She gave him a small smile.
They walked slowly back to camp. Jacob kept his arm clamped to his side and tried not to breathe. Kate stared unseeing at the ground in front of them.
“What will happen to him?” she asked abruptly.
Jacob clenched his jaw. “The captain has him locked up by now.”
“And then?”
“Might spend a few days rottin’ in a cell,” he said tightly, balling his hands into fists, seething at the injustice of it.
She just nodded, still staring at the ground, her brown eyes hidden beneath her lashes.
Jacob huffed out a breath and mumbled, “Shoulda shot that piece of scum when I had the chance.”
“I’m thankful you didn’t.”
He stopped in his tracks. “Thankful? Kate, he tried to—” He realized he was yelling. He continued in a fierce whisper. “He tried to ravage you!”
“You think I don’t know that?” Her voice shook. She still wouldn’t meet his gaze, and fresh tears tracked down her cheeks, tears that reflected the shame casting its dark shadow across her face.
Seeing her in pain made rage surge up and crash through his limbs. He wanted to pummel something. No, he wanted to pummel someone. All the way to the grave. He took a sharp breath in through his nose. “Kate, he deserves to—”
“No, Jacob, he doesn’t. What will killin’ him accomplish other than puttin’ blood on your hands and takin’ away his chance to repent and receive the Lord’s grace? Do we not all need mercy?”
Her question hung in the silence. Jacob stared at her in disbelief. Emotions warred across her features: anger, fear, hurt, sorrow. And yet through it all, he saw a peace that just didn’t make sense. Kate's quiet voice reverberated in his mind.
Do we not all need mercy?
Chapter 16
Dowenotallneed mercy?
The question softly chimed in Jacob’s head in time with the rocking of the wagon. Lying on a bed of blankets and trying not to breathe too deeply, it continued to dog him three days out of Fort Kearney.
How? How did she have it in her to wish for mercy for that good-for-nothing piece of horse dung?
Do we not all need mercy?
Kate had taken care of him these past days, feeding him, changing the poultice on his ribs and binding them back up again, and all with a broken hand. He’d tried to stop her, but she had said she needed to stay occupied to keep from thinking about what happened. So he let her fuss over him like a mother hen with one of her chicks. But she jumped at the slightest sound, and she was all forced smiles and haunted eyes. She put on such a brave face. Her brothers guarded her every step, and the sorrow and pain filling Edith’s eyes every time she looked at her daughter matched the intensity of protective anger in Aaron’s green-eyed gaze. Bile rose in Jacob’s throat every time he saw the bruises Kate tried to hide under the kerchief around her neck.
The wagon lurched to a stop. Jacob struggled to sit up, determined not to look like a complete invalid. At least his headache had receded to a dull, steady throb.
Kate poked her head in the back of the wagon. “How are you feelin’?”
“Like a useless sack of potatoes,” he grumbled.
“Nonsense, a sack of potatoes is actually quite useful,” she said, a little too brightly, clearing her throat to cover the slight rasp that lingered in her voice. She settled beside him, poultice in hand. “All right, you know the drill. Shirt off.”
“I’m beginnin’ to think you like me without my shirt on, Miss McGrath,” he said teasingly, starting on his buttons. The corner of her mouth twitched. He smiled.
Kate deftly unwound the binding from his chest and tenderly wiped away the old poultice, her hands sure and skilled despite her injured knuckles. Jacob twisted to inspect his bruises and hissed. What he could see was a fantastic mix of purple and yellow and green spreading from his cracked ribs down to where he knew it was pooling below his belt in his hip. He cleared his throat. No need to show the lady that. “Pretty great colorin’, eh?”
“Looks like a map of the world,” Kate mused as she fussed with the bandages.
“Really?” He tried to see again but groaned in pain. “Show me?”
She looked at him with a frown. “How?”
