Emily's Fortune by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Author:Phyllis Reynolds Naylor [Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-89650-7
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2010-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

“Didn’t know you boys would be aboard,” Uncle Victor said, in a voice like a rumble of thunder.

“Didn’t ask us,” said Jackson, reaching for a biscuit.

“Where you headed?” Uncle Victor asked.

“Don’t rightly know,” Jackson answered. “Figure the driver’ll tell us where to get off.”

“Now, that’s strange,” said the man with the tiger tattoo. “Even orphans should have some idea of where they’re going.”

“It’s all I can do to keep track of my brother,” said Jackson. “Figure we’ll get there soon enough.”

“What’s wrong with the lad?” asked Oscar from his end of the table.

“Got kicked in the head by a horse,” said Jackson. “Never been right since.”

“Thought you told me it was a mule,” said Uncle Victor.

Thumpa thumpa thumpa, went Emily’s heart.

“Horse…mule…whatever it was. I weren’t there. Just heard our ma screamin’, and from then on, he could never speak a word,” Jackson explained.

“Well, they ought not to send children out on the road by themselves, orphans or not,” said Marigold. “Something happened to them, who would ever know?”

Who indeed? Emily had another terrible, horrible thought: if something did happen to her, the ten million dollars would go to Uncle Victor, wouldn’t it? He would be the next of kin. Just a simple little accident out here in the night and, as Jackson had said, she might not get to Redbud at all.

• • •

It was dark after they’d finished eating. When they went back to the coach, the driver had turned down the backs of the three benches so that there was one large platform where all eight people could sleep—nine now, including the man with the tiger tattoo. The drivers had changed, and the new one wanted no one up there beside him as they rode.

This, Emily found, was even worse than sleeping four or five to a bed at Callaway’s Inn. There wasn’t room to turn over, and each time the coach hit a rock or a tree root, her head rose from the floor and banged back down again. The two sisters groaned and complained, but the elderly man was squeezed against one end of the coach and seemed to be sleeping soundly.

About midnight, they neared Lantern Hill. When they reached the top, the driver sounded several notes on his bugle to announce their approach to the ferryman, who would carry them across the river. But the horses were so eager for a drink that they galloped all the way down the steep hill. On top of the coach, trunks slid this way and that. Inside the coach, bodies rolled and bumped against each other.

“Get your elbow out of my belly!” Oscar yelled to Angus.

And Angus yelled to Jock, “Get your backside out of my face!”

The stagecoach, in fact, was a bit top-heavy. When it stopped, the ferryman ordered all the men and boys out to help guide it onto the raft.

“You too, Eli,” Jackson whispered, and Emily, who was sleepily rubbing her eyes, climbed out beside Jackson.

The ferryman slowly led the nervous horses onto the raft.

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