She saw Jefferson as the black horse appeared on the fort trail. Bret rode hunched in the saddle, as if the weight of the world depressed his normally broad shoulders.
She ran to meet him, stopped short at the pale strain in his face, his eyes glazed, lips clamped in a pained line.
“Bret! A provost was here. My God, what’s wrong?”
He swayed in the saddle, as if balance had deserted him. She’d seen him come home drunk before, but this was different.
“Bret?”
“Sarah? I’m shot.” He grimaced. “I don’t think it’s bad, but by damn it sure hurts.”
Shot! Images of dying men, bleeding on the farmhouse floor, came flooding from her memory. Her heart skipped in sudden fear.
“Hang on to the saddle,” she told him, taking Jefferson by the bridle and leading him back to the house. There she tied him off and stepped over. “Easy now, kick loose of the stirrup. That’s right. Now, help me. I’ll take your weight.”
“No time. Gotta … gotta pack my war bag. Can’t stay. Have to leave everything behind as it is. They’ll be after me right quick.”
“I already packed everything, Bret. First, I gotta see to that wound.”
Somehow she got him off the horse, into the house, and lowered him to the bed. Pulling back his coat she winced at the sight of the blood. She might have been back at the farm after Pea Ridge. Reaching out she grabbed his bloody shirt and ripped it open. Grinding her teeth together kept her from gasping at the sight. Broken fragments of rib stuck out from the bleeding mess, but she couldn’t hear the sucking sounds she’d heard among the chest-shot men after Pea Ridge.
Dear God, Bret. Don’t die on me! Not like that.
“Didn’t figger ol’ Winston Parmelee was that good with a gun.”
“Who?” She reached down under her skirt, slipping her petticoat off her hips. As Bret gasped on the bed she began ripping it into long strips. She stepped outside long enough to drop them in the hot water she’d left steaming on the fire.
“That provost.” His eyes went rubbery in his head. “Damn. Hurts.”
“Gonna hurt worse right quick, but it’s got to be done, Bret.” She seated herself beside him with a rag and began picking at the bone fragments.
“Yaaa! Shit!” he screamed. “What are you doing?”
“Picking the bone out of the wound. You leave it in there, it’s gonna rot.” She bent over him, staring down into his eyes. “Bret, I’m sorry, but it’s the only chance you’ve got.”
He blinked. “Get me a piece of wood. Something to bite on.”
She stepped out, found a stick he’d been whittling on. With it, she fished out her boiled petticoat strips.
As soon as one cooled, she used it to dampen the wound. As Bret clamped the stick in his teeth, she began cleaning and picking the broken fragments loose.
Screams and whimpers came out muffled against the stick and Bret’s sucking cheeks. Sweat beaded on his face, his body tensing and bucking. When she was satisfied, she managed to wrap the strips of petticoat around him, used the stick for a handle, and wound the bandages tight.
“Better?” she asked.
“Dear God in heaven,” he said, sucking shallow breaths. “Wish he’da just killed me.”
“You can’t ride,” she told him. “Not with those splintered ribs.” She pulled his pistol from the holster, finding two cylinders empty. Pausing only long enough to load them, she left the gun in his hand.
“Parmelee walks through that door, shoot first. I’ll be back.”
“What…?
Sarah hurried around the back of the house and pulled the picket on the horses. Fifteen minutes later she was at Hervy Johnson’s, catching the old man by the fire as he enjoyed his evening cup of coffee.
“Hervy? How much you want for that spring wagon and harness?”
“Why, I couldn’t let that go fer lessn’ twenty dollars, Miss Sarah.”
“It’s a light wagon. You’ll take five. In gold.”
“Ten.”
“Five. In gold.”
“Why’d I sell it for five?”
“’Cause only a blind idiot would give you ten. Lessen it was Confederate funds.”
“Seven.”
“Five. In gold.”
“Sold.”
God smiled. The two horses had been broken to harness sometime in the past, though they were a bit fractious getting back to the dugout. Loading the belongings was easy. Getting Bret on his feet and to the spring wagon? That was a labor of Hercules.
She barely looked back as she slapped the ribbons, and the wagon lurched forward into the evening. Jefferson snuffled where he was tied on behind. She took the road down to the ferry, having just crossed the main road. Looking back, she saw the dark horses, maybe fifteen, that took the turn toward Bret’s. In the darkness they barely gave her a second glance. Then were lost in the gloom as they cantered toward the dugout.
“Guess we just made it,” she told herself. “Now, Bret, when we get to the ferry, you don’t say a word. You hear me?”
“I do,” he gasped from where he lay curled in the back.
By midnight she had passed through Van Buren, following the road north into the Boston Mountains.
“Where are you going, Sarah?” she asked herself as she blinked and let the horses walk. Enough moonlight glowed in the night sky to ensure she was staying to the road.
They would expect Bret to flee east along the river toward Little Rock. It was in her bones to head into home country. Assuming they made it to Fayetteville, she knew all the back roads and trails. It would take more than a provost to ferret her out of the Upper White backcountry.
She allowed herself a humorless chuckle. Her last five dollars might have gone for the wagon, but before—having been hungry for too long—she’d stocked up on cornmeal, wheat, oats, and baking soda. Bret’s Henry rifle along with fifty cartridges was behind the seat next to his shotgun, and she had her pistol on her hip.
“So now, Bret, darling,” she told the sleeping man behind her, “all I need is to keep you from dying on me.”
But that,
