All Together in One Place Read online

  Special thanks go to my Web site manager Michelle Hurtley for all she does to spread the stories in ways I will never understand; Web site managers for Cassville, Wisconsin, and to the State of Wisconsin for maintaining the replica of Stonefield, a village near Cassville that recre- ates the past; to Kathy White, site manager at the Western Historic Trails Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, for helping get my characters across Iowa in April. My Norfolk, United Kingdom, beekeeper resource, Mark Turner, advised me via Internet on a cross-country transport of queen bees, their care and connection to home. I am grateful also to Cal Thayer, beekeeper in Eugene, Oregon, for providing me with U.S. Department of Agriculture data on the history of beekeeping which offered dates and paths of likely transport and for letting me don the hat and netting of beetender so I could mingle with the bees.

  Special thanks go to Kay Krall, Blair Fredstrom, Sandy Maynard, and Jack and Carol Tedder and our friends in Sherman County, Oregon, for faithful support; to Jean Holly for her candid and gracious answers to my questions about the loss of sight and the challenges and joys of parenting sighted children; and to Dave Larson for details of the farriers life My deep appreciation goes to writer friends (and manuscript readers) Bob Welch and Wade Keller for their encouragement, time, and thoughtful suggestions; and to writer Harriet Rochlin for unwavering nurturing and inspiration. Such thanks go as well to my literary agent Joyce Hart of Pittsburgh and my signatory agent, Terry Porter of Flat Rock, Indiana.

  The little German poem is a memory of my fathers and I thank him for it. The Ayrshire information came from Barb Rutschow, herd manager and sister-in-law extraordinaire who, along with my brother Craig, loves columbines and the bluff country of Wisconsin.

  It is my hope that the women encountered in these pages pay tribute to those who faced what those eleven faced and honor the strength of their spirits, their lessons of learning to let go, living in the present, and trusting in the words of Scripture. All Together in One PUce is a phrase from the book of Acts, describing the bringing together of divergent voices and people into a family of service. It seemed a fitting title for this triumphant story of kinship and courage and the hope woven into all loss.

  This Kinship and Courage series is inspired by Psalm 16:5-6 and is based on the belief that to find the pleasant places of our lives we must be willing to expand our boundaries, spiritual, emotional, physical, and relational and to trust as Mazy did that “the Lord maintaineth my lot.”

  I hope that the wonder of how these women live their lives in Shasta City, how they find themselves on the Applegate Trail into Oregon and south to Sacramento, perhaps even back to Cassville, keeping community and sustaining their faith, will return the reader to additional books in the series.

  Finally, a word of thanks and gratitude goes to my editors LisaTawn Bergren in Colorado and Traci DePree in Minnesota and to the fine team at WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, for their belief in the power of stories and in my capacity to tell this one. And to my husband, Jerry, I give my deepest thanks, for teaching me about hope and faith, and of boundaries and their necessary expansion; and for the love and shelter he provides to make that happen.

  Last, but not least, appreciation goes to each of you, the readers, for spending time with these women, for sharing their stories. May you find your own strength and courage reflected in the hope woven inside.

  Jane Kirkpatrick

  www.jkbooks.com

  The following is an excerpt from Jane Kirkpatrick's

  No Eyes Can See

  Book 2 in the Kinship and Courage series

  Along the trail to California, 1852

  His arms outstretched, he called to her, his voice deep and far away. “Look up here then, at me. I'll catch you if you fall.” Suzanne found his gaze behind round lenses, the sun glinting off the wire frames.

  Suzanne heard, wanted to believe, but she hesitated, watching her husband brace himself against the current as he stood in the middle of the stream. He'd rolled the legs of his butternut-colored pants up to his knees. Water splashed and stained his suspenders, two lines of cedar-red tracks across his bare chest. He looked…boyish, hair falling over one eye, a wide grin of encouragement given just for her. “Put your foot on that rock, there.” He pointed with his chin to a gun-gray stone smeared with moss of green.

  “It looks…slick,” Suzanne said above the water's rushing. “I'll fall.” Something made no sense. Her husband wasn't here; she couldn't see him.

  “It's not so bad out here in the middle,” he said. “Just look up. Keep your focus, just like the good photographer you are. You'll be fine.”

  Focus. Her mind drifted with the word that seized meaning from the Latin, hearth, the hub of home, the pivot point for family. “Keep your focus,” he'd said. That's what she must remember. Maybe then, she would truly learn to see.

  Join the women of All Together in One Place as they discover the meaning of family and what truly makes the center of a home. Come with Suzanne and Mazy, Ruth and Elizabeth, Seth and Tipton, too. Even Zane Randolf and Charles, Tiptons petulant brother, are thrown into the turbulent times where gold rules and ruins those who lose their focus Mazy winds her way through betrayal while Ruth journeys deeper into the wilderness of spirit and what brings true gratitude to her life. Meet David Taylor, driver for the Hall and Crandall stage company, and cheer him on as his life intertwines with the All Together women and one lone Wintu woman named Spring. As they all converge on Shasta City, can they remain together? Or is life made up of joining and separating, of taking new risks in the wilderness of relationship and landscape, savoring the experience and then moving on? Find out and journey with these remarkable women as each seeks to quench their thirst for meaning—and discovers it in the promise of a spring.

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from

  the King James Version of the Bible Scripture quotations marked

  (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®

  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society Used by

  permission of Zondervan Publishing House All rights reserved

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance

  to actual persons or events is coincidental

  Copyright © 2000 by Jane Kiikpatrick

  All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying

  and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without

  permission in writing from the publisher

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kirkpatrick, Jane, 1946-

  All together in one place / by Jane Kirkpatrick — 1st ed

  p cm — (Book one in The kinship and courage historical series)

  eISBN: 978-0-307-55341-6

  1 Frontier and pioneer life—West (U S)—Fiction 2 Women pioneers—West

  (U S)—Fiction I Title

  PS3561I712A79 2000

  813′54—dc21

  99-054725

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Other Books By This Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - Mazy Bacon's Place

  Chapter 2 - Choices

  Chapter 3 - The Gathering

  Chapter 4 - Discovering Home

  Chapter 5 - Abiding

  Chapter 6 - The Pace of Progress

  Chapter 7 - Patience

  Chapter 8 - Riding the Horse Named Loss

  Chapter 9 - In this Place

  Chapter 10 - Of Longing and Light

  Chapter 11 - Sustenance

  Chapter 12 - Coming to their Senses

  Chapter 13 - Sudden Rush

  Chapter 14 - Turnaround Women

  Chapter 15 - Keeping

  Chapter 16 - Flux

  Chapter 17 - Bei
ng Guided

  Chapter 18 - Volition

  Chapter 19 - Filling Up

  Chapter 20 - Sason's Song

  Chapter 21 - Where we Love

  Chapter 22 - Dance of the Turnaround Women

  Copyright