by Julianne Lee
“You do. Resign your commission. Tell them you have to take care of things at home.”
“There isn’t a man here who doesn’t have concerns at home. Mine aren’t any more pressing than theirs.” He now turned to her and ducked his head to look into her eyes. “Now you just hush up, because you’re only making it that much harder for me to summon the resolve to do what I must.” He gazed into her eyes to let that sink in, then added, “Go to the medical tent.”
“No.”
“Do as I say.” Now he was rolling up his blankets and arranging his pack.
“No.”
He turned again and looked at her. “Mary Beth, if I have to hogtie you and carry you there myself, I’ll do it.” His voice rose. “Bad enough my wife has come traipsing across the countryside in my old clothes, but I won’t bear the shame of having you follow me into the teeth of the Yankees’ artillery.”
“I can’t.” Tears rose, and panic set in. “I can’t leave you here. I won’t go without you.”
“I’m telling you, I sometimes wonder what sort of woman I married. I’ve never heard of any wife as stubborn and impossible as yourself, and I swear I will take measures to keep you away from me today.”
“No. Don’t send me away. Come with me instead.”
Lucas turned to one of the private soldiers nearby. “Barclay.”
The young man attended, at sloppy but respectful attention.
“Son, take this woman to the medical tent. By force, if necessary. Make certain she stays there. Put a guard on her, or something. Whatever it takes. Just don’t let her near the shooting.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And take that horse with you. The saddle is right there. She’ll be riding the mare home.”
“Yes, sir.” The soldier saluted, and Lucas threw one in return. Then the young man turned to her. “Ma’am.”
“No.” She addressed Lucas, but he ignored her.
“Ma’am...”
“Lucas Robert...”
But Lucas only heaved his pack onto his back and his bedroll across his chest, and began calling for his sergeant to assemble the men. Shelby was no longer part of his day. The edges of her vision began to crumble, and she began to shake. This was it. Lucas was about to march to his death. When the Private took her by the arm, she went without thinking or feeling where she was going, nor knowing what she would do when she got there. She gazed back at her husband, stunned that after coming all this way she’d failed to rescue him from fate.
Barclay saddled the mare, and requested she accompany him.
The medical tent was a nightmare of bloodied, half-naked men, lying on cots and stretchers and blankets and directly on the ground. The surgeon was asleep on a table covered by a sheet entirely red with blood. A number of women attended the patients, and ignored her as she stood and watched. The stench was so appalling, Shelby was loath to breathe through her mouth lest she taste it. She looked behind her and found Barclay watching. He would carry out his Captain’s orders, and prevent her from turning around and going back.
No. No way was she going to give up now. So she went inside the dim, close tent, wended her way across to the other side, and immediately ducked under the tent wall to the outside. In a wide circle, she made her way around to the front and slipped up to the tree where the roan was tied. She could see Barclay’s back across the clearing, and willed him to not turn around.
She untied the horse and without mounting led her back toward the battlefield. Firing was beginning in the distance. Her heart began to thud against her ribs. Though her instinct told her to flee, to take what fate would mete and go home and pray for Lucas, her heart wouldn’t allow her to abandon him. She set her feet toward the firing and forced herself onward.
The forest was ragged with holes where artillery had smashed through the trees. There was no road or trail here, and her only guide was the sound of volleys of fire. They seemed sporadic and weak. Much of the firing was disorganized potshots here and there, punctuated by the boom of cannon. She had no sense of what was going on, and couldn’t see where anything was aimed. Rifle balls zanged through the air. She flinched, but kept walking, hiding behind trees and hoping she was keeping them between herself and the Yankees, even knowing they were no protection against the cannon. She crossed a narrow creek, and was stunned to see a pink thread running over the rocks, from a runnel of blood flowing from the killing ground beyond. Tears stung her eyes, but she kept on.
There were too many men. Too many marching fast in ragged lines. Too many units, some individual men, standing, running, falling under a barrage of rifle fire. Lucas was going to be shot sometime today. She didn’t know when or where, or where he was right now. She crossed a road. Through a break in the trees ahead, she saw cannon facing her. Explosions rattled her brain, and tree branches overhead fell around her. She looked around. Lucas was going to be shot today. He would be among the fallen. She searched faces of those on the ground, half relieved each time one wasn’t Lucas, but also half wishing one of them were so she would know where he was.
Then, ahead, she spotted the banner of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry. Without further thought, for safety or anything but to find Lucas, she tied the horse to a tree and ran toward that banner. Toward the firing, which was all around now. She no longer flinched at bullets whizzing past, for there were too many. One would hit her, or it wouldn’t, and dodging wouldn’t save her. She ran to the men near that flag. Lucas would have to leave the battle now. He would take her away from the shooting, and then be away from the shooting himself. Just long enough to dodge his fate. Just long enough to change history just enough.
And she saw him. Up ahead, reloading his rifle. He was so tall, and so unafraid, he stood out from the men around him. She leapt over a rock in the field, and sidestepped another soldier firing, her eye on Lucas. He set his rifle against his shoulder and aimed.
Then he whirled in a spray of blood, his gun fired uselessly into the air, and he fell to the ground.
Chapter 20
“Lucas!” Her shout was lost amid the roar of artillery and screams of wounded. She ran to him, ignoring the crossfire into which she’d placed herself as the Confederate units fell back, men backing and running past her, going the other way. They were leaving the field, forced back by Yankee artillery. Soon the wounded would be left in a no-man’s land between the lines. She had to get Lucas out of there.
He clutched his right leg, at the middle of his thigh. Writhing, his face white with pain, he bellowed a hoarse, inarticulate cry of pain and fear. Blood coated his hands, and seeped up his trousers in a flow she knew must kill him if he were left on the field. She knelt beside him. “Lucas, I’m here.”
It took him a second to focus on her. “No.” His eyes were wild and he shook his head. “No, no, no. Get away! Get away from here, Mary Beth! Run! Go! Get...” His voice suddenly went weak, and he still muttered as his head fell back against the ground, “Go. Get away...”
No medic. Not in this war. The surgeon was probably still asleep on his table, and in any case was an ignorant, stinking, Petri dish of germs, more dangerous than no help at all. Shelby yanked open the bottom buttons of her shirt and tore off the tail. As fast as she could, she twisted the cloth a few times to make it a rope, then shoved Lucas’s hands aside so she could tie the tourniquet around his thigh. She took his sword, scabbard and all, from its belt, slipped the end of it under the loop of cloth, and began to turn it like a handle. Each twist made the tourniquet tighter, until Lucas was groaning from the pain of it. Then, with one hand holding the hilt of the sword against his lower leg, she opened his sword belt buckle and yanked it from around his waist. It went around the hilt and his leg three times, then buckled tightly.
There was a sharp tug at Shelby’s shirt that nearly pulled her off-balance, and she glanced to see a hole in it just under her armpit. She crouched in a hurry, suddenly aware of all the flying lead around her, and said in a startled hiss, “Ffffffuck!”
“Run,” said Lucas, panting now. “I’ll be all right now. Get away from here.”
She didn’t reply, for they both knew it was a lie, but instead knelt beside him and lifted his arm around her neck. He struggled to his feet, crouching in an effort to duck the bullets whizzing past, and hopped one-legged beside her toward the nearest intact stand of trees. Once inside cover, she wouldn’t allow him to stop. She made him go with her to where she’d left the horse.
“Here,” she put his hands on the saddle and knelt to let him step up on her knee.
“I can walk.”
“Quit arguing with me, and get on the horse, dammit!”
Too surprised at her language, and in pain, to even speak, he complied. Then, with Lucas astride the horse, Shelby led them away from the shooting as quickly as she could and the shouts and gunfire receded behind them.
She took Lucas to the cluster of tents where she knew she’d find some brass. Someone in charge, who would be notified of Lucas’s whereabouts and that he’d been grievously wounded. No way was she stopping at the medical tent. The surgeon, if he got his hands on Lucas, would more than likely want to remove the leg, then Lucas could die of sepsis even if he survived the blood loss. His trouser leg was soaked black with the stuff. Surely it was safer for him to go without the ministrations of the company surgeon, so when Shelby found an officer watching the action from atop his horse, she grasped his reins and made her case. She spoke as if she knew something of medicine, though she knew nothing.
“Sir, I’ve taken charge of this patient. He’s wounded in the leg, and won’t be fit for duty any time soon.”
It was the man in the handlebar mustache from the night before. “You.”
“Yes, sir.”
He glanced at Lucas on the horse, collapsed over the roan’s neck, and trousers shiny with blood. “The surgeon’s tent is over there.” He pointed and headed on at a walk, apparently not eager to talk.
She hurried to catch him again and laid a hand on his boot to insist, “He’s my husband. I want to care for him myself. And if he dies, I want to bury him myself.”
That took but a moment’s consideration, for most of the wounded would die. “Very well. Tell me his name again.”
“Captain Lucas Brosnahan. 2nd Tennessee Infantry.”
The man with the mustache nodded, then went on his way. Shelby took that as granting medical leave that would satisfy Lucas’s qualms about deserting his unit. So as quickly as she could get the roan to move without breaking into a trot, she led the horse and her burden away from the battle.
She continued on down the road past Bragg’s Headquarters, back in the direction of Chickamauga Creek. There was a cabin there; she’d seen when she’d passed it coming south. Maybe someone there could help.
After an hour or so of walking, she stopped to loosen the tourniquet so there would be some blood flow to his leg. A panicky, whispered prayer came to her lips each time: No gangrene, no gangrene, no gangrene. If that happened, she would be forced to take him to a surgeon who would remove the leg, and in that case Lucas would more than likely die anyway. Each time that day when she turned the sword back to loosen the tourniquet, the flow from the wound gushed as before, a surge in rhythm with his heart. Fresh blood joined the old drying on his trousers and down the side of the horse, a bright red wash against the roan coat. Lucas slumped over the horse’s neck, looking as if already dead. She frequently felt of his neck to find his weak, fluttery pulse.
At the creek, she stopped to give Lucas some water. The paleness of his skin, usually so ruddy, was awful to see. A couple of hours passed, and the flow didn’t seem to diminish when she checked the bleeding. An unease set in. Then terror. What if it didn’t stop? What if the artery was hit? What if the bleeding wouldn’t stop without surgery? Again, she would have to go to the surgeon and let him put his filthy hands on her husband. The most terrifying thought was that she may have killed him already by not taking him to the medical tent. What if he had no chance of recovery without amputation, and she was taking him away from help? As she walked, she prayed for the bleeding to stop. Even to slow. Anything to let her know he might be all right.
Finally they found the cabin, a tiny one-room structure beside a small tributary to Chickamauga Creek. Shelby ran the last few yards to the porch and knocked on the door.
“Go on in.” Lucas lifted his head from the horse’s neck. “Nobody there. Everyone with any sense has run away from this horror. You should have run away. You should be at home.” He sounded drowsy. He’d lost horrible amounts of blood, and was surely feeling light-headed by now. His head dropped to the horse’s neck again.
She took his advice and opened the door. He was right. There was nobody in the cabin, and the signs of hurried evacuation were plain. The hearth was cold, a trunk by the bed was empty, and the gun rack on the wall held no gun. Other items were in a confusion, fallen to the floor or heaped on the table that stood against the wall.
Shelby went to Lucas and tugged on his arm and trousers to help him slide from the horse. Too weak to help himself, he came on over and she buckled under his weight. They both fell in a heap on the ground, and the roan stepped away. Lucas groaned in pain. Shelby crawled from under him, caught him under his arms, and threw every bit of strength she had into helping him up. It was very nearly a fireman’s carry, with Lucas draped over her shoulder, but he was still conscious and took as much weight as he could on his good leg. Together they hobbled into the cabin and he collapsed onto the bed.
It was a corn shuck mattress, and rustled when he lay on it. He groaned as she lifted his legs onto it, and his fingers trembled against the sword scabbard tied to his leg. His pale face was damp and his hair plastered to it. Her gut fluttering with panic, she mouthed yet another prayer he would live, as she went to quickly tend to the horse, set the saddle and bridle on the porch outside, then returned with the saddlebags and pack to find Lucas sitting up on the side of the bed, poking at the wound.
“Lie down before you fall down.” She set the bags on the foot of the bed.
He ignored her. “I think it’s still in there.” His voice was papery. Fragile. There was a fine trembling in his fingers.
“The ball.”
He nodded. “It’s got to come out.”
She took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s take it out. Are you ready?”
“Now is as good a time as I can think of. It hurts something awful. Isn’t going to get any better while the ball is in there.”
“Yeah.” Shelby wasn’t at all certain how to do this, and cursed her lack of medical know-how. All she knew about this was that she was less likely to give him an infection than was the army surgeon. Also, Lucas was going to hurt a lot worse before this was over, and there was nothing she could do for his pain. There wasn’t even any whiskey to give him.
She shoved a dusty rag rug up to the edge of the bed and said, “Okay, here, slide onto the floor and sit with your back against the bed.” He obliged, and once he was settled, his head laid back on the mattress, she ripped off the trouser leg below the tourniquet. The wound was an ugly black spot at the middle of his outer thigh, in the midst of a swollen, purple mess smeared with blackening blood. The rest of his leg was bloodless white. His boot came off with difficulty, then she peeled off his sock to check his foot. It was the same color as his leg.
“Where’s your razor?”
He rolled his head toward the foot of the bed. “Pack.” She went to bring the pack in, rummaged through it, and found his straight razor. It would be best to not have to cut him, but the odds were good she’d have to widen the edge of the hole some to dig out the ball. The horror of it was that it would make him bleed even more than he had.
Now she would need hot water. Or at the very least, a fire to sterilize the razor. There was a bucket by the door and the creek was down a slope, along a narrow trail made by the folks who had lived here and fetched water every day. Shelby brought back a bucketful and poured it into the cauldron, then we
nt for another. That she set on the table for now.
Knees still trembling, functioning by reflex now, she went to the wood pile for a couple of logs and some kindling.
When she returned he was so still, she had to pause a moment to make certain he was yet breathing.
The fire built, she took her striker from the saddle bags and lit it. The blaze as it grew was the first cheery thing she’d seen in what seemed eternity, and it pushed back the chill of the waning fall day. She swung the cauldron hook over it so the water would heat.
She went looking through a chest of drawers, and found some candles, one of which she lit and set in a glob of its own wax on the table. Then she held the razor edge over it for a few seconds. Kneeling beside Lucas. She poked at the wound, and found nothing but an expanse of swollen flesh. If the ball was still in there, it had gone pretty deep. She slipped her hand to the underside of his leg in search of an exit wound, and found a foreign lump at the back of his thigh. The good news was that it was away from the bone and, she guessed, the artery. Maybe the ball had missed it. However, though the thing was near enough to the surface to be obvious, it wasn’t near enough to be easily cut out. As she examined the situation, the only thing she knew for sure was that she wasn’t going to be able to pull it back out through the hole it had made.
“I’ve got to cut from this side.”
Lucas groaned and raised his head to look. Deep, quick breaths blew through his nose, but he nodded that she should do it. “Now.”
“Here, turn.” She helped him shift onto his left hip for a better view of the lump, and looked for the palest part of his skin, hoping that would mean the least amount of bleeding and the spot on the ball closest to the surface. Pinching the lump and holding the skin taut, she laid the knife against it and sliced hard and fast in one quick motion.
Lucas’s head fell back to the mattress and a strangled cry emerged from between his teeth. His body jerked and trembled, and his hand made a reflex move to push her away. She held his wrist and pressed it to his side out of her way, until he reached up to grasp the bed frame with white knuckles.
