His gaze centered on the attic rooms, now only flaming posts reaching for the sky like a praying woman, where Jeb and Brody had sent the woman to be used.
Too late now.
She was dead.
But they’d received fat payment for her.
“What about Garrett?” He asked Jeb in sudden anger, his thoughts never even touching on the bushy-eyebrowed man Jeb had killed; he’d been forgotten before he hit the ground.
“We’ll catch up with him in Rock Springs.”
“He’ll remember you.”
“Nah.
He was goin’ under.
Jes’ had a bit too much to drink.” Jeb’s teeth flashed in an evil grin.
Beyond, the sound of thundering hoofbeats approached.
The dark-haired man helped Jeb pull Brody into the underbrush, then they settled back to wait, guns cocked in case any of the lawmen decided to do too thorough of a job searching.
Pain had dulled Harrison’s mind.
He couldn’t think.
Half of him wanted to run like hell; the other half wanted to surrender to a nameless peace that seemed to reach out to him like a beckoning child.
There was something pushing him, however, urgently directing him.
Smoke filled his nostrils and left its burned taste on his tongue.
Each movement was like stinging nettles, and he sensed it signified something much worse.
He tried to lie down but was unable to.
Something was impelling his feet ever forward.
It made him furious, and he swore aloud.
His right arm throbbed.
Gainsborough, you bastard,
he thought incoherently, remembering the man who’d nearly cost him his right arm.
He smelled pine trees and felt the cool wind.
Where the hell was he?
He had a vague sense of passing time, but he couldn’t remember where and when and what he was doing.
This realization was more frightening than the pain which he’d now accepted as a companion.
“Stop!” he yelled, then was shocked at the sound of his own voice.
“We can’t stop,” a feminine voice responded urgently.
“Not yet.
They’re shooting at us!
Keep moving.
We’re almost there.”
Almost there… He didn’t know where they were going.
Didn’t care.
All that mattered was that they were almost there.
The scent of smoke lingered in his nostrils, but it began to fade.
He stumbled and heard the crunch of dried grass.
Each footstep jarred.
Twenty paces later his legs went numb, and he slipped down, down, down, to the waiting arms of the beckoning child in his dreams.
Miracle nearly fell over when Harrison sank into unconsciousness.
Her arms ached from his weight, her knees buckled.
She tumbled down to the ground with him rather than let him fall.
Then she glanced around her in fear.
They weren’t far enough into the woods.
Someone could find them.
The men waiting along the periphery of the fire had shot at them, for God’s sake!
She shook her head.
Survival was all she could think of.
It had taken her an hour to get Harrison this far away, an hour of the most painstaking, anxious moments of her life.
Imagination clawed at her brain, waking her worst fears.
She was sure Jeb was alive and after her.
His stained teeth were imprinted on her mind.
It was fear of being caught again that kept her going, tapping the limits of her strengths.
But now Harrison was unconscious.
She could no longer carry him.
For the longest moment she lay beside him, utterly still, hearing the night sounds close in around her: the hoot of an owl, the scurrying feet of some night creature, the throaty chorus of frogs.
It was the frogs that convinced her water was nearby.
Now that she listened, she could hear something.
Not the gurgle of the stream, more a soft lapping.
She was surprised.
They must be much farther from the road than she suspected.
Gently, Miracle pulled herself away from Harrison.
She climbed to her feet and listened.
Yes, somewhere nearby was water.
With growing anticipation, she glanced around her.
She’d been trying to move parallel to the Rock Springs road, and now she reckoned they weren’t all that far from the spot where she’d been kidnapped.
Could she dare hope the wagon would still be there?
Thoughts of the wagon reminded her of Uncle Horace, and she shut her mind down.
She had too much to worry about.
Later, much later, she could examine that particular fear.
For now she had to find safety for herself and the man who’d tried to rescue her.
Grasping him beneath his arms, she muttered, “This is going to hurt,” to her unconscious companion.
Straining, she pulled him further into the underbrush.
He moaned and thrashed, but Miracle persevered.
By the time she reached a small clearing hidden beneath a canopy of cedar boughs, she was drenched with sweat.
She was near exhaustion herself, but she had no time to rest.
Dropping to her knees, she listened to his heartbeat.
It was still steady and strong.
The thrust of her knife had obviously missed vital tissue.
Thank you, Lord, for this small favor,
she prayed sardonically.
The scent of smoke was still heavy in the air.
The barn was still burning.
Leaning against the bole of a tree, Miracle felt a treacherous languor creep over her.
Not now.
Not yet.
Later.
This man needed her, and she needed the elixirs in her wagon to help him.
Shaking herself awake, she breathed deeply, then slipped out of the one petticoat she wore.
She didn’t have time to bind his wound.
Instead, she slipped the material beneath his blood-soaked shirt in an attempt to keep the area clean.
The fact that he didn’t fight her ministrations scared her.
Even unconscious, he’d moaned and slapped at her hands until now.
“Don’t you dare die!” she told him angrily.
He lay on his side, his head lolled back.
She needed a blanket, and elixirs, and herbs to help him.
There was only one course of action to take.
Though it scared her to leave him, she headed back toward the road, hoping her wagon was still where it had been left.
As soon as she was within earshot of the road, she heard the distant sound of pounding hoofbeats.
From the barn, or to it?
Spurred into action, she swept back into the deep underbrush.
The muffled gallop on the dirt track raced past Miracle in the direction of the barn.
The sheriff?
she wondered with a squeeze of her heart.
She had no faith in the law – especially now that she’d stabbed a white man.
Miracle had no choice but to wait until it was safe.
Time passed.
She thought about her quest to find her father.
She would be lucky now to come through this adventure alive.
What a fool she’d been to disregard the warnings about this stretch of road!
Because of her, and her urgent need to get to Rock Springs and find out if the rumors that her father lived there were true, she’d put the lives of Harrison and Uncle Horace in jeopardy!
Noise carried easily in the night air, and eventually she realized all was silent and had been for some time.
Climbing to her feet, Miracle distractedly brushed dead, dry grass from her hair.
She wanted to walk on the road, but knew better than to tempt fate.
Instead she crept through the underbrush, her ears alert for every sound, her own movements magnified till she was sure she sounded like a charging herd of elephants.
She bit back a curse that would have singed Aunt Emily’s ears as a branch clawed into her hair.
Blast it all.
Would she ever get there?
Then suddenly she saw her wagon, parked a bold as you please on the side of the road!
But her joy turned to dismay when she saw the way it listed.
The left rear wheel was missing spokes, the rim elliptical and weak.
And the horses were gone.
With a sharp glance in both directions, Miracle scurried across the road.
Dimly she could make out the faded lettering on the side of the wagon, imploring one and all to try “Uncle Horace’s Tinctures and Elixirs for Uncommonly Good Health.”
Miracle unlatched the back door, which squeaked eerily on worn hinges as she pushed it open.
“Uncle Horace?” she whispered.
The only sound was the faint tinkle of bottles gently touching as the wagon floor jolted beneath Miracle’s weight.
The rattle of leaves against the roof made her jump.
Heart beating wildly, she searched the dark confines of the wagon, crunching broken glass beneath her boots.
Uncle Horace was gone.
Miracle’s blood ran cold with fear.
Her next thought was for her tin of money.
She dug her hand into the shelf where it was hidden along with other innocuous tin boxes and pans.
Gone!
The bandits had stolen her money.
Fury surged through her veins.
Clenching her fists, she grabbed one of the tin lids and threw it against the wall.
The clanging clatter brought her back to her senses.
This was no time to draw attention to herself.
She had to get back to Harrison.
Gathering up as many unbroken bottles as she could hope to carry and searching rapidly for some of the dried herbs she’d hung against the rear wall, Miracle also grabbed several blankets, some tinware, and Uncle Horace’s “medicinal” bottle of rotgut liquor.
She shoved everything into one of the blankets, adding a few tins of food and the dried deer jerky Uncle Horace chewed as a substitute for drink during his spells of soberness.
Then she tied the blanket ends together and heaved the whole bundle over her shoulder.
It seemed to take twice as long to get back to where she’d left Harrison.
Half her time was spent within a few hundred yards of the place, but the tiny lake was so well concealed, she only found Harrison by straining her ears for the water’s soft lapping.
This was encouraging.
If she couldn’t find it, no one else could either.
Harrison was just as she’d left him.
It was too dark to do more than crush some of the dried herbs with rock, add lake water, and create a poultice.
She slipped the dank smelling mixture beneath her petticoat bandage and against the small knife wound.
On a shallow wound, the poultice would draw out any poisons, but something as small and deep as a knife wound could be beyond its capabilities.
Miracle could only hope no inflammation occurred, for if the wound suppurated, all she could do was treat the pain with rotgut liquor and a special elixir of Uncle Horace’s which, though a potent painkiller, tended to bring on vivid hallucinations.
She laid the blanket over him, then considered what to do.
She felt sticky with smoke and sweat.
Unable to stand it another moment, she stripped off her clothes and ran into the lake, diving under the surface.
The water was icy; September’s heat hadn’t warmed it.
Teeth chattering, Miracle scrubbed herself clean, then hurriedly pulled on her clothes again.
Too cold to worry about propriety, she slid beneath Harrison’s blanket and curled up beside him.
She was surprised when sleep didn’t overtake her immediately.
As exhausted as she was, her mind spun in useless circles.
For the first time since her capture she really had a chance to take stock.
A sense of injustice swept through her.
She’d been abducted and sold to the highest bidder!
The highwaymen who plagued the road between Malone and Rock Springs had chosen her as their latest victim.
Jeb and Bushy Eyebrows (now deceased) and Gruff Voice.
They’d mentioned another man, too, she remembered with a shudder.
Lord, she was lucky to have escaped!
Miracle instinctively moved closer to Harrison, trembling a little.
Then she gasped.
I can identify them!
Her heart nearly stopped.
The thought brought more worry than comfort.
Who would listen to her?
Who would care?
She was a half-breed Chinook with a history of thieving.
No one would care that she’d stolen as a child only because she’d needed to feed herself.
And no one would care that she’d been raised to adulthood by a doting spinster and a lovable, if sometimes drunken, medicine man who’d taught her a strict moral code of right and wrong.