~~Chapter 5

I had no sense of how much time passed. I'd wake, coughing, struggling to draw breath, my body hot as if I lay on a bed of coals. James was there each time, to pound my back and force tea and broth on me or to roll me to my side, to keep me from drowning in the fluid that filled my lungs. I was seized by terrible stomach cramps and what I eliminated from my gut was watery and foul. James took it in stride, patiently washing the shit and sweat from my body and holding a folded towel between my legs when I became too weak to even use the chamber pot properly.

I woke when my fever broke. I lay naked atop damp sheets with my hands folded on my chest. My eyelids and lips seemed glued shut and I was thirstier than I'd ever been in my life. I couldn't swallow. I felt empty and cool. I heard a woman's quiet sobbing. I felt a moment of panic because I thought I was dead. But dead men don't need a piss and their stomachs don't growl with hunger.

And, as far as I know, they don't have erections.

I lifted my hands and rubbed my eyes until I could open one. James sat in the chair next to the bed with her hands covering her face. She was the source of the crying I heard.

"I'm not dead," I croaked.

James stood and turned to me, quickly wiping her eyes with the flat of her fingers.

"Yes, Marshal. You are very much alive," she said, pouring a cup of water for me. She handed me the cup and tested my temperature with the inside of her wrist again. "You are still warm but much less so than last night."

I took a sip of water. It still hurt to swallow but the pain was more of a dull ache in the glands under my jaw, versus the searing rake that clawed my throat before. I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My entire body felt tender and fragile. My breath rattled in my lungs but it was no longer the alarming gurgling sounds of a drowning man. I coughed gently, experimentally. That hurt, too. But I didn't feel like my next cough might turn me inside out. I was on the mend. I looked at James. She was dressed like a boy but her hair billowed with soft ringlets down to the middle of her back. Her over-sized shirt hung off her shoulders such that the two buttons she'd left undone revealed a hint of her cleavage and the fullness it promised.

I pulled the sheets over my lap.

"How long?" I rasped.

"Six days. You were delirious until yesterday afternoon then you were nearly comatose for the last eighteen hours. I couldn't rouse you - which, I must say, was actually more frightening than your thrashing and punching," she said. "Three days ago you walked out into the storm while I was sleeping. Barefoot and naked, you nearly made it to the barn before I discovered you gone."

I rubbed my hand along my jaw. I had less than two days' beard and I was clean and smelled faintly of James's wood soap. Six days was a long time to tend a man you didn't know.

"The storm?"

"Five days, now."

"James - ."

"Jimmy. Everybody calls me Jimmy."

"Jimmy. I have to tell you - ."

She held up a hand. "Wait. I have a clean nightshirt for you."

"I'd rather have my pants."

"No," said James, shaking her head. "You are better but you are not well. You may walk around a bit so you can cough and help clear your lungs but other than that, it's bed for you for the next couple of days." She frowned, staring at me intently. "Your recovery is nothing short of miraculous. Any other man would be dead. Still, you need to convalesce. Do not argue, Marshal."

"I won't," I said. Truth be told, I felt weak as wet newsprint. "James?"

She turned in the doorway. "Yes, marshal?"

"How'd you get me back inside? You said I wondered out into the storm."

"Who is Pruit Dover?"

I blinked, startled. "What?"

"You were calling for him. I pretended to be him and you followed me back inside."

"Huh," I mused.

"Who is he?"

"Someone I used to know."

"Well, he is your guardian angel, now. Another minute and I would have lost you in the storm," she said.

"James. I have to tell you -."

"Our mule found his way home. He was standing outside the barn when I retrieved you from your walkabout," she said. She inhaled deeply through her nose and held her breath for a moment. "I'd hoped that Luc either stayed at the Fort or found shelter in the old prospector's shanty."

"I'm sorry."

She covered her mouth with a trembling hand and hiccupped a sob into her palm. After several long seconds, she straightened, squaring her shoulders and swallowing hard.

"Clyde's legs and hindquarters are covered in bites." She said. "Wolves must have..." She stopped and gazed at me. "You shot a wolf that morning."

"I found Lucien. I should've told you sooner."

Her hand fluttered to her neck. "Was he – did he –?" Her voice broke.

"He didn't suffer," I said quickly. "He dismounted to climb the slope, slipped on a patch of ice and hit his head on a rock. In my opinion, he was ... gone right then. The wolves came after."

"But Clyde was bitten very badly."

"A horse would've run but a mule will fight first. To the wolves, Clyde wasn't worth the trouble. I mean... I'm sorry." I should have spared her that detail. "If you'll look in my coat, I have his billfold in the inside pocket."

When she returned, she stood in the doorway with her hand at her side and the billfold dangling from her fingertips. In her other hand she held the cross necklace in the cup of her palm, her eyes round with horror. The chain was bunched and caked with dried blood. I cursed myself silently. I'd forgotten about the necklace.

She clutched the bloody necklace in her fist and pressed it to her chest. She slid down the wall next to the doorframe, coming to rest with her legs drawn up. She laid her cheek on her bony knee, her body quaking with silent sobs. Her ankles were thin under the rolled cuff of her pants. They seemed somehow vulnerable, even covered with the thick socks she wore. She gulped for air, breathing in quick shallow bursts.

I should've waited until I had all my wits about me before I told her about her brother. I had fucked this right and proper.

"You need to breathe, James," I said.

I wrapped the sheet around my waist, slipped off the edge of the bed and sat next to her against the wall. After a moment's hesitation, I pulled her into my arms, drawing her across my lap. As weak as I was, she still felt light as a feather pillow to me. She stiffened at first then collapsed against me and wailed like a heartbroken child – which was what she was, in spite of her protestations that nineteen years old was all grown up.

Lucien's was about as sad and lonely a death that I've ever seen. I've come across dead men on the prairie. While sad, most of those men had no one and nothing to return to. Lucien had a home and family. He had this girl and this farm with its odd menagerie; he had this warm little house.

It was more than what I had.

I held James, rocking her a bit and rubbing her back. She turned her face into my neck, making mournful crooning sounds. But her breathing had slowed and I no longer feared she would swoon. My chest was wet with her tears. I shivered and started to cough again. James sat up and gazed sadly into my face.

"I'll get you a fresh nightshirt," she said, finally.

xxxXXXxxx