“Cord killed the two that attacked him. Mom he smashed their heads together like coconuts, cracking their foreheads, their brains spilling....” Shanie paused for a brief moment, a quick hand to her mouth, gagging. “Chris had been just a boy, but these were two grown men, they were so big. I never knew a man could be so strong.”
Tansy realized Shanie discovered she was perhaps not invincible when it came to fighting men. Although Aidan had been teaching her to defend herself, Cord was an extremely powerful man, all four of them were. They made certain they were all careful whenever play fighting with Shanie, especially Cord. He didn’t want her tentative acceptance of him to sour.
“You said there were six,” Tansy said.
Shanie looked at her stricken. Her head dropped. When she looked back up at her, Tansy sucked in her breath. At that moment Shanie looked old, almost ancient. A deep pain radiated from within.
“He was going to throw a knife at Clint while his back was turned. He would’ve killed him. I had no choice, I couldn’t let him hurt Clint; I couldn’t let him take him away from us, we need him. He saved your life too many times. After everything we’ve been through, he’s family.”
“It’s all right, Shanie. You were protecting our family, of course we need Clint. I know you care for him. I know how much you appreciate what he’s done.”
“I shot an arrow through the man’s eye. I killed a man, Mom, I killed another human being.” Pitifully, Shanie cried out her anguish, horrified by her actions. It would be a vision she knew would come back to haunt her for the rest of her life, the man’s strangled short scream of agony, the slow drop to his knees, then side, his final breath, the vacant one-eyed stare.
“Shanie it’s not your fault, you had no choice, you did the right thing.” Reluctantly, Shanie nodded. “What happened to the last man?”
“I don’t know. After I killed that man and Clint turned around and saw what I did, he looked at me so surprised; I had to get away. I ran.” She hung her head. Shanie could still hear Clint calling to her in her mind as she set off at a dead run; the darkness had closed around her, covering her escape. Home and her mother being her only thoughts and need.
“You came home alone in the dark?”
“Yes.” The moon’s illumination, coupled with her determination, had directed her shaky feet home. She pulled away from her mother and, exhausted, fell into her bed and was soon sleeping fitfully.
Tansy began to pace. All sorts of awful images raced through her mind. One of them could be hurt. She pictured Ethan bleeding and dying, Clint with terrible stab wounds. What would happen to Emmy if Aidan were hurt or killed? Would she grieve badly enough to lose her baby? Tansy’s very first grandchild, a very wanted grandchild, another proof of her husband’s legacy that he would continue on through his children.
Her thoughts took frantic turns. Images of Cord’s battered body popped into her mind, until she began to dress in warm clothing. There was still one man Shanie couldn’t account for. Tansy had to go find them; she had to make sure that last man hadn’t hurt one of them.
“Jist where the hell do you think you’re goin’? It’s freezin’ outside and gettin’ colder by the second,” a harsh, concerned voice asked Tansy from the mine opening.
“Clint!” Tansy ran at him and threw herself into his arms, a kiss smacked soundly on his cold lips. She pulled him close.
“Well now, I should stay away more often,” he said throatily, then kissed her back thoroughly and she let him, grateful he was home and not injured. Clint broke the contact and asked after Shanie.
“She’s back. Where’re the others?” Tansy dragged him to the fire for something warm to drink, pulling at his cold outer sodden clothing, needing to do something to keep busy. She hugged him once more after hanging his wet garments over the moose antlers to dry.
“Outside, I need to get back out there. I jist come in to pull back the doorframes, the animal won’t fit through the hide, too big. But I kinda got...distracted.” Clint smiled. “Wanna distract me again?”
“Is anyone hurt?” Tansy asked instead.
“Yeah, someone is.” Clint narrowed his eyes. She shuddered at his intensity, remembering Shanie’s near frantic words of how viciously he had attacked the intruders. Tansy’s overwhelming gratitude toward him for saving her child surged.
“Who?”
“Calls hisself Danny.” Clint began dragging back the heavy doorframes.
The others in the mine woke as the men struggled to carry a yearling bison inside. A smaller man was helping, under the watchful eye of Cord. After the men and bison were inside, they replaced the doorframes securing the heavy stiff hide over them, lashing it down, as a cold winter storm began to blow gaining in intensity. Tansy and Emmy fussed over the four of them, excited and relieved they were home safe at last.
“You missed me, didn’t you?” Cord said and laughed as Tansy gave him a hearty hug. Her admittance had him laughing further as she pulled him close.
“I did,” Michaela said, grasping at Cord’s legs once Tansy released him. Tansy smiled as Mike made her way through the men for hugs and kisses, clamoring for their attention, along with Ricky and Max.
Cord picked her up and Michaela’s nose rubbed against his cold cheek affectionately. He placed her on her feet and swatted her behind playfully as she ran off after Max and Ricky. Lucky, curious about the intruder, kept a close eye on him from well across the stone room, with an equally curious Rose. The frightened young girl stood as warily as the dog, with an arm draped across his furry neck. They both watched with apprehension.
After Tansy and Emmy had the men sitting around the fire with cups of warmed brandy and steaming bowls of soup, Tansy made her way to the other man. He was curled up away from the warmth of the fire shaking. He warily watched her approach. His hands had been tied after the bison was set down. His outer clothes still on, Tansy reached to pull back his hood from a tattered threadbare jacket that had seen better days. She gasped; his face was a hideous mess of blood and bruising. His nose was obviously broken, his eyes swelling, one almost closed.
“Leave him,” Cord demanded; he looked up from his meal.
“I will not, Cord; he’s hardly more than a boy.” Tansy watched the young man shrink back as Cord dropped his food and approached, snarling. Obviously the boy wasn’t shaking just from the cold, he was undeniably terrified.
Cord gripped Tansy by her upper arms and pulled her easily to her feet, he glared down at her. “This boy tried to smash in my skull.”
“Well you did a good job of smashing in his face.”
She’d been concerned about the others, but now that they were safely back she couldn’t help but feel pity for the young man. The two stood staring each other down. Tansy pulled her arms free; shrugging Cord off, not feeling at all intimidated by the powerful man’s commanding stance and size.
“Cord, we didn’t bring him back to have him die,” Aidan reasoned.
Cord relented, slightly. He cast an enraged glance in the young man’s direction. “I’ll be close by. You touch her in any way and you’ll be lion bait or worse.” The young man nodded curtly.
Tansy retrieved water that had boiled and was now warm to the touch, as well as a soft skin to bathe his face and cuts with. Most of the wounds were superficial. Tansy drizzled a small amount of honey directly onto the cuts then bandaged them with small strips of clean boiled dry cloth. Because of rigorous activities Tansy found the need to have a handy supply of sterile material to work with. Someone was always in need of first-aid.
Tansy pulled one side of his tattered coat down as best as she could noticing the large amount of blood on his sleeve through the tear. One cut on his forearm was particularly bad and would require stitches. The knife blade had gone through his outer garments.
Pulling the wound together in the middle Tansy’s first stitch went in the center of the wound. She worked outwards, making each stitch individually. She used the smallest needle Aidan had crafted
from a piece of bone. Aidan had heated a small fishing hook and burned an eye through the end of the tiny needle. Aidan made a few at Emmy’s request; she found the smaller needles easier to work with when decorating an outfit. Tansy found the smaller needles easier to use when removing splinters from little hands and feet, and even those not so little. It was a necessary evil they endured because the monotonous collection of wood cooked their food and kept them warm and alive and offered a large measure of comfort.
“How old are you?” Tansy asked, working as gently as she could.
“Eighteen,” he choked out. Then added, “At least I think I will be soon.”
Perception of time was difficult. Tansy thought he was young. He’d been through quite an ordeal. His friends were dead; he was badly beaten and exhausted. He was surrounded by four large and hostile men. He gave into his sobs as Cord again approached.
“Leave him alone, Cord; he’s exhausted,” Tansy said, finishing her last stitch, then wrapping the wound with a clean strip of ripped linen to protect it.
“I want to know why they attacked us.”
“You’ll get more out of him if he can rest and eat,” Tansy said wearily. She had yet to sleep herself.
“No, I’ll get more out of him if I smash him again,” Cord threatened loudly, his posture daunting.
Tansy heard the young man whimper and her temper flared. “You can ask him after I feed him and give him something for the pain he’s in.”
“I’ll ask him now,” Cord boomed, causing the young man to yelp and cringe back in terror. He curled into a tight ball, as if seeking to hide within his jacket.
“Why do men always have to hurt?” Rose cried out tearfully. She’d been watching the altercation and was remembering what it felt like to be so frightened and powerless against one much larger and stronger. Startled, Cord and Tansy looked over at her tear-streaked pale face. “Can’t you see he’s afraid of you? Why can’t you see that? Why don’t you care?” The young girl began sobbing, her own hurt apparent. Emmy pulled the distraught girl into her arms.
“Rose is right, Cord. Why can’t you just ask him? He’s hurting and alone, he’s hardly more than a boy,” Tansy said, taking a more reasonable tone as she knew a placating voice would be more affective.
“Fine. Coddle the little bastard.” Cord stormed off as Aidan approached.
The boy didn’t need persuasion; he explained they were out hunting and saw the small group felled the bison. Confident the kill wouldn’t be shared, the hunters decided on surprise. The odds seemed to be in their favor at six to five, with one of the other number small.
“So you let us do all the hard work, before trying to cut us down. Bunch of lazy killing bastards,” Cord snapped, having approached again.
“I didn’t know they meant to try and kill you. I swear,” cried the young man.
“Jist what did you think they planned on doin’ with their weapons?” Clint demanded.
“Scare you. But when Joe realized one of you was a woman, he told us you must be holding her against her will; we would be saving her, we needed to rescue her. He said it would be the only reason she would’ve been dragged out into the freezing cold and snow.”
The boy’s tears ran down his face, his chest heaved with sobs. Tansy gave him some willow bark tea he gulped. His breath came in huge gasps struggling to down the tea and breathe at the same time. He was overcome with a choking cough until Tansy took the drink from his lips. His head hung almost to his chest, he looked so defeated Tansy felt her own tears ready to fall.
“Can’t we at least untie him?” she asked Ethan.
“No,” Cord snapped.
“Please, I won’t try to hurt anyone. I’m sorry we tried to steal from you. I’m sorry I hit you. I don’t want to fight. I just want to go home,” the young man cried up at Cord pitifully, his sobs deepening.
Cord pulled his hunting knife from his belt and approached him. The young man’s eyes widened in terror and he shrank back, but Cord cut his wrists free, glaring at him. Cord strung the released bonds from a loop in his clothing, keeping them close. The artful insinuation wasn’t lost on the boy.
“It’s Danny, right?” Tansy asked. He nodded, wiping tears and mucus away with the sleeves of his sodden jacket. He covered his face with swollen red hands as though to hide. Cord had tied him tightly; the lack of circulation and cold weather caused his hands to curl pitifully. “Where’s home, Danny?”
The young man looked at Tansy, horrified. He then glanced up at Cord, his gaze darted, not quite unobtrusively, at the loose bonds in the man’s loop. After taking a deep breath, he shook his head. Cord took a menacing step forward but Aidan restrained him by lifting a hand.
“He’s afraid we’re going to go and kill them,” Aidan theorized.
“Well hell, we need to get them before they get us,” Cord shouted.
Danny blanched and Tansy knew he was struggling to keep down the tea. “They can’t hurt you. You wiped out half of us. Attacking you wasn’t their idea.”
“How many more men?” Ethan demanded. He felt pity for the young man but was concerned for their own women and children. Danny remained a steadfast silent which had Ethan speculating.
“We don’t need his help. After the storm lets up, we’ll jist go back to where we felled the bison, find their tracks and follow ’em back to where they’s hidin’,” Clint reasoned.
“You can’t track us back; the snow will cover our trail.”
Cord laughed in a sinister way then squatted down to eye level with him. “I can track anything, in any season, any place,” Cord boasted. He leaned in closely to Danny; narrowing his eyes he said dangerously, “Hell, boy, I could track a guppy through the Pacific ocean.”
Tansy could see Danny’s pale face go even whiter; he began shaking harder. His lips quivering, he looked beseechingly at Cord, his tears now coursing down his cheeks.
“Please don’t hurt them. They’re no threat to you. Please don’t kill my mother,” Danny whimpered, his head dropped to his chest, but not before he vomited.
* * * *
It was later in the day. Tansy got Danny to lie down on her bed and covered him with blankets. She bathed his face and put him in a clean hide shirt. It was one of Ethan’s. Though Ethan was the smallest of the four men it wasn’t by much and Danny swam in it.
The men were arguing by the fire as Emmy and Shanie kept the children busy and out from underfoot, taking tedious turns shaking cream for butter. Tansy went to join the men.
“If you try to coerce the boy into telling us where they are, he will assume you intend to harm the others,” Ethan reasoned.
“He tried to kill me,” Cord snapped.
“He said he was trying to run away; you tripped him and he grabbed up a rock to try and fend you off,” Tansy said.
“So what, he still tried.”
“Maybe he was running away because he was terrified,” Tansy said. “Maybe he hit you because with everyone dead around him he felt it safe to assume he was next.”
“They attacked us! Hell, Tansy, you have no idea what they might have done to Shanie. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him,” Cord growled, defending himself and becoming irritated. Only the boy’s pitiful sobbing pleas and splayed shaking hands had spared him the others’ fate. Realizing he was fighting with a boy and not a man Cord had controlled his punches, wishing only to subdue him, remembering another not so lucky.
“You’re right,” Tansy said, she gazed into his outraged expression. “I’m grateful both she and all of you are safe. I can’t begin to tell all of you how grateful I am that you protect each and every one of us without hesitation. But Danny has no idea what four large and very powerful men, who just killed five of his own and beat him badly, intend to do with his mother. A woman who would be helpless against any one of you.”
Cord stared back thoughtfully at Tansy, his irritation evaporating. Understanding dawned.
“Tansy is right about that,” Ethan began. “He thinks h
e’s protecting her from us with his silence. What he doesn’t realize is his mother and whomever else he’s protecting is alone. No one will be coming back to feed them. Danny is terrified of us; from the way he’s protecting them, I doubt any of them are men, or even anyone that could give us cause for concern. They could starve to death, if they haven’t prepared for the winter.
“By Danny’s own admission, the other men couldn’t hunt, at least not well. By the looks of his worn, tattered clothing and shoes, I can only assume they’ve been unable to prepare suitable garments. None of the other men were in possession of anything useful to salvage, not decent clothing nor decently-made weapons. The others could freeze if their clothing is in the same desolate state. We’ve all seen by human remains in this area most of them froze to death. Who knows what the cold weather will be like this winter as opposed to the last in these parts.”
Clint became worried. He hadn’t thought of it like that; he was grateful for Ethan’s thoughtful intelligence. What if they were truly helpless and vulnerable? It would make sense of Danny’s steadfastness not to divulge where the others were. Clint didn’t want to think he aided in a woman’s demise, or God forbid a helpless child’s.
“I don’t want his mother freezin’ to death or dyin’ a starvation ’cause he’s scared a us. What do we do?”
“I guess we’ll just have to explain it to him,” Ethan said slyly, an idea formed within his mind. His glance was cast toward Aidan who was grinning with understanding; they exchanged knowing looks.
“How?” Tansy asked with confusion at Ethan and now Aidan’s smug faces.
“Well, what’s for dinner, darlin’?” Aidan laughed and winked at Tansy.
Tansy’s eyes widened in understanding. She rose, and enlisting Aidan’s help and Emmy’s, she soon had food cooking that gave off delicious aromas. She hoped the idea would work. She noticed Danny was very thin. That wasn’t uncommon in growing boys who seemed to grow rapidly in height then needed a while to catch up in weight. But she felt certain in Danny’s case it had to do with lack of nutrition.
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