Into the Wilderness
Page 160

Richard had been running when he went into the pit; he had gone down with one leg outstretched and the other bent, and the first stake had taken him through the fleshy part of the lower leg. The bloody broken end of it thrust up through the fabric of his legging. He craned his head to look up at them, his eyes wild with pain and fear. Elizabeth saw that he had tried to catch himself by flinging out an arm; the second pike had pierced his right hand.
She felt her stomach slowly clench and then turn in on itself pushing up. With a hiccup, she turned away and was sick. Nathaniel supported her while she retched. Miserable, Elizabeth turned to him, drawing the back of her hand across her mouth. The focused set of his face calmed her.
"This is going to be messy," he said. "But I can't get him out of there without your help."
"Elizabeth!" She looked down at Richard, reluctantly. There was blood, but not so much as she had feared. She watched in amazement as he reached with his free hand inside his shirt. Then he was holding something up toward her, a rumpled piece of paper, sticky with blood and pockmarked with rain, the ink running.
"Take this," he gasped.
"Don't," said Nathaniel behind her.
But it was too late; she had leaned forward and taken it from him. "What is it?"
Richard threw his head back and his eyes fluttered in the rain, his face transformed by a sickly smile. "Your summons," he whispered, and fell away into a faint.
* * *
It was a damn shame they couldn't leave him where he lay, Nathaniel thought, but then he kept this sentiment to himself. Elizabeth was distraught enough; he would need her usual calm good sense to deal with what was to come, and he couldn't afford to upset her further. She had helped without complaint through the worst of it, pale and thin—mouthed but determined, not wavering until they had deposited Richard, bleeding profusely, onto the stripped cot where Joe had lain.
"What in the name of God are you doing?" Richard asked when he had roused himself. He was watching Nathaniel pour schnapps onto a piece of muslin.
"For your hand," he said tersely. "To clean it out."
"Mohawk foolery," Richard said, yanking his hand away. "Bind it and be done with it."
Elizabeth was standing to one side with her arms wrapped around her, one foot jiggling hard. She hadn't spoken to Richard since he regained consciousness, but to Nathaniel her growing anger was almost palpable.
"Do it," she said to Nathaniel. "It might fester otherwise."
"You have a degree in medicine now in addition to your other new skills?" Richard interrupted himself with a howl as Nathaniel grabbed his arm and slapped the wet dressing against the gaping wound in his hand. "Goddamn it to hell!" he screamed.
"Nathaniel just buried a man who had a wound on his hand fester," Elizabeth said. "Perhaps we could do the same for you."
"That would suit you very well, would it not?" Todd shot back at her.
"Then you could tear up that summons and forget your obligations."
"I've already torn it up," Elizabeth said. "And burned the scraps. And I am not obliged to you in any way at all. Although it seems we must tend your wounds out of common courtesy. Not that such a concept would mean anything to you."
Nathaniel followed this exchange with some surprise. For the first time since he'd known her, he saw Elizabeth out of her head with anger. Too mad to make sense or see what needed to be done. He tried to catch her eye but she was staring at Todd.
"We'll talk about business matters later," Nathaniel said. "Right now that spike has to come out of your leg."
He saw the grudging acceptance of this on Todd's face. To Elizabeth, Nathaniel said: "I don't much like the idea of bending down there when he's got that look on his face. Will you hold my rifle on him?"
Elizabeth's color flared. "Gladly," she said, putting out one hand to accept the gun with a small, tight smile.
"It's primed, now, so mind you don't shoot him. Unless you have to."
"She can't manage that piece," Todd said, his voice hoarse.
"I can," Elizabeth said, pulling the rifle up with a jerk, and taking many steps backward to accommodate its length. She went down on one knee to brace it on the boulder that served as Joe's table, but it was longer than she was, and Nathaniel could see that it was almost more than she could handle. Not that she would ever admit that in front of Todd. They could stop and sort out the musket, or get this over with.
"Elizabeth," Nathaniel said. "Keep it aimed on his shoulder, just there."
"She wouldn't shoot me," Richard said dismissively.
"She just might if you keep talking at her that way," Nathaniel noted.
Elizabeth gave Todd a very grim smile. "I suggest you do not test your hypothesis, Dr. Todd. The results might surprise you."
With quick motions of his knife Nathaniel cut the leggings away around the wound. The spike had passed through the muscles of his lower leg and pushed up and out much like an arrow.
"This is going to hurt like the devil," he said cheerfully. "Tear up your leg something awful. But we can't leave it in there."
Todd's stare was direct. In the midst of his thick red—gold beard, still wet and caked now with dirt, his mouth was set straight and thin. "So do it," he said.
"Hold her steady there," Nathaniel said quietly to Elizabeth. "He's going to holler."