Where Heaven Begins Read online

  “I was at that bank,” he admitted. “I’d gone there often. I went down to San Francisco because I’d heard a man could make good money there. That was two years ago, before the gold rush here. But I am not a man to go looking for gold anyway. A man’s family can starve and die while he’s digging for his pot of gold, you know?”

  Clint leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Yeah.”

  “So me, I stayed north of San Francisco. I had a good job there at a stamp mill, made good money. I figured to work there another year, saving up my money so I could come back here and afford supplies for my family. We have never had much. I saved my money at that bank, went there often to make deposits, so they knew me well. The day of the robbery, I was there. I was taking out my own money, you see? My own money. I was going to come home because I missed my wife so. She had not even given birth to Toby yet when I first left. I was worried.”

  “So you went to the bank. If you got your money out and left before the robbery, how did you even know there had been a robbery?”

  “But I did know. When I got there, I walked in on the bank teller stuffing money into a bag. He looked like he was in a big hurry—looked startled when he saw me. He was robbing the bank, you see? I surprised him, and he pointed a pistol at me. I jumped on him to try to stop him from what he was doing, and we struggled. The gun went off and he was shot! I was really scared then. I am Eskimo. He was a bank teller. Probably lots of people in town knew him. He was not the type ever to tell the truth. I knew I would get blamed for trying to rob the bank, and because I am a penniless Eskimo, a stranger not from San Francisco, people would believe him.

  “So I—I gathered just the amount of money to match my savings, and I ran! I did not know what else to do! That teller…I did not even know until now that he died. Either way, even if he’d lived, he would not want anyone to know what he tried to do. He must have told whoever found him that I was robbing the bank and that I shot him, that the gun was mine. I hoped that once I got back up here to Dawson, no one would bother coming after me.

  “I did not rob that bank, Mr. Brady. You check with them. I took only nine hundred dollars. I had a voucher saying that was my savings. I will get it! I can show you. You check with them. They will tell you only nine hundred dollars was taken.”

  “My husband has never carried a gun,” Mrs. Fisher told Clint. “All he has is his hunting rifle, and he didn’t even take that with him to San Francisco. And does he look like the kind of man who would carry a fancy little pistol? He told me that’s what kind of gun it was. You check with them. They’ll tell you it was a small pistol that banker was shot with.”

  Clint reached up with his right hand to grasp Elizabeth’s hand. “I already know that much, and how much was taken. The teller died after telling the doctor you were the one who shot him and robbed the bank. He knew your name because you had been in there so often.” He slowly stood up. “Where can I lay this baby?”

  “Here!” Mrs. Fisher led him to a large, wooden cradle. “Lay him here. Has the bleeding stopped?”

  “I think so.” Clint bent down and laid little Toby into the cradle. “He’ll be all right. Just keep that wound clean. Pour a little whiskey on it. He won’t like it, but you don’t want it to get infected.”

  He straightened and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he told Fisher. “I never would have shot back if I’d known there was a child in that shed.”

  Fisher stood up. “I was foolish to fire at you in the first place, especially with Toby in there. I believe you when you say you are sorry. The problem is, do you believe me?”

  Clint studied him a moment, then walked closer and put out his hand. “I believe you.”

  Roland shook his hand firmly.

  “There is still five thousand dollars on your head,” Clint reminded him. “I’ll write the sheriff in San Francisco and explain what happened—get that bounty off your head. They know me well—know I wouldn’t lie about it. If I don’t get it straightened out, someone else might come up here looking for you, so I’d lay low for a while. If you suspect anything about someone, send for me. I’ll take care of it.”

  “I am grateful.”

  Clint glanced at Elizabeth, then back to Fisher. “No, Mr. Fisher. I am grateful. Coming here to find you changed my life in more ways than you could know. Someday I’ll explain all of it. Right now I’ll just leave you and your family alone, but I’ll want to come back and check on your little boy in the next few days.”

  Fisher nodded. “You will be welcome.”

  Clint looked over at Toby, then leaned down to untie the strap that kept his holster close to his leg, after which he unbuckled his gun belt. He pulled it off and walked over to hand it to Elizabeth. The blood on the side of his face was beginning to dry to an ugly crust.

  “From here on the only thing I’ll be doing with guns is repairing them for other people,” he told Elizabeth, “or maybe some hunting.”

  She took the gun belt, saying nothing.

  “Let’s go home,” Clint told her. “You have a wedding dress to make, and I have a cabin to build so we can have a place of our own.”

  Elizabeth threw her arms around his waist, the gun belt dangling from one hand. “I love you, Clint Brady!”

  He sighed, pressing a hand to her back. “Call me Ethan. It’s okay now. Clint Brady the bounty hunter no longer exists.”

  Epilogue

  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

  —2 Corinthians 5:17

  Dawson, October 30, 1898

  Such a long journey. In so many more ways than one. My Ethan is everything I knew he would be in a husband, kind, gentle, protective, devoted. Peter baptized him before we married, and he has fully given himself to the Lord, who I know in my heart has forgiven Ethan for whatever lies in his past. Now there is only a future full of joy and love waiting for him, and I pray that already his life grows inside of me. I want to give him another child just as soon as possible.

  She put down her pen and looked out a window of their new cabin to watch her Ethan chop wood. The thought of what it was like to lie with him still sent chills of womanly satisfaction through her. They had no idea if they would stay in Dawson forever, since because of the gold strike farther west, rumor was that Dawson could become a ghost town by next summer.

  When Elizabeth had asked Ethan what he would do then, his response was, “We’ll go where the Lord leads us.”

  Such beautiful words coming from a man who just under three months ago was ready to hunt down yet another man for money.

  She continued writing.

  God works in such strange but beautiful ways, His miracles to perform. Who would have thought, when I left San Francisco, that I would be married and settled just three months later? And to a man like Ethan Brady?

  Life was good…so good that sometimes she felt as though she was just dreaming. She was not afraid of the long winter to come, after what they had survived getting here. Ethan was a good hunter. They would be all right.

  Ethan and Roland Fisher have actually struck a friendship. And little Toby is fine now. He loves Ethan, and he runs to him every time we visit. I now know why God led me to this place. It was so that I might have the chance to change Ethan Brady’s life and bring him back to God. However, I was only the voice. Everything else is thanks to God, not me. I was His instrument, and so was Peter—and even Roland Fisher.

  She heard Ethan stomping his feet at the door then. He came inside the one-room cabin that Peter, Roland and others from the church had helped build in just three days. They even had a wood-plank floor. They slept on a feather mattress on a rope spring attached to a homemade bed of pine, and Elizabeth used a large stone fireplace with an oven built into the side for her cooking and baking. It also heated the small cabin just fine.

  Elizabeth set her pen aside. “Are you hungry? I think the rabbit stew is done,” she told Etha
n.

  “Sounds good to me. Chopping wood is mean on a man’s appetite. I could eat that whole pot of stew. Got coffee?”

  “You know I always do.” Elizabeth got up and removed a blue porcelain coffeepot from over the fire, grasping it with a towel. She came to the table and poured some into a tin cup Ethan had left there that morning. “There you are.” She looked up to see him staring at her. “What is it?”

  “I just can’t quite get over the fact that you’re my wife.”

  Elizabeth grinned. “You might not be so happy about that a few years from now when I’m older and fatter and I’m nagging you endlessly.”

  Ethan laughed, rising. He picked her up in his arms and whirled her around. “You will always be beautiful to me, Mrs. Brady.” He looked around. “What was it you said Peter called the Yukon? Something about heaven?”

  “Where heaven begins,” she answered.

  He kissed her nose. “For me heaven begins right here, with you in my arms.”

  Elizabeth smiled, hugging him around the neck. “Heaven is also knowing God’s grace right here on earth, and understanding the full meaning of love.” She kissed him softly. “And I do so love you, Ethan.”

  “And I love you. Did I ever properly thank you for saving my life?”

  “God saved you, Ethan, not me.”

  He studied her lovingly. “Well, I sure like the messenger He sent. I’ll never question the Good Lord again.”

  Elizabeth relished the feel of his strong arms holding her. Her joy at knowing Ethan was truly right with God again made her heart burst with love for him. God truly did answer prayer, for even now life fluttered in her womb, Ethan’s life. She had no doubt the child would turn out to be another son for Ethan Clint Brady.

  She decided she’d kept her secret long enough. It was time to tell him about the baby.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5343-2

  WHERE HEAVEN BEGINS

  Copyright © 2004 by Rosanne Bittner

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