Chapter 8
Lula
There are hopeless stretches, miles long, of nothing but the blue sky and white ground in every direction. Distant barren trees thin enough to reveal only more ground to travel.
“Step where I step,” Okee says, and keeps moving.
Boone glances back once, making sure I do.
I manage well enough for maybe ten minutes before the snow starts swallowing me to the ankle, then the shin, and each wrench free sends a fresh ache up my legs.
By the time the wind finds the gap at my collar, I am no longer thinking about grief, or dignity, only shelter.
After hours of struggle we make it to the tree line. The sparse forest thickens and the crunch of our boots drowns out a faint sound. Okee’s head jerks up. “Shhh,” he says. We freeze where we stand. “You hear that?” he hushes.
I listen.
The rush of a river, maybe. Or perhaps a stream. Low voices. A pot lid clinking.
My heart, already beating fast from constant movement, seizes up in my chest. The gunfire, the blood of yesterday churn in my gut. Boone leans forward, peering through the scrub.
“Camp,” he breathes.
We steal to the edge of the leafless cottonwoods and look down upon the river bend. Along the bank, stands of water hemlock thrust up through moss and black mud. I wrap my hand in my shawl, tear a root loose while the men keep their eyes on the far ridge, then tuck the poison deep into my satchel.
Mother used to tell the girls a woman can never be too ready to see to herself. Kept a Derringer in her bodice and a dagger at her thigh. It was good advice for whoring, and better for running with two strange drifters.
A travel party has made itself a small town on the bank—wagons in a loose crescent, canvas tops dulled by frost, cook fires smoking, people gathered near the water with buckets and basins.
Twenty or so, maybe more, including children.
A dog noses at a pile of scraps. Men wear hats and worn coats. Women have shawls clutched around them.
Off to the side—set apart from the noise—horses stand picketed in a long line. So many I cannot clearly count them. A light wagon sits idle near the end.
Boone’s gaze moves over the spread before turning to Okee, who surveys the camp a while longer with silent intensity, appearing to quietly note the expanse, the number of men, the distance to their horses and wagons.
“By my count, they look like they can afford to lose a horse. Maybe a wagon,” Okee says.
“You intend to steal from these people?” I ask.
He turns on me, irritation plain in the wrinkle of his brow. “You shrink from a stolen horse, yet those folks below us ride west only because other men were driven off this land before them.”
“Did your mother never teach you that you cannot mend one wrong with another?”
A dark growl rumbles in his chest, then breaks into words.
“Men do whatever they must to survive. Then, once they're warm and fed, they build themselves a porch and call it civilization. I am not yet comfortable enough to enjoy hypocrisy. So yes—I plan to take what we need. Now, we can keep walking and camp outdoors again overnight,” he says, “or you can help us get to the cabin before dark.”
The ache in my legs and back leave me unable to tolerate a moment’s argument. Boone nods once, satisfied.
“Are you going to kill them?” I ask.
“Not if you do things my way,” Okee says.
“And what is that?”
Okee jerks his chin toward the leather case at my side. “You will go among them,” he says. “With that.”
My fingers tighten on the handle. “You want me to distract them.”
“I want you to offer help. A healer traveling through the plains for coin.”
I swallow. “A woman with a doctor’s case.”
“A woman with a doctor’s case,” he agrees.
Boone lowers his voice. “We’ll take one near the end and that light wagon. Hitch fast. Roll quiet. We’ll meet you downriver where the bank dips in the willows.”
Okee makes a short, sharp birdcall in his hands. “That is the signal. When you hear it, you walk away. Do not run until you are under cover.”
“And if someone stops me?” I ask.
Okee’s eyes don’t blink. “Offer help and no one will stop you.”
My heels are worn raw. The cold has made paper of my skin, cracked at the corners of my mouth. My eyes burn and water. My back aches from trudging through snow with my case clutched in one hand and my pride in the other.
Below us, fires burn. Horses stamp. A wagon waits under a crust of frost.
I am too tired to argue with survival.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
Gravel crunches beneath my boots as I cross the open ground toward the wagons. A few heads turn. A woman at the river straightens with a bucket. A man by the fire pauses mid-stir, spoon hovering.
I lift my free hand. Not a wave exactly, but a polite claim to attention.
“Afternoon,” I call. My voice comes out steadier than my insides feel. “I’m traveling through. I’m a healer. If anyone needs mending, coughs, fever, cracked hands, bad feet, I can help. I don’t ask much. Coin or fair trade.”
There’s a moment of suspicion—there always is, on the trail. Then a woman with ruddy cheeks shifts her shawl and steps forward, eyes scanning my case with the caution of someone who has learned the dangers of the territory through experience.
“Healer?” she says. “Like a doctor?”
“Not like the doctors in the towns,” I say, keeping it simple. “But I’ve natural remedies. Tinctures. Liniments. Needle and thread.”
A man near the fire snorts. “We got no coin for snake oil.”
I open the case just enough for them to see the neat rows—glass vials catching the gray light, folded linen, a little tin of salve, the bone handle of my scissors.
“Then don’t buy it,” I say. “But if your child’s lungs are rattling at night, you’ll wish you had.”
Then, from the back of the cluster, a thin cry lifts. A child’s cry. The way it pitches high and keeps going sounds like suffering. A woman turns, frantic.
“Have you anything for a fever?” she says, and there’s fear in it that cuts through every other concern.
I step toward the sound before I can stop myself.
They part for me.
On a blanket near one of the wagons lies a boy of five, maybe six. His cheeks are flushed too bright. His lips look dry. His eyes roll, half open, unfocused. He coughs, and it scrapes deep.
His mother kneels beside him, palms pressed to his forehead. Her hair has come loose in tangles, and her hands shake when she looks up at me.
“Can you—” she starts. Her voice breaks. “Can you help him?”
This is the moment where my wickedness should be clean and easy. Where I should remember Boone and Okee moving like shadows toward the horse line without a pang of shame.
It’s not as if I’m treating the boy with poison.
I can help, even if my act of kindness is a pretext for robbery.
I kneel. “I can try.”
I set my case on the ground and flip it open. My fingers find what they know. I draw out a vial of willow bark tincture for fever and pain, a bundle of dried thyme and horehound for the cough, a small tin of beeswax salve.
I press the back of my hand to the boy’s forehead. Heat blooms against my skin.
“Has he been drinking?” I ask.
“A little,” the mother says. “He won’t keep much down.”
“Then we go slow,” I say. “Small sips. Frequent. Clean water. Boiled and cooled.”
Someone hands me a tin cup. Someone else offers water.
I measure a few drops of the willow tincture into a cup, dilute it. “This will taste bitter,” I tell her. “Don’t let him choke on it. Just wet his mouth. Like this.”
She tries, clumsy with panic. The boy coughs, swallows, whimpers.
“Good,” I murmur, more to her than him. “That’s good.”
I wet a cloth and wipe his face, his neck, the hollow of his throat. Cooling the skin doesn’t cure fever, but it eases suffering.
“Does he wheeze at night?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “Like he’s drowning.”
I nod once, mind moving. “Thyme and horehound,” I say. “Steep it like tea. Not too strong. Honey, if you have any. If not, molasses. Keep him propped so he’s not flat on his back.”
The woman nods too fast, desperate to do anything right.
Around us, the camp has tightened into a ring. People stare not because they’re cruel, but because a sick child makes everyone imagine their own loved ones.
Somebody behind me mutters, “Winter’s coming early,” and it isn’t small talk—it's fear. “We can’t have sickness.”
I keep my eyes on the boy as I work, but I feel the camp’s attention gathering around me.
I draw out a packet of dried yarrow. “For cuts,” I say, handing it to the mother.
“And this—” I press a small tin of salve into her palm, the beeswax warmed slightly from my hand.
“For chapped skin. For cracked lips. For the child’s chest if the cough keeps him raw. ”
Her fingers close around it like it’s gold. Her eyes shine with tears she won’t let fall.
“I don’t have coin,” she whispers.
“I didn’t ask for coin,” I say. “Just keep him warm. Keep him drinking.”
A bark of laughter snaps from somewhere downriver. A horse snorts, louder.
My spine goes cold, because I can feel time. I can feel it slipping.
I stand slowly, as if I am only finishing my work.
The mother catches my sleeve. “What’s your name?”
“Lula,” I say, without thinking.
Shoot.
Perhaps I should have given a false name.
She nods, clutching the salve and herbs. “Bless you, Lula.”
My heart sinks.
I start to turn when a thin, sharp birdcall cuts through the rabble of voices and river noise and sets my pulse fluttering uncomfortably.
I force my face to stay calm. Smooth my skirt. Close my case with deliberate care, as if I am in no hurry at all.
“Well,” I say, brightening my tone like a woman who is simply moving on. “Good luck to you.”
I don’t let myself hesitate. I squeeze her hand once in a quick, secret apology, then I walk away. Not running, though my feet are tempted.
I’m nearly to the thickening forest line when a sudden chorus of voices, startled and sharp, cries out from behind me. I don’t let myself look, though I pick up my pace slightly before disappearing into the forest.