Rainy Day Dreams: 2 Page 24

  Kathryn held the platter steady and glanced uncomfortably around the room. “Maybe it’s the strain of waiting for an attack.” She made a face. “Though it’s having the opposite effect on me. My stomach is so upset I don’t think I could eat a bite.”

  Evie turned to her giant skillet and scooped up a mound of crispy bacon to add to the platter. “I hope things calm down soon so we can talk.” She lifted a sympathetic glance and lowered her voice. “I want to hear about your talk with your sister.”

  Heaving a sigh, Kathryn nodded. Her talk with Susan had not been very satisfactory. Or enlightening, either. When they were girls they had talked about everything, had shared every thought, every detail of their lives. Many a time Mama had come into their room in the early morning hours and sternly informed them that their voices were carrying through the walls and that they were keeping the house awake.

  But that had been a different Susan. This one delivered a tale of an exciting life working a series of saloons, most recently in Yuba City, which she declared she enjoyed to the fullest. Then, pronouncing herself exhausted from the journey, she had taken possession of the narrow bed and fallen into a deep sleep. Kathryn had begged a spare blanket from Madame—who was much subdued after her conversation with Evie, Louisa, and Letitia—and spent a fitful night on the hard floor, listening to her twin snore. Susan had still been sound asleep when she left this morning.

  Speaking of Madame.

  She leaned over the platter and whispered to Evie. “And I want to hear about your talk too.”

  Evie opened her mouth to reply.

  The door flew open with a crash. A vaguely familiar Indian woman stood in the doorway. Kathryn barely had time to recognize her as Princess Angeline’s friend, the one who’d delivered the news of the disaster at the Cox’s cabin.

  “The Klickitats are coming!” Her scream filled the dining room, an edge of hysteria making her voice shrill. “Hiu Klickitat copa Tom Pepper’s house!” She turned and fled, her squat legs pumping as fast as she could make them go.

  “What’d she say?” someone asked in the stunned silence.

  “I think she said there’s a bunch of Klickitats around Tom Pepper’s house. That’s down on the eastern edge of town.”

  At that moment, an explosion blasted through the air. It vibrated in Kathryn’s ears, and she felt the rumble through the soles of her feet.

  The room erupted in chaos. Chairs flew as men leaped out of them. Noah descended the ladder leading to the living quarters on the second floor. He leaped to the ground from halfway up and crossed the distance to his wife in two paces.

  “Evie, let’s go.” Grabbing her hand, he jerked her forward.

  As she was pulled toward the door, Evie reached a hand toward Kathryn. “This is it. Come on.”

  Kathryn’s mind raced. Her emergency bundle was in her room. No time for that now, but—

  “Susan!”

  Her sister would have no idea what was happening or where to go. She whirled in the opposite direction and dashed out the back door, heading for the hotel.

  Jason finished his tally of the stacked milled lumber and turned to Will. “That’s it. Every last board counted and ready for loading.”

  Will opened his mouth to reply, but then shut it. His gaze fixed on something behind Jason. “What’s he doing—”

  “They’re here!”

  The urgency in the shout left no doubt about who “they” were. Jason whirled to see a man tearing through the sawmill shed, leather-clad arms waving wildly at the men. He barely had time to recognize David’s Duwamish friend, Yoke-Yakeman, before the man completed his circuit and raced through the far end, still shouting, “They’re here! They’re here!”

  The workers sprang into action. Men dropped what they were doing and ran for the road, feet pounding and unintelligible shouts filling the air.

  “Somebody’s got to send word to Captain Gansevoort,” shouted Will.

  An answer was yelled from the midst of the crowd. “They already did!”

  Jason ran to the bay side of the shed. The water between the Decatur and the shore was dotted with rowboats filled with sailors, pulling against the oars with astounding speed as they headed for the dock. A flash and an explosion erupted on board the warship’s deck. The howitzer. A few seconds later an answering blast sounded from somewhere beyond the town as the missile found a target. A cloud of black smoke exploded into the sky in the east.

  Pulse racing and thoughts racing faster, Jason bounded toward the office where his rifle lay in readiness beside the door. Then he joined the throng in a mad sprint for the blockhouse.

  Lord, help us!

  The ground flew beneath his feet. All around him grim-faced men gave their all to the race for safety. Sounds reached his ears, the retort of gunshot echoing off the clapboard buildings. Gunfire. And the shrilling whoops of Indians at battle that chilled his blood. The noise came from the direction of the blockhouse. Hands clasped around the rifle’s stock, he pushed his legs to greater effort.

  When they reached the knoll, people were already streaming through the door. Flashes ignited in the upper and lower windows, and in a glance he saw the thin, deadly barrels of rifles protruding through the loopholes. Screams filled the air, women and children and more than a few deep male voices, as bullets whipped over the heads of the people who scampered for the doorway, stark terror apparent in their faces.

  Was Kathryn already inside? Was she safe? If only he had some way of knowing…but there was no time. He caught sight of a familiar face and sprinted the last few feet, screeching to a halt at David’s side.

  “Get these people inside,” the man yelled, and, leaving Jason in charge, darted around to the other side of the fortress.

  Jason waved his hand above his head, shouting to be heard over the people’s cries. “Hurry. Make room in there.”

  A little boy fell and his panicked mother shrieked. Intent on getting to safety, people swarmed around him, and the terrified child curled into a knot on the dirt, head buried in his arms. Jason dashed through the crowd and snatched the boy up. Thrusting him toward his mother, he gripped her arm and propelled her forward, releasing her only when she was safely inside.

  The blockhouse was nearly full, the running stream of people reduced to a frenzied few. Noah and Evie ran up together. Her face was white as paste.

  “Have you seen Kathryn?” he shouted as a gunfire crackled from somewhere behind him.

  They all ducked instinctively.

  “I don’t know where she went,” Evie yelled back. “She was right beside us, and then she was gone.”

  They turned to scan the road, and then Evie let out a screech. “Louisa!”

  Jason looked where she pointed. Louisa Denny ran down the center of the street. She held her daughter tight over her swollen belly, clutching a pouch of her apron in one hand. Another volley of shots rang out and she bent over in a crouch, but did not slow. A blur from the corner of the blockhouse caught the corner of Jason’s eye, and then David dashed down the hill toward his wife.

  Breath slammed in his lungs when Jason’s gaze fixed on a pair behind them. Two women were running all-out toward him, arms locked together at the elbows. A mass of dark hair flew out behind one like a mane, while the other—

  Panic blurred his vision.

  The other’s hair flopped in twin braided loops dangling around her ears.

  Shots cracked. A dozen mini-explosions flashed from the forest to his left. A barrage of bullets and arrows flew through the air.

  One of the women stumbled.

  “Kathryn!”

  The scream ripped from his throat, while horror spread over him. Kathryn tumbled to the ground and lay there, unmoving.

  Jerked to a stop by Kathryn’s fall, the other woman looked down on her prone body. And then she too collapsed.

  Jason flung himself down the hill before he could think about it. Brain numb, thoughts frozen, he flew toward the prostrate pair and reached them a split
second before Noah. Dirt sprayed when his boots skidded to a halt.

  “Kathryn, are you—” He stopped, words arrested by a tongue dazed with shock. He looked from one unconscious face to the other.

  There were two Kathryns.

  “I’ve got this one,” shouted Noah, and grabbed up the one in the nightgown.

  A bullet whipped through the air above Jason’s head. Forcing his dead limbs to move, he grabbed the other. When he hefted her in his arms, something tumbled to the ground. A dark brown braid. He couldn’t make sense of that now. Snatching it out of the dirt, he whirled and carried the inert form to safety.

  Kathryn swam to consciousness, the air around her thick with the smell of gunpowder. The crack of gunshots ricocheted off the walls, fired from every direction around her. The noise was deafening. Even worse were the high-pitched whoops that penetrated the fort from outside, ferocious battle cries echoing toward them from the forest. The savage screeches chilled the blood in her veins.

  “You’re all right. You’re safe now.” Evie’s voice, soothing and comforting, was accompanied by something cool and wet pressing against her forehead. She opened her eyes to find her friend’s face hovering over hers.

  “What happened?” Her memory was a foggy jumble. The battle had begun, that much she remembered. She’d rushed to the hotel, jerked Susan out of a deep sleep, and dragged her, protesting, outside.

  “You fainted, that’s all.” Evie picked up her hand and pushed her fingers in place to hold the compress to her own forehead.

  “Again?” How utterly embarrassing. When had she turned into one of those fluttery women who swooned?

  “Apparently it’s a family trait,” her friend said drily. “Your sister fainted too.”

  She pointed to a place a few feet away, where Susan sat propped against a post, her hand trembling as she held a cup to her lips. People huddled all around her, most of them seated on the dirt floor, faces pale in the glow that shone through the slitted windows. Dust motes danced in the light, whirling around the heads of the men who stood at every opening, upstairs and down, rifles pointed outward.

  Another battery of shots volleyed around them, and nearby a child’s crying took on a fevered pitch. The import of her situation struck her, and she jerked upright. The war had begun.

  Evie tried to push her back down, but she waved her friend off.

  “I’m fine. Let me help someone who needs it. Are there many wounded?” She hesitated, almost afraid to ask. “Or…killed?”

  Amazement stole over Evie’s features. “None so far. A few gunshot wounds, none of them too serious.”

  A child near the far corner stood from where he had been sitting with a group of other youngsters. He dashed around the perimeter of the crowd in her direction.

  “Miss Kathryn!”

  The poor boy’s face crumpled as he drew near, and she opened her arms. Sobbing with fear, John William threw himself into them. Forget what his grandfather might say. For now, the child needed comfort. She hugged him close.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  When his wretched shivers stopped, he pulled back to look up at her with round eyes. He lifted a hand and tugged at her hair. “You look funny, Miss Kathryn.”

  “I do?”

  She reached up to feel her braid, and her fingers grasped ragged ends. It all came back in a rush. The mad dash down the street with Susan. Louisa running ahead of her. The blockhouse looming in the distance. The fear, the stark terror as a bullet blasted into the dirt not two yards away. She’d spotted a familiar figure standing at the top of the hill, tall and beckoning, and her heart had leaped into her throat. Jason! She’d wanted to sob her relief, but she couldn’t waste the energy.

  And then something whizzed by her head. A bullet! She heard it whoosh past her ear like a tornado. A pungent, burning smell. Her hair was on fire. She’d reached up, grabbed her braid, and it came off in her hand, the edges singed. And then everything went black.

  “They shot straight through my braid.” She looked up at Evie for verification.

  Her friend nodded and pulled something out of her apron pocket. She tossed it into Kathryn’s lap. “Jason picked it up when he went after you.”

  “Jason came after me?” Tears leaped into her eyes, blurring Evie’s nod. Furiously, she blinked them away. “Where is he?”

  Evie’s head lifted to scan the upper perimeter. “There.” She pointed to the platform above them.

  Kathryn twisted around to look, and her gaze locked with his. Jason! She saw his lips move, saw them form her name. Emotion rose up in her, so thick for a moment she couldn’t breathe. His eyes blazed with an intensity she could see even in the dim light, even across the distance, and it wrapped around her like an embrace.

  Then he turned back to the window and lifted his rifle back into place.

  Another torrent of shots pounded against the thick wall behind her. A new chorus of screams arose from the terrified people in that vicinity, and the ones seated closest to the wall scurried toward the center. Susan yelped and closed the space between them on her hands and knees, where she hovered beside Kathryn, trembling.

  “What kind of place have I come to?” She squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in Kathryn’s shoulder. “I shoulda stayed in California, where it’s safe.”

  John William leaned back in her lap to look at the newcomer, and surprise flashed onto his features. Tears forgotten, he lifted a hand to stroke Susan’s cheek.

  “There’s two Miss Kathryns,” he said to Evie, his eyes full of wonder. “Only that one still gots all her hair.”

  A wild desire to laugh seized Kathryn. She swallowed it back. A ferocious fear hovered over her, and she was afraid if she started laughing she would give in to hysteria. Instead she forced her tone into a semblance of normalcy for the boy’s sake.

  “There aren’t two of me, sweetheart. This is my sister, Miss Susan. Susan, this is John William.”

  Susan lifted her face to peer at the child. A quick, nervous smile flashed onto her lips. “Hello. Aren’t you a cute little…”

  Her voice trailed off, and her mouth inched open. She stared at the child, jaw dangling. A look of utter disbelief stole over her features.

  In a flash, everything fell together. Will’s accusation rang in Kathryn’s ears even louder than the retort of the rifles.

  “Does your father know what you really are, or have you fooled him along with everyone else?”

  “I don’t know what game you’re playing but I will not let you ruin everything. We’re happy here.”

  All the time she thought he knew her secret. That he would expose her for being a criminal. But she was wrong.

  He thinks I’m Susan.

  And that meant he knew Susan from somewhere. With eyes that felt like they were finally open for the first time, she looked at John William. The time she’d seen him biting the tip of his tongue, he’d looked so much like Papa. The round green eyes, so very similar to her own. The same color as hers…and Susan’s.

  From his vantage point on the upper deck, Jason counted the pillars of smoke visible through the loophole. Eight, and that was only on the east side of town. How many homesteads had been ransacked and burned? How many lives lost? He turned to scan the people crowded below him. Nowhere near the three hundred souls who called Seattle home. Had their senses of danger dulled with the repeated false alarms, or had they been too terrified by the actual attack to escape?

  The gunfire from the forest had slowed to a few scattered shots twenty minutes ago, and then ceased completely. One of Captain Gansevoort’s scouts reported that he’d heard a squaw shout hyas muckamuck, which David translated as lots of food.

  “Do you smell that?” Beside him, Noah pointed his nose in the direction of the window and sniffed. “They’ve butchered our livestock for sure and roasted them for lunch.”

  Beyond Noah, Big Dog turned a wry scowl on him. “It’d be nice if they’d shar
e. My belly’s as empty as a rain bucket with a hole in the bottom.”

  “Here.” Noah scooped a bulging scrap of linen off the floor near his feet. “It’s only a biscuit, but it’s better than nothing.”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  His shoulders shook with a quick laugh. “Louisa Denny. She said she was pulling them out of the oven when the alarm came, so she dumped them in her apron, grabbed her daughter, and left.”

  Jason looked down to find Louisa, but his gaze stole once again to the place below him where Kathryn and her sister sat in a small cluster of women. Twins. With a hand that smelled of sulfur he scrubbed at his scalp, as if he could force his thoughts into something that made sense. The frenzy of the past eight hours had left him too bone-tired to think straight.

  To his right, Will had claimed a seat on a half-empty gunpowder keg. He, too, stared at the pair, his expression one of stunned disbelief.

  “All this time, I thought it was her.” His head shook back and forth. “I thought she’d given a false name to deceive me until she could make arrangements to take him.”

  “I can see why you’d think so.” Though he had not yet seen Kathryn’s sister up close, the resemblance from this distance was so striking as to be uncanny. “I couldn’t understand why you hated her so.”

  “I can’t bear the thought of losing him.” The agony in his voice snatched at Jason’s heart, and he followed his gaze to the boy, John William, who was seated between Kathryn and her sister. “She didn’t want him. John told me so. He met her in a saloon in El Dorado and fell for her. I went and saw her dance there once. Didn’t tell her who I was.” His glance slid sideways to Jason’s face. “He would have married her when he found out there was a baby coming, but she wouldn’t have him. Said she was too young to be tied down to a husband and child. When the boy was born she gave him to John. A month later she left town. My son brought my grandson home. To me. And then he was killed.” He closed his eyes, pain etched in the creases on his face. “I made inquiries about her, found out her father was a wealthy man. I was afraid he’d come for his grandson. My grandson.”

  “So you came here, to Seattle.”