Part One
Spring 1888
Chapter One
Leona Trask’s mother had died the winter before, when Leo was sixteen, leaving her to help raise her four younger brothers. They had a crop in the field, but no rain for weeks. Leo hated seeing the desperation in her father’s eyes every morning as he left to go hunting for something to feed his children.
One morning Leo got up to tend to the fire in their cabin. Her father had already left. She hadn’t heard him go, and he didn’t come home as the day grew into early evening and then night. The next morning when he hadn’t returned, Leo and her brothers scoured the countryside searching for him. Surely he had been thrown from the horse and lay in a field somewhere with a broken leg or worse. Had he met with some sort of terrible accident? If that had been the case, the Trask children would have found him.
Another day passed and nightfall arrived again with no sign of him. Leo fed the boys bacon and milk and made pallets by the hearth so they could all stay close together. Luther, the youngest one, was afraid, so Leo gathered him close until he fell asleep. That night she listened for any sign of her father’s return. It was nearly dawn before Leo was able to get any sleep. She was frightened and angry about being abandoned again. This time it seemed worse.
When her mother died, Leo had been forced to watch her get weaker and weaker over a short period of time. Her mother’s death had almost been a blessing with an end to the ever-present pain that ravaged her frail body. But for Leo to wake up and have her father gone without a word was shocking.
Four days passed before Milton Trask came home. He rode in on a new buckboard loaded with coffee, flour, oats, cornmeal, sugar, and a small bag of hard candy. He passed out new hats for the boys and a sun bonnet for Leo. Then came the real gifts!
For Henry, who was a year younger than Leo, their father brought a new Winchester .44 rifle. For the twelve-year-old twins, Eb and Earl, he brought them their first pair of boots. For Luther, Milton Trask pulled out a shiny new hunting knife that made the young boy’s eyes sparkle. Then for Leona he had a beautiful ivory comb, detailed with intricate carvings outlining its edges. Leo was not as forgiving as her younger brothers were. Her anger was not so easily dismissed.
“Where did you get all this, Papa?” Henry asked excitedly as he held his new rifle out in front of him.
Leo wondered the same thing. They had no money and if it didn’t rain soon, they would have even less in the future when the crop failed.
“Those boots fit?” he asked Eb as he tousled his son’s hair.
The younger boys were squealing after having discovered the candy, but Leo cut her eyes over at Henry and saw the questioning gaze he gave her.
Leo returned to the cabin to fry up more bacon and peel and slice some peaches her father had brought. She would wait until the little ones were tucked in before asking him the questions forming in her head, but much to her relief, Henry’s curiosity saved her from having to do it alone.
“Where’d you get all this, Papa?” Henry asked him again once they were all in for the evening and gathered around the table.
“I found work.”
Work? Leo thought. There was no work to be found…at least no jobs paying this kind of money. He’d only been gone a few days.
“Where at?” Henry asked. “I’d like to work, too. I’m plenty old enough.”
Milton got up from the table and plucked his youngest son Luther from his chair and swung him onto his back in a round of horseplay. Leo hadn’t seen her father this relaxed and happy since long before their mother died.
“I need you here to look after things with your sister,” Milton said to his oldest son. Henry made several attempts to get him to talk about the new job, but the subject was closed.
Over the next few days, the boys chopped wood, carried up extra water from the creek, patched the cabin’s roof, and tidied up the barn. The Trask family stayed busy, as if preparing for something, but Leo had no idea what. As the only girl in the family, she was expected to cook, do laundry, and keep the cabin clean. It was an unspoken rule, one Leo despised. Begrudgingly, she made biscuits and peach cobblers and kept the cabin spotless while her father and brothers mended fences, moved the outhouse, and cleaned out the chicken coop. Then one night before Leo banked the coals in the fireplace, her father told her he would be gone for a few weeks on his new job, but that he’d return with more supplies.
“I’ve talked to Henry already,” he said. “You two watch after your brothers while I’m gone.”
Leo felt frightened again. Whatever “job” her father had, she didn’t like it. The things he had brought with him when he returned this last time cost more than a good crop would have brought in…probably even more than a five-year stretch of good crops. Leo had a bad feeling about all of this—especially since her father wasn’t giving any details.
“Do you have to go?” she asked him. Being without him worried her. What if one of them got sick?
“I’ll be back in a few weeks.”
“Where will you be? What if we need you?”
“You won’t need me. You’ll be fine.”
“But—”
“Go to the Wilkies’ down the road if something happens,” he said. End of discussion. He went to bed. When Leo got up the next morning, her father was gone.
So Leo and Henry kept the younger ones busy with chores as the days crawled by. In the evenings they sat around the fireplace where the boys shelled pecans and Leo mended shirts and stockings. She told them stories she remembered their mother telling her when she was younger, and they talked about other relatives they hadn’t seen in years.
The days passed and the little homestead in West Texas looked better than it ever had, even though there was still no sign of rain. As the weeks crept by, Leo began to feel less anxious about her father’s absence. Being the oldest, she was the one her siblings turned to for everything. Even Henry talked things over with her before making any decision. Leo wondered if she would have to cook and clean up after them for the rest of her life. She worried about the future. Too many things could happen to one of them, and eventually they would run out of supplies. Would Papa be back before the flour ran out? What would she feed them if the chickens stopped laying?
Eventually it got to where Henry came home with a rabbit or a squirrel more often than not when he went out hunting in the mornings. He became a good shot with his new rifle, and was even teaching the twins how to shoot. Leo’s skills as a cook improved, even though she longed to be outside in the sunshine instead of stuck in the cabin. When will Papa be back? She wondered. And how long will he stay next time?
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