“I’ve no doubt that you’re right. My dream, Madam de Elaine, is a small surgical practice. One where I can be close to the country. Hunt, fish, raise a family, and perhaps dabble in good-blooded horses.”
He smiled at her as he checked Eli’s pulse and breathing. “If I share anything with Paw, it’s that I need a bit of wilderness. Paw settled in Arkansas, so he says, because it still has mountains and Indians, but with warmer winters and closer access to trade goods.”
She vented a disbelieving sigh. “Well, what will it be then? Cash?” She narrowed her eye into a near wink. “Or could we interest you in a bit of trade? You, being a surgeon and all, should know your way around a female body. I’ll have the girls—”
“Again, no disrespect, but cash would be preferred.” He paused. “If I catch the spring-full rivers just right, I might make it all the way to Little Rock by boat.”
“Very well.” She nodded politely before stepping out. On her heels a young mulatto woman entered and set a pan of water on the rickety chair. Doc began washing the blood off his equipment and hands. He glanced at Eli, slumbering in drugged bliss.
What was it about the insane that they concocted such peculiarities of imagination?
Not my problem. I’m a surgeon. Destined to deal with medicine’s higher and most noble calling.
Out in the hall, a young woman shouted, “It’s war! In Charleston they’re firing on Fort Sumter!”
Doc buckled up his surgical bag and reached down for the bucket with Eli’s leg. He’d need a place to discard it, wishing the brothel had a garden. The outhouse would have to do.
“Hooraw!” another woman shouted in the hallway.
Bag in one hand, bucket in the other, Doc stepped out into the hallway.
“They’re bombarding the Yankees!” one of the more buxom of the belles cried. She was a round-faced blonde, her cheeks rouged. “They’re shouting it in the streets. The South Carolinians are going to war!”
“Get your rest while you can, girls,” a thin black-haired young woman called drolly. “The loyal gentlemen of New Orleans will be primed for celebrating until long after dawn. And very free with their money, if I’m any judge.”
“War in the distance,” a redhead chortled, “profits in hand.”
Doc glanced down at the bucket where the limp leg leaked blood and fluid.
2
May 6, 1861
Sounds of spring filled the forest: chirring insects; a mixed melody of birdsong; and occasional chattering from the squirrels as they leaped through the high branches. The fragrance of redbud and blooming dogwood permeated the Ozark highlands, enriched by the fresh smell of new leaves and early grass.
Billy Hancock flicked a thumb to dislodge the biting fly that had settled on his shooting hand and was fit to gorge itself. He glanced slyly at his companion; the big Cherokee lay unmoving on his right.
His large body dappled by the shadowing leaves, John Gritts cupped his hands, head slightly extended; the gobble that issued from his throat perfectly imitated the challenge call of a tom turkey.
Billy Hancock licked his lips and ran his fingers down the polished wooden stock on his rifle. Where he sat, his back to the hawthorn, his skin and clothing obscured by leaf shadows, he might have been invisible. The rifle, like all of his possessions, had been handed down. It had been Paw’s to begin with—a .36-caliber cap-lock conversion. Despite care, the metal around the nipple had pitted over the years. The stock and forearm exhibited dents and dings, and the rifling had been shot out to the point that patches had to be thin and tight around the ball—and powder charges light—lest it blow right past the shallow grooves.
For fourteen-year-old Billy Hancock, the shot-out gun remained his most prized possession. His grip tightened on the rifle’s wrist as a tom gobbled in response from behind the plum bushes across the small clearing.
John Gritts grinned at him, dark eyes flashing. Gritts was nearing forty, his long black hair gleaming and braided to hang down over his worn buckskin shirt. Thick muscle corded in the man’s shoulders, and he shifted among the shadows like a cougar as he cupped his hands around his mouth and uttered his turkey call again.
Billy eased his knee up to prop his left arm where it supported the rifle. His right thumb eased the hammer back, his finger holding the trigger to keep the action from clicking. At full cock, he released the trigger and eased the hammer forward until it came to rest in the notch. An ant tickled his calf as it climbed past his moccasin top and started up under Billy’s worn trousers. He ignored it.
Billy lowered his cheek to the rifle’s comb as the first of the hens broke cover and stepped hesitantly out past the plum bush. With the slightest shift, Billy placed the silver front sight blade on the hen turkey’s body.
Then another hen, and another, stepped out, their eyes gleaming and blinking as their heads jerked this way and that. One by one Billy sighted on them, finger barely caressing the trigger as he mentally shot them down. Someday someone was going to invent a rifle that would let a fella shoot and shoot. Not like Paw’s slant-breech Sharps that had to be reloaded with a paper cartridge, but one after another, bang, bang, bang. When they did, a good hunter like Billy could really shine.
As it was, he lived for this moment. There they were: wily turkeys—and no more than a pebble’s toss away. Unaware, completely at ease.
Exhilaration and power filled Billy’s soul; euphoria spread a grin over his lips. His blood surged and ran hot with delight. Nothing, not even Maw’s praise, filled him with excitement like this.
I got you!
Life and death … his to dispense. In that moment, he controlled the universe.
Gritts gobbled again. The hens stepped forward warily, heads bobbing. Then the tom emerged, searching for its potential rival. In full display, the tom drummed, speckled wing
