by Lyn Cote
“Let’s find a doctor.” But what Carson wished more than anything was for his mother to be there. He trusted her doctoring more than that of the camp physicians. Then again, fortunately she was far from this place.
As he steered the horse back toward the Texas camp, it looked like they’d won. But he didn’t feel very triumphant. Dear God, just let the war be over. I want to go home. We all do.
Night had come, but under the nearly full moon, the two doctors driving the hospital wagon had pressed on. Fortunately, they had come to the savaged Vince’s Bridge before dark. Since someone had taken an ax to the bridge, they had been forced to find a path down the steep bank and a place to ford the wagon. The trip across the Vince’s bayou wasn’t one Alandra wanted to repeat again.
Finally, ahead through the shade of deepest night, she glimpsed many campfires within a stretch of timber. The solemn treetops stood against the silvery moonlight. Their party had made good time with the mules, which had been at rest for two days. Dr. McCutcheon slapped the reins and hurried the mules over the last mile of turf. They drove into the camp, seeing the white Texas flag against the night sky. They drove directly to a large tent illuminated from inside with candlelight and oil lamps.
Dr. McCutcheon stopped, tossed the reins to a few soldiers who had hurried forward. “Unharness these mules and give them attention.” Bags in hand, he and Dr. Toomey hustled inside the tent and were met by the physicians who had gone ahead earlier with the army.
Alandra and Dorritt slipped down from the wagon. Fortunately Sugar was sound asleep. Alandra was chilled with fear and the night air. Some soldiers came forward to unload the medical supplies. One of them said to Dorritt, “You’re that half-breed Quinn’s wife, right?”
Alandra’s irritation ignited. Why did everyone always use Quinn’s parentage to define him?
“Yes, I have the honor to have married Desmond Quinn.” Dorritt’s tone was mild and her words were balm to Alandra’s heart.
“He’s inside the hospital tent, ma’am. And his friend and your son,” the man said. “Thought you should know.”
The news slapped Alandra in the face like a wet rag. Dorritt grabbed her and they hurried inside, hand in hand. “Quinn! Carson! Scully!” Dorritt called in a low voice as they picked their way through the men, lying on blankets or the bare grass. “Quinn, I’m here.”
Alandra found she couldn’t speak. Men suffering from measles were a world apart from men bleeding from cannon fire, gunshot, and sword wounds. The spectacle of rows of moaning and weeping men unnerved her. She clutched Dorritt’s arm and tried not to show her revulsion and panic. The smell of sweat and blood brought the gorge up to her throat. She tried to hide the fact that she was beginning to retch.
Near the rear of the tent, Carson rose from the ground. “Ma, I’m here with Pa and Scully.”
“Thank God, you’re all right!” Dorritt exclaimed as she reached Quinn. She released Alandra and hugged Carson, kissing his forehead and stroking his hair, murmuring soft words of joy and gratitude.
Hanging back, Alandra did not want to look down where Quinn and Scully lay. Fear seized the back of her neck and shot down her spine, nearly freezing it. No. No. I don’t want to see them wounded…dying. Still, she forced herself to look. Quinn’s midsection had been wrapped tightly with a large bandage, stained with blood.
“Alandra?”
She heard Scully’s voice and turned to look down at him. He was trying to sit up, and she knelt beside him. “Scully,” she said, and folded him into her arms.
Seventeen
Finding Scully alive lifted Alandra, but seeing him marred by blood from head to knee crushed her. She clung to him. And looked to Carson.
Alandra looked to Dorritt, kneeling by Quinn, who was unconscious. Dorritt’s expression was impassive. She asked only, “What happened, son?”
“A Mexican officer ran him through with a sword. He told me.”
Dorritt moaned and covered her mouth. Alandra moaned silently, No, no, no.
“Ma,” Carson urged, “don’t give up hope. It went clean through, front to back. Pa must have leaped to the side and the thrust didn’t hit his vitals. The doc here who bandaged him said he thinks it just cut through muscle.”
Dorritt squeezed Carson’s hand, then turned to her husband and began examining his dressings.
Alandra had been embracing Scully all through this exchange. Now she felt him try to return it. His weak embrace pushed her fear up another icy notch. “Why are you here?” he asked in an unexpected sharp tone.
“These women are here because we needed them to help with the wounded,” Dr. McCutcheon barked, coming up to them. “Now, has one of the physicians seen to your wound?”
“Yes, sir,” Scully said, wincing.
“Well, if I know women, your wife will have to see if it was treated to suit her.” McCutcheon looked down into Alandra’s face. “Do that quickly and then we must get busy. The other physicians say that most of the wounded are Mexicans who haven’t received treatment yet. We’ll probably be working all night and into tomorrow.”
Then the doctor waved toward Carson. “Your little sister is out sleeping in the wagon. Go take care of her.”
Carson looked to Alandra, who mouthed, Sugar.
Carson put on his hat and turned to go. “I’ll be outside, Ma, if you need me.”
“Come back around dawn,” the doctor continued. “You women, see to your men first, but then I must have your help. We may actually manage to save a few lives if we act quickly.” As McCutcheon drew away, he instructed Dorritt to come to him and told Alandra to help Dr. Toomey.
Alandra moved back from Scully. The low light made it hard for her to see him clearly. But she saw him shiver, probably from the ground chill. She could feel it herself.
“What happened?” she asked, moving to lift the bandage over the side of his face.
He caught her wrist, stopping her. “The doc already stitched me up. A saber cut to the side of my face—caught me from the ear to chin. And someone managed to put a bullet through my thigh. It didn’t break my bone.”
He sounded irritated with her. Alandra lowered her hand, but did not give in completely. “I’ll want to give both a fresh dressing tomorrow.” Though she was shaking inside like jelly, she made her voice firm.
He wouldn’t meet her eye. “I thought they were going to keep you away from this.”
His irritated tone left her floundering. What was she doing that was wrong? “Was the battle that short? We could hear the cannon firing and then they stopped—”
“Mrs. Falconer,” Dr. Toomey called, interrupting them. “I need you please.”
Hands on his shoulders, Alandra urged Scully to lie back down. Scully, a good man, did not deserve pain and suffering. “I must go and do what I can. You try to sleep. I will come back when I have a moment.”
She rose, but then bent down and stroked his cheek. He pulled away.
“Good night,” she murmured. “I will not be far.” She stroked his cheek again, even though he did not acknowledge her. “Sleep. You heal faster if you rest.”
He lay on the blanket, turning his head away. Alandra glanced down at Dorritt, who was kneeling with her hand on Quinn’s head. Alandra leaned closer and heard Dorritt praying. Of course her aunt would be praying.
Her reaction was the opposite. She did not feel like praying. She felt like cursing. Even if she knew little of how to curse. She suddenly understood why Job’s wife had told her husband to curse God and die. She wanted to shake God, not pray to Him. What was He playing at? Did they mean so little to Him? Dorritt had always taught her that God was good, faithful to those who trusted in Him. That the wicked would be defeated.
Now, as she picked her path through men bloody, battered, gasping, and groaning in pain, she wondered what part of God’s love this was. Just how many righteous had to be wounded or die before God decided to cut off the wicked?
The appalling night went on. Alandra held an oil l
amp over patients while Dr. Toomey probed flesh for bullets and stitched up ragged flesh. She learned how much opium could soothe and how much could kill. She bathed gore from wounds and threw up twice. But she did not leave. She did not desert the poor men lying there, suffering, dying.
Most of them were Mexican, and she tried to speak kindly to them in Spanish. They clung to her hands and begged her to pray for them, for their souls. They told her the names of their wives, their sweethearts, their mothers, as if she could somehow communicate with them, tell them of the passing of their loved ones.
Tears streamed down her face and she did nothing to stop the flow. If she did not weep for these poor souls who had been marched thousands of miles from home to die far away from their families, the very rocks would weep for them.
For many of the patients, the doctors could do nothing. They were given a portion of opium and carried out to another tent to die. Alandra wished there had been some priest present to give them the last rites to ease their passing. But there was none. So to comfort them, she prayed for them, reciting the Latin prayers she had been taught as a child. She wept with every word.
Finally, the night she would never forget at last ended. All the patients had been treated or assigned to the death tent. As the thin light of dawn glowed through the tent canvas, she staggered toward Dorritt, who sat huddled between Quinn and Scully. Alandra rubbed her arms against the chill and had trouble feeling her legs and feet, numb from standing so long. This long night had been a preview of hell.
Alandra sank to the cold ground near Dorritt and wrapped her arms around her knees. Pressing her face into her skirt, she rocked like a fretful child too overdone to go to sleep. Glancing over, she saw that both Quinn and Scully were asleep. But both were shivering.
After a wound, a high fever always set in. One blanket would not be enough to warm Scully. But she did not have a second blanket here. She thought of all her fine blankets at her hacienda, blankets lovingly woven by the wives of her farm workers. And here she had one ragged blanket for Scully wounded and trembling on the bare earth.
She pulled herself together then. How many times had Scully warmed her when she shivered? Afraid to disturb his dressings, she lay down behind him and wrapped her arms around him. His whole body shook against hers. Tears threatened to start again, but she would not allow herself to weep.
Glancing over, she saw that Dorritt had also folded Quinn in her arms and that her lips were moving. Tía Dorritt was praying. Alandra did not need to hear the words to know what the prayer was—Psalm Thirty-seven.
She turned her face away and buried her nose in Scully’s nape. When she closed her eyes, she saw again in her mind the men she had seen carried out to die. What if Scully died?
She clung to him, trying to stop his trembling. The heat of his fever penetrated her clothing. She was trying to warm him but his body was warming hers. Was that not just like this man? She needed and he gave. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
She overheard Dorritt’s praying.
Alandra had heard of people whose hearts hardened. She had never understood that. But now she did. Her heart was hardening inside her, turning rock hard. Scully was a good man, a man of strong if quiet faith. He had rescued her from the renegade Comanches, married her to protect her inheritance, saved her from the ship, and ridden to war to run the butcher Santa Anna out of Texas. And what did he receive for his faith, his goodness, his courage? He lay on the ground wounded and perhaps dying. And she was powerless to save him, repay him. This is not right. This is not just.
Dorritt’s whispering went on:
“For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth
For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be…”
For a little while? What is a little while? And why must the wicked prosper at all? How much was flesh and bone expected to bear? I want it to stop now. Must I lose everything and everyone in order to satisfy you, God? Make it stop.
She bit her lips to hold in the wail trying to work its way up and out.
Dorritt was speaking louder: “Don’t give up, Quinn. Feel the baby moving against you. You must not die. You must live. I don’t want to go home without you to raise this child without you.”
Alandra clung to Scully, no longer believing that God heard Dorritt. No longer believing that He even heard her railing against him. She had reached her limit. Her heart was marble. I am only human, made from dust. I will wither and die like grass. And now I know God does not care. I am done praying. Have your way, God. Cut off the wicked when you feel like it, but I no longer care to know you.
Still lying against Scully, Alandra looked up to see who had shaken her shoulder. Carson knelt down beside her, handed her a cup of steaming coffee and one of the tasteless sea biscuits. Still, her empty stomach leaped and growled at the sight of food. She edged herself into a sitting position. One had to be truly hungry to welcome a sea biscuit.
She dipped it in her coffee and began gnawing. After riding all day, fording two bayous, and then tending the sick all night, she felt as if she had caught her heel in a stirrup and had been dragged for several miles.
“How are my pa and Scully doing?” Carson asked.
Alandra glanced over at Scully. He had stopped shivering, but his breathing was labored. And she knew she would have to foment his wounds at least twice today. It was the only way to draw out the infection. And infection could still kill him and Quinn. The stain and smell of blood lingered on her hands and clothing. Disgusting her.
Letting the steam from her cup warm her face, she asked, “What happened here, Carson?”
“It was a bloodbath. We caught them before they could cross the San Jacinto River at Lynch’s Ferry, just like Houston planned.”
She asked a question that had bothered her all last night, “Why are there so many Mexicans wounded and so few Texians?”
Carson snorted his disapproval. “Santa Anna must have got cocky. Didn’t think we’d attack him first. The Mexicans didn’t even seem to see or hear us coming. And we were in plain sight and in broad daylight, shouting. As we crossed the prairie out in the open, it was as if we were shielded from them seeing us.” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it.
Alandra tried to wrap her mind around this. How could Santa Anna, the arrogant general, have blundered so? “Where’s Santa Anna? Or was he killed?”
“He hasn’t turned up. It was a mess. There was a bayou at the rear of the Mexican camp, and many of his men drowned trying to escape across it. I hope I never see such a day again.”
“Is it over?” Alandra sipped her bitter coffee.
“You mean the war?”
She nodded, hoping he would say yes.
“It is if we can find Santa Anna and hold him. Remember, he’s not just the general. He’s the dictator of Mexico. He’s got the power. So if we have him, we’ve got the power.”
Alandra stared into Carson’s blue eyes. She was completely cold inside, dead except for her hatred. She wanted Santa Anna caught and punished—executed. She inhaled. “Then I hope someone finds him, and fast.”
A soldier came up to her. “Are you Mrs. Falconer?”
“Sí.” Alandra looked over at the man.
“Dr. McCutcheon told me to let Mrs. Quinn sleep, but he needs you to come and foment General Houston’s wound.”
Alandra scooted forward, suddenly thinking of how she must look, bloodstained and rumpled, wearing trousers under her skirt. She longed for Rancho Sandoval, her room and the luxury of a long bath with rose-scented soap. If she rode up to her hacienda now, would anyone even recognize her?
Carson rose. “I have to go see to Sugar. I don’t want her to come in here. She’s been through enough.”
Alandra nodded. “I’ll be back soon.” She drained the cup and handed it to him. The hot coffee and biscuit had at least revived her enough to start again. She leaned down, pulled the blanket around Scully
and stroked his back once, hating to leave him. “When he wakes, Carson, tell him I will be back soon. And get him some coffee and food.”
Carson nodded. Then Alandra walked away beside the soldier who kept looking at her. Well, let him look. In rags or brocades, I am still the doña of Rancho Sandoval and Mrs. Scully Falconer, the wife of a brave man. She lifted her chin.
She found Sam Houston lying on a mattress under an oak, with his wounded limb propped up. He was sleeping. Alandra noted that his boot had been cut off and his ankle bound with a bloodstained dressing that needed to be changed. She found that the doctor, who she was told would return soon, had left her a dish of herbs to use to foment wounds and draw out the infection.
If she did not foment the wound, gangrene would set in and the foot might have to be amputated. She set the man who had brought her to boiling water while she mixed the herbs and made a poultice with herbs wrapped in unbleached muslin to lay upon the wound. She soaked the poultice in the hottest water she could bear, then laid the poultice onto the wound.
Houston yelped and woke up, uttering an oath.
Alandra looked up. “I apologize, General, but I must foment this wound, and hot water is a part of that.”
Houston closed and opened his eyes. “Forgive my outburst, ma’am. I didn’t know a lady was present.”
His calling her a lady when she plainly was not dressed as a doña bolstered her lagging spirits. And this man, this general, had done the impossible. He was David and Santa Anna had been Goliath. “Think nothing of it, General. I would forgive you anything in honor of your victory here against a much larger enemy. Lie back now. This will take some time, and I’ll have to repeat it again later.”
As she was speaking, two men approached the oak tree and Houston. At the sight of one man’s face, shock burst like a bubble inside her.
Eighteen
Slowly, she rose and pointed. “General Santa Anna.” Her voice rang out in the sudden silence like an accusation.
“What?” Houston swiveled and looked at Santa Anna.
