Lizeth glanced back at the scene of the recent confrontation, then sighed, “What I need, is my horse. I liked her!” She looked wryly up at Daussie. “I appreciate the offer though.” She glanced back one more time. “I’d take you up on that if it looked like we were going to have to fight any more today, but it looks like your Dad took the starch out of them.”
Dad? Daussie thought glancing back again, that’s probably mostly Tarc’s work, but I guess Lizeth wouldn’t know that.
Chapter Seven
When they arrived back at Prichard’s caravan field, Daussie saw Mr. Prichard standing at the corner of the field. He had his legs shoulder width apart and his hands on his hips as if he were looking for a confrontation. As the caravan pulled in and circled, Prichard started across to Norton’s wagon. Shortly, Prichard, Norton, and Arco were in the midst of a heated conversation. Daussie wanted to know what they were saying in the worst way, but couldn’t think of an excuse for getting close enough to eavesdrop.
However, a fairly large group gathered around Henry Roper. They wanted to know what had happened since they had been too far back to witness the confrontation themselves. Daussie was able to hear his description of the events fairly well as he was speaking loudly enough for the group to hear.
His description matched her own perception of events fairly well, though she was unprepared for the awe with which Henry spoke of Daum and Tarc’s archery. “…shot seven of the bastards! Every one, right in the head! The second shot took out their leader and that left them directionless. Then, they cut and ran, each of them shittin’ his pants that he’d be next!” Henry glanced over towards the Hyllises’ wagon, apparently without seeing Daussie, “Holy crap! That Hyllis is really good with a bow and arrow!”
Daussie frowned; apparently Henry also thought Daum had done all or almost all of the shooting.
Henry turned back to his audience, “Then, six of the guys who’d come out of the woods strung bows. I thought sure our guys were in trouble then. They were probably 40 to 50 yards away, a pretty long shot, and those raider archers would be sending a lot more arrows at our guys than Hyllis could send back. Worse, our guys were stuck on that shooting platform which made them easier targets because they couldn’t move around.” Henry paused and shook his head over the situation.
A young man who’d been listening on tenterhooks said, “So what happened?!”
Henry looked the young man in the eye, “First guy got his bow strung? Boom! Arrow through the head. At that distance! I thought sure Hyllis’d be shooting for the body way out there, but hell no! Right through the skull! Second guy strings a bow, down he goes! Third and fourth guys? Same damn thing!” He barked a laugh, “The other two dropped their bows and ran off into the woods.”
“Didn’t he miss any shots?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I was shittin’ my pants and way too scared to watch for arrows that missed. Besides, his kid was shooting too which would have made it really hard to tell.”
Henry went on to describe the raiders milling around aimlessly and arguing amongst themselves while the caravan got itself turned around to leave.
“Maybe we should have just rolled on by while they were all mixed up?” one of the listeners asked.
Henry gave a morbid laugh, “That would’ve been okay with me. My wagon’s close enough to the archers that we would have gotten past. The rest of you would’ve been in serious trouble though. There would have been thirty or forty pissed off ex-soldiers hiding in the woods on each side, all anxious to come kick some ass at the back end of the caravan.”
Daussie saw several of the group looking thoughtfully at one another as they considered Henry’s assessment. One of them turned and looked across the circle at Norton, Arco and Prichard. He said musingly, “I’ll bet that’s what they’re talking about over there. Hope Norton doesn’t decide we should try to charge through those bastards tomorrow.”
Another said, “If they try that I won’t be with them!”
Someone else said, “I don’t want to stay here either! What the hell are we gonna do?”
Daussie looked back over at the caravan’s leaders, her stomach knotting as she also wondered what they would do.
***
A while later, to her astonishment, Daussie found herself helping Eva make a lunch for the caravan. After the momentous events of the morning, it felt unreal to be engaged in such mundane tasks. When she pointed this out to her mother, Eva simply said, “People still gotta eat. We still gotta earn our keep.”
Tarc went for wood, Daum set up their portable cooking grate and Daussie chopped vegetables. However, she broke away from the veggies for a few moments when she saw Lizeth coming toward the guard wagon. She started to intercept Lizeth, but then paused when she perceived that the girl guard looked to be in a thunderous mood. Deciding she had to know what was going on, Daussie timidly said, “What’ve they decided to do?”
Lizeth looked at Daussie, her lips forming a narrow line. For a moment Daussie thought she would refuse to answer, but then she spat, “Nothing! Argue, argue, argue! Decide nothing!”
Plaintively Daussie asked, “What do you think we should do?”
Her eyes narrowed in thought, Lizeth turned and looked around the camp. Finally she shrugged, still not looking at Daussie, she said quietly but forcefully, “I don’t know! Trying to run a gauntlet those bastards form along the road would be sure to get a lot of us killed.” She looked out towards the woods, “But, dammit…! I don’t want to leave those sons of bitches with the women they captured either.”
Heart in her throat, Daussie said, “But… we can’t… if, if you go attack a big group like that, you’re gonna get killed!”
“There’s that…” Lizeth said morbidly. She glanced at Daussie and quirked a wry grin, “You’re sounding pretty timid all of a sudden. Are you sure you’re the same girl who rode up and down the caravan yelling at the wagoners? The same one that helped turn a couple of wagons and then bullied a bunch of men into un-sticking the Jones’s wheel?”
Daussie ducked her head. “I was just trying to do what needed to be done,” she said, feeling her face turn red and her ears burn. She hadn’t thought she was being all that bossy at the time.
Lizeth chuckled, “And doing a damn fine job of it from what I hear.”
When Daussie returned to chopping vegetables, Eva asked her quietly what she’d found out. When she related the conversation she’d had, Daussie realized she hadn’t actually learned much.
***
About half the caravan showed up when Eva announced that they had vegetable stew for lunch. Daussie learned very little listening to the people talk as they stood in the line with their bowls waiting to be served. Many of them glanced admiringly at Daum as he served the stew. A few of them quietly said “thank you” as well. It didn’t seem to Daussie that any of them seriously considered the possibility that Tarc might have had anything significant to do with holding off the raiders.
Daussie was more interested in what they thought should be done next. However it seemed like the caravaners were mixed in their thoughts about that. Some had attached themselves to a plan to mount the caravan and hit the road at about two in the morning, trying to get by the raiders while they were sleeping. A substantial group wanted to stay at Prichard’s farm, either waiting for rescue or somehow joining with the farmers to attack the raiders.
Daussie never heard just who the one group thought would rescue them, but she did hear some of them talking about how some of the guards should ride hither and yon calling on rescuers. Those opposed thought it unlikely that any group strong enough to take on the raiders would do it without substantial compensation.
Essentially, no one had any good ideas in Daussie’s opinion. She tried to calm her worried stomach with some stew, but it didn’t work. Eventually she threw up at least half of what she’d eaten. Eva saw it happen and a little while later showed up with a cup of chamomile tea for each of them. “This is supposed to calm our n
erves and soothe our upset stomachs. Seems like a good time for us to be drinking some.”
As Daussie nervously sipped, she looked at her mother. “Nobody knows what we should do?”
Eva slowly shook her head as her eyes thoughtfully roamed the woods in the distance.
“What do you think?”
Eva’s clear gray eyes turned to focus on her daughter. After a moment she said quietly, “I have many skills Dauss, but scrying the future is not among them. Neither is fighting raiders, nor leading caravans.” She sighed, “I can see that you’re really worried, but in this instance I have no wisdom for you. Drink your tea, seek inner peace, and try to accept that what will be, will be in this instance. This is not a situation in which either you or I have the knowledge or the influence to change the course of what will happen.” Eva got up, walked around behind her daughter, and began to massage her tense shoulders. “Try to relax,” Eva snorted, “giving yourself an ulcer won’t solve the situation either.”
While Eva came around to sit beside her again, Daussie reflexively sent her ghost down into her own stomach to explore for ulcers.
Settling, Eva said, “I know a good thing to take your mind off of it. Why don’t you climb up into the wagon and try to do some reading. Gallstones would be a good topic since we just saw a patient with them.”
“Oh!” Daussie said excitedly, “Tarc and I figured out that there is something I can do with my talent. We think it will help some people who have things like gallstones and kidney stones.”
“Really?!” Eva said excitedly, then her eyes narrowed, “what is it?”
“Here,” Daussie said bending over to pick up a pebble and setting it on her knee, “watch this.”
Eva focused intently on the pebble. When it vanished from where it was and reappeared six inches further up Daussie’s thigh, she exclaimed, “My God!” while jerking back on her stool. Then she leaned back closer to study the pebble. “Can you do that again?”
Daussie looked around to be sure no one was watching, then jumped it back and forth a couple of times. Expecting it now, her mother wasn’t startled, but did stare in wide-eyed amazement. Daussie said, “And watch this.” She had just moved the pebble to her upper thigh, now she picked it up and squeezed it in her fist. A moment later the pebble reappeared on her knee. As soon as she did it, she suddenly decided that that had been a stupid thing to do. She had just transported an object through her own body without trying it on a piece of meat or an animal like she had planned to. Covertly she looked at both sides of her hand, then rubbed it. Fortunately her hand seemed to be none the worse for having a pebble travel through it. She said, “We’re thinking that I could remove gallstones and kidney stones from people.”
“Oh Daussie, that’s wonderful!” Eva said her voice raspy with emotion.
Daussie glanced up at her mother and saw eyes shiny with tears. Eva leaned over and hugged her daughter tightly. A little embarrassed, Daussie said, “We were thinking that we should test it by putting a pebble…” she suddenly realized they didn’t need to test by putting a pebble in a piece of meat after she’d transported one out of her fist. “Um, I mean by pulling a pebble out of a chicken’s gizzard. You know, to be sure I didn’t do any harm?”
Eva pushed her back to arm’s length, smiling at her with a joyful look on her face. Then she blinked, looked thoughtful, and said, “If you can transport a pebble out of your fist, it probably won’t do any harm to move a stone out of a gallbladder. But, you’re absolutely right. Before we try this in a person, we should do our best to be sure it will be safe. Let’s grab a chicken and check it out.”
In a couple minutes, Eva had one of their hens sitting in her lap while she calmed it and sent her ghost in to feel the stones in its gizzard. “Okay,” she said, “pluck one out.”
A small rock appeared just below the chicken and fell, bouncing off Eva’s knee and leaving a spot of slime before it landed on the ground. “Ew, gross,” Eva said, “couldn’t you have moved it far enough so it wouldn’t land on me?”
“Sorry, the farther I move something, the longer it takes and the harder it is to do it. I hadn’t thought about it being covered with nasty stomach juice.”
“Oh, I hadn’t started to wonder how far you can move things. Or how big?”
“The bigger it is, or the further I move it, the longer it takes me to get it to jump. Also, the farther it is from me the longer it takes.” She shrugged, “So, it takes me about a second to move a copper six inches. But if I try to move it twelve inches I think it takes about two seconds. It also takes two seconds to move two coppers six inches. I couldn’t pick people’s pockets from across the street.”
Eva’s eyebrows went up, “I hope you weren’t planning on a career as a pickpocket?!”
“No, just using that as an example. But if I leaned my head right down next to somebody’s gallbladder, I think I should be able to move several gallstones per second out to the surface.” She frowned, “Other than gallstones and kidney stones though, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be good for treating much else.”
Eva stared off into space, “What about… cancer? Can you take pieces of something, or does it have to be a whole ‘thing,’ like a rock?”
Daussie’s eyes widened, “You mean… take a cancer out in little chunks?” She said excitedly. “Let me try…” She looked down at the ground and picked up a stick. She held it on her knee, focusing on it. A moment later a hole appeared in the side of it and, over on her other knee, a small round wooden ball materialized, then rolled off. She lifted the stick and looked at the hole while Eva caught the ball rolling off of her leg. The hole in the stick was approximately the same size as the little ball, and the ball had a small patch of bark on one side. “Wow!” Daussie breathed.
“I’ll say! That’s a real wow!”
Daussie frowned, “But if I start popping chunks out of a cancer, isn’t it going to start bleeding?”
“Mmm,” Eva said, thinking, “maybe. But there are other diseases. You could remove pus from an abscess without lancing it. Maybe…” Eva’s eyes practically crossed, “maybe you could pluck a blockage out of an artery?! You might be able to save people from strokes and heart attacks if you got there soon enough!”
Daussie’s eyes dropped from her mother down to the stick with the hole coming out of it. “That sounds like it could be… pretty dangerous. If I missed and took out the wall of the artery, the patient could die right away. A lot of people survive a heart attack.”
Eva shrugged, “Well, you’d certainly need to practice first.” Her eyes dropped to the stick that still lay in Daussie’s lap. “Why don’t you try taking the wood out of that stick while leaving the bark on it?”
Daussie looked at the stick, actually a small branch, narrowing as it divided. “Okay.” She leaned down to the stick.
Eva said, “That looks kinda weird, you leaning down into your own lap for no apparent reason.”
Daussie straightened back up as small balls of wood rolled off her leg in the region of the stick, bouncing to the ground. “It’s a lot easier if I get my head near it though. I think it would’ve looked weirder if I was holding the stick up to my head.”
“Mmm,” Eva said, acknowledging the truth of Daussie’s statement while she reached out for the stick. She picked it up to look and see if the bark had been perforated anywhere. Although the stick had looked perfectly intact, when Eva lifted it, it promptly collapsed in the region where Daussie had removed the wood inside the bark. “Oh!” Eva said staring wide-eyed at the broken stick. She set it back on Daussie’s knee. “Do another section. This time I’ll check it with my ghost so it won’t break before I can see if the bark is intact.”
Daussie leaned down again. Before she straightened back up, Arco’s voice came over her shoulder, “Are you smelling your knees?”
Daussie jerked back upright, cheeks turning red and ears burning. “Um, n-no, smelling this little branch,” she stammered.
Arco grinned at
her. “Interesting method. Most people would have lifted the stick to their nose rather than vice versa. But,” he looked back and forth from Daussie to Eva, “I just came by to express the caravan’s appreciation for your service this morning.”
Still blushing, Daussie said, “I only did what you told me.”
“Not true!” He grinned at Daussie, “I hear you helped turn wagons and organized a team to get a wheel loose. The caravan owes you its gratitude—which you’re getting from me.” He leaned down closer and spoke in a low tone, “You’d probably rather have the caravan’s coin, but you’re not going to see that!” He stood back up and grinned, “It is made up of merchants after all. You know how they pinch coppers.” He stood and winked, “So, you’ll have to be satisfied with my gratitude.” He turned to leave.
Daussie said, “What are we going to do?”
Arco turned back, his smile gone. “I wish I knew. It hasn’t been decided yet.”
“What do you think we should do?”
He shook his head, “There really aren’t any good options. We’re just trying to figure out which would be the least bad option and it’s hard to get agreement on something like that.” He sighed, “I suspect we’ll be dithering about it for a few days yet.”
This time when he turned to go, he kept going when Daussie called out, “But…!” behind him. Daussie glanced back at Eva who gave her a little smile.
Eva said, “No holes in the bark!”
Daum returned from the Prichard’s place with a side of pork for the evening meal. “I was worried they wouldn’t deal with me because Norton and Prichard aren’t getting along. But Prichard said that life must go on whether we can agree or not.”
Tarc had just arrived back with more deadfall from the woods. He said, “They’ve got their scouts back in place out there.”
Daum’s eyes widened, “You stayed well away from them?”
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