Whispers from Yesterday (13 page)

Billy, Noah, and Ted were standing in the corral; their gazes were turned toward the bunkhouse. For an instant, she considered joining them. Maybe she could put their minds at ease. But she quickly discarded that notion.

How could she ease their minds when she couldn’t ease her own?

She took off in the opposite direction, walking down the dirt drive toward the highway. Miracles … Perfect peace …

Right. Like such things existed in this world.

Jesus loves us,
her grandmother had said, and there hadn’t been a shred of doubt in her statement.

Karen halted in her tracks, looked upward, and cried, “If You love us, then prove it. Find a solution to Patty’s problem, if You can.”

She half expected a bolt from heaven to strike her dead.

It didn’t.

Of course it didn’t. God wasn’t interested in their problems. They were going to have to muddle through this on their own.
They? As in, us? As in, me, too?

Karen groaned and resumed walking.

This was not her problem, she reminded herself. This was
their
problem—Dusty’s and Sophia’s and Hal’s and Patty’s—but not hers. She wasn’t anybody’s counselor. She wasn’t anybody’s friend or mom or sister or aunt. She had no words of wisdom to dispense to others. She wasn’t responsible for anybody but herself.

And she had plenty of trouble trying to cope with that.

“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be involved in their lives or in their problems. I don’t want to live on this falling-down ranch. I hate the sagebrush and the bugs and the snakes and the dirt and the wind. I hate it all.”

So why didn’t she swallow her tattered pride, pick up the phone, and throw herself on Mac’s mercy? If she told him how miserable she was, he would pay for her transportation back to California. He was a kind and generous man, an old and good friend. He would let her stay in his home again, as he’d done before.

Sure, Mac would give her charity—if that was what she wanted.

Yes, she could go back to California. Back to L.A., where everyone was whispering behind their hands about her:
Poor Karen Butler. Her father was a crook … Poor Karen. Her father killed himself … Did you know she tried to commit suicide? Have you heard that she …

It was too awful to contemplate, let alone endure.

Why don’t you just kill yourself and get it over with? Do it right this time.

She stopped again. Her breath caught painfully in her throat even as her pulse began to race. Perspiration broke out on her forehead. She wondered if she would be sick.

She knew that dark, twisted voice, the one tempting her to take the easy way out. She’d listened to it before. Her father had listened to it too.

Go ahead. Do it. No one would miss you.

As soon as those words passed through her mind, another thought followed:
Grandmother would miss me. Billy would miss me. Maybe Dusty …

She sank onto the ground and began to sob, overwhelmed by the horrible pain in her chest.

“All right,” Hal said at last, his tone belligerent, his stance stiff. “So I slept with her. I didn’t mean for her to get pregnant. It’s her own fault. She should’ve been on the pill.”

“Placing the blame on Patty isn’t going to help matters.” Dusty glanced out the window of his room and saw Karen walking down the drive. Briefly, he wondered where she was going.

“Are we finished yet?” Hal started for the door.

Dusty’s attention returned to the boy. “Stay right where you are, Hal Junker. We’re
not
finished.”

“What d’you want from me? What’s the big deal? Kids my age have sex. So what? It’s a fact of life.” He released a guttural sound, then faced Dusty again. “Patty probably got pregnant on purpose. You saw her old man. Who wouldn’t want to get away from him? But I’m not gonna marry her, baby or no baby. And that’s something you can’t make me do.”

“Hal—”

The boy swore at him. “Save it. I’m through listenin’ to you.” He slammed out of the room.

Dusty stared at the closed door, debating whether or not to go after him. Finally he decided it would be better to let the kid cool off a bit before they tried talking again.

Besides, he wasn’t sure himself what needed to be done. Hal was sixteen. Patty was fifteen. Marriage wasn’t the answer. The best thing was for the baby to be placed for adoption. But what Mr. Call wanted was Hal’s hide nailed to the barn door. Period.

It was the strangest thing. One moment Karen was sobbing inconsolably, and the next, she grew quiet. Her unhappiness and despair were gone. Her desire to run away was gone. Vanished. As if cut from her heart by a surgeon’s knife. She looked at the scars on her wrists again, symbols of all that was wrong about her, and she realized she was no longer afraid.

The older I get—
Sophia’s voice repeated in her mind—
the more times I’ve seen the hand of God miraculously change circumstances and bring good out of all kinds of disasters.

Was it possible?

She looked up at the blue sky, dotted with cumulus clouds. Was it possible?

She stood, still looking upward. A moment later, she heard the roar of an engine. She turned to see her Mustang barreling down the drive, coming directly toward her. Just as she took a step back, the car swerved, missing her by mere inches. And then it was past her.

Hal! That was Hal behind the wheel, driving like a maniac.

Heart hammering, she spun toward the house. “Dusty! Dusty, come quick!” She took off running. “Dusty!”

Even before her frantic cries, Dusty must have heard Hal driving away, for he appeared instantly through the kitchen doorway, Sophia right on his heels.

“It was Hal. He’s taken my car.”

Dusty leapt off the porch and raced toward his pickup truck. Karen headed in the same direction, yanking open the passengerside door as he turned the key in the ignition.

“I’m going with you,” she said needlessly.

He didn’t offer any argument.

The truck raced down the drive. A haze of dust hovered at the junction with the highway, proclaiming Hal’s recent exit. Dusty braked to a halt and stared west.

“Did you see which way he turned?”

“No,” she answered, gazing down the highway to the east. If that was the direction Hal had taken, the swells of rolling desert obscured any sign of the battered Mustang.

With a few muttered words of frustration, Dusty laid his forehead on the back of his hands where they gripped the steering wheel.

“We’ll find him,” she said without much confidence.

He turned his head enough so he could look at her. “It never solves anything to run away. Ultimately, you’re running from yourself.” He sat up straight. “And there’s no escape.”

Karen wanted to touch his shoulder. She wanted to help him in some way. Worry darkened his eyes and creased his brow. He was suffering because he loved Hal. Despite everything that boy had done, Dusty loved him. She didn’t understand, but she wanted to. She wished she could.

He pressed on the accelerator and turned left onto the highway, headed toward the small town of Murphy. “There wasn’t much gas in the Mustang. He’ll need a service station.”

They made it about a mile down the road, driving about twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. Then the truck suddenly coughed, sputtered, and died. As it rolled to a stop, Dusty
slapped his right hand against the steering wheel in frustration while staring at the gas gauge. “He siphoned my tank!”

They sat in silence for a long while, both of them gazing straight ahead, staring at the point where the road disappeared over another swell in the land.

Finally, Karen looked at him. “You can’t save them all, Dusty. No matter how hard you try. Even I know that.”

Saturday, June 5, 1937

Dear Diary,

It is 4:00 in the morning. My wedding day. The house is quiet. Papa will not be up to milk the cows for another hour or so. The rooster has yet to crow. For now, the air is cold and I am wrapped in a blanket as I sit, writing in my journal, occasionally glancing out the window so that I might see the sun rise.

Today, I become Mrs. Mikkel Christiansen. Tonight I will lie down with my husband. Mama has explained to me what to expect on my wedding night. I am not certain I completely understand, but Mama was so embarrassed as she tried to explain the act of marriage that I could not ask her any questions.

Strangely, my fears have subsided. I am at peace. God has said a man is to leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife. He has said the marriage bed is undefiled. I know in my heart Mikkel loves me as Christ loves the church, enough to sacrifice himself for me. Because of that, I know I can trust him with my body, my mind, my heart, my soul.

I pray I will be a good wife to him and that our marriage will be blessed with children. I pray I will be able to minister to God’s people at my husband’s side. I feel very certain the future that lies before us will be a simple and tranquil one. That is all I want or need.

Father God, keep me ever mindful of You as I step into this new phase of my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Esther

Sunday, June 20, 1937 Dear Diary,

This morning, Mikkel and I bade farewell to our congregation. Tomorrow we leave on the train and begin our journey to Denmark.

It was a tearful parting at church. So many people who have touched my life through the years. So many friends whom I will miss. Not knowing when, if ever, we will return to Oregon made it all the more difficult. For even if Mikkel and I are only in Denmark a year or two, as he believes is true, the Lord may call him to minister anywhere else in the world.

I have promised many people that I will write to them, and they have all promised to write me in return.

Except for Sophia. She is as cold and unyielding as ever. She does not seem to care that I am going away and we may never see each other again. My heart is broken.

My beloved Mikkel tries to comfort me. He says I should not despair, that one day Sophia will find the truth. He says we must pray for her salvation, that we must forgive her hardness of heart and trust the Holy Spirit will hear our prayers.

O God, please make it so.

Esther

TWELVE

You can’t save them all, Dusty. No matter how hard you try. Even I know that.

Karen’s softly spoken admonition dogged Dusty’s thoughts in the anxious days that followed Hal’s disappearance. Those words were in the back of his mind when he talked to the police. They were in the back of his mind when he drove to Kuna on the outside chance Hal had gone to see Patty; he hadn’t. They were in the back of his mind when he prowled the streets of Caldwell and Nampa and Boise on warm summer evenings, searching for any sign of the boy or the old Mustang in the crowds of teens who congregated on street corners.

You can’t save them all, Dusty. No matter how hard you try.
What could he have done differently? What could he have said differently?

There were so many things that could happen to Hal out there. So many things that could go wrong.
You can’t save them all, Dusty.