The Highwayman's Curse by Nicola Morgan Page B

might have had and it was only his father’s next words that stopped him from going further. “Red! Think on Tam! He is in danger o’ his life and ye can only think on your pride! I am your father and I will be obeyed!”
    At that moment, without warning, Red rushed towards the door and ran from the dwelling.
    Jock looked after his son, anger on his face, before turning back to me. “And now, what can ye do for my grandson?” He did not smile, and still there was a threat in his eyes, but he was doing the only thing he could. He was using reason. As was I.
    My senses were dizzy, from hunger and fear, and from the confusing change of events. Only a few moments before, we had faced a journey to an unknown cave where we were to be drowned. Now, suddenly, the men who had been hungry for our deaths looked to us with a kind of hope. Jeannie, holding Tam’s head in her hands and pinching his cheeks to waken him, pleaded with her eyes.
    I had no choice. I must act. And pray. And do whatever could be done.
    â€œI need some whisky,” I said.

Chapter Eleven
    â€œI ona, liquor for the lad!” said Thomas.
    The girl looked at me hesitantly from beneath her river of red hair and handed me a cup, near full of whisky. I knelt by Tam, and, first looking at Jeannie so that she would see I meant no harm, I tipped the cup slowly against his lips. She saw my meaning, and lifted his head, using one finger to open his mouth. The fumes waked him somewhat and he looked into my eyes with an empty gaze, seeming nearer death than I wished him to be. The liquid slipped down his throat and he choked and spluttered. Jeannie held his head fast with one strong arm, his mouth open with the other. With much spilling, we slowly poured the whole cup down Tam’s throat, though much was lost along the way.
    It took two cups of whisky before his eyes closed and his body went soft, a smile on his thin face. Already his breathing was easier, though I knew this would not last for long. The whisky was for one purpose only – to make what was to come easier. For the boy, and for us as we listened. For I would not have the child scream as I set his bones.
    As well as its use in relief of pain, it is well known that whisky or any such spirit is fair powerful for bringing a person out of collapse. And I think a boy could not have been nearer collapse than Tam.
    Now I told Jeannie what I needed. “You must hold the child’s arm above the elbow. You will need to be strong, as I must pull the bones away further than they were meant to go, before I can set them by the feel of them. Are you able to do this?”
    How I was able to command this older woman in such a way, I know not, but from somewhere came the strength. From necessity, I suppose. And because they looked to me to do what they could not.
    Jeannie nodded, glad perhaps to be told what to do, to be acting instead of listening to the arguing of the men. She tucked a strand of dusty orange hair beneath her cap, and wiped some sweat from her brow. Her eyes looked tired and dull, the skin beneath them dark and sagging, a deep line etched between nose and mouth. I could not tell her age but I suppose she must have been around forty-five or more.
    I turned now to Bess. “Be ready to tie the arm as we did before. Will you do that?” She nodded, and looked at me without smiling, though without anger either.
    Everything was in my hands.
    Jeannie settled herself on the other side of Tam, kneeling, placing a folded cloth beneath his head for comfort, and held him by the arm above the elbow. Bess and I began to untie the bindings. Men shuffled positions behind me, muttering. I looked not at them and I tried to put them from my mind. A dog scratched itself near by and the fire hissed and crackled.
    Kneeling on the hard floor, I laid my hands on Tam’s deadened wrist. Its coldness was shocking, its greyness ugly. No lifeblood flowed in it at all. This was a limb