Then a winter storm had taken Daniel while he was helping drive a small herd through a mountain pass.
His horse returned two days later.
Daniel did not.
After that, Emily learned how quickly a home could change.
Her mother began sewing shirts for ranch hands and mending coats for travelers.
Emily left school and found work in town.
At first, Sarah protested.
“You ought to finish your learning,” she had said.
Emily had answered with the confidence of a fifteen-year-old who knew almost nothing about the weight she was accepting.
“I can learn after we get through the winter.”
But one winter became another.
And the following spring brought debts instead of relief.
Now Emily worked six days a week at the Willow Creek Café, serving coffee, washing dishes, sweeping floors, and doing whatever else the manager demanded.
Her weekly wages were small.
The tips helped.
Sometimes, on a good Saturday, she brought home enough money to buy flour, lamp oil, and a little sugar.
Sometimes she returned with barely enough to pay for the horse feed.
Still, she was grateful to have work.
Jobs for young women were not easy to find in Cedar Hollow, especially jobs that paid in cash.
When she finished breakfast, Emily stood and pulled on her old wool coat.
Sarah watched her.
“Clouds are gathering.”
“I saw them.”
“Take your father’s rain cloak.”
“The green one?”
“Yes.”
“It’s too big.”
“It’ll keep you dry.”
Emily looked toward the peg beside the door.
The cloak had belonged to Daniel.
It was heavy, worn, and patched near the shoulder, but it still smelled faintly of leather and cedar smoke.
She touched the fabric.
For a moment, she could almost hear her father’s voice.
Don’t let a little rain stop you, Emmy.
Just be sure you know where you’re going.
She slipped the cloak around her shoulders.
Sarah rose carefully and crossed the room.
“Come here.”
Emily leaned forward, allowing her mother to straighten the collar.
Sarah’s hands paused at her daughter’s shoulders.
“You work too hard,” she whispered.
Emily smiled.
“So do you.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because I’m your mother.”
Emily wrapped her arms around her.
“Then you should know where I learned it.”
They held each other a moment longer than usual.
When Emily stepped outside, she found her younger brother, Thomas, struggling with a bucket beside the barn.
At twelve, Thomas had their father’s sandy hair and the same serious expression whenever he was determined to do something difficult.
The bucket was almost as large as his legs.
Emily hurried toward him.
“Tommy, you’ll spill that.”
“I won’t.”
Water splashed over his boots.
Emily raised an eyebrow.
“Of course not.”
Thomas sighed.
“Don’t tell Mama.”
“I won’t if you let me help.”
Together, they carried the bucket to the trough.
Their old mare, Daisy, lifted her head and greeted them with a low snort.
Thomas stroked her nose.
“Do you think we’ll have enough hay?”
Emily glanced toward the small stack beneath the shed roof.
“We’ll manage.”
“That’s what Mama says.”
“Mama is usually right.”
Thomas was quiet for a moment.
Then he asked, “Will we lose the farm?”
The question struck Emily harder than the cold wind.
She looked at her brother.
He was still young enough to ask questions that adults avoided, but old enough to understand when an answer was not quite true.
Emily placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m going to do everything I can to keep us here.”
Thomas studied her face.
“Promise?”
Emily hesitated.
She had learned that promises were dangerous when the world did not always care what a person wanted.
But this was her little brother.
And he was frightened.
“I promise I’ll keep trying,” she said.
“No matter how hard it gets.”
Thomas nodded.
That seemed to be enough.
Emily kissed the top of his head, picked up her small lunch bundle, and started down the road toward town.
The morning wind followed her across the open fields.
Cedar Hollow lay nearly three miles from the Bennett farm, nestled between rolling grassland and a line of low pine-covered hills.
By 1891, the town had grown from a handful of cabins into a busy little trading center.
A railroad spur had arrived five years earlier, bringing freight wagons, merchants, laborers, and families hoping to make a living in the West.
There was a blacksmith, a general store, a church, a schoolhouse, a livery stable, and two streets lined with wooden businesses.
Beyond the last buildings stretched ranchland and open country, where cattle grazed under a sky so wide that Emily sometimes felt it could swallow every worry she carried.
The town had its troubles.
Winters could be cruel.
Summer droughts ruined crops.
Ranchers struggled with low cattle prices, and travelers sometimes arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
