by Lynda J. Cox
Before either she or Mathew could protest, Ethan scrambled off his chair and grabbed Molly’s extended hand. Molly walked to the door. “I’ll see you two in a little while.”
Abigail turned Mathew. The dumbfounded expression on his face surely had to match her own. Several long, seemingly breathless seconds passed after Molly walked out until Mathew broke the tableau and gestured to the door. “Do we attend to Miss Melody’s malaria patient or Mr. Roden’s mortally wounded pride first?”
“I believe Mr. Roden’s pride will wait.”
Abigail guided Mathew through the open area between her home, Melody’s barber shop, and the undertaker’s. Mathew spared the undertaker’s a cursory glance and said, “I never understood why it seems doctors feel they need to set up practice near a mortician.”
A shudder rippled over Abigail. “I hate seeing those coffins on display in the front windows.”
“It’s nothing I enjoy seeing either,” Mathew said. “They symbolize I’ve lost another battle.”
Without breaking stride, Abigail looked up into his face. Distance darkened his eyes further and set his features into a chilly mask. “You take that battle personally.”
“After all the losses I endured—and I have to remind myself the loss I suffered was only the loss of a patient, the patient lost his life—yes, I take that battle very personally. The longer I can forestall another coffin being put into use, the better I feel.” The mask shattered when he glanced down at her. “This is a rather morbid conversation for such a bright and sunny day.”
It rather was, but it also distracted Abigail from the equally somber contemplation of the empty houses they passed while making their way to Melody’s small home on Austin Street. Two out of every three houses were empty, boarded up, with no indication their former occupants would ever return.
“How many families were here?”
“Before the war, about two hundred people lived in and around Brokken. There’s only about fifty people left now. More than half our menfolk didn’t return. Those who did, many didn’t want to stay.” Abigail looked at one of the empty houses. “A lot of the families who stayed and are trying to make a go of it can’t because of the taxes being levied on them.”
Mathew halted, and she followed his gaze up and down the street. His gaze settled on something she sensed wasn’t down the street, but much further away. “Why did you stay, Abigail?”
“Brokken is my home. Even if I wanted to return East, there’s nothing for me there. My family lives on the Virginia-Tennessee line in a small town. During the War, that town changed hands over one hundred times as the battle lines moved. What wasn’t nailed down was taken—by both Union and Confederate forces.” She settled her sight on an overgrown flower bed in the yard of what had been SaraBeth Kelly’s home, before Simon had died and SaraBeth had returned to her family in Baton Rouge. The orderly garden grew rank with weeds and several mesquite saplings. “The people here are my friends, and I promised I would stay. Why did you leave your home after the War?”
A panic-filled shout silenced any answer Mathew had.
“Miss Abby! Help! Miss Abby!”
Abigail turned toward her home. Alexander Jennings was as much as dragging his staggering, stumbling brother to the front porch of the home. She lifted her skirts and ran, the sound of Mathew’s hurried steps behind her.
Alexander pulled Aaron onto the porch, panting with exertion. Abigail caught Aaron in her arms and quickly assessed the younger of the Jennings brothers. Aaron’s lips had a blue tint and every breath rattled and wheezed as he struggled to pull in air.
“What happened?” she asked as she lowered him to the floor.
Mathew stopped her, sliding his arms under Aaron’s. “In the house.”
Abigail lifted Aaron’s legs, following Mathew into the front parlor. The young man reached for his neck, clawing at his skin as if he could open his throat. Alexander rushed behind Abigail, the words tumbling from him in a rush. “We was fishing. Caleb Cantwell showed up. He knows Aaron’s plumb yeller when it comes to hornets—”
“He has every right to be afraid of them.” A sinking dread filled her stomach.
“There was a hornet’s nest over us, but they wasn’t bothering us, and we wasn’t bothering them. Cantwell threw a handful of rocks at the nest. We ran but Aaron’s slower than me and he got stung.”
Mathew met her gaze. “He’s having a severe reaction. Let’s get him up onto the bar top.”
Aaron continued to wheeze, each breath sounding as if it came with greater difficulty. Alexander hung back, his face pale with fear.
Mathew snapped open the black bag, pulling out the syringes and the length of tubing she had seen Sam use once to give fluids to old man Fenton when he had heat prostration. “I need whiskey,”
Whiskey? What in the name of heaven did he need that for?
“And if you’ve been keeping morphine held back for an emergency, this is it.”
Alexander pulled a silver flask from the back pocket of his patched and tattered overalls, extending the small container to Mathew. “Don’t tell the pastor.”
Mathew shook his head. “I won’t.”
Abigail stood frozen. Aaron’s struggles to pull in a breath increased. Mathew spared him a moment to murmur, “It’s going to be all right. Try to relax,” before he leveled a frigid glare at Abigail. “Abigail. I need the morphine now, if you have it.”
The cold precision in Mathew’s voice and actions broke her immobility. She shook her head. “I’ve only got laudanum.”
“Damn.” Mathew shoved his good hand through his hair and bent over Aaron. He pressed his thumb into the bend of Aaron’s elbow, nodded to himself, then pulled off his own tie, and wrapped it tightly around Aaron’s upper arm. “Laudanum won’t get into his system fast enough.”
Aaron drummed his heels in his desperate fight for air.
“Hold him down. I’ve got to get this whiskey directly into a vein.”
Abigail and Alexander jumped to hold Aaron.
After injecting what she was certain was enough whiskey to knock out a horse, Mathew pressed his fingertips to the young man’s pulse under his ear. “His heart rate is slowing a little. Abigail, I need a funnel. If you have one that has never been used with camphine, it would be better. The bottom of the funnel ideally should be about as big around as your thumb.”
Aaron was still struggling to breathe, though he seemed calmer. It was a side effect of the immediate state of inebriation, Abigail thought, as she rummaged under the bar for the funnel she used to add ingredients together for her tinctures. She handed it to Mathew. Unlike Sam, though Mathew’s actions were quick, he seemed neither hurried nor frantic. There was measured authority to his haste.
“Perfect. Get the scalpel and the trocar out and pour some of the whiskey over both instruments and the small end of the funnel. Pour it through the funnel, too.” Mathew swiped his forearm across his brow.
She rummaged through his doctor’s bag, trying to remember what a trocar was. Sam had told her, hadn’t he? What had he said it looked like? Why wasn’t her brain functioning? She didn’t panic in emergencies. That was why Sam said she was so much help.
“Metal instrument, pointy end, elongated pyramid-shape,” Mathew muttered, gesturing for her to find it.
There it was. She grabbed it and the scalpel and drenched the implements with the alcohol. As soon as she poured some through the funnel, Mathew took the small flask from her and poured the remaining whiskey over his hands.
Alexander winced with the wasted liquor but didn’t say anything.
Mathew sucked in a slow, deep breath and let it ease out. “Abigail, put one hand under his head, at the base of his skull, and the other on his chin. Tilt his head back until I tell you to stop, and then whatever you do, don’t let him move. You,” he said, nudging his head at Alexander, “hold his shoulders down. Lie across him if you have to but try not to put too much weight on his chest. He’s having a hard-enough
time breathing.”
She had never been squeamish at the sight of blood, but when Mathew punched the trocar into Aaron’s throat, her head swam, and her stomach did flipflops. Abigail closed her eyes and focused on the sound of her own breathing.
“Don’t you go getting the vapors on me, Abigail.” The cool authority in his voice pushed the dizziness into retreat.
A deep, whistling breath from Aaron snapped her eyes open. Mathew tugged on the back of Alexander’s shirt, gesturing for him to let go of his brother’s shoulders. Aaron sucked in another deep breath through the funnel, his color quickly improving from a ghastly blue-gray. A few drops of blood slowly crept down the side of his neck and under any other circumstances, the sight of her funnel protruding from his throat would have horrified her.
Aaron opened his eyes, a drunken and lopsided grin spreading over his face. He opened his mouth and closed it when Mathew softly said, “Don’t try to talk. You can’t right now. Don’t move, either. It’s going to be a little while before the swelling in your throat reduces.”
Abigail shook her head, trying to clear the growing black spots in her vision. To her horror, her legs were suddenly as sturdy as a newborn kitten’s. She felt Mathew’s arms close around her when her knees buckled. The last thing she heard as everything faded into darkness was his soft whisper, “I’ve got you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Mathew swept Abigail’s limp form into his arms. He paused long enough to bark at what he assumed to be the older brother, “Don’t you let him move.”
“No, sir. I won’t.”
Mathew carried Abigail into the bedroom and eased her into the mattress. The smelling salts were in the other room. He shook his head and decided to wait for a couple of minutes and see if she came around without them. She breathed normally, and though the color had initially drained from her face, a healthy tint was already sweeping across her cheeks.
He sat on the edge of the bed and lifted her hand, finding the pulse in her wrist as a matter of habit. The steady and slow beat thrummed under his fingertip.
Abigail stirred, her eyelids fluttering. She opened her eyes with a gasp and tried to sit up, ceasing the attempt when Mathew gently held her shoulder down. “I’m so sorry.”
“Because you had the vapors?” Mathew allowed himself a smile. “You’re not the first surgical assistant I’ve had who passed out. Though I admit, you’re a sight more attractive than a burly, bearded orderly. I never bothered to put one of them into a comfortable bed, either, just stretched them out on the floor until they came to.”
Her cheeks flooded a bright rose. “How’s Aaron?”
Mathew twisted his head over his shoulder, years of practice allowing him to quickly note Aaron’s steady, deep breathing. He’d operated in a lot of places during the war—kitchen tables of homes commandeered by the Confederacy to serve as operating theaters, barns, even in a church once, but on a bar top in a former bawdy house was a first. “Breathing evenly and I’m going to guess he’s passed out drunk. He’s going to have one massive headache when he wakes up.”
Abigail pushed up onto her elbows. “How did you manage to think clearly enough to even do any of that?”
“It’s much easier to think when there aren’t bullets flying and grape shot exploding all around.” He allowed himself another smile. “The alcohol was a shot in the dark, but the way his heart was pounding, it was worth trying. As to cutting into someone’s windpipe, as rapidly as his throat was swelling shut, it was his only chance to keep an open airway.”
“Is he going to be all right?” She sat up a little straighter.
Mathew steadied her with a hand on her elbow. “As long as he doesn’t get stung again, he should be fine. I’ll wait a while before I remove our improvised airway.”
He startled when she grabbed his left arm. Her gaze darted from his face to his hand and back again. “If you weren’t here, Aaron would be dead. I know it’s only been a day—and we agreed to a trial period—but you can’t leave. Please, don’t leave.”
He didn’t attempt to extract his withered arm from her grasp. Had it truly only been a day? He skimmed his gaze over her, then turned his attention to the drunken young man passed out in the other room, and finally to that young man’s brother hovering attentively over him. He lingered for a long pause on the detailed glass work of the transom over the door joining the two parlors. Greens, yellows, and blues created a riot of tangled, twisting ivy.
When had he lost his heart to her? When she crawled under the table to soothe and comfort Ethan? Or when a protectiveness a mother bear would envy emerged with her perception of how Ethan’s very soul had been abused? Maybe it happened when she didn’t look away from his useless left hand and arm. The struggle to articulate those thoughts knotted his gut.
He brought his gaze to her hand on his arm, again, the pressure of her grasp not much more than the weight of a feather, her fingers a stark contrast to the black of his coat, and then at last, to her face. That strand of hair had escaped her braid again. He tucked the wayward tress behind her ear, extracted his arm, and stood. “The minute everyone in this town realized I didn’t stay at the hotel, leaving wasn’t an option. The older of those two—” He jerked his head over his shoulder at the brothers.
“Alexander,” she whispered, her expression seeming to be crestfallen and the light in her eyes dimmed.
“—needs to keep his brother quiet until I get back. I’m going to see Mr. Roden, then have the sheriff give me directions to Miss Melody’s, and on my way back, I’ll get Ethan from the café.” Mathew bent to her and left a kiss against her forehead. “I want you to stay off your feet.”
“Mathew, if you’re staying here because of what the gossips might say, I’ve listened to worse. You don’t have to stay with me, but please, stay in Brokken.”
He halted in the doorway. A small voice in the back of his head whispered he was a fool when the only words he could force out were, “I’m not leaving.”
Alexander stood with folded arms near his brother. “You better not ruin Miss Abby’s reputation, or you’re gonna answer to me.”
“I will be mindful and cautious with my wife’s reputation.” Mathew dipped his head to acknowledge the young man’s warning. “If he wakes up before I get back, don’t let him move.”
As he walked across the small open area between the former brothel and the jail, Mathew berated himself. Why couldn’t he tell Abigail leaving was no longer an option because it would tear his heart out? He wasn’t staying because of the gossips, or because he worried about her reputation, though that did nudge his conscience. As much as he hated to admit it, even wanting a home for Ethan wasn’t the reason.
That small voice reminded him he was being a fool. Everything he’d thought he’d lost and was unattainable was within his reach. A growl of disgust aimed at himself silenced the voice.
He pushed open the door of the ugly, squat building. The sheriff sat behind a battered old desk, her booted feet propped on the desktop. She nodded a greeting and said, “Coffee’s hot if you want any.”
“Thank you, no.” He set Sam’s bag on the desk next to Roden’s holstered revolver and turned his attention to the gun’s owner.
Roden glared at him. “I ain’t dropping my drawers so you can have a look.”
Mathew lifted his shoulders in a shrug and picked up the bag. “If you’re comfortable with possible infections, maybe gangrene, I’m fine with it.”
“I have to turn him loose, Doc.” Victoria sat up in the chair and dropped her feet to the floor with a thud. “Sent a telegram to a friend who’s a judge, and he can’t find any law says he can’t pull a gun. I could probably charge him with public intoxication because of the laudanum, but I can’t charge him for acting like a total fool.”
“I don’t think Mr. Roden, and I will have any more problems.” Mathew pulled the door open and paused. “I need to see the gentleman at Miss Melody’s home. How do I find her house?”
�
��That’s easy. She’s the fourth house on the right on Austin Street.” Victoria walked to the cell, the large ring of keys jangling with each step she took. “I heard Alexander yelling a little while ago for Abby. What was that all about?”
“Aaron was stung.” Mathew hastened to add, “He’s going to be fine.”
“That’s good. Those boys have come a long way in the past couple of months, ever since Deborah Brokken took them under her wing.” The harsh squeal of a key turning in the lock underscored her words. “Seems Deborah found a calling in life—reforming delinquent boys.”
Roden shoved the unlocked cell door and grabbed his holster and revolver off the sheriff’s desk. Victoria snapped, “You can strap that iron on when you get out of town, Robbie. Not before then.”
Roden turned his glare to Mathew, and then blew out a short breath in a derisive huff. “Whatever you say, Sheriff.”
Before he could make good an escape, Mathew grabbed the back of Roden’s cut-away coat, stopping the much younger man. “We aren’t going to have any problems, are we, Mr. Roden?”
“No problems at all,” Roden said with a smile that was more bared-tooth snarl than anything else. A chill skittered the length of Mathew’s spine.
He watched the younger man pause in the middle of the street as if getting his bearings before he struck out in an unerring path toward Molly’s café. The chill he’d experienced a few seconds before returned, only stronger, deeper. “Sheriff, would you do me a favor?”
“An official favor?”
Mathew twisted his head over his shoulder. “Official. My son is at Molly’s café with Abe. Would you go to the café and wait for me to get Ethan in a bit?”
Victoria grabbed her hat from the coat tree next to the door. “I’ve got a strong hankering for some of those beignets I heard Mr. Reed makes. You go assure Melody that Gideon isn’t going to die, and I’ll help Molly prevent the boys from tearing the café down.”
“Thank you.”