Winter Woman

by Jenna Kernan

  She waved one hand over her head.

  “Thomas,” she called.

  He ran the few steps that separated them, knelt beside her and pulled her roughly into her arms. Relief, sweet as spring water, welled within him. His hug was greeted with a groan.

  “Thomas, let go. You’ll squeeze the life from me.”

  He pulled away to look at her. He saw no blood. Her color was normal. The ground was littered with blueberries.

  “What happened?”

  “I cut myself on that stake.” She pointed to a sharpened sapling. He frowned at the dried blood on white wood.

  “Where?”

  She indicated her foot. Carefully he held her foot. A puncture wound about an inch wide slit her skin. He looked again at the stake and judged that the tip had traveled into her flesh at least an inch.

  “I tried to pull it out of the ground. It almost appears rooted.”

  “That’s a sapling chewed down by a beaver, likely for the green bark.”

  She stared at him a moment, then laughed.

  “The little fellows are having their revenge on me, I think.”

  He did not return her smile. He didn’t like a wound without blood. He couldn’t see how much damage was done. Memories of another wounded woman filled his mind. With them came a rising fear swelling within him like a stream in April.

  “Can you walk?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll carry you then.”

  “Eat your blueberries first.”

  “My what?”

  She gathered the berries from her lap and held them out.

  “I picked them for you.”

  He accepted them and tossed the entire handful into his mouth. They were warm from the heat of her body. The sweetness coated his tongue.

  He poked at her foot and she jumped.

  “Don’t do that,” she scolded.

  “I want to see if it’s clean.”

  “It is, so don’t go poking me with dirty fingers.”

  Calmly, he handed her the shotgun and rifle. His stomach twisted like an injured snake. He didn’t show her the fear blasting through him as he scooped her into his arms and held her round firm body close.

  He wouldn’t give her up, not to the Indians or the mountains or to God himself. A realization dawned—he had promised God he’d send Delia back East if he found her alive. Nash clutched her tight as he strode back to camp. He’d be damned first. And besides, God owed him one.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I think I’ll have a look-see at that foot,” said Nash.

  He eased her gently to her seat on a large rock.

  “Does it involve cutting or poking into the wound?” she wondered aloud.

  “Delia, I got to see if it’s clean.” His expression told her he was worried. Until now she had considered herself lucky the damage was so slight.

  “Thomas, it’s not even bleeding. How serious can it be?” His frown deepened. A stab of fear pierced her gut. Serious, she thought. “All right, do what you must.”

  “I wish I had some whiskey to give you.”

  Her tone was indignant. “I do not indulge in spirits.” Then she added, “Why would I need to?”

  “I have to see if there any splinters stuck in there.”

  Queasiness rolled through her belly as she watched him draw the awl from his possibles bag.

  “Thomas, I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Look at something else.” He handed her a scrap of rawhide.

  “What’s this for?”

  “To bite on so you won’t scream.”

  She stared at the vile bit of hide.

  “If I feel the need to scream, Thomas, I most assuredly wish you to hear it.”

  She flinched when he gently touched her foot as if his fingers were branding irons.

  “You got to hold still, Delia. Hold your foot so,” he said, positioning her.

  She nodded mutely. Her voice had gone with her courage. Staring at the awl, she was certain her voice would return within moments.

  Thomas rubbed the awl on a bit of stone until the metal shone like silver. The end was now blunt and the metal clean. He held her ankle with a force that terrified her. There would be no escape.

  The awl slipped between the flaps of torn skin. The metal burned like hot iron. She jumped but managed to keep from crying out. He wiggled the thing within her wound. Tears sprang to her eyes and she gritted her teeth. Then he poked again and she cried out. He looked up for an instant. She raised her other foot and was preparing to kick him when the awl slid out.

  “It seems clean,” he said.

  Now her heel was bleeding. Throbbing pain traveled up her ankle and into the back of her leg.

  She swabbed the tears, which continued to roll down her cheeks. “Oh, Thomas, it hurts terribly now.”

  He lifted her into his arms once more and carried her. The nearness of his body did nothing to distract her from her bleeding, aching foot. At the edge of the river he lowered her to the mossy ground and dipped her ankle in the rushing water.

  The icy river caressed her trembling ankle. The pain dissolved and a blessed numbness crept over her skin. She sighed and closed her eyes for a few moments.

  She could feel his presence beside her, watchful, worried. Her face relaxed. Gradually she noticed the feel of the sunshine upon her face and the warm rock beneath her hands. The world no longer centered on her pain. When she opened her eyes, she found his gaze upon her.

  “You look so pretty in the sunshine,” he said.

  She smiled. “You’re trying to distract me.”

  “Maybe.”

  She knew he wanted to move on, to leave the danger of the Crow behind. Would her foot begin to throb again if she pulled it from the numbing water?

  A sharp bite on her little toe brought a scream to her lips. She yanked her foot out of the water and held her ankle with both hands.

  “Something bit me!”

  “Trout, maybe. Your foot is bleeding and it’s the same color as the underbelly of a fish. Honest mistake.”

  She scowled. One minute she’s pretty and the next she reminded him of a dead fish. She turned her attention to her heel. Blood seeped out of the puncture and ran with the water down her foot. She inspected her little toe and found no damage.

  “I think I can ride,” she said.

  He nodded. “Let me bandage it first.”

  Her foot was wrapped and settled carefully into her high-topped moccasin. He loaded the horses, lifting her up last. She felt like baggage when he plopped her on the black gelding.

  Her foot began to throb shortly after they set out. The pain was no worse than a headache, so she did not mention it. Of course it hurts, she thought. I was stabbed twice, bitten by a fish and now it is hanging there. Think of something else.

  “Thomas, are you a Christian?” she asked.

  He looked over his shoulder at her. She was accustomed to waiting for answers. Sometimes she forgot the question by the time he responded. She watched a meadowlark flit across the trail.

  “My Momma did her best to raise me up right,” he said at last.

  “Are you a member of a congregation?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you pray?”

  “Not so you’d recognize it. God and I have come to an agreement.”

  “What agreement?”

  “I don’t blame Him no more for taking Elizabeth, and He don’t bother me with details.”

  “You have to pray, Thomas and go to church or you’re not a Christian.”

  Another snort.

  She didn’t want him to jeopardize his immortal soul.

  “Thomas, you don’t want to go to hell, do you?”

  “I been in hell. Hell is here on earth. God don’t put you in hell, men do.”

  “That may be true, but you can’t go to heaven unless you follow God’s word.”

  “You mean to tell me God won’t accept all them Flathead men and women or their little babies,
because they ain’t been to church?” He shook his head. “Don’t think so. They got their religion. Who says yours is right and theirs is wrong?”

  “It just is.” What nonsense he talked.

  “Do you know about their religion?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Or the Crow or even them Lakota?”

  “No, but I am sure—”

  He interrupted her. “But you can dismiss something you never heard of and knows nothing about because that’s the way you was raised.”

  “Thomas, you were raised that way, too.”

  “But I kept an open mind. Don’t you think you should hear a man’s point of view before you try and change it? It’s all right to have beliefs, just don’t go pushing them on others because theirs is different.”

  “But this is the one path to righteousness.”

  “I never been nowhere that’s got but one path leading to it.”

  “Thomas, how could you reject everything you have learned?”

  “I ain’t rejected it. I changed it to fit what is. Take church for instance.” He released the reins and held both arms out wide. “Where would you be if you was God, in a cold little clapboard church full of hypocrites or here in these mountains?”

  She thought about her church and then looked at the trees above her, green and full of life.

  “But God is everywhere,” she said.

  “Exactly, so why do I have to haul my ass to a church just to say hello?”

  “Thomas, your language!”

  He sighed. “Delia, why are we talking about this?”

  “I was trying to take my mind off my foot.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad, because it gave me a headache.”

  She took his none-too-subtle hint and remained silent while she considered his words.

  At midday, he handed her a few strips of jerky from his bag. She sighed, knowing they would not stop. By late afternoon, she was certain that she could feel each step of the horse’s hooves echoing through her foot.

  She gave up. “Thomas, my foot feels worse.”

  “Chew on this,” he said, handing her several twigs. “We’ll make camp at the first likely spot.”

  She gnawed on the bitter bark. “It tastes awful. What is it?”

  “Seven Barks root. Flatheads gave it to me for gravel. Helped with the pain, until I passed the stone.”

  She continued to pulverize the fibrous root between her teeth, extracting the bitter medicine. She couldn’t say exactly when it worked. Gradually her mind turned back to her surroundings. The breeze stroked her hair and brought Thomas’s reassuring scent. The pain was still there, but held down somehow, so it did not intrude.

  “Stay with the horses,” he said.

  “Where are you going?”

  He pointed up the hill to several outcroppings of yellow rock. “Finding camp.”

  She waited while he scrambled up the ledge. He jumped from one boulder to the next, briefly disappearing and then reappearing in a different spot. She would never be able to climb that cliff. When he returned, she could tell by his expression that he had found what he was looking for.

  “I’ll bring you up, then see about the horses.”

  She leaned forward, resting her hands on his wide shoulders as he eased her from the horse. She enjoyed the feel of his hands about her waist. He swung her across his body and climbed the slope steadily, seemingly unencumbered by her weight. She squeezed his neck when he jumped from one rock to another.

  “I’ll never be able to get down,” she said.

  “Nope, you’re my captive.”

  She smiled. “Why not camp by the stream?”

  “Defensible position,” he said. “Still in Blackfoot country.”

  He climbed around a gigantic flat rock shaped like the head of an ax. Behind the boulder was another flat rock jutting out from the hill to form an overhang of several feet. She could see to the back. No animal was about.

  “Snakes?” she asked.

  “I checked.”

  He laid her in the sand beneath the rocky ceiling. From her seat she could see the tops of the trees and the valley below. The horses were hidden from view by the ax-head rock.

  “I’ll be back,” he said.

  She sat quietly watching. A chipmunk appeared and, seeing her, raised the alarm with a loud chirp. She heard the sound of a large bird in flight, its feathers pushing back the air. A crow darted through the treetops. Thomas’s question rose in her mind. Where would God rather be?

  She decided to look at her heel. Gently she released the leather wrapping Thomas had so carefully coiled about her ankle.

  She raised her eyebrows and opened her eyes wide at the sight of her foot. The wound was sealed with a black line of dried blood. The skin about the puncture looked red and swollen. Her anklebone was no longer visible. She could see an outline of where each piece of leather pressed into her skin.

  Your foot was hanging down all day. Of course it’s a little swollen. The ankle was worse than a little swollen. She pressed one finger into the spongy skin over her bone and watched it sink a quarter inch. Then she removed her finger, leaving a yellowish imprint.

  Trepidation filled her. She craned her neck for Thomas and listened for a sign that he was about. The fright rose up and she battled the urge to shout, knowing her call might reveal them to enemies.

  The first thing Nash saw upon returning to camp was the amber fire of her eyes burning with fear and pain. Then he saw the ankle, red and swollen. Alarm rang in his entire body. He dropped the bundle of hides and rested his gun atop the pile. He knelt beside her and pressed his hand to her foot. Internal heat blazed like rock beside a fire, radiating through his fingers. The wound was infected.

  Not again! Sweet Lord, don’t let her die of fever, too.

  “What do we do?” she asked. Her voice was tiny, helpless. Gone was the woman who had fought a grizzly and outfoxed the Flathead. In her place was a frightened child.

  “I’ll make a poultice to bring down the swelling. You stay put and rest awhile.”

  Her hand gripped his wrist, preventing him from rising. Her touch was cool. She had no fever.

  “Thomas?”

  “We’ll fix it up, Delia. Don’t you worry.” He wondered if he kept his own terror from seeping into his voice. She smiled and nodded, seeming to put her faith in him.

  Don’t let me fail the trust in those eyes.

  Her foot was nearly double in size. He had to get the swelling down. The bindings seemed to have done damn little. Why had he moved her before he knew she was all right? Regret burned in his belly like banked coals.

  He was lucky to find Horse Tail growing in the gravel beside a rock. He yanked the plant, roots and all and stuffed it into his bag. He hunted for Squaw Weed by the stream, then turned into the woods to search for dark mossy places. There beneath the poplar he found a Yellow Moccasin flower. He knelt beside the delicate blossom, using his fingers to carefully uproot the plant. On his way back he found a beaver meadow. Growing there was Blood Grass topped with small yellow blossoms. He tore the tops off several plants and watched the juice turn red.

  He returned to the camp and hobbled the horses by the stream. Then he climbed up the steep hill and found her rocking nervously back and forth. Relief flooded her face as she saw him. The movement stopped.

  “You were gone a long while,” she said.

  “I had to find these.” He held up the Moccasin Flower and Blood Grass.

  “You brought me flowers?”

  “They’re medicine,” he said. She nodded and reached for the Moccasin Flower.

  “This one is lovely. Do I eat the flower?”

  “You might, though I don’t know what would happen. The root is where the medicine’s at.”

  She looked at the Blood Grass. “This has no root,” she said.

  “We use the flower on that one. But don’t eat it, you crush it and put it on the wound.�
�

  “Where did you learn this?”

  “Flatheads.”

  He set about starting a fire and gathering his pots.

  “Does it hurt you now?” he asked.

  “No, but it looks like it should, doesn’t it?”

  He was certain it would hurt soon enough if he couldn’t get the swelling down.

  He suspended the pot of water over the fire with a green branch through the wire handle. He crushed the Blood Grass and Horse Tail together on a rock with the blunt end of his knife. After removing the pot from the coals, he poured some water into a tin plate. Then he added the pulverized weeds and set it on a rock to seep. The Yellow Moccasin root was also mashed and then added to the pot to cook awhile.

  The medicine man had told him the remedy was very strong. The Flathead used it to treat cholera, and Nash had seen it taken in ceremony to induce visions with frightening results. His own experience still sent an icy shudder down his back. He hoped Delia wouldn’t need this particular medicine.

  “It looks ghastly, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  He heard the challenge in her voice. She dared him to deny her words. Right now she needed reassurance, not the truth.

  “I seen worse.”

  But never on someone who kept his foot.

  He placed the green mush of Blood Grass and Horse Tail in a clean cotton cloth, the remains of the dress she had once worn. The ends were folded together and tied closed. He applied the poultice to her ankle. The leather bindings held the medicine in place.

  He patted her calf in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture. “That’ll take down the swelling. Mind, we have to keep it wet.”

  “It looks like everything will be wet soon.”

  He followed her gaze to the sky. The gray clouds rolled past, turning over the leaves of the trees, their billowing bellies an ominous black.

  “I got to tether the horses and gather more wood.”

  He shook out the skins and helped her climb between them. He rolled the wigwam skins in a bundle and propped up her foot.

  “Is this another Indian trick?”

  “Nope, I learned that from Doc Gilbert in Kentucky.”

  She smiled at him. Her eyes remained worried. If anything happened to her—he didn’t finish the thought. It was too terrible to consider.