Page 12 of Winterset

Alex grinned. “You’re true blue, ma’am. That’s what Rafe would say.”

“Bang up to the nines,” Con agreed emphatically.

“Lots of girls would have fainted,” Alex went on. “Not our sisters, of course, ’cause they’re bang up, too. But one of Kyria’s friends fainted one time when I showed her a mouse, and it wasn’t even hurt.”

“Mmm. Well, perhaps she hadn’t the advantage of being reared in the country, as I was.”

“She was just hen-hearted,” Con said flatly, his disgust for the puny friend of his sister plain in his eyes.

Their eyes were green, Anna noticed, different from Reed’s silvery-gray ones, but apart from that, she suspected that she was looking at something very much like Reed’s image when he was twelve. It made her heart swell with a strange bittersweetness.

“It’s a good thing you came along when you did,” Alex continued.

“Yeah. We were thinking we’d have to go back and get Reed or Rafe, and by the time we got back, we were afraid he might have died,” Con added.

Alex nodded. “But we thought if we tried to pick him up and carry him back home between the two of us, it would hurt him too bad.”

“Are you sure this Nick Perkins can save him?” Con asked.

“No,” Anna replied honestly, for she felt sure that these two weren’t the sort of boys who would rather hear a sweet falsehood. “But if he can be saved, Nick’s the man to do it.”

She had first met Nick Perkins when she was eight. She had ridden over to his cottage with her father when he had gone to consult Perkins about his favorite dog, which had been wounded in a fight and was barely clinging to life. Formerly a farmer on Winterset lands, Perkins knew more about animals than anyone else around, and he had learned about remedies and herbs from his mother, who had learned from her mother before her—back generations and generations of lay healers, Nick said. Nick had given her father an ointment that time, and steady application of it had saved the dog’s life.

Anna, who had loved animals from an early age, thereafter regarded the man as a miracle worker, and she had brought every sick stray she found to Perkins for his healing touch. Over the years he had imparted not only much of his knowledge and skills regarding animals to Anna, but his knowledge of remedies, as well. She had turned a small room off the kitchens into a stillroom, and there she made her own ointments and syrups. She had even had the gardener enlarge the cook’s herb garden to include several that she needed in her concoctions.

There were other plants, of course, that she had to search for in the woods and meadows, and Perkins had taught her to look for those, as well. She regularly went on such expeditions with Nick, for he, despite the fact that he was now in his late seventies, was still a strong and healthy man, and had an eagle eye for spotting their growing quarry.

She was also, quite frankly, as likely to rely on Nick’s remedies as the village doctor’s for combatting the illnesses of her household—though she would never have admitted as much to Dr. Felton.

They cut through the meadow and across the stream, then followed a wider, more well-defined path until finally they arrived at Nick Perkins’ cottage. It was a cozy little house, only two rooms and a kitchen, tucked in beneath some trees. Ivy grew up one side of it and crept around to the front, spreading its tendrils toward the steep thatched roof. Before the house lay a small garden, redolent with the scents of herbs and roses mingling. The last few years, since he had stopped farming, he had turned his still-considerable energies to his garden, bringing forth a riot of flowers every year, as well as the herbs he needed for his remedies.

He was kneeling in his garden now, digging in the earth before one of his rose bushes, and he turned at the sound of their approach. When he saw Anna, a smile spread across his leathery face, and he pushed up from the ground, rising a little creakily to his feet. Although he was old, there was nothing feeble about Nick Perkins. He was still a large man, his broad shoulders only slightly hunched, and though he was slower in his movements, there was strength in his grip and the bright flare of intelligence in his blue eyes.

“Miss Anna!” he exclaimed, coming toward them, and then his eyes went to the boys and the bundle they carried, and the grin vanished.

He moved forward more quickly. “What have you brought me this time, eh?”

He bent over their burden, taking in the injuries at a glance, and said, “Carry him into the kitchen, lads, and let’s get him up on the table.”

He led them into his house and through the front room to the kitchen. It was cool inside the thick-walled cottage, lit only by the sunshine pouring in through the open door and windows. The cottage was, as always, tidy and swept, and the kitchen was thick with the scent of herbs and flowers and other plants that hung drying from the ceiling, which mingled with a delicious odor wafting from the iron pot that hung over the fire.

Perkins caught the glances that the boys unconsciously sent toward the fire, and he said, “Mayhap you lads ’d like a bowl of that stew. Looks like ye’ve prob’ly worked up a bit of hunger, with what ye’ve been carrying.”

“Oh, no, we’d rather watch you, sir, if you’ll let us,” Alex told the old man politely.

Con nodded, adding, “But we could probably eat a bowl later, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course.” Perkins smiled at them and bent down to help them lift the dog onto the table. “But this won’t be pretty.”

“No, sir. But still, we would like to watch.”

He nodded, saying, “Just don’t get in my way. Miss Anna, fetch me the cleaner and some cloths.”

Anna went to do as he bid, taking a stack of clean, though stained and worn, cloths from one of the drawers and picking up a bottle of thin green-tinted liquid from the counter.

Perkins spoke soothingly to the dog as he bent over it, gently turning back its fur as he searched the wounds. Then he began to clean the wounds, all the while talking to the animal. The boys stood on one side of the table, and Anna took up her familiar position on the other side, by the animal’s head. She held the dog’s head firmly in her hands even as she kept up a litany of soft, soothing words and sounds.

The twins watched with interest, though they did at times pale a bit or scrunch up their faces with empathy. After Alex had asked a question about what he was doing, the old man explained every step he took as he cleaned out the wounds with care, then stitched up the longer gashes and decorated them all with an ointment. When the leg wound was clean, he carefully set the fractured bone, splinting it with small sticks that Anna brought him from another drawer, and wrapping it around tightly with a bandage.