by Julianne Lee
But the minie ball wasn’t yet visible. A layer of red flesh bulged, round but intact, inside the cut. Quickly, Shelby again squeezed the lump between her fingers and cut before Lucas could tense for it. The ball popped out and landed on the rug. Lucas erupted in a cry of pain and relief and turned to sit straight again, gasping and gawking, wide-eyed at the ball that had emerged from him.
There was little blood, for the tourniquet was still tight. Shelby let go of the leg, then released the belt and turned back the sword just enough to let some flow into the leg once more. The exit wound still didn’t bleed much, and it seemed the entrance wound bled less freely than it had. Both leg and foot pinked up. Tears of relief welled, and she let them come as she restored the tourniquet.
Lucas’s chest heaved and his head lay back on the bed as he seemed to withdraw into himself. His eyes squeezed shut, and he looked like he wanted to sleep.
She sat back against the bed beside him, trembling in every joint. She wanted to sleep, too. What she wanted more than anything was to crawl into a soft, warm bed with her husband and slip into blissful forgetfulness, far away from the horror of what she’d witnessed today. One sob shook her, but that was all. Just one, and a realization stopped her from breaking down entirely.
Lucas needed her. Until he recovered, he would need her to help him stay alive. In that moment she became fully aware, as if she’d suddenly caught up with herself. She looked around the cabin, and it felt like she’d not been entirely conscious of the place until now. Things came into focus, and details came to her attention.
It was tiny. The entire building would not even fill their bedroom in the house back in Hendersonville. The hearth was roomy enough, though, had a good, solid iron hook, and the small cauldron hung on it seemed hardly used. A chest of drawers stood under the single window, and a table in the corner by the fireplace, opposite the bed. Now what? She felt of the water in the cauldron, and found it still only lukewarm. She struggled to her feet and found a wooden bowl under the table upside-down. She picked it up, then stood and looked around the room again.
There was some clothing on the floor in the corner, and she picked it up to shake it out for bugs. A calico shirt, three socks, and a gingham table cloth. A sack on the table proved to contain a quantity of corn meal, which lightened her heart considerably. They wouldn’t go hungry tonight, at least. The people who had fled this place had also left a salt box and a broken griddle. There were other items lying around on the floor, and she straightened up the room then swept it. Folks always tracked in so much dirt everywhere, it seemed floors were eternally in need of sweeping.
By the time she was finished, the water in the cauldron was steaming. She took off her shirt, from which she’d already torn the tail, and ripped off one of the sleeves to use for a rag, the seam popping low and soft. Threadbare. She wetted and wrung it, then knelt beside her patient.
“Lucas,” she said softly. “Lucas Robert.”
His eyes opened and he looked at her. He hadn’t been sleeping, but only drifting. She laid the rag against his filthy, blood-spattered face, and began to clean him. He raised his hand as if to do it himself, but then as easily changed his mind and let her be. His face, his neck she washed, then she opened his filthy, gray tunic to shove it from his shoulders and to the floor under the bed. She helped him off with his shirt and undershirt, and continued wiping him with the rag. More water from the cauldron, she wrung out the rag, and continued down his chest to his belly. His upper arms appeared to have not been washed in weeks, and she wondered when was the last time he’d had the tunic off. His hands were in better shape, but not much. Though his fingernails were trimmed, the grime beneath them was hopeless. He watched her in silence as she worked, his indigo eyes soft and nearly black in the flickering firelight. More warm water from the cauldron, and she loosened his tourniquet just enough to slip his torn pants leg from under it.
The bleeding slowed considerably. Shelby nearly wept with relief. She gently slipped off his trousers and drawers, then restored the tourniquet. Blood was everywhere here. The rag needed frequent rinsing, and she was glad the inside of the cauldron was too dark to see the color of the water now. Both boots off, she washed his feet and then was done.
“I don’t know whether to move you again or not.” She stood and gazed down at him. “You might start bleeding again.”
“I think the leg is broke. I think the ball cracked the bone. I could end up just sitting here and not moving till about Christmastime.” He looked like he could sleep that long. “By then my numb ass would have the gangrene, and then where would we be?” He smiled, a pretty weak joke.
Looking at the trajectory between the entrance wound and the exit, she thought he might be right that the leg was broken. Shifting bone splinters could get the wound bleeding again, if it was. Or maybe not. Anatomy was as much a mystery to her as to the physician she’d avoided, and she had no clue how much damage had been done in there. Another wave of panic over her medical incompetence came over her, and she fought it back. Should she splint the leg? But what if it made the artery bleed again? What would happen to the leg if she didn’t splint it? Which was the higher risk, bleeding or a broken bone?
She decided the leg had to be splinted. It was still straight, and if she splinted it the bone might stay that way without traction. But what to splint it with? She went to poke through the stack of firewood outside, but none of it was straight enough to suit her. Same with the sticks she could find lying nearby. So she went back inside and looked around at the furniture. Table. Chest. Trunk. Bed.
Bed slats. “Here. Sit up.” She had him lean away from the bedside, then yanked the mattress from the frame, along with its blankets, and laid them out on the floor before the hearth. She turned the bed up on its side against the wall and knocked one of the slats from the bottom. That she broke in half, and then had two good splints. She adjusted the sword alongside his leg so she could lay the wood pieces against his thigh where they would do some good, then tore the remainder of her shirt for strips to secure them.
Then, with her to steady his leg, Lucas shifted over to the mattress and lay down. She covered him with a blanket and tucked it in under the mattress. He lay back and his eyes drooped closed once more.
It was astonishing how good it felt to see him clean, resting, and healing, and she began to relax. Exhaustion came over her in a flood. As she took the rag again to clean herself, she began to shake, her fingers trembling so that she had to hug herself until the tremor had passed. Once again she fought back the terror, and calmed herself. Warm by the fire, she dropped her remaining clothes to the floor and scrubbed down. It was strangely soothing, particularly to cleanse herself of Lucas’s blood. There was so much of it. It had been weeks since she’d bathed beyond hand washing, and the warm water was bolstering. Eyes still shut, Lucas murmured, “Get you something to eat. There’s some hardtack biscuit in my pack.”
The way her stomach felt like a tight, trembling knot, food sounded like an incredibly bad idea. But she knew they both needed to eat. There had been nothing since breakfast, and here it was past dark. They shared the army ration he carried, the biscuit soaked in water first to make it edible, then she loosened the tourniquet again to let blood flow to his foot. But finally exhaustion won, and she suddenly felt as if she couldn’t move any more. More than anything she wanted to crawl into bed with Lucas and sleep there. But, unwilling to chance making the wound bleed again, she instead wrapped herself in a blanket and lay on the floor by the fire, with only her head on the corn husk mattress. As the embers fell into themselves and tossed little sparks into the air, she drifted off to sleep with Lucas’s rough fingers idly stroking her forehead.
During the night, she awoke frequently to loosen the tourniquet, hoping it was every couple of hours but with no way of knowing how long she was sleeping. She awoke for the last time at dawn. The morning was chilly. Shelby felt sore and sick, every joint in her body feeling as if it had come undone. She struggle
d to her knees and found Lucas deeply asleep. His chest barely moved under the blanket, and his face was a sickly white. But he was still alive. As long as he was alive, there was hope.
The shirt she’d worn from Hendersonville was history, and so she dressed in the shirt she’d found on the floor. A quick visit to the outhouse, then she set to work. First bringing fresh water up from the creek, she scrubbed clean the iron griddle left behind by the cabin’s previous occupants. Lucas had a bit of bacon in his pack, so she fried it up and saved off the grease. Then she mixed up the corn meal with it for pones and fried them on the griddle. The smell woke Lucas. He lifted his head, but let it drop back to the mattress.
“Dang,” he muttered. “I was dreaming I was home.” He sounded so lost, so far away from the home he yearned for, Shelby’s heart broke.
But she swallowed the sadness, and bent to check the tourniquet to find the bleeding had stopped. With a sigh of relief, she slipped the sword from it and set the weapon aside. Then she turned to the pan on the fire.
“Here. Eat, you’ll feel better.”
She came to sit by him with a wooden bowl, and they shared hot bacon and cornbread for breakfast. Lucas wasn’t very talkative, still white of face and wan around the eyes. After eating, he sagged back onto the mattress to sleep again.
The sack of corn meal wouldn’t last them very long. Not more than a week, even used sparingly. They would have to move on soon. It was dangerous there besides, being in the wake of an army she knew would be beaten back this way before long. They would have to pick up and flee the instant Lucas was healed enough to travel, and she hoped they could get clear of the area quickly enough. But it would be several days before she would even think of putting Lucas on that horse again, so she busied herself during the hours Lucas slept, and kept an ear out for sounds of approaching armies.
She boiled all their clothing in the cauldron, then hung it from the porch rail to dry. Even the pieces of Lucas’s trousers, for they were the only ones he had. Once the clothes were clean and dry, she climbed back into her trousers, undershirt, and the found shirt. Lucas had a needle and some thread in his pack for mending, so she sewed the trouser leg back onto his uniform before folding it and tucking it away in his pack until he would need it.
No more blood. All of it had been washed away. No more dark spots behind ears, no more grimy places left to remind them of the war raging in the world outside. Though she could see smoke rising from the ridge off in the distance, Shelby avoided the sight and stayed inside the cabin as much as she could. Over the next days she picked herself and Lucas clean of livestock and scrubbed the floor and walls of their shelter. Before long, she began to feel like a person again, strong enough to make the trip home. As soon as Lucas was strong enough to sit the horse they would go, and she hoped the corn meal would last them long enough.
Luck was with them, and on a trip to the creek for water Shelby found a chicken nest. There were eggs to eat now, and greens from down by the creek, and some apples that apparently hadn’t been quite ripe yet when the armies came through the previous week. They wouldn’t be driven out by hunger now. Not soon, anyway. After a week of recovery Lucas was now more alert and showing signs of wanting to get up and move around. His fingers were forever wanting to poke and scratch at his wounds.
“Don’t, you’ll make it bleed again.” Standing at the table with a bowl of apples in her hand, she bent to arrest his probing hand.
“No, I won’t.” Sitting up on the mattress, the blanket puddling around his waist, he reached for his leg again. She slapped the hand away. “Ow. It itches.” His hand returned to probe beneath his splint.
“I said, don’t scratch it. You scratch it, you’ll make it bleed again, and then you’ll die and then where will I be? I’ll have to go home without you.”
“You’ll have to go home without me in any case.”
She stopped cold, the bowl held tight between her hands. Her voice went dead flat. “You’re coming home.”
He made an attempt at sounding firm, but faltered and he leaned back to prop himself on his hands. “I’ve got to return to my unit.” She could hear his resolve was not what it had once been. His wound had taken that much out of him. But she knew persistence was stronger in him than in other men. Lucas was not one to give anything up easily, and she was afraid he would return to his unit out of pure, mulish stubbornness. The same way he’d convinced her to marry him.
Unable to look at him, she stared into the bowl. “You’re wounded. You’re wounded badly enough, nobody could expect you to continue fighting.”
“When I’ve healed I’ll be well enough to walk, and so I’ll be well enough to fight.”
Panic closed in. “No.”
Now he sat up and leaned forward, not bothering to tuck the blanket behind him. “Mary Beth, I can’t desert the Army.”
“Not desertion. You were wounded. Are wounded. Everyone in your unit saw you were nearly dead. I spoke to your superior. He knows you are incapacitated for fighting and might not be back. You must resign your commission and come home. You’ve already fought hard, Lucas.” Tears crept into her voice and she couldn’t make them stop. “You deserve to go home.”
“Not so long as my country needs men to fight.”
She turned to face him, as tears and anger rose to choke her. “Your country will need, and use, every fighting man it’s got, and will still lose. It will recruit boys and old men, in vain, and it will be the most stunning waste of humanity of the century. Lucas, I can’t let you throw yourself on this grenade.” His eyes narrowed with puzzlement, but she continued, “I won’t let your life go to such waste.”
“My daddy—”
“Your brothers.” That stopped him, but she continued anyway. “Your brothers gave themselves to this lost cause. Your father is at home right now, grieving horribly for his sons who have gone to waste. For nothing. For nothing they died, and you know it.” The grief for Lucas’s brothers rose, and so did her voice. “You know the tide has turned against the Confederacy, and once the battle for Chattanooga is lost then all that will be left is for Sherman to mop up. Which, I’m telling you, he will burn everything between here and the Atlantic Ocean. Lucas, you can give your father hope for the future if you come home and see him before he dies. Let him know you will be there to raise his grandson up proper. Let him know he hasn’t lost everything he worked for—and fought for—his entire life.”
Lucas said nothing, but only stared at her for a few moments. Then he looked away, toward the fire, and his eyes glistened with tears. He tucked his blanket in behind him so he was covered to his waist. She waited for him to speak, and eventually he said, “So many men have died. I can’t accept the cause is lost.”
With a gentle sigh, she set down the bowl and came to sit by him on the mattress. She held his hand in her lap, all her fingers entwined with his. “You have no choice. The cause is not only lost, but thousands more will die before the rest of the country realizes it. All you can do is save yourself. You’ve done your duty. Nobody could ever expect more from you. See the truth before it’s too late. Please, Lucas, come home.”
He closed his eyes and a single tear squeezed from each one. Then he nodded. Shelby’s heart soared as she realized she’d cheated fate. Lucas would live, she wouldn’t be widowed, and they would have a life beyond the war. Her vision blurred, and she kissed the back of his hand. Then she wiped the tears from his cheeks and he opened his eyes to see her. There was no indication of what he was feeling. His face was blank and his eyes merely searched hers. The depth of them seemed infinite. An evening sky of endless dimension and unknowable beauty. She could fall into them and live there forever, undying.
He drew his captive hand toward him, to kiss the back of hers. Then the palm. And the other palm. Then he reached out to the buttons of her shirt.
Shelby put her hand over his. “You don’t want to open your wound again.”
A light of humor flickered in his eyes and he muttered,
“Can’t hardly tell you’re a woman any more, wearing these man’s togs.”
“There’s no dress here.”
His fingers continued down the front of the shirt. “Better take this off, then, so I’ll know you’re my wife. Same as Adam knew his, understand.”
A lonely, much-needed chuckle rose in her, but she held together the front of her shirt. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“How about letting me be the judge of what part of me hurts the worst and needs the most attention. I reckon this here ache in my short leg is nigh as bad as the broken one.” He slipped his hand up inside the undershirt to stroke her breast.
“That leg’s not so short.” A flicker passed over his eyes, as if he weren’t certain how to receive the implication she’d seen other men naked. She added, “It compares favorably to most horses I’ve seen.”
That made him laugh aloud. “How did I end up with such a wife?”
“A miracle, I think.” And she knew it was true. She leaned over to kiss him, and he reached behind under her shirt to draw her closer. It had been so long. Lucas forgot all modesty and opened his mouth to her with a freedom of passion that was new for him. His breaths broke against her cheek, heavy and quick. The low moan deep in his chest was better than just audible, and he pushed the shirt back off her shoulders.
She shrugged it off completely, then broke the kiss to pull off the undershirt and helped him unbuckle her belt. It was a simple matter to wriggle from the loose clothing, then he lay back and drew aside his blankets. But when she tried to straddle him, he grunted and shook his head. With firm hands he guided her to lie beside him, her back to him as he rolled onto his side to face her. His bad leg was on top now, and his short one found its way between hers. He raised up on one elbow, leaning over her, still on top though there was no weight on his broken leg. She adjusted for him, and he shoved into her with an urgency that brought a cry from him.