“Why?” asked Boyd.
As she wrapped his arm, Abigail explained, “I can’t say for certain, but it looks as if that bullet tore a bit of your muscle and nicked a vein. It needs a lot of healing and that means it must be kept stable. Sir”—she looked at Matthew—“I am going to slide the strip of cloth beneath him. Could you please pull it through and hand it back to me?”
Matthew nodded then did as she asked. Twice more she passed the cloth under the boy, pinning his arm tightly to his side. As she tied the bandage Matthew could easily read the dismay on Boyd’s face. He now had only one usable arm and that meant his time to be a soldier was done, at best at least until the wound healed.
There was a sudden flurry of shooting, the glass in the window shattering and the sound of bullets hitting the wall, echoing in the house. Matthew ducked and, keeping low to the floor, hurried back to the window. Looking out he could count six men left, and all of them attempting to hide themselves behind rocks and trees, and half of them had dirty ragged bandages tied around some limb. Two men were slowly crawling back to their horses. Tired of the battle, he decided as he shot at a man huddled behind a tree. A loud curse told him he had winged the man.
“We gonna shoot ’em down as they try to crawl away?” asked James.
“Nay. Just dinnae let them ken we are nay going to do that.”
“Is the girl going to be shooting?” asked Danny. “’Cause maybe you should tell her we ain’t aiming to kill.”
Matthew laughed. “True, but I think she is settled with caring for Boyd.” He was busy loading his gun when another mad flurry of shots peppered the house. “What the hell?”
“Trying to make us all hunker down so they can flee, I reckon,” said Jed, daring a peek out the window. “They are all trying to back away.”
“Good. Shoot just enough to keep them retreating,” Matthew said and immediately shot toward another man hiding behind a tree.
Matthew could see his strategy was working the few times he was able to look out the window. Once he glanced toward Abigail and saw that she had gotten Boyd sheltered on the far side of the big fireplace. He had heard her plead again with her mother to get down, but the woman continued to ignore her despite the number of bullets that slammed into the wall near the sick man’s bed. The woman appeared to be oblivious to the battle going on around her.
Taking another turn at shooting out the windows, Matthew could see that the men were close to leaving. The two who were crawling toward their horses were by the animals now and just waiting for a chance to mount and run. The other four were closer to their horses. He knew many another officer would order the horses shot but Matthew had never been able to give such an order. He also suspected it was more a love for the animals than moral uncertainty about shooting wounded men.
Another round of gunfire hit the house and he ducked down. He looked back at Abigail and Boyd again, relieved to find them unharmed. She had removed the tourniquet on his arm and was intently watching for an increase in bleeding. He then looked toward the mother and tensed. Her dress was dark but he was certain he could see blood.
The shooting eased and he went back to returning fire, careful not to aim to kill. It embarrassed him because he suspected the men running thought them all poor shots. Smiling grimly, he decided it might not be a bad rumor to start for it might aid them in future confrontations.
He was taking time to reload when he heard a cry. He looked toward Abigail and Boyd, but Abigail was staring at her mother in horror. Matthew looked back at the woman and sighed. There was no mistaking that the last flurry of shots had found their target. The woman should be dead but she was crawling on top of the man. Then Abigail was there and Matthew shook his head. He felt for the girl but there was nothing he could do. He returned to the work of making sure the Rebs hurried their retreat.
*
Abigail hurried to her mother’s side and knew, with one look, that there was nothing she could do. The bullet had gone into her back and exploded out of her chest only to continue on into her father’s stomach. For days she had known her father was dying, but that bullet had abruptly ended his long struggle against the inevitable. Fighting tears, she tried to coax her mother into allowing her to tend to her wounds but the woman fought her, trying to curl up around her father. Abigail finally let her and struggled against the urge to weep as the bed became soaked in blood.
Her mother took her father’s hand in hers and settled her head on his chest. Abigail suspected there were women who would find it touchingly romantic, but she only found it heartbreakingly sad. In the last few weeks it had become clear to her that her father was all important to her mother, her son a close second. This last act only confirmed it. She took the quilt folded at the foot of the bed and covered them both. She then ducked down and scurried back to Boyd’s side.
“I am sorry, Abigail,” Boyd said, his voice weak and hoarse.
“My father was already as good as dead and I think my mother was ready to follow him.”
“Are you sure your father was already dying?”
“I smelled it last week. He hung on far longer than I thought he would.”
“You smelled it?” Boyd tried to sit up straighter and winced.
She gave him a hand in getting more comfortable. “Yes. There is a smell to the dying. No one believes me, but there is.” She sat down next to him. “I tried to tell my mother, to prepare her, but she would not listen. She changed after the attack. I think it broke her. Maybe if my father had not been so badly injured she would have recovered, but . . .” She shrugged. “I was hiding and I should have come out. Maybe I could have been helpful.”
“No. Who hurt them?”
“The Rebs.”
“Ah. No, it was best that you remained hidden. They could have hurt you, too.”
“Maybe. All I could think of was that I had not brought my rifle with me so how could I fight what looked to be six soldiers, maybe more.”
“You could not have. Do not let it make you feel guilty.”
She had been trying not to and it helped to hear someone else say it was unnecessary, but Abigail suspected the guilt would haunt her for a while yet. She worried about what her brother would think if he returned and she had to tell him what had happened. Abigail feared he would then feel guilty for not being here even though he had been given no choice about that. She prayed he would return alive and whole, for this cursed war had already cost her too much.
Chapter Two
“They are gone, sir,” James said.