Page 45 of Conveniently Wed
Edgar pointed to it. “Pull the wagon over there. The hands and I are going to settle the cattle as best we can. Then I’ll come to help you unhitch. Stay put with the wagon.”
She followed his directions, snugging the wagon up as close to the trees as she could before setting the brake. Emma shuffled around in the back as Fran got down, using the front wheel as a step.
It was nice to have a break from the constant jostling of the wagon. Yesterday, she’d been on her best behavior with Edgar beside her. She’d done her best to sit still and not fidget, and her muscles were sore today.
In the relative privacy between the wagon and the woods, she stretched her back, then bent at the waist, reaching down to touch her toes. It was unladylike, but it felt good to release muscles unused to the effort of driving a team.
The sky darkened. How had Edgar known they were in for a storm? Years working outdoors.
She decided it was a good idea to ensure the wagon was as watertight as they could make it.
She turned to the front of the wagon. “Emma? Emma, can you come out and help me batten down the canvas? Make surethe dog stays inside.” Edgar had mentioned that it was his sister’s special pet, and Fran didn’t want it running away out of fright if the storm spooked it.
Emma didn’t answer verbally, but canvas rustled as if she’d climbed down out of the back.
Stepping on the wheel spokes, Fran could barely reach the ties connecting the canvas to the wooden wagon, but checked to make sure each was secured tightly.
A distant rumble of thunder had her rushing through the next knot and then climbing back into the wagon seat to tie off the front flap that they’d made a practice of leaving open while Emma rode in the wagon.
She’d never weathered a storm out-of-doors. The closest she’d ever been was in one of her father’s barns as a small girl. More recently she’d always been indoors when the weather was frightful. And the slate gray clouds now swirling above threatened to make this a memorable time.
“Emma, you about done back there?”
There was no answer other than a bark.
“Emma?”
A little unnerved by the escalating weather and her sister’s silence, Fran hopped down on the wagon’s opposite side. The cattle were more distant than she expected. She could barely make out the cowboys circling the herd.
She turned back to check on Emma’s progress, but couldn’t see her sister. Had Emma gone around the back of the wagon, and they’d just missed each other?
Fran rushed to the rear, but Emma wasn’t there either. She circled the wagon entirely, heart beginning to pound loud in her ears. She threw open the back flap. No Emma, only the white dog, frantically wiggling toward her, no doubt scared by the worry in her voice.
Skirting the wagon a second time, she kept her eyes on the ground. Edgar and his cowhands had talked about tracking the men following them by their prints in the ground, but she couldn’t make out anything in the thick grasses. Not even her own footprints.
Her heart thundered, pulse racing.
Had Underhill’s men caught up with them?
The wind kicked up, blowing strands of hair into her eyes. Thunder rolled, much closer this time.
“Emma!” she shouted. “Come out now!” Could her sister be playing a trick? But Emma had never been particularly cruel.
And then she broke.
“Emma!” she screamed.
She went to the horses, but her fear and panic made it impossible to remember how Edgar had instructed her to unhook their harness yesterday. Even if she managed to get one of them untangled from the wagon, she didn’t know how to ride it.
It would be quicker to run.
She lifted her skirt and sprinted out into the open, praying she wasn’t too late.
Edgar didn’t like the look of the sky. The storm had come up too quickly and threatened to be a real gully washer.
Bursts of lightning preceded thunder, but not by much. It was closing in fast.
The cattle milled disconsolately, bawling and shifting with unease. He’d sent the girls near the patch of woods. He knew from riding through this area before that the land behind thetrees shifted into two levels, a taller bluff and the continuing prairie.
