Chapter 13
There was so much suffering in the camp.
Julie’s heart broke for these poor people.
How long had they been walking? How long had they been starving?
From their condition, it had to be months.
And now several, about eight of them to her count, were sick with the fever and vomiting that had afflicted some of the men back at the mine.
Well, at least she knew what she could do about that. As she moved from one desperate person to another, she noticed that illness wasn’t all they were dealing with. Some of these people had been in fights.
One man, with graying hair and dull eyes, had a stab wound. Someone had tried to clean it up and even stitched it a bit, but the cut had nevertheless become terribly infected. And a woman had two cuts on her arm, bandaged but smelling of rot.
“All right,” she said. “My name is Julie Carter, and I’m an apothecary. I am going to do my best to help you, but I will need you to cooperate.”
Dull eyes turned to her, and heads slowly nodded.
“Timothy, can you help me?” she asked.
The boy nodded vigorously. “Yes,” he said. “I’m not sick.”
Just underfed and holding on by a thin thread, she thought.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
“While my friends make everyone something to eat from the provisions we brought, I think you and I should see to the most serious cases first,” Julie said.
He nodded. “I know who that is. She’s over here.
” Moving swiftly between the people who reached out and tried to grab Julie, Timothy led her to a spot under a large elm, where a young woman sat propped up against the trunk of the tree.
She was pale, frail, and looked just about as close to a corpse as it was possible for a person to be while still alive.
“Lizzy,” Timothy said gently. “Liz. I’ve brought help.”
The woman’s eyes opened briefly, but she didn’t have the energy to do more.
“How long has she been like this?” Julie asked, feeling the woman’s forehead. It was burning.
“More than a week,” he said. “Maybe ten days.”
“Ten days?” Julie asked, shocked and now very worried.
The men at the mine had only been sick for around five days, if that.
They had gotten over the affliction quite quickly.
Even without medicine, it was unthinkable that these folks wouldn’t have started showing signs of improvement by now.
Unless there was another factor at work.
Maybe another illness, or maybe just malnutrition.
“All right,” Julie said. “Timothy, you’re going to need to get some water into her.”
Timothy went to a bucket beside the woman and lifted a ladle. From the look of the water, it hadn’t been cleaned properly and Julie laid a hand hastily on his arm. This could be the answer to why everyone looked so sick.
“Not that water,” she said. “Where did it come from?”
Timothy regarded her as though she was wrong in the head. “It’s from the creek. I went to the places where it was flowing.”
She shook her head with a sad smile. “After the flood, I wouldn’t trust that water without sieving it and boiling it for a good half an hour,” she said. “It could be why people aren’t getting better. Here, give her this water. It’s clean.” She handed him her waterskin.
Then she moved on to the next person, assessing everyone. This would take time. It would help if she had an assistant. She looked around for Andrew, but he was in conversation with an old man. They were sitting on tree stumps in a circle, and from the look on Jeff’s face, something was wrong.
Well, she couldn’t worry about that and all these people at the same time. All she could do was try to help as many as possible.
Luckily, it seemed some of them were on the mend. She could give them a dose of tincture, and they would keep it down. She did that, accepting their thanks as she worked.
Andrew was suddenly beside her. He was agitated and talking fast. For a moment, she couldn’t understand a word he said.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“We’ve been lured here into a kind of trap,” Andrew said. “Those bandits that Timothy was talking about. They’re supposed to be on their way here now. They come every three days, these people’s head man says. And Troy just spotted men on horses headed this way. We have to leave.”
Julie held his gaze. “I’m not leaving these people. They’re in a bad way, and they need help.”
“We will be shot and killed if we don’t leave,” Andrew said, panic rising in his voice. “Julie, we can’t save everyone.”
“But we can save these people, at least,” she said. “Help me get them to the cart.”
“Julie!” he chided her.
Timothy ran over. “Some of us can fight,” he said. He was holding a pistol. Where had he gotten that from?
“You know how to shoot that thing?” Andrew asked.
Timothy nodded. “My pa taught me.”
Andrew held her gaze. What could she do? Timothy wasn’t her child, and he was clearly old enough to decide things for himself.
“Be safe,” she said to Andrew, the thought that she might lose him fleetingly sliding across her mind. No, they would be fine. They would scare these bullies off. Wasn’t that what it took? If someone stood up to them, wouldn’t the bandits leave with their tails between their legs?
“All right, get anyone else who can shoot and let’s see if we can give Julie and Douglas time to get people into the cart,” Andrew said. “I would suggest you hurry.” This last was said to her.
Julie nodded. This was as good as she could hope for.
“Right, everyone, please, you’re coming with us,” she said, holding up her hands to get people’s attention. “Let’s get those who are sickest on the cart first.”
What followed was a frantic rush. There were so many hurt and sick that it was difficult to manage them all. Those who could helped others who were struggling, but when it came to getting them on the cart, Julie had to climb up and help drag them on.
She was just hauling up a frail old man when she first heard the sound of gunfire. Julie froze for a brief moment. Her heart thudded in her chest, and then she worked even harder to get people loaded into the cart, cramming in as many as possible.
Another shot and another and another.
The horse was getting antsy, stamping on the ground, and she didn’t think she could hold him. The man, Douglas, who had been speaking to Andrew and Jeff, climbed up onto the driver’s seat and held the reins.
Julie hurried through the trees, guiding folks to the cart. It was filling up fast. Luckily, some of the passengers were children, and they could sit on their mothers’ laps. Was that all of them? She looked around the trees and saw no one. She couldn’t help but think someone was missing.
“How are you doing?” Jeff asked as he ran by her. “Are you just about ready?”
“Yes,” Juie said, and then shook her head. “No. There’s one more.” She ran off to where Lizzy still sat propped against the tree.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Troy came bounding up to her. “We have to leave,” he cried. “We’ve shot three of them, but there are still four on their way.”
“Help me with her,” Julie said.
Troy nodded, and hoisting Lizzy into his arms as though she weighed no more than a small child, he hurried along. The cart was starting to leave. The horse had had enough and was inching away from the trees and the gunshots.
Troy lifted Lizzy into the cart and then climbed in himself. He pulled Julie in, and she was followed by Timothy and a handful of others, Jeff, her trunk, and finally, Andrew.
“Go!” Andrew cried.
“I’ll steer!” Troy said, making his way to the driver’s seat. He handed his gun to Douglas. “Can you shoot?”
“Yes,” Douglas said, looking as though he would rather not.
“Well, you cover us then,” Troy ordered.
The cart lurched forward, and the horse began to move as quickly as possible with such an overloaded cart. Jeff and Andrew sat at the very back, and as the remaining bandits came around the clumps of trees, they shot at them.
The guns fired, and bullets flew all over. Some smacked into the side of the cart, making the passengers scream.
“Get your heads down!” Julie cried.
She was so afraid. So terribly worried that they wouldn’t make it.
This was an impossible thing. They were all clustered in an overburdened cart that couldn’t hope to outrun galloping horses.
What hope did they have? And yet they had to try.
They had to do their best to get away and save these people and themselves.
Jeff fired, and one of the bandits fell backward on his horse, his body limp like a rag doll.
Andrew fired next and missed his target. They were gaining on the cart. Soon they would be so close it would be hard for the bandits to miss their own targets.
Douglas fired, and another bandit fell from his horse. The beast ran on a little way and then stopped, clearly seeing no need to follow them.
There were two more. Just two. Andrew shot one in the shoulder, but he didn’t stop. Despite the bloom of red blood spreading on his shirt, the bandit kept coming. He fired his gun and one of the sick men in the cart was shot in the leg. He cried out.
Julie fought to climb over people to reach him. It was bad. He was bleeding terribly. She tore a strip of her petticoat off and tied it tightly over the wound. The man screamed and then passed out. Luckily, it seemed her hastily tied strip of cloth was stemming the flow of blood.
Andrew turned to say something to her just as, behind him, the bandit raised his gun and took aim.
“Andrew!” Julie screamed, too late.
In slow motion, she heard the gun roar and watched Andrew fall forward, his face registering shock before he lay slumped in the cart. An old woman turned him over and pressed her hand to his shoulder.
The world went dark around the edges. Julie wanted to cry and scream at the same time. Her mind was oddly blank as though thoughts couldn’t form because the shock of seeing Andrew fall was so great.
Julie fought to reach him, and as she did, she saw that he was still breathing. Thank God. But for how long? This wasn’t going to be how her story went. She wasn’t going to lose her husband, not when she had just begun to know for certain how much she loved him!
No, Lord. Not like this. Please save him! Save us all!
Andrew’s gun lay in an open patch of the cart and as the bandit came right up to the cart, his gun pointed at them, Julie picked up the pistol and fired it point blank. The bandit tumbled to the ground.
The last bandit, wounded from his gunfight with Jeff, seemed to lose interest then and slowed his horse, turned, and rode away.
Andrew’s head was a mess of blood, and some of his hair was missing on the left side. Julie inspected his wound, whispering frantically. “Don’t you die on me, Andrew Carter. You just hold on. You hear me?”
“Julie!” Jeff cried, concern etched on his face. “Is he alive? Is he okay?”
“He will be,” she snapped, still whispering over and over to her husband. “I love you. Don’t you dare die. Don’t you dare, Andrew! I mean it.” And then she prayed like never before.