The Sword (21 page)

“Yes, I can, me. You watch what I do.”

Jacob wasn’t able to do much physical work. While Chantel put up the tent, he started gathering supplies he knew he would need. Before he was finished, she had put up the tent, made up the cot, and started a fire in the tent stove.

“What do I do now?” she asked breathlessly, popping up in the wagon’s opening at the back.

“We’ll have to get him inside. I’ll help. Not much, maybe, but it will take both of us.”

They went back to the man. The horse still stood close to him, though he shied a little every time Chantel and Jacob drew near.

“I’m strong, Grandpere. I can probably drag him to the tent. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt him though.”

“Better hurt him than let him die.”

Chantel rolled the man over and reached under his arms. He was a big man and strongly built. She began to back up to the tent that she had set up in a shady stand of three big oak trees, not far off the road. Although she was indeed a strong young woman, the man’s heavy weight was hard to handle, and she had to stop twice. She was breathing hard and grunting by the time she got to the tent.

When she finally dragged him inside and up to the cot, she looked down doubtfully. “Do you think we can get him up on the cot, me and you?”

“I can do that much,” Jacob said with determination. “I’ll get under his legs, and you get him under his arms again. You count to three, and we’ll heave him up.”

“This is too much for you,” Chantel fretted. “Maybe I can do it, me.”

“Not this, not by yourself.” Jacob leaned over and grabbed the
man by the legs and nodded. “Do it, daughter.”

Chantel took a deep breath, got as firm a grip on him as she could manage, and murmured,
“Un, deux, trois!”

To Chantel’s surprise, they lifted the man easily and quickly onto the cot.

Jacob said, “We have to take his clothes off and wash him up as best as we possibly can, and hurry. Then we have to turn him over so I can get those shotgun pellets out.”

Chantel fetched a cracker box for Jacob to sit on, then knelt by the cot to help clean up the man.

“He has nice clothes, this poor man,” Chantel said as they undressed him. Even though the garments were caked with mud and dried blood, she could tell the quality of the fabric and the tailoring.

“And nice jewelry and lots of money and a very expensive pistol, too,” Jacob said speculatively. “He was grazed once, in the side, some days ago, I think. It’s bandaged and healing. But whoever shot him with the shotgun and left him for dead didn’t rob him, and they didn’t steal his fine horse.”

The big kettle of water was hot, and Jacob instructed her to pour half of it into a washbasin and the rest of it into a big clean pot. “Let the water in the pot boil,” he said, “while we wash him off. Quickly, quickly, Chantel.”

They sponged him clean then turned him and carefully dabbed off the dirt and blood from his wounds. Once they got him cleaned up into a recognizable human, they could see that he was still breathing. His respiration was deep and slow.

“That’s good, I think,” Jacob said. “Now, you see that bag I’ve brought? Get all of those implements out of it and throw them into the pot. And set the big tongs in so the teeth are in the water but the handle is out of it, leaning to the side.”

“This pot of boiling water?” Chantel asked hesitantly.

“Yes. While they boil, I’ll finish cleaning out these wounds. You’d better go and move the wagon up here, out of the road, and unhitch Rosie. And see if you can catch this man’s horse.”

At that moment, they heard a soft thump, and the big black horse stuck his nose inside the tent and made a snuffling sound. In spite of the man’s grave condition, Jacob and Chantel laughed softly. “I don’t think I’ll have trouble catching this horse, me,” Chantel said. “I’ll hurry, Grandpere, so I can help you.”

She moved the wagon up by the tent then unhitched Rosie. The black horse watched her solemnly, staying close to the tent. She let Rosie graze, not tethered, for Chantel had found that the gentle horse rarely wandered more than a few feet from their camp.

She walked up to the black horse. He shied just a little and tossed his head but stayed still as she reached up to pat his nose. She rubbed his neck for a while, murmuring little endearments in broken French. He seemed to be completely relaxed, so she unsaddled him and stored the fine-tooled saddle and the man’s saddlebags and blanket roll in the wagon.

The stallion’s skin twitched with relief, and he pawed the ground. Then he began to graze, all the while staying close to the tent.

“You’re not going anywhere, are you, boy? I don’t think I’ll tie you up either. You stay. Rosie never had such a fine gentleman to keep her company.”

She went back inside the tent. Jacob had taken all of the tools out of the water with the tongs: two sets of tweezers, one large and one small; a tiny, very sharp knife; and a small pair of pliers. Chantel watched as he took the knife and made a very small cut. Then with the tweezers, he pulled out a steel shotgun pellet and dropped it into an empty basin, where four others rolled around making a loud tinny noise.

“Most of these wounds are not very deep. He must’ve been some distance away from whoever shot him.”

Chantel watched as he continued to pull the pellets out of the man’s back.

“See if you can see any more,” Jacob finally said, standing up for a few minutes to stretch. “My eyes are getting tired.”

“It’s getting dark. I’ll light some lanterns,” Chantel said. She
took a lantern and carefully searched all over the man’s back then looked back up at Jacob. “You got them all, I think, Grandpere. But what about his head? His hair, it’s thick, yes?”

“I may have to shave it to be able to find them,” he said wearily. “I can’t see as well as I could when I was younger.”

“No, I think he wouldn’t like that,” Chantel said with a vehemence that surprised her.

“Oh? Why would you think that, daughter?” Jacob asked curiously.

“He just wouldn’t. He has such pretty hair, so nice and thick. He doesn’t want to be bald, him,” Chantel answered firmly. “But, Grandpere, I watch you. I see, I know. I’ll take the little balls out of his head. You rest then maybe cook us some nice stew.”

Jacob watched her with some amusement then said, “All right, daughter. You generally can do exactly what you put your mind to do. But before you touch him or the tools, you must wash your hands, wash them good, with the carbolic soap. Scrub under your fingernails with the brush.”

Chantel cocked her head to the side. “How you know all this, Grandpere? I thought you didn’t know gunshots.”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “But you know I’ve been praying for this man ever since we found him. And the Lord keeps bringing Leviticus to my mind. It’s filled with many rules for keeping clean, for cleansing, and so I felt that He was teaching me how to take care of this man.”

“It’s in the Bible to take care of gunshots?” Chantel repeated, astonished.

“No, no, dear daughter. I’ll read some of Leviticus to you sometime and explain,” he said. “But for now you go ahead and wash up in that hot water, but be careful not to burn yourself. I’ll rest for a while, and then I’ll get us some supper together.”

It took Chantel almost three hours to make sure she had removed all of the shotgun pellets from the man’s head. The experience had felt very odd to her. She had hung two lanterns close over his head and had bent over him. Time and time again she had
run her fingers through his hair to feel the small bumps where the pellets were buried. They had sponged the man’s hair, but of course they had not thoroughly washed it. Still, Chantel could catch a drift of a fragrance, a very slight scent. It was not a heavy or strong smell like hair pomade, but a clean scent, something like lemons.

During the entire time she tended him, she was very aware of the peculiarity of the situation, doing something that under other circumstances would be so intimate, running her hands through his hair and caressing it. Except for when she had tended Jacob, it was the only time she could recall ever touching a man in such a manner.

Jacob fixed them a hearty stew, and they ate it slowly with soda crackers, watching the still-unconscious man.

They had left him lying on his stomach, and Chantel had fixed a small pillow to cradle his head, with his face turned to the side. “Do you think he will wake up?” she asked Jacob hesitantly. “Do you think he can?”

“He can if the Lord wills it. And I know the Lord has willed it. So we will pray that He will do the real healing for him.”

“How do you know, Grandpere? Has the good God been talking to you again?”

“No, the good God didn’t have to tell me that this man will live.”

“He didn’t? Then how can you be so sure, to know?” Chantel demanded.

“Because once, about two years ago, an angel was sent to find a dead horse and a live man,” he said. “Today an angel found a live horse … and what we thought was a dead man. But he wasn’t. If we had been sent here to give him a Christian burial, Chantel, we would have found him dead. Haven’t you thought, haven’t you wondered? We had passed several riders and wagons on the road today, coming and going. How was it that no one found this man, that only you found him?”

She considered this, her fine brow slightly wrinkled. “Maybe this horse, he runs away and is afraid when the people came. And
then they couldn’t see the man down in the ditch.”

“Maybe. But this horse didn’t run away when we came, did he? Not even when we stopped and walked up to the man.”

Suddenly Chantel smiled, and it lit up her face. “So, Grandpere, now the good God, He is talking to the horse?”

It gave Jacob such pleasure to see Chantel smile. Although he knew that she was happy, she rarely smiled so freely, so openly. Seeing her glowing face, he couldn’t help but smile back at her. “All creatures serve God, Chantel, even that horse out there. It’s by the Lord’s will that we all live and breathe. I don’t know this man, but I know one thing: it was not God’s will for him to die. Not today.”

The next day the stranger woke up.

It was early afternoon. Jacob had put a cot out under the tree, and he was napping peacefully in the kind March sun.

Chantel was in the tent, cutting strips of clean white linen to make more bandages. From time to time she glanced up at the man, who was still in the same position, lying on his stomach with his face turned toward her, eyes closed.

She was looking down, folding the strips into neat squares, when she heard a rustling sound. The man had managed to prop himself up on his elbows, and he was watching her.

Chantel flew to the cot. “You’re awake! Be careful, don’t move around too much. You’ve been shot. In the back.”

“Mm—uh,” he groaned softly. “Shot … it hurts.”

“I know,” she said soothingly. “That’s why you have to lie on your stomach.”

His head dropped, mainly from weakness. He licked his lips. “So … thirsty.”

“Water, I’ll get it, me,” she said and hurried to pour water from the canteen into a cup. She held it to his lips, and he took small sips, the only way he could manage in his awkward position. Then he allowed himself to sink back onto the cot.

“Thank—thank—”

“It’s all right,” Chantel said. “Just rest.”

“Stay …,” he whispered, and then his eyes closed again.

He was much the same for two more days, only waking up for minutes at a time, sipping water, talking very little.

Chantel stayed close, for she had found that the moment his eyes opened he would immediately search for her. She washed his clothes and hung them in the sun to dry, but wryly she reflected that there was no way to mend all the little holes that the shotgun blast had made. She cleaned his boots and polished them until they shone, then stood them up in the wagon, stuffed with brown paper to keep their shape. She made him a new shirt out of the same bolt of soft linen that they were using to make the bandages.

She read her mother’s Bible, and Jacob would often sit with her and read aloud. Several times a day Jacob prayed for the injured man, and Chantel was, as always, amazed at the fervency, the sense of realness, of her grandfather’s prayers.

And the man got better. Early in the morning of the third day, he woke up, focused on Chantel, and then pulled himself up. “Good—morning, isn’t it?”

“Yes, morning. You look better,” she said, filling the water cup.

“That’s good. Because I still feel like a train ran over me,” he said. He drank thirstily, and this time he took the cup for himself. “I—I think I’d like to sit up. Can you please help me, ma’am?”

“I drag you in here like a dray horse,” she said, her eyes alight. “I think I can help you sit up, me.”

It really was hard, though, getting him turned over and turned around, and then pulling him up to sit on the edge of the cot. When they finished, he was out of breath. “I’m as—weak as a newborn little kitten,” he gasped. “What—what day is it?”

“I don’t know,” Chantel said with endearing sincerity, “for I haven’t looked at Grandpere’s calendar today. But I think you want to know this. We found you five days ago, all shot, you. We thought you were dead.”