He rounded an outcropping of rocks, bringing the wagon road into view in the distance. A figure shifted on the trail. A man? His heart gave a leap. He’d not seen a person in weeks. He squinted to focus.
Two forms, actually. Animal, not people. One must be the mule he’d heard. Micah lengthened his stride. Where there were mules, there had to be men to handle them.
The animals lingered on the mountain road, waiting. But for what? No man moved around them. At least, none he could see.
Something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones. The same way he used to know his doctoring skills were about to be summoned, even before a pounding knock sounded on his door.
That had all been so many desolate years ago. Too bad the instincts hadn’t died along with everything else he’d loved.
two
A mournful bray sliced through the blasts of icy wind. Micah approached the two mules with a slow step and an outstretched arm. The animals stood in the bend of the road in the switchback, harnesses hanging from them, reins and straps dragging behind into the brush along the side of the road.
The mule that cried out stood with its hoof cocked at an odd angle. Broken. He’d seen that twisted look enough to know, even before feeling the bones. The other mule stood on all fours, although the whites of its eyes flashed, as though still recovering from a fright.
Micah’s chest tightened as he scanned the area, his gaze drawn over the side of the mountain. Had a wagon tumbled down that treacherous descent? The cliff didn’t drop off completely but tapered steeply enough that a hurtling conveyance wouldn’t survive the impact at the bottom. Neither would the people inside, unless they jumped off.
He stepped from the trail and grabbed a bush to help him descend the incline. A motion to the side snagged his focus.
Was that . . . blue fabric?
His pulse surged as he scrambled toward it, jumping a rock and sidestepping a scrubby pine.
A woman lay on the rocky ground, her body twisted.
His chest clenched as he slowed to take in the details as he approached, his mind falling into the habit too easily. Her head lay at an angle, but maybe not as much as he’d first thought. The loose strands of her glossy brown hair gave her more of a disheveled look, not that of a broken spinal column.
Dropping to his knees beside her, he pressed two fingers against her slender neck. He’d not seen a woman like this in more months than he could count.
He forced his mind to focus, to shift back into his training. He scanned the rest of her. Arms bundled in a coat, not lying at awkward angles. Legs were hard to tell under all those skirts. She hadn’t dressed for the mountains in winter, but more for an eastern ballroom. What was a woman like this doing in the wilderness with a snowstorm coming any minute?
A faint pulse sped under his fingers. Light but quick. Her face was pale, and a bead of sweat glistened across the porcelain skin of her brow. He pressed his hand there. Cold and clammy. A knot formed in his gut.
“Miss?” He patted her cheek with just enough umph to pull her to consciousness if she wavered at the edge.
No response.
He stroked her head, running his fingers over every inch. A bump rose near the base of her skull. How long had she been unconscious? Her condition required getting her to a warm shelter, but there might be others who needed him, too.
Shifting away from her head, Micah began a quick fingertip assessment over the rest of her. He’d feel better about doing so if he had her consent before checking her legs, but if a bone needed to be set, she’d thank him later for getting the job done while she couldn’t feel the pain.
Before he’d raised the skirts higher than her booted ankles, the unnatural turn of her left leg twisted the knot tighter in his gut. A quick inspection revealed the truth. Her thigh bone had a full break—an excruciatingly painful break, given the amount of swelling already.
He had to set the bone before she moved, preferably before she woke up. But he still needed to look for other survivors. She couldn’t be traveling alone, and someone’s life may depend on him.
He rose and strode down the mountain, shifting and sliding as he went, bracing himself against brush and rock. It wasn’t hard to follow the trail of bent saplings and rumpled bushes. He hoped the thick underbrush had helped slow the careening wagon.
Partway down the slope, the shattered remnants of a conveyance pressed into a cluster of sturdy lodgepole pines. His breathing grew harder, but he forced himself to shuffle down the steepening hill. No one could have survived that crash.
A flash of buckskin snagged his focus, just beside his foot. A leg.
He stumbled forward, then twisted and dropped to his knees beside the man who’d been shielded under a squatty bush. An older fellow with graying hair and a thick beard. The haggard sun-leathered lines of his face and well-worn buckskin carried the look of a man familiar with this territory.
Micah waited a whole minute with his fingers pressed against the patient’s neck, shifting in search of a pulsing artery. Nothing.
He straightened the man’s arms and gave him a final squeeze on the shoulder. “Rest in peace. I’ll be back to settle you when I can.”
He pushed to his feet and another boot caught his glance, only a stride or so behind this man. How many were there?
Micah swallowed the burn in his throat as he stepped toward a stout, well-groomed man. A gash ran from his cheek all the way down his neck, the skin split wide and still oozing blood. Micah avoided the crimson while he focused on finding a pulse somewhere in the man’s veins. The gray interspersed through his hair made him appear to be in his middle years. Maybe the woman’s father or uncle? His hands weren’t work-worn but did have burn marks and calluses in odd places. Interesting.
But the man would never be able to explain the oddity, as his heart no longer beat. Not enough blood left to pump, considering how much had leached into the rocky soil, running down the mountain in a long stream.
Micah looked away, forcing his gaze up to the heavens. Anything to clear his head of other images of blood oozing over pale flesh. Once-delicate skin, marred with the awful pox. Death. No matter how far he ran, he seemed to drag it behind him like a prisoner’s ball and chain.
The sky above offered nothing to encourage him. Only the thick gray of coming snow.
He pushed to his feet. There was much to do and very little time left to do it.
The ebony-skinned woman he found mixed in the debris of the wagon held a sweet smile, even in death. A final sweep of the area showed only splintered wood and fragments of supplies. No more bodies.
There had been only one survivor, and he’d best turn his focus on her if he hoped to keep her alive. With a coil of rope, a blanket, and boards he’d pulled from the wagon, he climbed the steep slope and knelt beside her. “Ma’am?”
She stirred. A good sign—for her head injury at least.
He brushed his hand across her forehead again. Still cold and damp. He had to get her warm. She needed a fire and furs to snuggle under. Both of which he couldn’t give her here.
Especially not with the air thick with ice-tinged moisture. The first flakes would fall any moment, and by the look of the clouds, a dangerously heavy snow would follow. If only God would hold off the snow, at least for a few hours.
But the Almighty had stopped doing him favors a long time ago.
He touched the woman’s shoulder. “Ma’am. Your leg is broken, so I’m going to set the bone. It will be painful, but it’s important I do it right.”