Falling into Your Arms (Love in the Old West Book 3)

by Bess McBride

  “I know, Del. I know. Couldn’t resist it though. Had some fun!” Neither man was interested in whispering, and their words carried across the desert night.

  Sarah huddled behind the brush, terrified the bandits would renew their efforts to find her.

  “Heeah!” one of them shouted, and she heard the sound of horses’ hooves again. She held her breath while they trotted up the road toward Benson as if they didn’t have a care in the world. At least fifteen minutes passed before she thought she could rise. The night had darkened even further, and without the sound of horses or the bandits, she couldn’t tell where the road was. She walked forward trying to retrace her steps, but when she expected to feel the smooth, hard surface of the road, she felt only brush continuing to claw at her skirt.

  She wanted to call out to Jeremiah, but she was terrified of raising her voice in the quiet vastness of the desert. Would it echo? Would it carry through the night to the bandits’ ears?

  “Jeremiah,” she whispered. “Are you hurt? Are you alive?” Her voice caught on the last word. She had to admit what she had been trying to deny. Jeremiah might be dead. If they had killed him as they’d killed the driver, then he would never hear her frenzied whispers.

  “Jeremiah?” she whispered, reaching out blindly and pulling her hands back as yet another bush scratched her.

  “Help,” she whispered. “Somebody, please help me.”

  She looked up at the sky searching for some light from the moon, but it was obscured by something, probably clouds. Cold permeated her bones, and she started to shake. She had lost her shawl somewhere, sometime, and she wrapped her arms around her ribs.

  Unable to see the mountains, to determine which way was north or south, or where the road was, Sarah stopped moving. She sank down to a heap on the desert floor to keep herself warm. As if the night hadn’t gone poorly enough, a coyote howled nearby, then another. She pulled her legs up to her chest and buried her head in her lap, to hide the scent of her breath from predators.

  A hiss elicited a squeak, and she squealed and jumped up again. A snake? She had no idea. She ran until one particular bush grabbed her skirt and wouldn’t let go. With a wrench, she freed herself, hearing a rip as the skirt tore.

  “I’m sorry, ladies,” she whimpered to Faith and Agnes, who couldn’t hear her. Sarah stopped and listened. Silence. Maybe a bit of wind whistling, but other than that, silence. No hissing. No howling. She dropped down again, choosing to huddle in a fetal position, with her head under her arm. She couldn’t do anything until the sun came up. She would have to stay where she was.

  Jeremiah’s dark eyes swam before her, and she moaned. “Please, please, please,” she whispered, unwilling to say any specific words aloud that might make the worst come true.

  She closed her eyes and wished fervently that she had never accepted a dinner invitation, that she had never traveled through time. Jeremiah would have been alive if she had stayed put in the twenty-first century. It wasn’t her fault, yet it was.

  A coyote howled, and she opened her eyes and held her breath. Another howled from a different direction. Or were they wolves? She didn’t know. She lay still, wondering if the animals could hear the sound of her pounding heart.

  The howls didn’t continue, and her eyes drooped. She fought to keep them open, but couldn’t. A blanket would have been nice. Sarah fell asleep.

  “Hisst!” A hissing sound woke her, and she cursed and struggled to her feet. Snakes! The skies were still dark.

  “Miss,” she heard a man’s voice calling.

  Sarah stopped midstride and dropped to her knees. Larry and Del had come back.

  “Miss,” she heard again. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle both a sob and the sound of her heavy breathing.

  “Miss! You out here?”

  She couldn’t tell which bandit it was by his voice.

  “Nope,” said the voice. “Thought I heard her, Sadie.”

  Sarah’s lungs felt like they would explode, and she sucked in a small breath of air. She didn’t hear a response, but her heart thumped loudly in her ear, so she might have missed it.

  “Come on, girl,” the man said. “Let’s get back to Fester and load up Mr. Stone.”

  Jeremiah? Load him up? At that, Sarah shot upright on shaking knees.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  “Miss?” the man called out again, the word sounding like the hiss of a snake. “Are you there?”

  “Who are you?” Sarah asked loudly.

  “Elias Marchant. Are you the miss I met today? The lady at the desk?”

  “Elias!” Sarah called out. “Elias! I’m here! I’m lost. Is Jeremiah alive?”

  “Yes, miss. He’s alive. Out cold and lost some blood, but alive. Where are you?”

  “I’m here!” she said again. “I don’t know where here is.”

  “Just keep talking. Sadie and I will find you.”

  “You said Jeremiah had lost blood?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He took quite a knocking on his head, probably with a pistol or something, but he’s alive.”

  “We were robbed,” she said, her voice weakening from some weird sort of reaction to her fear. She cleared her throat and spoke up. “By two guys named Larry and Del.”

  “Yes, miss. That’s how I found you. I heard them bragging in the saloon. I checked on Jeremiah back at the hotel and heard he had gone down to Treadwell’s for dinner. Knew it was true.”

  “I’m so glad you’ve come. Who’s Sadie?”

  “My mule,” he said.

  Sarah heard the thud of the mule’s hooves as she walked.

  “I’m here. I’m here,” Sarah called out, waving her arms as if Elias could see.

  “Yes, miss. Coming. Sadie can smell you.”

  “I was afraid coyotes could smell me.”

  “They can, miss. They know you’re here. That’s how I knew where you were. Followed their howling.”

  He appeared out the darkness, a small, wizened man with a large snuffling mule.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” Sarah breathed. “Jeremiah is alive?”

  “Yes, miss. I left him sprawled out on the wagon. Driver is alive too, but I might have to come back for him.”

  “The driver is alive?”

  “Yes, miss. Give me your foot, and I’ll get you up on Sadie’s back.”

  Sarah, who’d never ridden a horse in her life, balked. “I can’t ride.”

  “Well, miss, you’re going to have to sooner or later. Sadie and Fester don’t know how to pull a carriage, and I got to leave it here for the driver, to give him some place to wake up in. You don’t want to walk back to Benson, do you?”

  “Give you my foot?” Sarah asked, appropriately chastened. How hard could it be?

  “Yup, I’ll lift you up. Just ride her astride and hold on to her mane. I’ll lead her. All you have to do is stay on.”

  “Stay on,” Sarah repeated. She moved to Elias’s side, but jumped back when Sadie shuffled her legs.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. He bent and cupped his hands, and she put one foot in. Small but strong, Elias heaved her up over the mule’s back, where she dangled crossways, the air pushed out of her lungs.

  “Throw a leg over, miss. You really don’t know how to ride, do you?”

  “Not at all,” Sarah gasped. She slid back down off the mule. “This isn’t going to work.”

  “Try one more time, miss. Sadie will carry you. She’s a good girl.”

  “I put my foot in your hand, then what?”

  “Then grab her mane and throw your right leg over her back.”

  “In these skirts?” Sarah moaned. The weight of them seemed daunting.

  “Can’t ride her sidesaddle, miss. I don’t think Sadie would like that. If you want to just lay across her on your stomach like you were, go ahead. She’s hauled sacks of potatoes before.”

  Sarah swallowed hard. “No, no, this is ridiculous. Jeremiah is bleeding, and I’m fussing about
riding a mule.”

  “I bandaged him up. Don’t think he’s bleeding anymore.”

  “I’ll get on. Left foot in your hand, grab her mane and throw my right leg over.”

  “That’s right, miss.

  “Here goes.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sadie, the mule, tolerated Sarah’s fumbling mount and trekked through the night to reach Jeremiah’s side. Without a watch, Sarah could only guess that she had run and wandered about twenty minutes from the road.

  The moon finally emerged from behind clouds, and Sarah could see the shape of the wagon as they neared.

  “We’re here, miss. Just you stay there and let me get Mr. Stone up on Fester.”

  “I have to see him,” Sarah said, swinging her leg over Sadie’s back as if she were suddenly an expert at bareback riding.

  “No, miss!” Elias called out. Too late though. Sarah had dropped down to the ground and moved toward the wagon. Moonlight colored everything in ghostly shades of blue and gray, and she could just see a dark figure slumped in the carriage seat.

  “I hope you’re easier to get back on the mule this time, miss.”

  “I will be,” Sarah said with determination. She moved toward the carriage. “Is he alive? What if...while you were gone—” She didn’t finish the sentence.

  Elias, leaving Sadie unattended, beat Sarah to the carriage and touched Jeremiah’s face. “He’s alive, miss, but looks like he’s still out.”

  Sarah reached the carriage and tentatively touched Jeremiah’s cheek. A white length of cloth was wrapped around his head, but she could see a dark stain and smell the blood on it. She knew from something she’d read once that head wounds bled more profusely than some others, but the sight of the darkened spot on the back of his head frightened her.

  “Jeremiah?” she said softly. She ran her hand along his cheek to the pulse at his neck. It beat steadily.

  “Jeremiah?” she whispered again.

  “Miss, please don’t try to wake him. He’s better off passed out.”

  “How can you say that?” Sarah asked.

  “I gotta lay him over Fester’s back, you know, like that sack of potatoes, so better off asleep.”

  “He’s not asleep! He’s unconscious. I can’t stand the thought of you draping him over a mule’s back. What if the pressure on his head worsens his bleeding?” She tentatively touched his bandage.

  “Not sure what you’re talking about, but he ain’t awake, so point is—”

  “Moot?” she said softly. “I guess it is. I don’t think I could hold him up in front of me on Sadie. And you can’t hook the carriage up to the mules?”

  “They wouldn’t know what to do, miss.”

  “Where is the driver?”

  “Laying in the road. I’ll put him in the carriage and put Mr. Stone on Fester’s back.”

  “By yourself?”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “How can I help?”

  “Well, I don’t rightly need any help, thank you anyway.”

  Sarah fell silent, keeping a hand on Jeremiah’s cheek. His skin was warm, and it didn’t seem as if he was cold. She would have covered him with her body if he was.

  A series of grunts and curses and further grunts indicated that Elias was struggling. She saw an outline of him dragging another unconscious body across the desert floor.

  “Let me help!” she cried out, running over to him and lifting the driver by his booted feet.

  “Just making it harder, miss. I can drag him.”

  “How are you going to lift him into the carriage?” she asked, setting the driver’s feet down again.

  “I’ll manage. Just stand aside.”

  Sarah watched as the small man lifted the driver and sort of draped him over the steps of the carriage. Elias then climbed over the poor man to get into the carriage and, grabbing him under his arms again, dragged him in and slopped him onto the bench next to Jeremiah.

  “Good job,” she said faintly. “I’m going to help you with Jeremiah, just so’s you know.”

  Elias, bent over and bracing his hands on his knees to catch his breath, nodded.

  “Yup. Think I’m gonna need help with Mr. Stone. He’s a darn sight taller than that fella there.”

  “Elias, what if the robbers come back? Do you have a gun?”

  “Course I do, miss, but they’re probably in jail about now. Soon as I heard what they did, I stopped by the sheriff’s office on my way out of town.”

  Sarah sighed in relief.

  “Okay, miss. I’m gonna hand Mr. Stone down to you.”

  “Hand him to me?”

  “Yup. I’ll just let him slide off the edge, and you prop him up while I go get Fester. Don’t let him fall, or we’ll have to lift him that much more.”

  “Oh boy,” Sarah mumbled.

  Elias heaved and tugged and pulled and maneuvered Jeremiah’s legs out of the carriage. Then he started pushing Jeremiah’s body.

  “Wait! Wait! I don’t have him!” Sarah gasped.

  “Well, miss, just let him slide down between you and the carriage. Just press your...ummm...self against him and hug him to keep him from falling. No time to be shy.”

  Sarah could have laughed at the thought that she was too shy to hug a man, but there was nothing funny about the situation at all.

  “Okay, okay, I’m ready,” she said, grabbing what bits of the carriage she could and bracing her feet. Jeremiah’s heavy body slid down between her and the carriage, and she let go of the carriage and wrapped her arms around his torso. His weight, probably lighter when he was conscious, almost toppled her over, and she leaned forward, pressing her face against his chest. Jeremiah’s head lolled on top of her head, and she hung on for all she was worth.

  “Hurry, Elias!” she gasped, her legs shaking with the strain.

  “I’m going!”

  He scrambled down out of the carriage, and though all Sarah could see was Jeremiah’s chest, she heard Elias talking to his mule.

  “Come on, Fester. Time to get to work. Can’t have Sadie doing all the work now.”

  After what seemed like forever, Sarah felt Elias touch her shoulder.

  “Okay, miss. Let’s lift Mr. Stone up and onto Fester’s back. I’ll take his upper half. You keep hold of his legs. Gonna get cozy here. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to you.”

  Elias maneuvered himself into Sarah’s embrace and took hold of Jeremiah’s torso. Sarah released Jeremiah and reached down to grab his legs. Shaking with effort and feeling completely drained of strength, she wondered if she could even manage that weight.

  Somehow—Sarah would never really understand how—they managed to get Jeremiah onto Fester’s back. Sara ran around to Jeremiah’s head to make sure his head wouldn’t bounce if the mule moved. She wasn’t at all sure he was going to be okay, and she had nothing to cushion his head with.

  “Okay, can you get back on Sadie?” Elias asked.

  “Not without your cupped hands.”

  “Stay there, Fester,” he said, then moved over to where Sadie waited. He cupped his hands, and Sarah hauled herself up onto the mule’s back.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Are you going to ride Fester?”

  “No, miss. I’m going to walk him back.”

  “I didn’t know that! How far is it?”

  “About six miles, miss. We’ll be all right.”

  Just then they heard the sound of livery and hooves coming from the south.

  “Who’s that?” Sarah whispered, lying low over Sadie’s back, as if that could somehow help hide her.

  “Don’t know, miss. I’m ready for them.”

  With one hand still on Fester’s reins, he withdrew a pistol from somewhere under his suspenders and hauled it out, pointing it into the darkness.

  “Who’s there?” he called out, inviting attention.

  “Elias!” Sarah hissed. “Shhhh.”

  “Can’t hide from what’s coming, miss. Gotta face it h
ead on.”

  Sarah, her face against Sadie’s neck, gritted her teeth.

  “Sarah!” a voice called out. “Sarah, is that you?”

  Sarah rose up and twisted to see down the road in the darkness. Having never handled the reins, she had no idea how to actually maneuver Sadie into turning around.

  “Who’s that?” she called out.

  “It’s Samuel! Samuel Treadwell. Are you all right?”

  Three riders appeared, moonlight shining on them in a supernatural kind of way. All wore black, but Samuel’s silver mustache and sideburns shone.

  “Elias!” Samuel called out. “What’s happened? What’s all this?”

  Sarah should have been surprised that Samuel knew Elias, but she couldn’t think about that. She was so amazed and grateful that Samuel had shown up. Tears streamed down her face, and she wiped at them and tried to talk without sobbing.

  “Couple of your men waylaid them and robbed them, Mr. Treadwell. Those two new boys you hired. They were probably drunk, but that ain’t no excuse.”

  Samuel slid off his horse, and the other two men, ranch hands by the look of them, followed suit. One took the reins of their three horses.

  “Who? Do you mean Larry and Del? I knew those two were no good, but I had no idea they would do something like this. Where did they go? I’ll send my men after them.”

  “Saw them in town drinking. Pretty sure the sheriff’s got them now.”

  Samuel looked confused, but he came up to Sarah’s side and held up his hands. She slid off Sadie’s back and into his capable rescuing arms.

  “They hit Jeremiah on the back of the head, probably with a gun,” she said. “Your driver too. I’m so sorry.”

  “When the carriage didn’t arrive, we set out to find you. Is Jeremiah alive?” Samuel asked, releasing Sarah to check on Jeremiah.

  “Yes. Elias says he’s just unconscious. He’s lost some blood though.”

  “His pulse is strong,” Samuel said.

  Sarah wasn’t surprised that a landowner in 1890 knew what a strong pulse meant. She imagined doctors were scarce. “That is a good sign. I am sincerely sorry that this happened to you. I feel responsible.”

  “You’re not!” Sarah exclaimed. “You couldn’t have known.”