"And you ain't all there, if you take all the blame for that selfish little twit. Aurora made her own choices, just like the rest of us. If you're so willing to own up to your own faults, Fancy, then you damn well better let Aurora own up to hers." Jewel grunted and reorganized her blanket for sleep; the ground was cold and hard and she was bone-weary.
"You know, kid," Jewel said after a moment or two. "I was listenin' to what you two said to each other, eavesdropped on every blessed word of it, like it was my sworn duty to hear it all. It kinda made me wish I could ever once have told my mama what was wrong in my life and have her understand like you tried to do, just now. I really loved my mama, more'n anybody... but I never once got the chance to do what you two did tonight. I cain't help but wonder if maybe everything coulda been different in my life, if my mama'd ever known the truth."
"I love you, too, Jewel," Fancy said wearily as she stared into the dwindling fire; she needed time to think it all through and to renew herself. She had been sapped by the soul-search, and if she didn't recoup her strength, she would endanger them all. The grim possibility that by tomorrow night they could be captured or dead was very real, but at the moment it was hard to concentrate on anything but her wounds of the heart.
Chapter 131
The clatter of many horses roused the women from uncomfortable sleep, and Jewel spoke rapidly as she scrambled everything she could find far into the cave; it was the third time since they'd set out that they'd found a hideout that allowed more cover and security than the open woods. "Sounds like they called out the goddamned militia to track us."
"Might as well fight them here as anywhere," Fancy answered gravely, when she returned from reconnaissance. The pursuers were not far below them on the mountain. "We have the cave to hide our things, and we're on higher ground than they are. We could use the advantage a surprise attack would give us—they'll be on top of us in less than an hour, and we can't outrun them."
"We ain't got much ammunition to hold off a posse," Jewel answered, emptying her pockets of cartridges. "Thirty rounds between us for the .45's, fifty or so for the peashooters." She grimaced at the tiny derringers. "They ain't no use at all unless you're close enough to count the hairs in a man's nose."
"We've got the cartridge belts from the hospital guards, too," Fancy reminded her, "and we've each got knives."
"Sure, but that's a real tough way to kill a man and you ain't big enough to risk gettin' in close." She expelled a breath expressively. "But, if it does come to that, kid, and it might, let me tell you how it's done. You go in low under the ribs and push up toward the heart for all you're worth, or you go for that big artery in the neck, from behind. Ford showed me how, years ago." Fancy nodded.
"If it comes to hand-to-hand, you knee 'em in the balls; don't kick, or he'll catch your foot and send you flyin'. You can ram your fingers into a man's eyes or up his nose and disable him, too, but for Christ's sake, if you go that route, do it for all you're worth, or you'll just make him meaner. The palm of your hand can break a man's nose easy—I know 'cause I've done it more 'n once—and sometimes that can buy you time to get away."
Fancy nodded at the grim instructions and checked her pistols with an expert's touch, before stowing them into the holster she'd stolen from Brookehaven. "Every bullet has to count, Jewel," she said as she stuck the knife into her belt with the other armament.
Aurora watched the two older women with incredulous fascination; they were actually going to make a fight of it, against armed men.
"You two are insane!" she called out, meaning it. "You can't win against odds like these."
"Not if we don't try," Jewel replied laconically, shoving her own pistols into her belt and moving silently toward the covering pines. The dust cloud on the winding trail below revealed the men who hunted them.
Six men had been sent to bring them back, three of Jeb's boys, Jeb himself, and the two of Jason's men who'd been sent to collect Fancy. Three women, unarmed, couldn't put up much of a battle, it had seemed to the pursuers when they'd set out. The wonder was that the escapees had survived ten days on foot already, and had covered their trail so professionally. It had been damned hard to track them in this rocky terrain; if it hadn't been for the patches of snow, they might have disappeared altogether. Those three might be crazy, but they sure as hell weren't stupid.
Jeb intended to make the redheaded bitch pay for the embarrassment she'd caused him—he had to bring back the other two alive, according to Doc Endicott, but nobody gave a shit what happened to the redhead, and he would see to it she died hard for making him a laughingstock.
Fancy and Jewel had hidden their packs, and the horse, far back in the cave with Aurora, making their last-minute tactical plans. They hugged each other hard and wordlessly, then each woman positioned herself on a different side of the trail, high up on the rock ledge, and waited for the riders to round the last bend below.
Jewel picked off the straggler of the six, as the men headed up the trail toward the hideaway. He fell from his horse and was dragged a few feet before the animal scrambled, riderless, for safety. There was a Winchester, Fancy noted, still in the animal's saddle scabbard; if she could double back later, she might be able to grab it. The other men dismounted instantly and fanned out, as Jeb shouted orders. Fancy could see by their movements that two were skilled woodsmen, three were not.
Jeb headed stealthily in the direction Jewel had gone; Fancy moved toward higher ground. A bullet whizzed by so close, it ripped her coat. She dropped to her knees and returned fire—the man who'd sent the shot her way wasn't expecting the bullet that winged him; he backed off into the trees, clutching his shoulder. Fancy wondered, fleetingly, if the pursuers had been instructed to bring their prisoners back alive, or if that was left to the discretion of the men.
Jewel grunted hard somewhere below Fancy's position; the sounds of a scuffle and curses rent the morning. Fancy crept forward far enough to see that Jeb had Jewel in a hammerlock; she was struggling wildly to break free but the man was far too powerful. Obviously Jewel, at least, was deemed dispensable. She'd been caught from behind and hadn't a prayer of freeing herself. Fancy gauged the plausibility of the difficult shot from where she was positioned—if she tried and failed, Jewel would die from the bullet, before strangulation. She centered herself and aimed, squeezing off the potent round. Fancy felt the gun roll back in her hand, saw Jeb drop his hold on Jewel and sink to the ground, an expression of incredulity on his ugly face. No matter where you hit a man with a .45 slug, it brings him down, Ford had said and he'd been right.
Jewel gasped for breath like a fish on a riverbank, then tugged Jeb's revolver free of his pants before running for cover.
Fancy saw a glint of sunlight bounce off a nickel-plated barrel; she fired at the spot almost without thinking, and knew by the crackling sound of breaking branches that a body had rolled away through the underbrush. How badly the man was wounded she couldn't tell, but now there were three wounded or dead that she knew of, and two against three was a damned sight more negotiable than two against six. She flattened herself against the rock and tried to intuit where Jewel might have gone.
Gunfire spat to the left of her and Fancy scrambled out of the way for cover; she spotted the man on the ridge just as he drew a bead on her. Jewel's bullet caught him full in the chest, as he squeezed off a round that skittered uselessly into the trees.
"Are there three down?" Fancy gasped breathlessly as she reached Jewel's side.
"Four," Jewel answered grimly. "Stuck one with my huntin' knife." Fancy's eyes widened in admiration.
"Their two best men are still on their feet," Jewel said worriedly.
"So are ours," Fancy replied. Not waiting for a response, she slid off into the boulder-strewn bracken; Jewel smiled at her pluck and moved in the direction of the road. Fancy was right, of course, the odds were better now, but there was damned little ammo left.
Jewel made her way stealthily toward the best cover she could spy, wi
shing with all her heart that Ford and Hart would appear just about now, like the cavalry always did in storybooks. She saw the gunman disengage himself from the cover of the trunk of an ancient pine, too late to protect herself. She fired, but despairing, heard the hammer of her pistol fall on an empty chamber. Shit! Ford would kill her if he knew she hadn't counted her shots, only a rank amateur—
The man's slug caught Jewel full in the chest before she could turn to flee. Her arms flew out like a crucifixion, but the impact of the bullet spun her around and crashed her violently to the ground. Fancy saw the woman fall and shot her friend's assailant where he stood over Jewel's crumpled form.
Her brain raced—a diversion—that's what she needed, and fast. Frantically, Fancy doubled back to the cave and freed the horse that was hidden there. Maybe she could distract the remaining man's attention long enough to get to Jewel... she slapped wildly at the horse's flank and the riderless animal tore through the trees to the trail, crashing undergrowth noisily as it ran.
"One of them's getting away!" a voice shouted angrily, and Fancy fired toward the shout, but missed. She heard someone mount laboriously; someone she'd counted out must only have been wounded; she heard the man light out after the runaway horse. The diversionary tactic wouldn't give her much time, maybe just long enough to drag Jewel back to the cave, provided she wasn't already dead. Fancy shuddered at the awful possibility just as Aurora slipped up behind her. Fancy had made the decision to leave the girl untied; if the two women were killed, Aurora would have to be free to defend herself as best she could.
"Mother," Aurora whispered urgently. "I know where the other man is." She tugged Fancy toward the spot where he was visible, his back turned toward them, red with blood from a shoulder wound; he was scouring the ridge for prey or accomplices. Aurora watched her mother brace herself for the shot, close her eyes a moment as if in prayer, then plug him with one of the last two rounds she possessed for the .45.
Breathlessly, the woman and girl dragged Jewel toward the sheltering rocks, then Fancy doubled back to cover the shattered undergrowth. She prayed, as she did so, that the last remaining tracker would choose to go back to Brookehaven to report the expedition's failure, not return to storm their hideaway. When she reached the cave and slipped in through the covering of tree limbs and leaves they'd constructed, she found Aurora kneeling over Jewel's body, pressing a torn piece of her shirt to the bloody wound.
The bullet hole was deep and jagged—Fancy examined the ugly wound gently as she could, but she heard the deep intake of breath and the soft curse as Jewel, returning to consciousness, fought for control of the pain that had followed the initial numbness.
"Fuck, shit, piss, and corruption! I can't believe the little bastard brought me down." Jewel's whisper was hoarse with hurt and fear, beneath the bravado.
"The lead's still in there, Jewel. You know I can't leave it there to fester."
Jewel took that in, sighed, and nodded. Both women knew what it meant to remove a bullet this far from help or antiseptics.
Fancy pulled the blanket up over the wounded woman, then walked to where Aurora watched. She ran her fingers through her hair to push it back from her dirt-smudged face and as she did so, Aurora read the terrible tension in her mother's gesture and saw the blood running down her arm, where a bullet had grazed her.
"He'll come back for us, won't he?" the girl asked.
"Yes. But if we're lucky, he'll go back to Brookehaven, or at least to the nearest town, for reinforcements first. That'll buy us some time." Aurora nodded.
"I'll have to get the bullet out of Jewel's chest right away,
Aurora. It's close to her lung, if it stays in there she'll die for sure."
"But if we stay here, they'll find us! He knows where we are now."
Fancy looked steadily at her daughter, too weary and heartsick to argue the point.
"I'll have to find some herbs, roots... something for the pain, something for infection," she said, holding Aurora's gaze with her own. The girl's eyes were clearer now, more focused than they'd been, and the pupils were the right size. "Will you help me?"
Aurora scanned her mother's face, saw the fatigue and anxiety there, but it was something else that stayed the quick reply that rose to her lips. This had been a request, not a demand, for help.
"I'll try to, Mother," she said, her voice low and softer than before, uncertain but willing. Fancy nodded acceptance of her answer.
"Do you remember any of the herbal lore I taught you, years ago?"
Aurora shook her head uncertainly and Fancy noticed for the first time that she had combed her hair and plaited it into a semblance of normalcy.
"We'll need white willow bark for the bleeding and inflammation, even poplar would do. If we can lay our hands on some oak galls, we might be able to keep the tissues from weeping too badly... the bark will work, if we can't find anything better for the swelling." She tried to force her mind to function, but there was so little available in the cold, flowers were long dead, roots hard to dig in the frozen ground. "Thistle or goldenroot for the lung, or ironwood," she said aloud, then seeing the girl's ignorance of all she catalogued, she shook her head in exasperation.
"I know they're not easy to find now in winter, but there aren't many possibilities this time of year. You stay with her while I search, and for God's sake, Aurora, keep the pressure on that bandage."
The girl moved forward and Fancy saw Jewel strive to ease the derringer from her belt. Fancy knew Jewel thought to protect herself from Aurora's possible treachery, but there were no choices left; without the right remedies, Jewel had no chance whatsoever. Fancy took a deep breath and would not let herself think that Jewel could die.
The makeshift surgeon thrust the knife among the red-hot coals of the fire, and put the two decoctions aside. She'd pulled Jewel as far back into the cave as possible, and had baffled the entrance with branches and leaves to dissipate the signs of the fire, but the air was thick with smoke and it made her eyes water. Their borrowed horse had doubled back from his wild run and nosed at the brush-cover; he could easily have led the survivor of the pursuit party back to their lair. She thought the odds were the wounded man would have ridden in search of reinforcements, rather than risk another sortie. She motioned Aurora to tether the animal inside the dark rock hiding place close by them; it would be nothing but the grace of God if he hadn't already betrayed their whereabouts. The paste of chewed winter leaves and spiderwebs would have to do, to stop the bleeding—there was no mugwort to be found, at least not quickly enough.
The white willow bark would help with the lung inflammation, and the wild ginger could fight infection, but the real crisis would come with the surgery she prepared for. It was too late in the season to find yarrow, to help with the blood clotting. How deeply entangled in muscle and ligament was that bullet? And how close to the lung? Fancy breathed deeply and tried to force her consciousness to obedience, as Magda would have done. She'd scrubbed her hands in the water from their canteen until her skin had turned raw, and she'd splashed them with her disinfecting decoction and would again before attempting surgery. Now only the skills she'd learned from Atticus and her own courage would sustain her. But what in God's name would sustain Jewel? The pain alone could kill her.
Fancy tore a piece of flannel from Jewel's bloomers and fashioned it into a roll to place between the woman's teeth. If Jewel cried out, she could alert the searchers; Fancy saw her friend's pain-bleared eyes follow every movement; there was real fear in them and absolute understanding.
Fancy knelt beside her and brushed the sweat-soaked hair back from her brow with her shirt sleeve, so as not to contaminate her hands. She saw Aurora watching but paid the girl no mind.
"I'm going to have to cut to get at it," Fancy whispered, leaning in close. "I'll try to be fast, Jewel, but I won't be able to do much about the pain... I couldn't find anything out there that could ease it for you." She stroked the deathly pale cheek as she spoke the last of it, then
plunged on. "I can't let myself get distracted, Jewel, or I'm liable not to get the damned thing out." Fancy paused, holding back tears.
Jewel nodded, her face gray from pain and blood loss. "I know what you're up against, kid," she whispered, coughing. "I'll do my best to keep quiet." Fancy took Jewel's hand in her own and held it to her cheek. What an incredible friend this woman had been through thick and thin—wise and funny, always allowing Fancy her faults without rancor, always there at the end of it, to cheer and encourage.
"Oh, Jewel, I'm so damned sorry!" she said, swiping at her eyes with her sleeve, afraid to soil her cleansed hands by touching her own tears.
Jewel would have grinned if she'd been able. "I love you, too, kid. Don't you go blamin' yourself if I don't make it—cain't do no more than your best in this world, Fancy, like I always told you..." She coughed again and stopped, breathless; the talking had drained her, but there was more she needed to say. Gripping Fancy's hand hard, she whispered, "You tell Ford I love him and thanks for everything. Tell him I've gone on ahead to meet Dakota. And one thing more, kid... don't let them bury me in Boot Hill. I want a proper grave like the churchgoers get. My mama was real religious about stuff like that."
Fancy nodded, choked with tears. She didn't hear Aurora steal away to unhitch the horse and mount it, only the sound of hoof-beats in the eerie stillness of the cave roused her to stare at the retreating horse and rider. Both women knew the girl never even stopped to replace the brush-cover Fancy had so laboriously put in place to shield them.
Jewel's eyes locked with Fancy's, but instead of "I told you so," Fancy saw only compassion there. She kissed Jewel's cheek, hugged her gingerly, and placed the cleanest cloths she had around the wound. Then she cleansed her own hands one last time and prayed for courage for them both.
Fancy mentally calculated the time before she pulled the glowing knife from the coals. It wouldn't take Aurora long to find their pursuer and alert him to the whereabouts of the cave—she shuddered in revulsion at yet another betrayal, and at her own infinite capacity for being an idiot.
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