Luke didn’t know exactly what she meant, but it wasn’t the time to discuss it.
The girl untied the overalls from her leg and scrambled to her feet. “You could have the decency to close your eyes, seein’ as how I ain’t got no pants on and I saved your life and all.”
Incredibly, Luke felt himself smiling. “Yes, ma’am.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Could I ask you one more favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Tell me your name.”
She hesitated, then said, “Emily. Emily Sue Peabody.”
“You sound like a good Georgia girl, Emily Sue Peabody.”
“I am. Where are you from?”
“Missouri. My family has a farm up in the Ozarks.”
“Then you must be a soldier, in spite of what you’re wearin’. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so far away from home.”
“I was a soldier,” Luke said. “But not any more.”
That was true. The gold was gone, his friends were dead, and he had spent the past day on the razor’s edge of death. It wouldn’t surprise him one bit if he closed his eyes and opened them again to find himself in Hell.
“What’s your name?” Emily asked.
“Luke Jensen.”
“Well, I’d say that I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Jensen, but right now that’d be a plumb lie. Now don’t you move . . . Come to think of it, I guess you won’t, will you?”
“Not likely.”
“I’ll be back quick as I can with the wagon. I’d take it kindly if you don’t die in the meantime.”
“I’ll . . . try not to,” Luke said as a new wave of exhaustion washed over him. His eyes closed. He heard the swift splashes as Emily hurried away over the wet ground.
Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought it wasn’t raining quite as hard. Even if the downpour stopped, it wouldn’t mean the danger was over. All the water that had fallen upstream still had to go somewhere. The whole area might flood. If it did, he would be helpless.
“Emily Sue Peabody,” he murmured. It was a pretty name for a pretty girl.
Thinking about her made the pain not quite so bad.
CHAPTER 13
The sound of wagon wheels creaking brought Luke out of his stupor. Rain still fell, but it was definitely not pouring down as hard.
The wheels stopped, and he heard a thud as somebody jumped down from the wagon. Footsteps ran over to him.
“You ain’t dead, are you, Mr. Jensen?” Emily asked.
He opened his eyes and lifted his head. “I’m . . . still here,” he croaked.
Emily bent down to look at him. “Good.” Then she turned her head to call, “He’s still alive, Grampaw!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” replied a voice cracked with age. “I’d hate to think you dragged me out in this rain for nothin’! My rheumatiz don’t like this damp weather at all.”
Luke looked past Emily and saw a man with long white hair and a drooping white mustache coming toward them. The years had bent him some, but he was still fairly tall and his shoulders were broad with strength. He reminded Luke of a thick-trunked old oak tree draped with moss.
“Let’s roll him onto his back so I can get hold of him under his arms and drag him,” the old man suggested.
“We can pick him up and carry him,” Emily said. “I’ll help you.”
“No, the other way will be easier,” her grandfather insisted.
“He said he’d been shot in the back. Draggin’ him like that’s liable to hurt him even worse.”
The old man frowned. “You might be right about that,” he admitted. “All right, get on that side of him. I can take most of the weight, but you’ll have to support some of it.”
“I’ve got it.” Emily moved to loop both arms around Luke’s right arm in a secure grip.
Her grandfather took Luke’s left arm in the same fashion. “All right, you ready? Lift!”
With grunts of effort, they straightened, hauling Luke upright for the first time since the night before. Emily’s feet slipped a little in the mud as the strain of his weight hit her, but she managed to keep her balance and didn’t lose her grip on him.
“This’d sure be easier if you could walk, mister,” the burly old-timer said, “but since you can’t . . .”
Half dragging, half carrying him, they started toward the wagon, which Luke saw had a team of four rawboned mules hitched to it. They looked like pretty sorry specimens and the wagon wasn’t much better. Every step the old man and Emily took sent pain jolting through him, but he gritted his teeth and didn’t cry out. He recalled how he had screamed after Potter shot him, and the memory filled him with shame. He wasn’t going to let himself act like that in front of Emily Sue Peabody and her grandfather.
That wasn’t the only shame he felt. The knowledge that he had driven right into that ambush, had lost the Confederacy’s gold, and gotten his friends killed had started to gnaw at him. He had known good and well there was a chance Wiley Potter and the others would double back and make a try for the bullion. For a couple days he had watched very closely for any signs of an ambush.
But he guessed he’d let his guard down, especially while he was concentrating on getting the wagon up the steep slope of the riverbank. All it had taken was that moment of carelessness, and he had lost everything.
Well, not everything, he corrected himself. He was still alive, even if just barely. Remy, Dale, and Edgar couldn’t say that much. The guilt Luke felt because of that ate at his insides all the more.
When they reached the wagon, the old man said, “Mister, you grab on to the sideboard and help hold yourself up whilst Emily puts the tailgate down. Hop to it, girl.”
Luke grasped the side of the wagon as tightly as he could. When Emily had the tailgate lowered, they helped him around to it and lowered him facedown over the gate. Luke’s weight kept him there while they lifted the lower half of his body and shoved him into the wagon bed.
That hurt like hell, too.
“I can see where the bullet tore his shirt,” the old-timer commented. “Looks like the rain washed out most of the blood. Maybe it did the same for the wound. If it didn’t, he’ll likely die of blood poisonin’ in a day or two.”
“Grampaw!” Emily said.
“Just tellin’ you the truth of it,” her grandfather said. “I’ll wager the fella’s already thought of that his own self.”
“I ... have,” Luke gasped from where he lay with the side of his face pressed against the rough boards of the wagon bed. “I appreciate you . . . trying to save my life anyway.”
“It was the girl’s idea,” the old man said. “I got no use for either side in this war. Haven’t ever since it took my boy and my two grandsons.”
That explained the bitter undertone in the old-timer’s voice, Luke thought, as well as Emily’s comment that her grandfather didn’t want to get involved in the Yankees and the Confederates shooting each other. He thought he had already lost enough to the fighting, and he was probably right about that.
Luke didn’t consider himself a Confederate anymore, not after the way he’d let down the cause by losing that gold. But it didn’t really matter since, as Emily’s grandfather had mentioned, he expected to die from his wound in the next few days.
He would worry about guilt when and if he survived.
“Might be a good idea if you was to climb up there with him and hold him as still as you can,” the old man told Emily. “It’s gonna be a rough ride, and bumpin’ around’s just gonna hurt him worse.”
“You’re right.” She climbed into the wagon bed and sat down next to Luke. Her grandfather got on the seat and took up the reins, yelling at the mules and slapping them with the lines until they lurched forward into a walk.
