An urgency drove Zeche faster, and he gave Biscuit an extra kick as the steep grade leveled into something of a trail. The horse broke into a trot as the scenery began to look familiar. And it should, since this was the third time they’d ridden through the country in one direction or another. The fourth if he counted the time he’d been strapped unconscious on his horse after the elk attack.
If he pushed a little harder, he could probably make it to Gretta’s by dinner.
Assuming there’d be dinner. Assuming they were all right.
He couldn’t shake the sense of impending danger. Or perhaps the danger had already taken hold. Was this God’s warning? Maybe. He urged Biscuit faster. Anything quicker than a trot over this rocky, uneven ground would be a death sentence for the horse, but he pushed as fast as he dared.
They had to get to Gretta before it was too late.
A couple hours later, the sun had begun its descent, no longer so blinding on the newly fallen snow. The aroma of wood smoke drifted faintly as the cabin came into view, but the sight of it loosened something in his spirit. Maybe it was the image of home. Maybe it was the fear that strangled his chest.
He kicked Biscuit into a canter over the last few yards, then leapt off by the porch, barely stopping to rein the horse in. He was up the stairs in two strides, but at the door, he forced himself to pause for breath.
He couldn’t just barge into the place. They were likely eating dinner, and he had to be careful not to startle Mr. Michelly into another bout of war memories.
It took all his restraint to rap a light knock on the door. “Gretta? Mr. Michelly?” He kept his voice soft. “It’s me, Zeche.”
No sounds drifted through the wood, so he knocked a little louder. “It’s Zeche. Anyone home?”
He glanced back at the churned snow on the ground around the cabin. Could they have gone out for a ride? Again he knocked, louder still. “Hello? Mr. Michelly?” He let his voice rise. An easy thing with the way his pulse thundered in his chest.
Had Mr. Michelly become caught in his memories and hurt Gretta? Perhaps they were both lying in there unconscious. Or…
Before his mind could create images of the thoughts hovering, he jerked the latch-string and rammed his shoulder into the wood. It wasn’t until it gave under his weight that it occurred to him to wonder why the latch string was draped outside the door. That must mean they were gone.
The cabin was eerily quiet as he stepped inside and paused to adjust his eyes to the light. The blast of warmth he’d expected was more like a tepid creeping. “Gretta?” His voice shattered the stillness like glass.
Then he saw the disarray. A chair tossed on its side, a pot lying on the floor, a quilt wadded beside it. A flame danced in the fireplace, which meant they’d been here within the past hour or so. But why had they left with the fire still lit and the place a mess?
He advanced, scanning the room for anything moving. Or…a person unmoving.
No one.
“Gretta.” His tone was close to desperate now, and he charged forward. He skirted the table and burst into the rear bed chamber. “Gretta?” For an awful moment, he thought he might find her lying in the bed. A corpse. But no. The covers had been pulled up without a wrinkle.
He whirled and sprinted out the door. Could they have gone to South Pass City for supplies? That seemed unlikely after Gretta lamented how her father refused to buy anything from town except coffee. And in the middle of winter? With a fire still raging in the hearth?
Maybe he could find their tracks.
He charged around the side of the cabin, catching sight of Biscuit as he rounded the rear corner. The gelding leaned over the gate into the lean-to, sniffing noses with the bay mare.
Gretta’s mare.
He approached the horse, reaching to pat her neck. “Hey, girl. Where’s Gretta?”
She offered a nicker, nudging Zeche’s arm.
Mr. Michelly’s gelding was gone, but that wasn’t so unusual if he’d gone hunting. But where would Gretta be? Maybe at the creek?
He forced his mind not to imagine the worst as he grabbed Biscuit’s reins and swung up into the saddle. Summoning a deep breath, he hollered loud enough to carry, “Gretta!”
Every muscle in him strained to hear her response, but nothing came.
Fear welled up his chest again, but he raised a prayer heavenward as he turned his gaze to the ground. Show me, Lord.
The ground around the lean-to was churned into a muddy mess, but farther out, the tracks lessened.
All of the trails appeared to head toward the front of the cabin, so he followed that direction. Biscuit seemed to sense his energy, and he had to rein the horse back as he studied the ground, trying to find the freshest prints.
There.
A set of hoofprints had churned the snow deeply, as though the horse were running away from the cabin, headed south. His spirit quickened, and he reined Biscuit that direction, closing his heels to the horse’s side as he loosened the reins.
The gelding responded in a surge, kicking up white powder as they wove onto the trail that had first carried him to this place, over a month ago. A lifetime ago.
The tracks were easy to follow, but not even the pain in his ribs from the jarring run could stop his mind from taking a wild path, summoning images of what might have caused the disarray in the cabin. Were there Indians in these mountains? A wild animal in search of food?
None of those scenarios made sense. But the possibility he could believe seemed too awful to consider. Mr. Michelly. Could he have hurt Gretta during one of his episodes? Was he, even now, riding to get help for her?
God, no.
South Pass City was the closest town he knew of in this direction, but it was a two-week trip—ten days, if he pushed as hard as a single horse could travel. And with two people, that might do the animal in.
But he didn’t know for sure whether Gretta was even with her father. Or whether they’d gone to South Pass or some other destination. He didn’t know anything.
The impossibility of finding them both alive and well—or at least in a condition where he could help them—flooded over him like an avalanche.
God, guide me.
He was powerless to do anything but ride on and pray. But he would do both to the best of his ability.
He was getting closer. Zeche could feel it in every one of his tight muscles, and he could scarcely catch his breath from the knife piercing his ribs. He still couldn’t shake the dread coiling in his gut, but the sense of purpose that had crept into him kept all his senses alert.
He glanced up at the sun. Either it had stopped moving, or he’d been riding less than a half hour. Although it felt like at least a day must have—
There.
His whole world froze as a black spec moved in the distance. That had to be a horse and rider. He kicked Biscuit into a canter, barely feeling the bite in his ribs as the horse lunged through the snow on the downhill trail.
“Michelly!” His breath came in short, hollow gasps, not enough for his voice to carry.
But the rider must have heard, because the spec paused and turned. Another tiny black dot appeared beside the larger one. The dog, maybe.
It took long, painful moments for him to close the distance between them. But as he did, the image came clearer. The figure on the horse separated into two. The taller, lanky form of Antonio Michelly. And the person riding in front of him, slumped in his arms, wore the fur coat, blue half-dress, and buckskin pants that struck a chord of panic in Zeche’s chest.
Gretta. What had happened to her?
He spurred Biscuit harder the last thirty feet, and as he neared, a glance at Michelly’s face showed fear and…guilt? Had the man killed his own daughter?
“What happened?” Zeche leapt to the ground and surged to Gretta’s side where she sat propped in front of her father’s saddle. He reached up to touch her face, limp against the man’s upper arm.
She responded to his touch with a jerk, and her whole body seemed to come alive in violent spasms. Her neck arched back, arms stiff and straight except the wrists which bent backward at a painful angle. With her neck curved back like that, he saw her eyelids jerk open to reveal only the whites of her rolled eyes.
He jerked his hand back, trying to make sense of what was happening. Her body seemed possessed, as though something wild had taken over.
“It’s some kind of epilepsy.” Mr. Michelly yelled over the woman writhing in his arms. “I have to get her to town. To a doctor.”
Zeche stared at the man, his mind churning to catch up with what was taking place and what he could do to stop it. “The doctor’s too far. How do we stop it?”
The wild look in Michelly’s eyes intensified. “I don’t know.”
And with his words, Gretta’s body suddenly relaxed, as though she’d been knocked unconscious with a rock. She slumped in her father’s arms, her head lolling to the side.
Zeche didn’t stop to consider his actions. He pulled off his coat and laid it on the ground, then reached up and wrapped his arms around her. “Let me have her.”
Her father didn’t argue. Maybe he didn’t know what else to do.
He laid her on the coat and did his best to take stock of the situation. “Has this happened before?”
“No. Never. She was making dinner, and I heard her cry out. Then she just fell down and started writhing. I’ve never seen…”
Zeche tried to imagine the scene as he felt for the pulse in her neck. Making dinner. “Was she bit by something? A spider?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t know.” The helplessness, the despair in her father’s voice had the power to propel Zeche that direction if he allowed.
He pulled his focus to his examination. Her pulse seemed so weak. Barely there. He leaned close so he could hear her breathing. Light and a little gurgly. He pulled open her mouth, not quite sure what he was looking for. None of his instincts told him what to do.
God, show me.
In her mouth, a pool of foam had gathered. Probably from her thrashing. In the white bubbles were bits of brown, like fragments of food. Or… he reached in and caught one on his finger, then extracted it and held it up. Like tiny dried leaves.
He turned his gaze to her father. “What did she eat?”
The man’s eyes widened and his mouth opened, but nothing came out for a moment. “I…I don’t know.” He seemed truly flummoxed.
Zeche turned back to Gretta. The skin on her face had turned deathly pale, seemed almost translucent. Although maybe that was an illusion from the sheen of sweat.
With his thumb still holding her jaw open, he peered into her mouth. Was it possible she’d eaten something poisonous? Would that cause such violent tremors?
Her throat worked, emitting some kind of garbled sound. In her mouth, he could see her tongue go stiff. Her jaw clamped shut, and she writhed under his hand.
Fear clawed up his throat as the terrible spasm seemed to overtake her. He cupped her shoulders with both hands. “Relax, Gretta. It’s all right. Calm down.”
But it wasn’t all right. His soothing words seemed to do nothing to still the creature inside her. He stroked her hair from her face. Rubbed her arm. Nothing he did seemed to make a penny’s difference.
At last. Finally, she settled. Her body almost collapsed in on itself as the fight left her.
He had to do something now. Something to fix this. Gretta’s body wouldn’t last much longer through these fits.
He forced his mind to think through the contents of his saddle pack. He carried water. Jerked meat. A bit of stale hardtack. He’d brought a salve to fight infection. Had a few dried herbs from the supply Gretta packed for him the last time he’d left the cabin.
And…he had the stuff in that glass bottle Olsen had given him. The liquid charcoal. What had the man said it was good for? Curing belly ache from spoiled food. And he’d said it helped a host of other ills, but he hadn’t named them. He’d also mentioned it would draw out a poison from inside a person.
Could that help Gretta? Or would the stuff react to whatever caused this in the first place, making the whole situation worse.
Woodenly, he pushed to his feet and strode to Biscuit, then dug in his pack until his fingers closed around the glass bottle.
“God, what do I do?” He pulled it out and looked at the liquid just visible through the tinted brown. “Will this help her?”
“Try it, son. We have to do something.”
Zeche spun to face Gretta’s father. He’d almost forgotten the man was there. “I don’t know if this will help.”
Antonio Michelly stared back at him with a calm he’d not seen from the man since he’d met them. “We need to try and pray God uses it for her good.” The firm confidence in his tone filled Zeche with almost as much assurance as the idea that God could help. He’d been so miserable that night he spent in Olsen’s cabin, but maybe God allowed his sickness so the trapper would give him the medicine. So he’d have it now, when Gretta needed it. And whether or not the medicine was the right cure by itself, God could use any tool.
He nodded and pushed past the man to kneel beside Gretta. Inhaling a deep breath, he uncorked the bottle. He tilted Gretta’s chin down again, then worked her mouth open with the fingers of his left hand.
He started with little more than a few drops. The liquid pooled at the back of her mouth, running streams through the foam bubbles there. Her tongue shifted, although he wasn’t sure if she’d swallowed. He poured a little more in.
This time, her throat worked more, but then her face tightened into a painful twist. She seemed to be gagging, her head lifting off the ground as she strained. Her skin had turned a pale purple.
Then her body convulsed, like the strings on a puppet were jerking her neck and wrists upward. He reached to brace her shoulders again, but he couldn’t bring himself to force her to lie flat. Her muscles had tightened into solid cords, which felt like they might snap if he exerted pressure on them.
But then she relaxed, more quickly than the other times. Could the medicine be helping? Likely wishful thinking, as he’d barely given her enough to make a difference.
But he couldn’t help the hope that drove him forward as he turned her head a little to the side and leaked more of the charcoal into her mouth.
He slipped his hand behind her head to raise her up, which might help keep her from choking this time. In tiny doses, the medicine drained down her throat.
When he held the bottle up to see how much she’d taken, almost half the liquid was gone. Thank you, Lord. Now if it would only work.