Blessing by Deborah Bedford

Author:Deborah Bedford
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-05-27T15:26:38+00:00

“I aim to make you glad you’re putting me up, Aunt Kate. And Beth, too. We’re both thankful.”

“Any sign of Dawson Hayes?” she asked. “Any word at all?”

“Nope. Still no sign of him.”

“There’s a supply wagon due over the pass in fifteen minutes. He could be on this one.”

“That’s what I think every time the wagon comes in,” Aaron said honestly. “I see it coming closer and I start counting the heads.”

Kate went into the kitchen to begin preparations for supper. Aaron kept on sweeping, doing his best to keep from thinking of the rig that, even now, would be rattling down this side of Alpine Pass. He pulled the watch from the fob in his breeches and snapped it open. For the millionth time, he read the engraved inscription from his mother.

May your heart always know when it’s time to come home.

Just past 2:10 p.m. The supply wagon was probably all the way past Lake Tillie by now.

He snapped it shut and resolutely shoved it back into his pocket.

Suppose, just suppose, Dawson Hayes was on that wagon.

He kept right on sweeping, watching the dirt separate into silty black lines as the broom passed over the planking. The straw bristles raked the pine floor as the dust flew toward the door in a low cloud.

If Aunt Kate had heard the snapping of his timepiece cover, she didn’t let on now. “You best get on down there, Aaron Brown,” she called out of the kitchen. “Might be somebody on that wagon you need to meet.”

Aaron didn’t want to watch Lester McClain driving the supply wagon into town. He didn’t want to stand on a felled log, craning his neck, trying to make out Dawson Hayes’s rumpled gray hair and beaverskin cap.

Yet he knew he couldn’t stand it if he didn’t.

He propped the broom against the door jamb. His heart was clattering inside his ribs. “Thanks, Kate. I’ll be back directly.”

“No need to come back,” she declared. “You’ve done enough work for one day.”

“I’ll bring the water in tonight.”

“That’ll do fine.”

Aaron went out the door running. He didn’t even stop to remove the apron. He sprinted toward the town hall, the soiled apron flapping.

Several residents were lounging nonchalantly on the wooden steps of the town hall. “Wagon in yet?” he asked.

Apparently they weren’t as nonchalant as they appeared. They all answered at once. “Not yet.”

“It should be roundin’ the corner in two or three minutes.”

“You think your witness’ll be on it?”

Aaron was winded from the run. “I don’t know. Could be any day now.”

“Best be in the next week, or you won’t be around to see it,” Charlie Hastings commented.

“Yes,” Aaron said, frowning slightly and shading his eyes, still seeing nothing coming around the corner. “It had better be in the next week.”

At just that moment, a mule’s bray came from the opposite direction. Aaron glanced up and felt his stomach pitch. Here came Uley riding Old Croppy down from the mine, looking every bit as if she were heading to Abbey & Company to pick up equipment for the Gold Cup.

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