Chapter Forty-Six Frankie
FORTY-SIX FRANKIE
Pearl!” I dropped to my knees beside her, pulled back the old brown coat, and looked at the wound.
My head swam when I saw the damage the gunshot had done, the amount of blood seeping from it.
It was bad. Very bad.
“I came back for you,” Pearl said, voice faint. Her breathing was fast and shallow. “I couldn’t go away. Not without you. I sneaked away from the others, followed our tracks back to town.”
“Shh,” I said, stroking the damp hair back away from her forehead. Kissing her there. “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to carry you to the surgery.”
I gathered Pearl up in my arms, lifted her with some effort.
Pearl groaned, draped an arm around my neck.
“Chauncey,” she whispered. “He was going on and on about how we’d be married, how it was my father’s wish.
How one day, Chauncey would run the factory.
He spoke of the children we’d have—oh, Frankie, I couldn’t bear it. ”
“Shh,” I said. “Save your energy.” Tears were running down my cheeks. My heart felt cold and my whole body thrummed with panic.
What had I done?
I stepped through the open front door, staggered down the steps of the Stoddards’ home, nearly losing my balance.
“Help!” I yelled, hoping someone in one of the nearby houses would hear. Hoping someone would come out to help me carry Pearl, to bear witness to what I’d done. “Someone please help!”
No one opened their door. No one even pulled back a curtain. “Please!” I screamed into the night. Everyone was locked up tight, afraid of the knackerman, of the sickness, of the devil himself.
This is what fear does, I thought. Makes us close our hearts and minds, puts blinders on. Turns friends, neighbors, family even into something else entirely.
I had never felt so alone.
Ragged, heartbroken sobs came freely now.
Pearl was silent.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I willed my feet forward.
“I love you,” I said. “My uncle’s going to fix you up, and we’re going to go away, you and I, just like we talked about.”
I hurried on, not letting myself believe she might be dead in my arms. I sobbed as I shuffled forward, arms trembling, stomach churning, and ears ringing. I could smell gunpowder and blood all mixed together with Pearl’s sweet and lovely smell.
“We’ll have a home of our own,” I told her as I staggered down the slushy, snow-covered street, struggling to hold on to her. “A place where no one will tell us who we can and cannot be, who we can and cannot love.”
She did not stir.
“Please, Pearl,” I gasped through my tears, through my panting exertion.
At last I arrived at home, carrying Pearl, my arms shaking so badly I was sure I would drop her at any second. I kicked the door over and over until my uncle answered. Aife was beside him.
“Frankie!” Uncle Thomas cried. He quickly took Pearl from my arms, and I followed him down the hall and into the dining room.
“I shot her.” I was trying to control my sobs. “She surprised me,” I explained, still short of breath from the exertion. “It was dark. She had her hood up. I thought she was… him.”
“But what’s she doing here?” Uncle Thomas asked as he laid her on top of the dining room table. “Are the others back?”
“Just her,” I said.
Uncle Thomas unbuttoned the front of her dress, inspecting the wound, then rolled her over.
“She’s lost a lot of blood, but there’s an exit wound. I won’t know the extent of the damage until I open her up.”
We left Pearl and hurried to the surgery, where Benjamin Stoddard was laid out on the table, sewn up.
Uncle Thomas and I lifted Benjamin, moved him with some difficulty to the cot in the guest room. Then we cleaned the table and carried Pearl in, laying her down where her dead father had just been dissected.
I was still sobbing as my uncle undressed Pearl, probed at the wound. Pearl moaned, her body twitching.
“Get me the ether, Frankie,” he said.
I stood frozen, tears streaming down my face. “I—”
“Do as I say, Frankie,” he ordered, rolling up his sleeves. “Ether, iodine, surgical tools. Now.”
I snapped to attention, remembering my uncle’s lessons about putting my emotions in a box. I peeled off my coat, soaked with Pearl’s blood, carefully taking the gun out of the pocket with the hole blasted through it and setting the Smith and Wesson on my uncle’s desk.
I moved like a machine, following my uncle’s directions, doing my best to block out that it was Pearl, my Pearl, laid out on the table. And that it was my fault she was there.
AN HOUR LATER, Uncle Thomas was bandaging her. “She’s lucky.” He was right. The bullet had missed all of her vital organs. We’d flushed the wound and stitched her up. We’d have to watch for signs of infection, but overall her prognosis seemed excellent.
My uncle was paler than ever, his eyes looking slightly yellow. He coughed.
We carried her into my bedroom and laid her down in my bed, tucked the covers up around her. Aife came and circled up on the floor in front of the bed.
“You should rest,” I told my uncle. “I’ll sit with Pearl. Aife and I,” I added, smiling down at the shaggy black dog.
Uncle Thomas nodded and was turning to go when there was a pounding at the front door.
“What now?” he growled.
“I’ll go,” I said, terrified that there would be a mob outside, going from house to house, executing the sick or wounded.
I would not let them hurt my uncle. I’d kill them with my bare hands if I needed to.
The pounding continued, louder, more insistent.
“No,” Uncle Thomas said, walking over to his desk, picking up the gun. “We’ll both go.”
Gun in hand, he led the way down the hall and opened the front door.
It was Gerard Pipp, out of breath, looking frantic.
“What is it?” Uncle Thomas asked. “What’s happened now?”
“They’ve found him,” Gerard said. “The knackerman. Up by Garrison Ridge. They’ve brought him back. Got him chained up in Luther’s barn.”
“What’s his condition?” Uncle Thomas asked.
“Can’t say for sure. He’s up and talking. Doesn’t seem all that sick to me. But Luther and the other men—” He shook his head, looked at the ground, not wanting to say it.
“What is it?” Uncle Thomas asked.
“They’re building a pyre.”
Uncle Thomas pulled on his coat and tucked the pistol into his pocket.