Threads of Change (11 page)

“Oh! Thank God!” Liz exclaimed. “Thank God!”

“Yes, his horse got spooked and threw him. He hit his head and was knocked out entirely. I found him just as he came to. It was too dark for us to ride back to camp.”

“What spooked his horse?” Megan asked.

“He wasn’t sure.”

“Where is Chet now?”

“He’s waiting for us by the creek.”

“Gracious, Thomas,” Liz said pensively, “we were so worried. We didn’t know what we would do this morning.”

“Everything is fine now,” Thomas reassured her over the thumping of her heart. “Let’s pack up. Chet’s a-waiting.”

As Thomas dismounted and joined in the process of packing up, Liz noticed him look up and she followed his gaze. The southern sky had quickly turned greenish and dark.

It took some time to hitch up six teams of horses and wagons. Finally, they rolled out of camp, Thomas in the lead wagon once again. He had instructed them that they would travel in a single wagon row because of the narrow path he’d encountered along the small river, and they followed along the creek until it forked south. To the southwest, darkness and fast-moving rain clouds would block the sun out completely soon.

Thomas slowed the lead wagon to an abrupt halt and jumped down. He loosened his horse and walked back to the others.

“Thomas,” Blue called out over the whipping wind, “those clouds are moving fast.”

He took off his hat and looked up to the dark sky.

“I’ve been watching them as we rode,” Blue said. “I thought they would move north, away from us.”

“Everyone stay in the wagons,” Thomas called out. He looked directly at Liz when he added, “Chet is down through the brush. I’ll go get him.”

Liz nodded and called out to him, loudly above the whipping wind. “Be careful, Thomas!” Her concern for him stoked an ember or two in the center of his chest.

Thomas rode down a steep hill and into the brush. The trees grew thicker the closer he got to the creek. Before he reached the bottom of the hill, he already felt raindrops on his neck. His horse shivered from an unexpected south wind.

“Whew! That’s cold, Bootsie!” His horse grunted. “Keep going, we’re almost there.”

Bootsie plowed her way through the thick bushes. Small branches scraped across Thomas’s face as he tried to shield himself with his arm. A narrow area of smooth stones and rocks bordered the skinny river and made it less thick with growth. Just as Thomas reached the area, he saw Chet’s horse and bag.

“Chet,” he called out from atop his own horse.

He spotted Chet eating a dried piece of meat, seated on a fallen tree. “Chet, we’ve got to get going! A storm is coming in.”

The long rag Chet had worn across his head now protruded from his back pocket.

“How do you feel?” asked Thomas.

“I can ride.”

Chet hurried to place his cup and food into Tessie’s saddlebag and hastily hopped into the saddle.

The flaps on Liz’s bonnet pressed against her face. A fierce gust of wind caught her attention and compelled her to look up. The huge dark storm had already pressed upon them.

We should take cover
, she thought.

As a young child, Liz had been taught how to read the weather and how to distinguish a severe storm from a mere rainstorm, and she wondered how this one had crept up on her. She had educated Luke with all she’d learned about the weather and they’d always pulled together to prepare for such circumstances. She felt a little frustrated over allowing the storm to catch her off guard.

Dead limbs hung carelessly over Blue’s horses at the back of the wagon train. A strong flurry of wind blew across the trees and suddenly, with a big crack, one of them collapsed to the ground in one swift movement. As they hit the ground, Blue’s horses spooked from the commotion and immediately took off at a full run with Blue yanking back on the reins. As Emma and Abby screamed, Blue shouted at the horses as he tried to gain control, but couldn’t seem to manage it.

As the horses and wagon sprinted to safety, the back wheel clipped the side of Luke’s wagon, sparking discord among the animals. Still hitched to their wagons, the horses ran off in a panic. The rain pelted stronger and lightning flashed. Luke and Blue, still on their wagons, struggled to gain control.

Lightning illuminated the dark sky, revealing a snaking twister that reached toward the ground with smoky fingers. Liz gasped as she watched the tornado fly over the trees, her own heart spinning with fear as it approached the ground.

Cold rain splashed her before it whirred around her and pelted faster with each frantic breath she took. It became difficult to see as the rain and wind whipped her hair and bonnet. Panic began to swell inside her.

“Twister!” Liz called to the frantic group as Blue and Luke steered their wagons back toward them. “Take cover! It’s coming our way! We need to find a low spot! Get to shelter!”

Blue pointed toward a ravine just a short ways from them. The teams of horses seemed as eager as the drivers to find safety, and they moved without prompting.

It surprised Liz to find how easy it was to get the wagons to the ravine, and they made it there quickly. The horses became jittery over the hailstones that bounced on their targets.

The men had nothing to which to tie the teams, and Liz felt frightened that the horses might spook and run again. Abby, Emma, and Megan had found their way to safety, and Luke stood away from the shelter holding his team while John, Blue, Luke, and Liz each did their best to keep two teams calm during the worst of it.

Hail pounded across Liz’s shoulders as she tried to protect herself next to the animals and, at the same time, hold onto the reins to keep the horses calm. Her bonnet flew up, and she found herself soaked to the skin and shivering almost immediately. She nestled in closer to one of her horses and tucked her head under the soft velvet line of its neck. She wondered who actually comforted whom. The wind whipped her dress around her legs in a tight embrace and, when she glanced out to see how Luke fared, her bonnet flew back from her head and a hailstone pelted her on the mouth. Her lips felt numb from the cold and she tasted blood.

Liz hung her head down under the protection of her horse while sobs escaped from her, almost before she even realized she was crying. She continued to weep as the rain mixed with her tears. She could not keep the sensation away. With the storm came a feeling of hopelessness, and the rain that hit her face beat memories of the Riverton Mill and the day she became the widow of Caleb Bromont straight out of her. What had happened to the good luck that her Irish chain anniversary quilt was supposed to bring?

Thoughts of Caleb summoned fear and dread for their son, and Liz shoved the wet hair from her face as she looked for Luke. The storm still raged, but his two teams did well. The hail had passed quickly; hopefully, the threat of the twister, too. “Liz,” Abby called. “Hurry, come inside. The thunder is almost gone now. The horses will be fine.”

Abby had the strings untied from the wagon cover and held them tightly as the wind whipped about to keep it from invading her almost-dry habitat.

Liz gave a word of encouragement to the animals and pulled her black boots from the mud and streams of water that flooded past her ankles. Her saturated dress had lost all its absorbing power. The water flowed past her hemline. She felt bone tired as she waded her way toward Abby, her dress weighing more than she did. She nearly missed the wooden foothold on the wagon bed and, as she climbed up to comfort, her heel caught the edge of her skirt and ripped it at the waist. Her hand then slipped off the top edge of the wagon and she fell, hitting her cheek bone on the wooden sideboard.

Abby heard the whack of Liz’s face against the wagon. “Oh my, Liz! Are you hurt?” she cried.

Liz climbed into the wagon, falling into a state of exhaustion with mud, blood, and tears burning over her cut and swollen face. Abby, seeing her cousin’s distress, quickly went to work.

“Megan and Emma are in the wagon over there.” She motioned to the back corner of the wagon as she cared for Liz’s cut cheek, and she pulled out some dry things for her cousin. She turned around to grab the cords of the wagon cover and peeked out quickly before pulling them tight again and dropping the big flap from the top. She pulled another string around a toggle nailed to the wagon’s side.

“Luke just climbed up in his wagon, and the men are headed to theirs. Hopefully, the worst is over. Oh, Liz, you are drenched and bleeding. I hope you don’t catch your death of a cold. Hurry and dry off.”

Liz pulled the remnant of her dress from her body. As she swept her hair up in the empty flour sack, Abby saw her battered shoulder where the hailstones had bruised her skin. Liz jumped as the cotton sack touched her tender shoulders.

“I feel beaten, inside and out. I don’t know which is worse,” she told Abby. Then, in an effort to reassure herself, she asked, “Luke’s in his wagon?”

“Yes.”

“I hope he has his pinwheel quilt where he can use it.”

Liz had quilted Luke’s quilt with wool batting from Mrs. Dongreen’s flock of sheep. Liz thought she made the best wool batting. However, she could only afford one length a year.

“It will help keep Luke dry. It is the best for humid climates, though. Oh … I must be delirious, rambling on like this, dear Abby.” Liz popped her head into the surprisingly dry and welcome nightgown.

The rain continued to come down in sheets all night long. Liz felt so exhausted that, once again, she fell asleep nearly the moment her head hit her pillow. She pulled Abby’s soft worn quilt up to her battered shoulder and snuggled into its comfort and warmth. As she drifted off to sleep, she wondered if Caleb would arrive in the morning and take them safely to their new home in the west. Somewhere in her sleepy thoughts came the realization that Caleb would never rescue her again. She was on her own.

T
he rumbling storm continued to drop massive amounts of rain all night long. Thomas and Chet found an area under a stand of trees to stay as dry as possible in such conditions, the cover still insufficient. They were both icy cold and wet to the core. Thomas kept a close eye on the creek. He did not want to be caught in a flash flood on top of everything else.

“Thomas? Do you think any of the big paw prints we found will still be around in the morning?”

“I don’t see how in this storm.”

“I’ve seen ’em before,” Chet told him. “But those tracks … they’d have to come from a large cat, what the Indians call puma. They pull their claws in when they walk. Dogs and coyotes—even bobcats—leave a claw mark when they walk. These panthers can get pretty big. I once saw four-inch pad tracks on a black one. It stalked us for two days over in east Texas. Killed one of our horses just for sport, then didn’t take one bite from him. It was evil, just plain evil.”

Thomas looked over to Chet, water streaming off the brim of his hat and onto his poncho, which he had retrieved from his saddlebags before his horse ran. “What else do you know about these panthers?”

“Puma cats have front paws that are larger than the back. When they walk, their rear paws step into the print of the front one, causing overlap of the paw prints. They walk clean, straight lines, distinct with three lobes at the heel of the pad and two at the top, with four toes. Those tracks we saw today are puma prints, for sure. It has to be a black panther, and the size is the biggest I’ve ever seen or heard of. That’s what spooked Tessie, I’m sure of it. I scouted with an old Indian. He told of a legend about a black puma. It was an evil spirit to his people. Would stalk his people and bring bad luck. As long as it prowled about, destruction was close at hand.”

Thomas wasn’t sure he believed in evil spirits or legends with curses, but he knew one thing for sure: Luck didn’t seem to be on his side at the moment. Thunder boomed overhead, and the rain slowed to a heavy drizzle. He glanced toward the stream once more and noted its rising and rapid movement. His immediate concern, however, focused on where his horse had run off to, and whether or not she remained safe from the puma.

“Where do you reckon the women are?” Chet asked.

“I hope just up the hill a short ways. I saw plenty of trees for them to take cover. We’ll know which way to head to look after them in the morning once I find my mare. I hope the men got the teams tied up good in all this thunder.”