Rachel's Choice

by Judith French

  “Why should I?”

  “A lady should—”

  Her obsidian eyes narrowed. “How dare you tell me what I should do for you, you traitor?”

  “If you won’t give me a drink, then shoot and be damned.”

  “Maybe I will. I’m sure there’s a bounty on your head.”

  “You’re a hard woman to deny a man a drop of water before you send him to his Maker.”

  “You take me for a fool? A fisherman was murdered near here last month by escaped rebel scum. And before Christmas a woman just across the bay was ravaged by two others.”

  Chance rubbed his swollen eyes. It was hard to think with his head hurting so, and it was harder still to make his words come out straight.

  Fine lawyer I am, he thought. My life is hanging on the verdict, and I can’t match wits with a barefoot farmer’s wench.

  “Do I look like I’m in any condition to commit rape?”

  “That’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me.”

  Wearily he sagged until his chin touched the water. He was so tired. If he rested for just a few minutes, maybe he could summon the strength to break loose and fight his way past the dogs.

  “Stay there,” she said.

  The irony made him smile. Where did she think he was going? The black humor brought a chuckle from deep in his gut. He slumped forward into the shallow water and drifted into oblivion.

  Minutes or hours later—he had no way of knowing which—pain knifed through his bad arm. He gasped and tried to open his eyes.

  “Get up!” the woman ordered. “I can’t carry you.” She struck him sharply across the face. “Get on your feet and walk!”

  “Go to hell.”

  The palm of her hand cracked across his cheek again, and he staggered to his feet.

  “That’s it. You can do it. A little more,” she urged, tugging at his good arm.

  His left foot slipped, and she couldn’t hold his weight. He sprawled face down in the mud, and his wounded arm felt as though it were on fire. He spat out a mouthful of dirt and tried to bite back a scream of agony.

  The hurting became a hell of jumbled sounds and pain. Once Chance fancied he felt himself being dragged over the ground. He smelled the dogs, and a woman’s newly washed hair.

  Dark … it was dark hair, he remembered. Dark brown with a hint of chestnut where the sunlight sparkled on it.

  And then he sank into a cushion of black forgetfulness where the only intrusion was the occasional bark of a dog and the blessed taste of freshwater in his parched mouth.

  Chapter 2

  Chance opened his eyes and looked around the semi-darkened room. He lay on a daybed in a kitchen. The only light came from an oil lamp hanging over the table and a glow from the belly of the woodstove. Near the doorway, in the shadows, he could see the outline of a woman sitting in a rocking chair.

  He felt awful.

  The wound in his arm throbbed, and his head was still pounding. When he tried to rise off the pillow, he was shocked at his own weakness.

  Worse, he needed to relieve himself. The dull ache in his belly would not be denied, and he hadn’t wet his pants since he was three years old. “Help me,” he said hoarsely.

  The woman rose from the chair and padded quietly toward him. “Are you thirsty?” Almond-shaped eyes watched him fiercely, and he suspected she would shoot him if he made a wrong move.

  As if he could. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and reminded himself that she wasn’t pointing a gun at him at the moment.

  “I’ve need … need of the necessary.” No gentleman should ever mention such a condition to a lady, but he was past that. How much greater his shame if he were to soil her blankets?

  “You’ve not the strength to stand. I’ll bring you a chamber pot.”

  A rumbling growl rose from the darkness beyond the stove.

  “Quiet,” the woman commanded. She didn’t raise her voice, but the dog lay back down.

  “I don’t want a pot,” Chance protested. “I need to go out to your—”

  “If you were well enough to walk, you’d run.” She laid a palm on his forehead, and her touch was strangely gentle despite her work-worn hand. “Your fever is rising again,” she said. “It’s no wonder you need to pass water. You’ve drunk half my well dry.”

  Tongue lolling, the rust-and-white collie he had seen at the creek came to stand at her side. She patted the animal. “It’s all right, Lady. Stay.”

  The woman left the room and returned minutes later carrying a covered chamber pot. “Use this. I’ll empty it for you, but I’ll not assist you in filling it.”

  Chance held back an oath as he fumbled with the china container. “Will you have the decency to leave me in private?”

  She went out without replying. The collie followed her, but the ominous shadow beyond the stove remained. Chance fancied he could hear the black mastiff breathing. He knew the creature was watching him, and he knew the dog would attack at the slightest provocation.

  Chance struggled to complete his task without soaking himself and the bed. His one arm was useless, his good hand as weak as an infant’s. The effort left him exhausted, but at least the pressure on his bladder had eased.

  The woman came back and covered the pot with a towel. Embarrassed, he turned his face to the wall as she carried it away.

  Time passed. He slept fitfully. The night hours slipped away, broken only by her hand on his forehead or the taste of water on his lips. Dawn broke through the kitchen window, streaking the floor with rays of pale sunlight, and the woman was still with him.

  She rose from the rocker and went to the lamp. He heard a slight puff, and the flame extinguished. “Are you awake?” she asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “Your arm is very bad.”

  He bit his lower lip.

  “It may mean your life.”

  “Where … where are the soldiers? Did your … your husband go for them?”

  “No.”

  Chance swallowed. He would not allow himself to hope. “If you’d let me rest here, I—”

  “I’ve never seen a wound that bad that didn’t kill the patient.”

  He made a sound of derision. “You’ve seen a lot of bullet wounds?”

  “No. I haven’t.” She went to the woodstove and used a mitt to pick up an iron lifter. Deliberately she raised one of the round lids and pushed a short length of kindling into the firebox.

  “I’d rather die than lose my arm.”

  “You may get your wish, Reb.” She eased the lid back in place and returned the handle to its resting spot on a hook beside the stove.

  “I have a name. It’s William Chancellor. My friends call me Chance.”

  She pumped water and washed her hands thoroughly with soap, then dried them on a towel. “I’m not your friend. It’s my duty to shoot you or turn you over to the authorities.”

  “If I could just talk to your husband,” he stalled.

  The room was becoming lighter now, and he could see that she was tired. She wasn’t as young as he’d first thought, maybe mid-twenties. Her oval face was handsome rather than pretty and was dominated by high cheekbones and huge brown, expressive eyes framed in thick, dark lashes. Her lips were well shaped, the lower slightly fuller than the top, and she possessed a nose too strong for real beauty. She was tall for a woman, and she carried herself with a proud grace despite her advanced pregnancy.

  “I appreciate what you’ve done for me, ma’am,” he managed, “but I—”

  “I’ve done no more than I’d do for a hurt animal,” she said. “Don’t make more of my tending you than it is. And you can stop trying to butter me up. I’m not one of your fancy Virginia belles. I’m plain Rachel Irons, Mrs. Rachel Irons.”

  “Has your husband gone to war?” Each word was an effort. He could feel the sickness in his arm pulling him down into unconsciousness, but he fought it.

  Common sense told him that the soldiers should have been here to arrest him by
now. If they weren’t here, then perhaps she didn’t mean to report him. And if the soldiers didn’t come, then he might still make it south to freedom.

  “James will make short work of you when he returns,” she said. “He has no sympathy for your kind.”

  “James? Your husband?” Chance knotted his good hand into a fist and concentrated on what he was saying. “Will he be back soon?”

  “Soon enough.” She took a cup from the table and poured hot water from a kettle into it. A strong scent of wormwood filled the kitchen. “Drink this tea,” she said. “It may help with your fever, but I doubt it. My father would have had that arm off. He was a physician.”

  “Was?”

  “He’s dead. He caught cholera from a patient and died several years ago.”

  “But you’re trained as a nurse?”

  She pursed her lips. “Some women would take that as an insult, Reb.”

  “Chance,” he corrected her.

  “Most have a poor opinion of the females that follow troops into battle and make free with the bodies of strange men. But, yes, I have assisted my father. I’ve delivered babies and stitched up serious injuries. When I was twelve, I helped him take the legs off a woodcutter whose limbs were crushed by a fallen tree. I’m quite capable of amputating your arm.”

  “Woman.” He struggled to keep his eyes open. “Mrs. Irons. I said I meant you no harm. But I swear, I’ll come back from hell and strangle you if you cut off my arm.”

  “It won’t be easy—not even for a ghost,” she answered. “With one hand.”

  He could have sworn he saw the hint of a smile.

  “But then, I suppose murdering a woman would come easy to your kind.”

  He bristled. “I’ve never harmed a woman.”

  “But if you were a murderer, you’d lie to me, wouldn’t you?”

  He had to get up. He had to escape from this house before the soldiers got here to take him into custody again. Instead, he lay here panting, struggling for each breath. “You can’t. I won’t let you.”

  She lifted the cup to his lips. “Drink this. We’ll see what happens.”

  He turned his face away. “For the love of God, give me time. Just let me rest a little. I came into this world with two arms and … I mean to leave with all my parts.”

  So did my James, she thought bitterly.

  Men are all alike, she wanted to say. Reb and Union. They think war’s a game. They put on shiny uniforms, march to the beat of drums, and play at being soldiers. But none of them understand that war is real, and real people break.

  Caught up in her own rush of hot anger, she left his side and went out into the dew of the early morning. She needed to breathe the clean air, free of the stench of blood and sickness.

  “Don’t be like them,” she whispered to the babe beneath her heart. “If you’re a boy, promise me you won’t be like your father and all the rest.” A single tear spilled down her cheek.

  Behind her, she heard the screen door squeak, and a warm nose pushed against her hand. Slowly Rachel sank and embraced the collie. “Caught me feeling sorry for myself, didn’t you, girl?” She pressed her face into Lady’s soft fur. After a few seconds she stood awkwardly and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.

  Wagging her tail, Lady stared at Rachel.

  “I’m all right,” she whispered, “and I guess if anybody has a right to whine, I do.”

  The War between the States had ruined her life.

  It had made her bitter enough to wish she’d never married James Irons with his devil-may-care ways. She sighed. It had never seemed to her that she’d picked James, at least not consciously.

  Since they were toddlers, she’d followed James into all sorts of mischief. He’d been forever concocting adventures, such as the time he’d turned the sheep into the Methodist camp meeting or when he’d substituted hard cider for sweet at the Sunday school picnic. And no matter what mess he got into, she’d been there, three steps behind him, trying to save him from certain disaster.

  For an instant the terrified face of twelve-year-old James Irons flashed across her mind. Another boy had dared him to cross the frozen surface of Thompson’s Mill Pond in late March. James had fallen in halfway across, and she’d pushed a beanpole out on the broken ice to save him from drowning. He’d never admitted that he was scared, and once he’d crawled onto the solid bank, he’d stripped off his clothes and run home stark naked and laughing.

  “You had your playing at war games, James Irons,” she whispered bitterly, “and just like when we were kids, you’ve left me to pay the piper.” Only this time she couldn’t forgive him. Her love for James, like her marriage, was as cold as yesterday’s ashes.

  She wasn’t about to admit defeat. Her will was strong enough to do anything—it was her body that couldn’t rise to the occasion. James and his family be damned. Providence had dropped a man into her lap, and it was up to her to use him to her advantage.

  But at what cost? The man in her kitchen was her enemy. Giving him aid was more dangerous than anything she’d done in her life. Continuing to help him could cost her everything she’d worked for … everything she had to give her coming child.

  Chancellor was badly injured, maybe even dying. He could lose that arm as easily as not. But if she could heal him … if she could convince him that not turning him in to the authorities would be worth his labor … Even a one-armed man would be a better farm worker than none at all.

  Could she keep a Confederate soldier here against his will? Did she even want to try?

  A crash of breaking crockery from the house tore Rachel from her reverie. “What happened?” she demanded as she threw open the kitchen door. Chancellor lay sprawled face down, bleeding on her rag rug. Shards of a shattered soup bowl littered the floor. “What have you done?” she cried as she went to his side and knelt by his head.

  Chance groaned. “Not much of an escape plan, was it?”

  “Has the fever addled your mind?” She took hold of his good arm and tugged. “You’ll have to help me. I can’t lift you back into bed by myself.”

  Sweat beaded on his ashen face.

  In spite of her resolve not to, Rachel felt a rush of sympathy for him. He must be in terrible pain.

  “You’ve brought this on yourself,” she admonished, as much for her benefit as his. “You should have stayed on Pea Patch Island.”

  “Have you been there?” His fingers tightened on her wrist.

  She pulled away, shaken by the haunted look in his eyes and the human warmth that had leaped between them at his touch. “You’ll kill yourself.”

  “I’d be better dead than going back there,” he said.

  “Living’s always better than dying.”

  “Maybe.” His finely drawn features took on the hue of old tallow. “But Pea Patch Island isn’t living.”

  She swallowed. “I have to do something about your arm.”

  “It’s my arm, and my life.” Then his head slumped back against the rug, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

  “You’re still my patient,” she whispered as she pressed her fingertips against the pulse in his neck. He was very weak. If she didn’t stop the blood flow from his wound, he’d bleed to death here on her kitchen floor. From what she’d seen when she’d first treated his injury, he’d been hit by an old-fashioned musket ball, rather than a bone-shattering minié ball. Nevertheless, the force of the gunshot had carried cloth and debris into his flesh. She didn’t know if she could stop the bleeding, but if she succeeded, the infection could still kill him.

  Taking off the arm at the shoulder would be the surest way to save his life. Shivering, she considered her options. Helping her father amputate a man’s legs was far different from doing the operation herself. She knew how to administer chloroform, but if she was busy doing the surgery, she’d be unable to increase the amount of anesthesia if her patient began to wake up.

  “Lord help me,” she whispered. A kitchen rug was no place to perform
an operation, and she was no surgeon. She quickly calculated her immediate needs: hot water, soap, clean sheets, towels, and bandages. And she’d have to gather them quickly if she wanted to have a live patient to treat.

  She considered going for help but decided that was senseless. Chance would be dead before she could return. “It’s me or nothing.” Rising to her feet, she rushed to assemble her surgical instruments and supplies.

  Scant minutes later she pressed a chloroform cone over his mouth and nose. Chance mumbled and tried to turn his face away, but she held the sponge-filled contraption there until he sunk into a deep sleep.

  “I hope you don’t wake up,” she murmured as she reached for her father’s old scalpel. Then she turned her eyes and mind to the task at hand and forgot everything but the living flesh beneath her knife.

  Chapter 3

  Gunshots rang in Chance’s ears. He urged his own mount forward amid the frenzied charge of horses and riders galloping up the wooded slope toward the Union line.

  Minié balls flew past Chance’s head, and he strained to see through the clouds of smoke.

  Cannon boomed from the left, but his horse never missed a stride as he plunged up the steep incline. A riderless bay galloped past. Chance gripped the reins tightly in one hand, his cocked pistol in another. Branches whipped around his head, and he leaned low over Kentucky’s neck.

  The roar of muskets and the smell of powder and blood keyed his gelding to a fever pitch. Foam flew from the horse’s open mouth; his muscles were taut, and his ears laid flat against his neck. Kentucky’s long legs carried them over fallen logs and tangled underbrush.

  Suddenly, almost under the thoroughbred’s front hooves, Chance caught sight of a blue-jacketed figure lying facedown in front of them. To avoid trampling the body Chance yanked hard on the left rein. Kentucky reared and fought the bit, then pitched sideways as his left hind hoof plunged into the hollow of a rotting stump.

  The gelding struggled to maintain his balance and lost. Chance heard the crack of bone and felt Kentucky falling.

  Kentucky’s weight came down on Chance’s right leg. The horse squealed in pain, then struggled up and stood with one hind leg drawn up and his eyes rolling in fright.