Jem laughed, in spite of his fear and worry. “I don’t want to yell at you anymore, Ellie. I’m glad you showed up. How did you find me, anyway? You couldn’t track me in the dark.”
Ellie was quiet for a moment. Then she looked up. Jem could just make out her face. “I think … I think God helped me,” she said softly.
“How’s that?” Jem asked in surprise. He’d been praying plenty this evening, but he hadn’t really thought much about how God would go about rescuing him.
“Strike woke up long enough to tell me about those men,” Ellie explained.
Jem nodded. “Frenchy and the others. They caught Strike and hurt him bad.”
“I was scared they’d catch you too,” Ellie went on. She didn’t sound sleepy any longer. “I had to come after you and warn you. God helped me find your trail. It wasn’t hard. You left a pretty big one. I came out at the falls and saw the flume, but I didn’t see you. I saw Canary, though. He’s tied up to the flume!”
“I know.”
“I crossed the creek bed and was gonna untie him when I saw your canteen on the ground. I got real scared then, ’cause I knew they must’ve caught you. So I hid in the woods and sneaked around until I saw you at their claim.”
She began to cry. “There were so many of them! I … I watched Frenchy tie you up. I knew I couldn’t help you ’til it was dark, so I waited and waited. And I prayed, ’cause I was scared they’d catch me too.”
Jem fished around in his back pocket for a handkerchief. “Here, Ellie, use this.” He squeezed her shoulders. “That was mighty brave of you, to leave Nugget behind and come on your own.”
“I couldn’t bring Nugget. You know how he is. He’d have gone after those low-down, nasty claim jumpers and got himself shot.”
“You’re right,” Jem said. Nugget and strangers were not a good mix. More than once, Pa had to keep Nugget in check when unfamiliar guests visited the ranch.
Ellie blew her nose, but she didn’t stop crying. “The … the only th-thing is,” she stammered, “I c-couldn’t … free Canary. I had to leave him and go after you first.” Loud, wrenching sobs poured from her.
“Shhhh! Not so loud,” Jem warned. “We don’t know how far we’ve come, and sound travels a long way in these hills. They might hear you even over the noise of the flume.”
Instantly, Ellie muffled her cries. “I forgot. But Jem? Can’t we untie Canary and take him with us? Please?”
Jem choked back his astonishment. Here they were, hiding out in the woods from men who would toss them in a mining hole without a moment’s thought, and all Ellie could think about was that donkey! “No, Ellie. I feel sorry for him, really I do, but we can’t take him with us.”
Freeing Canary was a bad idea all the way around. He was too big to hide, and he couldn’t be trusted not to “sing” and give them away. Jem listened. There was no sound of the donkey’s brays. “We’ll come back for him when Pa gets here.”
“Can’t we just cut him loose and let him run off?” Ellie asked.
Jem paused. “Maybe. But no promises. Now, come on. I think we’ve rested long enough. Look over there. We’re getting close to the clearing and the creek.”
A pale, silver light was shining up ahead. Either the stars were brighter than usual tonight, or a late moon had risen over the Sierras. Whatever the reason, Jem’s heart began to beat faster. So far, he’d heard no sign of pursuit, but that could change in an instant. Once in the clearing, it would be hard to find a place to hide.
Jem pushed himself up from the ground and helped Ellie to her feet. Like sleepwalkers, they trudged along beside the flume. When they broke out into the open a few minutes later, Ellie gasped. The flume, the trees, and the clearing were lit up by a bright quarter-moon. “It’s like a fairy land!” she exclaimed.
Hee-haw! Hee-haw! The sudden, frantic braying told Jem that Canary had heard Ellie’s voice. Hee-haw! Hee-haw! The donkey sounded terrified. Each bray grew louder than the one before, until his singing pierced the night like a set of loud, rasping bagpipes.
Ellie covered her ears. “Stop it, Canary!”
Jem looked around in panic. There was no chance the miners could not hear this mountain canary’s song. It would bring them running to find the reason. He looked at the dark, shadowy form of the donkey standing under the flume fifty feet away. “Maybe he’ll shut up if we cut him loose. C’mon, hurry!” Together, they raced across the clearing. Canary loomed up in front of them.
But the donkey wanted nothing to do with his rescuers. It was clear that he was beyond accepting his friends’ help. He had been tied up too long, with a heavy pack on his back and no food or water. His terror at the approaching humans, combined with his hunger and confusion, made his eyes roll back in his head until the whites showed. Braying loudly, Canary lashed out in the only way he knew how. His hind legs went up, and he drove his hooves into the flume’s flimsy support.
Crack! The wooden pole snapped, sending the shoddy flume and its watery contents plummeting down on the mule and the kids.
CHAPTER 17
Cold and Wet
Ellie screamed. She stood frozen in place, staring at the flume, clearly too frightened to move.
Jem was too scared not to act. He rushed at Ellie and gave her a desperate shove, which propelled her away from the worst of the falling debris. But Jem couldn’t tell if she was out of danger or not. Water was drenching him in an icy flood. It streamed down his face, choking him, blinding him, until he didn’t know which way to turn.
The flume was breaking up, crashing and thundering all around him. Jem dodged a falling plank and tried to cover his head. He slipped and fell to his knees, shaking with cold. Then a piece of the flume caught him across the shoulder blades and slammed him to the ground.
Jem lay in the mud, dazed. He hurt all over, but at least the runoff was no longer soaking him, and it was no longer raining splinters. The whole thing could not have lasted longer than fifteen seconds. He opened his eyes. One large section of the flume was gone. It lay in a heap of rubble close enough to touch. Water was spilling over the flume’s far edge. It splashed down the hill and out of sight, back toward the creek where it belonged.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Canary. The donkey was in full flight, running and braying into the woods. A chunk of the flume’s support bounced along beside him, still firmly attached by a rope. At least he got away, Jem thought sleepily. He felt content to simply lie still and thank God he was alive.
Then Jem heard another sound—crying. As the warm spring night slowly thawed his numbed mind, he tried to rise. “Ellie!” he called. Where was she? Had he pushed her out of danger? He fell back to the ground, pinned under the rubble. Twisting and shoving the boards away, Jem wriggled free and lurched to his feet. “Ellie!”
He picked his way around the wreckage, straining to find his sister in the moonlight. Her crying grew louder, and Jem finally stumbled on her. What he saw made him shudder. Please, God! Let her be all right!
Most of the flume fragments had missed her, but one of the supporting poles had not. It had fallen over, then rolled onto Ellie, trapping her under a torrent of water. She lay shivering in a shallow pool of flume runoff.
It was not a large pine pole, but it was long and looked solid. “I’ll get you out of here in a jiffy,” he promised. Jem took hold of the pole and lifted. It rose a few inches. He groaned. The log was heavier than he’d expected. Ignoring his own aches and injuries, he sucked in a deep breath and heaved it aside just enough to pull Ellie out of the water. When he reached down to lift her up, she threw her arms around his neck and nearly choked him. Even in the pale moonlight, he could see her face was scratched and swollen.
“I hurt,” she whimpered. “I’m cold.”
Thankfully, nothing was broken. But Ellie appeared in no mood to keep going. She sat down on the ground and wrapped her arms around her knees. Then she began to rock back and forth, crying quietly.
“Ellie,” Jem said, dropp
ing down beside her, “you know Frenchy and his men must have heard the flume break up. There’s no water in it now. They’ll come looking for the reason, and they’ll find us. We have to go.”
No sooner had Jem spoken when his eye caught the twinkling of yellow lights in the distance. Lanterns! He jumped to his feet and lifted Ellie up to join him. “I’ll help you, but we have to hide, and fast.”
Ellie swiped a shaky hand across her face and let Jem half-drag her along. By the light of the moon, they stumbled down the rise and across the now-full creek above the falls. The mountain stream came up past Jem’s knees, making him shiver all over again. He glanced behind his shoulder and saw the miners’ lights gaining on them. They were following the flume, just as Jem and Ellie had.
Jem turned and headed for the forest. It was dark and dangerous, but he had no choice. The woods were their only refuge. By the time they plunged under the spreading branches, Jem was panting from pain and exhaustion. He wasn’t picky about their hiding place. He shoved Ellie into a small stand of young pines and underbrush growing together and crawled in after her.
For a long time, they huddled there. Ellie couldn’t seem to get warm. Her teeth chattered loudly and her whole body shook. Jem rubbed her back and her arms and held her close, but she couldn’t stop shivering.
A sudden stream of curses jerked Jem nearly out of his skin. Frenchy and the others were getting closer, and they sounded furious. Jem covered Ellie’s mouth and shrank deeper into the brush. He could feel her heart beating like a trapped rabbit’s.
Jem watched the glow of the lanterns draw nearer. There was no place to run; no way to blend deeper into the brush. He could only hold Ellie tight to keep her quiet and hope his own chattering teeth did not give them away.
“When I find that boy, I will wring his neck,” Frenchy muttered. “We should have thrown him in the hole right away, instead of tying him up.” He cursed himself, Jem, and the miners.
“The kid didn’t cut himself loose, DuBois,” Jerky said. “He must’ve had help.”
Another miner growled. “Could it have been the old man?”
Jem cowered and clenched his jaw. It felt like the men were closing in all around him. Ellie was crying soundlessly. He could feel her tears and shaking body through his hands. He tightened his hold and willed her to be silent.
“Not possible,” Frenchy growled. “We dumped him far from here and left him for dead.”
The lights moved in a wide circle, back the way they’d come, and the voices grew fainter.
“The boy’ll bring the law right to our doorstep,” Jerky said. “I say this operation’s over. Let’s pack up and get outta here before it’s too late.”
Three or four other voices muttered their agreement, and Frenchy swore again. He said something else, but the miners were too far away now for Jem to make out what they were saying. He let out a long, shuddering breath and held Ellie close.
They stayed like that until the swearing and arguing had faded into the night. Only then did Jem peek out of their hiding place and search the woods for lantern light. Nothing. Just black shadows against the pale light of the clearing.
With a sigh, he let Ellie loose, then slumped against a tree. “They’re gone,” he whispered, “but we’re going to stay here the rest of the night. I’m too tired to go one more step, and I’m not taking any chances. Try to get some sleep.”
“I can’t,” Ellie whispered. “I’m too cold, and my head hurts. And … I-I’m scared. What if they come back?”
“They won’t,” Jem said. I hope not, anyway. “Anyway, I’ll stay awake and keep watch.”
Ellie began sniffling again. “Tell me a story.”
“A story? Now?”
“Please, Jem. Or some of those verses you got the prize for in Sunday school last fall. Anything, Jem. Anything at all. Just talk to me.”
Jem searched his weary mind to come up with a story, but he wasn’t good at making up tales about dragons and fairy princesses—stories Ellie loved. The only stories he knew came from the Bible or revolved around gold strikes, and Ellie knew those better than he did.
A chunk of Bible verses might be easier to recite.
“Jem …” Ellie said.
“I’m workin’ on it.” Finally, a few of Jem’s favorite verses clicked into his memory. He started reeling off Psalm 27 in a husky whisper. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear …” By the time he reached “though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear …” Ellie had stopped shivering, and her breathing came soft and regular.
Jem made it through two more verses before he too drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Cold, wet slobber on his face brought Jem awake with a startled gasp. He found himself lying flat on his back. Somehow he must have slipped to the ground during the night. Hanging over him, tongue lolling, Nugget’s golden head blocked his view. He whined and licked Jem’s cheek again.
Jem shoved the dog aside and scrambled to sit up. Bad mistake. Every muscle ached—his arms, his legs, his back, and especially his left shoulder. He’d banged it in the creek yesterday, and slamming into a tree last night hadn’t done it any good. The flume falling on him had been the final insult. He could barely move.
Jem grimaced and scooted himself against the tree. His head felt full of wet cotton. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around. Sunlight was streaming through the foliage. Everything looked bright and cheerful. A few feet away, Ellie lay curled in a ball, sound asleep. Nugget reached across Jem’s legs and gave Ellie a swipe of his tongue. She didn’t twitch.
“Some watchman I am,” he muttered. To his relief, Frenchy and his cohorts had not returned. Not even a night creature had interrupted their sleep.
“You found us,” Jem said, ruffling Nugget’s fur. He knew they might still be in danger, but the sunshine had revived Jem’s spirits. “Shouldn’t you be with Strike? Did you go off and leave him?” Nugget whined and thumped his tail. He looked pleased with himself for finding them. “Yes, you’re a good—”
The dog bounded away through the trees and into the clearing. Where’s he off to now? Jem wondered. No matter. It was time to get up and return to Strike. “Pa might be there this very minute!” He reached over and shook Ellie. “Wake up, Ellie. It’s morning.”
Ellie swatted at Jem’s hand and rolled over. She curled up tighter, clearly not ready to begin the day. Old pine needles and dead grass stuck to her hair and covered her clothes. Jem shook her again. “Let’s go. Strike needs us. Pa’s on the way.”
This time, his words penetrated Ellie’s sleep. With a sudden lurch, she sat up and glanced around, eyes round and scared. Then she winced. “My head hurts.”
Jem’s eyebrows shot up at the sight of his sister’s face. One whole side was swollen and bruised. A shallow cut, dark with dried blood, ran from her forehead to her cheek. “You don’t look so good,” he said.
Ellie managed a weak grin. “You look like you got thrown down a mine shaft.”
Jem grinned back. “It sure feels like I did.” He offered Ellie his hand. “Come on.”
Suddenly, Nugget was back, tailing wagging and with a share of kisses for Ellie. She gave Nugget his due, then they worked their way through the thicket and stood up. Nugget ran ahead, but Jem and Ellie could not keep up. Limping and stumbling, they finally cleared the woods and broke out into the open.
A welcome sight met Jem’s eyes. Cripple Creek tumbled over the falls like always. The broken flume stood useless, a short distance upstream. It was an ugly blemish on an otherwise beautiful morning.
“Well, kids, I’m mighty glad to see you!”
Jem’s heart leaped to his throat. He whirled, expecting to see one of the claim jumpers pointing a pistol at him. His heart settled back into place at the sight of No-luck Casey, arms crossed over his chest, his bald head gleaming in the sunlight. Doesn’t that miner ever wear a hat? It was a silly thought, considering all Jem had been through last night.
“Howdy, No-luck. We’re mighty glad to see you too.”
“Looks like you’ve had a rough time,” Casey said, losing his grin. “We’ve been looking for you two for over an hour. Your pa’s worried sick.” He rubbed a hand over his head and shrugged. “Strike’s pretty bad off, but we think he’ll make it. Your cousin’s with him now. That boy didn’t do too bad,” he admitted. “Not bad at all … for a greenhorn.”
Jem sighed in relief. Nathan had come through. “Is Pa with them?” he asked.
Casey waved his hand toward the flume. “He and the others took off thataway to look for you. Not sure what’s goin’ on with the flume. It looks like a mess—”
“Did Strike warn Pa about Frenchy and the claim jumpers?” Ellie cut in.
“Frenchy?” Casey looked confused. “What about him? He was banished weeks ago. Strike’s out cold.”
A sudden uneasiness prickled Jem’s skin. If Pa had seen the flume, he would of course follow it and see what was going on. But he doesn’t know it’s Frenchy! He swallowed. “How many came along with Pa?”
“Me and a couple others—Slim Barton and Dakota Joe.” Casey chuckled. “How many do you think it takes to haul one old man back to town?”
“More than that,” Jem muttered under his breath. He and Ellie exchanged worried looks.
No-luck Casey stepped forward and lifted Ellie into his arms. “It’s a long way back, girl. You rest easy. I can carry you.” He motioned to Jem. “Come on.”
“Frenchy’s got half a dozen miners working a claim by the flume,” Jem burst out. “I’ve gotta find Pa and warn him before he gets there.”
Casey shook his head. “Listen here, young fella. You’re not goin’ anywhere but back with me. The sheriff will …”
Jem took off running. Pa was outnumbered, and he was walking straight into a hornets’ nest.
CHAPTER 18
Badge of Honor Page 11
