Sixteen Brides Read online

  Once in the back bedroom, Ruth held back while Hettie went to where Mr. Gray lay atop crisp white sheets in a massive bed made from tree limbs someone had knocked together. He seemed to be unconscious, but he’d tossed back a considerable pile of blankets and quilts. Again, the obvious elegance was surprising. From where she stood just inside the doorway, Ruth noted wide lace trim on the pillows and heavy damask drapes at the windows across the room. The details were lost in shadows, but it appeared that Lucas Gray’s bedroom included another sitting area.

  When Hettie demanded more light, Wah Lo retreated with a promise to bring more lamps. The instant she laid her hand on the seemingly unconscious man’s forehead, he grasped her wrist. With a little gasp, Hettie said, “It’s Mrs. Raines. You sent for me, remember? I’ve asked your man to get us more light.”

  “I know who you are,” Gray said through clenched teeth. He pulled her close. “I’m keeping my leg.”

  Ruth stepped up to the bedside. And that’s when she saw the gun.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

  GALATIANS 6:10

  Will Haywood had reassured the ladies of Four Corners that at least half a dozen homesteaders would turn up to help build their soddy. “That’s just how things work out here,” he said. “The ladies have quilting bees, and the menfolk have building bees. You’ll see. You’ll be moved out of those tents and into a snug soddy before you know it.”

  Early Monday morning, Caroline and Ella hurried down to the livery to take a look at the two teams Caroline had singled out. It wasn’t a difficult choice. When one of the gray mares nudged Ella in the back and nibbled her shoulder, that was that. Laughing, Ella said, “Well, it seems this one has chosen me.” She nodded at a wagon that had been sitting in the same spot for the past two weeks and asked Mr. Ermisch about buying it.

  He shook his head. “I can’t take money for that. It’s got rotten floorboards, and the running gear needs greasing. It’s not good for much more than parts for my new wagon builder.” He hesitated. “Of course Matthew can repair it—but he’ll be busy cutting shingles for a while. I suppose I could grease it up for you and you could use it today.” He shrugged. “But mind, it needs an overhaul.”

  “You must name a price,” Ella said, but when she reached for the community purse, Ermisch waved it away. “We’ll work somethin’ out later. You can catch up with the trader at the dining hall about the mares. I’ll get the team harnessed and hitched up while you settle.” He tugged on his beard. “Now, you don’t need to say I told you this, but he’s overpriced those teams. You should be able to talk him down at least ten dollars.”

  “Not for the grays,” Caroline said. “I think the one mare’s in foal.” She blushed. “At least there’s a good chance.” She wasn’t about to expound on how she knew that. Surely Otto Ermisch realized that old stallion he’d put “out to pasture” in the corral wasn’t completely…old.

  It took a moment for Ermisch to realize how Caroline could possibly know—but then he grinned and glanced toward the corral. “You old devil, you,” he chuckled.

  Whatever Will Haywood might have said about “the way things work out here,” none of the Four Corners ladies—least of all Caroline—had anticipated the sight they beheld as they brought the grays to a stop and looked down on their building site. Half a dozen wagons and two more coming from the opposite direction. A gathering of sun-bonneted women near the supply tents, and a dozen or more men scattered all across the place, inspecting the stakes by the house, yoking oxen, and watering teams.

  Caroline joined the ladies in a collective gasp.

  “Well, ain’t that somethin’?” Sally said.

  “Linney came!” Jackson pointed toward the spot where she and her father stood waiting. “And Patch is already saddled! Can we do a lesson right away, Caroline? Can we?”

  “We’ll have to see,” Caroline said. And oh, did she see. Folks heading over to greet the ladies. Zita nearly skipping with anticipation as she made her way to the supply tent. Ella greeting and thanking people for coming. Sally clucking to the hens as if they needed reassurance as Mr. Cooper lifted their crate down from the wagon. Linney, grabbing Jackson’s hand and hauling him over to where Patch waited. And Matthew, all six feet of him, walking this way with a smile God must have designed to melt a woman’s heart.

  The farthest thing from Ella’s mind was to create a sensation. She didn’t even think about the ramifications, really. She just did what she naturally wanted to do and what she was gifted to do, which was not lingering near the supply tent pouring lemonade and coffee or sharing community gossip while the ladies sliced bread or opened jars of pickles or served up pie. Those things were part of Mama’s world, but not Ella’s. And so, after Mr. Cooper plowed the first furrow, and Will Haywood cut the curls of sod into three-foot lengths, and after Frank Darby drove his flatbed wagon up so the sod strips could be loaded and hauled to the building site, it was the most natural thing in the world for Ella to begin loading sod. The thing was, that didn’t seem natural to anyone else.

  “Now, Miz Barton,” Mr. Darby protested, “there’s no call for you to do that. You just let the boys handle it.” He took a blue kerchief out of his rear pocket and swiped the back of his neck. “You ladies got much better things to do—”

  “There’s nothing better for me,” Ella said, “than this.” She bent to lift another strip of sod and hoisted it onto the flatbed wagon.

  “Please, ma’am,” Darby pleaded. “It ain’t right.”

  “For who?” Ella said. She lifted a third strip of sod.

  “The men won’t like it, ma’am.”

  Ella put her hands on her hips. “Let’s ask them,” she said, and with that she strode toward where Jeb Cooper was plowing.

  “Mr. Cooper. Mr. Darby here thinks the men will object to my helping build my own house. Do you object, Mr. Cooper?”

  Cooper looked at Ella…the rancher…the homesite…and back to Ella.

  “Well, Mr. Cooper. Do you object?”

  “It is…unusual.”

  “I’m unusual,” Ella snapped. She thought she saw a sudden flash of amusement in the man’s blue eyes. “Well, Mr. Cooper, are you going to refuse to plow for a woman who dares to venture into a man’s world of work?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  At least he said that with conviction. “And what do you say to Mr. Darby’s objections?”

  Cooper took his hat off and swiped at his forehead. Finally, he spoke. “Well, Frank, to my mind, what a woman does or doesn’t do should be up to the woman. She should be who she is, not what others expect her to be.” He shrugged. “It’s her land. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the boss.”

  It took a minute for Ella to believe what she’d just heard. For a moment she thought perhaps Jeb Cooper was mocking her. But he met her gaze honestly, and so she merely thanked him and then bent to pick up another slab of sod.

  Frank Darby didn’t say another word about “women’s work.”

  And as the afternoon wore on, Ella decided that Jeb Cooper was not only strong and clever in the way he’d overcome losing a hand. He was also a singularly wise man.

  “I’m keeping my leg,” Gray repeated through clenched teeth, “and I’ll shoot the first person who tries to do anything against the idea.”

  Hettie tried to pull away from his grip on her wrist. “Th-there’s n-no need t-t—”

  “Yes. There is.” He raised the gun a little higher off the bed with his free hand. “I heard what the boys said when they were wrapping it up. They thought I was out cold, but I wasn’t. I know what they do when there’s bone stickin’ out of a man’s leg.” He released Hettie’s arm.

  His gaze moved from Hettie to Ruth. Recognition flickered in his eyes. He swallowed. “You know what I did in the war?” When Ruth and Hettie both shook their heads, he said, “Well, while the offi
cers pored over their battle maps and stood back and watched the rest of us die, I was burying legs. And arms. And hands and feet. Mountains of limbs piled high outside the surgeon’s tent.” He swallowed. “So believe me when I say that the only way my leg gets buried is if I’m attached to it.” He waved the gun in the air for emphasis.

  It was a monstrous thing. The barrel looked a foot long. Did he really think he could bully them into—Poor Hettie. Ruth saw her hands tremble as she swept them over her frizzy hair. Saw her stance waver slightly. Was she going to faint? Ruth stepped forward and put a hand on Hettie’s shoulder. She could feel the poor woman trembling through her cloak. “Mr. Gray,” she said, her tone severe, her expression even more so. “Stop talking nonsense. No one is talking about cutting off anything. We haven’t even seen your leg.” She patted Hettie’s shoulder. “You are frightening the only doctor you’ve got for the next few hours, and that’s very unwise.” She held out her hand. “Now, hand me that gun and hush.”

  Wah Lo came into the room, a lighted lamp in each hand. Without taking her eyes from Gray’s face, Ruth gave instructions. “We’ll need hot water, Mr. Loh. And clean bandages. And soap.” Still, she held Gray’s gaze. “I have dealt with tougher men than you, Lucas Gray. Hettie and I will help you, but I won’t countenance any more nonsense with guns.” She continued to hold out her hand. “Now, give me that thing.” Gray hesitated. Ruth had the feeling she was being measured. She kept her gaze locked on his. Arched one eyebrow. Lifted her chin.

  Gray looked from Ruth to Hettie and back again.

  He handed Ruth the gun.

  Gray had a daunting list of injuries. Under Ruth’s relentless questioning, he finally admitted he had lost consciousness for a while. He had a goose egg on the back of his head, but his pupils seemed to react normally to the light when Hettie moved a lamp close and then pulled it away. He had two nasty bruises on his right side that looked suspiciously like the outline of a very large horse’s hoof. “But,” Hettie whispered, “I don’t think he has any more than two ribs broken.” Amazingly, he seemed able to flex or move every joint in his body except the knee above and the ankle below the fractured bone in his left leg. Hettie didn’t want him to try moving those until she’d examined his leg in the full light of day.

  The man’s dogged ability to endure pain was nearly miraculous. From what the wranglers said the stallion did to its owner, every fiber of Gray’s body had to be crying out in one way or the other. But other than a couple of bellows when Hettie wrapped his ribs, Gray hadn’t complained. When Wah Lo offered him whiskey, he waved it away with a mild curse—and an instant apology “to the ladies.” He even glanced Ruth’s way and joked, “I’ve been told they won’t tolerate any nonsense.”

  Ruth spoke as soon as Wah Lo set their traveling cases on the low dresser across from the carved oak bed and slipped out, closing the door behind him. He’d insisted the two women retire and get some rest until daylight. “You do no good you too tired to think,” he said. “I’ll see to Mr. Gray now. Call you at dawn—or if he gets worse.”

  Dressed only in her chemise and petticoat, Ruth pulled back the finely wrought red-and-green quilt serving as a spread and lay down. “Tell me,” she said as Hettie freshened up at the washstand. “Tell me everything.”

  While she rinsed off, Hettie repeated Gray’s list of injuries.

  “And now,” Ruth said, reaching for an extra pillow and clutching it to her midsection, “what about the leg?”

  “Well.” Hettie sighed. “If what that one wrangler said is right and there is exposed bone, then—” She dried her hands and draped the towel across the bar above the washstand. “Then it’s called a compound fracture.”

  “And how will you treat that?”

  Hettie looked away. Shook her head.

  Ruth sighed. “I thought so.” She waited until Hettie had stretched out next to her before speaking again. “If it comes to that kind of procedure—I mean, how would you do that without the proper…tools.” She shuddered envisioning the surgeon’s case she’d once seen. Surgical saws. Pliers. Retractors. Clamps.

  “It won’t come to that,” Hettie said quickly. “At least not for you and me. The doctor from the fort will be here by then.”

  Ruth had seen her share of wounded soldiers and even been called on a time or two to assist a military physician with minor things like sewing up cuts or applying compresses to keep a fever down, but she’d never been involved in anything like this before. As morning light streamed in their bedroom window, Hettie explained what Ruth should expect.

  “The most important thing we can do for Mr. Gray,” she said, “is to remain calm. No matter what you see, no matter what he does, we must remain calm.” She peered at Ruth over her spectacles. “A man who would wave a gun in a doctor’s face is a desperate man. Forrest always said that such emotions can impede healing. He believed it was very important for a doctor to mask whatever they feel y about what they see behind a smile. And if you can’t smile, then at the very least do not frown.” She paused. “If you feel queasy, just slip out of the room. That’s much better than fainting in the patient’s presence.”

  “Understood,” Ruth said, barely able to hide her amazement at Hettie’s newfound calm. Where was the woman who trembled at the sound of a train whistle, who skittered about like a little bird and jumped at the slightest noise? The woman Ruth followed into Lucas Gray’s bedroom was a different person. First, she asked Wah Lo to open the drapes. With sunshine spilling into the room, Hettie unbuttoned her cuffs and rolled up her sleeves. She washed her hands and directed Ruth to do the same. Together, they went to work.

  Hettie seemed to grow calmer with every passing moment. She talked—without stuttering—while she worked. “All right, Mr. Gray. I’m going to cut away this last strip now. I don’t want you to move at all. I’ll tell you when—and if—I think that’s a good idea. Until then, you just lay still.” She had him take a swallow of whiskey and then, when the length of cloth fell away and she saw the wound, she calmly told Wah Lo that he should get two of Mr. Gray’s “most trusted employees” and have them roll up their sleeves and wash. She explained how she wanted them to wash—with the hottest water they could stand and lye soap. “I want them so clean there’s not a speck of dirt beneath their fingernails,” she said quietly, and then she explained that her husband had been reading new research and it seemed to indicate a connection between cleanliness and infection.

  “I don’t know if any of it’s true, but Forrest is—w-was a good doctor.” She stood back at that point. “So now Mrs. Dow and I are going to go and do a similar cleanup, and when we come back we’ll see to this.” She waved at the leg as if it were nothing to be worried about. When Gray tried to speak between clenched teeth, Hettie put a hand on his shoulder. “I remember what you said in the night, Mr. Gray. You have my word. There will be no attempt to amputate while I am here. So please. Try to relax.”

  She turned back at the doorway. “And when I tell you to drink more whiskey, trust me. I’m not trying to get you drunk so I can have my way with you.” She smiled. “We’ll save that until you’re feeling much better.”

  Gray barked a laugh.

  When Hettie paused halfway up the hall and closed her eyes, Ruth reached out. The frightened Hettie had made an appearance. “If…if you pray,” she said, “n-now would be a good time.” She sucked in a breath.

  Wah Lo had heated up water and produced lye soap. The cowboys arrived, and Hettie demonstrated just how thoroughly they must wash. Ruth thought she recognized the man who’d come for them in Plum Grove, and when she asked, he nodded.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m Pete. Mr. Gray’s foreman.” He nodded at the man next to him. “This here’s Del. Del and I have been riding trails with Mr. Gray since right after the trouble with Ransom—” He paused. “Since the start. Anyway, I figured Mr. Gray wouldn’t want a lot of the boys to know how bad it is. Word gets out he’s not in the saddle, could be some of the other less honorable men in t
he county might take it upon themselves to take advantage. The late storm was bad enough on the calves. We don’t need rustlers taking an extra toll.”

  Ruth couldn’t help but wonder why Lucas Gray traveled with the likes of Lowell Day when he had men like these two working for him. She stepped back from the hot water and, wiping her hands dry, followed Hettie up the hall. Pete and Del followed.

  Once again, Hettie spoke calmly as she worked. “Now, I’m going to do some things that may not seem right to anyone who’s seen things like this treated before. My husband’s uncle sent him a paper this past year from a conference he’d attended in Karlsbad. Karlsbad, Germany.”

  Hettie spoke directly to Gray. “I’ll explain everything I’m doing. Try to listen to my voice and forget about your leg. If you can, just concentrate on my voice.” She talked, even as Gray sweated and moaned with every one of her movements. “The paper seemed to indicate that sepsis and some of the other complications might be avoidable. First we need to keep it clean. So I’m going to douse it with water…and carbolic acid….”

  Ruth saw Pete’s face go pale. She leaned close. “Don’t look at what she’s doing,” she said and nodded toward the windows. “Look out there. Find something and focus on it.” As she glanced outside she saw the gray stallion in the corral. Pete’s gaze narrowed. He set his jaw and held on.

  Hettie continued to work. When she switched positions with Del and set the bone, Gray fainted. Instead of stitching up the wound after the bone was set, she packed it with bandages she’d had Wah Lo boil. Then she rewrapped the leg, leaving the wound to heal, she said, from the inside out. “At least that’s the theory behind the paper,” she said with a little shrug. “Forrest said the statistics proved it a promising development.”