Free Her Colorado Man by Cheryl St.john

for John James. “One winter there was so much snow north of Skagway that it drifted twenty feet and more in some places up toward the Yukon. I wouldn’t risk my dogs and neither would the other carriers, so we waited for a melt.
    “The mail piled up so high that we had to buildframes for canvas tents and then guard the bags at night.”
    “Why did you have to guard a bunch o’ letters?”
    “Newspapers are more valuable than jewels to people hungry to hear what’s going on in the world and want news from back home. And sometimes there’s money in the letters. Dishonest people don’t care who the mail is addressed to if they want it badly enough.”
    “Did Yuri help you guard the mail?”
    “I pitched my tent nearby, and the dogs were tied beside it,” he answered. “News came about one postmaster who couldn’t take the stress of all the mail piling up and the unhappy customers. He set fire to the pile.”
    “Did all the mail burn?” John James asked.
    “Nah. The citizens caught the postmaster, put out the fire and ran him out of town.” His ankle was numb and aching from the cold. “Can I take this off now?”
    Mariah got up and removed the ice pack. “I have the hot one warming,” she said and left the room.
    A few minutes later she returned with a bulging sock.
    “That’s rice?” he asked.
    She placed it on his ankle. “Yes.”
    “It’s sure hard.”
    She blinked and looked from him to his leg. “Well, it’s not cooked.”
    “Oh.”
    She laughed then, a surprising burst of sound that made him feel foolish, but warmed him all the same.
    “I had no idea,” he said. “I’ve never heard of this.”
    “Your mother never gave you a sock filled with rice for a stomachache?” she asked.
    “Never knew my mother,” he replied.
    Her expression turned solemn and she cast that skeptical blue gaze on him. “She died?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She returned to her chair and picked up her embroidery, but didn’t look at it.
    “I grew up in a foundling home,” he told her.
    John James’s attention had been snagged. “What’s a foundling home?”
    “An orphanage,” Mariah explained. “Where children with no parents are taken care of.”
    “But everyone has parents,” John James said.
    “Not all parents stick around,” Wes told him. “And some die. Andrew Jackson was an orphan.”
    John James swung his worried blue gaze to his mother. “You won’t die, will you, Mama?”
    “Of course not, sweetling. Your mama’s as healthy as one of your uncle Dutch’s prize pigs.”
    John James laughed, which is what she must have intended. When his smile faded, he wrinkled his forehead and looked back at Wes. “But what about your grandmama or your aunts and uncles? Couldn’t you have gone to live with them?”
    Wes shrugged. “Guess there wasn’t anyone. Nobody who wanted me anyhow.”
    “How long did you stay there, at the foundling home?” John James asked.
    “I was apprenticed to a doctor in Ontario when I was about ten or so,” Wes answered.
    John James’s eyes widened. “You’re a doctor?”
    Wes shook his head. “All I ever did was muck stalls and split wood. I ran off and worked a whaling ship.”
    John James got up and came to stand beside him. “Did you see whales?”
    “Inside and out,” he replied.
    “Did one ever swallow you?”
    “All right, enough questions,” his mother said. “Pick up your horses and go get ready for bed.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” John James hunkered down to gather his toys. “Jonah got swallowed by a whale. He’s in Grandfather’s Bible.”
    “I’ll tell you about whaling another night,” Wes promised.
    John James set down the bag and walked up beside the bed. “You helped tuck me in all the other nights. I can tuck you in this time.”
    He climbed on the side of the bed to lean over and give Wes a hug. “Aren’t you gonna take off your trousers and shirt?”
    “In a bit. Good night, John James.”
    The boy pulled up the sheet and blanket