The paint stood a dozen yards from the track, two still, lifeless forms crumpled nearby like broken dolls. Dead, sweet God, they had to be dead... no one could survive...
At that instant Meggie stirred, a low, keening sound tearing from her throat as she crawled toward the man sprawled so still nearby her.
Ash reached them just as Shevonne and Renny did. She tried to scoop up the little girl, but the child fought desperately, clawing to get to Garret. Relief that the child was safe surged through Ash, only to be drowned in sick horror as she flung herself to her knees beside Garret's limp, lifeless form. He lay facedown in the turf, his body curled as if in a futile effort to protect himself, but his arms flung outward toward the place where Meggie had lain.
"He throwed her out of the way," Liam said in a small voice as Ashleen searched for a pulse. "Then the oxen... they stomped... over him."
Ash felt her stomach lurch at the horrible image the boy's words had conjured, heard running footsteps as Renny dashed toward them.
"Sister Ash... I couldn't... couldn't stop them. The oxen." Renny's terrified voice raked her nerves. "Please, God, don't let him be dead."
Dead...
"He's not dead... I won't let him be." The words were a desperate litany as she bent over those shoulders that were so broad, so strong. "Damn you, Garret MacQuade, don't you dare die on me."
"I didn't mean to—to hurt him!" Renny cried frantically. "I didn't mean to!"
Hysteria welled up inside her and was suddenly crushed as her fingers felt a shallow throbbing at the base of Garret's throat.
He was alive.
"Garret." She almost sobbed his name as she gently rolled him over, stroking the tangled dark hair away from his face. "Shevonne, get some blankets. Some water. Run, now!" Ash ordered. In what seemed a heartbeat the child was back, thrusting a cool cloth into her hand. Ash stroked it over Garret's gray face, whispering to him, pleading with him to awake. "Please, love... Garret... please be all right."
She gritted her teeth to stifle a sob when he didn't respond—not even the flicker of an eyelash, the twitch of his lips showing that he had heard her at all.
Surrendering the cloth to Shevonne, Ash moved to his side, searching for some sign of the injury that had driven him into unconsciousness. Deftly, carefully her hands stroked Garret's arms, legs, her lips forming prayers that she would find nothing broken.
Breath hissed through her teeth as she probed his left ankle through the soft leather boot and felt already a telltale swelling. Low, grating, a weak groan breached Garret's lips, his mouth whitening in pain. Merciful heavens, was the bone broken?
"What—what's wrong with him? Sister Ash—"
She raised her gaze to Renny's grimy, tear-streaked face, the boy's desperation seeming to prickle along her own nerve ends.
"I'm not sure." Ash tried to keep her voice calm. "His boot. We have to get it off."
Renny grasped the dusty leather, half crazed with the need to aid her. "I'll pull it—"
"No!" she shrieked then she stopped herself. "We'll have to—to cut it off."
"Cut it?"
She felt along Garret's waist and found the leather sheath encasing the bone-handled knife she had seen there so often. The blade glistened in the sunlight. Sharp. Deadly.
"Renny, you'll have to hold him still," she said, her hand trembling. "I don't want to cut him."
The boy nodded. Sucking in a deep breath, Ashleen slid the blade beneath the leather and worked to slit the tough hide.
Garret shuddered and moaned, but Renny held him, pinning his shoulders to the ground.
It seemed to take forever, but at last the boot fell away, revealing what lay beneath it. Already the ankle was twice its normal size, the swelling making her queasy.
Steeling herself, Ashleen peeled back the wool stocking encasing it. Suffused with purple, the skin strained against the swelling. Slowly Ash probed the leg, sliding her fingers downward toward Garret's foot. Sounds of pain ripped from his lips, the knowledge that she was hurting him making her eyes sting. But there was no horrible lump of bone where it shouldn't be, no sign of anything misaligned or broken.
"It's only sprained," Ash said, as much to herself as to the frantic boy beside her. "We'll have to wrap it." Grabbing the edge of her petticoat, she ripped strips from the hem, carefully binding up the injured ankle.
When she laid it gently back on the ground, Garret seemed to settle a little, but she felt more uneasy than ever, her eyes skimming over him, her brow crinkled with puzzlement. Painful as the sprain must have been, could it have the power to drive a man as oak-tough, as stubborn as Garret to lose consciousness?
"There must be something else... something hurting him," she said aloud, dread a snake coiling inside her. Her hands shook as she raised them to the buttons of his torn shirt and slipped the small disks through the buttonholes.
