Kiss of a Traitor (28 page)

A chill whispered across her breasts and caused her skin to pucker. Willa opened her eyes and permitted her feet to sink. The sun was a burnt-orange glow above the tree-tops as evening stole across the dell. Hunger gnawed at her belly, and she swam to shore with the hope that Aidan had caught rabbits for dinner. As she emerged from the pond, water sluicing down her body and cool air covering her skin in goose bumps, she saw no sign of him. No fire burned in the camp, and the horses stood nearby, still saddled and bridled. Tension coiled in her chest. He would not leave the horses untended for this long. Aidan took better care of them than of her or himself.

The skin between her eyes crinkled as Willa scanned the edge of the woods and pulled on her clothes. She saw no evidence he had come back to the camp. After tending first to the horses, she hobbled and released them to graze in the meadow. By the time she gathered wood and built a fire, she wore a frown. Where was he? What had he got himself into? The notion of his being hurt or captured prompted her heart to race in a terrifying way.

Picking up the rifle lying beside his saddlebags, she checked it for powder and ball and entered the shadowy forest. The light was fading fast. She had to find Aidan before she lost his tracks in the darkness. Had he encountered trouble, morning could be too late. Willa followed the trail of trampled underbrush, broken twigs, and the occasional footprint, and smiled. Some spy he made. The path he left was as wide as that of a browsing cow.

When she neared a rock outcropping, the metallic click of a pistol hammer being cocked passed through her ears.
Aidan? Or the gun of a deserter or military picket?

She brought up the rifle and crept forward, all the while inspecting the ground and trees around her.

“No closer,” a strained voice called out. “I have you in my sights.”

Willa exhaled the breath lodged in her throat. “Rubbish, Aidan. Had you truly had me in your sights, you would have recognized me.”

“Willa?”

She held her retort and hurried toward the sound of his voice. He sat on the ground with his back braced against a hickory tree and the pistol aimed at her chest. His other hand pressed against his outer thigh.

Willa laid the rifle on the ground, squatted down on her heels, and searched for blood. “What happened to you? Were you shot? I did not hear gunfire.”

He lowered the pistol slowly, and pain flickered in his eyes. “Snakebite. I was setting the snare by that rock pile. When I stood up, it bit me in the leg.”

Her stomach clenched. “What kind of snake?”

“Does it matter?” He gave her a twisted smile.

“Of course, it does. What did it look like? Was it a rattlesnake?” Shiny sweat covered his ashen face. The pupils of his eyes looked larger than normal, and he struggled for breath. The bite had occurred some time ago. They had no time to argue.

“Had it been a rattlesnake, I would have heard it.” He raised a trembling arm to point toward the rocks. “If you insist on making its acquaintance, I have a suspicion ‘tis still there.”

Willa jumped up and raced to the rocks. Sure enough, the grayish heavy-bodied snake with hourglass-shaped copper crossbands still lay coiled on the rock. It had emerged from its den to soak up the last of the sun before winter came in earnest. She let out her breath. This variety of snake was no stranger. The reptile regarded her with unblinking vertical pupils and slithered away to disappear into a crevice.

She came back to Aidan and settled on the ground beside him. “This is your fortunate day. The snake is a copperhead.”

He released a weak chuckle. “I confess, I feel less fortunate than foolish. I know to watch for snakes near rocks. I suspect my brain was unhinged after the way you took my virtue in the pond.”

She gave a snort, drew her knife from her boot, and quickly cut away the cloth from around the bite. “You are fortunate to have been bitten by a copperhead rather than a rattlesnake or coral snake. Their venom is stronger. And fortunately for you, I have experience in treating this particular kind of bite. Plato instructed me in Cherokee medicine, and Jwana shared her knowledge of herbs and poultices. They feared I would become careless, as you were, at some point in my travels through the swamps.”

Once she uncovered the wound, she examined the area and compressed her lips to keep them from trembling. Swelling and bruising surrounded the fang marks. Blood from the punctures had dried on the skin. “I have to find the correct plants before night comes.” She came to her feet. “But first, we must return you to camp so I can see properly. Why did you not return directly after you were bitten?”

Dull red flushed his face. “In addition to blundering into a snake like a green London trooper, I twisted my knee when I jerked away from it.” He sent her a pointed look. “Surely you recall my weak knee, do you not? The one with which I unsuccessfully attempted to break the stone on your porch?”

Willa swallowed her self-reproach and grasped his hands to help him to his feet. With his arm around her shoulders and her staggering under his weight, they trudged back to the camp. She eased him down and propped his back against a saddle. After wrapping cloth and tree moss around a branch, she lit it from the fire and went back into the forest.

Willa soon found what she required: yellow dock—a common, waist-high weed with a thin stalk; long, narrow, rippled leaves; and tiny fruits decorating the stems like beads on a necklace. She selected young plants, green instead of red, and pulled them up by their thick taproots. When she collected an armful, she uprooted some plantains, low-spreading green weeds with broad, veined leaves.

Aidan was semiconscious when she returned to the fire. Sweat dripped from his face and soaked his shirt. He had vomited in an area a few feet away—an ominous sign. She cursed herself for lolling in the pond when she could have been nursing him. A bite victim had but a slim chance of recovering without prompt treatment. Thank God Aidan’s assailant was a copperhead. A rattlesnake or coral snake could have killed him, perhaps even before she found him.

She stripped the leaves from the plantains and yellow dock, washed them in the pond, and handed Aidan several yellow dock leaves. “Chew them and swallow the juice,” she said. “Try not to swallow the entire leaf.”

“Will I get sick if I do?” he asked with a slight lift of his mouth.

In no fit mood for his wit, though she suspected it masked fear, she fixed him with a stern gaze. “Do as I tell you.”

“Most assuredly, madam.” Aidan slipped a leaf into his mouth and began to chew.

Willa washed the yellow dock roots and chopped them into a fine paste. She combined them with diced oak leaves and plantain and set the mixture aside on a plantain leaf. When she glanced at Aidan, her hands shook. His eyes were closed; his mouth hung open and revealed the masticated leaves. She bent over him and laid her ear to his chest. At his strong heartbeat, she allowed herself to breathe again. After she scooped out the remaining leaves to prevent his choking on them, she pulled her knife from its sheath and held the blade over the fire until it glowed red-hot. She let it cool, as Plato had demonstrated, and cut into Aidan’s thigh, making X-shaped incisions over the fang marks until blood ran freely. He barely recoiled when she made the first cut and lapsed back into his comatose state. Other than his rising and falling chest and rasping breath, he lay motionless. She sucked out the blood and venom and spat out the tainted fluid onto the ground.

Willa worked over Aidan for a full ten minutes as she kept the blood running and drew the venom from his flesh. A great deal had already spread throughout his body, so she would have to keep the cuts open and repeat the purging. She moved on to her next task, mixing the minced leaves and roots with water and forming the ingredients into a thick paste, which she smeared over the wounds. After bruising more plantain leaves, she laid them atop the poultice and bound it to his leg with cloth strips she tore from her shirt.

With a cloth wetted in pond water, she wiped down his fevered brow and face. She covered him with a blanket from the bedrolls and turned back to the plants to make a medicinal tea. The poultice would draw some venom and keep the wounds from closing, but alone, it would not heal him. As she chopped yellow dock into a pot of water hung on sticks above the fire, Willa recalled that recovery could take weeks—if she’d found him in time. Come morning, she would have to get Aidan onto a horse and find shelter. Her experience of living in the Carolinas for five years warned her that the warm weather could not hold for long. The only secure place she knew she could find in this unfamiliar territory was the cabin they’d left behind a half day before.

Willa reeled in her saddle. She suffered from lack of sleep, and her spine ached. The previous night blurred into an endless routine of waking Aidan to pour tea down his throat, bathing his body to cool his fever, and sucking out the venom from his leg.

By dawn the effort seemed worth it. The fever persisted, and he labored for breath; his leg was swollen and painful; he was as weak as a kitten and overcome by periodic episodes of nausea; but he was lucid enough to get his feet beneath him with her assistance and hobble over to his horse. Hoisting him aboard became another matter and consisted of a fair amount of pushing, straining, and swearing—most of the latter on Aidan’s part. Willa finally solved the dilemma by insisting he step up on her back while she crouched on the ground. He resisted but at last agreed it appeared to be the only way he could mount the horse.

“Hallelujah,” Willa whispered as the cabin came into view. The single word was the best she could manage. Removing Aidan from his horse proved easier than boosting him up. He swung his good leg over the horse’s neck and slid down, hitting the ground with a thud and toppling over onto his face. Vile oaths blasted the air.

She hauled him upright once again, half-carried him into the cabin, and lowered him onto a bedroll she had spread out on the bed ropes. When his head made contact with the blankets, he passed out. “Thank heavens,” she muttered and dragged herself outside to care for the horses. After Willa harvested fresh yellow dock to counteract the venom, plantain for the inflammation and bruising, and white oak leaves to control the bleeding, she scoured the vicinity for other medicinal plants, such as willow bark, for fever and pain, from a tree beside a creek babbling through a forest gully. She noted the creek’s location as a source of fresh water. She peeled off wild cherry bark as a soporific and dug out resin from the pine trees. Added to the poultice, resin would keep the wounds clean and free of infection. On her way back to the cabin, she ran across witch hazel bushes, from which she plucked leaves and bark. When boiled in water and used to soak binding cloths, witch hazel would bring down the swelling in Aidan’s knee.

Willa stumbled up to the cabin, a blanket filled with the plants slung over her shoulder. She let it fall beside the fireplace, checked on Aidan, and smiled to see him sleeping peacefully. Then she collapsed on the bench before the hearth, yearning to lie down on the floor and curl up into a ball. Yet other chores required her attention before she could rest. Fetching water from the creek, making infusions, and decoctions, and poultices, and … and food.

She forced her eyes to open. Little food remained in the saddlebags, and Aidan had naught in his stomach other than medicinal tea—what little he had succeeded in keeping down. Willa doubted he could even tolerate solid food at this point. However, should she continue on much longer without eating, she would be of little use to him.

Pushing her tired body up off the bench, she began to work. By the time she prepared all the medications, the sun was setting. Fresh food would have to wait until morning. A rummage through the saddlebags revealed a bit of cheese, a few stale crumbs of cornbread, one hard-as-a-rock sweet potato—and the flask of panther’s breath. A smile slanted one corner of her mouth.

After attending to Aidan and seeing that he rested comfortably, Willa ate her meager dinner, wrapped herself in a blanket by the fire, and sipped from the flask. The next thing she knew, it was morning, and thunder boomed in her head. No hot, hard body curled around her this time. No gentle hand cupped her breast.

The thunder was due only partially to her indulgence the night before. Another storm blew about the cabin and ushered in the return of cold weather. She left her blanket pallet to stoke the fire and added wood to the coals to take the chill off the room. Then she went to Aidan’s side, frowning when he began to thrash around. From the evidence, it was not the first time. He had thrown the covers onto the floor sometime during the night. She placed her fingertips against his cheek. His skin was ice-cold, and he shivered so violently his teeth clattered. The fever was coming back on him hard. His exertion the previous day had clearly aggravated his condition.

Willa covered him with every blanket she could find, including the saddle blankets. Piling them onto his quaking body, she tucked them in around him. Then she forced him to swallow an infusion of willow bark tea.