Walks the Fire (38 page)

“No, of course not, but I didn’t think…”

“Apparently not. You’d better think now, and think hard. Don’t try to change MacKenzie. If you’re not prepared to be his helpmeet wherever he decides to go, then you’d be doing him a terrible disservice. He deserves better.”

“Who’s side are you
on
?” LisBeth was appalled that her mother seemed to be against her.

“I’m on the side of what’s right for each one of you. I love you dearly, and because I love you, I’m telling you what you need to hear. Prepare to follow MacKenzie wherever the Lord leads him until death parts the two of you. If you can’t make good on that promise, then don’t make the promise. Stay here in Lincoln and say goodbye.

“I’m very fond of MacKenzie. If he’s intent on a life in the west, then he’ll need a wife with ‘gumption,’ as Augusta calls it. It you don’t have gumption, LisBeth, admit it now. Don’t add to a young man’s burden by standing between him and what he thinks will make him happy.”

“I thought
I
was what made him happy.”

“Spoken like a very young and very foolish girl. There’s more to marriage than all that romantic nonsense you read about in novels. There’s working together for a dream, and nursing through sickness, and losing what you love, and working together to earn it back again. It’s the day-to-day that grows a love that lasts. If you’re not willing to be by MacKenzie’s side day to day, then for heaven’s sake don’t marry him just because he’s handsome and he makes your heart flutter.”

“Mother!” LisBeth was embarrassed.

“We’ve had this conversation before. I
do
remember the ‘hearts-a-flutter’ stage of my youth. It had very little to do with ‘the love that is stronger than death.’ The question you have to answer is, which kind of love do you want? The fleeting one or the lasting one?”

“I want both!”

“And you can have them. MacKenzie can give you both. But not unless you’re willing to put your dreams together with his and go west. So,” Jesse took her daughter by the shoulders and said soberly, “either get on the wagon and head west with your man—or get out of his life.”

LisBeth pondered the advice. She stood up to go and Jesse added, “You’d better take a long walk and think this over. It’s not a decision to be made lightly.”

Nature had a part in helping LisBeth make her decision. She followed Jesse’s advice and went out for a walk. It had been a lovely early spring evening, although clouds had blown in from the west. LisBeth walked only a short way from the hotel when the wind came up and the temperature began to drop. She turned back toward the hotel. Down the street, she could see that someone had hitched up a team and was pulling out of the livery. The wind grew colder, and a few flakes of snow began to fall. LisBeth pulled her duster close around her and shivered. She hurried back to the hotel, just as the storm began in earnest. Snow was falling harder. Bursting through the kitchen door, she headed upstairs: Augusta peeked around the corner and called up after her. “If you’re going up to MacKenzie, dear, he’s gone. He just headed out a few minutes ago.” LisBeth was down the stairs and out the door in time to see the old wagon disappearing in the distance. The wind was blowing too loud for her voice to be heard as she called after him. Augusta followed her outside. “Come back in, dear. He’s just going to the homestead to gather a few things. He said he’d be back first thing in the morning.”

But MacKenzie did not return the next morning. The wind howled all night, lashing snow against the hotel and piling it up in huge drifts. Hour after hour, LisBeth lay awake, listening to the storm and praying for MacKenzie. When she could not sleep, she made her way to the kitchen where she found Jesse, bent over another quilt, stitching as rapidly as she ever had.

Jesse looked up when LisBeth came in. “He’ll be all right. MacKenzie has a lot of common sense. He’ll find shelter, and he’ll be all right.” She managed to sound calm and reassuring, but fear for MacKenzie and her daughter gripped her heart.

It snowed for three days. It took all Jesse’s and Augusta’s creativity to feed the boarders, who stayed in the hotel dining room by the hour, playing cards, reading old newspapers, smoking, and talking politics. The Indian Wars were fought and refought, with Jesse trying her best to close her ears to those discussions.

When the snow finally stopped, the world was a level blaze of white. Everyone in town turned out to help dig out, and soon, people could get about. Carriages moved slowly through the tunnel they’d dug down the middle of the main streets.

The snow made wildlife easy to spot, and Joseph trekked on snowshoes for miles, bringing in fresh meat every day. J. W. Miles almost ran out of flour, but Miles was partial to Hathaway House because of MacKenzie, so he kept Augusta at the top of his supply list and secreted his last fifty-pound bag of flour for her. She was smugly satisfied when Cadman House boarders put down their $2 and moved to Hathaway House for a week, until the trains came through bringing emergency supplies.

At last, Jesse pulled Joseph aside and whispered, “Joseph, do you think it’s possible to ride out to his homestead to check on MacKenzie? I don’t know how much more LisBeth can take…”

Joseph shook his head. “I don’t give much chance that he made it, ma’am,” he said sadly, “but I was just coming in to ask you if you thought I ought to go. What if I find—”

“We have to know.” Jesse shuddered at the picture that came to mind. “It’s cold enough to bring him back, and we’ll bury him at Wyuka
.
It’ll be a terrible thing, but at least LisBeth will have a grave to visit.”

LisBeth came into the kitchen as they finished their conversation. She sensed the topic and called after Joseph, “Thank you, Joseph.”

The hours crept by for them all after Joseph left. Emotions ran high and they grew angry with one another over little irritations. At last, Jesse called them all to prayer.

“Dear Lord,” she said simply, “you know where MacKenzie is right now. If he needs help, let Joseph find him. If he is well, then bring him to us quickly. And, Lord,” Jesse prayed, “if he is with you, please help us to bear it.” She added an unspoken postscript,
Lord, LisBeth is so young
—
if it is Your will, don’t ask her to face death just yet—please, Lord.

The women waited all night. Jesse quilted, although her hands shook and she later felt compelled to remove the sloppy stitches. Augusta read aloud until she grew hoarse and had to stop. Both she and LisBeth were nodding in their chairs when the book slipped out of Augusta’s hand and hit the floor, waking them with a start. Outside the kitchen door they heard bridles rattling, and horses stomping. LisBeth gave out a little cry as two men stomped into the kitchen, shaking snow all over the floor as they removed their coats and hats.

Joseph was smiling happily, and MacKenzie started to say something but was interrupted by the attentions of a young woman who fairly leaped across the kitchen into his arms, crying happily. Everyone began talking at once, asking questions and laughing irrationally.

“This boy’s got some sense, after all,” boasted Joseph. “There’s but one dugout between here and his homestead. When the storm started, he headed straight for it. Took the horses and all straight inside and sat the four days out.”

“And the horses about did me in too,” laughed MacKenzie. “They gnawed every piece of furniture in the place and had started on the roof when the snow finally quit. We went on to the homestead, then. Had a terrible time finding the haystacks, but we finally dug one out, and then we were fine.”

“What did
you
eat, MacKenzie?” Jesse asked.

“Rabbit—plenty of it, too. Four days of rabbit!”

LisBeth started to speak, but MacKenzie held his hand up. “LisBeth, I’m sorry I didn’t listen better to what you wanted. But the fact is, I just can’t live in town. I had to go back to the homestead and think things through. I thought maybe I could start over there.” He shivered. “But I can’t. Call me a weak man, but there’s nothing on that place for me but memories of death and sadness. That’s no place to start a new life.”

He turned back to LisBeth. “I love you, LisBeth King. I want to marry you. But I’m headed west as soon as the snow melts. Will you come with me?”

LisBeth looked solemnly up at MacKenzie. “MacKenzie Baird, I promised God last night that if I ever got a second chance, there was one thing I was going to say to you. This is it:” LisBeth’s voice trembled with emotion as she paraphrased, “Wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.”

From the other side of the kitchen, Jesse gave way to an uncharacteristic shout of joy, “Hallelujah!” In a burst of activity, coffee was set to boiling and biscuits were made. Joseph and MacKenzie took the horses to the stable and bedded them down with hot mash and oats, returning to the hotel to enjoy a hearty breakfast.

Only four weeks later, Augusta read her
Commonwealth
with tears in her eyes:

Miss LisBeth King and Mr. MacKenzie Baird were united in marriage today in a ceremony held at the Congregational Church. Miss King, the daughter of Mrs. Jesse King, a widow employed at The Hathaway House, has been known to us all as a hard-working and God-fearing young woman of high character. Mr. Baird, while known to the citizenry for only a short time, has proven himself to be an honest man and a great asset to the state. The couple left immediately for the West, where Mr. Baird has volunteered to serve our great army in its efforts to tame the last vestiges of the frontier. We wish them well, and Godspeed.

Jesse quilted furiously while Augusta read. Not until the following morning did she realize that her efforts had been in vain, for the tears in her eyes had blurred the fact that she had threaded her needle with the wrong color thread.

Thirty-two

She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
—
Proverbs 31:20

Both Jesse and Augusta
were amazed at how empty life felt without LisBeth. The women remained involved at the Congregational Church and in civic affairs, and Augusta made Jesse a partner in the hotel. Theirs was the first hotel in Lincoln to boast gas lighting, although Jesse did not quite trust it and continued to use her kerosene lamp in her room.

LisBeth’s absence introduced her to a new kind of loneliness. Jesse had said many goodbyes in her life. Each one had brought its own kind of pain, but all the pain had been dealt with in the same way—renewed fervor in reading God’s Word and renewed prayer. This goodbye was no different, except for one wonderful thing: Jesse could continue to pray for LisBeth and MacKenzie. She could continue to share in their lives.

Letters kept them close. LisBeth wrote often—long, detailed letters that described the countryside, the towns, and the people they encountered. Her writing often sounded like the little girl who had talked so quickly, running all her sentences together. Jesse and Augusta read them over and over before Jesse placed them in a pasteboard box in her top dresser drawer.

It took only a few days for them both to realize that they needed to hire help.

“Joseph is a great help, but we’re getting older, Jesse. We just can’t keep this pace up.”

Jesse readily agreed. Doing her share of LisBeth’s work wore her out. She found herself too tired to quilt in the evenings and sank onto her bed as early as possible, ever hoping to catch up on her rest and return to her quilting “tomorrow.”

Augusta placed an ad in the
Commonwealth
for help. When Jesse went by the office to pay for the ad, she rounded the corner of 10th and K and was nearly knocked over by a young woman running with a child in her arms. After her in hot pursuit was a buxom older woman, holding up her skirts and calling out, “Sarah! Sarah Biddle, you come
back
here this minute!”

Sarah Biddle kept running up Tenth Street and out of sight. Her pursuer stopped short and stamped the ground angrily. “Well! I never! Try to help these orphans, and what do I get? Nothing but trouble!” The woman shook her parasol at Jesse, “What did I tell them at the agency? Don’t take that Sarah Biddle! She’s a bad one; no one will want her if she insists on keeping that cripple with her. Well, now I’m proven right! I’ll have the police round her up—I’m done with her. She’s going back to New York, that one. I won’t be responsible!”

The woman spun around and was off again in the opposite direction, muttering and threatening with every step.

Jesse readjusted her hat, finished her errand, and returned to Hathaway House.

That evening, long after the train for the East had departed without the runaways and the police had been called from their search to settle a disturbance, Joseph Freeman prepared to close up the livery stable when a rustle overhead caught his attention. Pulling the great door closed, Joseph shot quickly up the ladder to the loft. As he reached the top, a flash of color disappeared behind a bale of hay in the corner opposite the ladder.

Joseph brandished his pitchfork. “You might as well come out, ’cause there’s only one way outta this here loft, and I’m not leavin’ without whoever that is.”