"He's hurt."
"How bad?"
"Bad!" Ash hated the threading of tears in her voice. But Kennisaw Jones had been a glimpse of sunshine during those dark minutes in St. Joe. Shown her the first real kindness she had known in a bustling country where most were far too busy chasing after their own dreams to concern themselves with just one more Irish immigrant girl dragging along a bevy of children.
Another shuddering groan racked Kennisaw, the sound galvanizing Ashleen into action. "Mr. Jones, can you help us? If we try to support you, can you walk?"
The big man grunted his assent. Ash attempted to wedge her shoulder underneath his arm. Renny did the same on Jones's other side, struggling to keep his balance. It was like trying to raise a mountain. Except mountains didn't feel pain.
Ash felt Kennisaw's muscles knot in agony as the man battled to get his feet beneath him. Twice he stumbled, his knee striking the earth in a jarring blow. Both times Ashleen and Renny managed to keep him from crashing to the ground.
But when the firelight enfolded them the horror Ash had felt beneath the merciful blanket of darkness increased tenfold. The campfire exposed in gut-wrenching clarity how much courage and force of will it had taken for Kennisaw Jones to make it this far.
Ash heard Liam's cry of fear and felt Renny's gasp as she lowered Kennisaw to the ground. His blood-caked features were so badly beaten they seemed barely human. One of Jones's hands was crushed, one ankle twisted at an impossible angle. But it was the welling of dark, sticky crimson stiffening the fabric of his shirtfront that filled Ashleen with the sick certainty that Kennisaw Jones was going to die.
"Renny, we need water, and—and that bottle of medicine we bought in St. Louis. And something to stop the bleeding... my petticoat." She raised her skirt, ripping the hem of the garment with desperate fingers.
"Tide's goin' out, girlie. Ain't nothin' you can do to stop it," Jones said. "Seen enough death t' know when it's too late."
"No. It's not too late." Ash shoved the wad of material against the wound in an effort to staunch the flow of blood. But even as she said the words Ash knew Kennisaw spoke the truth.
"Only thing... important now is to—to ride... warn..." Something akin to a sob wrenched Kennisaw's chest. "Garret."
Garret? Ash searched her memory as she grabbed up another scrap of petticoat, dipping it in the bucket of water Renny had thumped down beside her.
"My boy. My..."
Ash gently swabbed away the grime and blood encrusting Kennisaw's face, recalling Kennisaw's 'boy’, the one who could stop a Sioux raiding party at twenty paces.
Ash heard the awful rattle in Kennisaw's chest and wondered if his Garret had the power to stop death.
"Garveys." Kennisaw was struggling to choke out. "Have to warn Garret they're free."
"As soon as you're... better, able to travel safely." Ash ripped off another band of cloth and wrapped it gently around his shattered hand.
She had a fleeting image of the wagon train somewhere up ahead, wending its way onward toward the distant horizon, farther, farther, like a will-o'-the-wisp, dancing out of her reach.
If she stayed here with Kennisaw Jones she would never catch up with the other wagons. The food she had stored away so carefully in barrels and crocks would never last. And yet she couldn't abandon the old man she held cradled in her arms.
"A horse. Please, God, just give me a horse to get to West Port. Get to Garret..."
"Mr. Jones, we can't move you until"—Ash hesitated but a heartbeat—"until you're well."
"I'm dying, girl!" The desperation in the old man's voice raked at Ashleen. "Have to warn him. May already be too late."
With agonizing effort Kennisaw tried to raise himself upright. Blood dripped from the countless scrapes that had broken open in his struggles. Ash grasped his shoulders as gently as she was able, pressing him back onto the feather tick. "No. Lie still. You could never ride that far in this condition."
"I'm... going, damn it. Don't you see? Have to."
Fear sluiced through Ash that he would do himself even graver harm if she tried to force him to stay.
In that instant she decided. "Renny," she said, "hitch the team. We're going to West Port."
"West Port?" Renny echoed. "But the wagon train. If we don't—"
"We can hardly leave him here to die," Ash snapped then loathed herself for the sharp edge to her voice.
Renny flinched back, and in the light from the campfire she could sense his confusion, see his pain.
