Read Keys of Heaven for Free Online Page B

death.
    The conversation turned to other things, and Sarah urged another helping of dumplings on Silas. “Tell me something else about Colorado. Since we have you here, I find myself thirsty for information like a hart for water brooks, knowing I may not get this chance again.”
    “I’ll be here for a few days,” he said. “Perhaps we might go for a drive and I can tell you more.”
    Sarah swallowed her surprise at his forwardness; he hadn’t seemed like that kind of man. But she could not react too strongly or Corinne would see it, and a little idea might grow in her mind that should not be there.
    “You can tell me more now,” she said, with a smile to let him know she wasn’t offended. “Did you see the Rocky Mountains? What are they like?”
    Again, his eyes took on the distant gaze of a good memory. “I did. Picture the earth flinging itself toward heaven and then being frozen there in the sky, thousands of feet high.”
    “I can’t picture it—or I can, but only because of the photographs in the books I borrowed.”
    “I had not been so smart before I left, so I was stunned by the mountains. You can see them for a hundred miles off, and they stay in the distance—until between one moment and the next, there you are in the midst of them, looking up and up until you get a crick in your neck.”
    “That I can well believe.”
    “But up until that point, you go through what they call the foothills. They aren’t like the hills here in Lancaster County.” He nodded in the direction of the window, which faced north toward a view of Battle Ridge. “They’re much higher and wider—almost mountains in themselves. I believe the ranch your boy works on must be in the foothills, if he is near the Cottonwood Valley.”
    “If there are ranches, there must be water for the animals, too.”
    “ Ja , the rivers are precious, because the land is what they call high desert, covered with golden grass in the summer. But the rivers aren’t like the ones here. Instead of running deep and quiet, they fling themselves through granite canyons and off hundred-foot precipices. Even in the shallower grade of the foothills, they still roar among the rocks, as cold as the glaciers they spring from.”
    She gazed at him, seeing the picture he painted in her mind’s eye as well as she could the sharp angles of his jaw and forehead. “You are a good storyteller. I can almost see the land.”
    Beside her, Caleb was transfixed, too, and Sarah noticed out of the corner of her eye that Amanda was listening so intently that her supper was only half eaten, her fork lying limply in her fingers.
    “I am not, not really,” Silas said with becoming modesty. “I am just describing the wonderful things God has made.”
    “Do you think you’ll go back?” Amanda finally managed to ask. “You said there was a church established near there?”
    “There are a few, but I don’t know what God has planned for me,” he said. “At the moment, I have a farm and enough work to keep two men busy, so another trip west is probably not going to happen for a few years yet.”
    Caleb leaned over to see him better past Sarah’s shoulder. “When you get married and have a family, you could take them there on a holiday.”
    Silas laughed. “I could, when God reveals the woman He has planned for me.”
    For some reason, Amanda blushed, but since everyone was looking at Silas, Sarah was pretty sure no one noticed.
    And then her boy put his foot in it for sure. “You could marry Mamm and then we could all go.”
    “Caleb Yoder!” Sarah exclaimed, and dropped her fork. Creamy gravy spattered down the front of her cape.
    While everyone got a good laugh out of it, Sarah dabbed at the fabric, thankful that it was a good, sturdy polyester crepe that repelled liquids and wiped off easily. She wished his words could be wiped away as easily. Honestly, the things he got into his head!
    By the time she got her clothes looked after and was mopping up the