Chapter Two
HorsethiefPass,nearPerseverance
Hannah White fanned herself as she watched the driver and the shotgun messenger attempt to fix the wheel of the stagecoach. Despite being up in the mountains, the day had grown warm.
Beth and Mercy sat on a nearby boulder, their chatter slowing as the time stretched on, while the other girls sought relief in the shade of some spindly evergreens. Hannah turned, letting her eyes trace the strange landscape. She’d read a few books about the frontier, but none of the descriptions had ever fully created the image of what she saw now.
Perhaps it wasn’t that thrilling at all for someone who lived nearby, with the rocks and funny clumps of spiky grass and mountain peaks. But for a woman who had never set foot outside the hustling crowds of the city, this place—without a building in sight—was something to behold.
“Why don’t you sit?” Beth said, patting an empty space next to her on the smooth boulder.
“I’ve been sitting for days,” Hannah said. “I might take a walk. Do you care to join me?”
Beth and Mercy looked at her as if she’d taken leave of her mind.
“I wouldn’t advise that, miss.” The shotgun messenger stood up from his hunched position over the wheel and swiped a hand across hisperspiring brow. “Too many unsavory sorts of men along this stretch of road.”
“What do you mean by unsavory?” Mercy asked, leaning forward to hear more while Beth wrapped her arms around herself and cast a nervous glance toward the ground that stretched upward behind her.
“Well—” the man began, but the driver interrupted him.
“Don’t frighten the ladies.” He looked behind him to where Hannah stood. “It shouldn’t be much longer.”
He’d said the same thing three hours ago, when the wheel had buckled and they’d filed outside to wait.
Hannah sighed and returned her attention to admiring the strange landscape. It made her wish she had someone to write to back in New York. She could write to Mrs. Talbott, who had run the orphanage, but she was a practical woman uninterested in flights of fancy. Hannah wished she could write to someone who might appreciate her enthusiasm for seeing something so new and different. But she’d been an orphan since before she could remember, and the girls with her were her only friends. Standing here, breathing in the fresh air, made most of her hesitation for this venture vanish. She’d been the one who had suggested placing a marriage advertisement for all six of them, and she’d been driven entirely out of fear for the future and a desperate need to escape the attentions of a certain man back in New York.
She’d just started to examine a particularly odd-looking plant when a loud, cracking sound and a strangled shout came out of nowhere behind her. Hannah whipped around as a couple of the girls screamed. For a few seconds, she couldn’t figure out what had happened. But then the shotgun messenger fell to his knees as a bloom of something red began to spread across the side of his shirt.
Blood, Hannah realized dully. He was bleeding.Why was he bleeding?
Someone needed to help him.
She ran forward, only for the driver to grab her arm and yank her down to the ground. “Stay down, all of you!” he yelled as he fumbled for one of the pistols strapped to his hips.
“What’s happening?” Ada asked in a panicked voice from the other side of the coach.
But the only answer was another gunshot.
One of the girls shrieked. Next to the driver and the stalled stagecoach, Hannah fought the urge to squeeze her eyes shut. Instead, she cast a glance to the poor shotgun messenger. His chest lifted and fell, and she sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that he was still alive. Still, someone needed to stanch his wound, quickly, before he lost too much blood.
The driver was crouched beside her, his eyes scanning the road ahead. Across from them, Mercy held Beth, who was sobbing. If it was any one of the girls lying there injured, Hannah wouldn’t hesitate to risk helping them.
With just enough courage to drown out the raging fear, Hannah inched forward along the ground. The driver was so preoccupied with locating the man—or men—responsible for shooting, he didn’t notice Hannah creeping toward the fallen man.
She snagged the coat the shotgun messenger had cast to the ground earlier, after they’d stopped. Gripping it in her hands, she rose just enough to press it against his wound. The man didn’t stir, but he continued to breathe.
More shots sounded. Hannah flattened herself to the ground next to the man, still pressing the coat against his side. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Nearby, Beth let out a terrified sob. It wrenched open Hannah’s heart. Coming here hadbeen a mistake. And now it would be all her fault if any of the girls were hurt.
She shouldn’t have ever gone through with placing that advertisement. Working in a factory was preferable to dying in these mountains, so far away from anything or anyone they knew.
I’m sorry, she thought. She repeated the words over and over in her head as she kept pressure on the wound of the man lying next to her.
“Miss?” A male voice came from somewhere above her.
Hannah’s heart nearly stopped. The men who had been shooting at them were here. Now she almost wished she had been shot. Terror turned her limbs into ice as she lifted her head.
But the man standing over her was hardly a monster. Instead, he looked downright concerned. Dark hair showed beneath his hat, and a pair of equally dark eyes held her gaze. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and he led a horse in his outstretched hand. A tin star glinted from his chest.
