The Scarred Man’s Healing Hope (Preview)

Chapter One

“Samuel, will you quit arguing with me?”

“But Mama didn’t make her flapjacks like this,” twelve-year-old Samuel complained.

A sudden rush of tears filled Erica’s eyes as she turned back to the stove, struggling between raising her voice to her brother and rushing outside to have a good cry. She’d experienced a wide variety of emotions since the death of their parents four months ago, suddenly finding herself caring for her younger brother and her family’s ranch along the North Platte River, west of Colby, Nebraska.

“And there’s not much maple syrup left,” Samuel said.

Erica turned toward him. His brown hair was tousled and needing a haircut. He looked up at her with green eyes the color of newly sprouted spring grass. Most of the time he was adorable and impish, and quite smart when he put his mind to it. 

He, like her, had struggled since their parent’s deaths and didn’t yet grasp the permanency of it. At twenty-two years of age, she’d never imagined that she would find herself unexpectedly in charge of her younger brother, and a large cattle ranch to boot.

“Just eat your breakfast, Samuel,” she groaned. 

“Can I have something else instead?”

Erica bit her lip and strove for patience before glancing over her shoulder at him. “No you can’t, Sam. Please, just eat.”

She turned around and glared at the worn cast-iron skillet. Using a hand towel, she moved the skillet off the burner and onto the pull-out shelf jutting from the side of the stove. Heaving a sigh, she untied her apron and draped it over the back of the empty chair at the kitchen table. 

Without a word to Samuel, she abruptly turned to walk out the kitchen door and through the mud room, pushing open the screen door, which slammed loudly behind her as she strode outside. Dawn’s cool air caressed her skin, her vision blurring with hot tears as she headed blindly toward the clothesline and grasped the post, squeezing tightly. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, don’t cry!

She focused her gaze on the eastern horizon, where the orange-pink colors of dawn hovered over the flat landscape, and the stars above were gradually fading as the night sky incrementally lightened into a deep blue. She waited for the sun to peek over the horizon, praying that it would give her courage to face yet another day.

She’d done enough crying the past few weeks to fill a lifetime, and yet the tears never seemed to stop. Not since the moment she had learned that her parents died in a stagecoach accident on their way to Grand Island to take care of some ranch business.

Sheriff Victor Mullen of the nearby town of Colby had been the one to ride out to the spread and inform Erica of the tragic news. She didn’t think she’d ever forget that moment, not for the rest of her life. The moment her brain grasped what he told her, it was if all the air left her body all at once. It was only his quick hand that caught her before she crumbled to her knees.

She had waited until Samuel came home from school before giving him the news. She’d watched him ride his pony into the yard, dreading the coming moments. Erica didn’t think he’d quite forgiven her for that yet, for not coming to get him right away and telling him, for letting him play and laugh, unaware that his parents were gone, and he would never see them again.

She felt a hand on her arm and glanced down to find Samuel beside her, his own eyes watery and filled with concern.

“You all right?”

She swallowed and tried to smile. “Yes. Sorry I scolded you.” 

“I guess I deserved it.”

She felt even worse when a tear ran down his cheek. “No, you didn’t.” She reached out and gave him a hug. “I miss Mama and Papa too.” He tolerated it for a moment or two before he squirmed and she let go. 

Before their parent’s death, Samuel had been a lighthearted child, always bright and cheerful. Erica hadn’t seen him smile once since the moment she’d told him the news. She wanted to see that smile again, but didn’t know how to get it back. 

“We’re going to be all right. I promise,” she said, then inwardly cringed. She was the last person who should be making any promises. 

She gazed out at the endless miles of prairie surrounding the ranch. In the near distance to the west, low, rolling hills were dotted with spruce, pine, and yew trees. The earthy scent of sage filled the air, along with sweeter hints of juniper. 

Just months ago, the sights and scents had given her a sense of place, of home. Now it seemed different. Several of the ranch hands had already quit. She didn’t much blame them. While a rancher’s daughter, she knew little about actual ranch management. 

The cornfield seemed to be doing all right, stalks maybe six inches tall, but she was late starting on the vegetable garden. Another stab at her heart. Erica had always helped her mother with the garden. Though she knew she needed to do it, she couldn’t even make herself reach for the hoe leaning against the house. It reminded her of her mother, of her absence.

She looked up at the sky, still a soft blue, but as the sun rose it would grow deeper. Her hopes of a gentle rain disappeared when she saw nary a cloud in the sky. In the distant northern and southern regions of acreage, dark brown spots dotted the landscape. She wasn’t quite sure how many cattle they had now, but her father had hoped to take a large number of them to the stockyards in Ogallala, one-hundred-fifty miles to the west.

The cattle were just another issue. Her father had always handled that part of the ranch business, but she had little knowledge of what needed to be done, or when. The cow hands seemed to sense her indecision and, though mostly polite, didn’t step up to help.

She turned away from the prairie and eyed the house with a sigh. The two-story, square wooden structure with a mudroom jutting out from the south end of the kitchen could use a new coat of whitewash. Just north of the mudroom but before the corner of the rear of the house, were the trapdoors to the root cellar. Glancing at them prompted a sigh. She had to take stock of their supplies and determine what they needed and how much.

So much to be done, and yet she didn’t know where to start. Erica felt adrift and alone.

She had always thought of herself as a mature, serious minded young woman, but the accident had changed everything. Now she was in charge of the house, her little brother, fields of corn and hay, not to mention the cattle. 

She walked toward the front of the house, eyeing the barn that held their four plow horses and three riding horses; the pony for Samuel, a buckskin mare for Erica, and her father’s gelding. Closer to her stood the chicken house with their twenty-four chickens and two roosters, both of which had woken her nearly an hour ago.

How is one person supposed to take care of all this? 

Now, a mere four months since her parents had been buried, nearly half the ranch hands plus the foreman had quit, shocking her. She thought they’d been so loyal to her father. 

It had been her best friend, Samantha Wells, who told her the truth of the matter. She and Samantha, the reverend’s daughter, had been friends since the Erica’s family had arrived from western Ohio fifteen years ago. Erica could remember her words as she’d spoken them just yesterday.

“They’re leaving because they don’t want to work for someone so young, and a woman at that,” Samantha had said.

“What do you mean?” Erica replied aghast. “I grew up on this ranch! They know me!”

“My father says that you should find yourself a foreman who will put together a new crew.”

Well, just a month ago, she had done just that, posting notices through town. The reverend had posted notices in other towns as he made his rounds. So far, no one had come to the ranch to apply for the job. 

Grumbling under her breath, she kicked at the loose stones in the dirt, trying not to feel sorry for herself, trying not to blame God for all the bad things that had happened recently. Her parents dying, the ranch hands quitting, leaving her with four hands who grew more belligerent by the day; her little brother often misbehaving…

“I can’t do this by myself,” she murmured, glancing up at the brightening blue sky. “I just can’t.”

Tomorrow was Saturday. Maybe she would let Samuel go fishing with his friends. At least they could have fish for supper. 

Today while Samuel was at school, she would ride into town and get a few supplies from the mercantile and then she needed to stop in at the bank to talk to George Eckersley, the owner. Before her parent’s death, she had known little about how much it cost to run a ranch operation, keep the house, balance a budget, nor all the small details that her father had taken care of.

Straightening her shoulders, she returned to the house, deeply touched when she saw Samuel washing his breakfast plate at the almost brand-new porcelain sink in the kitchen beneath the window looking east. A small hand pump bolted to the counter brought water from the well in the front yard. She’d always taken that and the pump for granted, until she remembered having to carry buckets of water into the kitchen. Of course, I still need to for the horses and chickens…

She scolded herself for the negative thought. “You’re just feeling sorry for yourself, and that’s doing nothing for you or Samuel,” she muttered.

After Samuel saddled his pony and rode off to school, she decided she would saddle her own horse and ride into town to visit with Samantha. Maybe she could even convince Samantha to go to the bank with her, providing a little extra support when she asked Mister Eckersley for a little more time to pay the upcoming property tax bill.

Erica had just finished changing her dress to go into town, the sun rising steadily in the east and removing any hint of remaining dew from prairie grasses that encroached the edges of the yard, when she heard a buggy approaching. 

She glanced at the clock on the living room mantle, thinking it a little early for visitors. She glanced out the window and smiled. Hurrying to the door, she flung it open and stepped off the porch just as Samantha wheeled the horse and buggy around.

“Morning, Erica!” her friend said with a grin. “Hope I’m not disturbing you too terribly early?”

“Nope,” Erica smiled and stepped off the porch as Samantha hopped down from the buggy and reached into the back seat to retrieve a large glass dish covered with a red and white checkered cloth. “In fact, I was just getting ready to head into town to come see you.”

“Oh?” Samantha smiled. “Well, I must have read your mind and here I am. Mother thought that you and Samuel might enjoy the last of her canned rhubarb. She baked you a cobbler.” 

“Oh my goodness, my mouth is watering already,” Erica grinned, leading the way into the house and then into the kitchen.

Samantha placed the dish on the small kitchen table and lifted the cloth. Erica leaned down and inhaled deeply. The aroma was mouthwatering. The pastry was browned just perfectly, as Martha Wells’s baked goods always were. She briefly closed her eyes as she caught hints of warm cinnamon and clove spices and the tart aroma of the rhubarb.

“You have time for short visit?” Samantha asked.

“Of course,” Erica grinned. “The longer I can put off my chores, the better. For a while at least,” she added.

“Well, I shouldn’t be helping you do that,” Samantha murmured.

Erica swung out a hand. “There’s just so much to do every day, I don’t even know where to start anymore. I’m down to a handful of ranch hands, who’re primarily keeping an eye on the cattle.” She shook her head. “For now, the rain will take care of the crops, but the house and the yard and animals keep me busy from dawn to dark.”

“You haven’t gotten any responses to your notice for a new ranch foreman?”

Erica frowned and shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that. The ranch hands seem to think I don’t know anything about cattle, and when I suggest they move them from one section of pasture to another, they look at me as if I’ve suddenly grown two heads.”

“That’s one of the reasons I came out this morning,” Samantha said. “A man came to town yesterday morning with the ad you placed for a foreman. He’s going to speak to my father today about it, since you asked him to be your go-between, that is.”

Hope rose inside Erica. 

Finally. 

“Is he interested?”

“He is,” Samantha nodded, followed by a slight grimace. “My father said he would bring the man out here later today or tomorrow morning to speak with you, but thought that I should let you know a little bit about what I’ve overheard from my parents about him.”

Erica frowned. “Why? My notice plainly stated that I need someone experienced with cattle ranching. Is he?”

Samantha nodded. “I heard my mother saying she’s heard some gossip about him.”

Erica frowned. “You know I don’t hold with gossip, Sam.”

She waited for more.

“I know, Erica, but a few people saw him when he got into town.”

 “He’s… he’s badly scarred, Erica.” She glanced out the window again. “From what I overheard, I guess he  can be… difficult to look at.”

Erica shook her head. “I don’t care what he looks like on the outside as long as he can help me turn this ranch around. It’s falling apart around my ears.”

Samantha smirked. “Men don’t think we know anything.” She paused, her smile disappearing as a worried frown took its place. “There’s another reason why I came out to see you so early.”

Erica’s heart sank. Now what? She didn’t say anything but waited for the other proverbial shoe to drop. 

“I heard another rumor yesterday afternoon.”

“You know better than to listen to rumors, Samantha.” 

Twenty-year-old Samantha was a lovely young woman with blond hair and bright blue eyes. As the minister’s daughter, Samantha had grown up fairly sheltered and somewhat pampered. Her parent’s paid close attention to where she spent her time and with whom. 

It was true that when they were younger they got into a bit of trouble, mostly Erica’s fault, but Joshua and Martha Wells nevertheless seemed to think Erica had a pretty good head on her shoulders and believed she was responsible – at least most of the time. The reverend and his wife had expressed concerns that Erica might be taken advantage of due to her suddenly parentless, unmarried state, coupled with the amount of property that she had inherited. She didn’t believe it. There were no beaus waiting to court her.

“This one is important.”

Erica eyed her friend’s serious expression and her heart sank. “Just tell me.”

Samantha hesitated only a second before she blurted it out. “Theodore Morrow is back in town.”

Erica’s heart skipped a beat. Her face flushed hot. She’d had a schoolgirl’s crush on him for years as a child. At sixteen, just blossoming into young womanhood, Theodore had finally taken notice.

 Only a few years older than herself, she nevertheless believed the handsome young man so wise and charming. He’d asked her to a barn dance that spring and she’d fallen in love with him then and there. She thought they were a couple, that any day he would ask permission to court her. She’d enjoyed six long months of his company, when he and his family just up and disappeared, apparently headed for California to find gold.

“I’m sorry,” Samantha murmured, placing a hand on Erica’s. “I know how terribly hurt you were when he left.”

“But he didn’t just leave,” Erica muttered. “He disappeared. From one day to the next, without a note, without having the courtesy to come by and see me before he left…” 

Oh, it had been awful. Her young, untested heart had been broken, so much so that she had sworn then and there never to allow herself to fall in love ever again.

“He was a cad,” Samantha agreed. “But I thought you should know before, well, before you ventured into town and suddenly saw him there.”

Despite herself, she couldn’t help it. “Have you seen him?” The last time she’d seen Theodore, his sandy brown hair had been full and wavy, long enough to brush the collar of his shirt. His blue eyes, sharp features, and that infernal grin of his had been imprinted in her memory for years. He’d been just shy of his twentieth birthday when his family left town. He would be around twenty-four now.

Samantha nodded, a frown tugging at her eyebrows. 

Erica grew impatient. “Well, does he look the same?”

Samantha pressed her lips together and slowly shook her head. “No, he doesn’t.”

Erica waited for more but none was forthcoming. “What?”

Samantha heaved a sigh and looked out the kitchen window, slowly shaking her head. “He looks… rough… like things have been hard on him. I didn’t see his brothers, Marcus or Nathan.”

Erica vaguely recalled that Marcus was one year older than Theodore, while Nathan was two years younger.

“I overheard that his father had passed away a couple of years after they left for California. Their mother got remarried, but apparently her new husband didn’t want anything to do with them, so she ran off with him and left her sons to their own devices.”

“That’s awful!”

Samantha shrugged softly. “From what I overheard Father telling Mother, they’ve all gotten into trouble now and then with the law.”

Erica couldn’t have been more surprised. She leaned back in her chair, eyes on her friend. “And he’s back in town here? In Colby?”

Samantha nodded. 

A myriad of emotions swept through Erica, nearly taking her breath away. Everything from anger prompted by what she perceived as his betrayal, mixed in with the bittersweet leftovers for the love that she had held in her heart for him for so long. 

Chapter Two

Caleb wasn’t sure what to expect. He’d gotten his hopes up before and look what happened. No one had to tell him he was a terrible sight. He stood in front of the mirror in the room at the small, four-bedroom hotel in the town of Colby. 

Just because I’m disfigured don’t mean I can’t work. 

Just shy of thirty, he’d spent most of his young adulthood working on ranches throughout Indian Territory, sometimes as far west as Colorado and Wyoming territories as well. He tried not to think too much about his life before the war because it just made him bitter for all that he’d lost. 

He’d only turned twenty years old when the War Between the States broke out. He, like nearly every other man in towns across the territory, chose their side. He decided, as did many others in the Territory, with the Confederacy. 

So many battles, so much death and dying. Then, during the brutal Wilderness Campaign in May of sixty-four, he’d been wounded by an exploding cannonball. Its shrapnel had left him near death but God wasn’t done with him just yet and he survived. He sometimes wished he hadn’t.

The campaign had only lasted a couple of days, but the casualties had been staggering. Nearly thirty thousand dead from both sides. It was the first time that Confederate General Robert E Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia had fought against Yankee Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. Caleb had been in the thick of it until he’d been wounded, only to wake up days later in a field hospital.

Now, exactly five years later down to the month, he stood at the wash table in the small hotel room, shaving mug in one hand, brush in the other, glaring at his reflection. 

He grabbed the cloth he’d hung over the mirror and dropped it next to the washbasin. He often avoided mirrors. Caleb inhaled deeply as he eyed his reflection, head turned toward the right, offering a three-quarter profile.

“Not too bad,” he muttered.

As always, he tried to picture himself as others did. His forehead, strong nose and jaw line weren’t so bad. His slightly hooded eyes a dark brown. His hair was a little long and could use a trim. 

Then he turned his face the other way. The bad side. He refused to wear a bandanna like some kind of outlaw to avoid the looks of shock or horror by many of those who gazed at him. At moments like that, he wanted nothing more than to snarl at them and tell them this is what war looks like.

He quickly shaved, not that the right side of his cheek needed a lot. The whiskers didn’t grow in scar tissue. He then swept his fingers through his thick black hair, trying to settle the couple of waves in it, muttering to his reflection.

“Good enough.”

He left the room, hat in hand, made his way down the runner that lined the hallway and then downstairs to the lobby. The man tending the front desk glanced at him, did a double take, and then studiously avoided looking at him as he was greeted.

“Good morning, Mister Morgan,” the desk clerk said, reaching for the registration book and staring at it as if he’d never seen it before.

“Morning,” Caleb replied. He’d gotten used to those looks over the years. “The note you gave me from Reverend Wells last night mentioned I should meet him at his place this morning. Where does he live?”

The man glanced up and quickly away, pointing out the front door and toward the west. “It’s on the edge of town, south side of the street. Can’t miss it. His house is right behind the church.”

“Thanks,” Caleb replied. At the doorway, he paused long enough to inhale deeply and then release a breath, knowing that as soon as he stepped outside he would once again face a gauntlet. 

He felt stiff and sore today after days of riding. He’d come up from Kansas, where he’d hired on with a crew of cowboys driving a herd of cattle from Pueblo to Dodge City, and got halfway to Wichita before he’d left them.

He’d headed north then, looking for work; eventually ending up in Fort Kearny where he saw a work-for-hire notice pinned to a board in the post office of a town called Colby, just west of the old fort. 

The note told anyone interested to see Reverend Joshua Wells. The notice specified an experienced, honest, and law-abiding man for the position of foreman for one of the area ranches. He’d pulled the notice down, folded it and shoved it in his pocket, then headed north.

Now, here he was in the small town of Colby, ready to present himself to the good reverend. Following the directions the desk agent had given, he watched the town come alive just after the sun rose over the eastern horizon. The double hung doors of the mercantile opened and a man carrying a broom stepped out. Caleb automatically turned the damaged side of his face away and nodded a greeting.

“Good morning!” the mercantile owner said chirpily. He began to sweep non-existent leaves and dirt from the boardwalk in front of the doors. A couple of people strode purposely down the other side of the street without looking his way. He saw signs for the gun shop, a shoemaker, and a small bank constructed of stone blocks. 

Off on a side street he glanced to the south, toward a solitary stone building. A shingle announcing ‘Sheriff’ hung from the overhang. At the corner of the bank, a wooden placard read ‘Doctor – Bernard Kendrick’ with an arrow pointed up the stairs to the second story. 

Caleb cringed. If he never saw a doctor again in his life he would count himself a lucky man. He moved on and eventually reach the edge of town. On the south side of the road stood a schoolhouse on a low rise. On the corner opposite stood a small church. 

Constructed of wood, the oblong structure boasted a small steeple with a small copper bell on top. Behind it stood a cottage. The cottage itself was surrounded by a white picket fence along with colorful flower beds in front. He stopped just outside the fence and tried to tamp down a sudden surge of envy.

Taking another deep breath, Caleb walked through the opening in the gate, his back straight as he could make it. When he was six feet away from the door, it swung open. A woman stood in the doorway, staring at him with a bit of surprise. She appeared to be around fifty, with brown hair turning gray. The smile of greeting she wore didn’t falter as he stepped closer.

“Good morning, young man,” she said politely. Her gaze quickly skimmed over him and then she met his eyes and gestured toward the church. “If you’re looking to talk to God, you can go right on in. The door’s always open.”

Her comment surprised him and all he could do for a moment was stare. From inside the house he heard a male voice.

“Who is it, dear?”

The woman spoke over her shoulder. “I suppose it’s a man who came to have a word with God.” She turned back to Caleb. “Go on in, Mister….?”

Caleb belatedly pulled his hat from his head introduced himself. “Caleb Morgan. Just got into town last night.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew the notice. “I’m—”

“He’s come with the notice for the foreman job on the Wells’s place,” the woman announced to the man in the house.

Moments later, the man appeared in the doorway. He wore black trousers and a black long sleeved shirt. A white preacher’s collar told him that this was Reverend Joshua Wells. The preacher eyed him as calmly as his wife had.

“Come on in,” the reverend invited. His wife smiled.

Caleb wondered what was wrong with these people. Where they blind? Why hadn’t they reacted to his scars? Everyone else did.

The pastor stuck out his hand. “Reverend Joshua Wells.”

Caleb extended his own. “Caleb Morgan.” He tried to ignore the sight of yet another scar threading its way up his arm from the base of his index finger and along the back of his hand until it disappeared under the cuff of his shirt. “The position been filled yet?”

Wells shook his head and glanced at his wife with a lifted eyebrow. He didn’t have to say a word. The woman gestured Caleb inside and into a small parlor. “Please have a seat, Mister Morgan. I’ve got coffee brewing and some wonderful coffee cake, if I do say so myself.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt your breakfast—”

“Oh, we’ve already had breakfast,” she smiled. “Are you hungry? I can cook you up some ham and eggs if you’d like.”

He was lucky his stomach didn’t rumble at that moment. “No, thank you, Missus Wells. I’m fine.”

As Martha Wells moved into the kitchen across the hall from the parlor, Caleb carefully sat on the edge of a small settee covered in dark blue fabric. The room wasn’t as cluttered as some parlors he’d been in. In fact, it was quite cozy. A brick fireplace stood on the far wall, two upholstered chairs in each corner, and a filled-to-the-brim bookshelf directly across from the settee. Two porcelain lamps stood on side tables.

“So, you’ve come for the job as foreman for Pine Valley Ranch,” Reverend Wells stated, slapping his hands on his knees.

“Yes sir.” Caleb couldn’t figure out why neither the preacher nor his wife had more than briefly glanced at the scars and acted as if they hadn’t see them. 

He then answered a number of questions. Was he married? Where did he come from? Did he have cattle experience?

“I was raised in Dakota Territory,” Caleb said. “My mother died when I was little. I set off on my own when I was fourteen, worked cattle ranches throughout the territory. My father worked for the railroad, building tracks until he died in an accident there in ’61. When I was about twenty, I went off to war. Got hurt in the Wilderness. 

“After I spent a year or so in Army hospitals in Virginia, I made my way back home. Found out that my brother had died too, in a mining accident in Colorado Territory. Been wandering around from place to place ever since.” He paused. The preacher had paid close attention. 

“So you’ve got no one waiting for you anywhere?”

“Not anymore, sir.”

At that moment, Martha Wells brought in a tray with three steaming porcelain coffee mugs and a plate of coffeecake. The aromas managed to prompt a grumble from Caleb’s belly. His face flushed hot for a moment until Martha laughed softly.

“No one ever turns down my coffeecake, Mister Morgan.” She gestured with her chin as she sat the tray on the table in front of the settee. “Go on, take a mug and a piece of coffeecake. You won’t regret it.”

She was right. The coffee was perfect: hot, strong and black. The coffeecake was delicious. He wasn’t sure what to make of this couple. Sure, Wells was a preacher and was supposed to look beneath the surface into the heart and soul of a person, but these two acted like his scars were nothing. He hesitated then spoke plainly.

“I have some scars, obviously, and I won’t deny that sometimes—depending on the weather—my muscles will ache and my joints get stiff.” He didn’t tell them about other scars riddling his body that sometimes caused him terrible backaches and a stiff left hip and knee. “But I know everything there is to know about cattle…breeding them, catching, branding and moving them from here to there. So let’s get this part over with.” He paused, looking Wells straight in the eye. “Why are you speaking for the ranch owner?”

The preacher glanced at his wife. She turned to Caleb and gave him a small smile. “Because the ranch owner happens to be a twenty-two-year-old young woman with a younger brother. Their parents recently died, Mister Morgan. She’s inherited the place and has made an attempt  to run it on her own. 

“Half the hands left after her father died because they didn’t want to work for a woman. She’s not only got the cattle, but also a corn and hay field to take care of, as well as the yard stock and the house. She’s struggling, and needs help managing the ranch—at least for a little while until she gets her feet under her.”

A brief surge of disappointment ran through Caleb. A young woman. He was going to be working for a young woman who needed help. He shook his head at learning that half the hands had already deserted her.

“You still interested?” Joshua Wells asked.

Caleb stood. “Let’s go meet her.”