At Love's Command

by Karen Witemeyer

  Her lack of abundant experience was immaterial at the moment, however. She knew the anatomy, had been trained by the best surgeons the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania had to offer, and possessed the steadiest hand in her graduating class. With God guiding her, she could handle any task placed before her.

  Josephine gripped the scissors with authority and angled them along the button line near the injured cowboy’s throat. First rule of dealing with antsy bystanders: reassure them. Second rule: give them something to do.

  “There’s a basin by the window,” she said without looking up from her work. “Wash up. Once I get this shirt out of the way, I’m going to clean and examine the wound. It’ll be painful, and your friend might rouse. I may need you to hold him down while I work.”

  Boot heels clicking sharply on her floor followed by the sound of pouring water told her he’d followed her instructions. One benefit of working with military men—they were good at obeying orders. As long as they recognized the authority of the person administering them. The fact that this one was washing dirt, blood, and grime from hands and arms without a single question or comment increased the likelihood that he’d actually be useful to her during the upcoming surgery.

  Turning her scissors down the sleeve, Josephine finished cutting away the injured man’s shirt. She set her scissors aside, removed the field dressing from the wound, then gently pulled the tan cotton fabric away as well. Blood seeped from the hole, already thick with coagulation.

  “What can I do?” He’d returned, hat gone, vest removed, sleeves rolled to elbows, and hair damp around his face.

  Josephine bit back a smile. This one didn’t do things by half measures. He’d washed from stem to stern. Good. The cleaner the surgical environment, the better for her patient.

  She took a clean dressing, one pretreated with carbolic acid to guard against sepsis, and pressed it to the wound. “Hold this,” she instructed. “And keep pressure on it.”

  He did so.

  She needed to do her own washing. Once her hands were scrubbed to her satisfaction, she returned and relieved him of duty. Peeling back the dressing, she bent close to examine the wound. It looked relatively clean. Not too deep. Little to no debris. Just some fibers from where the bullet had torn through the shirt. A simple irrigation should be sufficient. She reached for a syringe.

  “What is his name?” she asked.

  “Wallace.” Her new assistant had a rough, gravelly voice. Strong, yet worn down by life. “Mark Wallace.”

  She swabbed away the few fibers she’d spotted and irrigated the wound for increased visibility. Dabbing the excess liquid from the surrounding flesh, Josephine glanced up at her assistant. “And your name?”

  He didn’t meet her gaze. He was too busy staring at the hole in his friend’s shoulder. “Matthew Hanger.”

  Josephine started. The Matthew Hanger? Decorated cavalry officer who’d joined General Nelson Miles in speaking out against the atrocities that had transpired at Wounded Knee?

  She knew Terrance Dalton and the other ranchers had hired extra firepower to deal with the rustling problem, but she hadn’t realized they’d hired Hanger’s Horsemen. The famed foursome had made a name for themselves in the last couple years by taking on problems the law either couldn’t or wouldn’t handle.

  Rumors and tall tales had spread through schoolyards and saloons, growing out of proportion. Josephine had ceased listening to the fantasy and speculation whispered in corners about the group of near-mythical heroes, her scientific mind less than impressed. Ordinary men couldn’t accomplish half the feats credited to the Horsemen. The men themselves probably didn’t even exist. They were no doubt the product of some newspaperman’s imaginative scheme to increase subscriptions with a bit of sensational journalism.

  Yet the leader of the Horsemen stood in her examination room. Matthew Hanger. His jaw clenched. His stance braced. His eyes carrying the determination of one who would do whatever it took to accomplish his objective—saving his friend’s life.

  Her role in that objective suddenly weighed more heavily upon her shoulders than it had a moment before.

  Josephine gave herself a mental shake. It didn’t matter who these men were or what heroic feats they might or might not have undertaken. They needed help, and God had led them to her.

  “Well, Mr. Hanger, I’m about to start probing for the bullet, and it’s bound to make Mr. Wallace cranky. The more you can calm him, the easier time I’ll have of extracting the ball. Your friend is fortunate. The wound is fairly shallow. Neither the clavicle nor the scapula was impacted, so we don’t have to worry about broken bones. However, there are a lot of blood vessels and nerves in this area. I don’t think the bullet damaged the subclavian artery, but the brachial plexus is delicate and could affect future arm functionality, so I must take great care.”

  “Understood.” Mr. Hanger leaned forward and locked his hands over Mr. Wallace’s wrists. “Proceed.”

  As soon as Josephine fit her finger inside the bullet’s hole, Mr. Wallace stiffened and groaned. He eyes opened, though they were glassy and unfocused. His head raised off the table, the tendons in his neck standing at attention. Mr. Hanger instantly moved his grip from Wallace’s left wrist to his left shoulder and pinned him down.

  “Easy, soldier.” His tone carried more command than consolation, but it seemed to soothe her patient anyway.

  “Captain?”

  “I’m here, son. You’re safe. The doc just needs to dig that bullet out of your arm, so lie still, all right?”

  When her patient quieted, Josephine eased her finger deeper into the hole, carefully probing the torn tissue and noting damage done along the way. Mr. Wallace grunted softly and turned his head in her direction. His eyes widened slightly.

  “Guess you . . . brought me to Paradise . . . instead of Purgatory . . . after all, Captain.”

  Josephine raised a brow. Was the rogue actually flirting with her?

  “Doctors . . . wouldn’t be this . . . pretty in Purgatory.”

  Guess so. She grinned and shook her head as she turned her attention back to his wound. “I assure you, Mr. Wallace, that my idea of Paradise does not include cowboys bleeding all over my fine wood floors.” She probed deeper.

  Mr. Wallace grunted. “My . . . apologies . . . ma’am.”

  “Quit wasting energy tryin’ to sweet-talk the lady doctor,” Mr. Hanger groused, though no real heat laced his tone. “She’s got more important things to occupy her at the moment.”

  True. Josephine nibbled the edge of her tongue as the tip of her finger encountered a hard lump. Her stomach leaped. The bullet. It was close.

  Mr. Wallace’s grunts turned into extended guttural groans, but Josephine barely heard them. Her world had shrunk to include only muscle, sinew, and the foreign particle that must be removed.

  It took an extra incision, her narrowest set of forceps, and more digging than she would have preferred, but the ting of the metal ball when it finally hit the surgical tray echoed through the examination room like the triumphant final chord of a great symphony. Satisfaction incarnate.

  Somewhere along the way, Mr. Wallace had passed out again, but that was to be expected. What wasn’t expected was the fluttering in her belly when Mr. Hanger shared in her symphonic moment by giving her a nod of approval.

  It shouldn’t have meant anything special. She’d become a doctor to help the hurting, not to impress those who watched. Yet the gesture of respect flushed her with unexpected pleasure. She doubted Matthew Hanger gave those nods out with any great frequency. He seemed a man of high standards, hardened by war and ungenerous with commendations.

  Not that she actually knew him, she reminded herself sternly as she wiped the blood from her hands and took up a suturing needle. For all she knew, he could dole out approving nods like a politician did campaign promises, and with just as much meaning behind them. But when she lifted her gaze from her instrument tray and his brown-green eyes latched on to hers, the
frank honesty in his face confirmed her initial impression.

  “Thanks, Doc,” he said. Two simple words, but the emotion behind them was palpable.

  He cared for this man. Had been afraid for him. Probably even held himself responsible for putting him in harm’s way. He’d taken a chance trusting her with his care—a chance that, thankfully, had paid off.

  Unless . . .

  “There’s always a risk of infection,” she informed him, returning honesty for honesty. “He’ll need to stay in my infirmary for a few days until I’m sure everything’s healing the way it should.”

  Mr. Hanger crooked a grin at her. “Then I suppose you and I will be seeing a lot of each other over the next few days.”

  Josephine swallowed. The prospect of having a dictatorial military type underfoot should annoy her. So why did the twisting in her belly feel less like annoyance and more like anticipation?

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  Taking advantage of the muscles hanging about in her waiting room, Josephine instructed Mr. Hanger to move his friend into her infirmary once Mr. Wallace regained consciousness. The two large men dwarfed the tiny closet of a room that served as her recovery area, but they managed to hobble inside, and Mr. Hanger soon had her patient settled on the narrow bed. Bandages covered much of Mr. Wallace’s bare chest, but the captain seemed intent on pulling the sheet up to cover as much exposed flesh as possible.

  Josephine bit back a grin. Whose modesty was he trying to protect? Hers, or that of his friend? The teasing rogue who’d flirted with her while she delved for the bullet in his arm didn’t strike her as the bashful type, so the efforts must be for her sake. Which meant Mr. Hanger viewed her more as a woman than a doctor now that they were out of the examination room. Her feminine side appreciated the gesture even though her professional side scoffed at the needlessness of it. Anatomy was just anatomy, after all.

  Mr. Wallace’s eyelids drooped. “I’m good here, Captain,” he murmured when Mr. Hanger started folding himself into the small chair next to the bed. “No need to keep vigil. More important things to do.”

  A muscle ticked at the corner of the captain’s mouth, twitching the square horseshoe mustache that fed into the well-trimmed beard outlining his jaw. “Nothin’s more important to me than my men. You know that.”

  Wallace quirked a half-grin. “Not even the horses? Phineas and Cooper have been standing out there a long time, Matt. Go see to them while I catch a little shut-eye.”

  A stubborn look tightened the captain’s mouth, heralding a coming argument. Josephine headed it off with a touch to his arm. His attention flashed to her.

  “Rest is the best thing for him now, and that’ll be easier without you hovering.”

  Mr. Wallace chuckled weakly. “That’s the truth.”

  “Shut up, Wallace.”

  The growled response elicited another unrepentant chuckle from her patient. “Go on, Captain.” The laughter faded from Mr. Wallace’s voice. “I’ll rest better knowing Coop’s been taken care of.”

  “Fine, but I’ll be back in an hour.” The last part of that statement was aimed at her.

  Josephine nodded. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  Matthew Hanger held her gaze for a long moment, his expression stern and unrelenting, as if trying to impose his will upon her—a will that clearly insisted he not be dismissed next time.

  Josephine met his challenge, chin raised. He was afraid. She understood that. Felt compassion, even. But she’d not be cowed. This was her campaign, not his. He could join her on the field of battle if he wished, but she was the general, and she’d make the decisions about what was best for her patient.

  Finally, he broke eye contact and pivoted toward the door. Josephine gave her patient a quick once-over to ensure all was as it should be, then followed the captain out.

  He stopped at the bench in her waiting room to collect his things. All right, it wasn’t really a room. More like the front entryway. The small building she rented for her practice didn’t afford space for anything more substantial. She’d brought in a bench and set it against the wall in order to have a place to shoo people when they started getting underfoot or hindering the confidentiality of doctor-patient conversations. Today, it apparently doubled as a hat and coat rack.

  Maybe she should bring in one of those as well. Her clientele still skewed heavily toward the feminine side of the population despite her success with Hiram Johnson, but maybe if she made her office more male-friendly, the masculine citizenry would be more likely to come in.

  Then again, most of the men of her acquaintance had to be near death before they’d seek out a doctor of any gender. She eyed the man in front of her as he fit his tan hat to his head, covering the short dark hair that life had dusted with a smattering of gray strands. She doubted Matthew Hanger would seek a doctor for anything less than a bullet. Even then, he’d probably prefer to throw some whiskey on the wound, dig out the ball with his hunting knife, and sew it up himself. He’d probably even manage the feat with relative success if the wound were in a place he could reach. He had done an admirable job with Mr. Wallace’s field dressing, after all, and he struck her as the warrior type. Nothing would stop him except death itself.

  Or his own stubbornness.

  Josephine picked up the vest with gold buttons that had been tossed on the bench’s seat and handed it to its owner after he unrolled his sleeves and fastened his cuffs. “Cavalry?” she asked, nodding toward the distinctive light blue wool.

  Mr. Hanger’s hand paused mid-reach.

  She’d surprised him. Good. She liked keeping military types on their toes. Reminded them they didn’t always have all the answers.

  “Retired,” he ground out as he accepted the vest from her and slid his arms through the holes.

  “I thought so. My father supplies horses to the army. We had cavalrymen around the ranch a lot when I was growing up.”

  “Burkett . . .” The captain’s brows lifted a fraction, and a hint of excitement danced in his hazel eyes. “Thaddeus Burkett? Of Gringolet Farms?”

  “You’ve heard of him?” Josephine smiled. Of course Mr. Hanger had heard of him. Her father produced some of the most sought-after horseflesh in the country.

  He’d ridden for the US Cavalry during the War Between the States, and after the conflict ended, he sold the small breeding farm he’d inherited from his father in Pennsylvania, took his stock, and moved west, wanting to breed a horse more suited to the rugged territory of the expanding frontier. Mustang mares provided the perfect foil for his eastern studs. As army forts sprang up to protect settlers from bandits, Indians, and general lawlessness, the need for good horses bred for endurance and intelligence abounded. Her father met the demand with outstanding mounts that had the army coming back year after year.

  “Heard of him?” Mr. Hanger’s entire demeanor changed. For just a moment, the worry for his friend disappeared, and a lightness came over him. “Gringolet mounts are the most coveted horses in the regiments. I’ve seen officers fight over them.”

  “You were an officer, right? Mr. Wallace called you Captain. Did you ever have a Gringolet horse?”

  Mr. Hanger shook his head. “No. By the time I received my rank, I’d already been paired with Phineas and had no desire for a different mount. We’ve been together nigh on ten years.” He spoke with a level of fondness most people reserved for family. But then, to a cavalryman, his horse was family.

  Josephine opened the clinic door and led the way down to the street. She walked up to the blood bay standing patiently where his owner had left him, fully tacked and unhitched. The animal was well-trained. She held her hand out to the gelding to let him become familiar with her scent, then stroked his neck, letting her fingers sift through his dark mane. “Well, when Phineas is ready for the rocking chair, I’d be happy to introduce you to my father. Should you be interested in a private purchase.”

  “Thanks.” Mr. Hanger grinned at her, his own hand reaching up
to pat his faithful companion’s neck.

  Something flickered in her belly. Not attraction, surely. She despised arrogant military types. But the man before her didn’t look arrogant at the moment. Or even all that militaristic. He simply looked like a man who loved his horse.

  Josephine snatched her hand away from Phineas and took a step toward the gray horse beside him, who suddenly seemed a much safer target for her affection. “There’s a livery just past the mercantile.” She pointed, as if the captain would have trouble finding it on a street that contained less than a dozen buildings. “They should have everything you need. Oh, and if you let me know where you’ll be staying, I’ll send word if there is any change in Mr. Wallace’s condition.”

  Mr. Hanger sobered at the reminder, and Josephine wished she could take the words back. Well, not really. They’d needed to be said. But still . . . she hated to see the weight return to his shoulders.

  “No need to send word,” he said. “I’ll be parked in that infirmary chair tonight.” He speared her with a look that made it clear arguing would do no good.

  Her pulse ratcheted up a notch. In irritation, she assured herself. “Your choice,” she said as if she didn’t care where he passed the night. “But don’t expect me to fix the crick in your neck tomorrow morning.”

  With that, she left him to stew in his own stubborn juices and marched back into her office. At least Mr. Wallace didn’t give her any trouble. Sleeping, injured military men were much more compliant than the healthy, alert ones.