“I’m all right,” he assured her, holding up his other hand as if to keep her from dismounting. “My passengers? The horses?” He glanced around, blinking as if the sun had grown too bright.
“We’ll settle them,” Will promised.
“Give me a moment to check on your passengers,” Kate told Elijah, “and then I’ll come have a look at that gash.”
He sank unsteadily onto a boulder at the side of the road.
Will unhooked the last of the harness, yanked out the long straps of the reins, and pulled the team to the trees. Kate dismounted, tied Aster to a tree, and went to see to the passengers. Riding skirt buttoned high, she had to clamber up the wheels and lay on the door panel to peer inside. The interior was a jumbled mess, bodies strewn about and on top of each other. She refused to look away.
A young woman, hat askew, gazed up at her. “Can you help us?”
Kate swallowed, hating to ask the question. “Are the others alive?”
Elijah’s passenger nodded. “I think so.”
Will must have returned to the wreck, for she heard his voice behind her.
“Status?” he asked.
She glanced back at him. His face was pale, his stance stiff, as if he were ready for bad news.
“Two women, two men,” she told him. “Mr. and Mrs. Barksdale, their son, and his wife, I believe. Only the younger Mrs. Barksdale is sensible at the moment.”
“No, no,” the young woman protested. “Peter is coming around. Peter, darling, speak to me.”
“What happened?” The male voice was decidedly groggy.
“If you tend to Elijah,” Will said, “I’ll get them out.”
She slid off the door to land on the road, skirt pooling. “Thank you,” she said before going to see to her driver.
It took a while, but eventually Will had the four visitors out of the damaged stagecoach and at the side of the road. Elijah, riding on the outside, had been thrown clear and taken the worst of the impact. Kate managed to bandage the gash on his forehead with her handkerchief and a ribbon the younger Mrs. Barksdale offered. He seemed to be answering sensibly when she addressed him. But she couldn’t like the lump on his head under his tight curls or the swelling on his knee visible through the rip in his trousers.
“I don’t understand,” the older Mrs. Barksdale, a large matron, said in a trembling voice as they all sat in the shade of the pines. “What happened? Did we hit a rock?”
Her husband, a gray-haired titan of industry, shook his head. “Or perhaps a buffalo?”
“We didn’t hit anything,” Elijah said, pressing a hand to his makeshift bandage. “Something cracked. The stage tilted. I couldn’t do anything except control the horses.”
Peter Barksdale, a younger version of his father, drew himself up. “I must say, I expected more of this fine park. The accommodations the last few nights were atrocious, and now this shoddy equipage nearly cost us our lives.”
“My stage,” Elijah said in ringing tones, “isn’t shoddy. I inspected it myself last night.”
As long as she’d known Elijah, he had had the same routine of checking his coach, his harness, and his team before setting out. Unfortunately, it hadn’t stood him in good stead this time.
“This is a harsh environment,” Kate told the young man. “Everything wears out faster than you would expect.”
“That’s not what happened,” Elijah insisted, lowering his hand. “Nothing wore out. You look at it, Lieutenant, and you’ll see.”
Kate and the others turned to Will. He went to check the wreck. Kate followed.
Of the wheels now resting on the ground, one had several spokes that looked cracked, but the damage could easily have been caused by the crash. Surely Elijah would have noticed if the wood had been splintered before he started out from the Geyser Gateway. Will crouched as if to peer closer at the leather straps and wooden strips that made up the bottom of the coach.
“It could have happened to anyone,” Kate said at his elbow.
“An accident, yes,” Will agreed. “But this accident, no.” He pointed to the long wooden strip that ran from wheel to wheel. “It was cut partway through. You can see the marks.”
Kate stared at it, then at him. “What are you saying? Was this deliberate?”
Will nodded, rising. “Someone didn’t want Elijah and your guests to reach the Geyser Gateway.”
Kate was still fuming when they rode into the yard late that afternoon. Her guests were perched on the coach’s horses, the women with legs over one side and arms clinging to their husbands. The men hadn’t looked too comfortable riding bareback either, but they had managed at a slow walk. Elijah had ridden one of the other horses, face pale and breath rapid, while Kate had led the fourth horse and Will the fifth and sixth. Alberta and Pansy immediately set about making their guests and coachman comfortable.
“I’ll go to the Fire Hole,” Will said, turning Bess after Caleb had taken charge of Elijah’s and Kate’s horses, “and send word to Old Faithful and the other guard stations about the wreck on the road. My men and I will clear it up tomorrow.”
All Kate could spare was a “thank you” before hurrying inside.
The older Mr. and Mrs. Barksdale had been settled in a room at the front of the hotel, their son and daughter-in-law across the corridor. Alberta had apparently dissuaded Miss Pringle and Mrs. Pettijohn from nursing them or Elijah.
“But our things,” the senior Mrs. Barksdale said from one of the beds when Kate checked in on them. “Someone will steal them.”
“We have very little of that in the park,” Kate assured her. “But I’ll send my man Caleb with our pony cart to fetch the luggage. It should be here in a few hours.”
Mrs. Barksdale collapsed against the feather pillow. “We should never have come out into the wilderness.”
“Now, now,” her husband said with an apologetic look to Kate. “We’ve
