Winterset Read online

  Anna came to an abrupt stop. A terrible cold assailed her. Her hand flew to her chest as if to hold in the pain that flowered there, sharp and icy. Instinctively she closed her eyes, seeing in her mind the nighttime darkness of the woods, deep and pervasive. Her breath caught in her throat as fear and panic flashed through her.

  She bit back a moan and stumbled away. She leaned against a tree, struggling to calm her breathing. The panic and the pain receded, leaving her shaken.

  Anna turned, looking back at the innocuous copse of trees from which she had just fled. She pressed her hand against her forehead, where a headache had formed. She waited for the shaking and the weakness to subside. They always did, though the headaches tended to linger longer.

  It was not the first time she had felt this sort of strange sensation, where she seemed abruptly to be outside of her body somehow, assaulted by emotions she did not understand. Sometimes she simply felt these emotions; other times she might smell something, like the sharp scent of burning wood, and often she “saw” something.

  Once, when she had gone to visit one of their tenant farmers whose child was ill, as she had approached the door, she had been struck by a wave of sorrow so severe that tears had sprung unconsciously into her eyes. It had been no surprise to her when the farmer had opened the door, his face a mask of grief, and told her that his child had died only minutes earlier.

  Usually they were quite commonplace things that she saw or felt—a spring day and an upswelling of joy even though it was winter at the time, or a sentence or two in another’s voice suddenly running through her head, completely out of context with anything that was happening around her. When Kit was away in Europe, she had awakened one night thinking she had heard him speak her name, but, of course, he had not been in the house.

  She did not know what caused these “visions,” and she had kept them hidden from those around her, ashamed and embarrassed by her oddity. It was only rarely that they seemed connected to anything real, as they had been with the tenant farmer. She did her best to suppress and ignore them when they came upon her. But never had one hit her with the intensity or pain she had just felt.

  Anna took a deep breath and smoothed back her hair with her hands. She looked at the quiet scene again. It was ridiculous to think that there was anything about it that could cause such fear. She took another steadying breath, turned and began to walk away. Her desire to go farther up the hill had vanished, and she decided to walk home.

  She had not gone very far when she heard the faint sound of a voice. She paused, listening. She was on Holcomb land, and it was unusual for there to be anyone else here.

  Again there was a voice—no, two, she thought. Curious, she turned in the direction of the sound, walking quietly and carefully. There was always the possibility of poachers, though Rankin kept a sharp eye out for them. She had little desire to meet anyone who was roaming deep in these woods.

  She saw them now, some twenty feet or so away, though they were still somewhat hidden by the trees. They were lads, and they were bent over something on the ground. As she drew closer, she saw that what interested the boys was an animal, lying on its side.

  Anna hurried forward, worried now. Obviously there was something wrong with the animal, which she could see now was a dog. She wasn’t sure whether she was more worried that the boys had hurt the dog or that the wounded animal might bite them in its fear.

  “Boys!” Her voice came out more sharply than she had intended.

  The two adolescents whirled around. The first thing she noticed was the evident relief on their faces, which reassured her that they were concerned for the animal, not hurting it, and the next thing was that they were as alike as peas in a pod. They were slender as whips, and both had thick dark hair, disheveled. Their eyes were wide and light-colored, and intelligence shone in them. They looked, she realized with a little clutch in her chest, very much like Reed.

  The twins! Reed had spoken of them often, with a wry affection—and had he not mentioned the other day that they had come here with him?

  “Ma’am!” one of them exclaimed, and they started toward her.

  “Can you help? We found this dog.”

  “And he’s badly hurt.”

  They stopped before her, looking earnestly at her. There were leaves and twigs caught in their hair and on their clothing, and dirt smudged their faces and clothes. Anna could not help but smile at them.

  “What happened to him?” she asked, moving around them to the dog.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Some other animal hurt him, we think.”

  “His side’s slashed open.”

  “And one of his legs is hurt.”

  Belatedly, one of the boys added tentatively, “Well, actually, you might not want to look.”

  “It’s all right,” Anna assured them. “I have seen wounded animals before.”

  The boys, who had come up on either side of her, grinned.

  “Wizard!” said one, and the other told her, “Sometimes girls get squeamish.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Anna looked down at the dog, which did not move, only rolled his eye up warily at her. “Well there, fellow, you have gotten yourself into a mess, haven’t you?”

  He was a medium-size dog, with short yellowish fur. His front leg was torn open and bent at a strange angle, and there were several slashes along his side, blood matting the fur.

  She crooned to the animal, reaching her hand slowly toward his head while at the same time she pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. The dog regarded her, and his tail gave a feeble thump. “That’s right. You know we’re only trying to help you, don’t you? But just in case…”

  She stroked his head gently as she slipped the handkerchief beneath his snout, then brought the ends together and tied them. She looked more closely at his wounds, then stood up.

  “I think he’s going to need more help than I can give him,” she said. “If anyone can save him, it’ll be Nick Perkins.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Someone who lives not too far away and is an expert with animals. I’ve gone to him with every animal I’ve ever had who was sick or wounded. Everything I’ve learned about helping them, I learned from him.”

  “Good.” One boy nodded.

  “Let’s go,” the other one said.

  “The only problem is, we will have to carry him.”

  “We can do that,” the boys told her confidently.

  “But we want to jar him as little as possible,” Anna went on. “So if you two young men will turn your backs, I’ll see if I can provide a litter of sorts.”

  They looked a little confused, but obediently turned their backs to her. Anna quickly stepped back and reached up under her skirts to untie one of her petticoats, then slipped it down, off her feet.

  “All right,” she said, carrying it over to the dog and spreading it out beside him.

  “Jolly good idea!” one of the boys approved.

  “Let’s tie knots at the ends to make it easier to carry,” the other suggested.

  Anna smiled and agreed. They were engaging lads and obviously quick-minded, as well as kindhearted. They were, she supposed, what one would expect from Reed’s brothers.

  With as much gentleness as they could, they slid the dog over onto the petticoat, and while he let out a whimper, he seemed to know that they were trying to help him and did not even growl. The two boys picked up either end of the makeshift sling, and, with Anna in the lead, they started off.

  Their progress was slow, and Anna was sure that the boys’ burden must have gotten very heavy, but they did not breathe a word of complaint, and when she offered to take over carrying one end of the sling, they refused, pointing out that as they were perfectly matched in height, it made the ride much more comfortable for their patient.

  They introduced themselves politely as Con and Alex Moreland, but the only way that Anna could tell them apart was that Alex had a streak of dirt across his forehead, whereas Con
had a thin red streak on his left cheek where a twig had snapped him.

  “I am Anna Holcomb,” she told them in turn, and when they politely called her Miss Holcomb, she protested, “Call me Anna. I think that formalities can be dismissed after an experience such as we are sharing, don’t you?”

  Alex grinned. “You’re true blue, ma’am. That’s what Rafe would say.”

  “Bang up to the nines,” Con agreed emphatically.

  “Lots of girls would have fainted,” Alex went on. “Not our sisters, of course, ’cause they’re bang up, too. But one of Kyria’s friends fainted one time when I showed her a mouse, and it wasn’t even hurt.”

  “Mmm. Well, perhaps she hadn’t the advantage of being reared in the country, as I was.”

  “She was just hen-hearted,” Con said flatly, his disgust for the puny friend of his sister plain in his eyes.

  Their eyes were green, Anna noticed, different from Reed’s silvery-gray ones, but apart from that, she suspected that she was looking at something very much like Reed’s image when he was twelve. It made her heart swell with a strange bittersweetness.

  “It’s a good thing you came along when you did,” Alex continued.

  “Yeah. We were thinking we’d have to go back and get Reed or Rafe, and by the time we got back, we were afraid he might have died,” Con added.

  Alex nodded. “But we thought if we tried to pick him up and carry him back home between the two of us, it would hurt him too bad.”

  “Are you sure this Nick Perkins can save him?” Con asked.

  “No,” Anna replied honestly, for she felt sure that these two weren’t the sort of boys who would rather hear a sweet falsehood. “But if he can be saved, Nick’s the man to do it.”

  She had first met Nick Perkins when she was eight. She had ridden over to his cottage with her father when he had gone to consult Perkins about his favorite dog, which had been wounded in a fight and was barely clinging to life. Formerly a farmer on Winterset lands, Perkins knew more about animals than anyone else around, and he had learned about remedies and herbs from his mother, who had learned from her mother before her—back generations and generations of lay healers, Nick said. Nick had given her father an ointment that time, and steady application of it had saved the dog’s life.

  Anna, who had loved animals from an early age, thereafter regarded the man as a miracle worker, and she had brought every sick stray she found to Perkins for his healing touch. Over the years he had imparted not only much of his knowledge and skills regarding animals to Anna, but his knowledge of remedies, as well. She had turned a small room off the kitchens into a stillroom, and there she made her own ointments and syrups. She had even had the gardener enlarge the cook’s herb garden to include several that she needed in her concoctions.

  There were other plants, of course, that she had to search for in the woods and meadows, and Perkins had taught her to look for those, as well. She regularly went on such expeditions with Nick, for he, despite the fact that he was now in his late seventies, was still a strong and healthy man, and had an eagle eye for spotting their growing quarry.

  She was also, quite frankly, as likely to rely on Nick’s remedies as the village doctor’s for combatting the illnesses of her household—though she would never have admitted as much to Dr. Felton.

  They cut through the meadow and across the stream, then followed a wider, more well-defined path until finally they arrived at Nick Perkins’ cottage. It was a cozy little house, only two rooms and a kitchen, tucked in beneath some trees. Ivy grew up one side of it and crept around to the front, spreading its tendrils toward the steep thatched roof. Before the house lay a small garden, redolent with the scents of herbs and roses mingling. The last few years, since he had stopped farming, he had turned his still-considerable energies to his garden, bringing forth a riot of flowers every year, as well as the herbs he needed for his remedies.

  He was kneeling in his garden now, digging in the earth before one of his rose bushes, and he turned at the sound of their approach. When he saw Anna, a smile spread across his leathery face, and he pushed up from the ground, rising a little creakily to his feet. Although he was old, there was nothing feeble about Nick Perkins. He was still a large man, his broad shoulders only slightly hunched, and though he was slower in his movements, there was strength in his grip and the bright flare of intelligence in his blue eyes.

  “Miss Anna!” he exclaimed, coming toward them, and then his eyes went to the boys and the bundle they carried, and the grin vanished.

  He moved forward more quickly. “What have you brought me this time, eh?”

  He bent over their burden, taking in the injuries at a glance, and said, “Carry him into the kitchen, lads, and let’s get him up on the table.”

  He led them into his house and through the front room to the kitchen. It was cool inside the thick-walled cottage, lit only by the sunshine pouring in through the open door and windows. The cottage was, as always, tidy and swept, and the kitchen was thick with the scent of herbs and flowers and other plants that hung drying from the ceiling, which mingled with a delicious odor wafting from the iron pot that hung over the fire.

  Perkins caught the glances that the boys unconsciously sent toward the fire, and he said, “Mayhap you lads ’d like a bowl of that stew. Looks like ye’ve prob’ly worked up a bit of hunger, with what ye’ve been carrying.”

  “Oh, no, we’d rather watch you, sir, if you’ll let us,” Alex told the old man politely.

  Con nodded, adding, “But we could probably eat a bowl later, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Of course.” Perkins smiled at them and bent down to help them lift the dog onto the table. “But this won’t be pretty.”

  “No, sir. But still, we would like to watch.”

  He nodded, saying, “Just don’t get in my way. Miss Anna, fetch me the cleaner and some cloths.”

  Anna went to do as he bid, taking a stack of clean, though stained and worn, cloths from one of the drawers and picking up a bottle of thin green-tinted liquid from the counter.

  Perkins spoke soothingly to the dog as he bent over it, gently turning back its fur as he searched the wounds. Then he began to clean the wounds, all the while talking to the animal. The boys stood on one side of the table, and Anna took up her familiar position on the other side, by the animal’s head. She held the dog’s head firmly in her hands even as she kept up a litany of soft, soothing words and sounds.

  The twins watched with interest, though they did at times pale a bit or scrunch up their faces with empathy. After Alex had asked a question about what he was doing, the old man explained every step he took as he cleaned out the wounds with care, then stitched up the longer gashes and decorated them all with an ointment. When the leg wound was clean, he carefully set the fractured bone, splinting it with small sticks that Anna brought him from another drawer, and wrapping it around tightly with a bandage.

  When he was through, Nick finished the job by rolling up some herbs into a small ball and popping it into the dog’s mouth, stroking his throat until he swallowed it.

  “That is to ease his pain,” he explained to the twins, whom he then set to creating a soft place with an old blanket near the hearth for the wounded animal to lie.

  They helped him lay the dog carefully on the blankets, and the boys bent over the dog to admire Perkins’ work. After Anna had cleaned up and had made sure the boys did the same, Perkins dished up some of his stew for the lads, and they ate it hungrily, all the while peppering Nick with questions ranging from the operation they had just witnessed to the care and feeding of boa constrictors, a matter on which Nick Perkins allowed he had no knowledge.

  They would doubtless have remained longer, except that Anna, glancing out the window, noticed how low in the sky the sun had sunk.

  “Oh, my goodness, we have been here much longer than I realized!” she exclaimed, standing up. “It won’t be long before the sun is setting.” She turned and looked at the boys, gui
lt clear on her face. “And your brother has no idea where you are. I am afraid that your relatives will be terribly worried.”

  The twins considered this, and Alex said fairly, “Yes, they will probably worry—but not as much as you would think. They are accustomed to our staying out.”

  “When did you leave the house?” Anna asked.

  “Sometime this morning. Around ten, I think.”

  “Oh, my. They will have every right to be angry. I must get you home right away.”

  Her heart quailed a little inside at the thought that she might have to face Reed again, but she had to escort them to their house. They were unfamiliar with the country and had come to Nick’s house from the woods behind Holcomb Manor, not from Winterset, so they would have no chance of finding their way back alone. Well, she told herself, she would just have to steel herself to face him—and hope that she could manage to hand them over to their sister and avoid Reed altogether.

  The boys got up without demur, bidding goodbye to their new friend Nick and politely requesting permission to come back to check on their patient’s progress. Anna hustled them out the door and headed toward Winterset.

  She should have taken them back earlier, she knew. Of course, she had not known at the time that the boys had been gone from their house since before noon, but, still, she should have thought…. Reed would be so worried—and their sister, too, of course. And he would have every right to be angry with her.

  They had just crossed the footbridge over the stream and emerged from the trees on the other side when, in the distance, Anna saw a man on horseback. Her heart sank. It was Reed.