Measure of Katie Calloway, The: A Novel

by Serena B. Miller

  “His name is Poppy.” Cletus lovingly ran a finger over the tiny colt. “He likes to run.”

  Robert knew how hard it must have been for Cletus to give Poppy away, and a lump formed in his throat at the sacrifice.

  “Could you teach me?” Ned asked. “I have a pocketknife.”

  “Sure!” Cletus’s face lit up. “I can teach you real good.”

  Thomas, wearing a worried expression, walked over to his father. Robert got down on one knee so he could be face to face with his boy. “What’s wrong, son?”

  The little boy uncurled his hand. He was clutching the tiny dog. “Is this for me?” he said. “To keep?”

  “Ask Cletus.”

  “His name is Hunter,” Cletus said.

  “Thank you.” Thomas was enthralled with the little dog.

  Cletus, happy with the boys’ response, ducked his head into the opening of the playhouse and told Betsy, “There’s a kitty in there. Her name is Buttons.”

  Robert smiled at the sound of Betsy’s happy squeal.

  “I brought somethin’ too.” Jigger produced a worn checker set from a sack he had carried along with him. “I’ll teach you young’uns to play—that’ll be my present.”

  Betsy came back out and motioned for her father to bend down. “There’s candy too!” she whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Can I have a piece?”

  At that moment, Ernie’s stomach growled. The men laughed as he looked startled and grabbed his offending middle.

  “Why don’t you wait until after we have dinner before you eat the candy, sweetie,” Katie said. “I have baked beans, corn bread, and raisin-filled cookies.”

  She pulled out tin plates and opened the containers of food while the children ran back inside of their Christmas playhouse. After the men had all dished up lunch and were seated on various stumps and logs around the fire, she called to the children to come get theirs.

  Robert loved it when he saw them coming with the little wooden plates and cups he knew Tinker had made.

  “Tell Tinker thank you,” he said. “He’s the one who made those for you, and the table too.”

  Tinker had to balance his food in one hand while each of the children gave him a hug, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “That’s all right.” He grinned and patted each child’s back in turn. “That’s all right.”

  The children’s happy laughter and chatter coming from their playhouse was like music to Robert and the men. He noticed several with quiet smiles on their faces while they ate.

  He allowed the dinner break to last a little longer than usual. It was cold today, but it was sunny and clear. The men lounged around, enjoying the hot tea from the kettle hung from the tripod while their food digested. Even Moon Song seemed to relish the camaraderie as she sat on the stump, rocking the baby to sleep and chatting with Henri in French.

  Katie was cheerfully making the men guess what she would be serving for Christmas supper tomorrow—traditionally the best meal served all year. She seemed at home in this setting. In spite of the hard work and privations, she, like the children, seemed to be thriving in this rough atmosphere.

  This struck him as slightly odd. He knew from observing his own mother and other women who had survived their husbands, that widowhood was not an easy thing. His mother had seemed determined to bring his deceased father into every conversation for years afterward, exalting him to a sainthood he had never enjoyed in life—not even by his wife.

  Katie had never mentioned her husband. Not even once.

  He had a feeling his lovely, talented cook was hiding something. He just hoped he discovered what it was before he allowed himself to fall any deeper in love with her.

  Katie needed to get back to start supper, but the children begged to be allowed to stay longer.

  “I’ll keep an eye on ’em,” Jigger promised. “It’s been a long time since I was out in the woods with the men. I’ll keep the fire going so’s they can warm up if they need to.”

  “Robert?” she asked. “What do you think?”

  “It’s all right with me if they stay.”

  Somewhat relieved, Katie left for the camp. She had an enormous amount of work to do before tonight, and having the children gone would make things easier.

  As she and Moon Song plodded through the snow, dragging the emptied dinner sled behind them, she planned her meal down to the last morsel for tonight. In anticipation of it being Christmas Eve, she had already baked several layers of a cake she planned to stack and decorate with vanilla icing. It would be quite an eye-catcher when she was finished with it—the fanciest thing she had yet attempted in camp. The children would love it.

  And, of course, Robert would also be impressed. Which was the main reason she was attempting such a towering confection. His praise for her was becoming an obsession. She hungered for it as much as the shanty boys hungered for her flapjacks every morning. Every kind word Robert had ever uttered to her, every compliment, she turned over and over in her mind like jewels. She was ashamed to admit how starved for kind words she had been.

  Yes, tonight, her cake would be a marvel of engineering and beauty, and Robert would be impressed by her expertise. She could hardly wait to get started.

  “Timberrrr!”

  Robert jerked his axe away from the base of the tree and stepped back, listening to the satisfying cracking sound as the remaining fibers of the tree broke away and the giant pine hovered before it began its long, crashing descent through the surrounding tree limbs. He was the other half of a two-man axe team with Skypilot today.

  He had just turned to make certain Ernie and Cletus were standing by to chop off the limbs when he heard a sound that sent a chill up his spine.

  “Papa?” Betsy’s voice called. “Where are you, Papa?”

  He whirled, searching for his daughter. Please, God, not in the path of the descending tree!

  And then he saw a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Skypilot was running, faster than Robert had ever seen a man run, directly in line with the tree. The preacher who wasn’t a preacher anymore must have spotted the child before she even called out.

  Robert had never felt so helpless in his life. Even Gettysburg had not left him feeling as useless. His heart pounded as he watched Skypilot race to save Betsy’s life.

  Skypilot did not hesitate when he reached the little girl. He scooped her up without breaking stride while tons of pine plummeted toward earth.

  And then it was over.

  A tangle of limbs obscured Skypilot and Betsy. He didn’t know if either of them were alive. He grabbed his axe and began to run.

  Years ago, while still a child, he had seen a man crushed by a falling tree at his father’s camp. It was, at that moment, deep in the Maine forests, far from any medical help, that he had decided to become a doctor.

  He knew exactly the kind of damage a falling tree could do to the human body.

  The other men were running too. Robert had prayed many times in his life but never as fervently or as desperately as he prayed now—that his daughter would be unharmed and alive and the man who had risked his life to save her would be spared.

  Then he heard Betsy’s screams. No words, just screams that went on and on echoing throughout the forest.

  He had to crawl over the tree trunk to get to them. Skypilot was pinned to the earth, a broken limb across his chest, another limb across his legs. He couldn’t see Betsy, but her screams were coming from beneath some pine boughs about ten feet from Skypilot. As Ernie and Cletus began to chop at the butt of the limb that was pinning Skypilot to the ground, Robert waded through the branches, oblivious to scratches and scrapes, frantically digging his way through the green boughs covering his daughter.

  “Betsy! Lay still. I’m coming!”

  Other hands parted limbs. When he saw his daughter, she was curled into a ball. At the sound of his voice, she stopped screaming and started sobbing so hard her body shook.

  As he ran his h
ands over her tiny body, he found no broken bones, no puncture wounds. Only a multitude of scratches and one scraped knee.

  “He threw me,” Betsy sobbed. “Skypilot threw me!”

  “He saved your life, honey.” Robert gathered her up in his arms. “Skypilot threw you as far away from the tree as he could to save you.”

  “Boss!” Ernie shouted from behind him. “You’d better come here.”

  Betsy was clinging to him.

  “Let go, sweetheart.” He tried to pull her arms from around his neck. “I have to see to Skypilot now. I’ll come back for you as fast as I can.”

  “No!” She fought and kicked at Klaas, who gently pulled her away from him. It broke Robert’s heart to see her so upset, but he had to go to the injured man.

  “Boss!”

  “I’m coming.”

  Robert fought his way back through the limbs to where Skypilot lay. His time spent getting to Betsy had taken less than three minutes, but it was three minutes Skypilot couldn’t spare.

  Ernie had managed to saw through the two limbs that had crashed into Skypilot’s body, and now Cletus and two others were gently lifting them off him.

  It was bad.

  Robert’s heart sank as he took in the full extent of Skypilot’s injuries. One leg was twisted at a horrible angle. More than a few ribs were broken. He’d sustained a head wound. But the worst thing of all—the thing that made Robert’s gut twist in sympathy—was the large splinter of broken limb that had punctured Skypilot’s stomach like a dull knife.

  Abdominal wounds were notorious for becoming infected. During the worst battles, when the injured were too numerous to be removed quickly from the battlefield, those soldiers who had stomach wounds were frequently left behind to die—the chances of a doctor being able to save them was too remote to be a medical priority.

  But he had to try.

  “Let’s get him back to camp,” he instructed the men who were helplessly standing around.

  “Is he gonna make it, boss?” Ernie asked.

  “God only knows.”

  The men cut two straight poles from limbs and fashioned a makeshift stretcher out of their own coats. With a sober and frightened Betsy now quiet in Klaas’s arms, Robert directed the lifting and carrying of the wounded man. The shanty boys were as tender and solicitous as women as they carried their fallen comrade away.

  Robert walked by Skypilot’s side, helping to keep the stretcher steady, as he tried to prepare himself, once again, to perform surgery under primitive conditions. He had sworn he would never touch those instruments again. He doubted he could do so now. The last time he had tried, his hands had trembled so badly he knew it was impossible.

  There was a term coined, while he was a doctor in the Union army, for an emotional condition that made a soldier unfit for duty. Too many battles, too many fallen comrades, too many gunshots took a toll on a man. The government called it “soldier’s heart,” and some men never recovered from the tremors and nervous condition.

  For him, it had been a different sort of hand-to-hand combat. He had been in charge of too many tents filled with dying and wounded. Too many men he couldn’t save.

  When he had dealt with patients who had this disorder, he, too, called it “soldier’s heart.” But when it came to himself, he called it cowardice. It was a sin to take his God-given talent and medical training and bury it because he wasn’t man enough to deal with what he had experienced in the war. He knew this. He was ashamed of this. But he was incapable of ever operating again.

  Except now—he had no choice.

  The man who had saved his daughter’s life was dying, and Robert knew that he was Skypilot’s only hope.

  21

  We have sawmills all o’er the land;

  they saw the lumber with a band;

  they’ll take your leg or take your hand

  and leave you crippled in Michigan.

  “Don’t Come to Michigan”

  —1800s shanty song

  Katie had just finished a masterpiece. The cake had turned out even lovelier than she had hoped, and she was certain it was going to astonish Robert. It was worthy, in her estimation, of a fancy wedding.

  It had been nice to have Jigger gone while she worked on it. No doubt he would have poked fun at her fancy white icing and the rosettes she had so painstakingly created. She had been forced to be extremely creative in finding the right-sized pans in which to bake the cake. A couple of skillets had been brought into play, and several cake edges trimmed to make the shape she wanted—but it had all been worth it.

  What better than a beautiful birthday cake to remind them all of the traditional date for the celebration of the birth of Christ? There was little enough religion in this camp.

  “What do you think?” she asked Moon Song, who was nursing her baby.

  “Taste?” Moon Song asked. It was one of the words she had learned recently and used often. Sometimes Katie wondered if Moon Song would ever get filled. In some ways, she was as bad as the men.

  Katie gave her a spoon with leftover icing on it. Like Ned, Moon Song loved anything sweet. Then she proudly carried the cake to the table and set it smack dab in the middle where it would be the first thing the men and Robert would see when they came in this evening. She could already imagine the compliments she would get.

  Humming, she went back to the kitchen area to finish supper preparations. She would make an oyster stew tonight, and would infuse it with plenty of good, fresh cream and sweet butter, thanks to her lovely cow.

  She was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t hear the shouts at first—not until Moon Song jumped up and ran to the window. When she did look out, what she saw made no sense.

  The men were coming back in the early afternoon. The sun was still shining and several more hours of work could be accomplished. This had never happened before.

  Klaas was in the forefront of the group, carrying Betsy, and the two boys and Jigger were trailing him. The others were all clustered around something they were carrying.

  Her hand flew to her mouth as she realized what she was seeing. Someone had been hurt!

  Frantically, she scanned the crowd and nearly wept with relief when she saw Robert walking beside the stretcher. She couldn’t tell who the person was on the stretcher, but at least it wasn’t Robert. They were heading straight toward the cook shanty.

  Robert was the first through the door. “Clear this out of here!” He swept the carefully washed tin place settings off the table with his arm.

  She leapt to grab the cake before he could send it crashing to the floor as well. Carefully, she moved it to the worktable.

  Then she saw Skypilot—and the cake over which she had so lovingly labored lost all meaning.

  She did not have to ask what had happened. This was a lumber camp. Men got hurt.

  “Dad-blamed trees!” Jigger was practically in tears. “Ever last one of ’em is out to kill a fellow.”

  “Do you have any boiling water?” Robert asked. “Please say that you do.”

  By the grace of God, she did have water boiling. With the rare occurrence of all the men and children gone for the afternoon, she had finished her cake early, so that she and Moon Song could indulge in the luxury of a bath while they had the warm cook shanty all to themselves. It was such a bother carrying buckets of hot water from the kitchen to the cabin. She had already hung up a couple sheets for privacy just in case someone did wander in.

  “Plenty,” she said.

  “Good.” He yanked down one of the clean sheets she had just hung up. “Has this been slept on?”

  “No.” She was puzzled why that would be important. “I took it off the clothesline only yesterday.”

  “If it’s been dried in the sun, it will do.” He spread the sheet over the table and instructed the men to lay Skypilot upon it. The big logger was deathly pale and his clothes were saturated with blood. She could hardly believe the damage that had been done.

  “Henri, there’s
a black medical bag beneath my bunk. Go get it,” he said. “Katie, run and get my surgical tools from the cabin.”

  She hesitated, trying to process the fact that Robert was actually going to do surgery.

  “Now!” he barked.

  She bolted through the door and ran to the cabin. Scooting the chair over to the wall, she dug the surgeon’s box out from beneath the eaves and hurried back. When she returned, Robert had cut off much of Skypilot’s clothing. Jigger was holding the baby, and Moon Song was washing the blood off the injured man’s face.

  The three children were cowering in a corner. Thomas was wide-eyed, Ned looked pale, Betsy was sucking her thumb.

  Robert seemed to notice their presence about the same time Katie did. “Somebody get these children out of here!”

  Ernie quickly ushered them out of the cookhouse, glancing worriedly over his shoulder as he did so.

  “Katie,” Robert said, “put all those instruments in the water. Then build up the fire as hot as you can get it. They need to boil hard.”

  She had no idea why he wanted her to do this. The instruments looked just fine to her as she removed them from the case.

  “Why am I doing this?”

  “Just trust me, Katie!”

  She did as he said. Trusting him was becoming a habit. “Is he conscious?”

  “No, he passed out from pain on the trip here,” Robert said. “Put a cup of your saleratus in as well.”

  Katie measured out a cup of the ingredient she used to make her biscuits rise and dumped it in the water. Like everyone there, she desperately wanted Skypilot to survive, but Robert’s instructions were getting stranger and stranger.

  “Found it!” Henri came running in with a black bag in his hand.

  “Dip out a washbasin of boiled water,” Robert commanded. “And bring it here.”

  Even with all the people crowding the room, there was little sound except for Skypilot’s labored breathing and the sound of her dipping water into the pan.

  As she placed the basin on the table, Robert pulled out a bottle of white powder and sprinkled it into the water.