Chasing the Sun

by Kaki Warner

  They were halfway across when she heard a crack as loud as a pistol report. Clinging to the railing, she looked back to see one of the spanner logs separating from the abutment. The downstream side of the bridge began to sag.

  She cried out, grappling for a handhold as her feet slipped across the planks toward the icy water.

  Jack’s hand clamped over her arm and jerked her back. “Take Kate!” Thrusting the terrified child into her arms, he shoved them both past him toward the far side of the creek. “Run!”

  “Titty!” Kate shrieked, straining to reach the waterlogged toy that had fallen to the planks.

  “I’ll get it!” Jack shouted behind her. “Just go!”

  On the bank they had just left, a rope gave way and a shattered timber shot into the air like a broken twig. More ropes snapped and twanged, slapping the water like angry snakes.

  “Run!”

  Daisy tried, but the bridge bucked and contorted beneath her feet like a wild thing, making her stagger and reel for balance. Over Kate’s wails, she heard Jack pounding behind her, urging her to go faster.

  The embankment loomed ahead. She was almost there. Battling to keep her footing, she lurched toward it, Kate thrashing in her arms. She heard Jack curse and looked back. He was several yards behind her, tugging at his leg, trying to free his foot where it had crashed through and gotten caught on a splintered plank.

  “Jack!” she yelled.

  When he saw her starting back toward him, he frantically waved both hands. “No! Keep going! There’s no time!” He pointed upstream.

  Daisy looked, saw a huge uprooted tree bearing down on them, its twisted limbs flailing like a demon’s arms. “Jack—”

  “No!” His face suddenly white with fear beneath his rain-plastered hair, he waved her on. “No, Daisy! Go on! RUN!”

  Holding her daughter tight against her thundering heart, Daisy ran.

  With a deafening roar, the tree slammed into the supports, the impact almost lifting her off her feet. Timbers groaned and twisted. Metal spikes shrieked as they sheared off. She scrambled on, the planks sinking lower with every step. Water washed over her boots and pinned her wet skirts around her ankles.

  The ropes tying the logs to the abutment in front of her began to unravel with a high-pitched whine. A huge chunk of the embankment broke off, leaving a crumbling wall of wet earth and exposed roots. With a loud crack, the last rope gave way and the huge spanner logs began to roll off the side of the abutment.

  In blind terror, Daisy pinned Kate tight against her chest and jumped.

  She seemed to hang in the air forever. Then her feet slammed onto the steep wall of the bank. Earth rained down. She started to slide backward.

  Clawing for a handhold with her free hand, she found an exposed tree root and clung to it until she regained her footing. Shielding Kate as best she could, she clambered up the muddy bank, grasping at rocks and roots to pull them up.

  Once clear, she fell to her knees, gasping for air. With shaking hands she checked to see if Kate was all right.

  Mud-spattered and terrified. But safe.

  Fighting tears and laughter, Daisy rocked her wailing daughter in her trembling arms, chanting her name over and over and thanking God that they had made it.

  When that short rush of terror and relief had passed, she gathered what courage she had left and made herself look back toward the water.

  The uprooted tree was gone. The bridge was gone.

  Jack was nowhere in sight.

  HANK RODE HUNCHED AGAINST THE RAIN, FOLLOWING A muddy trail that ran parallel to the flooded creek. Brady searched farther up in the trees in case Jack and Daisy had made it to higher ground and were hunkered down out of the wind.

  It was slow going over ground littered with toppled trees and broken branches. The trail was six inches of sucking mud that pulled at the horse’s hooves with every labored step, and the light was starting to fade.

  Hank seethed with impatience.

  They had started the search at the bridge, which was now no more than a few pieces of splintered timbers spinning in a foamy backwash. Only the half-submerged log and rock abutments remained to mark the place where the structure had been, and they would probably wash away soon too. That was two hours ago.

  And still no sign.

  Cursing in frustration, Hank pulled the bay to a stop. He tried to listen in case Jack had seen them and was calling out, but all he heard was Brady moving through the brush on his left and the thunderous roar of the creek on his right. It was well beyond the banks now, running as high as he’d ever seen it. Even the message rock had been almost entirely under water when they’d passed it an hour ago.

  Where are they?

  Through the rain streaming from his hat brim, he studied the far bank but saw nothing other than a gray squirrel scurrying back and forth along a tree trunk, trying to find a way to dry ground.

  Grimly determined, Hank kicked the weary horse forward.

  Hopefully Jack had seen the danger before they’d tried to cross. But if that were the case, they would have been waiting by the bridge abutment. No matter what Brady said, Jack wouldn’t have taken chances with Daisy and his daughter by leading them off somewhere on his own. He would have kept them close and stayed someplace safe where help could find them.

  Like the abutment.

  So why weren’t they there? The rain continued and the sky grew darker. In another couple of hours they would have to send back for lanterns and torches and continue the search on foot. But where? How far could the current have carried them? Were they even looking in the right place?

  It was almost dusk and they were at least three miles downstream of the bridge when he saw movement along the near bank. Heart thudding, Hank rose in the stirrups for a better view through the brush.

  He saw Daisy, stumbling along with Kate in her arms. But not Jack.

  “Got Daisy and Kate,” he shouted to Brady over the rush of water. “Alive.”

  “Jack?”

  “No sign. Signal the others.”

  Brady nodded and rode back out of the trees toward the flats.

  As Hank dismounted, he heard three gunshots in rapid succession, then Brady shouting and distant voices shouting back.

  Daisy seemed not to hear, and continued staggering over rocks and reeds at the water’s edge. Both she and Kate were crying.

  After quickly untying the bundle of dry jackets lashed behind his saddle, Hank hurried toward her. “Daisy?” he called, shoving through brush and over fallen branches.

  She whirled. “Hank! Th-Thank God you’re here! I can’t f-find him! I’ve looked everywhere! We h-have to find him!”

  As he drew closer, he looked them over for signs of injury. They were both filthy and soaking wet. Kate’s hair was caked with dirt and her eyes were puffy from crying; otherwise, she seemed fine.

  But Daisy looked ravaged. She was shivering, her clothing torn and muddy. Her hands bled from a dozen scratches and her eyes, when they finally focused on him, were twin pools of terror.

  Hank jerked a slicker from the bundle and slung it over their heads, but Daisy was shaking so badly, it kept sliding off, so he grabbed her shoulders to anchor it and keep her still.

  “Where’s Jack?” he demanded.

  “Bad water get Jack,” Kate cried, tears running through the mud on her cheeks. “Take Titty gone too.”

  Daisy tried to calm her, but she wasn’t doing that well herself, and her teeth were chattering so hard Hank could hardly understand her.

  “W-We were on the b-bridge. He was r-right behind me—then h-he ...” Her voice rose to that squeaky high-pitched gibberish that women spoke when they talked and cried at the same time.

  He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Slow down, Daisy. Take a breath.” He tried to keep his voice calm, but fear had him in such a tight grip it was all he could do not to shake her. “Just tell me what happened.”

  In fits and starts she told him how they were halfway across when the b
ridge started to break up and Jack’s foot got caught. She tried to go back to help him but a huge uprooted tree was heading toward them and Jack told her there wasn’t time and to take Kate and run.

  “We r-reached the other side j-just as the tree hit,” she said in a quavering voice. “When I l-looked back, it was gone—the bridge—J-Jack—everything. Gone.” With a shaking hand, she swiped at her eyes, leaving muddy streaks on her scratched face. “I’ve been l-looking and calling but I c-can’t find him. H-He’s a good swimmer. He s-should be here, b-but I can’t—I can’t—”

  She started to crumble.

  Hank caught her and anchored her against his side with an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll find him, Daisy,” he said. “I swear we’ll find him.”

  Hearing an approaching horse, he looked over her head to see Brady working his way back through the brush.

  “A tree hit the bridge,” Hank told him when his brother reined in beside them. “Jack went down with it. He could be miles downstream by now.”

  “Sonofabitch.” Brady frowned at the roaring river that was normally a meandering creek. “I’ve never seen it this high.”

  “It’ll get higher.” Hank looked up, blinking against the rain. “As long as those thunderheads stay caught on the peaks and the rain keeps coming down, it’ll keep rising.”

  With a muttered curse, Brady rode off to tell the men to move farther downstream and look for a way to cross.

  Daisy didn’t want to stop searching, but Hank insisted that Kate needed dry clothes and Molly should look them both over for injuries. After his repeated assurances that they would keep searching as long as they could, she agreed to let him take them back to the house.

  Impatient to return to the search as soon as he could, Hank quickly remounted then had Daisy hand up Kate. After tucking the exhausted child under his duster against his chest, he helped Daisy swing up behind him. The scratched hands gripping his waist felt like ice, and he could feel the cold dampness of her shivering body against his back even through his duster and the spare slicker he had insisted she pull over her wet clothes. He headed home as fast as he dared.

  As soon as they rode into the yard, Langley came out of the barn to meet them. A moment later, Jessica flew out the front door, Molly close on her heels. As they rushed down the steps, Elena waited on the porch, her rosary clutched in her hands.

  “Where’s Jack?” Jessica asked, reaching up for Kate while Molly helped Daisy dismount.

  Hank quickly relayed what had happened, then told Langley to hitch the buckboard and load it with ropes, pulleys, chains, axes, harness parts, anything they could use to rig a way to cross.

  “I’ll gather blankets and food,” Molly called back over her shoulder as she helped Daisy up the porch steps.

  “Lanterns too. And bandages,” Hank added. Turning back to Langley, he instructed him to bring the wagon three miles downstream of the message rock. “And hurry. It’s getting dark fast.”

  JACK EXPLODED OUT OF THE VOID IN CHOKING TERROR.

  He couldn’t breathe. Something was on his back, shoving his face into the mud. In mindless panic, he thrashed and bucked with all his might.

  The weight shifted, then rolled away.

  Clawing dirt from his mouth, he sucked air into his starving lungs. Deafened by the thud of his own racing heartbeat, he flopped onto his back, gasping. After a while, his breathing slowed and awareness crept over him.

  He opened his eyes.

  Dusk. Water splattering in his face. More water rushing nearby. The creek. So he was still by the creek. But where?

  And where were Daisy and Kate?

  He yelled for them, heard nothing, and terror engulfed him again. He called over and over until his voice grew hoarse and his head was spinning so badly he was afraid he would pass out again.

  But no voice called back.

  Oh God oh God ...

  He lay shivering, battling to bring his panic under control so he could think.

  He remembered the bridge breaking up and his foot falling through. The tree hurtling toward them. Sending Daisy and Kate on. He closed his eyes and tried to picture what happened then, but his last image of Daisy was of her at the end of the bridge just as the tree hit. Did she make it to the bank?

  His heart started pounding again. Think! Are they okay? Did they make it?

  The impact of the tree had freed his leg. He remembered falling, grabbing for a log, missing, and going under. When he fought his way through a crush of shattered timbers and splintered planks to the surface again, he was long past where he’d last seen her. Then his endless battle to stay on top of the water as the current swept him away.

  How far? How long had he been lying here? Where was he?

  And where were Daisy and Kate?

  Fear drove him to action. He tried to roll over, couldn’t. Something heavy—blinking against the rain, he lifted his head to see a broken tree trunk pressed against his side. The weight that had rolled off his back. He tried to kick it away but something was wrong with his leg. He looked down again, realized his jacket and one boot were missing, and saw blood seeping out of a long tear in his right trouser leg. More blood stained his tattered shirt, but it wasn’t spreading.

  With shaking hands, he unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops. Then groaning with the effort, he sat up and slid it around his thigh above the bleeding gash. He pulled the belt tight, almost crying out at the searing pain. Swallowing against a wave of nausea, he slumped back to the cold mud, his chest pumping like a bellows, pain coming at him from all sides.

  Fury burned through him. Why had he tried to cross? Why hadn’t he checked the ropes better? Why hadn’t he been more careful of the planks breaking apart beneath his feet?

  Did they make it?

  “Daisy!” he shouted, fear rising again. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

  Nothing but the roar of the water. In despair, he pounded his fist against the muddy ground and felt something wet and soft against his arm. He lifted it up.

  Kate’s kitty, matted with mud, one front leg dangling by a thread.

  Something twisted in his chest. His eyes burned. Clenching his teeth against a howl of anguish, he squeezed the battered toy as hard as he could, as if somehow that might hold Kate fast to his side, where he could keep her safe.

  “Daisy? Are you out there?”

  Nothing. Blinking against the misty rain, he struggled to bring the fear under control. He had to do something. He had to find them. Slowly a feeling of calmness stole over him, and he could think more clearly. He had to move. He had to tend his leg. Then he would start searching.

  Loosening his grip on the toy, he carefully tucked it into the waistband of his trousers.

  He was alive. He was breathing and he was alive.

  He would find them.

  Seventeen

  DAISY STOOD SHIVERING WHILE MOLLY HELPED HER OUT of her wet clothes and checked for injuries. Jessica had already stripped Kate and had taken her into the water closet to give her a quick bath. The sounds of their voices and Kate’s splashing seemed absurdly commonplace after the horrifying events of the afternoon.

  Daisy’s sluggish mind was still unable to grasp it all. It had been such a lovely day. A beautiful day for a picnic. How could it have so suddenly turned deadly? She tried to make sense of it, but all she could think about was the look on Jack’s face as the tree hurtled toward the bridge.

  Let him be alive. Please let him be alive.

  Molly’s voice broke through the cocoon of despair Daisy felt wrapped in. “None of these seems serious,” she said, studying the scratches on Daisy’s arms and hands. “Let’s get you cleaned up first, then we’ll tend them.”

  As they crossed through the dressing room, Jessica came out of the water closet with a wiggling bundle of blankets in her arms. “How is she?” Daisy asked.

  “She appears fine.” Jessica smiled at the scrubbed face peering up at her.

  “No bruises or scratches?
It was so treacherous, I was worried she might have gotten bumped or scraped.” In truth, Daisy remembered little of that terrifying scramble up the bank, only her desperate need to get away from the tumbling logs and churning water.

  And Jack.

  Guilt twisted in her stomach. Should she have gone back to help him?

  No, she sternly told herself. She’d done the right thing. Kate was her first responsibility, and she wouldn’t have been able to save them both. In fact, if he hadn’t sent them on ahead, they might all have gone down with the bridge.

  But, God, what a terrible choice to have to make.

  “While you wash, Molly can look her over, just to be sure.”

  Nodding her thanks, Daisy went in to draw a bath. She soaked until the water cooled and her fingertips puckered, but she still felt chilled to the bone. After pulling on the fluffy robe Molly had left on the stool beside the tub, she went back into her bedroom to find Consuelo setting a table in front of the roaring fire. Jessica was already seated in one of the two chairs beside it, and Kate, dressed in her night clothes, squirmed in her lap, staring hungrily at the bowl of oatmeal Consuelo was placing on the table before her.

  Molly rose from the other chair when she saw Daisy in the doorway. “Feeling better?” she asked, crossing toward her.

  Daisy nodded. “Is Kate all right?”

  “Not a scratch. You protected her well.”

  “Not just me. Jack too. He saved our lives.” The thought of Kate disappearing into that churning water reawakened such a feeling of terror Daisy could hardly draw a breath. “Any news?”

  “Not yet.”

  Glancing at the window, Daisy saw only the reflection of lamplight on the panes of glass. “It’s dark. Shouldn’t they be back by now?”

  “Soon. Come eat something. Consuelo made soup for you.”

  At Molly’s urging, Daisy took the chair across from Jessica and Kate. She stared numbly at the steaming bowl of beefy broth, her stomach rolling. “I don’t think I can.”

  “Try.” Molly pushed a spoon into her hand, then moved her medicine satchel and the tufted vanity stool over beside Daisy’s chair. “You’ll need your strength.”