to look to the past, but toward a future ripe with the completion of redemption. Theirs had been a tangle of circumstances so knotted and gnarled it had seemed too impossible to ever right itself. And yet, through Nate’s love and wisdom—and his terrible sacrifice—God had redeemed their lives.
Natalie had received a simple letter from Colombia that Daria knew was meant to ease her own mind as much as it was meant to express Nate’s love for his daughter. Still in Cole’s embrace, she looked over his shoulder to the kitchen desk where the letter was tucked in a basket. She didn’t need to open the thin, crisp airmail envelope to remember what it said. The words were etched on her heart, as she knew they would someday be etched upon her daughter’s:
Dearest Natalie,
I am back with my Timoné people now, and I am happy to be here. I know I am where God wants me to be. Someday your mommy can tell you about these people and this village where your life began.
I hope you will always know how much I love you and how precious you are to me. I pray for you every day, as I know your mommy and daddy there in Kansas do, too. God has blessed you with a wonderful home in which to grow up, Natalie. I hope you will never forget how greatly God has blessed you. You are a special girl with so many people who love you, and I know God has great things in store for you. I will write again soon, but for now, remember that I love you with all my heart.
Keeping you in my prayers,
Your Daddy Nate
Daria sighed in Cole’s arms and reached up to caress his face. Life on this earth was so hard sometimes. But if they had learned nothing else, they had learned that after the darkest night, after the most impossible trial, joy comes in the morning. Always.
Epilogue
The old boat sliced through the turbid brown water—as it had for nearly three days now—advancing along the river to the slow rhythms of the Colombian rain forest and the lulling putt-putt of its own outboard motor.
The sun was just dipping below the trees on the western horizon when the coffee-skinned pilot steered into a shallow inlet and maneuvered his craft as close to shore as the tangled undergrowth would allow.
His passengers, two fair-haired American women—mother and daughter—stepped wearily from the boat and followed the lead of the Colombian, slogging through the murky water to shore. In silence, the small party followed a well-worn trail until they came to a village secluded in the dense tropical forest. All around them, the natives began to emerge from their huts into the clearing, chattering quietly among themselves in their nasal dialect, pointing and gesturing excitedly.
As they came nearer, the younger woman smiled and greeted several of the native women.
“Hollio, Miss Natalie,” they returned her greetings. They did not approach her, but stood at a distance, watching.
Daria Camfield Hunter marveled at her daughter’s easy way with the villagers. She looked about her, trembling, then set her eyes on a point to the north. As though led by an unseen guide, she walked across the clearing and climbed a slight rise to a stand of palms that stood behind a hut set apart from the others.
Approaching the largest tree, she reached out to touch its rough bark. Her long fingers found the scars of an old carving. Two and a half decades of sun and rain had not erased the deep furrows, and she traced them now as though touching the face of a loved one.
Natalie Camfield stood respectfully behind her mother, still silent. After a few minutes she put her hand on Daria’s bowed shoulder and spoke softly, nodding toward the head of a trail that led into the forest hills. “I’ll show you where he is buried.”
Giving the carved epitaph on the tree a final caress, Daria straightened, pushed a strand of faded blond hair from her forehead, and followed. The two climbed the trail for several hundred yards where it turned off into a small clearing. It was obvious that this small plot of the forest was a singular grave site. The mound of earth at the center was overgrown with vines and decorated with the lush flora of the Colombian rain forest, but the freshly turned soil underneath left no doubt that the vegetation covered a fairly recent grave. A cross fashioned of cane and