“I’ll get it.” She raced into the next room and came back with the black leather doctor’s bag that Sarah had inherited from her great-uncle, along with a bundle of muslin wrapping strips in case they were needed.
“You’ll ride with me. Come on.” They hurried outside. Blake mounted and pulled her up behind him. She gripped his waist with one arm, clutching her burdens with the other, as he kicked the horse to a gallop.
* * *
Kristin had read every page of every medical book in her mother’s well-thumbed collection. True, the books were outdated, but the human body and its functions didn’t change. She had plenty of information in her head. But would it be enough?
As they flew down the winding road, raising their voices to be heard, what she learned about the injured man only gave weight to her worries. She’d doctored a few animals on the ranch, and even helped her mother deliver twin babies. But this? If she didn’t do everything right—or even if she did—the man could bleed to death or lose his leg from infection.
Kristin offered up a silent prayer as the horse swung into the sawmill yard. As it jerked to a halt, she slid down the horse’s flank to the ground. Clutching the bag and the wrappings, she raced for the open shed, where the small crowd of workers showed where she would find the wounded man.
Her heart dropped as she saw him.
Blake had mentioned that he was lying on the ground near the saw. But now he’d been moved onto a ragged blanket, in an open space with more light. His right trouser leg was soaked in blood. A splintered shaft of wood, as thick as Kristin’s middle finger, protruded from the outer calf of his leg. Someone had tried to stanch the blood with a dirt-stained towel, but with the splinter sticking out of the wound, there was no way to apply pressure.
Kneeling, she bent over the injured man and looked into his face. He was surprisingly young, not much older than Kristin herself, with hair the color of ripe wheat and the clearest, bluest eyes she had ever seen. His face was gray-white and beaded with sweat, his jaw clenched with the effort of keeping silent.
“Damn it, didn’t anybody give him whiskey, like I told you to?” Blake had come in behind her.
“We couldn’t find none,” one of the men said. “Garrity was fresh out.”
“It’s all right,” Kristin said. “There should be some laudanum in the bag. That’ll help with the pain.” She fumbled in her mother’s doctor bag, silently praying the small brown glass bottle wouldn’t be empty. Finding it, she held it up to the light. It was less than a quarter full. Her heart sank. Why hadn’t she checked for more at the house?
She glanced up at Blake. “What’s his name?”
“Alvar. He’s one of the drylanders.”
Kristin unstopped the bottle and slipped a hand under his head to raise it. “Alvar, my name is Kristin. I’m going to give you something for the pain before I treat your leg. Just take a sip.”
“Y—you’re a doctor?” He spoke between ragged breaths.
“Not quite. But I’m all you’ve got.”
She tilted the bottle to his lips. Would there be enough laudanum to dull the pain? One way or the other, she would have no choice except to go ahead with the procedure.
He took it all in one sip. While she waited for the laudanum to take effect, Blake brought her a basin of water and a bar of soap. She washed her hands and shook them dry. The tools in the bag had been sterilized. But her hands could also carry germs into the wound.
Struggling to remember what she’d seen her mother do, Kristin laid the instruments she’d need on a small tray and put the wrappings nearby. With scissors, she cut away the blood-soaked fabric of his trousers below the knee. The full sight of his injury, the shard of wood sticking out of the purpled flesh, oozing blood, made her feel weak.
The young man’s eyes were open. His breathing was still ragged. There was no way to tell whether the laudanum had taken effect. But she couldn’t delay any longer.
“Are you still in pain?” she asked him.
He spoke through clenched teeth. “Just go ahead and do it.”
Picking up a pair of forceps, she stared down at the awful wound.
Please God, I don’t even know how to start. What if I kill him? Please, please help me.
“Excuse me, miss, but could you use some advice from an old soldier?”
Startled by a gravelly voice on her left, she looked up. “Mr. Garrity? What is it you need?”
“This ain’t about what I need.” The grizzled old man gave her a knowing look. Kristin knew he’d lost a leg in the Indian wars and that he served as caretaker at the sawmill, but she’d barely spoken two words with him until now.
“I was a corpsman back in the army,” he said. “I’ve pulled out more arrows and dug out more bullets than you could count in a month of Sundays. These old hands ain’t steady enough to do much anymore. But if it would help, I could try and talk you through this.”
“Oh, yes, please!” If the old man had sprouted wings and a halo, Kristin couldn’t have been more grateful. She glanced up at Blake, who’d shooed the workers back to give her more light and space. “Get him a chair so he can sit next to me.”
Blake stepped away and was back in a moment with a wooden chair. Garrity eased the weight off his crutch and settled onto it. He smelled of bacon, horses, and tobacco smoke. “This is one fine lad you’ve got here,” he said. “I don’t want him endin’ up like me. You’ll need this.”
He reached into his ancient buckskin jacket and pulled out a knife, which he slid out of its leather sheath. Reaching out to Alvar, he thrust the sheath between the young man’s teeth. “When it gets to hurtin’, and it will, bite down on this. Hear?”
Alvar nodded. His eyes were half-closed, his chiseled features beaded with sweat and rigid with pain. His fists were clenched at his sides. There must not have been enough laudanum in that bottle to give him much ease. But she couldn’t wait any longer for the drug to take effect.
She’d hoped to pick out the splintered wood with forceps, but the piece was solid. It would have to be pulled out all at once.
She took a moment to swab the area around the wound with alcohol. Then she met the old man’s eyes in a silent plea for his help. He nodded and spoke.
“Take a look at the angle of that splinter. Try to guess how deep it is. You pull with the angle, straight and hard and fast. Just do it. Once it’s out, you’ve got seconds to stop the bleeding, so have something handy to sop up the blood and pinch off any vessels.”
Clamps. She had two small ones on the tray. She could only hope she wouldn’t need them. And the muslin wrappings were close by.
The splinter appeared to have gone in almost to the bone. With Blake holding Alvar’s shoulders and another man bracing the leg, she positioned herself in a spot where she could pull straight back. Her heart was pounding. Drops of sweat streamed down her face. She noticed that Garrity was clasping one of Alvar’s hands.
She gripped the splinter with both hands. “Now.” Bracing, she pulled back with every ounce of her strength.
CHAPTER NINE
ALVAR OPENED HIS EYES. FOR A MOMENT HE LAY STILL, STARING UP at the sturdy beams that supported the ceiling above him. His leg still throbbed—he remembered the accident, though not clearly. What surprised him was that the rest of his body was cushioned in softness. After a lifetime of sleeping on hard surfaces, the feeling was almost unearthly.