Rachel's Choice (3 page)

“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.

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.

“Easy, easy, boy.” Chance tried to rise and then gasped as his leg refused to hold his weight. Frantically he ran exploring fingers down his knee and calf.

Just a bad sprain, he told himself. But his horse hadn't come off as lightly.

Kentucky's hind leg dangled at an impossible angle. The animal's sides heaved, and sweat streaked his chest and neck. Huge, hurting brown eyes stared at Chance.

“Damn it,” Chance swore. “Damn it to hell.” His pistol lay against the trunk of a tree several yards away, and he crawled toward it. There was only one thing he could do for Kentucky now, and the thought of it sickened him worse than the agony in his own leg.

He forced his hand to hold steady as he took careful aim at the gelding's head. “A man never had a better friend,” he murmured.

Gallantly the horse pricked up his ears. He nickered, wrinkling the velvet-soft nose that had nuzzled Chance a thousand times.

I can't do this, Chance thought.

Kentucky took a hobbling step toward him and whinnied plaintively.

Chance squeezed the trigger.

The earth swayed under him as the scent of rotted leaves and sweating horseflesh evaporated. In its place he smelled lye soap and the sweet, clinging odor of opium.

“Easy.”

A woman's voice … What was a woman doing here in
the midst of a battlefield? And why were the big guns quiet?

“Chance. Open your eyes.”

Slowly, with great effort, he fought his way up from the thick morass of unconsciousness. A dream … he'd been dreaming … reliving the skirmish at Gettysburg where he'd been captured by the Yankees nearly a year ago.

As Chance's mind began to clear, pain swept over him in waves. His stomach clenched, and bile rose in his throat.

“Wake up.”

He felt something cool and damp press against his forehead. His arm throbbed with heat. His arm … Groggily he fumbled with his good hand, trying to find what hurt him so badly.

And found only space where his left arm should have been.

“No!” he screamed. His eyes snapped open and focused on the woman hovering over him.

“Easy,” she murmured. “You'll—”

He seized the collar of her dress. “What have you done to me?”

“Shhh,” she soothed, untangling his grip with more strength than he imagined a woman might possess. “Your arm is there. It's not gone. I've bandaged it tightly to your side to keep you from moving it.”

“Where? Where?”

She guided his right hand to touch the fingers of his left. “I did what I could,” she said, “but I've probably done you more harm than good. You will die if the infection spreads.”

Relieved, he sank back and closed his eyes. Immediately
images of Kentucky flashed across his mind. “My horse …”

“What horse? There's no horse here. I wish to God that there were,” she replied.

He forced open his eyes and found himself in Rachel Irons's kitchen again. “Nothing,” he answered. His eyelids were heavy; he wanted to close them, but he was afraid to. If he did, he knew he'd see Kentucky again … running, tossing his mane, and kicking up his heels.

His friend that he'd been forced to shoot … “I had a horse,” he whispered.

“Well, I had a team of horses and they're gone. Soldiers took them.” Her tone was bitter, but her touch soothed him.

He swallowed and tried to rise. “Soldiers?” It was hard to tell what was real and what was his mind playing tricks.

He closed his eyes and let the past sweep over him.

He'd lain there near Kentucky's body for a long time. The last of his platoon galloped past, and the barrages of gunfire became an occasional shot.

He propped himself up against a tree, wondering what kind of man would mourn a horse so deeply when his friends were dying at the top of that rise.

His leg continued to swell, but he was certain it wasn't broken. There was nothing to do but wait. If they'd won, some of his unit would be searching the area for their dead and wounded. If the blue-bellies had been victorious, he'd know soon enough.