“You want me to buy Thanksgiving Day dinner for the orphanage?”
“Yes. I know that is very forward of me, Mr. Conyers, and if that is asking too much, please understand that we will be extremely grateful for whatever you can give.”
“How about if I buy the Thanksgiving Day dinner, and give you five thousand dollars?” Big Ben said.
Sister Mary Katherine gasped, then stepped back to her chair, falling rather than sitting in it.
“Sister Mary Katherine, are you all right?” Big Ben asked.
The elderly nun looked up at Big Ben and moved her mouth, but no words came out.
“Sister! Sister, come in here quick!” Big Ben called, and a moment later an anxious Sister Dominique came running into the room.
“What is it? What has happened?” she asked, anxiously.
“I don’t know,” Big Ben said. “She just suddenly. . . ,” he didn’t know what to say so he made a motion with his hands toward her.
“Sister Dominique,” Sister Mary Katherine said, her voice strong and clear. “Do you have any idea what this—this wonderful gentleman has just done?”
“What?”
“He has just given us five thousand dollars!”
“Oh. God bless you, sir. God bless you!” Sister Dominique said.
Big Ben took the packet of money from his jacket pocket, fifty one-hundred-dollar bills, and put them on the corner of the desk.
“I will stop by Wagner’s Grocery Store and tell him to give you whatever you need for your Thanksgiving Day dinner,” Big Ben said. “I’ll settle with him afterward.”
“God, indeed, sent you to us,” Sister Mary Katherine said.
“There is something I would like for you to do for me,” Big Ben said. “If you would, I would like for you to pray for my daughter. I mean, I can pray for her myself, and I do, but I have to sort of believe the prayers would mean more coming from you.”
“Of course we will pray for her. Is she ill?”
“No. She is—we had a disagreement and she has left home. She is on her way back home now, and I would like you to pray for her safety, and, if it is not too much, for an agreeable reunion between us.”
“What is her name?” Sister Mary Katherine asked.
“Her name is Rebecca. Rebecca Jane Conyers.”
“We will do a Novena for her,” Sister Mary Katherine promised.
“Thank you,” Big Ben said.
“No, Mr. Conyers, we thank you. And, God bless you,” Sister Mary Katherine said.
The two sisters walked him back out to his surrey. It sagged under his weight, then he reached for the reins, clucked to his horse, and drove off.
“This will be the most wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas our children have ever known,” Sister Dominique said as they walked back into the orphanage. “In fact you might say this is a Christmas miracle.”
“It is Moses Coffey’s Christmas miracle,” Sister Mary Katherine said.
“Moses Coffey?”
“You didn’t know Moses,” Sister Mary Katherine said. “He left before you arrived. He was one of our young men who left and worked for that wonderful gentlemen who just stopped by to visit. Poor Moses was killed a few days ago, and this money was given us in his honor.”
“Then we must remember him in our prayers,” Sister Dominique said.
“I will remember him in my prayers for the rest of my life,” Sister Mary Katherine said.
On the trail, November 24
With the wagons already gone ahead to find a spot for the noon break, the cows were strung out for three quarters of a mile, heading south. Duff and Clay were riding point, one on each side, Matt and Smoke were on the east side of the herd, while Falcon, Tom, and Dusty were on the west side. Dalton was riding drag.
Duff and Clay rode well back from the lead cattle but moved forward, closing in as the occasion required. That way, they could control the belled steer and set the course. The main body of the herd trailed along behind the leaders as if this were some great army in loose marching order.
The swing men, those riding on either side of the herd, had the job of seeing that none of the herd wandered away or dropped out. Although it was a cattle drive, there was no real driving to do. Once underway, the cattle moved of their own free will.
“The secret of driving cattle,” Dusty had told the others that morning, “is to never let them know they are being drove. From the moment they start out in the morning, you need to let them think they are on their own. Then it becomes just a matter of ridin’ along and sort of loafin’ in the saddle.”
“Hard to loaf when you’re eatin’ a lot of dust,” Dalton said.
“Son, you are the one who didn’t want to drive the hoodlum wagon anymore,” Clay said. “Now which would you rather do?”
“I’d rather ride point,” Dalton said.
“And I’d rather be riding in a fine carriage somewhere, with pretty ladies tendin’ to me,” Dusty said.
The others, including Dalton, laughed.
They had bacon, beans, and cornbread for lunch.
“I tell you what,” Dusty said. “I’ve been on a lot of cattle drives in my life. But I ain’t never ate no better’n what we done comin’ up, or goin’ back. And I ain’t never been on a cattle drive where we had such beautiful ladies to look at. You boys just don’t know how lucky you are.”
The three women smiled at the compliment.
“Dusty, I hope that compliment wasn’t just to get a piece of apple pie,” Sally said.
“No, ma’am, it sure wasn’t,” Dusty said. “But if you happen to have some pie, well, that would be just fine.”
“We don’t have any pie,” Sally said.
“Well, who needs pie with a fine meal like this?”
“But I did make some bear claws,” Sally said.
“Wow!” Matt said. “Dusty, you are in for a treat. There is nobody in the world who can make bear claws like Sally.”
“Pearlie and Cal should be here,” Smoke teased, thinking of how much his two cowboys liked Sally’s bear claws.
“If they were here there wouldn’t be any left for anyone else,” Sally said as she brought a large tin bowl out, filled with the pastries.
After lunch, as the wagons were preparing to move out, Clay came over to Tom.
“Tom, would you take a look at the left rear wheel on the hoodlum wagon? Rebecca says it is squealing something awful, and Maria says she and Mrs. Jensen can even hear it from their wagon.”
Tom looked over toward the wagon and saw Rebecca standing there. He almost asked Clay to ask someone else to do it, but he kept it to himself.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll see what it needs.”
“Probably just needs some grease,” Clay said.
There was a bucket of grease hanging from underneath both wagons, and Clay reached under the hoodlum wagon to pull it out.
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said. “It looks like you are going to get your hands all greasy because of me.”
“It’s not your fault,” Tom said. “When a wheel axle has skeins instead of bearings, you are going to get friction. And that friction is going to cause squeaking.”
He got down on one knee, then leaned over and studied the wheel hub. “Yes,” he said, pointing. “It’s nearly dry.”
“Tom,” Rebecca said. “We have to talk.”
“Talk about what?” Tom said. “I was a fool, I know that now. I hurt you deeply. I should have told you that I was married before.”
“And she hurt you? Are you divorced?”
“She is dead.”
“Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t have known. I didn’t tell you, because I couldn’t tell you.”