Sitting down at Daisy’s bedside, Reed laid his hand on her forehead and felt the heat. Then he held her wrist and found her pulse, timing it with his watch. “Pain’s pretty bad?” he asked.
Daisy nodded.
“It’s my fault. I shoulda made you take somethin’ earlier.”
Daisy gave him a weak smile. “Good luck tryin’ to push me around.”
He smiled back at her and prepped a syringe.
“Will you stay with me till I go to sleep?” she asked.
“I’ll stay with you after.” He swabbed Daisy’s arm with alcohol and gave her the shot that would stop the throbbing in her foot and let her rest.
Reed waited until she was sound asleep and then started organizing a tray of bandages and supplies so he could dress her wound while she couldn’t feel anything—and also to keep her from seeing it. Snakebites always looked horrendous.
Folding back the covers at the foot of the bed, he was startled by what he saw—blood and infection seeping through Daisy’s bandage. The wound had likely abscessed and would need to be excised. He hurried into the kitchen and found Dr. Sesser’s number by the telephone, only to learn from the nurse that the doctor had just left to deliver twins.
After returning to Daisy’s room, he opened the bottom drawer of his chest of drawers and pulled out the backpack he had carried across battlefield after battlefield. He’d thrown his medals aside but held on to the lifesaving tools that had allowed him to earn them. He didn’t know why exactly, but he couldn’t let that canvas bag go. The smell of it instantly stirred up The Dust Storm, constricting him so tightly he couldn’t—
“No!” he said out loud. He could stew in the war later, but right now Daisy needed all his skills, and he prayed they would be enough.
He removed the instruments he would need, carried them into the kitchen, and sterilized them. He paused to listen for the women, who were all in the front parlor. That was good.
Reed locked both doors to the bedroom to keep Anna or Dolly from walking in on what he was about to do. He took out one of the last three IV bags in his kit, “overlooked” by the buddies who had packed up his gear when they shipped him home, and started a morphine drip. It would keep Daisy completely unconscious while he worked. He put a stack of clean towels under her infected foot and began.