The Journey Home

Kody raised his arms in the air, then turned to locate the source of danger. He almost chuckled at the sight before him. A thin, brown-haired woman, eyes steady, mouth set in a hard line. She held a rifle almost as long as she was tall.

“You ain’t gonna shoot me.”

“Back off or you’ll see what I mean to do,” she said.

Kody took one swift step forward and plucked the rifle from her. He cracked it open to eject the bullet. The chamber was empty. “Lady, you sure got guts.”

“This is my house. Get out.”

She lived here? In a deserted house? Alone?

“Your house, huh?”

“My brother’s. I’m watching it for him.”

“Don’t look like it needs much watching.” The room was about as bare as the miles of windswept fields he’d ridden by. It didn’t take a lot of looking to see the place was vacant. Except for this woman. “What’s anyone going to take?”

MILLS & BOON

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LINDA FORD

shares her life with her rancher husband, a grown son, a live-in client she provides care for and a yappy parrot. She and her husband raised a family of fourteen children, ten adopted, providing her with plenty of opportunity to experience God’s love and faithfulness. They had their share of adventures as well. Taking twelve kids in a motorhome on a three-thousand-mile road trip would be high on the list. They live in Alberta, Canada, close enough to the Rockies to admire them every day. She enjoys writing stories that reveal God’s wondrous love through the lives of her characters.

Linda enjoys hearing from readers. Contact her at linda@lindaford.org or check out her Web site at www.lindaford.org, where you can also catch her blog, which often carries glimpses of both her writing activities and family life.

Linda Ford

The Journey Home

Preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust.

—Psalms 16:1

This book would not be what it is without the help of several key people:

First, my editor, Melissa, who saw what it needed.

Thank you for your guidance and encouragement.

And then two very dear critique partners who listen to me whine and still find ways to point out what I’m doing right and where I should reconsider my direction. To Debbie and Carolyne, thank you both for your continued support, your friendship and your helpful suggestions. If I dedicate every book to you it’s because I couldn’t do it without you.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

South Dakota, 1934

He didn’t know why God answered his prayers any more than he could explain why he still said them. But there it stood, the protection he’d moments ago begged God to provide, an old farmhouse, once proud, now with bare windows and a door hanging by one hinge. Deserted by the owners, as were so many places in the drought-stricken plains. The crash of ’29 had left hundreds floundering financially. And years of too little rain resulted in numerous farms abandoned to the elements. He didn’t hold out much hope of 1934 being any different.

Kody Douglas glanced upward. The black cloud towering high into the sky thundered toward him. An eerie yellow light filled the air. A noisy herald of birds flew ahead of the storm. Kody ducked his head against the stinging wind and nudged Sam into a trot. They’d better get inside before the dust storm engulfed them.

In front of the house, he leaped from the saddle, led Sam across the worn threshold and dropped the reins to the floor. Sam would remain where he was parked until Kody said otherwise, but still he felt compelled to make it clear. “You stay here, horse. And don’t go leaving me any road apples. You can wait to do that business outside.”

He grabbed the rattling door and pushed it shut. A hook hung from the frame. The eye remained in the door, and he latched it.

“Probably won’t hold once the wind hits,” he told his ever patient mount and companion. Man got so he talked to the only living, breathing thing he shared his day with.

Kody snorted. You’d think a man would get used to being alone. Seems he never could. Not that he cared a whole lot for the kind of company he encountered on the trail. Scoundrels and drifters willing to lift anything not tied down. Kody might be considered a drifter, but he’d never stoop to being a scoundrel. He had his standards.

He yanked off his hat and slapped it against his thigh, creating his own private cloud of dust. He jammed the hat back on his head and glanced around. Place couldn’t have stood empty for long. No banks of dirt in the corners or bird droppings on the floor. The windows were even still intact.

The wind roared around the house. Sam tossed his head as the door banged in its crooked, uncertain state. Already the invading brown dust sifted across the linoleum. The air grew thick with it. The loose door wouldn’t offer more than halfhearted protection, and Kody scanned the rest of the house, searching for something better.

“Don’t go anywhere without me,” he told Sam as he strode through the passageway into a second room. The drifting soil crunched under his boots.

Again, God provided more than he asked and certainly more than he deserved. A solid door stood closed on the interior wall to his right. He could shelter there until the duster passed. He yanked open the door.

“Hold it right there, mister. I’ve got a gun and I’m not afraid to use it,” a voice cracked.

Kody’s heart leaped to his throat and clutched at his tonsils. His nerves danced along his skin with sharp heels. Instinctively he raised his arms in the air, then slowly, cautiously, turned to locate the source of danger. He almost chuckled at the sight before him. A thin, brown-haired woman pressed into the corner, eyes steady, mouth set in a hard line. She held a rifle almost as long as she was tall.

The upward flight of his arms slowed and began a gradual descent. “You ain’t gonna shoot me.” It was about more’n she could do to keep the rifle level. The business end wobbled like one of those suffering trees in the wind outside.

“Back off or you’ll see soon enough what I mean to do.”

He lowered his right arm a few more inches, at the same time taking one swift step forward.

She gasped as he plucked the rifle from her.

He cracked it open to eject the bullet. The chamber was empty. He roared with laughter. “Lady, you got more guts than a cat stealing from a mother bear.” Amusement made his words feel round and pleasant in his mouth. Unfamiliar, even. It’d been a long time since he’d done more than growl his words. He pulled his gaze from the woman who triggered the amusement, knowing his keen look made her uncomfortable.

She jutted out her chin. “This is my house. Get out.”

She lived here? In this deserted house? Alone?

He stilled the questions pouring to his thoughts to deal with the immediate concern. “I don’t intend to go out in a blinding dust storm. And no God-fearing, decent woman would expect me to.”

She swallowed his accusation noisily. But nothing in her posture relented from her fierce protectiveness.

“I mean you no harm.” Without seeking her permission, he sauntered to the corner farthest away, leaving her to plot her own actions. He made like he didn’t care what she did, though his every nerve danced with alertness. Might be she had a hunk of wood hid beneath her skirts and would sneak up on him and smack him hard enough to give him a headache to regret. He didn’t much figure she could overpower him even with a weighty length of two-by-four. He held back a heartfelt chuckle. Gotta admire a woman with so much spunk.

He heard her slight hiss and from the corner of his eyes saw her take a faltering step toward the door, maybe more intent on escape than anything.

The wind shook the house. The light faded. Through the window he watched the black cloud envelop them. Dust billowed through the cracks around the frame. They needed something to cover the window. In the dim light he made out a pile of material on the floor and, ignoring the woman’s indrawn breath, went over to investigate. A ragged quilt. “Why don’t you have this over the window? It might keep out some of the dirt.”

“What a wonderful idea. I should have thought of it myself.” Her sarcasm nearly melted the paint off the wall.

He snorted. “That is a most uncharitable attitude.”

She put a rag to her nose. “How do you suggest I get it to stay there? Or do you propose to hold it in place?”

“Ma’am, where there’s a will there’s a way.” What a sharp-tongued young woman. He held the quilt to the window. It greatly reduced the amount of dust coming through the cracks. A nail at one corner served as a hook. He felt around but could find no nail on the other corner. He pulled at the frame. It fit too tightly to allow him to stuff the material behind it. He stood with his arms over his head feeling as exposed as a deer in the middle of a bare field. And he was about to put himself into an even more vulnerable position. “You happen to have a fork or knife handy I could jab in behind the frame and hold this in place?”

She crossed the room and handed him a nail. “It fell out and I couldn’t get it back in.”

The quilt darkened the room, but even in the dim light he immediately saw her problem. She barely came up to his armpit. She’d need something to stand on to reach the top of the window. She probably needed a stool to brush her teeth. He grinned at his silly imagination and plucked the nail from her fingers. But how to drive it in? “Hold this.”

He scooted over to make room for her. She lifted her arms and pressed the quilt as high as her short stature allowed. He felt around the window until he found a crack between the frame and the wall and wedged the nail in as firmly as he could. He caught a corner of the quilt over it and stepped back. “That should do.”

“Thank you,” she muttered as she headed back to the corner.

He chuckled. She sounded about as grateful as if he’d handed her a bucket of sand. He returned to the opposite side of the room and hunkered down.

“Your house, hey?”

“My brother’s. I’m watching it for him.”

“Don’t look like it needs much watching.” The room was about as bare as the mile after mile of windswept fields he’d ridden by. It didn’t take a lot of looking to see the place was vacant. Except for this woman. “What’s anyone going to take?”

She made a sound that could have been anger or a signal of her intent to argue, but the storm increased in ferociousness. She ducked her head instead.

He pressed his hankie to his nose and prepared to wait it out.

Charlotte huddled into the corner. He’d accused her of being uncharitable. Her own thoughts rebuked her for being sharp-tongued. Normally she was neither, but her patience had worn thin, and her fears fueled by unexpected, unfair circumstances. Her faith had been sorely tested of late. Tested but not abandoned. What else did she have left but her trust in God?

Our Father, who art in heaven…She closed her eyes and silently repeated the words, mentally squeezing each for strength, determined to think of nothing but God’s love and power.

But a dust storm raged outside, sifting fine particles of dirt through the air, threatening to dry-drown her, and inside sat a strange man. Her nerves twitched with anxiety greater than she’d known even on her first night alone in the empty house.

And not just any man. An Indian, complete with braids and a feather dangling from his cowboy hat.

I will not fear. God is with me. He will never forsake me.

The words had become her daily supplication since she’d walked into the house and found it empty—her brother, Harry, her sister-in-law, Nellie, and the two children had disappeared.

She’d been at the Hendersons’ with instructions from Nellie to help with the new baby. Upon her return she discovered them gone—lock, stock and kitchen supplies—and a note from Harry saying he couldn’t take the drought any longer. They were going farther west. No room in the truck for her. He’d send for her soon, within a week for sure. He’d arrange for Mr. Henderson to deliver a message.

They’d left barely enough food and water to last her.

“God will take care of me,” she murmured.

The frightening man turned. “You say something?”

“God will take care of me.” She spoke louder, firmer. After all, He’d led the children of Israel through the desert. Her situation wasn’t any worse. Except she was alone. No, not alone. God was with her. So she had reminded herself over and over.

The house shook under the wind’s attack. Dirt ground between her teeth. Her throat tickled. She breathed slowly to stop the urge to cough. She longed for a drink. Her last drink had been some unsatisfying mouthfuls this morning. The only place she could get more was at Lother’s. She shuddered just thinking of her nearest neighbor.

Eligible young men were scarce as rain. Most had gone looking for work. Seemed wherever they went jobs were hard to come by. She saw them riding the rails every time she was in town, going from one end of the country to the other. Lother, one of the few bachelors still in the community, made it clear he’d be glad to marry Charlotte. He seemed to think she’d be equally pleased to accept the opportunity. If she had to choose between marriage to Lother or rotting on the manure pile, she’d gladly choose the latter. She shuddered again, harder.

“It will doubtless end soon.”

Did he think she worried about the storm? That happened to be the least of her current concerns. “You can be certain? I heard tell they had a three-day duster over toward Bentley.”

“Yeah, but it ended, didn’t it? Even the flood ended eventually.”

Despite her mental turmoil, she laughed. “I guess we should be grateful we haven’t had a forty-day duster.”

The wind increased in velocity.

The man raised his voice. “I sat by a railway track once while a train went by. Never figured wind could make more noise, but it does.”

The roar made conversation impossible.

She hunkered down, prepared to wait out the storm. Just like she’d been waiting for Harry’s message. Was she destined to spend her life waiting for one thing or another?

Kody glanced toward the woman. She sat with a rag of some sort pressed to her face. Above the gray cloth her eyes regarded him with wariness. Or was it determination? He guessed both. She’d already shown she had plenty of grit.

The wind grew louder. The room darkened like the dead of night. He buried his face against his knees and waited. Could be the storm would end soon, or not. No predicting the nature of nature. He smiled into his handkerchief. Ma would chuckle at his choice of words. Suddenly in the noisy gloom, he missed his mother and father, even though he knew they were better off with him out of the picture. Nor were they the only ones to benefit from his departure. He pushed aside the forbidden memory.

The woman opposite him coughed. Not a tickling sort of cough relieved with a clearing-your-throat kind of sound, but a dry cough that went on and on. He held his breath, waiting for it to end. She stopped and he let out a gust of relief. It was short-lived as she began again.

Poor woman needed some water to wash down the dust.

He slid across the floor until his elbow encountered the warm flesh of her arm, vibrating from her coughs. “Here, have a drink.” He offered her the canteen he’d grabbed out of habit, having learned never to wait out a dust storm without water nearby to wash his throat.

She latched on to the canteen, lifted it to her mouth and drank greedily. For a fearful moment he thought she’d drain the contents. Not that it was a matter of life and death. He’d refill it from her well as soon as the storm ended. But nevertheless he swallowed hard. A duster could make a man mighty thirsty.

She capped the canteen and handed it back. “Thank you.”

He stayed where he was and again buried his face in his handkerchief and let his thoughts drift back to Favor, South Dakota, where he’d been born and raised and where the only parents he’d ever known still lived. He didn’t want to think about all he’d left behind. Better to think about this woman huddled in the corner.

He turned his head a fraction, still protecting his face but making it possible to talk. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“What’s yours?”

He chuckled. Got to admire a woman who showed no fear even in this awkward and potentially threatening situation. He knew many men who would take advantage of his position—alone with an unprotected woman. “Ma’am, my name is Kody Douglas. My father is a preacher man and I’ve been raised to be honorable and God-fearing.” The “raised” part was true. Never mind he no longer had the faith he’d been raised with. Not that he could explain what he now believed. God’s love had become so mixed up in his soul with man’s unloving behavior he didn’t know how to separate the two.

She uttered a sound full of disbelief.

He wasn’t surprised. All his life he’d encountered the same reaction. As if a man like him could have a father like his, a home like his, a faith like he’d once had. For most people it defied explanation.

He hunkered down over his knees, preparing to ignore the woman. No doubt she likewise wished to ignore him. Besides, there was no reason to strike up a conversation. He’d be gone as soon as the storm ended. They’d never see each other again in this life or the one to come. That idea gave him pause. “You a believer?” he asked, even though he’d just told himself conversation was unnecessary.

“In God?”

He grunted affirmation.

“Most certainly I am. I have been since I was a child at my mother’s knee. In fact, He has been my strength and help all my life. He will continue to take care of me.”

Kody wondered at the way she said the words. As if she expected him to argue. “Got no cause to disagree.” God did seem to favor the likes of her, but Kody figured God regretted making the likes of him.

“My name is Charlotte Porter.”

He thought of shaking her hand but refrained. He didn’t want to put her in the position of having to choose whether or not to accept his offer nor did he want to shift his position and allow any more dirt to invade. Dust covered every bit of exposed skin, filling his pores until he envied the fish of the sea. He might head west to the ocean and sit in the water until he shriveled up like an old man just for the pleasure of having clean skin if he hadn’t already decided to ride north into Canada and keep riding until he got to uninhabited land.

He settled for acknowledging her introduction with the proper words, though she perhaps expected nothing more than a grunt. “Pleased to meet you.”

“You from round here?”

He guessed she felt the need of conversation more than he did. At least he wanted to believe so. Again he told himself a man should get used to being alone and sharing his thoughts with a faithful horse. “Not so’s you’d notice.” There was nothing about his past he wanted to share with this woman or anyone else on the face of the earth, and nothing about his future that held significance for anyone but himself.

“Where are you headed?”

“Just following my nose.”

“Mr. Douglas, are you being purposely evasive?”

He chuckled. “Maybe I am. You might say it’s a habit of mine.” Seemed no need to refuse the woman the information she sought. “I’m from Favor, South Dakota.”

“I never heard of an Indian preacher man.” Her voice was muffled.

“I ain’t no preacher man.” He jerked his eyes open, felt the sting of dust and closed them again.

“I mean your father.”

He kept his handkerchief to his mouth, guessed she kept her eyes closed, too, so she couldn’t see his smile. “My father is a white man.”

She twitched. “But—”

“My mother is white, too. Kind of defies explanation, doesn’t it?” He squinted at her, saw her regarding him through narrowed eyes.

“That’s impossible.”

He laughed, liking the way her eyes momentarily widened, then as quickly narrowed against the dust.

“Not if I’m adopted. Besides, my real mother is white. My father…” He paused. “One look at me is all it takes to know he was Indian.”

“Adopted? Well, that explains it, doesn’t it?”

Her voice said so much more than her words. As if it mattered about as much as fly sweat. As if he was already gone and forgotten. He settled back into his own thoughts, not sure he liked the way she silently dismissed him. Didn’t she have any particular opinion about his heritage, the unnaturalness of being raised white while looking native? Everyone else seemed to.

He wrenched his thoughts to more practical matters.

Had the light increased? Surely the wind roared with less vehemence. “It’s letting up.”

“Thank God. If this is the last duster I ever see, I would be eternally grateful.”

“You and thousands of others.”

Neither of them moved—gray dust particles in the air would fill their eyes and nose and lungs. No, they had to wait a bit longer. Kody glanced around the room, taking in more details. The only thing in the room was a bundled-up mattress in the corner.

“Why did your brother leave you here alone?”

“Who says I’m alone?”

He laughed. “I mean apart from me and my horse.”

“I didn’t mean you.”

Again he laughed. This woman amazed him. Did she truly think he’d look around, see a virtually abandoned home and think she had a passel of brothers or sons or a husband to protect her? “What kind of brother leaves his sister alone?”

She studied him with narrow-eyed concentration. Weak light poked around the quilt at the window, but it didn’t take morning sun on her face for him to know she resented his questions. But he couldn’t dismiss his concern. Why would her brother leave her here alone? It didn’t seem natural. For sure it wasn’t safe. He wasn’t the only man wandering about the countryside. Hundreds of them rode the rails every day looking for work or avoiding the realities of the Depression. Work was scarce. Pay even scarcer. He’d been trying for months to earn enough money to buy himself an outfit to start new in the North. He’d managed to save a few dollars. A few more and he’d be on his way.

“He’s coming for me.” She kept her face buried in her hands, the rag muffling her words. “Real soon.”

“Until then you’re here alone.”

“I am not alone. God is with me. He has promised to be with me always.”