Chapter Thirty

Droplets of wet snow like cold tears slid down Cole’s cheeks and collected in his mustaches and tasted cool against his tongue. The gentle sway of the travois, the scraping sounds it made as the ends of the poles cut lines into the frozen ground, the swish of the horse’s tails—these were sounds and events he remembered as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

Then, finally, the journey came to a halt. Cole heard Book’s deep voice call out: “ ’Lo, there in the cabin!” It was followed by the rusty sound of hinges. “Got a wounded man here!”

For a long time there was nothing said. Then a woman’s voice said: “How’d he get that way?”

“My gal shot him.”

“Why’d she shoot him?”

“He was taking me to jail. She didn’t want him to take me to jail. That’s why she shot him.”

“Maybe you better keep moving, then,” the woman said.

“Can’t. We do, he’ll die. He’s almost dead as it is. What with this snow and cold and the hole in him. He don’t die one way, he’ll probably die another. Freeze to death, maybe bleed out.”

More silence.

“What was he taking you to jail for?” the woman said.

“Murder. He thinks I killed some men.”

“Did you?”

“None that mattered to him.”

“I let you in, maybe you might kill me, too.”

Book said: “Don’t it stand to reason that, was I a killer, I wouldn’t be haulin’ him around, goin’ to all this trouble, him tryin’ to take me to jail?”

Cole heard steps in the snow, then a shadow came into view. She was holding a twin-barrel shotgun that looked too heavy for her. She was plain and tall. What Cole could see of her features through the oval of a wool scarf tied about her head and face were her ruddy cheek bones and light green eyes. She had a wide, thin mouth and pale, colorless lips. She was bundled in a Mackinaw and wool trousers that were stuffed inside stovepipe boots.

“You’re right,” she said. “He is near dead. Better take him inside.”

Between them, Cole was lifted from the travois and half dragged, half carried inside a low-slung cabin with icicles hanging from the eaves.

“Put him over there on that cot,” the woman said.

The cot was near a stone fireplace and the heat from its fire felt immense after all day in the cold. Cole felt the ice particles in his mustache melt and drip onto his lips and chin. The best thing about being in the cold was that it had partially frozen the pain in Cole’s side. Jilly tugged off his boots and Book took off Cole’s coat and the woman handed them a blanket with which to cover him.

The woman said: “He might not last till evening.”

Cole could feel the heat of the fire against the side of his face, then felt it begin to melt the stiffness in his joints. Then it released the frozen pain in his side as well. But it was the sort of comforting heat that made him drowsy, made him long to close his eyes and drift to another place. He wondered, as he felt himself slipping away, if dying would be as bad as he’d imagined.

* * * * *

Cole didn’t remember dreaming. He awakened to a room that was dark except for the dancing flames of the fireplace. He saw the blanket-covered shapes of Book and Jilly Sweet on the floor not far away, the glow of fire on their passive faces. He wondered where the woman was. He tried to move, but the pain stitched in his side. He sensed someone stepping from the shadows, crossing in front of the fireplace, then pausing next to the cot.

“You’ve not passed on?” the woman asked.

“No. I guess this is going to take longer than I thought.” Cole’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“I guess you can thank me for that,” she said. “I cleaned out that mess of a wound. Lanced out the sickness, put some ointment on it. But that bullet is still in you somewhere. I imagine it broke some of your ribs is what it done.”

As tall as she was, her face was recessed by the shadows, but her hands hung visibly at her sides. They were large hands, red at the knuckles.

“I could stand a drink,” Cole whispered, trying to speak around the dryness of his tongue that felt like it might snap off.

She slipped away. He heard the soft pad of feet on the puncheon floor, then she returned with a dipper that had droplets of water falling from it.

He forced himself to a sitting position. She held the dipper while he drank. His own hands were unsteady. The water was sweet and cool and he asked for more. This time he cupped his hands over hers as she held the dipper for him.

“You still got a fever,” she said. “I can feel it through your hands.”

Cole leaned back and felt the rough logs behind him. “I’ll probably die here in your house. I’m sorry you had to be the one.”

“Folks have died in this house before, I reckon,” she said. “You won’t be the first.”

“I’ve got some makings in one of my coat pockets. A shuck would taste good.”

She found his tobacco and papers and made him a cigarette without saying anything until she’d finished. She rolled the smoke like she’d had practice at it. Then she handed it to Cole and scraped a match over one of the fireplace stones. “First time I made a cigarette in two years,” she said. “I hope it’s to your liking.”

“It’s fine,” Cole said as she touched the match to the end and he drew in some smoke and let it back out again. She brought the match close to her face and blew out the flame. Cole saw in that brief moment that her hair was undone, hanging loosely in a long pigtail as thick as a rope. Her hair was the color of winter brown.

“She really the one that shot you?” she asked. “That young gal?”

“She did.”

“You don’t look like a man that would let a bitty girl shoot you. Fact is, you don’t look the sort of man that’d let anyone get close enough to shoot you.”

“I wasn’t expecting it. But how can you tell just by looking at me?”

“By the way you dress. That backward-turned holster on your left hip. That shoulder rig you’re wearing. You’re not just some ’puncher off one of the ranges.”

“You’re right, I’m not.”

“So how did it come to pass that you let that little gal put a bullet in you … a man in your profession?”

“I made a mistake.”

“What sort of mistake?”

“I trusted that she wouldn’t shoot me. I was wrong.”

“I guess you’d know that better than me.”

“My name’s Cole … John Henry Cole.”

She didn’t say anything, but Cole could tell she was staring at him from the shadows. “Mattie,” she said. She didn’t offer a second name. “Mister Book said you was taking him to Fort Smith.”

“Cheyenne, then Fort Smith. That’s correct.”

“He says he never killed anybody, except that he had to. That he is an innocent man.”

“What would you expect him to say?”

“Don’t act like any killer I ever met.”

“Have you met many?”

“A few. Better get some sleep. It’s late.”

He tossed the last of the shuck into the fireplace and, for that brief act, it felt like a hatchet was buried in his ribs. He sank down on the bunk and stared at the flames. Maybe there was a time when he thought dying was the worst thing that could happen to him. Now he wasn’t so sure it wasn’t living with a bullet between his ribs.

The fever flared from the center of his body, then began to crawl through his blood like a hundred hot snakes, and the rest of that night he fell from one twisted dream to the next. When he heard sounds of muted conversation, it was movement through the thick fog in his head. He heard the sounds of boots knocking against the floor, then the opening and closing of a door, accompanied by a rush of cold air.

When he was finally able to open his eyes, he saw the woman, Mattie, sitting alone at a table at the far end of the room. Pewter light was coming through a window above her, lighting the edges of her face. It was a strong face. She must have known he was watching her, for she slowly turned her head toward Cole and set down the tin cup she’d been holding between her hands.

“You up to some breakfast?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. Where’s Book and the girl?”

“Gone,” she said. “I sent them for what passes as a doctor in this country. Doc Jellicoe, lives up near Beaver Valley. He mostly doctors animals when he feels up to it and isn’t drunk. I don’t know he can do you much good, but, if you ain’t passed over by the time he comes, I figure he can’t do you much harm, either.” Her clothes rustled when she stood up and came over to the cot. “You best try and eat something,” she said.

“No appetite for it,” Cole said.

“Coffee and sugar,” she said. “Dip some bread into it. It’s easy on the belly. Least try.”

She helped him to sit up, then brought him the coffee and a chunk of bread to dip into it. He managed a few bites.

“You still look peaked,” she said. She laid her left hand across his forehead. “Still carrying that fever, too.”

“I don’t know what’s keeping me alive. It must be from trying.”

Her hand felt cool and smooth as marble against his skin. “Best thing for a fever is a cold bath,” she said.

He offered a weak smile.

“You’re hotter than a stove,” she said.

“That’s OK if I am.” The thought of a cold bath caused parts of Cole to draw into a clench.

“No. It would be less than Christian of me not to do what I know works.”

“No. Maybe another smoke would help just the same.”

“Foolish man,” she said, and stood up.

Cole watched as she pulled a large wooden tub from behind a curtain and set it in front of the fireplace. Then she put on her Mackinaw and began carrying in buckets of water from outside to fill the tub.

“Creek runs right past the house,” she said, when she saw the look on his face. Every time she went out and came in again, snow fell off her boots and a swoop of cold air came in with her.

Cole was too weak to do anything but watch. When she judged that she had filled the tub adequately, she came over and said: “You want help getting undressed?”

“I’d as soon die of the fever as sit in a tub of cold water.”

She began undoing the buttons of his clothes. He tried to stop her. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” she said, and brushed aside his hands.

The room was beginning to slip out from under Cole as she peeled off the last layer of clothing and helped him to his feet.

“I can’t do this,” he said.

“It won’t be as bad as you think. Just get in and sit down all at once. That’s the best way.”

He had no strength to resist or argue. He let her help him step into the tub. The water felt like fire as he lowered into it. He gasped, his heart felt like it would lurch out of his chest, and his knuckles turned white, gripping the sides of the tub.

“Stay with it,” she said.

He shivered and shook and his teeth chattered uncontrollably. She dipped some of the water up over his head and shoulders and he thought he would come clear out of his skin. And then, after a time, the torture seemed to ease and he felt the fever beginning to shatter inside like glass hit with a rock.

She took a bar of harsh yellow soap and said: “I might as well wash your hair as long as you’re already wet and willing.” She commenced scrubbing his skull. Her fingers were strong, but gentle, as she worked at his scalp, and it felt good to the point that he closed his eyes. Then she kneaded the muscles of his neck and shoulders, and he felt a release of old pain that had been knotted there for years dissipate under her knowing hands.

“You about ready to get out now?” she asked, after she had finished rubbing his muscles.

His skin felt warm and glowing where her hands had been. “I’m not sure.”

She helped him to stand, then dried him with a scratchy towel, rubbing it over his skin until it reddened, then wrapped the towel around his middle, and helped him back to the cot. She combed his hair straight back and put a fresh bandage over his wound, then drew a blanket over him.

“How do you feel now?” she asked.

“Better,” he admitted.

She laid the palm of her hand once more on his forehead. “Fever feels like it’s broke some,” she said.

He asked her to help him with a smoke and she did, and he sipped a little more of the sugar-sweetened coffee with it and felt halfway normal for the first time since he’d been shot.

Then, suddenly, he began to shiver. She brought him more blankets but nothing seemed to help. It felt like he was being held in the jaws of some large invisible beast that was trying to shake the life out of him. The room started spinning out of control. His bones felt like they were shattering at the same time his flesh was being peeled away. He heard sounds coming from his mouth, but not words. The sounds were guttural, like an animal makes that’s trying to survive.

His only coherent thoughts were that death had finally decided to come and was trying to shake him loose from his earthly bonds. Then in the midst of everything, he had a fleeting vision of wife and son, waiting across a wide river, their arms outstretched toward him. He wanted to go to them, but something was holding him back, clawing at his soul. Abruptly he felt like he was being wrapped in the arms of grace and a slow comforting heat began to penetrate through the icy tomb that encased him. Slowly, ever so slowly he was pulled back from the nether world of lost souls and found himself once more in the room of the cabin. When at last his limbs ceased to shake and the last traces of cold crept away, he slept in a silken shroud of sleep, the stillness in him complete, the rest undisturbed by dreams or ghosts or gnawing death.

* * * * *

When Cole awakened, Mattie was sitting there at her table, a tin cup held between her large hands, her sea green eyes fixed upon him. “You’re better now?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Nearly lost you.”

He nodded. “It felt like all hell was breaking loose.”

She tilted her head, the tail of hair lying over her right shoulder a soft brown against the linsey-woolsey shirt she wore.

“It was a strange ride,” he said. “I’ve never been so cold. It was like my bones were breaking from the inside.”

“You talked crazy talk,” she said. “Gibberish.”

“I was freezing, and then I felt a warmth. A strange and wonderful warmth.”

“Fever, that’s all. It does you like that. One minute you’re freezing, the next you’re burning up.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. This was different.”

“You want me to make you a cigarette?”

“No.”

“Don’t know why Doc Jellicoe hasn’t come yet. Maybe Mister Book and that girl got lost.”

“Maybe they just kept on riding,” Cole said. “Maybe a doctor isn’t what they went to find.”

She blinked. “Mister Book didn’t strike me as the type to leave you high and dry. I think if he was going to do that, he’d’ve done it before he brought you all the way here.”

“Maybe it wasn’t his idea,” Cole said.

“You mean the girl talked him out of it?”

“She loved him enough to shoot me.”

“Well, if he hasn’t come by this evening,” she said, looking toward the window with its failing light, “I’ll go for Doc myself come morning.”

“I think maybe you did a good thing,” Cole said.

She turned to look at him again, the cup still between her hands, the steam lifting against her face. “What do you mean?”

“Getting into bed with me,” he said. “Sharing your warmth, taking my cold into your own body.”

She said: “I better get supper started, in case they come. Maybe you could stand to eat something.” She stood, her back toward him.

“Mattie.”

“The fever makes a body crazy,” she said.

“I know what I know.”

“I better get supper ready.”

Cole had realized what she had done only midway through their conversation. A flash of it came to him, the warmth of her bare flesh pressed against him, her plain face there before his, inches away, the soft sweet breath of her mouth against his eyes. At first he thought it a dream risen out of the stark cold of his nightmare. But now that he recognized the reality of what had happened, he recalled time and time again awakening and feeling her arms around him, her legs entwined in his, wrapping him with her body until the aching cold was replaced with the warmth of summer winds. He wondered why she would deny it. Then he realized there could be a thousand reasons and not one of them was any of his business if she didn’t want him to know. She had saved him.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Keeping her back to him as she fed kindling into the stove, she said: “Mattie. I thought I told you. Did you forget?”

“No. I remember it was Mattie. I’d like to know your full name.”

“Mattie Blaylock,” she said.

“You have a man, Mattie Blaylock?” he asked.

She hesitated in her feeding of the stove. “A sometimes man,” she said.

“What does that mean exactly?”

“Mean’s he comes and he goes. Right now, he’s gone.”

“When’s he coming back?”

She picked up another piece of kindling, shoved it into the stove, into the hungry flames. “I don’t know if he is coming back. You’d need to ask him.” Then she turned and looked at him, the wide-set light green eyes filled with something akin to old sorrows. “Trouble with men,” she said, “is you can never count on them. They’re always finding ways to leave you.”

“How many ways are there?” Cole asked.

“Enough to fill a woman’s heart with regret and her soul with broken promises.”

“He just rode off, your man?”

“This time, and a half dozen times before.”

“But he always comes back?”

“No, not always. Sometimes I go and find him. If he don’t come back by spring, I reckon I’ll probably go and find him again. Like I did the last time he didn’t come back.”

“Maybe this time he’ll come back.”

“Maybe he will.” She seemed to grow smaller as she talked, like the weight of talking about him was shrinking her. He watched her touch the back of her wrist to her cheek. “Getting warm in here,” she said.

“It’s the warmth I’ll remember.”

She gave him a narrow look. “One man gone and one half dead. Some gals just don’t have any luck at all.”

“Thank you for what you did.”

She looked out the window and said: “They don’t come soon, they’ll miss supper.”

“This man you’re going to find in the spring if he don’t come back before then,” Cole said. “What’s his name?”

“What difference would that make to you?”

“I just thought, if I ever ran across him, I’d tell him what a damned fool he’s been.”

She stared out the window at the dying light, then turned again to look at Cole and he saw the same dying light in her eyes.