The Sisters of Bethlehem Springs Collection

by Robin Lee Hatcher

  “You’re burning up. We need to get you inside.”

  Who was he talking to? If it was her, he was crazy. She wasn’t burning up. She was freezing half to death, so cold she couldn’t keep her teeth from chattering. Each step he took jarred her bones, made her muscles ache more than before, caused her head to swim. She clasped her hands behind his neck and held on tightly lest she plummet into some black abyss.

  Cold. She was so terribly cold.

  The fire Joshua had started in the wood stove before returning to the stalled automobile hadn’t begun to warm the one-room cabin yet. After setting Daphne on the tick mattress and covering her with his coat, he checked to make sure the fire hadn’t gone out, then headed back to the motorcar for the lap blanket, the lunch Mrs. Hannigan had prepared, and their satchels. Later he would have to see if he could ascertain why the automobile had died, but he held out little hope of success. He had few mechanical skills.

  But that wasn’t his first concern. He was far more worried about Daphne. He should have guessed she wasn’t feeling well. She hadn’t been her vivacious self when they were at breakfast or later with the Coughlins. If he’d known she was ill, he might have suggested they stay in Stone Creek another night or two.

  This time when he returned to the cabin, the fire had taken some of the chill from the room. But Daphne was shivering even harder than before. He placed his hand on her forehead. He’d never touched anyone who felt this hot.

  A shudder passed through him. Not from the cold but from a recent news report that had said nearly two hundred thousand Americans had fallen victim to Spanish flu during the previous month. Larger cities had seen three hundred, five hundred, even eight hundred people die in a single day.

  Did Daphne have the Spanish influenza? God help her if she did. God help them both. He began to pray hard as he laid the blanket he’d brought from the car over her. She stirred, her eyes fluttering but never opening, and then she rolled onto her left side and curled into a fetal position, still shivering. She mumbled something unintelligible.

  He leaned closer. “What do you need, Daphne?”

  She didn’t answer.

  A feeling of helplessness washed over Joshua. He had little experience with sick people. Even his grandfather had remained hale and hearty until almost the last day of his life. As for himself, Joshua was healthy as a horse. Rarely even had so much as a head cold.

  He racked his brain for what he’d learned about influenza in recent months. The disease was most dangerous to the young and the elderly. However, the Spanish flu had also proven deadly to those in the prime of life, people in their twenties and thirties—people like Daphne. Since the first outbreak in the spring of that year, hundreds of thousands around the world had died from it, although because of the war it was hard to get the full truth about the pandemic. Government censors and all that.

  He rose from the side of the cot and began a more in-depth exploration of the cabin. In one cabinet there were cooking and eating utensils, a few pots and pans, and mismatched plates, bowls, and cups. In another he found food supplies—canned and dried goods. In a large trunk he discovered bedding and, in a smaller one, men’s and women’s clothing. There was a box on a table with some bandages, ointment, hydrogen peroxide, and other first-aid items. Several fishing poles were leaned in a corner.

  A fine layer of dust covered everything indoors, but it was obvious the cabin hadn’t been abandoned. Perhaps the people who owned it came into the mountains from Boise or another town to the south for several weeks or even a couple of months in the summer. The owners must not worry about others using it, for he’d found a key to the door without difficulty. Thank God for that. The little house would keep them warm and fed until they were able to travel again. He hoped that would be soon.

  Her throat was on fire. Her body ached. Every joint. Every muscle. The backs of her eyelids felt like sandpaper. She couldn’t stop shivering, despite the blankets that covered her. Heavy blankets, a weight that seemed to crush her bones.

  A few times she thought she heard what seemed like familiar voices, but the words were indistinguishable. Once she cried out, “Mother!” Even as she said the name, she knew it wasn’t possible. Her mother was dead…

  Maybe so was she.

  The wind came first, whistling through the canyon and slamming into the sturdy log cabin. Then, just before nightfall, the wind silenced and it began to snow. Large lazy flakes at first, followed by smaller ones that fell in a dense curtain to the ground.

  Joshua stood at the window, wondering how long it would last. He’d counted on someone seeing their stalled automobile on the road and looking inside where he’d left a note, giving their location. But how much traffic did this mountainous route see in the winter? Not much, he’d wager. And even less when the snows came.

  He turned, his gaze moving to the bed where Daphne lay shivering and moaning. The soft sounds that escaped her throat were torture to hear. He wanted to help ease her misery, but he didn’t know how to do that beyond applying cold compresses to her forehead in an effort to bring down her fever.

  He prayed she’d told her brother or sister-in-law where they were going and when they would return. If so, someone ought to come looking for them within a day or two. If not? That didn’t bear thinking about.

  He returned to the stove, opened the front, and put in more wood. Then he crossed to the tall table under the far window and poured creek water he’d boiled earlier into a cup. Returning to the cot, he sat on the edge and lifted Daphne’s head with one hand while holding the cup to her lips with the other.

  “Drink, Daphne.”

  She tried to turn her head away.

  “Just a few sips. Come on. You need to drink at least a little.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him. “Where are we?” she whispered at last.

  He put the cup against her lips again. “Sip.”

  This time she obeyed.

  “We’re in a cabin maybe a quarter mile from the road. We’re about halfway between Stone Creek and Bethlehem Springs. At least I think so.”

  His words were wasted. Her eyes had closed before he’d finished answering her question.

  It snowed for days. It snowed so much, it buried the automobile. Not that it mattered. The road saw no traffic. There was no one going or coming who would have discovered the motorcar even if it were in plain view.

  But the blizzard wasn’t Joshua’s first concern. He was more afraid that Daphne would die here in this cabin, far from friends and family. Her illness had left her weak and listless. Sometimes she talked nonsense, muttering to herself or perhaps to someone she thought was there. Other times she barely seemed to breathe.

  On their first day in the cabin, seeing no other option—he was the only one who could care for her—Joshua had set aside worries about modesty and had removed her clothes down to her undergarments. He’d bathed her brow, her cheeks, and her throat with cool water. He’d piled more blankets on top of her when she’d shivered so hard it seemed the log house would fall down around their ears from the shaking. He’d encouraged her to drink. He’d encouraged her to eat. She’d done little of either. There had been times during the first two days of her illness when her breathing was so labored, so torturous, it had been agony to listen to it. He’d been certain the sound was what doctors called the death rattle, and the certainty had terrified him. Would he have to bury Daphne McKinley in a shallow grave, the ground too frozen to do more than that? Would he have to be the one who related her last hours to her family?

  Even now, days later, he feared that would be their fate—her to die, him to live with her death on his hands. And so he gathered her into his arms, as he had done numerous times during her illness, and held her close to his chest. Placing his lips against her dark tangle of hair, he whispered, “Don’t die, Miss McKinley. Live. Please God, help her live.”

  October 1, 1872

  Annie is fully recovered from childbirth, and Angelica Ruth—our
little angel—is thriving. She has become the center of our universe.

  I left off the story of my life while I was still in California. It is time I resumed putting it to paper.

  For ten years I owned the Golden Nugget and added numerous other businesses as well. I began to educate myself, although at first it was without purpose beyond wanting to prove myself smarter than the next man. But eventually I read for the law. I grew wealthier than I ever dreamed I might, but I took little pleasure in all I acquired. I was restless and looking for something that would ease my dissatisfaction. I looked in the wrong places for an answer to my discontentment.

  When news arrived of a gold strike in what would soon become the Idaho Territory, I felt a strange longing to return. I even thought of looking for Gemma Picard when I got there—not that I believed she would still be waiting for me in that old cabin we’ d shared. It had been thirteen years since I left her for the promises of riches in California.

  I sold the Golden Nugget and my other properties, including a mercantile and a bank, and I headed north. Certainly I was going back to the high country in better style than I had traveled on my way to California. I no longer wore tanned animal skins for my clothes. My suits were tailored, my shoes of the best quality. For all appearances sake, I was a man of quality and some importance. Inside, I know now, I was a man consumed by the maggots of sin.

  I settled in West Bannock in the very heart of gold country. Two years later, the town was rechristened Idaho City. It was a bawdy place where whiskey was cheaper than water. Just the sort of place where men like me belonged. But again, I wasn’t there to pan for gold. I was there to take the gold from others the easiest way I knew how. Before I left Idaho City, I owned four of the eventual forty-one saloons that sprang up. Two of mine had fancy billiard rooms. I also had my own law office. For a while, I thought the place might end up with more lawyers than all the other laborers added together because there was plenty of call for them. All of the law offices were kept busy with disputes over mining claims.

  The year before I left Idaho City, a fire destroyed eighty percent of the buildings. I was one of the lucky twenty-percent. My home and businesses survived unscathed, and during the time it took folks to rebuild the many other saloons, mercantiles, breweries, barber shops, dress shops, bakeries, livery stables, banks, and drug stores, I made another small fortune.

  And it got me to thinking about how much competition there was in Idaho City. I decided that another place might suit me better. A town where they had fewer lawyers and definitely fewer saloons.

  In 1866, at the age of forty-five, I sold everything once again, making another tidy profit, and moved to Bethlehem Springs, Idaho. It would prove a life-altering decision.

  FOURTEEN

  Daphne felt as if she were crawling up from a bottomless pit. When she opened her eyes, she found the room dark. Black as ink and eerily silent. Not a sound disturbed the stillness.

  Where was she? She couldn’t seem to recall, but she was certain she wasn’t home in her cozy bedroom. Something was different. Quite different.

  That’s when she felt it. Warm air upon her neck.

  She rolled her head to the side on the pillow—and came nose to nose with…with someone. She sucked in a breath of surprise.

  It came back to her then, little by little. Stone Creek. The Coughlin brothers. She’d taken sick on the drive back to Bethlehem Springs. Cold. Such unbelievable cold. A cup of water to her lips. A bite of fruit from a spoon. Joshua, always nearby. Joshua’s touch. Joshua’s voice.

  His breathing changed slightly, and she knew he’d awakened, that he was looking at her.

  “Where…are we?” she whispered.

  “I’m not sure. We hadn’t yet reached the main road to Bethlehem Springs when the motorcar broke down.”

  “Broke down? I…don’t remember that. I’ve been…ill, haven’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t need to tell her that it had been serious. She felt it all through her body.

  “I’ll fix you something to eat. You need nourishment.” He rolled away from her and rose from the bed.

  It was only then she realized he hadn’t been beneath the blankets. At least not the one that was closest to her skin.

  Her skin?

  She drew her hand from her side and touched her collarbone, then drew her fingers downward until they touched the fabric of her chemise. She had no recollection of removing her outer garments. Was it possible Joshua Crawford had undressed her before putting her into this bed? Heat rose in her cheeks. Of course it was possible. He’d taken care of her. For how long she couldn’t say. One day. Two days. Five days.

  Rather than contemplate the possibilities of what his care had entailed, she asked, “Whose house is this?”

  Joshua opened the door to the stove and shoved in more wood. Sparks flew upward, and the fire cast an orange light into the darkened room.

  “Joshua?”

  He turned toward her, his face captured in the firelight.

  “Whose house is this?”

  “I don’t know. Someone’s summer place. It’s a cabin below the road. I found the key to the door on the front porch.”

  She closed her eyes, too weary to keep them open any longer. “Will they find us?”

  “Don’t worry. We won’t be here much longer.”

  She wondered, as she drifted back to sleep, if he was as sure as he sounded.

  The sun came out the next morning, beaming down through frosted trees, turning the snow a blinding white. But there was no warmth in the golden rays. When Joshua went outside to bring in more wood, his breath froze in a white cloud before his face. The cold nipped his nose and made his jaw ache. The snow on the ground was as high as the raised porch in front of the cabin. Deeper where the wind had blown it into drifts.

  How long before the road was passable, he wondered. How long before Daphne’s family sent someone to look for her? He prayed it would be soon. Although the worst seemed to be over, she wasn’t out of danger yet. She needed a doctor. She needed better food. She needed better care than he could give her.

  And I need someone else to care for her.

  Something had happened in Joshua as he’d nursed Daphne through the worst of her illness. Things had been tense between them ever since he’d deduced she was D. B. Morgan, but it was difficult to remain angry with her while at the same time praying for God’s mercy, while asking for healing, for a miracle. It was good that the anger was gone, but he didn’t want to feel anything for her beyond Christian compassion. Certainly not anything…tender.

  With a sigh, he carried the wood inside and dropped it into the box near the stove. When he turned, he found Daphne awake again and sitting up in bed for the first time since he’d laid her on it nearly a week before. Her fingers clutched the blanket beneath her throat.

  “What day is it?” she asked, her voice soft and scratchy.

  “Tuesday.”

  “I’ve been sick that long?”

  He nodded as he took a couple of steps toward the bed. “Yes.”

  “What…what was wrong with me?”

  “I think you’ve had the Spanish influenza.”

  Small patches of pink appeared in her cheeks, color in a face that had been deathly pale only moments before. “You’ve cared for me this whole time?”

  “Yes.”

  The flush in her cheeks deepened as her gaze lowered to the blanket covering her.

  “There was no one else to attend to you, Miss McKinley. I promise, your honor has not been compromised.”

  She looked at him again. “You mistake my silence. I…I’m very grateful for your care, and I don’t doubt you behaved as a gentleman at all times.”

  True enough. He’d taken no liberties. But now that the risk of her dying seemed behind them, he felt a troubling desire to take her in his arms again—in a much different way than before. Look at her! Dark hair tumbled over her shoulders, thick and unruly. Her chocolate-colored eyes see
med to hold a world of wonderful secrets in their depths. And the cabin suddenly felt too small and too warm.

  He turned on his heel and crossed to a large trunk that held blankets, sheets, and towels. From it, he withdrew a bright, multicolored blanket that he’d spotted several days ago. Then he grabbed the broom from a corner in the kitchen area and took it and the blanket outside without a word of explanation to Daphne. It was better this way. He didn’t trust himself to speak to her.

  Making his way through the snow up to the road was an arduous task. Every few steps, he broke through the crusty surface and sank to his thighs. What he wouldn’t give for a pair of snowshoes. His breathing became labored, and although the air was cold, sweat beaded his forehead by the time he reached the automobile. He could barely make out its shape beneath the heavy snow.

  After a few moments rest, he drove the broom handle into the snow near what he presumed to be the front of the motorcar. With both hands and feet, he packed the snow around the handle in the hopes it would remain upright until someone came looking for them. Finally, he tied the colorful blanket to the top of the broom.

  As he straightened, his gaze looked west, then east. Send someone soon, God. I need them here soon.

  Exhaustion forced Daphne to slide down on the bed even as mortification burned hot in her chest. She had only a hazy memory of the details of the past several days, yet she understood Joshua had to have helped her in ways no man should help a woman who wasn’t his wife. Knowing that, how on earth was she to bear being in his presence from here on out?

  Stomping sounds from the porch alerted her to his return moments before the door opened, giving him entry. Daphne closed her eyes and feigned sleep, scarcely daring to draw a breath until she heard him walk to the opposite side of the one-room cabin. She opened her eyes again, but just enough to look at him through her lashes. His back was to her, so she opened her eyes a little more, watching as he took a bowl from a nearby cupboard and set it on the raised table. He took a jar from another cupboard—peaches, she guessed, judging by the color of the contents.