Agnes Canon's War

by Deborah Lincoln

  “The children cry for him when they’re tired,” Agnes said and stroked Charlie’s hair off his damp forehead.

  “No, I mean you miss him.” Mattie ducked her head to peer into my eyes. “Don’t tell me you can do without him.”

  “I don’t miss his black moods and his temper.”

  “He loves you. He must, to send you away to be safe.”

  “I worry about him. Always.”

  She laughed. “He’ll get into trouble if you’re not there to watch over him?”

  “Very likely. He has strong opinions and a short temper.”

  “I wish he’d come with you,” Mattie said, adjusting Sarah Belle’s sun bonnet. “I’d like to meet him.”

  “Come home with us. It would be a comfort to have you there.”

  “So you can avoid confronting whatever it is about your marriage that’s eating at you? No, I thank you kindly.” She gazed off over the valley. “I’m not like you, Agnes. I have no hankering to go off to strange lands. My world is here, and I’ll die here. But you need to go back to your husband.”

  Agnes said nothing. No breeze stirred. Leaves dangled, limp and exhausted. The hum of fat bumblebees and the flutter of white fairy butterflies sent the barest ripple through the still air. The world held its breath, waiting, waiting for the war to end, waiting to right itself again, waiting for the future.

  “Yes,” Agnes said. “Yes, I do.”

  Mattie lay her hand on Sarah’s cheeks. “She’s warm. Maybe she needs a cool bath?”

  “They’ve both been warm, too warm these past two days. They should be under Jabez’s care.” A pang of fear sprung from deep inside, taking her unawares. “He’ll keep them well.” Sarah’s eyelids lifted sleepily and her mouth puckered into a whimper. “You’re right. It’s time to go home.”

  

  They arrived home after an interminable journey, during which the children coughed and cried with the effects of summer colds, jostled on stiff horse-hair benches filthy to the touch, amid smoke and dust and the melting heat of late July. The sense of adventure from the trip east was long gone. Even the sight of war-ravaged Missouri villages and deserted farmsteads brought relief because it meant they were close to home, to comfort for her wretched little ones, and to Jabez. She feared he’d be angry at her leaving the safety of Pennsylvania—she had no way of knowing if he’d received her telegram—but there he stood on the platform of the station in St. Joseph. The sight of him, a head taller than most of the crowd, neatly brushed coat and clean linen standing in contrast to stiff Union blue wool and the patched and dirty shirts of army hangers-on, put a hitch in her breath, and sent her pulse pounding. He welcomed them with a joy he’d not shown since the night the newspaper shop burned. Charlie threw himself at his father, and Jabez pulled Agnes and Sarah Belle to him, too. “My love,” he whispered into her hair, “I was a fool. If ever I insist you must go away again, do all you can to resist me.”

  “I’ll defy you with all my heart,” she said, her lips on his throat, soft with his beard.

  He chuckled. “You have no qualm there, and that’s why I love you.” In the midst of war-ravaged Missouri, Agnes found peace and safety in the circle of his arms, more peace than she’d ever known in Pennsylvania. She was home where she belonged.

  33

  August 1862

  Reuben Bigelow rapped on the Robinsons’ bedroom window in the dark early hours of the morning. Jabez, accustomed to being summoned in the night by expectant fathers or worried mothers, looked out to see the big man silhouetted against the dim light of a quarter moon, the empty sleeve flapping in the night wind. Agnes woke and sat up.

  “It’s Reuben,” Jabez said without turning. Agnes muttered something and pushed a curl off her forehead. Jabez struck a match, touched it to the wick of a candle.

  The man outside drew great gulps of suffocating air, sticky with August’s humidity. His mount stood in the shadows of Agnes’s lilac, blowing with exhaustion. “You got to come with me, Doc,” he said, his voice hoarse. “My boy’s been hit bad.” He leaned against the window sill with one hand, dropped his head and spit. “It’s Jake. Jake’s hurt bad. He’ll die if he don’t get help.”

  “Where is he?” Jabez was up, pulling on his trousers.

  “Up on the Noddaway, up toward Skidmore.” Bigelow paused, his breath slowing. “They fought the federals up along the border. Wil come to get me.” He glanced over his shoulder. “He’s gone on, can’t be seen around here. I’ll be waiting, Doc. Up yonder”—he waved—”north end.” And without waiting for a response, he slipped into the night.

  Jabez buttoned his shirt. “I’ve got to go, Agnes.” She said nothing. “Can’t let that boy just die.”

  “No, you can’t.” She raised her knees up under the sheet and wrapped her arms tight around them. “I know it’s evil, but I wish it’d been Willard, not Jake.” She settled her chin on her knees and stared at nothing.

  “I’ll take the buggy—may need to bring him back. If they’ll let me.”

  “I’ll call Dick and heat up the coffee.”

  

  Jabez checked Nellie at the river bank, where the road disappeared into the ford. Gnats tormented Jabez and horseflies buzzed the old mare’s ears, and she snorted and shook her head. The Noddaway River, in the northern part of the county, rolled out of broken country into a broad and marshy plain. Scrub ash and cottonwood lined its banks, along with seedling maples that would drown before they matured. Withered purple spikes of indigo, round soft heads of buttonbush, chokecherries, elderberry and willow crowded against each other and blocked the buggy from proceeding any farther. Reuben, leading the way perched on the back of a meaty plow mule, located a trail, invisible to Jabez, and pushed into it without a word.

  Jabez batted at a persistent blue-bottle fly, climbed down from the buggy, and looped the reins around a willow branch. He lifted his medical case from under the seat and followed the mule on foot, boots sinking into the soft earth of an old deer trail as a grass snake wound silently into the underbrush and grasshoppers snapped and whirred under his footsteps.

  The trail led away from the river and up a rise, where the brush thinned and a stand of walnut and elm clustered at the head of a ravine. By the time Jabez reached the trees, his shirt clung with sweat, and his neck stung from mosquito bites. He set his case on the ground next to the smoking embers of a breakfast fire and shrugged out of his coat. Reuben slid off his mule, ignoring the men who clustered around the campsite among a litter of equipment and cast-off clothing. There were at least twenty, maybe more. He recognized Richard and Harlan Little from over Forest City way and Ora Juwitt but none of the others. Several sported bloody bandages on an arm or a thigh. They crouched grim-faced, tin coffee cups or a plate of eggs or a hunk of hard bread to hand. Some cleaned weapons, an old squirrel musket, Colts, one even had a Springfield rifle. What conversation Jabez heard was carried on in low voices, truncated phrases. Someone back in the trees hummed, a soft, monotonous sound that might have been a cicada’s song.

  “Over here.” Reuben grasped the medical case and nodded toward the shade of the trees, where Jake sprawled on a blanket. The boy’s right calf lay propped across a saddle, a coat folded under his head, his trouser leg split to the groin and rolled above a filthy and blood-soaked strip of shirting wrapped tourniquet-style around the thigh. Angry streaks of red shot from beneath the bandage toward the knee, and the smell of the wound cloyed in the heavy air, already oppressive with August heat. Jabez squatted next to him and pressed his fingers against the inside of his wrist. The beats raced beneath his touch. Jake gazed at him through sweat and fever and grinned.

  “Hey, Doc,” he said, “What you doing here? You joining up with us boys?” He choked the last word, a spritz of bloody spittle moistening his lips.

  Jabez laid his hand on the boy’s forehead. It burned. “Just visiting this morning. Looks like
you got yourself into a fix here.”

  “Damn Yank caught me just as we was winning the day. I got him, though, shot him right in the chest.” He closed his eyes and winced. “Didn’t see him fall, though.”

  “I’m sure you got him,” Jabez said, long fingers probing at the fiery skin between knee and bandage. “How long ago did this happen?” He looked up at Reuben.

  “Wil says it’s been two days,” Bigelow said. “He dug out the bullet but it don’t seem to want to scab over.”

  “I think it’s beyond that now. Get some water heating up and if there’s whiskey in camp, bring it. Bring everything you’ve got. And we’ll need three of those men over here to help out.” Jabez sat cross-legged on the ground and opened his medical case. He pulled out clean pads of cloth, untied the bloody strip of bandage, peered into the wound, probed and pressed, and applied the new bandages to stanch the blood that immediately began to well up.

  “You going to let me keep my leg, ain’t you, Doc?” Jake said, trying for another grin. “I’m kind of fond of it. Can’t go after no more Yanks without that leg, you know.” He raised himself on his elbows, pain shot across his face, and he squeezed his eyes. “Got anything in that box to kill the hurt?”

  “Laudanum, that should help.” Jabez pulled out a small black bottle, drew the cork, measured an amount of liquid into a silver shot glass. “Drink that. We’ll combine it with whiskey, and you should be a little easier here soon.”

  While his patient downed the medicine, Jabez lifted a tray from his case. Sunlight glinted off a set of five steel blades cradled in a bed of red velvet. Four were long and narrow, double-sided sharp, the fifth was a fat rectangular saw with tiny serrations along one edge.

  Jake looked at the box, then squinted up at the doctor. “Hey, mister, you ain’t going to be cutting on me, are you?” He laughed, a nervous, high sound. “Because I ain’t in a mood to let you do that.”

  Jabez lay a hand on the boy’s forearm. “Jake, there’s nothing else to do. I’m going to need to take that leg off, or you won’t live through the day.” He touched the thigh, just above the knee. “See these red streaks? That’s poison. It’s already killed your lower leg. If it shows up above the wound, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.” Reuben knelt next to him, carrying a kettle of hot water, a bottle of whiskey under his stump.

  Jake’s breath came in little gasps. “Pa, you ain’t going to let him take my leg, are you?” Tears rolled through the grime on his cheeks, into the stubble on his jaw. He jerked away from Jabez’s touch, rolled onto one hip toward his father, clutched the old man’s shirtfront. “Pa…? His voice weakened, the laudanum taking hold.

  “Here, son, take some of this.” Reuben tipped the bottle to Jake’s lips. “I ain’t going to let you die, but we got to take care of this leg.” Surprisingly gentle, the big man pressed his son back to the ground, stroked hair off his forehead, positioned himself, kneeling, at Jake’s head. He gave him another drink, while Jake cried quietly.

  The Little brothers and a third man Jabez didn’t know gathered, shuffling and looking ill. Jabez looked up at them. “You boys ready to help?”

  Harlan Little shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “Well, then, each of you take an arm, and you there, you take the other leg. Pull it out of my way, there. He’ll thrash, even if he’s out, and I want you to keep him still.”

  They took their places, and Jabez swabbed the wound with a wet cloth, scrubbing away dirt and grime. He rose to his knees for leverage, tied the canvas band high up on the thigh to clamp the femoral artery. He rested one hand on the thigh above the wound, drawing back the skin to leave a flap when the cut muscles retracted. With the other hand, he grasped the longest-bladed knife. He willed his heart to slow, took two deep breaths, visualized the procedure. A circular cut around the leg, through the integuments and the loose superficial muscles, all at once, the least painful way. A second cut, dividing the deep muscles. Remove the pressure on the thigh, allow the muscles to retract. Finish the cut on the deep muscles.

  Jabez shook sweat out of his eyes. He bumped up against the bone, and the cut looked good. Jake had lost consciousness. Richard Little retched and loosened his grasp on the left arm. Reuben hovered like an anxious bear. Jabez concentrated, took the scalpel, finished the last cuts to the muscles. His scalpel scraped bone, and he slipped in the linen retractor to tie back the flesh, reached behind him for the saw. He pressed his thumb into the wound, nail against the bone to mark his place, set the blade against his thumb, drew back once, lifted it, drew back again, then gently back and forth, back and forth, until the teeth began to pinch as the cut bone came together. He lifted the thigh from underneath with his left hand and released the blade, pulled back again, then again. The saw dropped through, the bone splintering as it separated, and Jabez swore under his breath. Jagged, not a good cut. He snarled to the man on the other leg to push the dead limb out of the way, picked up the nippers and snipped off the splinters.

  The whole thing took no more than three minutes, an age to Jabez. Though he’d performed the operation many times before, he never managed to still his racing pulse or prevent his jaw from clenching so it pained him for days afterwards. He stared at the mass of blood and skin, bone and muscle, lying discarded in the dust, once alive, responsive, pumping with life. He shook himself and turned his attention to the stump. Tie off the main artery, then the vein, probe for other vessels to be ligated, smooth skin and muscle over the raw end of the bone and stitch, pack with lint and wrap with flannel, and it was over.

  “For the love of God,” Reuben said, his voice almost lost in his thick beard. Richard Little heaved up his breakfast in the underbrush. Harlan, without a word, returned to the campfire and poured himself a cup of coffee. Jabez stood and dabbed at his bloody arms with a grimy kerchief. Jake’s stump twitched as if searching for its missing half. Disgusted and half sick, Jabez threw his bloody tools into the kettle of water and went to the river to wash.

  

  Late afternoon. Jabez dozed next to his patient in the warmth of the summer stillness, a buzz of insects the only sound. Jake moaned. He hadn’t regained consciousness, fever burned beneath skin still hot to the touch. Jabez held out little hope for him. Reuben wanted to haul him back to Lick Creek, but Jabez advised not moving him until the morning, so they made him as comfortable as possible, taking turns swabbing him with cool water, brushing away flies. The others in camp avoided Jake, casting sideways looks in his direction but not offering to help with the nursing. Jabez had doctored the wounded men, two flesh wounds from Minié balls, a saber cut, a couple of severe scrapes and bad bruises. Children playing a deadly game.

  He shook off the drowsiness and stirred himself to check on Jake. Nothing more he could do, he may as well go home. He’d leave his supply of laudanum, show Reuben how to change the bandage, though there was no point. By the time the bandage needed changing, Jake would be in his grave. But concerning himself with the bandage would keep Reuben occupied.

  A shadow passed over him, and he looked up at a figure silhouetted against the sun.

  “Well, well, it’s the good doctor,” Willard said.

  Turning back to Jake, Jabez took the cloth from Reuben and rinsed it in the kettle of lukewarm water. Reuben sat back on his haunches, looking from his eldest son to the doctor, eyes glittering underneath heavy brows.

  “Willard,” Jabez said. “About time you showed up.”

  “He’s been here,” Reuben said. “Back in the trees, watching.”

  “Figured you was still aggravated with me,” Willard said. “Didn’t want you taking it out on Jake here.”

  Jabez lifted Jake’s wrist, counted the fluttering pulse. “Your brother’s in a bad way, thanks to you.”

  “He done a good piece of fighting the other day,” Willard said. “Nothing to be shamed for.” He pulled a plug of tobacco out of his shirt pocket, bit off a hunk. “
Lots of boys going to die before this war’s over.” He chewed, spit. “So this mean you’re on our side?”

  “Wil, for the sake of God, shut up,” Reuben said. “Don’t matter, long as Jake’s all right.”

  “I doctor whoever needs doctoring,” Jabez said, heaving to his feet and dropping the cloth into the water bucket. “Doesn’t matter which side.”

  “I hear you was printing secesh in that paper of yours.”

  “How the readers interpret my opinions is up to them.”

  “Got to be on one side or the other, Doc. There ain’t no middle.”

  Jabez turned his back on Willard, squatted to brush the flies from Jake’s face, tested his pulse once again.

  “Reuben.” He stood again. “I’m leaving you a bottle of laudanum. Give him a swallow every two hours, be careful not to overdose.” He pointed to the stump. “These bandages should be good until tomorrow. After that, change them if there’s blood showing through.” He looked up. Jake’s eyes, open and clear, were on his face.

  “Well, son, you’ve come around.”

  A corner of Jake’s mouth lifted. “Yes sir, I guess I been sleeping the day through.” He tried to raise himself on his elbows. “My leg itches something fierce, Doc. You got anything for that?”

  Jabez smiled at him. “Afraid not, boy. You’ll just have to grit your teeth and bear it. You’ve been through a lot worse today. Itching is a good sign.”

  Jake rolled his head, saw his brother. “Hey, Wil, got some tobaccy? I could use a smoke.” He wiggled. Jabez and Reuben lifted him by the arms, settled his back against the trunk of the elm. Willard reached into a coat pocket, pulled out a cigar, bit off the end and spit it out, lit it with a brand from the fire. He handed it to his brother, who drew deep and with a satisfied sigh leaned against the tree.