Annie Oakley's Arc

Chapter 5 of 13

Morning came quiet. Lainey crossed the yard between the two cottages with a tin cup of water for Annie. She knocked once. No answer. She knocked again and heard it through the door — a low, hitching cry, the kind a child tries to swallow. Lainey pushed the door open. Annie was on the small bed under the yellow blanket, curled tight, knees up to her chest. The plush moose had fallen to the floor. Her face was wet. Her hair stuck to her cheek. "Annie." Lainey set the cup on the sill and knelt by the bed. "How long?" "Since dark," Annie whispered. "It won't stop." Lainey put her hand flat on the yellow blanket over Annie's stomach. She pressed, gentle, just the weight of her palm. Annie jerked away so hard the bed frame knocked the wall. A sound tore out of her that wasn't a word. Lainey pulled her hand back. "Baby. Does it really hurt that bad?" Annie nodded. Tears ran sideways into her hair. She could not uncurl. She could not speak. Lainey sat back on her heels. She looked at Annie's color. She looked at the spot low on the right side where Annie had flinched. She did not say what she was thinking. She picked the moose up off the floor and tucked it against Annie's chest. "Hold him," Lainey said. "Don't move." She went to the door and called across the lane to the woman who had swept the porch yesterday. A short question. A shorter answer. The woman pointed down the road and held up two fingers. Two hours' ride. Lainey came back inside. "There's a doctor," Lainey said. "Two towns over. I'm taking you." "I can't sit a horse." "You won't. You'll sit in front of me. I'll hold you." Annie's eyes closed. "The mining camp. My sister's town —" "Wait for you," Lainey said. "They wait." Lainey wrapped Annie in the yellow blanket, moose and all. She lifted her. Annie was lighter than she should have been. Lainey carried her out into the sun and down the lane to where the horses stood in the pen. She saddled the paint one-handed, Annie propped against her hip, and swung up with Annie tucked in front of her like a sack of grain she meant not to drop. "Hold the saddle horn," Lainey said. "If it hurts too much, tell me and I stop." Annie's hand found the horn. Her other hand stayed knotted in the moose's fur. Lainey turned the paint toward the road. Not the trail through pine. The road. Faster ground, even if Annie had never wanted roads. "Hold on to Jesus," Annie said, so quiet Lainey almost missed it. "You hold on to me," Lainey said. "He's already holding you." She kicked the paint into a walk, then a trot, and pointed them toward the doctor.