The First Battle

"Now that's an achievement: Christy Huddleston, completely speechless! I thought sure I'd earn a lecture or scare ye away." He paused as if giving her another chance to flee before raising his eyebrows in exaggerated fashion. "You're still here. Did you think I wasn't serious?"

She shook her head, unable to believe what he'd done, what he'd said. There was no power in Heaven or Earth that would bring her to tell him that her feet felt frozen to the floor. The truth was, she knew him. MacNeill always fought with every weapon he had, and if he was battling her this hard, it was because she was getting through to him. She couldn't give up now.

"You're drunk."

"Tasted that, did you?"

Christy pressed her hands against her hot cheeks, mind racing to find a moral way out of this. Well, David had warned her. "You're- you're obviously not quite yourself today."

"I'm as much myself as the man you've stood next to in surgery. That's the high, and this is the low."

"The self-destructive healer," she whispered. The evidence was everywhere as she looked around with fresh eyes- but that led to a new conclusion, an ugly one. "You're not satisfied just to mess up your cabin, are you? You want me to run to Miss Alice. Or David."

"Do whatever you want," he rumbled, turning his back on her to tend to the dishes on the counter beside him. His expression just before that had been more vulnerable than at any other point that day, and she just knew if she couldn't say her piece now, she wouldn't get the chance to. He'd tried almost everything to drive her away, but that didn't mean he would stop.

Christy twisted her hands together, a twinge of pain reminding her that her right hand was probably bruised from pounding on the door. "What I wanted was to come here and tell you that you shouldn't feel guilty. That with good intentions, you did everything you could, but sometimes that isn't enough. I thought that if I could say it to you, maybe I'd… believe it for myself."

Neil was standing stock still with his back to her, one hand gripping a pot handle so tightly his knuckles were white. She took a step toward him.

"Nobody is perfect. It's what we do in response to our mistakes that matters. Jarvis Tatum reached out to hurt others, and you're reaching inside to hurt yourself." Christy let out the breath it felt like she'd been holding since he'd first touched her. "And I've been running away, burying myself in chores, in teaching. Ignoring it."

Neil shoved violently at the jumble of dishes in front of him and spun around. "Ignoring what? You're blameless in all this!" He ripped a dishtowel off of the counter and dried his hands off with swift, jerky movements. "I've a mind to go find where they've stashed that man so I can drag him back here to swear it to you."

It was one thing to ignore her own sense of culpability, but it was something else entirely for MacNeill to devalue it. Christy's temper flared, propelling her a few more steps in his direction.

"I couldn't convince Sam Houston to leave before Tatum grabbed him. I constantly said the wrong thing, even when he told me to shut up-" At this, Neil started toward her, and Christy backed away, needing to get it all out, needing him to understand. She shut her eyes tightly and just focused on the catharsis of admitting her failures. "I, I kept trying to get away, to untie myself, and that made him very angry. I should have-"

Neil interrupted by grabbing her upper arms, almost shaking her, but not quite. "Stop this right now! Look at me."

"No, I need to speak this out loud, so it stops having power over me," she said. He'd let her go if he knew how much she relished the punishing strength of his grip. Over and over again, her feeble attempts to relate to Jarvis Tatum had ramped her captor up towards violence and anger, but she'd been so confident in her ability to persuade him. It had taken Miss Alice's stalwart, commanding words to defuse the man, and Christy's blunders had made that so much more difficult.

"Open your eyes and say them to me, then. If you cannot, they're not true."

Despite herself, she looked up at him, completely startled. The concern in his eyes set her heart racing, catching fire to her blood and spreading that heated feeling through her whole body. "What makes you say that?"

"You are an inveterate truth-teller, to your friends most of all. Tell me, or forgive yourself, just as you've asked me to do." Neil sounded almost resentful, and it was unexpectedly endearing. She had the fleeting thought that his state of intoxication had provided an artificial closeness she'd mourn the loss of, once he was sober again.

Christy shook her head and let out a huff of frustrated breath. He had once again sent her thoughts spinning, but she met his eyes and spoke.

"All right. I couldn't say the right things to keep Sam Houston away from danger."

Neil's lips curved into an indulgent smile, his hold on her loosening just slightly. "No one can keep Sam Houston away from danger. Go on?"

She narrowed her eyes. "I didn't just come here just for my own absolution, doctor. It's your turn."

Neil's expression sharpened, and his gaze briefly dipped to her lips. "You never let up, do you?"

"No, I don't," Christy said. She could smell the alcohol on his breath again, a scent that had a whole new association to her, now. Impulsively, maybe even to push away those dangerous thoughts, she reached out and started on his shirt again. Neil released her arms, an action so abrupt that she winced, shrugging her shoulder up to ease the need to rub at the place he'd been holding onto.

"I hurt you," he murmured.

"You're not yourself," she said, shrugging again. "Go on."

"Christy-"

She looked up at him, channeling as much of her mother's incisive, penetrating glare as she possibly could. Neil was staring down at her like it was the first time he'd truly seen her.

"Why didn't ye slap me?" he asked, brows furrowing as though he'd surprised himself with his own question. "I deserved it."

The first answer that sprang to Christy's mind took her breath away. Because if I had reached my hand up, I'd have pulled you closer.

"Because this is more effective," she said instead, refocusing her attention on his shirt. "Go on?"

One large hand came gently to rest on the two of hers, a perfect contrast to the bruising hold of minutes earlier. She nodded and released his shirt, and he moved back, letting his fingers trail across her hands as if loathe to relinquish them.

"I should have come alone."

Christy sucked in a shocked breath, the residual tingling from his touch forgotten. "But I told Sam Houston to ask you to bring-"

"He did, and they damn well almost got you killed!" Neil shouted. "If it wasn't for Alice-"

"It wasn't just that. I was stupid, I tried to tell him that I knew what it was like to lose a child," Christy said, feeling the tears well up. "My sister. I took care of her, she was like my own-" She broke off, swiping at her eyes angrily. "Tatum was furious. Almost everything I did and said made it so much worse! I helped Sam Houston escape, and then almost got away myself… He threw things around, screaming about women always betraying him. That's what had him shoving the gun in my chest. It wasn't from you bringing help."

The bleak look was back on his face, almost the same one he'd worn on that awful day. Footsteps outside broke the spell, and a burlap sack sailed through the doorway, landing on the floor just inside with an odd buzzing crunch. A stream of angry insects started pouring from the mouth of it.

"Get back!" Neil shouted, ripping down a curtain from the window and rushing at the bag. There wasn't a path to flee through the door. "The lab. Go!"

Christy ran, struggling with the latch for a few seconds, long enough to hear shouting outside and Neil swearing as he was stung. Once inside, she frantically swatted at herself, dislodging a few of the wasps and stomping on them in a frenzy. The sound of the door slamming and furniture knocking around in the cabin just beyond made her horribly scared that Neil was wrestling with whoever had thrown the hive. In his altered state, was he in any condition to fight off an intruder? Was this an awful prank or a real attack?

The door to the lab burst open, and Neil backed in, his shirt spotted with wasps. He was focused on something at the doorway. Rather than stand there watching, she searched for a broom or some kind of implement to swat the vicious things away without hurting him further. When she turned around with a small hand brush, he'd grabbed some bandages to stuff in the edges of the door to keep more wasps from coming in.

"I've moved a cabinet over to hide the door. Were you stung?"

His question was quiet, an indication that whoever had initiated the attack might be around to hear them. With the lab hidden, were they safe now?

"Focus, Christy!"

"Never mind me, you're still covered in them! Let me-" Christy swiped at his arm with the broom, but he shook his head, reaching back and pulling the shirt up and over his head before throwing it on the floor between them and stomping on it.

"That would have been easier if it were still unbuttoned all the way," he joked, holding his arms out to examine them for insects.

She sank back against the wall, feeling the giddy unreality of fading adrenaline. "How could you poke fun at a time like this! What just happened? Is this some kind of prank? What-"

As if to answer her question, a loud voice outside started shouting.

"You'd best come out and answer for what you done to Ellie and Jarvis, Doc! Them's my kin, and I ain't leavin' till ye face me!"

"Oh, no," Christy murmured, her eyes still tightly shut.

"Not a prank, but it is a mountain remedy of sorts," Neil said, his low voice weary and defeated. "The wasps are meant to chase me outside, and they would have, if not for this room."

"Best do it soon! Won't like what I'm fixin' to set up instead!" the male voice called out again. Seconds later, there was a loud concussive sound, quite different from a bullet.

"That sounded like a blast charge," Neil said with dread in his voice. She opened her eyes to see him slapping at a black spot on his leg.

"What does that mean?" she breathed. She could guess, but-

"Booby traps. He's telling me if I don't come out, anyone who visits me will be in danger."

Fear thinned her voice to a shadow of itself. "How is that possibly better than what he's angry about? More innocents could get hurt!"

"It makes perfect sense to him," he answered, scrubbing a hand over his face. A wasp buzzed angrily over and landed on his chest, poised to sting, but Neil didn't seem to notice or care. "It's my property. My responsibility."

She wanted to rush over and dislodge the wasp, but any movement would cause it to strike. "Well, that's a silver lining of sorts, right?" His brow furrowed, but she continued, "You kept to yourself for weeks. I imagine I'm hardly the first person you told to leave when they knocked. You've trained everyone to stay away; that will give us enough time to come up with a plan."

His huff of surprised breath in response prompted the wasp to take off for a few seconds, but it landed again just as quickly. With a swift movement, Neil crushed it against his chest, wincing at the sting.

Christy grabbed one of the loose bandages he'd been using to stuff the door and came over as he brushed the dead insect away. "Do you always hurt yourself to make things better?" she asked pointedly, holding out the piece of cloth. A small spot of blood was forming where he'd been stung, a match to ten or more other such areas across his chest and arms. She imagined his back looked the same.

"If necessary. If she'd taken off, she could have stung us both multiple times. This was just the once," he said, taking the cloth and dabbing it with exaggerated care on the tiny bit of blood. She twisted her lips to the side; he had a point. The countless other stings proved the uselessness of the gesture.

"Were you stung enough to be poisoned? At least we're in your lab, where you can mix up a poultice," she said briskly, falling back on her lifeline for moments of stress: trying to help as best she could.

"Dinna fret, I'll be fine."

"What good does being in untreated pain do you, doctor?"

"Some things are untreatable," he said, pushing past her to a chest of drawers near where she was standing. Moving away felt like giving him the high ground, but standing so close reminded her of what had happened right before the attack. Christy couldn't look away from the broad expanse of his back, but soon her heart was racing for a different reason. The bare skin was marked in so many places with red welts from the swelling stings.

The more she counted, the more worried she became.

"Neil, how long does it take for the venom to affect a person?"

He turned to face her, a jumble of blue fabric in his hands. "So it's Neil again, is it?"

Deep down she sensed that he was employing his best bedside manner; when the situation could be dire, the best way to keep calm was to deflect away one's fears and make jokes. Now was not the time, though, and she absolutely could not afford to think about what he'd done less than ten minutes ago.

"It might be 'collapsed on the floor and at my inadequate medical mercy' fairly soon if you don't take this seriously!" Christy ripped the mass of cloth from his hands and shoved it into his mouth just as he opened it to object. "You have at least twenty-five stings on your back. How much venom can you take?"

Instead of looking as worried as he ought to, Neil's expression turned to amusement as he took the crumpled shirt out of his mouth. She threw her hands up and stalked away in deep frustration.

"I don't know why you would think my concern for your welfare is amusing, Dr. MacNeill." Her hands were shaking. Trying to stop up his mouth was an impulse, one she never would have thought to do if she weren't so aggravated by him. Everything about the man turned her upside down.

"It would take upwards of five hundred stings to cause concern, Christy. These just destroyed what remained of the good whiskey in my system." After a pause, he added, "Thank you, all the same."

"I was trying to go through a mental list of priorities, that's all."

"With my health at the top of them? I'm honored."

He was mocking her! She turned, ready to scold him for not taking their situation seriously, but found he was standing only a foot away, still shirtless. Christy felt a tightness in her chest, as though her lungs had fractured and their pieces were fluttering down into her stomach.

To deflect him from noticing how disconcerted she was, she shot him a scandalized look and put a hand over her eyes.

"Shirt on, please, doctor?"

"I thought you didn't want the stings to pain me?"

"Will you be serious? There's a man outside maybe setting bombs out on your property, and you're-"

"Explosives are expensive and heavy," Neil interrupted. "It's unlikely that man has more than a barrel of black powder and a pile of matches. The chances he can create some kind of hazard that would actually hurt someone is very low."

"But you looked so worried, before!" She dropped her hand and saw that he'd pulled on the blue shirt.

"I still am," Neil said, moving to sit at his work desk. He started to clear away some papers and vials as he continued, "The booby trap is the man himself. He's been silent for a good while now, likely to draw me out."

"Don't go," she said quickly.

He looked up, his expression inscrutable. "Don't worry. I've no desire to risk my neck without more information." Standing, he went to a shelf and examined a row of tall, thin books. Neil pulled one out and set it on the now-cleared area of his desk, opening it to reveal many columns of hand-written notes. She watched as he paged through them until he let out a sound of satisfaction and focused on one section in particular.

Christy knew she should look away, that her scrutiny might be unwelcome, but she couldn't bring herself to. He was still unkempt, but his retributory neglect hadn't extended to this most precious of spaces. She'd never known a non-believer as altruistic as he appeared to be, and it really challenged her perspective on the world.

As she traced her eyes across his familiar features, she wondered how her deepening regard for him fit into God's plan. At his core, Neil MacNeill seemed to greatly distrust the idea of hidden motives, of being obedient and receptive to the invisible hand of God. Surely the God of love wouldn't bring her to care so deeply for someone who would feel betrayed by her prayers for his salvation?

"Do you mean to use that gaze of yours to bore through my skull and discover my secrets?"

Christy started in surprise. "I'm sorry, doctor. I was deep in thought."

"I could tell." He held up the ledger. "Patient records, of sorts. Rudimentary, but I did note down that Jarvis Tatum has a brother that lives some fifty miles away. It's my guess that a letter detailing Tatum's grievances was delivered to the man outside not long ago."

"So he came here for, what?" She couldn't bring herself to vocalize any of the horrible thoughts that sprang to mind.

"Accountability. Vengeance. An apology, perhaps. No way to know but to ask." He stood up, and she rushed over, snatching the ledger out of his hand.

"This is one of how many? All of these people are counting on you. That's why so many of them showed up with their guns to confront his brother. We need you."

Neil looked stern. "They showed up to rescue a headstrong and kind teacher who needed their help." He pulled the book from her hand and pushed past her to replace it on its shelf.

"They could have told you to trade your life for mine, but they didn't!" He turned around, his expression sparking her stubborn streak. "Not that I would have let you," Christy said, crossing her arms. It was all false bravado. They both knew she wouldn't have been able to do anything.

Instead of teasing her, though, Neil's face darkened. He picked up his discarded pipe and felt for the remaining tobacco with a testing finger, choosing to walk around the workbench from the other side, rather than push past her again.

"There was no happy ending to that confrontation. Tatum would have seen my concern for you and used it to extract his revenge."

"What do you mean?" she whispered, feeling a sudden chill cross the room, like it was twilight rather than midmorning.

"An eye for an eye may seem like a quaint parable in that book of yours, but for the people here, it's very real."

The room fell silent, leaving Christy with nothing to distract her from his stark, frightening statement. Jarvis Tatum's wife had died. An eye for an eye in this context could only mean-

The sharp sound of metal against metal rang out just outside, rescuing her from one dilemma by reminding her of another.

"We mean to speak to ye, Doc, and we ain't leaving till it's so. Got yer porch wired up good, but just in case you think yer a good shot-" A few seconds passed, and then multiple guns fired all at once. It was at least four, a clear message that there Tatum's brother had brought a posse with him.

"I count five," Neil said, swearing under his breath. He strode over to the window, craning his neck to look around.

"They won't shoot in here, will they?" she asked, hating the fear that thinned her voice.

"No. Waste of a good cabin," he answered absently, grabbing a spyglass from a shelf near the window and holding it up to his eye.

"Didn't Jarvis Tatum burn his down?"

"That was symbolic."

Christy started to ask something else, but he shushed her with such focused purpose that she fell silent and pressed herself up against the far wall. He had his ear against the window, a look of intense concentration on his face. After five minutes of this, he walked over to the desk and let out a long sigh.

"They're circling the house."

"Is there a hidden way out, or something?"

"It doesn't matter now. I'm sorry, but we've got some decisions to make."

She immediately knew what he was going to say. "You don't have to go out there. Both Miss Alice and David know where I was headed today. When I'm not back in a few hours, someone will come looking for me." His expression didn't change, and she ramped up her persuasive tone. "You implied there's a code of ethics for these mountain men, yes? Does that include murdering a preacher or a woman of God in cold blood?"

Neil ran his hand through his hair, and turned back to face the window. He looked for all the world like he didn't know how to tell someone their family member wasn't going to make it.

"What is it?"

"By the time anyone shows up, you'll have been here for many hours. Alone."

Understanding struck her like a lightning bolt. It hadn't been more than two months since Bessie Coburn's lie had forced Neil to reveal the truth about their night-time talk by the river. Something wild and frantic started spinning around inside her, but Christy tried to tamp it down, tried to think of a solution.

"I was alone with Jarvis Tatum for hours, and no one-"

"That's different."

Neil sounded angry, and the knot in her gut spun up into a lump in her throat.

"Not that much different! I couldn't leave then, and I can't leave now." Despite her best efforts, she still sounded like she was about to cry. "Surely the Cove can see the difference between us deliberately spending all that time together and being forced to? They'll know we were hiding from these men!"

"That won't matter."

"How could it not matter?" she demanded, swallowing hard against the need to cry or scream or do something to alleviate the whirling tension that was building up inside her.

Neil was quiet for a long time, but unlike before, he didn't seem to be looking for a solution to avoid the antagonists outside.

Finally, in a voice that sounded somehow both hollow and kind, he said, "Because no one thought Jarvis Tatum had designs on you."