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A wave from behind washed him up and over. From an arm’s reach away the little girl looked at him. Big brown eyes blinked through hair plastered against her face.
“Hold on, baby, I’ve got you.” He hung on to the slippery roof with his injured hand and ignored the gush of crimson washing from his thumb. He stretched his arm out, straining at the shoulder to touch the child.
He’d just grabbed on to her tiny wrist, cold and slick with water, when a wave tossed her up. Her hand slipped out of his grip. She flew up, over his head. He caught a flash of calico skirt and yanked her back by it.
In the instant that he wrapped her to his chest he spotted the hunk of ice carried in the wave’s wake.
“Hold on.” She looped skinny arms about his neck then squeezed as tight as any binding rope would have. “Good girl.”
The jag of ice crashed down on the roof. It tossed him airborne. Turning and twisting, he dug his fingers into the child’s dress.
Upside down and spinning, he thought he saw Missy rushing toward the river, towing Ace behind her. That couldn’t be since he’d told her to stay put. Surely it was only a jumbled illusion that she wasn’t safely on the hilltop.
Hour-like seconds passed before he crashed back down into the water.
The wonder was that he hadn’t been hit by a deadly object coming down. The horror was, that he was down, way down under the water, still tumbling and turning and not knowing which way was up.
His hip crashed into something and then his shoulder. The little girl struggled in his grasp, needing air.
The current dragged him across the river bottom then slammed his back against a solid object. It knocked the breath from his lungs. Bubbles floated in front of his face. He loosened one arm from around the baby to grip the solid thing that he had hit. He pulled upward following the bubbles.
He broke the surface and lifted the child high against his shoulder. Her terrified screech filled his ear. Thank God.
It turned out to be an uprooted tree that he’d collided with. He wrapped one arm around a wide twisted root.
“It’s all right, sweetling. Hang on tight.”
His words must have sounded confident because the child clung to his neck like a summer vine twined around a post.
The tree, his only lifeline, shifted in the current. It wouldn’t be long before it ripped loose or debris racing downriver crashed into it.
More than twenty feet of turbulent river lay between this unstable sanctuary and the shore. If he let go, made a swim for the bank one-armed, he and the child would likely drown.
“Hush now. Everything’s going to be fine.” Somehow.
“Zane!” He barely heard Missy call his name over the rumble of river rushing past, carrying its cargo of deadly debris. “Zane!”
“Get back!” The child whimpered against his neck, probably startled by his outburst, but he couldn’t believe what his eyes told him. “Get out of here!”
Six feet out from the shore, with the insane tug of the Missouri pressing and heaving, Missy sat atop Ace. She urged him forward against any instinct the animal had of self-preservation.
“Hold on!” she cried. A wave splashed over the toe of her delicate boot. “I’m nearly there.”
“You’ll get yourself and my horse killed! Get back!”
“Don’t let go!”
Rain beat down on her. The coat blew open revealing her white lace corset with its droopy blue bows. Her dog poked his wet head out of the coat pocket, quiet for once.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he mumbled. But she didn’t look like an idiot. She looked brave and beautiful and too fragile to be urging Ace on through the torrent.
After a few more of those hour-long seconds, Ace stood beside the log in belly-deep water, holding steady. Missy reached down. He lifted the little girl into her arms.
“I’ll be back.” Missy shouted. “Hold on.”
“Damn it, no! Get to shore and stay there!” Ace was strong, but it was only luck that he hadn’t been knocked down by debris hidden in the current.
He watched Missy’s mouth open and close with some words that he guessed meant he’d wasted his breath on insisting she stay put, but a sudden crack of ice close by drowned out the sound.
She turned Ace’s head toward shore and whispered something to the little girl. A second later she glanced back, her face set in an expression that would excuse her brother tying her to the bedpost.
She’d come back all right, and probably die trying.
He lunged for Ace’s tail. By Heaven’s own luck he caught it and tangled his fingers in the thick, wet mass.
The horse’s first step toward shore made Zane swing wide into the current. He hung on, wincing against the pain from the splinter lodged in his thumb.
The brave animal didn’t protest the weight hanging on his tail even when a slap of water washed over his haunches. He whinnied then pointed his soaking black nose toward the shore.
It was a miracle. Missy had heard the declaration from the mouths of everyone she encountered that morning. Not a human soul had perished. Livestock and buildings had been washed away to their doom, but each and every human had been reunited with friends and loved ones.
Amazingly, the family of the little girl had claimed her a few moments after Zane crawled out of the river. He had barely caught his breath before the child’s mother hugged it out of him again.
With each soul accounted for, people now focused on retrieving their lost goods. Along the riverbank, families hunted under rubble and up in tree branches for pieces of their shattered lives.
Missy lifted a splintered scrap of lumber and peeked underneath it. Scattered about in the muck were the remains of the hotel. Surely she would find one or two of her belongings.
A timid finger of sunshine teased her shoulder blades without offering any heat. Muff, napping in the coat pocket, did warm one side of her knee.
“You’ve been searching for three hours.” Zane lifted a window frame and peered underneath it. “You won’t find anything.”
Maybe not, but it was a day for miracles, even small ones like finding a dress or a matching pair of shoes.
“Did you hear the church bell ring?” Missy asked, stopping for a moment to arch her back against a cramp.
“The church didn’t have a bell.” Zane tossed a piece of lumber aside and lifted a muddy hat up for Missy to see.
“Not mine.” The ache in her back tightened with the stretch. “And yet half the town of Yankton heard it.”
Zane placed the hat on a mangled tree branch sticking up from the mud. “Even if there had been a bell, no one could have heard it ringing.”
“They could if it had been a special bell … Oh, look at this.” She lifted a milk pail and hung it on the branch near the hat. “A natural bell couldn’t be heard, but a supernatural one could.”
“Darlin’, that might happen where you come from, but out here bells are pretty much brass or iron.”
It was hard to tell whether he was annoyed or amused since his hat shaded his eyes and his voice gave nothing away.
“Well, there you have it, then,” she said.
He straightened, plucking a man’s pipe from the mud. He shoved his hat back from his face. The sun shone bright on his expression.
It was not annoyed or amused. His eyebrows arched in bewilderment. “Have what?”
Mercy, what a handsome man! He nearly made her lose her train of thought.
“Proof, of course. If a brass or iron bell couldn’t be heard, and there wasn’t one to hear, but so many folks swear that they heard it, then what else could it be?”
“Delirium.”
“Magic.”
Zane turned and wedged the pipe behind the drooping yellow ribbon on the hat. He glanced back at her with a hot-coffee gaze. The simmer nearly made her knees knock together.
“Did you hear the bell?” he asked.
“No, but—”
“There was no bell.” He raised his hands, calloused palms out as though to block her words. “You didn’t hear it and I didn’t hear it.”
“In my book there will be a bell.”
“That’s the trouble with dime novels. For every word of truth there’s ten of fancy.”
“That’s simply not true. Lots of people heard that bell and it wasn’t fancy to them, it was hope.”
“I’ll tell you what’s true. Everything you own is spread across half the county. That’s a fact and no matter how you try to twist it into some sort of a bell-ringing adventure it all amounts to a hill of trouble.”
So true, but she had long believed that trouble was made to be overcome. “No one died and that was a bell-ringing miracle.”
“Take a peek around at your miracle, darlin’. This town is gone. Look at your own situation. You’ve got less than some others. You can’t even borrow clothes because no one has any to lend.”
“That is a challenge.” A rather big challenge that nearly made her feel like weeping. She had to remind herself that adversity held the seeds of adventure.
“No need for a tear.” He touched his thumb to her cheek. “If the tracks haven’t washed out, you can take the afternoon train home. I’ll stand by you until then.”
“That certainly was not a tear. I was just considering what to do.”
“That’s wise.” He dabbed her other cheek with his finger.
“I’ve decided to stay with you.”
He jumped backward. His brows arched like dark wings. His eyes widened in apparent horror. Quick as a blink he narrowed them in an uncanny reflection of the grim set of his mouth.
“That’s not possible.” His voice deepened. It sounded calm but a muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’ve got an outlaw to catch.”
“And so do I. That bank robber had my journal tucked under his arm when he managed to escape me!” Missy paused when a thought hit her. The theft was just another of the day’s miracles. If she had made it safely back to town the journal would have been washed away. At least now she had a chance of getting it back. “I need to go with you.”
“I ride alone.”
“It wouldn’t be right to leave me here to be a burden to the folks of Green Island. Even Yankton will have its hands full taking care of its own.”
“Go home, Missy. At least there, you’ll only be a burden to your brother.” Zane whistled for his horse.
“True enough.” Missy couldn’t blame him for being annoyed. He’d gone through some discomfort during the last day on her account. She heard Ace’s hooves snapping scattered twigs. “But all things considered, I’ll stay here.”
“Suit yourself, then.” He grabbed Ace’s reins then lifted up into the saddle.
“Thank you for the loan of your coat.” She plucked Muff from the pocket and slid it off her shoulders. Chilly air prickled her skin.
“You keep it.” He turned the horse toward the open prairie.
“Thank you!” she called out. “I’ll return it to you when we meet on the trail of the outlaw.”
He stopped Ace midstride, turned and gave her a hard frown. He shook his head then leaned forward in the saddle. The horse bolted away, racing for the horizon.
She tucked the coat tight against the icy breeze. The cloth smelled like campfire, horse and open prairie. The aroma of Zane Coldridge wrapped her up.
What a shame that such a bold and wonderful hero had come and gone like a flash. When she retrieved her journal, she might use up every page writing about one man, alone.
She stared after him. The drum of Ace’s hoof-beats faded against the earth. The breeze carried a shout of triumph when someone found a half-buried plow.
Missy watched Zane and his horse become a small dot on the crest of a distant hill and wondered if it would be right to borrow the hat with the yellow ribbon.
She lifted it from the broken branch, removed the pipe then placed the bonnet on her head. It might be someone’s favorite. The yellow ribbon, even though it looked defeated and wilted, felt like pure luxury given the circumstances.
Surely, it would be some devastated woman’s hope of a new day. Missy took it off and returned it to the branch with the pipe, once again, tucked into the ribbon.
She glanced at the horizon, expecting to see it empty, but the black dot that had been Zane seemed bigger. She watched while it grew to the size of a pea, then an apple.
At last it took the form of a man and horse coming closer across the prairie.
The horse halted two feet in front of her but pawed at a clump of grass as though impatient to be on its way.
Zane reached down, his calloused palm open.
“I’ll take you as far as Luminary.”
Chapter Four
Zane peered through the noon sun shimmering off Ballico Street. Luminary looked better by night. For the first time he noticed that much of the town’s facade consisted of peeling, faded paint.
It was odd that he had never noticed the splintered wood of the sidewalks or the flies spinning around horse manure deposited near half-cocked hitching posts.
Nightfall ought to improve the look. Lanterns would puncture the dark on both sides of the street. Oil lamps would glint a welcome from the windows of business establishments all over town. Pianos, cranking out tinny tunes from open saloon doors, would weave a ripple of gaiety from one bar to the next.
Somehow, during his younger years in Luminary, he hadn’t noticed that the town looked rundown. Maybe it was Missy sitting stiff-backed and proper in front of him that made him see it so. The genteel lady from Boston was sure to take note of every broken window over every weed-filled flowerpot. She would notice that the only freshly painted signs in town advertised alcohol and women.
Luminary would give her plenty to write home about.
