Fire Along the Sky
Page 42

He grunted. “If I wanted company I would get a dog.”
“'Gin ye could find one wha'd hae ye,” said Jennet clearly, looking him directly in the eye.
He pointed with his chin to the door before he lost the battle completely and gave in to smiling. “You're dismissed, the two of you. God protect me from the Bonner women.”
“What exactly will I have to do?” Jennet asked as they made their way to the Grebers' cabin. She was carrying the lantern in one hand and her basket over the other.
“Hand me things when I ask for them,” Hannah said. “Stay calm. Distract the patient. Don't faint.”
At that Jennet looked truly insulted. “I've never fainted in my life, and weel you know it, Hannah Bonner.”
“I beg your pardon,” Hannah said. “I don't know what I was thinking.”
But Jennet was not so easily appeased. “What's a bit of blood, after all? Have I not seen many a bloody man dragged into the courtyard at Carryck?”
“Good,” Hannah said, being careful not to show her concern. “Because it's likely to be unpleasant.”
For the rest of the walk Hannah explained to Jennet exactly what she would have to do. A horse had stepped on Horace Greber's foot while he was in Johnstown. The infection had spread fast, and the surgeon there—a disreputable sort who barbered and let blood and did the odd surgery that came his way, all with the same scalpel—had taken the leg off above the knee to stop it. Then he had sent Horace home to Paradise in the back of a wagon driven by his frightened nine-year-old son while he raved with fever.
“His boy, the one with the strange name—”
“Hardwork,” Hannah had supplied.
“He came by to fetch me,” Richard had reported. “From his description it sounds like it's infection but no gangrene, not yet, at any rate. No doubt it'll need abrading, maybe cauterizing. Take a bottle of brandy with you. For a few swallows of good brandy Horace Greber will let you take off his other leg as well.”
In its construction the cabin was no different from any of the others in the village, but it was in such bad repair that it seemed at first that it must be deserted. Shutters hung lopsided or were altogether missing, and the porch was hidden behind a high wall of weeds and nettles. The hunting dogs tied to the rail gave them a sullen look, and then one of them lunged suddenly at a chicken that ventured too close, his jaws snapping. The chicken flew off with a startled squawk.
“Mr. Greber lives alone?” Jennet asked.
“With his son,” Hannah said. “His wife left him and went home to her family in Schenectady. She took the girls with her, most of them grown enough to go into service already.”
“Och,” said Jennet. “A scandal. It's just at times like these that I miss Lily the most. She would have told me all about it long ago. I must remember to ask Curiosity.”
“There's nothing much to tell,” said Hannah. “Mariah couldn't face another winter in the wilderness. He didn't want to go and she did and so she left. It happens all the time. It could happen to anyone, and usually does.”
Jennet was about to argue that point when the door opened and Hardwork Greber came out on the porch. The boy was tall for his age, and Jennet could count every one of his ribs in the light of the lump of tallow he carried on a piece of broken crockery. The dogs were better fed than the boy, but then the dogs were good trackers and could be sold for hard cash, whereas the boy was too young yet to bring in a real wage.
“Pa's been waiting,” the boy said, trying not to stare at Jennet, whose face floated like a heavenly apparition in the pure light of the lantern. “I'm afraid he's mighty drunk. We might have to tie him down and his language—” A short glance at Jennet and his color rose in a flash.
“You might want to wait out here, miss.”
Jennet flicked her fingers at him. “And what Scotswoman worth her salt is put off by a man in his cups? Just bring along the rope, lad, and let us get to work.”
Horace was lying on a bare mattress stiff with sweat and blood and other things that did not bear naming. He snored softly, his head tilted back to expose a neck thick with graying beard stubble, his mouth open wide. A slug of white-coated tongue flickered against fever-blistered lips with every snore. Jennet found it hard to look away from a sight so resolutely disgusting.
As was the whole cabin, heaped with refuse and filthy clothes and tools and traps and hides. In the dim light of a single tallow candle and the lantern Jennet could only make out some of it, and she was glad of the shadows. The stink could not be avoided, nor could she identify the worst of it. Human waste and sweat and spoiled food, mold and hides half-tanned, wood smoke and sour clothes, those things were all to be expected; but there was something more, something that set itself high in the nose and clung to the soft passages of the throat.
“You brought the leg home with you?” Hannah said quietly, looking around herself until her gaze settled on a package lying in the corner. It was wrapped in bloody paper and muslin and tied with string, and the whole was crawling with flies. Jennet swallowed very hard and looked away until she could compose her face.
“Pa wouldn't leave it behind,” Hardwork said in an apologetic tone. “If we put it outside to get rid of the stink the dogs will be after it.”
Horace had come awake at the sound of their voices.
“If things go bad, the boy knows to bury it with me,” he said. His voice was hoarse with fever. “Don't want to be stomping around heaven on a peg leg.”