Glorious Montana Sky (The Montana Sky Series) (2 page)

“In fact, Micah helps me with my translations.”

“Ah, good. Then you intend to go ahead with them?” Abner took a bite of cake.

“With Micah’s help, I believe I can finish the New Testament. I’d already completed the Gospels.”

Ruth refused any dessert. She daintily wiped her mouth with her napkin. “Joshua, I think you must consider leaving Micah with us when you travel to Montana. The child has obviously been through a great deal, and he needs stability and rules. The sooner he begins his new life, the sooner he’ll adjust.”

Joshua tried to conceal his immediate dislike of her suggestion and thought how he could frame a tactful refusal.

Abner set down his fork and steepled his fingers. “Better yet, invite your parents to Cambridge. Then you don’t have to leave. Micah can start school right away, and you would be here with the boy to exert your authority.”

“Thank you for your kind invitation,” Joshua lied, not feeling grateful at all. “But both Micah and I will be traveling to Montana.” He mentally shifted their itinerary from the month he’d originally meant to stay with the Maynards. “We’ll leave next week.”

On the fourth day of his stay at his grandparents’, Micah Norton, an apple in one hand and a pair of rolled-up stockings in the other, clomped down the staircase in the heavy shoes they were making him wear and into the entryway of the house. His father was meeting with his grandfather, his younger aunts and uncles were school, and his grandmother was nowhere in sight.
T
he perfect time to implement my plan.
Bubbles of mischief danced inside him.

Micah moved across the polished wooden floor, and his shoes felt like blocks of wood, imprisoning his feet. His grandmother had taken him shopping two days earlier and the scratchy woolen clothing—knickers, coat, stockings—and hated shoes, were the result. To add to the insult, he wore a completely unnecessary cap on his head, and his grandmother had insisted he drape a blue knitted scarf around his neck, even though he’d seen no one else wearing them.

He opened the front door and stepped out, inhaling the damp smell of grass and trees, so different from the warm air and bright light of Uganda. The chill of the spring day made him shiver. Across the street, stately old trees shadowed a broad green park. The cool colors appealed to him, and he decided to go exploring after his errand.

For a moment, Micah imagined him and Kimu having a jolly time pretending to be hunters stalking the leopard among the trees. Then he remembered reality. He and his best friend would never play together again. Micah’s buoyant spirits flattened, and he decided he wouldn’t go to the park after all.

Determined, he set off down the street, past big brick houses that were twenty times the size of the house he’d lived in Uganda.
The whole village could live in one.
The thought made a pang of loss zing through him. He wondered what Kimu was doing, and something like tears burned in the back of his eyes.

Micah burst into a run, his heavy clothing and shoes weighing him down until he moved like a hippopotamus, instead of leaping like a gazelle. The stone of the street didn’t give under his feet, like the dirt he was used to. He ran several blocks before he emerged into the main part of town, where stores beneath three- and four-story buildings lined up on each side of the street. He leaped over a fresh clump of horse manure, dodged a woman in a fancy dress carrying a parasol, and slowed so he wouldn’t knock over a hunched granny using a cane.

Soon, Micah found whom he was looking for—a boy, perhaps a little younger than himself, his thin face pinched with hunger and cold. He had shaggy, too-long brown hair, and was barefoot. His bony wrists showed beneath the sleeves of a worn jacket. The boy sat halfway up the steps of the mercantile next door to the grocer, his legs drawn up, arms around his knees.

On Saturday, when his grandmother had taken him shopping, the boy had asked her for work. When she said no, he’d held out his hand, palm up. “My ma and my sister are real sick, ma’am.”

Grandmother had hesitated and glanced at Micah. Then she’d opened the fancy pouch that dangled from her wrist and took out a coin, placing it in the boy’s hand.

His pale skin had flushed, and the dullness in his eyes lightened just a bit. “Thank you, ma’am. Thank you, kindly.”

His grandmother had nodded, taken Micah’s shoulder in one hand, and practically pushed him past the beggar boy.

As they climbed the steps, Micah had glanced over his shoulder. The boy didn’t look anything like Kimu with his dark skin and rounder features. But for a moment, their gazes connected, and Micah felt a flash of kinship. The feeling vanished as soon as he and his grandmother entered the store and his senses were assaulted by all the food inside. Grandmother had let him choose some red fruit. “Apples,” she called them, as they wandered down the aisles. Later, he’d eaten one, enjoying the crisp, sweet taste.

When they’d left, the beggar boy wasn’t there. But that hadn’t stopped Micah from wondering about him—if his ma was as sick as Mother had been. If she was going to die, too.

Micah slowed his hippo trot to a walk, wondering how best to approach the boy. He decided to be straightforward and plopped down next to him, taking an apple from his pocket. “What’s your name?”

The boy eyed the apple, a hungry expression on his face. “Roger.”

“Mine’s Micah.”

The boy raised an eyebrow. “What kind of name’s that?”

Micah shrugged. “From the Bible.”

“Oh.” The boy looked down at Micah’s shiny leather shoes, envy in his brown eyes, then back at his own dirty feet.

“I brought you something.” Micah held out the apple.

Roger’s smile was slow to come but gradually spread across his face and into his eyes.

Not like Kimu, whose quick, broad grin showed teeth white against his dark skin.
An ache cramped his stomach. Probably that oatmeal his grandmother had made him eat for breakfast.

Roger accepted the gift. “Thank you kindly.”

Micah gestured at the apple. “Go ahead. Eat it.”

Roger shook his head. He pointed his chin toward the livery. “This morning, Mr. Jones gave me some bread for sweeping up the street. I’ll take this home for my ma and sister.”

Micah stared at his hands. He was no stranger to seeing starving people. Although his parents had always done what they could to help the natives, here, in “the land of the free” as his father called this country, in this town there was enough food to feed the village for a month.

He glanced at the street, at horse-drawn carriages, wagons laden with goods, at the office buildings and stores across the road, and thought of the grocery next door full of so much abundance. He couldn’t understand how in America people went hungry.

Roger shivered and stared down at the apple. “I’ll take this home. Then I’ll come back and try to find work. I was just resting my feet a bit first.”

Micah unrolled the stockings he carried and held them up. He’d chosen the thickest ones he had, thinking his shoes would probably be big on the other boy. “Brought you something else.” He placed the stockings in Roger’s hands, then leaned over to undo his shoes. He slipped them off and handed them over. “Here.”

Roger’s mouth gaped. “You can’t give me your shoes!”

“Why not?” Micah said matter-of-factly. “I don’t want them.”

“But, but,” Roger sputtered and gestured to Micah’s stocking feet. “You can’t walk around like that.”

“Why not? You’re barefoot.”

The question apparently stumped Roger. He closed his mouth and shook his head.

Micah grinned. “Just teasing ya. I’d rather wear my old ones. More comfortable.”

Slowly, as if not believing his luck, Roger pulled on one stocking, then the other. He wiggled his toes before thrusting his feet into the shoes. His eyes lit with joy, and he rose and jumped down the two steps and into the street, where he danced a happy jig, not looking like a hippo at all.

For the first time since leaving the village, Micah’s heart lightened and he laughed.

Roger joined in with a gleeful chortle.

Standing, Micah trotted down the steps, unwinding his scarf and tossing an end to Roger. “Put it on.”

Still bouncing his jig, Roger complied, spinning as he wrapped the scarf around his neck.

Caught up in the joy of the moment, Micah pulled off his cap and plopped it on the other boy’s head. “There you go.” He waved good-bye and started to walk away.

“Thankee, Micah” Roger called.

On the walk back to his grandparents, the stones of the street bruised his cold feet, but Micah didn’t care for his heart was warm.

Joshua joined his father-in-law in his study just off the entryway of the house, a place where he’d once spent hours in intellectual discourse with the man, Abner sitting behind the massive desk and Joshua in a leather chair in front. Abner was fond of lecturing to him, but the man had also encouraged the young seminary student to voice his opinion. They’d often worked on projects together at the square table in the corner, with Joshua helping prepare sermons and lectures by looking up relevant references—offering, and sometimes even debating, ideas with the older man.

Today, Abner waved him to an L-shaped sofa, which used to be upholstered in gold velvet but now was covered with green tapestry. Each of them took a seat on the adjacent sections.

Joshua glanced around the study. The room looked much the same as when he was a student—glass-fronted bookcases running across the whole wall behind a desk that stood in the middle of the room. A new painting of Abner hung on one wall, and a landscape he hadn’t seen before on another. A second open-faced bookshelf, neatly-lined with books and pamphlets, had been added to a side wall. The jeweled reds, blues, and greens of the Persian carpet had grown more muted with time. And a stained glass clerestory window in a simple design had replaced clear glass above the large bookcase. The room smelled of books and the coffee from a silver urn on a matching tray, ready on the table in front of the sofa.

Joshua waved toward the coffeepot and raised an eyebrow at Abner.

The man shook his head.

Joshua poured a cup for himself and took a sip, hoping the coffee would lift his mind and give him energy. He hadn’t slept well in the big bed in the guest room. Too many memories. Too many years of sleeping beside Esther. In the final months of Esther’s life, he’d been up frequently, caring for her during the night, so having the bed to himself, since Micah was sleeping in Joel’s room, should have allowed him a peaceful repose.

The front door slammed, and Joshua winced, having no doubt who’d just entered the house. Neither the family nor the servants would dare make such an uncouth noise. He waited to hear the clump of Micah’s new shoes on the floor but was puzzled by the silence and decided he should get up and investigate.

Just as Joshua shifted to stand, he heard the voice of his mother-in-law.

“Micah, where are your shoes?”

“I don’t know.”

Joshua recognized that carefully innocent tone and wondered what mischief Micah had just gotten into.
Should I intervene?

No
. He sat back against the sofa cushion.
Ruth and Micah need to develop a relationship. As long as she isn’t unduly harsh, I should allow her to handle her grandson.
He glanced at his father-in-law.

Abner propped one elbow on the arm of the sofa and settled his chin on his hand, finger on his cheek, head cocked.

“And you’re missing your cap and scarf,” Ruth said in an accusing tone. “Where did you leave them last?”

“Outside.”

“Well, go get them.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I can’t do that,
ma’am,
” Ruth chided.

“I can’t do that, ma’am,” Micah echoed.

“Micah Norton, go retrieve your shoes and clothing this instant!”

“I can’t, ma’am.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because I gave them to the beggar boy.”

Abner’s eyebrows rose.

“What?” Ruth’s voice sharpened. “You gave your new shoes to a beggar boy? Your cap and scarf?”

Joshua almost groaned.