Comanche Rose (8 page)

"No. Like I said, he's a mite touchy when he gets woke up. But Mrs. Sprenger'll give him a little coffee, and then he'll be all right."

"I still think we could use wet sheets to bring this fever down. My mother used to soak my brother in a tub of water, and it usually worked, but the captain's too big for that."

"I got no orders for it," he maintained stubbornly. "Besides, I told you, Doc's coming. Uh-oh."

The hospital door opened, then Will Sprenger stamped the snow from his feet. Coming into the infirmary, he took off his cloak.

"Didn't wait for the coffee," he muttered. "If I'd have known folks got sicker at night, I'd have never gone to medical college." Then he saw Annie. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded.

Fearing he was in trouble, Nash spoke up quickly. "She's a friend of Captain Walker." As the surgeon turned his scowl on him, he added lamely, "They grew up in Texas together."

"Oh? And where was that?" Sprenger asked, looking at Annie.

She knew he knew she didn't know Hap Walker. Nonetheless, she managed to say, "San Saba."

"Humph! Didn't know there
was
a San Saba back in the thirties."

"Actually, there's been a ranger camp there for several years—I don't know where he's from," she admitted baldly. "I may have given Mr. Nash a mistaken impression. I said Walker and I were both from Texas."

"Big place, Texas," Sprenger murmured. He took a deep breath, then exhaled heavily. "Well, I'd better take a look at him." Going around to the other side of the bed, he leaned over and listened to Walker's chest. "No pneumonia, anyway. Guess that's something." He rubbed his hands together briskly, then laid his palm on his patient's brow, holding it there for some time. His frown deepened. "He drink anything?" he asked Nash.

"She said she got something down him."

"About a half cup of water," she murmured. "I used a wet napkin."

Sprenger looked up from Walker to her, taking in the deep-set circles under her eyes, the tight, drawn skin that clung to the hollow cheeks, the fatigue revealed in every line of her face, and he relented. "Guess you didn't take the laudanum."

"No." She looked away. "I was afraid of the nightmares. I didn't want to sleep."

"Yeah." He could understand that. There was no guessing what her memory could recount if given a free rein. "Yeah." Turning his attention back to Hap Walker, he frowned again. "Damn. Thought I'd got everything cleaned up in there." He leaned over and spoke loudly, saying, "Can you understand me? I'm going to have to cut."

Walker's eyelids moved, but did not open. "No... no... don't..."

"You don't want to die, do you?"

Hap managed to swallow. His mouth was too dry. He worked his tongue, trying to wet his lips. "Worse... things..." he whispered.

"Hap—" Sprenger hesitated, then sighed. "All right, I'll take another look first. But don't ask me to let you die. That fever's coming from somewhere."

"I gave him ten grains of quinine again after you left," Nash admitted. "And I was getting ready to go for more sassafras."

"He can't sweat," Sprenger muttered. "Guess maybe we could try a little boiled willow, sometimes that works. I sure hate taking him back to surgery."

"Do you want me to find Walsh and Parker?" Nash wanted to know.

"I'm getting too old to lift 'em anymore, so you'll have to." The surgeon reached for the blanket covering Walker. "You'd better go, Mrs. Bryce, this won't be pretty."

Her gaze dropped to Hap Walker for a long moment. "I'd like to stay, Major Sprenger," she decided. "And I've seen quite a lot of ugly things."

"I expect you have at that." Not knowing how long it would take Nash to find the other two, he nodded. "All right. In that cabinet over there, you'll find the herbals. One of 'em ought to say willow on it. Put a teaspoon of it in a cup, fill the rest with hot water, then strain it through cloth in about five minutes. Make it strong enough he doesn't have to drink a lot of it. You up to doing that?"

"Where is the water?" she asked.

"There's two pots on that stove—one's coffee, the other's water. Cups are on the metal stand next to it." As she moved away, he lifted the blanket. "Still say it looks better than it did earlier," he muttered. "Still here, Nash?"

"Getting my coat, sir."

"Anything draining?"

"He's still making pus."

"All right, go on." Retrieving the trocar from the table, he squeezed the bulb and inserted the tip into the wound. Drawing it back, he looked at the tube. "Still yellow."

"No chlor—no chlor—"

"Make you sick?"

Hap swallowed. "No."

"That's the wound?" Annie asked, looking over the major's shoulder.

"It's stitched up now. If I was to open it, it'd be pretty raw."

"The willow bark is steeping," she remembered to tell him.

"Good. Mrs. Bryce, there's a large black case in the surgery. Ought to be setting next to the tray on the stand by the operating table. Would you fetch it, please?"

When she returned with it, he spread the field kit open. "Got one thing left to try, Hap," he murmured, reaching for the scissors. "It'll hurt like hell, but it's not the saw." Going to work, he removed his earlier sutures. When he turned around, Annie was still there, watching. His first inclination was to order her away, but he had no one else to help him. "Get into my case and find the lint swabs, then look for containers marked Bromine, Potassium Permanganate, and Spirits of Turpentine. Put 'em all on that table."

Leaning forward again, he addressed Walker. "I'm giving it all I know, but if it's not better by morning, I'm going to have to take it off. Best I can do."

It looked like Hap nodded.

Rising, Sprenger went to a basin and washed his hands. He came back carrying the wash basin with him. Sitting down again, he soaped the area around the reopened wound, then dried it. "Hand me a swab, Mrs. Bryce," he said, reaching behind him. "And the bromine. Open it first, if you don't mind," he added. "But don't get any of it on you—it's caustic. Oh, and I'm going to need one of those little glass tubes—in the vial next to the one with the swabs."

As she watched, he soaped the lint tip, then plunged it into the incision, separating the tissue. Rinsing it out, he again dried the area. Inserting the pipette into the bromine, he withdrew a small amount.

"Brace yourself, Hap," he ordered, pushing the pipette into the incision. As it touched the bone, he lifted his finger, releasing it. Walker's leg jerked. "Got to burn out the infection—all I know to do now. You know, once I had to do this with a hot poker 'cause I ran out of bromine."

Without thinking, Annie grasped Hap Walker's hand. His fingers closed around hers, tightening painfully, while Major Sprenger repeated the application several times, probing the abscess and around the injured bone. By the time the surgeon sat back, her fingers were numb. He capped the bromide and handed it back to her.

"It's going to burn awhile. It eats away at the tissue like acid on a nail. But to be sure I've got everything, go ahead and give me—" Sprenger considered a moment, then told Annie, "Give me the turpentine. Sorry to add insult to injury, Hap," he murmured apologetically, pouring a little of it into the incision, "but it's a good disinfectant. Don't guess I'll use the P.P., after all. If bromine and turpentine don't get it, nothing will, anyway." He looked up at Annie. "Might as well strain the willow tea while I restitch him."

"I got Mr. Parker, but couldn't find Walsh, sir," Nash announced, bursting through the door.

"Hell, I'm done now," Sprenger muttered, covering Hap. "Might as well send him back to bed."

"But—"

"Cauterized it with bromine." Sprenger rose to return his supplies to his field kit. "If it's still draining in the morning, we'll know it didn't work." He leaned over Walker. "Doing all right, Hap?" There was no answer. "Passed out," the surgeon decided. "Just as well, but it'll make getting anything down him a damned sight harder. Think you can do it without choking him to death, Mr. Nash?"

"I'll try, sir."

"Like feeding a baby—a little at a time. You know that, don't you?"

"I ain't even got a wife," Nash reminded him.

"I can give it to him, Major," Annie offered, carrying the cup back.

"You belong in bed yourself," Sprenger told her sourly. "So you might as well walk back with me. It's Mr. Nash on duty, anyway."

"Please, I couldn't sleep."

"If you won't take the laudanum, I can give you some chamomile."

"No. I'm all right, really."

Looking past her to Nash, he ordered, "If she changes her mind, see her home, will you? Mr. Parker, you'd better get a good night's sleep in case we have to saw tomorrow."

"Any change in orders for Captain Walker, sir?" Nash inquired.

"Give the willow bark tea every two hours until morning. Quarter grain of morphine at midnight, then again about five."

"Yes, sir."

Sprenger unrolled his sleeves and reached for his coat. "Unless you need me, I'll be back around six o'clock, soldier."

After the two men left, Annie sat beside Hap Walker's bed and began dipping the napkin in the willow bark tea, dribbling it into his mouth as before. When she looked up, Nash was watching her.

"You going to stay here all night?"

"I don't know."

He appeared uncomfortable for a moment, then blurted out, "There'll be talk. I mean, you're a woman, and I'm a man, and—"

"How old are you, Mr. Nash?"

"Twenty-three, ma'am."

"I was thirty last summer." Dipping the cloth into the cup again, she returned to her task. "Come on, just a little more," she coaxed Walker.

"You aren't exactly old enough to be my mother," Nash said behind her. "And after what happened—"

She sighed. "After what happened, I expect people to talk, and there's not much I can do to stop them. What am I supposed to do—hide?"

"No, of course not. But—"

Laying the cup aside, she turned back to wipe Walker's mouth with a dry corner of the napkin. "I cannot help it that I wanted to live too much to die, sir," she said wearily. "But if it bothers you to sit here with me, you can go into the other room."

"I didn't mean me. I didn't mean J felt that way, Mrs. Bryce," he responded awkwardly. "I was thinking of you."

She felt a surge of anger. "Well, don't. I'm not a woman who thrives on pity."

"I'm sorry. It must have been very hard on you," he murmured.

She looked up at that. "I don't mean to talk about it— now or ever," she said evenly. "To anyone."

"I wasn't trying to pry, ma'am. I just meant..." He paused, then sighed. "Well, if you're going to sit up with him, I think I'll go into the surgery and straighten things around for tomorrow. I, uh, I guess if you need any help, you'll call for me," he added lamely.

"Yes."

For more than a quarter hour after he left, she worked to get the rest of the medicine down Hap Walker. When she was done, she rose slowly and went to the window. They sky was almost cloudless now, and the snow sparkled in the moonlight. Layers of ice weighed heavily on the branches of a small tree, bending them almost to the ground. The stillness was nearly overwhelming.

She turned back to Hap, then cast a furtive glance toward the surgery. She hesitated, then deliberately walked over and closed the infirmary door. Coming back to Walker's bed, she considered him for a moment before she reached for the wash basin.

There wasn't anything that said
she
couldn't bathe him, after all. Telling herself resolutely that he had nothing she'd not seen before, she poured water into the pan. Wringing out the cloth Major Sprenger had used, she began wiping the wavy brown hair back from his forehead.

While he wasn't what most people would call handsome, he had an appealing face—straight nose, strong jaw, well-defined chin. And despite a faint sprinkling of silver, the tousled hair gave him an almost boyish look. That and the smile lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. She guessed he was probably between thirty-five and forty.

She lifted the blanket and unbuttoned the nightshirt, then washed his neck, throat, and chest. Her hands shook as she tugged the shirt up, exposing his lower body. She shuddered, fighting the revulsion, and forced herself to look down. Nestled in curled, brown thatch, his manhood was limp, benign. She took a deep breath. Telling herself that the only thing he had in common with Two Trees was his gender, she very carefully began washing his belly and his right leg. The injured one she didn't touch.

She didn't dry him, but let the air cool his wet skin, then gently pulled his gown down. Using a corner of the bedsheet, she fanned his face. Exhausted, she sat back to pray.

Please, dear God,
she thought,
spare this decent man.
Even as the words went through her mind, she wondered what there was about a man she scarcely knew that had moved her to pray for him, when she could hardly find it within her to pray for herself. It was, she supposed, all those things Major Sprenger had said about him.

The only light in the room was the yellow flame flickering valiantly within the sooty lamp chimney, the only sound Hap Walker's harsh, ragged breathing. She squeezed her dry, itching eyes tightly shut, trying to wet them, then leaned forward again to touch him. She didn't know why she'd expected anything different, but he was still hot.

The heightened nerves that had driven her through the day were giving up the fight for her mind and body. It was as though every fiber ached, every thought came with an effort. She knew she ought to summon Mr. Nash to watch Walker, then walk back to the Sprengers. But again the thought of sleeping in that featherbed was almost too much to bear.

The image of a smiling, scrubbed Ethan standing in Reverend Helton's Austin parlor, holding her cold hand in his warm one, telling the preacher they wanted to wed, came to mind. She could remember every detail of that day, from the figured waistcoat and navy blue serge suit Ethan had bought for the occasion to the pleated lawn waist, the cornflower blue twilled silk basque and matching skirt she'd made herself from the Butterick pattern she'd ordered in the mail. Ethan had gallantly told her the outfit matched her eyes.