Page 3 of Riches Beyond Measure (Golden State Treasure #3)

Two

Brody, Ellie, Thayne, and Lock MacKenzie dismounted after riding rented horses into the ranch yard.

The ground started shaking before they could lead their horses into the barn.

The plan was to get someone to return the horses to town without delay.

If no one was available to do that, then they’d just unsaddle the critters and turn them out to pasture.

Brody was in no mood to ride to Dorada Rio to take the horses back, not if that meant returning on foot.

It’d been a long, cold winter out east. He’d done the work he felt was fair to repay Dr. Tibbles, and a new partner had been found to take Brody’s place.

Brody’s work in Boston was done, and he had finally come home. For good.

And now he was experiencing his first big earthquake.

Brody looked wide-eyed at his wife of less than a year, who seemed unfazed by the shaking.

Brody and his brothers had gone through a few mild earthquakes in their brief time in California, but they hadn’t gotten used to the whole world shaking. Ellie, however, had grown up with them. She merely widened her stance a bit for balance to wait it out.

Then the shaking grew more violent, and Ellie looked around, alarmed.

Brody saw the doors of the orphanage fly open and all the children come streaming out, heading for an open spot away from the building next to Tilda and a man Brody didn’t know. A man wearing an apron.

Brody caught one of Ellie’s hands and held on as the earthquake kept getting worse.

Cowhands, including Zane, Ellie’s older brother, hurried out of the barns and sheds, and Michelle exited the ranch house, carrying her baby.

Seven-month-old Leah Suzanne was sitting upright in her arms, looking around, perfect whisps of dark curls on her head.

Gretel followed right after Michelle, a toddler in her arms, with another hanging on to her skirts.

Brody noticed her very round belly, indicating a new life would be joining them soon.

He thought of Ellie and corrected that: two new lives.

Unlike him, everyone seemed very matter-of-fact. Most of these folks were lifelong Californians. They knew they needed to get outside during a rough earthquake in case any buildings collapsed.

Zane led several cowhands into the barn, and together they led the horses out into the corral.

Then a scream switched Brody from watching into action, and a thunderous sound like that of a falling building set him to running. He took off in the direction of his doctor’s office, barely aware he had his doctor’s bag in hand. After a shout to Michelle, Ellie was coming fast at his side.

At the end of a row of buildings, a house had collapsed. Harriet Sears lived there with her husband, Bo, and a baby not yet a year old. A baby Brody had delivered.

“Did they get out?” Brody shouted at the small crowd already gathered near the collapsed house.

“No,” said Nora, “and I can hear the baby crying.” The ground still shook as Nora, Harriet’s sister, shoved the toddler she held into someone’s arms and rushed for the house, its front door blocked by debris.

“Wait!” Brody sprinted toward Nora and reached her just as she began tearing at the jumble of fallen wood planks behind the door. He caught Nora around the waist and tugged her away. “Stay back. I’ll go through the window around the back. We can’t get inside this way.”

Nora, her eyes shining with tears, nodded and stepped back.

Brody heard wailing coming from the collapsed house. Harriet would never let her baby cry like that. “Thayne, Lock, come with me! Ellie, stay with Nora.”

“Brody, be careful.” Ellie went to Nora and drew her away.

He didn’t trust the frantic woman to control herself, not when her sister was trapped in the damaged building.

He sprinted around the house and found a window.

Its shutters were tightly closed. Brody kicked at the window; the sturdy shutters rattled but held.

It took two more kicks before the latch gave way and the shutters cracked open.

The earthquake took a sudden violent turn, knocking Brody and his brothers—now at his side—off their feet.

Brody lunged to his feet, then grabbed the window frame and hurled himself into the house.

He charged toward the sound of crying and found Harriet pinned to the floor by a rafter, which had partly collapsed onto her chest and neck.

She lay there unconscious and bleeding, though Brody couldn’t yet tell from what wounds.

He scooped up the baby in the nearby cradle and handed the infant to his younger brother, Lock, who was there with Thayne. “Lock, get the baby outside. Now!”

As Lock hurried away with the child, Thayne began lifting the heavy rafter off of Harriet’s chest. It was then Brody heard another timber snap.

Brody wasted no time in sweeping Harriet into his arms. While he did so, debris fell from the ceiling, striking him on the back. He staggered under the blow, but it didn’t knock him down. The whole roof was caving in.

“Out! We’ve got to get out of here.” Somehow he made it out of the room with Harriet even as the shattered roof rained wooden shingles down on them.

Thayne led the way to the back window they’d come in through. After Thayne clambered outside, he turned and plucked Harriet out of Brody’s arms while more debris came down around them.

The earthquake continued wreaking destruction.

Once outside, Brody rushed around to the front of the house, close on Thayne’s heels, just as the back wall of the house fell outward. He emerged from the choking dust and wreckage to find Nora, crying out with relief, Harriet’s baby already in her arms.

Ellie rushed to Thayne’s side, who knelt and laid Harriet gently on the ground.

Then the shaking finally stopped.

“Do you have many earthquakes this bad?” Lock had the baby again. Nora’s two had fussed enough that she had to attend to them.

Nora tore her eyes from Harriet, who was still unconscious, and looked anxiously at Ellie. “I’ve been here just a bit longer than you, Lock. I’ve never felt one shake so hard.”

“I was born here,” Ellie said. “Except for six months in Boston, I’ve always been here, and I’ve never known such a strong quake.”

Harriet started writhing and clawing at her throat.

“She can’t breathe,” said Brody, noticing her badly swollen throat. “Hold her still, Ellie. Thayne, toss me my doctor’s bag.”

Thayne had the bag beside Brody in an instant. He looked up from Harriet’s bleeding shoulder and arm to the others gathered there. “Don’t anyone go inside the buildings. We can’t trust them not to collapse.”

“Especially as there will be aftershocks,” Ellie added.

As if to prove her point, the ground shook again. Everyone froze and rode out the much smaller earthquake.

Brody pulled a gleaming scalpel out of his doctor’s bag. “I’ve got to open an airway.” He reached for her throat with the wickedly sharp instrument.

“Dr. MacKenzie, no.” Nora strode toward him.

“Stay back. Thayne, hold her back if you have to.” Brody shot a look at his brother. “I know what I’m doing, Nora. Please don’t interfere.”

Working quickly, Brody wiped Harriet’s throat clean, then dusted it with carbolic acid. “Ellie, I have some clean cloths in the bag. There’ll be bleeding once I start cutting, and I can’t see what I’m doing if the wound fills with blood. Keep it wiped away.”

With the cloths in hand, Ellie bent closer.

He slashed a short but deep cut into the hollow of Harriet’s throat, below the worst of the heavy swelling on her neck and very near to the airway to her lungs. Ellie dabbed at the flow of blood with the cloth. Brody was being extra cautious, knowing how close he was to the carotid artery.

“Now hand me an eyedropper.” He knew Ellie had never seen him do this procedure before, and there was much debate about it. He’d seen only a handful of them performed and had done two himself.

Without hesitating, Ellie placed the eyedropper into his hand. He ripped off the rubber top and gently inserted the narrow glass pipette into the incision.

“Keep dabbing away the blood,” he instructed, then bent over the tube and blew air into Harriet’s lungs.

Her chest visibly lifted, and Harriet’s struggles finally calmed. Brody eased back, letting the air flow out of the tube, then bent and blew into the tube again. Silence reigned around him as everyone watched while Harriet’s lungs took in more air, the color slowly returning to her face.

The ground trembled again. Brody pulled away from the tube. He’d blown in about half the air this time because he didn’t want to injure her neck further. He waited, letting the air escape while waiting for the shaking to stop. When it did, he blew into the tube again.

This time, as the air flowed out, Harriet’s eyes fluttered open. She reached for her throat.

“Ellie!” Brody exclaimed.

Ellie caught Harriet’s hands and pressed them against Harriet’s waist, leaning forward until she was fully visible to her.

“Harriet, I know you hurt, but you mustn’t touch your neck.

Brody and I are here, and he had to help you breathe by cutting a small slit into your throat.

He used a tube to get air to your lungs. ”

Baby ... she mouthed.

“Your baby is fine, Harriet,” said Brody, reading her lips.

“Not a scratch on him. He’s a tough little frontiersman.

” Brody used the voice he reserved for his patients, hoping to soothe Harriet and offer comfort in the midst of her fear and pain.

As he spoke, he petitioned God for healing and for His favor right now.

“Lock, bring the baby so she can see him.”

“Here he is, Harriet.”

Brody was struck by how deep his brother’s voice was, how reassuring.

Thayne, the older of the two scamps, had shown real interest in doctoring.

But Lock? His treasure-mad little brother?

Was it possible the boy, now fifteen, might develop a serious side and go into medicine as well? He just might have a talent for it.