blood. Though Sarah cleaned him as best she could, he had the black-lipped countenance of a nightmare. Fascinated and afraid, Matthew stole looks at him from the corners of his eyes.
Late in the afternoon of the next day they arrived in Reno. The doctor’s office was on a quiet street, off Virginia, at the southern edge of town. It was a one-story wooden building, painted white, with a gravel drive curving from the street to a wide place in front of green double doors. Coby pulled the wagon to a stop. Before he could climb down, a nurse in a dove-gray dress, a white pinafore, and a short cape came out to meet them.
She introduced herself as Agatha Bonhurst. Agatha was a horse-faced though kind-eyed woman in her mid- thirties, with protruding teeth that she couldn’t quite close her lips around. She gave Karl a cursory examination, peering under his eyelids and probing his abdomen with light deft fingers. Then, sucking her teeth thoughtfully, she walked to the side of the building. “Gunther,” she called. There was a grunt, and a big blond man, speckled with dried mud and carrying a shovel, appeared around the corner.
“What can I do you for, Miss Bonhurst?”
“Can you leave off a minute and lend a hand?”
Karl was placed on a wood and canvas stretcher, and Coby and the big German carried him inside. Behind the double doors was a waiting room twice as long as it was wide, with two large windows having small panes and no curtains. Through an archway, across a narrow hall, was a small, clean, well-lit room with a single bed, a washstand, and a bare table. Under the nurse’s guidance the men set the stretcher on the bed and withdrew the poles from their canvas envelopes. While Agatha went for the doctor, Sarah spoke with Colby and Matthew.
“Coby, I want you to send a telegram. The office is in the Wells Fargo, down Virginia Street -the street we came in on-a few doors down from the Silver Dollar.”
“I saw it when we drove in.”
“Good.” She dug in her purse and drew out a black cloth wallet. “David said he was pretty much settled in Virginia City. Tell him he’s got to come. This is the address he gave.” She handed him a scrap of paper folded small, and dingy from the years in her pocketbook.
“That was some years ago, Sarah,” Coby said dubiously. “I don’t know…”
“Try.” She turned to her son. “Honey, go with Coby to the Wells Fargo office. You’ll see it, there’s a big sign lettered on the side. While Coby’s sending the telegram, you ask for Mr. Ralph Jensen.”
“Mr. Ralph Jensen,” Matthew repeated conscientiously.
“Tell him what happened, and that Coby will be going back out on tomorrow’s stage to look after things. Do you have that?”
He nodded, and Coby held out his hand to him as he had since Matthew was six years old, but the boy was too grown-up to take it now.
As they left, a narrow-faced man with a shock of white hair came down the hallway. Deep lines in his face carved parentheses around a bristling anarchy of white mustache hairs. “Dr. White,” he announced himself.
“Mrs. Saunders.”
The doctor glanced into the room where Karl lay. “Your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Come with me, I’ll want to ask you a few things before I begin the examination.” He was curt without being cold. Meekly she followed him into the sickroom, and while he peered into Karl’s eyes and listened to his heart and breathing, she answered his questions about the accident. Karl lay uncomplaining under the doctor’s hands, his gaze on Sarah.
Dr. White took off his jacket and folded it carefully over the foot of the bed. Karl’s feet thrust out through the rails, his socks still stained from his day’s labor. The doctor arranged his coat so it wouldn’t come in contact with them. Nurse Bonhurst had returned and now stood near the door in the attitude of a watchful servant. “Agatha, light the lamps,” Dr. White said crisply, “then take Mrs. Saunders into the waiting room.”
“Let me stay,” Sarah begged.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I will have to remove your husband’s clothing.”
“No!” Sarah cried, then pressed her fingers to her lips. “Karl,” she whispered, slipping quickly by the doctor to her husband’s side, “I’ll be outside if you need me. Right by the door.” Karl laid his hand on her hair for a moment before she left him.
Within half an hour the boys were back. The wire had been sent. Sarah listened to their story in the hallway near the door to Karl’s room. When they were finished, she sent Matthew outside to wait for Coby. “Take him out to supper,” she said to the hired man. “Keep him out for a while. Get him some candy or take him to look at the trains. He’s had a long day, poor little fellow.” Coby refused the money she tried to give him, and patted her arm in awkward sympathy.
The waiting room was bare and clean. The windows overlooked the gravel drive and the quiet street beyond. Between them was a wooden bench with a low back. Sarah watched at the window until Coby and Matthew passed from sight around the corner. Across the street a neat row of houses, painted white and nestled among young trees, glowed warmly in the setting sun. Amber light spilled in the hospital windows, under overhanging eaves, turning Sarah’s hair to auburn and touching her skin with color. For a long time she stood with her face to the glass, watching the feathery mare’s tails over the Sierra turn from rose to gold. Finally the sun sank behind the mountains and the clouds took on a bruised purple hue. She turned from the window and sat on the end of the bench. Through the archway she could see the door to Karl’s room. There was a ribbon of lamplight showing beneath it, and she could hear an occasional stealthy sound as the doctor moved about inside.
A man in the rough garb of a railroad worker came in, his left arm, useless, shoved into his shirtfront. He grunted politely at Sarah and waited for a few minutes by a small wooden desk with flowers on it set near the arch. When no one came, he pounded on the wall with his good arm. A moment later the nurse appeared with a clicking step and a peeved expression to lead him away. Sarah asked after Karl, but Nurse Bonhurst would only say she must wait for the doctor.
No one came to light the lamps, and Sarah sat in the dying light. The door to Karl’s room opened, a sudden square of yellow, and the tall figure of the doctor emerged. Sarah bolted to her feet and waited, her hands clasped at her waist, her breath held in abeyance.
“Nurse Bonhurst,” he called down the hall. With a rustle of starched skirts she was beside him. There followed a short whispered conference and he left, his footfalls retreating down the dark hall. A door slammed shut, then there was nothing.
Sarah started forward. “Miss?”
Agatha Bonhurst closed the door to Karl’s room. “You’ll be wanting some light in here, I expect.” She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a box of matches the size of a first-grade primer. “Dr. White wants me to ask you a few questions.”
“Can I see him?” Sarah’s voice shook, and she pressed her fingertips to her lower lip.
“Not right now, dear, he’s shut up in his office.”
“Can I go to Karl?”
“Not for a bit. There.” She lit the last lamp and came to take Sarah’s elbow. In a soft Southern drawl she said, “Let’s sit down, I been on my feet since six this morning.”
Sarah let herself be led back to the bench. “Is Karl going to be all right?”
“You’ll have to talk to Dr. White about that.” Agatha seated herself next to Sarah and spread her skirts in a comfortable gesture. “For now we need to know if you’ve got folks-a father, a brother, an uncle, somebody who looks after you hereabouts. A friend of the family, even.”
“I’m here with my son,” Sarah replied, “and our hired man, Coby Burns.”
“How old’s your boy?”
“Ten. Ten and a half.”
“There’s no adult male you know here in town?”
“I’ve wired my brother in Virginia City.” Sarah gave a sudden shake of her head. “Look,” she said impatiently, “is Dr. White worried about money? I can pay.” She pulled her purse onto her lap and undid the drawstrings.
Nurse Bonhurst laid a gentle hand on her arm. “Never mind that, dear, the doctor isn’t concerned over pay. Will your brother be in soon?”
“I don’t know.” Sarah looked away, out the window. In the houses opposite, the lamps had been lit, and several stars shone in the western sky. “I haven’t seen him in several years. We had a…falling out.”
