The child was back in a matter of minutes with the bottle, which was three quarters of the way full. Evangeline had been disconcerted when she came across the stuff, while assessing the supplies on hand, and she’d even considered emptying it down the privy, lest Big John turn out to be a drinking man. Now, of course, she was very glad she hadn’t followed the impulse. After drawing a deep breath, she poured at least an ounce over the front of Scully’s shoulder, and he came partway awake, gasping at the pain.

“Turn over,” Evangeline told him quietly. “There’s still the other side, where the blasted thing went in.”

Reluctantly, he obeyed, and she repeated the process. After that, she tore the sheet Abigail had brought into long strips and began binding the double wound, bringing the bandage around beneath Scully’s armpit, then up over the back of his shoulder again.

“Woman,” he breathed, “you are killing me.”

“Hush,” she said. “We’re almost through.”

“What did you pour on me just now, kerosene?”

She laughed, though her eyes were smarting with tears of relief. Scully was far from being out of danger, but he was conscious, and speaking in coherent sentences, and Evangeline was grateful for small favors. “It was whiskey.”

“I could use a shot of that right about now,” he said, with a flimsy, one-sided grin, “if you won’t need it to keep the lamps burning, that is.”

“I don’t normally countenance the use of spirits,” she told him primly. She was covered in blood, as he was, and would have to take a bath later, but she pushed that thought to the back of her mind for the moment. “In your case, I’ll make an exception. Abigail?”

Abigail, hovering nearby and listening to every word, immediately appeared with the metal cup in which Scully took his coffee in the mornings. Evangeline poured a generous dose of the whiskey, hoping it would ease his pain and help him to sleep, and held it to his lips. He finished the whole thing, a sip at a time, a process which took some time. Within a minute or two of finishing, he nodded off into a doze.

Evangeline used the time to drag the washtub out of the pantry and set it in front of the fireplace. Later, she would replace it with Scully’s cot, from the lean-to, but just then her hands, face, hair and dress were so stained that she looked like Lady Macbeth.

And poor Bessie was carrying on fit to rouse the dead.

“I’ve got to go and take care of that cow,” she said resolutely.

Abigail nodded. “Me and Hortense will sit by Scully till you get back,” she said. She was so small, and trying to be so brave. Evangeline hugged her, despite the blood, holding back the corrective Hortense and I that leapt to the tip of her tongue. She even managed a semblance of a smile.

“I would appreciate that,” she said, putting on her cloak and reaching for the milk bucket.