Gift Of The Heart

“What could it possibly be, child?” she said as she turned, too. “There’s nothing—oh, God in heaven!”

From where she stood the man looked dead, sprawled across the straw where he’d fallen, but still Rachel wished she had her musket with her. The man’s own rifle lay beside him where it had slipped free of his hand, and before she could change her mind Rachel put Billy down and darted forward to pick up the gun. Holding it in both hands, she felt better; living alone had given her a greater respect for firearms.

She was sure this stranger was—or had been—some sort of soldier. Though he was dressed like most men who spent their lives in the wilderness—a white blanketlike coat with indigo stripes, deerskin leggings and hunting shirt over another of checked linen, a long knife in a beaded sheath at his waist, a wide-brimmed hat with a turkey feather in the brim, and everything soaked with melted snow—the tomahawk hanging from his belt told another story.

Troubling, too, was the extra powder horn slung around his chest and another bag for shot and wadding, far more ammunition than any common trapper or wanderer would carry. The rifle in her hands was much finer, too, with a cherry-wood barrel inlaid with stars and elegant engraving on the plate. German made, she guessed, or maybe Philadelphia, but too valuable for most of the men in this part of New York.

Still the man didn’t move. Carefully she knelt beside him, Billy clinging to her skirts. The shoulder of the stranger’s coat was stained dark with dried blood, the ragged hole in the fabric doubtless matching one in him, and sadly she wondered how he’d come to be in such a sorry state.

He was younger than she’d first thought, no more than twenty-five or thirty, his jaw and mouth hidden by a fortnight’s growth of beard. His hair was long and untied, the ends curling over his collar, and the rich, burnished color of chestnuts. His features were strong and even, his nose and cheekbones marked with a scattering of freckles nearly lost on his weatherworn skin, freckles too boyish for the hard living that showed in every inch of his face.

A handsome man, admitted Rachel reluctantly, the kind of man who turned ladies’ heads with a smile and a wink. But dead or alive, he wouldn’t turn hers. She’d had enough of that with William, and she wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

“Mama?” asked Billy, all his doubts—and hers, too—clear enough to Rachel in that single word. What was she going to do with the man? Much as she wished he hadn’t come stumbling into her life, she couldn’t very well leave him here. Tentatively she reached out to touch his neck to find his pulse, if one still was there to find. She slipped her fingers inside his collar, his hair curling so familiarly around her wrist that she almost jerked away. Foolish, she chided herself angrily, foolish, foolish, to draw away from the meaningless touch of an unconscious man!

His skin was as hot as the snow in the fields was cold, and though she now knew he lived she wondered for how much longer, burning with a fever like this. As her fingers pressed against the side of his neck he groaned, the vibrations of it passing to her fingertips. Billy yelped and retreated behind the manger, and Rachel wished she could, too.

“Hush, Billy, he can’t hurt you,” she said, reassuring herself as much as the child. She bent over the man, keeping his rifle in her hand just to be sure. “He won’t be hurting anyone for a good long time.”

She had to get him into the house where the fire would warm him, and where she could tend to his wound. But though she was tall for a woman, he still looked to have half a foot advantage over her, and Lord only knew how much more he weighed. More than she alone could drag along the snowy path to the house, that she knew for sure.

“Sir? Can you hear me, sir?” she asked uncertainly. The man didn’t move again. “I want to take you back to the house so I can tend you properly, but you’re going to have to help me some.”

Suddenly Billy ran forward to the wounded man. With a shriek of bravado and indignation at being ignored by Rachel, he thumped his stuffed horse as hard as he could on the man’s chest. The man’s eyes flew open and he twisted and gasped with agony, but at the same time his hand groped reflexively for his knife.

“Billy, no!” Frantically Rachel pulled the boy away and shoved him behind her as she raised the rifle. Her heart pounding, her gaze met that of the stranger’s over the long barrel of the weapon. His eyes were blue, as blue as the sky outside, and filled now with confusion and pain. He blinked twice, his breath coming hard. He opened his shaking fingers and let the knife drop from them into the straw.

“I would not harm the boy,” he said slowly, painfully. Despite the cold, his forehead was glazed with sweat. “You must believe me.”

“I’ve no reason to believe anything of the sort.” With her toe Rachel kicked the knife across the floor. “I’m willing to help you, but no trickery.”

“You are…kind.” The man tried to smile, his mouth curving crookedly and with more charm than any man so close to death had a right to. But Rachel didn’t lower the rifle. The bluest eyes she’d ever seen and a smile to make angels weep weren’t reasons enough for her to trust him.

“And you,” he said, every word labored, “you won’t kill me with my own gun?”

With a sniff Rachel took the rifle from her shoulder. “Can you stand?”

“If you say I must.” With enormous effort and a groan he couldn’t suppress, he rolled over onto his knees and stayed there, his breath ragged. Rachel’s resolve wavered. Handsome or not, the man was weak from pain and lost blood, and he deserved her help.

Sighing, she leaned his rifle against the wall, opened the barn door and bent to slide her arm around his waist. Gratefully he put his arm across her shoulder and with a grunt managed to stand upright. Together they swayed unsteadily, the man’s weight almost too much for Rachel to manage. Having Billy clinging jealously to one of her knees didn’t help her balance one bit, either.

“Where’s your man?” the stranger asked when they’d managed to hobble to the wall for him to rest.

Rachel chewed on her lower lip, considering how best to answer. Most likely the man wanted to know if there was someone larger and more able to help him, but even weak as he was, she didn’t want him knowing exactly how alone she and Billy were.

“My husband’s not here at present,” she answered stiffly. With her arm around his waist, she was acutely aware of the man’s size, how he seemed all lean muscle and bone and sinew. Seventeen months had passed since William had left, seventeen months without feeling a man’s body pressed this closely to hers. “But I expect him back directly.”

The man glanced down at her beneath his long lashes. “Which army is he with?”

“American, of course, though—” She broke off, shamed by how easily he’d discovered the truth. “You’re a soldier, too, aren’t you? Is that how you were wounded, in a battle?”

“Aye, in a battle.” His voice was flat, so unemotional that Rachel guessed he had secrets of his own to hide. So be it; she’d respect that. But she couldn’t deny that she was curious about who he was and where he’d come from, why he hadn’t told her his name or asked hers either, and if the battle he’d fought would draw the war closer to her home. She’d simply have to wait until he told her himself, that was all. If he was like William, the next words from his mouth would be bragging and boasting about himself.

But somehow already she knew this man wasn’t at all like her husband.

“You go.” Billy looked suspiciously up the man’s long legs to his face. “You leave Mama alone an’ go.”

The man smiled again. “I’m trying my best, lad.” He pushed away from the wall with a grunt, leaning heavily on Rachel. “If you can spare something warm—broth or cider—I’d be obliged, and then I won’t trouble you further. I’ve tarried here long enough.”

“All the hot cider in this county couldn’t make you fit to travel,” scoffed Rachel. “You’ll stay here until you’re able to move on.”

He looked at her warily, in a way that reminded Rachel of how he’d evaded her question about the army. “Nay, you are kind, but I can’t ask you to shelter me.”

“You didn’t ask. I offered.” And only common hospitality made her offer, she reassured herself. Blue eyes and the neat way her body fit next to his had nothing to do with it. “There’s precious few white folks in these lands, and we all do for each other. I wouldn’t want to think of you perishing by yourself in the woods.”

“So I won’t be alone after all, will I?” He might have laughed; the sound was so hollow that Rachel couldn’t tell. “How far to your house?”

“Not far.” Not far to her, thought Rachel grimly, but for him the short path would seem like forty miles instead of forty feet. She could feel the heat of the fever burning through his heavy clothing, and she suspected he was a great deal sicker than he wanted her to know. “Not far at all.”

The man nodded. “What’s the horse’s name?”

“Horse?” repeated Rachel, mystified. When William had left, he’d taken the one horse they’d owned.

“Aye, the lad’s.”

“Oh, Blackie.” Realizing belatedly that the man meant the stuffed horse that Billy was swinging purposefully in his hand only made her wonder more. Why under the circumstances should any man ask about a child’s toy?

“Blackie’s my horse an’ she’s my Mama.” His jaw set stubbornly and his small fist balled possessively in Rachel’s skirts, Billy glared up at the man who was claiming far too much of Rachel’s attention. “Now you go!”

“Your Blackie’s a fine horse, lad,” answered the man with a seriousness neither Billy nor Rachel expected. “’Tis shameful to see him bound up in here with the cows. You’d best take him outside. Go on, lad. Show me how fast you and your horse can run!”

For a moment Billy looked at Rachel, clearly amazed by the freedom he’d just been given, and then he was gone, off through the open door as fast as his short legs, and Blackie, would carry him.

Trapped beneath the stranger’s arm, Rachel was powerless to stop him. “You’ve no right to do that! He’s scarce more than a babe!”

“He’ll be well enough, and you know it.” Resolutely the man took a tentative step, swayed unsteadily and grimaced with the pain. “Better than I will, anyways.”

He was right. By the time he and Rachel finally reached the little log house, the man’s face was white as the snow, his shirts soaked through with sweat, and he’d long ago stopped trying to talk. Rachel steered him toward the bed she’d shared with William in the house’s single room, and the man collapsed on it without a word, already past consciousness.

Quickly Rachel stripped away his damp clothing, striving to be briskly efficient and feel nothing else. Until she knew for certain that William was dead, she was still his wife, and she’d no business beyond compassion touching another man’s body.

And he would need all the compassion she could give, for the man had already slipped beyond the limits of her healing skills. As soon as she cut away his shirt she saw that the wound in his shoulder was worse than she’d feared, the skin around it purple and angry with infection. While Billy watched, she tended the man as best she could and covered him with three coverlets to keep him warm and help break the fever.

“He’s hurt,” said Billy sadly, his small face serious with concern and his jealousy forgotten after the euphoria of running free through the snow to the house.

“I’m afraid he is, Billy,” said Rachel softly. She lifted the boy into her arms and hugged him, the feel of his warm little body in her arms comforting to her as she held him close. “He’s hurt and very, very sick, and your mama can’t do anything more but hope and pray that he’ll get better.”

Through the rest of the day she stayed close to the man’s bedside, hoping he’d wake and speak to her again, or at least take some of the soup she made to help him build back his strength. Past sundown, after she’d put Billy to bed, the man stirred restlessly, and she flew to kneel on the floor beside the bed. He muttered odd fragments that made no sense to her, speaking of his mother and someone named Sam and then, though Rachel wasn’t sure, asking for a piece of pie. Yet too soon he stilled again, moving deeper into unconsciousness, and as she listened to his labored breathing through the long night, Rachel knew to her sorrow he’d likely be dead before morning.