Sawbones (26 page)

Harriet walked to the door. “I will have Foster's orderly take you to the hotel. You are welcome to stay here, though I know you will not.”

I stepped forward. “Harriet?”

Her hand on the door latch, she looked over her shoulder at me.

“Thank you.”

She smiled and nodded and opened the door. I heard footsteps on the porch and Sergeant Washington appeared, his hat in hand. “Miss Mackenzie, ma'am. Captain Kindle ordered me to get the doc to her hotel.”

Harriet stepped back and opened the door wider.

I stopped in front of my hostess. “Thank you for the sherry.”

She reached out as if to take my hands, but patted me on the forearm instead. “Thank you for sharing it with me. Sleep well, Laura.” Her expression closed off and she looked away.

I followed Sergeant Washington to the wagon and let him help me up onto the seat. Before he alighted, Harriet called him back. She spoke to him briefly in a low voice. He nodded, and returned. The ride into town passed in silence. One not knowing what to say and the other worrying she'd not said enough.

With the loss of Welch as town doctor a constant stream of patients called for me at the hotel desk, no doubt sent by Edna Carter. I arranged with the owner the use of a back room for the day so I could see the patients in a more appropriate setting than a bedroom. Alice Strong was my fifth patient and it was not even ten o'clock in the morning.

“Why is Sergeant Washington sitting outside your door?”

“He is waiting to take me back to the fort tonight.”

Alice furrowed her brows, as if the explanation didn't quite make sense, but didn't push further. The explanation didn't make sense, but it was easier to lie than to explain that Kindle felt it necessary to have a guard at my door. I could only imagine his reasoning had something to do with his brother since I hadn't seen or spoken to him since the night before.

Alice avoided my gaze and looked around the tidy room. A wooden rectangular worktable absconded from the kitchen served as my examination table, much to the irritation of the cook. My depleted trunk of medicine stood open in the corner, my medical bag on a small table next to a chair. “Is this all of your things?”

“My medical supplies, yes. My trunk of clothes is upstairs in a sorry state, I must admit. I was in the middle of packing when my first patient arrived. I was eager to leave the task. Maureen was always the packer.”

“I heard the sutler looted your things,” Alice said.

“Did you?” I said in some surprise.

Alice gave me a bitter smile. “I hear a great many things people do not intend me to her.”

“Are you an eavesdropper, Alice?”

“On the contrary, I am more like a servant. I hear everything because no one sees me.”

I opened my mouth to contradict her but stopped. I thought of the dinner the night before. Alice had sunk into the surroundings, unobtrusively, and been completely overlooked save the one question she asked. The conversation moved on without her and she was forgotten again. Because she was ugly, she was ignored, forgotten, and assumed to be stupid or lacking in enough assertiveness to be interesting. The anonymity of her appearance and docile nature placed her in a unique position to be abreast of information that would not be shared with beautiful women with sharp minds and eyes.

“The sutler was generous enough to allow me to reclaim my things,” I said. “Since I'm not traveling by wagon and have no way to transport some of them, I sold them back to him. He robbed me blind, but I did procure the materials for shelves for Corporal Martin in the hospital kitchen. He gave me a bottle of his sorghum syrup in gratitude. I've made a friend for life.”

She smiled. “You leave tomorrow morning?”

“Yes. I'm moving back to the fort for the night. It is more convenient since we leave so early.”

“Where are you staying?”

“In the hospital. With the completion of the death room behind the hospital, there is a vacant room upstairs.” I chuckled at the expression on Alice's face. “Yes, my sentiments as well. What's the matter? Are you ill?”

“I am better, thank you.”

“If you aren't ill, what can I do for you?”

Alice cleared her throat and continued to look away. “I—” She stopped, struggling, her face reddening with embarrassment.

I encouraged her to ask me whatever she wanted.

“I would like your advice on marital relations,” she blurted. She sighed, relieved of her burden at last.

Good heavens, I thought, with a fair amount of inward panic. “What kind of advice?” I said, in my most professional, calm voice.

“I didn't know what to expect in regards to marital relations and I am afraid my ignorance is why I am unable to get with child.”

“Most women are ignorant, Alice,” I said. “Ignorance is not a detriment to getting with child, I assure you.”

“Yes, of course. My barrenness must be caused by something I'm not doing.”

“How long have you been married?”

“A year.”

“A year is not so long.”

“It's an eternity!”

I motioned to the one chair in the room. “Won't you sit down?” I asked. “Have you regular abdominal pain?”

“Only during my time.”

“No other?”

She shook her head.

“What about during…relations?”

“In my abdomen? No.”

“It is painful other places?” She nodded. “Did you have any illness in childhood?”

“No. I have always been healthy.”

“Have you talked to another doctor about this?”

“Yes, before I came west. My mother forced me to see her doctor. She is concerned at my failure.” Her words were laced with bitterness.

“What did the doctor say?” I asked, sure of the answer.

“He told me to submit to my husband always, daily if needed.”

I nodded. “Did he examine you?”

“No. He barely looked at me and left as soon as possible, as if I was too ugly to be around for a moment longer than necessary. There are some things even my father's money cannot buy.”

“You're not ugly, Alice.”

The cynicism laced in her words came out as a laugh. “You are a poor liar, Dr. Elliston.”

When I thought of the lies I told since I left New York it was my turn to laugh. “I'm glad you think so.” I realized when I uttered it that the comment was inappropriate and offensive to Alice. I rubbed my aching shoulder. “How often do you have relations?”

She
was
much prettier when she blushed. “Whenever Wallace requests. Which isn't as often as it was before.”

“I'm sure it's difficult with your husband on patrol so often.”

“Yes, but…”

“He's less interested?”

She nodded.

“I am sure his duties…”

“Please don't make excuses for him. I know why he is not turning to me. So do you.”

I stopped rubbing my shoulder. I remembered Alice's tortured expression in the hospital, which I assumed was from the death of Private Howerton. “How much of my conversation with Ruth did you hear?”

“I went to tell you of Private Howerton.” She looked up from the floor. “He despises being called Wally.”

“There is no guarantee the child is your husband's.”

“She said herself she is not a whore. Wallace would never do that.”

I held my tongue. Alice didn't hear much or she would have known Ruth was, indeed, a whore, only an unpaid whore for Wallace Strong.

Alice continued. “Wallace liked my sister better than me. She was too young to marry, only fifteen. My parents told him I had to be married before Constance. He wanted his commission enough he agreed.” Her smile was bitter, knowing. “So you see, I know Wallace prefers young, pretty girls. Constance is much prettier than I. Stupid, but pretty.”

“Alice, I wish you would stop inferring you are not attractive.”

“I didn't come here to be pandered to, Dr. Elliston. I want to know what I can do to please my husband, to provide him with a legitimate heir.”

“What makes you think my advice will be different from the other doctor's?”

“Because you are a woman, a doctor, and a widow.”

Damn you, Harriet Mackenzie, I thought. This girl came to me based on a lie. I had no advice to give her on how to interest her husband. She could not compete with her rival in appearance. Though Ruth was ignorant and poor, she had a natural beauty and energy Alice lacked. If outward appearance was the primary attraction for men, however, whorehouses would not be brimming over with successful ugly women. Most men didn't care how a woman looked as long as she was willing, or pretended to be.

“I hope I don't shock you with this question but I will remind you, you brought the subject up.”

“Go on.”

“Do you enjoy laying with your husband?”

“Enjoy it?” she asked, almost laughing. “How could anyone enjoy it? Did you?”

I almost told Alice the truth, about my brief affair with James, one borne of curiosity, affection, and familiarity rather than love. But, suddenly, I cared what this woman thought of me. Instead, I sprinkled a bit of my truth in with a healthy dose of lies. “I only lay with my husband the one night, my wedding night. He left for the war the next day and didn't return.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. He was sweet but a bit methodical, as if he was following an instruction manual in his head. There was little passion and it hurt.”

Alice nodded. “It stops hurting after a while, but it has never been comfortable.”

“I tell you about my experience so you know the advice I am about to give you doesn't come from me, rather it comes from patients I have had over the years.”

She was wary, but I suspect she knew the answer before she asked. “What type of patients?”

“Prostitutes.”

She hid her horror and disgust well, proving she was truly desperate, as well as deeply in love with her husband. “Go on.”

“While I am sure there are women who enjoy relations—I refuse to believe God would create such an act purely for the pleasure of one sex—all prostitutes make their partners believe they do. Men are vain and I suspect your husband is vainer than most. If he thinks being with him is what you want, not something you endure, he might be more ardent.”

I worried she would take my jab at Lieutenant Strong as an insult, but she did not. “Pretend to enjoy it,” she said, thoughtfully.

I shrugged. “It is the best advice I have to get him back in your bed, regularly. Who knows, if you act like you enjoy it enough, maybe you will.”

Alice looked skeptical. “There is one other option.”

“Yes?”

I narrowed my eyes and wondered how she would react to this piece of advice.

“Please, Dr. Elliston.”

I sighed. “When it becomes too painful, the women use oil.”

Alice looked more perplexed and I felt my face flush with embarrassment.

“To lubricate.”

“Oh.”

“Vegetable oil,” I said. “Not much, of course.”

Alice wrinkled her nose. “Vegetable oil?”

“They said the men enjoyed it, too.”

She stood from the bed and retrieved her reticule. “Thank you, Dr. Elliston.”

“I don't know how much help I have been.”

There was a knock on the door followed by the voice of the hotel clerk telling me there was a man in the lobby dripping blood from a knife wound.

“I wouldn't put it past Edna Carter to have cut the man herself. I'm flattered by her determination to have me stay.”

“I wish you would. Even if your advice does not help, it was enough to have someone to talk to.” She reached into her reticule and removed a silver piece to give me.

“No, keep it,” I said. “I fear it is worth much more than my advice.”

The man entered the room, holding a dirty scrap of cloth over his left forearm. As with every male patient, Sergeant Washington made a point of keeping the door open and being visible through it.

“Doc,” the man said. His hair was flattened with oil and his forehead was white from wearing a hat and his cheeks pale from being recently protected by a beard.

“A bar fight?” I asked, examining the short, deep gash.

“Of a kind.”

I held his arm closer to the lamp. “You'll need stitches, I am afraid. This may hurt,” I said. I pulled the open skin apart to see if the cut went to the bone. The man never flinched nor caught his breath like many would have. Curious about this stoic character, I looked him full in the face for the first time and was startled to catch him staring at me with narrowed, penetrating eyes. In a blink, his expression was clear and friendly. He might have once been handsome but years of exposure and hard living were lined on his face.

“Would you like some laudanum to help with the pain?”

“No.”

I poured whisky into a basin and dropped my instruments in it.

“What a waste of good whisky.”

“Ah, but this is not good whisky. I save that for drinking.”

“You like whisky?”

I threaded a needle. “I have had it before. I can't say I like it. Would you like some?”

“Depends on if you're serving the good stuff.”

“If you're paying I'll serve you whatever you want.”

He reached into his waistcoat pocket and removed two gold dollars.

I pulled a bottle of whisky a patient had given me earlier in the day and gave him a glass. He drank it in one gulp.

I sewed his arm. “Are you a farmer near here?”

“Not a very successful one.” The man took a deep, steadying breath.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No. How long have you been in town? I don't remember hearing about you last time I was here.”

“Two weeks, though it seems much longer.”

“Don't like it here?”

I thought of Kindle. “It has a few good qualities. Nothing to keep me here, though.”

“It's a harsh life for a woman, and that's a fact.”

“I've found unless you're wealthy, life is harsh for women no matter where you are.”

The man chuckled and nodded. “I suppose so.”

“Mostly, I want to leave because I miss trees,” I said, laughing.

“Well, there aren't many of those out here. It's too bad for Jacksboro you don't want to stay. You're doin' a right nice job on my arm.”

“Thank you.”

“I bet I don't even have a scar later.”

“If you follow my instructions, you might not. Or only a small one.”

“I thought women liked scars on men.”

“I suppose some do.” I tied off the last stitch and applied carbolic acid plaster on the wound and bound it with a clean bandage.

“Do you?” he asked.

“In about a week, remove the stitches. Be sure to use a clean knife or scissors.”

He stood to leave. “Won't you do it for me?”