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After two days on the trail, Jake was worried. They’d ridden their ponies only as far as the original camp, having made one stop first at Sidhean Annie. Daniel had packed Annie’s medicine and given Jake precise instructions on the dosage she might need. Just in case. Then Daniel had looked longingly at the meadow as the sun rose over it, closed his eyes and whispered a prayer, “Let all be well.”
“Amen,” Jake answered. The woodsman’s grip tightened on his arm, then they were on their way again.
There were no real trails north of the campsite, so they left their horses there and began to climb. North was always their direction, and every fifty rods or so they found Alec’s sign, directing them always onward, upward. The trek was exhausting, for Daniel wouldn’t waver from his chosen course. They crashed through bramble, crawled through brush, climbed through zones of broken shale and twisted pines. Always up, always north, and always finding Alec’s sign that led them further on.
They stopped at noon to drink at a brook and eat some of the food Molly had provided. She’d stayed up all night preparing a pack for them. Jerky and biscuits, pemmican, cornmeal, apples, bandages, salve and blankets. She’d boiled down the willow bark and lobelia into a tincture, so that two drops in a cup of water would equal a cup of tisane. In the morning, as she helped Jake strap the heavy pack on his back, her hands had trembled with fear for them. But she was clear-eyed and her voice was firm as she explained the importance of clean dressings for his brother’s wound and the need for Daniel to eat well. At the last moment she added a small paper sack filled with beet root powder, and told Jake to see that his brother drank at least a tablespoonful in water with each meal.
My mother, Jake decided, is the bravest person I know. When he offered the beet juice to his brother as they sat in the shade next to the stream, the woodsman laughed aloud.
“Can’t get away from that stuff for nothin’!” he complained gruffly, but reached out with his left hand to ruffle his brother’s hair. “Thanks, kid. Guess it’s a good thing you’re here.”
But when they camped that night, having stopped over three miles north of the cabin, Jake discovered that Daniel’s wound was bleeding under its thick bandage.
“Clean it off and wrap it up. We’re going on in the morning.”
“But, Daniel ...”
The woodsman grabbed his arm and held it so tight it hurt. “I’m going after her, Jake. Come along if you want, but don’t try to stop me.”
“All right. I’m going with you. But lie down and let me do this right.” He covered the wound liberally with salve, added several layers of padding, then wrapped it with linen strips. In the morning, the bleeding seemed to have stopped. But as the day went on and the climb became more arduous, flecks of blood appeared on the back of his brother’s buckskin shirt. As they stopped to camp again just after dark, Daniel drew the shirt off over his head and Jake saw a rivulet of blood running from under the bandage and down his brother’s back.
They were camped again by a stream and Jake filled a tin cup with water, then dug in the pack for the willow bark. He put two drops into the cup and handed it to his brother.
“Drink it,” he commanded. With a slow smile, the woodsman obeyed. “I’ve got to ...”
Daniel held up a hand for silence. They heard the raucous call of a nighthawk, followed by the shrill cry of an owl. And then it came, unsuited to time and place, the lonely little trill of a mourning dove.