The Doctor Takes a Wife (16 page)

“They're overrunning the lines, heading straight at us!”
the sentry screamed, his voice a mere thready cry against the din of booming cannon and the crack of rifles and the frantic whinnying of horses and the shouts of men grappling in mortal combat.

A trio of frightened-looking boys—surely they were only boys, even if they wore corporal's insignia on their uniforms—scrambled into the medical tent and huddled in the far corner, trembling. One of them was crying; another yelled “They're after us! We gotta hide till they go past, Doc!”

Nolan wrenched up his head from the bloody operative field beneath his hands. He was in the middle of the amputation of a shattered leg of an unfortunate captain whose limb had received a glancing impact of cannon shot just an hour ago. He didn't have the time to deal with fleeing soldiers using the medical tent as sanctuary—he had time for nothing but the man bleeding and nearly insensible from blood loss and the last of the whiskey.

The Rebel Yell, the unnerving Confederate battle
cry, ululated nearby—
too
nearby—as pounding feet thudded closer, closer…

“Turn them—you've got to turn them!” he shouted to the sentries crouched at the tent's entrance.

One of them ran toward Nolan, screaming, “We can't! They're too many of them! They—” And then a bullet struck him in the back with such force that he went down, arms flailing, against the side of a nearby cot, sending a rifle skidding toward Nolan as he collapsed in a welter of blood.

Wild-eyed men in threadbare, tattered remains of gray and butternut uniforms charged in, bayonets fixed.

Nolan lay down his scalpel as carefully as his shaking hands allowed. “Get out! This is a medical tent! By all the laws of war and decency, you have no right to be here, interfering while we're trying to care for the wounded!” Nolan thought the unkempt fellow at the head of the pack would surely raise his rifle and silence him with a single shot, but the latter paused only long enough to spit in contempt.

“We saw them yella belly Yanks runnin' in here, lookin' for their mamas, prob'ly!” he shouted back. “You jes' let us have them and we'll let you tend to your business!”

He couldn't let them shoot at the boys where they crouched, not only for their sake but also for the sake of the wounded men lying on pallets and on the bare ground inside and outside, awaiting their turns for surgery. Flying bullets were no respecters of canvas barriers. Grabbing for the rifle the sentry had dropped, he raised it and shot the man, but too late to prevent
the invader's round from striking one of the huddled corporals. The boy screamed; the rebel fell in a heap in the aisle between the operating tables.

Sentries and Yankees whose wounds were not too disabling ran in now, and used their rifles as clubs and fired their pistols at the rebels. The yells of the combatants rose to a cacophonous din as the air grew thick with smoke and the bitter smell of gunfire.

And still the surviving rebels kept shooting, and many of the previously wounded died like lambs in a slaughterhouse.

A red mist of rage swam in front of Nolan's eyes. Not pausing to reload, he tightened his grip on the fallen rebel's rifle and with a roar of fury, charged the rest of the attackers with the bayonet, skewering one man, then yanking the blade free to go after another.

It took only moments to kill the rest of the invaders, but as Nolan trudged back to the operating table, heart pounding and hands shaking, he saw that death had claimed one more victim. The soldier would not need his leg amputated after all, for he had bled to death while the battle raged around him.

Nolan awoke from the nightmare with a jerk, his entire body bathed in the cold sweat of horror. What battle had that been—Petersburg? Spotsylvania? It didn't matter; by the time the war was nearing its end, they had all blurred together.

Another man might have conceived a deeper hatred for the enemy after this attack; in Nolan it resulted in a more fervent desire to defeat death no matter which color uniform its victims wore.

As a physician, he was still fighting death, he thought
as he lay there feeling his pulse return to normal. Was his dream prophetic? Was he being warned that even though the war was over, violence committed by outlaws such as the Gray Boys still took a toll on lives?

 

“Let us rise and sing our closing hymn, ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God,'” Reverend Chadwick said with upraised palms, and the congregation stood as one. “And while we are singing it, let us remind ourselves that He is indeed a ‘mighty Fortress,' no matter what brand of troubles are besetting us, whether it be Comanches, as it was last fall, or an epidemic, as we have just been through, or the depredations of outlaws, as we are currently experiencing. Let us pray together that God will enable our acting sheriff, Nicholas Brookfield, and his posse, who are at this very moment patrolling the countryside, to apprehend the outlaws who are endangering our peace. The army has been requested to aid us. In the end the Lord will enable us to triumph over all these trials, beloved, never doubt it.”

Before opening his mouth to sing with the rest, Nolan added a silent amen to the preacher's prayer. If only he didn't feel so personally helpless in this matter. He, along with Sarah and the other “Spinster Nurses” had been instrumental in turning the tide against the influenza epidemic, but now he could only tend his patients, when they needed him, while other men rode out in pursuit of the gang.

Yes, medicine was his profession—it was up to him to help patients amid the “mortal ills prevailing” that the hymn spoke of, but in the midst of this crisis, it no longer seemed enough. His protestation to the mayor
that he could not serve as the sheriff now seemed like a mere excuse to him to stay in his office, safe and secure, while other men risked their lives.

His gaze fell on Sarah as her fingers coaxed the melody of the majestic hymn from the old piano and those around him sang the age-old words of faith. Just to think that this lovely, talented lady loved him gave him a thrill each time he looked at her. He wanted to set a date for their wedding, to plan their future, yet there was no peace while these outlaws, led by one who had once been the center of Sarah's life, preyed on the people of Simpson Creek.

After church, they took a picnic lunch across Simpson Creek, and sure enough, they found the first bluebonnets peeking up in their striking blue, white-topped glory from the tender new grass in the meadow where he had so recently asked Sarah to be his wife. They reminded him of the bigger lupines he had seen in Maine, but these were more vivid, more
brave
somehow, blooming before the calendar had officially decreed spring.

“Sarah, during church I was thinking—”

Once again they were interrupted by the sounds of approaching horsemen, and both of them went still, only to relax when they recognized the returning posse. But all was not well; Nick cradled in his arms Pat Donovan, the deputy sheriff. Donovan was unconscious, his face pallid, his trousers and the lower part of his coat saturated in blood.

“We ambushed them by Barnett Springs—almost had them, too, but they shot Pat's horse out from under him and then shot Pat in the thigh,” Nick called, even
as Sarah and Nolan rushed forward. “He's lost a lot of blood…passed out on the way back…”

“Get him to my office,” Nolan shouted, gesturing in that direction, as he and Sarah ran for the buggy. His heart sank, for he knew the man was already doomed, but he had to try.

Thank You, Lord, for this dauntless woman.
Sarah didn't have to be asked to help him. Once they ran into his office, she just rolled up the sleeves of her Sunday-best dress, threw on the heavy canvas apron he tossed her and began scrubbing her hands and arms with soap before rinsing them in carbolic.

Half an hour later, Sarah stared at Nolan from the other side of his exam table, her eyes wide with wordless grief as Nolan pulled a sheet over the deputy's face.

“He lost too much blood before he got here,” Nolan muttered dully, wiping his hands on a towel. He wasn't sure if he spoke aloud or not. “If I'd been with them, maybe I could have saved him….”

“Nolan, you mustn't blame yourself,” Sarah said gently, shrugging off her crimson-stained apron and coming around the table to take him in her arms, heedless of the tears that bathed her cheeks. “You did all you could….”

“I have to do more.” He hugged her for a moment, then loosed her and pushed open the office door where Nick and the rest of the men waited.

“I couldn't save him,” he announced. Some of the men stared at him, others dropped their gazes to their boots. “Nick, I want to take his place, till this is over. Swear me in.”

“Nolan, no!” Sarah cried.

“Nolan—Dr. Walker—that's not necessary,” Nick began. “The town needs a doctor, and only you can do that.”

“I might have saved Donovan if I'd been along,” Nolan said. “If I'd been there to staunch the bleeding, apply a tourniquet… No, my mind's made up, Brookfield,” he added as Nick opened his mouth again. “You're a rancher serving as a lawman, I'm a doctor and I can help you. I can shoot. My buggy horse is trained to the saddle, too. I'll pack the medical supplies that might be useful in my saddlebags.”

He walked Sarah home after that, Donovan's tin star pinned to his coat.

“Nolan, I wish you wouldn't do this.” Sarah's voice was choked with unspent tears. “I don't know what I'd do if I lost you….”

“I'll be all right. Don't you see, I have to do this, sweetheart,” he said, his arm around her waist as they walked toward the cottage. “Doesn't the Bible say there's a time for war and a time to heal? Right now I have to be willing to fight so I can go back to being a healer, and we can go on with our lives in peace. It's not the first time I've had to put my scalpel down and pick up a gun,” he added, and told her about the day he'd done so in the medical tent.

She was wide-eyed when he finished. “Dear me. And yet the man you tried so hard to save, Jeffrey Beaumont, was a rebel.”

“I had nightmares for months about the face of the man I had to shoot,” he told her, not mentioning the fact that the nightmare had come again last night. “I
think that's why I was so determined to save Jeff, to atone for it, even though I'd done what was necessary to save the others.”

They had reached the cottage. “You
will
be careful?” she begged, worry creasing her lovely brow.

He nodded, and pulled her into his arms again, kissing her tenderly. “Of course.” Then he had another thought. “Perhaps I should teach you to shoot, as well? I'll be away some with the posse—I don't like the idea of leaving you defenseless in case Holt takes a notion of trying to ‘persuade' you to come with him again.”

She shook her head. “It's not necessary, Nolan. Papa made sure both of us girls learned how to shoot a pistol in case we met up with a rattlesnake or something on the ranch. I have a derringer in the cottage—Milly made sure I brought it, just in case.”

“Then promise me you'll keep it handy.”

P
rissy flushed pink with pleasure as Major McConley, riding at the head of a score of cavalry soldiers, tipped his cap at them as he trotted past. She rewarded him with a flirtatious smile.

“I'm so glad I wore my new bonnet,” she said. “The major has such a cute dimple when he smiles, doesn't he? Sarah, do you suppose he's a bachelor?” Her gaze followed the disappearing cavalry detachment. “Perhaps we should issue an invitation to him—and the others in his regiment who are unmarried too, of course—to a Simpson Creek Spinsters' Club event. I might like to be a major's wife, I think.”

Sarah thought it would be a long time until they'd be able to plan any more Spinsters' Club parties, but she had to smile at her friend's obvious attempt to distract her from her anxiety about Nolan. Only this morning the bell had tolled at the church—the signal for the posse to assemble there. Nolan had ridden eastward with Nick and the rest to investigate a report that the outlaws had been sighted camping on the banks of the Colorado River.

“Prissy Gilmore, living in a stockade, miles from the nearest stores?” Sarah teased. “I can't imagine it.”

“You think I'm just a frivolous flibbertigibbet, don't you? I'll have you know I would make a very good soldier's wife. I'd organize tea parties for the wives, regimental balls… And just imagine the wedding—with his men crossing swords to form an arch over us as we left the church.” She sighed dreamily. “But since you'll obviously be married before I will—to your handsome, brave doctor/deputy—perhaps we should ride out to see Milly. She's probably bored to tears with Nick away. I'm sure she'd help you design a wedding dress fit for a princess, then sew it for you.”

“I'd love to go see her—I don't like her being out on that ranch without her husband there, even though the hands are sticking close to the house—but you know Nolan advised us not to ride out of town without him along until they've caught Jes—I mean the rustlers.” She winced inwardly as she imagined the man she had once loved dying in a hail of bullets, or being marched up a gallows to be hanged.

“Well, we can at least look at the fabrics in the mercantile, and peruse their latest copy of Godey's,” Prissy said.

Sarah gave in with a nod. Maybe it would keep herself from fretting about Nolan. She needed another sack of flour and a couple pounds of sugar, anyway, or she wouldn't be able to bake tomorrow.

 

“My, look at the time,” Prissy exclaimed as they left the mercantile, peering at the delicate gold watch pin that had been her mother's. “Four o'clock already.
I had no idea it was getting so late, but didn't we have fun?”

Sarah had to admit poring over fashion designs and bolts of fabrics had been a pleasurable way to pass the afternoon. She'd found an exquisite ivory silk broche and Mrs. Patterson had agreed to put it in the back room for her until she could show it to Milly. And Prissy had gone ahead and bought a dress length of hussar blue cotton which she planned to pay Milly to sew into a party dress for when they invited the bachelors of the Fourth Cavalry to a Spinsters' party, saying, “Won't it look gorgeous against the darker blue of the major's dress uniform?”

Soon it would be time to go up to the big house for supper with Prissy's father, and with any luck Nolan might return to town in time to join her there. She hoped he would bring good news at last.

Crossing the street and entering through the massive gates to the Gilmore grounds, they walked to their cottage. Once inside, Sarah went into the kitchen with the staples she'd bought, while Prissy walked down the hall to her room to put her bonnet back in its hatbox.

Perhaps tomorrow she'd try the new recipe Caroline Wallace had given her for Washington pie. She liked to experiment with new things, and it was probably a wise idea to vary the fare she sold at the hotel and mercantile. It wasn't long before she would be able to get fresh peaches, and—

“Sarah, could you come here please? Quickly?” Prissy called from her room. Her voice sounded strained, unnatural, but Sarah only smiled, for it was the same tone she'd used before when she'd been
startled by a mouse scurrying across the room to disappear into a crack in the wall.

“I'll be right there,” Sarah called, wanting to finish pouring the five pounds of flour she'd bought into a canister before she went to console Prissy, who was no doubt standing on her bed. Prissy was deathly scared of mice. Maybe it would be a good idea to get a cat, she thought. It might be fun to get a kitten and teach it to chase after a length of yarn—

Sarah heard the door open, and footsteps coming down the short hallway between the two bedrooms. “Sarah…” Prissy called again, her voice quavery.

Prissy must have managed to get between the door and the mouse.

“I'll get the broom and shoo it outside,” Sarah said without turning around, as the now-empty bag of flour sagged in her hand. “You know, we ought to get a cat.” She was determined to convey calmness in the face of Prissy's tendency to hysteria around rodents. “Mrs. Detwiler's cat is always having kittens. What would you like, a calico one, or maybe a sweet little black one with white boots—”

“I've always been partial to gray tigers, myself.” The voice was female, but it was not Prissy's.

Sarah whirled and looked into the ruthless eyes of Ada Spencer, and then into the bore of the pistol the woman had leveled at her. In front of Ada was Prissy, her blue eyes enormous in a face that was leached of all color, holding her hands in the air, and as Ada pushed her forward, Sarah could see she had the barrel of another pistol poking between her friend's shoulders.

“What are you doing here, Ada?” Sarah's voice
sounded strange in her own ears, as if it belonged to someone else, someone far calmer than she felt, someone whose knees felt more substantial than a half-baked cake.
Dear God, help us!

“Jesse wants you taken to him, so I've come to accomplish it,” she said, as if it should be perfectly obvious and logical. “I'm the only one who can do it. He and his men can hardly storm into town after you—they'd stick out like sore thumbs. That's why they let themselves be seen by some yahoos over on the Colorado River so the sheriff and his men would go riding after them—leaving you here in town alone.”

If only I'd put the derringer in the reticule sitting just inches away on the table, as I'd promised Nolan that I would.

Even so, the idea of going anywhere with this madwoman was ridiculous, and ignited her ire. “I'm not going,” Sarah told her. “I don't love him anymore.”

“You'll go if you want Prissy to live,” Ada said, a mad glint in her eyes told Sarah that she would be perfectly willing to pull the trigger of the gun pressed into Prissy's back.

“Sarah…” Prissy shook like a leaf in a gale, and Sarah thought she may faint. If she did, Sarah might be able to use the element of surprise if she acted fast—or it might give Ada an even greater advantage. She would have two pistols to aim at Sarah, and no Prissy to get in the way.
Lord, show me what to do.

Ada was armed, and not in her right mind. Sarah realized she would have to rein in her temper, and try to reason with a deranged woman.

“Why would you want to do that, Ada? I know you
love Jesse, so I would think you wouldn't want a rival for his affections.” If she could distract Ada enough, perhaps she could overpower her before Ada could get a shot off. But she'd be risking both her life and Prissy's.

The woman's laugh was brittle as the sheerest glass. “Oh, you won't be a rival. As if you could be! No, Jesse has other plans for you. And if I do this, Jesse's going to marry me. He said so. He'll buy me a beautiful ring and a fancy dress….” She recited the outlaw's promises in a strange singsong that sent chills down Sarah's back. It was like a child reciting a nursery rhyme.

“'Other plans?'” Sarah echoed. “What other plans?”

“We're taking a little trip with you, going up on the Staked Plains where we'll sell you to the Comanches, along with the cattle the boys've gathered. Some Comanche brave will pay a fine price for you, Miss Yellowhair.” She laughed, a laugh that teetered on the edge of maniacal. “Or maybe you'll go to the Comancheros—maybe they could find a use for you. Meanwhile, of course, Jesse's men will…get to know you better.” Again, that brittle laugh.

The idea of any of the Gray Boys touching her, then being taken north and sold as a slave to a brutal Indian or the Mexican traders that sold firearms to them paralyzed Sarah, but she couldn't give in to that fear.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear….

“But why would he do that?” Sarah asked, if motivated by curiosity alone. “He loved me once, but now he has
you
, Ada. He doesn't need me. Why can't he leave me in peace and go off with you?”

“You have to pay, Jesse says.” Again, that eerie singsong tone. “He came back for you, and you broke his heart. I'm mending it, of course, in my own sweet way, but you have to pay. No one gets away with breaking my Jesse's heart.” Her grip tightened on the pistol.

“He doesn't have a heart anymore,” Sarah said. “He lost it somewhere in the war.” She tried another tack. “Why would you want a man like that, Ada? What if he gets tired of you and sells
you
to the Comanches?”

“You stop talking like that!” Ada cried, her voice shrill. The pistol—the one that wasn't pressed into Prissy's back, rose again and pointed at Sarah's chest. “Jesse wouldn't do that. He
loves
me! Now stop wasting time. We have to leave. You two kept me waiting—kept Jesse waiting—too long as it is. I thought you'd never come back here, once the posse left town. We have to go.”

Where was Nolan? What time was it? Was it late enough that the posse was even now riding back into town? Was there a chance Nolan would come here, looking for her, and save her from Ada? She dared not look at the clock, but she knew that if she and Prissy didn't show up at the big house for dinner, eventually Mayor Gilmore would send Flora or Antonio to check on them.

Could she stare over Ada's shoulder and convincingly say, “Hello, Nolan, I'm so glad you're here,” as if Nolan had returned and sneaked silently into the cottage? Would Ada turn around, and would she be able to overcome the crazed woman before Ada could fire either of the pistols?

It would be taking a chance with Prissy's life. And
she couldn't do that. She couldn't live with the idea that she had gotten Prissy killed.

“If you want your silly friend to live, you better come with me right now,” Ada said, waving the pistol aimed at Sarah. “I'll shoot her—it doesn't matter to me.”

“But the sound of the shot will make the Gilmore servants come running, Ada,” Sarah said reasonably. “You don't want that.”

“But she'd still be dead. Maybe you, too.”

There was no help for it. She had to walk out of the cottage with Ada, and hope Nolan would intervene before she was in Jesse's clutches.

“All right, Ada, I'll walk out of here with you, and Prissy won't tell anyone, will you, Prissy?”

Clearly mindless with fear, Prissy shook her head.

“But someone will see us,” Sarah went on. “It's getting late, and the posse's due back in town any minute now. Even if I leave with you, and Prissy does nothing to stop you, someone will see us walking out of here together. The whole town knows you've been riding with the outlaws, Ada. They're not going to stand by and let you take me anywhere.”

“The posse isn't coming back,” Ada said. “The boys set up an ambush, and they're probably all dead. Your precious Yankee doctor isn't coming to save you.”

Nolan, dead? No, it couldn't be. Surely she'd know it, in her heart, if he'd been killed. But even if the outlaws hadn't succeeded in murdering Nolan, Nick and the others, she couldn't count on them coming back in time to keep Ada from taking her from Simpson Creek, taking her to Jesse.

“All right, then, Ada, what's your plan?” Sarah said, determined not to give in to panic and grief. Even if she left with Ada, Prissy would be left to tell Nolan and the others that Ada had kidnapped her at gunpoint, with the intention of taking her to Jesse and the Gray Boys, to be transported north to the Staked Plains, the Comanche stronghold.

As if she had been able to read minds, Ada killed that hope by raising the pistol she'd held against Prissy's back and striking Prissy viciously over the top of her head—all the while keeping the other pistol trained on Sarah.

Prissy went down without a cry, as limply as the sack of flour Sarah had emptied only a few minutes before. Sarah stared in horror as a red stain spread through Prissy's strawberry-blond hair.

“You've killed her!”

“Shut up. I just knocked out the silly fool, that's all.”

“But she's bleeding—”

Ada shrugged. “If she dies, what do I care? She's nothing but a spoiled, pampered daughter of a rich man. She's always had everything she ever wanted—what did I have? Her mother even gave me some of her cast-off clothes, did you know that?”

Sarah shook her head numbly.

“But we're wasting time,” Ada snapped. “I'm going to put on her bonnet and coat—and you're not going to do anything or I'll shoot her and make double sure she's dead, understand? No one will look twice at Sarah
and Prissy, strolling down the road that runs south of town right between the Gilmore land and the saloon. Jesse's waiting for us just outside of town.”