The Sword Read online

  A surprised look came to Chantel’s face. “Has it been that long? It has, yes? I’m seventeen now. I was fifteen, me, when I found you, Grandpere.”

  Jacob nodded. “Every day I thank God for bringing us together. I know I would have died if you hadn’t saved me, daughter, and these last two years of life would not have been nearly so good as they have been … if they would have even been. I could never have continued in this work without you, Chantel. I can never thank God—or you—enough.”

  “Never you mind that, Grandpere,” she said quickly.

  Jacob still thanked her, often, and expressed his affection to her.

  It embarrassed her, for though her mother and father had been loving people, they were not outwardly affectionate. “I’ve been so happy. My life has been so good, yes, so much better than I ever dreamed it would be.” She reached over with her right hand and patted his shoulder a little awkwardly, aware of the thinness of his frame and the fragility of his bone structure. “We make a good pair, don’t we, you and me?”

  Indeed the two were very happy together, if they were something of an odd couple: the elderly Jew in the sunset of life and the exotic-looking young woman that Chantel had become. She had come into full bloom, and she had a dream of a figure, for she was strong and lithe and worked hard every single day. Her skin was an attractive golden hue, as Cajuns sometimes had, and her violet-blue eyes, wide-set and perfect almond shapes, were of startling beauty. She was in perfect health and always felt energetic and strong and eager for each new day.

  Still, she had an abhorrence of male attention, so she stubbornly wore loose men’s breeches and men’s cotton shirts that were too big for her. She kept her trousers up with a wide leather belt that had her knife sheath fitted to it, for she still carried it, always. She crammed her blue-black hair up into a felt hat with a big floppy brim that half hid her face. Jacob had bought her two pairs of fine leather boots, one brown pair and one black pair, but no matter how he pleaded, Chantel would not let him buy her any women’s clothes, even modest skirts and plain blouses, much less pretty dresses.

  As they rode along, Chantel thought back over the last two years. They had indeed been good for her. Her fear of being caught by her stepfather had long faded, like a vague remembrance of a bad dream. They always traveled the South, crisscrossing the roads across Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia.

  “Pah,” Jacob had grunted to her one time. “Business isn’t nearly so good in the North. Too many cities, too many big towns, too many people all huddled together, and too many mercantile stores. Here the farmers are glad to see us because they need us. They are hospitable, and there aren’t nearly as many ruffians riding the roads.”

  It was true. People received them everywhere they went. They were lonely on the homesteads, they were anxious to talk, and they definitely had need of Jacob’s goods. Sometimes it could be three days’ journey from a farm to a nearby town to get supplies.

  Today it was an easy ride, for they were going north to Richmond, and it was a good road. For the last two months they had been lazily roaming around southern Virginia, cotton and cash-farming country, and business had been good. Most of the great plantations in the South were close to the big towns, like Charleston and Savannah and Atlanta and Richmond. It was the smaller farmers, farther from the cities, who welcomed the peddlers so happily.

  Chantel glanced affectionately at Jacob. She had made a fine feather cushion for the wagon seat and had fashioned two pillows to fit in the corner of the seat, leaning against the back and the side upright. He had plumped them up and settled back in them, and Chantel thought he was falling asleep.

  Before he dropped off, he murmured, “Virginia … I think it is my favorite … the Shenandoah Valley.”

  In silence she drove, enjoying the freshening day. The night before it had rained off and on, so Chantel had set up the little tent and stove for Jacob. Even in the warmth of spring he still was chilled at night. Last night Chantel had slept in the tent, but on clear nights she usually slept out under the stars, by a small, comforting campfire.

  Now all traces of yesterday’s lowering skies were gone. The air was fresh and smelled of wet dirt and new grass. Clouds of spring’s first yellow butterflies floated in front of the wagon sometimes, and once a fat honeybee made a lazy dizzy flight alongside it for a while. Chantel watched it with amusement.

  “What’s this?” she asked herself. Just ahead, on the left side of the road, was a big black stallion. He was fully saddled, his reins hanging down to the ground. He seemed to be grazing, but as they drew closer, Chantel could see a lump on the ground. The horse was nuzzling it, it seemed, with some agitation.

  “Grandpere,” she said softly, so as not to startle him.

  “Hm! Hmm?” he said, pushing his hat back and looking around sleepily.

  “Just up here. Do you see him? A fine horse, he is, with no rider.”

  Jacob straightened up and stared. “What’s that at his feet? Better stop the wagon, daughter.”

  By the time they drew up to the horse, they could see the man.

  Chantel pulled Rosie to a stop and leaped down to the ground, her boots making a squishing sound in the deep mud as she ran. Sliding to a stop, she came to her knees right beside him. In the bright innocent sunshine, she could clearly see the matted blood in his dark hair and the dried blood on his back. One or two places were still oozing. She touched her finger to it and held it up to Jacob, who had reached her side. “Fresh,” she said. “He’s still alive.”

  Ignoring the wet ground, he creakily got to his knees beside the wounded man. “He’s been shot in the back. It looks like with a shotgun.”

  “We’ll have to get him to a doctor, Grandpere,” Chantel said in a low urgent voice.

  Jacob shook his head. “It’s still at least three days to Richmond. I don’t know of any settlements around here, and if we start getting off the road hunting one, this man will probably die on us. We have to do what we can here, now.”

  Chantel bit her lower lip. “I can nurse sick people, me. But I don’t know anything about gunshot wounds.”

  With some difficulty, Jacob got to his feet. “Neither do I, daughter. But I don’t think the Lord has given us a choice about it, so that means He will guide us. You’ll have to put up the tent. Thank goodness you were smart enough to start hauling stove wood in the wagon. It’ll take us both to get him into the tent, but I know that we can help this man. Can you do all that, daughter?”

  “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 i
s 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.”