The corporal looked more than dubious about this, but before he could protest, Jamie squeezed his shoulder.

“If I wanted to kill ye, I’d just have drowned you in the creek or shot ye,” he said, “rather than lug ye all the way uphill so my wife could poison ye. Now lie down.” He pressed Jackson’s shoulders firmly down and the man gave way, reluctantly.

His eyes above the mask were wild, glancing to and fro as though bidding a final farewell to his surroundings.

“It will be all right,” I said, as reassuringly as possible.

He made a sudden, urgent sound and, reaching up, took hold of the dangling small leather bag that had slipped out from its place between my breasts when I bent over him.

“What is this?” he demanded, pushing the wicker mask aside with his other hand. He looked shocked. “What is in it?”

“Ahh … to be honest, I don’t know, exactly,” I said, and took it gingerly from his fingers. “It’s a … um … I suppose you’d call it a medicine bag—a sort of … amulet? An Indian healer gave it to me, some years ago, and once in a long while, I add something to it—a stone, perhaps, or a bit of herb. But … it didn’t seem right to pour out what she’d put in.”

His look of shock had faded into one of intense interest, tinged with what looked like respect. He put out a tentative forefinger and, raising one brow to ask my permission, touched the worn leather. And I felt it. A faint pulse that throbbed once, against the palm of my hand.

He saw me feel it and his face changed. It was still gray with pain and cold and blood loss, but he was no longer scared—of me, Jamie, or anything else.

“It is your moco,” he said softly and nodded, certain.

“Moco?” I said, not certain at all, but having some notion what he meant. Surely he hadn’t said mojo …

“Yes.” He nodded again and took a long, deep breath, his eyes still fixed on the bag. “My great-grandmama, she is Gullah. She is a hoodoo. I think you are one, too, madam.”

He turned his head abruptly to Jamie.

“Will you help me, sir? In my sack—a piece of red flannel cloth, with a pin stuck through.”

Jamie looked at me in question, but I nodded, and shaking his head he went to pick up a ragged rucksack, dumped in the corner of the room. In a moment, he came back, a small red bundle in his hand.

Jackson nodded his thanks and, rolling onto one elbow, carefully pulled the pin, unfolded the cloth, and stirred the contents with a careful forefinger. A moment later, he picked something from the rubble of stones and feathers and seeds, dried leaves and scraps of wood and iron, and beckoned to me to put my hand out, then deposited something dark and hard in my palm.