Deserter by Paul Bagdon Page B

fever-ravaged brain, helping him get to his feet, forcing him to move, to take some action against the infection that, even in his fogged state of mind, he knew could drop him into his grave. He looked at his hand. It was hugely swollen now and the red trailers had become more pronounced, extending beyond his wrist, toward his elbow. He couldn’t clasp the hand, couldn’t come near forming a fist. His fingers were fat, pasty-white sausages that stretched the skin that covered the bones until it seemed ready to rupture from the pressure. Jake stood, foolishly naked, swaying like a tree in strong wind, doing his best to force himself to think coherently, pushing away images of his father, of Dr. Turner.
    â€œA poultice,” he whispered hoarsely. “Gotta make a poultice.”
    Mud was the only component he could find, but there was plenty of it, thanks to the storm. He stumbled to the bush where he’d spread his shirt and pants and reached to his naked hip for his bowie knife. For a heartbeat, clarity returned. Even so, he had no idea where the knife may have been. He dropped his gun belt to the ground, tore a sleeve from the shirt, and then pulled on the remaining part of it. His face, neck, and forearms were deeply tanned, but the pallid white flesh of his back and abdomen and legs hadn’t seen sun in a long time, and he was already beginning to burn. He sat down and hauled on his pants and thenhis boots. He was able to buckle his gun belt around his waist.
    Pockets formed by the roots of trees held the thick black mud Jake sought. Clumsily, using his teeth and his left hand, he tied off the lower part of the sleeve and knelt in the spongy soil in front of a puddle to fill the fabric cylinder with mud. It was soupy at the surface, little more than dirty water, but lower the mud was a composite of soil and decayed leaves, cool to the touch, with an earthy smell that wasn’t at all unpleasant. When the sleeve was half-full, Jake eased his right hand into the muck until he felt the knot he’d tied at the end. The cool mud offered some relief from the burning sensation, and that alone made the whole exercise worthwhile.
    The exhaustion—the overpowering sense of sick fatigue—struck Jake like a bolt from the sky. He’d been dizzy and disoriented and weak, but now he felt unable to gather the strength to take another step, to check on his horse, to eat a few sticks of jerky. He made it to a patch of shade and collapsed.
    It took Sinclair some moments to figure out that it was very early morning and that he’d slept through the balance of the day and the entire night before. His mud poultice had almost but not completely dried during his unconscious hours. His hand throbbed in its soil cast, but the pressure created by the drying muck seemed to force any real pain into the background of sensation. The fever was still with him. He was terribly thirsty, and his gut rumbled with hunger, but the thought of food nauseated him. He gazed aroundwhere he’d slept. The early sun made the dew sparkle brightly, like bits of mica randomly strewn about.
    If I don’t get some help today I’m going to die in these woods. By tomorrow I’ll be too weak to climb onto Mare and I’ll sit here and boil to death in my own goddamn fever-sweat.
He got shakily to his feet.
Ferris said there was a town somewhere around here. A town might have a doctor or at least someone who knows some animal and human medicine. All I need to do is find the town.
    Mare, still securely hobbled, had been able to move freely enough to expand her grazing area to a shaded patch near a sinkhole of tepid water. Jake lumbered up to her, stroked her face while holding on to her neck to keep himself from toppling over, and, after sucking up some of the murky water from what amounted to nothing beyond a stagnant puddle, led her back to his gear. His saddle and rifle were untouched. There was no sign of his knife.