The miners stared incredulously at Butler.
Ahead of Doc’s shooing hands, they retreated as he urged them toward the door. Turning to the woman, he told Butler, “Lock the door behind them if you would.”
As Butler did, Doc studied the bloody cloth bandages. They looked like they’d been made from strips of torn dress poplin. “I’m Doc Hancock, ma’am. Do you have a name?”
“Aggie,” she whispered weakly. “God, Doc, just let me die.”
“You are going to feel my hands on your body, Aggie. I’m going to press to see if you are hurt anywhere else.” He noticed the raw wounds on her wrists. “Were you tied up?”
“Yes.” She swallowed hard. “He took me from behind.”
“Well … we’ll check down there, too. But does anything else hurt? I’m going to press along your ribs, around your breasts—”
“Don’t! They’re so sore. All bruised black. He tried to pull them off my body as he was shooting his cum.”
Her language left no doubt about her profession. From the quality of her ruined and bloodstained dress, she came from one of the finer houses. “What about the other woman?”
“He didn’t cut Mrs. Anderson. Not like me. He just hit her, knocked her out, and tied her up. She kept coming to and passing out as he dog-fucked her. Reckon it saved her from … from this. Mrs. Anderson just plain collapsed there at the end, and slap her as he might, he couldn’t get her to come to.”
Doc turned to his water. “I’m going to soak these bandages off, Aggie. Once I know what I’m dealing with, I’m going to give you chloroform before I start fixing things.”
“Sure you shouldn’t just let me die, Doc? What he done to my face? I’m going to be a monster. I been beautiful all my life. Don’t think I can live with the way people will look at me, watching their faces screw up with … Ain’t the word ‘revulsion’?”
“Aggie, why don’t you let me see what I can do?”
“He’s the best,” Butler chimed in. “Why, the men and I have seen him work miracles! Indians, whores, and Yankees, he’s fixed them all.”
Butler’s expression pinched. “Why, no, Corporal, I don’t think Doc could have saved Lieutenant Fisher, his brains were blown clear out of his skull.”
“Butler, I don’t think Aggie needs to hear—”
“Doc couldn’t have done a thing about those poor souls who burned at Prairie Grove. It was bad enough that the hogs were eating the cooked corpses. Good thing there weren’t hogs at Chickamauga.”
Something in Doc snapped. He whirled, finger pointing. “Butler, I want you and your goddamned delusions out of my office! Stop being a damned nuisance! I have a woman’s life to save here, and I can’t do it with a lunatic discussing dead Confederates with other dead Confederates behind my damned back!”
“But Doc—”
“Out! Just … just go away! Leave me to my work.”
Butler’s jaw dropped, his blue eyes wide and pained. Then he straightened, knocked off a perfect salute, and wheeled on his heel.
Doc watched him march stiff-backed to the door, unbolt it, and close it behind him.
“Doc?” Aggie whispered. “Was that…? I mean…”
Guilt rose as his anger drained. “Butler’s my crazy brother. I didn’t mean that. I’ll apologize to him tonight, beg his forgiveness. I should be a better man than I am. I get so frustrated sometimes. With myself probably. For all of my gifts when it comes to medicine, I can’t cure the one person who means more to me than the world.”
“Sometimes, Doc,” she said softly, “all the best of our dreams end in ruins.”
Her words haunted him.
All the best of our dreams …
She could have written his life.
After peeling off her bandages and cataloging the damage, he walked out into the office and waiting room. Butler, however, was gone.
Damn it, he’d really hurt him.
Stepping out onto the street, Doc sent a runner for Dr. John Elsner—the only other colleague Doc considered worth a damn. In association with Sister Eliza from the Episcopal church, Elsner had formed the new hospital. The one the miners hadn’t seen fit to deliver Aggie to.
With Elsner assisting, Doc devoted himself to Aggie’s face. Damn it, she had been a beautiful young woman. Working while she was under anesthetic, he carefully stitched her lacerations back together. Hour after hour, his back aching, he worked with a fine suture and silk as Dr. Elsner helped him position skin and tissue.
Doc finally blinked, arching the kinks out of his back. “What do you think?”
“I think I have seen the finest facial surgery in the world, Doctor.” Elsner worked his hands to relieve the cramp. “Should we bring her out of it?”
“I’ve kept you too long. Go home. I’ll see to her recovery.”
“It was a pleasure, sir. An honor.”
“Let me know how much I owe you for your time and skill.”
“No charge, Philip, if you promise to come to my rescue when I need it.”
Elsner closed the door behind him.
Doc studied the woman, her expression slack, mouth open. She would never be as she’d been, but if the inevitable infection didn’t complicate things, her appearance wouldn’t conjure that revulsion she feared.
He checked the lamps. Normally Butler’s job. Still half full of oil. Damn it, what had possessed him?
“Shouldn’t have shot off my mouth.” Again, he checked Aggie. She hadn’t lied about the damage to her breasts, but the skin wasn’t broken. Also to his relief, she wasn’t bleeding from the vagina. For good measure, while she was out, he gave her a vinegar douche, known to prevent pregnancy, and dried her.
He was sitting in his chair, sipping the last of the cold coffee he’d poured so long ago when she came to.
“Don’t reach for your face,” Doc told her.
She stopped, hand half raised. Her hazel-green eyes fixed on his, the panicked question lurking there.
“You won’t be the beauty that you were, Aggie. But you won’t be a monster, either.”
Doc handed her his examination mirror. She studied herself, fighting tears.
“Aggie, from here on out, it will just
