With Endless Sight

by Allison Pittman

  Be still.

  Tears flowed unchecked, drying in streaks on my face. Not even the warmth of the sun settling across my back could budge the cold within me. The air carried the smell of sage—but its sweetness stopped before I could take it in. Further up the mountain, strong green pines stood against the wind, filtering it through their sharp needles, though I longed for its full onslaught, something strong enough to carry me away. I rocked back on my heels and opened my eyes to a vast, unblemished blue sky. Never before had I felt so small.

  Then Phoebe’s hands clasped my outstretched ones and she was helping me to stand. “We need to go,” she said. “Now.”

  I allowed Phoebe to lift me to my feet, and we fell into each other’s arms. For the first time I was merely thankful, not covetous, of her strength.

  There didn’t seem to be any hint of a destination. Now leaving the gentle foothills behind, we ascended the increasingly steep terrain. Though it was still light, the sun itself had long since disappeared, and despite the breath of our captor, I could feel the night’s chill creeping across my neck. When we came to a spot that was fairly level, behind an outcropping of rock to block the wind, Phoebe declared we were stopping for the night.

  “I’ll tell you when we stop.” Our abductor leaned heavily on me as he leveled his pistol at Phoebe.

  Phoebe didn’t flinch. “Then I guess those’ll be your last words on this earth, because if you don’t get some rest soon, you’re going to keel over right off that horse and down this mountain.”

  “I’m just fine,” he said, and I felt him gather his strength. “You think this is the worst I ever been hurt?”

  “That just proves you’re strong, not smart. But you’re the man with the gun. What do you want to do?”

  “Get down,” he said at last.

  “By the way,” Phoebe dropped down from her horse, “what’s your name?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “In case you die tonight. We might want to leave you with a note pinned to your shirt.”

  “Laurent.” He inhaled sharply as he dismounted, leaving me to find my own way down.

  It seemed to grow darker by the second. Phoebe and I were moving mostly on instinct as we laid out a circle of stones for the campfire. Once she had arranged the kindling, she asked for a match, but Laurent was already squatting at the ring’s edge, striking flint against steel, eventually bringing forth a brave little blaze.

  “I don’t suppose you have anything to cook over that fire,” Phoebe said.

  “Here.” He tossed Phoebe a small canvas sack. “I got some dried beef in there. Canteen’s got some water in it. An’ there’s a bottle of whiskey. Fetch it down and get me a drink.”

  “We don’t have to obey you.” Phoebe turned to me. “We don’t have to do a thing he says.”

  “Suit yourself.” With great effort he stood and pulled the saddle off his horse and set it on the ground. He stretched out on the ground next to the fire, propping himself up with the saddle. “Eat. Don’t eat. Drink. Don’t drink. It’s all the same to me.”

  I squatted down and held my hands out toward the flame, wishing there were some way to scoop the warmth into me. I wished for numbness, but instead my body ached from the long day’s ride and seemed to sting from the inside out with cold. Something dropped onto my shoulder, and though startled, I was too weary to jump.

  “Here’s your coat.” Phoebe slumped down beside me, holding Laurent’s bag.

  I ran my fingers over the fabric as if it were a foreign object. I lifted it to my face to inhale what I’d hoped would be the familiar scent of home, only to smell horse. “I could have used this earlier.”

  Phoebe picked up a long stick and stirred the fire, scattering sparks. “I’ve been saving it for a special treat.”

  I looked over and saw her face, pale in the fire’s light, void of any perceptible emotion. No fear, no humor, just a placid acceptance of circumstance. After shrugging on her own coat, she opened the bag and began to rummage, pulling items out and laying them on the ground between us. A small pan, a large knife. A rolled pair of socks and a comb. Three handkerchiefs.

  “Now, bring that on over here,” Laurent said once Phoebe pulled out the bottle.

  She set the bottle down, choosing instead to pull the knife out of its leather sheath and let the firelight dance on its blade.

  Laurent laughed, something that seemed to cause quite a bit of pain. “For all I know, you might need to bring that on over too.”

  For the first time, I got a good look at him. He was tall and lean, his hair dark and curly—much like Chester’s. His eyes were so dark they were almost black and rimmed with long lashes. He might have been handsome with the stark planes of his face but for a scar that stretched from the corner of his mouth nearly to his ear, looking like a maniacal grin. He had taken off his long leather duster, and I could see that the blood stain on his shirt had spread from his right shoulder nearly to the tail.

  “You don’t talk much, do you.” He looked at me as he dropped back against the saddle.

  “She doesn’t have anything to say to you,” Phoebe said.

  “She ought to.” He looked at me. “She’s got a right to say plenty.”

  But I could never begin to voice the revulsion I felt for this man. Vile, unspeakable curses teemed in my heart and pushed themselves up until they lodged somewhere in my throat. I would speak them later, sometime when my head wasn’t brittle, when it seemed I’d be able to open my mouth and not simply scream.

  Part of me thought I should fear him—we were at his mercy, after all. But I didn’t. Still holding the gun in one hand, he struggled to unbutton his shirt with the other. He seemed almost frail, and in that moment, I didn’t see him as the man who had murdered my parents but the man my father had wounded. He wasn’t frightening; he was pathetic. I walked over and knelt beside him—not sure if I meant to aid him in his task or revel in his wound.

  I don’t know what I expected to see once I pulled the shirt away from Laurent’s body. Any stage of undress was completely unacceptable in my mother’s home, so my exposure to the naked male chest was severely limited. But even the little I’d seen couldn’t have prepared me for this sight. Behind the shirt was a hastily wadded-up fabric he had thrust against the wound. It was soaked with blood, and I gingerly took it between my thumb and finger and pulled it away, exposing a small, round hole just below the man’s collarbone.

  “Does it hurt?” I whispered, feeling disloyal in my question.

  He closed his eyes and nodded.

  “And just what are we supposed to do about it?” Phoebe demanded.

  “Need you to get that bullet out.” Laurent opened one eye, nearly black in the dim firelight.

  Phoebe laughed. “And just what makes you think we’ll do that?”

  He opened his other eye and fixed his gaze on me. “ ‘Cause you ain’t no killers. Now, gimme a drink o’ that whiskey.”

  She handed him the bottle, and he took a long swig, heedless of the traces of liquid running into the stubble around his mouth.

  “Now,” he held the bottle back up to Phoebe, “I need you to bring that knife on over, tap it right inside the wound, and see how deep that slug is.”

  “No.” Phoebe settled herself on the other side of the fire. “And you get yourself away from him, Belinda.”

  There had always been something in Phoebe’s voice that commanded obedience, and this was no exception. Just as I was gathering myself to stand, though, there was a soft thud on the ground next to me where Laurent had allowed the gun to fall from his grip. He grabbed both of my hands—just above the wrist—and pulled me close to him. Close enough that I could smell the whiskey. Close enough to see isolated, defiant whiskers growing in the path of his scar. I tried to pull away, but he transferred his grip, holding both of my wrists in one hand, and put his other hand behind my head, pulling me even closer.

  “I didn’t mean to kill your ma.” His voice was so soft
I knew Phoebe couldn’t have heard him. “She startled me is all.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I whispered back.

  “Believe what you want. But I ain’t gonna die tonight, not from this. I bled all I’m bound to. Gettin’ the bullet out’s just for some measure of comfort.”

  He released me, but I didn’t move. I kept my face close to his, my eyes inches away, making him my hostage and thrilling at the power I felt. I could kill him now, kill him with the very knife he’d held to my throat. Shoot him with the very gun he’d used to kill my mother. Finish the job my father left gaping wide open.

  “Were you the one who shot my father?”

  “I’m sorry that happened. He seemed a good man.”

  “He was.”

  “He could’ve killed me, you know. I gave him his chance. Fair, square, and wide.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No, miss. And this here bullet might hurt like the devil himself, but it ain’t gonna kill me.”

  I sat back on my heels and looked at him. Despite the evening chill, his hair lay damp against his forehead, his face a sheen of sweat. Every breath seemed to be dragged from a pool of shallow pain. I don’t know if it was a gesture intended to draw me closer, but Laurent lifted his hand, listlessly, his fingers suspended haphazardly, and I was reminded of a picture I’d seen in my Illustrated Stories of the Bible. In it, a man lay on a straw mat, surrounded by the disciples. His blind gaze stared straight ahead, but his hand reached out for Jesus. I’d spent hours gazing at that picture, thinking how clever the artist was to paint the man’s eyes with such unseeing flatness. When I looked at Laurent now, I saw that man. Eyes flat, hand reaching. I knew in the story that Jesus healed that blind man, and while I didn’t have any power to heal, I certainly didn’t have the power to kill.

  Without another word, I made my way to the other side of the campfire where we’d laid out the items from Laurent’s sack. I found the knife and brought it back to where the man lay, his head tilted back against the saddle, his hand dropped once again to the ground.

  “What do I need to do?” I knelt down.

  “Finish him off,” Phoebe said from across the fire.

  But the only voice I heeded was Laurent’s, and I set out to follow his whispered instructions. I spread the wound open as wide as I could, willing my hands to be steady, and inserted the tip of the blade. I heard and felt the faint tap as the blade met the bullet and, marking the depth with my finger, showed it to Laurent, leaving it to him to determine if it was in too deep. It wasn’t.

  I got up and wedged the knife’s handle between two of the rocks within the fire ring and allowed the blade to bathe in the flames.

  “Bring me the whiskey,” I said to Phoebe, “and take off your petticoat. I’ll need some bandages.”

  “Why not use one of your petticoats?”

  I smiled. “Yours are bigger.”

  She rolled her eyes, stood, and thrust the bottle into my hand. Then, as if a stranger weren’t lying mere inches from her, she lifted her skirt and untied her petticoat at the waist.

  “Tear it into strips.” I dreaded the task before me.

  Once again at Laurent’s side, I lifted his head off the saddle and held the bottle of whiskey to his lips, allowing him swallow after swallow until he closed his mouth against the amber flow. I asked Phoebe for a strip torn from her petticoat, which I wrapped around my hand to protect it from the heat of the knife’s handle.

  “Are you ready?” I asked, holding the knife above Laurent’s chest.

  He nodded. “Sit on top of me. You’re little, but you’ll need to hold me down.”

  I sat on Laurent’s chest, straddling him, his arms flat against his sides and pinned by my knees. Five years ago, he might have been my brother, breathlessly crying, “Uncle!” until Mother charged down the stairs to tell us we were both too old and too refined for such horseplay.

  Now, I pressed the blade of the knife against the flesh surrounding the wound. Laurent contorted his body and let forth a scream wrapped around a gut-felt profanity, nearly knocking me off my perch.

  “Hold still.” I set the knife in my lap, feeling its heat even through the layers of my skirt and petticoats.

  I closed my eyes against the sight of the new trickle of blood and gingerly touched the bullet’s wound before taking a deep breath. Soon, two of my fingers were surrounded by warm, soft flesh as they sought the slug. I could feel the tension in Laurent’s body as he willed himself to be still against the pain, and soon I felt it, a little round ball. I curled my finger around it and urged it to the surface, then scooped it into my palm and, inexplicably, slipped it into my skirt pocket.

  “It’s out.”

  Immediately, and without my summoning, Phoebe was at my side with a length of bandage. I took it and ripped a smaller piece, which I wadded up as tightly as possible before drenching it with whiskey. I once again held my breath as I plunged the bandage into Laurent’s wound, packing it in as deeply as it would go. Over this I placed another bandage, folded into a thick square. Laurent sat up and lifted his arms as Phoebe and I wound and cinched her former petticoat around him. Once he was settled back again, I offered him one more drink. This time, when he opened his eyes, I could have sworn I saw a look of gratitude.

  “You reckon it’s safe for me to sleep a bit tonight?” he asked, hinting at a smile.

  “As safe as any other.” I joined Phoebe on the other side of the fire.

  “Here.” She handed me a strip of dried beef.

  I hadn’t taken time to think about being hungry, but perhaps that had something to do with the shaking of my hands and the overwhelming weariness that made me feel like a pile of sand dissolving under the weight of water. I took the meat and tore off the end. It was dry and tough; if it had any flavor, it was beyond my ability to taste. I’d never chewed anything for so long in my life. By the time I finally got it worked to a swallowing consistency, Laurent was asleep and Phoebe was tapping my elbow with the whiskey bottle.

  “Drink some,” she said. “It’ll help.”

  “No. Mother would never—”

  “Oh, come on, Belinda. You’re shaking. And cold. If we were back home, your mother would be fixing you a brandy and water.”

  “This isn’t brandy.”

  She sighed, reached for the canteen, and poured a little into the bottle. After swirling it a bit and taking a taste, she handed it back to me. “Now drink.”

  I put the bottle to my lips, closed my eyes, and tipped it. Even diluted it burned but wasn’t entirely unpleasant. I felt a flush come to my face and chest—my entire body being warmed from within. I took one more long drink.

  “We can’t go anywhere tonight.” Phoebe took the bottle back. “Tomorrow morning though, first light, we’ll go. He’s not in any shape to stop us.”

  “No, we need to stay with him. He’ll take us straight to Chester and Del.”

  “I can get us to Chester and Del,” Phoebe said. “Maybe we can go back to where—we can go back and get the map.”

  “I can’t go back there.” The mere thought of revisiting that scene brought it all into focus with such clarity, the last drink threatened to rise up and choke me.

  “I just need to get us to the trail. From there we’ll follow it—any direction until we get help.”

  “God sees us where we are, Phoebe. He’ll help us get—He’ll help us.”

  “Well, I know that. But we can’t just sit around. We can leave in the morning.”

  “There’s a verse in Psalms where King David asks God to see him in his hiding place. This is my hiding place, wherever this Laurent takes us. You can leave if you want to, but I’m staying here.”

  Phoebe shook her head and corked the bottle. She took off her coat and lay down, curling up on her side and covering herself with it, pulling it up to her chin. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

  14

  Athick mountain mist turned the world pastel, and while I thought it m
ight be wiser to wait until it lifted, Laurent was up and making preparations to leave the minute the light shifted from black to gray. Phoebe’s desire to escape loomed in my mind, and I sent her my blessing to leave each time our eyes met as we broke camp. None of us spoke much to each other. My mouth was dry and my head ached, presumably from unaccustomed imbibing. Laurent moved slowly and carefully, directing us to do anything that required lifting—including saddling his horse—with short words that came out as puffs of pain. Phoebe’s mouth was set in the thin little line that spoke more of her disapproval than any shouting ever could.

  Laurent directed me to ride with Phoebe on the horse he’d commandeered from the stagecoach while he rode alone on his.

  “We’re going up some tricky trails,” he said once settled in his saddle. “Stay close.”

  “How do you know we’ll follow you?” Phoebe asked, having yet to mount our horse.

  “You’re not followin’ me; I’m followin’ you. Stay close so you can hear me, else we might just tumble right down this mountain. Any other questions?”

  “No sir.”

  Phoebe grabbed a handful of the horse’s mane and pulled herself onto its back. I did the same, though not nearly as adroitly as she, relying on much hoisting and tugging on her part to get me settled in front of her.

  “Head out,” Laurent said.

  In answer to Phoebe’s question of which way, he gestured in a direction I could only recognize as up.

  It must have been nearly noon before the mist completely burned off. I felt like I was fighting to steal each breath from the thin air, and the pounding head that greeted me upon awakening only intensified.