Page 61 of Winterset

Her heart was in her throat as they drew closer. It was difficult to see, and she had to slow her horse as they rode into the deeper darkness created by the trees arching overhead.

There, halfway through the “tunnel,” stood a horse, moving about restlessly, his saddle empty, reins dragging the ground. Only a few feet away from him, a dark shape was stretched out on the ground. A figure crouched over the body on the ground, head bent down, a cloak spread wide around him.

“Kit!” Anna screamed, and spurred her horse forward.

The figure threw one quick glance over its shoulder. Anna had a glimpse of something both light and dark, not really a face, and then the creature scurried away, melting into the darkness at the side of the road.

Anna pounded down the road, heedless of injury to herself or her horse, desperate to reach her brother. The groom sped after her. She reached the body on the ground and jumped down from her horse.

“Kit!” She ran the last few feet to the figure and dropped to her knees beside him.

It was Kit. The darkness beneath the canopy of trees was so thick that Anna had to lay a hand upon his back to see if he was breathing. Her own breath came out in a long sigh when she felt his back move against her hand.

“He’s alive!”

Cooper knelt on the other side of Kit. “Is he all right? What happened, miss?”

“I don’t know.” She looked across her brother at him. “Did you see—”

He gave a quick, emphatic nod. “I saw something. What was it?”

“I—I think it was a person in a cloak.”

“Should I go after ’im, miss?”

Anna glanced into the darkness beyond the road, where trees and bushes clustered. “No. It’s too dark.”

She wished she had thought to bring a lantern. She also wished she had brought a gun. She shivered as she remembered the figure she had seen bent over Kit.

Anna leaned closer to her brother. “Kit?”

He let out a moan, which relieved her a little. His hair was darkened with dirt, but then she realized with a gasp that it was not dirt that matted the side of his hair; it was blood.

Quickly she reached under the hem of her skirt and grabbed a ruffle of her petticoat. “Do you have a knife?”

“What? Oh, yes, miss.” Cooper dug in his pocket and produced a small clasp knife, which he opened and handed to her.

Anna cut through the ruffle and ripped off a long piece of it. Folding the piece of cotton, she pressed it as gently as she could against Kit’s head.

He stirred, moaning again.

They heard the thud of horses’ hooves and looked up to see the carriage rattling toward them, the coachman, looking most unlike his usual dignified self in his shirtsleeves and suspenders, handling the reins. The footman Anna had spoken to earlier sat beside him, clinging to the seat for dear life as the vehicle rocked along.

When the carriage rolled to a stop a few feet away from them, the groom they had left behind sprang down from the rear of the carriage, where he had been standing, hanging on to a strap. The coachman climbed down from his high seat, bringing a lantern, and the footman followed him at a much slower pace.

“Thank heavens you brought a lantern,” Anna exclaimed. “Bring it here, Gorman. Kit has been injured.”

The coachman approached and held the lantern up over the scene. In the light, Anna could see that the only blood on Kit came from the wound on his head. She lifted the makeshift pad she had pressed against it. It was still difficult to see the exact nature of his wound, but the blood seemed to have stopped flowing.

Quickly Anna and the groom felt along Kit’s arms and legs. Nothing seemed to be broken. Carefully, they turned him over. Anna breathed a sigh of relief when she saw no sign of blood on his chest, either.

“Thank goodness. Let’s put him into the carriage and take him home. Cooper, ride into the village and get Dr. Felton, and tell him that Kit has been injured.”

“Yes, miss.”

Cooper jumped back on his horse and took off as the other three men lifted Kit and carried him into the carriage. Getting him inside the vehicle was a difficult process, and Kit groaned, his eyes opening and staring blankly at them for a moment before closing again. Anna gave her horse to the groom to ride back to the Manor, and she got into the carriage with her brother. The ruffle she had torn off was now soaked in blood, so she tore off the remainder of it and held it against Kit’s head during the ride home.

She took one of Kit’s hands with her other hand. It lay limply in her clasp. She wished that he would wake up. It seemed to her a very bad sign that he had not awakened. She had heard of head injuries from which one never awoke, simply lay in a sort of limbo somewhere between death and life. Fear welled up in her, threatening to overwhelm her. Anna thought again of Reed. What she wanted more than anything at the moment was to lean against him, to feel his strong arms go around her and hear the reassuring sound of his voice.