Chapter 1

One

The woman woke up to the feeling of something tickling her cheek.

When she opened her eyes, pain like a broad needle pierced inside her skull. She closed her eyes, but the pain persisted as a throbbing drum.

Little by little, it abated to a dull ache that seemed to echo the beating of her heart.

This time, she cracked her eyes first.

How much time had passed since that first awareness? She didn't know, but now a faint shadow fell over her face. She squinted and registered the small, even leaves of a box elder sheltering her from the sunlight.

She was outdoors.

But where was she?

Her stomach twisted violently as she pushed up on one elbow, and then to a sitting position. Somehow she knew there was nothing inside her empty belly. She pressed one hand against her midsection and tried to breathe. Her mouth felt as parched as a preacher's tongue after a long-winded sermon.

Something was wrong. She was sure of it, even as the ringing in her ears cleared away and was replaced by a bird chirping from somewhere nearby.

Scanning all directions, the unsettled feeling persisted. She seemed to be sitting beneath a copse of trees. The soft breeze and warm air might indicate it was summer. Beyond the trees and some undergrowth, there was only emptiness. As if the land was one vast prairie.

Her stomach lurched, but this time from nerves.

The sense of wrongness solidified, and she realized she could not remember her own name.

She turned her hand in front of her face, searching the light brown skin as if the shaking appendage could unlock the answer for her.

The more she pressed her mind, the bigger her headache grew. Fragments of... memories?… what must be memories pressed behind her eyes.

Her... brother. Yes!

Remembered affection flowed through her, along with relief, as her mind showed her images of a young man with black hair and laughing dark brown eyes.

Her mouth tried to form a word—his name—but the information stayed just out of reach as the pounding in her head grew so intense that she could no longer chase the thought-memory and it slipped away.

She did not know her own name. Or her brother's.

Nor why she was outdoors in the middle of an echoing wilderness.

The blue gingham dress and dirt-smudged apron were unfamiliar to her as she patted the fabric and searched her pockets for any clue and found none.

She pushed one hand into the springy curls of her damp hair. A trickling of water nearby registered, as did a terrifying memory of being submerged beneath surging water. The memory only lasted as long as her blink, but for that fractured second she felt trapped in a vortex of water and her body sucked in a breath to dispel the image.

What had happened? Something terrible. It must have been terrible if she was out here alone.

Was she alone?

Her brain felt sluggish and hazy but the thought lodged and stuck.

"H-hello?" Was that her voice, feeble and raspy? Had it carried any farther than the box elder standing sentinel?

Speaking reminded her of the dryness in her throat and mouth. She was so thirsty and the trickle of water rushed and rushed in her head until it was all she could hear.

Her head pounded again when she forced her shaking legs to stand, but she made it to her feet. What had happened to her?

One wobbly step, then another. Something caught her eye on the ground... it looked like someone had vomited?—

Another glance encompassed where she had been lying in proximity to the sick mottling the ground strewn with decaying leaves.

Oh. She had been sick.

That explained the gnawing emptiness in her stomach, the dryness in her mouth, the thirst.

But it did not explain why she couldn't remember anything before waking up.

Her body could no longer deny the need for water, even to answer the growing questions in her mind and she took several shaky steps before she needed to lean one hand against a sapling to steady herself.

A few more steps and she emerged from the cover of the trees. She squinted in bright sunlight. Morning still, but barely.

There was the water. A wide swath of river, sparkling like diamonds as it passed over a bed of smooth, round rocks. Farther down, the water narrowed in a bend, rushing over large boulders.

Moving quickly now, the woman crossed the expanse of damp gravel, her feet twisting beneath her as the ground shifted.

She knelt at the edge of the river, uncaring that her dress got wet, that her knees chilled at the icy shock.

She cupped her hands and drank handful after handful of fresh water so cold it made her teeth ache.

Breathless but finally sated, she sat back on her haunches. Her eyes roamed in all directions.

She didn't know what she was looking for. A house. A town. Smoke. Horses. Any sign of civilization. Any sign that she wasn't completely alone.

There was only the expanse of blue sky, littered with clouds.

Fear slithered through her like smoke filtering through cracks in a smokeshack.

"Help!" Her voice cracked on the word, but it didn't stop her from shouting, "Is anyone there? Help! Heeellp!"

But it was as if the wind snatched her voice. No one answered.

The water had healed her parched throat enough that the twist in her stomach felt like hunger.

Surely she wasn't alone out here. There must be something. A house. A tent.

Her nose twitched and she turned her head, searching for the faintest hint of woodsmoke. Was she imagining it?

Heart pounding, her feet led her back the way she'd come, into the woods.

Yards away, a dark shape loomed. And jerked.

She shrieked and stopped short, pressing one hand to her chest. How had she not noticed it before? A man's coat, some kind of slicker, hung from a branch well above her head. Another gust of the breeze set it twisting and swaying.

Someone was out here.

Were they friend or foe?

The scent of smoke was slightly stronger here, a fire long burned away. Her heart quailed as she circled around the coat, sleeves flapping in the breeze. She noticed a small campfire, only ashes and a few black lumps of charred wood. No tent. No shovel or clothesline or hammer.

She'd camped with her father when she was young. The thought was quickly followed by a sense of urgency as she tried to picture his face in her memories. No matter how hard she tried to force him to come in to focus, she couldn't remember.

This was only a dead campfire, not a camp.

What now?

She pressed the heels of both hands to her eyes. Why couldn't she remember? The rising panic inside her clawed its way up her throat, but she couldn't let it out. Some instinct told her that breaking down in tears at this moment was dangerous.

She'd grown up in the city. That knowledge clicked into place with a certainty that had to be real. She could've navigated home from the grocers or the butcher or her friend Flora's house.

Flora.

The name settled in place, too. Along with a clear memory of a young girl with medium brown skin with copper undertones and her hair in a kerchief. Sparkling, mischievous eyes.

Flora.

But when the woman tried to ask her memory-friend what her own name was, the memory faded.

If the woman was comfortable in the city, what was she doing out on this prairie, alone?

The man's coat beckoned as if it could answer.

Again the thought stuck. Maybe she wasn't alone.

"H-hello?" she called out softly.

A noise came from deeper in the woods, a breaking branch. The woman wheeled and strained her eyes to see, but only the wind rustled the leaves.

Something shifted to her left. What she'd taken for a part of the landscape, a brown mass, moved.

A man.

He wore pants the color of earth, and a shirt, once white, now streaked with mud. That's why she had thought him part of the ground.

A slight groan spilled from him as he rolled from where he'd curled around himself to splay flat on his back. His skin was darker than hers, a rich brown. From several feet away, she saw his hands were used to work, calloused and strong.

Who was he? His face was turned from her. A hat lay several feet beyond him.

Again she wondered, friend or foe?

She didn't know the answer.

And then his head turned. When he opened his eyes, he was looking right at her.

The man had only a moment to notice the young woman's wide, shocked eyes. Dark eyes. Her hair caught up behind her head, though wisps of curls framed her face. Her dress and the apron she wore over it wrinkled as if they had been soaked and dried while crumpled in a ball. Her tawny skin was kissed with a faint undertone of pink, as if she had been out in the sun too long.

Something tugged at him, a pull of familiarity that seemed at odds with the suspicious narrowing of her eyes.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

Then a pause, the length of one heartbeat. He didn't know the answer to her question.

"Who are you?" he countered.

She was hovering behind a fallen, decaying tree as if she feared him, though he remained flat on the ground.

"I asked you first." The tilt of her chin that might mean stubbornness. Yes. Stubborn.

He felt an ache at the base of his skull, and when he raised one hand to rub it, she flinched. The pain bloomed and expanded to a dull roar in his head.

"Did you poison me?" Something in his throat and mouth tasted wrong. His body felt weak, a feeling he associated with surviving a fatiguing fever.

The narrowing of her eyes intensified, a frown pulling at her mouth. He had one stray thought that her features weren't used to the expression. How could he know that about her, when he didn't even know her name? Or his own?

"If I did, I poisoned the both of us." Her mouth took on a determined slant. "I can't remember a thing," she admitted softly.

That was not good. He didn't know how they had come to be here, wherever here was. And he didn't know this woman.

When he sat up, she took several shuffling steps backward.

He took in the campfire, now cold. A quick glance around the small clearing showed no other supplies.

"There's nothing here," she said, as if her thoughts had followed his gaze around the clearing. "No house. No city. No wagon or horses to pull it."

"It'd be oxen you'd want for a long journey." The words slipped past his lips before a conscious thought had formed.

Her brows furrowed above intelligent eyes. "How do you know that?"

He shook his head, but aborted the movement and winced as pain spiked behind his eyes. "I don't know how I know it, I just do."

She crossed her arms over her midsection. "It's like we've been dropped from the sky in this wilderness."

Though his head protested, he forced himself to his feet. Wobbled a bit, but that passed when he spread his feet wide.

"Fanciful," he said. "But not possible. There has to be an explanation."

Her lips pursed and for a moment, he was caught in a staring contest, wariness exuding from both sides.

She was beautiful. There was no denying it. When he would've acted on the tug in his gut pulling him toward her, she glanced to the side, giving him her profile.

"You don't remember anything?" he prodded.

He took a couple of steps to reach the fire and nudged the toe of his boot through the ashes. It was completely dead, completely cold. It could've been out for hours. Or days, though that seemed less likely because the ashes weren't scattered.

"I remember the name of a little girl I knew when I was a child... I think. My brother's face. My father is just a faint trace..."

Her words prompted memory of a child's laughter, then a terrified shriek, though he received no images to go along with the sounds.

When he went to put his hands on his hips, he felt the leather belt around his waist. He glanced down as his fingertips explored.

A gun belt, though there weren't any bullets in the small leather holes made for such. Still, a revolver rested in its holster.

The man's hand closed over the gun's stock for a brief moment. He felt a sense of rightness, of security. He was meant to have this weapon, for protection. But he couldn't say why.

He patted his hips, and then his breast pocket. Empty.

When he looked up, she was watching him closely.

The awareness made heat rise in his face. "I don't suppose you've got anything useful in your pockets? Like a family Bible inscribed with our names?"

Something shifted in her expression. "Do you think our names would be in the same Bible?" A pause, a caught breath.

Married. That's what it would likely mean to find their names were inscribed in a family Bible.

The uncertainty in her expression magnified.

"I do know you somehow." He hadn't meant to say the words, but there they were. He'd wanted to ease her fear, and they were true. He knew her. He felt it. He just didn't know how.

She nodded toward something behind him. "There's a coat hanging."

When he twisted to see, she continued, "It's much too big to fit me. It must be yours."

It only took a few strides to reach where it hung in the tree. He pulled it down, feeling a lingering dampness at the seams.

"How come I'm not wearing it?"

She shrugged helplessly.

He reached into the pockets, came up empty. Disappointment rankled.

But as he folded the garment over his arm, something heavy thunked against his side. He examined the coat again, this time finding the inside breast pocket. Its flap was tucked closed. Inside, more moisture.

"It's possible we took a swim." His conclusion made her brows wrinkle again. "The inside of this pocket is wet. And your dress had to have been soaked at some point."

She looked down at herself.

His fingers closed over something cool and rectangular—he drew out a small leather bound book, tied with a leather thong.

He flipped the book open. Reading the words sliced pain through his skull.

Numbers. Columns of numbers, scribbled… names? An occasional sketch in the corner of one page.

Independence Rock. Fort Bridger. Ten lost .

He couldn't make sense of it. Nor the sense of urgency that stole over him. Hurry .

"It's a log book," he said absently, still flipping through the pages. "I can't understand it."

It would've been more helpful to have found a diary or journal. Not … whatever this was.

"What use is a log book?" she asked, the question an echo of his own musings.

It stirred the muddy soup of his thoughts. "A traveler might use it."

The words settled deep. Yes. A traveler. He was a traveler. But when he pushed for more answers from inside himself, there was only a dark void. A punch of fear. Run! The voice from somewhere inside that darkness seemed almost audible.

He blinked, and the charged moment—memory?—faded.

"If we are travelers, where are our belongings? Those oxen you mentioned? Friends or others we might've traveled with?" There was a building desperation in her voice.

He didn't have any answers to calm her. "I don't know. You're right. We wouldn't have come out here alone."

"What if we are lost?" she whispered.