Depending on the Doctor (Nevada Bounty Book 2) (25 page)

“You’re very stubborn, you know,” I said.

“So I’ve been told.”

I dropped the tent flap and took a few steps closer to her. “It’s not important, Lydia. You think it is, but it isn’t. It’s all years in the past. It’s pointless to talk about.”

“If it was in the past and pointless, it wouldn’t be invading your dreams.”

Of course she was right, so I tried another tack. “The war was ugly. I want to spare you hearing about all that unpleasantness.”

Her lips thinned and she cocked an eyebrow at me. I bit my lip and looked away to keep from smiling.

“Emmett Wilder, don’t you dare dismiss me like some fragile female prone to vapors or spells. I may be quiet and studious, but I’m a survivor.”

“A survivor? Of what?”

She waggled a finger at me. “Oh no you don’t. We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. Are you going to tell me about Jenkins?”

I joined her and took her face in my hands, looking into her hazel eyes, trying to find answers in their depths. “Why?” I asked.

“Why what?”

“Why is it so important for you to know about Jenkins?”

“Because you’re my husband now, and because if Jenkins—or anything else—is causing you pain, I want to help fix it.”

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against hers. “It’s a pretty sentiment, but I don’t think I’m fixable.”

“Every problem has a solution,” she said. “All you have to do is find it.”

She made it sound so easy. “I’ve been trying to fix my problems for a long time without much success.”

“Maybe you just need a new perspective.”

I opened my eyes and watched her watch me, her face so hopeful and waiting for me to share. I took a deep breath and let it out. I’d already shared my body with her, and she’d already captured my heart, but did I have the courage to spill the horrors I’d been shoving down for so long? I had no desire to rehash those memories. They certainly weren’t for the faint of heart. But if I wanted our relationship to survive, to flourish, I needed to be honest with her. I’d known couples who lived separate lives, coming together only for the mechanical sex required to reproduce, to share a meal once a day, and to sleep at night, but who shared no real warmth or friendship between them. I didn’t want that kind of marriage. I wanted a partnership with love and respect. Which meant I needed to have the courage to trust her.

Jenkins and the war caused me nightmares and painful memories, but they weren’t the crux of my issue with Randall. They did, however, lead in that direction. Maybe I could start with Jenkins and gauge her reaction from there.

“Jenkins was a patient. A soldier,” I said, kneeling to nudge the fire back to life.

She sat beside me. “You were a surgeon in the war?”

My laugh came out as a humorless grunt. “Nothing we did resembled surgery. Mostly we hacked off limbs and cauterized the stumps. There was a lot of crude digging inside wounds to remove bullets, and thousands of hasty, inexpert sutures. But no real surgery.”

“What happened with Jenkins?”

I dug my fingers through my hair, and sat there, remembering Jenkins. “We’d mustered in at the same time from the same town. Our families knew each other. I was twenty-three, he was sixteen. I’d only been practicing medicine for a short time. He was a small man, but strong and quick.”

“Where’d you muster in from?”

“Pittsburgh. I lived in a small town several miles away.” I paused, struck by a thought. “I have no idea where you’re from, other than Palmer.”

Her brows knit in a scowl before she looked away. “I was born in Ohio, but we travelled a lot with Father.”

I wanted to hear that story. It was only fair that if I had to share the uncomfortable stories of my life, so did she.

“In any case,” I said, wanting to get past this particular story. “I’d seen Jenkins several times over the course of the war and treated his wounds. But the last time…” I took a deep breath and let it out, plunging on with the story. “It was near the end of the war, only months away, but of course we didn’t know it at the time. Jenkins was one of those men who seemed charmed. He’d been through all the battles, loved the fight—at least at first—and survived with minor injuries. But at the Battle of Franklin, he was hit.”

We’d set up the medical tent at the rear of the battle, where it was loud and especially busy. So many injured men. “I lost track of how long I was on my feet or how many men I’d seen. After a while I worked in a fog, not looking at faces.” I looked up at her face. “It’s easier to cut off a man’s leg or arm if you don’t look him in the eyes.”

She cringed, but didn’t swoon. “How many years did you serve?”

“All of them. From beginning to end.”

“Oh my.”

“That much brutality leaves a mark on a man,” I said, clearing my throat. It was a gross understatement, but short of walking her through the entire experience in detail, it was better left at that. “Jenkins had taken shots in both legs; one above the knee, one below. I had to take both legs. When I told him, he begged me just to kill him. He said he’d be better off dead.”

“What did you do?”

“He was right. What kind of life could he have with no legs? No woman would want him, he couldn’t farm, he couldn’t do anything but beg, and no man wants to be reduced to that kind of life.”

Lydia was rapt. If it weren’t one of the worst stories of my life, I’d be proud I could so completely hold the attention of a woman who clearly valued storytelling. But I could tell from her wide eyes and that she dreaded hearing what I did. I didn’t want to tell her, but I’d started so I couldn’t stop now.

“By that time I was angry and resentful and hostile, and more than anything I wanted to wash my hands of the war, so I decided to give him what he wanted, then walk away.”

“You deserted?”

I nodded. If she was going to think the worst of me, now was the time to find out, not after I’d fallen for her so completely that it would kill me if she left. As it was, I loved her enough that her leaving would break my heart. And this story wasn’t even the worst of it. “Jenkins was in a bad way, and I couldn’t dismember another man. I’d cut off enough arms and legs to litter a battlefield. I’d sloshed through inches of blood until I didn’t even notice it anymore. I was tired. So I gave Jenkins enough morphine to kill him and held his hand while he died. His last words were ‘thank you,’ and he died with a peaceful smile on his face. Then I packed up my things and walked away. Nobody even noticed in all the chaos.”

“Did anyone search for you?”

“Oh yes. As the surgeon for the unit, I was definitely missed when injured soldiers started piling up. It took them a couple of weeks to find me, though I’m surprised it took that long since I headed for the nearest tavern and didn’t stop drinking until they found me and threw me in the brig. When I sobered up, my commanding officer spent far too long yelling at me through the bars about duty and responsibility and a lot of other drivel that I didn’t pay any attention to. He said if he didn’t need me so badly, he’d let them hang me, but he’d convinced whoever made the decisions to release me to him. But I refused. I told him I’d rather stay and take my chances. I couldn’t stand in that hot, bloody tent for another day. I’d rather be dead myself.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t give me a choice. He and his men just escorted me back to camp as if nothing had happened. The irony wasn’t lost on me that he didn’t say a single word about the fact that I’d murdered Jenkins.”

Emmett had murdered a man. He hadn’t killed the enemy, or defended himself against a threat, he’d murdered. He’d had the option to save the man’s life, but he hadn’t.

Yet, Jenkins had begged him to do it. Maybe Emmett had done him a mercy.

“Did he even know what you’d done?”

“You mean, did he realize I’d killed Jenkins? No, I don’t think so. If he did, he’d probably have let me hang. In most cases, he didn’t involve himself much with dead soldiers, other than to write letters to their families.”

The dark smudges under his eyes, and the shadows lurking in their depths showed the anguish of the time he’d spent in the war. Jenkins must have been the final straw.

I took his hand in mine, stroking the back of it. “It must have been hard enough to be a soldier shooting at other men, but you had to deal with the aftermath of all that slaughter. I can’t even begin to imagine how difficult it was to hold men’s lives in your hands like that.”

“Killing Jenkins was a low point for me, but it wasn’t the lowest. It actually started a downhill spiral. My commander dragged me back to camp and kept me under guard at all times. Thank God the war only lasted a couple more months, but I barely hung on, mostly by drinking. Even after being discharged at the end, I slid into a long, drunken stupor. I meant it when I told my commander I’d rather be dead, and I went to work at trying to drink myself to death.”

He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair again. He seemed to be spiraling down into a black mood now. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him about Jenkins. But really, if he didn’t talk about it he’d just keep having nightmares and letting it eat at him.

“What changed?”

“What makes you think anything changed?” he asked, looking at me from haunted eyes.

“You’re still alive, and you’re not drunk.”

He huffed a humorless laugh. “I needed money, so I went home. My father wasn’t very pleased with me. He’s a state senator, you know, so has a reputation to maintain. He couldn’t have his son become an embarrassment. So I cleaned myself up and kept my drinking better hidden, and went back to practicing medicine as if the war never happened. For a while I hoped that the pretending would become such habit that I’d actually believe it. But I drank myself to sleep every night, and drank first thing in the morning to face the day. I was an accident waiting to happen.”

I didn’t want to ask what happened next, because I didn’t think it would be good. “And?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, a dark shadow filled his eyes before he turned to face the fire. He stabbed at the logs, sending embers flying into the air.

“I’ve told you enough already,” he said, still not looking at me.

My heart fell. What could have happened worse than Jenkins that he wouldn’t tell me? The war had clearly broken him and turned a good, caring man into a defeated, ruined soul and he carried the guilt and responsibility for his actions heavily on his shoulders.

I watched him, his profile both strong and sad as he concentrated on the fire, lost in thought. He hadn’t shaved since the storytelling contest—since we’d been wed—and the dark scruff of his beard added to his haggard air.

I couldn’t help loving him, and my heart burst with the desire to help him see the good man I saw in him, despite his past—no matter what horror lay there. I just hoped I had the fortitude to deal with whatever that horror was.

“I don’t think you have. There’s more, isn’t there?”

He closed his eyes and his entire body tensed as if he meant to spring up and run away. But then he relaxed as if he’d made a decision, and when he looked at me he seemed resigned.

“Yes, there is. A patient died. A young woman. Looking back on it now, she would have died anyway, but at the time I was drunk, I had no confidence in my medical abilities, and part of me just didn’t care. Her husband and family were outraged, and certain I’d killed her, which I hadn’t, but my father smoothed it over. I’m sure money was involved, but he told me he’d had enough of me, that I needed to pull myself together. I had enough sense to be horrified, so I quit practicing medicine, and quit drinking, too.”

No wonder he chose not to talk about his past. My heart went out to him for all the travail he’d suffered. I could understand Jenkins. His request, given the circumstances, was almost reasonable. The young woman, though, left me conflicted. Emmett had rushed through telling about her, leaving me with questions—what had been wrong with her? How had she died? Could he have prolonged her life? Why did he feel responsible?—but I was afraid to ask them. Part of me didn’t want the answers. But who was I to judge? I hadn’t been through what he had, so I couldn’t say what I would have done, or criticize him for his actions. All I could do was help him to leave it in the past and live with it.

I opened my mouth to tell him so, but shouts outside interrupted me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

We both stared at the door, expecting it to burst open at any moment, but nothing happened. Just more noise and yelling.

Emmett bolted up, grabbing a coat on the way and jamming his feet into his boots. At the door, he said, “get dressed and stay here. Wait for me.” Then he was gone.

The yelling turned from curious shouts to terrified screams as I struggled to dress myself. I could only imagine the women and children I’d come to know scrambling to find cover. My fingers trembled as I buttoned and tied my clothing, the sound of incoming hooves, and the whoops and hollers of what could only be an attack loud in my ears. From the tone of the cheering, the attackers must be white men.

I got my boots on, but I couldn’t just sit there in the lodge and wait. If nothing else, I had to help the other women, and the children.