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PANIC GRIPPED CATHERINE as she sprang to her feet, the mending in her lap falling unheeded to the floor.
“Something’s happened to Victor.” Her voice quaked.
From the doorway, Jack stepped aside as two men charged into the house, carrying a third man prone between them.
Cries of alarm escaped both girls.
“Straight through there.” Jack directed the men toward the proper bedchamber, both Catherine and Nancy close on their heels.
“What happened?” Catherine asked.
“Took an arrow to a leg, another to his shoulder.” Jack brushed past her into the room.
“Indians?” Catherine repeated in a daze, a part of her mind recalling Victor’s fear of being used for target practice by the naturals. She pushed past the men to her husband’s side to assess his condition for herself.
“I done pulled out the arrows,” Jack said. “Tried to bind up the wounds afore I run back to town for help. Didn’t know then if he was dead or alive.”
Bending over Victor, Catherine was already peeling back the makeshift dressing Jack had applied to his leg . . . and drew back in horror when she saw the raw, gaping hole the arrowhead had torn into his thigh. Bright red blood oozed from the wound.
Wincing, she moved to inspect the assault to his shoulder and was relieved to find it not nearly so bad as the leg. Thus far, Victor hadn’t moved or made a sound, but when his wife’s soft fingers gently touched the feverish skin surrounding the fiery wound to his shoulder, a low moan escaped him.
“You’re home now, sweeting. Lie still. I shall take good care of you.”
Catherine felt Nancy hovering nearby. “Which of yer remedies do ye want?” she asked in a low tone.
Catherine looked up, her face ashen, her eyes fearful. Instead of answering the question, she silently herded everyone from the room. Once she closed the door to the bedchamber, she sent Nancy to the loft to fetch jars of powders, telling her which ones to brew into a tea and to bring the others to her straightaway.
Though Jack was engrossed in retelling the other two men what had transpired in the forest, Catherine interrupted him. “Do you have the arrows?”
“Didn’t bring ’em.” Just jerked ’em out and threw ’em on the ground. Why, do ye want ’em?”
“Yes. The arrowheads will tell us which tribe the Indian is from who shot him. Each tribe uses a different type of arrow.”
Jack’s brow puckered. “Never heard the like.”
“Did you see the Indian? Were there several, or . . . what?”
“Didn’t see a thing. Just of a sudden, I heard a swooshing noise and then another, and next thing I knowed, Victor was on the ground. Never saw nothin’.” He scratched his head. “I’ll fetch the arrows if ye want ’em.”
“Search party is already forming,” said one of the men. “I’ll get my musket.”
“I’ll fetch my pistol,” said the other.
“Jack!” cried Nancy, just then returning from the loft. “You’re not goin’ back out there!” She flung a desperate look from her husband to Catherine.
“Don’t worry none about me, love.” Jack gave his frightened wife a quick hug. “Indians don’t stand a chance against muskets and pistols.”
“But you don’t have a pistol!” Nancy protested.
“I have to go, woman,” Jack said, in a tone that brooked no objection. “I’ll take my fowling piece if it’ll make ye feel better.”
“Oh, Jack, do be careful!” Tears of anguish welled in Nancy’s eyes. “I couldna’ live if something happened to ye.”
While the men were gone, Catherine tended Victor as best she could¾holding his head up with one hand while coaxing a soothing herbal tea into his mouth with the other. When he’d quieted down, she smeared onto his shoulder a precious healing oil she’d brought with her from England. As the hole in his leg continued to bleed, she decided not to waste the oil there, since mixing it with his sticky blood would render it useless. She put Nancy to dabbing at the flow while she stirred up a pasty mixture of herbs that would thicken and congeal his blood.
When Victor began to thrash about on the bed, she administered a dose of opium made from bright red poppies she’d found in the forest. When he fell into a deep slumber, she continued to work on his leg, picking out bone fragments and even a few shards of metal. She finished by winding a clean bandage of rags around his leg. At length, she returned to the hearth where Nancy was again stirring their supper in the iron pot over the fire. Wiping her bloodied hands on her apron, Catherine wearily dropped into a chair beside her friend.
“Ye think he’ll heal up right and tight?” Nancy asked anxiously.
“His shoulder may heal, but the wound to his leg is far worse. I fear the bone has shattered. I picked out a number of fragments, far too many to count.” Her chin began to tremble. As the gravity of her husband’s condition sank in, her head dropped to her chest and she began to weep.
Laying her wooden spoon aside, Nancy knelt to wrap her arms about her friend. “Victor’s strong. He’ll be up an’ about in no time, you’ll see.”
Catherine’s sniffed back her tears. “I don’t know what else to do for him, and with no doctor in Jamestown . . . ”
“Dare we ask Tamiyah?” Nancy suggested.
“I don’t know. I don’t know that Victor would let an Indian come near him now.”
* * * *
LATER THAT EVENING, Nancy was overjoyed when Jack returned with the arrows he’d found in the forest. Along with him were Deputy-Governor Argall and a freeman named John Fuller, who’d also taken part in the search that afternoon.
“This is a serious matter,” Argall began, helping himself to a seat near the fire. A large bull of a man, about forty-five, he’d not bothered to properly greet Nancy when he came in. She hurried to fetch Catherine as the deputy-governor drew off his gloves and held up his icy hands before the flames.
When Catherine entered the room, he belatedly asked, “How does Goodman Covington fare?”
“He is no better, sir,” Catherine replied a bit crossly. She turned to Jack. “May I see the arrows, please?”
He rose to retrieve them from where he’d set them just inside the door.
“We need to determine if some tribe has a fresh grievance with us,” the deputy-governor said, “or if this was just an unfortunate accident. Could be you men just strayed onto one of their ‘private’ hunting grounds. Damn Indians think they own the entire country.”
Overhearing Argall’s remark, Catherine bristled but said nothing, instead turning her attention to examining the arrowheads. Noting that both were stained with Victor’s blood, she pushed down the bile that rose in her throat as she searched for some sort of mark that might indicate from which Indian tribe the arrowheads came. It puzzled her that they were distinctly different from one another. One was small with a needle-sharp tip, much like the one she’d seen in Noah’s quiver. The other was larger and heavier. The larger one, she assumed, had done the extensive damage to Victor’s leg.
Based on what Noah had said, she expected the arrowheads to be of a similar size and shape, meaning they belonged to one brave, or at least to Indians from the same tribe. She attempted to reason the puzzle out. If all the Indians in the region fell under Powhatan’s rule, or were part of his so-called federation then wouldn’t all the Indians technically be Powhatans? So, why were some of them called Pamunkeys, or Mattaponys, or Weanocs? Not clearly understanding the significance of anything at this juncture, she decided the men would have to sort the matter out. All she knew for certain was that her husband had been gravely injured by arrowheads belonging to one or more Indians, from one or more tribes, and it fell to her to tend the horrific wounds. Still holding the arrows in her hand, she turned to head across the room to where the four men sat clustered around the hearth.
“Perhaps when Goodman Colton arrives,” the deputy-governor said, rising to stand upright to warm his backside before the flames, “he can shed some light on the matter.”
Catherine’s head jerked up. Noah was coming? Why? She paused to listen.
“I don’t know what to make of it,” Jack said again, his brown head shaking from side to side as he again relived the terrible event. “One minute we was jes’ walkin’ along, the next minute, Victor was laying on the ground moaning.”
“And with no snow on the ground, there were no prints laid down and, therefore, nothing for us to follow or track,” put in John Fuller, his tone equally as frustrated as Jack’s.
“And ye’re certain ye was precisely at the juncture of the old rolling road and the stream?” Argall asked.
At that moment, a rap sounded at the door. Catherine, still clutching the arrows, walked back toward the door, knowing full well with whom she was about to come face-to-face.
Flinging open the door, Noah stepped inside, his cap and shoulders dusted with snowflakes that had only moments ago begun to fall. His blue eyes fell at once to the arrows in her hand. “Is Victor . . .?”
“Take these.” Catherine thrust the arrows towards him. “The men want to quiz you about them.”
“I wasn’t anywhere near the stream!”
Not wanting to look at him, Catherine hurried away. As she brushed past the other men, she heard Argall say, “Could use something hot to warm me gullet, Mistress Covington.”
Catherine made no response as she swept past the men.
“Good-looking wench,” the deputy-governor said in an undertone. “Won’t be long afore she finds herself another husband, eh, John?”
Catherine heard the crude remark but resisted the urge to whirl around and deliver the set-down the elder man deserved. How dare he say such a thing of a woman whose husband lay dying in the next room! Instead, she entered the chamber where Nancy was keeping a silent vigil at Victor’s bedside.
“The men want some hot cider,” she said irritably. “Noah has come. Apparently they think he can sort this out.” She slid onto the chair Nancy hurriedly vacated. “Please see the door is kept tightly shut, Nan.”
The men talked for quite a spell, but were unable to draw a definitive conclusion. Nancy, who’d stayed in the room listening closely to the discussion as she kept the men’s tankards full of hot ale, later told Catherine the bulk of what she’d heard.
“Deputy-Governor Argall said unless there are similar incidents in the next few days, he’d have no choice but to declare it an accident . . . an unfortunate happenstance, he called it. Said Victor must have simply stepped into the path of the arrows. Noah said in wintertime the woods are full of Indians huntin’ game.”
“But, what about the arrowheads being different sizes and therefore belonging to different tribes? What did Noah say about that?”
Nancy shrugged. “Said it was not a hard-and-fast rule. Said in wintertime it was not unlikely for braves from neighboring tribes to hunt together.” She rubbed her eyes sleepily. The hour was late and Jack had already taken to his bed. “I brought you a fresh pine-knot.” She crossed the room to replace the one on the windowsill, now burnt to little more than a flicker. Nancy turned and glanced at Victor, lying on the bed with his eyes closed. Her gaze shifted to Catherine, sitting rigidly upright on the hard-back chair. “Ye really should try to sleep, Catherine.”
“Perhaps I shall climb into bed beside Victor. The bed would be warmer, and perhaps my presence will comfort him. But I won’t sleep.”
* * * *
FOUR DAYS LATER WHEN the deep puncture wound to Victor’s leg showed no signs of healing, he still clung stubbornly to life. Catherine was heartened by the improvement to his shoulder, but the leg was another matter. The open wound had festered with fiery-red fingers of inflammation shooting as far up as his torso and as far down as his toes. In lucid moments, he said the leg ached, or it burned; at times it itched, or felt numb. He complained of stabbing pains that struck his chest and his head.
“You’ll be up and about in no time, love.” Catherine did her best to comfort him, but in her heart, she knew she was telling a falsehood.
Several times a day, she cleaned the gaping wound. Although his blood had indeed thickened, she found it impossible to halt the foul-smelling pus that soaked through the rags mere seconds after she’d tied them around his leg. More than once, the stench rising from the wound caused her to retch as soon as she left the bedchamber.
As each day passed, Catherine grew more and more frustrated over the leg’s failure to heal. She’d exhausted all the remedies she knew, and, with no doctor to consult, she began to fear that if Victor were to survive the injury to his leg, it would have to go.
She decided to send Jack to the plantation for Adam and gave him firm instructions to relay how very grave the situation was. She hoped Adam would know of someone who could perform the amputation.
In the meantime, she knew she had to prepare Victor for what was to come.
As expected, he balked.
“I’ll not be half a man!” His face contorted as Catherine haltingly told him what she feared would happen if the leg refused to heal. As if to prove that he could, Victor struggled to push himself up off the bed.
“No!” Catherine cried, pressing against his chest with both hands. “The leg will not hold! Please, Victor, lie back. Adam is on his way.”
When Adam arrived, he went at once to the bedchamber, which reeked of rotting flesh.
“Took a couple of arrows, did you?” he began, hardly daring to breathe.
“No more’n a scratch,” Victor said, struggling afresh to sit up. “M’wife’s unduly alarmed. You know how women are.”
“Victor, please, lie still,” Catherine pleaded from where she stood at the foot of the bed. “Let Adam look at your leg and tell us what he thinks.”
His features grim, Victor’s head fell back onto the pillow. He looked away as if to shield himself from the ugly sight of his own leg.
“Do you not agree?” Catherine asked her brother a quarter-hour later when they returned to the common room where Nancy and Jack, both wearing grave looks on their faces, sat before the fire.
Adam slowly nodded. “The wound is clearly infectious and doesn’t appear to be healing. I’m sure you’ve tried all your salves and potions.” He gazed at Catherine.
“Nothing has worked.”
“Smells awful in there.” Nancy shook her head sadly.
“Whole house smells putrid,” Jack muttered.
The foursome continued to discuss Victor’s condition until Adam began recounting the number of settlers who had perished from arrow wounds. “One man came stumbling into the fort with six arrows still sticking from his body. Lived eight days. And back in oh-seven, the first fatality in Jamestown was a fifteen-year-old boy who took an arrow to his leg. Boy’s buried right outside the old fort.”
“And how many have lived?” cried Catherine.
Following her outburst, the conversation turned to other things.
“I realize it’s sooner than I first said, Jack, but I need you now at Harvest Hill. We may still get more snow this winter, but the worst of the bad weather is past and there are things I need to show you before we begin planting.”
“We cannot leave Catherine to manage alone,” Nancy protested, a look of concern on her face.
“We’ve no choice, love.” Jack patted his wife’s shoulder.
“I’ll be fine. I plan to start up my school again.” Catherine tried for a cheerful tone. “Now that the weather’s turning, the children will be able to get here. I feared for their safety with snow and ice on the ground. School will give me something fresh to think about each day.”
Adam reached to squeeze his sister’s hand. “I know you don’t wish to speak of it, Cat, but the bald truth is you will very likely become a widow again soon. I don’t believe amputating Victor’s leg will help. And, I don’t believe ye’d be able to convince him it would.”
Feeling her chest constrict, Catherine tried to swallow past the lump of anguish in her throat. “What will I do once Victor has . . .?”
“You will come to Harvest Hill, of course.”
“We will all go,” said Nancy, her tone soothing. “There will be plenty to keep you busy there, what with Abigail’s new baby. And mine,” she added, flicking a self-conscious grin at her beaming husband.
Adam had already congratulated Jack on the good news as they made their way into town. “Nancy’s right,” Adam said. “Harvest Hill is your only choice. In the meantime, I can ask Abby’s woman if she knows of someone from her tribe.” He paused, one hand stroking his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t recall ever hearing what tribe the Indian woman is from, but she’s a congenial sort and has been a big help to Abby. Anyhow, you’ll need someone to help you until . . . ” his voice trailed off.
“I don’t know how Victor will take to an Indian in the house. Not after . . ..”
“It can’t be helped, sis. Nancy has no choice but to go with her husband. You and Victor are welcome to come, but the trip would be futile as far as he is concerned. An Indian woman to help you nurse him here until . . . the end, is the only answer. I doubt it will be for long,” he concluded sadly. “And then ye’ll come to us.”
* * * *
THAT NIGHT AS CATHERINE slipped into bed, being careful not to disturb her sleeping husband, she lay awake in the darkness thinking over all that Adam had said. It had been nearly a fortnight since the accident and although Victor’s shoulder did seem to be healing, his leg looked far, far worse. She realized she’d become so caught up in her obsession to bring him back to health that she’d become unable to accurately assess his condition. She turned her head on the pillow to listen for the sound of his even breathing, which in the short time they’d been married had become a source of comfort to her in the dark of night. Now, when she knew Victor was asleep, her comfort came from the knowledge that he was not in pain. Her heart ached for the strong, handsome man she’d so recently married and whose life was slowly ebbing away. He’d been as excited about his plans for the new mill as he was over their bright future together. Now she knew she’d never have a child with him, and they’d never become a real family.
Tears of grief slid down her cheeks. She thought back to that afternoon, which seemed so very long ago now, when she and Nancy sat before the fire talking about how pleased and happy they were with their new lives. Nancy had only just told her she was with child when Jack burst into the house and they brought Victor in. And, then . . . everything changed.
It seemed unfair. More so for Victor than herself, of course, but once again, she thought, through no fault of her own, her future had been cruelly snatched from her. Victor’s death, when it came, would indeed make her a widow. It was almost as if her earlier deception, however inadvertent, had now become a self-fulfilling prophecy.