by Holly Bush
She got close to his face. “You have to help me. I can’t even tell if the other man’s alive. I know you are. Help me.”
His eyes fluttered.
“Please, mister. I don’t want any more death. Can you help me get you into this wagon?”
The man pushed up on one elbow and touched his head with his other hand, still shaking and quivering. He looked at the blood on his fingers and up to Annie.
“I gotta get home.”
“You’re freezing and your head’s busted open. Get up on your knees so I can get you inside and dry.”
“My horse.”
“He’s right here. He’s going to haul this wagon with you in it to my cabin. I have to get you and this other man warmed up, if he’s even alive.”
The man got up on his knees and put one hand on the wheel. Annie caught him before he fell to the side and pushed and begged and yelled until she got him on the cart. She took the horse’s reins and started to pull but the horse already seemed to know what to do. He plodded along slowly through the copse of trees, down a short incline, and up the path to the cabin.
“Annie,” she heard from the other side of the property.
“Madeline? Is that you? Thank God!”
Madeline Cartwright hurried around the corner of the cabin and skidded to a stop beside the cart. “Oh my dear Lord in heaven!”
“Help me, Madeline,” Annie said. “Help me get them inside.”
The two women dragged and carried the old man into Annie’s cabin. They stripped him of all of his clothes but his long shorts, torn and bloody where his leg bone had come through the skin. Annie dug through a trunk and found a flannel nightshirt that had been her father’s and handed it to Madeline.
“Here. See if he’s alive. See if you can get him in this and get him warm. I’m going to try and get the other man in here,” Annie said as she threw extra logs on the fire.
Once outside, she climbed into the wagon with the young man and tapped his cheeks. “Don’t you go dying on me. I need your help again. Come on now. Sit up.”
The man grabbed her shoulders with a grip she’d not thought him capable of in his weakened state. Her first thought was to run away. Let him die, slowly freezing to death, surely his fate as his sopping clothes were stiff with cold. Let his light slowly dim like Teddy’s had. But there was something about him. Pain and regret as clear and remarkable on his face as the blood, now dried in his hair and in his ear where it had pooled.
“You’re hurting me,” she said and peeled his fingers from her arm. “Now sit up. I’ve got to get you inside and warm and get your horse fed and dry. I’ve got some liniment that I’ll rub into that cut on his side.”
“Where’s my horse?” he said, suddenly panicked, his blue lips quivering. “Where’re my saddlebags?”
“Settle down. I just told you—your horse is the one that pulled this wagon. Once I get you inside, I’m going to take care of him. Come on now. Sit up.”
Annie pulled him forward until he was upright. His head lolled forward and he moaned as she got herself under one of his arms. Madeline came out of the cabin and hurried to his other side.
“The old man’s got a pulse. It’s weak, but his heart’s still beating,” she said. “I’ll get Tom to go to town and fetch the doc.”
“I don’t have any money for the doctor,” Annie said as she and Madeline dragged and pulled the man into the cabin. They laid him down in front of the fire and pulled him upright to get his jacket and leather vest off.
“The old man’s going to die for sure unless that bone gets set and his leg gets stitched. It’s starting to seep.”
Annie sat back on her haunches and looked over at her bed, at her ticking-covered mattress and her grandmother’s handmade quilts now covering a stranger barely clinging to life. “Could Tom ask him if he’d let me pay a little at a time?”
“Can’t hurt to ask.”
“Go then. Go ask Tom to fetch Rawlings, if he’ll come.”
Madeline hurried out the door, and Annie unbuttoned the heavy chambray shirt the young man wore, pulled it away from his back and out of his pants. Water squished out as she did, leaving a puddle with bits of leaves and mud on the floor. She laid him back down on an old horse blanket and covered his bare chest with another one. She yanked his boots off, dumped the water out of them, and peeled off his thick woolen socks. She unbuckled his gun belt, pulled it through the belt loops, and laid it down, ready to unbutton his heavy canvas pants. Something shiny caught her eye and she picked the belt up to examine it. There was a cleverly sewn pocket on the inside, and silver pieces tinkled on the wood floor of the cabin as she pulled it apart.
“Looks like we’re going to have enough to pay Rawlings,” she said to herself. She looked up at the young man and found him staring at her.
“Who’s Rawlings? What are you doing in my money belt?”
Annie went back to unbuttoning his pants. “Rawlings is a doctor, and if your friend makes it until he gets here, I’m hoping he’ll set that leg. I don’t know if I could do it, although I will if I have to.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking off your pants, and then I’m going to push you up on that straw pallet closer to the fire. You’ve got to warm up, mister.”
Matt swam to the top of consciousness, breaking the surface, recognizing himself, that he was alive, was still breathing. He pulled his hand out from under a rough blanket and gazed at it, thinking, Yes, this is my hand, still attached, with strap marks, red and blistered. Just as quickly his eyes closed and dreams overtook him. Dreams of being warm and snuggled next to his mother as she held his sister in her arms. His sister? Yes, he had a sister. Olivia was her name. Hazy memories of horses and sleeping on the cold, hard ground somewhere outside of Nashville, thinking he’d never be warm again.
He opened his eyes with a start and tried to determine which was worse: the thousand needle points stabbing him in his feet and legs or the pounding in his head. His stomach gurgled and he rolled on his side and vomited. A hand wiped his face and mopped up the floor in front of him with filthy rags. His eyes closed, and he dreamt his father was there telling him to sit up straight, to mind his mother, to be careful with the new colt, and to concentrate on the surface of the water, away from the hazy slowness and thickness that pulled him down, down, and farther down. Come on, Matthew, swim to your mother.
And swim he did, with heavy arms that pulled him forward through the darkness, climbing over dead bodies, the stench of death all around him, past a leg with a bone protruding from it. He could hear horses neighing in pain and the ring of gunshots, men’s shouts of agony, women’s cries, and the rasp of the surgeons’ saw.
Until finally his eyes fluttered open again. He stared at the rough wood ceiling where it met a stone chimney that led his eyes down to an open fireplace. He turned his head and watched the wood light and smoke and eventually burn red. There was a pot hanging in the back of the fireplace and a long-handled spoon on a hook. The fire was warm, and he pulled the blanket that lay over him tight up against his chin, over his ears, and closed his eyes. But rational thought intruded on his comfort. Where am I? And wherever that is, why am I here?
He slowly turned his head, feeling himself with his hands, looking for his gun or knife, but he realized he wasn’t even dressed in his clothes. He felt the soft cotton of his undershorts and a thick undershirt with buttons at the neck. There was a dull throb on the side of his head, and he found a lump there that was tender to the touch; he wondered how he got it until scenes began to reveal themselves. He was at the top of the ridge begging Ben to find another way down, watching a boulder come loose and slam into the old man’s leg, holding on to Chester’s reins and saddle horn with every ounce of his being, the bitter cold water, and finally the sun beating down on his face as it cleared the clouds and the rain stopped.
He had lived when there’d been a certainty that he was near death or even further. He swallowed a lump in his throa
t.
A door on the other side of the room opened and a person came in carrying logs and tinder. It was a woman, although none of her clothing would have made that obvious. She wore a felt hat with a broken brim, a coat that was far too large for her, and mended pants stuffed down into boots that were clearly too big. She dropped the logs near his feet and pulled her coat and hat off. He watched her walk to a bed, feel a person’s head, and pull blankets back near the foot of that bed. Ben!
Matt struggled to get himself up on his elbows and croaked a sound. The woman spun around to look at him.
“You’re awake.”
His mouth was dry and gritty, and his tongue rattled around, as if it didn’t know how to form a word. The woman knelt beside him and held a cup of water to his mouth. He drank every drop and rubbed his tongue over his lips.
“Who are you?” he croaked.
“My name is Annie Campbell,” she said and sat back on her haunches. “How do you feel? I was worried you were a goner for a while there.”
“My head is pounding like there’s a hammer hitting me. I feel weak, but I’m hungry, I think. I need to get to the privy.”
“You’re barely going to be able to stand. Why don’t I get you a bucket, and I’ll step outside?”
He looked up at her. “No. Where’s the privy?”
“Stubborn one, huh?”
She put her arm around his back and pulled him forward. His head felt as if it would explode at any moment.
“Take deep breaths. Slow, deep breaths,” she said and rubbed a hand across his back.
“Help me up.”
He held her arms by the elbow and she held his. She pulled until he stood upright on shaking legs. After several minutes of letting his blood find its way back up to his brain, he lifted his head and saw a dry sink straight ahead with a piece of mirror above it and the reflection of an old man. He lifted his hand to his chin and was startled to find out it was him. His hair and beard were straggly and brittle, his cheeks and eyes sunken and his skin sallow. He’d lost weight, for certain. He looked thin and weak.
“Do you think you can walk?” she asked.
Matt concentrated on moving one foot in front of the other, taking three steps away from the warmth of the fireplace. She walked backward with each of his steps, and he leaned heavily on her arms. He was four or five feet from the door of the cabin when he realized he’d never make it any farther. He shook his head.
“I can’t do it, damn it. I can’t go any more. Get me back to the fire.”
“Sit down here,” she said, turning him around and helping him back up to a wooden chair.
He dropped with a thud as his legs gave way, making his head pound from the sudden movement. He was breathing heavily and his heart was racing. She went out the door and returned moments later with a bucket filled with dried leaves. She sat it in front of him.
“I’ll stay if you want. Even turn my back, unless you think you’re alright to do this alone.”
“I’ll holler if I have trouble.”
Chapter 4
Annie stayed on the porch for nearly an hour, worried that he’d call out and she wouldn’t hear him if she went to finish mending the fence post she’d been working on. She quit pacing and slouched down against the cabin, letting the warm rays of the sun beat down on her. She let her eyes close, a rare treat in daylight hours, and wondered when she could rid herself of the two men in her cabin. The old man, she still didn’t know his name, was not getting better, although there was no infection where the bone had broken through the skin as far as she could tell. She moved his arms and legs and feet to keep his blood moving and dribbled broth and water down his throat three times a day like Gilly told her but had seen little improvement since he’d arrived some twelve days prior.
What a horrible night, she thought to herself, recalling when Gilly had arrived to set his leg. It had been all she could do not to vomit when the busted ends of bone rubbed against each other and even screeched like the leg of a wooden chair against the floor. Bile rose in her mouth at the thought of it. She’d prayed Gilly hadn’t been seen coming or going and had given her an extra coin even though it hadn’t been hers to give. She prayed the old man woke up or died a painless death.
“Come,” she heard. She jumped to her feet and opened the door. He was sitting in the chair she’d helped him to nearly an hour ago, and the bucket was sitting near the door. She quickly disposed of its contents in the near woods.
“Put your arm around my neck,” she said, and he stood, less shaky than before. “You need to lie down and rest now.”
He was tall, taller than she’d thought when she and Madeline had first brought him into the cabin, thickly built, well-muscled and strong, even weak as he was. He let her lead him to his straw mattress in front of the fire, every one of his limbs quivering as she helped him lie down and covered him with a quilt. Within moments he was sleeping quietly.
Annie pulled on her boots before dawn, checked her shotgun before putting it over her shoulder, and headed out to feed the hogs. There was going to be just enough corn left to feed them until they were sold. She was out of apples from the two trees near her property that she’d picked and gathered from the ground last fall. There was maybe a week’s worth of acorns she’d picked to mix with the corn and her few dinner scraps, when there was any. She usually made her meals from squirrels or rabbits she shot, but she’d given Madeline a coin to buy her chickens from over at the Dinson place so she could make some decent broth for the old man and Matthew Gentry. She knew his name but didn’t plan to admit that to him, seeing that she’d learned it after digging through his saddlebags the second day she’d tended them.
She fed the hogs and saddled his horse for a run along the river’s bank. The water was back to its normal size, but logs and rocks had altered its course forever. She let the stallion have his head, and the wind whipped through her hair, her hat blowing back from the string tie around her neck. She trotted him back to the cabin, pulled the saddle off and draped it over the barn fence, laid her shotgun on the porch, and picked up the brush she’d laid there to curry him. She was checking the horse’s belly where he’d been cut when the door of the cabin opened.
“Chester,” Gentry said.
The horse nickered and walked up to the porch. Gentry came the rest of the way, dragging the blanket he’d wrapped around him, until he could rub the horse’s ears and talk softly to him.
“Have you been riding him much?”
“Not until a week ago. The first week he was here I wanted to let his cut heal before I cinched him. He needed the exercise, though.”
“I’m sure he did,” he said and leaned his forehead against the horse’s. “He saved my life. Mine and Ben’s.”
Gentry continued talking softly and petting the horse for a long few minutes, before finally looking up. “Not until a week ago? How long have we been here?”
“It’ll be two weeks tomorrow.”
“Two weeks?” he said and looked at her like she couldn’t count her days or read a calendar.
“Yes. Tomorrow will be two weeks. I didn’t think your friend would be alive now, and I’m not sure he’ll get better. Is he your kin?”
“No. His name is Ben Littleship. He’s worked for my family since before I was born.”
“You from around here?”
“Winchester. On the way home after the war.”
“The war’s been over for years.”
“For some it has.” He sagged against the porch post.
“Get back in the house and lie down. I’ll help you shave if you like after we eat something.”
Gentry nodded and made his way slowly inside. Annie finished brushing Chester and led him to the stall in her small barn. She still had plenty of straw for bedding and filled his water bucket from the pump. She stroked the stallion’s nose.
“What are his secrets, boy? I think he was a sad man even before he nearly drowned.”
“I’ll do it myself,”
Matt said.
“Then you’d be fool. Your hands shake so much, your face would be in ribbons if you got close to it with a blade.”
Matt weighed his options, of which there were few, he admitted. He’d sat up much of the day in the rocker that the woman had dragged close to the bed and the fire. He patted Ben’s hand and talked to him as if he could hear and had been so exhausted after just those exertions he’d not been able to eat the soup she’d made or even get himself to the table. He could barely believe that it had all happened two weeks ago. Two weeks ago! He’d slept through fourteen days of his life by her count. But she didn’t have the look of someone who was not able to add or subtract or read. She was capable in every aspect of her life, it seemed to him, even only knowing her a day or two.
He was awake now, though, and rested. He looked at his pocket watch, which he’d dug out of his oilskin pack. It was still ticking, miraculously. Near six in the evening. He rubbed a hand down his beard and looked back at her where she stood across the cabin, still staring at him.
“Where are you going to do this to me?” he asked. “Do you want me to take my clothes off?”
Her cheeks flamed red against her pale skin and she harrumphed. “Mister, you can’t get out of that chair without help. What makes you think you could do much else?”
Matt barked a laugh, and it sounded strange to his own ears. How long had it been since he’d laughed and been sober at the same time? “Shaving me. I was talking about where you’re going to shave me.”
“Out on the porch. Less mess to clean up.”
He walked outside and sat on the stool that she had carried out. She had a comb that was missing some teeth and a pair of scissors in her hand. He sat quietly while she snipped away at the long hair of his beard. She’d removed her hat and rolled up the sleeves of the oversized shirt she wore. She studied his shaggy growth from inches away, giving him ample time to study her face. She was pale skinned with light-colored freckles across the bridge of her nose. She had a wide full mouth and a gap between her two front teeth. Her eyes were green, new green, like the spring grasses that were shooting up all over her yard.