or frustrated, it sure feels good to let loose with a few ripsnorters.”
“Yes, I can . . . imagine.”
Emily put a hand to her mouth and looked embarrassed again. “As bad as you must hurt, you must really feel like cussin’. You go right ahead if you want to, Mr. Jensen. It won’t bother me none.”
“That’s all right. What I’d really like . . . is for you to call me Luke.”
Emily thought it over and nodded. “I reckon I can do that. I’ve always been taught to be careful around fellas who were slick talkers, because my pa said there was only one thing they wanted, but I guess the shape you’re in, I don’t have to worry about that, do I?”
“Not hardly,” Luke told her. “And even if I . . . wasn’t hurt . . . my pa brought me up to be a gentleman.”
“I can see that in your eyes,” she said softly, nodding. She reached forward and lightly rested her hand on his forehead. “Oh, my Lord! You’re burnin’ up with fever.”
Luke wasn’t surprised. He had already known he felt chilled and light-headed. He supposed the wound in his back had festered and blood poisoning had set in, just like Emily’s grandfather had predicted.
“I’ll wake Grampaw and see if there’s anything he can do for you,” she went on.
“There’s . . . no need. Just get a wet cloth . . . wipe my face with it . . . That’s about all . . . anyone can do for me.”
“There’s gotta be somethin’ else!”
“There’s not,” Luke told her. “It’s pretty much . . . out of our hands now.”
He knew that was true. If the fever broke, he might have a chance. If it didn’t, he would die. Simple as that.
And it might be better if the fever went ahead and took him, he thought. Emily and her grandfather could bury him and be done with it. They wouldn’t have to run even the slight risk of the Yankees finding him and taking action against them.
Better for him, too, because he still couldn’t feel his legs or anything below the waist, and he would rather be dead than a cripple. He wouldn’t go back to the farm and be a burden to the rest of his family.
Emily got up for a moment and came back with a wet rag. She leaned down and swabbed it over his face. The cool touch felt wonderful.
Sometime while she was doing that, he passed out again. When he woke up, bright sunlight was slanting in through the cabin’s open door.
“Huh. You ain’t dead after all.” That somewhat surprised statement came from Emily’s grandfather, who had taken her place in the rocking chair beside the bunk.
Luke licked dry, cracked lips and husked, “I could use ... something to drink.”
“Yeah, you’re pretty well wrung out, I expect. I’ll fetch you a cup.”
The old man came back with a dented tin cup. Luke took a sip of the clear liquid in it and promptly spit it out in an instinctive reaction.
“That’s a waste of good corn, son,” the old-timer said. “See if you can keep some of it down this time. You’re gonna need it.”
“What do you . . . mean by that?”
“I mean your fever may have broken for now, but that wound in your back’s in bad shape. That Yankee bullet’s got to come out if you’re gonna have any chance of makin’ it.”
Two things were wrong with that, Luke thought. It wasn’t a Yankee bullet that had laid him low, but rather one fired by a renegade Confederate. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to have a chance of making it, not in the condition he was in.
But the hatred of giving up was bred deeply within him. “All right, give me another sip of that shine.”
The old man chuckled. “Emily said you was from up in the Missouri Ozarks. I reckon you prob’ly know good corn liquor when you taste it.” He held the cup to Luke’s lips.
Carefully, Luke sipped the fiery stuff. His stomach rebelled against it, but he managed to keep it down. He drank enough that it affected him immediately and set his head to spinning. “You’re going to . . . cut the bullet of me, aren’t you?”
The old man nodded gravely. “That’s the only thing to do. As soon as Emily gets back from the tradin’ post to hold you down, we’ll get started.”
“Go ahead and . . . do it now,” Luke urged. “I can . . . stay still.”
“You don’t know what you’re sayin’. Even with that liquor in you, it’s gonna hurt worse ’n anything you ever felt before.”
“Look . . . Emily doesn’t weigh enough . . . to hold me down . . . if I start bucking around. I’m going to have to . . . control it . . . whether she’s here or not.”
The old man rubbed his jaw as he frowned in thought. His fingertips rasped on the white stubble. “More than likely you’re right about that,” he admitted. “Might not make much difference whether the gal’s here or not.”
“I don’t want her... to have to see it,” Luke said. “Give me ... a leather strap or something . . . to bite on.”
“My razor strop’ll do.”
“And maybe . . . some more of that moonshine first.”
“We can sure do that,” the old man said.
A few minutes later, after several more swallows of the potent liquor, Luke’s head was spinning even faster. He set his teeth in the leather strap and watched as the old man heated the long blade of a hunting knife in the fireplace until it glowed cherry red.
He carried the knife quickly back over to the bunk. “The wound’s scabbed over, but I’ll have to open it again so all the pus can get out. You ready?”
“Just . . . get it done,” Luke said around the strap. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
The old man was right about one thing: it hurt worse than anything Luke had ever experienced. His teeth bore down on the leather and every muscle in his body turned tight and hard as an iron strap . . . every muscle he could still feel, anyway. The mingled stink of burned flesh and corruption filled the room. Luke groaned.
After what seemed like an eternity of torture, the old-timer exclaimed, “I got it!”
Some of the terrible pressure Luke had felt in his back was released. The pain didn’t slack off much, but any relief at all was a blessing.
He felt the old man wiping at his back with a rag. “You’re bleedin’ like a stuck pig, boy, but I reckon that’s a good thing. Maybe it’ll wash out all the festerin’. If you don’t bleed to death first, that is.”
The pain continued to recede. Luke’s head slumped back to the bunk, and the leather strap slipped out of his mouth as his teeth released their grip on it. His pulse pounded inside his skull, and he breathed harshly and heavily.
“Grampaw, what in hell are you doin’?” That startled cry came from Emily. “My God, there’s blood all over the place! You’ve killed him!”
“Take it easy, gal. He’s alive. And I got that bullet outta his back.”
“Is that why you sent me to the tradin’ post?” she demanded. “So you could start cuttin’ on him without me bein’ here to stop you?”
“Shoot, I didn’t even know he was gonna wake up. His fever broke, but it would’ve come right back if I didn’t get that bullet out. Look there . . . that’s healthy blood comin’ out of him now. We can go ahead and stop it, and he can start gettin’ his strength back.”
Emily went closer to the bunk and bent down to peer at Luke’s face. He saw her only vaguely through his pain and weariness.
“You mean he’s gonna be all right?” she asked.
“I mean he’s got a chance now,” her grandfather told her.
But the biggest question, Luke thought just as he slipped back into unconsciousness, wasn’t whether he would live or not.
The question was whether his legs would work . . . or whether he was going to be a cripple for the rest of his life, however long that was.
CHAPTER 15
