The girl dashed down the hill as Ashleen carefully unbuttoned the gown up the front. She was nearly to the topmost button when she ran into the ragamuffin doll still clutched against the little girl's breast. With a loving smile Ash shifted the disreputable-looking plaything onto the blanket. Her knuckles brushed against Garret's scuffed boot, and she was suddenly aware of a crushing silence.
"Ashleen." There was reluctance in his voice, and implacable resolve. "The doll. I have to burn it, too."
Ash snatched the toy up as if it were a living thing. "No. Absolutely not. I don't care if you burn up every feather tick in the wagon, but not—not this doll. I won't have Meggie waking up to find it gone."
"She's lucky to be waking up at all. I won't have her getting sick again, or causing one of the others to take ill. We still have no idea what caused her fever."
"Exactly," Ashleen said, crushing the doll against her. "It may not have been anything like those sicknesses you mentioned. It may have just been spoiled food, or a—a bad chill. It could have been anything."
"Anything. And are you willing to risk anything happening to Renny or to Liam or to Shevonne? Is this doll so damn important you're willing to risk dying for it?" His voice was as hard, as unyielding as Ashleen had ever heard it, his eyes flinty with resolve. Her grip tightened on Meggie's beloved plaything, but the expression in that implacable face made her feel as much a child as the others—an unreasonable, stubborn one at that.
All Ashleen could see was Meggie in the dim light of the cottier's hut, clutching the doll as if it were her only shelter in a world gone mad. All she could see was Meggie's little fingers weaving flower crowns and making aprons out of leaves, caring for the bit of rags as tenderly as any mother could have.
The doll had come to represent so much more than just a toy to amuse the child, had come to mean even more than just a cherished belonging. When all those at the convent had shaken their heads and whispered that the child should be taken up to an asylum for the insane, Ashleen had held on to Meggie's responses to the doll, clinging to the hope that one day the love Meggie gave it would be set free. Free to be showered upon people who could love her back.
The child had made such astonishing strides before she had gotten sick—responding to Garret, trailing after him like a small, sad-eyed puppy. Hope that had begun to fade had burst into full flower, and Ashleen had assured herself time and time again that it was only a matter of patience, of waiting.
"Garret, please," she said. "She has come so far. I'm afraid—"
"I'm damn scared, too. Afraid that someone else is going to get sick. That we're going to be stranded out here. Do you know what happens to wagon trains when sickness strikes? When everyone is taken with fever? Unless there is someone well enough to take care of the sick ones, they slowly starve to death. Or else it's Indians, or predators. What would happen if you and I died, Ashleen? Tell me. How do you think Renny and the little ones would survive? Hell, they wouldn't even know which direction to go."
Tears stung Ashleen’s eyes, shudders working through her at the stark picture his words painted. "We could—could wash the doll out with lye soap. Tuck it away somewhere until we see—"
"See what? Whether someone dies? Woman, what do you want me to do? Stick it in my bedroll and wait to catch the blasted fever? If anything in this lean-to could carry Meggie's sickness, it's this damned doll. And you know it."
Gunmetal hard, and just as unyielding, Garret's eyes bored into hers.
"You can't let 'im take the doll!" Renny's agitated voice cut in. "Sister Ash, you can't! I'll stick it in my shirt. Don't care if I get sick! Just don't—don't let him burn it!"
Anger welled up in Ashleen's chest, hardening there with tears of hurt. "Renny," she said at last, "I don't have any other choice."
At her words the boy gave a cry of anguish, turning and running back to the wagon. Ash saw the returning Shevonne stop him, heard him spill out his pain, his fury. The girl stared, and Ashleen could see the disbelief in her eyes.
Scalding tears welled over Ashleen's lashes, tears infinitely different from those of joy she had shed in Garret's arms. It was grossly unfair, this anger directed at the man standing so still before her. But she had no strength to stop it.
Biting down on her lip to stifle a sob, she jammed the plaything into his chest. "Here. Burn it," Ash choked out, her own eyes spitting accusation. "After all, it's nothing but a clump of rags. Nothing but the only... only thing this little girl has ever been able to love. Except maybe you."
Garret flinched as if she had struck him, a stricken look entering those steady gray eyes. "Ashleen, you have to know I don't want to do this."
"But you will, won't you, Garret? Just like you forced yourself to play guide on this journey. Just like you'll ride away when we reach Stormy Ridge."
"Damn it, Ash—" he started to protest, dragging one hand wearily through his thick, dark hair.
"Do it, damn you! Quick! Before she wakes up! Before she knows"—her voice broke on a heart-wrenching sob—"blast it all to hell, Garret, just do it!"
A knife seemed to twist deep in his gut. He wanted to reason with her, beg her to understand. Wanted to love away her anguish.
He could only turn and walk away, more alone than he'd ever been in his life.
Chapter Seventeen
Ashleen stared out over the horizon, wondering when the world had suddenly grown so bleak. The sun-seared prairie stretched out endlessly before the lumbering wagon, the faint tracks in the dirt spewing up dust devils beneath the oxen's plodding feet. The sun blazed above, a glare that burned at Ashleen's eyelids despite her sunbonnet.
A fine layer of grit seemed to cling to every fold of her dress, but even that discomfort didn't eat at her spirits as much as the solemn faces of the children. They had been that way for three days now, ever since that fateful afternoon when the smoke from Garret's bonfire had stained the cerulean sky, seeming to carry away with it the last vestiges of happiness and hope.
The children plodded alongside the wagon as stolidly as the oxen, keeping pace, yet no longer darting off to examine wildflowers or cunning little lizards scuttling along the rocks. They never complained, never bickered, never shouted, their silent reproach more galling than shrieked accusations. All the while Meggie wandered, her little arms empty, her eyes filled with an expression so lost it broke Ashleen's heart.
Her eyes burned, raw from countless tears shed into her pillow each night when the others were asleep.
