Clouds boiled black. Threatening. Lightning shot across the sky in endless jagged bursts of fire. A blustery gale swept the hilltop as if bent on clearing it down to the last blade of grass.
Alone, Faith Ann Beal stood her ground in spite of the scattered drops of rain that were beginning to pelt her. She leaned into the wind for balance, determined to withstand the rigors of the early spring storm long enough to place flowers atop her mother’s resting place. After the horrible tempest they’d all weathered mere days ago, it was going to take more than a little wind and water to deter her.
Faith kissed her fingertips, bent to touch them to the damp earth, then paused for an unspoken prayer before she said, “I’ll keep my vow to you, Mama, no matter where that duty takes me. I promise.”
Shivering, yet loath to leave, she straightened and took a shaky breath. Everyone’s life had changed in literally seconds when the tornado had mowed a swath through Trumbull County. It was still hard to believe her own mama was gone to Glory, along with so many of their closest family friends.
There was little left of the farm where nineteen-year-old Faith and her younger sister, Charity, had grown up. The lower part of the chimney still stood behind the iron cook-stove, but the rest of the house had been reduced to a pile of useless kindling. The roof had blown clean off the barn Papa had built, too. Most of the livestock that had survived the storm had been rounded up and quickly sold for traveling money.
A hooded bonnet partially sheltered Faith’s cold-stung, flushed cheeks and she clasped her black wool cloak tightly to her. Despite that protection, her body still trembled from marrow-deep chill. The sweet, peaceful life she had taken for granted was gone. Over. She felt as if her soul had been trapped and frozen within the numbness that now filled her whole body.
Looking down to where her mother lay beneath the freshly turned earth, she gained comfort by imagining her dear one asleep in the arms of Jesus, instead.
“Oh, Mama, why did you have to leave us?” she lamented. “And why did you make me promise to take Charity and look for Papa? What if I can’t find him? What if he’s lost forever, like so many of the other men who went to seek their fortunes?”
Bittersweet memories of her father’s initial departure, his last hugs and words of encouragement to his family, rushed to soothe Faith’s wounded spirit. Would she have reneged on her deathbed promise to her mother if she’d still had a comfortable home in which to wait for her father’s return? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It was a pointless question. No choice remained.
“Oh, dear God.” Her prayer was as plaintive, as wistful, as the wind that carried it. “Please, please show me what to do. Spare me this obligation.”
No reprieve came. She hadn’t truly expected divine intervention to lift her burden. Instead, she found herself remembering how she’d clasped her mother’s hand and listened intently as the injured woman had spoken and wept, then had breathed her last with a blissful smile softening her features as she passed on.
“Lord willing, I will come back,” Faith vowed, making peace with the past as best she could. In her deepest heart she feared she would never again climb that desolate hill to look down on those verdant valleys and farms of Ohio.
Bending over, the edges of her black cloak flapping wildly in a sudden gust of frigid air, she laid a bouquet of dried forget-me-nots on her mother’s grave, turned and walked resolutely away.
Behind her, the storm tore the fragile flowers from their satin ribbon and strewed tattered fragments across the bare ground, destroying their beauty for the moment in order to plant the seeds of future blooms.
Chapter One
Fort Laramie, early summer, 1850
“Look out!” Faith yanked her sixteen-year-old sister to safety, barely in time. Massive wheels of an empty freight wagon ground across the footprints they’d just left in the powdery dust.
True to her nature, Charity gave a shriek. She cowered against the blunt end of a water trough while she worried the strings of her bonnet with fluttering fingers.
Faith caught her breath and waited for her heart to stop galloping. Fort Laramie was not at all what she’d expected. It was more a primitive frontier trading post than a real army garrison. No one seemed to care a fig about proper deportment, either. The