"I—I didn't say we should. I just—I know you've been worried about the supplies lasting and all."
How like the boy to realize it and worry in silence.
"I'm sorry, Ren. I'm just..." Terrified that she was doing the wrong thing. Terrified she and the children would be stranded in Missouri, alone, friendless. Terrified she'd not be able to provide a decent life for them, no matter how desperately she loved them.
She felt a soft, shy touch upon her shoulder, the evidence of affection from one so steeped in adolescent dignity tugging at Ash's heart in a way that left her eyes stinging, her throat tight.
"Renny, I'm frightened." The admission was hushed as she caught his hand in her own.
She looked up into that child face, into the eyes that had known far too much pain.
"I know," Renny said softly. "Me, too."
Then he was sprinting across to where the horses grazed, hooked to their picket ropes. For once the animals went comparatively easily into their traces, led by the normally recalcitrant Cooley.
With the help of Shevonne and Liam, Ash settled Kennisaw onto the feather tick where the boys had slept.
For a moment she thought Kennisaw was unconscious, and blind panic raced through her as she realized she had no idea which way West Port was, or how they were to find this Garret the old man loved so much.
But the craggy-featured frontiersman forced open his eyes, whispering faint directions Ashleen prayed they could follow in the darkness.
Crooning words of comfort to the wide-eyed Meggie, Ash brought out the lanterns and affixed them to iron hooks near the driver's seat where Liam and Renny now sat. She called to the red-haired boy, telling him which way to go. Telling him to be careful.
The wagon lurched into motion, and she saw the knuckles of Kennisaw's good hand whiten as his fingers clenched one of the wagon bows.
"Garret. Have to—to live long enough to find..."
Ash's throat tightened. It was as if the old man were pleading with the angel that had come to sweep him into the netherworld. His hand loosened, fell limp to the feather tick.
Shevonne's small voice came from the corner of the wagon. "Is he dead, Sister Ash?"
Ash laid her palm against his chest, relief washing through her as she felt the faint thrumming of his heart. "No, sweeting, he's just... sleeping now." Thank God, Ash thought numbly to herself, grateful that the old man had found surcease in the blessing of unconsciousness. The constant jolting of the wagon would have been torture for a man so brutally battered.
She slipped her hand into Kennisaw Jones's good one, willing the old man's heart to keep beating, willing him to live. "I don't even know who your Garret is, Mr. Jones," she whispered, as if her voice alone could somehow keep him tied to the world of the living. "I don't know where to look in West Port Landing."
A sound came from Kennisaw's swollen lips, unintelligible yet somehow comforting. Ash clung to it as the piece of sky visible through circular opening in the back of the wagon's canvas washed red with the sunrise, then burned, blindingly blue, in the heat of day.
The children munched on bread and dried apples, Renny eating even as he drove. Much as Ashleen wanted to relieve the weary boy, she dared not leave the man who clung so tenuously to life in the wagon bed.
Twice she dumped the bucket's darkened contents out the back of the wagon, refilling the oaken container with fresh water from the barrels to cleanse Kennisaw's face. Only the cool cloths she used to swab the man's brutalized features seemed to bring him relief, make it easier for him to rest.
Three times she changed the wadding of cloth over the wound in Jones's belly, and though the blood had thickened and darkened, it continued to drain, slowly and relentlessly, from the injury.
Darkness had fallen again, and Liam, Shevonne, and Meggie were huddled together in sleep when Kennisaw opened his bleary eyes. Ash forced a smile to her lips, taking up a spoon in the dim lantern light to try to drizzle some water into his parched mouth. "Mr. Jones, try to drink. Take a little water."
With great effort Kennisaw did as she bid him, though most of the liquid trickled from the corner of his mouth. Ash spooned up some more, but Jones's hand closed over her wrist, staying her, as he struggled again to speak.
"My boy. Can't let... Garveys... hurt him again."
Ash felt a tugging in her heart, picturing Kennisaw Jones's boy—a young, blustery tintype likeness of his father with a quick smile, kind eyes.
"Got such a good heart in him," Kennisaw murmured. "Been hurt so much already."
Ashleen dabbed gingerly at an abrasion marring Kennisaw's forehead. "Of course he's a good boy." She squeezed the words through a throat choked with tears. "With a father as kind as you are—"
"N-not own blood. Born to... best friend. Tom MacQuade."
"Hush, now. Don't talk," Ash chided, rinsing the cloth in water darkened now with Jones's blood. "You need to save your strength."
