Chapter 25:

Logan woke to the gentle touch on his shoulder. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he looked tiredly up at the Cajun. "How was she?"

Remy sighed. "She wake up twice, crying from pain. I change her dressings, let her drink, an' I give her de medicine an' some food too. She ate some, but fall asleep again before she finish. Remy put it back in the pot." He gave Logan's shoulder a shove. "Out of de bed. Remy tired. Want to sleep."

Logan rolled out of the bed and stood rubbing his eyes as Remy dropped down onto the bed and closed his eyes. It had been six days since they had brought Jubilee back from the clearing in the mountains, and they had been four tiring, gruesomely horrific days.

When she had awoken the only thing she could do was scream in agony. Even screaming hurt, due to the fractured rib. Remy had finally made her drink some of the medicine he carried with him to dull pain and help her sleep, and told Logan they would have to keep her asleep until the worst of the pain went away. And when they had been awakened by her agonized crying late at night, they'd decided one of them needed to be with her at all times. They had taken turns then, each taking six hours by her bed. Remy took the early morning and late evening watches so Logan could feed and tend to the animals, and cook breakfast and supper; Logan took the noon watch so Remy could make dinner and so he could go and find the herbs necessary to make more of the medicines that soothed her fever, eased her pain, and helped her sleep. A lot of the herbs around here were unfamiliar, and when Red Doe had come two days ago, she had shown Remy which herbs grew locally that would have the same effect as the ones Remy used.

Logan didn't have to ask the other man how he knew what to do. During the second day, when Remy was outside picking herbs, it had gotten hot, and he had taken his shirt off while he tied herbs into bunches and hung them on nails driven outside the cabin walls to dry. For the first time Logan had seen the scars that seamed the other man's body in full daylight, not softened in the forgiving flicker of firelight, and had flinched at the sight and turned away.

Jubilee was tossing restlessly now, sobbing a little in her sleep, and Logan hurried to her side, taking one hand in his and soothing her. "I'm here, darlin'. Papa's here." The sound of his voice seemed to calm her a little, and she soon drifted back into the deep, dreamless sleep she needed so desperately to heal. Logan waited until her breathing evened out, then went wearily to the pot over the fire and helped himself to a bowl of stew. He returned to her bedside with it and tried to eat while he watched her warily.

She had been outside too long, and caught wound fever. For the first few days her forehead ran hot, and she alternately sweated and shivered. Remy held her, rocked her, soothed her, sang songs to her in French, and while his voice might not win any prizes, it had seemed to comfort Jubilee, even though Logan was certain she didn't know what he was singing about. For all Logan himself knew, Remy could be singing a bawdy drinking song. But as long as it kept his little girl calmed and quiet, he didn't care.

Watching the other man with his little girl made Logan realize something. Remy did indeed love Jubilee as much as he himself did, just in a different way. Remy had no intention of being like a father to her; he looked at Jubilee with the same eyes Logan had seen on himself, long ago; eyes full of love and longing. It was that, more than anything else, which had kept Logan from asking Remy to give the owners' papers back. Remy loved her, and Logan knew he'd take care of her. Logan knew his little girl loved the Cajun back in return, even if she was currently too lost in fever dreams to notice the difference in the faces above her bed. He told himself that when she got to Canada and was free, she would marry Remy and have those babies she wanted. Logan felt his heart contract. What would she have? A little girl who looked like her, or maybe a little boy with the auburn hair of his father and his mother's blue eyes? Logan wished fervently he would someday be able to see the sight, although he knew it was highly unlikely that he would. Canada was a long way from the Missouri territory, a trip one would make only once in a lifetime. He would never see her again once Remy took her away; and the thought made tears fill his eyes. Resolutely, he turned his attention to getting her well.

Jubilee swam up through the layers of darkness that fogged her mind again, heeding her body's urgent need for water. This time, though, when she reached the light, she forced the pain back to a manageable level, gritted her teeth, and kept herself from screaming. It took a colossal effort, but she felt like she needed to. Papa. Papa was out there somewhere, probably worried about her, and terrified, and she had to try and tell him she was all right. And she desperately needed "…water…" She barely recognized the voice as her own; it was harsh and raspy. "Please…"

The low murmur of voices in the far corner of the room stopped, and she heard the splash of water and then footsteps heading toward her. "Hey," came an oddly familiar voice. "Drink dis. Gonna make dat t'roat feel better." Jubilee obediently swallowed from the cup of water placed to her lips as she tried to remember what the owner of that voice looked like. Her pain-fogged and drug-hazed mind finally identified the owner of that rich, molasses-smooth voice, and her eyes flew open. "Remy?"

"Oui, p'tite. Remy come back." She struggled against the hand holding her down and the peculiar stiffness against her right side that kept her spine from bending, and tried to sit up.

"Remy…Remy…what are you doing here…I thought I would never see you again…"

"Non," Remy pressed her back onto her bed. "Lie down. Stay quiet. Your ribs hurt bad, chere, you need to give dem time to heal." He held her down until, exhausted from the struggle, she lay back quietly.

"Hey," came another voice, and another face came into view. She reached up with both arms, ignoring how the lifting of her right arm pulled against the agony in her right side, and tried to hug Logan. "Papa, oh Papa, I love you, I'm so sorry…"

"I love ya too, kid," Logan put the bowl of stew on the small table he'd made out of leftover wood beside her bed and reached out to hug her too, ever so carefully. "I love ya too."

She clung to him for a long time, crying, and he held her. She smelled of medicine and sweat and blood, but she was alive, and that was all that really mattered to him. And she would be all right.

"Here," he said finally, gently disengaging himself from her and motioning to the bowl. "Think you feel well enough to eat some of this?" She nodded, and Remy and Logan together took an arm and pulled her up to a sitting position. She took the bowl from him and tried to eat, but she was so weak her hands were shaking. Logan finally took the bowl from her and fed her gently, spoonful by spoonful, until she finished the bowl. He dropped the dirty dishes into the bucket and returned to the bedside. "Jubilee," he said gently. 'Can ya tell us what happened?"

Jubilee's blue eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry, Papa," she whimpered. "I was working with Savage when there was a gunshot off in the hills, and he spooked. He ran across the corral and took the fence at a gallop. I didn't even stop to think, I just went after him. I didn't take the pass, I didn't even think about it. I tacked up Thunder and went after him. Walbrook…" She swallowed hard. "Walbrook caught me at the creek up in the hills. He ordered me off the horse so I could show him my pass. I didn't have it. He took the rope I was going to use to catch Savage and used it to tie me to the tree, and he whipped me. Forty-five times, Papa. Twenty-five times because I was on horseback without a pass, and twenty more times because I was away from your property. I passed out a couple of times, Papa, it hurt so much, but he would wake me up by beating me up. I was too weak and in too much pain to fight when he finally cut me down and threw me on the ground, and then there was this horrible pain when he pushed into me, and I passed out. I don't remember anything after that." She looked at him wide-eyed. "Papa, what happened?"

"You were missin' when Remy an' I come ridin' up that night," Logan said quietly. "We sat and waited for a while, but you never came. We was just sittin' there wonderin' if we should go look for you when yer wolf come runnin' up, actin' like he wanted us to follow him. So we jumped on the horses bareback and followed him. He led us straight to ya." Logan swallowed hard at the memory that had flashed, unbidden, into his mind; Jubilee lying on the ground, battered, bloody, beaten, flies settling on the dried blood on her body and settling in the pool of blood between her thighs. "Think Snow was actually the one who saved ya. We found Walbrook lyin' with his back against a tree with his throat tore out. We brought ya home, and I went back later an' done my best ta make it look like some wild animal got him. Nobody gonna know what really happened. Yer safe."

She looked up at him. "Papa, are you mad at me? I mean, I went and forgot the pass, and there was no dinner waiting for you, and…"

"No," Logan said. "I ain't mad at ya. Don't worry 'bout it." He hugged her as she clung to him and sobbed, and Logan knew she was going to be all right. And his heart felt like lead in his chest as he encouraged her to drink more drugged water and watched her fall back asleep, knowing that, in another week or two, she would be gone forever.

"You didn' tell her," Remy said later, when they were sitting out on the back step in the evening twilight.

"No," Logan said, his knife working furiously on the new block he was whittling. "No, I didn't tell her. She's still so fragile, I don't wanna shock her." He stared at the wood block in his hands. "I'm gonna wait ta tell her till yer ready ta leave. I'm gonna tell her that I ain't forgiven her fer lyin' ta me 'bout them soldiers, an' I'm gonna tell her I don't…" His breath caught in his chest with a sound very like a sob, and the knife dropped from his hand. "I'm gonna tell her I don't want no liars around, and that's why I'm sendin' her off with ya."

Remy sucked in a breath. "Why you do dat, Logan?" he said softly, horrified, thinking about Jubilee's reaction to that revelation. "You gonna break her heart, you do dat."

"Because I have to!" Logan cried angrily as he stabbed the knife deeply into the block of wood. "Because once she's got free papers she's gonna want ta come back. And she can't. The first person who remembers her is gonna ask ta see that brand, an' when they see it they gonna clap her in shackles again and sell her. An' she might never get free again. I can't let that happen. I want her ta think there ain't nothin' here anymore fer her, that she ain't wanted here, an' then maybe she'll stay up there in Canada. I don't wanna see her again if it means she loses her freedom." He whittled furiously for a moment, cutting away the mark he'd made in the side of the block, and then stabbed the air in Remy's direction. "She loves ya, y'know. Treat her right."

Remy looked stunned. "She loves me?" he asked. Logan put the knife down, feeling tears sting his eyes. Damn. He was turning into the biggest crybaby.

"Yeah, she loves ya," he growled. "Them four years ya been gone, ain't nobody else's name crossed her lips," he said. "I paraded a buncha them Indian braves through here fer her, an' plenty o' them woulda gotten hitched ta her in a minute, but she never looked at any of em. Couple o' Masters done made an offer fer her, ta 'breed' her with their African 'studs', but when I asked her, she said while she liked kids, wanted some herself, she wasn't wantin' kids from no African. Said she wanted her kids to be free. Wasn't till her seventeenth birthday that I heard her say yer name, and she told me she 'liked ya' a bit, an' she missed ya. But ya know that voice an' them eyes as women get when they like ya, really like ya? I seen my Annie look at me like that, an' that's the way she looked when she said yer name. She loves ya."

"I love her too," Remy said, and Logan nodded.

"Then yer gonna marry her and give her the kids she wants, an' keep her up there where she's safe?" Logan pursued aggressively.

Remy said gently, "Logan, we got ways o' obliterating dem brands. You see mine? Wasn't no S on my back, was dere?"

Logan's hopes lifted. "How?"

Remy gulped. "Dey take a flat piece o' metal an' heat it up real hot, den they puts dat metal against de skin. Den ya pull dat metal up, real quick, an' it take de layer of skin away wit' it. It take two tries to get Remy brand off, cause my Master branded me deep, but it come off."

Logan sucked in a breath. "That hurts," he whispered.

Remy nodded. "Hurt like two devil," he said emphatically. "But we do it in de winter, when dey a lot of snow an' ice on de groun', an' all dat ice help take de pain away till de burn heals. An' every slave who done it, 'cluding me, say it wort' it to get dat off our bodies. She goin' to say dat too."

"No!" Logan sprang up, horrified. "No! It's goin' to hurt her, terribly, an' I don't wanna think o' my girl screamin' while ya rip a layer o' skin off her hip! Promise me ya ain't gonna do that ta her!"

"I ain't gonna do it," Remy said quickly. "De doctor come an' do dat, an' dey gives de slave medicines to dull de pain till it done. Den ice do de same t'ing till it heals."

"No! I don't want her ta go through anything like that!" Logan snapped. "Promise!"

"I promise," Remy said quickly. "Remy not goin' to do dat to de p'tite." As Logan turned and stomped away, out toward the barn, Remy looked after him thoughtfully. "What if she want it, homme?" he said to the quiet night. "Remy not gonna deny her anyt'ing she want."