Free California Woman (Daughters of the Whirlwind Book 1) by Daniel Knapp

off a quarter of the strip, ate it, and put the
remainder back in her bag.
    Easing
down on her side, she turned toward the rock, cradled John Alexander against
her belly, then pulled her knees up and lay one arm over him. Staring at the
ridges on the base of the darkening ledge, she saw them start to wave before
her and wondered if she would live through the night. She closed her eyes.
Somehow she remembered to pull one piece of the shawl up over her face and tuck
it under her bonnet before she slept.
    She was awakened by John Alexander's weak
crying. Still tired, she was stiff but, astonishingly, not as cold as she
expected. Stretching her legs out, she felt the small drift of snow the wind
had blown up along her back, bottom, and the soles of her boots. Without moving
further she partly uncovered one breast and fed her child. She took a glove off
for ten seconds and felt under his clothing. He was warm. She looked at the
gold pocket watch she had borrowed from Graves. It was already past eight. She
had to get started no matter how much she preferred staying right where she
was.
    At noon, after she had repeated the
bone-wearying movements of the previous morning over similar terrain, snow
began to fall. Nearly delirious, she had no idea it was Christmas Eve. She
pushed through the drifts and along the rocks, wobbling as her own shoes
slipped back and forth within Stanton's boots. For another two hours she
dragged herself westward as the wind rose steadily.
    A rim overlooking another frozen stream
turned south. Slowing with each step, she fought her way forward for another
fifteen minutes, thankful she was no longer heading straight into the stinging
flakes of snow. She stopped for a moment to regain her breath. The dollar-sized
snowflakes almost choked her. When she tried to pick one boot up through the
half foot of new snow covering a thick layer of crust, she found she couldn't.
Standing there, snow swirling around her, swaying drunkenly, she reached into
the bag and hungrily ate a third of the remaining piece of hide, putting the
rest back. John Alexander was sleeping. She leaned over, saw the pasty,
solidifying mucus almost filling his nostrils, and heard the faint wheeze of
his breath. For a second she gave up hope. But then, slowly, the trailing edge
of the snowsquall moved past her and continued east into the higher mountains.
    That restored her determination for
another hour. By then she could move no farther. She knew if she sat down she
would never get up. She cared, yet didn't care. She hated the thought of dying
here but felt drawn to the peace of it even more. She looked at John Alexander.
His eyes were half open, staring blankly at her. She fed him, squeezed more
milk out of her breast onto the palm of one glove, and lapped it up. When she
lifted her head again, she saw the narrow column of smoke rising above the next
ridge.
    There was not an ounce of energy left in
her when she reached the top of the rise. She was sure the smoke was a mirage;
certain that the tall mustachioed man in furs, the Indian squatting near him
skinning a small animal, the lean-to atop the flattened boulder blown bare
under the branches of an enormous conifer, the rack of pelts, were all a cruel
hallucination. I am seeing things , she thought numbly, as sunlight
briefly streamed through an unbelievably beautiful blue fracture in the clouds.
    She did not feel herself, fall, slide,
roll over, and slide again, still clutching John Alexander; she never saw the
startled men running toward her from the direction of their fire.

Eleven
    South Fork Cabin
    July, 1847
    December 24, 1846 (predated)
    Came upon
Luther Mosby's lean-to in the mountains north of Lucifer Peak this day. Thought
at first it was a Christmas miracle, the food and fire gifts from God...
    She felt warmth first, then fear as she opened
her eyes and was startled by both the man and the coldness of his gaze. She
recognized him immediately from Bent's Fort but said nothing when he