Open Country (5 page)

Dr. Murray showed little interest in the proceedings. The glazed look in his eye gave rise to the suspicion that the good doctor might be sampling his own medications, but Thaddeus made no comment. The man was a tangle of troubled emotions the reverend had long struggled to unravel. Maybe after this railroad mess was over, he’d try again, but for now he let it go.

Train wrecks and hasty marriages. What a troubling day.

 

 

OVERNIGHT THE WEATHER TURNED FROM MILD TO BITTERLY cold, and by the time Molly got the children up, dressed, and over to the Beckworths’, they were shivering too much to complain about being left there while Molly went to the infirmary.

“A blue norther,” Effie told them, as if that explained the forty-degree drop in temperature overnight with no sign of a storm and barely a cloud in the sky. “But don’t fret,” she added with a jiggling laugh. “By the end of week we’ll be sweating like pigs in a slaughter line and complaining of the heat.”

Molly couldn’t wait.

Leaving the children happily spooning up oatmeal with molasses in Effie’s warm kitchen, Molly braved bone-chilling gusts and icy footing to make her way to the infirmary. When she finally reached the doctor’s house, she was so numb with cold she couldn’t tell if her nose was running or not. She wiped it anyway. After hanging her coat on a peg by the door, she moved quickly down the hall to the sickroom in the back.

Was he dead? Alive? Alive, awake, and anxious to meet his bride?

Faintly queasy at the thought of what she might find, she paused outside the door to prepare herself, then stepped inside.

Henry lay as she had left him, the rasp of his breathing telling her he was alive. Relief surged through her, loosening that tight knot of guilt that had kept her awake most of the night. Then she noted how cold the room was and how violently he shuddered beneath the single thin blanket. Alarmed, she yanked the covers off the empty cot and threw them over his shivering body. What was Dr. Murray thinking to leave Henry so exposed to the chill? Growing more furious by the moment, Molly tended to nursing chores Dr. Murray should have taken care of hours ago. Had he just left the patient to die?

The patient. Henry Wilkins. Her husband. God help her.

Ignoring a flutter of . . . something . . . guilt, anger, maybe hunger . . . she changed Henry’s bandages, listened to his heart and lungs with Papa’s old stethoscope, and forced water into him with an eye-dropper, all the while trying to mask her growing concern beneath a cheery monologue.

When she was thirteen, those first one-sided conversations had been awkward. They still were, although admittedly, she found it easier to talk to an unconscious man than an attentive one. But since Papa believed comatose patients maintained some level of awareness, she had put aside her shyness and forced herself to become as chatty as a Calvinist before a class full of converts, hoping the patients could hear her and know they were not alone. It was vital that Henry suffer as little as possible—for her sake, as well as his. Bad enough that she hoped to benefit from his death; she wouldn’t burden herself with the added guilt of having anything she did or didn’t do hasten it.

“It’s sunny today but quite cold.” As she spoke, she ran her hand up his injured arm from elbow to shoulder, checking for heat and telltale red streaks, but finding only cool skin over firm muscle. Surprisingly firm, considering his stupor. The man’s bicep must be as big around as her thigh. Her lower thigh anyway.

Realizing she was still stroking his arm, she jerked her hand away and moved to the other side of the bed. “I was told Texas was hot, but I’ve never been so cold. Are you warm enough? Would you like another blanket?”

He didn’t respond.

“How about a cup of warm cider? Broth?” Absently, she lifted his right hand and pressed her palm to his, measuring the long length of his fingers against her own. Despite their size and the numerous scars and calluses, his hands were surprisingly elegant with broad palms, long blunt-tipped fingers, and mostly clean, square-cut nails. Strong, hardworking hands. She liked that in a man. In a woman too.

Lowering his arm back to his side, she studied his bruised face, trying to read the man behind the distorted features. “Are you a good man, husband? Am I your one and only wife, or do you have another waiting for you somewhere?”

A disturbing thought.

Where was he going? Where had he been? Whom had he left behind? He was a puzzle with too many missing pieces, yet one she felt driven to solve. “Who are you, Henry Wilkins?” she murmured, studying his battered face.

The high, broad forehead indicated intelligence. The strong limbs bore proof of years of strenuous physical activity. His abundant white teeth spoke of a lifetime of good nutrition, a lack of serious illness, and an avoidance of tobacco.

A clean-living man. And fit. Very fit.

When she had helped the doctor change Henry from his soiled clothing into that ridiculously small nightshirt that had comprised his wedding garb, she had noticed how powerfully constructed her husband was—at least on his upper torso. Murray had insisted she exit the room when he removed Henry’s trousers, which was absurd since she was far too experienced to be flustered by such things.

Absently running her fingertips over the knobby knuckles of his right hand, Molly lapsed into fanciful thoughts as she often did to sweeten the endless and often distressing chores of the sickroom. “Are you a cooper, Mr. Wilkins? A blacksmith? Is that scar on your wrist from a hot branding iron?” The sun-darkened skin of his arms and face told her he spent a great deal of time outdoors; the paler skin of his forehead indicated he wore a hat when he did. “Maybe you’re a miner. Maybe you’ve discovered gold, and the machinery you were loading was for your mine.”

She brushed back a lock of hair she’d cleaned of blood, noting the soft sable brown was several shades darker than her own. “Do you have children, husband? Are they waiting for you to come home?”

Another disturbing thought.

Battling a feeling of confinement, she wandered idly about the room, finally coming to a stop at the window. The workers were gone, the breaks in the tracks repaired, and the passengers on their way again. Even the wind had pitched in, sweeping the sky clean of smoke from the smoldering floorboards of the abandoned passenger car, and leaving behind icy dewdrops on bare limbs and cactus spines to sparkle like diamonds in the morning sun. Except for tumbleweeds bouncing down the rutted road, the streets were quiet.

All nice and tidy and back to normal. Except for two new graves on the hill north of town and the dying man in the infirmary.

She pressed her hand against the windowpane. It felt cold against her palm.

The thought came out of nowhere—unambiguous and irrevocable. Confusing. Even though the railroad settlement would send her and the children well beyond Fletcher’s reach, she realized she didn’t want it if it meant Henry Wilkins had to die.

“Oh, Molly,” she murmured, her breath fogging the windowpane.

“Don’t let emotion rule you. Remember Andersonville.”

“Fifty-six. Eighty-three.”

Startled, she turned, wondering who spoke. Only she and Henry were in the room, and other than a slight rattle in his chest, he rested quietly.

She crossed to the bed and checked his pulse. A bit fast but steady and strong. His color was less gray and his brow felt cool. She studied him closely. There was no outward change, yet she sensed an awareness, as if he hovered just beyond reach—not quite there but not quite gone either—fighting for every breath, every moment he had left.

Moved by his struggle, she laid her palm against his face. “Don’t give up.”

His eyes flew open. His right hand shot out, the knuckles catching Molly high on her cheek. “Get it off!” he gasped and began tearing at the bindings around his chest. “Get it off! I can’t bre—” Suddenly he went limp. His eyes fluttered closed, and his arm fell back to his side.

Stunned by the abruptness of the attack, Molly stood gaping, her palm pressed to her stinging cheek, ready to run if he moved.

He rested quietly, eyes closed.

Inching closer, she nudged his shoulder.

He didn’t move.

“Mr. Wilkins?” When he didn’t respond, she gave a gentle shake.

“Henry?”

Papa said in comatose patients the first signs of awareness often showed in the mouth and eyes. But with the swelling and that heavy beard, she could hardly even tell what he looked like. “Can you hear me, Mr. Wilkins?” she asked in a loud voice.

“What are you doing?” Dr. Murray demanded from the doorway.

She looked up with a grin, unable to contain her excitement. “He woke up. Just for a moment. He opened his eyes and spoke to me. That’s good, isn’t it?”

Murray came to the bed and checked Henry’s pupils.

Molly noted Henry’s left eye, although no longer dilated, showed minute movements like quick, tiny jerks. The right showed the same random movements. An improvement, but still worrisome. After listening to Henry’s chest through the stethoscope, Murray pressed a thumb against his injured arm and pinched his nipple.

Henry never moved or gave indication of pain.

“Involuntary,” Murray said, removing a vial of laudanum from his pocket. “A minor seizure. Maybe pain. Either way, this will help.”

Molly frowned as she watched him fill the dropper. Was the seizure a response to pain or a reaction to too much medication? What if Henry was struggling to regain consciousness but was too drugged to do so?

“May I shave him?” she asked.

After administering the laudanum, Murray replaced the glass stopper and returned the vial to his pocket. “Don’t you have children to tend?”

She ignored his surly tone. “It would make it easier to see how much water he’s taking.” And easier to tell if he was coming out of his stupor.

“He’s dying. Leave the man alone so he can get on with it.”

Molly bit back a rush of angry words. She couldn’t accuse the doctor of incompetence. Henry’s treatment met acceptable standards. The medications were appropriate to the injury even if the laudanum might be too freely given. Murray seemed to have a care for cleanliness and adhered to Listerian antiseptic principles, but beyond rudimentary attention, there was nothing—no sympathy, no interest, no emotion whatsoever. He gave off such an air of defeat, the room stank of it.

Without waiting for his permission, she left to get what she needed. When she returned with shaving supplies, Murray was gone. Relieved, she bent to the task.

It was more difficult than she’d expected. Because of the swelling, it was like shaving a lumpy potato, and by the time she’d finished, the poor man’s face bore a half dozen new lacerations. After wiping away the last of the soap, she pushed that errant lock off his brow and sat back to admire her work. A jolt of surprise ran through her.

“Why, Henry Wilkins,” she chided in a wondering tone, “what have you been hiding under all that hair?”

The man was handsome. Beyond handsome. If he managed to survive and his face healed without undue scar tissue, he might even be beautiful . . . in an overgrown, roughly masculine sort of way. Definitely striking.

She wondered what his smile was like. With all those lovely teeth, it should be a dazzler. She liked to see a man smile, especially since those with whom she normally came in contact rarely had reason to. She hoped Henry smiled often; otherwise he might seem too severe with that sharply defined jaw. Leaning closer, she noted tiny white lines in the puffy skin at the outside corners of his deep-set eyes. A squinter or a grinner. She poked his good shoulder. “You better live, Henry Wilkins. You owe me a smile at least.”

Murray returned with an instrument tray, which he set beside the bed, and assorted surgical items, which he spread atop the tray. Scalpels, clamps, scissors, an atomizer, tubes of wire and horsehair ligatures, a serrated bone saw.

As Molly watched him arrange the implements on the tray, a feeling of dread gripped her. “Do you intend to amputate?”

“Probably best, although a waste of time.” Motioning her aside, he lifted the atomizer to spray carbolic antiseptic solution into the air above the patient.

“It’s not salvageable at all?” she asked, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the irritating mist.

“Why bother if he can’t use it? Better to be rid of a useless limb.”

Molly didn’t believe that. She didn’t believe a man who fought so hard to live wouldn’t work just as hard to save his arm. And if he couldn’t fight for himself, she would have to do it for him.

She put her hand atop Murray’s. “No,” she said.

He twisted to stare at her, the atomizer still in his grip, his good eye round with surprise. Then anger transformed his face into a snarling mask. “Get out!”

“We must try,” she insisted, using the soothing tone Papa had taught her.

“We? You’re a doctor, are you?”

“I’ve had some . . . experience.”

“Haven’t we all?” With a harsh laugh, he tossed the atomizer onto the tray. “It doesn’t matter,” he added, brushing trembling fingers over the instruments, obsessively touching each item. “He’ll die. They all die, no matter what we do.”

Molly looked down at her husband’s battered face. Murray was probably right; Henry would probably die anyway. But on the slim chance he didn’t, shouldn’t they at least try to keep him whole?

“I can help,” she said.

He slammed his palm onto the tray, sending the instruments into clattering disarray. “I don’t want your help, damnit! I just want you gone!”

“Well, I never,” a woman’s voice snapped.

Molly looked up to see Effie Beckworth in the doorway. “The children?”

“No, no, they’re fine,” Effie cut in reassuringly. After sending Dr. Murray a glare of disapproval, she ignored him and spoke to Molly. “But a man is here. He says he’s related to your husband. He seems very angry. I think you should come.”