it gone?” she asked.
Cole nodded.
She closed her eyes. “That’s good, then.”
“You’re in a better place to judge than I am.”
“God judges.”
Cole did not disagree. He studied her face, the only part of her that he hadn’t spared the time to clean. Looking past the smears of dirt to the structure of her face, Cole could see that she’d been given certain features that helped her hide her true nature. There was strong definition to her jaw and a natural thrust to her chin. Her mouth was a bold slash, the lips marked by beads of blood and scored from the biting pressure of her teeth. She had a nose that had actually been broken–perhaps more than once. If it had ever been delicate, it wasn’t now, but the slight asymmetrical bent simply made her face more interesting, not necessarily more masculine. Her eyes were a tad widely spaced, and while she had thick lashes, they were also stubby. In the strictest sense, her most feminine feature was the absence of an Adam’s apple, although Cole could imagine that cleaned up and given the proper application of stage cosmetics, she had favorably impressed her audiences as Portia, Juliet, and Desdemona. The heart-shaped face alone might account for it.
Cole slid off the bed. “I know you’re not sleeping,” he said, setting the basin aside. “I need you to be for what I have to do next. Do you understand?”
She didn’t open her eyes, but she did answer him. “I can stand it, whatever it is.”
“But I can’t. If you’ve no pity for yourself, then show some for me.” He didn’t give her an opportunity to argue. “I have an anesthetic vaporizer with me. It’s a kind of mask.” Cole pulled it out of his bag. “Do you want to see it? No? All right. It has two parts, the metal holder that I’ll place around your nose and mouth and the gauze that I’ll stretch across the top and fix to it. I’ll soak the gauze with some liquid ether. It will vaporize and you’ll breathe it in. Slow, deep breaths. When you wake up, I’ll be done.”
He wondered if she would ask him what he meant to do and knew a measure of relief when she didn’t. At no time during his stay at St. John’s were any of the house doctors advised that they should explain themselves to a patient. Rather, they were cautioned to keep their exchanges with the sick to a minimum during rounds and discuss symptoms, diagnoses, and procedures with their colleagues. It was the generally held belief that the patients, even if they could understand what was being said, were not interested. They vested their faith in God and their doctors, and it was all the better, Dr. James Erwin told his interns, if they didn’t know the difference.
Cole was never certain that the chief surgeon knew there was a difference, either. Erwin embraced the notion of his own infallibility. This thought rolled through his mind as he prepared the vaporizer. His hands were steady as he measured out the ether and poured it onto the gauze. He was not immune to uncertainty, even fear, especially when the procedure was one with which he had little experience, but he’d always possessed a talent for turning doubt into further inquiry and caution. He would act, but he would be exacting.
Cole placed the apparatus over Runt’s mouth and nose and held it firmly when she instinctively tried to avoid it. He turned his face toward the open window to avoid breathing the ether fumes and spoke to her in a firm and steady cadence, encouraging her to take deep and even breaths. “Count backward from one hundred,” he told her. By ninety-two, she was asleep.
Cole worked quickly after that. Using a finger splint and most of his own bandages, he fashioned a swab. He poured hot water and whiskey over it and then situated himself between Runt’s raised legs. He carefully inserted the swab into her vagina and pushed until he felt the tip of her cervix. He cleansed her internal wounds by rotating the swab as he slowly withdrew it.
As soon as he was done, he discarded the swab and removed the vaporizer to the windowsill. He lowered Runt’s legs and covered her, then pulled a chair up to the bedside, sat, and waited.
Cole heard the approach of Will’s horse. There was another heated exchange between Judah and the deputy, then the cabin floor shook as Will thumped across the porch. A moment later, he was knocking at the bedroom door.
“Come in,” Cole called.
“How is she?” Will hovered in the doorway. Water from the tails of his wet shirt dripped on the wooden floor. “Did you even wring that out?”
“Twice.” He waved more questions about his shirt aside.
“What about her?”
“She’s coming out of the ether now.”
Will’s lightly colored eyebrows lifted. “Glad I wasn’t here then. If you needed that, it must’ve been bad.”
Cole didn’t argue. “What’s her name?”
“Judah tells me we’ve been saying it proper all along, only we didn’t have it right in our minds.”
“How’s that again?”
“It’s spelled R-h-y-n-e. He said it was his wife’s maiden name. Pronounced it like it was R-y-a-n, but with a little bit of a drawl. Rhyne. It’s kinda pretty that way.”
Curious, Cole thought. “When the family performed, did Judah print a playbill?”
“Not sure I remember.” He removed his hat and plowed his pale hair with four fingers. “Reckon he did. Judah liked to be professional.”
“It would be interesting to know how he introduced her.”
“Runt Abbot.”
Will and Cole turned simultaneously. Rhyne’s eyes were still closed, but her lips were parted.
“Rusty, Randy, and Runt Abbot,” she said quietly. “So there would be no mistake.”
Cole dampened the corner of one of the towels and leaned forward to press it against Rhyne’s parched lips. “Will you get her some cool water?” he asked Will. “And bring a couple of empty glasses. I don’t know about you, but I could use a whiskey.”
When Will disappeared, Cole addressed Rhyne. “Are you nauseated? Feel like you have to–”
“I know what it means. Keep a bucket close. We’ll see.”
“Pain?”
“What about it?”
“I can give you something for it.”
She opened one eye, her regard skeptical. “Laudanum? I don’t want it.”
“I can’t give you anything else. I have salicylate, but it will thin your blood. That’s not a good idea right now.”
Rhyne remained skeptical, but she didn’t offer any resistance.
“As soon as I’m certain you’re not going to be sick, I’ll mix the laudanum for you.”
Rhyne opened her other eye, turned her head carefully, and looked around. “Where’s Judah?”
“Outside.” He didn’t mention that her father was tied up.
“He
