The hot, moist wind swirled around her body like the tragic images twisting inside her brain, and Minda willed herself not to faint dead away. She had work to do.
She had a child to save.
Gracey came through the woods with Priscilla in her arms. “I'll go to town for help. Some of the men are awful good swimmers.”
“Yes, and hurry!” That's how it would have been in Gleesburg. Even though she was in Paradise now, folks everywhere gathered together to help in times of need.
“Yes, indeed. Go alert Sheriff Pelton.” Jake said. “And have everyone bring nets and poles. And Gracey, take all the children back to the parsonage. One less thing for us to worry about here.”
“I'll stay here and start looking upriver,” Minda said, drawing fresh air into her lungs to stabilize herself. Staying busy might help keep her calm. “I'd like to lend whatever hand I can.”
And, she realized glumly, she'd be close on hand to hear whatever news emerged, good or bad. Icy prickles pierced the back of her neck. She had two people to worry about.
Katie came back after waving Brix on. “I'm looking, too,” she said in a firm voice. “He's my brother.”
Minda nodded. “I do need you now, Katie. You've been a wonderful helper to me at home.” Indeed, the girl was a most efficient youngster and might be of help. Her tears had stopped although the dusty trails of them marked her cheeks.
“Sure thing.” Jake stomped off through the cattails at the water's edge as Gracey took Priscilla and her boys back to their buggy.
“Katie, tell me...” Minda knelt and drew the little girl close. “Did you hear Ned call out? Did you hear a splash?”
“No, Mama, I didn't hear a thing. Uncle Brix taught us to swim one time, but Neddie will be mighty scared. I know it. And I'm scared, too.”
“Of course you are, Firefly. But Ned is a smart boy, and Uncle Brix knows about the outdoors. He'll find your brother.” She tamped down the panic in her trembling voice.
“Are you sure?” Katie pulled away to look at Minda straight on. Her voice had lost some of its energy.
“I am sure.” Minda believed it so it so firmly that her confidence began to steady her shaking knees. She hadn't known Brixton all that long, but she knew full well he liked getting his way.
His sleeping outside was sure proof of that.
“Come on, Firefly. Let's start the opposite direction from the reverend. Ned might have slipped by and I didn't notice. Neddie? Ned?”
“The sheriff's coming soon, isn't he?” Katie said, tiny lines crinkling her forehead.
“Yes. And he's going to bring help. I'm sure they'll all be here in no time at all.” Minda tried to brush away the little girl's worry with a gentle hand. “I think we should look behind any tree branches and poke at all the clumps of weeds and clover.”
Katie nodded, plunging ahead, but called out anxiously, “Watch out! That's poison ivy there.”
“All right. At least we're wearing long sleeves.”
“Well, your hands touched it just then,” Katie said. “See? It has three leaves.”
Minda couldn't worry about that now. Rinsing her hands off in the river was her only choice. Back at home, she could scrub with the fine French soaps her sisters had given her for her wedding. But now, she had more important things to think about.
“Neddie, Neddie!”
“There's burrs, too. And thorns,” Katie said, too late.
Minda pulled her scratched hand from a bush. “I need to be more careful. But don't you worry. We'll have plenty of searchers.” She struggled to catch her breath, but most of the shortness was fear and nerves. “A missing child is a dreadful circumstance. All hands are needed. And I suspect everybody in Paradise is fond of your brother.”
“Papa always said he was a mischief maker. Maybe a turtle bit him. Some of them snap, you know.”
“Then I think we'll find him sooner than ever. He would want a bandage to show for his wound, don't you think?” Minda tried to smile. Katie's description of her little brother was most apt.
Katie carefully waved a branch from Minda's face. But turtles reminded her of something else.
“How about, well, snakes?” Minda asked. Reaching into grottos and searching behind rocks would certainly disturb plenty of wild creatures.
“Just water ones. They don't hurt.”
But unseen bugs of dread climbed up and down Minda's bones and underneath her skin anyway, and tears spilled down her face as she thought of never again seeing little Ned's glorious smile.
Or Brixton.
“Ned? Ned, where are you?” Katie yelled, and Minda was grateful because she found she had no voice just then. Her feet carried her up and down the hummocks of riverbank without any real thought.
Fighting for self-control, she surged through the undergrowth. Mud grabbed at her feet, for the cottonwood trees kept the sun from drying it out. “There's a big tuft of weeds, Katie. Let's go check. If he tripped, why...”
Minda closed her eyes to the unimaginable. His lifeless body might have been brought to shore by the current. She misstepped. Her shoe caught between two roots and she bobbled slightly, twisting her ankle.
“Mama. Are you all right? You can lean on me if you must.”
She shook off the twinge. “No, I'm fine. I think I need to head lower to the water's edge. There are tangled roots. He could be stuck.”
“I'll come too.”
“No, Firefly. You look in the brambles here.” She didn't dare mention the quicksand.
“That's chokecherry. Makes good jam. Neddie likes it.”
“Ned? It's Minda. Can you hear me?”
* * * *
He'd paddled, waded and swum for likely a mile, maybe more, longing to find the boy clinging to roots or grabbing onto cattails. His shoulders ached with a hopelessness he'd never felt ever before.
Not even, he thought bitterly, when he'd taken on a family he didn't want. Scrambling up the bank, Brix gasped for air and grunted in pain. His bare foot met a thistle he'd known about since childhood and should have watched out for.
The fish-hook shaped barb had already found its way inside his arch.
Hell, it wasn't anything he couldn't dig out later. He had better things to tend to now. But even with the heat of the day, he shivered inside his wet clothes and struggled to find a last bit of hope.
Likely Ned had washed all the way to the Platte by now. It wouldn't take anything at all to move a little lad so quick and far.
And hell, quicksand might have swallowed him whole.
Well, not exactly. But the fearsome bog could trap a kid as tiny as Ned, hold him under until the river did its final damage.
Damn, why hadn't Minda watched him better? Why hadn't he taught Ned to swim stronger?
Brix's veins pumped hard but without power. He figured he might have died himself and gone to hell. He hadn't wanted to take on the kids, but he might have tried to be more of a pa. Most times, Brixton Haynes took on any job the best he could even if he didn't like the task. Else he'd never have reached inside a troubled cow to relieve her of a tangled calf.
Or sucked snake poison from a cowpoke's filthy leg. Or bartered his last half-eagles for safe passage for the pitiful remnants of a Kiowa tribe.
“I should have played with you, boy.” Thorn or not, he got to his feet, regret taking over his grief. “What kind of man don't play tag with a kid when he asks? Come on, little fella. Talk to me.”
Brix forced his knees to stand him up. Damn, his brother hardly dead a week, and Brix had another grave to dig.
If they found Ned at all, that is. The little boy's body might become a feast for the fishes. Hell, the coyotes and bobcats along the river were hungry, too.
These nightmares darkened the daylight around him, but Brix shook closed his aching imagination. Like it or not, he was head of a family now and might as well act like it. Might as well head back to the wagon and tend to Katie.
Even Minda. Whether he wanted it so or not, she was his wife, despite her carelessness and uppity ways.
How had they all enjoyed a picnic barely an hour ago?
Nothing but the river made sounds now, not the meadowlarks or bobolinks or the frogs. Not even the chatter of prairie dogs or the whisper of a grasshopper. Maybe the heat of the day had baked them into submission.
But sometimes that meant a human had come by, startling Mother Nature into silence. It could mean himself.
But it could also mean the boy.
He dared to let hope seep into his bones. He made his feet land light along the undergrowth of switchgrass and prairie clover. A blooming jack-in-the-pulpit had the gall to cheer him.
Gracey'd taken to calling them jake-in-the-pulpits, after her husband.
Well, Brix didn't go easily into defeat and would himself die fighting the light.
“Ned? Neddie-boy, can you hear me? It's Uncle Brix. Let me know, boy.” The lad might be wounded, stuffed under a root cave, maybe unable to call out.
He moved along sand bar willows, poking under chokecherry brush, poison oak and ivy too, but damn, he didn't care. His arms reached into any type of hidey-hole he could find.
“Come on, Neddie. I got more stories to tell about that magic cow. Yep, I know Katie likes her, too, but she's busy with that new pink hat. You and me, we got things to do.”
Finally he gave in to the only choice he had left, besides praying, which he was none too good at. The lullaby Neddie liked came from Brix's throat in a harsh way that meant he might have swallowed a tear or two.
For not even when he was alone did Brixton Haynes give in to weeping.
He rounded the bend and saw Jake up ahead. His friend's stern face indicated there was no good news to report.
Jake shook his head. Brix's insides tangled up right. “Gracey went to get help right away. Upriver is probably already crawling with folks.”
But Brix wasn't giving up, not yet, at least.
“I got some hope left, Jake,” Brix said. “Might be foolish, but Norman Dale's already got one of his boys with him in heaven. Just don't think it's Neddie's time.”
“I like to think so. But Brix, I've lost a child. It can be difficult to accept. If you need a friend...”
“Last I heard, you are my friend, Jake. And I haven't lost a child. Better believe it.” Brix grunted. “Why the hell aren't you yammering about how miracles happen? Now get moving.”
Even under Jake's prying eye, he started up his lullaby, then stopped after every refrain and listened, cautious.
Jake opened his mouth, but Brix hushed him. “Get your silent prayers going and listen up.”
For a second, the river seemed to hold its breath, like the wind blew against it and stopped it up.
In the brief space of silence, Brix sure as hell heard sniffles and sobs coming from a stand of tallgrass higher than any small boy. Mule deer and jack bunnies didn't make any sound like that.
“Ned? Ned? Here I am. It's Uncle Brix. Are you hurt? Let me know. Reverend's with me, too.”
Time lasted forever. And at the end of it, he heard the tiny voice, and a little hand reached through the stalks.
Like Brix had wings on his feet, he was there, kneeling down and pulling the boy gently from the thick grass. Ned hiccupped with sobs that had gone on far too long.
“You all right?” Brix didn't see any blood or awkward limbs. And Ned wasn't soaked. At least he hadn't tumbled into the river to fear water forever after. Sending up his own silent prayer of thanks, Brix crushed the boy close. “Neddie, we been powerful worried. Now, let me know what this is about.”
“You scared us silly, little man.” Jake tussled Ned's hair. “Brix, I'll run along ahead and tell everyone you're both safe and sound.”
Brix held Ned, drinking in the sight of him.
“Uncle Brix, I tripped and drowned my doggie.” Ned gulped. His face was lined with muddy tears. “I didn't mean to. It was on accident.”
“Sure, boy. You loved that thing pure and simple. Minda won't mind, I can promise you.”
And she wouldn't mind, not at all. Brix knew that. Even forced to it, she'd been a real good ma to kids she barely even knew. At least that part of Norman Dale's plan had come true. Now that Ned was safe, Minda would likely smother him to death to make up for not watching over him today.
Neddie nodded, dripping sniffles down his cheeks. “I know that. I knew she could dry it on the clothesline. And fold it up again with those ribbons. Katie showed me some pretty ones she has. But I dropped my whistle, too. It floated off.”
Ned's tiny shoulders shook with new sobs. “I tried to follow it, but it went far away.”
Whatever beat inside Brix's chest melted. He rubbed the boy's back. “Well, making you another whistle won't take any time at all, Neddie. Won't bother me a bit. But why are you hiding? You hurt?”
Ned shook his head and jammed his thumb in his mouth. It was a babyish habit Brix had never noticed before.
Then Brix understood. He read it in the boy's eyes, read it clear as the first time he'd ciphered alphabet words in front of a schoolmarm. Ned was hiding in fear, not in shame for spoiling his toys.
Had he seen a wolf?
“Ned, tell me. What did you see? What scared you?”
The boy shivered against him. Even with his own wet clothes, Brix figured his arms warmed Ned somewhat. For a second, he hummed the lullaby again to comfort Ned. “Bobcats and coyotes? A wolf maybe?”
Ned removed his thumb and tightened his grubby hand around Brix's index finger. He liked the feeling.
“No. It wasn't that, Uncle Brix. It wasn't a wild critter at all.”
“What then? You can tell me. I'm here now. Keep you safe.” For the first time ever, his lips touched the boy's hair.
“The outlaws,” Ned whispered, closing his eyes against the memory. “More than my fingers. They wore masks. I hid.”
All Brix's aches vanished. Blood pumped fast and furious in his veins, and words came tight off his tongue. “Come on, Ned. Sit on my shoulders. Let's go find my boots.”
He tried not to let Ned know, but his skin crawled so fast it almost left his bones. The devil himself, in the form of Ahab Perkins, had arrived in Paradise.
* * * *
“Sheriff Pelton, ma'am.” The lawman's horse had stopped on a dime when he came upon her and Katie investigating the riverbank. They were almost back to where they'd started, but Minda wasn't about to give up or slow down.