When Saddler came to, he found that he felt a lot better. The wound from the arrow was throbbing like crazy, but there was no longer a chunk of flint pressing on the nerves that ran through his shoulder. He reached up and found that Abigail had somehow managed to position the wad of cotton over the hole made by the arrow. She was sitting on the ground beside him, gazing anxiously at his face.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You made a right good job o’ that little bit of doctoring. I’m mighty obliged to you.’
‘Do you feel any better?’
‘Yes, heaps better. We had best stay here for the night though. I don’t mind that I’ll be much use in the saddle for a few hours yet.’
‘Would you like me to fetch your blanket and lay it over you?’
‘That’d be nice. Thanks.’
And so it was that the two of them spent the night right there by the road, in plain view of anybody who passed by. Fortunately, nobody did travel along the road that night and they were left unmolested.
When he woke in the morning the first thing that Saddler did was to flex his fingers and clench his fist. His chief fear now was that some infection would have set in and that he would be going down with blood poisoning. There was no sign of this, at least not yet, and the only sensations were the quite natural ones of stiffness and pain from having had his muscle sliced open by a razor-sharp piece of stone.
Saddler examined the arrow, which Abigail had dropped as soon as she had extracted it from his shoulder. The head was chipped from flint, which was unusual these days. Combined with the way that those boys had been tricked out in feathers and mud, it struck Saddler that they must have eschewed modern customs and determined to rely only upon their traditional ways in battle. This would also account for why none of the warriors he had encountered in the last week or so had been carrying or using firearms. He suspected that this was tied up with some sort of ghost-dance nonsense and that those taking part in the uprising had been led to believe that their ancesters would help them, if only they rejected the ways of the white man.
By Saddler’s reckoning, if they rode hard this day they would be in reach of Ox Creek by nightfall. There’d be no point in wandering round a strange town at night asking a heap of questions, so they would probably need to spend one more night out in the open. With luck though, that would be the last of it and he would be able to deliver the child to her family tomorrow and his mission would be accomplished.
What then? Well, he had the money from the sale of the whiskey, more or less intact. He felt sure that he could pick up something in Ox Creek that would be like to fetch a good price back in the territories. One thing was for sure: he’d be giving a wide berth to the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations both. He would stick to the Seminole and Creek for a spell.
Abigail woke a little later and then, recollecting the events of the previous day, she looked anxiously at him.
‘Do you feel better today, Mr Saddler?’ she asked.
‘Much, thank you. What about you? Were you all right after doin’ that little bit o’ surgery on me?’
‘Well, I was . . . sick.’ She blushed. ‘Awful sick. Mind, I did it right, didn’t I?’
‘That you did, Abigail, that you did. I don’t think there’s many girls your age as could have done what you did. I cannot tell you what I owe you.’
‘Well though, you have done a lot for me, looking after me and such. It’s only right that I should help you when I am able.’
They didn’t speak for a minute or two and then Saddler said thoughtfully, ‘Thinking it over and takin’ everything into account, I would say that the balance sheet is pretty even on both sides. It’s true as I rescued you from that wood and so on, but then again you freed me from imprisonment and saved my life last night. No, I would say that we are square and neither owes anything.’
He smiled. ‘And let me tell you now, child, I never thought to say such a thing to a twelve year-old girl. But fair’s fair. You done as good as any grown-up person could. I don’t say that lightly, neither.’
The child glowed with pleasure at this unlooked-for praise. Then she said, ‘You think we should kind of bandage up your shoulder for the ride?’
‘Yeah, I think that’s just what we ought to do. I might need to call on your services again there, on account of I can’t reach round behind me too well just now.’
Eventually they managed to wind a strip of cloth round Saddler’s shoulder and use it to hold in place another pad of cloth. The wound began leaking again while they did this and Saddler was hoping that the bleeding wouldn’t keep going too long. Even a small wound can cause a man to faint from blood loss if the bleeding goes on for long enough. He had seen this many times during the war.
That day passed uneventfully as they proceeded partly at a walk, interspersed with trotting. He didn’t like to say anything that might alarm the child, but Saddler was worrying that the wound was not closing up and that unless he was able to spend some time completely immobile, then the blood would continue to flow. He couldn’t see a remedy for this. They were almost out of provisions and what they had left would last until the evening. He hoped that his calculations were accurate and that they would reach Ox Creek the next day. Whatever else befell them them there, they might at least be able to buy some food.
Abigail sensed that something was amiss, because after their midday stop she asked him outright, ‘Is your shoulder troubling you?’
‘To speak plainly, it is. Now listen. The pain I can bear. I’ve had worse. Problem is, losing all this blood. I hope it’ll stop, but if it don’t, then I might pass out.’
‘Oh Mr Saddler,’ said Abigail, ‘I won’t leave you if that happens. You may depend upon it.’
‘Why, you young fool,’ Saddler said roughly, ‘that’s the very thing you got to do, if that happens.’ He could see the hurt in her eyes at being spoken to so harshly and Saddler tried to smooth it over.
‘Abigail, I have to speak straight now. If I sound rough, then I’m sorry. You have to get yourself to Ox Creek. I hope to take you there, but if’n I can’t, then you’ll have to get there by your own self. You understand?’
‘I guess,’ said the child uncertainly. ‘Although I don’t know the way.’
‘That’s nothing. You just carry on down this road and after a good long pace, you’ll come to a crossway. You take the right turn, which’ll lead you along the road you want. We’re almost clear of the territories now; in fact we might already be in Kansas.’
Still, the girl looked as though she hadn’t quite grasped his meaning and so Saddler put matters even more bluntly.
‘If this blood loss gets worse, I could die. You’d be left alone at the mercy of Lord knows who. There’s no point thinking of me, you must take a care of your own self. You know it’s true, Abigail.’
The girl said nothing and then, in a very quiet voice, she conceded, ‘I guess. But let’s hope it does not come to that.’
During the rest of the day Saddler fancied that things were a little better. The bleeding appeared to have slowed right down and the wound was clotting. He was greatly relieved at this, not so much for his own sake as that it meant that Abigail would not be left defenceless and alone. By the time that it was getting dark, they had reached the crossroads that he had described to Abigail. The road ahead led to Wichita and the right fork, if his memory served him right, should take them to Ox Creek.
They moved a little way from the road that last night and settled down in a little stand of pines, just far enough from the crossroads for passing travellers to be unlikely to spot them.
The next day they were plumb out of provisions. ‘
’Less I’m greatly mistook, we are only five miles from Ox Creek,’ Saddler said. ‘I’m sorry there’s nothing to eat, Abigail, but we’ve plenty of cash money and as soon as we hit town I’ll get us something. The best dodge now is to push on and see how soon we can get to Ox Creek.’
It was during that last stretch of the journey, when you might have thought that it was all finished that Saddler came near to losing his life. It was the most stupid thing imaginable. Abigail’s pony had been showing signs of tiredness. Perhaps he wasn’t used to such long rides, but that morning he was particularly skittish. An hour after they started out, the beast bucked and damned near threw his rider. Saddler moved in fast and grabbed the reins, whereupon the pony bolted. Saddler managed to keep hold of the reins and stop the creature charging down the road, but in so doing he was twisted awkwardly and felt a weird stabbing pain on his left side. He knew at once that the wound had opened up again.
There was no purpose in telling the child of this and so they just carried on down the road. Saddler was uncomfortably aware that his shirt was growing sticky and wet. There was no more material left, so there was nothing for it but to forge on.
The town of Ox Creek lay on the banks of the Arkansas river. It was a bustling little place, with neatly painted white clapboard houses and a main street with brick-built stores and churches. Saddler was feeling distinctly unwell by the time they hit the centre of town and did not really want to get down from his horse in case, once down, he could not find the strength to mount it again. He reined in outside a bakery and gave Abigail enough to buy a loaf of bread. For his own part, he was not at all hungry.
While the child was in the shop Saddler accosted one or two passers-by and asked if any of them recalled a girl named Marion, who had grown up in the town and whose father might be a lawyer, living in a large house. The two men and a woman whom he accosted in this way gave him very strange looks and shook their heads. Saddler knew that he presented a dreadful sight, with blood now staining half his shirt. No wonder those folk didn’t feel like chatting to him; he must look a regular scarecrow!
When Abigail came out of the baker’s Saddler was all but spent. He made one last effort by calling to an old fellow who looked somewhat like some Biblical prophet, with a long white beard and sharp blue eyes.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Saddler. ‘I’m looking for the house of a man who had a daughter called Marion. She left here to get married, maybe fourteen years back? He might live in a big house?’
‘Marion Gilchrist,’ said the man promptly, ‘She ain’t living there now though. Like to break her father’s heart, went off with a missioner.’
‘That’s the fellow,’ Saddler said eagerly. ‘Where does he live?’
‘Why, down yonder,’ said the old man, pointing with a walking cane. ‘You can see his house from here. See that little turret, with a lightning conductor atop of it? That’s the Gilchrist place.’
Abigail had turned pale at hearing this. When she remounted the pony and was eating dry bread, Saddler said to her, ‘Ain’t you pleased, child? We’re nearly done.’
‘I don’t know my grandfather,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I know you. I don’t know that I want to go and live there.’
‘That’s a lot of foolishness. Come on.’
Saddler led the way to the big house, but the nearer they got to it the more it seemed to recede in his vision. This is damned odd, he thought to himself, we don’t look to be getting any closer. At last they reached the place and Saddler, making one last effort, managed to slither down from his saddle. It was all he could do to stand upright and he observed that his pants too were now damp with blood.
Abigail too dismounted and the two of them stood looking at the imposing mansion. He felt the child’s hand slip into his own and he gave it a reassuring squeeze.
‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll be bound that your grandpa’s a fine gentleman.’