Fire Along the Sky
Page 131

The muscles in his jaw popped and worked. Then he leaned forward and spat so that the gob of tobacco and spit landed just short of Hannah's toe. One of his better moods, then.
“Where's the princess?” he said.
“Mrs. Huntar had an errand this morning,” said Hannah. “She will be here soon.”
He considered her for a moment and then stepped aside just enough to let her walk by, though not without brushing against him. He smelled of sweat and stale tobacco and ale, and other things she did not want to contemplate.
As she passed he said, “I hear there's a pig upriver can speak French. But we got our own wonders, a redskin what talks like you.”
“For what do I live and breathe,” said Hannah, “but to amuse you, sir?”
There was no better way to rile Sergeant Jones than to speak above his understanding, something that was amazingly easy to do. For a moment Hannah thought that she had gone too far, but she watched him compose himself—he had not lasted so long in the dragoons without some measure of self-preservation. Hannah cursed her own short temper; she would have to be especially watchful today.
“I'll look forward to seeing her,” the sergeant said as Hannah walked away. “Coming here all alone, like.”
It was an empty threat. He might be prodigiously dim, as Jennet liked to put it, but Sergeant Jones was cunning enough to save his games for the prisoners who were least able to protect themselves. Sometimes, when she saw him from afar, Hannah was reminded of the fox she had killed so long ago on the mountain, and she wished for her bow, and a good straight arrow.
The armed guard at the double doors that opened into the stockade paid her less attention. Whether out of disinterest or fear of their sergeant, Hannah had never been sure. They went through her baskets, as they always did, and then the doors swung open.
The stockade was far better guarded than it was built. A building much like a stable, slung together as an afterthought. It had a few narrow windows that leaked cold through their shutters, a plank floor with mud oozing up between the cracks, and rows of narrow wooden bunks. On each bunk was a thin pallet of muslin ticking stuffed with straw, and on each pallet two men were meant to take their rest with the comfort of one or, if they were very fortunate, two blankets. The only heat came from an ancient and inefficient stove in the very middle of the room.
In her first interview with the colonel, Hannah had been informed that there was no space even for the most desperately sick prisoners in the regular infirmary, nor was there money or inclination to build a separate hospital for them. If the Mohawk medicine woman called Walks-Ahead was insistent on tending to the injured or ill in the stockade, then she must make do with a few tables, a pierced tin lamp, and however much firewood and water the prisoners were willing to haul for her. He said this with no malice or any emotion at all, and Hannah was thankful for his honesty, if not his lack of generosity.
As she stood at the door, fifty pairs of eyes turned to her, and she saw there what she saw every morning: surprise that she had not fled in the night, and varying degrees of relief and resentment.
One corner of the room she had taken over as her sick ward, but before she could go there and see her brother, she must spend the few minutes she had with the healthiest of the prisoners, who were assembling for work duty. One of them caught her attention immediately.
“Josiah,” she said. “They've put you on the work detail? How is your wrist?”
The young man bobbed his head and would not meet her eye. “It'll do, miz.” In the interest of their own safety and hers, the men knew her as Walks-Ahead. Some of them, the ones who were uncomfortable with her presence here, never called her anything at all, although they were polite enough, and tolerated her attention when they required it. She would have liked to think it was out of respect for her, but Hannah knew it had more to do with Blue-Jay, whose reputation as a swift dispenser of justice was well established.
She took a quick look at the young man's wrist, which had been badly broken and was still not completely healed. Certainly if he was asked to dig, the damage would be substantial. Hannah could go to the guards and ask for a favor, or to the sergeant and ask for a dispensation, or even to the garrison commander, if she felt strongly enough. But today Jennet was pleading a more important case in front of the colonel, and they must all tread very lightly.
She said, “If the wrist begins to swell, ask to be transferred to some other kind of work.”
Something flashed in the young man's eyes, and she knew that she had both amused and affronted him. Of course Josiah Adams would do no such thing. He was a hotheaded son of Vermont, and he would cut off his hand before he asked quarter of a redcoat.
Quickly she walked down the line, looking for signs of fever and asking questions. Most of the men were not well enough fed for the kind of work that they would be asked to do: hauling wood or water or digging latrines or building fortifications. None of them would complain.
Blue-Jay was at the end of the line, as always. Compared to most of the others he was in excellent health, and his mother would have wept to see him.
She said, “Let me look at your tongue.”
He shook his head, impatient, amused; boy and man she knew him, and expected little else. He said, “Daniel's fever was so high last night I almost sent for you.”
“I will have to take the bullet out.” Hannah said it aloud for the first time, and in response he blinked at her.
“Will you have the help you need?”