Sweetbriar

by Jude Deveraux

Linnet lifted her eyes from her sleeping daughter. “Devon?” she asked quietly.

  “I guess so. He’s the new man just come to town and the one that run through the fire. He was goin’ to his horse, and I saw him fall down.”

  “Did he get back up?” Nettie asked.

  “No, he was just layin’ there when I left.”

  “Show me,” Linnet said, Miranda clutched tightly to her breast.

  Rebekah led her mother and her teacher through the woods to an old sycamore tree.

  “How’d you ever find him?” Nettie asked.

  “I followed him. He sure walks quiet. See! There he is.”

  The women paused for a moment because even at a distance, with only the light of the moon, they could see the horror that had once been Devon’s smooth, clean back. Nettie took Miranda as Linnet walked forward. He was unconscious, the reins in one blistered hand. Most of the beautiful black hair was burned from the back of his head, and his back, shoulders and upper arms were a mass of large, oozing, hideous blisters.

  His heavy pants had protected the lower half of his body somewhat but they were burned away in patches, showing red, raw skin beneath. The soles of his moccasins were gone and his feet were burned.

  “Devon,” she whispered as she touched the side of his face, the cheek unhurt and still beautiful. “Devon, can you hear me?”

  “Linnet.” Nettie put her hand on her friend’s arm. “He can’t hear you. Linnet, you’re gonna have to face it sometime, but he can’t live long with a burn like that.”

  “Can’t live long?” she asked stupidly.

  “Yes. Look at him. There’s places where there ain’t even skin left on him.”

  Linnet touched his ear. Devon’s beautiful, smooth skin, she thought. “He can’t die, Nettie, not after saving Miranda.”

  “It’s not a matter of wishin’, it’s a matter of what happens. I ain’t never heard of nobody livin’ after a burn like that.”

  “Well, I have.”

  The women turned to look up at the Squire.

  “When I was a young’un, a woman was burned worse than that and she lived. In fact, she still is livin’.”

  “Could she help?” Linnet asked. “Could she help with Devon?”

  The Squire didn’t like the tone of Linnet’s voice. “Phetna doesn’t like people much and won’t come near if she doesn’t have to. She—”

  Linnet stood. “You will get this woman for me,” she said. “I would like for you to leave now and return as soon as possible. I will pay her whatever she wants for coming but she must come.”

  The Squire frowned, but he did as he was told.

  When he was gone, Linnet took Miranda from Nettie. “Go to my cabin and get some blankets. We’ll put them under him, and I think that will be the best way to carry him,” she said to Rebekah. “Nettie, go get four men and come back quickly.”

  “Yes, Linnet.” She smiled. “I’ll do that.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “LORD, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH HIM? TO THINK he used to be a good-lookin’ man,” Butch Gather said as he stared down across the great bulk of his stomach at the blistered body of Devon Macalister. “Don’t seem no use to try and help him. We ought to just leave him where he is. It’d be the merciful thing to do.”

  “That is wholly your opinion, Mr. Gather,” Linnet said firmly. “And I might add that I do not share your opinion. Now if you men would please help me, I’d like to take him to my cabin.”

  Butch and Mooner Yarnall exchanged looks, eyebrows raised. Butch spoke again. “Now I don’t know if that’s right, takin’ him to your cabin and all, you and him not bein’ married.” He gave a sly smile, little eyes glistening over enormous cheeks. “Course we all know what he’s been to you.” The fat man looked from one person to another to make sure they shared in his secret. “Other towns might allow such goin’s, on but we’re decent people here in Spring Lick and we don’t hold with such things.”

  Linnet’s eyes flashed brilliant glass splinters of red light that included each of the four men. “Decency is something I doubt this town even understands. Whatever you think you know or whatever you think you have a right to judge, now is not the time. Either you help him or I’ll move him myself.”

  Butch smiled. “If you’re aimin’ to scare us, you ain’t succeedin’. Anyhow, I’d like to know how come the schoolhouse got burned down just now. Maybe you and him set it so’s you’d have more time to…” His little pig eyes swept her slight form, “—to do what you obviously done so much before.”

  “As for me,” Mooner stepped forward, “I don’t know as I like a schoolteacher what flaunts her lover afore ever’body. Look at her now, demandin’ us to take him to her cabin so’s they can keep on where they left off.”

  The woods were dark, the still-burning building heard in the distance, and Linnet could feel the menace of the men. Devon needed help, and they were not going to allow her to help him.

  “You know, Butch, I think she’s been askin’ for it since she come here.” Mooner took another step forward and Linnet held her ground, not allowing herself to give way to the fear she was beginning to feel. Devon’s welfare was more important than some overexcited men.

  “Yeah,” Butch said, walking close to her. “I been thinkin’ the same thing.”

  “What’s goin’ on here?” Nettie’s voice broke the ugly spell. Her arms were full of blankets, and she looked with hatred from one man to the next. “I sent you men out here to help, and looks to me like you’re causin’ more trouble.”

  Neither Butch nor Mooner moved, the other two men looking defiant.

  “Why should we help her?” Butch demanded. “What kind of woman is she anyhow? What’s she been teachin’ our kids when she’s no better’n a bought woman? You know who that man is?” He rolled his little head in the direction of Devon’s unconscious body.

  “I know very well who he is,” Nettie answered. “And I know a lot more, too, only not about Linnet. I know about that woman out in the holler.”

  The four men stared, then looked away.

  “He who is without sin may cast the first stone,” Nettie quoted. “Now we need some help gettin’ him onto these here blankets and up to Linnet’s cabin.”

  Butch stepped away from Linnet and sneered down at Devon. “I ain’t helpin’ him. For all I know he’s the one set the school on fire.”

  “With his own daughter inside!” Linnet fairly screamed.

  Butch chuckled. “You just told us what we only guessed at before. As for me, I ain’t doin’ no extra work when I know there ain’t no need to it. You can just look at him and see he’s a dead man.”

  Nettie answered before Linnet could speak. “I see no such thing, and as for him settin’ the school on fire, I think you ought to count your lanterns and find out where all your children were about the time the fire started.”

  “You accusin’ my young’uns of that fire?” he sneered at Nettie.

  “Probably. I wouldn’t put it past ’em to set it a’purpose. Now I’m tired of you talkin’ while a sick man’s needin’ help. If you ain’t gonna help, then get out of here.”

  Linnet knelt by Devon’s side, relieved that the men were gone. “Do you think we can carry him, Nettie?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes. I sent Rebekah for Ottis and Vaida. We’ll be able to move him, don’t you worry. Let’s get him on top of these blankets first.”

  Gazing down at Devon, Linnet began to wonder at her own folly. The blisters on his body were increasing in number and already some of them had broken and the thin yellow water was making little rivulets across the tortured skin. What did one do with such severe burns? She had no idea and was afraid that whatever she tried would be wrong. If only the Squire would return with Phetna, the woman who knew how to treat burns. Should she try to wash the burned area or would the soap cause an infection? All the blisters were full of water. Should she try to make Devon drink something?

  He had not moved nor made any sound when Ne
ttie, her husband, her two daughters and Linnet slowly carried him to Linnet’s cabin. His breathing was shallow and strained, his eyes closed and she wondered if he were even aware of what had happened to him.

  “Devon,” she whispered. “Can you hear me?” He was still lifeless. The sound of a horse outside caught her attention.

  “I don’t need you no more,” Linnet heard a high, querulous voice say.

  “I’ll introduce you,” the Squire answered.

  “Don’t need you,” the woman’s voice said. “She ain’t likely to mistake me for another. You go on. I got work to do.”

  Linnet watched the door as she heard the Squire ride away and she saw the door swing open. The face that appeared had once been a woman’s but now it was mutilated almost beyond recognition. One eyelid was drawn across the eye so that little of the piercing iris could be seen. One cheek was corded, striated, pitted with thick white scars. Half of her lips were gone. The other side of her face wasn’t so badly scarred, but the ear was gone and most of her hair.

  “I’m Phetna,” said the high voice. “I hear tell you got a burned man in here.”

  Linnet was silent.

  “I’ll help unless you’re too weak to stand the sight of me,” the woman sneered.

  Linnet didn’t blink. “If you’ll help make Devon well, I don’t care if you are a two-headed devil sent from Hell.”

  The woman blinked, then threw back her head and gave a shrill cackle, her neck showing more of the thick, corded scars. “I ain’t got two heads, but you can decide later if I’m from Satan’s place.” She stepped inside the cabin. “What you willin’ to do to help this man?”

  “Anything,” Linnet said quietly.

  “Hmph! Lots of young girls say that, but we’ll find out whether you mean it or not. Takin’ care of a burned man ain’t no sweet task.”

  “I’ll do anything I can,” Linnet repeated.

  “All right,” Phetna nodded, “let’s get to work. First get me as much light in here as you can. I can’t see too good, even at best.”

  Linnet built up the fire, lit each of her precious candles and turned the lantern to its highest. Phetna pulled back the linen sheet Linnet had spread over Devon’s back, and Linnet saw the woman’s hands. Her left hand had only a thumb and the first two fingers, the right one had healed together so that all four fingers were fused into one curved appendage.

  “First thing we gotta do is let the air get to him. Ain’t nothin’ like the Lord’s own air for healin’ a burn; and then we gotta wash him. I’ll tell you what to do, and you’ll have to do it.” She stared steadily at Linnet and held up the mutilated hands very close before the young woman’s face. “Can’t do much with these.” She seemed to be daring Linnet to show some sign of revulsion, challenging her, as if she wanted her to draw back.

  Linnet ignored the hands thrust in her face. “Tell me what to do.”

  Phetna dropped the hands to her sides, ready once again to think of her patient. “Heat some water. You got some soap?”

  “Yes, and if more is needed I can borrow some.”

  Phetna snorted. “That’s surprisin’ in this town.”

  Linnet had already filled the kettle and took the crock of soft soap from the wall shelves.

  “This your young’un?” Phetna asked quietly, her voice suddenly not so gratingly high-pitched.

  “Yes. Her name is Miranda.”

  Phetna turned away from the sleeping child. “You better send her away in the mornin’. Young’uns don’t much like the sight of me,” she said through clenched teeth.

  Linnet was just as firm. “I do not rear my child in that way. I will not allow her to judge a person by her outside characteristics.”

  “It won’t be so easy when she starts cryin’ at the sight of me.”

  “I believe the water is hot now,” Linnet said. “Will you show me what to do?” Linnet cut Devon’s pants from his body and inspected the burns on his legs, so much less than his back, arms and feet.

  “You better get used to him ’cause there ain’t gonna be a thumbprint of a place on his body you ain’t gonna know in the next week.”

  “Week? Do you think he’ll be well in a week?”

  “Not well,” Phetna answered, “but beginnin’ to heal. We’ll know in three days what’s gonna happen, one way or t’other. Now take that cloth and begin washin’ him, real slow and real gentle. We don’t wanta break any more of them blisters than we have to. That water’s the Lord’s way of coolin’ the skin.”

  It took Linnet hours to slowly wash all of Devon’s long body, being painstakingly careful not to hurt him more than he had been already.

  “Should we feed him?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Phetna answered. “He’s too weak yet to hold it down. You got him all washed?”

  “Yes,” Linnet sighed and sat back on her heels as she wrung out the cloth.

  “All right, then, go to the spring, get some fresh water, heat it and start all over again.” Phetna watched the young woman closely, but Linnet didn’t flinch. She took two buckets and went out the door as Phetna knelt over the young man stretched nude on the corn shuck mattress.

  “You awake, boy?” she asked fiercely. A sound came from Devon, and she knew he heard her. “I know it hurts bad but we’re gonna try to fix it. You just concentrate on breathin’ and stayin’ alive. That girl’s gonna wash you some more, and it’ll feel cool and good to you. You just ’member to breathe and don’t give up hope. The pain’ll stop after a while, and all you’ll have left is memories.”

  Linnet took a handful of moss and scoured the inside of the buckets before filling them. For the first time she wanted to cry. The whole day had been horrible, with Devon’s accusations, their fight, Miranda nearly dying, and now Devon lying in her cabin, his body a mass of hideous blisters. She filled the buckets and carried them back to the cabin. Whatever she still felt or didn’t feel for Devon didn’t matter anymore. What did matter was that she worked to save him.

  She looked up at the clear, dark sky and offered a silent prayer for Devon’s recovery. Her shoulders ached and the buckets pulled the tendons in her arms, but she didn’t care. There was something more important than tired shoulders.

  Phetna sat in a chair near the table, a plate of stew and bread before her. She barely acknowledged Linnet’s presence.

  Linnet knelt and began washing Devon’s back again. The blisters were oozing constantly.

  “He your man?” Phetna asked, her mouth full.

  “He’s…he’s not my husband, no, but I have known him a long time.”

  “What’s your husband gonna think when he comes home and finds a naked man on your bed?”

  “I’m not married.”

  Phetna cackled. “World ain’t changed much in the last years. I thought Squire said you was the schoolteacher.”

  “I was.” Linnet did not want to talk about it more. Phetna would find out sooner or later.

  “What’s his name?” the woman asked, pushing away the empty plate.

  Linnet touched Devon’s ear lovingly. “Devon Slade Macalister,” she said.

  “Slade Macalister!” Phetna said, disbelief in her voice.

  Linnet smiled as she toyed with a black curl of Devon’s hair. “Slade’s for his father. I remember the day he discovered he was named after his father. Everyone said he loved his father so much, that he was so upset when he was killed.” She returned to the washing.

  “Slade was killed?” Phetna asked quietly.

  “Yes. By a bear.” Linnet didn’t see Phetna’s grimace of pain. “Agnes said Devon looked like his father.”

  “Both of the boys did,” Phetna said.

  Linnet looked up at the woman, realizing for the first time what she meant. “You knew Devon’s father? You knew the twins?”

  “Yes,” Phetna said as she moved from the table to a chair near the sleeping Miranda. “I come out here with Slade and the others and the boys’ mother.”

  “Georgi
na,” Linnet said, dipping the cloth in warm water.

  “I reckon she had a name besides Mrs. Macalister, but I never was allowed to use it,” Phetna said contemptuously. “Where’s the other boy, the one like her? I heard she went back to her fancy folk in the East, took one boy and left the other.”

  “Yes, she did, but I never met the brother.”

  Phetna was silent for a moment, then smiled at Linnet’s back. “This boy the baby’s father?”

  Linnet turned and smiled at her, already not seeing the grotesqueness of her face. “Yes.”

  “If he’s anythin’ like Slade, I can understand why you’d take him without a preacher.”

  “Agnes said—”

  “Agnes Emerson?” Phetna interrupted.

  “Yes. Do you know her?”

  “I know ’em all. I was a mite older’n them, about Slade’s age but we all lived together in North Caroliny, come out here together, built our homes together.”

  Linnet frowned at her. “Why would you leave Sweetbriar and come here?”

  Phetna understood immediately and grinned. “I’m an old, ugly woman, and he’s dead now, so I guess the sayin’ of it don’t matter none. I was in love with Slade Macalister, had been most of my life, and when he went north and married that…that woman, I thought I’d go crazy. I come west with him just hopin’ somethin’ would happen, and when it did and she left him to go back east, he still wouldn’t have me. I guess I was a sore loser. I run off with the first man’d have me and come here.”

  “You live with your husband now?”

  Phetna turned away and Linnet could see the white scars in her neck stand out and turn purple. “He died in the fire, but then it was him started it, a’purpose, when he drunk too much corn. He meant to kill me, burn the evil out of me, he said, but the wind caught the fire and he died and I didn’t. There have been times when I wished—”

  “His back seems to be burned the worst.” Linnet cut into Phetna’s memories, guessing that they could lead her to a time best forgotten.

  Phetna knelt by the bed and studied the burns. “They look bad but they could be worse. I’ve seen ’em burned all the way to the bone, the skin black and fallin’ off. There ain’t no hope for ’em then. You best get some sleep now. In the mornin’ he’s gonna need more washin’, and soon we’ll start to feed him.”