New Frontier

by Pepper Espinoza

  “How many people were hurt?”

  The boy shook his head. “I don’t know…daddy…”

  Ida put her arm around the boy and hugged him close as Olivia whipped at the horse.

  “Save them…” he whispered.

  Ida and Olivia could only look at each other sadly over the boy’s head.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  By the time they arrived, the horses had been herded to the far side of the ranch, but the damage had already been done. The barnyard was in absolute shambles. The fences were torn down, and it looked as though a great beast had demolished the side of the barn. The yard was torn up; earth overturned, chicken and goose feathers lined the dirt. And blood. There was blood everywhere.

  There were eight bodies on the ground. Ida, at first, thought they were all dead. But then one by one they acknowledged the women’s arrival by briefly moving their limbs or nodding their heads. Olivia sent the boy to his mother, and the two of them squared their shoulders and walked through the bloody mud.

  The first person Ida knelt beside was bleeding from a large, hoof shaped mark on his chest. She gingerly ran her hand down his sides and felt two broken ribs.

  “Can you move your hands?”

  He nodded and demonstrated.

  “I’ll be right back,” Ida promised. “I have to check on everybody else, and then I’ll come back and take care of you, okay?”

  “Hurts…”

  “I know. It won’t for long, I promise.”

  She repeated the same scene two more times. She checked for injuries, made sure their backs weren’t broken, and hoped there were no internal injuries. There was a broken leg, a broken arm, three more broken ribs, and what looked to be a shattered collarbone. Everybody was conscious, despite the pain. They looked pale and waxy beneath the blood and bruises, but they were awake.

  “Olivia,” Ida called. “I think if we can get them to the bunk house, they’ll be okay…plenty of broken bones to set, though. Nobody is coughing up blood or anything.”

  “Ida, I think you should come over here.”

  “What?”

  “He’s out cold. I need your help…” A hint of fear had crept into Olivia’s voice, and that frightened Ida more than anything she could have said. Olivia’s voice was normally so calm, so cool, even in a stressful situation. But now the evenness was broken.

  Ida hurried over. “Where was he hurt?”

  “It looks like a horse hit him on the chest and head. He’s still got a pulse, but it’s weakening. Also it looks like he has an old wound on his shoulder that never quite healed right…he’s bleeding from that too.”

  Ida sunk to her knees. “Let me see.”

  Olivia pushed the shirt away to reveal a wound the size of bullet hole, leaking dark red blood and pus. Ida blinked. She rubbed her hands down his chest and felt broken ribs…broken ribs she remembered touching a hundred times before. She lifted her eyes slowly, her heart caught in her throat. His face was covered in bruises. Blood flowed freely from his eye and lip.

  “Ida?”

  It seemed like Olivia’s voice was coming from a million miles away. There was cotton in her mouth. Her heart stopped. Blood rushed to her head, warmed her face. The world tilted. And then Ida did something she had only done once before when the battlefield had been abandoned by everybody except the mortally wounded, the dead, and the maggots. She turned her head, leaned forward, and emptied her stomach.

  “Ida! Are you okay?”

  Ida gasped for breath and cleared her head. She wiped her mouth and looked up to meet Olivia’s eyes. “I’m fine…I’ll be fine…We need to get him to the house.”

  “Somebody is coming to take them all to the bunk…”

  “No! We need to get him inside, in the house. Right now.”

  “Ida…”

  “Olivia, right now, you just need to listen to me. Don’t ask me questions, don’t argue with me. We need to get him into the house.”

  “Okay. All right.”

  Ida pulled a rag out of her bag and began sopping the blood off of his face. The cut above his eye wasn’t deep, but like most head wounds, was bleeding profusely. One of his teeth was missing and his lip was split, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that but clean up the blood and lift his head so he wouldn’t choke on it.

  She couldn’t gaze at his face for long. She had work to do.

  “They’re ready to take him up to the house now,” Olivia told her as she knelt beside his body again.

  “I need to bandage him first…or it’ll just get worse. Here, lift him like this…yeah…” Ida worked quickly and efficiently. If she paused, if she looked at him, if she so much as took a deep breath, she knew her composure would be shattered.

  “Are you okay…?”

  “I’m fine,” Ida snapped. “Don’t drop him.”

  “I won’t.”

  Ida wound the bandage around his chest tightly, and watched the red blossom of blood burst through the white material. Once she stemmed the bleeding there, she returned her attention to his head. She ran his fingers along his neck and around the back of his skull. When she pulled them away, they were sticky and warm.

  “Oh, God,” Ida breathed.

  “What?”

  Ida held her fingers up for Olivia to see. “Help me turn him over.”

  Gently they rolled him over. The back of his head soaked in blood and his sandy blonde hair was stained red.

  “He’s losing a lot of blood,” Ida muttered as she pressed another rag against the back of his head. “Where’s the wagon?” She shouted.

  “It’s here,” Olivia assured her quietly.

  “Okay, I’m going to bandage his head while we’re riding up to the house. Olivia, you stay here and take care of everybody else until the doctor gets here.”

  Ida stepped back and watched with a careful eye as three men lifted Kelly gently onto the litter, and then put him into the back of the wagon. She climbed in beside him and knelt at his head, again wiping the blood from his face.

  “Do you know him?” Ida asked the man sitting next to the driver.

  “No…he just rode in this morning. Wanted a job.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “He was riding the colt when it bolted,” the driver said over his shoulder. “Wasn’t his fault, though, something spooked it. We tried to pull him out before he was trampled, but he already hit the ground pretty hard.”

  “I see…”

  “Is he going to be all right, Miss?”

  “I don’t know,” Ida admitted softly as she wrapped his head. “I don’t know how bad his injuries are. I won’t know till I get all the blood and dirt off of him.”

  “What about the rest of them?” the driver asked.

  Ida lifted her eyes and glanced at the bodies still on the ground, growing smaller. “They all should be fine. Olivia will take good care of them.”

  It took several minutes to reach the big house, but they had to drive slowly and carefully up the bumpy dirt road. Senora Ricardo was waiting for them by the door.

  “Do you have the room ready, Inez?” Ida asked as she jumped out of the wagon.

  “Si, yes. Everything is ready for him. Hurry, hurry,” she ushered them in. Ida followed close behind the men, and stayed close to Kelly’s side.

  “I’m going to need clean towels and lots of hot water and soap, needle, thread, bandages…”

  “It’s all ready,” Inez promised.

  Ida pulled the pocketknife out of her shirt pocket and began cutting the clothes off his body. “One of you stay to help me, but the rest of you need to leave. I don’t want you in my way.”

  Both the men hurried out of the room, having neither the stomach nor the interest to stick around. Silently, Inez began working with Ida without the need for direction. Ida was thankful to have somebody to take Olivia’s place.

  “He is very sick,” she finally said.

  “He’ll be fine,” Ida insisted. She found a pair to scissors
and began cutting his hair, clearing his scalp so she could find and stitch the wound. “I don’t think anything is broken.”

  “His brain could be rattled in his head.”

  Ida took a deep breath. “I’m just going to try to get him stitched up so he stops bleeding. We’ll worry about the other stuff later.”

  The hour flew by as she worked. Cleaning, stitching, cleaning, stitching, she fell into a sort of rhythm. She worked silently and diligently, with careful fingers. She silently begged him to open his eyes, but he didn’t so much as twitch. Periodically, she checked his pulse point and found to her great relief that it was growing steady.

  Finally, she sat back, her bloody hands draped at her side. “I can’t do anymore.”

  Inez looked over Kelly’s bandaged and stitched body with a critical eye. “You’ve done all you can. You can go.”

  “No,” Ida said sharply, firmly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You don’t need to stay, we can watch him.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Ida repeated.

  “You’re a mess.”

  “Send somebody for my clothes and belongings. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Inez nodded. “If you insist, senorita.”

  “I do.”

  Ida stayed by his side as the afternoon slid into night. The ranch slowed and then quieted. She could see the bunkhouse from the window, where she knew Olivia was still nursing the wounded. She felt slightly guilty for leaving all the work in Olivia’s capable hands, but she wasn’t leaving Kelly’s bed. Period. They probably didn’t understand that now, but they would eventually.

  Ida washed his blood from her hands and from beneath her fingernails. She scrubbed her face hard and changed from her stiff, dirty, bloody clothes into her favorite long shirt. She checked his pulse again, brushed his hair from his face, made sure his bandages were clean, turned down the lamp, and knelt by the bed. Then for the first time since she was a small child, Ida prayed through her tears.

  The next morning, Dr. Ogden arrived before breakfast. Ida was still wide-awake, sitting near the bed with dried tears on her face. She didn’t say a word while the doctor examined him initially, except when he asked her questions.

  Dr. Ogden looked over Ida’s work approvingly. “You did this?”

  Ida nodded. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think there’s really anything left for me to do. You’ve done all that can be done.”

  “Do you think…will he be waking up?”

  Ogden looked at her kindly. “I don’t know, Miss Stevens. If he doesn’t wake up soon, though…maybe within a week…he probably won’t wake up at all.”

  Ida nodded, “The injury to the back of head…”

  “It’s quite severe. But he also lost a lot of blood. Now all we can do is wait.”

  When Ogden finally left, Olivia entered the room. “What’s going on?”

  “We don’t know if he’ll wake up,” Ida said numbly.

  “What’s going on with you?”

  Ida sat on the edge of the bed and took Kelly’s hand. She counted his pulse rate, but she didn’t drop his hand when she was finished. She clutched it tightly, warming his cool skin.

  “Well, I found him, didn’t I?”

  “This is Kelly?”

  Ida nodded. “Apparently he just arrived yesterday and wanted to start working. They put him on the colt to see how he could handle breaking in a horse.” She looked up and smiled slightly. “They told me he was doing fine until the horse got spooked and bolted.”

  “Oh, Ida…I’m so sorry…”

  “Don’t be sorry. He’ll be fine.”

  Olivia looked doubtfully at Kelly’s ashen face, mostly obscured by the bandage around his head and bruises.

  “It’ll just take time,” Ida said. “That’s all.”

  Olivia bit her lip. “You’re right. A little bit of time and a great nurse will go a long way.”

  “How are the others?” Ida inquired without any real interest.

  “They’ll be fine. They’re all on strict orders to have at least a few days of bed rest, but I know one of them is already up and trying to work in the yard.”

  “I’m sorry I left you with them…”

  “You had to do what you had to do, and besides, I wasn’t by myself. Dr. Ogden arrived shortly after us.” Olivia walked over to Ida’s side and took her free hand. “I have to go now, but I’ll be back with some food for you later. Is there anything else you need?”

  Ida shook her head. “No, Ogden left me some supplies, and I have my clothes.”

  “Ida, be sure to take care of yourself. You’re not going to do him any good if you run yourself into the ground.”

  “I will.”

  Olivia gave her hand a squeeze and left her alone with Kelly. There had been a constant stream of people in and out of the room since before the sun came up. Inez, some of the men, children bringing food, the doctor, children running messages. They all wanted to look at him. They all wanted to talk about him. They all wanted Ida’s attention and time for one thing or another.

  Ida’s eyelids drooped. She couldn’t keep them open. She hadn’t slept at all the night before, and she hadn’t been sleeping well before that, anyway. But she jerked herself awake every time she began to nod off. She didn’t want to fall asleep in case Kelly needed something from her. She would never forgive herself if she wasn’t awake for him.

  To keep herself awake and alert, she started talking softly. Words tumbled out of her mouth thoughtlessly, and she didn’t even know what she was saying most of the time. But as long as her mouth was moving, her eyes stayed open.

  “Liam did come back, you know. Not long after you left, either. So you weren’t right about everything. It stopped snowing, though…you probably didn’t expect I’d be down here so early, did you? I didn’t think I’d be able to make it down until at least June…but I got here by the end of March and I’ve just been waiting for you…that’s all. I’ve been living with Olivia…

  “You’d like Olivia, I think. She’s a good person. She’s been taking care of me, and we’ve been taking care of everybody else. Dr. Ogden is also a good sort…we’ve been working with him, too. And they don’t even care if I wear pants and shirts like a man. Nobody ever said a word…well, somebody said something and I knocked out one of his teeth…then nobody had anything else to say.

  “Things didn’t get violent with Liam, though it was tense there for a moment. I had to leave quickly, and it wasn’t until I was in Barstow did I realize that I left without my pictures and letters from my mom…But if that was the price to pay to get down here, then I don’t mind paying it…Even if…well…even if you didn’t make it down this way, I think I found my home.”

  Ida’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But it’s not complete without you, Kelly. As happy as I can be here, it’s not the same. You…make me happy. And laugh. And Olivia is a great friend…but she doesn’t know me like you do…like you knew me from the minute we met. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, though…about my…our…future…

  “There’s a house in town, near Olivia’s. An older woman built it for her son, but he died of malaria, and she never had the heart to move in. It’s a lovely little house…small but comfortable. So…I was thinking we could buy it for now. I don’t know if we’ll want to stay there, but it has an extra room…for children I guess…and like I said, it’s close to Olivia’s house…We don’t have to live there if you don’t like it but I thought it might be good for us…

  “Ogden…the doctor…he wants me to start working with him, but I’m happy working with Olivia. I don’t think I want to be a nurse full time anyway…well…I like it though. I like it a lot. It’s not as bad as it was before. Olivia has taught me a lot…shown me. I can’t believe I’ve only been here for two months…I guess it’s closer to three now…” Ida’s voice tapered off and she focused on the way his chest rose and fell.

  She counted the number of breaths he took.
Slow, steady. He twitched slightly, turned his head, and Ida jumped. He hadn’t moved before.

  “Kelly? Can you hear me?”

  He didn’t respond at all. Not even a twinge.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” she promised. “But you have to do your part, too. You have to wake up. I can’t just make this better…all I can do is change your bandages and clean your stitches. I wish that I had some sort of magical healing potion, you know? Something that could just take all the pain away.” She smiled slightly. “I guess laudanum could do that, but it’s not quite the same.”

  Ida stood up and started pacing around the room. Her back and legs were sore and she badly wanted to lie down. She looked at the bed longingly…there would be room on it for her. She didn’t want to hurt Kelly, but she needed to lie down. Her head was starting to pound in harmony with her aching feet.

  She gently moved Kelly’s leg and settled on the bed. She felt better almost immediately. “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a minute…just a minute, that’s all. Just going to close them for a second…” Her eyes fell and her breathing evened. “I’ll…check on you in a minute…love you Kelly…”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Life on the ranch started when the moon sunk below the horizon. Ida could hear people outside her open window, a rooster crowed, the horses greeted the ranch-hands, and the cows bawled as they grew heavy with their calves. She counted six sunrises, listened to the rituals that accompanied each one, and waited for the world to return to normal.

  Olivia had told everybody that Kelly was somebody Ida knew, an old friend of hers, and so they accepted her prolonged stay without a word.

  On the seventh morning, her hopes dipped. The light in her eyes dulled. There had not been many signs of life from Kelly, and she knew his time was running out. All she could do was watch him and touch him as much as possible. She thought maybe constant human contact would be good for him; maybe just the feel of her skin against his would be enough to rouse his body.