Chapter Two
TWO WEEKS LATER
Coop Spencer had lived through his share of barrel fever.
He liked to imbibe when the occasion was right, and the occasion was right pretty often.
But he'd never been knocked on his hindquarters like he was right now. From the typhoid.
He'd heard the frightened whispers from other pioneers in their company. Dismissed them, the same as he had the whispers about bear attacks and raiding parties.
He'd been wrong.
Three days of heaving his guts out, with a fire inside his stomach and crawling through his skin. And far as he could tell, he seemed to be doing better than most everyone in his family, except for his sister Alice.
Right now camp was quiet. Lotta folks sleeping off the illness. He fed a bit of kindling into the fire from where he lounged against his saddle and watched as his older brother Leo crawled out of the tent he shared with his wife and young adopted daughter. Leo made it to his feet but only took two steps forward before he had to lean on the nearest wagon for support.
"Why aren't you out with the cattle?" If Leo's voice had held concern or even curiosity instead of derision, Coop would've pointed to the pot of broth on the edge of the fire. He'd have told Leo that he'd spent hours on wobbly legs toting bowls of nourishment to Collin and Stella, August and Felicity, Owen, Rachel, and checking on little Molly.
Leo had been the recipient of one of those bowls when Coop had delivered food to him and Evangeline and Sarah just this morning.
But since Leo had asked his question with such an air of disdain, Coop drawled, "I checked on the cattle earlier."
"Where's Owen?" Leo leaned heavily on the back of the wagon. His face was pale, a feverish flush high on his cheeks. His eyes were sunken. He looked as if a stiff wind might blow him over.
"Been down for days."
Leo hadn't asked about Coop, only expected more. Like always.
Leo had known Owen for all of four months. Apparently, the man was the spitting image of Leo and Alice's father—the same one who'd abandoned them and divorced their mother before the two siblings could even walk or talk. Twins Coop and Collin had been born after Leo's mother remarried. It was Coop—and Collin—who had stepped up to help the family after losing first their father and then their mother.
It was Coop who'd held things together for the past few days while everyone else had been so sick they couldn't get out of their bedrolls. But Leo didn't seem to remember who'd spoon fed him broth early this morning when he was too weak to lift his head from the pillow.
Several of the cowboys Leo had hired on—Coop had come to consider them friends—had been hit hard with the typhoid, but two of the men had recovered enough to sit in the saddle, and they'd been watching over the herd.
"You should be out there," Leo chided.
Coop shifted from where his right shoulder leaned into a large fallen log. His stomach protested every movement, threatening to bring back up the broth that he had eaten an hour ago. He ignored the queasiness, movements slow while breathing steadily through his nose. He took the lid off the pot, giving it a stir with the long-handled ladle.
"I sorta thought humans were more important than bovines." He gave the pot a good stir, keeping his focus there. He didn't have to look at his older brother to know Leo's expression would be a mix of disappointment and suspicion.
Two weeks ago, Coop had made a promise to himself that he was going to clean up his behavior. Stop imbibing so much. Prove to his family that he could provide and protect just as well as Leo or Collin. With both his brothers married on the trail, and distracted by their pretty wives, Alice needed more help than ever.
But it'd meant long nights of fighting off his demons, trying to drift off to sleep without the whiskey relaxing his muscles and making him forget. And Leo was still riding him, watching Coop's every move. He hadn't seemed to notice any improvement in Coop’s manner. His constant disappointment and frustration wore at Coop like a burr under his saddle.
"You want some broth?" Coop asked as he tapped the ladle against the side of the pot. Maybe Leo would go back to bed and leave Coop alone. But his question seemed to jolt Leo out of his thoughts.
"Where's Alice?" he growled.
Coop felt the grim expression slip over his features. "Gone. She rode off yesterday." With Robert Braddock. Coop kept that news to himself. Leo would have a fit if he knew. "Headed for the fort, I think."
Almost half of their company had gone off and left the rest under Owen’s leadership. Hollis and the others had hoped to find help at the fort. Maybe Alice thought she could do the same.
"You let her ride off alone?" Leo's voice exploded out of him, but the man himself could barely take a staggering step before he had to cling to the wagon's side for balance. If he'd been hale, Coop might've found himself knocked to the ground at the vitriol in his brother's voice.
"No one lets Alice do anything."
Leo was overprotective and controlling. A quintessential older brother. But Alice was strong in her own way. She wasn't one to be pushed around. She was the backbone of their family.
"What if she rides into trouble?" Leo demanded.
"Been trying not to think about it too hard," Coop let the words drawl from his mouth again, knowing they would infuriate his brother.
Coop had fought off his own worries about Alice over the past days. At least she wasn't alone, even if Coop didn’t trust Braddock one whit.
"You should've stopped her. Or gone with her."
Coop ignored his brother. When she'd left, Coop could barely stagger out of his bedroll long enough to fetch water to keep himself alive. He'd puked his guts out, fought off a fever that made every muscle weak and shaky.
And after he'd realized Alice was gone, what she'd done, he'd known there was no one else among their family that could keep the fire going long enough to boil water or make broth to sustain everyone.
A silent roar of anger lodged in Coop's throat. It wasn't fair that Leo couldn't see what he'd done for the family. Only his failings.
"You just don't think, do you?" Leo spat the words. "You're careless. Still. After everything this family's done for you."
Coop slammed the pot lid down, hand shaking.
"What this family’s done for me?" He got to his feet, ignoring the wobbly feeling in his legs, the streak of heat down his spine. "You made us leave all our friends. The only home we've ever known."
Coop had visited his mother's grave in the scant few hours he'd been given to pack up before his siblings abandoned the tenement. He still ached thinking about leaving her there alone.
"You're the reason we had to leave," Leo said coldly. "The reason Collin and I lost our jobs."
The reason their friend had died. Leo didn't have to say the words for them to batter Coop. He'd heard the whispers when his siblings thought he wasn't listening. They'd believed the coppers were coming for Coop because of his negligence in the explosion at the powder mill where the three brothers had worked. The mill owned by Braddock’s grandfather.
Neither of Coop’s brothers had cared to ask him the truth.
Bitterness welled.
"I guess you can get your own broth." Coop stalked off into the night, slowly. For a moment, he thought his stomach would revolt, but its contents stayed put.
Why was he torturing himself? Why try to stay on the straight and narrow when Leo couldn't see past his own prejudices to recognize the contributions Coop had made?
Leo treated him like a toddler.
And Coop was finished settling for it.
If they'd been in a city or even a town, he'd walk away from his family. They didn't want him here. Didn’t need his brand of trouble. Leo might as well have said as much.
But the company was in the middle of the wilderness. He couldn't just walk away with no money and no supplies.
Leo thought he didn't contribute. Let his older brother see what things were really like if Coop slacked off completely.
Because he was done.
"What do I do if his fever won't come down?" the young mother asked.
Doc lifted his ear from the small boy's chest, where he'd listened to a good, strong heartbeat and several breaths.
"It will come down, in time," he reassured her.
"Mama," a new voice with a note of whine that made Doc want to slip into a memory from his own past.
He held steady and kept his focus on this new patient, the small boy who crawled into the pallet this young mother had crafted underneath the stationary wagon. The tot couldn't be more than two. He was flushed with fever, eyes glassy as he settled beside his mother and brother.
"Beh-yee," the toddler whined. Belly.
The young mother looked as if she wanted to weep, but she held out her arms and the boy crawled over his older brother's feet to come to her. She took him in her arms, settling him on her lap.
His head rested against her shoulder and she reached for the bowl of cool water Doc had brought along with him when he'd come to check on this family. She dipped a rag in the water, squeezed out the extra with one fist, and pressed the damp rag to her boy's forehead and cheeks.
Doc reached to close his black medical bag on the ground next to him. There were many other families to check on, and it wouldn't be long before night fell.
Days ago, when the first few pioneers had fallen ill with typhoid, Owen had been in a fierce argument with Hollis, the wagon master. Hollis had insisted on pushing forward, trying to reach the fort for supplies and help.
At least half the company had gone with him, including Maddie Fairfax. Doc had been glad of it. Her presence was a distraction he didn’t need. But over the past days, the worst had happened. Nearly the entire company had been afflicted with typhoid. Every family had been infected.
People were dying.
Owen was sick. His wife, Rachel, too.
Doc was fighting a losing battle.
He’d be lucky to catch a few hours of sleep.
Doc glanced up to give the young mother a few more words that might reassure her. When his glance cut to her, he caught sight of the boy's flushed face and small hand that came up to rest against her neck. An innocent embrace, a silent need for comfort. The young woman bent to press her cheek against the boy's forehead, eyes shining with love and worry.
The shared moment between mother and son pulled Doc into his own memories and he was helpless against them.
Elizabeth had been up late with JJ, their second child and oldest boy. Jason had awoken to find her sitting up in bed, the four-year-old curled in her lap.
"He sick?" Jason mumbled the words, pressing one hand against his right eye socket to try and wake himself. It'd been a late night delivering a baby; he felt as if he'd barely closed his eyes.
Now his son needed him.
"Go back to sleep," Elizabeth whispered. "It's only a bad dream."
A bad dream. Not sickness.
Jason relaxed back into the softness of the feather-tick, one elbow behind his head. His son's soft cries faded to an occasional snuffle and Jason reached out his other hand to press against JJ's back.
His hand tangled with Elizabeth’s. She'd lit a candle at some point and the soft, flickering light filled the room, illuminating her profile and gilding the edges of her hair gold. Her humming was soft enough not to wake the other children.
Jason could barely keep his eyes at half-mast, but he saw the way JJ's body sagged in her embrace. Nearly asleep again. JJ's hand came up to rest against her neck. Completely secure in her love. Safe from whatever had haunted his nightmares.
A wave of love swept over Jason. Elizabeth would always be there, the perfect partner for him.
He snapped the medical bag closed, forced himself out of the torturous memories.
But it was too late.
The cloak of grief and sorrow slipped around him, heavy and choking.
"I'll come around to check on you in the morning." He steeled himself against the sight of the tears standing in the young mother’s eyes, the fear deeper inside them.
He paced away, past the edges of the circled wagons, out into the twilight prairie. He couldn't help the young mother. There was no medicine to eradicate the sickness. Peppermint candy could soothe a stomachache, but it wasn’t a fix. And even that was scarce now that the company had been on this journey for months. Willow bark tea could help with the pain, but it was only managing a symptom.
He was helpless.
If the two children could overcome the fever and stomach cramps, hold down some food over the next few days, they'd survive. Doc had nothing more to give her. No more comforting words.
He might as well have died in the rockslide.
His clenched back teeth caged a scream. If he opened his mouth, or breathed too deeply, he wouldn't be able to hold it in.
Keep working.
The single thought that penetrated the self-hatred and choking grief was enough to give him the fortitude to take a breath. That one thought was enough to cling to.
He made himself turn back to the company, stride through the circled wagons.
There. Someone was up and around in Owen's camp. Doc headed that direction.
Owen fed sticks and twigs to a fire, making it crackle and grow in the deepening light. Doc sidled next to Owen, who squatted next to the growing flames.
"Still feverish?"
Owen nodded, looking peaked. "I thought to make some more of that willow bark tea for Rachel. She needs to keep her strength up for the baby."
Rachel had survived a near-fatal infection after she'd given birth to Molly, still only a few weeks old. Owen had fallen hard and fast for the independent woman he'd married only for convenience’s sake. Now Doc saw the worry lines bracketing his friend’s mouth.
Doc brought over the nearest pail of fresh creek water so Owen wouldn't have to fetch it to add to the coffee pot. He looked as if a strong breeze might keel him over.
"Firewood's running low."
Doc saw Owen's glance at the woods a hundred yards to their north.
"We've been camped here too long," Doc said. "Folks have picked up what loose kindling and logs were freely available."
Owen frowned.
Doc knew what he must be thinking. Almost every single man in their smaller company had been hit hard by the typhoid—Doc was likely the only one left with the strength to use an ax, chop down a tree or split kindling.
Yet Doc was needed here. Even now, someone else moaned from a tent a dozen feet away.
"I've never been this sick before," Owen said. He pressed one hand against his stomach. He was nearly doubled over.
Doc had never suffered from typhoid, but the stomach cramps he witnessed in others were terrifying on their own.
"You've a strong constitution." But Doc's voice cracked as he said the words. He'd only known Owen for a matter of weeks, but the man had become a close friend.
Owen let out a blast of breath. "Check on Rachel for me, will you?"
Doc knew there was little he could do for his friend, knew that if Owen pushed too hard it wouldn't be good. But Doc was in desperate straits, the last man standing in this camp of gravely ill pioneers. If Owen wanted to make tea, he'd let him.
Inside the tent Owen and Rachel shared, Rachel was curled on her side on top of the quilt. The baby slept only inches away, and Rachel had placed one hand on the babe's diaper. Maybe reassuring herself even as she slept that the baby was there.
Rachel's color was better. Her cheeks were a healthy pink, not flushed with fever. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully, face slack and relaxed. She'd been one of the first to suffer from the ailment. Maybe she'd already turned a corner.
Doc was loath to wake her. He gently put one finger at the inside of her wrist where she touched the baby. Her skin was cool and dry.
Hoofbeats thudded from outside the tent. Doc knew that Owen's little sister Alice, along with another traveler, had left camp on horseback days ago. Owen had been furious.
Had they returned?
But this sounded like numerous horses?—
Doc backed out of the tent and let the flap down gently, so as not to wake Rachel or the baby.
Owen had straightened to his full height but looked unsteady on his feet.
Ten or more soldiers on horseback appeared. With Alice. Hollis, their former wagon master, with his rich brown skin and muscular build, dark eyes watchful beneath the brim of his light-colored hat. Hollis’s wife, Abigail, her tawny skin with a pale undertone as if she’d been ill.
And Maddie, riding close behind.
“You want me to see to them?” Doc asked Owen, who promptly sat down, pressing one hand to his temple.
“If you please.”
By the time he reached the center of the wagons, Hollis was off his horse and quietly speaking to the soldiers. He glanced up at Doc. Nodded.
Maddie was at the wagon master’s side. Doc kept his eyes off her and focused on the man.