12

Fran fought her way through yet another thicket of rhododendrons. As beautiful as they were when they bloomed, right now she wished they weren’t quite so prolific on this hillside. Each time she had to plunge through one of the thickets, she shook the branches and stepped gingerly. It was too easy to imagine more snakes hiding under the bushes. Actually she was sure her imagination was more than right about plenty of things scurrying around near her feet that she didn’t want to know about. Thank goodness for boots. But she couldn’t see any way around some of the thickets without a long walk uphill, and maybe not then. She did manage to ease past the blackberry brambles.

She paused in the deep shade of an oak tree. Plenty of acorns adorned its branches. A sign of a bad winter on the way, according to Grandma Howard. She should ask Granny Em if she believed the same. If she ever saw Granny Em again. If she ever saw anyone again. Could be she might wander around on this hill forever and die of thirst.

She was thirsty. And completely and thoroughly lost. Where were the mountain people when she needed one of them to point the way? She didn’t care if they did laugh at her for being such a tenderfoot that she let her horse get away from her. Not that most of them would laugh at her out loud. They’d keep their faces straight while laughter built up in their eyes. No telling how many stories they were already telling on this inept brought-in nurse.

Fran wasn’t worried about that. She just wanted to find her way over the mountain to the Nolans’ house. She looked behind her. She supposed she could go back to the Locke house and get Woody to escort her along the right paths. She stared at the thickets she’d just fought through and had some doubts of being able to retrace her steps.

Another rumble of thunder sounded closer than it had a moment ago. A breeze sprang up to ruffle the leaves. And cool her face. That felt good, but it might not be good if she got caught in a storm. Fran wasn’t afraid of storms. Not when she was watching them from inside a house. But out in the middle of the woods on the side of a mountain might be a different matter.

She could almost hear Betty saying it would be good practice. A nurse-midwife couldn’t let anything stop her when she was called to deliver a baby. Storms. Floods. Snow. Sleet. Fran wiped her forehead again. No worry about snow on this day. But the trail might as well be under a couple of feet of snow. It was just as hidden from her.

Young Mrs. Nolan would have her baby and Betty would be back at the center drinking tea before Fran found her way out of this overgrown wilderness. If only Jasmine hadn’t run away. The mare was going to be in trouble next time she wanted an extra carrot or apple.

Fran tucked her handkerchief back in her pocket. While she couldn’t see any sign of the sun through the dark clouds, the storm had blown in from the west. Maybe if she kept the wind in her face, she would be going in the right direction.

She picked out a tree a good way ahead. That’s what Betty told her to do to keep from walking in circles. Walk toward something and when she reached it, walk on toward something new in the right direction. West.

She squared her shoulders and pushed through the undergrowth toward the tree. The wind stirred the leaves, then seemed to tease her by first blowing her hair back from her face and then whipping around to blow strands into her eyes. She hooked her hair behind her ears and kept walking toward the tree. She dared not take her focus off it, because one tree had a way of looking much like another.

No birds sang or squirrels chattered. Even the wind suddenly deserted her as everything went still. She felt totally alone in the world.

No, not alone. Never alone, her grandmother would tell her. Who was always there through every storm? Through every dark night? Fran whispered one of her grandmother’s favorite Scriptures. “The Lord is an ever present help in danger.”

She might not have the words exactly as they were in the Bible, but the thought was there. The prayer was there. She pulled in her breath and thought only of those words, while the wind seemed to hold its breath too.

What was that sound? Could she be so thirsty she was imagining the sound of water like a man in the desert seeing a mirage? Not a creek running over rocks, more like a trickle out of a pipe. She shut her eyes. Why closing her eyes helped, she didn’t know, but it did. The water was up the hill to her left. Not too far. She moistened her dry lips and hoped it wasn’t her imagination.

Then a fresh wind gust ripped through the trees, bringing the scent of rain. She might not need a spring. Water might dash down on her at any minute, but she headed up the hill anyway.

Lightning lit up the sky. Earlier in the summer before the dry days of August set in, she’d watched a storm from the door of a cabin high on the mountain. The storm clouds had settled down around the cabin and set it to shaking with thunder booms and lightning streaks. She didn’t want to think about the storm settling around her now in the same way.

A few fat raindrops slipped down through the trees to plop on her head. She kept going toward where she’d heard water. Springs often bubbled out of a rocky place. There might be a ledge she could take shelter under, like an old bear. As long as the bear hadn’t beat her to it.

And sometimes springs could mean people fetching water. Somebody who could get her back on a trail. She tried to remember the map that was in the saddlebag she fervently hoped was still on Jasmine. Seemed as though a spring was noted on the map not far from the trail she was supposed to take toward the Nolans’. So maybe all was not lost. Fran kept climbing. It was good to have a purpose. Then as quickly as she felt better, she remembered that moonshiners often located their stills near water. This overgrown hillside would be a perfect place to hide away from the law. Her steps lagged a bit.

The moonshiners wouldn’t shoot her on purpose. Not while she was wearing the Frontier Nursing outfit, but it would be good to let them know who she was. If anybody was at the spring.

“Hello,” she shouted. The wind whisked away the sound. So she shouted it again.

No answer, or none she could hear over the noise of the storm. She called out her hello again. Some nurses sang when they were going over the mountain trails just to let the mountaineers know they were about, but singing would be useless in the storm. Nobody could hear her. But she shouted out another hello anyway.

The mare jerked her head up.

“What’s out there, girl?” Ben held the horse’s bridle to keep her still while he listened.

A gust of wind swept through the trees. Ben raised his head up to get the full benefit of the cooler air. He’d been in storms overseas. Sandstorms in the desert. Rainstorms in France. Firestorms in battle that had nothing to do with nature and everything to do with man. But a lightning storm on a mountain was different. Sometimes the clouds would drop their fury right down on a person until his skin tingled.

The lightning must have been what had the mare’s ears perked and her nostrils flared. She stamped her feet and tried to shake free of his hold, but he hung on. “Easy.”

Then the wind took a pause and a shout came up from below them. A woman’s voice. The horse whinnied. Perhaps recognizing his thrown rider.

“Hello,” Ben called back. “Do you need help?”

“No.” A second later a different answer. “Yes. Please don’t shoot me.”

Ben wasn’t sure he heard her right. The wind was picking back up. Maybe that had distorted the words. He wasn’t in a war zone now. No reason to shoot anybody.

“Why would I shoot you?” Better not to think about the times he had shot to kill. Not now on his first day home. Not with the sudden crack of lightning. The woman’s startled shriek was drowned out by thunder that sounded too much like a bomb.

He pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. He wasn’t on a battlefield and this woman wasn’t the enemy. The thunder subsided to a rumble. “Do I need to come help you?”

“No, I’m coming toward you. If I can get through these blackberry bushes.”

“Best go round,” Ben called back to her, but a new clap of thunder covered up his words. The mare whinnied again and danced to the side. That lightning strike was way too close. He searched his memory of the hillside for a place to wait out the storm. He seemed to remember a rock ledge with a hollowed-out cave not far from the spring, but he couldn’t desert the woman.

He held the horse and waited. Rain came down in a hard dash, soaking the cast on his arm. There was no help for that. It was time the cumbersome thing came off anyway. He’d tried to get them to remove it before he got on the ship for home, but the doctors said another week or two would guarantee the bones had knitted as they should.

“Come on, woman. Hurry up,” Ben muttered under his breath. She must be a city girl. Getting unseated from her horse and then unable to find a path up the hill. But he could hear her getting closer.

Then she stepped out into the small opening around the spring. Wet locks of brown hair stuck to her cheeks and forehead. She shoved them back and picked a briar out of her hair. A few bloody scratches stood out on her face and arms. She had on the frontier nurse’s uniform of blue pants and vest over a white shirt. She stopped and stared at him with wary eyes, her face showing a mixture of relief and apprehension.

She was surprisingly attractive. Ben didn’t know why he was surprised. Maybe because the frontier nurses had all been much older than him before he went to war. But that was years ago now. He was older. They could be younger than he remembered. At least this nurse surely was.

She was very slim, but there was something enticingly feminine about her standing there in the rain watching him.

“You must be Woody’s brother.” When she smiled, her face lit up.