Where Heaven Begins (17 page)

A
relentless wind howled with such force that Elizabeth thought nothing of allowing Clint to pull her curled body closer against his own for warmth. This was not a time to worry about what others might think about lying together like this, and God certainly must understand why they had no choice. Protocol and propriety had no place when it came to survival, and right now Elizabeth was not so sure God did not intend for them to die right here. After all, it was His choice when to bring His children home.

They lay buried under every blanket they owned, with no choice but to wait for the storm outside to subside. Lying there in Clint’s strong arms, his broad chest pressing against her back, her head tucked under his chin, brought
to light something Elizabeth had never realized: how easy it would be to let this man love and protect her for the rest of her life, how nice it was to feel so totally safe, and how easy it would be to give herself to this man if he truly wanted her that way, wanted to marry her…if only he would give himself back to the Lord and give up the life he was leading.

She knew he was still not ready for that, and he never would be if he kept refusing to tell her about his past, refusing to open up to her fully, refusing to let God back into his life and heart and soul so that the healing could begin.

Snow whispered around the tent, and both knew it was building dangerously. They were most likely half buried by now.

“I’m so worried about the horses, Clint. The poor things.” She pulled a blanket over half her face to warm her nose.

“We could end up buried here so long we’d have to eat them anyway,” he answered.

“Clint Brady!”

“Just thinking practically. In circumstances like this you can’t let compassion and emotion take precedence over survival, but don’t worry just yet. This could end by morning, and instinct will cause them to try to find a place to burrow down out of the wind. Besides, they had some pretty thick winter hair growth already. Let’s just hope it’s enough to keep them from freezing to death.”

An extra strong gust of wind caused the tent to flap wildly.

“What if the tent blows away?”

Clint hugged her tighter. “Then I’ll be your tent.”

Elizabeth smiled.

“Keep talking, Liz,” he told her. “We should try to stay awake as long as possible. And keep wiggling your toes and fingers.”

She curled her toes into the soles of her boots, wishing they were heated. “I guess I could tell you the other reason I ran away.”

“Ran away? You never put it that way before.”

“Well, as I think about it, I realize now that’s what I was doing, although I truly did want to find Peter anyway. After our father was murdered, Peter took over his church, then hired another minister and came up here last year. My mother got very ill and died. I cared for her through her illness, and then after she died, it left such a big space inside of me.” She sighed.

“You don’t have to describe that feeling to me.”

More snow swished across the top of the tent. “I’m sure I don’t.” She squeezed the strong forearms that were wrapped around her middle and proceeded to tell him about living with the Reverend Selby and his wife.

“It was not such a bad life, but I was so lonely after losing both my parents and with Peter gone. I mean, I had friends in the church and all, but it just wasn’t the same.”

“Then I understand why you’d want to find Peter, but why do you call it running away?”

Elizabeth waited a moment to answer, hating the ugly memories. “I—Reverend Selby…turned out not to be such a proper Christian man…once Mama died.”

She felt Clint tense up. “I don’t even want to mention what I think you mean by that,” he told her.

“You don’t need to. I’m sure you’re fully understand
ing what I’m saying.” Her eyes teared at the memory of her devastation in realizing that not all professed Christians were what they claimed to be. Compared to the reverend, in many ways Clint was much more Christian. That experience and this trip had opened her eyes to so many things, especially the error of her ways in how she judged people.

“Apparently the reverend thought that because I was young and inexperienced and alone, I—I might respond to his offers to…comfort me. The trouble was, what started with a pat on the shoulder led to quick hugs, never in public, of course, and then he began coming to my room…at night…making very roundabout suggestions.”

Clint’s grip grew tighter. She had to smile inwardly at his reaction, typical for a man who lived by violence. “Well, then,” he told her, “I’m glad I’ll probably never meet the man. I’d hate to be accused of beating a church minister to a pulp.”

She smiled sadly. “No one would have understood anyway. When I refused to respond to the reverend’s advances, he took it as an affront, and it angered him. He decided to get back at me, and he was probably afraid I’d say something first, so he turned around and suggested to the church deacons that in my desperate loneliness I had been making advances toward
him,
tempting him to do sinful things. He told them I would have to move out of the parsonage.”

“Don’t tell me the people in that church
believed
him!”

“Most of them did. He was a man of God, after all, and I was a lonely young woman who’d just lost her mother—and there I was, living in the same house. Don’t forget that the church was run by
men.
Most men seem ready to
believe that if something like that is going on, it must be the woman’s fault, as though it’s all right for a man to be unable to resist temptation. I tried to explain the truth, but I could see they were not going to believe me. When I realized I had to get out of that house, which I had already been planning to do because of the situation, I figured I might as well come here and find Peter, someone who loved me and would help me. I loved helping with church projects and teaching Sunday School. I figure I can do that in Dawson, too.”

“What about the women there? You must have had friends. Your father founded the church.”

“Yes, he did, but the congregation had grown from dedicated Christians willing to sacrifice to help the church to grow, to complacent, spoiled members who liked having it easy and liked dressing up for church and calling themselves members. I think most of the married women were jealous and wanted me out. Others probably thought they would be looked down upon for defending me. It turned out my best friend, a girl about my age, liked a young man who liked me, so she sided against me, too.”

“And these people called themselves Christians?”

“A lot of people
call
themselves Christians, I’ve learned. Either way, I just knew it was time to leave anyway. Most of the congregation seemed to have forgotten what founding that church was all about—it was to help those who don’t yet know Christ as their Savior and Lord.”

He kissed her hair. “I knew there had to be more to your story.”

“I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid you would
say that was proof that it didn’t matter if a man called himself Christian. I was afraid you would say being Christian really meant nothing, but it means a great deal to me, Clint. Christ taught us that we must voice His word, spread it to others and never be ashamed to offer His grace and peace. And Christ alone knows whose heart is sincere and whose is not. Christ knows that
your
heart is sincere, Clint, in spite of what you do. You feel you’re helping the innocent by ridding the world of the sinful. You’re angry at God, so you’re fighting Him instead of working
with
Him, so you—”

“Stop right there.”

She closed her eyes, feeling very sleepy. “You’re the one who said to keep talking. I can’t do that without talking about what’s most important to my heart, and that’s two things—God…and you.”

“You mean I come second?”

She sighed in feigned regret. “Sorry, but you always will.” Why didn’t she mind the feel of him kissing her hair again? Was that sinful?

“Okay, then, let’s get back to what happened. Why didn’t you tell me before this?”

“I guess because I figured you’d be like all other men and think it
was
my fault. I didn’t know you well enough to know what you’d think, but I’ve come to look at you as different from others. I see and feel a goodness about you that just…I don’t know…I feel comfortable around you now. And because you aren’t pious and because you haven’t lived a life sheltered within the church, I thought you’d understand better some of the different feelings men
and women have. If you’d been one of those deacons, you would have had the courage to speak up in my defense.”

“You think so, do you?”

“I know so.”

He sat quietly for a moment. “Oh, but there is so much you
don’t
know about me.”

“That’s
your
fault. You’ve told me about your childhood, where you came from and what you do now. You’ve just left out the middle part. You can tell me about that whenever you’re ready.”

There came no response. All she heard was the howling wind.

“You already know my wife’s name,” he told her after a good ten minutes of quiet. “My son’s name was…Ethan. That’s my first name. Clint is my middle name. I started using it after what happened so I wouldn’t have to hear anyone call out the name Ethan again. I can’t stand to hear it, and I almost never say it myself. It makes me think of him.” He sighed deeply. “There. That’s all you get for now.”

She smiled, her eyes drifting shut again. She squeezed his arms with her fingers. “That’s enough,” she answered.

U
pon awakening the morning after the snowstorm, they found the opening to the tent covered nearly to the top. Clint shoved snow outward as best he could to keep it from filling the tent when he opened the tent flaps, and once he made a big enough opening, he stood up and shouted to Elizabeth.

“Not as bad as I thought.”

Elizabeth was relieved the wind and snow had stopped. She joined Clint to see sunshine and calm. The snow had blown and drifted in such a way that some tents, like theirs, were buried to the point that only the peaks showed, while others were fully in the open. Already several men were out setting up surveying equipment.

“Must be more railroad men,” Clint suggested.

They both gazed at the steep climb ahead. A few men
were already moving about farther up on the pass. Elizabeth looked around. “Clint, the horses.”

Queen, Devil and Red Lady were nowhere to be seen. “Come on,” Clint told her.

Together they trudged through snow that was sometimes waist-deep on Clint, even deeper for Elizabeth, who had to follow Clint to be able to navigate at all. Finally they made their way to an area that had been swept free by the wind, and both had to stop and catch their breath when they spotted a horse on its side in the distance.

Clint muttered a curse and headed in that direction. Elizabeth cared little at the moment that he’d cursed, knowing how bad he’d feel if it was one of his animals, which it was. Elizabeth rushed up to Clint, and there lay Queen, frozen to death.

Clint knelt beside the horse and ran his hand over Queen’s neck, saying nothing.

“Poor thing!” Elizabeth lamented, her eyes tearing. She, too, knelt down, leaning over to kiss the horse’s forehead. “She’d become such a good friend.”

Clint cleared his throat. “She died alone,” he said, his voice strained.

Elizabeth knew he was thinking about his wife, or perhaps his son. She put a hand on Clint’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Clint.”

He kept his face hidden from her as he quickly wiped at his eyes and drew a deep breath. “We’d better get as much gear off her as we can.” He began yanking at saddle bags. “Whatever is under her will have to stay there,” he continued. “She’s frozen stiff. We’ll never manage to move
her or turn her over.” He coughed deeply, then took a deep breath and wiped at his eyes again. “I sure hate leaving her here for the wolves.” He handed Elizabeth the bags and began untying ropes and straps. “I don’t think we’ve lost too much; a sack of flour, maybe, and maybe one of beans.”

He worked quickly, and Elizabeth helped, suspecting Clint’s deliberate hasty unloading was to avoid talking about the dead horse or how he felt about it…or perhaps to help him stop thinking about his wife and son.

“We’ll drag this stuff back to the tent and look for Devil and Red Lady. Let’s just hope they’re still alive because there is no way we will manage all these supplies by ourselves, certainly not when one of us is a woman. I’m told the Canadian Mounties won’t let us into British Columbia without the right amount of supplies. Too many prospectors died of starvation last winter.”

It took practically all the strength Elizabeth could muster to help tote more beans, flour and pots and pans back to the tent. Once outside and away from the warmth of hers and Clint’s bodies curled together, the calm cold began to penetrate her to the bone. She couldn’t help worrying about Clint’s condition.

Clint ordered her to stay at the tent then and see what she could drum up to eat without making a fire. Wood was too scarce. She dug out some leftover biscuits as he left again, and even from a distance she could hear his deep cough.

She bowed her head and prayed for Clint’s health and that he would find the other two horses. Aching for hot coffee, she bit into a partially frozen biscuit, thinking how fried eggs and bacon would be much more welcome.

After a good half hour Clint returned, leading the other two horses. Hope filled Elizabeth’s heart that maybe the rest of the trip wouldn’t be so bad after all. She smiled and rose, walking out to greet man and horses, hugging Devil and Red Lady and kissing their noses. “Where were they?”

“Huddled together in a kind of cove created by boulders. Must have sheltered them from the worst of the wind,” Clint told her. “Queen always was the dumbest of the three.” He ducked inside the tent and came out with the sack of oats they had used for a pillow. “Hang on to Red Lady so she doesn’t start something over these oats,” he told Elizabeth, opening the oats and holding them under Devil’s nose so the horse could eat some of them.

Elizabeth kept a firm hold on Red Lady. The mare was not at all pleased that Devil got to eat first. Once Clint felt the gelding had had enough, he took the bag of oats away and handed it to Elizabeth, telling her to hold it open for Red Lady.

“Devil will be harder to control,” he grumbled, gripping the gelding’s bridle. As soon as Red Lady started eating, Devil reared, wanting to shove the mare away from the oats.

“Whoa there!” Clint shouted. He yelled more commands, forcing Devil backward and away from Red Lady and Elizabeth.

“Are we leaving today?” Elizabeth asked as she let Red Lady feed.

“Might as well. No time to waste.”

Once Red Lady got her fill, Clint packed the oats away and he and Elizabeth took time to eat what was available, both of them longing for hot coffee. They packed their gear then, rearranging supplies meant for three horses onto two.
Clint even put some of the supplies into a neatly-arranged backpack for himself.

“Guess I’ll have to take Queen’s place,” he joked.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Elizabeth asked, truly concerned.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Clint hoisted the backpack to a more comfortable position.

“I’m so concerned about that cough.”

“It’s just one of those things that’s going to linger awhile.”

Elizabeth donned a second woolen cap, then made ready to tie a scarf around her face against the cold. “I don’t like it. You never rested enough back in Skagway.”

“Such is life. I just want to keep going now and get this trip over with.”

Elizabeth walked up to him, her face now covered. “There are some here who have turned back. There is always next year, Clint.” She noticed an odd sadness in his blue eyes.

“No, there isn’t. Until I find Roland Fisher, I won’t know the answers to a few things. If you’ve convinced me of one thing, it’s that your God pulled us together, and made me fall in love with you. But loving you isn’t the whole answer to what still eats at me inside. I don’t expect you to understand it. I just know we have to do this.”

Elizabeth felt relief that at least he admitted God had something to do with this journey. This was becoming much more than a physical journey to Dawson just to find Peter and a fugitive. It was becoming a journey of the heart, and her own heart was hopelessly immersed in love for Clint Brady.

“I love you, too, Clint.”

He pulled the scarf down from her face, leaned down and met her lips in a gentle kiss, then kissed her eyes and pulled her scarf back up. “When we get to Dawson, I’ll shave off this beard so I don’t scratch your face with it.”

She pulled the scarf down again. “I’d appreciate that. I hate for that handsome face to be hidden under all that stubble. But may I have one more kiss anyway?”

Clint grinned. “I’ll gladly kiss you as often as you want.” He met her lips again, this time in a deeper kiss that suggested he wanted much more. He left her mouth and embraced her. “You have a lot to learn, Miss Breckenridge, and I will gladly teach you once you’re my wife.”

Elizabeth’s heart took a leap at the words. “Your
wife?
Is that a
proposal
, Mr. Brady?” What an odd place and time to have brought up the subject.

He kept hold of her. “I guess it is. It just kind of slipped out. Actually I was going to save this for Dawson.” He laughed lightly and hugged her tighter. “This gives you a couple of weeks to think about your answer, if we both live through the rest of this trip.”

Not one part of her doubted that Clint Brady would make a good husband, that there was a gentle, kind side to him he’d seldom shown since his wife’s death. She rested her head against his chest. “I would like nothing more than to marry you, Clint, but you’re right about the rest of it. I can’t be your wife until I know your heart is first right with God. That’s the only kind of love that truly counts in this life.”

“Let’s just get ourselves to Dawson for now. That gives me a couple more weeks to think about a lot of things.”

Good. At least they could finally
talk
without Clint
blowing up about something. Clint pulled away, and Elizabeth put the scarf back over her face again. “Okay, let’s get over the pass,” she told him.

She looked up at the daunting incline. It was hard to imagine anyone would make this trip through the pass more than once, but some men made several trips just to get all their belongings over the peak.

“Clint, wait,” she spoke up, as he took Devil’s bridle.

“What is it?”

She pulled off her scarf again. “Will you…pray with me…that we make it over the pass?”

He stared at her a moment, at first looking irritated, then doubtful. “If you want,” he finally answered, “for whatever good a prayer from me would do.”

Elizabeth walked up and grasped his hands, bowing her head.
“Heavenly Father, we thank You for getting us this far. Now, Lord, we just ask that You help us get over White Pass without losing one of the horses, or one of our own lives. We know it won’t be easy, but Lord, we also believe that You have been in charge of this journey all along, and so we trust You to help us over this most dangerous and demanding part of our trip. And I personally pray that when we reach Dawson I will find Peter well and happy, and that Clint will find the answers only You can give him so that his heart will be healed. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.”

Clint squeezed her hands but said nothing except, “Let’s go.”