Somewhere in the darkness he was certain they were jabbing hot pitchforks into his side. Scooping a huge shovel filled with smoldering coals into his ears, one after another, so that his head filled with smoke and steam and unbearable heat, searing the back of his eyes, choking him with the rising torture.
How he thrashed and shuddered, kicking violently at the blankets and the robe, flinging them from his body until the pain reminded him of the wounds and he came close to wakefulness—enough to recognize just where and how much he hurt—fully expecting as he opened his eyes into pain-weary slits that he would see the tiny demons who were Old Lucifer’s cloven-hoofed minions gathered in a tight ring all about him, jabbing at him with their instruments of interminable death.
Oh, how he had listened in childlike rapture to the wandering pastors who had circled back and forth across the length of Boone County when he had been young. Their breath smelling of fire and brimstone, each one invariably continued to preach to the family who invited them back to their land after church service for a home-cooked meal and a warm place to sleep over the Sabbath night before the circuit rider moved on the next morning.
But Scratch did not find Lucifer there at hand. Nor his diminutive demons. Nonetheless, as he lay there in Fawn’s lodge, he believed the old bastard himself had just taken his leave of the place—hot as Bass was. For the love of a cool dip in that pond back home right about now. Even to have someone rub some snow on his burning skin right now.
Where was she?
“Fa … Fawn?”
He barely heard his own voice croak her name. Then he called out again, this time trying to force it, make it louder. She was there almost immediately—the sound of her coming through the door flap, the shadow of her holding the bail of the kettle in one hand, setting it on the low flames with a sputter.
“Water,” he demanded in English, rubbing his dry, cracked lips. “Water.”
She understood the word, the gesture, and sank to her knees at his side with the horn spoon, scooping up his head within an arm, pulling him up gently and pressing the spoon against his lips.
“The fire,” she declared quietly as most of the water dribbled from the corner of his mouth, “the fire burns you up from inside.”
“Fire,” he repeated in a tortured croak. “Put out the fire, Fawn.”
He closed his eyes to the tears of pain, to the drops of sweat running off his brow, to the dancing shapes of hideous reality flickering on the lodge skins, and tried to think back to that first Rocky Mountain snow last autumn as the high country began to cool and the aspen quaked in the breeze that carried on it the prophecy of winter. So cold and dry were the flakes that he caught them on his sleeve, on a blanket mitten, then blew them off like a sprinkling of ash. Cold, white ash landing on his face, tangled in his eyelashes, melting on his tongue. Like no snowflakes he had ever tasted back east along the Missouri, farther still in Kentucky—
The moment something was pressed against his lips, Titus opened his eyes again into narrow slits. He could see the movement of the woman so near that he heard her tiny bursts of breath coming fast and shallow. Slowly she poured the liquid against his parting lips. Bitter, so bitter a taste that he coughed, sputtering, spewing it from his mouth as he turned his head.
“No,” she said sharply, that word spoken just as tough as the way she had uttered it that day long ago when she had destroyed those infested white-man clothes of his.
She grabbed hold of a clump of long hair at the nape of his neck and wrenched his head around into a cradle of her forearm.
“Drink,” the woman commanded.
“No, tastes like shit,” he whimpered in English, nearly a sob as his eyes filled with more stinging salt dripping from his forehead.
“Drink,” she repeated. “Cold—for the fire inside you. Put out the fire.”
“Put out the fire,” he echoed in Ute.
So he drank a sip, physically forcing the foul-tasting, bitter liquid back on his tongue, down his throat. Then pursed his lips to drink a bit more. Then more until she no longer pressed the spoon against his lips.
Like sudden freedom, he savored those moments after Fawn laid his head back upon the buffalo robe and withdrew her arm, like stolen, furtive heartbeats he was sure were quickly going to lead him back into the escape of sleep now.
But instead she brushed more of the cool water across his forehead and face, then murmured something to him about a willow stick.
Bass felt an object pressed against his lips. Figuring it to be more of the fire-eating liquid, he opened his mouth slightly, his eyes tearing open into slits. But this time instead of the spoon, the widow pressed between his teeth a thin wand of willow.
“Bite on this,” she instructed quietly, “when you want to cry out.”
Cry out? Cry out for what? Nothing could be worse than what she had already put him through. He had no need to cry out now, not now that she had finished pouring that bitter water down his throat. All he needed now was to sleep … so why in the devil would she say he might want to cry out—
His back arched, convulsing with the sudden, sharp stab of pain at his shoulder, radiating clear to the roof of his head and to the soles of his feet. Sputtering, Bass finally got his tongue to shove the willow wand out from between his teeth and started to growl, spittle dripping from both corners of his mouth.
As suddenly he felt big hands on him, sensed the peeled willow wand shoved not so gently against his teeth this time—clearly without the kindness of the widow.
Through the tears and drops of sweat pooling in his eyes, Titus tried to make out who was there with Fawn. Who held him down as he struggled against the thunderous pain in his shoulder, the torment shooting down the entire length of his left arm? Bass could not recognize him. Blinking, he wanted to be certain who it was because Titus swore to kill the bastard once he was healed and strong enough to go searching for the one who had forced him to endure this pain.
He shrieked, crying out, then whimpered in his fevered torture, trying his best to thrash back and forth, to arch his back up, throw off the oppressive weight of his handler, to kick free of the one who seemed to sit squarely on top of him.
Then as suddenly he felt as weak as a newborn calf, his legs gone to butter. Oh, the pain was still there, so he had to save what strength he had left so that he would not die. No more did he have anything to use in fighting this strong one.
Maybe it was Cooper. Big enough, strong enough to be. Cooper would be the sort to enjoy this. Maybe even simpleminded Billy Hooks. No, he decided: they would be off whoring with their squaws right now. Days of hunting away from camp meant they would have one thing and one thing only on their minds. So they would be with their women, thrashing about in the robes instead of thrashing about with a fevered friend.
Maybeso it was Tuttle. Of the three, he believed he could count on Bud.
Tightly Bass clamped his eyes shut, trying to squeeze all the moisture from them so when he opened his eyes, he could see who had come to help the widow.
Into slits, then open wider still … until he peered up at the old, lined face. Skin darker than an old saddle. More seams and wrinkles in it than a cottonwood trunk. Eyes old and all-seeing, yet somehow possessed of a deep kindness as they gazed down at him in these last few of the white man’s futile, fevered convulsions.
She spoke to the old one in hushed tones. He replied in same. Behind them both the small boy whimpered. Fawn touched Bass’s forehead one last time with her cool hand, then turned away and went to the child.