Sawbones (7 page)

“Are you going to turn me in?”

“Well, I'll be honest. I haven't decided yet.”

I tried to swallow the rock forming in my throat. Amos was an amiable man. I'd liked him—up until this point. I half-expected him to deny the urge to betray me, to be offended at the idea.

“Five hundred dollars is a lot of money.”

And there it was. I kicked myself for my naiveté. If I thought every man in New York would turn me in for $500, why wouldn't every man in the West do the same?

“Then again, I have no cause to be judging others for killing. And one less Yankee in the world ain't a bad thing.”

I opened my mouth to defend George Langton, but clasped it shut. Amos Pike didn't care about the individual man, but at the death of an abstract idea like a Yankee, he cheered.

He looked me over again. “I could be persuaded.”

It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. To Amos, his proposition was benevolent; he would keep quiet if I would be his nighttime companion on the drive. But there would be no guarantee he wouldn't use me before turning me in. Worse, I had nothing against him to make him follow through on his promise. I had little choice, and he knew it.

I suddenly hated him, this middle-aged man who looked old, with bowed legs and large hands, scarred and calloused from years of hard work, who wore a sweat-stained hat to cover thinning, gray hair. I would not acquiesce easily.

“Why aren't you still rangering? Fighting the Indians?” I asked.

“It's a young man's job.”

My laughter was harsh. “Maybe Ester was right when she called you a coward.”

He drank from his flask and punched the cork into its mouth with the palm of his hand. “I've no doubt you're a sharp woman, Laura, but mark my words, if your mind don't control your tongue, you won't be long for this world.” The threat was more frightening because Amos's expression and voice still held the benevolence from before. “You know why I don't ranger anymore?”

I remained silent.

“There ain't no money in it.” He toasted me with his flask and walked away.

Sherman and his retinue left before dawn, with a promise of sending a detachment to escort us to Fort Richardson. Pike declined, assuring General Sherman that his teamsters and cowboys were well able to protect us. Sherman was adamant, not only because it was the Army's task to protect settlers and wagon trains, but also to show his authority over Amos.

To calm Maureen's fears about my wandering, I walked beside the wagon while she walked with Frau Schlek. I was anxious to ramble away from the train, to get some distance so I could think. The decision I made during a sleepless night did not stand up in the light of day. If I acquiesced to Amos Pike, I would be no better than a whore. If I refused, he might turn me in when we reached Fort Richardson.

It was this question that was vexing me when Anna joined me. I forced a smile. “Hello, Anna.”

“May I walk with you, Dr. Elliston?”

I couldn't very well refuse without alienating the girl. I agreed, reasoning her company would distract me from my looming downfall.

“Please, call me Laura. I only insist on Dr. Elliston with those it makes uncomfortable.”

“Laura. Isn't this a glorious day?”

I noticed the bright blue sky spotted with fluffy clouds for the first time. “It is. It makes one believe in endless possibilities.”

“You sound like my father.”

“You don't share his optimism?”

“It can be quite annoying.”

“Do you like to temper his optimism with gloom?”

“No, just realism.”

“What a jaded opinion for such a young girl.”

“I am seventeen. I prefer to think of it as balance. Imagine if both my father and I were always looking for a better angle, for a better life over the horizon? Nothing useful would get done. My father is thinking of lunch before he arrives at the breakfast table.”

“A dreamer.”

“Yes.”

“You put his dreams into action?”

“I do as much as a seventeen-year-old girl with little education can do.”

“Were you not tutored at home?” Anna had the carriage and speech of a well-born girl.

“Until I was eleven, yes. When the war ended we moved to New Orleans. Engaging a tutor was always something he meant to do, but he never got around to it. What I have learned since has been through my own studies.”

We walked in silence. Something kept me from asking directly about her mother. Instead, I searched for a viable excuse for Cornelius's neglect of his daughter's education. Sensing my struggle, she provided one for me.

“He never said, but I suspect he couldn't find a woman willing to teach the daughter of a carpetbagger. Putting me in boarding school was out of the question. He did not want me away from him.”

“My father had no such qualms.”

“You went to boarding school?”

“Not precisely. I went to live with my aunt in England. I was tutored at home with her daughter.”

“How exciting.”

“It would have been if I hadn't been under the chaperonage of my aunt. I had my cousin Charlotte to keep me company. She made England bearable.”

“How long were you there?”

“Seven years.”

“What brought you back to the States?”

“My father. The threat of war. A
scandal
.”

“Would it be impolite to ask about the scandal?”

“Yes, it would.” I laughed. “My aunt's design in taking me back to England with her was to make a respectable woman of me, and if I made an eligible match, so much the better. My time in England confirmed I did not want a conventional life or marriage.”

“You don't wish to be married?”

I considered her question for some time. I finally replied. “If I could find a man to accept me as a doctor, woman, lover, and wife, in that order, I might well consider it.”

Anna blushed. She was so young and innocent. I wondered how long her innocence would last in a rough frontier town.

“What do you want out of this move to Timberline?”

“I want my father to be happy.”

“What about yourself?”

Anna shrugged. “I'm not sure I'm fit for anything other than being a wife. I have little formal education and no skills.”

“You would make an excellent midwife. Or nurse.”

“But not a doctor?”

“I'm not sure you have the personality to be a doctor.”

“Meaning what?”

“You have to not care what people think of you. You have to be able to ignore what people say to you. You have to love medicine above all else. Most important, you will have to be twice as good as every man to get a fraction of the credit.”

“You make it sound so appealing, how could I refuse?” Anna chided. After a few steps, she said, “In seriousness, what made you choose this path?”

I gently prodded Piper and thought how best to answer. The safest course would be to tell her nothing. Catherine Bennett was dead, found floating in the Hudson, and so were her reasons for becoming a doctor. Why take the risk by telling her story, even if I didn't use her name? Had I inadvertently been leaving little clues across Texas for Beatrice Langton's Pinkertons to find if they were indeed following me? I did not think so. Anna's face was full of frank openness, curiosity, and admiration. I wanted to believe I could trust her. I also needed to touch the bravery of a woman I felt less and less connected to the farther into the frontier I traveled.

“My father was a doctor. A surgeon. As a child, I watched and admired what he did. He encouraged my curiosity. When in England, I heard many lectures on science and medicine and was inspired by the great medical discoveries. However, I was young and easily distracted in those days.”

I paused before I went on. “The idea was always there, lingering. But, it was during the war when I realized I had talent.”

“The war? Were you a nurse?”

“Of sorts. I was rejected as a nurse at the onset of the war because I was too young and too handsome. My father would not intercede on my behalf because he did not want me anywhere near the battlefield. I have always despised being told what I could or could not do, another necessary character trait for female physicians. I went to a rag shop and bought ratty clothes, cut my hair, and presented myself to my father as a male orderly.”

Anna's eyes were round. “You didn't.”

“Indeed, I did. He was furious.”

“I can imagine.”

“Because I cut my hair.”

“Not because of the danger?” I shook my head in response. “Your hair is beautiful,” Anna said, dutifully.

“It is like my mother's,” I said, touching the long blond braid that fell from my slouch hat. “He ranted and raved about my ‘damnable independence' and my complete lack of respect for his authority or society's mores. When he realized I was going ahead with my ruse with or without his help, he went along to help protect me. I became his orderly, his right-hand man, so to speak.”

I swallowed. I had never before told this part of the story. “We were at Antietam. The battle was over but the wounded kept pouring in. I thought they would never stop. The carnage was staggering. I was throwing a leg onto the pile of amputated limbs when I saw an officer sitting by a tree, drunk. My apron was covered with blood and the sounds of the dying soldiers on the battlefield filled my ears. The smell of charred flesh and blood was there, too, but by that time I had gotten used to it. I still smell it, even today. Not always. It assaults me at the strangest times. It's as if it lives deep within me, festers there, rotting.”

Anna gasped. Her expression was horrified. “I apologize.” I tried to lighten my voice, to regain a storytelling timbre. “The officer. The sight of this unscathed officer getting drunk infuriated me, as you can imagine. I marched over, intent to find out his regiment and report him when he turned his head. The left side of his face had been sliced open by a saber.” I ran my finger from my hairline at my temple down to my jaw. “Not only was he drunk, but he was in shock from his wound and from a blow he had taken to the back of his head.”

I took a deep breath and continued.

“He was like every other man haunted by war except for his eyes. When he looked up at me, drunk and barely sensible, I somehow knew there was more to this man's melancholy than simply war. It wasn't my job to worry about that, however. I managed to get him up off the ground and into a camp chair. My father was away in the field to attend more wounded and the other doctors were busy with other men. The officer wasn't in danger of dying, but I wanted to help him. I decided to do what I could for him myself.

“I knew I did not have much time. When a doctor saw I was treating a brevet colonel they would pull me away. That was the least of what they would do to a lowly orderly treating an officer. I used whisky to clean his wound, the needle and thread, and my hands. I gave the rest to the officer, told him to drink up, and sewed up his face.”

Anna's expression of astonishment made me laugh. “Do you know how to sew?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

“You could have done it, too,” I said.

“No, I could not.”

“Oh, Anna, yes, you could have. You have no idea the depth of your strength until you are truly tested.”

I thought back to Amos's comment from the night before, that most of us have the ability to kill and how I was saying much the same thing to Anna; we could rise above our weakness and do the unthinkable. I adjusted my holster. Maybe I did have the ability to take a man's life. The thought unnerved me.

“I hope to never be tested like that,” Anna said.

I returned my focus to Anna and my story. “His injury was far from the worst I had seen. While I was sewing, the man stared at me with his bleary but intelligent eyes. They were beautiful, despite being so melancholy.

“‘Why are you smiling?' he asked.

“‘Was I? Do not nod,' I said. ‘I suppose I was thinking of my aunt. She would be appalled at the application of my needlepoint skills.'

“‘She would not think it admirable you are helping a fallen officer?'

“I laughed at the thought of the expression on Aunt Emily's face if she saw me amid the carnage of a battlefield. ‘She would think I could use my talents in a much more acceptable way.' I told him to be quiet so I could stitch his cheek.

“While I was working on him the rest of the world evaporated. The agony and death surrounding me. The sounds of dying men. The smell. What mattered most was fixing his face. When I was finished I knew I had done as good or better job than any doctor I worked with. I knew I could do any of it. It was euphoric.”

“Did the officer live?”

“He came to find me a few days later. He wanted to thank the nurse who had sewn him up.”

“Nurse?”

“Yes. It seems in his alcoholic haze he saw straight through my disguise. I don't suppose it helped when I talked of needlepoint to him. I didn't remember telling him about Aunt Emily until months later.” I shook my head, still wondering why I had let my guard down and shared the story with the man.

I smiled at Anna and continued my story. “The doctors and surgeons I worked with were livid, not only because I was a woman but also because I had fooled them so completely. That was the end of my war experience. It mattered little. My father was injured while out in the field and I needed to take care of him. Look.” I pointed. “The river.”

Ahead of us Amos Pike was organizing the crossing of the Trinity River, the last major crossing until the Red and the last before Fort Richardson. Maureen was walking back from the Warren's wagon. Her face was flushed.
When did she move to walk with Cornelius?
I wondered.

“Do you not trust me to get Piper and Púca across?” I winked at Anna.

“No.”

“I am deeply wounded. Here,” I said, placing my hat on Maureen's head. “Your face is red from the sun.”

Maureen took the stick from my hand without comment and gently prodded the oxen. Anna and I stopped and watched her.

“You do know your father is courting Maureen?”

Anna nodded.

“Do you mind?”

“No. Do you?”

“Not if it makes her happy.” I sighed. “I suppose we should give them our blessing.”

“Tonight at dinner.”

I nodded and asked the question I had pondered for a few days. “Would you be interested in helping me with my practice?”

“Nursing?”

“At first. You can study the one medical book I have. If you are good enough, and interested, we can write off for more books, and you can apprentice with me.”

“You would do that for me?”

“It will be as much for me as you.”

“When can we start?”

I grinned. “Let's get across the river first.”

“I should go help Father,” Anna said. She trotted off a few steps before turning back. “Thank you.
Thank you
, Laura.”

I smiled and waved and watched her run back to her father, a youthful spring in her step.