Prairie Courtship. Dorothy Clark
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Lundquist guided the oxen toward the inside of the forming circle, stopped the wagon in place with the outside front wheel in line with the inside back wheel of his father’s wagon that had stopped ahead of them. Emma sighed with relief, thought of the dry clothes awaiting her inside and would have smiled if her lips hadn’t been pulled taut with cold and fear.
She glanced across the distance, watched as Ernst pulled Anne’s wagon into place on the other side. Other wagons followed on both sides until the circle was complete. The enclosed oxen bawled, bugled their fear. Men jumped from their wagon seats and ran forward to calm their teams and lash the wagons together as ordered. Wagons rocked. Canvas covers fluttered and flapped.
Emma slid from the saddle, tethered Traveler to the back of the wagon then slipped through the narrow gap between the two side-by-side wheels. She skirted around her nervous, bawling oxen being calmed by her driver, and headed for Anne’s wagon. Wind buffeted her, whipped her sodden skirts into a frenzy. She reached to hold them down and her hat flew away. Hail struck with bruising force against the side of her face. The rain stung like needles. She turned her face away from the wind and struggled on across the inner oval to the side of the wagon. “Are you all right, Anne?” The wind stole her words. She raised her voice to a shout. “Are you all right, Anne? I thought I heard you cry out.” She cupped her ear against the fluttering onsaburg.
“I’m all right, Emma. Come in out of the rain!”
“I have to get out of these wet clothes. I will come back when the storm is over!” Water dripped off her flailing hair, dribbled down her wet back. Emma shivered and turned. A hand grasped her arm. She lifted her bowed head, looked into the fear-filled eyes of a sodden woman holding a folded blanket to her chest. The woman’s lips moved. She leaned forward to hear her.
“Please, Miss. You were ridin’. Did you see my little girl, Jenny? I’ve checked with everyone and she’s not here. She must of fell out of the wagon, and—” Lightning flickered through the darkened sky, streaked to earth with a crack that drowned out the woman’s voice. Thunder clapped, rumbled. “—did you see her?”
“No. I am sorry, but I did not.”
The woman swayed, sagged against the side of the wagon. Her lips trembled. “You were my last hope. Oh, God…my baby…my baby…” She lifted her hands, buried her face in the blanket.
Emma’s throat constricted. She put her arm about the woman’s shoulders, though she wanted desperately to go to her wagon. “Please don’t—there is still hope. My head was bowed, I was not looking—” She stopped. Closed her eyes. If the child had fallen out of the wagon she was probably injured, or worse. But if she did survive the fall, this storm… The storm! She took a shuddering breath and held out her hand. “Give me the blanket. I will go back and look for your daughter.”
The woman lifted her head. Hope and doubt mingled in her eyes. “Now?”
Emma nodded, took the blanket from the woman’s hands. “She will need this when I find her.” If I am not too late.
She battled her way back to her wagon, climbed over the chains Garth had used to lash the wheels together and reached up to untie the back opening in the canvas. There was no time now to change out of her wet clothes, but she needed her doctor’s bag. And Caroline’s rain cape. She bit down on her trembling lips, tried to stop shivering and concentrate on her task. It was no use. The flapping had drawn the knots too tight—her chilled fingers could not undo them.
Lightning sizzled to earth with an ear-deafening crack. Emma cringed against the wagon, shivering and shaking so hard she feared her joints would detach. Hot tears stung her eyes. She tugged again at the knots, yanking at the bottom edge of the canvas when they did not yield. A spatter of water from the canvas was her only reward. A chill shook her to her toes. She sagged back against the wagon, ceding defeat.
The patient’s welfare must always come first, Emma. A good doctor does not hesitate to sacrifice time or comfort, or to do whatever he must to save a life.
How many times had Papa Doc said that to her when they were called to a patient’s side in the middle of the night? Strength of purpose flowed into her. “Thank you, Papa Doc.” She shoved away from the wagon, unhitched Traveler and mounted. Coat or no coat, doctor’s bag or not, she would go. The child did not have a chance of surviving the storm without her.
Please, God, let me find her soon. She cannot live in this storm. Emma lifted her lips in a grim smile. Why did she pray when she did not expect God to answer? Why did it make her feel better? It was foolishness.
Her teeth clattered together. She clenched her jaw, but could not sustain the pressure. She had never been so cold. But at least the hail had stopped and the wind was at her back. She tried to use her misery to block out her fear. It was impossible. Every time the lightning flashed across the sky and streaked to the ground with a thunderous clap that made the very air vibrate, she had to hold herself from screaming. She dare not let Traveler sense her terror. Thank goodness he was not a horse to panic at the flashes and rumbles.
“Good b-boy, Traveler.” She patted the horse’s neck, studied the ground in front of her. The rain and hail had beaten the grasses down so that it was difficult to make out the wagon tracks. If only the land were not all the same! Had she come far enough? Was this where they had started the wild run with the wagons? Was she even looking in the right place?
Almighty God, for that little girl’s sake, guide me to her, I pray. She lifted her head and peered through the deluge, trying to spot something familiar. Something she had noticed earlier that afternoon. There had been a rise with a dip in the middle of the top. She had wondered if there was a pond….
Lightning glinted, turned the sky into a watery, yellow nightmare with a coruscating tail dropping to the earth. Thunder crashed. She rode on, topped the next swell and spotted the rise she was looking for off to the right. She had been going the wrong way. She slumped in the saddle, discouraged, frightened. What if she got lost out here? What if—
“Stop that this i-instant, Emma Allen! That little g-girl needs y-you!” She could barely hear her own voice above the pounding rain. But the scolding worked. She squared her shoulders, wiped the rain from her eyes and reined Traveler around. The wind slapped a long tress of freed hair across her eyes. She brushed it back, wiped the sheeting water from her forehead. She would surely find the wagon tracks now. Then she could line them up with that rise and backtrack. She rode down the other side of the swell into a broad swale, urged Traveler into a lope and came up the knoll on the other side. And there, lying on the sodden grass, was the child.
“Whoa!” Traveler danced to a stop. “Please G-God. Please l-let her be a-l-live.” Emma slid from the saddle, led Traveler close and dropped the reins to the ground. Please let him stand. She grabbed the blanket she had been sitting on to keep it dry, knelt beside the child and touched a cold, tiny wrist. A faint throbbing pulsed against her fingers. Tears sprang to her eyes, mingled with the rain on her cheeks. She blinked her vision clear, leaned over the child to protect her from the bone-chilling downpour and began to examine the small body.
The storm had let up, except for the relentless rain. The occasional glimmer of lightning and grumble of thunder in the distance held no menace. Zach circled the herd of stock one last time. They were bunched and settled, the threat of a stampede past. The others would be able to handle them now. He slapped the water from his hat, peered through the rain at the wagons. Some had not moved, despite his relayed order. Must be there were problems Blake couldn’t handle. He rode down into the shallow basin and headed toward the Lewis wagon.
“Be reasonable, Lorna.”
“I’m not moving from this place without her.”
“Blake said it’s only a short ways. If she—”
“Don’t say if, Joseph Lewis. Don’t you dare say if!” The Lewis woman buried her face in her apron and burst into tears.
Zach scowled. This was no time for a domestic argument. “I ordered all the wagons moved to higher, dryer ground, Lewis. They’ll bog here when