Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy #3)(55)

I drop to my knees, light-headed, gasping for air, like I just sprinted up a hill.

“Lee,” Jefferson says, kneeling beside me. “Lee, are you all right? Did you just—”

“I just,” I say.

The thief leaps down from the wagon bench and tries to shove the safe, but it won’t budge. The door of the hotel slams open. The guard runs out, followed by several others. The driver whips the mule, and the cart clatters into the night. The other thief starts to chase after, shouting “Wait!” The mud trips him up. The guard and his friends fall on him, punching and kicking.

Jefferson pulls me to my feet, but my knees are wobbly. “We have to get out of here, Lee, before someone sees us,” he whispers.

“I can’t,” I tell him. If I try, I might lose my supper. Hearing the wet thunk of feet and fists against flesh isn’t helping. I should have let the poor man get away.

“I’ll carry you,” Jeff says.

Which he does. He puts an arm around me and lifts me like I’m passed-out drunk. We make our way back to the hotel awning. Carefully he lowers me to the bench to rest.

“Lee! I can’t believe you moved that whole safe.”

“Good thing I’ve been practicing,” I say. My head won’t stop spinning. I topple sideways, falling slowly, like the drizzle.





Chapter Sixteen


I wake up in my cabin in the Charlotte. Jefferson sits across from me, a worried look on his face. Dark hollows circle his eyes. Olive, bless her heart, sits on the floor beside my cot, holding my hand.

“Ma,” she cries, with all the piercing volume of a child with important news. “Lee’s awake!”

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Around noon,” Jefferson says.

I start to rise, but Becky bursts through the door, sees me, and pushes me firmly back into the blankets. “Don’t even think about getting up, young lady.”

“But—”

“I’ll have absolutely no buts from you.”

“No butts,” says Andy, following her into the room. “No butts on the poop deck!”

“Andrew Junior,” Olive says, with all the imperiousness of her mother. “Lee’s sick. Be quiet.”

“La poop, la poop, la poop,” he says, dissolving into giggles.

“We have to be quiet,” Olive says, in the loudest whisper I’ve ever heard. “Lee, are you ready to drink some water? Jasper says sick people need to drink a lot of water. I brought a pitcher, just in case you woke up.” She indicates an old spouted bucket on the floor beside my cot.

Before I can answer, Becky puts her hands on her hips, looks down her nose at me, and says, “What exactly did you think you were doing?”

“I was trying to—”

“That was a rhetorical question, Miss Westfall.” She wags her finger at me, and that’s when I know I’m in real trouble. “I once saw a man try to lift a fallen tree. It was after a June thunderstorm, and it was blocking the way of several carriages, including ours. Some of the men were hitching up a team of horses to drag it out of the way, but this fellow couldn’t wait and he wouldn’t ask for help. He strained and groaned and then, with a prodigious heave, much like Samson, he flung it aside. And do you know what happened then?”

“Is that another rhetorical question?” I ask. Meekly, I hope.

She glares. “It’s a story, and it’s a story I think you should attend to.”

“What happened?”

“The tree dropped on one side of the road, and he dropped on the other.” She imitates by flopping her hands to either side. “The strain was so great that his heart burst, and he died right there on the spot.”

I swallow. My throat feels drier than the Humboldt Sink we crossed last summer, and my head pounds fiercely. “Could I get that drink of water, Olive?”

Olive leaps for the “pitcher,” but Becky doesn’t slow down. “So what do you think would happen if a little slip of a girl like you tried to move a safe full of hundreds of pounds of gold all by yourself?”

I am most certainly not a little slip of anything, but she’s on a roll, and I can tell she’s genuinely worried about me. Olive hands me a cup of water. I drink greedily.

“I had to do something,” I say. “I didn’t know what would happen.”

“Well, now you do,” she scolds. “And I don’t want you doing anything foolish like that again.”

“I’m pretty sure she’ll find something else foolish to do,” Jefferson mumbles under his breath.

Jefferson and I exchange a knowing look. I have way bigger plans for my gold sense than simply moving one little safe.

But Becky doesn’t know that part, and it’s best we keep it that way. Because if everything goes as intended, Becky will be close in Helena Russell’s company at least once before our work is done here.

We are saved by a slight tap at the door. Melancthon stands there with a tray containing a tureen of chicken soup, along with a bowl, spoon, and napkin. The soup smells like sunshine to me, and if my mouth wasn’t so dry, I’m sure it’d water.

“There’s lunch in the galley for them that want it,” he says. “I brought this for Lee, so she wouldn’t have to get up.”