PROLOGUE

^?

" O h Lordy, I'm dying."

Low Down stared into the man's swollen face and her nostrils pinched against the stink ofoozing pustules. Clenching her teeth, she reached deep inside for a dollop of energy, lifted his head, pulled out his pillow and changed the case, then settled his head back on dry, clean linen before she leaned near his ear.

"You're starting to scab up, which means the worst is over. You're going to make it."

"No I ain't."

"Now you listen, Frank. I know you got a pouch of gold hid under a plank in your cabin. If you die, I'm going tostealthose nuggets. You just think about that."

His eyes fluttered open. "How'd you know about my stash? That gold is for my funeral and a headstone!"

"Too bad. If you die, I'm stealing it. I'll jump your claim,too."

Leaving him struggling to sit up, she moved to the next cot on stumbling feet. Christ Almighty. When was the last time she had grabbed a couple hours of sleep or had eaten anything? She couldn't remember.

And the men kept coming to the school—sick, delirious, needing help. Before she bent over the next cot, she looked around, blinking hard to clear her vision, hoping this time she'd discover that someone had cometo help her.

Her boot heel slipped in a poolof vomit and she pitched forward, nearly falling across Max McCord.

Swearing, she fetched a bucket and flung the water at the vomit, it was all she had time for, the best she could do. Pulling a letter out of her trouser pocket, she looked down at Max. Like all of them, he was in a bad way. His face and eyelids were swollen, and he was beginning to stink like rotten meat. That meant he'd start oozing soon, which was good. If she could push, prod, and coax them through to this stage, they usually survived.

She waved the envelope under his nose. "See this?" It was addressed to a Miss Philadelphia Houser in his handwriting; she knew that because she'd taken the envelope from his jacket pocket before his clothing was burned. When she was sure he was coherent and watching, she tore the letter into pieces.

"If you die, Miss Philadelphia Houser will never know about the big fancy house you built for her. She'll never know that you were thinking about her right before you got so sick."

A hard flush of fever and outrage made him look almost healthy. "Damn it! You had no right to read a private letter! No right to rip it to pieces! You … you…"

Leaving him sputtering furiously and weakly pounding the bed, she moved to the next cot. Five minutes, that's all she needed. Just five minutes of sleep, then a long pull of whiskey to get her moving again.

This one's eyes were closed and she wasn't sure he was breathing until she shook him and saw his chest heave. Leaning to his ear, ignoring the weeping sores and the stench, she whispered, "Can you hear me, you worthless no-good worm? This is Martha, your first wife. I'm waiting for you, you spineless lazy chunk of pig offal. Go on and die so we can be together for all eternity." His breath hitched and a shudder of recoil ran through his body. She decided that he might just make it.

"Low Down? Are you still in there?"

The food was here already? It seemed like she'd just fed everyone. Dragging herself to the door of the schoolhouse, she sagged against the jamb and jerked back from the sudden blaze of sunshine. Or maybe the sting in her eyes was caused by the drift of noxious smoke curling off a pile of burning clothing and bed linens.

Preacher Jellison stood well away, almost in the twin ruts that served as a road, his nose and mouth covered by a blue bandanna. He pointed to a wheelbarrow full of food. "I don't know how good this will be. Mr. Janson who was doing the cooking died last night. Olaf Gurner cooked this."

She nodded, too exhausted to inquire how Mr. Janson had died. Not the pox, or they would have brought him to the school a week ago.

"Are there any new bodies?"

Slowly she shook her head from side to side. And thanked God. She doubted she had the strength to haul one more heavy body outside.

"Good. That's three days in a row. Maybe the epidemic is burning itself out." Preacher Jellison studied her. "You look like crap, Low Down."

A ghostly smile twitched her lips. "In my case that's probably an improvement."

"Try to get some rest. I'll be back in the morning. Is there anything you need?"

"More carbolic and glycerine." She tried to dose each man at least three times a day. Who knew if it did any good. "And bed linens."

"We've used every sheet in Piney Creek, so we sent down to Denver for more. They should be here tomorrow or the next day."

Squinting through the yellow smoke rolling off the burn pile, Low Down watched the preacher head back to the main camp, nearly deserted now. When the epidemic ended, the men would burn the schoolhouse to the ground and very likely it wouldn't be rebuilt. Families with children had been the first to leave, and no one expected they would return. The pox had killed Piney Creek's ambitions to become a town as surely as it had killed the men crowding the makeshift cemetery higher up the mountainside.

Too exhausted to move until she absolutely had to, Low Down lingered in the doorway, letting the thin sunshine warm her hands and face. Overnight, a powdery cap had appeared on the high peaks, and the hummingbirds had already departed for lower altitudes. Both events signaled an early winter this year.

Maybe she'd head south, she thought, slapping at a mosquito. Start looking for luck someplace warm and dry.

Behind her in the schoolhouse someone moaned and called for water. She heard the splash of vomit hitting the floor.

A man could shoot a squirrel out of a tree from a distance of sixty feet. But he couldn't vomit into a bucket or pee into a pot only two feet away. It was one of the great mysteries of life.

After sending a long look toward her tent, which she'd pitched above the creek near her diggings, she shoved herself off the doorjamb, pressed a hand to her eyes, then fetched the wheelbarrow and pushed the kettles into the schoolhouse. Before the stench hit her, she sniffed fish broth, which was not going to receive an enthusiastic reception, and venison stew, most of which would end in the vomit buckets.

"Stony Marks, get your butt back into that bed, or I'm going to break both your scrawny legs!"

A naked man oozing pus, with vomit dribbled down the front of his chest, had nothing to recommend him, she thought, disgusted. When this was over, she'd leave Piney Creek and go someplace where she hadn't seen half the male population naked and at their sick worst.

Like so many other things, prospecting wasn't working out for her. On the other hand, fortune was said to favor fools, so maybe her turn was coming. Maybe something good was waiting for her out there somewhere.

"Time to move on," she muttered, giving the wheelbarrow a shove. There was nothing good waiting for her here.