A Hero for Christmas

by Jo Ann Brown

  You’ll never have that came a painful whisper from the past, one he did his best to ignore.

  Looking up Main Street, he saw many of the storefronts had changed in five years. Different business names. Some wore a new coat of paint. The street extended farther than he remembered. New stores must’ve been built, as well.

  Everything was the same, and yet everything was different. Or maybe he was the one changed by his time away.

  Suddenly, three whooping cowboys thundered down the dirt-packed lane on their horses, and Maxwell shifted Emily toward the nearest storefront, away from the commotion.

  “There’s a new saloon in town,” Emily said, her tone apologetic. “The sheriff claims all the troublemakers are getting their courage there....”

  He didn’t have time to answer her before a wave of people swept toward them, crowding the boardwalk and stalling their steps.

  “Gunfight!” a man in a suit shouted.

  “It can’t be.” Emily frowned. “Not in Bear Creek—”

  Above the heads in the crowd, Max could just make out two men squaring off in the street.

  “Get low.” He folded Emily close to the ground and pushed her back. They were still too far from the nearest store to duck inside.

  Sam didn’t have to be present for Maxwell to know his friend would want his wife as far away from the event as possible. Nearby, a knot of schoolgirls craned their necks, trying to see the action. Maxwell checked twice to ensure his younger sister Breanna wasn’t among them and shouted at them to get down.

  He hadn’t had occasion to see many gunshot wounds in the laboratories he’d observed, but his education had taught him the kind of havoc such an injury could have on the human body.

  With the crush of people surrounding them, it was almost impossible to move, but Maxwell persisted, using his shoulders to push forward, keeping one hand on Emily’s bent back. They’d almost reached the corner of a nearby alleyway when shots rang out above the crowd’s murmurs, silencing everything. Beneath his hand, Emily flinched.

  A woman screamed.

  More hoofbeats sounded, and Maxwell saw a man wearing a silver star on his chest gallop past.

  “Bystander’s been shot!” The blacksmith, a tall man wearing a thick leather apron, shook his head in disgust.

  With Emily tucked safely in the alley, Maxwell looked back. “I’ve got to help, if I can.”

  She turned frightened eyes on him but nodded. “I’ll wait for Sam.”

  She’d be safe where she was. With the sheriff present, likely nothing else would happen. Hopefully, Sam would forgive Maxwell for leaving her.

  He pushed his way back toward the commotion. The crowd had thinned now that the fight was over.

  When Maxwell rushed forward, he saw one body lying prone on the dirt-packed street. The sheriff scuffled with another man farther down the lane, but neither had a gun drawn.

  It was the knot of people surrounding a man laid out on the boardwalk and the woman kneeling over him that caught Maxwell’s attention. He ran toward them, feet pounding against the ground, adrenaline pumping.

  He was over a yard away when he caught sight of the man clutching his stomach, blood seeping through his fingers.

  “Ma’am?” The woman who crouched next to the victim was shaking and pale. Probably his wife. Not doing anyone any good just sitting there. Maxwell didn’t wait for her answer but knelt beside the man.

  “Shot went wild,” one of the onlookers grumbled. “It could’ve been any of us.”

  A woman in a fancy dress gasped and pressed a hand to her forehead as if she would faint. Maxwell wished the people standing nearby would go away—they weren’t helping.

  “Can you get me a towel or some clean rags?” He directed his question to a teenage boy standing wide-eyed not two feet away, frozen with horror. He was thankful to see the lanky kid rush into a nearby store.

  “I’ll get the doc!” someone else exclaimed and rushed off. That left only three or four gawkers standing over Maxwell’s shoulder.

  “Should we move him to the doctor’s office?” a male voice asked.

  “No—”

  “No.” A crisp female voice overlapped Maxwell’s as a shadow fell across him. A pair of small, neatly kept hands appeared in his vision, followed by a dark blue skirt and the bottom of a wide white apron. The dainty hands didn’t hesitate to push a towel against the injured man’s abdomen, with enough pressure that the man gasped.

  “Not yet,” she continued in a clipped voice that brooked no argument. “We’ll wait for Papa to make a quick examination. We don’t want to make things worse. Take this—”

  Maxwell followed orders and replaced her hands with his. The man groaned as Maxwell applied the same hard pressure—enough to hopefully stem the flow of blood.

  “Good.” The woman glanced at Maxwell briefly, and the tilt of her head drew his gaze up for the first time. Her blue eyes were straightforward and sharp, and instantly he felt as if he’d stuffed his mouth with cotton pads. She leaned over the man, and wisps of her chestnut hair fell from the bun behind her head, curling gently across her cheek.

  She was much younger than he’d supposed from the authority in her voice. Even younger than his twenty-three years.

  Maxwell forced his gaze back to the life beneath his hands. To focus on the human body, not the pretty girl. “He’s hemorrhaging from the upper left flank. The bullet could’ve hit his spleen.”

  She looked up sharply at him. “Are you a doctor?”

  It was a struggle to keep his eyes on the patient and not respond to her melodious tones.

  He wished he could answer differently. “No. A medical student.”

  * * *

  What a waste of a beautiful day. A gunshot wound. Senseless. And it would likely take all afternoon to tend.

  Hattie Powell had heard the commotion from inside her papa’s medical clinic and rushed out to help. Papa was on a house call and she could only hope someone had been sent to fetch him.

  Now Hattie knelt over the injured man—she recognized him as a local farmer, John Spencer—and accepted the towels someone had procured from the general store and traded them out from the blood-soaked towel beneath her helper’s hands. She couldn’t help but note the strength of his wide, blunt fingers. They were more callused than she would’ve expected from a medical student. And his dress was that of a cowboy—trousers and a woolen shirt. Even a Stetson. Unusual. And surprisingly, he hadn’t acted prideful about being a medical student. Other than one comment, he’d been silent.

  He towered over her as they both knelt next to the victim. Her hands twitched with the desire to take action.

  “But we can’t move him until Papa does a quick examination,” she muttered to herself. “If the bullet is still inside, moving him could make matters worse.”

  The medical student—or was it cowboy?—nodded once. “Might be better to get him inside, though. Risk of infection...”

  “Of course there is a risk of infection with any type of internal injury,” she said. “But we don’t dare move him yet.”

  The cowboy across from her glanced up with a quick flash of intelligent green eyes. She flushed. Likely he thought she was too bossy, but a man’s life was at stake here.

  No doubt she’d seen more of this type of wound than he had, in her years of assisting her father in his medical practice. What was taking Papa so long, anyway? Mr. Spencer continued to bleed.

  “His pulse is slowing,” her companion said. “Pupils are dilating. He’s going into shock.”

  “An excellent observation,” said a familiar voice. Relief flooded Hattie as Papa knelt beside her, nudging her aside. With his bristly white mustache and shock of graying hair, he cut a recognizable figure in town.

  “You must be Maxwell White. I’m Doct
or Powell,” Papa said as he probed the victim’s neck, then pushed his eyelids back to get a good look at his eyes. “Got to talking to your father a coupla Sundays ago ’bout you, and he said you were coming back into town.”

  “You did?” The genuine surprise in the man’s voice was echoed by the shock in his face.

  “Yep. We discussed how you won’t want to lose your focus while you’re rounding up funding for the rest of your schooling. Thought you might like to chat about helping out in my practice.”

  Hattie heard the sharp intake of breath but wasn’t aware it had come from her until the keen green gaze flickered her way. Abruptly, she lowered her face. Earlier this spring, her papa had promised to consider allowing her to attend medical school. Did the fact that Papa was possibly getting help in the clinic mean he was seriously of a mind to let her go? She could only hope....

  Unless there was a chance this Maxwell White’s presence could interfere with her plans.

  “Bullet’s still in there. Let’s get him over to the clinic.” Papa looked up at the people surrounding them from a few steps back. “Oh, Samuel. Good. Can you help Mr. White lift him? Hattie, take his head.”

  Sam Castlerock, the husband of one of Hattie’s friends, stepped forward as Hattie moved around Mr. Spencer to join Maxwell White on his other side. Her father’s command put her immediately next to the medical student’s shoulder. He towered over her even more than when they had knelt side by side. He must be well over six feet in his socks.

  “Keep him steady, now,” Papa murmured. “Don’t want to make things worse on the inside. Hattie, keep pressure on that wound.”

  Hattie cradled the man’s head in the crook of her right arm and used her left hand to replace Maxwell White’s pressure against the towels. With the location of the wound, the action pressed her arm against her neighbor’s surprisingly muscled chest. His height gave the illusion that he was slender, but it was—apparently—not so. He didn’t just appear to be a cowboy. He must actually be one, in addition to being a medical student. How unusual.

  The two men lifted Mr. Spencer without even a grunt to show their effort. Hattie rose with them, concentrating on keeping the victim’s head stable, trying hard to ignore the way her shoulder pressed into Mr. White’s biceps. It was a wasted effort. With each step they took, the contact between her shoulder and his arm seemed to burn fire through her nervous system.

  For someone whose nerves occasionally experienced numbness due to a medical condition, the entire process was unsettling.

  Intense relief spilled through Hattie as Sam and Mr. White deposited the injured man on her father’s operating table in the rear of his clinic. She retained her position at the side of the table, continuing to put pressure on Mr. Spencer’s wound as the other two men moved away. Sam went out the door, and Hattie heard the murmur of her father’s voice.

  Mr. White hesitated. “Do you need—”

  She ignored him. Kept pressure on the wound with one hand while attempting to unbutton the victim’s shirt with the other. Her father would want it removed before he could start the surgery to save this man’s life.

  “I can help—”

  She hadn’t realized Mr. White had come closer, but then he was beside her and their fingers tangled as he attempted the same button that troubled her. Sparks zinged up her forearm as the warm, callused digits enclosed her fingers momentarily.

  “I’ve got it,” she insisted. And then promptly wished her voice hadn’t sounded so breathless. What was it about this man that discombobulated her so?

  Papa shuffled into the room, moving to pump water from the sink in the back corner and scrub his hands. Many of his colleagues sneered at his penchant for using running water, but her papa believed it helped prevent infection.

  “Thank you for your help today, young man,” Papa said. With his back turned, he didn’t see how Mr. White had ignored her and was quickly removing the man’s shirt, gently edging it out from beneath him now while Hattie maintained pressure on the wound. “We’ll get together soon to discuss things.”

  It was an obvious dismissal. With the victim’s shirt gone, Maxwell flicked one last glance at Hattie and stepped back. “Thank you, sir.”

  Papa didn’t even seem to hear him as he approached the operating table, he was so intent on the injured man. The same as always. Focused on a patient to the exclusion of everything else. Hattie heard distinctive boot steps retreating out of the sickroom and toward the waiting room out front.

  “Now, let’s see if we can’t remove the bullet and save this man,” her father said as he joined her at the table. “Administer the ether.”

  They fell into the easy routine they’d achieved after years of working together, when Hattie’s condition allowed. At age twelve she’d helped him stitch up a little girl’s nasty cut, using the sewing skills her mother had worked hard to instill. Hattie’s aid in dispensing medicines and calming young children had evolved into helping Papa set broken bones, and by age fourteen she’d assisted in her first surgery.

  Medicine had become her passion. She’d avidly followed Elizabeth Blackwell’s career and scoured newspapers for articles about women doctors. She wanted to be a doctor more than anything. And if her plans worked out this summer, if she could convince her parents, then she would be headed to medical school in the fall.

  If Maxwell White didn’t interfere.

  * * *

  Hours later, after they’d closed up the gunshot wound and her papa had snuck out the clinic’s back door, Hattie finished tidying the room and setting the instruments back in their proper places.

  Mrs. Spencer sat at her husband’s side, holding his hand. Hattie would go home and rest for a while, then come back and spell the other woman during the night hours. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d slept on a cot in the clinic, watching over a patient.

  It was one of the arguments she planned to use when she spoke to Papa about her dreams of medical school later this summer—her papa’s trust that she could take care of his patients.

  She knew there was a chance he would refuse to consider Hattie’s wishes; her mother had taken an adamant stance against Hattie receiving further education in medicine since Hattie had brought it up several years ago. She’d been fifteen when she’d overheard her parents’ hushed conversation about Hattie helping her father in his practice. Her father had argued that if Hattie had been born a boy, her mother would have had no issue with furthering Hattie’s education. To which Hattie’s mother had responded that Hattie had not been born a boy, no matter how much Papa had wanted a son. And that wasn’t even including Hattie’s medical condition—something her mother used as a further argument to keep Hattie at home.

  Before that day, Hattie hadn’t realized that her father had wanted someone to carry on his medical practice. She didn’t see why she couldn’t be the partner he desired. The medical field wasn’t particularly open to female doctors; however, there were now schools that admitted women. Hattie knew she could be one of them. Her father had promised to listen; now she needed to ease him into keeping his promise. She was getting older. There was a chance her condition could worsen as she aged. She couldn’t waste what might be her only good years to practice. She needed her papa to agree now, this year.

  Hattie’s condition did not have an official diagnosis. It had symptoms similar to multiple sclerosis, where she would occasionally lose nerve function and have weakness in her extremities. But her condition was not as severe as the cases of multiple sclerosis her papa had studied. And he’d studied plenty over the years since her symptoms had first started manifesting as a young girl. She felt she could manage it, enough to attend medical school, enough to practice as a physician. But she also didn’t want to waste time if there was a chance her condition could worsen. She wanted to make a difference in people’s lives now.

  Leaving the woman praying
over her husband, Hattie slipped into the small waiting room to ensure that the outer door was secured. Movement from one of the chairs startled her and she whirled, one hand at her neck.

  “S-sorry, miss. Didn’t mean to scare ya.”

  The cowboy-turned-medical-student. Maxwell White.

  Her shoulders came down, but adrenaline still rushed through her system, making her heart thud loudly in her ears. The combination of a long day of surgery and the burst of energy left her trembling, and based on her past experience, Hattie knew she needed some quiet time to regroup before her nerves rendered her useless to anyone.

  He rose from the chair where he’d been sitting, clutching a battered Stetson against his thigh. Once again, she realized just how tall he was.

  “What do you want?” The stress of the day and her fading energy made her words sharper than the situation warranted.

  “I just wanted to see— Is he all right?”

  He stumbled over his words, and she almost felt sorry for him. Until she remembered that his very presence in Bear Creek might upset her carefully laid plans.

  “He’s alive.” She couldn’t keep the pride from her voice. Her father, with her assisting, had saved the man’s life, stopped the bleeding and stitched him up. “No doubt you know that infection is the next stage of the battle. If he can survive the next few days, he should recover.”

  The cowboy moved to the door and passed through a late-afternoon shaft of sunlight from one of the windows. As he did, Hattie clearly saw the dark stain on the midsection of his white shirt. From the little her papa had said, she knew the man had just arrived in town. Had he sat here all afternoon waiting for word on the man’s recovery? Put off his homecoming with his family just to find out?

  He must’ve sensed her appraisal, or perhaps he was just nervous, because he looked down at himself self-consciously.