Free In the Rogue Blood by James Carlos Blake, J Blake

woman have a look. “She’s a natural-born healer if ever there was one,” he said. Edward demurred but John said, “Let her see it, bubba. I aint real sure how good I done on it.”
    The woman helped Edward off with his shirt and made close examination of the wound and then turned to her husband and he stepped up and took a look at it and then looked at the brothers as if seeing themfor the first time. Then he sat down and busied himself packing and lighting his pipe.
    The woman commended John’s handiwork with a cauterizing iron but neither she nor Campbell asked how Edward had come to receive such a wound. She ordered the elder daughter to form strips of bandage from a sheet of clean linen stored in a trunk and told the younger to boil a kettle of water and to use a bit of it to make a cup of red root tea. She fetched a handful of wild potato leaves from the wagon and ground them in a small amount of water to form a salve. When the hot water was ready she soaked a clean strip of linen in it and gently washed the wound and patted it dry and applied the leaf salve to it and rewrapped it in a fresh bandage. The younger girl presented Edward with a steaming cup of red root tea and the woman instructed him to drink it every drop. “It’s willow bark,” she said. “It’ll rid what fever you still got.”
    Campbell and the brothers kept by the dying fire and drank coffee after the woman and the girls bedded down in the wagon. None of the three spoke for a time and then Campbell asked in a low voice if the boys might appreciate a taste of something a little stronger than just coffee. Edward and John exchanged grins and John said he believed a drink of something stronger would set real well. Campbell looked toward the wagon as if to ascertain that the woman was indeed asleep. He put a finger to his lips and stood up and went to a corner of the wagon and quietly detached a rucksack hanging there and brought it back to the fire and from it he withdrew a corked jug.
    “My old woman thinks a sip of spirits is a swallow of the devil’s own spit,” he said. “She probly right. But hell, ever now and then a feller’s got to have him a taste of good shine, else he’s like to lose his sap altogether. Aint that right, you boys?” The brothers assured him that he was absolutely right. They were all speaking in whispers.
    “Specially if it’s a wounded man among them,” Campbell said, pouring a generous dollop of moonshine into each cup. “Wounded man got to have all the medicinal help he can get.” The brothers said he was as right as can be about that too.
    “So happens I been carry in a real bad wound myself for moren a year now,” John said with solemn mien. “Happened last year at a dance. Sarah Jean Charles refused to take a turn with me. Wounded my poor heart worse than a Indian arrow and I aint recovered yet.” Edward grinned and the farmer lightly slapped his thigh and covered his mouth with his hand to stifle his chortle. The three gently touched cups and tooka drink and there followed a succession of soft appreciative sighs.
    They drank like that for a while, sipping steadily and smacking their lips. The farmer poured another round and passed tobacco to Edward who packed his pipe and lit it and passed it to John. They smoked and drank in contented silence and then had another round and again toasted each other without words. The moon was high when the farmer poured out a last drink for everybody and they touched cups and drank and then put down for the night.
    In the morning the pain of Edward’s wound was much abated and he had no fever at all. The Campbell woman examined it and pronounced that it was crusting nicely and then she bound it anew with a fresh bandage. The brothers took breakfast with the family and the woman packed a chunk of cornbread and a few hocks for them to take with them. They presented Campbell with the old dun in gratitude for his hospitality and his wife’s treatment of Edward’s