Texas Angel, 2-in-1 by Judith Pella

Author:Judith Pella [Pella, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 1999-07-31T20:00:00+00:00

PART FIVE

OCTOBER 1835

CHAPTER

53

FOR DAYS BENJAMIN DID NOT know if Elise would live or die. The wounds on her back had festered, and fever assailed her. She was never fully conscious. In her delirium she would cry out incoherently, seemingly in pain. At other times she mumbled things, often just Benjamin’s name.

It frightened the children. Hannah clung to her mother, often crying herself. Benjamin thought how fearful Elise had always been of losing Hannah. No one ever considered that the loss could be reversed.

Isabel was inconsolable at first. “Papa, will she die?” Her weeping was pitiful to behold.

But Benjamin wasn’t much help. He lifted his own tear-filled eyes to his daughter. “I . . . I don’t know. Dear God, she can’t die!” He hugged Isabel to him, and they cried in each other’s arms.

They both soon found strength in tending to Elise’s physical needs. Keeping her inflamed skin cool was a full-time endeavor. Nell Hunter came to help for the first three days. John’s grazed head was healing nicely, but he remained at home to tend neglected chores. Nell had insisted on cleaning and bandaging Benjamin’s cut arm. He’d hardly felt the wound in his concern for Elise but it was a deep cut, and Nell was worried that it would putrefy and cause lockjaw. She made a poultice of garlic and witch hazel, which she swabbed on the wound to prevent inflammation, then bound it with a rind of pork, explaining that would fight lockjaw. Benjamin accepted these ministrations impatiently.

But Nell, wise and logical like her husband, said, “What good will you be to Elise if you get sick?”

Finally, she turned her attention to Elise. Benjamin could hardly watch the process of cleaning her battered back. In fact, he’d had to leave the cabin once, sickened by her cries of pain at the mere touch of the wounds. Also sickened at the raw, angry sight of them. It was Isabel who helped Nell most. Once the stripes were cleaned, Nell put the garlic and witch hazel poultice on her patient’s back. This done, she covered the back with a bandage, instructing that it must be changed frequently.

Somewhat reluctantly she turned to Benjamin, who had ventured into the sickroom again now that the worst of the work had been done.

“Reverend Sinclair, I know you don’t approve of ardent spirits. Neither do I, for that matter, but”—she gazed sheepishly into Benjamin’s eyes—“I have administered a little whiskey to your wife. It was all I had for pain,” she added quickly, then appeared braced for rebuke.

Benjamin looked down at Elise, lying on her stomach and moaning softly. “Give her all she needs,” he said firmly, “if it will take away the pain.” He didn’t even think to inquire how sweet, God-fearing Nell had come by whiskey. He really didn’t care.

“We need not go overboard, Reverend.” She smiled. “A little will go a long way in a woman of your wife’s tender sensibilities.”

But as the days passed, he wondered if all the care in the world would help.

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