Adventure on the Oregon Trail

Chapter 12

"I thought you said you weren't going to look for trouble!" Jill exclaimed. She could see smoke out over the prairie and knew that the lightning they had just seen had caused a fire somewhere off in the distance.

"I wasn't looking, that's the trouble!" Sarah said, trying to disentangle her feet from a bundle of barbed wire that she'd inadvertently stumbled upon in their rush to get back to the wagons after they had spotted the smoke. "I can't get it to loosen up! You're going to have to run back and get help!"

"How is there even barbed wire here?" Jill snapped. "We're in the middle of the prairie!"

"I don't know!" Sarah snapped. Every time she thought she got a strand loosened enough to pull one of her feet free, another one tightened more than before. "Maybe it fell off someone's wagon as they were going through here. I don't rightly care at the moment! Go get help!"

Jill was torn. She knew it was going to take her several minutes to run back to the wagons, and she didn't want to leave Sarah alone. But she also knew if she didn't go, they were both going to be in serious trouble very soon. "I'll be right back!" she finally said. Turning, she ran as fast as she could through the tall grass.

Kyle had seen the lightning strike. He'd been nervous about wild fires with the strange weather they'd been experiencing, and the moment he noticed the smoke, he ordered all the wagons to cross a shallow, but fairly wide creek that was meandering through the prairie nearby. As soon as all of the wagons knew to get across to the far side of the water, he went in search of Sarah.

"Is she here?" he asked, riding up to her parents' wagon.

"She's out walking with Jill!" Mrs. Taylor said. She was already worried.

"I'll go get her," he said. He was about to ride out into the prairie to go look for her when he spotted Jill and he rode out to meet her. "Where is she?"

"She's stuck!" Jill exclaimed. "She got tripped up in some barbed wire and can't get loose. You're going to need some fence cutters,"

He let out a growl and handed her the reins of his horse. "Take him. And get across the creek now!" he said before hurrying over to one of the nearby wagons and asking if they had nippers.

Giving him a strange look, Mr. Simons dug through some tools he had tucked away in the back of his wagon and handed him the wire cutting tool. Kyle assured him he'd return shortly, and took off running out into the grass in the direction Jill had pointed.

"Sarah!" he shouted.

Sarah was still struggling to get herself free, and could smell the smoke as the fire moved closer. She couldn't see if Jill had reached the wagons yet and had no idea if help was coming. She began to panic, knowing she only had a few minutes before the fire reached her and she would be burned alive, or at least scorched.

"Sarah!" Kyle knew he had to be close, but if she was sitting in the tall grass, he could walk past her by only a few feet and completely miss her. "Sarah, answer me!"

"Kyle!" she finally heard him. "I'm over here!" she called back.

Following the sound of her voice, he found her and yanked her skirts back so they were out of the way as he started cutting through the heavy wire. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She had tried to stay calm, but a tear trickled down her cheek as she nodded. "I don't know how I got so tangled," she sniffled. "I barely tripped over it and then I couldn't get free. I'm sorry."

Pausing with the nippers, he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. "You don't have to be sorry, Sarah," he said gently. "It's not like any of us would have expected a tangled pile of barbed wire to be out here in the middle of nowhere."