"I’m not going near that horse,” Daisy objected, clutching Klaus to her bosom. "I don't want to get any closer to it. It’s liable to kick.”
Elvira shook her head, exasperated. “Honestly, Daisy, you're no help at all. Hannah, help me here and then you go see.”
Fortunately, the man was small and thin, so turning him wasn’t difficult at all. He had long, straggly hair, and when they got him rolled over, they could see he was middle-aged, unshaven, with an unkempt salt-and-pepper beard and a bushy mustache.
Hannah got to her feet and hurried over to the wagon. On the ground there were several blankets tied into a clumsy bedroll, and she brought them over to Elvira, undoing the cord that held them and shaking them out.
"Phew, those blankets absolutely stink. And I swear this guy hasn’t bathed in a month of Sundays either,” Elvira said in disgust. "Judging by the state of his clothing and these blankets, the nurses are going to have a fine time when he gets to hospital," Elvira pronounced. "What we're going to do, Hannah, is roll one blanket like this and use it like a stretcher if we have to move him. We’ll cover him up with the other one."
Hannah followed Elvira’s instructions, and the man was soon on the blanket. With a grimace of distaste, Elvira undid his coat and slid her hand across his chest. His shirt was gray flannel. "Might have broken ribs—”
Elvira stopped abruptly. "Shine that light lower down, Daisy. Oh my goodness.”
Horror was evident in her tone. "I don't believe this. Look, he’s wearing a gun and a holster. And a knife.”
The three women stared at the leather gunbelt. The single handgun was large, and there were bullets all along the length of the belt. A sheath held a sizable knife.
"It’s against the law to carry a gun in B.C. He's either some kind of criminal or an undercover policeman," Daisy said, her voice shaking. “And I don't think a policeman would ever be as dirty as this man, do you? Which means he’s a criminal." She gave a little scream and hopped several steps back. "He could wake up and kill us all at any moment." Her voice squeaked into the upper registers, and she backed up still farther, clutching Klaus to her breast.
"Whatever he is, we can’t just leave him here and run," Elvira pointed out. "We were at least partially responsible for the accident, and he doesn't seem to be waking up. And even when he does, there are three of us and only one of him, so calm down, Daisy. We’ll get rid of this gun right now.” She fumbled it out of the holster and handed it to Hannah, who held it gingerly by the end of the barrel.
"I'll just undo this…..” Elvira unfastened the gunbelt, extracted the knife, and slid the belt from under him.
Hannah took the knife and belt in one hand and the gun in the other and walked to the edge of the embankment. "I’m throwing the whole works in the river," she announced and heaved first the gun, then the knife, and finally the belt and bullets as hard as she could. They splashed into the water.
Hannah put her hands on her hips and looked up and down the road, hoping again for the lights of an approaching vehicle. “What we need is an ambulance and a tow truck and the R.C.M.P. You’d think somebody would come along so we could get help,” she complained. “And in the meantime, what I’m gonna do is find a good-sized rock and keep it handy just in case this guy wakes up with any ideas.”
She said it to reassure her mother, but Hannah doubted whether she was capable of deliberately hitting someone on the head with a rock.
"Smart thinking. God helps those who help themselves,” Elvira pronounced. "And now that we’ve done what we can for this sorry excuse of a man, we've got to do something for that poor horse. He’s liable to break a leg struggling like that. Daisy, you stay here and keep an eye on this fellow and holler the moment he wakes up. Hannah, find her a rock, too.”
"You stay here yourself, Elvira, if you’re so worried about him," Daisy said. “Why should I be the one to be raped and held hostage and then murdered by some maniac?”
"Oh, come along, then. He’s not going anywhere anyhow.” Elvira marched purposefully over to the wagon with them, and the three of them studied the overturned contraption.
"It’s not that big or heavy. Maybe we can hoist it back on its wheels," Hannah suggested, taking a grip on one side. "You two go to the other side and pull down when I pull up.”
Elvira and Daisy did as she instructed, and together they heaved and pulled. The wagon was heavier than Hannah had guessed, but on their fourth try they managed to get enough momentum going to right it.
The moment it was back on its wheels, the frantic horse scrambled to his feet, but as soon as he was up he began to trot away, dragging the wagon along behind him.
"Whoa. Whoa, boy, whoa there." Elvira raced after him and quickly found the reins. She tugged on them, and the horse obediently stopped.
Hannah was impressed. "Good going, Elvira. How d'you know what to do?”
"I grew up on a farm. It was all work and no play, but I learned a lot of things."
A breeze ruffled the air and Daisy shivered. "I’m freezing in these wet clothes. I’ve got another pair of slacks and a sweater in my suitcase. Do you think our bags got wet in the back of the van?"
"I'll go down and see,” Hannah volunteered. "I’ve been wondering if the van might just start and then I could drive it out of the water. And I’ll try and get help with my cell phone.”
It was a faint hope, but worth a try. “If the van won’t start, I'll bring up all our stuff," she decided. “Mom, you can change into something dry, and at least we’ll have our bags with us when a ride finally comes along."
"Be sure and bring the food, too,” Daisy instructed as Hannah made her way cautiously down the embankment again.
Not surprisingly, the van wouldn’t start, and it took several trips to transfer all their belongings to dry land. By the time she’d emptied the van, Hannah was sweating from exertion, but her headache had eased and the trips up and down had cleared her mind. She tried her cell, but it was dead, even though she’d had it on the charger in the van.
Daisy changed her clothes and they all put on sweaters. Then they waited for help to arrive, but after twenty minutes there still was no sign of another vehicle from either direction.
Elvira checked the unconscious man again. "He’s been out for a long time," she pointed out. "That could mean his injuries are more serious than I can detect. Whoever he is, we should try to get help for him. I don’t want him to die while I’m taking care of him,” she declared. "We’ve got the horse and wagon—what about loading him and all our stuff in it and trying to find a farmhouse or something?"
"Oh, that's crazy! No, I couldn’t ride on a wagon with a horse pulling it," Daisy objected, but Hannah and Elvira ignored her and agreed it was the logical thing to do.
“Should we head back towards Quesnel, or continue on the way we were going, Hannah?"
Hannah had been wondering the same thing. “We’re over half way to Barkerville, and there weren’t any houses that I noticed for quite a long stretch. I think we ought to keep on going. With any luck somebody’ll come along, or we’ll come to a house with a telephone."
Using the blankets as a stretcher and with Elvira directing the procedure, the three of them managed to hoist the unconscious man in a relatively smooth maneuver into the box of the wagon. He groaned several times and thrashed around a bit. Once his eyes opened, but he lapsed back into unconsciousness almost right away, which everyone agreed was a relief.
Hannah quickly loaded their various bags in beside him, and they gathered up what they could find of the man’s belongings as well. These consisted of a small duffel bag of clothing, several battered pots, some dried peas and rice in a burlap bag, and three extremely heavy canvas sacks whose tops were tied tightly and intricately knotted.
"These could be more ammunition," Hannah said, heaving them into the wagon. "But that won’t do him much good without a gun, so we might as well take them.”
The wagon was a crude affair, with a plank across the fr
ont for a seat. There was only room for two of them on it, so Hannah crouched in the crowded box beside the injured man as Elvira confidently clucked to the horse and shook the reins.
They had to turn around in order to head towards Barkerville, which caused a bit of confusion. Elvira urged the horse to the end of the bridge and turned him, accomplishing the maneuver without too much difficulty. But then the horse balked when Elvira tried to get him to cross the bridge again, whinnying and shaking his head about and shying when he approached the bridge.
Klaus, held firmly on Daisy’s lap, didn't help matters at all. He yelped frantically and even howled in a high, eerie way, which further agitated the poor horse.
Eventually, with much urging from Elvira, the animal gave in and trotted nervously across the planks, flicking his tail, throwing his head from side to side and blowing heavily through his nose.
Hannah, doing her best to steady the injured man as the wagon jolted around, thought about how calm and capable Elvira had been all through this crisis. She was actually admirable when she was like this, Hannah thought in amazement. And she hadn't complained about Gordon once in the past hour, which had to be some kind of record.
As the wagon bumped its way off of the rough planks of the bridge and onto the road again. Hannah looked back at the scene of their accident, but to her surprise she couldn’t see either the bridge or the van in the river below. The mysterious, thick fog had suddenly obliterated both bridge and river, giving the uncanny impression that nothing existed behind the wagon.
Hannah turned and looked over the other women's shoulders. Ahead of them, the night was clear and absolutely free of any mist. She squinted back at the fog again, and an alarming sensation made the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand up.
For an instant, she felt as if her entire existence had been broken into two parts, that everything that had occurred before this moment in time lay abandoned behind that ominous, solid wall of mist.
Just then, she also realized with a sense of alarm that the injured man was waking up. He opened his eyes and stared silently at her for a long, unnerving time, and then he reached a hand out and grasped her arm with surprisingly strong fingers. His voice was thin and reedy, and he had to clear his throat several times to get the words out.
"Please, ma’am, what’s happened ta me?”
Well, if he was a murderer, at least he was a polite one, Hannah thought, making sure the large rock she’d brought along was in her right hand.
"You were thrown out of the wagon and hit your head," she explained, worrying over how he’d react when he found out she was the one driving the van that had hit him. "We met in the middle of the bridge. It was hard to see. Your horse reared, and I tried my best not to hit you. I drove off the bridge."
“Lights,” he muttered. “I recollect bright lights and some big bejesus contraption—’’
He clapped a hand over his mouth. “Beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am. I ain't used to talkin’ much ta ladies. Owww, son of a hairy eyed bitch—"
He struggled to a sitting position and rubbed his head. “Ahhgggg, me head feels like it’s gonna crack open." He looked around, suddenly agitated. "Where’s all me gear, ya didn't leave—ahhh, there’s me bags, right as rain."
He reached out and grasped the canvas bags, patting them as if they were pets. Then quite suddenly, he dropped his hands to his midriff.
“Damnation, where’s me gunbelt?" He sounded panicky. “Where’s me sidearm gone? And me knife?"
Hannah didn't answer. Instead she moved away from him, as far to the front of the wagon as she could, taking her rock with her and keeping her eyes steadily on him.
Elvira and Daisy had both turned around when they heard him wake up. The horse plodded on, and the wagon bounced and rattled.
“We threw them away. What were you doing with a gun in the first place?” Elvira demanded with alacrity. “It’s against the law to carry a gun, everyone knows that."
“Threw ... ya threw me gun ...?”
His voice cracked, and the whites of his eyes flashed in the moonlight. He looked from one of them to the other, his bearded countenance twisting into an outraged grimace. "You threw away Billy's gun?" He rolled his body to the side and struggled to get to his knees, cursing a steady stream.
Hannah half rose, her heart hammering, fear making her breath come quick and short. “Stay where you are." She steadied herself by grabbing the wagon seat with one hand. Her other arm was raised, and in her hand she clutched the rock. In that instant, she knew that if he lunged at her, she’d be quite capable of smashing his head in.
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Four
Hannah didn’t have to hit him.
As his knees came into contact with the wagon bed, an unearthly shriek was torn from the man and he collapsed, half sobbing, both arms clutching his right leg.
"Maybe there’s a fracture after all, one I couldn’t detect," Elvira remarked in a calm voice. "Lie down and keep still," she warned him. "Otherwise you'll do yourself even more damage, you silly damned fool."
He didn’t seem inclined to argue. Alternately moaning and cursing, he stayed where he’d fallen, and after a moment he clumsily pulled the dirty blankets over himself, cowering underneath them.
Hannah lowered the rock and used her nylon travel bag to sit down on. She was trembling violently, and for a moment, hysterical tears threatened as the traumatic events of the past few hours caught up with her.
For the first time she thought of Brad. She’d have to call him, of course, and tell him what had happened. She felt reluctant to do so, because he’d most likely think, just as Elvira and Daisy had, that Hannah should have stopped overnight in Quesnel.
He would see that as the logical, reasonable thing to have done, and all of a sudden Hannah was furious with him. She already felt horribly guilty and responsible about the accident. She didn't need him reminding her of her shortcomings. She needed unconditional support, not logic and reason and should have’s.
After a moment, it dawned on her that she didn't really know how Brad would react. She was anticipating something that might never occur. With an effort, she dragged her thoughts away from Brad and the accident and paid attention to where she was.
The wagon was bouncing slowly along, jolting and rocking, and for the first time, Hannah wondered why this ride should be so rough.
She twisted around and peered over the women’s heads at the roadway in front of them. "This road isn’t paved," she exclaimed, shocked at the discovery. "It isn't even graveled. It’s just a dirt track."
"Yes, Hannah. Daisy and I already noticed that," Elvira said with more than a tinge of irony. "I can’t remember what the map indicated, whether there was a paved road all the way to Barkerville. Do you recall?” Elvira snapped the reins and clicked her tongue to make the horse go a little faster. He seemed to have a tendency to go slower and slower if she allowed it.
"I’m certain it was supposed to be paved all the way.” Hannah frowned and a new concern made her uneasy. "Do you think I could have made a wrong turn somewhere? I mean, the bridge wasn’t supposed to even exist, and then suddenly there it was, and now this terrible road.”
She frowned, going over the route she'd followed in her mind. “But I couldn’t have taken a wrong turn," she insisted. “There wasn’t even a sign indicating a detour. This has to be right."
She turned back to the man huddled under the blankets, reluctant to have any further contact with him but concerned over this road business.
"Hey, mister ... ummm, what’s your name, anyway?"
There was a moment of silence, and then he pulled the blanket down a little and turned his head towards her. “Name’s Billy. Billy Renton, ma’am." He sounded weary and subdued, and he seemed to have forgotten his rage about the gun.
Hannah was certain he couldn't move. The pain he'd experienced had been obvious. It wouldn't hurt to be polite to him.
"My name's Hannah, and that's Daisy. She's my mother. E
lvira’s driving the horse.”
Hannah sucked in a breath of the cool night air. Under the circumstances, she wasn’t about to bother with formalities like last names. "Billy, are you familiar with this road?”
"Ya might say I bin up and down it.”
"So we are on the right road to Barkerville, then?"
"Barkerville." Instead of answering her question, he let out a groan and another muted stream of curses.
Hannah wasn’t about to let him get away with that. “Look, I’m asking a civil question, and I expect an answer. Is this or is it not the road to Barkerville?”
"A'course it's the road. Cariboo Road. Damn good road, too, compared ta what it used ta be. Only good road inta the gold fields, ain't it?"
“That’s what I’m asking you, whether I could have taken some . .. some side road or something. This sure doesn’t seem like any main road to me.”
"Ya don't like it, why'nt'cha turn around and head on back down ta Quesnellemouth?" His voice took on a wheedling note. "Yessir, that’s what you oughta do, alrighty. Ladies like youse don’t belong in Barkerville nohow, nothin’ up there but wild, fightin’ miners and drink and precious little gold. No place for ladies, you take it from Billy. Best turn this wagon round and get back where ya come from, don’tcha think? Barkerville’s a wild and sinful place," he ranted.
Quesnellemouth? And Barkerville, a ghost town, wild and sinful? His tirade convinced Hannah that Billy was probably mentally unstable, living in the past or something. That would account for his being on the road with a horse and wagon in the first place, and also for the gun and the knife he’d worn. He was probably harmless, just some old local crazy hermit.
She felt a stab of sympathy for him. “Don't get upset, Billy. We'll see that you get medical treatment, don’t worry. Just lie quiet until we find a telephone or something.”
Billy gave her a wild-eyed look and groaned hopelessly. “Me leg’s broken. I’ll wager I ain’t never gonna walk again. Seen broken bones afore, in the gold fields. Man’s as good as dead with a broken leg like this ’un.” He sounded quite pitiable.
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 41