Sawbones (10 page)

Unlike most men of the age, he did not look away from my discomfort, but rather took my hand and said in a weak voice, “I am truly sorry for your loss.”

His hand was too warm. I stepped forward and touched his forehead. “You should stay sitting down, Captain. You have a fever and look ready to collapse.” I moved my hand to his cheek as I said this. “I have portioned a dose of laudanum for you.”

“No, thank you. Not yet.”

I stared at the gray-flecked stubble on his chin. He studied me in his silent, steady, unnerving way. The schooner, never large, shrunk until the urge to escape from Kindle's presence overpowered me. I dropped my hand and turned my face away.

“You should stay off your leg as much as possible.”

I helped settle him again. He stretched his injured leg in front of him and leaned his head back against the canvas.

To take my mind off my lingering nausea and the beginnings of what promised to be a raging headache, and to distract Kindle from his pain, I turned the conversation to him.

“Why do you carry a knife in your boot?”

“You don't want your opponent to know every tool you have.”

“Do you get into a lot of fights?”

“Not anymore. Old habit.”

I nodded. “How long have you been at Fort Richardson?”

“A little over a year. My regiment was sent here to help build the fort.”

“Is that common? For the Negros to be given menial tasks?”

“You'll see soon enough everyone at a fort are given menial tasks, regardless of race.” Kindle winced as he adjusted his leg. “I confess I volunteer my men for fort-bound duties more than other regimental officers.”

“Why?”

He closed his eyes and did not answer for a while. “I'm not eager to lead more men to their deaths,” he finally said.

“Why do you remain in the Army?”

He smiled slightly. “I have asked myself that question many times.” He paused. “I thought of retiring back in sixty-eight but the thought of returning to my family's plantation did not appeal to me.”

“Plantation?”

“Yes. In Maryland. I haven't been there since right after the war. I'm sure it's gone to ruin. I always hated farming. It's why I went into the Army.”

“Did your family have slaves?”

Kindle nodded. “We did. I tried to help a slave escape once, when I was twelve.”

“What happened?”

Kindle's smile was thin. “My brother caught wind of what I was doing. Instead of stopping me, he let me go on so the punishment would be severe. The slave was caught five miles away.”

“And were you punished?”

“We both were.”

When he did not seem eager to elaborate, I changed the subject and quizzed him about the fort.

“In Texas, there is a line of forts on the Western frontier.” With his forefinger he drew a slight arc in the air. “From the Rio Grande in the south to the Red River in the north. Fort Richardson is the northernmost fort.”

“Whom is it named for?”

“Fighting Dick Richardson. A War hero. Union, naturally. Our primary purpose is to protect the settlers and cattle drives from Indian aggression.”

“Are you always as successful as you were yesterday?” I could not keep the anger out of my voice.

“Forgive me if I don't have the strength to detail why our task is nigh impossible to complete.”

“Forgive me for my rudeness. Rest.”

He shook his head. “Tell me how you happened to be here.”

“Oh!” I said, taken aback. “It isn't an interesting story. I saw an advertisement in the paper about a new town in Colorado and decided to see the West.”

“What town?”

“Timberline.”

Kindle's eyes lost their faraway aspect and narrowed. “Timberline?”

“Yes. It was a new venture. I have the flyer here somewhere,” I said, and halfheartedly looked for it.

Kindle waved his hand. “Interesting you traveled through Texas with the railroad available.”

“I have always been more of an adventurer than was good for me. Obviously.”

Kindle might have been in pain but I could tell he was an intuitive person and bought none of my story.

“What will happen to the captives?”

Of course he noticed my abrupt change in subject but he moved on without comment. After hearing what he said, I would have rather he not.

“The children will be adopted into the tribe and treated well.”

I could barely get the words out. “What about Anna?”

“How old was she again?”

“Seventeen.”

Kindle grimaced and said nothing.

“Don't think you will offend my sensibilities. Tell me plainly.”

“They will abuse her. Savagely. Repeatedly. Every one. If she survives, the squaws will beat her before one of them takes her as a slave. If one of the raiders takes a liking to her she will become his wife. Chances are she will be sold to another tribe where the abuse will start again. She could be eventually ransomed to the Quakers.”

I swallowed the bitter taste in my throat. “She will live?”

“If you call that living.”

Anger welled inside me, anger at the folly of traveling through such dangerous country. For what? Would any of our lives have been better amid the hardships on the frontier? I wondered for the first time why I hadn't sailed for England. Or San Francisco. Why had I so quickly agreed to Camille's suggestion of finding refuge in Texas? If I had stopped for a moment and considered, weighed every option, I was confident a better solution would have come to me, one that would not have led to Maureen's brutal death.

“You should pray for her death. If she survives and is rescued or ransomed to the Quakers, she will be shunned, by men and women alike.”

“I would never shun her.”

“No. I don't suppose you would.” He studied me for a long while. He took a deep breath, shifted in his seat, and said, “I should prepare you for fort life.”

“Please.” I grasped at this conversational life raft, although I had little intention of staying at Fort Richardson long enough to adjust to its hardships. I forced down my latest wave of nausea, an ailment I had never suffered from but hadn't been able to rid myself of since the night before, and ignored the throbbing in my head. I longed to drink Kindle's dose of laudanum.

“It isn't glamorous. It's dirty, remote, shabby—the buildings not erected by my men, naturally—and we're chronically short on supplies.”

“You're quite the salesman, Captain Kindle. I can hardly wait to arrive.”

“Fort Richardson does have one redeeming feature you'll find intriguing, and quite possibly, difficult to leave.”

“Forgive me if I am skeptical, Captain. Any romanticism this adventure could boast has been completely erased over the last twenty-four hours. I cannot imagine a primitive Western fort is going to have anything to entice me to stay a moment longer than absolutely necessary.”

“Not even the most modern building between Fort Worth and El Paso?”

“I have never been to Fort Worth or El Paso, but if they resemble the Texas towns I have seen, then they are dirty, remote, and full of drunken cowboys. Boasting you have the most modern building on the Texas frontier is, I fear, faint praise.”

“What if I told you this building was a hospital?”

I smiled. “I've worked in many types of hospitals: a barn, a tent, a field in the middle of a battle, a church, a modern structure in New York City, a dirty room in a Lambeth workhouse, even a ship. I look forward to adding meanly constructed Western forts to the list.”

Curtains of rain fell from the sky, closing the schooner from the barren plains outside. The gray light of the storm diffused the air around us, softening edges, muffling the rest of the world. Kindle's pain was apparent by his clenched jaw and hooded eyes, which were too focused on me for my comfort.

“Please take a sip of the laudanum.”

“No.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

I stared outside, trying to avoid his probing gaze.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

“Captain! They're coming!”

The voice outside the tent saved me from answering with a lie.

“You need a better sling.” I found a shawl of Maureen's, tied two corners together, and placed it around Kindle's neck, keeping as much distance between us as the small space allowed. I adjusted the sling and gently nestled his arm in the soft folds of the well-worn cloth, trying to hide the border of embroidered flowers and leaves as best as I could. “Your cloak will cover the rest.” I put his hat on his head and fastened his cloak around his neck. “Wait. I'll help you down.”

I retrieved my father's cloak from my trunk, turned it inside out, and fastened it around my shoulders.

“Clever,” Kindle said, admiring the brown oilcloth that now covered my shoulders and dress.

“Yes, isn't it?” I said. “My father struck upon this idea when he was caught in a storm after visiting a patient. Two cloaks in one.” I smiled, remembering how excited Father had been when he showed me the cloak Maureen had fashioned from his idea and the look of pride on Maureen's face as he praised her work.

“Didn't he have an umbrella?” Kindle asked.

I laughed. “He hated umbrellas. They always turned inside out on him.”

Kindle held out the boy's hat. “You'll need this.”

I looked at the juvenile, flat-billed hat and could not bring myself to take it. The thought of the little boy who had worn the hat only the day before extinguished the short burst of joy the memory of my father and Maureen had given me. My throat thickened as my loss—the loss of those children and what could be happening to Anna at the moment—reasserted their place at the forefront of my mind. Kindle, as if understanding my every thought and emotion, placed the hat on my head. “Until you can buy another.”

I stepped out of the schooner and with Sergeant Washington's assistance helped the captain disembark. Kindle stood at attention and awaited the arrival of his commander, the model of the battle-hardened soldier ignoring his pain and suffering to perform his duty.

A regiment of cavalry rode up at an impressive clip, throwing mud onto the chests and legs of the horses and men behind. At the front of the column was an erect young man with a bushy mustache that barely concealed the scowl underneath. Kindle's men miraculously appeared from nowhere and were lined up in perfect formation, staring ahead into the near distance at nothing. Not one eye of Kindle's regiment flickered to the column. Kindle limped forward a few steps and waited, leaning heavily on the stick in his right hand.

The cavalry slowed to a trot and stopped in front of Kindle with a precision borne of long days of drills and the unbending leadership of their commander. Kindle saluted. “Colonel Mackenzie.”

Mackenzie returned the salute. “Captain Kindle. What are you doing on your feet? According to Lieutenant Kindle, I expected to find you dead.”

“Not quite, sir.”

Niceties over, Mackenzie looked around the destroyed wagon train. “What is the situation here?”

“The dead have been buried. My regiment and their horses are rested and ready for orders.”

“You are to return to the fort. I am following the savages. Any idea what band did this?”

“Based on the arrows retrieved, Kiowa, sir.”

“They fled north?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Returning to the loving bosom of the Quakers. The cattle?”

“Gone, sir. We didn't have time to search before the storm and darkness fell.”

“What the Indians didn't steal will have been incorporated into other herds east of here. If we're lucky, there are some stragglers. Lieutenant Kindle!”

The young man disengaged himself from the clump of officers behind Mackenzie and rode to the front. “Yes, sir!”

“Take your uncle's regiment and retrieve as many cattle as possible.”

Disappointment and anger flickered over the young man's face. “Yes, sir!” he said with more enthusiasm than his features showed.

Kindle stepped forward. “Colonel Mackenzie…”

Mackenzie interrupted him. “We will rest for five minutes.”

The order to dismount rang down the line. Mackenzie dismounted his horse, which was led away by a corporal, and walked toward Kindle. Their conversation was almost lost amid the rain and the sounds of the regiment dismounting and moving en masse to the wagons. I watched as the men rifled through the belongings of my fellow travelers and with great force of will stayed rooted by my wagon and kept my black thoughts to myself.

“You look like hell, William. You aren't coming, so don't ask. Sherman is apoplectic. If I am not mistaken, this ‘war' with the Indians is about to come to a head. Good officers are hard to find. I will need you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sherman's ambulance is on its way to take you and the survivor back to the fort.” Mackenzie looked at me for the first time, though I was sure he had been aware of my presence from the moment he arrived.

Kindle made the introductions. “Colonel Ranald Mackenzie, Dr. Laura…” Kindle realized with embarrassment he didn't know my last name.

“Elliston.”

Mackenzie studied me like a scientist would a newly discovered species of fly. He stepped forward, and despite the continued rain, removed his hat. “Ma'am. Thank you for assisting my officer.”

“I did what any doctor would have done.”

“Dr. Elliston has taken great care of me amid less than ideal circumstances,” Kindle said.

Mackenzie nodded and replaced his hat. “What can you tell me of the raid?”

I was nonplussed. I motioned to the wreckage. “They were massacred. What more do you need to know?”

“What direction did they come from?”

“West.”

“How did you survive?”

I did not want to admit to hiding in a buffalo wallow to this man. “Captain Kindle's regiment arrived and chased the Indians off before they could kill me.”