Page 22 of The Widow and the Wanted

It’s not as if I’m treating the boy with poison.

I can help, even if my act of kindness is a pretext for robbery.

I kneel. “I can try.”

I set my case on the ground and flip it open. My fingers find what they know. I draw out a vial of willow bark tincture for fever and pain, a bundle of dried thyme and horehound for the cough, a small tin of beeswax salve.

I press the back of my hand to the boy’s forehead. Heat blooms against my skin.

“Has he been drinking?” I ask.

“A little,” the mother says. “He won’t keep much down.”

“Then we go slow,” I say. “Small sips. Frequent. Clean water. Boiled and cooled.”

Someone hands me a tin cup. Someone else offers water.

I measure a few drops of the willow tincture into a cup, dilute it. “This will taste bitter,” I tell her. “Don’t let him choke on it. Just wet his mouth. Like this.”

She tries, clumsy with panic. The boy coughs, swallows, whimpers.

“Good,” I murmur, more to her than him. “That’s good.”

I wet a cloth and wipe his face, his neck, the hollow of his throat. Cooling the skin doesn’t cure fever, but it eases suffering.

“Does he wheeze at night?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says. “Like he’s drowning.”

I nod once, mind moving. “Thyme and horehound,” I say. “Steep it like tea. Not too strong. Honey, if you have any. If not, molasses. Keep him propped so he’s not flat on his back.”

The woman nods too fast, desperate to do anything right.

Around us, the camp has tightened into a ring. People stare not because they’re cruel, but because a sick child makes everyone imagine their own loved ones.

Somebody behind me mutters, “Winter’s coming early,” and it isn’t small talk—it's fear. “We can’t have sickness.”

I keep my eyes on the boy as I work, but I feel the camp’s attention gathering around me. I draw out a packet of dried yarrow. “For cuts,” I say, handing it to the mother. “And this—” I press a small tin of salve into her palm, the beeswax warmed slightly from my hand. “For chapped skin. For cracked lips. For the child’s chest if the cough keeps him raw.”

Her fingers close around it like it’s gold. Her eyes shine with tears she won’t let fall.

“I don’t have coin,” she whispers.

“I didn’t ask for coin,” I say. “Just keep him warm. Keep him drinking.”

A bark of laughter snaps from somewhere downriver. A horse snorts, louder.

My spine goes cold, because I can feel time. I can feel it slipping.

I stand slowly, as if I am only finishing my work.

The mother catches my sleeve. “What’s your name?”

“Lula,” I say, without thinking.

Shoot.

Perhaps I should have given a false name.