Sophie took the lantern. “A rider and horse went over that drop-off. Help me find him, and hurry! It’s raining up north!”

Her girls had lived in their little thicket hideaway long enough to know what it meant when rain came in from the north. Sophie saw Mandy glance fearfully over her shoulder into the darkness of the creek. Then, practical girl that Mandy was, she started searching for the rider.

“Oh, Ma. Can he have lived?” Mandy went ahead of Sophie to the very edge of the dimly illuminated area.

“I don’t know, honey,” Sophie said grimly as she surveyed the area, looking for a glimpse of fabric or a bit of horsehide. “I don’t hear him. He might be buried under these rocks. He might have been swept away by the creek. We only have a few minutes to search.”

“Here, Ma. I think I found him!” Mandy’s voice was sharp with excitement. A bolt of lightning lit up Mandy’s frightened face. Sophie saw Mandy’s blue eyes, so like her own, glow in the jagged glare. Her blond hair, identical to Sophie’s and the other girls’, hung bedraggled and muddy to her waist.

Sophie rushed to her daughter’s side and saw a single hand, coated with dirt, extending from a pile of mud and rocks. The two of them fell to the ground and began digging away the soil. They ignored the tear of jagged stones on their hands and the damage to their nightgowns, the only ones they owned. Sophie heard soft trudging steps as Hector came down the creek path. She dug faster, knowing that with the mule’s help they could move the man as soon as they freed him.

Another rumble of thunder sounded closer. The lightning lanced the sky just as Sophie uncovered the stranger’s face and pushed away the mud. The man was utterly still. As limp as in death. She didn’t stop to check his condition. If there was life left in him after the fall, the suffocating dirt would snatch it away. She and Mandy uncovered his shoulders as eight-year-old Elizabeth came up.

“Get this rope around his shoulders, Mandy. Beth, hitch it around Hector’s neck. We’ve got to get out of this creek before the water comes!” Even as she said it, Sophie heard the first distant crash of waves against the sides of the creek. Once the sound was audible, there were only minutes before the wall of water would sweep by their cabin.

She kept digging as she shouted commands. She reached deep into the muck to make sure there were no heavy rocks pinning him. Her girls worked silently beside her, following her orders. Sophie felt a surge of pride in them so great, she knew it to be almost sinful.

“Ready, Ma.” Mandy turned her attention from fastening the rope under the man’s arms and went back to digging.

“Hector’s ready anytime, Ma,” Beth shouted over the raging wind. A bolt of lightning flashed brightly enough for Sophie to see the man. His legs were still well buried, but there were no rocks on him.