He put his arm out as far as he possibly could, and his fingers touched the harness, just barely. Then, the curve was right there in front of them.
The look of sheer terror and horror on the man’s face as he reached out and grasped the woman’s hand said it all.
He knew what was about to happen. Everyone did, but there was nothing James could do to stop it.
He turned his horse at the last moment, pulling the animal to a stop. And James watched as the family, the wagon, and their two horses flew over the cliff and down to the ground below.
Their cries filled the air, echoing through the valley, and then everything was silent, except the sound of gravel and rocks as they trickled down the edge of the cliff.
A horse squealed as it thrashed below in its harness. James scrambled down from his horse and raced toward the cliffside. He had to get down there.
When he did, would he find anyone alive?
Chapter 2
James tried to keep his balance while he climbed down the steep embankment. He grabbed at the branches of the bushes that jutted out from between the rocks to keep upright as he slid the last few feet to the bottom.
The horses were in a horrific tangle of odd angles and twisted legs. One horse still moved, but it was obvious that he was grievously injured. The wagon had lost two of its wheels on the way down and it, too, had suffered irreparable damage. The canopy on the back was tangled in the belongings of the family, which were strewn along the sides of the embankment.
The man and the woman had ended up close to each other. James could immediately see that the man was dead. He wasn’t moving a muscle, and his skin looked much too pale.
His hand was still clutching the woman’s, as if she could have kept him in this life should she have held on hard enough.
The woman’s eyes were closed, but James had hope for her. Even from a slight distance, he could see her chest rising and falling.
James rushed to her side and felt her neck. There was a steady beat there. It was hard to find, but it was steady.
James breathed a sigh of relief. He had no idea what had happened to the little boy and he knew that the man was dead, but he felt as if he had somehow cheated death, with the woman alive.
Her eyes suddenly flew open and her free hand reached out and grabbed James by the arm.
James jumped a little, startled by the sudden movement. He tried to lift the wagon that was partially over the woman’s waist, but it was no use. It was too heavy for one man to lift.
“Help! Somebody, help me!” James yelled at the top of his lungs. His heart felt heavy, as he knew no one would come. There wouldn’t be anyone out in the rain on this back road.
He pushed his shoulder against the wagon and heaved with all of his strength, using every fiber of his body.
The woman reached out once more. “Stop.” Her voice was raspy, and he could hear the pain in that one word. Reluctantly, he knelt down beside her, stopping his efforts to move the wagon.
“I’ll go get help. Just hold on, and I’ll be right back.” James tried to keep his voice steady. The ride back to town would take more than forty minutes. It was unlikely this woman could survive the time it would take to bring help back to her.
“No, listen…” The woman sucked in long, shaky breaths as she tried to speak.
James began to stand up. He needed to try. He had to find someone to help him save this woman.
“Find my son. Take care of my son.” The woman’s eyes were full of fear and desperation. “Promise me you’ll watch over my son.”
“I’m going to get you out of here.” James squeezed the woman’s hand as he removed it from his arm.
“Merrill, Illinois. That’s where she’s from. My sister, she can take care of him, you have to find my—” The woman began to gasp.
“Find who? Who’s your sister?” James shook the woman’s hand, begging her to finish telling him what to do.
It didn’t matter how much James willed her to come back; he knew she was gone. Her hand went limp as she took one last shallow breath, and then her eyes stared up, empty, into the raining sky.
James gently closed her blank eyes and then fell back into the mud. He didn’t care that he was drenched and muddy. He didn’t care about anything. How had he allowed this to happen? The thunder roared as if it were angry, and he looked up into the falling rain.
It had only been minutes before that they were alive and well, racing down the road with two horses out of control.
The boy.
He remembered the boy as an afterthought, a ray of hope that maybe something from this nightmare could be saved.
James stood up from the wreckage and began to search nearby. He thought about calling for the boy, but realized he didn’t even know the child’s name.
He kicked at a clump of grass in frustration. What if the boy was trapped under the wagon and James was wasting his time looking when he should be going for help?
The woods weren’t exactly a safe place at night, and it didn’t matter that James was the sheriff.
A whimpering cry turned James around so fast he nearly tumbled into the mud once more.
There, a few feet away, stood the little boy from earlier, shaking as tears streamed down his face.
“Mama? Where’s my mama?” His lower lip trembled, and more tears fell down his round little cheeks.
James guessed him to be six or seven. He hadn’t been around a lot of children, though, so he couldn’t be certain.
“What’s your name, boy?” James asked in a gruff voice.
“J-Joey.” The little boy wiped at his tears with the back of his hand, leaving a muddy streak across his skin.
It was then that James noticed the blood.
He wasn’t sure how badly, but the boy was injured, too.
“Where’s my papa?” the boy said, his voice breaking.
James felt as if his own heart were breaking in two. He crossed the space between them in a few steps and scooped the little boy up into his arms, holding Joey close to his chest.
“Your ma and pa are gone, buddy. Let’s get you into town.”
“I want my mama!” the boy cried, kicking and thrashing as James carried him up to where his horse was waiting at the top of the cliff.
It was one of those times when James was grateful for the training he had invested in the animal.
It was a difficult thing to mount his horse with Joey crying and screaming for his parents while he flailed around.
As James urged his horse forward, Joey seemed to give in to his fate. His little arms wrapped tightly around James’s neck and he sobbed, long and hard, until his little body went limp and silent against James in sleep.
---*---
James found himself frequently checking to see if Joey was still alive. Fortunately, the boy continued to breathe easily the entire ride to town. Soon, they were in front of the doctor’s clinic and James jumped down, rushing up to the door.
“Doc? Doc, are you here?” he called.
The doctor appeared a few seconds later, a panicked look on his weathered, old face.
“What’s going on? You hurt?”
The doctor paused when he spotted Joey in James’ arms.
“Well, what do we have here?” The doctor hurried over and began to examine Joey’s legs.
“I was out above the river, over on Green Pass road. A family in a wagon got into a bad accident. They went over the side of the cliff on the corner above the mill.”
“Where are his parents?” James could tell by the look in the doctor’s eyes that he already knew their fate, but he shook his head to confirm it anyway.
“Poor lad. Here, bring him this way so I can get a proper look at him.”
James complied and carried the boy over to the examination table, where he laid Joey down.
It took a minute to detach the boy’s arms from his neck, but he managed to get Joey on the table without waking him up.
The doctor brought back a fe
w clean, wet cloths and began cleaning Joey’s arms and legs one by one, looking for injuries.
“He’s out cold from all the emotions of it. Was he there when his parents died?”
James nodded.
“No child should have to see that. He’s too young.” The doctor shook his head back and forth and clucked his tongue.
He adjusted his glasses and then began to apply a brown-colored liquid to Joey’s cuts.
There were several of them, but they didn’t seem to be too deep, which was a relief to James.
“There we are; we’re all set. What are you going to do with him?” The doctor looked up at James with a worried expression.
“I don’t know. You reckon they have any place over at the orphanage?”
“Last I heard, they already have children sleeping on the floor. You could send him there…poor lad.” The doctor shook his head once more.
James groaned. “I can’t send him some place that he’ll be miserable. I promised his mother I’d look after him until we could find his kin.”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders and adjusted his glasses. “Sounds like you should take him to your place, then. Maybe you could use the company.”
“I don’t know how to take care of children, doc. I’ve never done that before.”
The doctor gave a slow smile. “I think you’ll find that caring for the boy will be the easy part. He saw a pretty terrible thing. You’re probably the closest thing to a person he trusts right now. Would be downright cold-hearted to throw him out someplace else.”
James groaned and lowered himself into a chair. “No one said anything about throwing him out. It’s just…I don’t have any experience with children.”
He didn’t say the rest of what he was thinking. He and Alice had always talked about having a family, but with her, James had buried that dream.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to have that experience alone. In a way, it felt like a betrayal. But at the same time, he could identify with the boy’s loss. He had just seen his family die right in front of him.
“Okay, doc, I’ll keep him for now. But his family will be here soon to take him, anyway.”
“I hope so, the boy could use family about now.” The doctor ran a hand through his graying hair.
“What do I do with him? Like, to care for him and whatnot?”
“Keep him warm. Feed him. Talk to him. Have him help you around the farm. He’s not a newborn; I’m sure he’ll let you know what he needs. Children are very resilient.” The doctor had a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. “You’re about to go on an adventure, Mr. Sheriff.”
James groaned inwardly as he reluctantly scooped Joey up. He had no idea how he was going to handle a child who he had never met before all on his own.
He took the boy to the sheriff’s office. He couldn’t go home yet, and he had to let the deputies know what had happened.
James couldn’t just leave Joey’s parents out there at the bottom of that cliff. Somebody would have to clean it up and give the couple a proper burial.
Alice slipped into his mind. If only he had been given the chance to go with her—the way that the husband and wife had died. But then, he and Alice hadn’t had children yet.
James shook his head, trying to clear such thoughts, and pushed his way through the door to the sheriff’s department.
“You’re back. We were beginning to think something had—” Daniel paused mid-sentence. “Who’s that, and what happened? Where did you find a kid?”
James motioned for Daniel to open the door to their empty jail cell. It was the only place with a bed, and James wasn’t yet ready to wake Joey up.
He gave a sigh of relief as he managed to get the little boy settled into the cot without waking him. Carefully, he covered Joey with a blanket and stood for a moment looking at the child’s delicate face and curly hair.
He and Daniel tiptoed out of the cell and, once they were at a safe distance, Daniel started with his questions again, just as James had expected. “What’s going on? What are you doing with a little boy, and why is he all bandaged up? And why do you look like you’ve been wallowing with the hogs?”
“There was an accident up on Green Pass road.” James went on to explain to Daniel everything that had happened.
His deputy sat and listened, nodding his head in sympathy until James finished.
“That’s terrible. He’s going to be devastated when he wakes up.”
James nodded in agreement. “I hope he rests a long time. I’m not even sure how I ended up with him, and I certainly don’t know how to care for children.”
“Well, you will certainly be getting an education, then. My mother always said—”
“Not now, Daniel.” James cut his friend off. “I’m sure that your mother could have written an instruction book for this situation, but I don’t need instructions right now. I need a solution.”
He pulled out a small piece of paper and a pen and began writing.
When he was done, he held the note out to Daniel. “Run this over to the post office and tell them to send this as a telegram to the sheriff in Merrill, Illinois. It’s of the utmost importance.”
Daniel nodded, his eyes scanning the piece of paper as he hurried out of the office.
James watched him go with concern. He wondered how long it would take for news of the accident to reach Joey’s relatives. Did the woman’s sister even read the newspaper? Or would the sheriff there know who she and her husband might be? Would anyone know this family hadn’t made it to their destination, several states away?
James sighed, resting his head on his desk. How had a bad day turned even worse? He felt exhausted and wished he were at home in bed.
Chapter 3
Lyla balanced the large basket of laundry on her hip. Her body ached in every single place imaginable, and she was already picturing what it would be like to sink into bed that night.
She was used to hard work; she’d been doing it for the last several years. But even so, it hadn’t gotten any less tiring.
She set the basket on the floor of the tiny room that she called home. She’d been living here for the past eleven months, ever since her uncle had told her that it was time for her to get married.
Of course, she knew he was right. All women got married, eventually, whether they liked it or not.
Lyla sighed. She was no exception. Had anyone asked her if that was what she wanted? Did anyone care if she was capable of supporting herself? No. They had their expectations of her, both family members and strangers. Not that she had much family left.
Lyla began folding the clothes and humming a tune to herself. She kept up with all her laundry orders, no matter how long it took to complete them.
When she wasn’t washing other people’s laundry, she was tending to the hotel restaurant and cleaning rooms, in exchange for room, board, and a tiny salary that was hardly worth mentioning.
Lyla paused her work and let her eyes fall on the few possessions she could call her own. Besides the bed and the tiny table with the wash basin, the room only held a few changes of clothes, her hairbrush, and her diary.
Partners in Justice and Love: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 29
