I do, I do, I do (27 page)

She fought to bob up again, but her limbs were numb with cold and her effort feeble. In a second she wouldn't be able to help it, she would open her mouth and suck water into her lungs.

She was going to die. And not one person would shed a tear at her demise. It was a sad thought to have as her last. But there wasn't time to compose a thoughtful or eloquent last thought. The blackness closed over her and her water-heavy boots and clothing pulled her to the bottom.

Zoe couldn't believe her eyes. When she looked back at the snow-covered lake, Juliette had simply vanished. Then it struck her. Juliette was on the ice? The ice wasn't thick enough to walk on, and wouldn't be for at least another week.

"Oh, my God!" Wildly, she looked around for assistance. "She was on the ice!" Screaming to catch the attention of the men nearby, she ran to the shore and immediately spotted Juliette's footprints among those of a dozen small animals. "Help! Help me!"

"Get blankets and towels," Ben shouted, almost knocking her down as he ran past her and out onto the ice.

He'd taken only a few steps before he fell through. Swearing, he broke the ice ahead of him with his fists, leaving a jagged black path.

Horror paralyzed Zoe. Eyes wide, hands pressed to her mouth, she watched him struggling through the ice and water. The water reached his thighs, his waist, then his chest. Her heart pounded, each beat shouting hurry, hurry, hurry.

It wasn't until Mrs. Eddington tugged her arm and anxiously asked what had happened that Zoe came to her senses. "Bring blankets and towels," she ordered. "Go!" She saw Clara in the distance, preparing to launder a few things since it was a fire day, and she screamed Clara's name.

Now others came running, and another man plunged into the water, then another, struggling after Benjamin. Then Tom was suddenly on the shore, holding out his arms, stopping others from rushing into the icy lake.

"Too many people will confuse things. Give them room to work." He looked at Zoe. "Who?"

"Juliette. She can't swim."

Tom's expression turned grim. "Anderson! Bring enough wood for a bonfire. We'll worry about paying later. Move, man!"

One of the men who had gathered to watch scowied and spit on the sand and rocks. "What was the damned fool doing out on the ice? Everyone knows it isn't thick enough to walk on."

Clara paused in her rush toward the shoreline and pushed her face up close to his. "She's from California. She doesn't know about ice. So just shut your face." When she reached Zoe, she anxiously asked, "How long has she been under?"

"I don't know." Zoe twisted her hands together, wanting to plunge into the frigid water herself. But Tom was right. Too many people in the water would hamper the rescue effort.

Finally she noticed that Clara had snatched up blankets. And she realized Clara had guessed what had happened the minute Zoe screamed her name. Thank heaven their husband had married bright women.

Time slowed to a crawl. Out on the ice, heads broke the surface of the black water, gulped air, and vanished again. Zoe couldn't tell which of the heads belonged to Ben and which belonged to the other two men.

"I didn't treat Juliette very well," she said suddenly, staring at the lake. "I resented it that she was a real lady and that she'd had an easy life. I hated her for being Jean Jacques's first. And I hated her for paying Tom to pack us in."

"Her goody-goody ways made me want to smack her, and that prissy little holier-than-thou voice she spoke in sometimes." Clara also stared at the lake. "She doesn't know how to do anything useful."

"If she dies, I'll feel guilty all the rest of my life for the times I wished her dead or wished she would just disappear. Maybe God is punishing me by granting my wish. I can't stand it."

"I could have taught her more about cooking and laundry, but I didn't, even though she was willing to learn. It was more satisfying to criticize and sneer at her efforts."

"Oh, Lord! Ben's found her!"

He half swam, half pushed along the bottom, dragging Juliette by the collar behind him. When he could stand, he lifted her in his arms and stumbled toward the shore.

No one spoke. When Ben came out of the water, he turned Juliette in his arms, then went down on one knee and dropped her across the knee that was raised. A great gout of water shot from her mouth. But she wasn't breathing.

Zoe clung to Clara. "She's dead!"

When Zoe could bear to look again, Ben and Tom had placed Juliette on the ground, her head turned to one side, and Tom was pushing on her back. With each push, water gushed from her mouth. The other men who had participated in the rescue staggered out of the water and hurried to the fire Tom had ordered built on the shore. Mrs. Eddington was there, passing towels and blankets as the men stripped off their clothing. Ice had formed in their hair and mustaches.

Tom looked up and waved Zoe and Clara forward. "She's alive, but just barely. Get those wet clothes off her. Ben? You, too. Get out of those clothes before they freeze on you."

Clara pulled Juliette to a sitting position. Her face was as white as a corpse, her head lolled on her shoulders. With each weak cough, water and bile dribbled from the corner of her lips. She looked dazed and disoriented, but she was breathing.

A sob of relief caught in Zoe's throat, then she fumbled at Juliette's coat while Clara jerked off her boots and reached under her skirts to yank her stockings down and off.

Standing to one side, Tom helped Ben out of clothing that had begun to freeze and stiffen. Ben was shaking hard enough that bits of ice showered from his beard and hair. When he was near naked, Mrs. Eddington ran forward and pushed a towel and blanket into his hands, then hastily turned her back.

"
Mein Gott
," Clara muttered, after she'd torn open Juliette's bodice because the buttons were frozen tight to the fabric. It would take too long to free and open them. "She's wearing a corset! I thought we all decided not to."

Wearing a corset into the Yukon was so like Juliette that Zoe would have laughed if she'd learned about it on another occasion. But Juliette was half-dead. Zoe didn't need a doctor to tell her Juliette's condition was very grave.

They were down to Juliette's chemise and knickers before Zoe sucked a breath between her teeth and stopped Clara before Clara ripped off the chemise. "Being naked in front of several hundred men would be her worst nightmare!"

Clara held her gaze a moment, then shouted to Tom and Mrs. Eddington to raise a blanket in front of Juliette for privacy. "Good idea," she muttered, tearing off the rest of Juliette's clothing.

Her body was mottled with cold and shook uncontrollably. Her teeth chattered in a staccato cadence. Zoe combed ice out of Juliette's streaming hair while Clara toweled her off.

"Can you stand?"

Juliette stared as if she had no recognition of knowing them. She didn't seem to understand what Clara had asked.

Stepping behind her, Clara grasped her under the arms and lifted. And suddenly Ben was there. A towel wrapped his waist, a thick blanket covered his head and body.

He opened the blanket and pulled Juliette against his naked chest, then closed his blanket around them both.

The only thing Zoe said was, "Are you warm enough yourself to warm her?"

Clara dropped a second blanket over Juliette's wet head. "Rub her arms and back."

Now Zoe became aware of the voices of the spectators. Later, when she remembered what happened next, she would recall several kind and gentlemanly comments. But right now, the only voices she heard were those making salacious and suggestive comments.

"What are they doing under them blankets?" Followed by laughter.

"I sure wouldn't mind being under there with a wet woman."

"I'd make her a lot welter."

That was it for Zoe. Trembling with fury, she rushed toward the man who had made the last comment. His name was Jake Horvath, if she remembered correctly. "You're talking about a respectable woman, you swine!"

Her brothers had taught her not to make a fist around her thumb. If you didn't want to get your thumb broken, you tucked it tightly on the outside against the first and second knuckles.

She hauled back and drove her fist into the man's nose hard enough to feel something crack. Blood spurted from his nostrils, and he stared at her in shock.

"Good for you, little lady. He had it coming!"

"Oh yeah? He didn't say nothin' the rest of us weren't thinking."

A fistfight broke out on Zoe's right, then another to her left. In less than a minute, all hell broke loose. Three hundred people were shouting and fighting along the icy shore of Crater Lake.

Chapter 13

The hostile land and primitive living conditions strained tempers and frayed the nerves of weary men. Over the years Bear had seen brothers snap like twigs and try to kill each other. He'd watched two long-term partners saw a canoe in half so each had an equal share when they dissolved their partnership. He'd watched people go crazy and do crazy things along the trail. But he'd never seen anything like the scene that greeted his eyes when he returned from rabbit hunting.

Close to the shoreline two people appeared to be flapping their elbows under a mound of blankets, but no one paid any attention. And no one bothered to enjoy an expensive bonfire. But there was a hell of a lot of punching, kicking, gouging, stomping, swinging, and fighting going on. There must have been over three hundred men down there, fighting like an army in hand-to-hand combat. It was the biggest brawl Bear had ever seen. And he could hardly wait to throw himself right into the middle of it.

After tossing his rabbits and rifle and gloves to one of the spectators staying out of the fight, he waded into the melee looking for Jake Horvath and knowing that Jake would be looking for him. This was as good a time as any to settle their differences. But when he found Horvath, Horvath was sitting on the sidelines sopping up blood from a broken nose. Bear had to settle for a few of the men who had pissed him off by referring to him as a daisy-boy for letting a woman beat him at arm wrestling.

He'd happily flattened two men when he saw Zoe Wilder indiscriminately swinging a long piece of charred firewood, laying low anyone she managed to hit. Then he spotted Clara right in the thick of it, too. She had her skirts hiked up indecently high to give her room to kick. Any man who approached her got kicked between the legs. Five men lay at her feet, clutching their privates, groaning and throwing up.