Ellen watched her son spread his arms wide and rise up on his tiptoes. Alma sat at his side, clapping her hands and staring up at her big brother.
“I’m getting tall,” Walt said. “Just like Jim said I would.”
Alma got up to stand beside him. “I’m getting taller too,” she announced.
“Not so tall as me,” Walt laughed.
Alma looked down at his feet. She tried to get up on her own toes, but couldn’t balance enough to hold the position.
Walt grinned down at her until she pushed him hard enough to knock him off balance. He staggered a step, then did a little pirouette and fell on his back with his arms spread.
“Now who’s taller?” Alma said, and giggled.
Ellen couldn’t help but smile at both of them.
She remembered her own happy childhood back east. Those days had been filled with laughter and play with her parents, her sister, and then her baby brother. Except Colton wasn’t such a baby anymore. Nor was Martha.
Ellen reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand.
Today, it was just the four of them out on a hill overlooking the lake and green pasture. Their parents had stayed behind in the cabin. The winter had been long and cold, and they’d all been cooped up for far too long. The cabin wasn’t large; there hadn’t been time to make it anywhere near comfortable. But it was well made and warm, and all winter they’d listened to the cruel wind and been grateful for what Jim and her father had built.
Martha gave her a long look and said, “Do you know what I was just thinking about?”
Ellen considered the question for a moment. “Picnics on the beach back in Carolina. Corn on the cob. Mom’s apple pie. I don’t miss Illinois at all but Carolina…that was home.”
Martha frowned. “Well, no. I wasn’t thinking of that, but now I can’t get that pie out of my mind. How long since she made one?”
“I can’t remember,” Ellen laughed. “Do you think they even have apples in California?”
“What do you mean, no apples?”
“I haven’t seen any at the store. They might not grow out here.”
Martha’s frown deepened. She shaded her eyes against the sun.
Ellen glanced up at the high sun. When she looked down, she studied the south horizon. A carpet of bright green stretched over a grassy plain, low hills, and then up a line of jagged mountains. Nothing moved. No sign of anyone. For all the world, it seemed like their family was alone for thousands of miles.
Jim should have been back by now. He should have been back yesterday. He was carrying their future, thousands of dollars, and most any man he met would gladly rob him if they guessed how much he had. And the thought of him out there alone and possibly hurt….
“He’ll be back,” Martha said. This time it was her squeezing Ellen’s hand.
“I know,” Ellen answered with a wan smile. “I just wish it was now.”
“I wish Colton was back, too.”
“Father says he should be here before the end of the month.”
“What month is it?” Martha asked. “I’ve lost count.”
“May.”
“The weather here is so strange. It snowed in October and even in April. I’ve lost all track of time.”
“Jim says sometimes it snows late as June.”
“June? That can’t be right.”
“We’re high up here. Remember how sick we were when we first arrived? The old mountain man who told Jim about the valley called it mountain sickness.”
“Donovan, that was his name,” Martha said.
“I think so,” Ellen agreed.
Martha had always had a knack for keeping names. Not just names, but lists, numbers, and all manner of things. Back east, people had often thought Martha strange. She’d never seemed nor acted like a child. She’d had adult conversations ever since she’d been a small girl and she could remember almost anything she read or heard. School had been too easy for her.
Easy and impossible at the same time.
The other children had often teased her. Ellen and later Colton had protected her from most of their barbs, and Martha had never cared much about what anyone thought. In Illinois, she’d fared a little better. She was a beautiful girl, too smart for most boys, though, and eventually they’d all discovered that.
None of them wanted to be with a girl who would outshine them.
“Aunt Martha, save me,” Walt called. He and Alma were playing now. He hung from the lowest branches of a pine. Alma stood below him, pretending to be a tiger or wolf or something, scratching hands made into claws against the trunk beneath him.
Martha rose and walked over to the children.
“I don’t know, Walt,” she said. “This lion looks very fierce.”
Alma stopped moving her hands. “I’m not a lion. I’m a wolf,” she said.
