Sawbones

by William W. Johnstone

  “You sound like an educated man. Not a lawyer. The way you looked me over, I’d take you to be a doctor. Maybe a rebel doctor?”

  “The war’s over.” Knight plodded along, one foot in front of the other. Getting back to the cavalry encampment would take them most of the day at this pace. It might even be dark before they trooped into the camp.

  “It’s purty near lunchtime. I got some rations I’ll share with you.”

  “Much obliged. I need water, too. My mouth’s so dry it feels like the inside of a cotton bale.”

  The soldier cocked his head to one side and turned in a full circle, snuffling loudly. He stopped, pointed to the south away from the road, and said, “River’s that way. Or a lake. I can smell it.”

  “You part bloodhound? I never heard of anyone who could sniff out water. Once, I saw a woman use dowsing rods to find where to sink a well, but everyone thought she was crazy as a loon.”

  “Seen that, too. My pa could use a dowsing rod that way. Where he said there was water, there was. Always. And I don’t need a stick to tug in the right direction.” He pointed. “Water’s down there a ways.”

  They left the road and cut across increasingly rugged land, finally coming to the shore of a lake that stretched off into the distance so far Knight couldn’t see the far side.

  “We might get lucky and catch a fish to go along with the hardtack. That and some moldy jerked beef’s all I got for rations.”

  “Will this get you in trouble with Captain Norwood? Taking so long to get back to camp?”

  “There you go again, sounding like you give two hoots and a holler ’bout me.”

  “You should soak your foot in the lake. The cool will ease the pain.”

  They made their way down to a rocky beach. From the tracks leading to this point, cattle used the lake as a stock pond. Other animals likely did as well, though they didn’t leave tracks like the cows. The two of them eased to the edge, found rocks to sit on and shucked off their boots. Knight had to be careful. The newspaper he had stuffed into his shoe threatened to come apart. Some of it stuck to his foot in a wet lump. He peeled it away and stuck it back into his boot. Only then did he soak his feet.

  The soldier laid out what he carried in way of food, dividing it down the middle. Knight tried not to wolf it down. There wasn’t much. He wanted it to last so he could taste every morsel, no matter how tough the beef or stale the hardtack. Water helped it all go down where it formed a lump in his belly. A week or two of regular eating would keep his stomach from rebelling against whatever he swallowed. Knight turned glum because he wasn’t likely to last that long after the captain handed down the death sentence for horse theft.

  “I’m all tuckered out. We can tickle some fish after a nap. That all right with you?”

  Knight opened his mouth, then clamped it shut.

  “I’m going to stretch out up on the bank, under one of those shade trees. You find one that suits you and don’t go waking me none.” The soldier hiked up to the tree he had pointed out, sank down and rested his rifle against the trunk.

  He dropped Knight’s gun belt with the Colt Navy and spare cylinders onto the ground some distance away, then settled down. He pulled his garrison cap over his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest and slipped into a noisy sleep in seconds.

  Knight stared at the young soldier. Did he expect an escape so he could shoot his prisoner? Or did he offer the chance for a prisoner to get away and avoid a certain firing squad?

  Knight eased over, lifted the gun belt with its heavy pistol tucked in. He replaced the empty cylinder with a loaded one. What kind of trouble the soldier got himself into letting his prisoner escape Knight could not know. The young soldier might face jail time up in Fort Leavenworth. Or maybe he knew something no one else did. With Captain Norwood riding on to his new garrison, no one back in camp might know the soldier had been ordered to deliver a prisoner. If that was true, Knight had only to walk away.

  He hoped it was so. There was no way in hell the soldier thought he would simply lie down and meekly return to a fate that would put him in a shallow grave.

  Knight looked back once and thought the soldier had pushed up the garrison cap to watch, but he couldn’t be sure. He started hiking around the lake, heading for the far side. From there he could get his bearings and get back on the road to Pine Knob. To Pine Knob and lovely Victoria.

  CHAPTER 5

  By the time he had fired all but three rounds from the Colt Navy’s loaded cylinders, Knight had become a crack shot. No rabbit was safe. He even considered trying to bring down a deer, but the small caliber and need to creep up on the skittish animals kept him from trying. If he got close enough for a clean shot, he could as easily swing the six-shooter and club the deer. It was good enough to fill his gut with meat from rabbits and whatever plants he found growing in the increasingly familiar woods.

  Two weeks had passed since he had escaped from the Union soldiers. His thoughts still turned to the soldier who had let him escape so easily. Resting his hand on the six-gun’s oak butt reminded him how the young private had simply laid the gun belt and revolver to one side and slept. Or pretended to sleep. The more Knight thought on it, the more he realized his crime would have put him in front of a firing squad. The soldier either had no stomach for such an execution or had a spark of decency deep inside burning brightly enough to give him some sympathy for another’s sorry plight.

  Knight wondered if the soldier would have been as willing to look the other way if he had known he’d let a former inmate at Elmira escape.

  More than anything else, he wished the boy well. The captain, Norwood by name, would not have caused any trouble if he rode on to a distant assignment, but the lieutenant might have sentenced him to lashes or even prison. If such brutal punishment was in the cards, Knight hoped the youngster deserted and made his way to safety somewhere farther south in the heart of Texas.

  Knight suddenly stopped and stared. To the side of the road a battered wooden sign with crudely painted letters proclaimed to a weary traveler that he’d entered Pine Knob, Texas. Tears came to his eyes. He was home. After months hiking across country, getting rides when he could, stealing two horses and losing both, becoming a wanted fugitive, he had finally come home.

  “Victoria.” The name slipped unbidden from his lips. He licked dried lips and knew he looked a fright. If he showed up on his own doorstep looking like this, he would give her the scare of her life. “But I want to see you. You’re what’s kept me alive all these years.”

  He started toward town when the rattle of a wagon behind him forced him to take cover. The reaction had become second nature to him over the past weeks, but he saw there wasn’t any call to be that suspicious. He stepped back into the road and waved to the driver. “Joel! Joel Krauss! Hello!”

  The driver drew back on the reins on his rig. Both horses gratefully stopped. Krauss stepped down hard on the brake and looped the reins around the handle. He bent forward, shielded his eyes, and then stood in the driver’s box.

  “Samuel? Is that you, Sam?”

  “It’s me, Joel, in the flesh. You’re a sight for sore eyes.” He went to the side of the wagon and held out his hand.

  Krauss hesitated a moment, then shook. His grip was so firm that Knight winced.

  “You’re a wisp of your former self. What’s happened?”

  “It’s a long story. All I want to do is go home, but it’s good seeing you. Is Victoria at home or is she at church? This is Wednesday, isn’t it?”

  “Wednesday, ya, it is that.” Krauss stared hard at him. “Have you lost track of the days?”

  “It’s been a long, hard journey. I don’t want to frighten Victoria looking like this, but I want to see her. Truth to tell, I have no better clothing, though a bath and a shave would go a long way toward becoming more presentable in polite society.” Knight tried to get everything square in his head as the words tumbled out. Plans jumbled, and seeing a neighbor brought back a flood of memor
ies.

  “You are skinny, you are. None of us here get enough of the food, but you—” Krauss took off his broad-brimmed black hat and wiped away sweat that had beaded under the band. Like a horse shooing away flies, he shook his shaggy head and settled the hat back down squarely so each side rested on his ears.

  “Are you going into town? It’s getting dark in a spell.” Knight turned toward the town hidden in the pines when church bells began to ring. Wednesday evening service would begin in a few minutes.

  “Things are changed, Samuel. You prepare yourself for that. And the Yankees are here now.”

  “I expected carpetbaggers. Everywhere I have traveled, they are like a plague of locusts devouring everything around them with regulations and new taxes. Do you think they will let me practice medicine? Wait, no, never mind, Joel. There’s too much crowding into my head right now. You go on into town, but don’t tell anyone I’m back. I will go home and wait for Victoria to return from services. By the time I get there, she should return.”

  “Ya, you do that, Samuel. You heed what I said. Things are changed now.” Krauss glanced uneasily at the six-shooter strapped to Knight’s waist. “You do not be too quick with that gun, now, you hear? Everything’s different in this town . . . different from when you left.” With that, Krauss sank back down on the hard wood bench, slid the reins off the brake and got his team pulling again.

  Knight almost called after him, wanting him to explain his curious comment. Of course things had changed. Texas had lost the war. Carpetbaggers had moved in, as they had throughout the South to suck the money and crops and vitality from their former enemy. President Johnson had reined in the worst of the calls for retribution by the most rabid Northerners, but Washington and the president were far away and the meddling carpetbaggers were everywhere, collecting what they considered their due as conquerors.

  Knight touched the six-gun. Joel Krauss had seen it and worried that his old friend wouldn’t understand that they had been reduced to second-class citizens. Knight had thought about that during the long hike home. If they let him practice medicine again, what did it matter? He was home and would see his wife in a few minutes.

  He cut across a field growing a crop of yams, found a new road that hadn’t existed when he went to war three years earlier and discovered it ran almost directly to his house. From the look of it, the new road carried considerable traffic. He wondered what that might mean and where it took wagons and riders. When he had built his house it had been on the edge of town away from such traffic.

  His trek finally ended. He rubbed his eyes to be sure of what he saw. Things had changed, indeed. He stared at his house. A second story had been added. The yard was enclosed with a low white picket fence. Flowerbeds blazed with color. Victoria had always wanted to garden, but there had never been time. She’d acted as his nurse on many of the more difficult cases and had proven an excellent midwife when he had been out of town tending serious injuries on the outlying ranches and farms.

  But the house. So prosperous, so neatly kept. He smiled in admiration. Victoria had not let the moss grow on her while he was gone. Such upkeep required a great amount of time, effort, and money.

  He let the gate click shut behind him. Rather than going straight to the door, he circled the house. Nostalgia flooded through him when he saw the small vegetable patch out back. This had been the extent of her gardening before he left for Richmond. He stared at the neat rows and thought of her sitting on the front porch, carefully stitching at her needlework with precise movement. Everything about her had been that way. She had always attended to detail as he had taken in the larger picture.

  They had made a great surgical team. She noticed things he did not and had always pointed out the small but crucial things he missed. Once a patient had been saved because he had closed off a big spurting artery and had entirely neglected a tiny one that bled slightly but constantly. If he had sewn up the patient, the abdominal cavity would have eventually filled with blood, causing extreme pain and eventual death. She had saved the man’s life by pointing out the bleeder.

  Victoria had saved his life, too, by marrying him. He had missed her terribly every day he had been gone.

  He returned to the front porch, newly whitewashed and swept clean. He mounted the steps and started to open the front door. A colored woman beat him to it, pulling the door wide open and blocking any entry.

  “You startled me,” he said. “You must be a servant.”

  “You get on away from heah.” She made shooing motions.

  “I have come to see Victoria.”

  The woman glared hard at him. How could he blame her when he looked like a derelict?

  “The lady of the house. I have returned and would see her. Or is she still at Wednesday church services?”

  “Who are you? Do she know you?” The skeptical look froze him. He almost blurted out who he was. Then he decided surprising Victoria required some anonymity.

  “She does. I have been back East and only returned to Pine Knob a few minutes ago. May I sit here and wait for her return?”

  “No! You too filthy to go messin’ up my clean porch.”

  “You have done a fine job keeping it spotless.”

  This mollified her a little. She motioned for him to go around back.

  “You wait out by the toolshed. Who do I say you are?”

  “I’d like to keep it a surprise. Tell her a . . . friend.” Anything more would spoil the homecoming. He wanted to see the expression on her face when she realized her husband had returned, finally.

  “Don’t you go stealin’ nothing. We got law in this heah town that don’t take kindly to sneak thieves.”

  “I am sure. It’s not possible for me to steal anything.”

  How could he steal from himself? All this was his, even if he scarcely recognized it. Three years had passed slowly for him but quickly for the old homestead with its additions, fresh paint, and landscaping.

  He trudged around back, saw the toolshed some distance away and went to it. Sinking down with his back to one wall, he stared out over a pasture that had not been fenced when he left. Now wooden rails held in a half dozen fine horses dashing about. Victoria had never shown any interest in keeping animals. She must have fenced the meadow and rented it out to neighbors for their horses. Frederick Fitzsimmons had always wanted a breeding herd but his house in the center of town had not afforded space. If anyone came through the war richer than when it started, Fitzsimmons was the man. Knight looked down on the man’s avaricious behavior as bank president, but he had advanced him a loan to keep the surgery open when all the patients could pay were eggs and pigs. Medical suppliers in New Orleans and St. Louis demanded cash, not a rasher of bacon or a bag of flour.

  He remembered those days, struggling to get a foothold in the town. He had succeeded. He and Victoria had succeeded. His chin dropped to his chest and he dozed, only to awaken at the rattle of harness and chains when a buggy came up the road. Standing proved painful. Joints throbbing and muscles aching, he steadied himself against the shed. Before he went around the house to see his wife, the back door into the kitchen flew open. The maid spoke loudly, hands waving about. She pointed to the shed. The way she stood blocked any way out.

  Then he saw her as she pushed past the maid.

  Victoria was more beautiful than he remembered. She wore a simple white dress. On her it became a gown fit for the crowned heads of Europe. An intricate gold necklace caught what sunlight remained in the day. She pulled off gloves and handed them to the maid, who still chattered on. A stamp of the foot and an imperious gesture on Victoria’s part silenced the maid and sent her back into the kitchen. Victoria smoothed her skirts and carefully descended the back stairs. Every movement etched into his mind. She walked so lithely, head high and confident.

  He started to go to her, but his knees refused to bend. His feet had frozen to the ground. His heart hammered wildly, and breathing came in harsh gulps. He had no choice. Knight waited for he
r to come to him.

  She peered at him in the gathering twilight and stopped a few paces away. “Sir? Matty said you wanted to speak with me.”

  “Victoria.” The name came out in a croak, almost incomprehensible from the intense emotion welling inside him.

  “Sir, really! It is improper to call me by my Christian name. Please address me as—”

  “Mrs. Knight. Mrs. Victoria Knight, your husband has returned from the war.” He held out his arms to her.

  “Oh, dear, sweet Jesus, no! It can’t be!” Victoria clutched at her throat, spun, and ran for the house.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Victoria! Wait! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He got to the back porch just as the maid stepped into the doorway to block his entry.

  Knight grabbed for her, but he lost his balance. She added to his fall with a two-handed shove. Then she stood with her hands balled on her ample hips. If looks could have killed, Knight knew he would have been dead and buried out north of town in the Mount Pisgah Cemetery.

  “Stand aside. I want to talk with my wife!”

  “Yo wife? You crack that hard skull of yours? You git on outta heah ’fore I call the law.”

  “Victoria is my wife. I am Dr. Samuel Knight, and I demand to see her.”

  “You a doctor? That’s rich. I won’t call no law. I’ll handle you myself and sweep you right on outta heah.” She grabbed a broom and swung it at him.

  Knight fended it off, ignoring the pain in his left forearm where the broom handle hit. He got to his feet, lowered his head, and charged like a bull. The broom landed hard on his back, but he had stopped reacting to simple pain. His arms circled the woman’s waist. With a heave he lifted, got her off her feet, and swung her around. It was her turn to crash to the ground. This gave him the chance to burst through the door into the kitchen. Using his heel, he kicked shut the door and dropped a locking bar into place.