“What’s that?” she asked.
“Carbolic acid.” Robert placed a bundle of silken-looking thread and a curved needle into the water.
And then he did the strangest thing of all. After being in such a hurry, he took the time to clean his nails with the point of a knife. While Moon Song washed as much blood as she could from Skypilot’s broken body, Robert stood there meticulously paring his nails.
“What are you doing?” Blackie lunged forward to grasp the large splinter of wood from Skypilot’s stomach. “At least take that pine stick out of him before you pretty up your nails. What’s the matter with you, man?”
“Don’t.” Robert grabbed Blackie’s dirt-encrusted hand before it could grab hold of the wicked-looking piece of wood. “If he gets gangrene, he doesn’t stand a chance.”
“What do you know? You ain’t a doctor,” Sam said. “You’re not much more than a shanty boy like the rest of us. I’m gonna hitch up my mules right this minute and take him to Bay City to a real doctor.”
The other men began to murmur about the length of time it was taking Robert to help Skypilot.
“He won’t make it to Bay City.” Robert clicked his pocketknife shut and slid it into his pocket.
“Well, he won’t make it here neither. Not without a doctor. Bay City’s the only chance he’s got,” Tinker said.
“Ah, shaddup!” Jigger cried. “Every one of you!”
The old cook handed the baby over to Cletus and forced his scrawny body between Robert and the mutinous men. His arm had healed, but Katie knew how fragile that bad arm was. The scrappy little man held up both fists and positioned himself in a fighting stance, ready to take on anyone who tried to interfere with Robert.
“You don’t none of you know a blamed thing! This man here is a doctor, a Harvard ed-u-cated surgeon! Leave him alone.”
Sam looked from Jigger, to Robert, and back to Jigger again. “Then what in tarnation is he doing running a lumber camp?”
“Givin’ your sorry self a job, for one thing.” Jigger jutted his chin toward the teamster, his fists in front of his face. “Leave him be!”
For the first time, Katie understood why Robert had put up with the old man for so long.
Ignoring the drama swirling around him, Robert laid a clean dish towel flat upon the top of the hot stove. Just before it scorched, he placed it across a metal tray and, using tongs, removed each surgical tool from the boiling water and placed it on the towel.
While Jigger backed the men away, Robert rolled up his sleeves and scrubbed his hands and forearms. Then, and only then, was he ready to operate.
Except to her horror, she saw that he was not ready.
He picked up a scalpel and his hand started trembling. He tried to steady the hand with his other, but the shaking wouldn’t stop.
There was dead silence in the room as all who were watching realized that Robert—and Skypilot—were in deep trouble.
He laid the instrument down, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried again. Katie’s heart sank as she saw the trembling begin again.
Katie’s father’s church had been undemonstrative. The people had a deep faith, they lived righteous lives, but their prayers were private. Praying aloud was not something they did unless it was in a formal church setting. Before today, it would never have occurred to Katie to do what she was about to do.
Whether it was the Holy Spirit whispering to her, complete desperation, or a woman’s instinct, Katie put one arm around Robert’s waist and grasped his arm with her right hand.
“You can do this, my friend,” she said.
Their hands were so different. He had long, strong fingers, hers were short and stubby. His were tanned and brown. Hers were white, freckled, and still puckered from washing all her cake-making utensils. But her hand was the one that was steady and strong, and she willed that strength into him now.
“You can do this because I’m going to stand right here beside you and I’m going to pray for you as long and hard as it takes for you to get through this.”
She put both of her palms flat against his broad back and began to pray aloud.
“Give him strength, Father. Give him heart. Give him confidence. Make his hands steady and sure. Help him save the life of this good man, your servant. Give us a miracle, Father. Please give us a miracle.”
The trembling in Robert’s hand ceased.
She continued praying aloud, her hands flat against his back, asking God to give power and strength to Robert as he began to fight for Skypilot’s life.
“I’m fine now, Katie.” Robert’s voice was strong. She opened her eyes and saw that the hand holding the scalpel was as steady as a rock. “But I need more clean cloths and this basin of water needs to be thrown out and refilled.”
With enormous gratitude, Katie fetched more boiled water, found more clean cloths, and helped Moon Song empty pan after pan of bloodied water. She watched as he removed the pieces of bark and wood. She cringed as he cleansed Skypilot’s deepest wounds with the carbolic acid solution, and bit her lip as he began to stitch Skypilot back together.
One of the shanty boys fainted and was ignored until he came to on his own and wandered off. Two others left the cook shanty to throw up and never returned. By the grace of God, Skypilot remained unconscious.
At least he remained unconscious until Robert secured the last thread, bandaged his wound, and began to set the leg. And then Skypilot screamed.
The scream of a man, she thought, was so much more frightening than that of a woman. There was something primal and terrifying in Skypilot’s soul-wrenching scream.
The blessed unconsciousness was gone, and the big man, disoriented and crazed with pain, tried to fight his way off the table.
“Grab him!” Robert struggled to hold him down. “Keep him still!”
Katie was grateful that so many of the men had stayed. The remaining loggers rushed to grab whatever part of Skypilot they could reach without injuring him, as the big man began to fight in earnest.
“He’ll rip out his stitches if we can’t hold him down,” Robert shouted.
Even wounded, the former preacher, fueled by pain, was a match for all of them. It felt like trying to hold back a large, bucking horse. She clung to his undamaged foot, expecting to get kicked across the room at any minute, certain that Skypilot was going to scatter them all.
And then Moon Song intervened.
“No!” The Indian girl grabbed a handful of Skypilot’s hair, jerked it down toward the table, and shoved her face directly in front of his. Digging into her small store of English, she said, “No! You hurt!”
Skypilot seemed startled to find this raven-haired beauty’s face so close to his. He stopped struggling and stared at her.
“W-what?”
“You.” Moon Song gave another tug on his hair for emphasis. “Hurt.”
At that, Skypilot’s eyes began to focus, and he took in the ring of people holding him down. His body relaxed against the table as, once again in his right mind, he assessed the situation.
“What happened?”
“You got in the way of a falling tree,” Robert said.
Skypilot attempted a feeble joke. “Is the tree hurt?”
The men laughed a little too heartily. Once again, Skypilot scanned the circle of tense faces.
“How bad am I?”
“You might make it, with a lot of care,” Robert said. “But I still have to set this broken leg.”
“Feels like there’s a fire in my gut.”
“You have a stomach wound.”
“Is it bad?”
Robert hesitated. “Not as bad as when we first brought you in here.”
Skypilot lifted his head and looked down at the bandages covering his stomach. “Somebody operated?”
“I stitched you up,” Robert said.
“You?”
“I used to be a doctor.”
“Used to be? That isn’t very encouraging.” Skypilot grimaced fro
m the pain. “Go ahead and set the leg, but give me something to bite on.”
Cletus had a partially whittled woodchuck in his pocket. He drew it out, gave it a long look, and then lodged it between Skypilot’s teeth.
“Too bad we don’t have any whiskey in camp!” Jiggers said. “That would be real handy right now. Too bad our boss won’t let us have any!”
“Ether would come in handier.” Robert positioned two loggers to hold the top half of Skypilot’s leg as he grasped the calf. “Are you ready, my friend?”
“Do it!” Skypilot spoke around the piece of wood clenched between his teeth.
Robert jerked Skypilot’s leg and Katie heard the bone scrape as it slid into place. Skypilot turned white, his eyes rolled back in his head, and the woodchuck fell out of his mouth. Cletus picked it up and checked it for damage.
“We need to get this splinted,” Robert said, “his head wound closed, and put him to bed before he regains consciousness.”
He washed the cut on Skypilot’s forehead, stitched it closed, and finally it was over.
“Thanks for the help, men.” Robert looked exhausted after he set the last stitch. “I hope we’ve avoided infection. A suppurated stomach wound is a cruel way to die.”
“It’s all my fault.” Jigger shook his head.
“That’s true,” Robert said. “If you had watched over the children like you promised, none of this would have happened.”
“I deserve to be fired.”
“You deserved to be fired a long time ago.”
The old man looked so miserable, Katie pitied him.
“What can I do?” Jigger said. “I’ll do anything.”
“Then go pack your turkey.”
Katie’s heart lurched. As ornery as Jigger had been, she didn’t want him to go.
“And move it over to the bunkhouse. Skypilot needs your room to recuperate in.”
Jigger didn’t argue about giving up his beloved room. If anything, he seemed relieved to stay on under any circumstances. She wondered if he had no place else to go.
“Anything you say, boss,” Jigger said.
“We should get him moved before he wakes up,” Robert told the remaining woodsmen. “Katie, go spread that other clean sheet over Jigger’s bed.”
Jigger’s room, to her surprise, was remarkably tidy. She would never have expected it. She almost wondered if the old cook had been raised on a ship.
It was five o’clock by the time they got Skypilot settled and the table scrubbed and set to rights again. Moon Song was keeping watch over Skypilot.
“Do you have anything you can fix for supper, Katie?” Robert asked. “I know we interrupted you.”
“I was making oyster soup before you came in. The oysters and onions are already fried up in butter. All that’s left is to pour the cream and milk in and heat it. I have bread sliced.”
“Let’s get the men fed, then,” Robert said.
Ernie came through the back door with a bucket of milk in his hand. “I figured you didn’t have the time to do this and I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Thank you.” Katie was astonished she had forgotten such an important chore. “Tell the men I’ll have supper ready for them shortly.”
“A little hot food would be real welcome right about now,” Ernie said.
“What’s the temperature?” She could feel the cold seeping through the cracks in the cookhouse. “Have you checked the thermometer?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ernie blew on his hands. “It’s about two feet below zero.”
“That cold, huh?”
Katie strained the fresh milk into the kettle of soup and banked the fire so the milk wouldn’t separate. The entire time, she was intensely aware of Robert as he carefully dried each one of his surgical instruments and put them away.
She ran down to the cellar, brought up a wheel of cheese, and began to slice it into thick wedges. Soup, cheese, and bread should keep the men from getting too hungry until tomorrow morning.
And then there was her cake—her froth of a cake that she had been so proud of. Her vanity over it seemed so silly now. Life and death had a way of putting things into perspective. Still, it was the only thing she had for the men’s dessert tonight, so she placed it back into the middle of the table.
Robert seemed to notice the cake for the first time. “Your dessert is beautiful, Katie. I’m sorry we ruined your surprise.”
“A fancy cake is small potatoes compared to what Skypilot’s just been through.”
“I never should have allowed the children to come out to the lumbering grounds. It’s no place for them.”
“The children loved it. You couldn’t have known Betsy would come looking for you . . . or that Jigger and the boys would get so involved in a game of checkers none of them would notice.”
“She’s my daughter.” Robert ran his hand through his hair. “I should have looked after her.”
“Regardless of what anyone should or shouldn’t have done,” she said, laying a hand on his shoulder, “thanks to your skill, Skypilot is still alive.”
He grasped both of her hands, brought them to his lips, and kissed them. She caught her breath at the intimacy.
“If it weren’t for the strength in these hands and your prayers, I could not have done this tonight.”
She stared down at her feet, fearful that her eyes would betray the strong feelings she had for him. “You’re an excellent surgeon, Robert.”
“Thank you, Katie-girl. I’m glad you have such a high opinion of me.” He kissed her forehead and stood back, a wry smile on his face. “Now, if only there was a way to carry you around in my pocket every time I performed surgery, I could start practicing medicine again.”
22
They jump and sing and dance and shout,
to pass away the time,
to pass away the lonely hours
while working in the pine.
“Shanty Boys in the Pine”
—1800s shanty song
December 25, 1867
Christmas Day was always the saddest day of the year in a lumber camp. Robert had seen it time and again. No matter what pains the cook took to provide a special meal—and Katie and Jigger were apparently in the process of outdoing themselves—homesickness ran deep. Unable to go home, even the hardiest woodsman grew nostalgic and pined for loved ones—real or imagined.
The men never worked on Christmas Day. They spent it like they spent their Sundays—washing clothes, smoking pipes, telling tales, and reading the Police Gazette or various dog-eared dime paperbacks.
“Want to see a picture of my girl?” Ernie handed Robert a tintype of a narrow-faced woman with a stern expression. She did have a bow in her hair, which Robert hoped indicated a more fun-loving disposition than what he saw in her face.
“She’s very pretty,” Robert said politely.
“Naw, she’s not pretty, but she is a hard worker,” Ernie said. “And she’s not against Cletus living with us when we get married. A man could do worse.” He sighed and slipped the picture back into his pocket. “You suppose Skypilot is gonna pull through?”
“I hope so.”
“That was something—what he did.” Ernie pulled out his nose warmer and stuffed tobacco into the little pipe. “I never thought he’d make it to your little girl in time. I didn’t know a man could run so fast.”
“I didn’t see her until it was too late,” Robert said. “I wish it had been me who got hurt instead of him.”
“But Skypilot couldn’t have operated on you.” Ernie lit his pipe with a coal from the bunkhouse stove. “How come you ain’t a doctor no more?”
“I was a surgeon during the war. After about the thousandth amputated leg, I just couldn’t make my hands operate anymore.”
“Ain’t none of us come out of that war the same as we went in.” Ernie drew hard on his pipe. “Me and Cletus was at Antietam. He ain’t been right ever since. Cletus was never all that bright, but it was after that battle he starte
d talking to those little wood creatures he carved.”
A long look of understanding passed between the two men. Antietam had been one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Nothing more needed to be said.
“Say.” Ernie knocked the ashes out of his pipe and returned to everyone’s favorite subject. “I wonder what Katie’s cooking tonight?”
“Last time I checked on Skypilot, Katie told me to stay out and not let anyone else in.”
“Well, that weren’t very polite.”
Robert laughed. “I think she and the children might be cooking up a surprise for us. Ned and Thomas looked like a couple of cats who’d swallowed a canary.”
Ernie’s face lit up. “Wonder what they’re up to?”
“With Katie, who knows?”
“Speaking of cats.” Ernie nodded toward the corner. “You certain that’s what that animal in there is?”
The large orange cat glowered in its cage, mortally offended by the fact that it was incarcerated. Robert and the men had faithfully fed it scraps and tried to tame it—but it had razor-sharp claws and an ugly disposition. He was afraid that the surprise he had asked Sam to bring from Bay City for Katie’s Christmas was not going to be a success.
The amount of dishes on the dining table was staggering. It was everything she could think of to make and more. Jigger had surprisingly added the “more.” He had worked beside her all day without complaint, and she had gotten to see firsthand that the man truly knew how to cook.
“Stew’s done.” He speared a small chunk of venison from the bubbling vat. Henri had killed, cleaned, and proudly brought in the fresh meat early that morning. “I’m makin’ the dumplings now.”
He whipped together the dumpling dough and began dropping spoonfuls into the aromatic brown liquid.
“If you’ll move to the side, I’ll take the turkeys out of the oven,” she said. “They should be finished.”
Jigger obediently stepped aside. All was harmony in the kitchen as the two cooks prepared a feast.
Measure of Katie Calloway, The: A Novel Page 22