“Ride in with us then. I don’t make attending church a requirement of the job. That’s between you and God, but I like a big enough group that no one will consider messing with my girls. It’s still a dangerous country. So you’ll be expected to come.”
“I’ll be ready.” One set of clothes. A borrowed horse. Alex was ready now.
Nine
I missed Texas something fierce.” Beth turned to Sally, marveling at how her little sister had grown up. “You’re as tall as me. And Laurie! I can’t believe how she’s changed. She’s almost my height. And the twins are nine now.”
“It’s been so long, Beth. It figured we’d do some growing.” Sally had her hair tied back and her Sunday best dress and bonnet on. But no female finery could mask the fire in her eyes and the restlessness that marked every move and word from Beth’s hoyden sister.
Sally liked to ride the range. Pa encouraged it and Ma had given up fighting it. Sally worked as hard as any cowhand on the place.
The twins, Cliff and Jarrod, nine, did their best to keep up with her. Seven-year-old Edward was dying to be allowed to ride herd and he did go out, but only with Pa or Sally riding beside him. Little Jeffrey, five, whom they all called Buck, could throw a screaming tantrum, but even so, he wasn’t allowed to help yet. He could throw a loop over a standing calf and ride horseback, but he wasn’t allowed to herd cattle. Pa didn’t give him that much freedom.
Sally had already done cowhand work at age five, but that was out of necessity. Now when Beth thought back on it, she couldn’t believe the things Ma had let them do at so young an age.
Looking at her family crowded beside her in the back of the buckboard, Beth was struck by how much they’d changed. Buck had been tiny when she’d gone to Boston to study. She’d missed so much. She was never going to be so far away from them again.
Which reminded her of Mandy—which made her want to cry. So she looked away from all the blond-headed little brothers and sisters and noticed Alex riding along to church.
He cleaned up well. And he noticed her noticing him. Their eyes connected in that same weird way, and Beth looked quickly away before she could get drawn in.
When they got to Mosqueros, she saw Alex head for a nearby stand of trees instead of coming inside to services. As he leaned against a shady oak, Beth ached for him and all his emotional scars. Finding a faith in God would be the best first step in healing those scars, but Alex would never know if he kept leaning. She was tempted to go have a talk with him, but there was no time.
Parson Radcliff, who’d just taken over for Parson Roscoe, called them inside. Beth thought the skinny, energetic young man and his pretty wife, who expected a baby—their second—any time, were going to be a letdown after Parson Roscoe’s years of support and kindness.
Beth noticed the Reeveses sitting in the back on the right as they’d always done. Except now they took up two pews. The older twins were missing—grown and gone just like Mandy most likely. But the triplets remained. At fifteen, Mark, Luke, and John were tall as adult men but gangly still. Then there was a second row of squirming, whispering blond boys. Beth counted five, but they were stair steps, thank heavens. No more Reeves babies born in bunches.
Beth sat in the front pew beside her family through the service, and it pulled on her just like her family and Texas and being a caretaker. This church was part of her, part of home. Beth noticed her little brothers were more wiggly than usual. Although what did she know about usual anymore?
Ma whispered to Sally and she took fidgety Buck’s hand and led her youngest brother outside as the congregation rose to sing a closing hymn.
They were just finishing “Shall We Gather at the River” when Sally screamed in what sounded like agony. “Buck, run!” Sally screamed again. Beth had never heard her tough little sister make such a horrible sound.
Pa was down the aisle and out the door like a shot, Ma half a step behind.
Laura yelled at Beth, “I’ll take care of the young’uns.”
Beth raced after her parents. When she stepped outside, she saw Sally screaming at Buck to run faster.
Buck cried out in pain.
“Go, Buck. Run to Pa!” Sally was behind Buck. She looked up and her eyes locked on Pa, then she veered off, waving her arms wildly.
Buck slammed into Pa’s legs. Beth took one look at the welts on Buck’s face and knew they’d wrangled with a beehive.
Sally raced, doing more shouting than screaming, her arms flailing. She headed straight toward a water trough standing on Mosqueros’ Main Street.
Beth knew, whatever stings Buck had gotten, Sally’s had to be worse. She’d shoved her little brother out of the way and led the bees after her. Beth raced toward Sally.
Sally hurled herself into the water. A swarm of bees lifted into the air above the trough and buzzed away in a dark cloud, back toward open country.
Beth reached Sally and caught her arm. Ma was a step behind her on the other side of the trough. Together they lifted Sally until her head was above water.
“Buck! Where’s Buck?” Sally’s face and neck were already lumpy and swollen from the stings. She had on long sleeves, but Beth saw that her hands were swelling. Bees floated to the surface, drowned, but too late to stop many of them from stinging.
More churchgoers crowded out, everyone rushing toward Sally, talking wildly.
“Buck’s okay, Sally. You saved him. He’s crying, stung a little, but he’s fine.” Beth slid her arm behind Sally’s shoulders and, with Ma’s help, lifted her from the water trough.
Pa came up beside them and took Sally into his arms. Buck clung to Pa’s leg sobbing.
Beth took a second to inspect her little brother. He was stung, too, but nothing like Sally. She’d pushed him away and taken the brunt of the enraged bees on herself.
“Laurie!” Beth made eye contact with Laurie, who had the other little brothers with her. “Take care of him!”
“Got him, Beth.” Laurie scooped Buck into her arms and began soothing him. She took him to the trough and bathed his welts with the tepid water.
Beth scanned the area. The bees, wherever they’d come from, were long gone.
“Pa, I hurt!” Sally began crying.
Beth nearly froze from the shock. Sally knew hard work. She knew broken fingers and bitter heat and bruised muscles. She knew how to keep going and she never complained—except when Ma insisted she wear a dress to town. And they all knew how much Pa hated tears. All of them tried to avoid crying for their pa’s sake, and all of them failed on occasion.
Except Sally. Sally never, ever cried.
Pa took Sally to a grassy spot, one of the few in this rugged land around Mosqueros. He lowered Sally to the ground. Beth saw more and more little white welts rising on her sister’s face and hands. The rest of her body was protected by her clothes, unless they’d gotten under her skirts, but she had hundreds of stings on her exposed skin.
Sally’s uncharacteristic tears scared Beth right to her gut.
Pa knelt on one side of Sally, talking quietly, for once in his life not letting tears send him running.
Beth eased Sally’s skirts up a bit and found drowned bees and ugly welts all over her legs. She also found a knife stuck into Sally’s boot and wasn’t a bit surprised. The McClellens, whether girl or boy, were a tough bunch. Pa and Ma had taught them well. And Sally was the toughest of them all.
Ice. Cold compresses, that’s what helped bee stings. And ice in Texas in midsummer was not even possible. She thought of the tepid water in the trough and doubted it would do any good.
“We need water! The cooler the better,” Beth shouted.
“I’ll get it from the town well.” Vivian Radcliff, young and dark haired with kind eyes, looked to be ten months along toward birthing a baby, but the parson’s wife could move.
Beth knelt opposite of Pa and studied Sally’s condition. Her face continued to swell. One eye was nearly closed. She’d be in terrible pain for days.
&nb
sp; A sudden high-pitched wheeze came from Sally’s puffy lips. Her eyes went wide to the extent possible. She lurched into a sitting position, her mouth open. The noise came again, as sharp as the cawing of a crow. Sally’s throat was swelling shut.
Beth had heard of this when so much poison entered someone’s system she couldn’t help but react. She even knew of a tiny surgery that could help, but she’d never done it. To cut at Sally’s throat, if her incision was misplaced, would kill instantly. Her hands shook as she prayed Sally’s throat didn’t swell completely shut.
A high whistling gasp for breath came again. Then it stopped. Sally’s nearly closed eyes gaped open. Her mouth moved silently. She reached for her neck as if to pull someone’s strangling hands away.
At that second Beth’s eyes landed on Alex, hanging to the back of the gathering crowd. Terror had bled the color from Alex’s face. His eyes riveted on Sally.
Beth knew. Without asking, she knew that Alex could help. “Get over here!”
Alex’s eyes went from Sally to Beth. He took a step backward, shaking his head.
She erupted from the ground and ran around her dying sister. Shoving her way through the crowd, she caught Alex’s arm in a vise. “You have to help me, Alex.”
Their eyes locked again. She remembered well the way he’d drawn strength from her before. She didn’t have time for him to work up his nerve. This wasn’t a dislocated shoulder. Her sister would be dead in minutes without Alex’s immediate assistance. Even now, this second, her body was being starved of oxygen and she might have brain damage.
She gave him ten seconds then she sank her fingers into his arms, digging in with her nails. “Now! Right now!”
Her orders had a visible effect on Alex. His eyes focused. He nodded and charged to Sally’s side and shouted, “Clay, let me in. Now!”
Pa jerked his head up then moved quickly aside.
Alex fell to his knees.
Beth rounded Sally’s body, knelt across from Alex, and prayed.
Give him strength, Lord God. Give him courage. Give him speed and a steady hand.
“Who has a knife?” she shouted.
Pa drew a knife out of his boot. Beth knew Pa kept his knife razor sharp. It would work, but she shuddered to think of how dirty the blade might be. She thought of the knife in Sally’s boot, but it wouldn’t be even close to clean either.
At the same instant Laurie, breathing hard from a fast run, shoved Beth’s beloved doctor bag into her hands. “I got it from the wagon. I thought you might need it.”
With a shout of relief, Beth tore open the black leather satchel and dug inside, extracting her scalpel. Her mentor in Boston had given her this bag and the supplies in it after she’d been working with him a year. She kept it with her at all times, even on a buckboard ride to church.
“Hang on to this, Laurie.” She gave her precious bag into her sister’s keeping and extended the scalpel to Alex.
Beth saw the moment the doctor in Alex took over. Color returned to his face. Alex took the knife with confident fingers.
Beth caught hold of Sally, holding her still as she jerked and battled for any tiny breath of air. “We can sterilize the knife.” Beth grabbed her bag back from Laurie and pulled the top wide open.
“Have you got carbolic acid?” Alex glanced at Beth’s precious supplies.
“Yes, a good supply.” She looked at Laurie, standing close, desperate to help. “Can you get the bottle of carbolic acid out of my bag?” Beth quickly described it.
Laurie produced a small container.
“No, not that. Dover’s Powder is an emetic.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, it is a painkiller but Sally doesn’t need that now. And if you give an overly strong dose, it’ll make you sick to your stomach.” Beth thought of what an understatement that was. She took the bag from Laurie and pulled out the bottle of carbolic acid, carefully wrapped to prevent breakage.
“Pour some over the knife and my hands then swab some on her neck.”
Beth removed the stopper from the glass bottle and the sharp odor of carbolic acid raised her hopes that Sally wouldn’t end up with an infection. She obeyed Alex quickly. Beth bent down and looked straight into Sally’s eyes.
Terrified. She’d seen the knife. She couldn’t breathe.
“Sally, hang on,” Beth whispered, trying to get through Sally’s pain and fear. Her hand slid to Sally’s wrist.
The pulse was strong; her sister was strong.
“We’ll save you. I’ll save you.” Beth had never spoken words that she meant so passionately. And she needed Alex-the-Madman to make them come true.
Alex pressed the razor-sharp scalpel to Sally’s throat.
Ten
Pa grabbed Alex’s arm. “What are you doing?”
Alex pulled the sharp blade back away from Sally’s delicate throat.
Beth realized she was witnessing a first. Alex was right and her pa was wrong. Her pa knew everything.
“Let him go, Pa. Alex has to cut into Sally’s airway. He has to do it right now.”
“You can’t cut someone’s throat. She’ll bleed to death.”
“Clay, I know right where to cut. I won’t get near the carotid artery. That’s the artery that would make her hemorrhage.” Alex’s voice was deeper than usual, or maybe stronger, more confident. He was no longer the addled man in need of food and clothes.
Beth knew the medical words would help Pa and everyone else trust Alex’s abilities. She knew it helped her. Alex had chosen his words deliberately for that purpose.
Pa exchanged a look with Beth.
She nodded her head. “Let him go, Pa. He knows what he’s doing.”
Sally’s body suddenly went into a spasm.
Pa let Alex go.
“Hold her very still.” The command in Alex’s voice was the same one she’d heard during her apprenticeship from the doctor who trained her. Alex was very much in charge.
Beth gripped Sally’s shoulders. Ma was at Sally’s head, holding her still so a stranger could slit her throat. Then Pa and Laurie had Sally’s legs. Adam, the McClellen’s oldest family friend, appeared at Sally’s feet and he knelt and held. They all trusted Alex on Beth’s say-so.
“Beth, have you got any small tube?” Alex looked up, his gaze hard, almost cruel.
Beth nodded.
“Get it as soon as I’ve made the incision.”
Beth knew all of the people around Sally prayed as hard as they held on. The congregation of Mosqueros’s only church stood in a circle around them, praying, too.
Alex made the tiniest possible incision. Blood ran free and nearly everyone in the crowd gasped.
Beth quickly released Sally.
Laurie grabbed Sally’s now-free arm, which started reaching for her neck.
Beth found a tiny syringe, part of the standard equipment. Every doctor had a bag and cherished the instruments it contained. What had happened to Alex’s?
Alex ripped the syringe apart until all he had left was a slender tube and slid it into Sally’s bleeding incision. Then Alex bent over the tube and blew. Sally’s chest rose. Alex pulled back and Sally’s chest fell, slowly, naturally. The air expelling from the exposed end of the tube ruffled Alex’s hair.
After Alex blew life into Sally’s lungs a few more breaths, Sally’s spasms stopped. Beth felt Sally’s terrible tension ease. She no longer needed to be restrained once air flowed in and out of her body. The whole crowd sighed as if they’d been holding their breath, too.
Alex repeated the movements, blowing, pulling away to allow an exhale, blowing. Sally’s chest moved naturally as if she were breathing, but it was through the tube, not her mouth. Alex finally stopped, and Beth realized Sally was doing the tube breathing herself.
Beth looked over at Alex. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and smeared blood across his face. Her heart turned over at the unsteady movement. Those calm, knowledgeable hands were now trembling like an oak tree in a windst
orm.
He said, in that authoritative voice, “Cloth.”
Beth handed him a square of clean white cotton, remembering well how she’d assisted in operations. Alex stemmed the blood that flowed around the tube as Sally breathed.
Speaking to Beth’s parents, Alex said, “Sally will be able to breathe through this tube until the swelling goes down in her throat. That could take a while, maybe an hour or so. She’ll regain consciousness any time now and we’ll have our hands full keeping her still. When her throat clears, I’ll suture this incision and she’ll be fine. There’s the risk of an infection of course, although Beth’s carbolic acid will help fight that. Still, it’s always a danger.”
Alex went on, talking about caring for the wound. Beth knew he was talking more to ease Pa’s and Ma’s minds than because what he said was important. She knew well the strong effect of a calm presence in times of trouble.
When Alex’s instructions were done, he said, “Where can we take her? I don’t want her in a buckboard. It’s too rough a ride out to the ranch, so she needs a place in town.”
“Bring her to my house,” Parson Radcliff said.
“No,” the banker, Royce Badje, spoke up. “There’s an empty building next to the bank. I own it and I’d be glad to see it used for a doctor’s office.”
“I don’t need an office.” Alex looked up, his eyes suddenly losing all the confidence and strength that had carried him through until now.
Before he could humiliate himself, which Beth felt sure was inevitable, she reached her hand across Sally’s body. “Hush.” Anyone within ten feet heard her. But Alex obeyed, and Beth’s saying, “Hush,” didn’t give away much.
“That will be fine, Mr. Badje. Is it empty? We could use a bedroll on the floor for Sally to lie on.”
“It’s furnished upstairs, so you can live there, Doc. And there are shelves and counters downstairs. It used to be a dry goods store. No hospital beds though. But the town can help get it set up for a doctor.”
“I’ll run and dust the counters and put down sheets.” Royce Badje’s wife hurried away, and several women followed her, eager to help.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 7