Up ahead, Idabelle Barnes cradled her bawling infant while she stood chest deep in the river, holding onto the tipped wagon for her own life. She frantically screamed Penny’s exact thoughts. “The children! The children!” Granny Willodene looked soaked to the bone and hollered with all she had, but no one appeared to hear her or Idabelle….
Except Penny.
Without a single thought for her own safety, Penny shook off her father’s hold and jumped into the river. The initial cold shock of the water washing over her took her breath away, but it didn’t stop her from swimming hard and fast downstream, keeping the boys’ bobbing heads in sight.
Please, God! Please, God! Please, God! she prayed with each stroke.
Finally, she reached the two children, who were gasping for air as, time and again, the current pulled them under. Looping an arm around each one’s waist, Penny tried to kick hard enough to swim back upstream, but the river was too powerful. Nevertheless, she managed to hold the boys’ heads above water even if it meant she went under—and she did. Once. Twice…
She coughed and sputtered, and it was all she could do to keep herself afloat.
Then suddenly, they were slammed backwards into a protruding embankment, Penny taking the full force of the impact. The eight-year-old grabbed onto a long tree root that stuck straight out from the brown, muddy bank. And that’s the last thing Penny saw before giving way to murky unconsciousness.
As if in a torturous, slow-moving dream, Dillon watched the tragedy unfold before him as the Barneses’ wagon overturned. He felt helpless until the women’s screaming captured his attention, and he realized at once that the two Barnes kids were about to drown.
Pulling off his boots and tossing his hat into the back of the Millbergs’ wagon, Dillon prepared to plunge into the depths of the Snake River, but he was brought up short by a sickening splash behind him.
Penny! She’d jumped in after the boys!
Oh, sweet Lord, he prayed, what’d she have to go and do that for?
As Dillon hit the water, he knew he couldn’t save them all, and he prayed that God would somehow intervene. Swimming downstream, he saw Penny meet up with the two boys, and his initial alarm subsided. Now he had a good chance of rescuing them.
Thank You, Jesus!
As he swam in their direction, he could see Penny nearing a jagged, ten-foot-tall embankment. He called out a warning, only it was too late. A moment later, he witnessed the skull-splitting collision; but he reached the trio just as Penny lost consciousness and slipped beneath the water’s surface.
“Is she dead?” the older Barnes boy asked, his eyes wide with impending hysteria.
“Merciful Father, I hope not!” Dillon replied, lifting her out of the water as the younger boy latched onto his one arm.
The river was shallow enough that Dillon found a foothold, although the water came as high as his elbows. Holding Penny’s head between his hands, he put his cheek against her lips. A chilling fear crept up his spine when he couldn’t detect a breath.
“Penny!” he cried, giving her a shake. “Breathe!”
He slung her over his shoulder, intending to somehow get her to the top of the stout cliff and onto dry land. But to his immeasurable relief, a siege of coughing wracked her slender body, and it was the best sound Dillon ever heard.
He looked at the oldest Barnes kid. “Praise, God! She’s alive!”
Tears streamed down the boy’s freckled cheeks. “But she’s bleeding… look!”
With one arm firmly around her waist, Dillon carefully tipped Penny back in order to inspect the wound. But the younger Barnes kid had wrapped himself around Dillon like an anaconda, so the task proved impossible. “Doc Rogers’ll have to look at it.”
At that very moment, Penny’s eyes fluttered open, and Dillon smiled down into their blue depths. “I’m not willing to go down in the Snake, but I’d drown in your eyes any day,” he whispered against her lips.
“I must be in heaven,” she muttered softly, dreamily. Then a slight frown furrowed her delicate brows. “Dillon, are you in heaven, too?”
“A semblance of, I’d say,” he replied, grinning.
“You two act like Ma ‘n’ Pa,” the older boy declared on a note of repulsion. “Yuck!”
Above them, on the edge of the embankment, five or six men appeared with ropes and blankets.
“Is anyone injured?” Doc Rogers called, his medical bag in one hand.
“Penny’s hurt,” Dillon said, coming to his senses. He wondered how in the world he could even think of romancing this woman while she lay impaired in his arms. He must be as crazy as a loon—
Or crazy in love.
The children were quickly plucked from the water. Dillon lifted Penny into her brother’s arms, after which Bert and Buck Cole pulled Dillon from the river.
As they stood ashore, drying in the August sunshine, the men assessed nicks and scrapes while Doc Rogers examined the laceration on the back of Penny’s head. Minutes later, a thunderous crack splintered the air and drew every gaze upstream. To Dillon’s second horror of the day, he saw that the Millbergs’ wagon—the very one which he’d been hired to drive—had tipped. The prized piano began floating upside down, moving with the current, and gathering momentum as it went. Orson Millberg’s expletives followed in its wake.
Then, at the very place where Dillon, Penny, and the children had been, the piano smashed into the bank with an eerie, descanted chord. A heartbeat later, it broke into pieces that were quickly swept away.
The Cole brothers looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“If that weren’t the funniest thang I ever did see!” Bert said, holding his side.
“Yah, and that was the purtiest tune that ol’ pianer made this whole trip!”
Dillon stared at them as if they’d just traveled from the moon. Didn’t these two fellows know that his dreams of a new life in Oregon—his future with Penny—were now as shattered and worthless as that piano?
Besides, he’d just lost everything he owned!
He closed his eyes against the overwhelming disappointment… until the sound of retching reached his ears.
Penny.
Shaking off his piteous thoughts, he strode toward where she sat on her haunches, doubled over. Next to her, Josh held an arm around her waist and a hand against her forehead. The grim set of his mouth told Dillon more than he wanted to know.
“It’s not good, is it, Doc?”
Josh met his gaze and shook his head. “My guess is she’s got a concussion.”
“My head hurts so badly, Josh,” Penny managed to whimper.
“What can I do to help?” Dillon asked.
“Fetch my wife. Tell her to bring some dry clothing for Penny. But, please,” Josh added with a beseeching look in his blue eyes, “please don’t let on that Penny nearly drowned. Beth won’t take it well.”
“I understand.” Early on in their journey, Dillon had heard all about the tragedy that befell Beth’s folks. “You can count on me, Doc. I won’t say more than needs to be said.”
“Good. Oh, and…”
Dillon paused.
“I’m eternally grateful to you for saving Penny’s life.”
She looked up at him, a damp blanket pressed against her mouth. “Yes, thank you, Dillon,” she murmured.
Her face suddenly paled, and she turned her head away, preparing to be sick again.
An odd sense of dread coursed through Dillon’s veins. “I’ll get your missus,” he promised Josh before sprinting toward the wagons.
Chapter 9
Dillon didn’t have to go far before he met Bethany already on her way to see after her sister-in-law. In her arms, she carried a bundle of clothing and a blanket.
“How’s Penny? Is she all right? I about swooned when I saw her jump into the river!”
“Your husband’s tending to her right now,” Dillon replied guardedly.
With a hasty nod, Bethany continued her trek toward Penny and J
osh. Dillon would have followed, but off in the distance he heard Orson Millberg bellowing for him.
Squaring his shoulders, Dillon decided to face the inevitable. Now or later, he reckoned, it may as well be now.
“Trier, get your sorry hide over here!”
He felt disgusted that the man would use such language around womenfolk. As for himself, he didn’t much care what Millberg had to say. It was all over. He’d lost his job.
“You no-account farmhand, I should have known better than to hire you to drive my wagon. Why you’re not fit to lick the mud off my boots.”
Standing just a few feet away from the older man now, a molten-hot fury surged inside of Dillon. He took a stride forward, but Zach Sawyer and Homer Green grabbed his upper arms and held him back.
“He ain’t worth even skinnin’ your knuckles,” Zach said.
Dillon tried in vain to tamp down his anger while Millberg continued his ravings.
“That piano has been in our family for generations, and now it’s lost because of you!”
“I beg your pardon, Orson,” Frank Barnes put in, “but this man saved our children.”
“That’s right,” Idabelle said, her plump arms around the shoulders of her two sons. “Had it not been for Mr. Trier, they would have drowned.”
“More’s the pity,” Millberg replied, wearing a scowl. “That piano was worth at least a thousand dollars.”
Idabelle gasped at the insinuation.
The men at Dillon’s side released their hold.
“Have at ‘im,” Homer said.
Millberg spit at Dillon’s feet. “You’re not worth the—”
Clenching a fist, he didn’t wait to hear the rest of the insult. He swung and struck Millberg square in the jaw. The man spun like a top. Another blow to his midsection sent Orson sprawling backward in the dirt.
Dillon looked down on him, his jaw firmly set. “Get up, Millberg. I’m not through with you.”
“Yes, you are.”
Turning, Dillon came face-to-face with the barrel of Rawhide’s rifle.
“He might deserve a good beating,” the gristly wagon master said from high in his saddle, “but you ‘n’ the others got work to do. We’ve wasted enough time here. We gotta get back on the trail or the Blue Mountains’ll be snowcapped when we reach ’em.”
Grudgingly, Dillon gave up the fight.
“You’re fired, Trier!” Millberg declared, struggling to his feet.
“Can’t fire me,” he retorted. “I quit!”
“Can’t quit, ’cause you’re fired!” the man bellowed.
Rawhide cocked his gun and aimed at Millberg. “Don’t make me get off this horse ’cause if I do, it’ll be to pick up your dead carcass.”
Millberg had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
“You got no cause for your bellyaching,” Rawhide added, lowering his rifle. “Your wagon woulda overturned whether Trier was driving it or not, seein’ as it was so overloaded with that piano. Ever’one including me told you not to take that atrocious thing. What’s more is you’re gonna pay Trier what he earned up till today. Now, get yourself cleaned up ’cause we’re heading out in one hour.”
Millberg frowned just as his wife and Lavinia reached his side. He angrily pushed them away and strode for his wagon.
“I’m sorry you lost you’re job, Mr. Trier,” Idabelle said. Wisps of her wheat-colored hair blew across her face, and she brushed them aside. “If my boys hadn’t fallen in…”
“Mrs. Barnes, a human life is worth far more than a piano… and a job. I have no regrets. Neither should you.”
Tears of gratitude filled her eyes and she nodded.
Zach and Homer gave him an encouraging slap on the back as they walked away, while Granny Willodene reached up and pinched the fat of his cheek.
“You’re a good boy, Sonny. God bless you.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you kindly.” Once her back was to him, Dillon rubbed at the sore spot left by the old woman’s assault. Next, he backtracked with the intention of finding out how Penny fared in the hands of Doc Rogers and his wife.
As it happened, Penny didn’t fare well at all. Joshua, of course, expertly sutured the laceration on the back of her head, but neither he nor Ambrose Harris could cure her brain-twisting headache. Rawhide conceded to spending one more night by the Snake River; and once Penny was tucked into her bedroll, Bethany told her about the events of the latter part of the afternoon and evening.
“Mr. Millberg has a giant bruise on his jaw from his fight with Dillon.”
Penny couldn’t help a little grin. “Serves him right, that troll.”
“Certainly does. And now the Coles are allowing Dillon to share their wagon since they have room enough for his things.”
Beth gasped, startling Penny out of her groggy state. “What is it, Beth?”
“I almost forgot to tell you. Bert and Buck Cole fished Dillon’s chest out of the river. It floated downstream, but got stuck between two large stones. God is so good! And guess what else? Mr. Millberg paid Dillon through today; and, if that wasn’t miracle enough, Bernie Williams said he had planned to share a portion of the reward money with Dillon once we reach Oregon City.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, Beth. Tell Dillon I said it’s wonderful.”
“I will. I promise.” Soaking the rag in cool water, Beth draped it over Penny’s forehead again. “Well, that dreadful Lavinia Millberg,” she prattled on, “threatened to turn Dillon in to the sheriff as soon as we reach Oregon because he dared to strike her father. But Mr. Rawhide said he’ll swear on the Bible that it was a fair fight.”
“Beth, can we please talk about this tomorrow?” Penny asked as a crescendo of pain gripped her. “My head is about to explode.”
Penny hadn’t meant to hurt her dear friend’s feelings. Very simply, her body yearned for peace and quiet. Nevertheless, huge tears rolled down Beth’s cheeks.
“I’m just trying to help.”
“I know… Beth! Wait, don’t go.”
But it was too late. Bethany had already begun her descent from the wagon.
Feeling more than miserable, Penny squeezed back tears of her own. “Dear Lord,” she whispered into the darkness of the wagon, “what’s wrong with Beth lately? She cries over practically nothing. Is she just tired? Tired as I am?”
On that thought, Penny drifted into a restless sleep.
The next day proved no better. Her head still pounded like a bass drum. Penny tried hard not to complain for fear she would set the wagon train back another day. When they stopped at noon, she rested in a shady spot with a wet rag over her forehead and eyes. At last she found reprieve—but not for long. Just as soon as she began walking the trail, her headache came rushing back.
“Penny, I’m so worried about you,” Bethany said that evening as Josh and Papa frowned their obvious concerns. “You need to eat something.”
“I can’t. I’ll be sick. I just need to sleep.”
Josh nodded. “Sleep’s about the only cure I know of at this point.”
Penny was soon snuggled inside her bedroll with another damp cloth spread across her forehead.
At breakfast the next morning, Bethany told Penny that Dillon had asked over her. “A host of others wanted to visit, too,” she added, “but you were asleep.”
“Yes, and thank you for making my excuses, Beth,” Penny replied. “I do feel better this morning.”
Unfortunately, once she began her trek on the trail, the headache returned. Riding in the wagon did little to alleviate it. In fact, it only made it worse. When the wheels hit the ruts in the worn, dirt road, Penny’s head throbbed all the more.
For the weeks that followed, Penny continued to battle her headaches. One evening, after crossing the Snake River for the last time, Reverend Brewster decided to hold a special prayer service. Sitting on a fallen log beside Dillon, she laid her pounding head on his shoulder. To her utter shame, she fell asleep during Pastor’s preaching.
&
nbsp; It was days before he quit teasing her about it.
On the second day of September, the wagon train rounded Farewell Bend, the place where the trail veered away from the Snake River for good. Ahead of the pioneers lay the Blue Mountains. Cheers went up when they saw that the peaks were blue and not white with snow. Rawhide exclaimed that they were practically assured an easy passage through the mountains now.
With a heavy sigh, Penny leaned against the wagon after they’d paused to take in the majestic panoramic view before them. Pressing her palms against the excruciating pain at her temples, she suddenly wondered if she’d ever reach Oregon.
“Wish there was something I could do for you,” Dillon said, coming up behind her.
Turning slowly, so as not to further disturb the pain in her head, Penny gave him a weak smile. “I wish there was something you could do for me, too. I’m weary of this headache.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“Dillon,” she murmured, searching his rugged face, “I think I’m dying.”
His brown eyes widened. “Don’t say such things.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad, really. I’d be with Jesus, and—”
“Stop, Penny!” Before she could utter another syllable, Dillon pulled her into his strong arms. “Don’t you know you’re scaring the liver out of me?”
“But—”
“Shh… no more talk. I think God wants you to just be still for a spell.”
“Perhaps. That’s when I feel a little better.”
“Mm-hmm, and that’s what your pa thinks, too. He and I’ve been having some fine discussions in the evenings.”
With her head against Dillon’s chest, Penny felt the throbbing pain at her temples ebb. “What sort of ‘fine discussion’ have you and Papa had?”
A rumble of laughter bubbled up inside Dillon. “I reckon you’re feeling better already.”
“Oh, go on with you.” Penny would have liked to playfully push Dillon away, but she couldn’t get herself to move a muscle. “Seriously, now, tell me what you and Papa talked about.”
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