“I’ll be fine.”
“Not what I asked you.”
Forsythia stared down into the concern on her sister’s face. She felt the tears start again, tears that seemed to live right under the surface, the slightest nudge causing them to overflow.
“The nightmare?” Lark asked.
Forsythia nodded and shook her head, then shrugged, almost all at the same time. All I want to do is go home. That thought jerked her flat like she’d hit the end of a rope running.
“Hey, Lilac, leave the letter writing and lead the oxen, will you?” Lark called toward the back of the wagon.
“Sure. Something wrong?” Lilac tucked the paper and pencil back in the bag and made her way to the front to find Forsythia raining tears. She climbed over the bench seat and down to the ground, taking the whip from Lark. “Sythia, it’s going to be good again. God promised.”
Forsythia fought to smile through her tears. Lark waited for her at the back of the wagon with open arms. They sat on one of the long wooden boxes that held kettles and other cooking needs. Leaning into the comfort of sisterly arms, Forsythia failed to stop the sobs.
“If screaming will help, do so. Pound on the box. You can even pound on my knee.” Lark jiggled her leg.
“If it would, I might.” The words stuttered between the sobs.
“I did, and it does.”
Forsythia turned her head to stare at Lark, shock drying up the tear well. “When?”
“One night when I was trying to find Anders, a puffed-up officer told me to give it up and go home. Quit wasting my time. If Anders was indeed in a prison camp, he’d never come out again except in a wagonload of cadavers going to a mass burial.”
“Oh my . . . you never told us any of that.”
“I figured it was bad enough for me to know without inflicting it on all of you.”
“I’m so grateful you didn’t follow that advice. To think we came that close to losing Anders forever.” Forsythia felt like she could have wrung out her handkerchief. Instead, she flapped it a couple of times and mopped her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Now, let’s talk about what is happening with you.” Lark clasped her hands together, elbows resting on her knees.
“I keep seeing my knife stuck in that horrible man’s back. It all happened so fast, I didn’t even think about it. I just threw it.”
“Pa trained you well.”
“He didn’t train me to kill a man.”
“Perhaps not, but he did mean for you to defend yourself, or in this case, your sister. They say the first time is the hardest.”
Forsythia choked on the words. “I won’t do it again.”
“That’s why soldiers are trained by repetition so that shooting or stabbing or whatever they need to do is a reflex action, and they do it without thought. They also know that their job is to save their comrades as well as themselves. You were saving your sister’s life and possibly all of our lives. That man was enjoying what he was doing.”
“Will the nightmares and the horror ever go away?”
“That’s a God job, I think. Only He can see inside of your head. So we’ll pray, all of us together tonight, for Him to wash all this from your mind and soul. Remember, whiter than snow—that’s His cleansing power.”
“You ever thought of being a preacher?”
“God made me the wrong sex, according to certain people we used to know.”
Forsythia didn’t even try to stop the giggle she felt start in her toes and scrub its way out. “Lord, thank you. I am learning anew to trust you, this time with my mind and my heart. I trust your healing.” She sucked in a lung-filling breath and held it, almost feeling the release of . . . of she knew not what. “So now, when I feel like screaming, I go ahead and do so, only screaming, ‘Lord, help!’ or ‘I trust you, Lord!’” Another giggle escaped. Thank you, Lord. “But what if the emotions overcome me again?” She clenched Lark’s arm, feeling her whole body tense.
“Remember when we were little and if we were hurt or frightened, how Ma would sit down in her rocker, gather us into her lap, rock oh-so-gently, and sing to us?”
Forsythia tipped her head back, trying to dam the flow before it began. “Oh yes, I remember.” Her whisper allowed sweet tears to trickle down her smiling cheeks. “I remember.” A pang of mother-sickness rather than homesickness stabbed her heart. She watched the dust puffing out behind them, smelling and tasting the dryness of it. “Thank you, Larkspur. I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
“You can lie on the pallet and sleep as long as you need to.” Lark turned and took Forsythia’s hands in hers. “When—if—they come again, we will all pray together. We will beat this thing.”
Forsythia felt her head nodding.
Lark clambered back onto the wagon seat.
“All is well?” Lilac called from her position beside the oxen.
“All will be well,” Lark responded. “Remember Ma quoting some woman of long ago? ‘All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’”
“Possibly. That’s a good thing to remember. How about we stop when we reach some shade? Move around and take care of the animals?” Lilac suggested.
“Good idea.” Lark turned and smiled back at Forsythia, something of Ma’s love in her eyes. “All shall be well.”
“We’ll find a good place to camp with enough grazing and then stay there an extra day to give the animals a rest,” Lark told them a couple of days later. “Sythia, you want to ride ahead and find us a place to stop for the night?”
“Be happy to.”
Once mounted, Forsythia nudged Starbright into a lope and sat back to enjoy the rocking motion. She slowed to a jog through a small town made up of a mercantile, livery, church, a few houses, a school, and a saloon. Why did there always have to be a saloon?
She waved at
