Hannah Alexander Read online

  Joseph looped the item in question over his arm, ignoring Buster’s protest. Instead of waiting at his brother’s side, sixteen-year-old Gray followed Joseph—a habit he’d begun to develop soon after joining the wagon train three weeks ago. Joseph suspected it was one reason Buster acted out so often.

  “You should help your brother move that wagon away from the water,” Joseph told the boy. “You never know about flash floods.”

  Gray snorted. “He won’t move it.”

  “You don’t think it’s in a dangerous place?”

  “You think my opinion matters to him? I’m his stupid little brother.”

  “I need you to help me with the patients, then.”

  The boy looked up at Joseph, eyes brightening.

  “If I find out what Dr. Fenway needs, will you gather the items and help with treatments?”

  Gray ducked his head. “Sure thing.”

  “Don’t stare at the patients while they’re being treated.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Go check on Claude.”

  Without a word, Gray did as he was told.

  Joseph watched Victoria. She moved quickly between her charges, but she had a comforting voice that obviously soothed everyone who heard it. Her eyes softened as she assured Luella she would do her best to protect everyone from any contamination, and then examined a cut on Luella’s arm. She gave Heidi orders to run back to the wagon for supplies.

  She finally looked over her shoulder to find Joseph watching her. He beckoned for her to join him for a quick word. She hesitated, then excused herself from the others.

  “Yes, Joseph?” She looked at his hair, which he knew hung over his forehead in untidy black strands. Once upon a time she would have reached up and straightened it for him; he couldn’t help hoping she would at least attempt to brush the sawdust from it.

  But her hands remained at her sides as she waited for him to speak.

  He cleared his throat. “What’s your complete plan of action, Doctor?”

  “According to a Dr. Snow I spoke with in England last year, cholera is definitely caused by bad drinking water, hence my concern, of course. As I’ve stressed, we have no idea how much contamination that creek is carrying with it or how far north it started. Everyone who was in the water could be in danger if they swallowed anything, and that cut on Luella’s arm worries me.”

  “Is there no treatment to prevent them from developing the illness?”

  “I wish there was. We can try to force as much water from them as possible.”

  “More than rolling them over the logs?”

  “Yes. I wish I’d brought ipecac,” she said. “But I had an order that didn’t come in before we left. I’ve sent Heidi for some salt and pure water. If we can give them salt water to drink and then dilute what’s left with clean water, it’s logical we could ward off some contagion,” she said. “Thank you for gathering the logs for us. I know it’s a long shot, but we’ll take what we can right now.”

  “I’ll help with that.”

  As he turned to leave, Victoria touched his arm. “Wait, Joseph. They don’t listen to me as they do to you. Some of the people are still hovering too closely to the water for my liking. That bank could collapse with them at any second. We need to move them into the forest.”

  He took her hand, which was still soft despite her habit of taking turns at the reins of the mules pulling the Ladue wagon these past four weeks. “Except for Buster Johnston, I think the rest are willing to listen. I’ll do all I can.”

  “I appreciate it.” She returned to her patients.

  Victoria had once told him his touch gave her strength she didn’t know she had. He missed her touch. He’d lain awake too many nights out on the trail during the years after his father passed, and he’d recalled her gentle touch, the feel of her lips against his, the sparkle of her tears when he’d left her for the plantation with the belief that it was his responsibility to take over the running of it as the oldest son.

  Victoria hated slavery. They’d disagreed about it often, but he hadn’t changed his mind until he’d arrived at the plantation. He’d felt a kick of knowledge in his gut for the first time. He’d seen slavery from her eyes, heard her voice in his head and knew he would not be able to stay. He planned to return to St. Louis and walk back into Victoria’s arms a changed man. That had never happened.

  Oh, he’d changed, all right. He’d been ravaged by bitterness upon arriving back in St. Louis and finding that Matthew had for sure taken care of Victoria. He’d married her.

  And Joseph became a man who led others across country, and saved his money and brooded about the treachery of the friend he’d once trusted and the woman he still loved.

  * * *

  “My friends, it’s time to start treatment.” Victoria leaned over Luella and nodded to Joseph, Mr. Reich and Mr. McDonald, who held others over the logs, facedown. “This won’t be comfortable, but we need to try to prevent contagion if we can.” She raised her eyebrows at Joseph and they got started.

  Despite all, she couldn’t prevent a lingering look at Joseph. He appeared to have everything in hand, up to and including a threat that if the Johnston boys didn’t move their wagon they might well lose it. Buster didn’t listen.

  Despite Joseph’s deep, calm voice and manner, the anxiety in Victoria’s belly tightened like a snake she and Matthew had once seen wrapped around a man’s arm when they journeyed overseas. The man eventually lost his arm. What was this wagon train going to lose as a result of this catastrophe?

  The clouds lifted as she worked with Luella, but the sunbeams didn’t lighten her spirits. Too much could go wrong, and she felt the burden of responsibility for these people. Would Matthew have done this? Would he have had other options? When working with him, she’d felt confident in her abilities, but after losing her mentor she’d lost that confidence, despite the obvious approval Matthew had always shown for her skills.

  Luella gagged on the cup of salted water.

  “I’m sorry you have to go through this,” Victoria said, holding her friend as the poor woman lost the water she’d swallowed.

  Luella nodded and took another sip.

  Victoria watched Joseph repeat the same actions with Claude and one of the younger men. He worked with such gentleness. What a good doctor he would have made. If she’d known ahead of time the heartbreak that would ensue after she refused to accompany Joseph to his parents’ Georgia plantation, would she have gone? What a mystery about the fiancée, Sara Jane. She’d never forgotten that name, and she needed to know more. What would their lives have been like now if she’d given in to his pleas to go with him? They would never know.

  She studied Joseph’s firm-set chin, his narrowed eyes. Then she allowed her gaze to wander across the expanse of his shoulders, the corded muscles down his neck. When he’d first walked into the clinic last month, she’d nearly rushed into his arms, all dignity abandoned. It was a good thing she’d learned better self-control in her profession. Memories of her husband’s murder seven months ago, however, had returned in a tempest. Seeing Joseph had made her feel safe for the first time since her widowhood, despite old resentments from their past.

  And yet, was she safe? Were any of them safe? She could still close her eyes and see that telltale hoofprint of the horse Thames had ridden the day he’d killed Matthew. She’d seen them on this very trail a couple of days ago, that distinctive print packed into mud and left to harden.

  After her first sighting, she’d tried to tell herself the horse would have been reshod by now, but what if the horseshoe was shaped to the hoof? If that were so, then it would be easy to track him across the state. She just needed to make sure he didn’t track them.

  She would tell Joseph about the whole thing as soon as she knew for sure. Maybe she could find more tracks once they crossed the creek. Fresh tracks in the mud, perhaps?

  She was just finishing with Luella and checking the others when a whoop and a loud cry reached them from
the wagon camp.

  “Oh, Lord, have mercy!” Audy Reich called out from her perch beside the fire where she’d been soaking beans to cook. She jumped up and ran through the trees toward them. “I hear some mighty cracklin’ from up north. Captain, better get that young man away from there. Something big’s coming down that creek!”

  Chapter Three

  Loud pops resounded through the forest like shots from a rifle. Hundreds of rifles in excruciating succession. But Victoria knew that sound. She’d heard the same several times when caught in an ice storm and the ice grew so thick on the branches that they broke. Limbs were breaking.

  The creek had claimed another tree, and this one was a giant. She glanced downhill at the creek and saw a huge shadow being thrust forward by the water—for sure a giant tree uprooted. Its limbs grasped out toward everything near the swollen creek, and from the vantage point of the hill on which she stood, she saw the tree wrenching with it other trees, rocks and mud, creating a dam that blocked the motion of the water.

  The creek spread and splashed far above its banks. The dam would break at any second. She could hear the creaking of wood and rumble of water under pressure. The forest blocked her sight of the place where Joseph had left Buster moping beside his wagon near the creek.

  “Buster!” Gray’s shout of horror bled into the roar of the water. He shot through the trees and down the hill toward his brother with the speed of a wildcat.

  Joseph and Reich leaped forward and raced down the hillside behind him. Heidi started to cry, and her mother put an arm around her.

  Mr. Reich’s voice rang out through the valley. “Get away from the creek!”

  The man’s voice boomed with authority, but Victoria knew how little regard Buster had for that. She left the others and followed the men, sliding through the waterlogged forest, bracing against the trees until she reached a ledge where she could see directly down the hill. What she saw terrified her.

  * * *

  Joseph caught up with Reich, bracing for a wall of water to come crashing down on them at any moment. He couldn’t forget his friend Johnston who’d scouted for Joseph a couple of years and once risked his own life to save Joseph from a rampaging brown bear. It would destroy Johnston if his sons never made it out of Missouri.

  Gray reached Buster seconds before Joseph and Reich. He grabbed his brother’s arm and gestured wildly toward the impending dam break.

  Buster turned and looked up Flat Creek. “No! We have to get the wagon first. Gray, help me!”

  “You can’t save it now, Buster,” Joseph called. “It’s too late. Get out of there or you’ll be killed.”

  Buster broke free of Gray’s hold and lunged for the wagon hitch. “It’s all we’ve got.”

  “You still have your life,” Reich said. The big man reached for Buster’s arm and dragged him from the hitch. “Now, boy. You’ve got to come now! Gray, get back up that hill. Go on!”

  Gray hesitated. “Buster, they’re risking their lives for you. Don’t let more men die for you!” His expression held fury and horror as he obeyed Reich and ran.

  Joseph heard another series of deafening cracks and looked up to see the water pour past the dam of debris. The fountain of water became a flood, and then the natural dam gave way with the sound of thunder. Joseph joined Reich to jerk Buster from the oncoming tempest of an evergreen with limbs the size of horses, which reached past the farthest edges of the flooded creek bank.

  “My gun!” Buster shouted. “Gotta get my gun.” He turned back toward the wagon.

  Joseph nodded to Reich, and together they lifted the brazen young man between them and ran.

  The wall of trees, uprooted shrubs, mud and rocks tumbled forward in a crash of violence. A foot-thick limb grabbed Joseph and knocked him into Buster. Water deluged them. They scrambled to keep their footing, but another limb knocked them into the mud, dragged them sideways and back toward the creek.

  The water retreated, but the tree held firmly and pulled them with increasing speed toward the racing stream. Joseph dug his heels into the mud and held on to Buster. “Don’t let go!” he shouted at the others. “Don’t stand up.” If they did, another branch would have more leverage against them. That tree was a monster they couldn’t control.

  “Captain! Reich, grab on!” came a voice from behind them. McDonald. Joseph looked up past the barrier of the limb and saw his scout throwing out a loop of thick rope. It was the one Joseph had taken from Buster.

  “Grab it,” he told the other two. “Look up and grab it, now!”

  The loop came down over the limb and Joseph reached for it. Before he could grasp it, another limb tumbled over the first with another wave of water, thrusting them closer to the creek.

  “Captain, hurry, try again!” McDonald tossed the rope atop them this time and Joseph caught it. He saw Reich’s strong hand grip it and they jerked to a stop.

  The limb scraped along Joseph’s side, digging into his ribs with agonizing sharpness until the tree withdrew as suddenly as it had hit them.

  They lay panting in the grip of terror for a long moment, then looked up to find a crowd of rescuers holding the other end of the rope.

  Despite a bloody nose and scratches on his face, Buster scrambled to his feet and ran hollering after his wagon. With a practiced stretch of the leg, Reich tripped the demented man, then rolled forward and grabbed him by the arm.

  Joseph grasped the other arm and turned to watch as the pine tree hauled off the wagon in the clutch of its green arms and strong limbs. Chunks of wood and wagon flew through the air. A loud creak and groan echoed from the cliffs behind the camp as Buster’s angry cry rose to the sky.

  “I could have gotten it!” Buster’s face flushed with fury as he rounded on Joseph.

  “No, you would have died and left your brother alone.” Joseph released the scoundrel and nodded to Reich. “Let him go. If he’s crazy enough to go running after it after all this, he deserves whatever he gets.”

  Buster fell to his knees and gave a wordless groan of frustration as the axles and wheels sank permanently into the muddy maelstrom.

  “Oh, I don’t believe this.” Mrs. Reich came marching toward them through the mud. “You men oughta be ashamed of yourselves.” She leaned over Buster. “Don’t you worry, son. You’re not alone here.” She shot a glare over her shoulder at her husband and Joseph. “Can’t you see the boy’s just lost everything he owns? How would you feel if it’d happened to you?”

  “Aw, woman, it wouldn’t’ve happened to Joseph or me because we’d’ve never tempted the creek like that.” Reich put his fists on his hips. “This boy needs to listen. At least he’s still got the horses.”

  Audy Reich shook her head. “Don’t you think you oughta have a little mercy? Why, I’d be ashamed. Come along with me, Buster, my boy,” she cooed as she took Buster by the arm. “The doctor will want to get those cuts cleaned and bandaged. Can you walk okay?”

  A low grumble reached Joseph, and he turned to see Mr. Reich glaring after his wife and the wayward Buster. “That woman would take any cur in off the street and treat him like a child instead of the man he needs to be.”

  Joseph grinned and reached a mud-caked hand out. “And her husband would risk his life to save that cur in the first place.” He patted Reich on his muscular shoulder. “He’d be dead today if not for you, my friend.”

  “And you. See what we get ourselves into when we go meddling into the affairs of others?” He chuckled.

  “Okay, you two.” Victoria came down the hill toward them with her treatment bag slung over her arm. The sun had burned away the remaining clouds and touched her hair with a red-gold glow. “Heidi can see to Buster, but I reserve the right to treat our heroes first.” She pulled a bottle of medicinal whiskey from her bag and held up a clean cloth. “Did either of you swallow the water?”

  Joseph glanced up the hill toward the spot where they had just been treating poor Claude and his rescuers. “No ma’am, not me. I knew better tha
n to open my mouth.”

  “Same here, Dr. Fenway,” Reich said immediately. “Kept my jaws locked, not a drop of water passed these lips. You don’t need to go rolling me around on one of those logs and forcing salt water down my gullet.”

  Victoria narrowed her eyes at them. “You do realize how dangerous it could be if you did.”

  “Sure do, ma’am.” Reich rubbed some of the mud from his hands onto his muddier clothing. “And look at this, not a scratch on me. You oughta see to the captain, though. That tree walloped him good.”

  Before she could reply, the big man scrambled through the mud and up the hill after his wife. Joseph watched the traitor escape, then met Victoria’s gaze, wincing inwardly as he anticipated the sting of her medicinal whiskey on his grazed skin.

  Victoria nodded toward a fallen log farther up the hill. “We can sit up there. I need to get you cleaned up.”

  “Give me the medicine and I’ll do it myself.”

  She drew the bottle close to her side. “You’ll do no such thing. I’m the doctor. I’ll also take a look at your ribs.” With a nod toward the place where the limbs had ripped his shirt, she raised her eyebrows. “I need to see if anything’s broken.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Are you having any trouble breathing?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out to show her he was fine, and was relieved to find that at least breathing didn’t hurt. “Just a scratch.” But he followed her when she turned and walked up the hill.

  “Have you considered sending the Johnstons back home now?” she asked.

  “I’ve considered it every day.”

  “We’d be ever so much safer without them. You can see that, can’t you? At least the horses weren’t hitched to the wagon,” she said with a glance over her shoulder toward the creek. “Those boys are a hindrance out here, and now you’re injured because of them. They can ride a lot faster by horseback than wagon.”

  “I’m not even sure they’d make it back home alive, and I can’t spare a man to lead them.”

  She seemed ready to argue, but instead fell silent. Ten years ago she’d have gnawed on the subject like a dog with a bone. Instead, she led him deeper into the woods to the fallen log, where trees screened them from sight of the others.