Of Men And Angels. Victoria Bylin

could see the water rising, slashing at the sides of the gorge. A shriveled juniper tore loose in the flood, and a man-size boulder tumbled after it.

      “Hold up, you beasts!” the driver shouted. The coach skidded but didn’t stop. Gravity flung Alex against the seat just as the driver pounded on the roof.

      “Mrs. Smith! Miss Merritt! Hang on!”

      The stage lurched as if it had been tipped by an unseen hand. Charlotte screamed. Alex pulled the woman into her arms, but she couldn’t keep her grip. They were bouncing like stones, and the next thing she knew she was weightless, floating in the air like a bird, until the coach hit rushing water with a splash, throwing her against the door with a bone-crunching lurch.

      Pain shot through her shoulder. Thunder ricocheted like a rifle shot, and the wheels spun with the rushing water. The mules screamed and kicked in a worthless effort to wrench themselves free. Water seeped through the wooden seams of the coach. It soaked her shoes and pooled at her ankles. Her white blouse was torn at the elbow, and the cool air stung the strawberry scrape on her arm.

      Charlotte grabbed her stomach with both hands.

      “Help us!” Alex screamed, pushing at the door over her head. “Smitty! Hank!” There was no answer, so she climbed through the opening and sat with her feet in the door well, hanging on to the frame for balance as waves of brown water pounded the brittle wood.

      By a stroke of luck, the coach was wedged against a huge rock and a slab of mud. The torrent whipped through the wheels and raced down the gorge, ripping at boulders and exposing tree roots, taking what it wanted. The mud wall melted like chocolate in the sun, and the coach scraped along the bottom of the streambed, moving in inches that threatened to become feet.

      “Charlotte, we’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to hurry.”

      Bracing her feet against the door frame, she grabbed Charlotte’s arm and pulled. The coach lurched and slid a foot closer to the wall of the ravine. A juniper branch scratched her face with prickly green needles and Alex grabbed it, pulling to test it with her weight. The trunk was just a foot away. The makeshift rope would have to do.

      “Charlotte, grab that branch. Now!”

      Sheer terror yanked Charlotte out the door and into the vee of the trunk. Alex hoisted her skirts and followed. It was like climbing a tree as a child except the water had been doing its work, and the coach had slipped farther downstream.

      Grabbing the branch with both hands, she clamped it between her knees and shimmied toward the relative safety of the trunk. Rough bark scraped her thighs and soft palms. The weight of her sopping skirt pulled her down, but she kept a firm grip on the bark, sliding to the trunk in inches until she reached Charlotte.

      The water was ebbing, and the coach was twenty feet away. By some miracle, Charlotte was still wearing a coy red hat with a bobbing feather. From her perch Alex looked for the drivers, but she didn’t see either of the gray-bearded men. Two of the mules were still screaming with pain. The other two had drowned.

      Turning to see how well the tree was rooted, Alex saw what had happened. A slab of mud had wiped out the road, and the hillside had collapsed into the watery torrents. It was a stupid place for a road, she thought. A stupid place to be.

      “How are you doing?” she said, reaching for Charlotte’s blue-veined hand. The pregnant woman looked like a very fat sparrow. Until a few days ago, they had been strangers, but the boredom of travel had made them acquaintances if not friends.

      Charlotte moaned and clutched Alex’s fingers as she doubled over, squeezing back her tears.

      Alex rubbed her shoulders. “It’s going to be all right. You’ve just had a scare.”

      “I hurt.”

      “Where?”

      “My middle. The baby’s kicking.”

      Dear God, no. Not now. Not yet.

      Alex knew about orphans and babies, but she had only witnessed one birth in her life. It hadn’t been easy, and her cousin had nearly died.

      “Maybe it will stop,” she said. “We’ve both had a shock.”

      The rain lessened to a drizzle, and the water ebbed as quickly as it had risen. Where had the storm come from? It had been so sudden, uncontrollable and devouring. Dampness chilled the air. The women had goose bumps, and night was coming fast.

      The third mule had died, and the fourth was on its side, heaving with exhaustion. The stream had thinned to a ribbon, leaving puddles that looked like dirty mirrors.

      “Charlotte, I’m going down to look around.”

      “No, stay with me!”

      “I’ll only be a minute.” Alex squeezed her hand and slid out of the tree. Mud oozed over her high-buttoned shoes as she sloshed to the coach. As if nothing had happened, their trunks were still lashed to the baggage rack, and she thought about the silly shoes she had packed. She needed sturdy boots and walking clothes. She needed help. Maybe even a miracle, but she’d settle for what she could find.

      Standing on a rock, she peered through the window and saw the ruined contents of her food basket floating in a foot of water. Holding back an ache of worry, she walked to the driver’s boot and opened the small door. Water gushed down her skirt, but she found a wad of men’s clothing, a knife, a pistol and a box of bullets. Could she possibly hunt for food? The thought was laughable, but she took everything, and in a second compartment she found two canteens of water and a sack of apples. They would have to last until help came.

      Help…but when would that be? Surely someone would come looking for them when the stage didn’t make it to Grand Junction, yet delays were common.

      “Alex! I need you now.” Charlotte’s voice cut through her thoughts, and she turned back to the tree just in time to see the woman’s face go white with pain.

      Setting the meager supplies on a rock, Alex stretched her arms upward as if to catch the woman if she fell. “Let me help you down,” she said gently.

      Charlotte’s belly was huge. Her eyes widened with fright and, choking back a sob, she said the one thing Alexandra Merritt was afraid to hear.

      “My water just broke.”

      The last thing Jackson Jacob Malone wanted to hear was singing, especially a woman singing in a high, sweet voice that reminded him of angels he didn’t believe in. The words drifted to him from the bottom of a rocky gorge, and he wondered if he was still drunk. The singing was bad enough, but as the trail dipped and curled, he recognized the words. She was singing a hymn, and for a moment he thought he’d died and gone to hell.

      Two seconds later a scream burst out of the ravine, and Jake heard the devil himself in that cry. It tore through his head like a bullet burning flesh. A bead of sweat broke across his brow and he wiped it away.

      “Hang on, Charlotte! Hang on for the baby!”

      The angel’s voice reminded him of sleigh bells on a winter morning. Hopeful and bright, they defied the cold even as it settled into a man’s bones, and he wondered if the angel had ever shivered in the dark. Somehow he doubted it, and he was sure when she started singing again, even louder than before.

      “Oh, come, let us worship and bow down,

      Let us kneel before the Lord, our God, our maker…”

      The noonday sun stung his skin and cast shadows through the sage. His jaw throbbed just below his ear, as if the pain in his bruised eyes had leaked down the side of his face. He clenched his teeth against the misery of it. He didn’t want reminders of his brother’s fist slamming into him, the mess he’d left in Flat Rock, and especially not the melancholy hope of a woman singing in the desert.

      “Oh, no! It’s starting again!”

      “Breathe easy, Charlotte. Easy…”

      “I can’t!”