Comanche Rose (7 page)

As they fell silent, he finished with the leg. "Nash, give him a whiff of the ammonia, will you? Then fan him as he comes around. Walsh, I want a half grain of morphine in four drops of water drawn into the syringe."

The ammonia burned Hap's nose, making him cough. "That's enough," Sprenger ordered. Leaning over his patient, he said loudly, "Well, it's done, Hap, and if the infection goes down, you're going to be damned lucky, you know that?"

Walker's eyes fluttered but did not open. "My leg—?" he whispered hoarsely.

"You've still got it, but the next time you decide to carry pieces of lead in the bone, don't come to me. And for God's sake, stay off it awhile and give it time to heal, you hear?"

Hap's mouth was so dry he could scarcely form words. "What—?"

"A deep abscess. You nearly bought your ticket to the great beyond with a damned abscess." Straightening up, Sprenger took the syringe from Nash. "I'm going to make you real happy here, Hap," he murmured. "In a minute you won't give a damn about anything." As he spoke, he slide the needle under the skin and squeezed the morphine in. "They say a man can dream in color with this," he murmured, withdrawing the needle.

"You want me to clean up for you, Doc?" Parker asked.

"Yeah. You'd better boil those ten minutes instead of five." Looking at the others, he ordered, "Get him to bed, boys, and cut the rest of those pants off. It's time he bought himself another pair, anyway."

"Yes, sir. What do you want to put him in? A hospital shirt?" Nash asked.

"You'll have to. We'll draw off any pus that forms with the trocar tonight and again in the morning. Maybe if we keep that abscess empty, it'll try to heal. Otherwise, there's not a chance of saving the leg. Fever's a good thing—up to a point. If it goes over a hundred, give him three grains of quinine. You can repeat that in four to five hours." The surgeon paused, mentally reviewing his orders, then nodded. "Well, that's about all I can think of right now. I'm going to wash up, then I'll be seeing how Mrs. Sprenger's managing with the job I gave her. I ought to be back in a hour or so."

But after he'd washed and changed into one of the clean shirts Cora kept in his surgery for him, he had to take one last look at Hap Walker. The man was lying with his leg propped on a rolled blanket, and he was asleep. It'd be touch and go, but if the blood wasn't actually infected, and if that abscess cleared up, Hap just might walk out of Fort Sill on both feet. He turned to leave, thinking he'd compliment the boys for elevating the leg— they'd done it without being reminded.

"It wasn't the great beyond, Doc," Walker whispered behind him. "I was going to hell."

"How do you know? You never got there," Sprenger countered without turning around. "Don't move it off that roll, whatever you do, and I'll be back after a while. I've got to take a look at the woman you brought in."

"Her name's Bryce—she's from Texas."

"If you can remember that, you were in better shape than I thought."

"No. I just heard her say it before I passed out."

Sprenger was almost out the door before Hap spoke again, and his voice was so low the surgeon wasn't sure he heard the words right.

"I tried to go after her, but I was too late—too damned late."

CHAPTER 5

Still dressed in the blue cotton dress Cora Sprenger had provided her, Annie sat in the slat-back chair, rocking absently. She hadn't taken the laudanum—she didn't want to sleep yet. Everything was still too new to her, and all day long her mood had swung between the relief of freedom and the pain of loss.

She couldn't bring herself to go to bed. Her gaze strayed there, taking in the pretty handmade quilt turned neatly back, the starched ruffle beneath, the snowy sheets. The last time she'd slept in a real bed, she'd been under her own quilt, lying beside her husband.

That night she and Ethan had loved each other almost to exhaustion, then lain awake long after, dreaming of a trip to New Orleans. They'd planned to visit his younger brother's family, and Ethan had been looking forward to showing off her and Susannah and Jody. Now she could only wonder if anybody had notified Matthew that Ethan had died, if Matt had come to take care of their affairs.

As she looked around the room, seeing all the homey touches Cora had put in the Sprenger quarters, she felt her own loss now more than any time since those days after they took Susannah. She had no husband to hold her, no baby to tug at her skirts, no inquisitive little daughter to follow her about.

But she was free, she reminded herself, and she had to be grateful for that. Now she could look for Susannah. She could pester the authorities until they joined in her search. She could go home and regain her strength; then she could help in the search for her daughter.

The only sound in the house was the loud ticking of the big clock in the front parlor. Annie sat listening to it, hearing it strike the three-quarter hour, then the hour. It was ten o'clock.
Ten o'clock, and all's well Or if it isn't, you have to make it that way. You have survived for a reason.

She couldn't stand the loneliness of that ticking. Rising, she went to the window and looked outside. The wind had died down, and the storm had passed, leaving behind a thick, pristine layer of snow on the ground. By moonlight a single sentinel made his rounds, crossing between buildings, then disappearing. It was a lonely night out there also.

She thought of Hap Walker lying in the infirmary, clinging to leg and life. Major Sprenger had talked a great deal about him at supper, reminding her where she'd heard the name before. Hap Walker, the Texas Ranger. She'd read his name in the Austin paper some years back, before the war even, when he'd made a daring rescue of two little girls taken by a Kiowa war party. As she recalled, he'd crawled into the camp, stampeded the Indians' horses, then grabbed both children in the confusion. Everybody had talked about it at the time.

According to the major, Walker had lived an incredible life. A Texas Ranger at eighteen. Captain of a ranger battalion by twenty-four. A Texas volunteer in the Confederate Army who'd risen to the rank of captain there also. Twice wounded in the war, once at Atlanta, once at Sharpsburg, and yet he'd not come home until it was over. Recommissioned in the rangers just last year, he'd been forced out by the wound that still threatened his life. But people still called him Captain Walker.

"Hap Walker," Sprenger declared, "was the best Indian fighter in Texas, bar none—and a damned fine lawman, too," adding, "Folks could count on Hap. He'd die before he'd let 'em down. They don't come any better than Hap."

But when Cora had asked how he was recovering now, the surgeon's expression had sobered. "I'm worried—real worried," he admitted. "Maybe I should have just gone ahead and amputated. If that fever doesn't come down some by tomorrow, I'll have to do it, anyway, and hope to God I didn't make a mistake by waiting."

"But you said you'd found the source of infection earlier," his wife reminded him. "You said he had a good chance."

"That was before the fever shot up. It was one hundred three at six o'clock, and that's mighty high for a grown man. I told Nash to add sassafras to the quinine if it goes up any more, but I hate to make a man sweat when his body's short on water."

And so it had gone. The surgeon had just come from there a short while before he went to bed, but Annie'd been in her room and hadn't heard if Walker was any better. Now she wondered. She found it mattered a great deal to her. By what had to be divine intervention, Captain Walker had strayed into that small Comanche encampment, ending three years of despair for her. As sick as he had been, it was a miracle either of them had made it to the safety of the Indian agency. She wished she'd thanked him for getting her almost there. For what he'd done for those two little girls so long ago, saving them from being lost like Susannah.

As she turned away from the window, she saw the shawl Cora had given her earlier, saying she ought to wear it as long as the wind was in the north. But after three hard winters on the Staked Plains, even a drafty house seemed hot. Annie stared at it for a moment, then made up her mind. Whether he knew she had come to see him or not, she was going to thank him. She might not get the chance tomorrow.

Throwing the wool shawl over her shoulders, she pulled it close, then slipped out of her room. It was as though the house were empty except for the clock, and her heart kept rhythm with the ticking as she opened the outside door. Clutching her skirt to lift the hem out of the snow with one hand, holding the shawl closed with the other, she gingerly made her way down the steps and across the yard toward the hospital building.

At the door, she stopped to shake the snow from her skirt, then knocked loudly. Shivering now, she waited for someone to answer.

"Mrs. Bryce!" It was Corporal Nash, the man who'd ridden in the ambulance with her and Walker.

"May I come in, sir?"

He hesitated. "It's kinda late."

"Yes, I know, but I'd like to see Captain Walker."

"Doc know you're over here?" he asked suspiciously.

"No, he and Mrs. Sprenger have already gone to bed. He seemed terribly tired at supper."

He nodded. "Plumb tuckered out."

She stepped past him and removed the shawl. "How is he now-—Captain Walker, I mean?"

"What did Doc tell you?" he countered.

"Not much," she lied. "What do you think?"

"I'm not a doctor, ma'am, I'm just a corpsman. But if I was the captain, I'd be afraid of following that leg to the grave. If it was me, I'd want it off before the danged thing killed me."

"Gangrene?"

"Looks more like blood poisoning—all streaked-like. Guess it's coming from that abscess. It was nasty, real nasty."

"He's not better, then?"

"Fever's up, and it don't look like it's going down any. Don't know whether it's that or the morphine I gave him a little while ago, but he's plumb out."

"Oh."

"But," he added, relenting, "I don't suppose it'd hurt none to look at him. Since Wright and Hansen were discharged to the barracks today, he's the only one in the infirmary right now."

"Thank you."

"I reckon I'd better cover him up some first, though."

Leaving her there, he disappeared through a door. She moved closer, getting a glimpse of the room. Kerosene lanterns flickered, sending the distorted shadows of empty beds up the wall.

When he came back, he was frowning. "Captain Walker's hotter than ever." He met her gaze soberly. "I kinda hate to wake the major up, but even if I get more sassafras down him, I don't know what he's going to sweat. He hasn't drunk enough to pass any water." As he said it, he colored in embarrassment. "Sorry, ma'am. I just meant he's not drinking."

"I understand."

He stood back to let her pass. "First bed." Following her in, he stood behind her. "Don't look good, huh?"

The ashy gray she'd seen earlier was gone, replaced by a flush that made Hap Walker look almost red under the orange glow of the lamp. She reached out to touch his forehead with cold fingertips, then looked up.

"I'd say if you don't get the fever down, he's going to convulse. He needs to drink something—anything."

"I reckon I know that, ma'am, but the captain won't swallow anything for me." He peered over her shoulder for a moment, then made up his mind. "I'm going to get Doc. If Walsh or Parker was here, I wouldn't wake him, but tonight's my night. He won't be happy about it," he added glumly.

"Wet some sheets in water first."

"Huh?"

"Cover him in wet sheets before you go."

He shook his head. "We got to keep his leg dry."

"Do you have any oil cloth? You could put that around the leg. You might have to cut it, but—"

"I want Doc to look at him first. I don't have any authority to do anything more than he ordered. And he can be downright contrary if things ain't the way he wants em."

"I'll watch Captain Walker," she volunteered. "You know the captain?"

"Yes," she lied. "We're both from the same area of Texas."

He seemed somewhat relieved by the offer. "Well, if it looks like he's going into convulsions before I get back, the wood's on that table. All you got to do is stick it in his mouth so he don't swallow his tongue or bite clean through it."

"All right."

"I'll be back as soon as I get the major up. Mrs. Sprenger'll boil some coffee to get him awake, then he'll come over."

"All right."

"You'll be okay?"

"I don't see why not."

"Then I'm going to go get him," he said again.

As the sound of his boots receded and the outer door banged shut, Annie draped her shawl over the back of a wooden chair, then dragged the seat to the bed. Sitting down, she fixed her eyes on Hap Walker's face.

"Everybody says you are too good a man to die," she said softly. "And while I don't know you, I suspect they're right. I—well, I just came to thank you for riding into Bull Calf's camp this morning. If you hadn't come through, I'd probably have died there. I'd just about given up."

It was like talking to a statue. There was no sign he heard her, only the sound of labored breathing, the rise and fall of his chest beneath the blanket. He was so hot, so terribly hot. And his skin was parched from the fever.

Looking at the table, she saw a small water pitcher and a folded napkin beneath. "You've got to drink—you know that, don't you?" she asked softly.

She rose and poured water onto the napkin, soaking it. Carrying the dripping cloth back to the bed, she turned Walker's head and pulled his lower lip out, making a pocket. Using a corner of the napkin, she dribbled water into his mouth, watching him intently. His tongue moved, then his throat constricted as the water went down. Sitting down again, she patiently worked to get nearly a half cup of it into him.

Red-faced and short of breath from running in the cold, Nash came back. "Doc's going to take a look," he announced from the door. Then, "What're you doing?"

"He's drunk a little," she murmured, pleased with herself. "It takes awhile, but he can swallow when he's not hurried. Did you tell Major Sprenger I was here?"