A Hearth in the Blizzard

They came from every draw and drainage within forty miles. Walter Higgins drove his high-wheeled shop wagon, freshly washed with lye soap, his broad-shouldered frame squeezed into a starched black suit that smelled faintly of camphor and forge smoke. Behind him came the buckboards of homesteaders who, only three months before, had huddled in dark soddies wondering if their children would survive the frost. Caleb Finch was there in a clean canvas duster, his team trotting proudly; Pete Jenkins rode a sleek dun gelding, tipping his hat to every woman who passed; and behind them came thirty cowhands from the Crowley outfit, their wool hats brushed clean, their boots greased with mutton tallow, riding abreast like cavalrymen escorting an emperor’s train.

The churchyard was crowded until the hitching rails groaned under the weight of leather reins.

Inside the small chapel, the air smelled sweet and cool—a mixture of freshly planed cedar floorboards, beeswax candles, and the hundreds of wild mountain columbines and yellow wallflowers that the women of the valley had arranged in stoneware jars along the sills. Sunlight poured through the tall, clear-glass windows, laying warm, geometric squares across the scrubbed pine pews.

At the front of the sanctuary, standing before the plain oak communion rail, stood Nathan Crowley.

Men who had known Nathan since he was an unbroken colt running wild through the cedar breaks whispered among themselves at the sight of him. He wore a dark broadcloth suit brought down on the express stage from Denver—heavy, finely tailored wool that sat square upon his massive shoulders without hiding the hard, dangerous grace of a man who had spent fifteen years breaking mustangs and fighting blizzards. His thick, dark hair was trimmed neat, his square jaw shaven clean, leaving the straight, sun-darkened blade of his nose and the quiet, immovable gray of his eyes clear for all to see.

Beside him, standing as best man with his knuckles scrubbed raw, was Walter Higgins. The blacksmith looked as nervous as a colt near a locomotive, shifting his weight from one large boot to the other, his collar pinching his thick neck until his cheeks were the color of salt pork.

"Stand still, Walter," Nathan murmured under his breath, his lips barely moving. "You're shaking the floorboards."

"It's the neck-tie, Nathan," Higgins whispered back hoarsely. "A man can't draw a full lungful of air with three inches of stiff cotton buckled under his chin. It ain't natural."

Nathan’s mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile, but his eyes never left the rear door of the church.

A sudden hush fell over the room.

The low hum of boots shifting against the spruce floorboards died away. Outside, even the horses tied to the cottonwoods seemed to quiet their stamping. Reverend Josiah Hale, standing in his long black ministerial robe with his worn leather Bible resting in the crook of his arm, adjusted his spectacles, cleared his throat, and nodded toward the vestibule.

From the small pipe organ in the corner—an instrument pumped with the foot-treadles by Martha, whose flour-hardened hands coaxed a surprisingly delicate music from the brass reeds—came the opening chords of an old Scottish processional.

Then, Eleanor walked into the sunlight.

A soft, collective intake of breath swept through the congregation, as if a sudden summer breeze had brushed across the pews.

She wore ivory silk, an heirloom gown of heavy faille that Martha had kept wrapped in unbleached muslin and cedar shavings inside an iron-bound trunk since before the war. The gown had been altered by Eleanor’s own swift, clever needle: the waist fell slim and graceful, the high collar was trimmed with pale Valenciennes lace that touched the hollow of her throat, and the long sleeves tapered down to delicate points over the backs of her wrists. Over her rich chestnut hair, which was swept up into a soft crown of waves, hung a veil of Belgian tulle that fell behind her shoulders like morning mist.

In her hands, she carried no hothouse flowers brought at great expense from Cheyenne. She carried a tight, vibrant bunch of yellow prairie roses and wild blue lupine, their stems wrapped in a strip of David’s old silk handkerchief—a silent, tender monument to the past she was laying peacefully to rest.

She looked neither at the floor nor at the crowding faces of the valley folks who had once whispered about her in the shadows of the mercantile. Her chin was lifted, her back was straight, and her gray eyes were fixed entirely, unwaveringly, upon the tall man waiting for her at the altar.

At her left side walked eight-year-old Henry.

The boy was dressed in a dark wool jacket with bone buttons, his trousers brushed, his cowlick slicked down with rosewater. He held his head high, his small chest swelled with a solemn, fierce pride that brought a prickle of tears to the eyes of the older women. He did not look like a frightened child hiding behind an overturned grain barrel in a dark tack room anymore; he walked with the measured, steady stride of a son giving his mother into the keeping of a man he loved and trusted with his life.

In the second row, sitting beside Martha on the aisle bench, sat five-year-old Samuel. His short legs dangled above the floor, kicking rhythmically against the pew rail. In his small hands, clutched tight against his clean flannel waistcoat, were his two greatest treasures on earth: the carved pine horse whose belly had once held the salvation of the valley, and the little whittled meadowlark with its wings raised toward the sky.