by Regina Scott
Nathan called a halt when the river came into view once more, and they all dismounted to sit on fallen trees in a small clearing. Beyond them, the twists and braids of the boiling river showed boulders and bone-white logs lodged against the banks. If the Nisqually was this fast and chaotic in August, what power it must have in the spring!
Waldo handed around tin cups of water. Winston guzzled his. Her mother sipped, but she finished her cup in a remarkably short time.
Nathan had his booted foot up on a stump. “At this pace we should reach my cabin by late afternoon. We’ll pass Ashford’s on the way. They host guests, but I didn’t make arrangements to stay.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes at him.
As if he’d seen the look, Winston put a hand on her arm. “We will have a lovely hotel at Longmire’s Springs tomorrow night, dearest.”
She nodded, relaxing.
“I wouldn’t call Longmire’s hotel lovely,” Nathan cautioned. “It’s far rougher than the hotel at Lake Park. But the company is good, and many enjoy the springs.”
Now her mother turned her glare on Winston.
Cora moved closer to Nathan. “I’m concerned about my pack, Mr. Hardee. Would you take a look at it?”
He dropped his foot to follow her to where the horses and mules were resting under the shade of some trees at the edge of the clearing. Already, their heads were down as they cropped the bright grass.
“Can we slow the pace?” she murmured as his large hands moved over the pack, checking buckle and strap.
“A little,” he said. “I can see they’re both tiring.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “Thank you.”
He turned to face her fully. What had been so open for a moment this morning was now tightly closed. “It’s a temporary measure. You must see that Winston is struggling. He may not be able to make it to the summit. You’ll have to decide whether you’re willing to go alone.”
He left the troublesome thought hanging in the air as he turned to call to the others. “Time to go. Mount up for now. We may have to walk the horses later.”
Cora took hold of Blaze’s reins, mind whirling. Nathan had lived in society. He must know the choice he’d given her. If she didn’t make the climb, she failed, and so did Mimi’s gambit to promote suffrage. Just as bad, Cora would have to honor her promise to her mother and marry Cash Kincaid or some other wealthy, powerful man.
But if she climbed alone, spent two nights on the mountain with only Nathan and Waldo as company, she would lose her reputation. What sort of statement did that make for women’s rights? Even if she decided to marry at some point, there would be whispers about her character. Was it fair to ask a husband to endure them?
The climb had seemed attainable before. Was she doomed now, whatever choice she made?
They passed Ashford’s late that afternoon. The sturdy plank-sided home, nestled among the trees, with ivy growing up around the doorframe, always looked welcoming to Nathan. Mrs. Winston sniffed as they rode by, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the house or the fact that he had refused to allow her to stop there.
As it was, they reached his cabin later than he would have liked, but earlier than he’d feared after the banker’s poor showing today.
He’d hated pointing out the obvious, but Cora had to know what she was facing. Better that she decide to turn back now than that she risk her stepfather’s, and her own, health and safety later.
Yet the thought of having her turn back sat like a rock in his stomach. No matter how hard he tried to keep a distance, she danced closer. And he wanted to dance with her.
Honoré, Bud, and the mules picked up their paces as they left the main road. They knew they were heading home. But Nathan’s shoulders felt as tight as a violin string, and he caught himself glancing at Cora, who rode beside him. She was as upright and easy in the saddle as she’d been when they’d left Lake Park yesterday. When she smiled at the log cabin just ahead, he was certain the sun brightened.
It seemed he wanted her to like his home.
And why shouldn’t she like it? It was a vast improvement to the single-room cabin Waldo and his family had lived in before Nathan arrived. The wide front porch bordered a two-bedroom space with a loft above and a root cellar below. The back porch looked out over the clear waters of Celestine Lake, and the creek that flowed from it sang along the eastern edge of his property on its way to meet the Nisqually. He had a pump that tapped groundwater, at least when the mechanism wasn’t frozen in winter, and a good shake roof that sloughed off snow and fir needles alike.
He and Waldo had peeled every log, planed each plank. Mud from the lake bottom mixed with clay from the Nisqually River chinked any crack. Their guide work had paid for the lumber used in the interior walls. He’d brought the panes of glass in the front and back windows from Tacoma in barrels of molasses and washed each one before caulking it in place. He had gathered every stone in the fireplace and chimney from the Nisqually and built them into a hearth that was as beautiful as it was functional.
He had a right to be proud. So did Waldo.
“Here we are, folks, home, sweet home,” Waldo called as Nathan led Quack toward the barn they had also built. The planed wood structure tucked in among the trees wasn’t as tall or long as Henry’s, but it had room for their horses and mules, with a few stalls left over for visitors. Cora and her family would be the first.
The first of many?
He shook the odd thought away as he followed Waldo to the barn.
Mrs. Winston reined in her horse and waited for someone to assist her down. “I suppose this will have to do.”
“There’s room enough for all,” Waldo assured her, swinging down. “Remove your saddles and tack, and wipe down your horses. I’ll feed and water them.” He set about unstrapping the packs from the mules.
Winston must have learned to tend his own horse at some point, for he went straight to work. Nathan already knew Cora had the matter in hand. Her horse was in the stall next to his. Once again, he caught himself watching as she began. How quickly those hands moved over her horse, gentle and supportive. She murmured too, the words low and warm. What would it be like to hear such warmth directed his way?
“Mr. Hardee.”
That voice was neither low nor warm. He threw his saddle up over the stall wall and looked to Cora’s mother, who was standing in the aisle.
“Some assistance, if you please,” she said, as if he had been tardy to school.
In the end, he had to see to her horse, then his, before helping Waldo with the mules. Cora and Winston were finishing brushing down their horses. When Nathan took the first load of supplies to the house, he found Mrs. Winston sitting on one of the two cane-bottomed chairs he and Waldo had brought up from the city. She was gazing around the long main room of the cabin with narrowed eyes. He began putting cans on the shelf in the area he and Waldo used for a kitchen and workroom.
“I would not have expected to find bone china out here,” she ventured. “Have you a wife, Mr. Hardee?”
“No, ma’am,” he told her, wondering why Waldo thought they needed six cans of stewed beef when they could always hunt or fish. “Those belonged to Mr. Vance’s late wife. I take it she had them from her mother. They brought them west when they moved here from Illinois.”
“She had exceptional taste,” she said, eyeing the scarlet and teal pattern on the creamy white dishes. “English, unless I miss my guess. A touch of civility in the wilderness. A reminder of happier times.”
“They’re dishes,” Nathan told her, setting the last can in place. “They serve a purpose.”
“Of course,” she said, but she did not sound the least convinced.
Waldo came through the rear door, arms full of wood. “Could get cold tonight,” he said, going to stack it near the hearth. “You ready for another load?”
“Right behind you,” Nathan promised. Nodding to Mrs. Winston, he followed Waldo out the door. Cora and Winston passed them for the
house.
“She looked impressed,” Waldo said as they reached the barn.
Nathan snorted. “With our dishes.”
“Not her.” Waldo opened a pack and pulled out a sack of dried beans. “Our Cora. She liked what she saw when she rode up. That’s good.”
Very good. No, what was he thinking? “How Coraline Baxter feels about our house makes no difference to me.” He heaved up a sack of flour.
Waldo grinned at him. “Liar.”
They made several trips before they could rejoin their guests. Cora, too, regarded Waldo’s dishes before wandering around the cabin. Besides the two chairs that now held Winston and his wife, they had two more ladder-backed chairs on either side of a turned-leg table covered with a red gingham tablecloth that had also belonged to Waldo’s wife. Copper pots and pans and a porcelain-dipped strainer hung from walls around the worktable near the back of the room. Two doors on the other side of the hearth led to the bedrooms, where Cora and her family would be sleeping tonight.
“There’s a lake behind the house,” she said as if she’d been the first to discover it.
“Filled with bull trout as long as your arm,” Waldo bragged.
“And mosquitoes nearly as big,” Nathan warned. “Best if you all stay in the cabin.”
She didn’t answer, gaze out the window. “Are you expecting more company, Mr. Hardee?”
Nathan glanced to Waldo, who shook his head.
“No,” Nathan said. “Why?”
She turned from the window. “Because there’s a group of men heading this way. One of them is on a stretcher.”
13
They came around the cabin, and Nathan and Waldo met them on the front porch. Cora’s mother and Winston peered out the window as if afraid to venture any closer lest they contract some dread disease. With a shake of her head, Cora went to see if she could assist. She had studied mathematics in college, but her efforts at lawn tennis and riding had acquainted her with the use of bandages at least.
“Never was so glad to see your mules go by the crossing,” the older man was saying. They all wore flannel shirts with no collars, dark stains here and there and everything speckled with white crumbles she recognized as sawdust. Suspenders held up denim trousers with pant legs folded to reveal thick black boots. What she could see of their hair under battered, round-crowned hats was rough cut, as if someone had taken a saw to it.
“I’ll get the bag,” Waldo said before bustling back into the cabin.
Nathan crouched beside the canvas stretcher, which the other men had set on the porch. “What happened?”
“Widow-maker,” the man on the stretcher wheezed out, face pasty white under his thatch of brown hair. “From a nearby tree. Missed my head but hit my shoulder and knocked me off the springboard. Think something broke.”
“You should have heard him yelp,” the youngest, whiskers not even evident, said.
“When did this happen?” Nathan asked, hands gentle on the fellow’s misshapen shoulder.
The man grimaced nonetheless. “Day before yesterday.”
Nathan rocked back on his heels. “Did you try ice? Heat?”
“Didn’t have any ice,” the redhead among them volunteered.
“Leastwise, none we could get easily,” the fourth, another with brown hair, added.
“And the wool we soaked in boiled water was too heavy,” the youth explained. “He said it hurt too much.”
“What I have to do now is going to hurt more,” Nathan told them as Waldo reappeared with a black leather satchel. Doctor Thomlinson in Tacoma had one. She’d seen it when he’d come to treat her mother for some complaint. Who’d left a doctor’s bag out here? One of Nathan’s clients, perhaps?
He nodded to the men. “Hold him still.”
“No, wait!” the injured man protested. “I’ll be fine. Don’t you touch me!”
Nathan’s face was grim as the others lay hold of the man’s legs and good arm. The fellow’s fear reached for her, set nerves tingling.
“Mr. Hardee?” she asked. “Nathan, are you sure this is wise?”
He cast her a quick glance. “If you want to help, Miss Baxter, open that bag and unfold the sling you’ll find near the top.”
She should, but she couldn’t tear her eyes off him. He took hold of the man’s injured arm and began to rotate it up and out.
“On the count of three,” he said. “One.”
“Don’t you do it,” the injured man ordered.
“Two.”
“I’m not kidding, Hardee. I’ll come for you in the night.”
“Three.”
He shoved it up above the man’s head. There was a rending pop, and the man on the stretcher screamed. Cora stumbled back into the cabin.
Her mother met her at the door. “What is he doing? Mr. Winston, have you entrusted us to a murderer?”
“Not a murderer,” Cora managed, trying to still her heaving stomach. “He seems to be treating the fellow from sheer strength.” She shuddered, then squared her shoulders. “It will be fine, Mother. Forgive me for frightening you.”
Taking calming breaths, she stepped back outside. The other men had released their friend and now stood watching as Nathan ran his hands over the fellow’s torso and legs. Waldo was watching too, arms crossed over his chest, so she knelt and opened the bag.
As Nathan had said, a square of fabric lay on top. Underneath sat several rolls of linen, neatly packed, the ends tucked in to keep them tight. Below, she spotted more medical items: forceps, a stethoscope, and dark glass bottles that must hold ointments and medicines.
“Besides the dislocation,” Nathan told the injured man, “it looks like you bruised your ribs and sprained your ankle. Keep the ankle up on a chair for the next few days. Once I put that arm in a sling, don’t use it for at least a week. I’ll give you a bandage for your ribs. Only apply it at night. It’s better if you sleep sitting up.”
Cora offered him the sling, and he nodded in thanks before turning to the injured man. “Do I need to worry about closing my eyes tonight?”
He colored. “No. Sorry about that. I’m glad for your help.”
“Well, maybe not glad,” the redhead joked. “Not the way you whined like a kicked pup.”
The injured man made a face. “Well, I’ll have you know it hurt like a . . .” He glanced at Cora. “Beg pardon, ma’am. My ma taught me not to cuss in front of a lady.”
“She probably taught you not to cuss at all,” Cora replied. “But I imagine pain can make a fellow forget propriety. Is there anything further I can do to assist, Mr. Hardee? Perhaps some water for your patient and his stalwart companions?”
His friends all straightened and grinned at her, showing more than one gap between teeth.
“That’s very kind of you, Miss Baxter,” Nathan said. “Waldo, why don’t you show her the pump? There’s a pitcher and cups near the table. These boys get tin.”
They laughed as if they understood why. Waldo motioned Cora ahead of him into the house.
“What is happening?” her mother demanded as they came through the cabin.
“Nathan’s just tending to an injury,” Waldo said as he led Cora toward the table. “Happens all the time. He’s the doctor in these parts.” He took down a crystal pitcher and nodded to Cora. “The pump’s outside the back door, but I’ll fetch the water. You get the cups.”
“Coraline,” her mother said as the older man headed for the pump. “What are you doing?”
“Practicing the hospitality you always espouse, Mother,” Cora said as she scanned the cupboard. Four tin cups were stacked next to eight ruby-colored crystal goblets. Apparently, these men didn’t warrant such beauties.
“While I applaud Christian charity as much as the next person,” her mother said as Waldo returned with water dripping down the sides of the pitcher, “you must remember your reputation.”
The comment only reminded her of Nathan’s warning earlier. Cora made herself smile. “You can see me thro
ugh the window. Surely that is chaperone enough.”
The fellow on the stretcher was sitting up, arm in a sling, when she and Waldo came out bearing the pitcher of water and the cups. Cora distributed them around, and Waldo poured the clear water.
“Much obliged,” the redhead said.
“Old Nathan never mentioned his sweetheart was so pretty,” the youngest ventured.
“Or that he had a sweetheart at all,” the third complained with a look to Nathan.
Nathan stood at last, dwarfing them. “Miss Baxter is not my sweetheart. I’m guiding her and her father up Mount Rainier.”
The youngest spit out his water in a gasp. They all stared at her. Waldo tutted.
“Now, that’s not funny,” the injured man declared. “Man’s got no call dragging a little thing like her up the mountain.”
His friends nodded.
“You can stay with us, miss,” the oldest offered. “We’ll protect you.”
“Very kind of you,” Cora said. “But you mistake Mr. Hardee. I’m the one dragging him and my stepfather up to the summit. I mean to prove any woman can do it. And if women can climb mountains, surely they have the same right to vote as a man.”
The redhead whistled.
“Makes sense to me,” the injured man told her. “I’d go with you, if I wasn’t stove in.”
“I’d go with you anywhere,” the youngest vowed, “even if I was stove in.”
“That’s enough,” Nathan said. He bent and pulled out one of the bandages, then dropped it into the injured man’s lap. “Finish your drinks and take Albertson to camp. I’ll check on him when I return from guiding Miss Baxter.”
They tossed back the water, then handed her the cups with shy smiles. Waldo watched as if counting each cup. Finally, they hefted the stretcher and carted their friend off. He waved to her with his good hand as they rounded the cabin. “Votes for women!”
Cora grinned. If only all men could be persuaded so easily.
“I’ll take those,” Waldo said, reaching for the cups and jumbling them together. He started for the door.
