by Tamara Gill
“Maybe he can.”
O’Neill had no intention of pressuring Kempson for firewood. Jaclyn was as certain of that as she was that he would load his men on a rotten old boat tonight and attempt to sail away to safety. Her mouth thinned and her eyes flashed. “Look, you guys are going to leave tonight, aren’t you? So why not push Kempson a little? It’s not as if you’re going to need more favors out of him.”
Canty was on his feet in an instant. He shoved his face into Jaclyn’s the way he had on the dock and demanded, “How the hell do you know that?”
Jacqui didn’t like her personal space invaded and normally she would have backed off, but she was so worried about Sean and angry about the danger he was facing that she was glad to have someone to battle with. She lifted her chin defiantly. “Easy. It’s obvious. You guys are holed up here. You’ve got no place to go. The militia may be licking their wounds in Port Colborne, but they could erupt from there at any time. Then there’s the real enemy, the one you guys are so scared of.”
“And whom would that be?” Canty said. He’d backed off a bit, but there was a still sneer on his face and his eyes were watchful.
“The British division. It’s lost somewhere in the countryside and you don’t know where it is, do you?”
“Colonel Peacocke is near Frenchman’s Creek,” O’Neill said, standing up. He gestured toward Canty. “The Major just brought the news.”
Canty said in a warning tone, “Colonel.”
O’Neill shook his head. “What’s the point, Major? Young Jack is right. Why hide it? He’s not going to change anything.”
“He might.”
“You told me yourself that Peacocke has a reputation for being slow and cautious. You also told me he was planning to bivouac for the night at Frenchman’s Creek. He’s there now, so he’s not likely to move.” O’Neill looked at Jaclyn, then back to Canty. A small smile crooked his mouth. “As entertaining as Jack has been, I doubt Colonel Peacocke would pay him the attention we have, should he take it into his head to visit the British encampment.”
“I don’t care about Peacocke. Why should I? He’ll do what he has to do tomorrow. All I’m worried about right now is making sure that Sean doesn’t get any worse. Colonel O’Neill, I want your permission to take Sean to old Jim Bailey’s farm. They’ll look after him there.”
“Why is it so important to move him?” There was suspicion in Starr’s voice.
O’Neill added, “Whatever our decision, we can have O’Dell back in Buffalo by morning. I think he would be better off remaining with us.”
This was the tricky part. O’Neill had not yet quite accepted the need to return to Buffalo, but soon he would acknowledge that unpalatable necessity. He wouldn’t know that the scow sent to take him back to the US would be stopped mid-river and wouldn’t make land for three days. He couldn’t know or he might change his plans and she would have changed history and possibly the future. But she still had to keep Sean from being loaded onto that leaky old tub. “Kempson says his arm should be amputated. The docs in Buffalo will probably say the same thing.”
O’Neill shrugged while Starr nodded. Their expressions said this wasn’t news to them. They’d seen it happen before. Jaclyn planted her feet, put her hands on her hips and glared at all of them. “Sean’s arm is broken and there’s a bullet hole in it. Treated carefully, both will mend. Doc Brewster up in Ridgeway is a better doctor than Kempson is. I’d like to take Sean up to the Baileys’ farm and let Brewster tend him.”
“And see the British haul him off to jail!” Canty said.
Jaclyn turned and faced Canty, favoring him with her own brand of intimidation—certainty well mixed with contempt. “You forget, Major, that the Baileys, Doc Brewster and I worked with Sean caring for the wounded after the battle this morning. They have a lot of respect for him, and so do I. None of us will turn him in to the British.”
“How do you plan to get him there?”
Jaclyn turned to O’Neill with relief. “Grandpa Bailey drove his wagon back to his farm after we dropped the injured this afternoon. I want to go up to the Bailey place and get Grandpa to bring the wagon back here. It’ll be dark by then and the townspeople will be in their houses or asleep. We’ll pick up Sean and no one will know that he’s not with the rest of you.”
“It could work,” Starr said grudgingly.
O’Neill pulled out a pocket watch and flipped open the lid.
Jaclyn eyed this with disbelief and considerable excitement. “Will you look at that! What time is it?”
“Half-past seven.” O’Neill snapped the lid shut. “You say the Bailey farm is near Ridgeway.”
“It’s on the Ridge Road somewhere near the battleground.” That was the best Jaclyn could think of to describe the farm’s location. It wasn’t exactly the most precise of explanations.
“You’d best take a horse.” Having committed to the concept, O’Neill was thinking fast and managing the operation.
“Um, not a great idea, Colonel. I’m not an, er, horseman, you see.”
“If you walk it will take too long to get there and back.” He paused, his eyes boring into Jaclyn’s. “If we return to Buffalo, I’m not going to leave one of my men here, particularly an injured man.”
Jaclyn swallowed. “But if I ride out of here people will notice. Guys like Kempson. They’ll ask questions. If I walk I can just slip away and no one will pay any attention to me.”
“I will not leave one of my men behind at the mercy of the local authorities. You might remember, Jack, that we have three score or more prisoners. Should they notice we’ve gone and free themselves before you return with Bailey, O’Dell would be helpless against them.”
He had a point. “Okay. So I ride.” She took a deep breath. “You’d better give me Sunny Girl, then. That’s the horse Sean was using. Kempson knows that I’m friends with the Baileys. He might question why you’ve given me the horse, but he probably won’t wonder why I’m taking it back to Jim Bailey.”
O’Neill thought for a moment, then nodded.
Starr said, “We’ll have to create a diversion.” The enthusiasm in his voice made Jaclyn frown. She wondered what kind of mayhem he was planning.
Canty stared coolly at him. “What exactly do you mean?”
Starr shrugged and raised his brows. “We’ll evict Jack from the camp. That way it will seem reasonable for him to be seen leaving at this time.”
O’Neill shrugged. “Shall we do it now?”
Canty said, “We’ve been talking to Jack for a damned long time. It’s bound to have been noticed.”
O’Neill nodded, then he smiled at Jaclyn. “Good luck.” Raising his voice, he said, “Haggerty!”
The name bellowed out over the camp. Captain Haggerty disengaged himself from a group of men and trotted over.
O’Neill pointed to Jaclyn. “This young rascal has pestered me long enough. Escort him from the camp immediately.”
Play the game. Be indignant, Jacqui thought. “But Colonel O’Neill!”
“Yes I know. You want the horses your friends loaned us. I’ve told you, I need that black.”
“But...”
“What about the chestnut Major O’Dell was riding?” Haggerty said helpfully, an innocent partner in the deception.
“Sunny Girl?” Jaclyn said.
“That’s the one. Major O’Dell won’t be riding her again.”
“If it will make him go peacefully, then give him the beast,” Starr’s tone was harsh and impatient.
“Sunny Girl is good,” Jaclyn said.
The four men looked at her. Then O’Neill shook his head. “If the horse is what it takes to ensure we will see the last of the lad, then do it.”
Haggerty nodded and went off to bridle Sunny Girl.
“I’ll escort you to the gates.”
Jaclyn said, “That’s okay, Colonel Starr. I need to check on Sean before I go.”
“No, you don’t. You go now or you don’t go at all.”
>
“Colonel O’Neill?”
“Colonel Starr is right, Jack. If you go back to the ruins your story will fall apart.”
“Well, shit. Isn’t this just great.”
“You’ve got one hell of a mouth on you, boy,” Canty said. “Now get a move on. There’s Haggerty with the horse.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Grip with your knees. Jaclyn remembered Sean telling her that yesterday morning when he’d forced her on top of the gray mare and made her ride all the way back to Newbigging’s farm. So she gripped with her knees as she rode out of the ruins of the old fort.
Sunny Girl was nothing like that gray mare. She pranced, tossed her head and sidled at the least little thing. When Jacqui had ridden the horse with Sean behind her it had been exhilarating, even fun. Riding Sunny Girl on her own was entirely different story. She was terrified and she was certain the horse knew it.
Sunny Girl danced along Garrison Road, up the low rise that crested in the bluff where the Fenians had massed hours before. Jacqui wrapped one hand into the filly’s mane to anchor herself. She could not fall off. If she did Sean would end up on that barge heading back to Buffalo. She had to stay on Sunny Girl and she had to get back to the Baileys’ farm. Soon.
That meant she had to let the horse run or she had to find a short cut. A short cut worked best for her, but there was always the danger that she’d get lost and waste time. That made using a short cut out of the question. With no other option, she would have to let Sunny Girl go as fast as she could all the way up the Garrison Road to the place where the Ridge Road crossed it. There she’d turn onto the Ridge Road and continue along it until she reached her destination.
Sunny Girl tossed her head and lengthened her stride. Jacqui tensed her muscles, gripped harder with her knees and waited for the explosion of power to begin. Nothing happened. They crested the low bluff. The Garrison Road stretched out before them, an ascent so gradual it might as well have been flat. Sunny Girl heaved a big sigh, blowing loudly through her nostrils, and settled down into a slow, lazy plod.
Riding Sunny Girl was easy now. Her head drooped, her footsteps were slow and labored. It was like she was on autopilot. Jacqui could have jogged faster than the horse was moving. She moistened her lips. She was going to have to do it. She was going to have to force the horse to speed up.
She nudged Sunny Girl’s sides tentatively. No response. She tried again. Nothing. How do you turn this thing on, she thought frantically. Sean had told her to kick, but that wasn’t working. How had he done it? Though she’d watched him carefully, she hadn’t noticed him belting the poor beast with his heels. Maybe she had to talk to the horse as well.
So she kicked as hard as she could and shrieked, “Get a move on!” at the same moment. This time the response was instantaneous. Sunny Girl’s ears flattened, she grabbed at the bit in her mouth, then bolted.
The good news was that they made the trip to the Ridge Road in excellent time, for Sunny Girl ran most of the way. The bad news was that Jaclyn had absolutely no control of the horse. It was lucky she’d already wrapped the mane around her fingers, for without that handhold she would have fallen off when Sunny Girl began her wild run.
Jaclyn’s heart was beating so fast that her breath was coming in short puffs when Sunny Girl finally tossed her head and slowed to a trot. She even let Jaclyn guide her closer to the Smuggler’s Hole, the tavern where O’Neill had held his meetings. There were a couple of people standing outside on this hot, sultry evening drinking from tankards. Jacqui asked for directions to Jim Bailey’s farm and was given an answer that sounded reasonable. She turned onto Ridge Road, prepared herself, then belted the horse again, making her run.
Grandpa Bailey was out on his porch when she galloped noisily into his farmyard. He held a long gun in his hands, not the ancient musket Sean had taken, but a newer model that was shiny with lubricating oil and looked remarkably like one of the weapons the Fenians had brought with them. His stance said he was ready to fire should the need arise, but he was not purposefully threatening.
Sara came out of the door as Jaclyn yelled, “Stop!” to the horse and hauled hard on the reins.
Sunny Girl reared up on her hind legs. Jaclyn screamed. Grandpa Bailey shoved the rifle into Sara’s hands and ran down the steps. He grabbed the reins, pulled the filly to the ground and held her steady, talking to her gently. Jaclyn slid off the trembling horse with considerable relief. Her legs were wobbly and the ground seemed to shake around her. She leaned against Sunny Girl’s sweaty flank and thought she might collapse.
“What the devil is going on here?” Bailey demanded.
“Jack!” Sara said. “Why do you have Sunny Girl? Where is Major O’Dell?”
Nothing like getting to the crux of the matter right at the start. “Sean’s been wounded.”
Sara’s hand flew to her throat. “No!”
“Better come over to the paddock and tell us while I rub down Sunny Girl. What did you do to her, Jack?”
Jaclyn patted the horse’s neck in an apologetic manner. “I was desperate to make time so I ran her hard. Colonel O’Neill sent me. I need your help, Grandpa.”
Bailey grunted. “Tell me at the paddock, not before.”
He lead Sunny Girl off, with Jacqui and Sara trailing along behind. It seemed to take an eternity until he’d assembled all of the tools he needed to groom the horse. Jaclyn checked the sky every few seconds, trying to figure out the time, tapped her foot, crossed and re-crossed her arms. Finally he began to brush Sunny Girl and announced he was prepared to listen. She told her story as evocatively as she could. Then she waited.
Bailey said at last, “So you want to bring this O’Dell fellow to my house and have me tend him so he won’t lose his arm to a wound he received as a result of the invasion of my country. Further more, you want me to hide him from the authorities and make sure he doesn’t get captured. Is that correct?”
Put that way, her plan didn’t seem quite so reasonable as it had at the Fenian camp. Still, Jaclyn was prepared to defend it, mainly because she couldn’t think of anything else that might work. “Look Grandpa—”
“I’m not your Grandpa.”
“Grandpa, Jack is right,” Sara said impatiently. “Major O’Dell needs our help. We cannot let him die!”
Grandpa ran the brush along Sunny Girl’s chestnut hide, clearing away hair and dust and making her coat gleam. “I still don’t see why he can’t go back to Buffalo with the rest of the Fenians. Buffalo is a bigger town than Fort Erie and there’s a hospital there. They can look after him better than Sara and I could.”
“They’ll cut off his arm!” Jaclyn said fiercely.
“Please don’t let them do that, Grandpa!”
Grandpa sighed. “He could still ride a horse with one arm.”
“You sound just like O’Neill. Yeah, sure, gotta be done. So what? Man, you guys just don’t get it! He doesn’t have to lose his arm. The bone is broken, there’s muscle damage, but both will mend if you keep the wound clean. And there’s nothing they can do about his concussion in Buffalo that we can’t do here.”
“Don’t take a gunshot wound too lightly, young Jack. An injury like that can lead to fever. I lost my second boy to a fever. There’s no telling which way a fever will go.”
Jaclyn couldn’t argue with that. This was 1866 after all. There were no antibiotics to kill infections and draw down fever. All the people of this time could do was keep the body cool and hope the person would fight off the illness. Her shoulders slumped. “Sean is strong. He’s healthy. There’s no reason to think he’ll get a fever because he’s been shot.”
“All right, say he doesn’t come down with a fever.” Grandpa slapped the horse on the shoulder and ducked under her nose. Jaclyn and Sara followed him round to the other side. “Doc Kempson is probably right, the arm will be wasted anyway. He’ll have no strength in it. What is the point of taking the risk and leaving it on if he can’t use it?”
This was
one Jaclyn could answer. Her brother had broken his leg in three places while playing high school football. He had endured weeks of therapy after the bone had mended, but the result had been no limp whatsoever. “With a little physio I bet it will be fine!”
Grandpa stopped grooming Sunny Girl and turned to stare at Jaclyn. It was Sara who asked the question that was obviously on both their minds. “What is physio?”
Had physiotherapy been invented yet? It was such a good idea Jaclyn couldn’t believe it wasn’t in existence, even if it was called something else. “Exercises. Regular exercises done several times a day to stimulate the muscles and bring back strength after an injury. I read about it in my, um, Greek studies.”
“You read about it.”
Grandpa sounded skeptical. Jaclyn frantically searched her mind for a reason she’d know this kind of medical information. “Yeah. One of the texts we had to study was by this ancient Greek doctor called Hippocrates. He left a whole collection of writings, all on medical topics. I didn’t get a lot of the technical stuff, but some of his suggestions made sense to me. This idea of exercising after an injury was one of them.”
“How come a doc like Kempson doesn’t know about this exercise program of Hippocrates?”
Probably because it doesn’t exist. “Do you think he knows how to read Greek?”
Bailey laughed. “Maybe not.” He rubbed his chin and eyed Jaclyn from beneath his brows. “All right, Jack. We’ll bring O’Dell here. He’s a decent man, if somewhat confused in his thinking. But I won’t have his death on my conscience. If he develops a fever, I’ll get Doc Brewster to take off the arm. Understood?”
Jaclyn nodded. She didn’t have any other option.
Sara hugged her grandfather. “Grandpa, you’ve done the right thing.”
Bailey hugged her back. “I hope so.” He let Sunny Girl loose in the paddock. “Right then, let’s go get Major O’Dell.”
***
By the time the wagon rolled down the Garrison Road into Fort Erie the long evening had given way to a darkness brightened only by the stars and the moon. Once the decision to bring Sean back to the Bailey farm had been made, it had taken awhile to get organized. Sara had had the thoughtful notion of putting a mattress and pillows in the back of the wagon to spare Sean the discomfort the Fenian injured had endured when they’d been transported earlier in the day. That took some time to manage, then bedding was needed. Just as they were about to leave, Sara decided Grandpa and Jaclyn should take water along too, and a cloth to bathe Sean’s brow should he need it. She wasn’t coming with them—Jim Bailey forbade it—so she planned to make up a room for Sean and prepare a nourishing broth for him from some potted meat that had been hidden in the cellar.
