Page 11 of Thunder Pass

“Yes!” The classroom erupted in laughter and clapping. “Did he get stung?” Even shy Lilith wanted to know.

“Well, he was wearing boots. They were so big, about the size of boats.” Sarah was drawing the story out, enjoying the open-mouthed attention of her brothers and sisters. “But there were so many bees that he couldn’t stomp them. Some of them hopped onto his boots and started crawling up his big hairy legs.”

“Yay!” The kids cheered. Ruth watched with a sense of awed pride as Sarah threw herself into her story. Where had this talent for storytelling come from? She had a dim memory of someone telling her stories at bedtime, tucking her in, but it was so distant that she couldn’t even identify the woman. It must have been Naomi or one of her aunts.

And then all the raucous noise stopped. Ruth turned to see Luke at the door, scowling at Sarah. A remote frown had always been his default expression. His head was shaped like a hatchet, blunt and square, his eyes a hard gray. She knew that he ruled through fear. It worked.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. Sarah’s face lost every bit of its color, and she dropped her head to look at the floor.

“It was me.” Ruth stepped forward. “I’m trying out a new way to learn writing.” Writing was one of the 3 R’s after all. “Sarah was just following my instructions.”

“Both of you, come with me.” He jerked his head.

“No.” Ruth spread her arms wide to block Sarah from coming forward. “I’ll come. Let Sarah stay here. She was being obedient. And someone needs to watch the others.”

Luke gave a grudging nod. Obedience was all-important, after all, second only to loyalty.

Later, Sarah snuck into the potato cellar where Luke had ordered Ruth to stay until he decided otherwise.

“How many?” she whispered.

“You shouldn’t be here. Only five.” Ruth didn’t mention that they’d been especially harsh. Five lashes with the willow, and she could still feel every one.

“I brought you some salve.” Sarah handed her a small jar. It was so dark in the cellar that Ruth had to fumble for it. The potato cellar was dank and dim, and it was supposed to be a punishment. But Ruth had been down here enough to know how to get through it—she let her imagination fly. At the edge of her thoughts, she could already hear the chatter of the sophisticated party guests, the creme de la creme of society, all waiting for her arrival.

That was why she’d shared the storytelling exercise with the kids—so they’d know how to survive too. So they’d have a tool to help them through times like this.

It was worth it, even though being marched into the potato cellar was humiliating and her back still stung.

“Thank you. Now you should get out of here,” she told Sarah. “You’ll be next if he catches you.”

“I don’t care. I’d rather be here with you. I hate him.”

Her fierceness shocked Ruth. No one ever said things like that out loud here. “We’re not supposed to hate.”

“Then he shouldn’t be so hateful.” Sarah wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth. “You know what he told me? He said you were a bad influence and I need to stop going to classes. He says I know enough to contribute to the family.”

A shiver went straight to Ruth’s core. “Contribute to the family” could mean a number of things. Unlike Ruth, Sarah wasn’t a Chilkoot by blood. In other words, she was marriage material.

In no way was her little sister ready to get married. There were laws out there in the outside world—she knew about them through the caseworker. But the Chilkoots followed their own laws, and in Luke’s mind, the need to grow the community outweighed any other consideration. Especially any one individual’s wishes.

“Did he say anything else?”

“Yes. He said if I behave myself, I’ll have a choice. If I don’t, I won’t.”

Not good. Luke had many ways to exercise control, and fear was just one of them. Dangling the illusion of choice was another.

“Something’s not right,” Sarah burst out. “Don’t you feel it? Ever since he came back, it’s different. I heard some of those new men talking to each other and they were speaking a different language. What if he makes me marry one of them? I don’t like them. They’re scary.”

“He said you’d have a choice.” Even saying that felt weak, and Sarah let out a snort of contempt.

“Between one old man and another? That’s not a choice. You know what else Papa said? He said his biggest mistake was letting you sell wool in town because that’s how you met Daniel. He says he can’t trust you now, and that’s why none of us can leave the property anymore.”

Ruth froze. No one ever said that name anymore. Daniel—the man who’d wanted to marry her, the man who’d died in an avalanche because of Luke. Daniel should be alive today. The fact that he wasn’t…

Luke is dangerous.

That red alarm truth flashed through all the layers of training and intimidation that came with growing up as a Chilkoot.

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