Soul of a Crow

by Abbie Williams

  “Get back…” he ground out, his teeth clenched.

  Bracing his forearms over Sawyer’s chest, on either side, Boyd said firmly, “Sawyer! It’s us, we’s right here with you. You’s safe now, old friend.”

  “Son of a bitch…I will kill you…” Sawyer tried to lift his head; his hands became fists, and he jolted against Boyd’s careful hold.

  “Boyd…” I implored, as new fear throttled me.

  “He’s in a fever dream,” Boyd said, and his breath came fast with the exertion of keeping Sawyer from inadvertently hurting himself. He insisted, “He ain’t talking to us.”

  Tilson entered behind Malcolm, bearing the laudanum, and it took him and Boyd both to administer the dose. I clung to Malcolm, who petted my hair with slow, gentle strokes. Within another minute, Sawyer calmed enough to fall still; Tilson had swapped out the poultice over his lost eye no more than a few hours ago, with my assistance. I refused to be afraid or squeamish to look upon the damage; I only feared what would be the reaction when he came to full consciousness.

  “Try an’ get some rest, please, Lorie,” Boyd whispered, once calm, if not peace, had been restored to the room. His face was lit by the single lantern, positioned to his right, highlighting his strong features and casting odd, dancing shadows over the left portion of his countenance. His brows were knitted.

  To alleviate his nearly-palpable concern, I whispered, “I will.”

  “Sawyer wouldn’t like the way you’s mistreating yourself,” Boyd murmured, clearly understanding that I was pacifying him. “You ain’t eating, or sleeping. You know this.”

  “I do,” I whispered in acknowledgment.

  “Rest,” Boyd repeated.

  Tilson corked the laudanum and settled it at the bedside. He asked, “You hurting, honey?”

  I was hurting, desperately so, though far less than was Sawyer; I despised that I could do so very little to alleviate any of it, forced to wait and see what the next hour would bring.

  “Lorie?” Boyd pressed, and his shoulders rose and lowered with an indrawn breath. I knew he had slept nearly as little as had I, was approaching the end of his considerable emotional strength, and so I drew forth enough resolve to whisper, “I am not hurting, not that way. I will try to rest, I promise you.”

  “Good,” he muttered, low.

  The lack of knowing drove iron nails beneath my skin, carved out great patches of my sanity, trenches as ragged as hastily-dug graves. I rested my fingertips upon Sawyer’s chest, allowing myself to feel the rise and fall of his breathing. As long as he breathed, he continued living.

  Tilson said, “I’ll be near.”

  Rebecca entered the bedroom as Tilson retired to his bed near the woodstove, bearing a second lantern and a tin cup in her hands. She moved wordlessly, clad in her nightclothes and shawl, her long, dark hair in a thick braid. Boyd stepped aside to allow her nearer to me; the air between the two of them was rife with crackling tension, which seemed to increase each passing hour.

  “I’ve tea for you, Lorie,” she whispered, and staved off my apology, whispering, “The thunder woke me, do not concern yourself.”

  Dutifully, unable to refuse her, I took the cup. In the glow of the candles, Rebecca regarded me with as much solemnity as Boyd. He stood less than an arm’s length from her, just slightly behind her right shoulder, and I saw how his dark eyes lighted intently upon her. Rebecca could not have been more aware of his quiet presence had he stood shouting and making a scene, but she kept her gaze directed at me, and as I managed a second sip, she murmured, “That’s good.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered in response. The tea was warm and laced with mint, soothing upon my dry tongue. “Thank you so much.”

  “He is unchanged?” she whispered, reaching gracefully to set the lantern upon the bureau top. She rested her hand to Sawyer’s face, briefly, and with utmost gentleness.

  His voice more gruff than usual, even in a murmur, Boyd said, “He came to for a moment there.”

  “Perhaps by morning he shall be fully awake,” Rebecca whispered, perching gently at the edge of the feather tick laid over the very bed within which she had spent her wedding night, where she had delivered each of her sons, and where she had unknowingly spent the last hours allowed to her in Elijah’s company, only months before his formal discharge would have occurred. And now my husband battled for his life upon the same narrow mattress.

  “I pray it,” I whispered. Sawyer’s face, so familiar and beloved to me, was now altered, and I was admittedly terrified for him to become aware of this unwitting change; I cared only that he survived. I assisted Tilson both times he changed the poultice over the wound; he insisted it would heal measurably, even within a month. The bullet had burst through the slim bone on the outer edge of the socket and therefore had not lodged within Sawyer, but there was no hope of saving his eye. Had the shot been placed even another hair’s breadth to the left, he would have been killed instantly.

  And even knowing it had not, I had to clench my teeth against the wretched pain of that thought.

  “How are your feet?” Rebecca asked, and almost unconsciously, I slipped them under the hem of my nightdress. They were still bound with two strips of linen, and I did not wish to admit to my own pain, not now.

  “They are not hurting worse,” I said, and this was not a lie.

  Rebecca turned her attention to Boyd, who stood still and silent, only a pace or two away; he watched her steadily, as though unable to help himself, and I saw how their eyes held fast, fancying that I could very nearly discern the increase in the pulse of blood throughout Rebecca’s body. Boyd swallowed, though he did not move otherwise. Quietly, she asked him, “Would you like me to change that dressing before morning?”

  I knew the injury pained him, but he would not admit it to Rebecca, who had soundly scolded him yesterday.

  “There ain’t no need,” Boyd whispered, his gaze tangled into hers. His hair fell in a tumbled mess over his forehead, his shirt undone two past the top button; we had all long travelled beyond any strict adherence to propriety, even Rebecca, sitting here in her nightclothes, which only a husband, as decorum dictated, should ever be allowed to see. The lantern light flickered over Boyd’s strong, striking features, the stubborn set to his mouth, his dark eyes and the solid lines of his jaws and chin, thick with black stubble long due for a shaving.

  “It is no trouble,” Rebecca whispered. She sat with hands tightly clasped, as though to forcibly prevent herself from reaching for him.

  “I am well,” he assured her. His tone soft, he whispered, “I promise, I am well. Don’t fret.”

  She nodded, rising abruptly and collecting from me the cup. She whispered, “Call for me, if you need, and there is a fresh cloth on the basin. Sleep well, Lorie.” She did not offer any such pleasantry to Boyd. He watched her leave the room, tugging close her shawl.

  “It brings her comfort to ascertain for herself that you are not hurting,” I told him, speaking just above a whisper, and Boyd’s eyes flashed at once to me; he was plainly consternated. I elaborated, “You’re being difficult.”

  At my words, the faintest hint of a smile tugged sideways his mouth. He whispered, “My mama’s words, many a time, Lorie-girl.”

  “Rebecca worries for you,” I whispered, nagging at him. “She…” I gulped back the admission that she cared deeply for him, but Boyd was nobody’s fool; surely he realized. Instead, I concluded, “She cares for all of us. I find myself wishing she was my sister.”

  “Well, it’s a waste of time t’wish for things we can’t have,” he whispered, his pupils burning with the reflection of the lantern’s flame. His posture changed and he briefly closed his eyes, then murmured contritely, “Don’t mind me. I aim to fetch a few hours’ sleep, an’ wake in a better temper. C’mere,” and he reached to catch me in a hug. I held fast, squeezing him tightly, and kissed his cheek.

  “G’night,” he whispered, and left me alone with Sawyer.

  In Boyd�
�s absence, I gently drew the quilt back to Sawyer’s shoulders, studying his face.

  “It is too quiet without your voice,” I whispered. The linen tied over his eyes was a pale white slash in the gray dimness of the room. The laudanum had slightly altered his scent, and I prayed the need of the drug would soon be past. Recognizing the pain he suffered, being subsequently deprived of him, was torturous, unbearable to me, and yet I would bear it; so long as he lived, I would bear the torture.

  “Boyd played for you earlier this night,” I murmured. “The same waltz that he’d played on the prairie for us, the night we were handfast.” Tears spilled to my cheeks, there was no helping this, as I continued, “No church ceremony could have been half so lovely, so real. To be there with you, as the sun set and the moon rose. I felt as we spoke that even the Earth itself heard our words, and acknowledged them. I know some might find that foolish, but you understand. You know, as you always do, what is in my heart.” I bent to kiss him, my lips wet with tears; I carefully brushed away the resultant moisture left behind upon his fevered skin. I whispered miserably, “You are so heated, love.”

  I collected the folded linen Rebecca had placed over the edge of the basin, now half-empty. I dipped the cloth, wringing the excess; the drops plummeting back into the water seemed absurdly loud in the quietness of the room, the orange lantern light skipping wildly over the disturbance in the liquid. Sawyer lay naked, the burns upon his body treated with salve, and carefully bound. In addition, his left side was wrapped in linen, protecting the injury left behind by the bullet Zeb had fired into his shoulder; eight precise stitches now held closed the exit wound. Tilson had instructed the binding over Sawyer’s eyes remain dry, and so I placed the coolness of the damp linen across his collarbones instead, mimicking Rebecca’s actions. Sawyer shuddered at the touch of the damp cloth, and my hands jerked in surprised response, instantly removing it.

  “Is it too cold? Oh, Sawyer…I am so sorry…”

  A rope snared my heart and I nearly dropped the damp linen as he groaned one word—my name.

  “I’m here, I am here with you,” I told him, desperate for him to realize this truth. For all he knew, he was still trapped in the jail in Iowa City—I had not allowed myself to speculate how he had suffered that night—even before being draped atop a burning pyre; Zeb had come for him while he was still locked within the cell in the sheriff’s office, and the battle to submit Sawyer to his will had surely been horrific; Sawyer’s body bore marked evidence of this.

  “Lorie,” he moaned, and I held his burning face between my palms; he flinched, his hands fisting. He sounded frightened, as though perhaps in the clutches of a dream, he could not find me, or did not realize that I was safe. His hoarse voice burst forth, calling for me. And then he choked, roughly and in terror, “I can’t see…”

  I was unable to prevent him from ripping the binding away from his eyes. His right eye was a mere slit, glossy with fever; the poultice over the left was in danger of falling away, and Sawyer struggled to sit. And then suddenly Tilson was beside me, curling his big hands about Sawyer’s upper arms and easing him back to the bedding, speaking in the quiet and comforting way of a longtime physician. His gray hair swung against the sides of his jaws as he held my husband carefully prone and called, “Becky!”

  Sawyer was agitated, his eye rolling backward in the socket, alarmingly, his jaw clenching as though in fury, bucking against Tilson’s grip. He issued a low growling sound and fought Tilson’s hold, but the doctor was of a size with my husband, as few men were, and did not allow Sawyer to thrash free. He said firmly, “Son, you’re all right. Listen to me, you are safe.” In a different tone, Tilson shouted, “Quick now! It weren’t enough.”

  Rebecca came at a run, and Tilson held Sawyer while his niece administered another spoon of laudanum. Once Sawyer had sunk again into full unconsciousness, Tilson carefully resettled the poultice and tied the linen about his eyes. Tilson was breathing slightly heavier than normal; when he turned, his eyebrows were stern with worry. Studying my face, he said, “He’ll rest for a spell now.” Seeing that I was not consoled, he added, “Sawyer knows you love him. He has something to live for, an’ that’s more than a good start, Lorie.”

  I intended to rejoin Sawyer on the bed, but I stepped wrong with my bound and aching feet, faltering. Without a word, Tilson swept me into his arms, as he would have a wayward child. Despite my protests he carried me forthwith into the adjoining living space, to the rope bed situated near the woodstove, upon which Rebecca already had a kettle boiling, cooking oats for breakfast. Atop the ropes was spread a bear skin, a tattered quilt, and a single pillow, and Tilson deposited me here with great care, drawing the quilt over me. He said in a voice not to be contradicted, “You will take a dose and you will sleep.”

  I knew he would not be denied, and I was near the end of my ability to continue functioning; my eyelids were already sinking. The pillow smelled rather strongly of Tilson himself, who typically bedded here during the night hours, but when he held a spoonful of laudanum gently to my lips, I accepted with no protests. The thick syrup of it was sweet on my tongue, and left an unpleasant aftertaste, but a silken black shawl encased my mind nearly at once, and however unwillingly, I gave over to unconsciousness.

  * * *

  When next I woke, the room was still swathed in darkness, broken only by the red glimmer of a low-burning fire in the woodstove; woozy from the drug still holding sway in my blood, I saw in its glow a pair of malevolent eyes, and sat with a gasp, tumbling from the rope bed and to the floorboards. The resultant thunk drew forth the sound of swiftly-moving feet, and Boyd crouched near me, cupping my shoulders in a gentle hold. Malcolm bent just behind his brother, and in the fire’s scarlet tint I blinked at them; their resemblance, already strong, was further increased by the depth of concern present on their faces. The ember-light carved out odd patterns upon their features and I blinked once more, attempting to focus, prompting Malcolm to explain in a hushed voice, “Lorie-Lorie, it’s just us. Boyd an’ me.” He added helpfully, “It’s night again.”

  “You been asleep for near sixteen hours,” Boyd murmured. “We’s sitting with Sawyer just now, me an’ the boy.”

  I reached and clutched at Boyd’s forearms, to steady myself. I begged, “Let me see him.”

  “He ain’t come to yet,” Boyd said softly, lifting me to my feet and subsequently tucking me to his side; he knew it hurt me to walk. “We changed out the bedding today, while you was sleeping. Tilson wished to spare you that, an’ I agree.”

  I held to Boyd and allowed him to assist me to the bedroom; there, he helped me atop the bed, where I climbed to the far side, nearer the wall, and minutely assessed Sawyer’s face. The haze in my mind was slowly shredding apart, as clouds before a rising wind.

  I whispered, “Thank you.”

  “It was right good you slept so long, you needed the shut-eye,” Boyd said. He and Malcolm took up their positions on chairs settled near the bedside. Malcolm dragged his seat closer and leaned both elbows on the edge of the feather tick.

  “Has he spoken today? Has he dreamed?” I asked.

  “He’s been dreaming a fair amount,” Boyd said, placing a gentle hand on Sawyer. “He’s been calling for you, Lorie-girl, but he ain’t woke yet.”

  “Early this morning, he said…” I bit back the onrushing fear and whispered, “He said that he couldn’t see…oh, Boyd…”

  Malcolm whispered, “He’s still got one good eye. We gotta remember that.”

  “The drug is addling his mind. I wish he’d break into a good sweat, and be done with it,” Boyd said. “Tilson said that would be the best sign just now, would show us that the fever didn’t have a hold on him no more.”

  “Where is Tilson?” I asked. The house seemed empty of all but the four of us.

  Malcolm explained, “Him an’ Mrs. Rebecca lit out to attend a woman whose birth pains came on too early, a few hours back. Me an’ Boyd’s been watching the boys.” Mal
colm added, “They’s got Stormy up in the loft with them.”

  “You finally named the kitten,” I guessed.

  “You hungry, Lorie-girl?” Boyd asked, and I nodded.

  The three of us sat in silence as I sipped beef broth. My stomach seemed shriveled, and I was unable to consume more than meager portions, but I heeded Boyd’s words—Sawyer would be angered that I was not taking better care of myself.

  “What did Billings have to say when you were in town?” I asked, after a time.

  Boyd shifted on the chair, his jaw squaring. His gaze was directed at the ceiling beams as he said, “They had Crawford in a pine box at the undertaker’s. He had no kin, an’ Billings said there ain’t a thing to be done ’til the judge arrives from Cedar Falls. It was all I could not to fire a few more rounds into that bastard’s coffin, propped as it was against the side of the building. More’n one person was standing near to gawk at it, an’ talk is a-flying in town.”

  “What of Yancy?” I whispered, hardly able to speak the man’s name.

  “He can’t hide forever,” Boyd said.

  “I wish I woulda kilt him,” Malcolm muttered intensely, his dark eyes fixed on a single point upon the quilt.

  “No—that would be too great a burden for you to endure,” I whispered at once, reaching to clasp my fingers about his hand.

  “It ain’t no more than what you bear,” Malcolm insisted, and his face was wreathed in stubborn sincerity. He whispered, “I aim to protect the folks I love, an’ I love you, an’ Sawyer, with all my heart. If I woulda aimed truer, Yancy wouldn’t be a threat to us, no more.”

  “Malcolm,” I said, tenderness and concern knotting about my heart. Though perhaps I should have chastised in that moment, or offered one of many insipid excuses why he should reconsider this position, I only whispered, “Still, I am glad you did not.”

  “You’s possessed of a fine, brave soul, but you’s still just a boy,” Boyd said firmly. “An’ young’uns ain’t oughta think on such things.”