Free By These Ten Bones by Clare B. Dunkle Page B

her. He wasn’t the son of a chief, and he wasn’t perfect, either, but she had admitted that she loved him, and she had promised to protect him. She should find out what was wrong.
    After she took Lady Mary the evening meal, she made the walk down the path again. The cold air had settled to the bottom of the valley, and the wind whipped across the steel-gray water. It was growing dark when she reached the cave. She knelt in the entrance to light the lantern with the chunk of burning peat she had brought and crept cautiously down the narrow tunnel, her heart stopping at every shadow.
    A body slumped on the ground at the end of the iron chain, indistinct in the feeble light. Setting down the lantern, she inched fearfully toward the silent figure. She found no snarling, bubbling monster. The wood-carver lay shivering in the grip of a high fever. His lean face looked frail and pinched, and when she touched him, he moaned in pain.
    There’s no sense just standing here, thought the practical girl, and she set to work. She managed to unfasten the heavy collar and lift it from his neck, but he was unconscious, and no efforts roused him. She dragged him across the room before she realized that she would never get him home. Tucking his sheepskin blanket around him, Maddie puzzled over the problem of moving him out of the cave, but she could think of no solution. She hurried away into the cloudy night.
    The next morning, she was out of the house before dawn and down the path again. Her mother was gullible enough to think she was at morning Mass because Maddie had never deceived her before, but someone else was bound to notice her trips back and forth if she didn’t get him home soon.
    The wood-carver still jerked and cried out in delirium, but she managed to get him onto his knees and staggering a short distance. Time after time, she urged him up and helped him crawl a little, his progress lit by the lantern on the ground in front of them. At last she got him out of the cave and into the cold shadows of morning as a thin rain began to drizzle down. But the path was too long, and he was desperately ill. Maddie wrapped the sheepskin around his hot, shivering form, and then she tucked her own checked blanket around him, watching the tiny drops of rain trickle down his black hair. She hurried up the path again, thinking about what to do.
    â€œFather Mac,” she called as the priest left the little stone church.
    â€œWhere were you, child?” he boomed. “You weren’t in Mass.”
    â€œNo, I’ve found something, Father, and I’m needing your help.” She led the priest down the path by the loch.
    â€œWhat were you doing here so early?” he wondered, squinting into the rain.
    â€œLooking,” answered Maddie, thinking furiously. “I hoped Carver might be coming home, and then I found him.”
    Father Mac knelt down by the delirious wood-carver, eyeing the chipped and widened cave entrance with a puzzled frown. Then he picked the young man up with a grunt and heaved him across his shoulder.
    Fair Sarah was beside herself with anxiety and relief when her sick boy came home. “I knew he was wandering like Angus!” she exclaimed, stripping the wet shirt from him. “He’ll kill himself yet with this cold and damp. He’s raving again, just raving!”
    Maddie huddled by the peat fire to warm herself and watched her mother fuss over Carver. She sat next to the fire and teased baskets of loose wool that day, combing out the brambles while he groaned and whispered. It was just like it had been a month ago, but now everything was different. Before, she had been fascinated by the mysterious young man. Now she knew the mystery.
    Next morning, the wood-carver still shivered and shook, but he was back in his right mind. He waited until Fair Sarah went out into the dripping rain, and then he called to Maddie.
    â€œWhat did I do?” he asked her, just as he had