Patricia Rice (16 page)

"Hot water, Jackson. Heat lots of hot water."

The voice whispered through Pace's memory like wisps of thread pulling him back. He realized he'd allowed himself to float again. He'd done that with increasing regularity these last hours. When the pain grew intense enough, he could disengage his mind and float somewhere outside his body.

Cool hands smoothed his brow. He was conscious of the rough stubble of his face and the grime and stench of his clothes. He wanted to yell at her to get out, to get away from him, but he couldn't remember who he yelled at or why.

He felt his clothing stripped away. He couldn't tell if he screamed his anguish or if the sound was just inside his head. The cooling hands returned with warm, scented water, and the soft voice murmured admonishments when he struggled against her touch. Fiery knife edges seared where she touched his shattered arm, and he nearly threw her off the bed.

"Leave it alone!" he yelled. Or he thought he yelled. "You can't take it!"

"I don't want it," she murmured unsympathetically, with a trace of humor. "I shouldn't think thou wouldst want it either, not this way. It's not of much use to thee in this condition."

Something in the way she said that shot straight to his core, and Pace's eyes flew open.

He'd no doubt been delirious for days. He was probably delirious now. Lamplight shone through a halo of silver curls, casting delicate features in shadows. Still, he could see the bowed lips and the wide, long-lashed blue eyes of an angel. He wondered where she kept her wings.

Closing his eyes again, he managed to say coherently, "Angels don't belong in hell."

"If all the denizens are not beyond hope, then mayhap that is just where they do belong."

He wanted to laugh. His stubborn angel would do just that: go to hell to rescue the devil. But somewhere, he'd forgotten how to laugh. The only sound that emerged was a scream as she moved his arm to discover the extent of the damage.

"Thou hast seen the end of thy fighting for a while," she said from the gray haze above him. Pace couldn't tell if the words were sad or not. He was too busy clinging to consciousness.

"Don't take it off!" He repeated the warning he'd screamed with much stronger fury days or weeks ago, when he'd commanded his men to haul him out of the hospital and put him on the train.

"It's likely to rot off of its own accord and take thee with it," she answered bluntly.

"Then let me go." Pace knew what he said when he said that, although it took every last ounce of energy left in him to speak. He would prefer death over any other existence he could foresee now. He'd seen a fourteen-year-old drummer boy blown to tiny bits of scrap and bone. He'd watched a woman perish in an inferno of flame when she refused to leave her home and possessions. He'd seen his closest companions explode in blood and guts from bullets that had narrowly missed him. He'd observed wagon loads of arms and legs hauled from field hospitals to trenches for burial. He'd forgotten why he fought but had mercilessly continued killing rather than be killed. If death meant peace, then he was ready for it.

Dora watched with grief as Pace slipped into fevered unconsciousness. She shook her head as she studied the bloodied remains of gristle and bone that had once been his fine, strong arm. She was no doctor. She could do little here but clean and bind it. She glanced up at Jackson hovering anxiously in a corner.

"Thou hadst best find a physician. There is nothing here I can do but make him comfortable."

"The doctor will amputate," Jackson answered. "That's his right arm. He won't shoot or fight again without it."

"Is that all his life is worth?" she asked angrily. "Mayhap he would be a great deal happier if he could not shoot or fight. Fetch a doctor."

Jackson did as told, leaving Dora sitting by the bedside of the dying young soldier. If she could think of him like that, perhaps she would survive this latest tragedy. She could pretend she was Clara Barton and this man was a stranger to her. She could peel off the bloodied, filthy remains of his uniform and burn them without thinking about the wasted, fevered body uncovered.

Strength still remained in the powerful muscles banding his chest and arm, but she'd seen Pace in full health. She knew the body lying here was but a caricature of his former self. How long had he lain in wagons and trains being transported up here? When had he last eaten?

As the fever deepened, Pace cursed and struggled against her touch. Dora bathed his forehead to cool him off, then washed the grime from the rest of him. Modesty dictated that she not wander below the folded sheet at his waist. She had never seen a naked man. Her patients were always women and children, or young boys with cuts and burns tended without disrobing. She never touched men. But he was covered in filth and stank worse than pigs in the barnyard.

Resolutely, still pretending she was Clara Barton, Dora took the washrag beneath the sheet and worked by touch. If she did not look, perhaps it would not be sinful. She had seen baby boys, after all. She knew males were made differently.

Men were not boys. Dora flushed and pulled her hand away when she touched Pace's manly parts. He was much larger than she had imagined, had she ever tried imagining such a thing. Biting her lower lip, she forced herself to continue. He was unconscious. He was filthy. She was a nurse. She could do this.

It wasn't easy, but she eventually cleaned him to the best of her abilities without ever uncovering his lower torso. He'd stopped muttering in his sleep now. He lay so still she would have thought him dead had she not felt his heart beating against her fingertips. She watched the slow rise and fall of his bare chest with fascination. Soft dark hairs curled there, and her fingers ached to explore them. Had she lost her mind with this latest tragedy?

She couldn't imagine a life without Pace. That was certainly irrational. He was nothing to her, had never been anything to her. He'd made that clear upon more than one occasion. He'd just seen her when others hadn't, offered her a hand in friendship when no other would, given her a kind and courteous word when she felt only scorn around her.

The knowledge that Pace lay dying peeled her down to the core. The music in her memories lost its tune. The precious doll still sleeping on her pillow didn't exist. Nothing had any importance.

Why hadn't she seen it all along? Pace was just an excuse. Nearly thirty years of age, a well-known lawyer, an officer in the Union army, Pace lived a worldly existence far beyond anything she could imagine. And she pinned her dreams on a man like that? She lived a fairy tale just as David had said. She remembered a youth who talked to bluebirds and gave candy to little girls. That man—that dream—didn't exist. She was living in the past.

And this man lying here was very much of the present. She must grow up and face the facts. The boy of her dreams had become a dying stranger.

Jackson returned with a doctor from the army camped at the river. The man examined the shattered arm, shook his bearded head, and announced amputation was the only solution.

When he reached to draw the appropriate instruments from his bag, Dora stayed his hand. "That is not what he wants. He returned here because he trusts us to observe his wishes."

The doctor stared at her in the weak lamplight. "Are you his wife?"

She hesitated. A Friend did not lie. A lie would give her strength, but she could not do it. She merely kept her hand on his arm, restraining him with her touch. "I am the sister he never had. He came to me for help. I cannot deny him."

"You have no authority in the matter. He's an officer in the army, and he will die if that arm isn't amputated. I will tell him you tried to stop me when he recovers, but this is for his own good."

Dora fought down a growing sense of panic. She didn't want Pace to die. She didn't want to make this decision. But Pace had trusted her. He didn't want to live without his arm. It seemed a foolish reason for dying, but she had no right to deny his choice.

"He will die if thou dost take his arm," she said quietly. She had no confidence in her powers of persuasion, but Pace had made his desire clear. "Tell me what I must do to treat him, and I shall make him as comfortable as I can, but I pray thee, do not take his arm."

The doctor paused indecisively, taking in her Quaker gray, obviously attempting to determine her status. Dora stared him down until the doctor nodded.

"If that's his choice, I won't argue. He probably wouldn't survive the amputation anyway. There isn't much more you can do than keep him clean and get some fluids into him. If the infection doesn't kill him, the fever will. It's just a matter of time."

Dora heard the death knell in his voice, and her eyes burned dry as she shook his hand and offered payment for his services.

It was just a matter of time.

Cries of desperation rang through her soul, but her mask of calm stayed in place. Pace would die, but she would remain God's puppet. She had no right to feel anything at all.

Chapter 11

I will despair, and be at enmity

With cozening hope; he is a flatterer,

A parasite, a keeper-back of death

~ Shakespeare,
Richard II

"Old Man Nicholls is at the door," Jackson said with singular lack of respect as he entered the front bedroom.

Face nearly gray with weariness, Dora nodded listlessly. The man beneath the covers didn't stir as she applied cooling cloths to his forehead.

"Does that mean let him in?" Jackson asked impatiently. "He's frothing at the bit."

"Thou canst not keep him away," Dora said. "Pace is his son."

"Yeah, I've seen him express his love and affection." With a grimace of disdain, Jackson whirled around and left the room.

Carlson Nicholls entered quietly, hat in hand. His bulky body exuded sweat in the June heat, but heat wasn't the only source of perspiration. He gripped his hat brim tighter as he saw his youngest son lying white and still against the sheets, his auburn hair a tangled nest against the pillow.

"How is he?" he asked gruffly.

"The doctor says he's dying." Dora saw no reason for mincing words. Jackson was right. This man had never shown Pace an ounce of affection. She couldn't pretend otherwise.

"I'll send for a better doctor."

"It will do no good now. The matter is in God's hands." Dora checked the bandage. The bleeding had finally stopped now that Pace lay still. He couldn't afford to lose much more blood. If only she could get some fluids in him...

"To hell with God! What favors has He ever done me? I've friends in Frankfort and Louisville. They'll find a doc who can make him better." Carlson's voice boomed with surety in the small room.

Dora threw him an incredulous look. "Do that, sir. And punch them if they don't tell thee what thou wishes to hear. Pace would approve of that. He's that much like thee, thou must realize."

Carlson stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. "My God, missy, don't you dare talk to me like that! I've taken you in and fed you and clothed you like you were one of my own, and now you bite the hand that feeds you. I don't have to take that kind of sass from you."

"It is not sass. It is fact. Thou and Pace and Charlie all think the world can be punched into the shape thou dost desire with a few blows. This is where such thinking gets thee." She indicated the bed. "He wanted to be the man thou wished for a son. I hope thou art proud of him now."

Carlson looked as if he would explode. The red of his face contrasted vividly with the pale gray of his eyebrows. He clenched his fists and filled his massive chest with air. And then his gaze swerved from the slight figure in the chair to the still one in the bed, and the air went out of him again.

"He's a damned bloody Yankee!" he cursed, then stalked out of the room.

Dora thought she heard a slight snicker from the direction of the bed, but then Pace began to toss and shove at his covers, and her hands were too full to contemplate her wishful thinking. If Carlson's curses had returned the fire of life to Pace's blood, she could only be grateful for the favor.

* * *

"You have to eat, Miss Dora." Jackson set a tray down on the bedside table.

Pace lay lifelessly beneath the covers, but sweat poured down his brow. Dora alternately bathed his face, then tried to restrain his thrashing when it began again.

"How's he doing?"

"The infection doesn't seem to be spreading." Puzzlement as much as relief laced her words. "The doctor said either the infection or the fever would kill him. The fever seems to be winning." She glanced at the tray. "Where didst thou get that?"

Jackson shrugged. "Solly said they sent it down from the house. I didn't ask questions."

She nodded. "I wish I could find some way of getting water down his throat. If water on the outside cools him, it would do even better on his insides, I should think."

"We can do like we do with the horses when they don't want to take their medicine," Jackson offered.

Dora gazed up at him questioningly.

Jackson handed her the water glass, then sat on the opposite side of the bed, propping Pace upright with the pillows. Then pinching Pace's nose, he opened his mouth. "Pour a little in."