The Marriage Cure Read Online Free

and as she lugged the heavy bucket up through the knee-high weeds, she heard a familiar voice calling out,
    â€œTraherns! Are ye to home?”
    â€œHere, Elza!”
    The old man limped into view, his faithful black and white feisty dog at his heels . Faithful as the seasons, he tromped the rugged backcountry since losing his family to a fire years before . As one of the earliest settlers of the region dubbed the Ozarks, Elza Rawlins knew the country and most of the settlers . Last spring, he passed through before Henry’s death but if he had not lost all his faculties, Sabetha knew he would have seen the grave.
    â€œMissus Trahern!” h e called as he approached her . “Are you a widow, then?”
    â€œI am, Elza, ” Sabetha said . “It’s been near a year now.”
    â€œI’m sorry for your loss, Miss Sabetha . What took your man?”
    This was the last subject she wanted to discuss but she sighed and answered him.
    â€œHe cut his foot with an axe stroke gone wrong and it festered . By the time, he showed it to me, ‘twas little I could do and he soon died.”
    Elza nodded, lowering himself to the ground where he rummaged in his pockets for pipe and tobacco . He lit the pipe and puffed.
    â€œNow I know why you’ve not planted your corn . It’s getting late if you’re to make a crop.”
    â€œAye, I know, ” Sabetha said . She had been gone from Johnny’s side longer than she liked now , and she started to move around Elza, bucket in hand . Before she could reach the cabin, she heard him shout.
    She put her bucket down and picked up her skirts to run, entering the cabin to find him half-upright, flailing at the air with both fists . He repeated a phrase over and over in the tongue she could not understand with desperation,
    â€œ Utalotsa Kalonayelis, Utalotsa Kalonayelis !” Johnny yelled, and then switched to Gaelic. “ Tóg ort !”
    His wildness would sap what little strength he might have left , and she feared for him . Sabetha answered him in Gaelic, without thinking, her voice sharp.
    â€œ Stad! Na dean shin !”
    When he shouted again, she changed back to English, repeating what she had said before,
    â€œStop! Don’t do that, ye’ll hurt yerself.” She caught his hands with her own . “Johnny, man, hear me! Ye mustn’t.”
    â€œHelp me,” h e whispered. “Make them go away, won’t ye?”
    He was delirious , but she still asked, “Who?”
    â€œRaven mockers , ” Johnny whispered, then collapsed onto the bed, spent and shivering as another chill took him, rattling his bones until his teeth chattered.
    By the time she covered him, talked to him in a patois of Gaelic and English, and saw him settled, quiet for the moment, she had forgotten Elza’s presence until he spoke.
    â€œT hat boy’s Cherokee, ain’t he?” h e said, coming to stand at the foot of the bed . “He ain’t all Indian but he’s part . Bad sick, too.”
    â€œHow do you know he’s Cherokee?” Sabetha asked.
    â€œThat’s what he’s talking, some of it.”
    â€œDo ye know what he said?”
    He nodded. “He told the Raven Mockers to leave . They are some kind of spirit that steals souls from the sick and dying, some Cherokee thing . Where did he come from?”
    â€œHe said from Fo rt Gibson in the Indian Nations, ” Sabetha said . She still held Johnny’s feverish hand in her own . “Do ye speak Cherokee? Could ye teach me some?”
    Elza snorted . “I know a few words, no more, not enough to help you much . You won’t need any much longer; he looks nigh death.”
    Sabetha rejected his words . “He’ll not die, Elza . He will not.”
    He shrugged his shoulders . “He might not but he looks awful bad . If you don’t get your corn in, you’ll starve come winter . Reckon you can trail him back to the