I had been busy, and except for when I thought about Rachel, happy too. Memories of the orphanage sometimes gave me nightmares. Reading about the striking miners brought back the terror of poor boys who worked in those cold dark tunnels. The miners wanted a ten hour work day a nickel more an hour and something for widows and orphans. I just couldn’t bear the idea of poor little Red workin’ down in the mine. The newspapers stirred up sympathy for the miners, but the company had the railroads on their side. They brought in the Pinkertons to beat up the strikers. Then, the company claimed anarchists were causing trouble and asked the Governor to send the militia. The soldiers killed some miners and a lost more were wounded. The papers said they didn’t have doctors. Sympathetic folks in Chicago were sending a train load of medical supplies but the train couldn’t get to Bureau Junction in time to save lives.
I brooded over the article until Doc came home from his country rounds.
“Doc, we just hafta help those miners. Some of my friends from the orphanage are getting shot and they ain’t got no doctors.”
Doc perked up and listened because ever since the war, he had been interested in gunshot wounds. “We could go on the morning train,” he said.
“Those poor people are sick and dying right now. Today is Thursday, and Captain Daniels is loading cargo for Peoria. If he took us on his boat, we could be there a lot quicker.”
“By jingo, we could be at the Junction before morning. Run on down to the landing. I’ll gather up the equipment and get Miss Pendleton,” Doc said. “And I’ll have Mr. Birt send a telegram so they know we are coming.”
I ran all the way in the rain and got there in time to see the old Beaver getting up steam. Captain Daniels was way up in the wheelhouse.
“Cap’n, take us to Bureau Junction. Doc is going to help the miners,” I yelled.
He came on down the gangplank, all red in the face, like he had been drinking.
“What did you say?”
“There’s a big fight at the Eureka mine and there ain’t no doctors. They are sending a train from Chicago, but it won’t get there in time,” I said.
“I got passengers for Peoria.”
“Please, Captain Daniels. I got friends in that mine.”
Just then, Doc drove up with a buggy load of bandages and medicine. Bessie and three Presbyterian ladies were right behind.
When he saw Doc, the Captain sent his passengers ashore and we carried the medical supplies on board.
The Beaver was a battered old sternwheeler but she had a new coat of red paint and could still make good time. The big boats had darkys to wait on passengers and deck hands did the heavy work. The old Beaver had the Captain, a mate, a pilot and two stokers. The cook doubled as a lookout and leadsman up on the bow. She carried a few passengers, a little cargo and in her better days, had carried mail. There was often a good poker game and sometimes Captain Daniels had sporting ladies. It was a bad night to go steamboating up the river because the pilot was drunk and it rained so hard you couldn’t hardly see from one bank to the other. The Captain’s eyes blazed. “Hellsfire, we can beat the damn rail road train. The sons of bitches stole my mail contract.”
Bessie Pendleton and her Presbyterian ladies gave him a look that would have pickled an egg. The captain turned red, swallowed a chew of tobacco and said there wouldn’t be no more profanity on his boat.
“Can you get her over the bar at Sandy Creek?” Doc asked.
Captain Daniels spit and yelled, “I’ll get her over or take the bottom out.”
The deckhands took up the gangplank and we backed away from the landing into the middle of the river. Doc decided to treat the wounded on the hurricane deck. There were heaps of dirt and trash but Bessie put the Presbyterian ladies and two sporting girls to cleaning and scrubbing while Doc set up one of the passenger rooms for operations.
“Tom, git on up here,” the captain shouted.
The pilot house was on top of the boat and a little back from the bow. There were big windows, three or four chairs, spittoons, a fine polished wooden wheel and a rope-pull for the whistle. In daylight, you could have seen the whole river for miles and miles, but it was getting dark fast. We were about a half mile downstream from the sandbar when Captain Daniels pushed his derby hat to the back of his head and yelled down the speaking tube. “Let ‘er rip. Tom, pull that rope.”
I yanked on the rope and the whistle blew like anything. Sparks and black smoke belched out of the stacks and the stern wheel churned up the water. That old boat went off like a Fourth of July rocket. Captain Daniels hung onto the wheel and kept her straight for about two minutes, then aimed for the left hand shore, away from the riffle where water went over the Sandy Creek sandbar. The whole time, he was whistling Camptown Races. He gave me his big silver pocket watch. “Keep track of the exact time when we cross the bar.”
She hit bottom, shuddered and banged like she was coming apart, but the Beaver hardly slowed when she slid over the bar. Captain Daniels spun the wheel and aimed for the other bank. “Tom, sing out in exactly twenty seven minutes.”
It was so dark the banks were just deep shadows at the edge of the river, but we roared along, probably ten, twelve miles an hour. A rain squall came through with rollin’ black clouds. There was nothin’ but swirling mist so you could hardly see the water, let alone the banks. Once it looked like trees were growing right in the middle of the river. A couple of times I would have sworn there were boats right in front of us. Captain Daniels said I had an overwrought imagination and was seein’ mirages. The banks were low and the river is wide above Sandy Creek, but five miles upstream, it narrowed at the Twin Sisters Islands. There was usually deep water near the starboard bank.
“Shovel that coal, you bastards. A bottle of whiskey to each man if you bend your backs,” the captain yelled.
The old boat shivered and groaned like the boilers would bust but the Captain piled on more speed. We’re a goin’ to beat that train,” he yelled.
“It’s twenty seven minutes,” I yelled.
He put the wheel over so hard, the boat skidded and come near turning turtle. I’ll swear the branches of a tree brushed the pilothouse.
“That’s Lower Sister Island. Yell out at four minutes,” he said.
I was so scared, my voice was about gone. “Fo—four minutes.”
He turned the wheel a fraction of an inch, when a bolt of lightning split the sky.
“There’s the Upper Sister.”
I saw a low shadow and maybe some trees, but we were right in the middle of the channel and going like blazes.
“Sound off in twenty five minutes.”
Those twenty five minutes went past in what seemed like a split second because it was so scary and exciting too. For a while there, I just plumb forgot about being a doctor on account of steam-boating was a whole lot more exciting.
“How long does it take to be a steamboat captain?” I asked.
“Why, in ten or twelve years, you can easy learn the river.”
I turned that over for a spell. That was a lot longer than it took to be a doctor. I lost my enthusiasm for steamboating.
Captain Daniels must have seen things in his mind on account of he knew right where we were. When I yelled out the time, he signaled to slow the engines and let off steam. When she stopped and things got quiet, he put his head out a window. “Sound the whistle and watch the time.”
I yanked the cord. The whistle sounded one high, musical note, just like a trumpet. In six seconds, the same sound came back.
“Do it again.”
The echo came back, again, in six seconds.
“The echo is off Dutchman’s Bluff, a quarter mile upriver on the starboard side. The big bend and the narrows are just ahead.”
I had plumb forgot that the river took nearly a right angle turn just below Hennepin. If we would have kept going, we could have gone smack up on the shore. We got up steam again, but just sneaked along, with the cook out on the bow, looking out into the black night and throwing the lead line. Captain Daniels hung on to the wheel and whistled Buffalo Gals. There wasn’t nothin’ to be seen, no banks, no trees, nothing but inky blackness and sometimes a shadow that coulda been a ghost boat.
“Ring the bell, Tom. There ain’t likely to be another boat, but if there is, let em know we’re a comin’.”
The cook yelled out the soundings, but the captain didn’t pay attention until he called “Eight feet. Six feet.”
At six feet, the captain pulled the wheel hard left, waited some, then straightened her out. The boat slid past tree branches and once she shuddered, like she had hit a rock, but after a while there were some flickering lights on the right side.
“There’s Hennepin. It gets real narrow by the island. Keep a close lookout on your side. We got to hug the bank until after the island,” he said.
I kept my eyes glued out the window until they ached. Sometimes, I thought I saw a tree or a stump or another boat. I wasn’t sure of anything, except that Captain Daniels was either drunk or crazy. We had got up more steam and barreled along like anything for another half hour or so. He called down to the engine room. “More steam, make her fly. Whooee! Old Beaver’s settin’ a record.” He took to humming the Arkansaw Traveler.
We were blasting along when I spied lights ahead on the starboard side.
“Slack her off, that’s the landing.”
Sure enough, a crowd of people with lanterns and torches were at the ferry landing across from Bureau Junction. The old Beaver took only three hours to do the thirty miles from Sandy Ford. It was a record, at least for night time and without a pilot too. Folks said the train hadn’t even left Chicago and the wounded men were suffering powerful bad.
Doc had hung lanterns all over the hurricane deck, so it was just as light as day. The women had cleaned it so you could eat pie off the floor. The Presbyterians and the girls had fixed piles of blankets, buckets of boiled water and boxes of bandages. It was just as good as any hospital. Doc and Bessie were the first ones down the gangplank. I ain’t never seen a war, but that scene would have come close. Wounded men were in the mud with rain pourin’ down on their faces. It was just plumb pitiful. The worst wounded were on makeshift stretchers or boards. There was lots of moaning and screeching on account of they didn’t have no morphine and had run out of whiskey. The town folks had wrapped wounds with scraps of cloth and were trying to shelter the men with tarpaulins. There must have been twenty gunshot miners. Three were dead and more were close to passing on.
We were all set to work when a captain in the militia came strutting up, like he was a general. “You can’t touch these prisoners without my permission,” he said.
He had at least thirty militia men, some Pinkertons and deputy sheriffs. Every man had his carbine cocked and ready.
“Those men need medical care. If they die, their blood is on your hands,” Doc said.
“Company doctors are coming to care for these dogs. You ain’t got no business here.”
The Pinkertons made like they were going to grab Doc, when Bessie and the Presbyterian Ladies marched up so close, they could have spit in the militia captain’s face. They shuffled back a way when Bessie started screeching and poking with her umbrella like it was a sword. “You and your army can’t stop us from taking care of these wounded men,” she yelled.
Bessie whacked a Pinkerton across the face with her umbrella. The militia captain was a young fellow and wasn’t about to fire on women. He told his men to stand down.
Doc sorted the wounded and ordered the able-bodied men to carry the worst injured onto the boat. One of the first was a man with a deep crease on the side of his head from a grazing bullet. It bled something terrible. His eyes were rolled back and he was out cold.
“Tom, clean his wound and see if the skull is broke,” Doc said.
I rolled up my sleeves and washed my hands, then went to work with a rag and the carbolic solution. There was mud and dirt in the wound and I had to cut a mess of blood- soaked hair. The man never moved, but he had a pretty good pulse in his neck. When his head was clean, Doc came in and felt the wound with his finger.
“This is bad. A piece of bone is sticking into his brain.”
A cloud went over his face. “I never did an operation like this. Maybe we should wait for the Chicago doctors,” he said.
I remembered the picture of that part of the brain in Gray’s anatomy book.
“If you don’t take the pressure off his brain, he won’t have any use of his hand and arm, even if he lives.”
“It would be a long, delicate operation. Other men might die while we are working on him,” he said.
“I can get things ready so you only have to do the hard part,” I said.
He looked doubtful, but after a bit, said, “Go ahead and get started.”
The bullet had taken off a piece of scalp and pushed a piece of bone the size of my thumb down into the brain. I cleaned the wound and stopped the bleeding by clamping the scalp. It looked some better by the time Doc rinsed his hands in the carbolic. There wasn’t any way to get an instrument under the depressed skull. Doc chiseled more bone to make room for a curved clamp to get under the piece that was pressing on the brain. It took considerable work to pry up the piece of skull but it came loose with lots more bleeding. We rinsed the hole with carbolic and boiled water until the bleeding stopped. Doc went off to see another patient and left me to suture the skin. I never done that before, but had watched Doc put in stitches a lot of times. It was hard to drive the needle through the scalp, but I put in a half dozen stitches. When the wound was closed, I got all puffed up with pride. The job looked just as good as if Doc himself had done it. After a while, the wounded man moaned and opened his eyes. I left to help with the other wounded, while one of the Presbyterian ladies stayed with him. Doc was busy cleaning wounds and setting bones, so mainly I gave morphine to men with the worst pain. Bessie helped Doc probe for bullets and tie arteries. The other women cleaned and bandaged and gave the men hot whiskey. By daylight, most of the injured men were pretty comfortable. Doc had me give extra doses of morphine to four men in a corner who were near dead. Three of them had big holes in their belly and were suffering something terrible, even with the morphine. It looked like they were about gone.
“Why don’t we operate, like the doctor in Chicago?” I asked.
“There is nothing we can do because there are holes in the bowels and poison is already in their system,” Doc said.
The fourth patient was Red, my best friend from the orphanage. “Red, Red, is it really you?”
His eyes were clamped shut and blood leaked out of two ragged bullet holes in his chest.
“He’s bleeding from his lung,” Doc said.
I knelt beside poor Red and held his hand. He was skinny as a stick and dead white except for streaks of coal dust ground into his skin.
“Red, it’s me, Tom Slocum from the orphanage.”
There was a terrible raspy noise in his throat and air bubbled out of the holes in his chest. There wasn’t hardly any pulse at his wrist. Seeing Red laying there near death brought back bad memories of the orphanage and I forgot about vowing never to cry. The tears rolled down my cheeks.
After a while, his eyes fluttered. “Tom, is it really you?”
“Yes, Red, you are going to be all right, look at me.”
His dull eyes blinked and he turned his head a little. “I kin see you plain as day, Tom. I wish’t I had climbed out that window with you. The reverend sent me to the mines the next day. It’s powerful hard work, down there in the dark. It hurts something awful.”
He lay real still, opened his mouth wide and sucked in a long noisy breath. Air and blood bubbled out of the holes in his chest. He opened his eyes again. “Down there in the tunnel, I always thought about Hawkeye. Did he really kill all those redskins?”
“Sure, he kilt ‘em, every one.”
“What did he do next?”
“Why, he went out west and kilt more Injuns. I s’pose by now he’s all the way to Californy.”
A smile flickered across his lips. “That’s what I figured.”
“Red, what happened to Mary, the girl with the bad foot. Remember Mary who took care of baby Timothy?”
His eyes were closed again and it looked like he passed. I felt powerful sad, like he was my own brother. Then his eyes opened. “I heard from another boy. There was trouble at the orphanage. The lady managers found out about the beatings and the bad food. They put Ned in charge. One of the ladies adopted little Timothy and took Mary to her home. Tom, kin I have water, I’m powerful thirsty.”
He took a sip of water, but coughed blood, then lay back and whispered, “I wisht I had a mother.”
Bessie heard that whisper and came and cradled his head on her lap just like he was her own child. She murmured comforting words and Red’s eyelids fluttered.
“Did you know this boy?” Bessie asked.
I blubbered some and pressed hard on the bullet holes to stop the air and blood from bubbling out of Red’s chest. It didn’t do no good. “He was my best friend in the orphanage and taught me to suck eggs to keep from starving and he bit Reverend Burns leg to save me. He had a hard life.”
Bessie petted Red’s face but he was about gone. He tried to sit up and put out a hand toward the shadows, like he was having a vision, then he took another gurgling breath and fell back. “Ma, Ma,” he said, then he didn’t breath again.
Bessie held him tight and cried like her heart would break. I rocked back and forth on my knees and kept trying to squeeze life into Red. His hand got cold and he didn’t come back to life. Bessie and I stayed by Red until it got full daylight. I never had no brother and hardly any family except Aunt Alice. Right then, it seemed as if Bessie and me and Red was a kind of a family. We talked a while and she told me how the periwinkle paste seemed to be helping Rachel’s mother.
“I’ve been shaming that old man about marrying off the girl when she is so young and wants to teach school. Her ma is listening too,” Bessie said.
Gosh, as bad as I felt about poor Red, that news about Rachel was the best ever.
I dozed but Doc stayed up, fixing splints, tightening bandages and feeling pulses. He never got tired when there was work to do and was happiest when he was probing for a bullet or sewing wounds.
It was near afternoon when the train came from Chicago with bandages and ether. There were newspaper reporters on the train too, but Doc wouldn’t talk with them. We took the patient with the busted head and two others that needed attention on the steamboat the next day.
The trip back down the river was smooth as silk. The rain had brought the water up and at the Sister Islands, Captain Daniels blew the whistle. People from miles around knew a steamboat was comin’. When we slid over the Sandy Creek bar, there was a big crowd of people at the landing. Most people made a big fuss over us and helped unload the boat.
Mr. Farnum was sittin’ in his buggy and looking madder’n thunder. His face was red and twitching like he had a nervous disorder. Folks said he had stock in the Eureka mines. When I walked close to his buggy, he reached out and tapped my shoulder with the tip of his whip. “Boy, watch your step. If you don’t stop hanging around with that doctor, you will wish you had stayed in that orphanage. He eggs on those miners and Negroes like an anarchist. He’s been in trouble before.”