Deserter (11 page)

Jake halted at a sign at the side of the road nailed to a stout post stuck into the ground. The sign was wooden, about two feet by two feet. The lettering was faded but still legible:
TOWN OF PENDERTON
. The thick wood was riddled with bullet holes, most of which appeared to be from small-caliber weapons. A couple of two-inch-wide gaps indicated the passing of a rifleman with a buffalo gun or similar piece. Sinclair's face broke into a grin in spite of his dried and cracked lips. He recalled that posters for runaway slaves back home had served as targets, too. He and his father had, in fact, sighted in Jake's brand-new birthday gift rifle on such a poster the day he turned fifteen.

Sinclair passed a neat little log-constructed cabin with a couple of toddlers playing with a pair of puppies in front of it. He was about to rein in when he locked eyes with a stout, hatchet-faced woman in a washed-out gray dress. Her mouth was a grim, hard line. She held a 44.40 across her chest with a finger inside the trigger guard. Jake nodded and kept moving. He could feel her eyes following him until he was far down the road. After another mile he passed a house—a frame structure this time—and then another
not far beyond it. The road he followed got heavier use here; it was wider and there were few weeds growing up in the ruts and craters. He followed a sweeping arc the road made and then the town of Penderton was laid out before him—what little of it there was. The main street was arrow straight and wide and the wind stirred up dust devils along its length. There were buildings on both sides of the street, some of which had false fronts, making them appear larger and more permanent than they were. No building was taller than two stories. Most were one. Closest to Jake was a stable and blacksmith operation with a corral behind it. There a few rental mounts pushed flakes of hay around listlessly in the sun. Down the street was the largest structure in Penderton: A long, pristinely white, black-lettered sign proclaimed it to be VanGelder's Mercantile. A kid of twelve or so was washing one of the large glass display windows at the front of the store. There was a plank sidewalk in front of the mercantile. Next came an empty lot and then a saloon with batwing doors. Three nondescript horses were tied to the rail in front. An alley separated the gin mill and an undertaker's establishment and next to that, a feed mill. At the far end of the street a whitewashed structure with a cross over its large front doors stood like a sentry watching over the town. The opposite side of the street held a restaurant with a hand-painted sign that stated simply
EAT HERE
, a two-story hotel with a few old gaffers sitting on benches under the front overhang, a sheriff's office, an apparently vacant building with a board nailed across its front door, and a farm tool and carriage store with a shiny phaeton parked in front of it. There was little pedestrian traffic on the
street: Two women were looking into one of VanGelder's windows, and a farmer-looking fellow was tying up in front of the saloon. Jake swung Mare over to the man.

“I'm wondering if there's a doc in town,” Sinclair said, his voice cracking a bit.

The farmer turned and looked Jake over before he answered. “You sure look like you could use one, all pale and sickly,” he observed.“What's that on your arm?”

“A poultice. Look—is there a doctor or anybody who can give—”

“Jus' down beyond where that carriage is parked is Doc's house. I'll tell you this, though, he won't take no farm produce or Reb scrip—only good Union cash. Otherwise, he'll turn you away as sure as chickens don't have no lips. Doc, he's got more money than God. Built kind of a hospital right onto his house is what he done.” The fellow paused, as if collecting his thoughts. Jake had already begun turning Mare. The windbag he'd encountered was beginning to fade in his vision and the floating spots were moving in.“Now, was you to stop for a drink here”—the farmer motioned toward the batwings—“ol' Weasel, he'll take damn near anything in trade for a taste of whiskey an' a beer. He's got ice, too—the beer is cold. Every winter, me an' the boys, we go to the river an'cut a full wagonload. Freeze our eggs off too, you can bet on that. Weasel don't pay worth a shit, but we—me an'the boys—sure fancy that cold beer long about this time of . . .”

Jake rode toward the end of the street after mumbling his thanks for the directions. Even through the haze of fever, he asked himself,
Weasel? What the hell kind of name is Weasel? Did I hear that right?

It seemed like the hitching rail in front of the doctor's office and home was trying to dance away from Jake's left-handed attempts to wrap his reins around it. The buzzing in his ears was back, sawing away inside his head, and he could feel that his face was dripping sweat. “Here,” a man's voice said, “let me get that for you.” In a moment Jake felt a strong arm around his shoulders, half leading and half carrying him toward the office. “Easy now,” the voice said. “Let's get you inside.”

The reek of chloroform on the cloth covering Jake's nose and mouth took him back to the battlefield, to a surgeon's tent where he'd hauled a kid with a lower leg wound. The doctor had put the soldier under with chloroform and sawed off the leg at the knee. Early in the war, the anesthetic was available. Now, two years later, neither side had much of it. When the severed limb struck the floor Jake had run from the tent, the vile smell of the chloroform sticking to his hair, his clothes, his skin. Now, drugged and confused, he kicked at the imaginary surgeon with the gleaming saw.

“Easy,” the now familiar voice said. “Easy now. There's no need to fight me. Calm down now.”

Jake focused on the face of the man leaning over him, pinning his arms and chest to the long wooden table he was stretched out upon. “My leg . . .” Jake mumbled.

“There's nothing wrong with your legs. Your problem is quite a bit higher—in your right hand and arm. I cleaned it out real well. You're going to be all right. Hear? You're going to be all right.”

Jake squinted against the sunlight pouring in the surgery window. “Who're . . . what . . . ?”

“I'm Dr. David Oliver. Your legs were turning to rubber outside my office. I brought you in here and took the cataplasm off your hand. I think I got all the infection, and if I didn't, what I poured into the incisions I had to make will take care of it. The cataplasm was a good idea—maybe a very good idea.”

“Cataplasm?” Jake croaked.

“You probably call it a poultice. It was drawing pus well. I don't doubt that you saved your hand with it.” He smiled ruefully at Jake. “Thank God for chloroform. I had to gouge around in there like a drunken coal miner.”

“I've got money—federal gold eagles—in my boots. I can pay . . .”

The doctor grinned, his well-shaved face moving away from Jake. “You must have spoken with Yappy Tolliver. The damned fool wanted me to treat his piles and offered me a mangy-looking duck and a half bushel of potatoes in payment. I told him to shove the duck up his ass and see if that helped. Since then Yappy has been telling anybody who'll listen that I'll only work for cold hard cash on the barrelhead.”

Jake began to struggle up to a sitting position, but the doctor put a gentle hand on his chest, easing him back. “Not yet—and I want you in the bed right here for a couple of days. Your right hand and forearm are attached to a board and I want it to stay there for at least forty-eight hours. I'll be checking it until then. Lie back and get some rest. I'll help you over to the bed in an hour or so and get some water in you, too.”

The doctor was a compact man of about forty, broad-shouldered and wide-hipped, but with no sign of fat. His dark brown hair showed some gray at his
temples and his eyes were clear and piercing. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up. Jake's eyes stopped there. The physician's left arm was a short, shriveled appendage, the hand curled in on itself. Oliver caught his gaze. “That's why I'm not in the army surgical corps,” he said. “I offered to take any kind of skill and proficiency test they wanted, but those mindless bureaucrats in Washington . . .” He let the sentence die. “What's your name?” he asked after a moment.

“Jake.”

“Just Jake? That's a pretty fancy horse out there for a fellow with but one name.”

“Jake's enough.”

The doctor grinned, showing even white teeth. “Maybe so. I had the mare taken down to the stable—she'll be well cared for.” He walked to the door. “Get some rest, Jake. I've got other patients to tend to, and then I'll be back to get you settled in bed. My wife will bring you some water. Drink all she brings.”

The doctor's wife was younger than Jake expected her to be. She was a fine-looking woman of about thirty with long black hair and large chestnut eyes. He estimated her to be at least three inches taller than her husband. “I'm Maggie,” she said. “Doc's wife and nurse and general handyman and cook, too.” Her smile was open and kind and warm. “Doc says you had quite an infection.” She handed him a large glass of water.

“I guess I did,” Jake said, taking the glass. He raised his head as far as he was able but still dribbled water on his chest as he emptied the glass. Maggie leaned forward with a white cloth and swabbed away the spill. “You rest now,” she said.

When Maggie had closed the door behind herself
Jake inspected Doc Oliver's work. His arm was secured to a piece of sanded board about a foot and a half long and five inches wide by wraps of thick gauze. Spots of blood seeped through the gauze in places, spotting the whiteness. Jake brought the back of his hand to his nose; the only smell was a pungent, medicinal scent. He lowered his arm down next to his body and closed his eyes, doubting very much that he'd sleep.

The gentle touch of a hand at his shoulder awakened Sinclair, and his eyes popped open. Doc was again looking down at him. Jake blinked several times: The texture of the light had changed from bright afternoon sunlight to almost late dusk. An oil lamp hung from a metal hook across the room. “I guess I slept,” he said.

“You did—soundly and for several hours. Let's get you into the infirmary and I'll check my work.”

The infirmary was a good-sized room down a hall that contained three vacant beds separated by cloth screens. Next to the head of each bed was a small table, and next to each was a straight-backed chair. Doc supported Jake as he guided him to the last bed in the line. “Lie down and I'll get your boots off,” he said. “And your pants, too. Maggie will wash them tomorrow. Looks like you pissed yourself while you slept,” he observed. Jake looked away, blushing.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Doc said. “Shows the plumbing's working as it should.” When Jake was prone on the bed minus his boots and pants, the physician drew a light sheet over him. “I have your money from inside your boots,” he said. “It'll be safe with me. I'll have Maggie go over to the mercantile and pick up
a shirt for you tomorrow. I'll leave water here on the table by your left hand, where you can reach it. No food until tomorrow, though.” He brought a lamp closer to Jake and peered at his arm. “Looks like my sutures are holding. Get some sleep.” Before Jake could answer, the doctor was walking away from him toward the main part of the house. Both Jake and Doc Oliver flinched as the throaty, percussive boom of a heavy-caliber rifle destroyed the silence of the late evening. “Drunken damned fools,” Doc said, turning back to Jake before he could ask a question. “There was a marksmanship contest on the Fourth of July, and a few of the men seem to have stuck around. Every evening it's the same thing. They get liquored up, put their bets on the table, and go out to shoot.” Another report rolled through the town, and then, quickly, another. “They'll quit when it's full dark,” Doc said. “Then you can sleep.”

The sporadic gunfire continued until it was so dark that Jake couldn't see his hand in front of his face. The shooting stopped but it seemed to echo in Jake's ears, in his mind. Instantly, he was back in battle.

It was strange. He could always hear Uriah, even over the furor of battle. “
There—at ten o'clock, that's an officer near the artillery piece—easy shot, Jake . . . His men are loading canister—they're blowing our flank's asses off. . . .”
Toole leaned forward and spat on the barrel of Jake's Sharps, up near the front sight
. “
Still cool enough for a couple rounds, Jake—my spit ain't dancing yet. . . .”

Then, suddenly, Jake faced his father across the great room in their home.

“
You ran, Son. You turned tail on your obligation to protect all this—the way we live, our country, what we believe.
”
The man's face had aged terribly; his eyes were infinitely sad—and tinged with disgust.

“
It wasn't like that, Pa. I couldn't watch it anymore, I couldn't do what I'd been doing anymore. All that killing for what, Pa? A goddamn political argument between Abe Lincoln and Jeff Davis? Give them each a bowie and let them fight it out, stop the boys from killing each other.
”

“
You ran, boy. No son of mine runs from a fight.
”

“Jake? Jake?”

Maggie Oliver's voice tugged Sinclair from sleep. Morning sun cascaded through the window at the end of the infirmary, bright enough to cause a man to squint.

“I have your pants here and a new shirt. Doc says you can get dressed now. You do that and I'll fetch you some breakfast. Hungry, are you?”

Jake considered for a moment. “Ma'am,” he said. “I could eat one of my boots and get a good start on the second one.”

Maggie laughed, the sound as pretty and as fine as good music. She placed the shirt and pants on the chair. “Careful now as you dress. You're likely to be dizzy.” Jake sat up clumsily, his right arm and the board it was attached to feeling as big and as awkward as the trunk of a hundred-year-old oak. Maggie was right about the dizziness, but it passed quickly. It felt good to have some clothes on when she came back with a tray of ham and eggs and thick slices of buttered dark bread. The aroma of the large mug of coffee reached
out to him. He moved carefully to the chair and balanced the tray in his lap. “Doc's birthing a baby,” Maggie told him. “He'll be back before too long. He said you're to eat and then rest. No walking around except to the privy. I'll bring a pitcher of water. Doc says to keep drinking, thirsty or not.” She took a folded newspaper from where it'd been tucked under her arm and placed it on the bed. “Here's something to read, if you've a mind to. It's all war news, I'm afraid.”