Hobby Horse
Intent on her mission, it took Isabel a few moments to hear agitated shouts. Short of breath, she paused and looked down the valley. Two men she didn’t recognize were hurrying towards Fanny’s croft.
Her cousin evidently heard the noise and came out. Barking loudly, Blue bolted to confront the strangers.
Isabel turned back to call off her hound. Fanny obviously knew the newcomers and didn’t perceive them as a threat.
Darroch had also become aware of the commotion and set off down the hill. They reached the croft at the same time as the islanders. One drew a dagger and brandished it at Darroch. “’Tis yer fault, stinking MacKeegan.”
Isabel’s heart raced when Darroch braced his legs but didn’t flinch. One-handed and unarmed, he stood little chance against the blade, yet he faced the threat like a brave warrior, not a coward. But jilting a woman at the altar was a cowardly act, wasn’t it?
The assailant’s companion took hold of his wrist. “There’ll be time enough for revenge when Fanny’s tended yer bairn.”
“Put up yer weapon, Dougal,” Fanny demanded. “Ye’ll nay kill an unarmed mon with only the one hand to defend himself. What’s amiss?”
“My wee lass,” Dougal explained hoarsely. “She ventured into our burned-out croft and crawled ’neath the broken loom. One of the last beams fell and her leg’s bleeding, but she’s trapped under the wreckage and we canna…” He swallowed hard, scarcely able to speak. “There’s too much blood, and she’s screaming…”
“Isabel, come,” Fanny ordered, already heading inside. “Help me find what we need.”
Isabel dithered when Darroch suddenly set off at a run down the valley; Dougal took off in pursuit.
“Dinna worry,” Fanny admonished. “He can take care of himself.”
Guilt tightened Isabel’s throat. Her first concern had been for Darroch, when it should have been for the clansman who’d lost his home and whose bairn had been seriously injured.
Confused by conflicting emotions, she entered the croft. The second islander followed.
“What possessed the lass to enter the ruin, Andrew?” Fanny asked, as she gathered salves and jars and linens and thrust them into the arms of her helpers.
“She’s a mind of her own, that one,” Andrew replied.
“Ah, ye’re speaking of Rowena,” Fanny said.
Andrew nodded. “Her father warned her to stay away, but she kept mithering about finding her hobby horse.”
Surprised that a little girl would be brave enough to venture into a burned-out cottage, Isabel stuffed the ointments and supplies into a wicker basket Fanny gave her. “She wanted to retrieve a toy?”
“Like I said, she’s a stubborn lass,” he replied, taking the basket. “I’ll carry it. We must hurry.”
*
Darroch managed to stay on his feet on the gravel path, though running with one hand tied to his neck wasn’t easy. He tried to keep his injured elbow tucked against his body, but it was often necessary to use the arm for balance. The notion of a bairn lying gravely hurt and in pain bothered him intensely. If he was responsible in some way…
Dougal kept to the wet grass and soon outpaced him, seemingly willing to defer his promised retribution. He ran into the doorway of the burned-out dwelling and disappeared inside.
The extent of the devastation took Darroch aback. The walls still stood, but the roof was gone. It was difficult to comprehend why he—or anyone—would want to wreak such destruction on a crofter’s family.
A crowd had gathered outside to console a woman who was on her knees, keening loudly. He assumed this was the bairn’s mother, and supposed he shouldn’t be surprised when she scrambled to her feet, gesturing wildly. “Get away,” she shrieked, “ye’ve kilt my Rowena.”
Darroch didn’t remember who he was, but the accusation he was a killer of wee bairns didn’t sit well in his gut. He strode past the scowling women and peered in the doorway. Dougal and two other men were straining to lift the fallen beam off the wrecked loom. He’d expected screams, but the lass had fallen strangely silent.
Her face was too pale.
Blood oozed through cloth wadded around her wounded leg, barely visible in the tangle of wood.
If they didn’t get her out soon…
He strode into the ruin and hunkered down to curl his good arm around the end of the beam. From somewhere he found the strength to straighten his legs and lift—he couldn’t let the child die. To his relief, the beam shifted as his shoulder took the weight.
“Pull her out,” somebody yelled.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dougal stride out of the croft with his daughter cradled in his arms. Darroch and the others hefted the beam and jumped aside. Clouds of choking grey dust filled the air. Coughing, his eyes watering, Darroch staggered about, disoriented. He tripped over something, chuckling when he realized a hobby horse with a broken handle had almost caused him to fall. He levered it out of the ashes, thinking it might console the bairn. Gulping fresh air when he finally located the door, he was mightily relieved to see Isabel kneeling on the ground by the bairn, helping Fanny staunch the bleeding.
He didn’t understand why, but the notion of a wee lass dying was like a dagger to the heart.
*
Isabel entered a silent world where all that existed was Fanny’s softly spoken words of reassurance to Rowena’s parents and to the bairn herself, interspersed with whispered instructions to Isabel regarding the tourniquet. “Be ready to twist the stick when the ‘wee dagger’ comes out.”
She prayed for the strength not to faint dead away when blood gushed from the wound after the long wooden splinter was pulled out. She held fast to the stick attached to the rags tied around the leg and twisted to keep the tourniquet tight.
The bairn’s pitiful cry of pain came as a relief to her sobbing mother, who stroked her daughter’s hair and cooed endearments when she opened her eyes.
“The color’s back in her cheeks,” Fanny observed with satisfaction as she poked about for slivers that might have remained stuck in the wound. “I dinna think the leg is broken.”
Gripping the stick, Isabel paid scant attention to what Fanny did after that. Amid the voices raised in relief she became aware of only one man. Smeared with soot from head to toe and holding a broken hobby horse, Darroch’s gaze was pinned on the bairn. His broad smile when it seemed she would recover touched Isabel’s heart. He looked vulnerable.
Was he simply relieved Dougal might not now seek revenge, or was it something else—some emotion she would never have attributed to the varlet who’d jilted her? He cared about a bairn he didn’t even know.
Suddenly, Dougal got to his feet and eased the toy from Darroch’s grip. “I thank ye,” he muttered. “’Twas yer strength made the difference. I’ll mend it. Did ye ken ’tis the reason she went in there?”