A Shelter of Hope (2 page)

It was no less than a weekly ritual, much like the concerts her mother had told her of from her girlhood days back East. Only
these
were demonic concerts. Symphonies of desperation and destruction. Simone had never known a time when her father had not acted this way. Her mother tried to explain that it was because so many women in his life had hurt him when he was young. His grandmother had been severe, his mother a woman of loose morals, and even his sisters were vicious and cruel to the only boy in the household.

But in Simone’s ten-year-old mind, it seemed that such treatment would make her father desire peace and kindness. Her mother was a gentle person. Surely her father would prefer that to the ugliness he’d known growing up. It was just too much to understand.

Simone now wept bitter tears and bit her fist so hard she drew blood. She could taste the salty warmth against her still-swollen lips. Yesterday her clumsy attempt at cleaning one of the oil lamps had reduced the lamp to broken shards of glass, and Simone’s efforts were rewarded with a beating. Louis Dumas had cared little that her measles blisters were barely healed or that Simone had dropped the lamp because of her weakened condition. His backhanded slap across her face had resulted in a split lip and bruised cheek.

But the physical wounds would heal. The wounds within, however, ran much deeper. He had told her she was a bad child, an ungrateful wretch that would never bring anyone anything but pain and sorrow. His words pierced her heart even now.

“I wish you had died at birth like the others,”
he had told her. Her own father wished her dead.

Remembering her own pain helped Simone focus on something other than the gruesome scene before her. She wanted to run to her mother’s aid, but she was too afraid. What good could it do anyway? She was only ten years old. She couldn’t defend
herself
against the man’s tirades, much less help her mother. Her father was a monster, and every night Simone prayed that God would take her father far away and never let him come home again. But as of tonight, her prayers went unheard. Or so it seemed.

Sometime amidst the argument, Simone had mercifully drifted into a light sleep. It was hours, or at least it seemed like hours, later when she woke up to find the house silent. But it wasn’t entirely silent. She could make out the mournful sobs of her mother and knew that her father had either left the cabin or passed out. Either way, Simone knew the respite would be brief.

Slowly, in absolute stealth, Simone pulled herself forward. She could feel the rough planks beneath her bite into her tender flesh as her skirts shifted away and her petticoats inched their way up her legs.

The sound of someone moving about caused Simone to freeze in place. Was it her father? She drew a silent breath and held it. The sound came again, but this time Simone knew it wasn’t of her father’s doing. It was the sound of her brother nursing. Exhaling, Simone felt a sense of grave reservation. Perhaps if she remained in hiding they would all forget about her. Maybe God would take her and her mother and brother to heaven and they would never have to be hurt by her father again. Maybe.

She regathered her courage and moved out from beneath the bed. “Mama?” she called softly.

“Simone? My poor baby, come to me,” Winifred Dumas encouraged. Simone saw her and burst into tears at the sight of her mother’s bruised face. Her right arm dangled rather oddly at her side, while her left one cradled baby John.

“Shhh,” her mother tried to comfort as Simone drew herself gently against her wounded body. “He’s gone for now.”

“Gone?” Simone barely choked out the word.

“Oui, ma petite cherie.”

Her mother’s French calmed her in a way that English words had never done. Her mother always spoke French when tucking Simone into bed at night and when studying the Bible and whispering prayers. There was comfort in the sharing of such a sweet language, and that was why Simone easily switched into it to ask, “When will he be back?”

“I don’t know,” her mother admitted. “But you and I, we must speak before he returns.”

Simone nodded, wondering fearfully what her mother would say.

There was an odd expression on her face that Simone had never seen before. It almost gave her hope that the nightmare would soon end.

“I must try to get to safety,” Winifred told her daughter. “If I can get to Uniontown, I may be able to get help from the lawmen I’ve told you about.”

“Will they really help us?” Simone questioned, snuffing back tears and wiping her face with the edge of her tattered skirt.

“Oui. I believe they will.”

“Can we go now?”

“
We
cannot go. I must do this without you or I’ll never make it.”

Simone felt the shock of her mother’s words hit her like the back of her father’s hand. “You’re leaving me?” Her voice raised in obvious fear.

“Simone, please listen to me. I must sneak away when I know your father will not be able to stop me. I will lash John to my back and travel very quickly, but you are too weak. You are barely out of your sickbed. Because of this, I will leave you here and return with the lawmen.”

“No!” Simone screamed, mindless that her father might well be within listening distance. “Don’t leave me, Mama!”

Winifred’s eyes filled with tears. She shifted her now sleeping son awkwardly, her right arm useless as she gently placed him in the cradle. “Come, Simone,” she motioned, and with her left arm, she embraced the child close. “My arm is broken. I cannot take the gun with me to shoot when the wild animals come. I must run all the way. At least as far as Naniko’s cabin.” The old woman’s cabin was a well-known resting-place between the Dumas cabin and Uniontown.

“I can shoot the gun, Mama,” Simone promised, although she’d never tried.

“It won’t take very long,” Winifred said, refusing to change her plans. “If you are very quiet and stay out of sight, he won’t hurt you, and I can be back with help before he knows I have gone.”

“I won’t stay here,” Simone said with sudden determination.

“If you don’t,” Winifred replied, “you may be hurt beyond my care. You are still so very frail, Simone. The sickness has left you weak and incapable of the long journey. And the mountains are fierce—the snow too deep. You know very well how the storms come without warning.” Simone nodded, knowing that her mother spoke the truth. “If I had a horse, I could take all of us out at one time and ride quickly to Uniontown or even south to the trading post on the river. But your father has the horse, and he keeps him guarded more carefully than he does any other possession. If I am to escape, I will have to do it quickly. He’s gone now to check the lines to the east. That will give me only a couple of hours.”

Simone knew her mother’s determination. She knew it as well as she knew that she would be obedient to her mother’s wishes. The country around her was cruel. Cruel and harsh and deadly. The mountains were unforgiving of intrusions, yet Louis Dumas had long ago carved his scars upon their face and proclaimed his right to land that refused to be settled. Simone had always feared that this land might one day swallow her whole, and now it felt as if that day had come.

“Please let me come,” she begged her mother one final time. In her heart she knew what her mother’s answer would be, but nevertheless she asked the question. “I promise I will be strong and run fast.”

“Non, ma petite angee,”
Winifred whispered and tightened her hold. “It would be the death of you. I feel it in my bones.”

Simone pulled away. Anger began to harden her heart. Her mother was deserting her, leaving her to fend for herself against the very monster that
she
was fleeing. A deep sense of betrayal saturated her soul. The only person she had ever trusted to remain faithful was now abandoning her.

“You won’t ever come back,” Simone said flatly.

“But of course I will,” her mother insisted. “Simone, please come here.”

But Simone refused to listen and continued to back away. “You don’t love me, or you wouldn’t go away and leave me behind. You only want John, and so you are taking John with you. Not me.”

She saw the pained expression on her mother’s face. Noted the longing in her eyes and the outstretched arm. And in that moment it became quite clear to Simone that she could never again allow someone to desert her in such a fashion. “I’m glad you’re going,” she lied. “I don’t want you to be my mama anymore.”

“Simone, don’t say such things. I love you, my sweet.”

“If you loved me, you would not leave me. Nobody leaves people behind when they love them. If I had a little girl, I would never leave her behind.”

Winifred broke down at Simone’s declaration. “You will see, Simone. I will be back for you. You will be safe.”

Simone shook her head. “You won’t come back. I know you won’t.” She turned and ran out the front door, mindless of the cold air and her lack of something warm to shelter her from the biting wind. Panting and barely able to find the energy to make her body move, Simone sought the comfort of solitude. She made her way to the pelt shed, and as she had done so many times before, she buried herself deep into the pile of pelts and sobbed silently so as not to draw attention to herself. For reasons beyond her youthful understanding, Simone felt certain she would never again see her mother or her brother. They seemed forever lost to her.

Simone desperately wanted to run back to the house and beg her mother’s forgiveness. She was the only one who had ever shown Simone tenderness and love. How would she ever be able to live without her? Simone began to tremble at the thought of her father’s rage.
He will be so mad when he learns what she’s done
.

Why was God letting this happen? Mama had always said God was good. It was too much to comprehend that God could be both good and let bad things happen to a person at the same time.

Simone reasoned at that point that God must not care. She was probably the horrible child her father had declared her to be, and this was all her fault. They had all betrayed her. Betrayed her love. First her father, then her mother, and over all—God.

Curling into a ball, she sucked her thumb, something she only did when truly troubled or hurt. Her last wakeful thought was of the smell of death surrounding her. Death in the pelts that her father had taken that winter. Death in severing herself from her mother’s love. And death that Simone felt somehow certain was soon to visit itself upon her mother and brother.

TWO

Wyoming Territory 1885

AUTUMN IN THE TERRITORY was something glorious to behold. The tall lodgepole pines remained fixed as green sentinels, but the aspen and cottonwood washed the landscape in molten gold. Simone, now a spindly twelve, liked autumn best. Autumn meant that cold weather would descend down the mountains, and soon the valleys would be covered in thick blankets of snow. Snow meant what few animals remained in the area would grow thicker, richer pelts, and her father would leave her and go to tend to his traps.

Trudging through the dry, brown grass, Simone paused beside a standing of mountain ash and watched as several birds feasted off the shiny red berries of the tree. The red leaves and berries made a pleasant contrast to the golds and greens painted across the landscape. Simone sighed and lifted the water buckets once again. Just beyond the ash trees their main source of water melodiously danced across the rocks, ever rushing away from the place Simone called home.

How many times had she wanted to join in on the journey? She’d often longed to simply wade into the stream and follow it until she was far, far away. But she always chose to stay, for what reasons she still could not truly understand. Maybe it was that even after nearly two and a half years, Simone was still waiting for her mother to come back for her.

But her mother wasn’t coming back. She was never coming back.

Her mother was dead.

Simone tried not to think about it as she filled the wooden buckets from the icy mountain stream. Her mother had never made it to the freedom she sought. Her father had tracked Winifred down and killed her and Simone’s little brother. He had returned to Simone that night and gloated his victory, reveling in giving the helpless child the complete details of his actions. She could still remember his face. Still hear his rage that anyone should dare defy Louis Dumas. But mostly, she remembered the way he had threatened to revisit the same horrors on Simone should she ever contemplate running away from him. Maybe that was why Simone stayed. After all, where could she go that he would not follow?