Petticoat Ranch

© 2006 by Mary Connealy

ISBN 978-1-60742-040-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc.

Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683
www.barbourbooks.com

Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

Printed in the United States of America.

D
 E D I C A T I O N :

To Joslyn, Wendy, Shelly, and Katy.
Any resemblance to Mandy, Beth, Sally, and Lauren
is strictly coincidental. . .mostly.
And to Ivan who has been a really good sport
about me writing all these years.

O 
N E

S
ophie heard God in every explosion of thunder as she listened to the awesome power of the approaching storm. But there was more. There was something coming—something more than rain.

Over the distant rumble, Sophie Edwards heard pounding hoof-beats. Her heart sped up, matching the pace. The horse came fast. Something about the way it ran echoed the desperation in the pulsing of Sophie’s heart.

Sophie whirled to race inside the cabin. Exhausted after another day of grinding work, she prayed for strength and courage. God would have to provide it; she had none left. She scrambled into her disguise and waited until the last minute to wake the children, hoping the rider would pass on. She stood near the can that held the vile-smelling Hector scarf, hoping she wouldn’t need it.

Was this the night someone would come for her and the girls? The night she couldn’t talk fast enough or hide well enough to survive this rugged, lonely life?

The back of Sophie’s neck prickled in horror as the horse veered from the main trail and came toward her cabin. For a second, she thought the rider meant to come to her place, but there was no letup of the running hooves. Sophie’s fear changed. No one could safely ride the
narrow, rocky trail down the slopes of the creek bank behind her cabin at that speed.

The horse charged on. Sophie could hear it blowing hard, its wind broken, the saddle leather creaking. She hated the rider for abusing his mount, but inside Sophie knew it wasn’t the rider’s fault. This pace—this reckless, dark ride—could only mean one thing.

Pursuit!

And pursuit might mean a fleeing criminal with a posse on his trail. But not all pursued men were justly accused. No one knew that better than Sophie.

She almost ran out to wave the rider down. She let fear freeze her for a second. Then, ashamed, she grabbed at the door latch on her ramshackle cabin, praying, “Help me, Lord. Help me, help me, help me.” Her prayers, like her life, had been stripped to bare bones.

The horse stormed past the heavy brush that concealed the house.

“No! Stop!” Sophie dashed out the door and down the stoop. “Stop! The cliff!”

She was too late. The rider was past. Within seconds she heard the dreadful screams of the falling animal, the coarse shouts of terror ripped from the throat of the rider.

Rocks dislodged along the top of the bank as Sophie ran in the direction of the accident. There was the rumble of falling rocks and the softer sound of the horse’s big body striking stone as it plunged thirty feet to the creek below, neighing its fear and pain into the night. She heard the splash as the avalanche, and its unwilling cause, hit the moving water below.

She skidded to a halt and her long, white nightgown billowed around her. A gust whipped her blond hair across her eyes. Blinded for a moment, a cold, logical part of her mind told her that the best way to handle this was simply to ignore it and go back to bed.

But God asked more of her than cold logic. He even asked more of her than her own survival. It was a relief to admit it, because her strongest survival instincts couldn’t stop her from going to someone
in need, and she was glad to have God’s support in the matter. She whirled away from the embankment and ran back to the house.

“Girls!” Her voice lashed like a whip in the darkness. The girls would be so frightened to be awakened this way, but there was no choice. If ever a family had learned to do what needed to be done, it was the Edwardses. “Girls, someone’s fallen on the creek path.”

Sophie tore at her disguise, putting everything in its place with lightning speed. She couldn’t ever afford to be unprepared. “I need help. I’m going down. Mandy, bring the rope and the lantern and follow me. Beth, catch Hector and bring him. Don’t take time to get dressed: just pull on your shoes. Sally, stay with Laura. Get blankets out and heat water. If he’s alive he’ll need doctoring.”

Sophie heard the girls jump out of bed as she headed outside in her nightgown with untied boots on her feet.

She saw where he’d gone over and her stomach lurched. He couldn’t have picked a worse drop. She stumbled and skidded toward the bottom of the creek, risking her own neck on the treacherous path.

Hearing Amanda call out from overhead, Sophie yelled, “Down here, Mandy. Quickly.” Sophie picked her way over the jumble of dirt and stones edging the swollen waters of the creek. In the starless night, she couldn’t make out anything. She glanced behind her and saw, with relief, ten-year-old Mandy coming with a brightly lit kerosene lantern.

Sophie continued to scramble over the debris. She stepped in mud and sank until water overflowed her boot. The thunder came more steadily now, until it was a constant collision of sound. The approaching lightning gained enough strength to light up even the depths of the creek.

Feeling her way, on her hands and knees now, she tried to pierce the utter darkness with her vision.
Where is he, Lord?

A wailing wind cried at them that it was bringing disaster in its wake. Suddenly, the thunder and lightning held a worse threat than savage rain. The storm was coming from the north. It was probably already raining upstream. The creek might flood without a single drop
of water falling here. And she now stood in the path of that flash flood. Worse still, she’d just ordered her children to come after her.

Sophie listened intently for the roar of oncoming water. She heard nothing. They still had time.

Mandy caught up with her. “Here’s the lantern and rope.”

Sophie took the lantern. “A rider and horse went over that drop-off. Help me find him, and hurry! It’s raining up north!”

Her girls had lived in their little thicket hideaway long enough to know what it meant when rain came in from the north. Sophie saw Mandy glance fearfully over her shoulder into the darkness of the creek. Then, practical girl that Mandy was, she started searching for the rider.

“Oh, Ma. Can he have lived?” Mandy went ahead of Sophie to the very edge of the dimly illuminated area.