Westering Women by Sandra Dallas

Author:Sandra Dallas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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OTHERS HAD ALREADY seen to the wounds, which were serious but not life threatening. The two injured teamsters would have to ride in the wagons until they were healed. The woman who had been hit by the war club was weak and in pain, but William said no bones were broken, and she would recover.

Dora was the most severely injured. Her forearm was broken, and bones protruded through the flesh. She was conscious, her face racked with pain. William knelt beside her, examining the wound while women brought camphor, brandy, and ammonia from their wagons, not sure what would be needed.

“Perhaps the arm should come off,” Edwin suggested. “I have never seen a break so bad, and she would not want gangrene to set in.”

“No!” Dora screamed through her pain.

“I have set bones before,” Mary said. “It will hurt, and maybe her arm will be crooked, but I believe we can save it.” She held up the brandy bottle that someone had placed on the ground. “This will help, but laudanum would be better. Who has got laudanum?”

“I threw it out before Fort Kearny,” one woman told her.

When none of the others answered, Mary said, “Then we shall proceed without it. The brandy will have to do.” She held the bottle to Dora’s lips and forced her to drink, waiting a few minutes for the liquor to take effect. She ordered Maggie and Sadie to hold Dora still while she and Reverend Parnell pushed the bones together.

The bone-setting was a painful procedure. Dora screamed. Perspiration ran down the faces of the two “surgeons,” and they gritted their teeth as they set the arm. When Mary was satisfied the bones were in place, she laid a spoke from the back of Bessie’s rocking chair against the broken forearm to keep it straight, then bound it with strips of cloth. “I think she will be all right,” she said, as she sat back in the dirt. Dora had passed out, and Mary studied her for a moment. Dora’s breathing was ragged, but she no longer moaned. Mary touched Dora’s belly gently, then nodded. “I think she will be all right,” she repeated, then said, “and she will not lose the baby.”

It was then that Maggie realized that her own arm had been gashed during the fighting. The wound was long and jagged and soaked with blood, and it would have to be attended to. She might have asked Mary to care for it, but her friend was exhausted. And Reverend Parnell had disappeared. Maggie went to her wagon and took out needle and thread. Bracing herself against the wagon wheel, she stitched up the wound herself.

A teamster who was resting nearby watched the procedure and fainted.

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