Comanche Rose (6 page)

"That's enough. She can probably hear you," her husband said harshly. "Good God, Sara, you ought to be ashamed to think it, let alone say such a thing."

"Well, it's true, isn't it?"

"What would you have done under the same circumstances?" he countered.

"I would have chosen to die first, Elliott."

Despite having made the same resolution to herself, Cora murmured, "The desire to live is a strong one, my dear. I don't really think we can fault Mrs. Bryce for staying alive."

"The very notion of one of those filthy savages even touching me is more than I could bear," the younger woman insisted. "I should never feel clean again after that, and I'm sure I could never face Elliott or anyone else the rest of my life. No, I'd have killed myself."

"Well, she didn't. Come on, Sara, I'm going over to the infirmary to see what's going on with Captain Walker. You do have a sewing circle or something this afternoon, don't you?" he asked pointedly.

"It was the Indians that got him, wasn't it?" Sarabeth blurted out.

"I don't know, Sara. If it was, it didn't happen in the last day or two. Nash said he's running one helluva fever, and you don't get that overnight."

"Really, Elliott—"

"All right, then, he's got a high fever. Now, come on. I'm sure Mrs. Sprenger's got enough on her hands with Mrs. Bryce without having to listen to you carry on about how you hate it out here."

"Why wouldn't I hate it here?" she demanded. "You didn't tell me there'd be nasty, dirty Indians all over the place, did you? You didn't tell me I'd be exiled to an outpost in the middle of nowhere! Well, I don't want to live here—I don't deny it! And if you won't take me, I'm going back to Ohio alone! There, does that surprise you?"

"You knew I was in the army when you married me, Sara," he responded evenly. "As a soldier I have to go where I am assigned." He turned to Cora apologetically. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I'll see she stays away from Mrs. Bryce. The woman doesn't need to hear things like that."

But Annie had heard it. Every word. And as much as she'd expected, even resigned herself to the very things the Hughes woman had said, they still stung. And this was only the beginning of what would surely be more to come. Fighting the urge to weep, Annie moved to the washstand, then stared in shock at the gaunt-faced stranger in the mirror.

Her hand crept to her hair, feeling the lice-infested, matted knots. She touched the taut, dirt-caked skin that clung to her cheekbones. Her fingers traced the hollows, then moved to the dry, cracked, bloodless lips. But it was the stranger's eyes that tore at her soul. They were too old to belong to her.

She reached for the pitcher of hot water and poured it into the washbasin. Then she picked up the soap and lathered it between her hands. It'd be hours before she got herself cleaned up, and then it would be only the part of her people could see. Sarabeth Hughes had been right about one thing—she'd never, ever be clean on the inside again, no matter how long she lived.

The door cracked open behind her, and Cora Sprenger carried a steaming kettle in. "I'd be glad to help," she offered again. Walking to the tin bathtub, she emptied the hot water into it. When she straightened up, she smiled reassuringly at Annie. "You're going to be all right. It just takes time," she said gently.

Annie's face crumpled then, and she gave up the fight. "But I don't have any time!" she cried. "I've got a little girl out there somewhere!"

"Oh, my dear—"

As Cora Sprenger's arms enveloped her shoulders, Annie turned her head against the older woman's bosom, and she sobbed uncontrollably. Rather than pushing her away, Cora stood there, holding her, smoothing the awful, tangled mass of hair against Annie's back.

Finally, Annie stood back, embarrassed by her outburst. Wiping wet cheeks, she managed to whisper, "I'm sorry. I don't usually cry, really." Turning back to the washstand, she touched her hair. "It looks hopeless, doesn't it?" she asked wearily.

"No. But we may have to cut it before we soak it with the kerosene. It'd be easier to get a comb through it then."

Annie closed her burning eyes for a moment, then shook her head. "No, if it takes me all day and night, I'm going to try to save as much as I can. Ethan loved my hair," she recalled painfully. "He said it reminded him of angels."

"Your Ethan loved
you,
my dear," Cora responded softly. Moving behind Annie, she looked at the mess for a moment, then decided, "If you can stand the pain of a comb going through it, I'll work with you to save it. And if that takes us all night, I don't mind in the least. I expect Will's going to be busy with Captain Walker for a while, anyway. When we are done, we can visit. If you want to, you can tell me all about your little girl."

"I can't—at least not now," Annie whispered. "Not yet."

CHAPTER 4

Major Wilson Sprenger's first assessment was that Hap Walker was too sick for surgery. His second was that without it, the man might die from a rampant infection. He decided to operate.

"You've got yourself in one hell of a fix, Hap," the surgeon told the semiconscious man. "Take it easy, boys. Get him on the table without moving that leg if you can."

It was a futile order. Walker's body went rigid as his knee bent and his foot caught on the edge of the table, twisting his leg underneath him and pulling the muscle in his thigh. Before the two soldiers who'd carried him could straighten it out, he'd rolled onto his side and vomited. Sprenger noted with relief that he hadn't eaten much. While a third attendant cleaned up the mess, the surgeon kept talking, repeating Walker's name at every opportunity, trying to focus his patient on what he had to do.

"That the same leg where you took the Comanchero bullet, Hap?" Sprenger asked him. When Walker didn't answer, he spoke directly into his ear. "I'm going to take a look at it," he said loudly. "I'm going to see what's the matter with your leg."

Walker's eyes opened. "Clay—?"

"Boy's in Texas. You don't know where you are, do you, Hap?"

"Tell him, got to get word to him..."

"Tell him what? What do you want me to tell him? That you're sick? I expect we'll try to get word out as soon as the storm's over."

"Sanchez-Torres coming... New Mexico..."

"Sanchez-Torres is dead. Your boy McAlester took care of him last summer."

"He's dead? Clay—?"

"Way I heard it, McAlester blew him up, plumb to smithereens."

"Good." Hap closed his eyes.

Sprenger took out a straight-edged razor and stropped it. "I'm going to have to cut off your pants for a look-see, Hap."

"No," Walker croaked.

"Not your leg, your pants." The surgeon looked up at Nash. "Hold him real still, trooper. If he thrashes around, there's no telling what I'm liable to cut."

"Yes, sir."

"Walsh, get on the other side and hold that foot, but don't turn it. Yeah, that's it."

As cold as it was in the infirmary, Sprenger wiped his brow with his sleeve, then made a light stroke, slicing the weathered buckskin several inches below Hap's groin. Working carefully, he cut a flap that extended down to the knee. He laid the razor aside and lifted it back, exposing the leg beneath. About mid-thigh, he found a puckered scar. At a cursory glance, it appeared to be almost healed, but the flesh around it told a different story. It was hot and swollen with red streaks extending both upward and downward from it.

"Looks like it's going septic," he muttered. "Parker, get me the chloroform, will you? Soak the rag with a good capful," he ordered over his shoulder.

"Need the capital saw?" Nash asked.

Sprenger shook his head. "Not yet. I'd like to see what's down there first." Turning to the basin nearby, he washed his hands thoroughly with strong-smelling lye soap, then toweled them dry. "It's an old wound, so there's got to be a reason it's infected. And one way or another, I'm going to have to clean it out, or it's going to kill him."

"Looks like it should have been an amputation in the first place," Parker observed. "The bullet had to have hit the bone."

"Looks that way, doesn't it?" Returning his attention to Hap, the surgeon asked him, "Boydston over at Griffin fix this, or was it Abbott down at Stockton? I'd say one of 'em botched the business, and I'd sure as hell tell 'em about it if I were you."

Hap opened his eyes again, saw the surgeon's operating case, and for a moment he thought he was at Shiloh. "No," he gasped, grasping the surgeon's left hand. "Don't cut. Too many limbs out there already."

Sprenger pulled free. "If I don't have to, I won't," he promised. "Chloroform ready?"

"Yes, sir. Here it is, sir," the corporal responded promptly. "Right at your elbow."

Reaching back, the older man took the cloth, checked it, then leaned forward, pressing it over Hap Walker's nose. "Take a good whiff, and you'll be out cold before I get to the good part."

Instead, Hap began struggling, clutching Sprenger's arms, trying to rise from the table. But the two soldiers on either side held him down until he was still.

"Don't know why they always fight it, but they do," the doctor muttered. He lifted the cloth for a quick look, then nodded. "He's out. Parker, keep your finger on his pulse and stand ready with liquor of ammonia if it weakens."

"Yes, sir."

Sprenger surveyed the thigh again. "Another inch, and it would have hit the artery. Then he'd have bled to death," he murmured. "Nash—?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Put your thumb on the femoral artery in his groin and slow the blood through it."

"Yes, sir."

Turning to his case, the surgeon selected a scalpel. "After I make the incision, I'm going to dissect the muscle around the wound." As he spoke, he cut straight across the scar tissue, opening it, then stroked through the inflamed muscle beneath. He wiped his brow again and studied the exposed tissue. "Looks like the bullet went this way," he murmured, taking the dissection forceps to pull back the muscle. "Here, hold this, will you?" he told Walsh. "Keep it out of my way."

"Yes, sir."

He picked up the scalpel again. "Must be a piece of lead in here somewhere," he mumbled to himself as he cut deeply, taking the incision all the way to the bone. The knife punctured a pocket of pus, and the foul-smelling green exudate spurted. While both Nash and Walsh gagged, Sprenger began whistling softly. After placing the scalpel on a tray, he dipped his finger into an iodine solution and probed the path of the bullet, feeling around the bone.

"Rough as a cob," he murmured. "Bone slivers everywhere—damned thing was in pieces. And there's lead in there, a lot of it." Hooking his finger, he pulled it up, bringing a bit of bone with it. "No wonder it didn't heal inside. There's constant irritation there. Must've hurt like the devil all the time. Give me the sequestrum," he ordered.

Parker produced the probe, then leaned over to watch as Sprenger used it to dig where his finger had been. One by one the surgeon pulled out several bone splinters, then the first lead fragment, and laid them on the tray. Within minutes, he'd added six more bits of bullet to the collection.

"Ever see anything like this, son?" he asked Parker. "No, sir."

"Well, when I was with the 9th Massachusetts, I saw a lot of 'em. It was hell, son. I was cutting off limbs at four to the hour some days. Wasn't much else we could do in the field. No time so save 'em if I could've done it. Had a fifty-two percent fatality rate, which was about two percent better than the average, so I guess I did about as well as most of my colleagues."

"You going to have to take this one?" Nash wanted to know.

"If it doesn't heal. But I'm going to try to save it first. Parker, how's the pulse?"

"Even, sir."

"If he so much as blinks or looks like he's coming around, give him another snort of the chloroform. Aha, yeah." This time Sprenger managed to pull out a large part of the bullet. "Doesn't look like anybody even tried to get it out, does it?" he muttered. "Makes you wonder what they teach in medical college anymore. Not much about lead poisoning, by the looks of it. Remind me to mention this to Boydston, will you? If he did this, he ought to be told about it, and if he didn't, he shouldn't have left the bullet in, anyway." He pulled the last piece out, then looked up triumphantly. "I'll bet if I put all of this together, I'd have about a .50—what do you think, soldier?"

"I couldn't say, sir. They just look like lead fragments to me."

"Yes, indeed. I'd say that Comanchero had himself a buffalo gun," Sprenger decided. "I'll have to show that to Hap when he wakes up." Wiping his face with his other sleeve, he returned to the wound. "Too late to do too much with the bone other than clean it up a bit, I guess." Looking up, he addressed Walsh. "You can put away the dissecting forceps, son, and make up about a cup of ten percent iodine solution. I'm going to flush this before I stitch it up. And I'm going to leave a little bit of the incision open—why is that, soldier?"

"You're asking me, sir?"

" 'Course I am. How's a man to learn anything if he doesn't think about it? Now, why would I want it to keep draining?"

"So the abscess won't form again, I expect."

"Damned right."

Whistling a peppy tune now, the surgeon quickly wiped the pus away with a cloth, then squirted the antiseptic into the area with a trocar several times. Finally, he patted the area as dry as he could and started stitching deftly. When he looked up, the three men were exchanging glances.

"Something the matter?" he demanded.

"No, sir." Caught out, Parker suppressed a smile.

"Then what's so damned funny, soldier?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Actually, sir," Nash answered, "we were just being grateful that this wasn't an autopsy."

"Oh? How's that?"

"Some of them get pretty rank, especially in the summer, sir. It's hard to follow a lecture when your stomach's in your throat."

"Think I talk too much, eh? Well, let me tell you, soldier, a man can't learn too much in this business. We've got too many people depending on us to keep 'em going."