Dream Catcher Rainbow
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The first rays of the dawn sun streamed through the window, and it took a moment for Stephanie to wake up. It was early, but she felt rested. She had been dreaming about a dream catcher rainbow. She was on a brightly colored water slide with a rainbow at the end of it.
She was wearing a bathing suit of multicolored stripes and had a blue ribbon tied around her waist. She was sliding down the rainbow with a big smile on her face. That was it. The only other thing she remembered was she had another dream about Josh last night.
“Stephanie!”
The sound of her mother’s voice brought her out of her reverie. She sat up and stretched. “I’m up, Mom.”
“Good, now go take a bath while I get breakfast started.”
Stephanie pulled on her robe and made her way to the bathroom. She stood at the sink looking in the mirror. She was wearing a white cotton robe and had wet hair. Her face was fresh from a cold shower. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles. Her skin looked pale and unhealthy, especially around her eyes where it narrowed into a thin line.
She splashed cold water on her face and felt the goosebumps on her skin disappear. As she ran her hands through her hair, she noticed a slight redness around her hairline and along her jawline. Oh no! She was breaking out!
She opened the medicine cabinet and found that the top shelf was now filled with bottles of salve, face wash, and lotions. Josh had bought all these things for her when he came to town. He had thought she had been suffering from a cold since she seemed to be coming down with a cold every other week.
She turned on the shower and stepped under the warm spray for a moment before getting out. She wrapped herself in a robe and went downstairs to join her mother in the kitchen.
“Mornin’ Mom,” she greeted her mother as she sat at the table with her. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“I’m not feeling so hot this morning,” she replied with a frown. “My head hurts, and I feel nauseous.”
“Do you want to go back to bed?”
“No, I’m fine,” she said with another frown. “I’m probably coming down with something.”
Stephanie ate slowly and noticed that her mother seemed lethargic and had trouble swallowing the food sitting in front of her. Maybe it would be better if she stayed in bed. She left breakfast for her mother as she went upstairs to change into a fresh set of clothes. She didn’t have anything that was fitting for wearing while scrubbing floors.
She went back downstairs and found that her mother had already left for work. As Stephanie was leaving the house, she saw Josh standing in front of his house talking to one of his friends. He saw Stephanie and waved her over to him. “Good mornin’ Sunshine,” he said as he watched her walk toward him. “Couldn’t sleep last night? You look terrible this morning.”
“How are you doing?” she asked as she joined him in front of his house.
“Not so good these days.” He sighed as he watched Stephanie approach him. He didn’t want to get too close to her because he didn’t want anyone to see him coming down to see his girlfriend’s mother before work. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For not saying goodbye.” He shook his head as he reached up to touch her cheek with his hand. “You look pretty bad this morning.”
Stephanie didn’t respond as he rubbed his hand across her cheek and onto her neck, pulling away when he felt that she wasn’t ready for that yet. He smiled at her as he stepped closer, “You know I love you, right?”
“Yes.” The words came out so softly that Josh barely heard them.
“Stephanie?” He asked again as he saw that she didn’t respond with words this time either, but she nodded yes as she looked at him through a veil of tears that were threatening to fall. The door of his house opened and he quickly stepped away from Stephanie as he saw his mother step out of the house and start across the street toward them.
Stephanie looked up at Josh with a sad expression on her face as his mother approached them. “Josh?”
“Yes, Mrs. Farrar?” He answered quickly when he saw that his mother was there waiting on an answer from him before she would leave him alone with Stephanie.
Mrs. Farrar smiled at them before turning back toward Josh’s house with a sad smile on her face. “You better get going,” she said quietly as she walked toward Josh’s house. “I’ll see you around noon for lunch.”
Josh nodded as he watched his mother walk away from them across the street. He looked down at Stephanie and smiled as he held up his hand in a motion for her to come closer to him. She took his hand in hers as they walked together toward the barn where his horse was tethered under a shade tree beside the barn.
He led his horse over to where Stephanie’s horse was tethered next to it, and they mounted up together before leaving town together in the direction of the ranch house he shared with his family.
When they had ridden out of sight from town, Josh pulled up next to Stephanie and looked at her with an apologetic expression on his face as he lowered his head down level with hers so that their foreheads touched. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly in her ear before turning on his heels and walking away from her with a quick step toward his horse. “I’ll see you tonight.”
The sadness in his voice had touched Stephanie, but she didn’t know why he had apologized for touching her cheek or why he had turned away from her before saying goodbye. “Yes, I’ll be waiting for you.”
***
Stephanie spent the day inside the ranch house doing various household chores during the day and reading books late into the night. She didn’t know if it was because she was reading romance novels or if it was because she was missing Josh’s company more than usual, but she found herself soon falling asleep without finishing a single book in a night’s time.
It wasn’t until the sun came up one morning that she realized she hadn’t even seen Josh all night long and wondered if something was wrong. She had no idea that Josh had gone off with one of his friends after dinner last night to talk about him asking Stephanie to marry him after they returned from Cody.
Stephanie also found out that Josh’s mother had given him permission to marry her if he wanted to do so after they talked about it one-night last week when they all sat around Josh’s kitchen table with their families during dinner.
Josh had told her that it would be impossible for them to marry because their families wouldn’t approve of their union and because the law forbade interracial marriage in Colorado at the time, even though Colorado had already legalized interracial marriage by then.
Stephanie hadn’t known what to say when Josh told her that he loved her and wanted to marry her, but she had simply smiled at him and said that she loved him too and would gladly accept him into her life and into her family if he asked her to marry him.
She wasn’t sure how long they would be able to remain together if they couldn’t get married, but she wasn’t about to tell Josh that because she didn’t want to hurt him by saying those words out loud before anyone else did.
She spent most of that day inside the house thinking about how much she loved Josh and how much she wanted to marry him if it was possible for them to do so without hurting their families or themselves.
She went outside to ride her horse late in the afternoon as she often did, but this time she noticed that Josh wasn’t at the barn as usual when she was saddling up her horse. She rode over toward where Josh’s horse was tethered under a shade tree next to hers and pulled up next to it when she saw two men riding down the road away from them.
She saw that one of the men was wearing a black mask over his face, but it was obvious that the other man was not wearing a mask as he rode along beside Josh on his horse before looking back at Stephanie and waving a hand at her. She smiled at him before riding off with her horse in the opposite direction to ride toward the ranch house where Josh lived with his family.
When she got to the ranch house, she found that Josh’s mother had left town for the day with a sister of theirs who lived in a town near their ranch house when Josh and his father were gone.
She knew that Josh would be back late in the day because he usually returned home by early evening after feeding his horses in town before going off with his friends to talk about whatever they talked about when he wasn’t around in the evening.
She spent a quiet, peaceful afternoon reading books on a small porch swing while enjoying the warm rays of the sun on her back. She didn’t expect Josh to get home until early evening, so she left her horse tethered under a shade tree next to his so that she could go out and ride when he got home later in the day.
She waited until dark before going out to saddle up her horse and found Josh sitting on an old tree stump next to his horse next to where the horse was tethered. “I’m sorry for keeping you waiting.”
“What? Never mind, I should have told you I was coming home.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“I was only gone for a couple of hours, but it seemed like I was gone all day.” He smiled at her as he took off his hat and scratched his head. “I thought I saw you riding out this way earlier.”
“Yes, I was riding around this morning,” she said as he helped her saddle up her horse. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was coming home.”
“No, don’t be sorry,” he said as he helped her mount up and then climbed up behind her on his own horse. “I didn’t think you would come back today since you didn’t go riding with me.”
“I didn’t go riding with you because I’m going to take a job in Cody later this month and I wanted to have some time left to spend with my brother and my new husband if that is possible for us.”
“I don’t know how long we can stay together if we can’t get married,” he said quietly as he looked over at her before nudging his horse into a slow trot along the dirt road toward town. “It’s impossible for us to live together without anyone knowing about us or our relationship because we are both white.”
“It would be impossible for us to get married in most places unless we could find some way around the law,” she said as they rode down the hill toward town. “But you know what they say about love — it conquers all.”
They rode toward town talking about their love for each other without saying those words out loud because neither one felt comfortable doing so with anyone else around, but neither one of them would give up on their love for each other even though they couldn’t legally marry each other.
When they got to town, they took their horse past the saloon where they often spent time together after work so they could store their horse under a shady tree in front of it before going inside and raising hell with their friends. They often spent evenings sitting at a table at the saloon while others sat closer to them talking about many things from politics to gossip.
They talked about her taking a job in Cody and planned to ride out there with her brother so they could find out what sort of work she could do there. She had never been west of Texas before, so she didn’t know what she could do when she got there, but she knew that she could work in a hotel or perhaps manage one of the hotels that were springing up along Main Street in Cody.
As they rode slowly through town, they went past the sheriff’s office, where they had met once before, and through the town square where Josh had left his hat because he had forgotten it in town when he went riding with her after work before heading down to the saloon with their friends.
He had told her that if he ever forgot his hat again, then he might as well forget about being sheriff because he would never be allowed to forget anything else in his life. He had laughed about it then, but when they passed through the square again, he was quiet and seemed troubled by something as they rode past the sheriff’s office.
They rode past the hotel where she had worked as a maid and went on down Main Street looking at the shops and other buildings that surrounded them on both sides of the street. As they rode past the undertaker’s office with its painted window display of twin coffins sitting side by side, she turned away because it reminded her too much of her brother, who was buried in one of those coffins.
She had always felt that if she could have done something sooner when her brother died, then he might not have died as quickly as he did.
She had heard so many stories about men dying of sudden death from heart attacks or accidents or even sudden illness, but Benny’s death had been so quick and unexpected that she still felt guilty about it even though she had done everything she could to help him when he was sick.
As they passed the church where they had first met and where Josh had proposed to her, they both looked at each other in silence and then turned their horses away from the church and rode toward the livery stable where their horses were kept so they could turn them out for the night before heading back home.
***
“Are you sure you want to go out west?” Josh asked her on their way back home after spending a couple of days in Cody. “I know we’re leaving for home tomorrow morning, but maybe we could go out there with you and see if you can find some work before you leave.”
She smiled at him and said quietly, “Thank you for wanting to come with me, but I’m not sure I want you to go out west with me because I’m not sure how long we will be able to stay together.”
“I’m not trying to change your mind about going out there with me,” he said quietly as he looked at her. “I just want to be with you even if it is just for a few days.”
“I know you don’t want me to leave,” she said softly as she looked at him. “But I have to go because I have to work and I have to provide for myself even if that means leaving you behind for a while.”
“You won’t be alone,” he said quietly as he smiled at her. “You’ll have me with you.”
“But what about your job here?” she asked him. “If we go out there, how will you be able to work if you’re supposed to be Sheriff?”
“I can resign from the office,” he smiled as he looked at her.
“You can never resign from being sheriff,” she said quietly as she turned away from him. “It would be like tearing off a finger or an arm or something.”
“We don’t have to talk about this now,” he said quietly as he put his hand on hers. “We can talk about it later.”
“I don’t want to talk about it tonight,” she said quietly. “I want to talk about something else.”
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked her.
“I want to talk about us,” she said softly. “I want us to be together again if only for a day or two.”
“What makes you say that?” he asked her as he looked at her.
“I don’t know,” she sighed as she looked at him. “I just feel like I need you with me, that somehow we should be together again even if only for a day or two.”
He looked at her for a moment and then smiled at her tenderly. “I know exactly what you mean,” he sighed as she looked up at him. “And I feel the same way.” He took her hand gently in his and held it against his chest as they rode along silently looking at the passing scenery around them for a while before turning their horses toward home.
She had felt so tired when she got home that she had gone straight up to bed after turning her horse out for the night, so she had no idea what time they returned home that night or what happened between them after they got home because she slept until almost noon the next day when Josh got home from work.
When she woke up, Josh was already up making breakfast for everyone. She sat there watching him cook in silence for a while wondering what they might talk about when Josh came over and sat down next to her on the sofa.
“How was your trip?” he asked her softly as he looked at her.
“Good,” she sighed, “but I think I’m ready for another one.”
“Are you ready for another trip?” he asked her as he looked at her in surprise. “I thought you weren’t sure if you wanted to go out there yet.”
“Maybe not,” she sighed. “But I’m ready for another trip anyway.”
He smiled at her and said quietly, “Well then, let’s go out there and start looking for a job.”
“What about your job?” she asked him. “What if I find something without telling you?”
“You won’t find anything without telling me,” he said quietly as he held her hand in his. “And besides, I’m willing to resign from the office so we can be together even if only for a few days.”
She looked at him in surprise and then smiled as she squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Josh, but we don’t have to do that.”
“No, we don’t,” he said quietly as he smiled at her. “But we can if you want us to.”
“No, we don’t have to do that,” she said softly as she took his hand in hers and held it against her cheek.
“What are you going to tell your boss?” he asked her quietly.
“I’ll tell him I’m taking a vacation,” she said softly as she looked at him. “Besides, what is a vacation compared to spending time with someone you love?”
“You’re right,” he sighed as he smiled at her tenderly. “It really isn’t much of a vacation when you love someone.”
***
The next morning they took their horses and headed out toward the ranch where they were going to look for a job. By noon they were back at the ranch and started riding around looking for a place that might have an opening for them.
By the time they returned home that evening, they had found three places that might take them both and all three of them were willing to work if they came out west. They were interviewing with an oil company and a cattle ranch when Josh’s phone rang inside his office, so they went back upstairs to his office where he answered it.
He listened silently for a moment before hanging up the phone and looking at her with surprise on his face.
“What is it?” she asked him quietly as she looked at him curiously.
“I just got word from my boss that the ranch we were interviewing with sent my name along with yours to the ranch up north,” he said quietly as he stared at her with surprise on his face. “They want me to come up there this afternoon.”
“What?” she gasped as she stared at him in surprise. “Why?”
He frowned as he sat down next to her and said quietly, “They’ve taken a liking to me since I first started working there and now they want me to move up there permanently.” He gave her a troubled look as he looked at her sadly. “I’m sorry,” he sighed sadly, “but I think I have to take this job this time.”
“I know,” she sighed softly as she looked at him sadly. “I’m sorry too.” There were tears in her eyes because she suddenly realized how much it would mean to him if they went ahead with their plan to move to Wyoming and live there together.
She knew how much he had wanted to move away from his boss and the city life he had grown up in, so she felt terrible for not being able to help him get away. He looked at her with concern as she looked at him sadly in silence for a while before getting to her feet and walking over to him with tears in her eyes.
She put her arms around his neck and hugged him as she whispered, “I love you, Josh,” before she kissed him gently on his cheek and whispered, “We’ll talk about it later.”
She walked over to the window in the room and pulled back the curtains with a sigh, looking out at the city below them as she tried not to cry as she thought about all the plans they had made for living together that were now out of reach.
She felt terrible that it would be so hard for Josh too; after all, she had grown up in the city and now she was going back, but he wanted a fresh start with a ranch that would let them live together. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just go ahead with their plans and leave everything behind until Josh could get away from his boss and come out west with her.
But now that they had this new job offer, they couldn’t just leave everything behind again if they did end up moving there permanently. She stared at the city below them quietly for a while before turning around and walking over to the desk where she sat down next to Josh with a sigh and turned on his computer.
“What are you doing?” he asked her quietly as he stared at her curiously. “You know you don’t have to work right now.”
“I know,” she sighed sadly as she looked at him sadly, “but I think I’d like to do something while we’re waiting for you to come back so we can talk about this.”
He looked at her curiously as he sat down next to her and said quietly, “If you need some company, I’m happy to give you some.”
“No, I don’t need your company,” she said softly as she looked at him with sadness on her face, “but I’m not going to sit here and wait for you all day long.”
He chuckled softly as he gave his arm a squeeze and said, “Okay then,” then reached over and turned on his computer too.
“You’re not going to answer any of those calls if we’re going to be here,” she told him since he was staring at the computer screen like he might be tempted to answer any of those calls.
“I know,” he said quietly, “but what if one of these calls is from my boss or someone else who can help us get away from there?”
“Then what?” she asked him curiously as she turned back to stare out the window. “We’ll just stay here until you get back.”
He sighed quietly as he sighed and said, “I think we should go back into town tomorrow morning and see what we can find out about this ranch up north.”
She frowned slightly as she stared at him curiously. “Why?”
He gave her a troubled look as he stared at her curiously and said quietly, “I don’t know exactly why, but something tells me not to trust them.” He reached over and turned off his computer before standing up and walking over to the window with her and looking out at the city below them.
“It’s like they’re hiding something from us.” He sighed as he turned around and looked at her with concern on his face. “I think we should go back into town tomorrow morning,” he said quietly. “Whether we like it or not.”
She turned back to look out the window with him and felt a chill run down her spine as they watched the passing traffic below them. She suddenly felt uneasy about this new job offer because it seemed like there was something they weren’t telling them.
She glanced over at Josh as he stared at the city below them with concern on his face while he mumbled something under his breath that sounded like, “They’ve got us surrounded.”
The End