The Reluctant Bridegroom (11 page)

“Nobody else ever did,” Clay shrugged.

Nobody knew better than Birdwell what a stubborn streak ran in Sky Winslow, so Sam said nothing for two days. Even then, it was Sky himself who mentioned it first. They were at Sam’s warehouse grading Sky’s furs when Sky brought it up. “I’m surprised at you, Sam. Thought you’d be at me to go bring those women here from the east.”

Sam paused, stroked a beautiful black fox pelt. “Knew you wouldn’t be pushed, Sky.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, Sam—and I’ve decided to do it.”

“You
have!
” Sam exclaimed, tossing the fur aside and beating Sky on the back. “Well, thank God for that! It’ll work, Sky, I’m tellin’ you it’ll work!”

Sky grinned at him, then sobered. “Well, I’ve got my own reasons for going, Sam. Not a wife, either.”

“What you got in mind, Sky?”

“Some kind of housekeeper. A woman who can teach Joe and bring a little order into my house.”

“You’d have to marry her, Sky,” Sam commented. “Otherwise she’d have a bad name.”

“I’ve been thinking of a way. What if I built her a little house, and she lived in it and just did my housekeeping and taught Joe? I mean an older woman, like.”

Sam considered it skeptically. “It might work, Sky—but she’d better be old and ugly, or some woman-hungry logger will run off with her.”

“Don’t worry—I’ll take care of that!”

Sam ducked his head and shuffled his feet. “Say, Sky . . . now that you’re going . . . can I ask you to do something for me?”

“Name it, Sam.” He put his hand on the smaller man’s shoulders. “Listen, I’ve not forgotten how you stood by me when Irene left. Don’t think Joe and I would have made it if you hadn’t been there. Just tell me—what is it?”

“Well, I want you to find me a wife.”

“You, Sam?” Sky stared at his friend in surprise. “Why, you could get any woman you wanted. You’re still young enough, and you’ve got money—”

“It’s just that—well, I’ve never been any good around women, Sky.” Sam Birdwell looked at Sky painfully. “I’ve been turned down, see, more than once, so I’d just decided to give up the idea. But I’d give anything to have a home—and
a boy, maybe, like Joe!” He paused and added, “She don’t have to be a handsome woman, Sky. I don’t care how plain she is! But I’d make a good husband for some woman—once I had her. It’s just the courtin’ and the askin’ part that I can’t face up to.”

“Why, of course I’ll do it, Sam!” Sky said. He looked down at the smaller man and assured him.

“Sam, you’ll get the pick of the litter!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE APPLICANTS

“Wonder what those dogs are barking at?!”

Christmas Winslow looked up at his wife from the table where he sat reading a worn Bible by the pale light of a lamp. He listened carefully, then got up. “Dunno, Missy. Might be something after the stock. Maybe I better go take a look.”

He reached for his coat that hung from a peg in the wall as a loud knock sounded on the door. Twenty-six years of mission work had not tempered the watchful habits he’d learned as a mountain man—which was understandable; for those years had been spent right in the middle of the Sioux nation, where life was cheap. Smoothly, he pulled his Hawken from the wall, cocked it, and stepped to the side of the door. Motioning the woman to stand away from the door, he jerked it open with the rifle held steady in his right hand.

“Well—you gonna shoot me, Pa?”

Christmas yelled and with his free arm grabbed the figure that stepped through the door. He was a huge man, six feet three inches, and his grip at the age of sixty was still like a bear trap. “Sky! Look here, Missy!” He stepped back and replaced the rifle on its pegs as Missy came quickly across the room and took Sky’s embrace. She was almost as tall as Sky himself.

“You rascal!” she chided with mock severity, “I ought to take a switch to you!” She bit her lips as tears came into her eyes, then put her arms around him again and held him close, unable to speak.

“Aw, Ma, don’t take on,” Sky said. She was really his stepmother, but Missy had been the best friend that his own mother, White Dove, had ever known. When the Indian woman died, Missy had promised to care for Dove’s eleven-year-old son. Holding her now, Sky was grateful for the times in his childhood when this woman had loved him, nursed him, and disciplined him as if he were her own. He looked at his father, who was watching them with a smile.

“Well, for cryin’ out loud, Missy, don’t smother the boy!” Christmas reached out, pulled Sky’s hat off and tossed it on a peg. “Get out of that wet coat, Sky, and set. Missy, it ain’t too late to eat again.”

Missy Winslow brushed her hand across her eyes, laughing. “I’ll fry up some steaks from that doe while you two talk—but I don’t want to miss anything, so you talk up loud, Sky!”

She busied herself with the food, pausing from time to time to look at the two men who sat at the table. Soon the tantalizing odor of fried steak filled the room, and the two listened avidly as Sky told them about Joe. It had been five years since they’d seen either Sky or his boy—from the time their son left with his family for Oregon; and they devoured him with their eyes. When Missy put the food on the table and sat down, Christmas glanced at Sky and bowed his head. “Lord, we’re thankful for this food, for it comes as your gift. I’m grateful for your mercies on Sky and Joey. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Sky smiled broadly at the old memories this scene brought back. “You still don’t waste much time blessin’ the food, do you, Pa?” That had always been his father’s way—short blessings and long sermons. He chewed hungrily on the rich meat, then said slowly, “I’ve missed your preaching.”

Chris looked across the table and smiled. “Well, you’ll get a double dose day after tomorrow. Still just about the same, Sky—turn or burn.”

Sky swallowed another bite of the steak before he answered
his father. “Nothing I’d like better, Pa—but I can’t stay past that. Got to be in New York by March fifteenth.”

“Why, you can’t do that!” Christmas protested. “You’ve been gone five years—and now you blow in and stay for
two measly days?
Why, that’s downright uncivil!”

Missy put her hand on his arm to stop her husband’s flow of indignation. “Be still, Chris.” With interest, she turned to her son. “What’s the trouble, Sky?”

“Oh, it’s not trouble, Ma. I’ve just got a job to do and the weather won’t wait.” He felt a pang of guilt.
I should have brought Joe with me,
he thought. But he had known that the trip would be too rough for the boy, and had left him with Sam. He knew that his son would be all right—but the disappointment in the faces of his parents hurt him.

“Sure would like to see that boy again,” Christmas said wistfully. He and Missy had children of their own, two girls and a boy, but they were all married and gone.

“I’ll bring him next year, Pa, I promise,” Sky assured him. “This was just too rough a trip.”

“No, we’ll be there with
you,
” Missy said firmly, glancing at her husband. “We haven’t been away from the Mission for ten years—and your father’s promised to bring me to Oregon next year. He’ll do it, too, or I’ll take a war club to him!”

“That’s great!” Sky said. “Joe needs to know his grandparents.”

“Well, what’s this job, Sky?” Christmas asked.

“Now don’t laugh, either of you,” Sky warned. “I’m going to bring a wagon train of women from New York to Oregon—mail order brides, I guess you’d call ’em.” He smiled at their reactions, and quickly explained the plan to them. Finally he said, “I need a little help, Pa. It’s pretty risky crossing some of that country; I thought it might be safer if I got a few of the young men from different tribes to go with me as scouts and hunters.”

“That’s a good idea,” Missy nodded. “You could take White Hawk. He still misses you.”

“Sure, and Kieta would like to go,” her husband added. “He’s married a Sioux squaw, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a Chiricahua Apache in the train when you cross Apache country.” He named a few more and said, “It’ll take a couple of days to get them.”

“Just have them at Fort Kearney by the middle of April, Pa. It’ll take me that long to get the women sorted out and the train put together. There’s plenty of money, so they’ll be well paid.”

“Get the women sorted out?” Missy repeated. “How do you mean that?”

“Well, I’ll have to talk to all the women who want to make the trip, and decide which ones to take.”

“Be a little harder than picking out riding stock from a herd, won’t it, Sky?” Chris asked innocently. “You going to get their weights and so on?”

Missy didn’t smile. “I don’t see how you can do it. If a woman comes and says she wants to go, and you tell her she can’t, you could have a real problem on your hands, Sky.”

He stared at her. “I never thought of that, Ma, but somebody’s got to make the decision.”

They talked long into the night, and when the fire burned low Sky got up to put another log on. He listened to the news of the Mission with interest—marriages and new babies and the like. It was only natural, for he had grown up among these people. “Five years is a long time,” he commented after they had finished. “I guess some of the converts must have fallen away these five years I’ve been gone—some I grew up with.”

“It’s always that way,” Chris said sadly. “But the Lord’s blessed us with many real converts—the lasting kind.” He smiled broadly. “Long Bow, for one.”

“That reprobate!” Sky exclaimed. “He never did anything but steal and fight in his whole life!”

“Not anymore,” Missy said. “He never misses a service. Wouldn’t be surprised if he became an evangelist. He’s won lots of his old friends to the Lord in the last year.”

“Never thought I’d hear that.”

Christmas took a deep breath and exchanged a quick look with Missy. “Sky, we’ve been much in prayer for you and Joe—since Irene died. How are you?”

This was his way, Sky knew, of asking if he was going to church, and he had to be honest. “Pa, it’s ten miles to a church. But if this trip works, a lot of things will be different. I’ll move to town, and Joe and I can go to church all the time.”

He explained his plan to hire a housekeeper, and when he was through his eyelids were drooping.

“Let Sky get some sleep,” Missy said quickly. “We’ve got all day tomorrow to talk.”

After Sky had gone to the small room in the attic, Chris and Missy sat and talked for a time.

“He’ll never marry again, Chris,” she said sadly. “That woman hurt him so—he’ll never trust another one.”

“Too bad! That boy needs a mother.”

They talked it over from every angle, and finally Chris said, “Nothing we can do but pray, Missy.”

“There never is, Chris,” she smiled and then they went to bed.

The next two days passed swiftly as Sky went around to meet his old companions. When he explained the situation, White Hawk said with a gleam of humor in his eyes. “I need wife myself, Sky. Maybe I buy one from you.”

“You heathen!” Sky laughed. “They’re not
mine
and they’re not
for sale.
”

“You just making a hard bargain with your brother,” White Hawk scowled. “We look these squaws over good, eh, Kieta?”

The murderous-looking Apache nodded gravely. “I got one woman now. Brave warrior needs at least two.”

Sky realized that they were laughing at him, and he grinned. “One look at you two, and the whole bunch will probably scream and run back to New York.”

Sky felt much better about the train once they had agreed upon the wage he would pay the scouts. The rest of the time
he spent with his father and Missy. At the Sunday service he sat with Missy and listened to his father preach. It was not a large group, not over a hundred—the fruit of twenty-six years—but he knew what a monumental task it had been, preaching the peaceful gospel of Jesus Christ to the fiercest tribe of Indians on the face of the earth.

Sky knew that his father’s success among the Sioux was due in part to the fact that Christmas Winslow had been initiated into the Sioux tribe, and had married White Dove. Still, if he had not been a man of iron convictions and absolute honesty and courage, his ties to the tribe alone would not have brought these people around. Looking at the dark faces, he remembered many services when he was but a child, when the only ones at a service would be the family—not a single Indian. But the Sioux had gradually been won over, some of them at least, and now he was prouder of his parents than he had ever been before.

After the service they had returned to the house, and as he was packing his saddlebags, Missy came out with some dried meat and cakes. “Put these in, Sky.”

“Thanks, Ma.”

“You know, Sky, I’ve thought a lot about your mother lately.” She put her hand on his arm, drawing him around, and there were tears in her eyes. “I loved her so much, Sky. Do you think of her at all?”

“Sometimes, Ma.” He paused and thought for a moment. “I remember when she was dying, she told me you’d be my mother—and you have been. I’d never forget her.”

Missy tightened her grip on his arm. “You’re a man now, Sky, and you’ll make your own way. But I want to say something to you—and you can’t get angry with me.”

He smiled and put his arms around her. “No chance, Ma. What is it?”

She said slowly, “Your mother was a Christian, Sky—and one of the last things she said to me was, ‘I want my boy to
follow Jesus.’ I’ve told you that before, but it’s been a long time.”

“I remember.”

“Sky?”

“Yes, Ma.”

“One more thing—about Irene.” At the mention of the woman’s name, Missy saw his face harden, and she reached up to touch his cheek. “I know she cut your heart out, Son,
but you’ve got to forgive her,
” she pleaded. “Not so much for her, Sky. She’s beyond all that—it’s for your sake.”

“For me?”

“Yes, and for Joe. Because if you keep that hatred in your heart, the bitterness will poison you. And if that happens to you, Joe will drink it in; he’ll be filled with hate just like you.” She pulled him close and said fiercely, “Oh, Sky, don’t let that woman drag you down!”

He felt her body shake with weeping, and held her awkwardly, not knowing what to say. She had touched on the truth. He had never forgiven Irene for her betrayal; whenever he tried, the memories burned inside him like hot irons.