Welcome, friends! I hope you enjoy this deleted scene (a sort of alternate beginning to the story, from a different character’s point of view!) from my novel, Beneath a Turquoise Sky.
Hebron Navajo Mission School, New Mexico Territory
Autumn, 1910
Willis Abernathy stood up from Miss Spencer’s bedside and turned down the oil lamp. The elderly missionary’s wrinkled hands lay relaxed on the coverlet, soft puffs of breath rhythmically lifting her frail ribcage. Willis slipped out and closed the door. Mindful of the sleeping children, he felt his way down the hallway. Stepping out onto the moonlit porch, he leaned against the post and released the tension of the past hours in a long breath.
A muffled clang lifted his head. Tse strode across the schoolyard from the barn, freshly scoured milk pails in his hands.
“How is she?” Tse’s voice came hushed in the darkness.
“Sleeping now. But she can’t go on pushing so hard. Today a dizzy spell, next it could be a stroke. The doctor warned me last time he saw her. I’m going to place an advertisement for another teacher.”
Tse’s moccasin-clad feet shifted on the rocky dirt. “If you need assistance until you can find someone else, Reverend Abernathy, I would be glad to help.”
Willis suppressed a humorless laugh. You really think we would let you teach these children, after throwing in our faces all we’ve tried to teach you, all we stand for here? Really, Tse? But all he said was, “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
Tse tipped his head and headed to place the clean pails in the entryway, ready for morning milking.
“Don’t let the buckets clang,” Willis said.
“No.”
Tse came back out, buttoning his overcoat. His breath puffed in the chill night air.
“See you in the morning.” Willis thought Tse nodded in response before he swung up on his horse. The clipping of hooves faded into the darkness in the direction of his family’s camp. Willis blew on his hands and headed inside. He fastened the door and headed down the moonlit hallway, easing open the door to the boys’ dormitory. The familiar whiffle of eight-year-old Nathan’s snore laced with snuffles from Isaiah, who had a cold. The other boys slept quietly. Willis slipped into his own room, which opened off the dormitory, and shut it behind him. Lighting the lamp, he rummaged through the piles of to-be-graded essays and board reports and letters to missionary aid societies. At last he unearthed the latest issue of The American Missionary. Sinking down at his desk, he flipped through the articles until he found the contact page.
“Here we go, Lord,” he whispered. Selecting a sheet of correspondence paper, Willis dipped his pen and began to write.
If you enjoyed these characters and story world, you can read more in the full novel, Beneath a Turquoise Sky!
In this book, Caroline Haynes pursues a long-buried dream westward to teach at a Navajo mission boarding school, but walls of hurt and cultural misunderstanding keep her from reaching the children she longs to touch. Handsome Rev. Willis Abernathy seems sure he knows what’s best for the Navajo people—and for Caroline—but she finds herself drawn instead to Tse, the young Navajo man who claims to still follow Christ despite returning to the ways of his people.
Preorder Beneath a Turquoise Sky here!
