In the long hours that followed, Elizabeth wondered if everyone in town and half the people in the province were tramping through her house. Freddy lay, too still, on her davenport, his mother crouched on the floor beside him. The heavy man she had found under the boards had been put, complaining profusely, on the cot in the treatment room. His name, appropriately enough, was Mr. Bedlam, and to the best of Elizabeth’s knowledge, he had a broken collarbone.
One by one, the passengers paraded by, dragging the mouldy stink of the bog on their boots. Those with scrapes that needed cleaning and a dab of iodine were passed on to Ann and Miss Turnbull. Elizabeth pushed back a throbbing headache and tried to sort broken bones from sprains and bruises. In the end, she put a young man called Charlie, barely old enough to shave, on her parlour chair with his leg propped on a footstool and pillow. The bad angle of his foot led her to believe his ankle was broken. Once again, women filed into her kitchen with the smells of coffee and spice cake.
Elizabeth arranged an enamel tray with catgut and needles, and put a heap of bandages on her father’s desk. She thought of all he had told her and shown her about wounds, especially those on the face. She squinted through her swollen eye and slowly, painstakingly, pressed the ragged edges of skin together before carefully imitating his tiny, perfect stitches to try to lessen the scarring. She willed her hands to be steady, mechanically washing them in carbolic after each patient, wincing as the strong solution bit into her scraped knuckles. Now and then she asked one of the women to empty the porcelain basin and refill it with fresh, warm water.
By the time the last of the passengers got to the house, darkness had fallen and Ann came in with lamps. Elizabeth left the office now and then to check on the broken limbs and the unconscious child. She said very little, leaving reassurances to the other women who floated in and out of her muddled vision like moths. Her stomach fluttered and she knew that she would have a terrible headache if she stopped to think about it.
At some point during the long night, she thought perhaps she should be keeping an account of the patients, their names or the number of sutures. Her supply of sterile needles had long run out so she disinfected them in carbolic solution for a minute or two because she didn’t have the thirty minutes necessary to boil them properly. Her hands turned a dull red.
At last she looked up and saw only Ann, who asked, “Will you eat something?”
Elizabeth shook her head and reached for clean bandages. She blessed her father’s overestimate of supplies. “Who’s next?”
“That’s it. There is no one else. I’ve never seen so much blood in my life.”
Elizabeth looked at the housekeeper’s exhausted face and splattered clothes, then around the room. She stood and stretched her aching back and groaned out loud. “The broken windows did most of the damage. Where have you put everyone?”
“They’re all around town, wherever we could find room for them. Won’t you at least have some tea?”
Elizabeth didn’t have the energy to argue. “All right.”
She followed Ann into the kitchen and sank into a chair. Bertha handed her a cup of tea and slid a plate of bread and butter toward her. Jake and Stefan came and went, filling the woodbox and water buckets. Herbert Schneider and John Woodside stared grimly at her stained clothes but said nothing.
Her respite was short-lived. Freddy’s mother yelled from the parlour. “Nurse!”
Elizabeth saw her own fear reflected in Ann’s eyes.
Before they could move, Lydia Turnbull came in with a tired smile. “The little boy has regained consciousness.”
Everyone in the kitchen followed Elizabeth into the parlour where she checked the boy herself before collapsing on a chair, near tears with relief. Through the window beside her, dawn, heedless of their ordeal, turned the dark hills to silvery green.
From the treatment room came Mr. Bedlam’s quarrelsome voice. “What’s all the racket? Where’s that goddamn nurse? I need more medicine.”
“Oh, be still!” Bertha bellowed back.
At her comment, Elizabeth felt her tears turn to hysterical laughter, then the solid clunk of boots on the front porch stopped the gaiety.
“Now what?” Elizabeth asked the room in general.
“What now?” Ann repeated. The nurse’s battered face shone sickly pale in the thin light of early morning. How much more could this pampered little girl take, Ann wondered.
Before she could open it, the door swung in and a man entered from the hallway.
He was tall—as tall as Jake—but lean and lanky. He pulled a sloppy felt Stetson from his copper-coloured hair with one hand and a grubby white canvas bag from his shoulder with the other. The blue trousers with yellow stripes and the dusty scarlet coat told everyone in the room that the help Elizabeth so desperately needed had arrived.
With the lilt of the Highlands in his voice, he said, “I’m told ye’re in need o’ a doctor here.”
Elizabeth struggled up from her chair and went to meet him. “Oh, Dr. McRae. I’m so glad you’re here.”
He stood looking down at her from his great height. “Aye, lass, I’m here. And I’m sorry fer the loss o’ yer father. But just look at ye. Dinna no one ever teach ye proper? Ye have tae take care o’ the nurse, afore ye can take care o’ the patients.”
Elizabeth’s frame sagged. Her eyes filled with tears and her chin began to tremble. Lydia, blowing out lamps, stood frozen to the spot.
Ann could scarcely believe her ears. She stepped quickly between Elizabeth and Dr. McRae. “Now see here, you have absolutely no right to speak to her like that.” She jabbed a finger into his chest and had the satisfaction of seeing his sleepy eyes widen. “You don’t know what Elizabeth has been through tonight. I won’t allow you to speak to her like that. I just won’t allow it. Do you understand?”
Absolute quiet settled over the house as Ann stared the doctor down. His mouth seemed to twitch a little, but under such a long shaggy moustache, who could tell for sure? From the corner of her eye, Ann saw Bertha and Lydia steal back into the kitchen.
Then a scream rang out. Everyone jumped except, Ann noted, the laconic Dr. McRae. She left him where he stood and raced into the kitchen. “Heavens to Betsy! Now what? Lydia, have you hurt . . . ?”
Two steps into the kitchen, she stopped short with Jake and Elizabeth piled up behind her. Lydia stood with her backside pressed to the chrome bumper on the range, one hand clutched to her bosom. Squatting on the floor, looking baffled and terribly put upon, were three half-naked Indians. They filled the kitchen with the smells of wood smoke and horse sweat.
“I’ve told ye before, Horse Child, ye need tae knock at a white woman’s door. They’re sore touchy ’bout things like that.”
Ann turned to glare at the doctor where he lounged against the doorframe. No doubt about it, he was having a private little laugh at their expense.
He raised his bushy brows at her filthy look. “They’re my men. I sent them ’round back tae put our horses in the wee stable. We’ve been out west wi’ their chief for nigh three days and nights now—congestive heart—then a rider came with word from the railway. They rode with me all night.”
Ann took a closer look at the strain on the man’s face. She should have been able to recognize exhaustion by now. Maybe a small conciliatory gesture would be in order.
She turned back to the men on the floor. “Why don’t you sit up and let Bertha get you something to eat? Some coffee? Bertha, what do we have to feed them?” Bertha was the last woman in the country to swoon over a couple of Indians with bare bellies.
“Oh, biscuits are easy. And some scrambled eggs? I’ll get something right away.”
Ann nodded wearily, but the three Indians stayed on the floor and looked up at her with their hurt brown faces. “With jam?” she asked them desperately.
The one called Horse Child grunted.
One of the others spoke in injured tones. “Even left our pants on, this time. Hot in these houses. Left our pants on like the sergeant said and still white womans scream at us.”
Jake chuckled. Ann twirled round and glared at him. Elizabeth smiled crookedly. Over the nurse’s head, Ann saw Dr. McRae watching her and the lines around his eyes creased a little more. All her righteous fury came boiling back.
She turned back to point at the Indians, then slammed her open palm on the table. “Sit up to the table! I don’t have the time or the patience to pamper the childish feelings of grown men. Let Bertha move around the kitchen so she can get you some food. And keep your damn pants on!”
Jake burst out laughing so she aimed a finger at him. “You. Stay here. I don’t want to hear any more screaming from this kitchen. Is that understood?”
The Indians got up and sat at the table, their backs as straight as arrows. The tallest of the lot, the one with long dusty braids and smears of rust-coloured mud on his bare chest, grunted at length in a characteristic monotone.
Horse Child interpreted for Ann. “Shot-On-Both-Sides, he think you fine, big white woman. He thinks you talk bad, sometimes, maybe, but he don’t beat you much for that. He has many horses. Can pay good price for woman. Fine-looking white woman.” He nodded his head up and down emphatically but Ann was sure she saw the same infuriating twinkle in his black eyes as she had seen in the doctor’s.
Not one person in the kitchen moved so much as an eyelash. Even the big grin on Jake’s face disappeared. Ann sucked in her breath and without a glance at anyone, turned to stalk from the room. Dr. McRae pried himself out of the way so she could pass.
Elizabeth didn’t dare look Lydia in the eye, never mind Jake, for fear of laughing. It was just about the most outrageous scene she had ever witnessed. She wanted to pinch herself to see if she was awake, but her headache reminded her of that. “Dr. McRae, if you could look at Freddy for me? He was unconscious for hours and I’m sure he has a concussion at the very least. And Mr. Bedlam . . .”
“Bedlam?”
She led the way. “He’s the clavicle in the treatment room. And that really is his name.”
“And this lad?” He stood over Charlie.
Elizabeth looked up at the doctor hesitantly. “A fractured tibia?”
He didn’t even look at poor Charlie’s ankle, just stared down at her instead. She must have done something wrong. Probably everything.
“Your daddy had an office, I believe?”
“Uh, yes, of course. I d-didn’t use it for Charlie, I had so many s-sutures, you see.”
“Sutures, now is it, lass?”
“Y-yes. There was broken g-glass everywhere.”
He took her by the shoulders and nudged her ahead of him. “Let’s get ye into the office.”
Ann followed close on their heels. Dr. McRae stood in the middle of the office and looked at the mess of bloody lint that overflowed the wastebasket and lay scattered around the floor. He swept the clutter from her father’s desk onto the floor, and plunked his bag on one corner. He turned to Elizabeth, shaking his head, then picked her up and set her on the other corner.
A tear plopped loose from her swollen eye and trickled down her cheek. “Would p-people please stop p-picking me up?”
For some reason, that got a smile from Dr. McRae and she recognized the quiet, funny man she had met last Christmas.
“Ach, child, would ye shut yer wee gob now?” He took her face between his long hands and parted her hair where it had been bleeding earlier.
She flinched. “Ouch.”
“I’d be grateful if ye dinna yell too loud, lass.” He tilted his head at Ann who stood close by, watching every move he made. “Yer broody hen here dinna take well tae screamin’, now does she?”
Elizabeth sagged with relief. She didn’t have to do it all anymore; in fact she didn’t have to do anything but sit here and let someone else take care of things. She glanced at Ann to see how she had taken the remark, and saw grim determination and not one bit of humour on her face.
“Maybe someone could get me some warm water?” Dr. McRae asked no one in particular. Ann exited in a swirl of skirts. He chatted pleasantly as he waited to wash his hands. “And the pet rooster ye have in yer henhouse, the big one in the kitchen called Jake, he might take offence too, dinna ye think?”
Elizabeth smiled back as Ann returned promptly with the water. Her housekeeper was evidently prepared to think only the worst of the police doctor and his half-naked Indians. Elizabeth wished she weren’t so tired and sick; she could enjoy it all more. “I don’t have any roosters.”
“I’m sorry tae hear that, I surely am. I’m going tae have tae sew up that wound on yer head. It’s a deep one.”
“I don’t know if there are any needles left.”
He opened his canvas bag and took out a clean dressing case. “I carry m’own surgery with me.”
She heaved a sigh. “I was afraid you might.”
Next he flashed a pair of scissors. “And I’ll have tae cut a bit from those lovely long locks.”
Tears welled again. “Are you sure?”
“Let him do what he needs to,” Ann said quietly near her elbow. “It will grow out in no time. You’ll see.”
Dr. McRae waggled his brows at Elizabeth. “There now. Could ye get a finer recommendation than that?”
Ann snorted.
Elizabeth thought it might be time for these two to meet. “This is Mrs. Montgomery. She’s our, that is, my housekeeper.”
“Maybe she could find me some antiseptic and clean lint?”
Elizabeth gritted her teeth while Dr. McRae put eight tiny stitches into her head. Then he reached into his bag and drew out a murky blue bottle with a dropper. “Open wide.”
Elizabeth pressed her palm against the medicine. “Oh. That reminds me. I need to talk to you about Mrs. Weyman. She has a tumour. I’ve been giving her a sedative, but I don’t know if the dosage is correct.”
Dr. McRae heaved a deep, exasperated sigh and removed her hand from the dropper. Still looking at Elizabeth, he said, “Mrs. Montgomery?”
“Take the drops, Elizabeth. You can talk to Dr. McRae about your patients later.”
She opened her mouth and took the opiate on the back of her tongue.
“Now then,” the doctor said, looking directly at Ann. “I want you tae get our wee Nightingale tae her bed afore that draught takes hold, tuck her up in her nest and keep her there for two or three days. Would ye see tae that for me?”
When she returned to the confusion downstairs, Ann found the doctor kneeling on the floor by Freddy, talking in his quiet way to the mother. “He should stay here for two or three days. Let the ladies take care o’ both of ye.”
“But I should get home,” the woman fretted.
“I dinna think the trains will be running for a time anyway.”
Next he went to the dining room where he flattened his palms on the middle of the beautiful oak table and shifted his weight forward. He gripped the edge and shook it, then nodded his head.
“T’will do. D’ye think we could find a blanket or two?”
“I can,” Bertha said, but looked at Ann for permission.
“Of course, Bertha. Give him what he needs,” Ann said. “On the top shelf in the washroom.”
“Let’s get you settled first, lad,” the doctor said to Charlie.
Horse Child took a lamp and a dirty cup off the table and handed them to Lydia without a word, then crumpled the lace tablecloth into a ball and dropped it on the floor. He folded the blankets in half and spread them lengthwise, one atop the other, on the table.
The doctor nodded at Horse Child and, as carefully as they could, they lifted Charlie under the arms and knees and put him on the table. The boy’s eyes filled with tears and his bottom lip started to bobble.“We have chloroform, Doctor,” Ann suggested, “and a proper applicator, but I’ve never been called upon to use it.”
“Horse Child, would ye get the chloroform that Mrs. Montgomery so kindly offers? Horse Child has been my assistant for four years now. He’s given more chloroform and helped set as many bones as I have. Well, nearly.” The doctor tossed his coat in the direction of a chair and rolled the sleeves of his combinations up past his elbows before opening the dining-room window as wide as it would go. “Let’s have some air afore you open that canister, Horse Child.” he said. “Tired as we are, we’ll be asleep afore the lad.”
In no time Charlie was asleep, his trousers removed and the leg of his drawers cut up to the knee. Ann didn’t flinch until the grating crunch of bones being moved back into place made her a little light-headed.
“Bertha, would you go to the kitchen and ask Jake to bring a folding cot from the stable, please? It’s up in the rafters. We’ll put Charlie in near Freddy.”
As Ann helped Dr. McRae prepare the table for their next patient, she realized a few things about him. She determined, for instance, that in spite of first appearances, the man possessed an abundance of charm which he spread around indiscriminately and his hands on his patients were as steady and true as Dr. Evans’s had been.
He didn’t need to waste his charm on Horse Child. The two men worked as a team, the Indian’s face impassive, his eyes half closed. And yet he knew when the doctor wanted a splint or a roll of gauze without ever having to be asked, and when they were finished, he rolled Charlie in the top blanket and carried him like a babe to the cot in the parlour without so much as a nod from the doctor.
“Where’s Jake?” Dr. McRae asked. “We need him tae help move Bedlam.”
Ann turned to leave. “I’ll get him.”
She blinked at the bright sunlight and the crowd of people in the kitchen. The other two Indians had gone back to their people, Jake told her. He sat at the table with Lydia, and—here her mind balked—Beatrice Schneider. Iris stuffed wood into the range.
“Quite a few people have been by to help,” Lydia said.
Beatrice nodded vigorously, her usual morose expression replaced by a brightness that looked almost feverish.
In a couple of days Ann would speculate with Elizabeth about the unpredictable Beatrice’s motives for turning up to lend a hand. For now, she said in all honesty, “I’m happy to see you. We can really use your help. Now, Bertha and Lydia can go home to bed.”
“What shall we do?” Iris brushed her hands together.
“Well, first of all, Jake, the doctor needs you to help move Mr. Bedlam. When he is cared for, I think it will just be a matter of keeping an eye on everyone.”
The women nodded, looking serious and important, so Ann left them and went back to the dining room where Horse Child, Jake and Dr. McRae struggled with Mr. Bedlam.
They had saved the worst for last. Bedlam was obstructive and belligerent and by the time Horse Child had manoeuvred the chrome mask of chloroform over the man’s nose, the others were sweaty and short-tempered. When they were finished, Ann had Jake carry hot water upstairs to the room that had been Dr. Evans’s.
Dr. McRae watched her as he rolled his sleeves down. “You’ve near got all yer chicks put away now, haven’t ye?”
She was too tired to be baited, if that was what he was trying to do. “Yes I do. I even have a bed upstairs for you, Doctor, and I can find another cot for Horse Child, if he would like that.”
“Horse Child hates tae sleep indoors. Except for the dead o’ winter, and even then he’d rather not. Nay, he’ll bed down in the barn. I, however, would enjoy a soft bed and pillow.”
“Just up the stairs and . . .”
“I know m’own way tae bed.”
“Very well,” Ann snapped, and went to the kitchen to see if there was a drop of warm water left for herself. She started upstairs and tripped on the last step, slopping some of her water. She had heard the expression, “Too tired to pick up my feet,” and now she knew the truth of it. Eyes on her jug, she went into her room and was halfway across the floor before she stopped dead still.
Dr. McRae stood by her bed, his suspenders hanging around his thighs and his combinations peeled down over his waist. In the palm of his hand he held her lacquered tea tin. He looked at Ann, then the tin, and then at Ann again.
“I’ve come tae the wrong room, have I not?” He held the tea up and raised his eyebrows at her, then glanced around the bedroom. “I felt sure I slept in this room when I was here last.”
Ann nodded. “You probably did. I’ve been staying with Elizabeth and using this room.”
He turned the tea tin over in his hand once more and then set it back on the nightstand and looked at her wearily.
“I thought you could sleep in Dr. Evans’s room. Do you mind?”
“O’course not.”
Ann set her water on the washstand. “I’ll show you the way.”
He picked up his coat and followed her into the front bedroom. She crossed to close the heavy draperies against the sun and heard his boots hit the floor.
“There’s water for you, too,” she said, but the only answer she got was the creak of bed springs and a heartfelt sigh. Pulling the door closed behind her, she heard the unmistakable sound of a quiet, even snore.