The Christmas Brides Read Online Free PDF Page B

home,” the little girl said, her eyes big in the gloom. “St. Nicholas won’t be able to find us out here in the wilderness, and Papa promised me I’d get a doll this year because I’ve been so good. When Mama had to tie a string to my tooth to pull it, I didn’t even cry.” She hooked a finger into one corner of her small mouth to show Lizzie the gap. “Schee?” she asked.
    Lizzie’s heart swelled into her throat. She looked with proper awe upon the vacant spot between two other teeth, shook her head. Wanting to gather the child into her arms and hold her tightly, she restrained herself. Children were skittish creatures. “I think I would have cried, if I had one of my teeth pulled,” she said seriously.She’d actually seen that particular extraction process several times, back on the ranch—it was a brutal business but tried and true. And usually quick.
    â€œMy papa works on the Triple M now,” the little girl went on proudly. “He just got hired, and he’s foreman, too. That means we get our own house to live in. It has a fireplace and a real floor, and Mama says we can hang up Papa’s socks, if he has any clean ones, he’s been batching so long, and St. Nicholas will put an orange in the toe. One for me, and one for Jack, and one for Nellie Anne.”
    Lizzie nodded, still choked up, but smiling gamely. “Your brother is Jack,” she said, marking the names in her memory by repeating them aloud, “and the baby is Nellie Anne. What, then, is your name?”
    The small shoulders straightened. “Ellen Margaret Halifax.”
    Lizzie put out a hand in belated introduction. “Since I’ll be your teacher, you should probably call me Miss McKettrick,” she said.
    â€œEllen,” Mrs. Halifax called, in a sleepy whisper, “you’ll freeze standing there in the aisle. Come get back under the quilt.”
    Ellen obeyed readily, and soon gave herself up to dreams. From the slight smile resting on her mouth, Lizzie suspected the child’s imagination had carried her home to the foreman’s house on the Triple M, where she was hanging up a much-darned stocking in anticipation of a rare treat—an orange.
    Having once awakened, Lizzie found she could not go back to sleep.
    The baggage and freight cars beckoned.
    Morgan, the one person who might have stopped her from venturing out of the passenger car, slumbered on.
    Resolutely, Lizzie buttoned up the conductor’s coat, extracted a scarf from her hand luggage and tied it tightly under her chin, in order to protect her ears from a cold she knew would be merciless.
    Once ready, she crept to the back of the car, struggled with the door, winced when it made a slight creaking sound. A quick glance back over one shoulder reassured her. None of the other passengers stirred.
    The cold, as she had expected, bit into her flesh like millions of tiny teeth, but the snow had stopped coming down, and she could see clearly in the light of the moon. The car was still linked to the one behind it, and both remained upright.
    Shivering on the tiny metal platform between the two cars, Lizzie risked a glance toward the cliff and was alarmed to see how close the one she’d just left had come to pitching over the edge.
    Her heart pounded; for a moment she considered rushing back to awaken the others, herd them into the baggage car, which was, at least, still sitting on the tracks.
    But would the second car be any safer?
    It was too cold to stand there deliberating. She shoved open the next door. They would all be better able to deal with the crisis if she found food, blankets, anything to keep body and soul together until help arrived. And help would arrive. Her father and uncles were probably on their way even then. The question was, would they get there before there was another snowslide, before everyone perished from the unrelenting cold?
    Lizzie found her own three steamer