Page 76 of A Rugged Beauty
She paused for a moment at the fire to feed it a handful of sticks. It popped and crackled, illuminating the dwindling pile of wood to burn.
Today she'd left camp between bouts of tending her sick family and spent two hours scouring the area for more wood or buffalo chips to burn. Both were growing scarce. They'd stayed too long in one place. And there hadn't been a hunting party to go out since they'd separated from Hollis's company.
Food was growing scarce, too.
The twist in Alice’s gut grew stronger and stronger each time she'd passed through the camp checking on other families that seemed to grow sicker and sicker. Women who should've been resting instead cooked over campfires, and Alice recognized the haunted, hungry looks in their eyes.
"Alice, that you?" The faint whisper cut through the darkness. Coop, awake in his bedroll.
Alice left the fire, bringing the pail of water and dipper with her. The moon was out, beautiful and full. Between it and the fire, she saw too clearly the feverish light in his eyes.
She laid a hand on his forehead as her other hand held the dipper steady. He touched the handle, brought it to his lips and guzzled down several sips of water.
He was burning up with fever. He felt even hotter than Leo had when she'd checked on him a half hour ago.
His lips smacked as he finished drinking. He laid his head back down as if the effort of holding it up was too much for him to bear. Groaning slightly, he wrapped one arm around his middle.
"You're an angel, sister," he whispered.
She wasn't. She was a very frightened woman. Coop had held out the longest. For days, he'd helped her tote water, wash soiled laundry, even cook as the entire company took sick. Until this afternoon, when he'd succumbed to the fever and stomach cramps.
"Doc got any more medicine?" Coop asked. His eyes were closed. Would he even remember the conversation, or would it be like a fevered dream the next time he woke?
"The quinine is gone." The doc had told her so himself when the two of them, along with the couple of others who hadn't fallen sick, had gathered for a meeting earlier this afternoon. That seemed so long ago now.
"For all the good it did," she muttered to herself. The medicine hadn't seemed to make a difference. But what did she know? She wasn't a doctor. Maybe it did something on the inside, something she couldn't understand.
Or maybe all of this was futile.
The doctor had grown more and more grim as the days had worn on. Had they traveled all this way only to die out here on this plain?
She'd kept the thought at bay as Leo had gotten sick. Then little Sara, Owen, August, Evangeline, Felicity. Collin and Stella. Coop.
One by one, everyone she loved had yielded to the fever. And not a one of them was improving.
They needed more medicine. Different medicine. Food.
Help. They needed help.
They should've gone along with Hollis to the fort. She wanted to cry thinking about it.
Coop shifted in his bedroll when she straightened. She bent to brush her fingertips across his forehead. "Go back to sleep. You need rest."
He never opened his eyes, just mumbled something she couldn't understand.
Heart pounding, she tiptoed through the tents to the one Leo and Evangeline shared. Leo would know what to do.
But when she pulled back the corner of the canvas flap and shook his shoulder, he didn't wake. A touch to the back of his hand revealed he was still burning up with fever.
Fear choking her, she had only one thought.
Get help.
She left the water pail behind and strode through the darkness to where Leo and her other brothers had left the horses picketed for grazing. A soft whicker met her ears. Leo's saddle was heavy enough to make her arms shake as she hefted it and brought it to his horse.
The animal stood patiently as she lifted and pushed the saddle onto its back. She was no horsewoman. It took far too long to locate the buckle beneath the horse's stomach. A new frisson of fear skittered down her spine as she imagined the saddle slipping off completely, her with it.
She leaned her forehead into the patient horse's shoulder. What if she couldn't do this?
