Through Rushing Water Part 22

"Mother!" Henry could not decide who to scowl at first. He settled on Sophia. "Any goals for this year?" he asked, his tone indicating he expected her answer to be no.

"I have been thinking-"

"Dangerous," Henry muttered.

"-about the students in the other villages. Could we transport them to school, perhaps in a wagon with a cover?"

"Would need runners in winter," Will said.

"True. Or perhaps we could pay families here to board students during the week."

"Pay them with what?" James tapped his pencil against the door frame.

Even in her grief, Nettie found something to celebrate. "Sophia, you've had a successful letter-writing campaign, bringing in clothing and shoes."

James said, "You haven't quit."

"Hey. That's right." Will straightened and set down his knife. "She didn't quit."

"Pardon me?"

"Why G.o.d doesn't whack you over your fool heads with lightning bolts, I'll never know." Nettie rapped the table with the knitting needles. "Pay up and be done with it."

James dug a quarter from his pocket and tossed it to Will.

Sophia blinked at the agent. "You bet I would not stay?"

The needles waved dangerously at Henry. "You too. I heard."

"And you? Oh ye of little faith."

Will stacked the coins in the middle of the table.

Sophia turned to Will. "So. You won the bet."

"I'm thinking . . ." The ends of his wide mouth curved up. He added another from his pocket and pushed the quarters to her. "You won."

"And I am thinking . . ." Sophia slid the stack toward Henry. "The only place for such ill-gotten gain is the offering plate."

This time even Henry smiled.

Henry shuffled out of James's office around midnight. "Why are you still awake?"

Sophia looked up from the kitchen table. "There is no sense lying down if sleep will not come."

"So this place has finally gotten to you too." He leaned on the door frame. The lantern light showed the despair in his eyes. "It eats away at you, the constant failures, each worse than the last."

"But you have had successes. Seven baptisms, did you say? Fifty-two sermons? Perhaps that is the problem. You have not had any respite from your duties. Do not the clergy attend annual meetings?"

"Not going. Don't want to hear how wonderful everyone else is doing. How they've got all their people baptized, Sunday school's packed, half dozen men of the tribe have become priests and deacons. To see their scorn about my miserable, paltry seven baptisms."

Sophia felt a rush of sympathy for the poor man, bearing such a burden on his shoulders. "G.o.d knows your struggles. He does not judge by numbers." Although administrators seemed easily beguiled by quant.i.ties.

"Everywhere else we've had success starting churches. In Michigan we had the building up and paid for in less than a year. In Wisconsin the original congregation grew into two. In Illinois we raised support for three missionaries."

"Three? You, Nettie, and me? I should write and thank them." She pulled out a fresh sheet of stationery. "What is the name of the church?"

"No. They don't want to hear about failure."

"A wise man gave me some good advice," Sophia said. "Ignore the rus.h.i.+ng waters."

Henry chose to ignore her instead. He shuffled into his room and slammed the door behind him.

The blankets sparked in the January-dry air when Will climbed out of bed. Breathing in froze his nose, and breathing out made a white puff. Woolen drawers didn't keep him from s.h.i.+vering. He added a second s.h.i.+rt, pants, another pair of socks, then carried his boots into the kitchen.

What's this? A small bear at the table? No, it's Sophia, wrapped in her fur coat, head on her arms. Driven downstairs by the cold in her room, no doubt. Will had tinkered, patched, and repaired. He'd made bed warmers for Sophia and Nettie from old popcorn makers some church in Connecticut had decided they needed. With her room catching the north wind and her bones carrying less natural insulation, Sophia couldn't sleep through the cold like Nettie.

There was no way to help it-building a fire made noise. The door squeaked, the shovel sc.r.a.ped, the wood thunked . . . and Sophia groaned.

"Sorry."

She pushed the hair off her face and blinked at him. "Do not apologize for making it warmer in here." Her voice came out low and sleepy, firing up thoughts he shouldn't be thinking.

Will lit the lantern, not wanting Henry to find them together in the dark. Letters, appeals for aid, spread across the table. She wrote neatly, of course, with enough flourishes to make the script elegant, but not enough to make it unreadable. And of course, she used fancy words, but not enough to confuse a simple carpenter.

"Dakota League of Ma.s.sachusetts, Indians' Hope a.s.sociation of Philadelphia, Providence Indian Aid a.s.sociation. I didn't know there were so many groups."

"Not to mention the Baltimore Indian Aid a.s.sociation and the Board of Missions Women's Auxiliary. I hope they are not all discussing the color of napkins to use at their next tea or dithering over bylaws." She stacked the letters. "My ink froze."

Will took the bottle from her and set it on the stove. "I was wrong about your letter writing. The apostle Paul did it too. In First Corinthians, he talks about asking the wealthy churches for aid to the poor."

"Thank you. Few men are strong enough to admit a change of mind." She awarded the compliment like knighthood. "So, you will commence letter writing?"

"Don't know anyone worth the price of a stamp." His insides got all squirmy. "Figure it's one of those situations where some are called to be apostles, others prophets, others teachers." Will had been called to build, that much he was sure of. Everything else he'd leave up to G.o.d.

Sophia's blue gaze fastened on his as if she could see straight into his soul. "Perhaps."

Will pushed away from the table to fuss with the coffeepot. Maybe he was hiding again, not wanting to try something new, afraid his lack of schooling would show in his writing. He could put a note for the bishop in his next letter home, since they were already praying for him.

He dampened a clean cloth and turned back to the table. "No inkblots on your letters, but you got yourself." He nodded at her cheek. Instead of taking the cloth, she tilted her face toward him. Her perfect, porcelain-smooth face.

Will swallowed, pulled up a chair, and touched her. He hoped she didn't notice his hand shook. Maybe she'd chalk it up to the cold. The mark came off with one swipe of the cloth.

Now what? If he sat here much longer, this close, he'd make a fool of himself. He nodded at the letters. "Sorry I can't get more heat upstairs."

"Dear Will." She did that dance with her eyelashes, warming him faster than the stove. "Russians are used to cold. Although I am surprised at the dearth of snow."

She called him dear? Did she think of him in a special way, or was she stuck in letter-writing mode? "Other years, we've had more. And more wind."

She stacked the letters. He'd heard of people having a haunted look, but this morning was the first time he'd seen it. Sophia stared at the windows, too frosted to see through. "So many deaths . . ."

The kettle rattled. Will fixed her tea, then his coffee, then came back to the table. "What helps me is knowing Julia's with Walking Together and little Timothy in heaven."

She rolled the teacup between her hands, holding her face over its steam. Will reckoned it was a sign of their friends.h.i.+p, that neither of them felt obliged to fill the air with talk.

Finally she turned to him with a smile, with peace in her eyes. "Thank you. Yes, it does help."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

Will heard the kitchen door close and hurried to catch up with Sophia. If he dawdled too much, she'd head out without him, ready to handle any problem with her pistol. He grabbed the stewpot off the stove and followed.

Sophia stood in the yard, bundled in her fur coat, surrounded by the yellow dogs. Was she still sneaking food to them? The pups sat for their treat, then loped off. Sophia turned to him. The morning light through thin clouds made her look even more out of the ordinary, as if she'd escaped from a painting. Lazy snowflakes caught in her hair and sparkled like diamonds. She turned at the sc.r.a.pe of his boots. "Snowshoes are not necessary today, I do not think."

Will shook free of his addlepated musing. "Only a flurry." Since Christmas, the weather had been bitterly cold, allowing the school to open only four days in the last three weeks. Will set the stewpot in the sled, slipped the traces over his shoulders, and headed out. "So, Teacher, what's your plan for today?"

"The students are writing down traditional Ponca stories, how the world was created, where the tribe came from, how they hunted buffalo."

"Hope Henry doesn't find out."

Sophia pressed her lips together and gave a slow blink with her eyebrows raised. She had a whole collection of interesting expressions he didn't see on American women. "I am surprised at how much their creation story resembles the first chapters of Genesis. Do you think G.o.d could have spoken to them?"

"That's a question for Henry."

"I am asking your opinion. You know what they believe."

Another compliment from Sophia. Will's swelling chest threatened to burst the b.u.t.tons off his coat. "All things are possible with G.o.d, right? Nothing in the Bible says G.o.d didn't talk to them."

A cold gust hit him at the knees, carrying a few more enthusiastic snowflakes.

"And also, I have been thinking-" She seemed to do an awful lot of that. "About accomplishments. I am learning to see G.o.d's hand at work. Through changing trains, running aground, the broken stateroom lock, He kept me safe on the journey here. And He kept me safe here through attacks of the Brule and angry whiskey dealers. The school books the church sent were the ones the students needed. The shoes arrived before the first snow and were enough so every student had a pair. Your sister sent socks."

"I see what you're getting at," Will said. "With the situation so bad here, if anything goes right, it has to be G.o.d."

"Exactly. So my goal is to see more clearly what G.o.d is doing, so I know better what I am to do."

"Seems like-" He turned to look at her and gasped. A large dark cloud was barreling over the bluff, dumping snow on the village.

They needed shelter. Fast.

Sophia followed his gaze. She must have seen this kind of blizzard in Russia too, because in a heartbeat she turned and pivoted the sled back toward the agency house.

There was no time to think, no time even to pray. The only prayer that came to Will's mind was, Help, Lord!

The return trip faced them into the wind, a wind that sucked the breath out of him and peeled the skin off his face. Within a minute or two, blowing snow hid the village, the nearest house, the path.

Jesus, guide us! he thought. They could lose their way, lose each other, wander until they froze to death-which, as fast as the temperature was dropping, might not be long.

He grabbed her elbow. "Sophia!"

Her eyes held a glint of adventure. Surely she knew how dangerous this blizzard was.

With quick, sure motions, she pulled his hat down to his eyebrows and his scarf up over his nose. Then she took the right trace from his arm and slipped it over her shoulders. Ah, yes, now he could keep track of her, and together they pulled faster. She bent and found their footprints, rapidly filling in, and set a fast pace.

The woman was fearless. No whimpering or complaining. Experienced with the toil of winter. G.o.d had sent exactly the right person for this job.

A house appeared an arm's length ahead of them.

"Whose is this?" she yelled over the wind.

"Standing Buffalo's." Will recognized the government-issue, knot-filled pine. The knots had popped out, leaving holes that let in drafts and vermin. Standing Buffalo's mud patches gave it a pockmarked appearance. "This way." He steered the sled left. Now Sophia took the brunt of the wind. "Want to switch places?"

"We are almost there."

Will wrapped his arm around her and placed his mittened hand on the side of her face. With this angry weather and the heavy sled, she had to be tired, but still he could feel her energy through their heavy coats. He had to work to keep up with her, to match her pace.

What sort of man would be a match for her? Someone remarkable, that's for certain.

At last the agency house appeared, the only house in the village with a porch.

Will leaned toward where he guessed her ear hid under her scarf and hood. "Go in!"

She turned to slip out of the trace, close enough to kiss.

Kiss? What was he thinking? While he went all soft-headed over the snowflakes on her eyelashes, Sophia hefted the stewpot, which probably weighed as much as she did. Will propped the sled on the porch, then helped her haul the pot inside.

"Lord have mercy!" Nettie said as she hung up their coats and handed them towels. "I woke James up to go look for you."

"Why? With Will as my guide, I had no trouble."

There she went again with her b.u.t.ton-busting comments. She wiped Will's face with a gentle touch. "Truth to tell," he said, "I think you were the one leading me."

Sophia's eyes lingered on his mouth as if he had snow stuck to his mustache. He gave his face another scrub. She blinked, then scurried closer to the stove. "Well then, if we are not having school, I might as well write another letter."

James leaned on the doorway. His face drooped, and he breathed unevenly, as if someone had shot his best dog. He crumpled a telegram in his fist. "Too late."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.