to inquire there.
“No, ma’am” came the reply from the operator. “Did see him come through town yesterday, though. Had those two ponies. Fine looking pair. Oh, and no word yet from Chicago,” he said, smiling and nodding at Colin and Cody who peered up at him as he rested an elbow on the counter. “Going to visit your auntie, are you?” he asked.
Alice felt the tingle of cold as if ice crystals formed beneath her skin. She drew one boy to each side and swallowed back her dread.
Alice lowered her chin. “Pardon?”
“Mr. Roach wrote their great-aunt.” His grin dissolved. Perhaps he now recognized from her seething expression or the boys’ wide-eyed stares that they had not been privy to this information.
Ben Asher’s aunt had died some years back of a stroke. Alice did recall that Ben had two uncles, also deceased. Another possibility struck.
“He said Chicago?”
The telegraph operator drew back from the counter, hesitating now.
Alice patted Colin’s back as he clung to her skirts. “Would the name of this relative be McCrery, Ella McCrery?”
“I—I’m not...”
She gave him a scowl, fearing she might need to shout and she hated to shout. She took a step toward the counter, hampered by the clinging children.
He swallowed and then nodded. “Believe that’s right, though he said Edna.”
Alice drew a breath, praying for calm as her stomach roiled. “To what question did Mr. Roach seek reply?”
The operator’s bushy brows rose high on his shiny forehead, but he answered the question. “Whether she could take the boys.”
“I see.”
She returned to the hotel with her charges, who both had to jog to keep pace.
“Miss Alice?” asked Cody. “What’s happening?”
“We have to go see your Uncle Dillen.”
“But the man said he doesn’t want us.”
She didn’t know what to say, for she feared Cody’s concerns were valid. She looked at these two perfect little boys and wondered how anyone in the world could not want them. Why, she’d give anything to raise them up as her own. She had always loved them, but now that Sylvia was gone, that love had taken root deep inside her.
Alice straightened her spine. She had been put off once too often to make excuses for Dillen. Clearly he was avoiding her and doing all in his power to pack the children off. Alice saw only two choices. She could return to Omaha with the children or she could try one last time to convince Dillen Roach to honor his sister’s final request.
“Hush, now, let me think.”
Alice forced the anger down. The boys both looked frightened half to death, as if she might just hand them to a stranger. She stilled as she realized that was what she had been preparing to do, for clearly she did not know Dillen any longer. The man she once knew would not shirk his responsibility or ignore his duty to his family.
At the front desk, Alice spoke to the manager.
“How could I arrange transport to the Harvey ranch?”
He gave Alice the directions to the livery and the name of the gentleman to see. “If you’ve never driven a wagon or sleigh, then hire a driver, as well. And don’t set out without a rifle, food and blankets or furs. If you break a runner, you could be stuck for some time.”
This bit of advice made Alice’s knees wobble, but she reminded herself of her mission. Plus a sleigh ride in the wilderness might be an excellent way to test her mettle.
One hour later, lunched and dressed in their warmest clothing, she and Colin sat in the second seat of a sleigh. Cody preferred to sit with the driver, Mr. Donald Miller, an aged livery hand with a round face, a high forehead and tufted gray hair peeking out from beneath a green knit cap. He held a pipe perpetually clamped between his teeth and his beard was cut in the manner of Puritans, so he reminded Alice of a New England whaling captain. Though the broken blood vessels on his nose and cheeks seemed to indicate that, unlike the Puritan he resembled, Mr. Miller indulged in spirits.
The wind whistled and the runners hissed as the horse trotted in a well-worn groove of packed snow. Despite the hot bricks and blankets, Alice’s toes were icy and her cheeks numb. She was saved from inquiring regarding the remaining distance by Cody, who asked the driver that exact question at regular intervals.
According to the last report they were already on the ranch, though it looked no different than the pine forest they had traversed for the past several miles since leaving the town of Blue River Junction. Colin spotted a wooden fence with even split wood planks nailed to upright posts. Alice craned her neck and was rewarded with a glimpse of the sloping peaked roof of a barn. They crested a rise and she realized that what she had assumed was the side of the barn was, in fact, the front. The barn was easily four times as large as she had first imagined. Alice’s gaze swept the unbroken expanse of snow that covered the open ground. Pastures, she realized, and beyond them, she spotted a long outbuilding squatting parallel to the barn, and on the top of the next rise the rustic yet expansive log ranch house.
This was not what Alice had expected, but still bore proof that Dillen had managed to achieve his ambitions alone. She closed her eyes at the evidence of his success.
He was not a veterinarian, as he had wished, but owned property and livestock. Alice lifted her head and stared. She was looking at the home he had carved out for himself in a mere two years. A home suitable for a family—perfect, in fact. He clearly had the means to support a wife. And if the curl of blue smoke coming from the chimney of the bunkhouse was any indication, he had hired hands, as well.
If she had not committed a lie of omission when she’d repeatedly failed to tell him who she actually was, would he have stayed? Was it the lie or her that he could not abide?
Alice settled back in her seat feeling suddenly so ill she feared she might lose the little lunch she had managed.
“Here we are,” called Miller. “Shall I wait?”
“Yes, most certainly. Please take us to the house.”
“Don’t see no smoke,” said Mr. Miller as he complied.
Alice had to grasp Colin, who seemed to be preparing to leap from the moving sleigh. The instant the horse stopped, Cody was on the long covered porch, his boot heels tapping like a woodpecker on a tree as he charged for the front door. Alice hurried after him, gripping Colin’s wrist as he tried to catch up with his older brother.
“Wait up,” cried Colin.
“I want to see the horses,” called Cody, already lifting his hand to pound on the front door as he sang out, “Uncle Dillen! We’ve come a-calling!”
Around the side of the building came a lanky older man with a limp. He peered at them with vivid blue eyes and skin as brown and furrowed as a peach pit. His gaunt face was balanced by a thick gray-and-white mustache and his jaw was covered with stubble.
“Can I help you folks?”
“Yes, sir. We would like to see the owner,” said Alice.
“Oh, well, I’m Bill Roberts, the foreman. Maybe I can help.”
“I’d prefer to speak to the owner.”
Roberts pushed back the brim of his battered cowboy hat and wiped his forehead with a gloved hand. “Well, he ain’t here. Won’t be up this way again until summer.”
Her heart sank at this bit of news. Had Dillen left her and the boys behind without a backward glance? “Are you saying that Mr. Roach has relocated?”
“Roach? Oh, no, ma’am. He’s here. You must be Miss Truett? He’s mentioned you.” Roberts extended his hand and Alice clasped