“Once you have seen to him, we will deliver you safely to Detroit,” Emmett said.
“I cannot go with you.”
Emmett’s side burned, his head pounded, and his energy was nearly spent. They still needed to march through a cold forest filled with enemy soldiers and cross a frozen river tonight. He didn’t have time to argue. “I apologize, miss, but I did not give you the option.” He turned to Barney, glad to be giving orders again. Having a plan and knowing the steps to execute it is what he excelled at. “Gather anything that looks useful. There’s a basket of bandages somewhere around here—”
Abigail bolted, trying to run past him, but he stepped in front of her. “You’ll want to bring some warmer clothes and boots, miss. We have a long walk ahead.”
She folded her arms and raised her chin. “I am not going anywhere.”
Emmett stood straight, though his side protested. “Yes, you are.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No. I will not.”
Perhaps he’d been wrong in thinking Abigail was nothing like his sister. Her stubborn posture was exactly like that of Lydia’s right before a tantrum. Emmett’s temper rose. They were wasting time. “You are coming. If I have to carry you over my shoulder—”
“Miss.” Barney pulled the leather hat from his head and held it by the brim. “Captain says you’re a healer.” His eyes were large beneath a furrowed brow and wrinkled forehead. He stepped forward, his earnest face open and pleading. “My brother Luke is hurt. He’s only seventeen, and I told Ma I’d keep him safe. Please, will you help him?”
Abigail studied Barney closely. She was quiet for a long moment. She glanced at Emmett then at Jasper. Finally she nodded. “Yes. I will, Mr. Hopkins. If you will truly deliver me to Detroit. Thank you for asking politely.” She shot a glare at Emmett.
He could have sworn Jasper’s mouth twitched.
Abigail continued speaking to Barney. “I have a medical bag upstairs, but I should add a few more things. Can you describe for me your brother’s injury?”
Barney grasped his arm above the wrist. “A tomahawk hit him here. The bone is broken, and Murphy tried to set it, but he said the arm is too inflamed.”
“Is the wound bleeding?” Abigail asked. “Did the bone poke through the skin?”
He nodded. “Poked through, all right. It was bleeding at first, but we stopped the blood. Now there is just pus.”
“And is his arm hot?”
“Hot and red,” Barney said.
She nodded, and Emmett saw a wrinkle deepen between her brows. “We should hurry. Will you help me gather my things, Mr. Hopkins?”
Emmett stepped aside as Abigail and Barney left the kitchen. “Don’t let her out of your sight, Private,” he muttered as the man passed. The last thing he needed was for Abigail to run to a neighbor’s house and raise an alarm. Making it through the forest and to the other side of the river without the redcoats or Indians spotting them was already a difficult enough task.
“Yes, sir,” Barney said and then hurried to catch up with Abigail on the stairs. “Miss, I wondered if you have any more of those warm socks . . .” His voice trailed off, and Emmett turned to Jasper.
The man’s gaze was fixed on the freshly baked loaves.
“Do Murphy and Luke have any food?” Emmett asked.
Jasper nodded. “I left them with a hare and some wild onions, but it will hardly be enough.”
“Bring what you can find,” Emmett said. He left Jasper to collect provisions and went to find Abigail and Barney. Hearing their voices, he followed the sound to a room on the upper floor. When he entered he saw Abigail packing small bottles and parcels into a bag. Barney sat on a chair, putting on a pair of red-and-green stockings. Based on the hat hanging on a peg, the room appeared to belong to a man, probably her father’s. The bed was bare, and he wondered if it was her father’s quilt that had kept him warm in the barn.
Guilt at invading this woman’s personal space made Emmett’s throat burn. He couldn’t imagine how angry he would feel if strangers came into his home and demanded his compliance.
He left the room and continued along the hallway, entering another. He glanced around the small bedroom and saw a simple bed with a worn patchwork quilt. A child’s doll sat on a dressing table with a woman’s hairbrush and comb. Beside the bed were a collection of thick tomes about earth sciences and medicine. Hardly the type of reading material he expected to find in a cabin on the Ontario frontier, let alone in a young lady’s bedchamber. On the windowsill, he noticed a row of colorful rocks: striped sandstone, a chunk of granite, and one with spectacular veins of turquoise were among the collection. He moved closer to study them.
“My collection is not as fine as yours, Captain.” Abigail entered the room behind him. “I am a bit jealous of your quartz crystal.”
Emmett pointed to one of the small rocks. “Yes, but you have a blue fluorite. I’ve only seen a specimen of this color when I was at university.”
Abigail’s face lit up in a smile, showing a dimple in her right cheek. “You know your minerals. I wondered. Now we shall have something interesting to discuss as we travel.”
Emmett was taken aback by the change in her demeanor. None of the woman’s former anger remained. She didn’t seem to resent the imposition upon her or the intrusion into her home at all. Nor did she appear to hold a grudge. It seemed once her mind was made up, Abigail was the sort of person who did not alter her course, and he quite admired that about her.
She opened the wardrobe, and Emmett saw that inside hung two dresses. His sister had a closet larger than this entire room, filled with gowns, gloves, bonnets, slippers, ribbons, and who knew what else. Perhaps not all women required gowns and frippery to be happy.
Abigail pulled out one of the dresses and laid it on the bed. She stood for a moment, tapping her finger on her lip. “We should take food. I have root vegetables in the cellar.”
“Jasper is gathering food,” Emmett said.
“Good.” She continued to tap her lip as if going through a mental checklist. “And dry clothes for Luke. Isaac should have some in his bedroom. And the quilt from the barn. The rest of my medical equipment is downstairs in the kitchen. I will fetch it on the way”—she drew in a breath—“Oh, Maggie. I will need to milk her before we leave. I’ll leave a note for Mr. Kirby to care for her while I’m gone . . .” Abigail paused and looked toward the doorway at Barney. “Mr. Hopkins, would you mind milking my cow for me? She will be quite miserable by the time my neighbor arrives the day after tomorrow.”
Barney looked to Emmett for permission, and seeing his nod, he hurried away to take care of the cow.
Once he’d left, Abigail’s expression became grave. “Captain Prescott.” She spoke in a low voice and darted a glance toward the door as if making certain Barney was truly gone. “I do not know if I can save Luke.” Her brows pulled tightly together, making furrows above her nose. “Broken bones are common enough, even when they’ve punctured the skin. I’ve tended to many of those. But from Mr. Hopkins’s description, it sounds like there is already some infection. I will try, but days have passed and—”
“I understand.”
“I will do everything I can, I promise.”
“Thank you.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “I’ll find some clothes in my brother’s room.” She started past him, but Emmett hooked his hand on the inside of her elbow to stop her. He took the letter from her hand and nodded as he read Abigail’s story about being summoned to Detroit by her father. He lifted his gaze. “Why didn’t you turn me in, Miss Tidwell?”
She looked away, but not before he saw apprehension on her face. “You escaped before I had the chance.”
He shook his head. Not good enough. “You had a chance, earlier today when the man came for the milk. But you didn’t tell him about me. Why?”
“I don’t know.” She pushed her lips together tightly and puffed out a breath through her nose. “I just couldn’t. I thought of Lydia and Is
aac, and . . . you’re still mending, and . . . I don’t know why. But I couldn’t. Not when I thought he might harm you.” She pulled away her arm and started down the hallway.
He watched her go, feeling . . . something. Gratitude? Admiration? Curiosity? All of these, surely, but there was more. Abigail Tidwell was unlike any woman he knew, and his desire to know her better tugged at him until it was nearly an ache.
The sensation was unnerving, to say the least.
Chapter 5
Abigail trudged through the snow on the forest floor, trying her best to keep pace with the men. Her breathing was heavy, and she felt as if she were practically running. How did they move so effortlessly when each step sank her in snow up to her knees? She supposed her shorter legs were part of the problem, as were her skirts. She wore both of her homespun dresses, leaving her finer gown behind, of course; the satin fabric wouldn’t add any warmth. The two combined with her petticoats and cloak were heavy, especially with clumps of snow clinging to the hems. She wished she could just don trousers and march along like a regular person, but as it was, she fought her clothing each step of the way.
Jasper had brought the pot of lard from her pantry and insisted they all smear it over any exposed skin, especially ears and noses. She didn’t like the slimy feel of it but was glad for the precaution. January nights in Upper Canada were cold enough that she’d not even complain about the blemishes that were sure to result from the practice.
One haversack, slung over her shoulder and across her chest, held her medicines and equipment, and the men carried the rest of the supplies, as well as their own weapons. Captain Prescott had brought her father’s musket. Abigail’s burden was the lightest, and yet she still lagged behind. A pity they couldn’t walk on a road or a nice path, but of course the men needed to remain concealed from patrols.
As time had passed—nearly an hour, she estimated—she’d become accustomed to Jasper’s disappearance and reappearance as he scouted ahead and returned to lead them on safe paths. The first few times she saw his shadow come out of the forest, she nearly screamed. The man’s hat was crafted to appear as if Jasper’s face was about to be chomped in a bear’s mouth. The sight was disconcerting. He didn’t speak often, and she was surprised how much a person could communicate with the smallest movements.
She assumed they were traveling north in order to cross the frozen river to Grosse Ile, a long island directly in the middle of the Detroit River, then continue across the river to the Michigan Territory on the other side.
Barney Hopkins moved between Abigail and Captain Prescott, walking beside each of them in turn. He also didn’t say much, taking the captain’s order to move in silence very seriously. But he did take Abigail’s arm on occasion, helping her over fallen logs or through the thick underbrush with an encouraging smile.
Abigail liked Barney quite a lot. He was earnest and pleasant and eager to be of assistance. Truth be told, she liked all three of the men. And trusted them, as silly as it sounded. She should be afraid, following enemy soldiers across the border, but her fear wasn’t of the Americans, but for them. She worried about the redcoats or the Shawnee finding them and fretted over what would happen if they did. The very thought was terrifying. Would a battle ensue? She supposed it would. And people would get killed or injured. She couldn’t abide the idea of these soldiers not making it back to their camp where Luke waited. Barney worried for his brother, and she knew that worry—she worried constantly for her own brother.
These were men with families and homes who looked out for each other, and the one looking out for all of them was Captain Emmett Prescott. As for the captain, there was so much she wanted to know about him. He’d studied at the university, something Abigail wished more than anything she could do. How would it be to hear lectures from experts and study medicine with cadavers and wax models of individual organs?
Even men were looked down on for their curiosity about the inner workings of the human body. But for a woman, attending university was unheard of.
Captain Prescott was knowledgeable about earth sciences. Had he attended lectures from William Smith at Columbia College in New York City? Had he gone on actual digs to geological sites? What did he think of James Hutton’s Theory of the Earth paper? She wished to ask him so many things but had found out often enough that men did not think such academic interest becoming of a young woman.
Was Captain Prescott of the same mind? She was curious about his life. He’d seen so much of the world, and she’d only seen a small part. What was Virginia like? And the grand city of Baltimore? And the Atlantic Ocean? She would likely only spend a few days in the captain’s company before joining her father in Detroit and would probably not get the chance to ask all the things she wanted to know.
Captain Prescott marched steadily, but Abigail could tell from the occasional grunt and the way he favored his side that he was hurting. And she knew he would push on in spite of it. Finally, after they descended a particularly difficult hill, she stopped.
Barney looked over his shoulder and then turned and hurried back to her.
“Mr. Hopkins, we must wait.” She gestured toward Captain Prescott with her chin. “He needs to rest.”
Emmett noticed that they’d paused, and he moved back to join them. “Why the delay?”
“Miss Tidwell has called a halt,” Barney said.
Emmett blinked, raising his brows. “Oh, has she?”
Barney nodded helpfully. “Says you need to rest, Captain.”
“I don’t need to rest.”
Though he protested, she could see by moonlight that his face was pale and shone with sweat. “Captain, you are the one who insisted on a doctor.” Abigail pulled on his arm. “And so I trust you will abide by my advice.” She tugged him to a large rock, brushing off the snow before pushing him to sit. He didn’t argue. She pulled off a mitten and felt his forehead. “You are very warm.”
“We did just hike three miles through the forest.” He started to rise, but Abigail put her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back down.
“If you continue in this way, you’ll just make your injuries worse. I fear you are growing feverish.”
He let out a frustrated breath. “I don’t feel feverish.”
“The feverish person cannot tell whether he is feverish,” she said. “You really shouldn’t be moving so much, or you’ll impede your recovery.” She realized her hands were still on his shoulders, and she dropped them to her sides.
Jasper emerged from the trees and joined them, his head tipping slightly in question.
“The longer we delay, the sicker Luke gets,” Emmett said.
“Perhaps we should go ahead and you can come slower?” Abigail proposed. “Mr. Webb can show me the way.”
Emmett shook his head and rose to his feet. “We stay together.” He started forward, and Abigail took his arm, walking beside him.
Jasper moved silently ahead, and Barney followed behind them.
“What about your fever, Captain?” Abigail asked.
“I do not have a fever.”
Abigail worried that the fever might even now be confusing him. “All right, sir. Prove it. Name the three elements that make up the mineral composition of granite.”
He looked down at her, a small smile on his lips. “Feldspar, quartz, and mica.”
“Well, that was too easy.”
His smile grew. “Your turn, Miss Tidwell. What might cause amethyst to appear red instead of its typical violet color?”
“Hematite,” she said. “Small spheres of hematite can exist just below the surface of the crystal, giving it the red color.”
“I’m impressed,” Emmett said.
Abigail shrugged as if the mineral structure of iron oxide were rudimentary knowledge as pride swelled like a bubble in her chest.
A cloud of fog loomed ahead, low to the ground, and the temperature of the air dropped. They must have reached the river.
As if answering her unasked question, Jasper
stepped from the fog with a long, thick stick. He handed it to Abigail, indicating she should hold it horizontally with both hands. Abigail had used this precaution before; the ice could have pockets of air caused by irregular freezing. If she should step onto an unstable spot and fall into a crack, the stick would catch her. The men would use their guns in the same way.
She’d often skated on the ice, but walking across at night in the fog with British soldiers and Indians searching for them made her suddenly apprehensive. Abigail paused at the riverbank.
Emmett stood behind her. “Nothing to fear, Doctor.”
His voice was warm with a hint of humor, which she knew was meant to be comforting. But she stood still. The river marked the border between Upper Canada and America. She was crossing into a territory where she would be the enemy.
He nudged her forward. “Come, I’ll not allow you to fall.”
Abigail nodded and walked the remainder of the way to the edge of the shore.
“Without any wind, our footprints on the ice will be visible all up and down the bank,” Emmett said to Jasper. “A patrol will spot them immediately.” They hadn’t needed to worry about footprints in the irregular ground of the forest, Abigail assumed.
Jasper left and returned with a bushy branch.
“Just for fifty yards or so,” Emmett said. “Farther out, the fog will cover our tracks.”
Emmett started forward, and Abigail stepped onto the ice behind him, holding the stick in front of her in both hands as she walked. The snowfall had left a powdery covering over the frozen river that kept the ice from being too slick.
Without needing to be told, the group spread out, not wanting to put too much weight on any one section of the ice. Emmett led the way then Abigail. Barney was next, and Jasper followed along behind the others, brushing away evidence of their crossing.
The distance from the Upper Canada side of the river to the island was quite far. Abigail thought she’d heard at one time that it was at least a mile and a half. As they walked, the fog got thicker, and cold rose from the frozen water beneath. Again Abigail cursed her skirts. They seemed to trap cold air around her legs. She was glad for her mittens and worried the others might develop frost burns on their fingers in spite of the lard. When they stopped again, she’d insist the men wear her grandmother’s socks on their hands, though she was sure they’d complain about not being able to shoot with their fingers covered.
My Dearest Enemy Page 4