by Bess McBride
“Ack!” she called out, swallowing a mouthful of water when she opened her mouth.
Luke released his arm to wrap it around her waist. Though the storm whipped around them, Emily felt the protective intimacy of the gesture. Luke led her to the gate, releasing her to pull it open with effort. They passed through the gate, and he struggled to close it behind them.
“This is wicked!” Emily called out.
“It is wild,” he shouted. “The storm has strengthened since I ventured out to come here.”
The umbrella collapsed and broke apart at that moment. Luke threw it down toward the base of the picket fence at the side of the road.
Emily staggered again, turning in what she thought was the direction of the boardinghouse.
“This way,” Luke said, placing his hands on her shoulders to turn her around. Ultimately, he wrapped both arms around her and half carried/half led her to Martha’s boardinghouse. The trip should have taken less time given that they almost ran, but it seemed to take twice as long. Her skirts were heavy with water and mud, but Luke kept her going.
They reached the house and ran up the front stairs. Just inside the doorway, they met Martha, who hurried down the hall with towels.
“Look at the pair of you!” she called out. “Emily! I told Luke to tell you to stay home!”
Emily pulled the thick scarf from her head and tried to smooth back the wet hair that hung to her shoulders. “It’s only my second day on the job, Martha! I couldn’t stay home.”
“You’re a dear,” she said, moving behind Emily to towel dry her hair.
Emily was acutely aware of Luke next to her, using a towel to dab at his rain-soaked face and hair—both of which looked endearingly handsome in their disarray.
“Do you need some dry clothing?” Martha asked Emily. “I can lend you something.”
Emily shrugged out of her heavy wet coat to find that the majority of her clothing was dry. Only her hem and boots were wet.
“No, I’m fine. I should take these muddy shoes off though.”
“I can get you a spare pair of slippers from my room. Just a moment.” Martha turned and climbed the stairs.
Having no hall bench to sit on, Emily tried to bend over to unlace her boots, but her corset didn’t allow for bending at the waist. She grunted out a breath of air.
“Let me help,” Luke said, going down on one knee to examine her feet.
“Oh, Luke! I can do that. They’re muddy!”
“I am already down here,” he said, looking up with a smile. “With your permission?”
Never in Emily’s life had a man dropped down to one knee in front of her, and although it wasn’t a marriage proposal, she blushed.
“Sure, thank you!”
He looked down at her feet, then up at her again. His hair positively curled into adorable waves when wet, giving him a young carefree look.
“I hate to ask you this, but could you lift the hem of your skirt just a bit so that I can reach your laces?”
Luke’s cheeks were red, whether from the pounding rain or embarrassment, Emily couldn’t say.
She lifted the heavy skirts up to her ankles, and Luke untied her laces. She looked down at his bent head and resisted the urge to run her fingers through his hair.
“There,” he said, looking up at her. “Now hold on to something for balance while I pull them off.”
Emily obediently braced one hand on the wall behind her as he pulled each boot off. He set them near the door and rose, his tall length sliding up close to her. Suddenly shy, Emily kept her eyes on the top button of his brown vest. A soft touch on her cheek startled her, and she involuntarily jerked. Luke withdrew his hand quickly.
“Forgive me,” he murmured, stepping back.
“No, I’m sorry. That just startled—” She was interrupted by the muted clatter of Martha’s shoes on the stairs.
“Here you are!” Martha announced, handing Emily a pair of black slip-on shoes. “Oh good! You’ve managed to get your boots off. I wondered if you could manage without a bench to sit on.”
Emily looked at Luke, who stood by the doorway.
“Luke helped me,” Emily said.
“Good. He can help you put these slippers on, then you may both join me in the kitchen for a hot cup of coffee.”
“I cannot join you for coffee,” Luke said. “I have to hurry to get to school.”
“Without breakfast?” Emily fussed. “Would you have had time for breakfast if you hadn’t come to get me? I’m so sorry!”
“I chose to come for you,” Luke said with a crooked smile. He took the shoes from Emily and bent down again.
Martha pivoted and returned to the kitchen.
“At least take a piece of toast or something,” Emily said as Luke slipped first one shoe on, then the other. They were a bit large, but Emily was grateful for dry shoes.
“I cannot,” he said, rising. “I barely have time to get to school as it is, before the first students arrive. I cannot leave them standing about outside in the weather.”
“I’m so sorry,” Emily said.
“There is no need. I wanted to escort you here.”
Martha appeared in the kitchen doorway, as if looking for Emily.
“I’d better go. Be careful, Luke!”
“Of course,” he said. “Do consider staying here until the rain lets up. Mudslides are not uncommon, and I would not want you to encounter one.”
Emily nodded and hurried toward the kitchen, where Martha had disappeared from the doorway. She glanced over her shoulder to see Luke watching her before he opened the door and left.
Two hours later, with all the boarders fed and the kitchen cleaned, Martha looked out the kitchen window.
“The rain has stopped,” she said. “But those dark clouds suggest that we may have more. I think you should leave now to avoid more rain.”
Emily untied her apron and hung it up on the hook. She followed Martha to the window.
“Yes, I see what you’re saying. I’d like to grab a breakfast sandwich to take up to Luke though.”
“To the school? In these conditions? The roads must be so muddy. And what is a breakfast sandwich?”
“Oh, you know, whatever we served for breakfast between two slices of bread. I have to walk home anyway. I might as well go the long route.”
“I wish you would have allowed Jefferson to fetch his horse to give you a ride home.”
“But his horse is stabled somewhere else, right? So that wouldn’t have been practical.”
“Perhaps not, but it would have been chivalrous,” Martha said with a chuckle. “Jefferson learned many wonderful qualities from our father—chivalry is one of them.”
“I can see that he was raised well. You too,” Emily said. “Your parents did a great job.”
Martha smiled. “Thank you. But I see your heart belongs to Luke.”
Emily gasped. “What? No! I told you I wasn’t looking for anything like that. I just got out of a bad relationship.”
“I apologize. I just thought that since you have fretted for the last few hours about Luke missing breakfast...” Martha let the words trail off with a knowing smile.
She turned and located a napkin that she laid out flat on the kitchen table. “You know where the ‘breakfast sandwich’ ingredients are. I am going upstairs to wash up. Do be careful on your way home, Emily, and thank you so much for coming this morning. Will I see you this evening?”
“I’m on the clock, aren’t I?” Emily said with a grin.
Martha tilted her head, as if in inquiry.
“I have a job, right? There’s no crying ‘rain’ in Washington State. I have to go to work.”
“Silly!” Martha said with a laugh. “I am not such a strict employer.”
“I know,” Emily said. “I know you’re not,” she repeated. “I’ll see you later.”
Martha left the room, and Emily grabbed some bread and other ingredients left over from breakfast. She folded them into a
sandwich and wrapped it up in the napkin. Grabbing her raincoat off the hook by the back door, Emily thrust her arms into the coat and stuffed the sandwich into one of the pockets. She changed back into her boots, tied the scarf tightly around her head and left the boardinghouse.
The roads were truly saturated, and she struggled through each sucking muddy step as she walked up the road in the direction of the school, the cupola of which was always visible on the hill. The sky did look dark, and she wondered if rain was going to start again.
Emily reached what she thought was Kaskade Road, the road that ran in front of the school. As Martha had predicted, the rain began to fall again. Emily turned left onto the road, trying to quicken her step, but she couldn’t move any faster given her heavy wet skirts and mud-caked boots. She regretted that she had soiled Mrs. Jackson’s raincoat. The thick scarf had a rainproof texture to it and had fared better.
She saw the large school in the distance, but it seemed so far away. Had Luke walked down the same road in its present miserable condition? How had he cleaned himself off at school? He hadn’t taken a lunch, so she suspected he would be hungry.
The rain thickened into sheets, and Emily lost sight of the school building. She trudged along with her head bowed against the hammering rain. Another noise caught her ear, a rumbling sound to her right, and she shielded her eyes and looked up. The hill seemed to dissolve and roll toward her in a sheet of mud. She tried to run but managed only two steps before the mudslide enveloped her.
Chapter Seventeen
Luke stood at the third-floor window of the classroom watching the sheets of rain envelope Kaskade as the storm resumed. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he’d had no breakfast. Five of twenty students in his history class had shown up, and he had set them to reading.
He hoped that Emily had stayed at the boardinghouse or that someone had found means to transport her home, even if that person was Jefferson. Luke could not bear to think of Emily plodding through the storm alone. He simply could not bear it, but he could not leave his students, and the school was short of teachers that day. Miss Noble had sent a note down to breakfast stating that she was ill and asking him to take her classes. He was happy to do so, indeed frankly happy that he did not need to see her and that Emily did not need to be subjected to Miss Noble’s nonsensical judgment.
Movement in the near distance caught his eye, and he squinted to peer through the rain. One of the few remaining evergreen trees in Kaskade toppled over and slid down the hill in a relentless movement, covering the road and spilling over toward town. The branches of the tree stopped just on the other side of the road.
Mudslide! But it was not the mudslide that had first caught his attention. He had seen a dark shape moving on the road, not an animal but a person. He could no longer see that shape, and he swung around and barked out orders to his students.
“Randall, take over the class and keep them inside until I return!”
Luke ran out the classroom door and made his way down the hall to the side door. Wind and rain hit his face as he pushed open the door and stopped to scan the mudslide. Thankfully, it had stopped short of any houses below the road, but Luke felt certain that someone had been caught by the slide. He clambered down the stairs and ran across the lawn toward the road.
He strategized what he could accomplish alone if someone had been buried by the slide. He had no equipment, no shovel, no crew of men, not even an extra pair of hands. He wasn’t even sure anyone in Kaskade would have seen the slide unless they happened to be staring at the road. Most windows faced south toward the lake.
Luke reached the road and jumped down onto it with a plan to run toward the slide. To his dismay, he sunk into the mud up to his ankles. He surveyed the hillside. He thought he could possibly reach the slide with greater ease if he ran along the grassy slope of the hill just above the edge of the road.
Forced to straddle the hill with his body, he pulled himself free of the mud. The sheets of rain were not cold, but their sting was bitter. He shielded his eyes and examined the hill on which he stood. It appeared stable, but he was no expert on the mechanics of mud.
Luke tilted his head away from the storm and scrambled along the hillside toward the edge of the slide. The danger that more of the hill would give way was very real, and he kept an eye on any signs of movement from above.
“Hello!” he shouted through the howling wind. “Hello! Is anyone there?”
He heard nothing, and he continued on until he reached the edge of the slide. To his right, he saw that the road was indeed covered and now impassable. He saw no signs of movement, and his heart raced. Something or someone living had been on the road when the slide happened. He could not turn his back on the poor creature and feared he had no time to run for help.
“Hello!” he shouted. “Can you hear me? Call out if you can hear me!”
Luke could see nothing particularly distinctive in the mass of brown mud, nothing that remotely looked like clothing.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
Luke looked over his right shoulder toward town, hoping against hope that someone else had seen the slide. He could not dig through it on his own, yet the thought that he stood by doing nothing while someone possibly suffocated terrified him. He simply could not leave the site.
“Luke!” a voice shouted from somewhere up ahead on the other side of the slide.
“Hello?” Luke called out, squinting through the rain. “Where are you? Are you injured?”
“Luke!” the voice shouted. “Over here!”
He followed the direction of the voice, undoubtedly male, and found a figure, not buried in the mud but standing on the other side of the flow waving his arms.
“Jefferson! Are you all right?” Luke shouted above the noise of the storm.
“It was not I!”
Luke was not quite certain he heard right.
“Are you all right?” he shouted again, cupping his hands around his mouth. “I saw you run and thought you were buried!”
“It was not I! Emily...saw her on...road before...mudslide!”
Luke thought he heard Jefferson say Emily’s name.
“What is that?” Luke yelled.
“Emily! Emily...caught...slide!”
Luke froze. Surely Jefferson was not saying that it was Emily who was caught in the slide!
Luke scanned the mudflow, seeing nothing.
“Did you say Emily?”
Jefferson nodded his head up and down in an exaggerated fashion.
“We must hurry!” he shouted.
Luke could barely understand why Emily should have been on Kaskade Road during a storm, but there was no further time for questions.
“Where?” he shouted hoarsely. He could barely breathe for fear that Emily was buried in the mud and struggling for air, or worse.
“Where?” he repeated.
Luke watched as Jefferson pointed to a spot near the edge of the road. He scrambled off the hill and ran parallel to the edge of the flow. Rocks, slabs of grass, roots of bushes and thick brown mud formed the slide, seemingly impenetrable.
Jefferson ran down to the road as well, and he pointed to a specific spot near the start of the flow.
“That is where I saw her last!” he shouted. As the flow tapered, the two men were nearer to each other.
Luke lamented the absence of a proper shovel, but he wasted no time.
“Here?” he shouted.
“Yes, that is where I saw her!”
Luke threw himself stomach first onto the debris and clawed at the mud. Jefferson did the same. They pulled at the thickness with their bare hands, throwing the mud to the side.
“Emily!” Luke shouted. “Can you hear us?”
“Emily!” Jefferson shouted. “Emily!”
“It has been too much time!” Jefferson shouted, his voice hoarse as well.
“No! Do not give up!” Luke called out, his heart pounding with the effort of lifting the heavy mud with his bare hands.
“No, never!” Jefferson yelled.
The men worked for five minutes, calling Emily’s name as they did so, shouting encouragement to the other. The wind died down and the rain eased to a steady sprinkle, but none of that helped, in Luke’s opinion. The slide had already occurred, and Emily was buried under it.
“Emily,” he shouted.
To his dismay, the mud moved, sliding under him. It settled again shortly.
“We are destabilizing the slide!” he called out, though he kept digging.
“Yes, I agree!” Jefferson shouted. He too did not quit.
“Emily!” Luke shouted. “Can you hear me? What were you doing out in this weather, foolish girl?”
A patch of white appeared out of the mud, and several fingers wiggled.
“There! She is there!” Luke shouted. He shimmied forward on his stomach to reach the hand, and he grasped it. Yes, that was most definitely Emily’s hand. He would recognize it anywhere.
“Help me!” he called out to Jefferson, who crawled toward them on his stomach. “I will hold on to her with one hand if you dig around her head.”
“Emily!” Jefferson shouted. He came face to face with Luke, unrecognizable from the mud covering his face. He grasped Luke and Emily’s joined hands before pushing up on his knees and digging into the mud. Luke dug with his left hand while hanging on to Emily’s hand.
“Do not give up,” he muttered to her, though he doubted she could hear. “Do not give up!”
He wanted to let go of her hand to clear mud away faster, but he could not force himself to release her. Her grip around his fingers was weak and cold, but she still lived. Somehow she breathed.
“Hurry, Jefferson! Hurry!” he said, primarily speaking to himself.
Finally, Luke saw something black, and he touched it. A round shape materialized, the top of Emily’s head buried under dark material. He recognized it as the raincoat she had worn that morning. He dug in to free up her head and found a small pocket in the mud just in front of her face. He felt her bent arm protecting her forehead under the coat.
“Help!” she yelled from the depths of the mud.