Sawbones

by Melissa Lenhardt

  Welch wrenched his elbow from Waterman’s grasp and with an air of pride, pulled at the lapels of his coat. “Yeah, better rest up and enjoy the last few days with two arms and legs. You know as well as I do you’re as like to walk out of here half a man as you are to walk out of here at all. Especially with a woman ‘doctor.’”

  “Get him out of here,” I said.

  Welch shrugged away from Waterman and gave me a final, withering look. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, missy.” Welch backed out of the doorway and into Caro. He pushed her away. “Don’t touch me, nigger.”

  Caro towered over Welch by five or six inches. Instead of being intimidated by the epitaph Welch had hurled she stood her ground. Welch ran his hand through his greasy hair and left. Waterman followed. I nodded to Caro and turned my attention to Kindle.

  “Look who’s awake,” I said.

  “Am I?” Kindle asked.

  “Unfortunately, yes. I did not plan on slapping you awake for at least two or three more hours.”

  Kindle’s smile was weak, his eyes half-open. He offered his good hand to me and I took it. His fingers were long, lean, and surprisingly unscarred, the hand of an artist, not a cavalry officer. He squeezed my hand and slurred his thanks to me. What he was thanking me for I had no idea, nor did I care. With my foot, I pulled my chair closer and sat, still holding Kindle’s hand. He went in and out of consciousness, trying valiantly to stay focused and engage me in conversation. I chided him to be quiet and get some sleep. With the gentle admonishment, he relaxed and let the laudanum take him under yet again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “It is almost time for rounds, Doctor.”

  I lifted my head from my chest and realized with chagrin I had fallen asleep holding Kindle’s hand. The light through the window had cleared from the gray of morning to the brightness of midday. Finally, it had stopped raining.

  Caro watched me from a chair across Kindle’s from bed, her hands folded in her lap. Waterman stood in the doorway. I didn’t know who had spoken.

  “Rounds. Yes.” I placed Kindle’s hand on his chest, stood, and gasped as a knife-edge of pain slashed through my shoulder. Waterman was beside me at once, supporting me.

  Caro rose and portioned out a dose from the laudanum bottle on the table next to Kindle’s bed. “You must take something for the pain,” she said.

  “No. It will subside in time. I must have my faculties for rounds.”

  I still wore the navy dress from the day before, with its large bloodstain on the chest. Thankfully, the material was dark enough it didn’t show, but it was stiff and uncomfortable. “I would like to freshen up. Change.” It dawned on me that only my medical trunk was here. “Where are my things?”

  “They were taken to Captain Kindle’s quarters,” Waterman said. “I didn’t know what else to do with them.”

  “Where are his quarters?”

  “Across the parade ground.”

  I had no frame of reference for what that meant since the darkness, rain, and urgency of the night before had obliterated any opportunity for viewing the fort, and in the time since, I had scarcely looked out the window of the hospital. It sounded like a journey of a thousand miles. “Is there an apron I can wear?”

  “Yes.” Waterman retrieved an apron from the office and handed it to me. I looped it over my head, and with a grimace at the pain in my shoulder, tied it around my waist. It would have to do for now.

  “Lead on,” I said. Fighting against the pain, I rolled my shoulder to loosen it up.

  We walked through the administration block and into the south wing of the hospital. In the light of day, the lack of funds and supplies frontier Army forts suffered from was plain. Metal cots with straw-stuffed mattresses served as beds. Small, four-legged, rickety tables stood next to each. Army blankets hung crookedly over a few windows, all closed against the fresh air, which, according to reigning medical theory was one of the causes of infection and disease. A few beds were draped with fine-mesh nets to combat bugs. Others were bare of anything save a pillow and a moth-eaten blanket. Every bed was taken.

  The infirm soldiers stood at the foots of their beds, some easier than others. One man, under the chimney of the wood-burning stove, was bedridden due to an amputated leg. Soot dusted the blanket covering him. A few soldiers, untethered by beds, stood in a group at the end of the hall, here to be examined for a small complaint, chronic illness (most likely of a sexual nature), or hoping to fake a believable case of Old Soldier for a day or two of respite from monotonous daily tasks.

  When the men realized I was taking Welch’s place and would be examining them, many left rather than have to explain their complaint to me. It was just as well; I did not have the energy to feign politeness and concern for maladies that were a direct result of carnal weakness or drunkenness. I knew they would return for treatment eventually—or seek out Welch in town on their own time—when I would be rested and free of pain, my Hippocratic nature restored.

  I examined the man with the amputated leg first. A sheen of perspiration covered his pale face. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with bruises. His lips were pale and cracked like a dry riverbed. His breathing was labored, not from an obstruction in his lungs, but from the effort to ignore the pain in his right leg. I enlisted the aid of the soldier assigned to hospital duty to remove the bandages.

  “What is your name, soldier?”

  “Jonah Howerton, ma’am.”

  “When was his last dose of laudanum?” I asked Waterman.

  When Waterman didn’t answer, I asked again, with less politeness.

  “He hasn’t had one in a couple of days.”

  “Did you say a couple of days?”

  Waterman looked down at the log he held in his hand and didn’t answer.

  With difficulty, Howerton answered for him. “Dr. Welch said…we were running low of laudanum and…could only give it…to cases that need it…Was time I got used to the pain…without the help.”

  I glared at Waterman. “We are low on supplies,” Waterman confirmed.

  “Give him thirty drops. I assume we have that much.”

  “Yes.” Waterman noted it down in his log.

  Two facts struck me when I turned my attention to the soldier’s exposed stump. First, whatever Welch’s credentials were or were not, he had extensive experience in amputation. If I was honest, it was a better job than I would have done. Second, the leg was ripe with infection. The soldier would die from it, and soon. I motioned for the orderly to rewrap the wound.

  “We are going to move you out from under this chimney and get your dose of laudanum. Which bed would you like?”

  “One where I can see the creek.”

  “Will do,” I said. I patted him on the shoulder and moved on.

  I moved through the remainder of the patients quickly, diagnosing scurvy for three, malingering for two, and a possible case of syphilis, until there were only five of the twelve beds occupied.

  Howerton was settled into his new bed with a laudanum-induced expression of idiotic pleasure over his face. I was removing the blanket from the window opposite his bed when a jolly, booming voice rang out.

  “Well! If this isn’t a sight for sore eyes!”

  A fat man with gray hair and a bushy mustache stood in the doorway at the opposite end of the hall, resplendent in the cleanest garments I had seen on a man since Galveston. His uniform positively shone with color—the dark blue coat, the butter yellow stripes on his pants, the red sash tied at his waist, his polished brass buttons—throwing the muted colors of his surroundings into shadow. Immediately, I became conscious of my own disheveled and dirty state.

  For such a fat man he was surprisingly light of foot, gliding over the floor toward me, his paunch cutting through the air like the prow of a ship. He extended his hand. “You must be the doctor everyone is talking about! Lieutenant Colonel Charles Foster,” he said, pumping my hand.

  “Laura Elliston.”

&
nbsp; “If you aren’t the prettiest thing I’ve seen since San Antonio,” he said with a laugh. “Though don’t repeat that around any of the other officers’ wives. They may get offended.”

  I had no doubt he gave the same compliment to every woman he met, but I agreed to keep his secret with a smile.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fort hospital so empty. Mackenzie will be thrilled. We need all the healthy men we can get.”

  “You can trust I will not encourage malingering,” I replied. “Which is what the majority of the men were guilty of.”

  “Good, good!”

  “I am surprised at the number of obvious cases. I only met Mr. Welch briefly and was not impressed, I’ll grant you. But, even someone with minimal medical knowledge could see these men were not sick.”

  “Well, there are always men that will try to get something for nothing and nothing for something, if you know what I mean. What is important is you’ve rooted the bad ones out and put them back to work. Sherman wanted it. Mackenzie will be thrilled. As am I! Tell me, how is Captain Kindle? Fine man and officer.”

  “I was on my way to check on him.”

  Foster stepped aside to allow me to pass. Instead of leading him straight through to Kindle, I led Foster into the dispensary where Waterman was mixing the laudanum. I abated their puzzlement quickly. “Welch said something earlier that at the time I thought was vindictiveness, but after examining Private Howerton, I wonder.”

  “Who is Private Howerton?” Foster said.

  “The soldier with the amputated leg,” I replied.

  “Right, right. What did Welch say?”

  I rubbed my throbbing head, trying to remember through the haze of the last few days. “Something to the effect of Kindle not leaving here a whole man.”

  Waterman furnished the quote, word for word.

  “Yes, thank you, Waterman. I wondered, Lieutenant Colonel Foster, is there a history of infection and amputations at the hospital here?”

  “I would hardly know,” he replied. “Mackenzie and I have been here barely two months.”

  “Did the former post surgeon relate any concerns?”

  Foster’s lip curled in disgust. “He was a repulsive man. High on opium half the time. Wouldn’t take what he said with a grain of salt.”

  I turned to Waterman, who answered, “There have been a fair number of amputations.”

  “Warranted or not?”

  “Warranted.”

  “Infection is a problem.”

  “Infection is a problem in every hospital,” Foster said. “It’s a fact of life, hardly unique to the Army or Fort Richardson.”

  “Yes, I know but…”

  “Best you can do is treat them and hope their constitution is strong enough to see them through. I have no doubt Kindle is one of those men.”

  “I am sure he…”

  “Sherman came by to see you this morning, I hear. He said the men would rather work than be treated by a woman and he was right.” Foster laughed. “I admit I had reservations about his decision to make you fort surgeon temporarily, but after seeing you clean out the ward and receiving a letter from Sill stating our surgeon is on his way, my reservations vanished. There’s no harm in you acting the part until a real doctor comes.”

  “Act the part?”

  “We have a fair few women and children here. You can treat them. I’m sure they will find it quite a lark to be seen to by a woman doctor.”

  I pressed my lips together, the urge to flay Foster with a piece of my mind almost too much to resist. I thought of Kindle’s health and continued to state my case, my voice as steady as I could make it. “Sir, if you will let me finish. My concerns…”

  “No need to do more today. Why don’t you go get some rest and refresh yourself? You’ve been through quite an ordeal and I do believe I see a bit of dried blood.” He waved his finger in the general direction of my chest.

  “Yes, it is Captain Kindle’s blood, which at this moment is inconsequential. I am trying to tell you I believe infection is endemic in this hospital, and unless we want Captain Kindle to lose his arm and leg and possibly his life, we should move him out of the hospital immediately.”

  In the silence following my outburst all that could be heard was the distant clank of Corporal Martin cooking lunch. Foster’s good-natured smile wavered for a moment before settling in again underneath the protection of his mustache. “There is no need to raise your voice, Miss Elliston.”

  I thought of the letter from Sherman this man had in his possession and put on a conciliatory smile on my face. “I am sorry, sir. With everything that has happened…” I trailed off with a sigh to let Foster think my female emotions were coming through instead of professional anger.

  “Do you believe it truly necessary to move him?”

  “I do not see the harm in it.”

  “Don’t you?” Foster said. “Moving him would make him more likely to pick up some germ or another. No, it’s probably best he stay right where he is. Though we do need to move the Negros out of there.”

  “Sir, the theory that germs do not move through the air is becoming more widely accepted. Many believe once infection gets into a certain area—building, hospital, ship, even a room—it is likely to always be there. There were some hospitals during the war that had few losses due to infection, almost none in fact, and there were others where it was rampant. If we even slightly suspected this hospital was the latter, would not it behoove us to move the captain, if not out of certainty, at least out of overprotectiveness of a man that, from all accounts, is a fine officer?”

  Foster pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t see it as necessary, but I suppose there’s no harm in it. If you deem it necessary, Kindle shall be removed. Would his quarters be an acceptable location?”

  “I am sure they will be fine,” I replied.

  “Waterman will see to it,” Foster said.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel.”

  “Whatever you need, Miss Elliston, you come to me.” With a small wave of his hand, he left.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I stood on the front porch of Kindle’s quarters, taking in the sights and sounds of the fort. Richardson was an enormous square stamped in the middle of the plains, bordered on the west by a meandering creek and supported by a town a half mile distant. The Army had taken full advantage of not having natural boundaries limiting the size of the fort, centering Richardson with a large parade ground where soldiers on horseback and foot drilled daily. But the sight of the three hundred men on evening dress parade and the attendant sounds of jingling cavalry tack and unified movements did little to alleviate the fear in my breast at the exposed and sprawling fort. On the short journey from the wagon train to the fort, the idea of the protection the fort and its soldiers would provide had done as much as could be expected to lift my spirits. In the twilight of my first day at Fort Richardson, the reality of the fort sunk them again.

  Even with Kindle’s truthful description the day before, the fort I had conjured in my mind resembled the bastions of the East: solid in construction, uniform in appearance, and surrounded by fortified walls. Those buildings had a comforting permanence about them, with their wooden or stone facades seemingly a part of nature around them, as if the earth had sensed our human need for protection and offered up its resources. We were comforted in the knowledge it would take great violence to eradicate these edifices of our destiny. In contrast, Fort Richardson looked like the stick models of soldier forts children construct in their gardens, whose sole purpose is to mimic the inevitable grand destruction by the tin soldiers populated in and around it.

  Soldiers and cavalry lined up on the muddy expanse of the parade ground. With the experience of weeks on a dusty trail and the sucking quagmire of mud I crossed hours before when transferring Kindle from the hospital to his quarters, I appreciated the effort the men put into making their dress uniforms spotless, though I wondered at the necessity of such a parade in weather lik
e this. Lieutenant Colonel Foster, the most resplendent and spotless of all, walked the length of the parade ground on boards laid down to protect his boots from the mud.

  The sun set behind the hospital in a striking display of red, orange, and yellow, with a few clouds deflecting the colors into muted hues of purple and blue around their edges. The soldiers stared straight ahead, and I wondered who among them was appreciating nature’s performance and who was oblivious.

  “It is beautiful, is it not?”

  A woman appeared before me floating at the bottom of the porch steps like an apparition. Her black dress was high necked and fitted through her torso, showing off one of the smallest waists I had ever seen. The cut of the dress was simple and rather regimental and lacked ornamentation save the row of polished gold buttons on her sleeves. I resisted, with difficulty, the urge to salute.

  “Quite beautiful,” I agreed, returning my gaze to the sunset.

  “This is my favorite time of day,” she said. “Some think dress parades are pointless out here on the frontier. I think standards should be kept, no matter where you are. The standards are what make the Army what it is. Don’t you agree?”

  It was easier to agree than to correct her misapprehension that my appreciation was for the various shades of blue lined up before me.

  “I am Harriet Mackenzie.”

  “Laura Elliston. You are the colonel’s wife?”

  “His sister.”

  The order for dismissal rang out across the fort. The soldiers dispersed to their next tasks amid a low murmur of talking, the creak of leather, and the occasional burst of laughter. More than a few noted our presence.

  “How is Captain Kindle?” Harriet Mackenzie asked, watching the soldiers.

  “Resting.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. A thin muslin curtain floated out of the open window, behind which I could see Kindle laying on a cot. He was in the same position I had left him in an hour earlier when I had taken a much-needed break to change my dress and perform a quick toilet in the room I would be occupying on the second floor.