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Somberly she watched the horse and carriage approach the circular driveway in front of the house. When it stopped, the driver opened the door on the side of the carriage on which Lauralee sat.
She crept from the carriage, feeling timid in her demeanor, her eyes wavering as they swept to the second story of the house where the curtains and blinds were drawn at the windows of Abner’s study.
Lauralee walked slowly toward the house as everyone else left the carriage. Dancing Cloud came to her left side while Nancy went to her right, Wilnoty skipping on ahead of them.
“I’ve decided not to live in this house any longer, Lauralee,” Nancy said, stopping to gaze wistfully at her home. “Without Abner, it is so vastly empty at night, and so quiet.”
“You will leave this wonderful house?” Lauralee gasped. “But it is so lovely.”
“It is so quiet,” Nancy stressed as she turned and placed a hand on Lauralee’s arm. “It is best that I live elsewhere. I have already purchased a house in Charleston. I have kin and friends there for which to fill my empty hours.”
Nancy paused and cleared her throat, then said, “And by making my residence in Charleston, I will be close to Abner. You see, he was buried there, in the Mound Cemetery.”
Lauralee swallowed hard, then again stared up at the two-storied Italianate home, memories of her scarce times there rushing through her mind. After today she would never enter the house again. It would belong to someone else.
“But, my dear, do not fret over my moving from this beloved house,” Nancy quickly interjected, drawing Lauralee’s eyes quickly back to her. “It and twenty-two acres of land around this house have been given to the city of Mattoon to be used as a public park. It was my husband’s dream that this land one day be a park. He bequeathed it to the city in his will. I have seen that his dream will come true.”
“Such a marvelous thing to do for the city,” Lauralee said softly. “The name of the park. Will it be named after Uncle Abner?”
“Yes, it will carry both our names,” Nancy said, flicking tears from her eyes with a gloved hand. “It will be called Peterson Park. It should serve the people of Mattoon well from generation to generation.”
Lauralee walked to the back of the house and gazed across the vastness of the land. Towering trees were everywhere, as well as a vast carpet of grass. She went to the huge flower garden and fell to her knees and began to gather a bouquet of snapdragons that she would place on her uncle’s grave.
When a hand touched her shoulder, she turned smiling eyes up at Dancing Cloud. “I feel him here even now, Dancing Cloud,” she murmured. “I feel my uncle in the gentle breeze and in the soft whispering sound of the wind through the trees.”
Dancing Cloud smiled and nodded to her, seeing that she finally understood about the spirit path and how no one ever truly left you once they entered that other world where there were no sorrows, no prejudices, no hatred.
Once her flowers were gathered, they boarded the carriage once again. As they rode toward Charleston, to go to the Mound Cemetery, Lauralee no longer feared going to her uncle’s grave. She did not feel that she had truly lost him after all.
Yes, he was there with her even now, the power of his smile reaching down from the heavens.
Chapter 35
Thou art my own, my darling, and my wife.
—ARTHUR JOSEPH MUNBY
Several months later.
All was perfectly content in quietness as Dancing Cloud and Lauralee rode a one-horse sleigh in the moonlight. They were buried deep under a buffalo robe blanket. Bells rang and jangled as the runners of the sleigh hissed upon the crisp, new-fallen snow.
Lauralee snuggled against Dancing Cloud as he tended the reins. Nothing was better than a winter blanket and her man to share it with. There was nothing more comforting against the cold. It was as if the great buffalo were still alive, sharing its great, ungainly body heat.
“I’ve never been happier,” she said, slipping a gloved hand through the crook of Dancing Cloud’s arm, clinging to him. “And look how lovely everything is? It is as though we are traveling through a vast wonderland.”
The bare branches overhead silently spoke of a new year. The tall, stately trees, veterans of so many winters, had quietly bent under restless winds and heavy ice. Hidden beneath the crusty earth were wiry roots of spring.
Bulbs beneath a thick blanket of brown leaves covered by the snow were patiently waiting to burst forth in the spring with their lovely flowers.
When the earth was still and bare, the somber gray-brown bark of a hickory tree trunk could be quite magical and breathtaking.
“It is beautiful now, but as you know, come spring and our people return to planting their crops, some will curse the thawing ground,” Dancing Cloud said, flicking his horse’s reins.
“Yes, I have learned that with each frost and thaw the earth heaves up a new crop of stones that must be cleared before the spring plowing can begin,” she said, proud of all of the knowledge that she had absorbed since she had made her home in these Great Smoky Mountains.
Dancing Cloud smiled at her. “‘Picking rocks’, it is called,” he chuckled.
He then looked around at the serenity of the day. “Winter is a favorite time of mine,” he said, nodding. “It is a time to gather thought.”
