Chapter 8

In the weeks after the bloody battle of Manassas, or Bull Run as the Union called it, there was little fighting. Both armies were reluctant to engage the other after such a short but shocking encounter.

In Washington, the routing the Federal troops had received prompted President Lincoln to replace their army commander with General George McLennan. It was obvious to the North that the Confederates were not going to be easily beaten. More training and better organization was required if they were to be victorious. At the same time the Federal navy closed in on the coast, establishing an effective blockade of the South.

At Campbell Hospital it was a slow road to recovery for the Kid. The bullet wounds to his neck and shoulder and the severe concussion he received meant it was some weeks before he could even sit up. He was kept apart from the other soldiers in the hospital, all of them Union troops. He received no visits from the women who came each day to read to the wounded and brighten their day. He received no letters or parcels from home to help with his recovery. Only Henry Wilkinson tended to him or spoke to him, and he said little of any substance.

Though not an army doctor, Henry was nonetheless hesitant when sharing any news of the war with Kid. Even as a civilian he knew he shouldn't be discussing the impact the Confederates' victory at Bull Run had had on the North. The mood had changed in Washington – everyone was keenly aware that, had the Rebels decided to invade the capital after the battle, the city could well be in their possession at that moment.

"What's gonna happen to me?" Kid asked Henry one overcast, humid afternoon. The heat in the hospital was sweltering, and all were uncomfortable.

"I don't know," the doctor said as he finished redressing Kid's shoulder. He frowned at the obvious signs of infection that had appeared the day before. Henry realized the heat had little to do with his patient's flushed skin or the glassy look in his eyes.

"The army will sort that out, Kid, don't you worry," Henry went on, moving to the other side of the bed to check Kid's neck. "There's a bunch of our boys being held in Virginia, so they're no doubt working out the best way to get everyone back on the right side."

"Are there more like me? Confederates here?" Kid asked, wincing as Henry probed the wound at his neck which was red and sore, and getting worse rather than better.

"I really couldn't say, Kid," replied Henry, which meant he most likely didn't know, Kid suspected.

Kid was surprised when Henry had told him he wasn't an officer. He had seen few uniformed men at the hospital, so he barely felt like a prisoner. There were no guards by his bed. Henry's civilian status was most likely the reason, Kid thought, that the doctor was as kind to him as he was. He did not view the Kid as Johnny Reb, the enemy, as the soldiers who'd shot him had.

Henry had little love for the war, that much Kid had worked out. He was the one who insisted Kid got the necessary care for his wounds when the Union doctors wanted Henry to concentrate his efforts on their own soldiers who were wounded and dying at the hospital. They were overrun with injured men from the single day's fighting in Manassas, and Kid was the cause of arguments among the medical staff because Henry was having to spend so much time tending to him. Kid had heard the raised voices, but Henry never let him know the trouble he was causing among the doctors.

Henry finished redressing his neck, and then made him sip some water from a tin mug. Kid started at the slight metallic taste, swallowing with difficulty, but dutifully drank it all at Henry's urging. Then the doctor helped him lay back down, careful not to move his head too much.

"You need to rest, Kid," Henry ordered. He pressed his fingers to the inside of Kid's wrist, taking note of his pulse.

"What is it?" Kid asked wanly. He knew something was wrong with him from the way he was feeling – almost worse than when he'd first woken and found himself in a Union hospital.

"Your wounds are infected and it's causing you to run a fever." Henry tucked Kid's arm underneath the coarse hospital blanket, not meeting his eyes.

"Am I gonna die?"

Henry scoffed. "I didn't spend so much time digging that bullet out of your shoulder or stitching up that neck to have you go and die," he said lightly, masking the real doubt he had for his patient's prognosis. Already a dozen men had died at the hospital from infection, although their wounds had been more grievous.

"My wife," Kid said urgently, catching Henry's gaze. "I'd like to send word to my wife."

"Later. You need to sleep."

Kid closed his eyes, weary all of a sudden. He realized Henry must have given him something in the water to help him sleep.

"Tell her… tell her I love her. Tell her I'm sorry… didn't keep my word," he murmured as he drifted off.

"You rest now," Henry commanded again.

Within moments Kid was breathing evenly, fast asleep.

"Wha–… what happened?" Kid muttered. "Who done that?"

Henry looked up from the book he was reading. It was late, past midnight, and the lantern burning by Kid's beside offered him poor light. But he was reluctant to leave his patient's side, given his worsening condition. The poultice he had been using to draw out the infection didn't seem to be working, he realized with regret. Conventional medicine said there was nothing he could do but wait and see if the infection was going to take Kid's life. But Henry had been reading whatever he could find on Indian medicine, and wanted desperately for the poultice to work, if nothing else than to silence the derision of his colleagues who thought him a fool for even trying.

Henry was not as close-minded to non-traditional medicines as the other doctors. He was an avid reader of whatever he could find on the natural remedies that the Indians used. If they could save the lives of their wounded, Henry believed, then the doctors at the hospital shouldn't be afraid to try something just because they did not learn it at medical school. Henry knew he never would have been allowed to try out his poultice on any of the Union men in the hospital, so he was especially attentive to Kid's condition in the hopes that he would be able to prove the remedy's worth to the others.

Unfortunately whatever he had concocted for Kid's infection did not appear to be working. By Henry's reckoning, he would probably be dead by morning. His fever had been raging for three solid days, and it could not continue for much longer.

Kid was raving again in his delirium, and had been for several hours. Most of what he was saying didn't make much sense, at least to Henry's ears. He touched his hand to Kid's forehead and found it was burning still. He dipped a cloth in some cool water and wiped his face.

"Lambert!" Kid gasped, his eyes snapping open. He tried to sit up but Henry restrained him. After a moment all the energy drained out of Kid and he slumped back onto his sweat-soaked pillow.

Kid moved fitfully for a few more minutes. Henry sighed and picked up his book once more.

"Lambert! I'm callin' you out!" Kid said through gritted teeth.

Henry adjusted the cloth on Kid's forehead and resumed his reading.

Much to the surprise of the army doctors at the hospital, not to mention Henry's own, the Kid did not die. By morning his fever had broken and Henry could see a noticeable reduction in the infection in his neck and shoulder. He was careful not to flaunt his success in front of the others, but Henry was exceedingly pleased that Kid was on the road to recovery. No doubt there would be skeptics among the doctors who believed that the poultice was no help at all and the Confederate prisoner would have recovered of his own accord, but Henry knew better.

Kid was weak for several more days, barely able to move. Henry tended to him faithfully during that time, rarely leaving his side. Instead of working with other patients, Henry would sit by his bed, scribbling in his notebook and sorting through his case of vials of herbs and other strange looking mixtures that he methodically catalogued. All the while he chatted to the Kid, telling him of his ideas for cures and medical treatments. Sometimes it was exhausting, but Kid was glad for the companionship.

"Why are you in Washington? Why aren't you out West somewhere?" Kid asked one day a week later, amazed that someone who was so interested in Indian medicine had lived all his life in the East.

"One day I'll go, soon I hope," replied Henry with obvious excitement. "I've read everything I can get my hands on, but the true research needs to be done in the field. A few more years in practice here and I'll have enough to set up somewhere and write my book."

Kid pushed himself into a semi-sitting position on the bed, his back aching from lying flat for so long. His arms shook as he did so, his muscled weakened.

"Well, maybe you can look me up when you get out there, if this war don't go on too long," he offered, grateful to Henry for saving his life but also for being nicer to him than he had expected, given where he was and the fact they were on opposite sides.

"Why? Where are you from?" Henry asked, surprised. "I thought you were from Virginia."

"I am. But I been livin' out there these past few years. Most recently in Rock Creek in Nebraska Territory, ridin' for the Pony Express. When there was a Pony Express," Kid finished with a hint of sadness in his voice. It was still strange to him that the Express was no more, now that the telegraph had been completed.

"Well, aren't you full of surprises?" Henry grinned. "All this time I've been talking to a true hero of the frontier. I've read stories about the Pony Express, stage drivers, fellows like that… I bet you have a few stories of your own."

"A few," Kid admitted, smiling faintly.

"Do you miss it out there?"

Kid sighed. "Yeah. More'n I thought I would."

"Is that where your family is? Your brother?"

Kid's expression darkened. "I don't have a brother."

"I'm sorry," Henry said quickly, feeling he had brought up a painful topic from the look on Kid's face. "You just kept calling out to someone called Lou. You seemed awful concerned about him, so I just assumed…"

There was silence for a while as Kid tried not to succumb to the overwhelming wave of sorrow that flooded through him. God, how he missed her.

"Lou is Louise," he said eventually. "She's my wife."

"Ah, I see." Henry nodded. "Is she still in Rock Creek?"

"She's stayin' with my aunt and my cousin's family near Williamsburg."

"I suppose she'll be safe there, at least for now."

"Why? Has somethin' happened?" Panic gripped Kid. He had no idea what was happening in the fighting. Had Virginia been invaded again? Was she in danger?

"Nothing, don't worry," Henry placated him. "There's been no fighting for weeks, at least not in those parts."

Still uneasy, Kid closed his eyes and wished he could see her to know for sure she was all right. He never should have brought her back to Virginia, he thought, and not for the first time.

"Can I have some paper and somethin' to write with?" Kid asked, remembering his earlier request to send word to Lou. He had been too weak when he was first brought to the hospital and then sick with the fever so he had still not written to let her know he was all right. Lord only knows what the army told her, Kid thought with a grimace.

"Of course," said Henry, handing over a few sheets from his notebook and the pencil he had been writing with.

Kid took them gratefully, but then did not start writing. He glanced at Henry, an embarrassed look crossing his face.

"I'll leave you alone," the doctor murmured respectfully.

Kid waited until he was gone but even then he didn't know how to begin his letter to Lou. He simply didn't have the words to tell her how much he wanted to be with her again, how he needed her. Nothing he could say or write would relate how much he missed her at that moment.