The Cripple’s Bride

by Elliee Atkinson

  The pain was nearly unbearable, but he managed to turn himself over so that he could pull himself up the ravine with his hands, using his right leg and letting the left one hang behind. The gash on his right arm had clotted over. It was the least of his worries at that point.

  He slowly made his way up, stopping several times to rest. Once or twice he would doze off and dream of better times. He dreamed of Laura’s smile. He heard her laughter. When he woke, the heartache made his pain even worse. He allowed himself time to cry. It would be hours before he managed to get back up to the top. And what if he didn’t make it? Or slipped a second time?

  He refused to entertain those thoughts for longer than a fleeting moment. They weren’t helping him have the strength or the courage to continue. The only thing he could think of to hold on to was that his sister would be devastated if he was to die out here somewhere unknown to her. She would never even know he was dead.

  “Time to stop that,” he said aloud. “I’m not gonna die out here. Ridiculous. I got plenty of kick left in me. I’m not gonna die. I’m not gonna die.” With each word, he hoisted himself up a little further on the ravine. It was hard to ignore the snow drifting down from the white sky above him. Ned’s words ran through his mind over and over. A blizzard. A snowstorm. Shelter. Warmth. Even if he made it up to the wagon, he wasn’t going to build a warm fire in there. In addition, it was dangerous to leave his horses out in it, too. They needed shelter. He needed shelter.

  He pulled himself up another few feet. He was beginning to feel numb to the pain. He didn’t think that was a good thing, but didn’t know any recourse against it. He was determined to get to the top and to take care of his wounds. Once he was fixed up proper and had a splint on his leg, he would be able to decide what his next move was. He hadn’t seen any farmhouses recently and didn’t know of any that were up ahead on the trail. During his wanderings, he’d stumbled across a few shelters that travelers had built just to get out of weather like this. Perhaps he would come across another one of those. First he had to tend to his wounds. It was the only way he was going to survive. He was feeling weak and knew enough about bleeding injuries to know that bleeding too much caused death.

  He really did not want to die.

  “God,” he mumbled softly, pushing his good foot into a soft spot and pushing himself up. “If You help me, I swear to You, I will always be a gentleman.” He adjusted his foot and pushed himself up again. “And if You want me to have a woman in my life, I will. If You don’t want me to, well, I guess I understand.” He repeated the action with his foot, simultaneously grasping at rocks and branches with his hands. He felt like a monkey in the woods. “But I gotta say, Lord, I really would like to find love. She doesn’t have to be anything really special. Whatever You want to give me, Lord. I’ll be okay with it. But just give me a sign she’s the one, will Ya?”

  He could see the edge of the ravine above him. His heart raced with anticipation as he pushed his way up to it. “You are really generous to me anyway, Lord,” Daryl continued. “And You know I gotta thank You for that. But I need… I guess I really need a miracle. Lord, if You would. I could use it. So much. A miracle. A miracle.” He was looking down at his foot, holding on to the side of a large boulder with both hands, repeating the two words. He felt his fingers slipping. “Oh no,” he whispered. “Oh no.”

  He tried to keep his grip, but the snow had made the side of the rock slippery. His fingers came off the rock and he turned his head to see that he was plummeting down the ravine once more...after working more than an hour. This time, however, as he slid down the side, he managed to wrap one arm around a branch sticking out from a fallen tree. It caught him and his legs swung down under him in the dirt. The leg that was already broken slammed into the tree. He screamed in agony. Pain ripped through every part of his body.

  He struggled to catch his breath, begging the pain to ease. He held on to the branch, wondering if it was time to give up.

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t just let himself lay here and die in a blizzard with a broken leg and a broken spirit. He had to get to the top of the ravine and back to his wagon. He had supplies there that would take care of him and several bottles of whiskey that would take care of his pain. His eyes snapped open when he thought of the whiskey.

  That’s exactly what he needed. He had a newly energized determination to get up to the wagon. He looked up above him. He’d fallen at a different angle and stopped a little further back than he had started. There were more rocks in this area. He could almost see a clear path up to the road. He took it as a sign from God and lifted one finger to point at the sky. “Thank You, God. I see it.”

  When he started up that side of the mountain, he didn’t realize that the more rocks there were, the more pain his leg would feel when it was bumped. It was almost paralyzing. He took it slowly, ignoring the gathering snow around him and the chill in his bones. The pain was so hot, it made him feel warmer than he would have if he was uninjured. His body was working overtime against both the injuries and the temperature.

  He was going to be exhausted when he got to the top. However, if he made it up there, he would be satisfied and perhaps would take a breather to figure out what to do. He glanced around at times, peering through the darkening woods for any passersby, hunters or small shelters for travelers.

  It was quiet. So quiet. The snow made no sound as it hit the ground. As it accumulated, the sound was dampened even more so that there were no birds, no wood animals, nothing. Nothing but silence.

  Daryl heard one of his horses neigh.

  The sound snapped him back to reality. He perked up some, pulling in a deep breath. He was going to make it to the top if it killed him.

  No. He didn’t mean to think that.

  He put one hand out and felt the edge of the ravine. He was there. All he had to do was pull himself up one more step. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to make it safely, so he maneuvered with one hand to remove his suspenders. They weren’t really needed anyway. His pants would stay up. And he didn’t care if they didn’t.

  He held on to one side of the suspenders with a few fingers and tossed the other side around the trunk of a tree with the other fingers of the same hand. He had to act quick to catch the suspenders as they came around the tree trunk. He used the strong bands as a pulley so the he could get his broken leg over the side of the ravine without passing out from the pain.

  He would feel better once he got some whiskey in him. Much better. He was sure of it.

  He looked up at the grey sky. “One more push, God,” he said. “And I’ll be up out of this ravine. Thanks for Your help. Stand by because I’ll probably need more.”

  The way his life was going, it was the way he felt.

  He pulled that one last time, taking a deep breath beforehand. He swung his leg up and over the ravine, twisted his upper body so that he would roll over and was out of the ravine, laying on the side of the road breathing hard. He could see puffs of his breath coming from his mouth and snowflakes drifting down to settle on his face. He heard his horse neigh again and lifted just his head to look behind him upside down at the horses and the wagon. They were both shaking their heads in despair, as if something was troubling them.

  “I’m all right, boys,” he said. “I’m all right. I’ll live. I’ll probably live. I’m not making any guarantees.”

  The horses didn’t think he was funny. They continued shaking their heads from side to side and up and down. He lay flat on the ground again and tried to catch his breath. His heart thumped against his chest full force. He just wanted to rest a minute, but he wasn’t comfortable lying in the middle of the street. He wanted to be somewhere warm and cozy. Talking to someone familiar, someone he loved. Bonding over coffee. He wanted that. But it seemed so far away…

  Finally, he turned himself over and pushed with his arms to bring himself to one knee. The pain in his leg throbbed, but he’d come to a point where he’d become numb to it. He was shiverin
g as he pushed up on his good leg and tried to stand up straight. He wobbled and hopped to grab on to the bit hanging from the horse’s mouth. He grabbed it and pushed his face against the horse’s neck.

  “You are warm, my boy,” he murmured. “So warm. But you won’t be for long, will you? I have to take care of this and then we’ll get moving. You’re a good boy. Good boy.”

  He slapped the side of the horse’s neck and used his hands to move around it to the wagon.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  COTTAGE IN THE FOG

  COTTAGE IN THE FOG

  He was grateful that the light produced from above was reflected by the white snow under his feet. It gave him some help in finding the bench of the wagon and making his way around to the back. It took him several minutes to pull himself up into the back of the wagon, even after dropping the tailgate. Every move sent a flashing pain through his leg and up into his spine.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he was fully inside the wagon and rested his head against the side of the canvas to breathe slowly for a moment. He was lucky he’d left room in the back for his whole body.

  When he was sufficiently rested, he felt around the inside of the wagon, fairly certain he knew where everything he needed and wanted was. Soon, he had a lantern lit and his bandaging bag laid out in front of him. He’d thought of everything he might need, strips of fabric to tie off wounds, an extra pair of suspenders to make a tourniquet, some powder the doctor had given him to help with pain. He even had two boards set aside. He hadn’t kept them with the intention of making a splint, but they would work perfectly for that purpose.

  He used the extra strips of fabric to wrap around his arm.

  When he was through with all the wound care he wanted to perform, he grabbed a bottle of whiskey and kissed the bottle hard. “Do your magic, nectar of the gods. Do your magic.” He looked at the sky through the opening in the back of the wagon. “No disrespect intended, God. You know You’re the best.” He lifted the bottle in the direction of the white snowy sky, uncorked it with his teeth and took two long swallows.

  It took his breath away and he gasped when the liquor hit him. “Yeah!” he said, lifting the bottle to his lips again. “I guess I’m not going anywhere tonight.” He heard himself laughing, but he was so numb from the cold and the pain, he didn’t really feel it.

  You’re gonna freeze to death, a voice in his head came through the fog in his brain. You can’t stay out here. What about your horses? They’re as good as dead, too. That what you want? You gotta find shelter. You gotta get warmth.

  A sudden burst of wind blasted through the middle of the wagon, bringing freezing snowflakes with it. Daryl lifted one hand to shield his face against the blast.

  “Okay, okay, I’m going!” he hissed. “I’m going, I’m going.” He climbed over the burlap sacks and went through the opening at the front of the wagon, trying not to bump his injured leg too many times. The whiskey felt good in his stomach and he wanted more. However, if there was a way to find shelter, it wasn’t sitting in one spot, getting drunk and freezing to death.

  He picked up the reins and slapped them. The horses whinnied, but didn’t move. He felt frustration mounting until he realized the brake lever was still pushed. “Sorry!” he called out to the horses and pulled the lever to release the brake. The horses moved forward, taking a middle of the road path.

  Daryl shivered against the cold air. His lips were starting to burn, which was never a good thing. He’d found an additional scarf and wrapped it around his head so that it covered his nose and mouth. He wished he could cover his eyes, but he had to make sure the horses weren’t taking a path of their own. He scanned the horizon and his surroundings closely, praying that a shelter of some kind would appear. The horses were moving so slowly, they almost weren’t moving at all. He understood why. It was cold, they were tired and the snow was hard to pull the heavy wagon through, especially filled with all of his belongings.

  The temptation to stop was almost overwhelming. He didn’t want to do that to the horses. They would almost certainly die along with him.

  The night dragged into the early hours of the morning until the sun was just getting ready to peek over the mountains in the distance. Daryl jolted himself awake and looked out in the distance. The snow had not ceased. It was still falling at an alarming rate. Fallen trees around them were piled almost a foot high with snow.

  The horses wanted to stop. Daryl could tell. They had to be exhausted, but he didn’t know what to do without some kind of shelter. He couldn’t put them in the back of the wagon. He hadn’t spotted any caves large enough to house them. He’d seen no farmhouses, abandoned stables or barns, or any kind of building.

  Until he suddenly did.

  Up in the distance, he saw the flashing of a lantern. Whatever was holding it was hidden by the dense fog and the thick snowfall. He urged the horses on, wishing he could make them understand what he had seen. It was out there and he wanted to find it. It meant human life. It meant safety and warmth.

  He leaned forward in anticipation, staring at the area where he’d seen the lantern, his heart sinking when he thought maybe he’d imagined it. Then he saw it again and his heart jumped.

  “Go on, boys, go on. Go to that lantern light. Go to it, boys,” he urged the horses in a low voice.

  The horses stopped abruptly. Daryl was almost thrown out of the seat. He steadied himself.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked the horses. He couldn’t see anything in front of them. However, whatever was there was preventing them from going forward.

  “No, no,” Daryl murmured. He couldn’t just jump down into the snow and go explore what the problem was. He was in so much pain and was barely holding onto consciousness for longer than ten minutes at a time. He’d lost a lot of blood and was as weak as he’d ever been. He tried to urge on the horses, but whatever the blockade was, they weren’t budging.

  He grunted and moaned as he tried to get down from the wagon. He swung his leg out wide and hopped down on the other foot, causing a sharp pain to slice through his ankle.

  That’s all I need, he thought. A broken ankle and a broken leg.

  He didn’t need both legs out of commission. He trudged through the snow, holding on to the horses as he went. They had stopped because a stream of icy water blocked their path. Rocks jutted out of the water and a huge tree had fallen over, causing many branches to jut out like spears.

  “This is not good.”

  Daryl lifted his eyes and looked up at the snow falling in his face. “I don’t know what I did, God, but I’m real sorry.”

  He spied a long branch near the side of the water and pondered whether he should retrieve it for a walking stick and see if he could find a way over the stream in a safer place. That meant a bit of walking on the snowy, slippery ground with one functioning leg and a wet stick. He sighed, shaking his head. He reached out for the branch, hoping he could reach it from where he was. It was just inches from his fingertips.

  “Of course,” he grumbled. He looked back at his horse. “What should I do, boy? Risk it? I might as well, right? Gonna die out here if I don’t and possibly die if I do. So might as well.”

  He let go of the horse’s bit and leaned as far forward as he could. Just as he was about to fall face first into the snowbank, he regained his balance, snatched the stick, brought it up and then down hard on the ground. He balanced precariously for a moment before bouncing forward on his good leg until he could hold the long branch beside his bad leg. He held on to it tightly, feeling relieved. He looked across the stream and the field beyond to the lantern glow in the distance. Where was it coming from? It wasn’t moving, so he assumed it wasn’t another wagon. If it was a wagon, they were battening down for the night.

  He wanted to find out what it was so bad, it almost overwhelmed the pain he was in. The cold had set in and he was numb from head to toe anyway. He had frozen blood on his shirt and on his trousers. He was sure there was frozen blood in his h
air. His head was hurting and he had to blink a lot to clear his eyes. He limped back to the wagon and pulled himself up into the driver’s seat with a loud grunt, setting the branch to the side so he could use it later.

  He made kissing sounds to get the horses to turn to the right as he pulled the reins. “We’ll follow the stream and see if there is a bridge somewhere. There must be a bridge.”

  He spotted what he was looking for not far from where he’d started from. He tried to hurry the horses, but they were having nothing of it. They were going at the pace they wanted whether he liked it or not.

  When they rolled over the bridge and headed in the direction of the light, he felt a tremendous sense of relief. Although he still couldn’t see what the origin of the light was, he was happy to see signs of life. The fog was just as dense as it had been since the start of the storm and at times, the snow would swirl in front of them like a whirling dervish.

  “Just a little bit further, boys,” Daryl said, lightly tapping the horses with the reins. “Just a little bit further.”

  As if he was experiencing a miracle, the fog in front of him suddenly cleared like a gust of wind had blown it away. A little cottage appeared, surrounded by a neat little garden and a tiny wooden picket fence. Daryl tilted his head to the side, scanning the house. A lantern was shining in one of the windows. It was the light he’d seen. He stopped the horses far enough away so as not to bother whoever was in the house.

  Someone had to be tending to the house or it would not have a lit lantern on the window sill, he reasoned.

  But who?

  He pictured who he thought was living there. From the isolated look of the house, he was thinking an old crone, maybe someone people thought was a witch or something. The kind who had a regular life and then something happened and they decided to lock themselves away from everyone for the rest of their lives.