Read Online Sanctuary by Gary D. Svee - Free Book Online Page B

white—by that bitter cold.
    It was after one of those days that she had the older boys run rope wings on either side of the school so that the children would not wander past in a storm, dropping one by one as the cold overtook them.
    The first minutes of school were spent unwrapping the children and shuffling them swiftly and soundlessly to the potbellied stove glowing red in the back of the room. It was there that she took inventory, determining who was missing and why, checking numb bodies for white or black flesh, sure signs of frostbite.
    Miss Dickens had become expert at treating flesh bitten by those bitter winds. Stricken students were given seats at the back of the room, where they could hide their pain and tears as frostbitten feet warmed in water put on the stove early that morning.
    As Miss Dickens faced them from the front of the room, holding tight to the reading book, she tried to drive the children’s quiet tears from her mind.
    It had been her habit during that first winter to watch for the children as they came to school in the morning and again as they trudged home at night. She didn’t know what she could do if windblown snow engulfed her students on their way home, but she watched anyway.
    That habit had carried over to early spring, especially after her friend Sarah White explained that spring storms with their soft white flakes were dreaded most by ranchers. Calves and lambs were on the ground and vulnerable.
    The children were vulnerable, too, Mary had said, and even though mud was beginning to ooze through the frostbitten soil, she stood in the doorway of the school, watching the children come in the morning and go in the afternoon.
    As the children passed a man and a young boy on the trail, Mary caught the flash of white against black. The man was a preacher, tall and slender and wearing a black suit and inverted collar that hung on him like crepe. The boy was a younger version of the preacher, tall and slender, and they both walked easy on the earth.
    As they approached, the preacher tipped his hat, the spring sun revealing his face—thin, sun-browned skin stretched tight over fine bones—and Mary wondered for a moment why he had left the warmth of that sun to journey to Montana.
    His eyes were brown and warm, belying the hawkish aspect of the rest of his face. He looked, she decided, as a conscripted poet might look in the midst of a long, bloody war.
    Mary ran that description past her tongue a couple of times, deciding she would use it in one of the novellas she puttered with in her spare time.
    â€œMordecai,” the preacher said, doffing his hat and holding it across his breast. “This young gentleman is Judd Medicine Elk.”
    Judd held himself absolutely motionless so that his drab clothing would become one with the raw prairie dirt and the teacher wouldn’t see him.
    â€œMary Dickens,” the teacher replied, returning the preacher’s grin. “What can I do for you two gentlemen?”
    â€œWanted to talk to you about renting some city land down by the dump.”
    â€œI was about to have tea,” Mary said. “Would you like some?”
    The preacher nodded, and they stepped toward the teacherage, Judd hanging back.
    â€œCome on, Judd. You can be the chaperon.”
    â€œA chaperon isn’t needed. It’s doubtful my reputation can be damaged any further,” Mary whispered as she led the two into the teacherage.
    The front room, kitchen, and dining room were all jammed into a space about ten feet square. A huge wood-burning stove dominated the south wall, totally eclipsing a table and two chairs parked next to it. A withered geranium poked from a flowerpot like a sentry posted to watch for the sun.
    A rocker with hand-stitched pads on the seat and back stood in the light of the setting sun that eased through the room’s only other window.
    Mary threw a couple of sticks into the stove, and embers left from its noon feeding