Lost Nation (39 page)

Something to see: a hole in your body. He probed with his fingers around the edges but learned nothing from this but some little more about pain. He cut the dress in strips and laid them over his shoulder and reached to draw the crane with the hot kettle out. Took up a piece of the cloth and soaked it in the water and without hesitation brought the hot wet cloth down onto the hole. At the same time bit his own tongue.

Sometime later he was able to stand with the leg swaddled tight with strips torn from the dress. The rest were bloodied wet clumps about the chair. The pain was still distinct, ringing. But changed. As if his cleaning and dressing the wound had given him back a portion of mastery over his body. By degrees he was able to get the boot from his right foot. He hopped onefooted to the door, barred it, and took up the ox goad to use as a crutch. Back to the fire and struggled a log onto the heap of coals. Used the goad-tip to sweep the bloody rags onto the fire. As if neatening was of dire need. For the first time regarded the table: the pair of pewter cups, whose dregs he poured together and drank down. There was a sock he did not have to touch or heft but could see by the bulges was filled with coin money which he knew was his own and wondered
if she’d forgotten it, not left it on purpose. Then saw the rough white sharp gouges, the rounded letters crooked, the straight parts deep slashes:
COOPER
.

He leaned and studied the legend before him. Understanding the boy had already determined a course of action, of revelation, of confrontation. How long, Blood wondered, would he have awaited Blood’s arrival? Would he have come looking, come to Canada? Come with Sally? Or been content to leave this mark and quit the country, taking the girl with him, perhaps the money as well.

No. Blood knew it would not have been the last.

Then recalled not only the other boy but what Cooper had said of him. Something of that. Only enough to make no sense of it. He had no other son but for the one already and long dead. Whose name Blood would not say, had not spoke in years. Would not even allow of it more than a sudden capricious skip across his brain before re-stoning that wall: Hazen. Gone. A water shade. Nothing.

But Cooper. Cooper.

He upended the pewter cup over the top of the goad and made his way into the tavern, hauling also the sock of money. Sally had his keys so the best he could do was drop the money behind a hogshead. A solid thump. A taper was guttering in its saucer. Just the right light. He poured from the pitcher on the counter. Eased his left buttock onto the stool-edge and stretched his right leg at the most comfortable angle. Already the muscles were seizing against the outrage done them. The morning would be bad. He drank from the cup.

Cooper. He would not attempt to recall him as a child and yet could not help himself. The final glimpse of frightened boy-face peering from a dark hallway one morning while waiting the dead. And with that came the other children. He drained the cup and poured again. Stop.

So, Cooper. Had Blood believed he would never come? Or was this what all those years of circling had intended? That opportunity:
Find me
.

Cooper. Blood throbbed. Come finally after his father. Whom he had not killed but could have. Cooper had already bested him.

And the other boy. Who was he? He’d introduced himself. Barrett. Fletcher Barrett. Whom Cooper called his brother, named as Blood’s son. Blood knew no Barrett. In New Bedford or otherwise. So who was this Fletcher?

Blood poured again from the pitcher. The rum was awful strong. Then knew it was not the rum but the wound in his leg that breached him thus. He pushed up from the stool. He was a man in bad shape. Two days of hard use. He considered the candle, burning itself to drown out. Then stumped hard around the counter and back into the kitchen. Up against the fireside were a pair of rifle muskets, his own and a newer one, a gun he did not have to touch to know its quality. Hung above from a peg were sets of pouches for both guns. At least he was not unarmed.

He managed to spread the fire and heaved a couple logs atop the coals. Then discovered in the kettle a single potato so overcooked it was split and fell apart in his hands but he ate it down. Looked for bread but found none. The potato primed his stomach. Found the rind end of a bacon, skewered it on the poker and charred and ate it, burning his mouth. Then for the second night in a row vomited his supper, this time into the coals. As if his stomach craved what it could not hold. He leaned, weaving, a sick ox unwilling but with no choice but to go on.

There was no water in the bucket so he drank some from the tepid kettle and then, with no possibility of climbing the loft ladder made his way into Sally’s room, sat on the bed and slowly wormed onto it. He had to use both hands to pull his right leg up to lie flat. Then, heaving and beaded with sweat stretched hard to pull some coverings over him. Guessing he’d fever by morning. So wide awake his very pulse thrummed off the walls and pounded back upon his eardrums. Hoping against the fever he already had. Wondering if he’d sleep, and if he did, if he’d wake from it.

In the morning he would recall waking sometime during the night wondering where Luther was, if the dog had left him also. In the morning he would not recall that between this thought and his next abrupt descent to sleep he’d lain on his back and sobbed.

They made their way up the brook path under the feeble starlight obscured by vast hemlock and spruce, the path a pitched trough in the darkness, boulders and stones only known by their sudden upheavals underfoot. The course best marked by the mild tumult of the brook to their right, the sound and the sparse available light caught riding the
silvered back of the water. Fletcher hitching along best he could, not letting either of them assist or guide him, claiming any touch at all brought fresh pain to his shoulder. Twice he slipped and fell and both times he would not let them help him up, saying, “Don’t touch me, it idn’t going to do naught but make it worse.”

Otherwise he trudged dogged and silent but for the whistle of his breath between his clenched teeth. When they finally came into the opening of the marsh with the meadow hummock grass lit white he stopped, his head tilted at an queer angle to his neck as he studied the studded water of the bog pools. The other two stopped with him and waited a time and then Cooper said, “Are you all right?”

“I’m better,” Fletcher said. “A time or two there I thought I was going to faint old-ladylike. I just can’t seem to catch my breath back.”

After a moment Cooper said, “Can you move that arm?”

“It hurts something wicked when I do.”

“But you can move it.”

Fletcher was silent. He’d answered the question.

Cooper said, “Likely it’s your collarbone got busted then. That don’t mean it hurts any less than if it was your shoulder. But it’ll heal easier. It’ll be sore but it won’t cripple you. There’s a way to bind it up will help some.”

Fletcher said, “I left my rifle down there.”

Cooper was quiet. Then he said, “Well, he can’t shoot but one at a time. And he idn’t in such good shape himself.” Then he said, “I’m going ahead, get a fire up. You stand here till the dizziness passes but don’t get chilled.”

Sally said, “I’ll wait with him.”

Cooper swung his head to her. In the starlight she could see the white spread of his teeth. “I know you will.” Then he walked forward toward the dark bunch of gloom that was the trees under which their tent was pitched. Even in starlight it couldn’t be seen under the big trees. In a moment his figure was gone into it and they might have been the only people on earth. They stood there, both of them tender and alarmed, both shocked.

She said, “He shot him. Just like that. Cooper said it weren’t a bad wound. You figger that’s true?”

Fletcher turned his face dark to her—framed by his hair the best she could see was his eyes, something shining. After a moment he said, “I wasn’t in no condition to see.”

Sally wondered if all she could do was keep hurting this boy. She spoke carefully. “You recall I didn’t pause a beat coming to help you. And still am.” She then did pause a beat, not expecting response but wanting that clear. She went on. “When the Canadian troopers come took him was the closest I ever seen him overcome by another man. And he did that defiant and proud. And you got to recall he’s back—whatever trouble it was he worked his way out, without me even showing up. That’s the man I know. So maybe I didn’t hesitate but still it was something to see—Blood knocked down like that. So easy it seemed.”

“Easy to you.”

She waited, wishing he’d not do this. Then recalled he was hurt bad, that it wasn’t simple petulance or jealousy. She said, “I’d guess, whatever ways you imagined meeting him, having him try to brain you was likely the last. All I can say, cepting I’m sorry you’re hurt, is I don’t guess it’s what he’d of wanted neither. It was all a mistake. You got to recall, he’s got no idea who you are.”

“They were British.”

“What?”

“The ones come after him. The Canadians don’t have regular troops like that.”

She was quiet a moment, almost angry. Then understood. She said, “Fletcher, it idn’t going to do any of us any good you keep like this. What you told me this afternoon, I don’t exactly know how I feel about it. The truth, even without everything else, is you’re like nobody I ever met before. I need time with that, time to see how it feels, time to see how much is you and how much me. You consider it, you’d resent it if I was just swept along. Wouldn’t you now?”

“No.” He was abrupt, adamant. “It’s passion. You either got that or not. It’s not something you mull.” He turned as he spoke so he was looking away from her, off ahead where the trace of fire could be seen.

She waited. When she spoke she was even, calm. “Fletcher,” she said. “You need to know this about me. You put me in a corner, any corner, even if it be a corner I might want, even crave. And I’d make Blood look
like a maiden aunt coming out of there. I been in one corner or another all my life. If I ever was to get in another it’d be because I was stupid. Not for no other reason. Not one. You understand that?”

He was shivering, a small tremble as the cold cut through the pain, his state of mind. Still not looking at her but she saw him nod, a curious motion that was checked by a suppressed groan. She wanted to touch him, to offer comfort. Suddenly in doubt if her words were too harsh, then catching herself, thinking That’s how it happens. Don’t do anything from sympathy you’d regret two minutes from now.

As she was thinking this he turned, slowly, one experimental step at a time. He was closer now and again she could see his eyes. More of his face also. Ahead of them the fire leaped and grew, as if Cooper was bent upon informing any who might care where they were.

Fletcher said, “Cooper told him I was his son. Nothing more but that. I heard him. So Blood knows that much.”

Sally said, “Likely Cooper felt it was yours to tell the rest. However you chose. Or not at all.”

Fletcher nodded. He said, “It’s why I’m here. To tell him. But it idn’t going to be tonight.”

“No. I’d guess not.” She felt better. They were both serious yet there was some humor back in his voice. What she liked about him. One of the things.

He said, “I got to wonder how he feels. Lying down there, wounded by one son after doing his best to murder another. Even if he only did learn that after.”

“Knowing Blood, I’d venture he don’t feel good about it at all. Wound aside.”

“You think he’s curious about me?” Sally realized he was crying, tears running down his face as if his eyes opened and required no effort otherwise from his tilted body.

She wavered, looking at him, his eyes dark pods flecked by starlight as if somewhere far within were the reflections of white birds.

“Why of course he is,” she said. “Most likely more about you than all the rest of this. All Cooper did was let Blood get started. You can bet he’s wicked curious.” Then she reached and touched his face softly and said, “Let’s get to camp before you fall down.”

* * *

Cooper sat waiting them, a shirt from the packbaskets cut in strips across his knees. He stood as they came in and said, “I’ve been studying this. I think I got it worked out. A way to bind you up to help it heal and so it won’t hurt so bad.”

Fletcher said, “All right.”

“You got to get out of your shirt. Can you get it over your head or need I cut it off you?”

Fletcher said, “I’m not feeling so good. Cut the bastard off.”

So Cooper and Sally worked together, silent, the job simple but the teamwork coordinated. Sally stretching tight the fabric while Cooper cut from the neck opening down to the hem, then again, each tender and intent, sawing the length away from the hurt arm. Then they shucked the shirt off the other arm. All throughout Fletcher with his eyes shut tight and cursing, the words breaking out through his teeth and when the shirt was finally gone his breath gave way in a gasp. He stood naked-chested, his eyes dry and blinking, shining, his lips compressed.

He said, “What’s next?”

Cooper took one of two long strips and wrapped the forearm with it, starting at the middle of the strip and overlapping so when he was done the arm was shrouded tight from wrist to elbow with two strips still dangling. The other long strip he wrapped three times tight around Fletcher’s chest high on his ribcage and crossed the strips up over the opposing shoulders and crossed them again in the back and repeated this twice, so that Fletcher seemed to be wearing flimsy tight bandoleers and these he finally tied off in a smooth knot at the back of the neck.

Then Cooper said, “Here comes the hurting part.”

“I been waiting for that.” Fletcher was sweating and his skin had gone white except for his face which was mottled pink and white like the inside of a flayed hide.

Cooper took the bound forearm and held it up tight to his brother’s chest and Fletcher heaved a little to one side. Cooper ran the dangling strips from the forearm beneath the shoulder straps and pulled them tight so the forearm was pinned to his chest and ran the ends of the strips down his back to the chest wrapping and tied the forearm strips behind. When he was done, Fletcher could not only not move his hurt arm but
his shoulders were pulled back tight and down, so the bone might heal as natural as possible and not humped up in the hunch such pain would beg. Cooper explained all this while he was working, on through to when he tied the last knot he explained this theory of healing.