Chapter 8

8

" I sn't there somewhere else we can go?"

Emma's frightened plea tugged at Fran's heart. The girl had huddled in the wagon all morning, clutching the white dog. Fran knew Edgar didn't want the animal inside with their food staples, but she didn't have the heart to deny her sister the small comfort.

Emma wouldn't even get out of the wagon and walk, like she had the day before.

Fran shot a glare at the cowboy who'd put that fear in Emma's voice.

As if he sensed her ire, Edgar turned around, muscled legs flexing as he stood in the saddle.

He tipped his hat. She turned her face slightly, looking away from him.

He'd ridden his horse all morning, but had stayed close, riding beside the wagon when the cattle had moved out front, then drawing closer to the herd when it was nearer the wagon. The morning was cooler than the day before had been, the sun partially obscured by gray clouds.

She could swat the man for making her tell Emma about the men possibly following them. Her sister didn't need to spend her time worrying about a threat that might not even exist.

Things were under control. Weren't they?

Emma sighed. "Fran?"

She realized she'd been lost in thoughts of the cowboy. "Sorry." She took one hand from the reins and motioned to the landscape around them. Empty except for cows and cowboys.

"Edgar promised to get us to Tuck's Station and then set us up in Calvin. He says it is another small town between Tuck's Station and Bear Creek."

She told Emma of her husband's plans. "By the time we're settled, we'll be free of Underhill." She hoped.

Emma's brows crinkled. "But what about your marriage?"

Fran strove to keep her face from showing any emotion other than smooth serenity. "Edgar thinks we should live separately."

Her sister gave a disbelieving huff. "What's his reasoning? It's obvious there are sparks between you two."

Fran didn't want to talk about it. But she also didn't want her sister`s focus to return to their desperate circumstances.

How did she explain to her sister, when she couldn't fully understand it herself? She knew he was attracted to her. But…somehow he found her lacking. Just like Tim, the man who'd come calling when she was still at the Girls' Academy. "Neither of us intended to be married back in Bear Creek. It happened quickly. It was a solution that fit. But he doesn't want a wife," she reminded her sister.

"Then he shouldn't have said vows!"

Emma's perturbed scowl pinched Fran's heart.

"What of your happiness?" Emma asked.

"I'll be happy knowing you're safe."

Her emphatic statement brought the shadows back to her sister's eyes.

"I wish…." Emma sighed, letting the words fade away. "I'd started to like it out here—it's so open."

Pounding hoofbeats brought her gaze up. Emma curled back into a ball.

Edgar rode up to them. "Looks like there might be a storm brewing. We're going to stop for a while."

Relief at being allowed an extra stop was tempered by immediate concern. They were going to pass a storm…in the wagon?

The stream they'd camped near for the past two nights had disappeared. Now the only thing breaking up the smooth, slightly hilled landscape was a nearby copse of scrub trees.

Edgar pointed to it. "Pull the wagon over there. The hands and I are going to settle the cattle as best we can. Then I'll come to help you unhitch. Stay put with the wagon."

She followed his directions, snugging the wagon up as close to the trees as she could before setting the brake. Emma shuffled around in the back as Fran got down, using the front wheel as a step.

It was nice to have a break from the constant jostling of the wagon. Yesterday, she'd been on her best behavior with Edgar beside her. She'd done her best to sit still and not fidget, and her muscles were sore today.

In the relative privacy between the wagon and the woods, she stretched her back, then bent at the waist, reaching down to touch her toes. It was unladylike, but it felt good to release muscles unused to the effort of driving a team.

The sky darkened. How had Edgar known they were in for a storm? Years working outdoors.

She decided it was a good idea to ensure the wagon was as watertight as they could make it.

She turned to the front of the wagon. "Emma? Emma, can you come out and help me batten down the canvas? Make sure the dog stays inside." Edgar had mentioned that it was his sister's special pet, and Fran didn't want it running away out of fright if the storm spooked it.

Emma didn't answer verbally, but canvas rustled as if she'd climbed down out of the back.

Stepping on the wheel spokes, Fran could barely reach the ties connecting the canvas to the wooden wagon, but checked to make sure each was secured tightly.

A distant rumble of thunder had her rushing through the next knot and then climbing back into the wagon seat to tie off the front flap that they'd made a practice of leaving open while Emma rode in the wagon.

She'd never weathered a storm out-of-doors. The closest she'd ever been was in one of her father's barns as a small girl. More recently she'd always been indoors when the weather was frightful. And the slate gray clouds now swirling above threatened to make this a memorable time.

"Emma, you about done back there?"

There was no answer other than a bark.

"Emma?"

A little unnerved by the escalating weather and her sister's silence, Fran hopped down on the wagon's opposite side. The cattle were more distant than she expected. She could barely make out the cowboys circling the herd.

She turned back to check on Emma's progress, but couldn't see her sister. Had Emma gone around the back of the wagon, and they'd just missed each other?

Fran rushed to the rear, but Emma wasn't there either. She circled the wagon entirely, heart beginning to pound loud in her ears. She threw open the back flap. No Emma, only the white dog, frantically wiggling toward her, no doubt scared by the worry in her voice.

Skirting the wagon a second time, she kept her eyes on the ground. Edgar and his cowhands had talked about tracking the men following them by their prints in the ground, but she couldn't make out anything in the thick grasses. Not even her own footprints.

Her heart thundered, pulse racing.

Had Underhill's men caught up with them?

The wind kicked up, blowing strands of hair into her eyes. Thunder rolled, much closer this time.

"Emma!" she shouted. "Come out now!" Could her sister be playing a trick? But Emma had never been particularly cruel.

And then she broke.

"Emma!" she screamed.

She went to the horses, but her fear and panic made it impossible to remember how Edgar had instructed her to unhook their harness yesterday. Even if she managed to get one of them untangled from the wagon, she didn't know how to ride it.

It would be quicker to run.

She lifted her skirt and sprinted out into the open, praying she wasn't too late.

Edgar didn't like the look of the sky. The storm had come up too quickly and threatened to be a real gully washer.

Bursts of lightning preceded thunder, but not by much. It was closing in fast.

The cattle milled disconsolately, bawling and shifting with unease. He'd sent the girls near the patch of woods. He knew from riding through this area before that the land behind the trees shifted into two levels, a taller bluff and the continuing prairie.

He wanted the girls as far away from the animals as they could be—just in case.

He was as nervous as the cattle, but he projected a calm he didn't really feel for both the animal under him and the other cowboys who were looking to him for direction.

If the cattle got spooked by either the lights or the loud, rolling thunder, they could stampede, and that was something that no one out there wanted.

He thought he'd better check on Fran and her sister before the storm really got rolling. He'd shouted his intention to the nearest man and turned his horse to head that way, when he spotted one of them running toward the cattle, waving her arms and shouting, though he couldn't make out her words.

From this distance, it would be impossible to tell them apart in the same drab dresses they wore. He suspected it was Fran, and spurred his mount into a gallop. Had something happened? Unease tightened his throat.

Her hair flew out behind her like a banner. She clutched her dress above her knees so she could run at full speed. They met in the middle of the open prairie. He reined in, not wanting to run her over with her horse.

She stopped at his knee, clawing at him, panic evident. "Emma's gone," she gasped. "We stopped and I tried to secure the wagon and she's just gone."

"Wait a minute—she ran off?" He shifted in the saddle, looking to the wagon but seeing nothing out of place. No girl waiting there, either.

"I don't know. What if Underhill's men took her?"

Unless whoever had been following them had circled around in front and specifically hidden in that stand of trees, they wouldn't have had time to grab Emma. More likely she'd wandered away from the wagon. It was still a dangerous proposition, with this storm coming on.

"Did she say anything? Did you see her walk off?"

Fran shook her head in the negative. She couldn't catch her breath to answer and he didn't want to waste any more time. He reached down and swept Fran up into the saddle behind him, ignoring the blast of pain from his injured hand.

"Hold on," he commanded.

Her arms came around him, clasping in front of his midsection. He could feel her breaths heaving, from panic or exertion or both.

He kicked his mount and the horse took off. He made a beeline for the wagon, and when they got there, he urged the horse around the wagon quickly. He couldn't find any evidence that another horseman had come through there.

"She didn't say anything?" he demanded. "Anything about running away?"

"No!" Fran replied, voice urgent. "Why would she? There's nowhere to go."

A bright bolt of lightning split the sky and immediately a loud clap of thunder shook the ground.

If the rain came fast, like it looked like it would, a flash flood was a real possibility.

His horse reared unexpectedly, and it was all he could do to hold on with his thighs and grip the saddle horn with his good hand.

Fran slid away behind him, but with his injury he couldn't reach for her. He barely kept his saddle.

Her arms squeezed his midsection tightly, but he still felt her slipping.

"Whoa, boy, whoa," he managed.

The horse settled, all four feet back on the ground. Fran adjusted herself behind him, breathing hard.

"You okay?" he asked.

She said something, but he couldn't tell if it was in the affirmative.

His own thudding heart made him mistake the first sounds of rain against the hard-packed earth, but the wetness quickly pounded his shoulders, disabusing him of the notion he was getting out of this dry.

He hadn't even had time to put on his slicker.

The immediate pounding rain brought with it the frightening reality of the situation. If Emma was caught out in this in the wrong lay of land, she could be in real danger. And both she and Fran were city girls. Would she even know to find higher ground?

He kicked his horse again, pushing into the brushy trees, squinting in the low light to make out if she hid in any of the shadows. It was slightly darker here, the noise of the raindrops dampened by the foliage around them.

"Emma!" he shouted.

Fran quickly echoed his call, not needing him to instruct her.

Twigs snapped and branches slapped at him as they navigated the small woods. He hoped Fran wasn't getting the same. She burrowed into his back. Maybe that shielded her from some of it.

Finally clearing the wooded area, there was still no sign of Emma.

The rain was pouring even harder now, if that was possible.

Another bolt of lightning rent the sky, and Fran jumped, hands clenching on his sides.

At another time, he might've welcomed the protective feeling that came over him, but now his worry for her sister took front and center.

He urged his horse up the incline to the top of the bluff. It grew steeper the farther they went.

He really hoped Emma had chosen to go upwards, but he had a sinking suspicion that if she were trying to hide, she had chosen the lower, more dangerous route.

And all the rainwater running off the taller swath of land to the lower could create a flash flood. Another hundred years and it might wash all the way out into a gully, but for now it just spelled danger. Rushing water and a slip of a girl weren't a good combination.

He wished he'd had time to call for one of his brothers or the other cowboys before he'd rushed off here alone, with only Fran behind him.

But he wouldn't let her down. In their wedding vows, he'd promised to protect her, and that extended to her sister as well.

Lightning lit the sky again, and that's when he spotted Emma's gray dress against the drenched green grass. She was huddled against the ground.

At least, he hoped it was her and not a wounded animal. It was hard to tell through the sheeting rain.

"Emma!" He shouted, and she moved a little. Was she hurt?

He drew up his horse on the edge of the bluff. The animal shied and a look over the side revealed why. It was a straight drop-off of maybe ten feet. If the horse stepped off it would mean a broken leg for sure—maybe for all of them.

"Is that her?" Fran cried, leaning out so she was more beside him than behind him. She kept a tight grip on his waist. "How can we get down there?"

"I don't know. It's a straight drop-off?—"

"You could lower me?—"

She was cut off by a loud rush. A wall of water rushed along the bottom of the bluff, separating them from Emma even more. She was feet away from the bluff, but the water still tugged at her dress or feet, he couldn't tell which.

"Why doesn't she get up?" Fran worried aloud.

"I don't know, but we've got to figure a way to get her. If we take the time to go back and find a place to cross, the water may rise even more."

"Lower me down," she said again.

He shook his head, accidentally sending a stream of water from his hat brim into her face. She gasped.

"You're too petite. That water'll sweep your feet right out from under you."

"But Emma?—"

"I'm going," he made his voice firm, so there wasn't any question, and swung his leg over the horse's back in preparation to dismount, his opposite foot in the stirrup holding him in place temporarily.

"Guess you're going to get that riding lesson quicker than I planned." Before he could think better of it, he slid his good hand behind her head and pulled her in for a quick kiss, a flash fire of mouths pressed together.

Then he slid off the horse to rescue her sister.

Head spinning from that impromptu kiss, Fran registered Edgar's slide off the horse.

The shock of his hand on her knee, through the layers of her skirt and petticoat, roused her back to the present disaster.

"You'll have to sit astride."

Her worry for Emma renewed, Fran didn't protest the unladylike move. And Edgar was too busy unstrapping a rope from the side of his saddle to look at her calves anyway.

"The horse knows if you're calm or panicked."

He must've sensed her skepticism, because he looked right up at her, rainwater sliding off the back of his hat. "It's true. Your body might tense up when you get nervous, and your legs will tell the tale."

His palm slid across her knee and he squeezed.

"All right. Project calm," she said.

Lightning flashed, illuminating his face and the serious look he wore. He waited until the thunder had shaken them before he spoke. "We're going to get her. Together."

And she believed him.

"You communicate to the horse with your legs and hands," he said. He pressed her knee into the horse's side. "To move forward." The horse obligingly stepped forward. Edgar followed, still gripping her leg.

Then he pressed her foot into the stirrup. At the same time, his other hand clasped both of hers on the reins and pulled back. The horse stopped.

"And if he…jumps from the lightning again?" she asked. She'd nearly fallen before and had only stayed on the animal's back because she'd been clinging to Edgar.

"Then try to fall where he won't step on you."

How reassuring.

Edgar unfurled the rope and passed part around his back, then knotted it in front of his chest, leaving it only a little loose beneath his arms. He looped a small amount around the knob on top of the saddle. "First, I'm going to climb down the side of the bluff. Just keep the horse standing, all right?"

He slowly turned the horse to face away from the bluff.

She swallowed hard. The horse bobbed its head. She realized she was gripping the reins too tightly and the animal could feel it. She forced her hands to relax.

Edgar squeezed her forearm. "Once I get Emma, I probably won't be able to climb the hill on my own. Wait for me to shout or wave, and then slowly move the horse forward. Don't go too fast, or you'll drag us."

"Okay."

"Sure?"

She smiled a shaky smile. "What choice do I have? We have to get Emma."

He nodded, and she had the sense that he was proud of her. She would be proud if they got Emma back to safety.

"Steady, old boy," he said to the horse, with a pat on its neck. He nodded once more to Fran and disappeared.

She turned as far around in the saddle as she dared, in time to see him lever his lower body over the side of the bluff. Quickly, his head and torso disappeared, then reappeared as he moved away from the drop-off.

She prayed silently and fervently as she saw his boots splash into the muddy brown water. He sunk to his knees, wobbling a bit before finding his balance.

A glance at Emma revealed the girl still prone on the ground, and Fran's heart thumped wildly, just like it had at the first glimpse she'd gotten of her sister. Had Emma been hurt? Surely this was all Fran's fault. Maybe Edgar was right, and keeping Emma in the dark about their possible pursuers had somehow made the girl feel she should run away.

The rope hanging from the saddle became taut as Edgar knelt over her sister.

She held her breath.

And then the rope slackened as he stood, with Emma's slight body in his arms. Was she alive? Was she hurt?

He disappeared again beneath the lip of the bluff. She worried as he must be struggling through the dangerous water. Then, she saw Edgar's hat waving just above the side of the bluff.

He was ready for her to move.

She turned forward in the saddle and carefully squeezed the horse's flank with her knees the way he'd briefly shown her. The animal plodded forward.

She held the reins as loosely as she dared, using her other hand to wipe a hank of bedraggled hair from her face. She felt like a drowned cat, soaked to the bone, but that wasn't important. Getting Emma back was.

The rope pulled tight, and she craned her neck to look back. At first it was only the rope, tight with tension, then a glimpse of Edgar's hat, then one arm thrown over the jutting bluff.

And then they were both above ground.

She wanted to jump down from the horse but was afraid what it might do without a rider. Would it drag Edgar and Emma with no direction?

Waiting on the back of the horse was excruciating as Edgar pushed to his knees, and then stood. Emma was limp against his chest, and Fran's heart thundered in her ears. This was all her fault. All of it.

If Emma was all right, she would do anything, anything to make things right for her sister.