by John Babb
She handed him a piece of kindling about eight inches long. “Bite on this so’s ye won’t get yer tongue. And once I start, you best not be jerkin’ around.”
The first two stitches, McCorkle dug his teeth deep into the piece of hickory, but with the third stitch, a big tear rolled down his cheeks. By the time the Maid tied off the twelfth stitch, his shirt was damp with tears and sweat, and he was almost panting.
She put her hand on his chin and pushed his face to the right, then the left. “Well, it sorta looks like an ear. Still may hafta cut it off if it don’t get no color back.”
“Have you got a mirror?”
She shook her head. “Vanity is one of them seven sins.”
“I never knew a woman that didn’t have a mirror.”
“Still got some work to do. Gotta straighten that nose out. Never seen one broke that bad.”
“It couldn’t hurt any worse than that ear.”
She just smiled, stepped behind him, reached around his head, and put her hands on either side of his nose. “You ready?”
“I guess so.”
He wasn’t. He expected her to gently and slowly re-position his nose. The sudden jerk of her movement surprised him, and the excruciating pain made him cry out. His eyes leaked more tears, while his nose poured blood onto his chest. “Why’d you do that?”
“Thet’s the only way I know to do it.” She looked at him again. “It’s fair to middlin’. Not too crooked.” She stood in front of him, studying some more. “Reckon it’s not as straight as I figgered. Ye want me to give it another go?”
He gingerly touched his throbbing nose. “It feels fairly straight. Let’s leave it be.”
“That ain’t the end of it.” She put her hands on his upper left arm and gently worked her hands down the limb.
Her work quickly drew a response of pain from him, so she used a knife to cut his shirt sleeve open. “Don’t see no sign of no bone. But it shore is swole up. Gotta put a splint on ye and then rig up a sling. You cain’t be usin’ that arm for a couple months if you expect it to heal.”
When she was finally finished, they split a potato and some cold cornbread, and McCorkle felt the bile rise in his throat when he re-tasted the bat guano from some twelve hours earlier. He gagged but managed to swallow the potato.
The Maid looked at him. “Somethin’ wrong with that spud?”
“No, no. It just stuck in my throat.” He couldn’t help but notice before going to sleep that she opened a leather pouch in the light of a candle, unfolded a piece of paper she retrieved from the pouch, and seemed to read it before blowing out the light.
McCorkle awoke to the sound of a gunshot. He automatically reacted and reached for where his sidearm should be, and at the same time the sudden movement caused a stabbing pain in his left shoulder and arm. The whole left side of his head was throbbing, and his nose was so swollen that he could neither inhale nor exhale except through his mouth. He looked around the small cabin, and finally the goings on of the previous day came to him, and he remembered he was no longer armed.
Pulling himself upright, it was obvious that the Maid was not in the cabin. He realized how cold it was, and decided he’d better get a fire going, as he had no idea how long she’d be gone. But just about the time he started adding kindling to the remaining embers, he heard her scuffing her boots on the front step. She had an old musket in one hand, a skinned squirrel in the other, and a grin on her face. “Get the skillet. We’ll be havin’ a fox squirrel and a little gravy for breakfast.”
“Sounds good to me. You got any coffee?”
“Just mountain coffee.”
“Parched corn?”
“Yep. Some in that bag there. “That’s why I was headed into Keetsville yesterday—out of vittles.”
McCorkle reached in his pocket. “I ain’t got much to contribute—just a half a dollar.”
“I got three dozen eggs I aim to trade at the store. It’s better’n a four-mile walk to town. Can I take yer hoss?”
“Of course.”
B. F. had spent a fitful night sleeping—or rather not sleeping—going over the events in Dry Hollow at least ten times in his head. He could think of nothing that would connect him and the other men to the shootout and the explosion, but he couldn’t shake the uneasiness. So it was good to have the distraction of a customer in the store after the two inches of snow that had fallen overnight.
“Morning, Miss Lansdown. You’re out on a cold morning.”
“Hullo, Mister Windes. I got three dozen nice eggs here. Can I sell ’em to ye?”
B. F. thought briefly about the six dozen he already had on the counter, but it was seldom that the woman ever had any real money, so he didn’t hesitate. “Glad to have them, Miss Lansdown. Twenty cents a dozen all right with you?”
“Thank ye, Mister Windes.”
The woman puttered around, finding what she wanted, and finally placed rice, beans, salt, flour, potatoes, bacon and tincture of iodine on the counter. B. F. knew she had more than sixty cents worth of groceries on the counter, but before he had to speak up, she produced two quarters from a rag in her pocket. “How much is coffee, Mister Windes?”
“It’s fifteen cents a pound.”
“How much is all this?”
“It’s exactly one dollar ten cents, Miss Lansdown.”
She shook her head. “That ain’t gonna do. I got me a gentleman caller at my cabin, and he was askin’ after coffee.”
B. F. looked around the store. “Say, Miss Lansdown, maybe we can work this out.”
She backed up from the counter and gave him a dubious look.
“No, please, hear me out. I understand that you have the power to see into the future, is that right?”
“Some folks says I can.”
“Would you tell me my future for three pounds of coffee?”
“Much as I want that coffee, I cain’t rightly promise. This here power don’t always work.”
“I’d like to try if you will.”
“Bend down here and let me pull a hair off the top of yer head.” B. F. did as he was told and the Maid harvested a hair, then placed it in his open palm. “Now squeeze yer fist real tight and then open yer hand with the palm up.” Again, B. F. followed her directions. The Maid leaned over and spit on the hair in his palm. Thankfully, it had been some hours since her last chaw. “Now what do ye want to know?”
“There’s a young lady. I want to know if there’s a future for me with her.”
The Maid didn’t take her eyes off his hand. “Mister Windes, this here palm looks like you ain’t had much in the way of happiness. This appears to be yer chance. Don’t let it get away from ye whilst ye parse every last little problem.”
She raised her eyes, blinked a couple of times, and met his gaze. “This was one of them times when it worked.” She broke into a smile, and so did he.
He had to ask her. “How do you do that, Miss Lansdown?”
“Waal, it’s like walkin’ along a road. I can see a ways behind me, and I can see a ways ahead. But the further I look—both back and forward—the dimmer things gets. I can see tomorry real fine, but twenty years from now is awful blurry. And sometimes, if things is just right, I hear the voice. My great-grandaddy from Scotland had the gift, and my mam said I got it from him.”
He nodded in acceptance. “If it’s allright with you, I’d like to talk to you again one day about some old times I just never could understand.”
“Anytime, Mistuh Windes.”
B. F. weighed a full five pounds of coffee beans on the scale. “Thank you, Miss Lansdown. I hope you and your friend enjoy the coffee.” He watched her depart out the front window, and was surprised to see her mount a fine looking Appaloosa mare. Must belong to the gentleman friend, he thought.
By the time the Maid got back to the cabin, McCorkle had searched every sack, every pot, and every cubby hole in the place. One thing was sure, she wasn’t hiding any money in the place. He was surprised to discover
that she had a library of sorts. He didn’t figure her to be able to read, let alone be a regular book collector.
He had quickly located the pouch she had opened the night before, hoping it might hold something of value, but it only contained the letter, a photograph of a lanky boy in the uniform of a rebel corporal, a buckeye, and what looked like a bear tooth with a primitive design etched on it. Although he could have cared less about her personal situation, he decided to read the letter in case it contained something he could use.
Dear Matilda,
This here will be a short letter, as they only give us 5 minites to write. I got shot over here at Shiloh Church in Tenesee. Not too bad. Just a scratch. But the Yanks done capshured me an a bunch of boys, an they put me on a steam boat on the Tenesee River thet’s headed to Illinoy. They says we gonna spend the rest of this war at Camp Douglas. Don’t you worry no more bout me gittin kilt. Soon as I get back home we gonna git married. I think about you ever night an ever day.
Your friend an servant
Henry Sedgwick
McCorkle shook his head as he put away the letter. Camp Douglas! She’ll be an old maid for sure if he got put in that hell hole.
When the Maid returned, he decided to push a little bit for information. “Say, it must get lonely out here away from town. How long you lived way out here?”
“Since my place got burned down in town.”
“I’m looking for a feller . . . a friend of mine . . . name of Windes. You know anybody by that name around Keetsville?”
Something in the way he said it made her hesitate for just a second. McCorkle saw it, and she knew he did. He’d caught her completely off guard. “Why, sure, I know Mister Windes. I believe he has one of the stores in town.”
“Does he live in town?”
“I don’t rightly know. He ain’t been here long. Just since the war.”
“Well, I’ll get to town one of these days and look him up.”
She changed the subject. “Lemme see them two toes of yorn.”
He took off his boots and was surprised when a large piece of skin sloughed off the top of one of his toes. His little toe and its neighbor were a purplish-black. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t felt any pain from them all day if they looked like that. Most of the pain seemed to be along the side of his foot instead of in his toes.
“Ye probably need to see that doctor in Cassville. I believe he’s gonna take them toes off, else you likely to lose that whole foot.”
“I don’t believe I’m up to a ride like that. Maybe in a couple days.”
“In a couple days it’ll be yer whole foot. By then he’ll be figgerin’ he might oughta cut up to yer knee.”
“What with sewin’ me up yesterday, and you telling me this, you sound like you been doin’ some doctoring yourself.”
“After Pea Ridge I helped a doctor for a while. Seen lots of gangrene. Once it gets to goin’ it’s hard to catch up with it.”
“Can I wait ’til tomorrow morning to see if they get better?”
“I don’t rightly know. But it’s about too late to go into Cassville now anyhow. I fetched some iodine from town, and I need to put some on that ear of yorn so’s it won’t hafta get cut off too.” She inspected his ear and found that several of the stitches were festered up. “Now don’t you jerk none. This’ll burn just a touch.”
He squealed like a young shoat when she drizzled the iodine and alcohol mixture on his ear. “This here’ll stain yer ear and neck a reddish-brown color, but it’s gonna wear off in a couple o’ weeks.”
The next morning the Maid pulled the blanket off his foot, sniffed of it, felt of his ankle and calf, and sat down in front of the fire with a whetstone and a hand axe. “I ain’t got no fine doctor tools, but you about waited too long. Time you ride to Cassville, that poison gonna cause ye to lose that foot—mebbe worse. We’re doin’ it now.”
McCorkle gazed at his foot. There was really no doubt about his toes. He’d seen battlefield doctors cut off plenty of legs and arms that didn’t look any worse. He just looked at the Maid and nodded his head.
She finished her task with the stone and placed a large piece of firewood next to his foot. Then she poured water over the area and wrapped his three larger toes tightly together and turned them under his foot so that she had a clear shot at the affected toes. “Now listen here. Whatever ye do, don’t do no movin’. I aim to just get them two toes. But if ye move, who knows what kinda stub you’ll end up with.”
She positioned his foot as flat as possible on the firewood, made sure his three good toes were out of the way, and struck the blow as straight as she could. McCorkle screamed again as the two severed toes slid off the piece of wood and on to the floor in a puddle of blood. He hollered almost as loud when she poured iodine on the fresh wounds, then watched as she broke open two eggs and carefully extracted the membrane lining from the egg shells, which she placed over the two raw stumps. The last step was to bind his foot with a cloth. In less than five minutes, the wound stopped seeping blood.
“It was a good cut. If ye can stay still, it’s likely not to bleed too much. But if that foot starts to get black, ye got to get to the doctor. I ain’t got the tools to cut no foot off. It was all I could do to get them toes.” She surveyed her handiwork. “Now let’s fry up what’s left of them eggs.”
The next two weeks were not easy for either of them. McCorkle was out of his head with a fever off and on for at least three days, and she didn’t know whether to leave him and ride to Cassville for the doctor, or stay with him and try to keep his fever down by sponging him with cool water. She found a little bit of ground up asaphoetida root in her herb box, tied it up in a piece of cloth, and hung it on a string around his neck; but it was a long way from fresh, and had almost lost its stink. She had little faith in it.
What undoubtedly saved him was a poultice that her Scottish grannie had taught her to make when she was just a girl. She boiled a good double handful of slippery elm bark in a pot of water, and then allowed it to simmer until most of the water evaporated. Next, she soaked a rag in the mixture and bound his foot with the poultice. By morning, his fever had broken and most of the red streaks had disappeared from his foot and ankle. Sometimes she did have special powers.
Forty-Eight
Do You Know Anything About A Family?
Keetsville, Missouri 1866
Journal Entry—April 18, 1866
There are signs that Keetsville is making progress. Maybe it’s because spring has begun and the hills are full of blooming dogwoods, but Squire Cave told me just yesterday that around fifteen families have moved back to the area after hearing from old friends that life is returning to something close to normal. To be sure, there are still few people with money, jobs are hard to find, and many homes have been so damaged by the war or the bushwhackers that they can’t be lived in. But things are truly improving.
Since we took drastic action in Dry Hollow, there has been no guerilla activity in our area in over four months. People are beginning to feel like there is an actual community again in Keetsville. The Methodists and Baptists are sharing a meeting house, and alternating services every week. There’s hope that a school might start in the fall, and some are even talking about giving the town a new name. Most people want to call it Washburn, after old Samuel Washburn, the area’s first settler.
I spoke to my neighbor, Wilbur Stephens, who lives directly to the north of the farm, about sharecropping my 160 acres. Mr. Stephens has four sons helping him on his own acreage, but they need more work in order to keep them all fed. There’s certainly more than enough to do in the mercantile store, and I have no desire to get behind a plow myself. All I asked of Mr. Stephens was that he leave me about two acres around the house.
After a flurry of letters between Crocia, B. F., and Sue, there was general agreement that a visit was about to occur, and this had been confirmed with the arrival of a telegram a week earlier. So for the last three days, B. F. closed his store
just before four o’clock and drove his wagon over to meet the arriving stagecoach in case Crocia and her mother were on board. Each day he watched the stage arrive, no passengers disembarked, and the stage rolled on to the south. Although there was no way to know when they might arrive, he was disappointed every day, and had gone back to town to reopen his store for the remainder of the afternoon—just as though he wasn’t miserable.
Unfortunately, he had made a serious error in judgment after his third unrewarding trip, by confiding in Squire Cave that he was expecting a young lady and her mother on the afternoon stage. So the next day, adhering to his previous schedule, he harnessed his horse to the wagon around three o’clock during a break in his customers. This would allow him to leave the store only a few minutes before the stage was scheduled to arrive.
True to form, he ran out of the store at the last minute and quickly departed down the street. He saw there was a small box in the bed of the wagon that he had not noticed before, but was in too much of a hurry to stop. He arrived at the stage station at almost the same time as the coach itself, and he was thrilled to see Crocia and Missus Rayl stepping off the stage.
He wanted to rush over and give Crocia a truly worthwhile greeting, but he remembered his manners, tipped his hat, retrieved their baggage, and led them to the wagon. It was only then that he noticed the rear of his wagon was full of green flies, and they seemed to be mostly interested in the small wooden box in the back of the wagon bed.
His next mistake was opening the box, which was full of a surprisingly fresh cow pattie that was completely engulfed in hungry insects. He slapped the top back on the box as quickly as he could, but that only served to stir the mass of flies into a swirling dervish, first around his head, and then quickly around Crocia and her mother.
His arms were full of suitcases, but he began to wildly wave the bags in the air, trying to get the flies away from them. The two women slapped at the offensive insects to no avail and retreated inside the small house that represented the stage stop.
Finally, he saw no solution but to drive his wagon down the road a hundred yards or so, knock the box out of the wagon into the roadside ditch, and then ride back to the station, finally free of all but the most stubborn of hangers-on, but dripping with humiliation. He dismounted the wagon and, entirely subdued, walked over to the women. “I’m sorry. I think one of my so-called friends has pulled a joke on me.”