up for Rosie. Sheena—though happy to speak her mind in private—would never have the courage to make a public pronouncement. And then Caitrin noticed that everyone’s eyes were trained on
her
. Flushing, she realized that she was Rosie’s close friend, and by all good grace she should offer a toast.

She stood, lifted her mug, and prayed hard for words to form on her tongue. “Rosie has brought the light of happiness to many here on the prairie,” she began. “And I count myself blessed to be among those her life has touched. Not only is she good and kind, but she bears witness to the joy of Christian love that flows from her heart. In marrying Seth, our Rosie has found a partner … a friend … a true love …”

Caitrin squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. “Rosie has found all the happiness she so richly deserves,” she finished quickly. “Rosie and Seth, may your marriage be one of tenderness and everlasting love from this moment forward.”

Sinking onto the bench, Caitrin buried her nose in her mug and took a deep drink. Oh, it had been a poor toast … unplanned and awkwardly spoken. Just when she meant to be strong, her own silly woes had swarmed out to engulf her. She
must
move past this self-pity. She
must
stop dwelling on a man who had been barely a flicker in her life. And she would. Truly, she would. God help her!

“Me now!” Chipper cried, climbing up onto the wobbly bench. “Who’s gonna talk about me?”

The child looked around the crowd. Caitrin’s heart went out to him. Perhaps Will would stand up for his little friend. She glanced down to the end of the table to find Sheena’s son deep into a slice of cherry pie.

Chipper turned in a circle on his bench. “Does anybody have a speech about me? ’Cause I gots a new mama today, an’—” He paused and his face lit up. “Oh, look everybody! Here comes somebody to talk about me. It’s Uncle Jack!”

CHAPTER 6

J
ACK rode his horse to within five paces of the nearest table, and the crowd broke into screams of terror. Women covered their children’s heads. Men threw protective arms around their wives. A blond giant of a fellow leapt to his feet and came at the intruder. Heart hammering, Jack jumped to the ground and held up both hands.

“I’m unarmed!” he shouted over the roar. “I come in peace.”

Head down, shoulder butted forward, the giant kept coming. Jack kept his hands up as long as he could. When he realized the fellow meant business, he went for the shotgun in his saddle scabbard.

“Stop, Rolf!” a woman’s voice cried out. “Rolf, no!”

The giant skidded to a halt. Caitrin Murphy materialized at the man’s side and grabbed his arm. “No, Rolf!” she said. “Look. Mr. Cornwall holds no weapon. You must let him speak.”

Breathing hard, Jack waited in tense silence as the giant assessed the situation. “You not fight Seth?” the man growled, pointing a beefy finger. “Not little boy to take?”

Jack held out his empty hands. “I’m unarmed,” he repeated. “I’ve come in peace.”

“What do you want with us, Cornwall?” Seth called across the clearing. One arm clamped around Chipper, he rose from the wedding table. “You know you aren’t welcome here.”

Jack stepped forward, determined to keep his attention away from Caitrin. “I came to talk to you, Seth,” he said. “You and everybody else.”

In the wary hush, a child’s voice rang out. “Hi, Uncle Jack! Guess what! Me an’ Papa an’ Rosie got married today.”

“Hey there, Chipper.” At the sight of the little blue-eyed boy, Jack’s defenses faltered. This was his sister’s son, the baby he had cuddled on his lap and rocked to sleep a hundred times.
Oh, Mary.
If only you could see your child one more time. If only you could hold
him … sing to him …
Jack swallowed at the knot in his throat.

“You know what, Uncle Jack? Nobody made me a speech.” Chipper frowned. “Did you come to say a speech about me? Or … are you gonna fight Papa again?”

“I didn’t come here to fight anybody, Chipper,” Jack said, taking another step into the midst of the gathered tables. He searched the child’s blue eyes and read the longing in them. “All right, little buddy, I’ll make you a speech. How’s that?”

“Yeah!” Chipper said, pumping a little fist. “Get a cup.”

Aware of the tension racing through the crowd, Jack knew one wrong step could put him in danger. These people didn’t trust him … and rightly so. He had tried to take the boy. He had disrupted previous gatherings. He had battled Seth Hunter with words, weapons, and fists. Any one of them might choose this moment to exact revenge.

If he had his way, Jack would speak his piece and get out. But Chipper was gazing at him with a plea for reconciliation. Jack glanced to a table in search of a cup.

“Take this, Mr. Cornwall.” It was Caitrin’s musical voice. Both hands outstretched, she offered a tin mug filled with cider.

Jack met the woman’s eyes for an instant. It was all the satisfaction he could permit himself. Even so, the sight of shining green eyes, fiery hair, and lips soft with pleading nearly derailed him. Forcing his focus back to the boy, he lifted the cup.

“I’ve known Chipper since he was born,” he addressed the gathering. “He used to weigh not much more than a sack of dried peas. Yep, he was a wrinkled little thing and about as bald-headed as an old fence post.”

“Uncle Jack!” Chipper clamped his hands on his head and squealed in delight.

The crowd murmured, and a few low chuckles gave Jack the encouragement to continue. “Fact is, at the start I could hold Chipper in one hand. Right there in my palm, just like that. When he got bigger, he liked to ride around on my shoulders. Liked to eat mushed-up pawpaws. And he liked to holler, too. That boy could put up quite a squall to get what he wanted.”

Chipper giggled, and the party guests began to relax. The blond hulk sat down on a bench next to Caitrin. “My nephew always knew what he wanted,” Jack went on, “and not a one of us who loved the little rascal ever had the heart to tell him no. Now Chipper’s made up his mind to have himself a papa and a mama.”

Jack turned to Seth Hunter—the field hand Jack’s father had driven from the Cornwall property, enraged at his Yankee sympathies and his secret courtship of beautiful, golden-haired Mary. Seth stood straight and tall, his hand on his bride’s shoulder and his arm around his son. Behind Seth stretched his properties—a house, a barn, and fields that had brought in a good harvest. Around the man sat friends and neighbors who would defend him with their lives.

“The boy chose well,” Jack said, lifting his cup to honor the man who had been his enemy for so long. Then he returned to his nephew. “Here’s to Chipper. May his days be filled with fishing, swimming, kite flying, and all the joys of boyhood. And may he live a long, happy life in the sheltering arms of his parents … Seth and Rosie Hunter.”

A stunned pause gripped the wedding guests for a moment. And then they lifted their cups and sang out, “To Chipper!”

Before he could choke on words that had been torn from his gut, Jack tipped up his tin cup and downed the cider.
That’s right,
that voice inside him whispered.
Make peace. If you want to win, you
have to lose. The last shall be first.

His stomach churning in rebellion at words that reeked of weakness, Jack leaned over and slammed the tin cup on a table.
No! Fight. Stand up for yourself. Take the boy. Take Caitrin.

Bitterness rose in his throat, threatening to strangle him. From the moment he had ridden away from the woman, he had searched for a way to make her his own. But every scheme he cooked up involved violence and bloodshed. Every plan except this one.

That quiet voice had whispered a different approach. A new way.
Surrender. Let go. The last shall be first.
Jack never even got as far east as Topeka. In the stillness of a night as cold and alone as any he had ever known, he had hunkered down on his knees next to his horse and tried to listen to that voice.

Amid the blackness inside him, his own failings came to him one by one. He heard the clangor of his rebellion, his rage, his deceit. The echoes of his violent rejection of God drifted through the cavern of his empty soul. As he listened to the din of his stormy life, Jack recognized a future as hopeless as his past. Remembering the Jesus Christ to whom Caitrin’s soul belonged—that refining fire who could bring gold from raw ore—he surrendered to the Master, begging to be filled with the harmonious melody of forgiveness.

At that moment the raucousness had stopped. Silence reigned.

And then a sweet song began inside Jack. Peace filled the cavern.

Hope stretched out before him like a bright pathway leading to eternity.

For the next few days after his night of repentance, he had walked on that shining path. He had listened to the music of that quiet voice. Drifting in a sort of daze, he had decided that a return to Hope was the answer he’d been searching for. He would make a public offer of reconciliation with his enemies. Then he would go one step further.

And that’s when the buzz of rebellion stirred to life inside him.
Revenge, chaos, hatred,
it screeched, all but drowning the heavenly music in his soul. From that moment, Jack had been engaged in a different sort of battle, a fight that only prayer had seen him through. Gritting his teeth against the torment inside him, he lifted his head and faced his former foe.

“Seth,” he said, “I’ve come to make peace.”

Seth’s dark eyebrows lifted a fraction. He looked down at Rosie. The woman’s face had paled to an ashen white, but she gave her husband a nod of reassurance and gathered Chipper into her lap. Leaving her side, Seth walked around the table to stand in front of Jack.

“You want peace,” he said. “Why?”

“For the boy. I don’t want him to grow up with the notion that you and I hate each other.”

“I’ll see to that. I’ve never been a man of vengeance, Cornwall. The trouble between us doesn’t change the fact that you’re his uncle, and I’ll make sure he always remembers his Gram and Gramps. Rosie and I plan to raise Chipper in a home where godly love is the rule.”

Jack nodded. “It’s good to know that.”

“You didn’t need to come back here and interrupt my wedding to get that promise out of me. What is it you want?”

“I reckon I came to put your notion of godly love to the test.” Jack drank in a breath.
Say the words. Say them now.
He cleared his throat. “I’m here to ask a favor of you, Hunter.”

A ripple of murmurs raced through the crowd. Seth’s eyes narrowed. “There’s only one thing I’ve got that you want,” he said. “And you can’t have him.”

“This is not about the boy. I told you I gave him up, and I did. Whether anyone here believes it or not, I’m a man of my word. I won’t lay a finger on Chipper.”

Seth’s blue eyes still were hooded in wariness. “I’m a dirt farmer, Cornwall. What could you possibly want from me?”

“Permission.”

“Permission for what?”

“Work.” Jack listened to the hubbub that followed his request. He couldn’t let the crowd’s displeasure derail him. With God’s help, he would win over his enemy and make a place for himself. He needed a place like Hope, a place where he could make time to silence the rebellion inside him and listen to the quiet voice. He needed time to learn and grow. He needed hope.

“Like you, Seth, I’ve been fighting a war,” Jack said. “While I was gone, the family home was looted and burned. The farm was stripped. We had to move out. There are folks in Missouri I’d just as soon never lay eyes on again. I need to ply my trade, and I’m asking you for a place to do that.”

“On
my
land?”

“That’s right.”

Some of the men began shouting at Seth, encouraging him to run off the intruder, kick him out on his backside, give him a taste of his own medicine. The blond giant stood to his feet again.

Seth stared at Jack, his face expressionless. “Let me get this straight,” Seth said. “Your papa ran me off his farm. You spent the summer doing your dead-level best to steal my son away from me. You shot at me. You stole my rifle. You disrupted every iota of peace we had around here. And now you want me to give you a chunk of my land so you can work it?”

Jack rubbed the back of his neck as the jeers grew in intensity. This wasn’t going well. Another minute or two and the whole crowd was liable to string him up. So much for making peace. So much for hope.

Jack settled his hat on his head. “I reckon your godly love doesn’t stretch that far,” he said. “I don’t blame you for it. Well, I guess I’d better head out.”

Forcing himself not to look at Caitrin, Jack turned his back on Seth. Any man worth his salt would see this as a great opportunity to run his enemy into the ground. Kick him while he was down, and then spit in his face. Vulnerability made his spine prickle as he started for his horse.

“Hold on a minute, Cornwall,” Seth called after him.

Yep, time for the payback.
Help me, Father, please help me here,
Jack prayed. When he turned, he saw that Rosie had raced to her husband’s side. Well, this would just about finish things off, he thought. The last time he spoke with the woman, they’d wound up yelling at each other in the O’Tooles’ barn. She was liable to spill the beans on him, hurt Caitrin in the process, and turn the hubbub into a hullabaloo.

“Mr. Cornwall,” Rosie said, her shoulders squared, “what kind of work do you do?”

The question caught Jack off-balance. “I’m a blacksmith, ma’am.”

“A blacksmith,” she repeated. She glanced over in Caitrin’s direction and seemed to draw courage. “Well, I guess we don’t have any blacksmiths in Hope.”

“Nope.” He saw a crack in the wall of opposition. “But you have a lot of wagons passing through here, ma’am. Broken axles, worn-out brake shoes, rusted undercarriages—I fix them all. I can patch a rusted kettle so good you’ll think it’s new. I can shoe eight horses a day. There’s not a kitchen tool I can’t produce. And even though my work has been mostly on weapons, I reckon I could learn to make and repair any farm tool you hand me.”