Zeb stood a while watching us. ‘If we knew where they were,’ he said. ‘If I could see them, now,’ and he began pushing his way through the scrub. The branches closed over him.
‘My thighs are skinned,’ I said.
Caro made no reply.
Feeling the lack of my coat, I walked to and fro. My wife laid her head on her knees and snuffled into her blue silk.
‘I’ll starve with cold,’ she mumbled. ‘All this is madness.’ She held up the gold chains around her neck. ‘We can return these, Jacob. Say we went in pursuit of thieves.’
‘You know that won’t wear.’
‘How will we sell them?’ Caro screamed. Some small creature skittered through the bushes at her back, and she collapsed again into silence.
Zeb’s voice suddenly rang out, anguished. ‘Jacob! Jacob!’
Caro leapt upright. I plunged through the branches where Zeb was gone before, seeing nothing but scrub and trees, my wife stumbling after me.
‘There are footpads in these woods,’ Caro hissed.
I shook my head. ‘He’s seen something.’
We stood straining our ears.
‘Zeb?’ I called.
And then I saw him, not far off. My hands flew to my mouth as I took it all in. Zeb had climbed a tall tree as a lookout. Now he dangled from a branch by his arms, legs kicking free. Below him, on the grass, lay a freshly broken bough. A strip of torn bark drooped like a hangnail from the trunk.
Caro’s eyes had followed mine. ‘Elm,’ she moaned. ‘Hateth and waiteth.’
I moved forwards, wondering if I could catch him. He had about fifteen feet to fall. A man dropping from that height might well break the bones of one beneath.
‘He’s going!’ Caro screamed. I saw Zeb’s hands peel from the branch. There was not time to get beneath the elm. His legs strained upwards in a wild attempt to scissor them round the trunk, but it was much too thick for him. He fell fists clenched, with a howl which exploded in terror as he struck the ground.
There was silence, broken by Caro’s whining, ‘O Lord, Lord, O Lord, O.’ We clambered over logs and leaves. He was stretched on his back, face white and eyes closed. She wet her finger and held it to his nose and mouth. ‘I can’t feel anything! Jacob, there’s no breath, he’s not – he’s – Jacob—’
‘Calm yourself’ I felt under Zeb’s coat and shirt, pressing my palm flat to the skin. Strangled sobs came from Caro. My brother could not be dead. He was warm. Only that morning, looking on his nakedness, I had remarked how strong he was grown.
‘He lives, be at rest,’ I said, feeling Zeb’s heart leap under my hand.
‘Let me.’ She pushed my fingers aside, pressed her own to him and at once sighed. I saw her shoulders loosen and her head drop forward as if praying. Then she stiffened again.
‘He’s not right here.’
Here was his waist. I unfastened his coat properly, from top to bottom, and pulled up his shirt. Zeb groaned without coming back to us. I saw now that his flesh was darkened and puffed up round the lowest rib, and he was not lying straight.
‘There’s something broken,’ Caro wailed. ‘O, look there!’
I did look and saw that he had landed across a branch lying in the grass. I covered him up again, thinking that we were in the very worst plight for tending him – no surgeon, not even a blanket. He groaned again and opened his eyes.
‘Zebedee!’ Caro kneaded his hand. ‘Do you know us?’
He muttered, ‘Too well.’ But even this feeble joke lost all relish when he tried to sit up and fell back crying.
‘Move your foot,’ Caro implored him.
His right foot flexed.
‘Your back’s not broken,’ she whispered, but he had swooned from the pain.
‘We have to go on,’ I told her. ‘Here we are like to be surprised.’
‘He can’t.’
‘Do you want him hanged?’ I urged.
Caro wrung her hands. ‘Will you carry him?’
‘We’ll put him on horseback.’
We tortured him into the saddle. I walked on one side of him and Caro, trembling, rode on the other horse, at every minute afraid that her animal might bolt. Strung out like this we had great trouble in passing along the narrower paths, and our progress was slow indeed. I was close to tears, having not the slightest idea where we were headed or how we would do now that Zeb was hurt. We walked seemingly for hours, and many were the groans Caro and I heard before we at last stopped near a stream: Zeb had twice been sick, and had once fainted onto my shoulders. I stood ready to catch him as he dismounted. He gasped – ‘Ah!’ – but was able to walk almost to the water, sinking down just before he reached it. Caro knelt by his side, stroking his cheek and pushing his hair out of his eyes.
‘Don’t put me back on the horse,’ Zeb begged.
‘No, no,’ she murmured.
I said, ‘Tomorrow we will get you a surgeon.’
‘I’m thirsty.’
Caro cupped her hands in the stream and I supported him so that he could drink. Most of the water dropped onto his chest and he shivered. The wood was beginning to grow dark.
I took Caro by the sleeve and led her away. ‘Sit down,’ I urged in a whisper. ‘What think you? Is there more than a rib broken?’
‘What do I know!’ Her voice came cold and dispirited. ‘Why should there be?’
‘He faints. I didn’t faint when mine was broken,’ I reminded her.
‘O, you…!’ She got up and went back to Zeb, soothing him with soft pitying noises as one might a child.
He lay staring at the branches above. I heard him say, ‘Sister, I’ll die.’
‘Pain talking,’ I said, going over to him. ‘You’ll not die. Now act the man.’
‘I’m starting a fever.’ Zeb reached for Caro’s hand and pressed it to his forehead.
‘He’s very hot.’ Caro looked at me helplessly.
‘Broken bones do get hot.’
‘Feel, here,’ Zeb pleaded with Caro. He indicated his chest.
‘Let me.’ I fingered his shirt front. It was soaked with sweat.
‘I can cool him,’ said Caro, loosening the collar. ‘Put my handkerchief in the stream.’
‘No,’ I said, laying my hand on hers as she began easing the shirt up over his chest. ‘Best he sweat it out.’
‘I’m burning,’ moaned Zeb.
‘He shouldn’t be half naked like that. Cover him up.’ I straightened Zeb’s shirt and pulled his coat close over his breast. The wind, growing stronger, stirred the tops of the trees so that they hissed like a poker in ale. ‘Come away and rest,’ I told Caro.
We lay down together a few yards from Zeb, barely able to see one another. I took my coat from her and arranged it over both of us. It was not much of a blanket, for cold air crept in on every side. Faintly from under the stench of horse and vomit came the scent of her pomaded hair.
‘How will you get him a surgeon?’ whispered Caro.
I pulled her on top of me. ‘We have gold.’