Carla Kelly Page 9

  After some discussion, he and Dan lowered the stretcher bearing Jenks into the wagon bed. The second stretcher barely fit, and was occupied by three patients who had only room to sit up, rump to rump, and lean back against the rough wood. “Chief, can you squeeze yourself in the wagon bed, too?” he asked.

  “I should probably walk and let Elinore ride,” Sheffield protested, but he made no more objection when Jess insisted. Jess watched him climb carefully into the wagon, wondering to himself when the Chief got old. It must have been during the siege, he decided, only I was too busy to notice. Best he should ride.

  There they sat as the sun rose higher. The alcalde’s servants, who had always seemed so slow-moving when urged on any errand or effort during the siege, moved with startling speed. In a flash the tent was down, the ropes and pegs stowed in a canvas bag, and the cots folded. As they carried away the tent, other townspeople came out to point at the wagon and laugh out loud.

  “We do seem to be lacking any form of locomotion,” Sheffield commented, “but how nice to provide a moment of comic relief for our stalwart allies. Do you suppose Noah felt this way inside the ark before it started to rain?”

  Jess felt his face grow hot. He wondered if Harper, with Wilkie in tow, had decided to find his own route to the Portuguese border, one that didn’t involve the hindrance of the wounded. The Chief cleared his throat rather louder than was necessary, and Jess was just glancing his way when the guns went off.

  Elinore shrieked and crowded herself close to him as the ground shook, and a mound of black smoke coming from the cemetery wreathed upward in the sky. After a startled pause, the villagers who had gathered ran away. When the road was clear, Harper and Wilkie came riding over the small crest on horseback, Harper with black powder on his face and a grin. He waved to Jess. “Lord love us, I still think a diversion is the best medicine for what ails us, Captain. Lend me a hand now, sir.”

  Lend he did, asking no questions as he helped the soldiers hitch up the horse, one quite geriatric and the other taking mincing steps to show its dislike of the smoke and noise. It was a beautiful dun, with an elegant saddle, and it took vast exception to being yoked to a wagon. Elinore stood at the edge of the road, her eyes on the great mushroom of smoke, then hurried to his side as soon as he stepped back.

  Harper moved faster than Jess had ever seen before. “Uh, are these animals soon to be missed?” Jesse asked finally. He tossed the reins up to Wilkie, who with a grimace and a grunt, had climbed into the wagon. In another moment they were underway.

  Harper fell into step beside him. “Not sure, sir, but Wilkie and I thought it best to set off a little alarm; you know, something to clear the streets of riffraff.”

  Jess stopped then, and waited for Dan O’Leary to hand him his medical satchel. O’Leary shouldered his other bag and shook his head when Jess tried to take it. There was another explosion and then another. “My word, Harper!” Jess declared. “Did you always harbor a secret wish to be part of the artillery? I think even Sir Arthur would be impressed.”

  The private shook his head, his face serious. “That’s the French, Captain. They must think we have a ruddy arsenal. D’ye think we could step out a little smarter now?”

  It was a snail’s pace. Jess had the oddest sensation of revisiting a childish nightmare of being eight feet tall and trying to move fast on meringue feet, but making no headway as a monster thundered behind. He expected at any moment to see Souham’s famous hussars top the rise behind them and come pelting down, screaming that strange, warbling cry of theirs which never quite served to mask the zipping sound when saber came from scabbard. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder, mainly because Elinore was watching him with anxious eyes.

  Conversation seemed the best idea. “Tell me, Harper,” he began, keeping his voice as prosaic as possible. “I know I wasn’t going to ask, but I am curious where these horses came from, especially that dun, who appears to have an exalted lineage.”

  Harper was a long time in answering. “Sir, let me say it this way: we had no idea how close the French were. I thought they’d stay inside the walls another day.” He leaned closer. “And you know, sir? They’re pretty sloppy when they think nobody British is around.” He looked back at the pretty horse struggling against the yoke. “I think one of the Frogs is ’opping mad, don’t you?”

  Jess opened his mouth to say something, but shook his head instead. Elinore patted his arm. “Perhaps it’s time for things to get better.”

  They didn’t. Jenks died around two o’clock in the afternoon, worn out from trying to breathe, and the rains began again, further slowing their pace. As Sheffield took a final check of the dead man’s pulse, Jess went through his usual list, remembering with excruciating detail every remedy he had ever attempted on Jenks, and asking himself if there were something more he could have done. When he could not think of one more treatment that would have made a difference, there was nothing to do but cover Jenks’ face and keep going.

  Elinore continued to earn his admiration. Despite the mud that tugged at her dress hem and the cold rain on her face, she burrowed deeper in her cloak, gripped his hand, and kept moving. He thought of the ladies his mother had trooped through the estate on his last visit to Scotland, all with incomes, bright faces, and accomplishments. He nudged his wife’s shoulder. “Elinore, can you sketch?”

  “No.”

  “Knot a fringe?”

  “No!”

  “Speak Italian?”

  She smiled. “No. I think my Spanish is useful to you, however, considering that all you can say is hello, and how are the missus and children.” She stopped in the road, and he stopped, too, mainly because he had no desire to turn loose of her. “See here, Captain, are you comparing me to ladies you have known?”

  She’s a bright one, Hippocrates, he thought, but we already knew that. “Yes, I am, Elinore, and you’re coming out rather well.”

  To his dismay, her eyes filled with sudden tears. “One dress and a borrowed cloak, and you can say that?”

  “I can say that. Do mind that puddle, Elinore. I’d hate for you to get your shoes muddy!”

  He laughed and stepped out of the way when she took a swing at him with the cloth bag of bandages and plasters she carried. Yes, I can say that, he thought, feeling far too cheerful for someone who had just lost a patient, wasn’t totally sure where he was, and who, for all he knew, was only a hill or two ahead of the French. Things are looking up, he told himself. Maybe it’s time for the luck of the Randalls.

  Bedraggled and sore-footed, they came to the village of Santos as the watery, poor excuse for a sun started to set. He knew that Elinore was flagging; not that she walked any slower, but that she stopped talking, as though needing all her energy to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. If only the rain would stop, he grumbled in silent frustration. The damp had wicked all the way up his wife’s dress to her waist, and he knew she must be colder than all of them.

  It was Santos, because he remembered that the steeple on the church had been toppled by one army or the other. While he did not recall a particularly friendly citizenry on the way up to Burgos in August, his experience told him that eventually the villagers would scrounge up food from somewhere, and a bed or two. He would have Elinore announce in Spanish that he was a surgeon, and promise a clinic before they left in the morning.

  They must have just missed Vespers, which surprised Jess, because he thought his timepiece was accurate. He looked around. The village seemed almost deserted. With a chill, he noticed that as the wagon creaked by each house, lights went out within.

  “I don’t like this,” he whispered to Elinore. “Walk closer to me.”

  “I suppose they are tired of feeding the British,” she said.

  Somehow—how he did not know, considering his open nature—he knew that was not the answer, not this night. “Chief, do you think we should avoid this town?” he asked.

  Sheffield swore an oath from inside the
wagon. “Jess, I think you must truly work harder to overcome your somewhat retiring disposition! What could be more harmless than two surgeons? Besides that, our patients here—remember them?—need a bed and some broth. Wilkie, stop our gallant steeds there in the plaza. Elinore, turn loose of that timid fellow of yours and announce to the citizens that the surgeons have arrived.”

  “Of course I will,” Elinore replied. She released her tight grip on his arm. “He doesn’t mean to be a grouch,” she told Jesse.

  And I don’t mean to be suspicious, he thought, even as he let her leave his side and walk closer to the wagon. He wanted to call her back, but he did not feel up to another outburst from the chief surgeon. Who, I must admit, Hippocrates, has been at this military doctoring business far longer than I have, he thought. Still, am I the only one noticing that candles and lamps are going out in the houses around us?

  He looked around and his unease increased to see dark forms gathering on each narrow street they passed. No one spoke, and he hoped they chose not to follow. He looked at the wagon, wanting to say something. I am too timid, he thought. He opened his mouth to speak again, but the wagon stopped; they were in the plaza.

  “It is awfully dark,” he ventured as Sheffield, with Harper’s assistance, clambered awkwardly down from the high-sided cart.

  “It is November!” Sheffield hissed, but in a low voice that made Jess wonder if the mood of the village was now on him, too. The Chief gestured for Elinore. “Come, my dear, lend me your arm. I am stiff with sitting.” He glared at Jess. “Nell and I will bravely go find the alcalde and ask his assistance.” He paused. “We would invite your husband, Nell, but he is too shy. He may tend to the wounded.”

  Experience told him that there was no reasoning with Sheffield when he was in a black mood. Instead, he nodded to Harper. “Private, I am in his black book. Give me a hand up into…”

  “No.”

  He stopped, startled. He made to say something stern for once, but Harper was not looking at him. The soldier stared over his shoulder into the center of the plaza.

  “No, please,” Harper said again, and there was no overlooking the pain and pleading in his voice, a far cry from his usual wheedling tone.

  Jess turned around to see a flash. He winced and instinctively braced himself for the explosion, which reverberated in the square, surrounded as it was by buildings. His stomach dropped below his shoes when Elinore screamed. “Oh, God, no,” he said, and ran toward his wife, who stood grasping the chief surgeon. He heard Harper shouting at him to wait, but he could not. Not until he was only a few feet from the two of them did he see the neatly drilled hole in the exact middle of Sheffield’s forehead.

  What happened next happened fast. Sheffield dropped first to his knees and then facedown in the mud, dragging Elinore with him. Sobbing out loud and calling his name, she tried to turn him over as she struggled to rise into a sitting position.

  He did not see the two men who came out of the plaza’s gloom, probably because his eyes were still dazzled by the flash and report of the musket. They grabbed his arms as Elinore shrieked at them in Spanish, the sound of her terror utterly foreign to his ears. He looked down to feel the muzzle of a pistol jammed just above his belt. He braced himself again, wishing simultaneously for a priest, and for more time, more time. His life did not flash before his eyes; he knew that the breath he drew next would be his last, and he would be as dead as Jenks in the wagon. He closed his eyes, dreading the flash more than the ball that he knew would eviscerate him.

  Click. Another click. Elinore gasped, and then she was pleading with the men who held him, even as she crawled toward him. “I love you,” he whispered, but she did not seem to hear him above her own voice. She was telling them he was a doctor, saying it over and over, first in Spanish, then English, then French, as if seeking, in her desperation, to find the common language of chaos.

  No one seemed to listen. The pistol clicked once more against his belly, then the pressure on his stomach ceased as the weapon was withdrawn. He took an experimental breath, and then another. His eyes dull now, he watched as the pistol flashed back in a wicked swing. It came forward against his head, and he remembered no more.

  Chapter Seven

  Elinore held her breath in horror as her husband hung in the grip of the men who held him, then dropped insensibly to the ground when they let him go. “I tell you, he is a doctor!” she screamed. “And so is this man you have killed!”

  To her unutterable relief, someone finally seemed to understand. As she watched, crouched there on her hands and knees, a woman ran forward and spoke rapidly to the men who stood so close around Jesse. She gestured, she spoke, and then the men murmured to each other and backed away. One of them turned Jesse over, and wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand. He hardly looked in Elinore’s direction.

  She tried to stand, but her legs felt like jelly. Harper came to her then, pulling her to her feet and steadying her until she found her balance. She wanted to tell him thank you, but he was looking beyond her to Sheffield, who would never move again.

  “Gor, miss,” Harper said, his voice subdued. “I doubt he knew what hit him. What do you suppose is the matter with these people? If they’re supposed to be allies, pray God we never run into the Frogs on this retreat.”

  “Something must have happened here,” she said. “Oh, please turn the Chief over. At least get his face out of the mud.” Elinore, you goose, she chided herself, why should that possibly matter now? But it did.

  While Harper did as he was told, Elinore approached the woman who had come from the darkness, and who now held a bloody cloth to Jesse’s temple. “I do not know that you will forgive us for this,” she said in Spanish. “The old man was a doctor, too?”

  “A surgeon, and you in this village have killed him. For shame,” she murmured, declining to say one more word. She knelt by her husband’s head and raised him to rest in her lap. Elinore felt his head cautiously. To her relief, she felt no grating bones, no jagged edges. She gathered him close, numb at what happened in less than five minutes. She sat there in the dark plaza, wet to the bone, and more alone than at any point in her life.

  Then Dan O’Leary knelt beside her, his hand on her shoulder. Like her, his other hand went to Jesse’s head, only his probings were more expert. “He can probably use a suture or two,” he said calmly, his voice so prosaic that she felt the cloud on her heart lift. “I’ll wave this under his nose, and we’ll see if he chooses to rejoin….” He paused, and shook his head, then gave her an apologetic look. “I was going to say, ‘rejoin the human race,’ but I’m not so sure they’ve progressed that far in this village.”

  Dan held the vial under Jesse’s nose. In another moment he was groaning and trying to move away from the pungent odor. His eyelids fluttered open, and he stared as though trying to focus his gaze. “Chief?”

  Elinore shook her head. “Oh, Jess,” she whispered, and held him closer to her. “One moment he was grumbling to me, and the next…Oh, Jess.”

  He closed his eyes again, and she thought in a panic that he had gone under and left her alone again. “Please stay here, Jess!” she pleaded with him. “Dan, do something!”

  Dan took Jess’s face gently in his hands. “Captain? Do you hear me?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  Jesse was silent for a moment, his eyes still closed. “Not heaven, I’ll wager.” He shivered. “Too cold for hell. I’ll bite, Dan. Where?”

  Dan smiled at him, the worried look gone from his eyes. “It’s not the last line to a quip, sir. I just wanted to know if you were lucid.”

  “I wish I weren’t.”

  Don’t we all, Elinore thought, and looked around. The circle of men seemed smaller, or perhaps they were just standing farther away now, in itself a comforting sign. The woman remained where she was. Elinore realized that she had never stopped talking.

  Jess must have noticed it, too. He frowned up
at her. “Elinore, tell her…stop. My head…”

  “Por favor,” Elinore said. “Por favor, senora. Le duele la cabeza.”

  It seemed like a polite hint to Elinore, but the woman did not stop importuning. She tugged at Elinore’s dress now, not mindful of the mud, and came even closer to Jesse, even though he had closed his eyes again and turned his face toward Elinore’s breast, as if wanting to block out everything. She held him close, watched the woman, and then tried to make sense of what she was saying so persistently.

  Gradually her mind calmed, and she began to understand. She looked around for Dan, who had returned to the wagon and with Harper and Wilkie’s help was lifting out the wounded men. She could not help but see the body of her dear surgeon, who lay so still in her line of sight. “You have made a terrible mistake,” she said out loud.

  “Eh, my dear, I hope you’re not referring to me,” Jesse said. “Even though I did promise you the Randall luck.”

  “So you did,” she replied, and didn’t know what else to say. Long ago I taught myself not to have any expectations, she thought. I shan’t start now, no matter what he promises. I wonder if we will leave this village alive. She called to Dan, who came to her side as soon as the patients were leaning against the fountain in the plaza’s center.

  “Dan, would you go with this woman? She is saying something about her daughter. I think there is a baby.”

  “Never my strong suit,” Dan said. He looked at the woman, who had transferred her pleading gaze to him now. “Let us bargain with her first, Nell. Tell her I will go as soon as these men are safe under a roof.”

  “You will go now.”

  Elinore looked down in surprise. Jesse was trying to struggle into a sitting position. She helped him up. He looked at Dan until his eyes focused. “I never bargain with desperate people,” he said simply. “Go with her. We’ll see how persuasive Harper can be with our patients. Call him over, Elinore. It’s time he became a force for good.”