Mountain Rose Read Online Free Page B

of you to please come and get her and take her to our parents. Her name is Raegan, and she is sweet and lovely. I know you will love her as you did me.
     
    Your loving sister, Anne
     
    Chase crushed the single sheet of paper in his fist. His Anne was dying. He stared unseeing at the disorder of the kitchen—mud tracked on the floor, ashes spilling out of the fireplace onto the hearth. There were rusty traps and broken pieces of bridles and reins tossed into one corner, a pile of soiled clothes in another. His wet eyes didn't see the cobwebs in the rafters that had been gathering there since Molly had passed away. He saw only the beautiful young girl riding off
     
    with her new husband, happy and in love.
     
    And what had that love brought her! Chase jerked to his feet and braced his hands on the mantel, staring down into the leaping flames of the fire. Nothing! It had brought her nothing but slow deterioration of her health and the birth of a little girl—a little girl that he must raise now. It hadn't entered his mind that he would not do so.
    "I must start for this mining town as soon as possible," he said to the empty room. "As soon as I have a bite to eat."
    As Chase gathered his gear and enough food for at least two days, a full moon rose, lighting the cabin almost as if it as if it were day. Good, he thought. I can get in at least three hours traveling before the moon sets.
    Within half an hour Chase had eaten and was closing the cabin door behind him. He hurried to the barn to saddle Sampson.
    Although Anne O'Keefe tried desperately to hang onto life, to see her brother once more, to know that her daughter would be taken care of, she was declining rapidly. Raegan and Mahalla spooned cough syrup and different broths between her pale lips, but she only coughed more often, spit up more blood.
    The day the wildflowers burst into bloom, and the day Chase Donlin received his letter, Anne Donlin quietly stopped breathing. With a low cry, Raegan, who had not left her mother's side for two days, hugged the emaciated body to her breast and felt a cold hollowness in the area of her heart.
    "Oh, Mama." Tears slid down her cheeks. "You didn't get to see the wildflowers bloom."
    In a haze of unreality, Raegan felt Mahalla take her mother from her and lay the thin body back on the pillows. Then, putting one foot in front of the other, as though in a dream, she allowed the old woman to lead her into the main room. Mahalla gently pushed her into a rocker, then went back to her mother.
    Mama hadn't gotten to see Uncle Chase either, Raegan remembered as she rocked slowly. It had been two weeks since she dropped the letter off at the post. Had he received it yet? Had he received it and didn't care to come see his sister? Didn't he want to be bothered with her daughter?
    There came the sound of sloshing water as Mahalla bathed her mother's body, preparing it for burial. Raegan clapped her hands over her ears to shut out the sound and didn't remove them until the old Indian joined her in front of the fire.
    "It is done," she said gently, "Come and see how peaceful Anne look."
    And it was true, Raegan saw when she gazed down on the pale, serene face, "She is happy now," Mahalla said beside her, "with your father. Do not grieve for her, Raegan."
    "I know I shouldn't, Mahalla," Raegan whispered brokenly, "but I don't know how I can bear it without her."
    "You will." The old woman took her arm and led her away. "You are strong. Your mother will always be in your heart, but in time she will become a beautiful memory."
    Raegan had just sat back down in the rocker when the miners began to arrive. They stood on the small stoop, unshaven but with faces scrubbed clean and misshappen hats clutched in red, chapped hands. The roughest men among them had a deep respect for O'Keefe's gentle widow and they had come to pay their last respects.
    Mahalla opened the door and motioned them in. They trooped into the bedroom, single file, to view the