Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1

by Patricia Hagan

  She placed a tourniquet on his arm, about four inches below the shoulder. Then she twisted the knot and anchored it tightly to hold back a hemorrhage. If possible, she would cut quickly and mercifully, in an effort to keep pain as low as possible. But there would be moments of excruciating agony when the blood vessels in the stump were clamped and tied off.

  What was it Doc had told her? She fought to remember as she rinsed her hands in the water Silas had heated at her instruction. Let the tourniquet hold for a while, and the pressure will dull the nerves, maybe keep the patient from twitching in a movement that would be fatal as the knife cut down deep. He had also told her to be sure never to leave a tourniquet tied too long, for if the stump were deprived too long of blood, it would not heal properly.

  “Get on with it,” Luke snapped nervously, tipping the jug up for one last swallow. “He’s starting to wake up.”

  “He’ll wake up,” she said. “Let’s just pray he passes out again so deeply that he won’t feel the pain, because I assure you there’s going to be plenty of it, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Just be ready with that jug, and maybe that will take some of the edge off.”

  Her fingers closed around the handle of the bowie knife. Suddenly, Luke’s hand snaked out to close about hers. “Just don’t get any funny ideas with that blade, you hear me?” he warned. “I’m going to watch every move you make, understand?”

  Through gritted teeth, she ground out the words she had held back so long. “One day, I’ll settle my debt to you, Luke Tate. First things first.”

  She yanked her hand away, and he did not try to continue his hold on her.

  She had never done an amputation before…never seen one done without anesthesia. Now she prayed for the strength, the skill, to do what had to be done. She set the blade to the skin, outlining the contours of the flaps she would use, Doc had said to leave a long one at the back—a shorter one in the front. Closing her eyes momentarily, the gravelly voice of Doc came back to her.

  “When you amputate, Kitty, it’s important to make the posterior flap long, because the muscle has to cover the bone stump. Otherwise, the extremity is useless…”

  The blade bit into the flesh, bloodless now from the pressure of the tourniquet. She swept it up in a curving line, making real the contours of the flaps she had mentally outlined. Luke stood at her side, close enough to grab her if she turned on him or Orville. Paul Gray and Silas Canby stood at Orville’s head, holding down his shoulders. Joe was holding the wounded man’s legs.

  She didn’t dare look at Orville’s face, as she prayed he would not awaken. Pushing the superficial tissues aside, the bulging red surface of the muscles beneath was exposed. She knew that the next slash of the knife was going to have to shear through muscle all the way to the bone, and it had to be at a slightly higher level, to make sure that the layers of tissue would fold and heal evenly across the cut end of the bone itself.

  Again she brought the knife slicing down, and several large vessels could be seen gaping in the depths of the incision, a trickle of dark blood beginning to ooze upward. There was no time to worry about clamping.

  She pressed the blade downward on the bone. Please, God, she whispered, give me the strength to break through the bone. She circled, leaving the white surface bare in the depths of the wound. “Give me linen,” she whispered, licking dry, parched lips nervously. Someone handed her a strip, which she wrapped around the bone. Seizing the two ends, she pulled muscles and skin upward, exposing about two inches of bone.

  “Cut it a few inches shorter than the other tissues or it will project and cause a painful stump…” she repeated Doc’s words out loud.

  “There’s an old surgical saw in the bottom of that case,” she said to Luke, who was still hovering over her. “Get it for me, then do as I say.” When she had the saw in her hand, she nodded to the linen thong she held and told Luke to take it, holding it in an even, upward pressure.

  The act of sawing, Kitty knew, would be the most painful of all. Doc had told her how terribly it hurt when the steel cut through what he called the outer periosteum, and how it was sheer agony when it bit through into the sensitive marrow cavity. But it had to be done. Taking a deep breath, she mustered every bit of strength she possessed and bore down. The saw bit into the bone, the sharp teeth—which were set precisely to cut the right depth, Doc had said—were making a harsh and muted noise in the gaping crimson cavity.

  The smell of bone dust permeated her nostrils, and for the first time she felt nauseous.

  Suddenly the body twitched, jerked, and Orville Shaw’s head slammed backward against the table as his lips parted to shriek forth the most God-awful sound Kitty had ever heard. Her fingers instinctively froze in their sawing motion, and she looked at him to see eyeballs rolling frantically in his head, then settling to stare straight upward before fluttering lids finally fell downward to cover the glare of agony.

  He slumped. Kitty waited. She saw the rise and fall of his chest. He was still alive. She began the sawing motion again, and there was a splintering, cracking sound as the arm and elbow fell to the floor. The amputation was almost over.

  Quickly, she moved to clamp off the major vessels, telling Luke how to hold the forceps for her, as she made the knots with the flax thread that was found in Doc’s bag.

  Luke followed orders, and they worked well together. Finally, Kitty was able to ease the tourniquet a bit. Then, when the vessels were all tied off securely, and the bleeding halted, she shaped the flaps, ligating the cut ends smoothly to bring the cut tissue together in a compact fold. She had seen Doc do this several times, and he had drawn her pictures and made her study them.

  “A continuous fold, Kitty,” Doc had said, “without tension. You have to avoid tension, because it causes slough and slough causes gangrene, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Suddenly, Kitty felt herself swaying. The tension and strain, the strength she’d had to muster to saw through the bone…the glimpse of the limb she’d just removed lying in a pool of blood on the dirt floor—it was all too much. “Someone else bandage, please…”

  Stepping backward, Luke slipped an arm around her waist and, helped her to the pallet, where she slumped gratefully. “Rest a spell,” he said gruffly. “Then get back over here. I want you to watch him every minute for a while, till he’s over the worst of it.”

  Didn’t he realize, she thought wearily, leaning against the pine-needle bed and for the first time not feeling their prickle, that the worst of it could last for weeks?

  She tried to sort her scrambling, exhausted thoughts…tried to piece together what had happened to them. They had obviously gone somewhere to a saloon—but where? Was there a settlement close by? They had come to this spot, where Luke decided to set up a camp, in the dead of night. She’d been unaware of her surroundings and not been anywhere since. But they had been gone how long? Several hours. They could not be far from a settlement, then, and Luke liked to brag that he could cover his tracks and hide better than any Indian.

  Maybe they were followed, she thought with a sudden pang of hope. Maybe they would be captured. But there would be a fight. That was a certainty. Luke would never give himself up. He might even kill her rather than see her given freedom by his attackers.

  The more she thought about it, the more she realized she had to be ready if an attack did come. It would be necessary to hide—but where? The cabin was one square room and very small with no windows—only the front door.

  Suddenly, things looked more hopeless than ever, and she blinked back hot tears of frustration.

  Luke kicked at her with his foot. “Get up and get some food going. If he wakes up, we want him to eat and get his strength back. We’re going to move out of here first thing tomorrow.”

  “You can’t do that!” she blinked at him incredulously. “You can’t move him for more than a week. It will kill him.”

  “Not Orville. He’s tough. He can take it. You just do as I tell you. Now get up and get
busy. We’re all hungry.”

  Instinctively, she moved first to check on her patient again, noticing out of the corner of her eye that the bag and instruments had been taken away. There was no opportunity now to slip the bowie knife beneath the bulky folds of her shirt to wait for the first chance to plunge it into Luke Tate’s traitorous, murdering heart.

  Orville was unconscious, and his breathing was labored, ragged. She lifted an eyelid and saw that his eyes were still rolled back into his head. His skin was pallid, felt hot and sticky. Checking the bandages on the stump, she was satisfied that the oozing of blood was minimal, with no cause for alarm. With proper treatment and rest, he just might pull through, she decided, but if he were moved, then he would probably die. But she wouldn’t fret over that. Not now. She had done her job. If Luke insisted on moving him, and he died, then his blood would be on Luke’s hands—not hers. The water bucket was empty. Looking about, she saw that the others were settled in front of the fireplace, talking animatedly about the skirmish they’d been in earlier, the death of their friends. There was no need in asking, or expecting, anyone to fetch water from the stream below the cabin. She would have to do it herself.

  She didn’t remember taking off her coat when she’d come in before, but she pulled it back on, opening the door against the blast of cold wind. Snow was starting to fall once again. Ducking her head, she stepped outside, walking as briskly as possible without stumbling, down the rocky, slippery hillside to where the icy stream gurgled among snow-capped stones and rocks.

  Placing the bucket sideways in the stream, she filled it with rushing water. When it was full, she straightened, pausing to gulp in the cold, crisp air. How easy it would be to just keep on walking down the hill, until she was able to break into a run and try to get away from the evil and horror that waited back there in that cabin. Was anyone nearby? Could she get to help? Or would Luke find her and shoot her in the back—or let her freeze to death as she wandered about in the wilderness lost, not knowing which way to turn?

  Looking back at the cabin and the gray wisp of smoke rising from the chimney, she made her decision. She would keep on walking, down the hill, moving as quickly as possible. If Luke came after her and caught her, she would say she was searching for special roots and herbs she needed to make proper medicine for Orville. And if she did get lost—or a wild animal attacked and killed her, then that would be her fate and there was no choice but to accept.

  Enough is enough. She blinked back tears as they froze to her cheeks. I can’t take anymore. If I can’t be free, then let me die, she prayed.

  A rabbit darted from a snow-crushed bush, bouncing across her path, fluffy tail flipping insolently as he disappeared. Somewhere, a bird called mournfully. There was no other sound except the gentle fluttering of the snow as it settled onto ice-crusted leaves. Cold. Oh, God, it was so terribly cold. But she forced herself to move onward, downward, slipping once to land on her bottom in the snow, only to scramble up again to keep moving as quickly as possible. There had to be help somewhere. There had to be.

  She stumbled again, and this time, before she could scramble up, someone was rushing toward her from behind, fastening strong fingers about her throat to send her sprawling face-forward into the deepening snow.

  “You think I didn’t know what you were up to?” The familiar, snarling voice of Luke Tate burned into her ears. “You think I’m stupid enough to let you get away?”

  Screaming, she rolled over on her back, swinging out at him with the pail she still held in one hand. It caught him on the forehead, gashing the skin. She swung again this time his forearm flew up to ward off the blow. He caught her wrists; the bucket fell into the snow, and he positioned himself on top of her, spraddle-legged.

  “You ever been had in the snow?” He laughed down at her, enjoying the struggles. “Hey, I’m glad to see you fighting for a change. I get goddamned tired of laying a damn stiff…”

  She tried to bring her knee up into his groin, but he only laughed louder, reaching quickly to pin both her arms over her head with one hand, while he ripped open her shirt with the other, lips moving to fasten on an exposed breast, teeth biting down until he tasted blood. Talking around her nipple, he said, mumbling, “You stop screaming, and I’ll stop biting…”

  The pain was excruciating as his teeth sank deeper into the tender flesh. Fighting within herself, she forced the screams to cease, lying still and quiet in the snow. He yanked at her trousers, pulling them down about her knees, pushing her legs apart.

  She choked on the scream that bubbled upward as he plunged roughly inside her body. He seemed to delight in the knowledge that he could cause her intense pain when he wanted. Again and again he drove into her flesh, pumping, pushing, as he grunted and snorted. Like a wild hog, she thought wildly, painfully, like that snorting wild hog that ran across the path this morning… Anything, she commanded herself, think of anything to take me away from this horror…this pain…this degradation of my very soul.

  At last, mercifully, Luke gave one final grunt as he fell against her, body heaving convulsively as he emptied himself within her. For a moment, he lay there breathing heavily. Then, getting to his feet and adjusting his trousers, he reached to lift her in his arms, her own trousers still down around her ankles, breasts jouncing exposed outside her open shirt as he headed toward the cabin.

  “They’re gonna enjoy this,” he said, grinning down at her. “The boys need something to perk them up after today. And as soon as Orville’s able, I’ll see to it that he gets his share. I reckon I’ve been selfish with you, and it’s time to share a good lay and teach you a lesson, to boot.”

  They were almost to the cabin when the first shot rang out. Instinctively, Luke dropped Kitty to the snow-covered ground and began running in a crouch toward the cabin. Kitty began to roll herself over and over as more shots rang out, trying to keep out of the line of fire.

  Someone let out a blood-curdling scream, and she stopped rolling long enough to see one of Luke’s men fall from the doorway of the cabin, blood gushing from his mouth. Horrified, she watched as Paul Gray leaped forward in a crouch, his carbine firing like the spit of a snake, but suddenly he screamed, clutched his stomach as a gush of blood and bowels burst forth, then he toppled head forward into the snow.

  And then she saw them storming the cabin, rushing inside, heard the sound of more gunfire and screams. A cloud of gray smoke began to drift across the way toward her, as she tried to figure out just what was happening. Were they all dead? Were they now going to kill her, too? But if they were Confederates, then surely they would take care of her, see that she got home safely.

  Yes, that was it! She straightened, smiling, relieved. They would only be after Luke and his men if they were Confederates. The nightmare was over. She was safe.

  Someone was coming out of the cabin. He was walking toward her, down the hill. Then she saw the way he was looking at her, and, glancing downward, she groped to fix her trousers, tuck her breasts back into the torn shirt. “Thank God,” she cried hoarsely, wondering suddenly why he wore no uniform. But he had to be on our side, she told her throbbing brain. “Thank God, you’re here!”

  His eyes lifted above her…beyond her…and as he said, “Sir, one got away…the one who was carrying this young woman.” She turned to look behind her. Why hadn’t she seen him before? He was right behind her—close enough to touch!

  He was looking at the other man, not at her, as he said, “Are they all dead?”

  “Yes, sir. There was one man that looked as though his arm had just been cut off, and we went ahead and shot him, too. But the one who was carrying her, he got away. Had a horse tied up around back. Guess he was afraid we’d follow them, and he was ready.”

  He was lowering his gaze to hers, and Kitty found herself staring into the coldest eyes she had ever seen. They were the color of steel—not blue, not black—but a sheen in between that would have been beautiful, save for the anger and disgust mirrored there. His hair was t
he color of the raven’s wing, shining black, and he had a firm set to his jaw.

  His eyes moved down, lingering on her heaving bosom. The smile he gave her was taunting, as though he knew she found him attractive. She cursed herself for the sudden flash of thought that asked what it would be like to feel those arrogantly smiling lips upon hers. His lips parted to show even, white teeth as he said, “Your lover got away, madam. I regret we must take you prisoner, as we don’t kill women—unless forced to. I trust we’ll have your cooperation to we can avoid any more unpleasantness.”

  “You don’t understand.” She spoke quickly, wanting to make him realize right away that she was not his prisoner—she had just been freed! “That man—Luke Tate—he’s held me captive for the whole winter.”

  “Soldier, let’s take this woman inside the cabin and persuade her to fix something to eat for us. Then we’ll have to figure out what to do with her.”

  “No, you don’t understand!” She threw herself at him then, beating at his chest with her fists. He wore a poncho, made of rubber cloth, and it was impossible to tell if he wore any kind of uniform beneath, but he was obviously a soldier, maybe even an officer. “I’ve been held prisoner. I want to go home, back to my people in North Carolina. I’m needed there, to work at the hospital. And there’s my mother to care for, and my fiancé…he’s an officer with the Wayne Volunteers…please, help me…”

  She was crying. Suddenly, it was all too much. He had to believe her. He had to. “Why won’t you listen?” she cried.