“Another one? What’ve we got?”
“Double gunshots. Let’s wash the arm first.”
Steven pours water into a clean basin, and they pour it over the arm, washing away the filth. It reveals swelling and striations rippling out from the wound. Harris prods, and infection oozes out, but he sighs in relief when they realize the bullet passed through the outer edge of the bicep.
“Tell me how you would proceed with the patient?”
Steven had recently completed his sixteen-week training at the Linde Medical University in Chicago. He is apprenticing at Fort Laramie. He has been enthusiastic and competent during his stay.
“Looks infected, but we can clean that up. It looks to have clotted properly. I’m more worried that he isn’t awake.” Steve checks his pulse while Harris pours water over the second wound.
“Exactly what I was think…”
A guttural scream erupts from the patient, and his eyes fly open wide as he swings his now clean arm. “Run!”
They push him back onto the bed, and Harris tries to calm him, “Easy, now! You’re safe.”
Frantic, fevered eyes glare at him as the fight drains from him. He starts weeping, “No, no, …” he grabs Harris arm, “You have to help her!”
“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” he glances up at Steven. “Morphine,” he snaps, and Steve rushes to the medicine cabinet.
“Not the babies,” he moans and thrashes on the table.
“What’s your name,” Harris asks as he rushes to the side table and pours another bowl of water.
“Simon,” he moans, “Where am I?” he asks hoarsely. His entire body is twitching as the infection fights through his system.
“Fort Steele, who shot you, Simon?”
“General Barclay,” he replies, and his eyes fly open wide with images.
“Simon, I have to clean your wound,” Harris hides his surprise at the General’s name. “It’s going to hurt.”
“I understand, I deserve it…” Simon gasps as the water rushes over the shoulder drowning the other wound and table beneath him. It is built with a trough beneath to catch whatever liquid might run down from the patients. The bullet entered below the clavicle and lodged into a bone. Now, swollen, purple, green and maggot filled, it is clearly infected. Even though it missed an artery the infection is too far gone. The jarring has caused it to rip open and seep more blood. Bruises litter his body as if he’d been beaten.
“The bullet is still inside, why didn’t they take it out?” Steven asks returning with the small bottle of morphine. He pours out a tablespoon full and helps Simon drink it.
Harris doesn’t reply. He knows the answer to that. Barclay is a beast. Harris turns and grabs his surgical bag.
“Barclay was punishing me,” Simon whimpers on the table.
Steven starts mixing a poultice of herbs mixed with medicine and Harris turns away to a table near the wall, unrolling his tools.
“Punishing you for what?” Steven returns to cover the bottom half of his body with a blanket and bring his body temperature up.
“I let her escape,” he groans and starts coughing. Steven’s eyes meet Harris’s worried ones.
His breathing grows strained, and Harris checks his lungs, confirming his fears. Pneumonia. If he lives a few more days, it will be through strength of will.
“Steven you treat the bicep wound.” Confessions are nothing new to Harris. He’d heard it all during the war and after. “Fill it with poultice and keep him on the morphine to help with the pain. I’ll tend to the shoulder wound. It needs to be flushed clean and packed. Can you get clean bandages and a change of clothes for him?”
“Of course,” Steven quickly patches the bicep, they decide not to stitch it as it has already sealed itself, except for the rip during moving. Steven steps to a closet where they keep fresh bandages and riffles through for a change of clothes.
When Harris turns to prepare the medicine, Simon grabs his hand with shocking strength. “You have to help her,” he hisses.
“Help who, Simon?”
“Green eye’s…”
Harris flinches. “What?”
“They killed them all, Doc. An entire village of Indians, I didn’t know they’d butcher them…” sobs wrack his body, and Harris stares at him in horror with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
Steven listens from the cabinet and watches Harris closely.
“Where, Simon?” He eases Simon back down praying it will not be the answer he’s dreading.
“We tracked them for days, uggh,” he moans, and his breathing slows as the morphine begins to take effect.
“Simon, where?” Harris demands, louder this time.
“We have to treat his wounds,” Steven says stepping back to his side. They work together to remove his clothes and irrigate the area washing it as clean as they can. He trims back bits of rotting flesh.
“What’s he talking about?” Steven asks.
“Not sure. Where are they all coming from? That’s twenty-four soldiers wounded by arrows or knife wounds. Must have been a big battle.”
“Just another Indian attack, they are growing bolder. I heard they’ve been stealing weapons,” Steven replies and rushes to mix the poultice, even though he knows it won’t save his life.
“There weren’t no guns…” Simon moans again.
“Guns? What guns?” Steven asks handing Harris the poultice. Harris packs the wound and wraps up the bandage before covering him with a second blanket.
“He’s just rambling.” Harris snaps, “We’ve done all we can for now. He might have a few days, just depends on how fast the infection spreads.”
“There’s been talk over at the saloon, I can grab us some food and ask around.”
“No,” Harris says with a frown at the patient. “You don’t want anything to do with Barclay. The mans a butcher,” Harris
