A Creed Country Christmas by Linda Lael Miller Page A

right, Ben,” Tom told the boy. “Things get bad, you send Joseph out to the range to fetch me.”
    Glumly, stamping his feet to get the circulation going, Ben nodded, his breath making puffs of steam in the air, like their own. “With all this snow, I don’t see how I could get to town to bring back the doctor.”Joseph had turned to Tom. “Don’t I get to go with you? Out to the range?”
    “Mike can do that. You’ll stay here and help Art load the sled with hay.”
    There was a protest brewing in the boy’s face, but it soon dissolved. He sighed and went on toward the barn.
    They hauled the first load of hay out to the range half an hour later, and found the cattle in clusters, instinctively sharing their warmth and blocking the wind as best they could. The air they exhaled rose over them like smoke from a chimney.
    The creek was slushy, but it flowed.
    They went back to the barn for another load of feed, and then another. Tom scanned the surrounding plain for wolf or coyote tracks, and found none.
    They headed back and met a panicked Joseph, all but stuck in snow reaching to his midthighs and waving both arms.
    Lincoln, driving the team while Tom rode behind him on the sled, felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.
    The boy shouted something, but Lincoln couldn’tmake out the words. It didn’t matter. Something was wrong, that was all he needed to know.
    He drove the draft horses harder, and Tom scrambled off the sled and crow-hopped his way through the snow toward the boy.

Chapter Five
    L incoln heard the screams as he left the horses with Joseph to be unhitched, led to their stalls, rubbed down and fed. He followed Tom toward the cabin out by the bunkhouse, moving as fast as he could.
    Glancing once toward the main house, he saw Gracie and Theresa standing at the window, both their faces pale with worry.
    The cabin was only about eight by eight feet, so it was impossible to overlook the straining form in the center of the bed. Juliana was seated nearby, holding Rose-of-Sharon Gainer’s hand and speaking softly, and the sight of her calmed Lincoln a little.
    Nothing was going to calm Ben, though.
    He paced at the foot of the bed, frenzied, shoving both hands through his hair every few steps. He looked like a wild man, some hermit from the high timber, baffled by his new surroundings.
    “You go on over to the big house,” Tom told the young husband firmly. “You’ll be of no help to us here.”
    Ben set his jaw, glanced at his weeping, sweating wife, and looked as though he might throw a punch. Finally, though, he bent over Rose-of-Sharon, kissed her forehead and did as he’d been told, putting on his coat, passing Lincoln without a word or a look and closing the cabin door smartly behind him.
    Lincoln, unsure of whether to stay or follow right on Ben’s heels, stood just inside the door, turning his gaze to the pitiful little Christmas tree with its strands of colored yarn and awkwardly cut paper ornaments. Two packages, wrapped in brown paper and tied with coarse twine, lay bravely beneath it.
    “Breathe very slowly, Rose-of-Sharon,” he heard Juliana say, her voice soft and even, but underlaid with a tone of worry.
    Lincoln slowed his own breathing, since the idea seemed like a good one.
    “You’ll be all right,” Tom told the girl.
    Rose-of-Sharon, a pretty thing with glossy brown hair, was well beyond fussing over letting an Indian attend her. “Is—is the doctor coming?” she asked, between long, low moans and ragged breaths it hurt to hear.
    Lincoln thought of the snow, so deep now that the draft horses had had all they could do to get through it, plodding to and fro as they hauled hay to the cattle.
    “Yes,” Tom lied, rolling up his sleeves and inclining his head slightly in Juliana’s direction. “He’s on his way for sure.”
    An unspoken signal must have gone from Tom to Juliana. She nodded and raised the bedclothes.
    The sheets and Rose-of-Sharon’s nightgown were