Mud Creek (24 page)

Carl’s mount decided that his partner had the best idea. It kicked and jerked, and though Carl was a good rider, the animal was in a frenzy. The frightened creature coiled like a maniac, preparing to buck, preparing to run off, too.

Evelyn started to slide off, and Helen yanked her away. Once she was free, the animal raced after his buddy, and Carl—with no reins and no means of control—leapt off and landed in a drift with a solid thump.

His horse disappeared even quicker than the first one had.

The five humans huddled together. They were petrified, in a state of shock. The wind was like a rain torrent: relentless, pounding, loud. It was impossible to talk. They were alone, blind, lost.

What would happen to them?

Evelyn began to wail, and Helen snapped, “No crying!”

Evelyn tried to stop, hiccupping with the effort, but she couldn’t halt her tears.

Helen bent down until they were nose to nose.

“No crying,” she said again. “There’s no time. Your cheeks will freeze, and you’ll be even colder.”

She drew the girl close and hugged her, as Edith sidled nearer to Robert and slipped her tiny hand into his.

Carl shifted from foot to foot, his fear palpable.

“Should we chase after the horses, Helen?” he asked.

“We could never find them,” she answered, and she glanced around. “Where are we? Who remembers the direction we were traveling?”

The twins pointed one way, and Carl and Robert pointed the other. Helen frowned, pondered, then declared, “I think you boys are correct.” She gestured forward. “Now we have to walk to Mr. Blaylock’s house. Can you?”

Solemn and grave, they all nodded in agreement.

“Robert and I will be in front,” she explained, as she linked her arm through his, as she motioned the others behind her. “You have to hold on to our coats. Does everyone understand?”

“Yes,” they all responded.

“And you have to hold hands with each other.”

“Yes,” they all said again.

“No one can let go of the person next to them—or the person in front.” She paused and squatted down. “Tell me you understand. You can’t let go of anyone.”

They uttered somber variations of, “We won’t let go.”

She stood and started off, Robert matching her stride for stride, the children trudging in their footsteps. The snow was at their knees and thighs, the wind battering them ferociously.

There were no fences, no buildings, no sky, no trees, no grass, no markers to indicate their location. The world had been condensed to a dizzying sheet of white that extended no farther than the tip of Robert’s mitten.

Should they have stopped? Should they have turned back?

There was no way to judge. They could only keep on, praying some miracle occurred that would lead them to Mr. Blaylock’s gate.

*    *    *    *

“I just have a bad feeling.”

“Regarding what? People? Animals?”

James peered over at Mary, but he didn’t question her comment.

She could
hear
the earth. He didn’t know how else to describe her ability, and he would never disdain it.

In his time on the plains, he’d witnessed plenty from the natives with whom he’d interacted. Where they were concerned, nothing shocked him. Especially not his sister and her uncanny skill.

For the prior hour, she’d been pacing, pausing to stare out at the rising blizzard, then pacing some more.

The storm wasn’t particularly unusual for January. They were both warm and dry in the house, their animals sheltered, the barn and sheds battened down.

There was no reason to worry, yet she was nervous as a cat with a new litter of kittens.

“People, I think,” she finally murmured. More definitively, she added, “I think it’s people.”

“Outside?”

“Maybe.”

He went over to the window and gazed out, but there was only a wall of white. Occasionally, the wind would lag, and the outline of the barn would briefly be visible, but that was all.

“You don’t suppose it’s simply Albert and his clan?” James asked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were having trouble about now.”

“It’s always them”—she smiled—“but this is…more.”

James blew out a heavy breath.

If someone was caught outside, he ought to check, but how was he to stumble on some idiot who didn’t know better than to be out in a tempest?

And if it
was
the Jones family in peril, he couldn’t rush to their aid.

In the current conditions, he could never make it over to their ranch. He’d be lost in two seconds flat. But after Albert’s unpleasant appearance in November, he would never assist them—even if he thought he could get to their place.

It was a bitter tonic to swallow, but Albert was Helen’s husband. Much as James wished it were otherwise, they were married. Albert had ordered James to stay away and never speak to her again.

Albert certainly had the right to decide who could visit his home. When James had been so bluntly informed that he wasn’t welcome, he could hardly intrude.

The past few weeks, he’d spent many restless nights, fretting over Helen, wondering if he should ride over there anyway, despite Albert’s command. He wasn’t afraid of Albert and had no qualms about defying him, but what was the point?

Albert worked away from the house, so Helen was alone most of the time. If she was upset or aggrieved, she could have jumped on a horse or even walked to James’s without Albert being aware that she’d left. James had told her she could arrive, unannounced, but she hadn’t.

She’d made her choice, and though he didn’t like it, he couldn’t drag her away from her husband and family when she so clearly didn’t want to leave.

He hoped to bump into her in Mud Creek someday, that he might have a chance for a quick word. Other than that dubious prospect, he was a man out of ideas.

“It’s very cold out,” Mary mentioned, stating the obvious.

“Really?” he teased.

“A person wouldn’t last long in this weather.”

He sighed. “Would you feel better if I bundle up and have a look?”

“Yes.”

“To see what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing?”

“Where should I search?”

“Toward the road.”

“How far?”

“Not far.”

“Good, because we don’t have many ropes out that way.”

Every autumn, they tied ropes from the house to the barn, to the chicken coop, to the other sheds. They used them in a blizzard, when you could step into the yard and become so disoriented that you’d stagger in circles until you died ten feet from the door.

“You’re kind to listen to me,” she said.

“No, I’m a fool who’s easily bossed by women.”

“I won’t ask a difficult task like this ever again.”

“Liar.” He grinned. “You’ll always ask, and I’ll always say
yes.
”

“I suppose.”

He started pulling on his winter gear. She stood, watching until he was ready. Then she wrapped a second muffler around his face so more of it was concealed, so his eyes would be more completely shielded from the biting blasts of the snow.

“Do me a favor,” he requested.

“Of course.”

“Brew a hot pot of coffee and stir up the fire. When I get back, I’ll be frozen.”

“I will spoil you all night.”

“You’d better.” He chuckled and walked out.

An extra rope hung from a hook on the porch, and he looped it over his shoulder and plodded into the maelstrom. His boots crunched through the drifts, but his tracks were instantly covered. If he hadn’t had the ropes to guide him, he would have floundered immediately.

He inched along, counting his strides. A hundred. Two hundred. Five hundred. The end of his lead line was approaching, and he was beginning to think Mary had sent him on a wild goose chase. That happened occasionally. She wasn’t always correct.

He ran out of rope, and he braced himself against the tree where it was fastened. He stared and stared, but it was impossible to see anything.

He’d just decided to turn around, when the wind halted for a moment. The universe took a breath, the roaring ceased.

And he observed several lumps in the snow—lumps that shouldn’t have been there. About twenty feet ahead.

“What the devil…” he murmured.

As swiftly as he was graced with the quiet interlude, the wind let loose, the snow swirling, blinding him.

It might have been some large rocks, but he knew most every inch of his land. There weren’t any rocks in that spot. Plus he’d noticed a scrap of blue, a scrap of red.

He shrugged the coiled rope off his shoulder, tied one end to the tree, the other to his waist, then he started out.

The whiteout was so severe that, in a mere handful of strides, he wasn’t certain he was proceeding in the right direction.

But suddenly, his boot hit a solid object. Whatever was in front of him moved, giving him the fright of his life. He leapt back, stunned when a face turned toward him.

It was Helen.

“James…?” she croaked, her words sucked away by the deluge so only her lips whispered his name.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” he chanted over and over.

“Stand up,” he shouted, grabbing her arm, yanking her to her feet.

She was extremely lethargic, confused and unfocused, a sure sign that she was in dire straights. Yet she managed to lean over and shove on the lump next to her. Robert glanced up.

James reached down and pulled him up, too.

“What the hell are you doing out here?”

The scolding question was lost to the gale, which was just as well. There would be ample time to chastise later, when they were warm and coherent enough to explain. When they were…
alive.

If he didn’t get them to safety in a hurry, they might die on the way.

He tried to draw Helen to the trees, but she kept jerking away. She was attempting to speak, but couldn’t form a sentence so that he understood.

“The children are with us, too,” Robert bellowed.

He pointed at the snow, and James realized there were three others. He didn’t know who the
children
were, but he knelt down and dug frantically. Robert pitched in, appearing more lucid than Helen.

Carl peeked up, his eyes wide with fear. Then the Henderson twins peeked up, too.

Robert helped James to lift them, to brush them off.

“We saw your gate,” Robert said, “and we were fine.”

“You were coming to me?”

“Yes, but Evelyn tripped, and we couldn’t find her. And when we finally did, we were too cold and tired to continue.”

James peered into the barrage of snow. “Is anyone else with you?”

“No,” Robert told him. “Just us five.”

James took his free rope from his own waist and wrapped it around Robert’s, then the waists of the others. Once they were tethered together, he steered Robert to the rope at the tree that would guide them home.

“Can you hold onto it?” James asked him.

“Yes.”

“It leads to my house.”

“All right.”

“Start walking, and I’ll bring up the rear, so I can be positive no one falls behind.” He studied the boy, then Helen who were disoriented and befuddled.

“Don’t let go of the rope, Robert,” James warned.

“I won’t. I swear.”

Robert turned, and the slow line of desperate people began to move.

“How did the twins end up with you?”

“Oh, James, you won’t believe what happened to them.”

“Tell me.”

They were in his front parlor, lounged in comfortable chairs, the fireplace roaring with a huge fire. The temperature was practically balmy, but Helen was wrapped in several blankets.

She couldn’t stop shivering and didn’t know if she’d be truly warm ever again.

The children were in bed in his guest room, and Mary had finished the last of the supper dishes and traipsed off to her room, too.

It was just Helen and James, alone in the quiet house.

The blizzard still raged outside, but the structure was so competently built that she barely noted the wind. There were no snowflakes drifting in through the windows, no frigid blasts of air wafting under the doors.

They hadn’t had an opportunity to talk about what had driven Helen to seek refuge with James.

The horrid event was too frightening to describe, and Helen hadn’t wanted to mention details while Edith and Evelyn were present. All four children had suffered enormously and were lucky to be alive. They needed to calm and regroup, so Helen hadn’t begun her vivid account until they weren’t around to listen in.

“Their mother died a week ago,” she said, “and their stepfather left them and headed back to Chicago.”

“He
left
them?” James was as aghast as Helen had been on learning the despicable news.

“Yes. They couldn’t bear to leave their mother’s body, so they—“

“The horse’s ass didn’t bury her?”

“The ground was too hard. He couldn’t.”

“Where is she?”

“The twins laid her out on her bed. She’s still there—waiting for the spring thaw.”

James bit off a curse. “They rode over this morning?”

“I guess she’d instructed them to come to me if they ever needed help. Our place is closest to theirs.”

“They must have arrived just as the storm was kicking up.”

“Yes, but Albert told them they couldn’t stay, that we didn’t have enough food for two more people.”

“They’re little girls!” he huffed, his indignation matching her own.

“That’s what I said. He tossed them out—Violet agreed that he should—and I couldn’t stand it.”

“Where were they supposed to go?”

“He advised them to keep on to your house or the Dudley’s.”

James snorted with disgust. “I realize Albert is your husband, Helen, and it’s wrong to denigrate him but—”

“Feel free. Lately, I’ve been plenty disparaging, myself.”

“He’s heartless. He’s crazy.”

“My sister, too. They were this united front of umbrage, ordering me to push the twins out the door.”

“It boggles the mind.”

“It certainly does.”

“So you left?”

“Yes. Carl and Robert came with me. Once I announced I was leaving, they weren’t about to remain behind with Albert and my sister.”