The unwelcome visitor let out a scratchy piercing snarl as it pulled back its lips and showed more of the rat along with vicious fangs and teeth.The animal made a quick, aggressive movement forward.Instinctively, Doc kicked out at it, but he was too far away.
The creature dropped the rat and emitted another screechy snarl, louder and longer than before.Doc reached back, and his hand found an empty medicine bottle.He flung it, but the bottle glanced off the thick fur and skittered harmlessly past.
The thing turned slightly on short nimble legs.The body was at least three feet long and the furry tail twitched nervously.Even glimpsing it in the shadowy recesses beneath the cot, Doc realized what it was.A fisher.
He was suddenly on his feet and across the room without realizing he’d moved.His legs were stiff, but there were plenty of blood roaring in his head.
Doc had only seen one of these before, when he was traveling to see a friend in the Berkshires.Up there, they called it a fisher cat.Out walking one morning, they’d run into a trapper who had just taken one.The animal had still been alive when the young hunter went to check his lines, and the bite marks and torn flesh the fisher inflicted on the trapper’s arms were a clear testament to its fearlessness and its ferocious temperament.
And this beast was larger than that one, by far.
Doc didn’t have many options.There was no way he’d go for help and leave his patient alone with the animal.
The woman had no one in this place but him.And whatever else these outlaws intended, Doc Burnett was still a physician before he was a prisoner.
By the stove, a barrel held a few sticks of wood, and he grabbed the largest one.It was only a couple of feet long and thinner than his wrist, but it was the best weapon he had at hand.
Picking up his medical valise, he approached the cot, suddenly feeling like some ridiculous Don Quixote with a leather bag for a shield and a branch as a sword.
He went down on one knee and stabbed at the fisher.The animal sank its sharp, powerful claws into the stick, and Doc was hardly inclined to pull the thing toward him.
He jabbed again, and suddenly, the creature released the stick.Snatching up the treasured rat in its teeth, it turned and darted toward a far corner of the shack.In an instant, it disappeared behind a pair of barrels in the corner.Doc pursued with the upraised stick and cautiously peered over them.The fisher was gone, escaping through a hole in floor.
Doc dropped his makeshift weapon and shoved one of the barrels over the hole, effectively sealing off the entry.
He backed away, expelling a long breath as his heart took its time and finally slowed.He stretched his back muscles, bent his neck from side to side, feeling as if he’d fought a battle.
He was only glad no one had been around to see his moment of panic.
A thought came so suddenly that it caught him off guard.Sheila.From the letters he’d received, he had a feeling that if his headstrong daughter had been there, she would have laughed first, scolded him second, and then insisted on checking whether he’d been bitten.
Damned, if he didn’t miss her.
There wasn’t enough air in the shack, and Doc went and opened the door, welcoming the cool rush.Outside, one man was standing by the fire, looking across the wide opening of the camp at the corral, where his buddies seemed to be working to settle the horses in the corral.He couldn’t see Lucas, but Doc assumed he must be over there.
His patient’s voice grew louder, and Doc grabbed some washed strips of bandage and went back to the cot.Her face was flushed.She seemed more agitated than before.The utterances before were mostly gibberish, but he could make out some of it now.
“Get them… Dark… She’s scared.”
“Who’s scared?”
“Hold her hand… Don’t let go.”
He touched her brow.She was burning with fever.
“Don’t let go of what?”Doc asked.
“No… My daughters… Get them… Get them!”The anguish was clear in her tone.
Standing there, Doc thought again of Sheila.
Where was his daughter now?What was she doing?It had been some time since she’d written to him.He was always fairly dutiful in writing back to her as soon as her letters arrived.But why did he think he needed to wait?He chided himself for that now.In fact, why hadn’t he planned a trip to New York to see her?She’d asked more times than he cared to remember.And in return, he’d promised so often to go, but he never saw it through.
It was a poor kind of fatherhood, he thought, answering letters promptly and calling that devotion.
From the tenor of her most recent letters, he sensed she was no longer very happy living with her grandparents.Sheila was so much like her mother.She had been from the time she could talk.Smart and strong-willed.His beautiful Anne.She’d shown such strength of character when she rebelled against her parents and married him.Doc knew it was only a matter of time before Sheila did the same thing as her mother.
He walked to where Lucas had brought in a pitcher of water earlier and poured some into a bowl.He carried it back to the cot.
