by Jenna Kernan
Potts shouted to the cook and the others as they ran.
“The dam’s gone! Run for it, boys!”
At his words, Kate felt a sharp stab of fear.
“Sam,” she called, trying to turn in the direction he had gone. But Mr. Potts had a firm hold and did not let her go.
“Hurry, ma’am.”
She slowed and he tugged, turning to her in frustration. She pointed, calling over the increasing roar. “Sam’s up there!”
“Above the dam. Safe!” he shouted. “Now run or the water will kill us both!”
She ran for her life as her mind filled with the terrors of drowning. She could not swim and even if she could, she knew that the heavy, sodden velvet would drag her down.
She grew dizzy from the effort to breathe against the constraints of her corset. But when she slowed, Potts tugged and shouted. She glanced back to see only the quiet stream, but just north of the bend the trees were falling.
My God, they’d never survive.
Potts released her to scramble up the rocky embankment, and she feared he had abandoned her. But then he turned and hauled her up. Men charged past them on both sides, but Potts stayed behind, faithful as a hound. She didn’t deserve such loyalty and could only imagine that it was Sam who had earned this man’s devotion.
She wanted to tell him to go on without her, but she was a coward. She wanted to live.
Who would take care of Phoebe if she died? Where was Sam? The water careened across the meadow reaching for them as they sought higher ground.
Potts was behind her now, pushing and shouting. The others were gone. She scraped her palms on the rocks as she grabbled up the steep slope.
“The trees! Climb, Mrs. Wells!”
She had her arms around the trunk of a huge pine. The sturdy branches hung overhead, impossibly high.
Potts was beside her now. “Come on, missus!”
He braced his back against the tree and offered his clasped hands as if she were mounting a mare instead of a pine tree. She placed her boot in his cupped hands and rose as if by magic. The lower branches were suddenly within reach. She wrapped her fingers around the limbs and pulled. The buttons of her fine short coat tore. Below her, Potts pushed at her foot and she managed to get her torso over the branch.
Muddy water washed around the base of the pine like a wave. Potts lost his footing and fell.
“John!”
He was up again, clawing at the rocks as the water chased him. He scrambled to his feet as Kate watched in horror. If not for her, he’d be safely up the bank with the others. It was her fault he was overcome.
Potts was dragged down by the swelling torrent and then thrown against the trunk of a tree. He disappeared below the dirty water and Kate screamed.
She scanned the rising flood but could not find him. Then she spied a flash of blue flannel. He hugged a tree trunk as the water rushed past him. She called to him as he tried and failed to scramble up the evergreen. The water continued to surge. In a moment it would be over his head, but still he held on, tenacious as a tick on a dog.
Kate looked below her with alarm. The water was now only a few feet beneath her dangling legs. When she looked back at John, she saw him release his hold, thrashing his arms and kicking madly along with the current. In an instant, he had vanished from her sight. Her heart twisted in horror.
“No!”
But he was gone. Water splashed onto her boots. She bent her legs and wiggled forward until she managed to throw one leg over the branch. It was then that she noticed the end of her branch was now dragging in the water. The pine needles trailed into the flood and the branch was bent at a dangerous angle. Kate scrambled to stand on her narrow perch, but her skirt snagged. Water splashed over her legs, soaking the velvet.
Panic froze her to the spot as she imagined herself sucked under the muddy water.
“No!”
She tore at the hooks closing her skirts to her waist, peeling out of her velvet and then tugging at the series of petticoats. One, two, three. The strings tangled. Her fingernails bent and tore. She released a cord. The first garments fell away and then the next until she stood in nothing but her bloomers and her tattered coat. Her reticule had moved up her arm and now hung around her shoulder like the braided aiguillette on a military uniform. She left it there as it did not hinder her movements.
Now she was light and agile. She climbed up and up, praying that the roots would hold and for protection from the muddy death that swirled beneath her feet.
The branch on which she had first stood disappeared and then the next followed. She hugged the trunk, pressing her forehead against the rough bark as she clung. Her hands were sticky with tree sap and blood. She closed her eyes and prayed that Sam had escaped, that John would survive and finally that her pine would hold.
Chapter Fifteen
T he flood forced Sam to higher ground. It slowed him as he navigated the hillside above what had once been the road. That was how he happened upon his men standing just above the high-water mark. He felt a moment’s rush of joy until he scanned them for a patch of gold velvet. Kate was not among them.
Sam pulled up on the reins, skidding to a halt before Everett MacPherson, a longtime employee, first at the mine and then with the railroad.
“Where is she?”
Everett stared hopelessly at the swirling water. “She and Potts were right behind us.”
“You left her?” Rage welled inside him and he fought the murderous urge to kick Everett into the torrent.
No one spoke. Sam stared out at the destruction before him and then back to his men.
“Search downstream. Don’t come back until you find them or hit Sacramento.”
The man scrambled down the rocks to the shore. The rage and impotence congealed in Sam’s throat. Why had he left her? She was his responsibility and he had failed to protect her. He drew a ragged breath and shouted her name again and again.
He was torn between following the men in their search downstream and staying here where he had seen her last. The waters were receding, creeping back down the slope leaving mud, branches and broken timber behind.
His heart sank, twisting and burning his chest. He gritted his teeth against the fury that threatened to carry him away like the floodwater.
First his mother, then his brother and now Kate.
He thought she might stay, might understand. But God had taken her, too. The black storm was back and churning within him like a cyclone. He didn’t care about anything or anyone. He was the wounded animal who wanted only to fight his enemy to the death. But this adversary was not one he could battle.
She was gone. He’d be lucky to be able to bring her body home to her family. Oh, Lord, her poor sister. Sam knew what she would suffer, for he knew the sorrow of the one left behind.
The dirty river gradually lost its power. Still, he could not seem to leave this place, refusing to accept that she was gone. He watched the grasses and branches float by, their speed now diminished to a normal current. He nudged his mount forward, following the retreating water.
Sam scanned the pines, submerged up to their lower branches and wondered if someone could have survived there.
The branches of sugar pines and ponderosa were too high for anyone to reach. But closer to the bank he recognized the rounded tops of several digger pines. These were easier to scale, with low, sturdy branches. Easy, that was, if you weren’t wearing heavy velvet and God only knows how many petticoats.
Though he feared it was futile, he continued to call to her.
He paused to listen. At first he thought the sound was the high keen of a hawk, but he followed it moving upstream along the emerging bank. When he realized the call came from the cluster of digger pines he felt a moment’s hope.
He held his breath and listened, but the cry had stopped. Then he noted a flash of white among the green and brown branches. It was the size of a swan.
“Kate!”
The thing moved and he sa
w a narrow band of golden velvet streaked with mud. What he’d mistaken for the tree trunk was her torso. Kate stood on a branch two feet above the water.
“Sam!”
“Don’t move. I’m coming for you.”
Sam spurred his horse, taking him upstream, and then plunged into the freezing water. His sorrel thrashed his front legs, swimming with the current but tangling in the submerged branches. Sam recognized that he could not control the horse’s course any more than the gelding could and so he dropped his stirrups and pushing off the saddle, diving headfirst into the current.
Sam swam toward Kate, ignoring the lower branches that clawed at his legs. The current threw him into a tree, stunning him momentarily, but he managed to grasp one of the branches before the river dragged him off. It bent as the river took him downstream and he feared he might shoot right by her.
No, that would not happen. Not when he was so close. He held his breath and released his hold, pumping his arms and thrashing his legs against the current. Despite his efforts, he missed the trunk, but managed to clasp one of the submerged branches, halting his momentum with a jolt. He surfaced just below her and found Kate climbing down the branches to reach him.
“Stop!” he ordered. She did.
He submerged again and used the sturdy limb to haul himself, hand over hand toward the treetrunk. The current slowed on the downstream side of the trunk and he was able to stand on the branch.
Kate was now at eye level. It seemed she had halted her descent only until his head disappeared below the water. He felt a tug on the back of his jacket and realized she had a hold of him and was trying to heave him from the water with one hand.
He grinned at her. “You going to pull me up or am I going to pull you down?”
“Well, you’re not going under the water again.” She said it like a vow.
He could have kissed her.
Instead, he stared up at her, taking in her brown boots, torn stockings, the bloomers he’d mistaken for a swan and the coat that was missing every button. Her little bag was slung over her shoulder, the ribbons drawn tight. Her hands were scraped, but somehow she had maintained her hat and veil in perfect order.
“Nice hat,” he said.
She scowled at him. “Are you coming up?”
“Reckon so.”
He heaved himself to the next branch as she retreated to the adjacent one.
Sam reached for her hand, clasping it gently. She winced.
“Thank you for not dying,” he said.
Tears filled her eyes. “You can thank John Potts. He pushed me up into this tree and then…” She wept.
“We’ll find him,” Sam said. But he thought they might more likely find his body. If the man was alive, Sam owed him a debt he could never repay.
“Sam, how will we get down?”
“Wait a while. The water’s receding fast now.”
“What happened?” she asked.
He told her that someone had blown the dam and how he suspected the same men who had been stealing their supplies and shooting any worker who wandered from camp.
“Who would do such a thing?”
“More than a few shippers in ’Frisco will be sunk when the railroad’s complete.”
“They’d commit murder to stay in business?”
“That’s right.”
Kate’s brows sank over her penetrating green eyes. “I think that’s despicable. I hope you catch them and bring them all to justice.”
“That’s what I’m aiming to do. Right after I get us down from this damn tree.”
She gave the branch a little pat. “This tree saved my life.”
“Maybe I’ll cut it down and make you a rocker to remember it by.”
“Don’t you dare! This tree did not survive the flood only to be carved into furniture.”
He laughed. “If you say so. What about a branch? I’ll whittle you something.”
She nodded her consent. The woman had strong notions about things that never occurred to him. He found her views refreshing and her spunk admirable. But sometimes he wished she would do what he told her.
“What happened to your skirts?”
“They were dragging me down so I threw them into the river.”
“Should have known.”
“Known what?”
“Most women would have just let go. But not you. You’d strip naked if you had to.”
“I believe I already have.”
“You still got most of the top half, and that hat.”
“I love this hat.”
He grinned. “Water’s nearly at the base. We can climb down now.”
He helped her as they descended.
Sam called up to Kate as she hung from a branch. “You know them bloomers have a slit in them at the crotch?”
Kate froze to the spot and clamped her legs together. Sam laughed.
“You are a dreadful man. And to think I prayed for your safety.”
That struck him. “You did?”
She nodded.
“I don’t think I’ve been mentioned to God in quite some time.” While she had prayed, he had cursed His name. They may both be survivors, but they were not alike in all things. She was a better person and, just maybe, she could make him a better person, as well. He realized something in that moment, staring up at her in her tattered clothing and mud-streaked bloomers. He loved her.
This was the woman he’d been searching for: the one he didn’t think existed, the one that he dreamed of and the one he had nearly lost today. Now he had to convince her that her independence was not as precious as what they might share together. He would give her the world, if she’d only let him.
She sat on the lower branch and reached out to him. He clasped her waist and drew her to stand beside him in the ankle-deep mud.
Should he tell her now or ease into it at a better moment?
“Sam?”
He lifted his eyebrows.
“Thank you for rescuing me.” She glanced downstream. “Do you really think John is alive?”
John? A burn began in his gut and traveled to his jaw. He clenched his teeth against the resentment. The man had saved her life. He owed him everything and yet when she said his name with such concern, Sam wanted to punch John Potts square in the teeth.
“We’ll find him,” Sam promised.
The police had done a thorough job on this case. They’d apprehended the third thief who had waylaid Mr. Pickett and they had found, in her possession, a valuable gold necklace.
Crawford had tracked track down the jeweler and discovered that Sam Pickett had purchased the piece only a few days earlier. How had this thief come into possession of the necklace?
The detective now sat in a small room with the apparent thief. He placed the velvet box before the young woman who was charged with luring men into an alley so her cohorts could rob them.
“Miss Burns, do you care to tell me how this came into your possession?”
“Mr. Pickett give it to me as a token of his affections.”
Crawford smiled. He had just completed an initial interview of a woman named Mrs. Ella Maguire, the maternal aunt of Miss Katherine Wells. She had reported a house robbery where only one item was taken, a gold necklace, set with seven gold filigree roses. She reported that a young woman had inquired about renting a room and had used the tour of the premises as an opportunity to secure the necklace. Mrs. Maguire had told the officers that the necklace belonged to her niece but could produce no proof.
Crawford turned to the officer. “Bring in Mrs. Maguire.”
The older woman was escorted in. She wore a rumpled gray jacket that looked as if it had been hastily dragged out from under a bed, and brown skirts with a tattered hem. Her eyes were cloudy, but it seemed she recognized Miss Burns.
She pointed at his suspect. “That’s her!”
“Mrs. Maguire, is this the necklace?” He opened the box to display the delicate trinket, fashioned from eighteen-carat gold.
The woman leaned forward, squinting her eyes. “Yes. That’s it. Oh, thank the Lord.”
She reached for the box and he closed it.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Maguire. This is now evidence.”
“But it belongs to my niece.”
“So you say, but this woman insists that it belongs to her. I understand your niece works in a milliner’s shop on 2nd Street. Could you tell me how she came to own such an expensive necklace?”
Mrs. Maguire flushed. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
“I see. Is it possible that Mr. Pickett gave it to her?”
The woman kept her mouth shut.
“Well, this is a dilemma. Both your niece and Miss Burns were together in that alley with Mr. Pickett and each woman claims this—” he tapped the box with his index finger “—belongs to her. Is your niece acquainted with Miss Burns?”
“Of course not!”
“And do you know all of your niece’s acquaintances?”
“Kate would have nothing to do with a woman of this sort.”
“I hadn’t realized that Mr. Pickett’s mistress traveled only in the upper circles.”
The older woman turned scarlet, but did not deny his charge.
“Why was did your niece enter that alley?”
“She was responding to a citizen in need.”
Crawford shook his head. “An unlikely happenstance, don’t you agree, for a lady to enter an alley at night under any circumstances. And quite a coincidence for Mrs. Wells to be so close at hand with her derringer exactly when Mr. Pickett was waylaid.”
“What are you implying, sir?”
“I don’t believe in chance, Mrs. Maguire. Kate Wells, and Miss Burns here, were working to swindle Mr. Pickett. They concocted this encounter to present Miss Wells to Mr. Pickett, offering exactly the kind of woman he finds most appealing. A woman beautiful, brave and selfless.” He turned to Miss Burns who nodded her agreement to his theory. “But she didn’t split her take with you, did she, Miss Burns? So you went back for your due.”
“It was Kate’s idea. The whole thing. All I did was ask him to step out with me. I had no idea until afterward that Kate had made arrangements with those ruffians. And then she fired her pistol. I could have been killed.” She lifted her chin and struck a haughty pose. “I’m innocent.”