Chapter 21

Somehow the name stuck.

Sary was indifferent. The child had a satisfying weight. That was all she told herself. She had no milk. The cow would have to do. Yet Ev’ret faded like a rapidly receding nightmare as Sary, Jude strapped to her chest, strode about camp righting things, chopping branches, stacking them—strengthening—during which the hag yet kept her blackbird eyes peering from a nest of wrinkles—and in truth Sary needed her. She concocted miracles of herb-rabbit stew and other nourishment her body craved more than before.

Once Sary alerted, seeing the hag nip into the forest, but was disappointed beyond bearing on her reappearance with yet more herbs and spring greens. Yet Sary’s body ached for the iron the tender greens were rich in, and so grew stronger.

When a week old, Jude developed a cough, his little chest heaving with effort. Sary sat poker-faced as the hag pounded herbs with rabbit fat, smeared his chest, wrapped him in heated flannel, and stuck a skillet of coals under his crude bassinet. Soon, Jude sweated and his chest eased.

One night, though, was all it took.

****

Jude cried and cried as a steady rain pattered outside. Sary slept on. Her gun, kept out of habit, slipped to the earthen floor. With sturdy little fists, Jude squirmed from her side. The hag removed him. Sary murmured and snored on.

****

Down at Delacorte’s Saloon, it was a full, earsplitting melee, still early by rioters’ standards but made doubly beguiling by the rain icing outside walls.

The only grim face was Julian’s and that of a poker player slouched as low as his chips. Julian brooded over the desultory game, watching the door and drinking heavily. He was snarling at the loser when, abruptly, the saloon mob parted like the Dead Sea and the hag’s drenched figure paced through their midst with an oilskin poncho-wrapped bundle. She placed Jude before Julian, atop the pile of chips.

Whores crowded. Handi hobbled over. Ratchet, a dyspeptic onlooker, slugged back a whiskey as Delacorte clutched Jude in rough yellow hands and revolved with a look of triumph over the lustily howling baby for all to see. Never taking his eyes off Jude, he motioned to the barkeep and nodded to the hag clawing his sleeve, piercing him with adamantine eyes. If, for an instant, Julian gazed perplexed over Jude’s broad features, the look melted in puddles of adoration.

“Give her something!” He barked at the barkeep.

“What?”

Julian swatted Handi and the hag aside. “Anything. That old horse of yours.”

The hag shuffled to the barkeep, keeping her beady gaze steady. “Brandy. Cognac. Good cognac. And horse.”

The barkeep grimaced and reached under the bar.

Ratchet slipped out unnoticed.