The Rose Legacy Read online

  DIAMOND OF THE ROCKIES

  The Rose Legacy

  Sweet Boundless

  The Tender Vine

  Twilight

  A Rush of Wings

  The Still of Night

  Halos

  Freefall

  The Edge of Recall

  Secrets

  Unforgotten

  Echoes

  www.kristenheitzmann.com

  The Rose Legacy

  by Kristen Heitzmann

  Copyright © 2000

  Cover design by Jennifer Parker

  Cover image of mining town courtesy of Telluride Historical Museum, all rights reserved.

  Cover model photography by Mike Habermann

  Scripture quotations identified NASB are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE,® Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-0-7642-0713-6

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition as follows:

  Heitzmann, Kristen.

  The rose legacy / by Kristen Heitzmann.

  p. cm.—(Diamond of the Rockies; 1)

  ISBN 0-7642-2381-X

  1. Italians—Colorado—Fiction. 2. Women pioneers—Fiction. 3. Colorado—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3558.E468 R67 2000

  813’.54—dc21

  00-009990

  To Trevor

  for your laughter, your zeal, and your exuberance.

  Thus will I bless you while I live;

  lifting up my hands, I will call upon your name.

  As with the riches of a banquet shall my soul be satisfied,

  and with exultant lips my mouth shall praise you.

  Psalm 63:4–5, NASB

  To

  Virginia Campbell,

  whose generosity and dedication

  to the Pikes Peak branch

  of

  The National League of American Pen Women

  is a joyful inspiration to me.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ONE

  It is a fact that the human heart differs from all other species. While its function to the body is the same of all animals, its participation with the human soul is both rhapsodic and fatal.

  —Rose

  June 7, 1880

  WITH A HOLLOW CRACK the wagon lurched to the side and lolloped like a large lamed animal. Yanking on the reins, Carina DiGratia set the brake with one deft foot and brought it to a grinding halt. She pressed a hand to her chest while her heart pounded in her throat. A quick glance to the left made her head swim.

  It was not that the grade of the road was so steep, but rather that it wound upward until it brought her to a dizzying height that overlooked the chasm below—a chasm filled with teeth ready to chew and swallow her. She closed her eyes and resisted the swelling fear. Nothing in the traveler’s guide she had read mentioned a road more fit for mountain sheep than human travel.

  Praying the brake would hold, Carina jumped down and snatched up a rock the size of a Bantam hen. This she shoved behind the wagon’s outside back wheel, then she hurried to the other side. There, between the wagon and the rock wall of the canyon, she crouched to survey the damage. Loose rungs and a cracked felly that rendered the wheel worthless. This after everything else! Perchè? Why?

  She stood up and kicked the wheel’s rim. The shock of the blow jarred her shin up to the knee and she gasped in pain, gripping her leg and hopping backward. Then she balled her fists and stood still, feet planted, and scowled at the wheel as though that could make it right.

  Carina should have known that the old wagonwright was cheating her, the way he wouldn’t look her in the eye. She had sensed it but ignored her feelings because she trusted. Always she trusted! The old man had thought her a fool, and she had proved him right. She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and paced behind the wagon, halting well short of the edge.

  Turning, Carina shaded her eyes with her hand and surveyed the trail that snaked up the canyon wall. She should be grateful; a broken outside wheel might have tipped her over the brink. Her stomach lurched at the thought, and she stumbled, gripping the wagon bed.

  She edged around the side of the wagon to the large umber mule harnessed there and ran her hand along the enormous dusty back, then tangled her fingers in his wiry mane, taking comfort in his company.

  “Bene!” And in English, “Well! What now, Dom?”

  He snuffled her hand, the stiff whiskers of his velvety muzzle tickling her palm. His deep brown eyes looked wise and sympathetic, but he had no answers … in English or Italian. He was only a mule. Carina felt very alone.

  She unhitched the harness and led him over to the pink granite wall of the canyon where the thin shade would succor him for the moment. Half a mile down and half a mile up, the trail widened, but here, perched on the side of the mountain, it was scarcely the width of the wagon. Naturally the wheel broke at this precarious location. Carina raised an open hand to heaven. “Grazie, Signore.”

  A thin, sparkling stream seeped from the rock wall and ran across the road. Flecks of black and white stood out from the darkened pink granite, catching the sun like facets of gems. She glared at the rut that had jolted the wheel. It wasn’t much of a rut, but large enough to find the flaw in her wheel and expose it, causing the awful hollow pop, the sudden dip and lurch that had sent her heart to her throat.

  Carina glanced down over the edge to the blue and white water rushing far below, the pointed spires of pines along its banks, the long stony slope, clifflike in pitch. She had avoided the sight these last miles as the road dug its way more steeply and sharply up the side, climbing away from the creek’s edge, toward the blue expanse of sky.

  What was she doing? She signed herself with the cross, then sank to the ground where trail met wall. Above her, a single stunted pine sprang from a crack in the rock amid a shock of dry buff-colored grass. Its stringy roots dangled at her back, a lacy veil where
the earth had fallen away from the stone. A precarious perch, yet it clung there and grew.

  That tenacity, that spirit. Did she not possess the same? Had not Papa said so from the time she was small, calling her tigre, his little tiger cub? She didn’t feel like a tiger now, so far from home and family. But she must. She must make the fight rise up inside. So the wheel was broken, the road narrow, the canyon steep … Would she be defeated by so little after coming so far?

  She need only wait. This was the road to Crystal, Colorado, the diamond of the Rockies. A magic city where dreams came true. She felt her chest swell with hope and determination. From the branches above, a crow cackled. She didn’t care. Let the foolish bird laugh. She would show it what Carina DiGratia was made of.

  The shade was no more than a foot’s width under the noonday sun, but it cooled her. For the last several hours, the sun had burned from a sky the azure blue of Tía Marta’s bread bowl. The travel journals were right to declare the air thin at this elevation. She must be higher than ten thousand feet now that she was near the summit of the pass. Dom’s heaving breaths and her own were witness enough.

  She dropped her head back against the mountainside and untied the wide-brimmed hat that Mamma had sent. She wanted to see clearly, without the brim blocking her view, no matter how frightful the prospect. Again thoughts of the steep drop invaded her mind.

  So she was not good with heights. She had known that already, ever since Divina lured her onto the roof when she was only four. Carina closed her eyes and heard her sister’s voice. “Do not lean so, Carina. Carina, don’t …”

  Opening her eyes, Carina rubbed her forearm. The break had healed well, the youthful bone knitting easily. But the fear had stayed, though she tried again and again to conquer it. And she had never forgiven Divina that. She sent her gaze across the valley to the opposite slope. So why was she now on this mountaintop? Why did she tempt God?

  Unbidden, another memory came, sharp and clear as though etched onto the plate of her mind. Voices, low and soft, through the barn wall where Carina pressed close to listen, a dim shadow in the moonlight. Murmurs and quiet laughter, a whisper and an answer, deeper and far more dear, sending shards of broken dreams, jagged and piercing, to Carina’s heart.

  How she had screamed, cursing them as they scrambled apart in the hay. The names she had called, thrusting her thumb into Flavio’s chest when he tried to excuse the inexcusable. And Divina, Divina laughing behind her hand. That, too, she would not forgive.

  Even now, the humiliation, the hurt was as fresh as that night three weeks ago. She had prayed, What do I do? How do I endure this? She had begged God for an answer, and there, the very next morning, had been the advertisement: a home and opportunities. Grazie, Dio, it was her answer. So here she was, climbing the mountain into the sky, half a continent from Sonoma, California. If Flavio wanted her, let him come and prove it.

  She raised her knees and dropped her elbows into the skirt draped between them. There she rested her chin, eyeing the beige linen hem. Bent that way, the bones of her corset pinched her lower ribs beneath her white cambric blouse. She couldn’t sit long. Smacking her palms on her thighs, she stood up and tossed the hat into the wagon bed, then paced, considering her dilemma.

  She could unload the wagon and have Dom drag her things one at a time up the slope, except maybe the rocker, the bedding, and the dishes…. But then what would she do with the wagon? Not even the sturdy mule could pull a three-wheeled wagon. Yet she couldn’t leave it there in the middle of the road. Though it was small, at this narrow point only two men abreast could pass it on one side.

  And tipped as it was into the wall of the canyon, she wasn’t certain the damaged wheel could be removed and replaced. Could the wagon be disassembled and hauled down? She jerked her head at a sound and peered down the trail. A large wagon was climbing, pulled by a team of four powerful horses—the front two a pair of sprightly matched blacks, the next two even larger, caramel brown with white markings. Clydesdales, surely.

  A single driver urged them along, sitting high in front of the load of cargo meticulously covered and tied behind him. She did not think he had seen her as he maneuvered the horses onto the narrowing incline and started up the cut. No matter. He would reach her soon enough with such fine strong horses.

  Surely this wagon was sent by God. She recognized the gift. “Grazie, Signore,” she breathed with no sarcasm, no scolding this time. She brushed the dust from her skirt and waited, the breeze catching her hair and tossing it. Carelessly, she caught the rippling strands with a hand and held them back from her face. Dom raised his head and brayed as the stranger drew in rein behind her wagon, encircling them in dust like fog off the sea.

  “Whoa.” Sitting high above her on the wooden box, the man touched the broad brim of his hat but didn’t remove it. The high noon shadow hid all but the jut of his chin and the mane of light brown hair that hung impudently to his shoulders.

  Shielding her eyes, Carina squinted up. “Good afternoon.” She made her voice strong. If it came to dickering, she would not be cheated again.

  “Wagon trouble?” His had a strength of its own. “A broken wheel.”

  The man gave only a cursory look to the damaged wheel, then eyed the trail above and the drop-off to their left. “Bad place.”

  Carina nodded toward the load behind him. “You have a spare?”

  “Not that size.”

  She noted the difference between his immense wheels and her own with a sinking heart. But maybe there was something else to be done, some repair possible, some …

  He leaped down from the box and strode over to inspect the damage more closely. His hand found the discoloration on the felly where it had cracked. “Wheel was flawed.”

  “The man who sold it was disonesto. A crook.”

  The stranger stood up, and Carina got a brief look at his face, rough shaven with a full mustache curving to his jawline. When he tipped his hat back and wiped his forehead with his sleeve, she glimpsed gray eyes before he turned away.

  He walked to the front of the wagon and looked up the trail, then patted Dom and stroked his muzzle with a soft hand. He eyed the splay in the legs and heaving sides. “Your mule couldn’t have pulled much longer anyway. Not at the summit.”

  “He’s very strong.”

  He didn’t argue, just looked up the trail again. “Your husband shouldn’t leave you alone out here, even to go for help. This isn’t exactly civil country.”

  Carina drew herself up. “I am traveling alone.” That would give her credence and establish her equal footing. She wouldn’t tell him that her own papa had seen her to San Francisco and put her into the care of Guido and Antonnia Mollica, related by marriage to the Ghirardellis themselves. Together they’d taken the long and tedious Southern Pacific Railroad to Salt Lake City, where she’d been handed over to Anna and Francesca Bordolino, maiden aunts on Mamma’s side. They rode the Union Pacific to Cheyenne and the Kansas Pacific into Denver. Only then was she deserted to find a means of travel up this godforsaken road. None of which this man needed to know.

  Carina held out her hand. “Miss Carina Maria DiGratia.”

  He made no move to take it, just eyed her blankly and, she thought, a little darkly.

  Feeling foolish, she withdrew her hand and waved at her cargo. “How much to haul this?”

  He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, then passed by her to the wagon bed. “As you can see, ma’am … Miss DiGratia, I’ve a full load of freight, all that my team can manage.”

  So he meant to dicker after all. Bene, she would dicker. Carina walked to the pair of blacks. Their necks steamed with sweat, but their ears were high and no white showed around the dark eyes. They were work horses, but fine nonetheless. “They seem strong and healthy enough.”

  “They are. And I mean to keep them that way. What do you need more than anything else?”

  Carina turned to her own wagon. She eyed the trunk, the rocker, the rolls of bedding
and feather mattress tied up with string, the dainty iron bed frame, the crates of books, dishes, and pans, jarred tomatoes and wheels of cheese, her nonna’s silver, the leather satchel. She reached for the last item automatically, then grabbed the rose-patterned carpetbag.

  He had indicated one thing, but she cleverly took two. He made no argument, and that heartened her. She might have the better of this after all. He took the satchel and swung it up, then wedged it behind the box.

  “Be careful …”

  If he heard, he paid no mind. He tossed the carpetbag onto the box and hoisted her up with the same care. From her high seat, Carina watched him take Dom by the reins, ease him along the edge, and tie him to the back of the freight wagon. That was the limit of this man’s charity, she supposed. Now he would bargain for the rest.

  She would let him speak first; otherwise she would sound too eager. But he said nothing, merely walked around to the front of her wagon and worked the wheels to the left, then came around the back. His silent purpose unsettled her.

  As much as she hated to start the dealings, he left her no choice. “Now we’ll discuss the cost to haul the other things?”

  “Nope.” He put his shoulder to the back end of the wagon, lifted and pushed, straining hard for a moment, then easing as it started to move.

  She suddenly realized what he was doing. “No! Stop!”

  Carina leaped down from the seat, landing on her knees in the dust, then rushed to the edge of the trail as her wagon plummeted down the slope. It struck the ridge and shattered into pieces, her belongings smashing and tumbling to the creek below. Through the air, the straw hat sailed, ecru ribbons fluttering. Her head swam even as the anguish clutched her heart, leaving her breathless and stunned.

  “Whoa.” The perpetrator of destruction caught her arm and tugged her backward as the loose gravel slid away beneath her feet.

  Incensed, she wrenched free, anger suddenly eclipsing the hurt. “Sciocca! Fool! You have lost me everything I own!” Stiff splayed fingers accented her point. “I don’t have even a change of clothes.”