Chapter 3 #2
Duncan was close on his heels, followed by Mark, who had blood on his shirt on the left shoulder.
Clary waited, watching them ride past her. “Where’s Thomas? Is he okay?”
“He was,” Ben called, frowning. “He’s right behind me.”
Clary watched the woods, praying to see him come out. What was taking him so long?
Then she saw him, supporting Ross as he rode. He had the other man in front of him, slumped in the saddle. He was leading Ross’s horse by the reins, which was also why they were going slow.
“Thomas!” Clary called. “What happened?”
“They got him,” Thomas said. “It was the last shot, and it hit him in the chest. I’m not sure how bad it is.”
“Get him to my coach,” Clary said. “I have some bandages and things packed in it. Eve and I can see what we can do for him.”
With a little help from Ben, they managed to get Ross into the coach. He lay there on the plush leather seat, shivering and shaking as though it was freezing outside.
“He’s gone into shock,” Evelyn said sadly.
“I know,” Clary said. “Get his shirt off.”
They had to cut the sleeve and most of the left side of the shirt away to get a good look at the wound. The slug had gone right through the fleshy part of his bicep, which was good. What wasn’t so good was that the exit wound on the back of his arm was a large, jagged hole the size of a dollar.
“How are we going to patch that up?” Evelyn asked, her eyes wide. “It’s huge!”
“You said there was a doctor in your town, right?” Clary asked, a vague memory from one of Thomas’s letters coming to the fore.
“Yes, there’s a nurse and an apothecary. All we have to do is get him to Unity,” Thomas said.
“Okay, then. Evelyn, you’re going to ride with Ross. Keep pressure on this arm as much as you can,” Clary said. “Someone else will have to drive your coach.”
“Clary!” Evelyn protested. “I’m not a nurse.”
“You are today,” Clary told her sister firmly.
They cleaned and bandaged the wound as well as they could and then Clary left Evelyn sitting, holding Ross’s head on her lap and his arm in her hands. She was pressing on both sides of the wound as hard as she could.
“How far is it to Unity from here?” Clary asked.
“Miles,” Thomas said.
Clary nodded. “Okay, the horses look reasonably rested. We should get going.”
Thomas took her hand. It was still covered in Ross’s blood. He took a water skin from his saddle and dribbled some over her hands. Clary washed them and then treated him to a slight grin. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
Clary climbed back onto her driver’s seat. Ben took the other coach. While she and Evelyn had been busy trying to help Ross, Ben and Duncan had rounded up the riderless horses. They were now following along behind the coaches with their reins tied to the vehicles.
“We can’t leave the horses out here to come to harm,” Thomas said. “There are coyotes and wolves around here. It’s better to take them with us. Anyway, I have a friend, Kyle, who loves them. They’ll never know better treatment.”
“You wrote about him,” Clary said with a nod. “I remember you said he looks after just about all the animals in the town.”
“That’s right,” Thomas said. “We’re a big community, and everyone has their part to play.”
“I guess Evelyn and I will have parts too,” Clary said.
“You will, absolutely.”
They rode on.
The way to Unity proved to be easy from that point on. Thomas and Duncan kept swapping their positions, riding ahead of and behind the coaches. Never once did they let their guard down as Clary and Ben steered the horses all the way to the town. Mark and Ben rode on either side.
When they topped a ridge and started down the other side, Clary got her first look at the town. There was a high barricade around it that was something out of a medieval fairy tale. She noticed there were people walking around on the wall.
When they were spotted, a horn blew a rich, sonorous note, and as they reached the gates, the huge metal and wood constructions began to open.
“The horn is new,” Thomas said. “Michael Wellan, who runs our town like a kind of mayor, thought it would be best if we could hear when folks were arriving. Also, if there’s trouble, the horn will let everyone know.”
Clary could see the sense in it.
Thomas directed her to stop her coach in front of a row of buildings. They were almost identical in every way except for their signs and the goods the front windows displayed.
Ben hurried up, and with his help, they got Ross inside. He was rushed through to what could only be a clinic. There were rows of beds with curtains on stands between them. Women were tending to a couple of people on the beds.
Ross was taken into a room with a cold steel table and a lot of implements on the countertop.
“What do we have?” a woman asked. She had brown hair and a no-nonsense look on her face.
“Gunshot,” Thomas said.
She nodded. “Okay, please either go home or wait in the waiting room. Thanks.”
They were ushered out, and the door closed.
“That’s Diane; she’s an amazing nurse. She worked in hospitals back East, and she’s very good at patching folks up,” he explained.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Clary said. She was tired now, all done in. It had been a busy day, and she was looking forward to finding her bed. Wherever it might be.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Evelyn asked Thomas, looking atypically pale and worried.
“Diane is the best we have, so I hope so,” Thomas said.
She nodded blankly. “Okay. Only we got to talking and he seems nice. I’d like to talk some more with him.”
Clary took her sister’s hand. “It’s going to be okay. Let’s get the horses stabled, and then we can find out where we’ll be staying.”
“Let me show you around,” Thomas offered. “Welcome to Unity.”