Horner pushed him aside and stood over Mrs.Fields, watching her heavy breathing.Beads of sweat covered her brow.Her face was flushed.Her fever wasn’t something she was faking.Horner reached down and shook her hand.There was no reaction.Doc had to give the woman credit.She showed no signs of awareness at all.
“Wake her.”
“I can’t, but the dose I gave her will wear off before long.She’ll come around soon enough.”
“How soon?”
How long would it take before someone came to their rescue?Doc knew he was wishing for the impossible.Mrs.Fields and her gang had been hiding out here for ages, and no one had found them out.In the five days he’d been here, only one poor fellow had wandered through.Other than that, no one had come but these villains, and they were led here by Dodger.
Still, he wasn’t about to make it easy for them.
“Maybe by morning.Unless she dies first.”
And if God had any mercy left for any of them, morning would bring more than Horner waiting at her bedside.
ChapterThirty
The sun was dropping quickly.Darkness would soon slow him down, but Caleb thought about the woman following the outlaws.She couldn’t be too far ahead of him, and he wasn’t going to stop until he caught up with her.
These mountains held dangers for anyone, on horse or on foot.The fierce and brutal laws of nature applied here.It was a fact of life.The weak fell by the wayside.The strong—with some luck—survived.
But courage had its own kind of strength, and whoever this woman was, she had plenty of it.
He found signs of her as he rode along.He’d seen her footprints in the mud at the convergence of a stream and the river.The trail of the road agents’ horses had turned inland, and her tracks had followed.
As he nudged Pirate along, Caleb could only think of one reason that would drive a woman to tramp so resolutely through the wilderness.It was the will to survive.
The trail skirted a low area that had been flooded in the spring.Standing water still lay in swampy pools, smelling fetid.Trees, stunted and bent, looked tired, wounded.
A vague, clouded memory came back to him.It was one of his earliest recollections.It was from an afternoon in his childhood.He didn’t know how old he was at the time.Two?Three?
He and his mother were on some muddy lane, moving along as fast as she could drag him.Marshes, stinking and populated with snakes and rat-like creatures and snapping turtles that could take a boy’s hand off, spread out on either side of the road.
His mother was holding his wrist so tight, it hurt him.He had to run to keep up with her.He was dog-tired, whining at her.
“Where are we going?Carry me.”
They’d been hurrying along forever, and she didn’t speak.Not a whisper.Not a word to soothe him.
Suddenly, tall, monstrous trees loomed up in front of them, dark and ominous with sharp branches like claws, poised to snatch him.
“No, Mama.Let’s go back.I don’t like it here.”
A gloomy tunnel, bordered by swampy, foul-smelling woods.Clicking, buzzing sounds and ravenous flying creatures.A long, dark-furred animal darted across the road, disappearing into the boggy space between the black trees.
Caleb set his feet, fearful of passing, but his mother pulled him along.
He stumbled in the slippery muck, but she kept him upright, moving forward.The darkness of the woods ahead filled him with cold fear.He didn’t want to go.
He glanced up at his mother and found her looking over her shoulder, her eyes peering through the murk.She wasn’t afraid of what was ahead.She was terrified of what they’d left behind.
Real or a nightmare, Caleb never forgot.That’s how memories went.To this day he didn’t know if what he saw that day was real or if it was a slice of some nightmare.His mother never spoke of it.She never allowed him to mention it.
And he understood clearly now what he couldn’t grasp then.His mother had to run to survive.
The tragedy was that she’d never been able to run far enough.
The old ache smoldered in his chest, familiar as a scar.He’d spent most of his life knowing he hadn’t been able to save the one woman who mattered most.His mother.
