Chapter Fourteen

Nathan fell again, his hands and feet raw and bleeding. He pushed himself up as he had done so many times during the long and arduous trek, knowing he must be getting close to Wenatchee. Night had fallen hard and cold hours ago. He had no idea what time it was. Near midnight? He knew he should give up for the night. It was unsafe to continue to scramble along the steep banks in the dark. He could easily slip and fall into the river. He’d had many close calls already that day. The bank had leveled out only briefly before returning to its forty-five degree angle. The hills on his side of the river seemed insurmountable. He could see no feasible way to climb them, not unless he was a mountain goat.

As desperate as he was to get back to Wenatchee and Amanda, Nathan gave in and dropped down onto the embankment. He forwent trying to dig out a trench for warmth. The cold air felt refreshing on his battered hands and feet and even his knees, which had borne some of the brunt of his falls.

Where was Amanda now? Was she safe? Nathan stared at the stars and wished upon them. He wished that Amanda were safe and warm and that she had not suffered too much in thinking him dead. He wished that Robert had stayed by her side and helped her. He wished that a boat would come by to rescue him. The now-nightly howling caught his attention again. There was no moon. What did the infernal animals howl at? He wished the wolves would find a den somewhere and go to sleep. As he was himself. He wrapped his arms around his chest, pulled his knees close and slept.

****

Dawn came and with it, a frosty layer on some nearby lowlying sagebrush. Nathan rubbed his cold cheeks, wishing he still had his beard. It had kept his face warm many a night at the Spokane train station. He sat up and attempted to rise, falling back for a moment as his stiff and no doubt bruised knees refused to cooperate.

Light, the color of a ripe peach, reflected off the hills and onto the river. It was a beautiful sight, but not one that he appreciated at the moment. He thought it might look lovely from the veranda of a house built on the hillsides. He and Amanda could take their morning coffee on the porch and gaze out upon the river. They would watch the sternwheelers paddle downstream or upstream and reminisce about the accident—always thankful that they had survived. And they had survived. He vowed that Amanda had survived. He could not lose her again.

Nathan pushed himself to his feet again and took a few tentative steps on the steeply angled bank until the pain in his feet subsided into numbness, then he set out.

He hobbled his way along the river for a few hours until he came around a bend. There in the distance lay Wenatchee, its apple orchards spreading across the valley. A light layer of snow capped the mountains on either side of the valley. Smoke from chimneys drifted up across the town. A freight train lingered at the railroad station. He hurried his step, ignoring the pain shooting up into his legs. Occasionally, he grabbed at sagebrush as he slid down the bank.

He stopped short when he spotted what he knew to be the Wenatchee River ahead of him. He had not remembered the Wenatchee River flowed into the Columbia at the confluence. Although he was on the same side of the Columbia River as the town of Wenatchee, he had no idea how to get across. He neared it, marveling at the wide expanse of the river as the Wenatchee and Columbia converged. In the near distance upriver on the Wenatchee, he noted a small landing and a side-wheeled ferry. A few buildings huddled alongside, but the area seemed sparsely inhabited.

He made his way to the wharf and entered a small wooden building opposite the ferry.

“Out,” a woman said, coming out from behind a counter. “Out now! I’m tired of you folks coming in here to warm up. You’ve got to find somewhere else to go.” She approached him with a shooing motion.

“Madam, please! Hear me out.”

She shook her gray head and waved her arms as if she waved at crows in a field. “No, out you go. No money, no ferry, no hanging out in here.”

Nathan rushed to speak. In the time that she could forcibly push him out, he would have had his say.

“My name is Nathan Carpenter. I was on the sternwheeler, Cascades, when it ran aground. I was thrown into the water, and swam for shore. I have just now made it back to Wenatchee, but I need to get across the river. My wallet was in my jacket, and I shed that in the river.”

She dropped her arms and eyed him incredulously.

“Well, why didn’t you say so? Goodness, look at you! I heard about the accident. Well, everyone did, and we heard about you. They thought you were drowned. You were the only one who went missing. So, you’ve been crawling about in the mud?” She gave him an appraising look.

Nathan gave a nearby chair a longing look but stood his ground as best he could stand. His heart thudded loudly in his chest to hear that everyone else had survived. Amanda must have survived.

“Yes, I have. I know I look a sight. I would be happy to reimburse you the cost of a ferry ride across the river if you can trust me. I am so anxious to get back. My wife...” He left the words hanging, afraid of the emotion in his voice. Given his exhaustion, he wasn’t quite sure he wouldn’t break down into tears of thankfulness. Amanda was all right.

The woman nodded, and wiped her hands on her apron. “I heard your wife was fine. Take a chair, and I’ll get you some hot coffee. The ferry leaves in an hour and not a moment sooner, but I’ll get you on for free. The steamboat company will reimburse me.”

Nathan dropped into the chair and sighed heavily.

“Thank you, Mrs...?”

“Mrs. Canton. My son and I run this ferry. We have a lot of trouble with folks wanting to come into the ferry office to warm themselves. I know it’s getting cold out there, but they gotta find somewhere else to go. Getting worse every year. There’s a shanty town downriver. That’s where most of them are headed anyway.” She nodded briskly. “Let me get you that coffee. Your feet are a mess. What did you do with your shoes?”

She moved away toward a stove upon which a coffeepot stood.

“I had to kick them off in the river, couldn’t swim with them on.”

“But then you didn’t have any shoes to walk with, did you? Don’t tell me you actually managed to climb along the hillside down the river, did you? You were lucky you didn’t meet up with a cougar.” She handed him a hot cup of coffee.

Nathan nodded. “Yes, I did climb along the hillside. I didn’t know there were cougars around here.”

“There are...and wolves,” she said. She eyed his feet again.

“Yes, I heard the wolves.”

“They must not have been too hungry,” she said with a grin.

Nathan wished he could have grinned but couldn’t. His feet were thawing, and pain was setting in.

“Let me get something for your feet. Some salve and I’ll get you some of my son’s socks and an old pair of shoes. You can’t walk any further with only those bloody bandages on your feet. What are those? Your shirtsleeves?”

Nathan nodded and sipped his coffee. He was anxious to reach the other side of the river and find Amanda and Robert, but he really did not want to show up as filthy and bedraggled as he was.

Mrs. Canton returned and handed him a bucket of water, a clean cloth, the salve and some bandages. She set down some old boots and faded socks at the foot of his chair.

“I’ll let you tend to yourself. I’m not much of a nurse,” she said gruffly.

“Thank you, Mrs. Canton. I am most appreciative of all you are doing for me. Truly.”

She nodded and turned away to enter a door at the back of the station.

He pulled the shirtsleeves from his feet and tried not to wince as they stuck to his open wounds. He thrust his feet in the bucket of water and gritted his teeth. The water, though cold, stung. Still, his feet needed to be cleaned. He soaked them for a few minutes and dried them before applying the salve and bandages.

Mrs. Canton returned, holding a bowl of soup in her hand.

“You can have this when you’re done. I’ll bet you haven’t eaten. Goodness, there was quite a stink when you went overboard. Everybody heard about it. They looked for you yesterday, but they didn’t see you.”

Nathan gingerly thrust his feet into the overly large boots and took the soup from Mrs. Canton. He avoided standing as long as possible.

“This looks delicious. Thank you. No, I haven’t eaten.” He spooned some of the soup into his mouth and reveled in the taste. “I saw the sternwheeler pass by, but they didn’t see me, no matter how much I jumped and shouted.”

“That’s too bad. The company will be glad to know you’ve survived though. I was just in Wenatchee yesterday, and Mr. Cunningham, the manager, said there will be heck to pay for losing a passenger. Sternwheeler accidents come and go, though we’ve never had one, but they don’t like to lose passengers. Invites lawsuits and such.”

The corner of Nathan’s mouth twitched. “Well, I am no longer lost, Mrs. Canton, and I have no intention of suing the steamboat company.”

She nodded. “I’ll leave you to it then, I guess. I’ve got some paperwork to do in the office. I’ll be back when it’s time for the ferry to leave.”

Nathan nodded and finished his soup. He stood up and hobbled over to the counter to leave the soup bowl and spoon. As he did so, he caught sight of his reflection in a mirror behind the counter. He looked much, much worse than he ever had when he was indigent in the twenty-first century. His face was filthy, his hair full of sand, his shirt without sleeves. He made his way over to the door through which Mrs. Canton had disappeared and knocked on it.

“Yes,” Mrs. Canton said.

“Mrs. Canton, if you could indulge me just a bit further. Do you have an old coat or a jacket? I would be happy to reimburse you or to purchase something new once I returned to Wenatchee. I simply cannot present myself without shirtsleeves.”

She looked him up and down with a smirk.

“Well, I’m sure I can find something old of my son’s. I wondered when I first saw you if you knew how bad you looked.”

Nathan smiled wryly. “I only know how much pain I was in and how grateful I was to see your ferry. I did not realize how odd my appearance was...especially given that I have no sleeves, coat or shoes.”

She turned away and returned with a dark wool jacket that Nathan slipped on gratefully, although it was also too big. Her son must have been a big boy.

The front door burst open, and a large red-headed young man entered.

“We’re just about ready to go, Ma. We don’t have any fares going over but maybe we’ll have some coming back. Do you need us to pick up any supplies in Wenatchee?”

He stopped short and stared when he spotted Nathan.

“Sam, this is Mr. Carpenter. He’s that fella who everyone thought drowned in the Cascades wreck. He managed to save himself, and he’s back. We’re going to give him a ride to Wenatchee.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Sam said. He shook Nathan’s hand. “Wow! Back from the dead.”

Nathan grinned. “Something like that.”

“Well, we’re getting ready to go now,” Sam said. “If you want to board.” He looked down at Nathan’s feet. “Hey, I have a pair of boots like that!”

“Those are your boots, Sam. Don’t worry, you’ll get them back,” Mrs. Canton said. She gave him a shove toward the door when it looked like he would protest. “Go on now.”

“I will repay you,” Nathan told Sam as he followed him outside. Sam grunted acknowledgement and led the way toward the small gangway leading to the ferry, hardly more than a plank really. Sam stepped aboard, and as Nathan stepped onto the plank, he started to shake.

“Are you coming?” Sam asked with a curious look over his shoulder. “We have to shove off soon.”

Nathan bit his lip and cursed himself for being a coward. He looked down at the water below the gangway and clenched his teeth as he steeled himself to walk aboard the ferry. He took up a position at the railing and dug his fingers into the wooden bar top rail molding for the entire journey across the river.

Upon docking, Nathan thanked Sam and promised him once again he would reimburse them. Nathan’s heart pounded as he anticipated his reunion with Amanda, and he quickened his painfully hobbling steps. The train station was the first building to come into view, and he darted inside. Mr. Spivey was sure to know where Amanda was, and whether Robert had remained in town.

Mr. Spivey looked up. His eyes bulged and his jaw dropped.

“Mr. Carpenter! As I live and breathe! You’re alive!” Mr. Spivey emerged from his office and came into the lobby. He scanned Nathan’s appearance and shook his head. “What a sight you are. Where have you been? They said you had drowned in the wreck.”

Nathan explained quickly, anxious to ask his own questions. “Have you seen my wife? How is she doing? I am most anxious to see her. I hope my disappearance has not caused her too much distress.”

Mr. Spivey cleared his throat and shook his head slowly, a look of sympathy crossing his face. Nathan’s heart froze.

“She is uninjured, isn’t she? Please tell me that she is all right!”

“Yes, yes, she’s okay,” Mr. Spivey reassured him. “But she’s not here. She went back to Seattle with Mr. Chamberlain on last night’s train. I don’t think she wanted to go yet. She told the missus she wanted to stay here and wait for you, but everyone was convinced there was no hope you survived, especially since the rescue paddle boat, the Rockies, telegraphed back and said they couldn’t find you.”

Nathan sank onto a bench—relief uppermost in his mind, followed by disappointment that he would have to wait longer to see her. Still, she was with Robert and in safe hands. How she must have suffered, thinking him dead. He remembered her words of love just before the accident. Had the roles been reversed, and she been lost overboard.... No, he could not even imagine such a thing. Would not imagine such a thing.

He nodded wearily.

“That it as it should be. I am most grateful to Robert for seeing her back to Seattle. May I send a telegram? I suppose I do not need to tell you that I have no cash on me at present...again. I shrugged off my jacket in the water, and with it, my ready cash. I shall reimburse you once again after I visit the bank. Oh, and of course, I would like to book a compartment on tonight’s train.”

“Yes, of course,” Mr. Spivey said. “Oh, I almost forgot. Your grandfather came out on the train from Seattle, a Mr. Carpenter? He arrived the same day as you left on the Cascades.”

Nathan jerked. “My grandfather? Are you sure? How could he have heard so soon? Did Robert send him a telegram?” He shook his head, exhausted. “No, what could I be thinking? That’s not possible. He would have caught the train from Seattle the morning of the accident.” He looked up at Mr. Spivey who stood patiently by.

“I’m not quite sure,” Mr. Spivey said. “My wife overheard him tell Mr. Chamberlain that he’d heard from the bank that you were alive. Didn’t make sense to me. That was even before the accident, but maybe it makes sense to you.”

Nathan nodded. Yes, it did make sense. The bank must have notified his grandfather that he was alive, probably against Robert’s wishes, and against his own. But perhaps, like Mrs. Spivey, his grandfather had overheard something at the bank. At any rate, it no longer mattered. Now, his grandfather would think him dead again. The poor man, how horrible for him. And yet, he must have seen Amanda. He would be elated to find her again, but she would not know him.

Nathan sighed heavily and rose to his feet. He remembered telling Amanda that they found themselves in a conundrum. It seemed to only be getting more and more complex.

“Thank you for telling me, Mr. Spivey. I had better send that telegram. As a matter of fact, I think I had better send two—one to my grandfather and one to Mr. Chamberlain to pass along to my wife. I am sure she is staying with Mr. Chamberlain and his wife.”

He dictated the telegrams, watched them sent, and left to return to the hotel before presenting himself to the bank once again.

Nathan had never realized how much Mrs. Spivey resembled her husband until he arrived at the hotel to find the same expression on her face as her husband had worn upon discovering he was still alive.

“Mr. Carpenter!” she shrieked. She enfolded him in what he imagined was a rare embrace before quickly stepping back with reddened cheeks.

“What happened to you? You look terrible. Come, sit down.” She pointed to one of the sofas in the lobby but Nathan looked down at his dusty clothing and declined.

“No, I had better not,” he said with a wan smile. He explained his misadventures for the third time that morning, and felt thankful nonetheless to have the opportunity to do so. The alternative would have been a watery grave.

“If you don’t mind, Mrs. Spivey, I think I will go bathe and put on some fresh clothing. I must go to the bank before it closes. I owe your husband yet again for telegrams, as well as Mrs. Canton and her son for ferrying me over. And for the use of his boots.” He looked down at his feet.

“I’ll bring you some hot tea,” she said with a brisk nod. “Poor Mrs. Carpenter. She was devastated, just devastated.”

Pain seared through Nathan’s chest at the image of Amanda in tears, and he cleared his throat to rid himself of the hard knot that had risen in it.

“I have sent her a telegram. I hope she receives it soon. I hate to think she suffered.”

“No, well, it wasn’t your fault. She’ll be overjoyed when she hears from you. Your grandfather too. Mr. Spivey told you he arrived?”

“Yes, he did.” Nathan elected to say no more on that subject as it circuitously touched on the subject of the time travel. He reminded himself to stay as close to the original story as possible—that he and his wife had been accosted in Spokane and their possessions stolen.

“Poor man. He was so shocked to hear of your...death, although you’re alive now. Everyone was.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Spivey.” Nathan moved toward the stairs. “I’ll just go upstairs now.”

“I’ll leave the tea and something to eat in your room while you take a bath,” Mrs. Spivey said.

Nathan nodded and climbed the stairs. He paused at Amanda’s room, and tapped on her door, willing her to be in the room, waiting for him. His heart pounded in anticipation as he turned the knob and pushed open the door.