Crispin tugged at me, crying in distress. I moaned and pushed his hands away, not finding it odd that he could physically touch me. Or that I could feel it.
"Go away," I mumbled. "I don't feel so good."
"He's coming!" he warned. "Johannsen is coming! You have to get up. He's almost here. Get up! Get away or he'll kill us again!"
I ignored him. Even the threat of my father's arrival wasn't enough to force me to move. It wasn't until Ballycor sank his teeth into my jacket and dragged me out of the sleeping bag that I could react.
Clumsily, I sat up and promptly puked. Nothing came up, just painful dry heaves that wracked my ribs and gave me cramps that doubled me over. I couldn't breathe. My ribs and belly tightened up and the darkness almost took all my vision. My head felt so light yet pounded in time with my heavy heartbeat. I staggered onto my knees and finally managed to suck in some air. My vision cleared and the roar in my ears died to a mutter.
I could not rise any higher or get off my knees. There was no way that I would be able to saddle Bally or climb on his back. There was no way that I could escape without doing both.
"Crispin? Can you–" I swallowed, my tongue a wooden block in my throat. The act of talking made my dry, cracked lips bleed. I knew that I needed to drink; I was seriously dehydrated. As I turned to look for my pack, Crispin rolled a water bottle toward me. Inside the clear plastic floated leaves and pieces of bark. The bottle was still sealed but I supposed that it proved no problem to a ghost.
"Willow," he offered but I already knew that. "Helps with fever. Drink. I'll saddle Bally for you."
I looked at him helplessly. "Can you?" I twisted the cap off, tucked it into my pocket and sipped slowly so that I didn't gag on the leaves or vomit from drinking too fast. It tasted awful, bitter and left a coating on my tongue and mouth. He kept an eye on me as he hoisted the blanket and saddle in one go. I watched him with drooping eyes as he handled the tack with the ease of familiarity, marveling that he was able to manipulate solid matter when he himself was not.
Somehow, Crispin had the stallion saddled. Bridled and then, got the horse to lay down so that I could mount. With Crispin’s help, I was able to get in the saddle. Ballycor’s first lunge onto his feet made me lurch and fall off. By the fourth attempt with the same results, Crispin tied me onto the saddle using the cords from my tent poles. He tied my wrists to the horn and my ankles to the girth.
Feebly, I protested saying that if Bally fell, I could break my legs, unable to free them from underneath his fallen bulk. And if he struggled, I could do worse than break a leg. Crispin replied that ‘better a broken leg than dead’.
I couldn’t steer, had no idea in what direction I should be going. He took the reins and led Ballycor off at a trot. I sat deep in the saddle and let my head rest on my chest. Kept my eyes closed so that I did not have to make any decisions. Rather, I let Crispin do that for me.
I had no clue as to what time it was or what day – the sky was still dark, no stars, no moon to light our way. Just a heavy darkness with a palpable humidity that sucked moisture from my body. It made me thirstier than ever.
I reached for the water bottle and couldn’t move my hands because they were tied to the horn. I wondered how Bally could see – I couldn’t yet not a branch or a leaf hit me in the face nor did Ballycor stumble. Crispin must be guiding him with precision.
Not a leaf crackled, or twig snapped under his hooves. The night was pregnant with silence as we traveled for hours. I fell into a doze, more a fevered coma where nightmares ruled. If I cried out in delirium, I didn’t remember it. The motion of the horse reassured me in the dim conscious of my mind that all was well and when it stopped, that was enough to rouse me.
I opened my eyes. Ballycor had stopped in a small copse next to a rocky ridge. A huge tree bent in a slow ‘S’ curve as if someone had stepped on the trunk as a sapling to mark a special spot. It towered over us, an oak that was clearly more than two-hundred years-old, as wide around as a car. I vaguely wondered why it had not been harvested for its lumber–though the bend would cause it to lose three or four feet of board length out of a hundred. It was clearly a marker, the one that Crispin’s Mr. Fitz had left for the Captain.
Crispin was gone. I didn’t need him to explain where we were; I knew the spot. Somewhere on the ledge was buried the gold hoard that Crispin’s father had cached from Johannsen’s crew.
Gold would not help me in my sickness, but it might buy me enough time to elude my father. I wondered if he would recognize this place in some past-life memory.
Because Crispin was gone, and I was still tied to the saddle, I couldn’t steer Ballycor. He wandered the small copse on his own, grazing on the fine-stemmed grass. Since we were in the place where the gold was buried, I wasn’t sure if we needed to leave. Not that I could, anyway. Unless I could untie myself.
I struggled against the ropes, but he had tied them tight enough to hold me, just this side of cutting off my circulation. That and because I was still fevered and weak, I didn’t have the strength to fight for very long. So, when Ballycor bolted around, I was wrenched hard enough to lose my seat and but for the ties, would have fallen off. I slid sideways yet remained atop the horse, couldn’t see what had caused Bally to spin. Yet, I knew why.
When I heard his voice, I gave up. “Well, Cris ole boy. I’m right glad to see you,” my father drawled. He whispered to me in Creole and that made my skin crawl.
"Laissez les bons temps rouler." Let the good times roll.
Ballycor charged him. Such was the stallion’s speed and grace that he nearly reached my father’s side before I heard a rifle boom and the scream of an injured horse.
The stallion stumbled and fell, rolling onto his side and pinning me underneath. I felt my leg break and barely had the breath to scream. I felt his ribs heaving, struggling to breathe before he gave one last gasp and went still. I was in shock, could not feel my own body and had no idea what damage had been done to it. Could not move even if I wanted to.
I sensed him approaching. He was on a horse and it stopped almost at my head before I heard him dismount. The sound his Bowie knife made as he pulled it from its sheath was both familiar and frightening. I could smell the cold steel as it came close, the slash of its blade brought a white-hot pain to my wrists and I cringed.
My hands fell to my side, pins and needles bringing tears to my eyes. He cut my one ankle free but couldn’t get to the other as the bulk of the dead stallion was lying on it. He used the other horse to move poor Ballycor off, dragging him away from my body.
Lifting me by my shoulders, he carried me over to the ledge where he laid me out on my sleeping bag. My gear was spread out near the stallion’s body and he had gone through it. He made camp and as he puttered, he asked questions. About Mom. How she died. When I answered none of them, he slapped me as he asked the last question, laughing as he told me that she deserved everything that had happened to both of us. He described in vivid detail the results of her autopsy until the fear in my heart turned to hatred.
“You’re sick, boy. Some kind of bug from drinking or eating something bad. I thought I taught you better than that,” he spoke conversationally. No one was more surprised than I when he lifted my head and held a mug of steaming tea to my lips. Encouraging me to drink, I swallowed the hot stuff recognizing the flavor.
Rose-hips and hibiscus with the bitter aftertaste of some antibiotic. He fed me sips slow enough that I didn’t feel the need to throw up until I had taken two whole cups.
“How long you been sick, Cree-cree?” He called me by his nickname. “I seen where you pooped blood. Since then? You didn’t pick no mushrooms? Boiled your water? When’s the last time you et?”
He shook me. I was far away from the present and my father seemed to realize that I was not there or that he would not be getting any answers from me. Not coherent ones, anyway.
I felt him running his hands over me, checking my arms and legs, probing my ribs and belly. He did not seem to be satisfied as he bundled me up inside my sleeping bag, hoisting me onto his horse.
“Tink your leg is broke,” he said as he kicked over the coals and poured the rest of the tea atop, ensuring that the fire was totally out. He mounted behind me, his arms wrapped around me and holding the reins. I leaned against his body, seeking his warmth as he urged the horse forward.
“The gold,” I whispered into his chest. He pulled the horse to a stop.
“Gold? What gold? What you talking about, boy?” His voice was sharp and eager.
“Gold buried in the ledge,” I mumbled. “Federal gold. Hundreds of pounds. Buried during the years after the Indian Wars.”
I didn’t have to convince him, he had Johannsen’s buried memories in his own head. “Where is it?” he demanded. “Where is the Captain’s gold?”
With that, I knew that he had given himself over to the past and had no mercy left for me. If he ever had. I pointed, and he slid off the horse, leaving the reins within my reach. He did not leave his rifle but snatched it out of the scabbard as his feet hit the ground. I waited until he had found the first rotten leather Army bags as he spilled gold coins and small bars on the ground. When he was entranced with the sight of gleaming bullion, I kicked the horse into a leap forward and we bolted out of the clearing.
His first shots went wild and by the fourth, he had ranged not the horse but me. The bullets wiped me off the saddle. I fell, hitting the ground so hard that I bounced and that was enough to knock the air out of my lungs and all signs of consciousness. The black overwhelmed me. I wondered if that was what it felt like to die and then, I wondered nothing at all.