In a boxcar, Cornelius Magnus shooed the flies that crept along the red blotches seeping through Kate’s bandages. Four days she had laid supine on a bed of straw. Jostled by the rickety movements of the train, her nose trembling like a pine tree on a windy summit. Four days since she was shot in the arm. Four days since the bullet ripped through her shirt. Through skin. To the bone. Four days the ball of lead sat embedded in her arm. Festering and reeking.
“They told me Today, Miss Kate,” Magnus said, dipping a purple handkerchief into a pail of clean water. He wrung it out, droplets fell down into the water, and dabbed the sweat from her pallid forehead. “Today we should be arriving in Goodenough. And, I hear, the town’s doctor is first rate.”
Kate’s eyes remained closed. She grimaced and groaned and twisted. Magnus held her hand and she eased down, but still breathed hard. Her chapped lips parted. He dripped water into her parched mouth, watching her eyes, beneath the skin of her eyelids, twitch restlessly, like moles burrowing tunnels just below the surface of the ground.
He wondered what she dreamed. What she was seeing. What hallucination the fever was bringing to life before her unconscious mind. Hopefully, it was something peaceful. Something nice. But, it sure didn’t look like it.
And then his own mind got to wandering. Looking at things that he wanted to forget. But there the boy was, the memory of the dying boy, the boy laid in the dirt and he held the boy’s hand.
The bullet was in his gut though and Magnus, sitting on the ground beside him, held his bloody hand.
Even in the memory, he could smell the cigar smoke as she came sauntering up, her hips, sheathed in a frilly dress, swayed like a metronome. Her pistol shined in the sun as she lifted it, aimed at the boy. An ivory finger squeezed the trigger.
A crate toppled over crashing on the floor.
Kate moaned and twisted, but Magnus coaxed her still. He dipped the handkerchief in the pail and gently dabbed her forehead. He waved off the flies. Black dots scattered from the bloody bandages.
Flies had gathered immediately around the dead boy’s eyes. The cigar smoking woman had said something, but all Magnus could do was hold the bloody hand.
“Magnus,” Kate whimpered. Her eyes still closed.
“I’m here. I’m here.”
She lay limp. Her head rolling with the clattering of the train. Magnus squeezed her hand. He had told the boy that everything would be fine.
“Cracked Beak has been searching for you,” he said. “Miss Kate?”
Her face was terribly white. He leaned over her, placing his ear close to her large nostrils. The breath was faint.
“You’ll see a doctor today,” he said. “He’s knowledgeable. He’ll tend to you.”
He dabbed her forehead with the handkerchief.
“Magnus,” Kate gasped.
“I’m here. I’m here.”
“Promise me,” she groaned, her eyes half open, as she lifted her head.
He held her hand. “Anything.”
“Promise me that you will let me die before they take my arm.” She wheezed and her head flopped back down onto straw. Her eyes closed.
Kate watched the little fire dance. It was on the ground. Dried grass was used as kindling, crinkling as the flames licked them up. Now the pyramid of sticks began to crackle. It was night. Dark. Embers drifted up from the growing fire, dying before they even came close to the stars. Silver stars peppered the sky.
Another log was thrown on the fire. That’s when she noticed the men. The firelight flickered on the chiseled facets of their large noses poking out from a veil of shadows. They stood silent.
Kate stood with them. Silent. The tip of her nose warmed by the growing flames. And she knew them. Knew them all. Though now, she couldn’t recall a single one of their names, but each one, each man, encircling the fire, she knew was a Hunter. She had helped them. She remembered. The warm taste of wild goat. Of freshly caught deer. The metallic scent of blood filling her nostrils. And yet, there was still another connection to these men, another thread in the web, not just of the hunt, of the kill. It was something deeper, closer.
But, she didn’t know what. All she had was a swelling sadness in her gut, that clumped up her throat, that made her eyes water. She sniffled. Wiped the tears away. Something was lost. Something or someone. The sadness in her belly continued to expand. And then, all the men, in unison, stepped backwards, out of the reach of the fire’s glow, their large noses swallowed in shadow. The fire crackled in the darkness. The stars gazed down.
The doctor rolled up his white shirt sleeves and washed his hands. He was a black man. Gray frosted his beard and gold rimmed glasses pinched his nose. He had his own practice. An office on the main avenue of the town of Goodenough. It had a lot of windows for such a little room. Plenty of light by which he could see. On the walls were anatomy charts. Diagrams with perforated lines drawn across the human body. One of the posters was ripped. His diploma from the University of Glasgow hung on the wall. An Indian boy (about twelve years old) with a white man’s haircut, held a towel. After flinging the excess water from his slender fingers, the doctor took the towel.
“Are you picking the unconscious lady’s pocket?” The doctor asked as he approached the table where Kate was laid out. Cornelius Magnus stood beside her.
“I’m holding her hand,” Magnus said, glancing up at the doctor.
“Sorry. I just assumed. Since that’s what you did while hocking your Miracle Elixir.”
“Thaumaturgical Tincture,” Magnus mumbled as he stared down at Kate.
The doctor scowled, then whistled and the Indian boy appeared with a large wooden bucket. The doctor began to peel away Kate’s bloody bandages, plopping the bandages in the bucket. A sweet and sour reek filled the little room. “When was she shot?”
“Four days ago,” Magnus answered.
“Too bad you’re not a real doctor. You might have thought to sterilize the wound.”
“I cleaned it as best as I could.”
“Perhaps you used that hogswallop concoction of yours?” The doctor continued to strip away the bandages, examining the wound. “A woman almost died because of that swill.”
“I unloaded all of my supply.”
Dr. Boone glanced up at Magnus, then returned his gaze to the wound. Kate moaned in her sleep.
“Iodine. Bromine. Tincture of lime,” Dr. Boone said. “A trained doctor would’ve thought of something like that. There might’ve been a crate of either one of those on that boxcar. But, I should ease up, since you’re not a trained doctor, just a fortune telling grifter.” Dr. Boone stood up, a smile wrinkling the skin around his cold and hard eyes.
Magnus squeezed Kate’s hand.
“George,” Dr. Boone called.
The Indian boy pushed a metal cart over to the table. The tiny wheels squeaked on the boards and the surgical tools jangled. The doctor picked up the scalpel and examined it in a swathe of sunshine. “Cleanliness is crucial, George. And why is that?”
“Cleanliness helps prevent infection. And infection is what kills people rather than the bullets.”
“The beginnings of aseptic care. Information based on the observations and experience of trained medical professionals. Facts. Not lies. Not words to tickle susceptible minds, but facts that are meant to help and guide through the wilderness of ignorance.” Dr. Boone said, gently pulling back the fused bandage and slicing the festering scab. His hands were steady and worked slow. Tugging and cutting. The bandage peeling like the skin of a deer till at last it was free. He dropped it into the bucket. Plop.
Magnus turned away from the table as the stink permeated the room. He gagged. His hand over his mouth.
“Gangrenenous?” George asked.
“Good thinking, and the word is gangrenous,” Dr. Boone said. With tweezers, he prodded the puss and scab. His face only inches from Kate’s mangled shoulder. “Carbolic acid would’ve staved it off. That’s Lister’s method. Have you read his work, grifter? Or Dr. Goodfellow’s?” He plucked at the shreds of shirt fabric in the wound. “Oh, you seem awfully quiet. A little green even. Perhaps George can enlighten you.”
“Lord Joseph Lister suggests that carbolic acid be used to sterilize the instruments and the wound itself. Dr. George Goodfellow is the premiere expert on gunshot wounds and an advocate for the use of carbolic acid. He tended to the Earp brothers.”
“Well done, George,” Dr. Boone said. He had returned the tweezers to the cart and was back over at the sink, washing his hands. After flinging the water from his fingers he opened a nearby cupboard and removed a clear bottle. Its label was crammed with big and little letters. “This is carbolic acid.” He uncorked it, dribbled some on a rag and wiped each finger, getting down into the pits where they joined with the hand. A chemically sweet air wafted from his hands.
“That’ll mitigate the infection?” Magnus asked.
“Isn’t that what my brother-in-law asked you?”
Magnus’ eyes widened in recognition. The doctor raised his hand before he could speak. “Not only was it a struggle to keep fluids in his body for two weeks, but he still doesn’t have feeling in his right foot.” Dr. Boone’s nostrils flared as he glared at Magnus. “George,” the doctor called, finally turning from the grifter.
George wheeled the cart to the sink. He rinsed the traces of blood from the scalpel and tweezers. Dr. Boone placed the bottle of carbolic acid near the sink and handed the boy the rag he had used for his hands. George wiped the scalpel with the rag, then set carefully back on the cart. He dribbled more carbolic acid and picked up a silver saw.
“After you sterilize the instruments, you need to fetch a few more hands,” Dr. Boone said, rolling his sleeves higher up on his arm. Wads of fabric on his biceps.
“No,” Magnus said, remembering the promise to Kate. “You can’t.”
“Who is the real doctor here?” Dr. Boone asked.
“But…”
“The bullet is lodged in the bone, Cornelius. Just below the humeral head.”
“Can’t you get it out?” For Magnus it was slipping away, the boy’s bloody hand.
“That’s a futile effort. Blood poisoning. Our only recourse is amputation.”
“There has to be another option.” She’ll be alive, though, he thought. Surely she can’t hold that against me. It was a ludicrous promise.
“Let me put it in terms that you’ll understand, grifter: she’ll die if we don’t amputate her arm. ”
At least she’ll be alive, Magnus thought.
A pyre burned in the night. The wood crackled and the smoke rose thick up to the cold stars. Flames cloaked the body.
Kate thought it was Mr. Doolin laid out in the fire at first. She stood enough away in the dark so that the light wavered like ocean waves on the toes of her bare feet, the orange glow ebbing and flowing about her face, warming the tip of her nose. She wanted to cry.
A wind whipped the flames. Embers scattered like red snowflakes. She caught the stink of burnt hair ‘mid the acrid smoke. The body in the fire was different now. No longer was it a man stretched out on his back, but a four-legged animal on its side, whether dog or coyote, she couldn’t tell through the haze of dancing fire. She looked at the canine, more confused than anything. Why burn a dog on a pyre?
But then sadness swelled within her. It grabbed hold of her guts and twisted them and wrung them out. It knotted them up and jammed a ball up her throat. She dropped to her knees, clawing at the barren ground.
It’s just a dog, she cried out in her head. But gazing at the fire, as tears cooled her cheeks, she knew he wasn’t just a dog.
The lump of sadness in her throat erupted and she tossed her head back and howled at the faceless stars.
Others howled.
It was the Hunters. They howled with her. Their voices rising with the smoke of the dead. Rising up to the night sky. It was the song of goodbye. It was the song of beginnings.
Kate and her Hunters howled. Then they fell silent again. Kate sat noble on the ground. Her hips square. Her front legs lean and straight, kept close to her body. Her tail curled along her paws. She sat and watched the fire eat the body of the coyote, watching as the smoke carried its ashes to the Spirit World.
Another wind came and an ember landed on her right shoulder. It smoldered. Smoke curling up from her fur. The heat bit and gnawed. She chewed at it like a dog at fleas, but flames ignited there on her shoulder. She yelped, dropping to the ground and rolling, but the flames grew and grew, burning hotter and hotter.
Kate woke up, laying flat on her back on a table. There was a leather strap in her mouth and a burly man looking down at her. Her right arm was outstretched in a crucifix manner, tied to a narrow side table and held by a bushy browed man. “She woke up, Doc!”
“I finished the initial incision,” the black man said. His back was to Kate momentarily as he grabbed the silver saw from a nearby cart. He turned. His hands were bloody. He stood over her, stood right there at her side, in the space between her side and outstretched arm. He and Kate locked eyes. His eyes were hard. “I have no chloroform, but I work quickly and efficiently,” he said.
She screamed a name, the leather strap muffled and mangled the enunciation, but it was clear enough. “Magnus!”
“I had him removed.”
“Magnus!”
“Please hold still.”
Kate struggled, but there were two other men on her legs and yet another man holding her left arm. The doctor’s cold hand grabbed the bicep of her right arm.
“Steel yourself boys. Hold her down.”
The men pressed their weight onto her. Kate breathed heavy, her nostrils flaring like bellows. The men nodded to the doctor and he set his jaw. She bit down on the leather strap, yet still a piercing wail erupting from her mouth. Red streaked the floor, splattering the doctor’s apron, as the saw went to and fro.
People paused in the dusty street as the woman in Dr. Boone’s office screamed. They paused and looked, but curtains were drawn. An old man muttered something about sawbones, shaking his head, as he hurried into a saloon directly across the street from the doctor’s office.
Magnus sat at the bar, tracing his finger along the rim of an empty shot glass.
Over the din of the crowd of folks in the saloon, he still could hear Kate scream. It sounded like she was crying out for him.
The boy had cried out. Hollered his name when he was shot.
“Don’t you vomit in here, mister,” the bartender said to him. “Take that mess outside.”
Magnus stood up. Kate still screamed across the street. “Do you have a back door?”
The bartender studied the man in the dingy white suit, beginning to piece it together that this man was with the woman over there under Dr. Boone’s saw. “Sure. Through the kitchen.”
“Obliged,” Magnus said.
A Mexican woman was scrambling eggs and chorizo, singing a song in Spanish, as the man in the dirty white suit came staggering into her kitchen. She glanced at him dismissively, motioning toward the back door. The man’s face was a little green. He held his stomach as he stumbled over a sack of beans. A pot clanged as it tumbled onto the ground. The Mexican woman swore at him in Spanish, shoving him toward the back door. She opened it and smacked him on the backside with a wooden spoon. The man in the dirty white suit lumbered out into the narrow alley, catching himself on the wooden planks of the neighboring building.
The woman slammed the door. “Dios mio.”
As she straightened her apron, the horrible retch of the man vomiting emanated through the door.