Her Healing Ways. Lyn Cote

the quavering from her voice, “I must have room to move my arms. I must have light. Please.”

      The crowd edged back a couple of inches. The girl in the low-cut dress lifted a lamp closer to Lon.

      Mercy wished her inner quaking would stop. She sucked in more air laden with cigar smoke, stale beer and sweat. She looked down into Lon’s face.

      She had tended so many bleeding men in the war, yet her work then had been anonymous. She had never before been called to tend someone whom she knew and whom she had depended on, worked with. Seeing a friend like this must be what was upsetting her. She must focus on the wound, not the man.

      In spite of her trembling fingers, Mercy unbuttoned and tugged back his shirt. She examined the wound and was relieved to see that the blood was clotting and sluggish. The wound, though deep, had not penetrated the heart or abdomen. That would have been a death sentence. Her shaking lessened. This was her job, this was what she had been called to do.

      As she probed the wound, she felt a small part of the lung that may have collapsed. She had read about pulmonary atelectasis—once she closed the wound, the lung would either reinflate or compensate. But she needed to act quickly.

      She turned toward the bar. “Nurse Indigo, is my operating table ready?”

      “Almost, Dr. Gabriel.” While working in public, both women used these terms of address. The dean of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania had insisted on using their titles to imbue them with respect.

      “Please carry the patient to the bar, and bring my bag, too,” Mercy asked of the men. “I will operate there.” Mercy turned and the way parted before her. She was accustomed to disbelief and disapproval, but never before had she been forced to endure being put on display. Her face was hot and glowing bright scarlet.

      She had heard of circuses that had freak shows, displaying bearded women and other humans with physical abnormalities. Here she was the local freak, the lady doctor. But her concern for Lon’s survival outweighed her embarrassment and frustration. He was depending on her.

      For a moment, she felt faint. She scolded herself for such weakness and plowed her way to the bar. Now Indigo was helping the bartender position the second of two large oil lamps.

      “How bad is it, Doctor?” Indigo asked.

      “Can you do anything for him? Or is he a goner?” asked the bartender.

      The word goner tightened Mercy’s throat. “The wound may have collapsed part of the lung. I will need to stitch up the wound.”

      There was a deep murmuring as everyone made their opinion of this known, discussing it back and forth. Mercy focused on Lon and her task. In the background, the voices blended together in a deep ebb and flow, like waves on a shore.

      Indigo laid out the surgical instruments on a clean linen cloth. Mercy looked to the saloon girl, who was hovering nearby. “What is thy name, miss?”

      “Sunny, ma’am—I mean, Doc.”

      “Sunny, will thee help me by unbuttoning the shirt and vest the rest of the way and helping the bar tender remove them? I must scrub my hands thoroughly before I begin surgery.”

      Sunny nodded and began undoing Lon’s vest buttons.

      Mercy moved farther down the bar, where Indigo had poured boiled water and alcohol into a clean basin. She picked up a bar of soap and began scrubbing her hands and nails with a little brush, hating each moment of delay.