Mays and Clyde undid the straps and lifted the boy from the bloodstained table.
Two men bore another, hanging between them, as Mays and Clyde carried the boy out. Doc stared dully at the bloody oak tabletop. Once it had been the center of family life, graced with holiday feasts in a better day. His brain had that fiery feeling that came of fatigue, stress, and too many hours awake.
With care the two men eased their sagging burden onto the table. Doc’s clot-thick fingers eased the blood-soaked wool jacket open. The seeping wound was just under the man’s armpit. Doc put a hand over the man’s gaping mouth, noticed the gray deep behind the expanded pupils, and then touched the right eye. No reaction.
“Too late,” he said wearily. “Next!”
“No, suh,” one of the ragged soldiers said. “You fix my brother.”
Doc focused on the chestnut hair, the freckled skin, and the round chin. The family resemblance to the man on the table couldn’t be missed. “I can’t do anything for him.”
The younger of the two reached down, slipping his hand under the flap of his holster, drawing out a revolver and leveling it with deadly intent.
“You save my brother! You’re a doctor. Damn it, fix him!”
The older brother blinked, as if confused. He glanced at the trembling pistol, and then at Doc, worry and hope welling.
Doc raised his hands as Clyde and Mays stepped in and stopped short, staring in disbelief.
“I promised Mother!” the pistoleer cried. “We all did! We have to go home!” Tears now glistened, then streaked down his dirty powder-blackened face. The hazel eyes widened.
“Son, put the gun away.” Doc reached out, pressing the long barrel down. “I can’t bring back the dead. He was gone before you brought him in here. I’m sorry, son. Just plain damned sorry.”
The younger brother’s head tilted, the confusion back, his mouth working as if struggling for words. Not finding them.
The older brother, blinking and stunned, reached out and ran fingers along the dead man’s cheek. “Put the gun away, Tad. Andy’s dead. Got to go bury him now. Nothing more we can do.”
“But we told Maw!”
“I know. Damn it all, I know!”
The pistol slowly wobbled back into its holster. Tad seemed to sway, his blood-smeared jacket hanging open to expose a filthy white shirt. He stared emptily at the tracked-through blood coating the floor. “But we promised…”
The older brother reached out, knotting his fingers in the dead man’s jacket. Dragging the body through the tacky gore, he shouldered the burden. Then he turned, staggering under the load, and plodded for the door.
A moment later, the young one, still struggling with disbelief, turned, almost stumbling as he followed.
Clyde took a deep breath. “Damn, Doc. That’s the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“What? Picking up a dead man?”
“No, pushing a pistol down with your bare hand.”
“Pointing a pistol with empty cylinders? Sort of defeats the purpose. Next.”
The angry sounds of battle were growing. A nearby shell burst startled them. A volley of musketry sounded, louder than they’d heard that Monday.
“They better hold that line,” Mays muttered.
“God help us if they can’t,” Doc agreed, wiping his forehead with a blood-slick hand. Using his sticky apron, he did the best he could to wipe the forceps clean. They had used the last of their water early that morning.
God, what I’d give for a drink.
The next young soldier, barely twenty, had sweat-damp and filthy blond hair along with the beginnings of a beard. His side was bare where he’d pulled the bloody cotton shirt up to expose the wound.
“Am I going to live, Doc?” he asked in a wheezing voice.
“I’ll do what I can. Where you from?”
“Biloxi. By the sea.”
“You peed?”
“It come out all blood.” He swallowed hard. “Didn’t know a man could hurt like this. Am I gonna live?”
Doc shifted him, eliciting a yelp of pain. Feeling around the man’s back, he located the lump of bullet under the skin on the far side.
Doc eased him back down. “I can’t do anything.”
Impassioned blue eyes searched Doc’s. “What?”
“The bullet went through your liver and smashed your kidney. If I take it out, most of your guts will come with it.” Doc looked down at his trembling hands and picked anxiously at the clotted blood that coated them. “I’m sorry.”
The young man’s throat worked, obviously thirsty. “It’s all right. There’s others out there. Help them, Doc.” He blinked his eyes, brow lined. “Damn.”
Doc reeled under the weight of impotence as the young Mississippian was carried out. He braced himself on the table, the room spinning slightly as he swayed and blinked to clear his vision. This was just thirst and fatigue, that’s all.
He had nothing to give them. The last of the morphine, ether, and opiates had been exhausted before noon yesterday. The bandages had been used up by early Sunday afternoon. The small well, enough for a family, only recharged with a bucket of water every hour or so. Even his surgical silk, the one thing he’d had an abundance of, was down to a single spool. And what would he use when that was gone? Strip the thread from uniform coats?
Unbearable impotence gave way to a building rage. “What the hell were they thinking? Didn’t the damn fools understand?” He raised his hands, imploring the plank roof overhead.
Reeling again, he wondered if the disorientation wasn’t hunger. He hadn’t eaten for two days. And damn, he really, really was thirsty. Somehow he hadn’t been able to make himself drink from the occasional canteens that came through. Not when wounded and dying men needed it more than he did.
The gut-shot, brain-shot, and spinal injuries were beyond his help. When they looked up at him, pleading, no matter how he hardened his heart the desperation in their eyes was torture. They expected him to make them whole again.
How, in God’s name?
He wanted to shut them out, to cover his ears and close his eyes, to sag against the wall and curl into a defensive ball.
