“No.” Lilac raised a hand. “Someone out there is crying.”
“Any idea which way it is coming from?” Lark slid from her bedroll.
“Let’s split up.” Forsythia stood as Del sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Lark, you go that way. Del, you stay here, and Lilac, you and I will go this way.”
“Maybe there’s a house somewhere around here.” Del shook her head. “We sure could use a moon right now.”
“Take the guns,” Lark said. “Shoot once to let us know where you find them and twice if you need help.”
Forsythia made sure she had her knife in its scabbard, and Lilac picked up the handgun they’d taken from the thief. Lark and the Winchester headed north along the shore, and Forsythia and Lilac went south.
They slogged through a marshy spot and paused to listen. The cry came again, closer this time. Beating off mosquitos, they forged ahead, the brush trying to scrape their clothes and skin away.
“Ouch!” Forsythia stopped to unsnag her skirt before it was ripped off.
They could indeed hear a child wailing. They broke out of the brush to see a wagon with a hooped canvas top just like theirs. As they drew nearer, they could see coals from a dying fire and an outline of someone in the wagon.
“Hello? We’ve come to help you,” Forsythia called.
“Oh, thank God.” A man’s voice.
“Pa, don’t leave.” A child.
Forsythia and Lilac sprinted the final distance.
“I’m going to shoot to tell the others where we are, so don’t be afraid of our gun.” Lilac pointed the pistol in the air and pulled the trigger. The shot sounded like an explosion.
The man beckoned from the back of the wagon. “My wife is ill, and the baby might be coming and—and—” He broke down sobbing. “Thank God you’re here, that someone is here. God sent us angels. Here in the wilderness, someone heard and came.”
Forsythia and Lilac paused at the tailgate of the wagon. A woman lay on a pallet, one arm around her small sobbing child.
Dear Lord, how we need your help now. What do we do? Forsythia nodded to Lilac and mouthed, Pray. “Sir, could you and your little boy move out of there to make room for me to see to your wife?”
“Oh yes, of course.” He jumped down and reached for his child. “Come on, Robbie, let these kind ladies help your ma.”
“Go.” His ma pushed the boy with a weak hand.
Once the man and his son were on the ground, Forsythia climbed into the wagon and knelt beside the woman. “We heard crying, so we came. How long have you been sick?” The reek of vomit and intestinal sickness permeated the wagon.
“Thank God for your good ears. It started a couple of—” She paused to suck in more air and blew it out before inhaling again.
“Are you in labor?”
She shook her head. “I-I don’t think so. Too early. Oh, your hand feels so cool.”
“You have a fever.”
“I know. Been coughing some. So weak.”
“When did you eat last?”
She shrugged. “No idea, lost track of time. Thomas tried to feed me, but it-it didn’t stay down.”
“Drinking?”
“Thirsty.”
“Lilac, bring us a cup of water.”
When she had the cup in hand, Forsythia slid her other arm under the woman’s head and held her so she could sip. The woman coughed immediately.
Forsythia sat back on her heels. Lark, Del, please come quickly. But she was the one who had studied and grown the herbs after their mother died. “What is your name, ma’am?”
“A-Alice.” The whisper came fainter as the woman drifted off to sleep.
Thomas, Alice, and Robbie. Forsythia nodded as she climbed out of the wagon. And a baby on the way.
When Lark arrived, the three sisters talked together too low for Mr. Thomas to hear. “We’ve got to get her cleaned up and taking spoonfuls of herb tea and ideally beef or chicken broth. Either way, we need hot water. I say, first we ask him to get the fire built up and pray they have a big pot.”
“We could bring our wagon here to use our pot too,” Forsythia suggested.
“If this is dysentery, it’s contagious. I’m surprised the mister isn’t showing symptoms, or the boy.” Lark chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m trying to remember what I know from bringing Anders back. Dysentery is what killed so many soldiers in the prisons. It spreads terribly fast.”
“So perhaps this isn’t that.”
“I guess we’ll see.” Lark walked over to the man at the fire. “Mr. Thomas, first thing, we need hot water for tea and a lot more water to get your wife cleaned up. Is that all the wood you have?” She pointed to the few pieces lying off to the side.
He nodded. “I’ll get more.”
“We need your largest pot too.” Forsythia twisted her hair back out of the way and rolled up her sleeves.
He nodded and stood, but his son clamped both arms around his leg.
Lilac squatted beside the little one. “Hey, Robbie, I’m going to hold you while your pa goes to get more wood. We need it to help your ma.” She scooped him up, arms and legs flailing.
“Pa!”
Del could probably hear his shriek back at the wagon, but Lilac held him, speaking softly until he settled down.
Forsythia nodded to her. “Just like gentling a horse, isn’t it?” Lilac had always had a way with animals and babies of any kind. “You take care of him, and I’ll take the pot down to the river for water.” She looked over to see the fire catching on the wood Thomas had added. He set a small pan of water from a bucket under the wagon on a rock on the fire’s edge, then headed back into the woods.
“Pa?”
The child’s whimper tore at Forsythia’s heart. “Thank you, Lilac. Poor little one. Must be three or four, you think?”
“About that.” Lilac set him on her hip so she could use her other hand to pat his back, swaying all the while. “Pa went for wood, Robbie. He’ll be back.”
“Wood?”
She used
