Spirit of the Wolf (8 page)

The bigger man nodded. "Thought we'd take us a shortcut across Foggy Bottom. Sure would save us a heap o' travelin' time...."

Chance
patted his horse's withers to keep the
agitated
animal calm and still. "I'm foreman here," he informed them. "Anybody gives you any sass, you just tell 'em I gave you the go-ahead to cut through."

Each man saluted with a fingertip to the brim of his hat. "Thanks, man," Richie said.

"Hope the boy'll be all right," Luke said over his shoulder as they trotted off.

"So do I,"
Chance
said to himself. "So do I."

***

Every few minutes,
Chance
looked back to check Matt's condition. When the boy finally woke up
—nearly
an hour after he'd fallen from the horse
—
Chance
told him he'd have to work an extra half day to make up for his lazy afternoon nap. Matt, despite being drowsy and in obvious pain, chuckled at
Chance
's joke. He apologized repeatedly for causing so much trouble. "Pa is gonna be mighty upset," he said. "He's already got so much on his mind...."

Chance
couldn't help but wonder if the pain in Matt's voice was only due to his injuries
,
or to the distance Micah had put between himself and his sons. But the boy had lapsed back into unconsciousness before he could offer a word of assurance.

He'd been two years younger than
the
twins when his own parents died. "Get down to the root cellar where you'll be safe," his father had ordered
him and his mother o
n that fateful day. "If I see your faces before I call for you, I'll tan
both
your hides but good!"

Immediately,
Chance
had obeyed.

His mother had not. He'd never seen her cower at the sound of that deep, overpowering voice. So many times, he'd asked himself what she knew about his father that he didn't. What had she learned about the big man he so loved and respected that made her certain she could stoutly refuse to do as he'd instructed
without paying a price
? Because on that day, if she'd gone with her son to the root cellar as her husband had insisted, she'd have escaped the oncoming flames.

The thick wooden door of the root cellar had blocked out all light
, a
ll sound.
Chance
waited down there for hours in the dim glow of a single candle's flame, pacing the dirt floor as he'd waited for his father's signal, as he'd waited for his pa's permission to exit.

H
alf a day later, when
Chance
climbed
from
the sweet-smelling pit where he'd been surrounded by dusty jars of peaches and beans and tomatoes that lined his mother's crude-built wood
en
shelves, much of the smoke had already cleared.

There had been a prairie fire years earlier, and its hungry flames had greedily devoured the chicken coop and the hog pen before his pa got it under control. Remembering the destruction of
that
blaze,
Chance
ran for the house, yelling at the top of his
lungs.

When
no one answered
, he'd
balled up his fists and fought the urge to cry.
R
ound and round
he'd turned, surveying th
e silent, smoky world that had been his home.
In place of
the whitewashed barn
,
a pile of smoldering boards. The tool shed had become a blackened splotch on the earth.
Stepping cautiously through the rubble that had been their kitchen, he'd called out for his parents.

Hours later,
when
his uncle
rode
in to investigate the ugly curls of
d
ark smoke
churning
above his brother's house
, he
found
his nephew a
t the end of the drive, clutching his father's gold pocket watch to his chest.
Chance had tried
to say "'
T’
wer
en't my fault, Uncle Josh."
Tried
to explain that he'd
stayed in the root cellar because his pa had told him to.
Wanted to say
that
he'd found
his pa, barely breathing, in a smoldering pile of wood that had
once
been the kitchen,
and
that he'd dug around back there in the hope of finding his ma, too.

To this day, he wondered…

…
if
he'd
had the courage to
disobey his father, as his mother had, w
ould one more pair of hands, fighting Mother Nature's fiery temper, have made the difference between life and death for his parents?
I
f hadn't cowered in the root cellar as long as he had, would he have emerged in time to save them?

The boy woke
again
, forcing
Chance
to shove the thorny thoughts aside as he groaned right along with Matt each time a bump in the road worried the broken leg or the injured arm
…and only the good Lord knew what damage he’d suffered, internally.

It took nearly eight hours to get back to the manor house, and when at long last they arrived, Doc Beck, Bess, Mark, and Micah were there to meet them. "You were smart not to try and splint these," Doc said
after inspecting
the boy's injuries. "That's a compound fracture he's got there. Repairing it is going to require surgery."

Matt took a deep breath. "Surgery? Pa, do I really have to get an operation?"

Mark hovered in the background, wringing his hands
, a
nd Micah stood beside him, chewing his lower lip.
Only Bess braved the sight of blood and exposed bone to step up close. She
knelt
be
side her little brother, oblivious to the gravel and grit that soiled the pale blue skirt of her dress. "Hush, now, Matthew," she crooned softly, patting his hand. "We're going to do whatever Doc says, 'cause he knows what's best, you hear?"

His big dark eyes swam with unshed tears of fear. "But Bess," he whimpered, "I'm scared to get cut...."

"'Course you're scared, but there's no need to be." She leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss upon his cheek. "Doc's scalpel won't do you near as much damage as I will if you don't lay back and keep quiet," Bess scolded gently, running her fingers through his dark, perspiration dampened curls.

Her presence, her voice, her touch seemed enough to calm him, and Matt nodded weakly. "Okay, Bess. Whatever you say."

Doc put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm going to need some help. Think you're up to it?"

Bess swallowed and took a deep breath
, and, s
tanding, raised her chin and faced the doctor. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

"The dining room table will do nicely as an operating table," he said. "But it'll be dark soon. We're going to need light, and lots of it."

"Mark," she said, squeezing her other brother's hand, "round up every lantern you can find and bring them into--"

"
O
n my way," the boy said before she could finish.

The doctor took off his
suit coat
and draped it over a dining room chair. "I'll need bandages, and some hickory shakes will do for splints...."

She lifted her skirt and started up the steps. "I've got a bureau drawer full of clean old sheets. I'll rip them into strips."

Doc looked at Matthew, pale and still, then turned his dark gaze to Micah's worried face. He led the father several yards away from the boy, who still lay limp and weak on the litter. "He's lost a lot of blood," he said, unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt. "And there's a good chance infection has set in. I won't know what more I might find until I cut away the damaged tissue."

Micah's somber face paled. He ran both hands through his thinning, gray hair. "Will he...." He cleared his throat. "Will he lose the leg?"

"
I can't say one way or the other
."

Micah glanced at his son. "He looks so young and helpless, lying there," he whispered, more to himself than to the doctor. "He will walk again, won't he?"

"
God willing."

Micah shook his head. "Is there anything I can do, Doc?"

"Pray
," he said.
"Pray good and hard."

***

The makeshift operating room glowed bright with lamplight. Once she'd shoved all the chairs against the walls and drew the curtains, Bess covered the table with several thick, soft quilts, then draped line-dried sheets over them. After dipping Doc's surgical tools into boiling water, she placed each in order by size on
th
e sheet-covered serving cart, which she'd rolled up beside the table.

She'd watched Mary assist once in delivering a baby when Doc performed a new technique known as a
Cesarean
Section. He'd used dozens of rags to blot up the blood; she presumed he'd need at least that many
,
now. The old linen napkins in the buffet would do nicely, she decided, stacking the neatly-folded squares near Doc's scalpels and clamps. Finally, a mountain of clean, white bandages, made by tearing bedsheets in to strips, lay at the foot of the table.

Doc instructed
Chance
and Micah to position Matt on the table. They did, then stepped helplessly back into the shadows. Mark, still wringing his hands, stood between them.

"Get on out of here, the
three of you," Doc growle
d. "Your sour faces are makin' me nervous." Pointing toward the door, he added, more gently, "We'll let you know when it's over."

They seemed almost too eager to obey. The men and the boy immediately set to pacing back and forth across the front porch. Bess hoped they wouldn't keep it up for very long, because if the constant
thud thud thud
of boot heels striking wood distracted Doc like it distracted her....

She stormed to the front door and flung it open. "You boys take that pacing to the corral before you get Doc's hands to shakin' and he cuts something he didn't intend to!"

They were off the porch before the door closed behind her.

"This could get messy, Bess," Doc said when she returned. "You might want to protect your pretty frock."

She tucked in one corner of her mouth. "Since when have you known me
to be afraid of a little mess?"

Smiling, the white-haired gent loosened his tie, rolled up his sleeves, and instructed Bess to copy his method of scrubbing up. Seeing this, Matt suspected what would happen next, and
began to cry softly
. Holding her now-sterile hands aloft, Bess leaned over and kissed his forehead. "It's going to be fine, Matthew," she whispered. "It'll be
over before you know it
."

"Promise?"

Winking, she forced a cheery, confident smile onto her face. "Promise," she said, kissing him again.

Doc dampened a cloth with a few drops of ether and draped it over Matt's nose and mouth. "Take a deep breath, Matthew," he said. "Start counting, backwards, from one hundred."

"One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight...."

Doc capped the small brown bottle and placed it on the table near Matt's head. "Every few minutes, put another drop on the cloth," he instructed Bess. "Not too much now, or he'll never regain consciousness."

Bess licked her lips and nodded. Too little, and her brother would feel intense pain. Too much and
—

"...ninety-four, ninety-three...." Matt's voice, slow and weak, waned. "Ninety-two, ninety-one...." By the time he got to ninety, he was sound asleep.

While she'd been comforting her brother, the doctor had fastened a tourniquet around the boy's thigh. "Doc...is that rawhide?"

"It is indeed," he said, pulling the last knot tight.

"But it's wet...."

He peered over his half glasses and frowned. "Yes?"

"When it dries, it'll be tighter still. Won't that hurt him even more?"

Straightening, the old man pursed his lips. "Yes. Yes, it could indeed." Shaking his head, he added, "But that's all I have to tie the
—“

Bess lifted the hem of her skirt and began tearing the lacy ruffle from her petticoat.

"Surely we can find something else...."

She branded him with a hard look. "Why should we waste time looking for something else when we have this, right at hand?"

Doc replaced the leather with cotton, then picked up a scalpel and said to his sleeping patient, "May God be with you," and made the first incision.