He slept for two days.
It was a fevered sleep, one interrupted by cries of terror and body spasms that made her fear he might be seizing at irregular intervals. But he settled on his own, in spite of hot skin and gray, scaly lips. His speech was broken and unintelligible when it would come, yet the strength of his grip always surprised her, especially when she would lay a cool cloth on his forehead and murmur words of comfort into his ear.
You're safe here. Rest so you can regain your strength and go home to your family.
His lips worked, yet no sound came out, and she couldn't help but wonder if he was trying to thank her again. So she breathed more words of encouragement, telling him that everything was alright, even though it wasn't, even though she was certain that if he had the wherewithal to understand her, he would have to know enough to realize that his circumstances were as far from alright as they could possibly be. Yet no matter his state of delirium or sleep, his face would lean into her palm, seeking comfort, finding some sort of solace, making her ache for another man lost to her for too many years.
He seemed to particularly like it when she read to him, whether the words came from Daniel's prized volume of Keats, her recently acquired copy of A Tale of Two Cities or their worn family Bible.
I will lift mine eyes to the hills...the words from her favorite Psalm brought an actual name to his lips, one voiced with reverence and urgency that pulled her eyes from the crinkled page straight to his face.
Marian.
Her heart stilled in her chest.
His wife, she reasoned, or perhaps the name of his betrothed. She wondered if the woman was alive or deceased, if she'd given him children, if she kept a prayer vigil even as Regina sat with the scriptures open upon her lap. Were these very words penned by David centuries ago being uttered by another set of lips, being worn as a shawl of comfort by a desperate would-be widow hoping against all odds that her lover would return unharmed and alive? Had she pressed a flower he'd picked for her between the pages of her Bible as a token of remembrance? Did she dream about him nightly, falling asleep with his name on her tongue, waking up to the cold reality of an empty bed?
If only prayer vigils restored life with the same expediency that war and disease destroyed it.
Forcing water and broth down his throat at regular intervals was no small feat, the pillow absorbing more than the soldier's body in spite of her and her son's continued prompting.
"Come on, mister. You aren't allowed to die now that you're in our house. Mama won't allow it."
She forced a smile to mask the reality that her boy had already seen too much death in his short lifetime.
"Drink. Drink so you can get better-so you can go back to your family and see them again."
She was almost certain that he'd whispered I'll try.
But in spite of small successes, his fever continued to climb throughout the day, making her wonder if she'd missed another problem in her haste to remove the bullet from his shoulder. A good doctor must be thorough, her father had taught her, never one to make assumptions when the body was full of mysteries, wonders, and layer upon layer of misleading symptoms.
She could only pray her assumptions hadn't doomed this one man to death. God help her if they had.
Henry helped her cut away what remained of his clothing as the sun began to sink, leaving him in the barest of essentials so they could wash his body and try to cool his heated skin. War had marked him, leaving trails of scratches and flea bites that were painful to the naked eye, but she continued to strip him of his Confederate garments, somehow making him far more human and achingly vulnerable to her eyes in the process. Under the enemy uniform, he was simply a man, a man of flesh, bone and blood-a man like her father. A man like Daniel.
It was then they discovered the leg wound.
It was raw and black, the stench partially masked by filth and bandages nearly overpowering when it was laid bare before their eyes. The gash ran from his ankle to just below his kneecap, the angry, red streaks emanating from it sending a cold rush of alarm all over her.
"Go and fetch Doc Hamilton, Henry. Now."
The boy offered no argument this time.
The doctor arrived nearly an hour later, bringing with him the surgical tools Regina had instructed her son to memorize and quote with accuracy. The older man stepped into the bedroom, his face reacting before his lips even moved.
"We can't save that leg if we want to save him."
It was exactly what she had feared. The room swayed beneath her feet.
"Can we save him?"
A husky exhale emerged from the doctor's bearded face, the words that followed weighted and hollow.
"I don't know. But it's the only chance he's got."
The unfairness of life struck her soundly in the gut.
She moved towards the soldier's side, reaching down to stroke his cheek, his fevered state hitting far too close to home.
"You have to keep fighting," she insisted, leaning in closer than necessary, hoping her proximity would somehow brand her words into his subconscious. "For Marian." He squirmed beneath her touch, his face thrashing from side to side before leaning into her touch.
Marian.
His voice was broken, raspy from disuse, but the strength of his emotion was unmistakable.
"I'm here," she stated, the lie tasting bitter on her tongue even as the lines on his face relaxed. "You have to keep fighting. Don't give up." Doc Hamilton shot her a look she couldn't read. It was probably best to ignore it anyway.
Water was boiled, instruments were cleaned, and some blankets placed underneath the soldier's lower body while Henry deftly tore others into makeshift bandages.
"You should wait in the barn, Henry," she stated as her own stomach rebelled. "This isn't going to be pretty."
"I know. But I think I'll stay all the same. I want to pray for him."
"God can hear your prayers just as well from the barn," she assured him, burying her fingers into brown waves desperately in need of a trim.
"I don't know, Mama. Charlotte can get awfully noisy when she's upset, and I wouldn't want a cow to drown out my prayers before God can get them."
How could she refuse her son the opportunity to talk to God?
As it turned out, things were noisy enough in the house to block the prayers of the entire state of Pennsylvania. Whiskey had been generously poured down the man's throat, and he'd been strapped to the bed as best they could manage, both Regina and the doctor knowing that an amputation wouldn't be taken lightly by the one receiving it. Even if he was unconscious when they began the ghastly procedure, the odds of him remaining so when the cutting began was highly unlikely. She ended up practically sitting on his torso to keep him still, his cries of agony making spots swim in front of her eyes.
"Hold on," she'd practically screamed as he attempted to thrust her off of his body. "You can do this-I know you can." He bucked and yelled until his body went completely limp beneath her.
"Thank God," Doc Hamilton breathed . "His being unconscious will make sewing him up a hell of alot easier." He then handed her a rag to wipe her face as she sniffed and tried to catch her breath. She hadn't realized she'd been crying until that moment.
Her tears were mixed with blood not her own, blood now splattered all over her in a grotesque, crimson pattern that whispered war into marrow and bone. It made her feel that he was now a part of her, that she was now marked by him, responsible for his survival even though she bore no responsibility for his injuries.
Damn it all. She didn't need that in her life right now. Being responsible for Henry and a struggling farm was more than enough. A dying soldier just….
No. She couldn't think of him like that. As long as he breathed, he was a living man, a person with a soul and a future, a human who deserved a second chance at life, even if that chance had been denied to her husband.
Help me, Daniel. Please. Help him.
The room smelled of blood mixed with severed infection, sweat, and what she suspected was urine. Who could blame the man if he'd wet himself as a part of his body was hacked away, even if its gaps had been expertly sewn together after he'd passed out?
The fact that it was done to save his life made it no easier to stomach.
"I'm sorry," she'd whispered to him as Doc Hamilton cleaned up the room and the patient as best he could. "I'm so sorry it came to this." She held him to her as the older man stripped soiled sheets from under his unconscious form, awkwardly replacing them with a quilt she'd pulled out of her old hope chest, one hand-stitched by a grandmother she'd never known.
What would her mother say if she knew that very quilt now lay beneath a bloodied and dirty Rebel soldier, that her daughter's hands had extracted a bullet from heated flesh and that her legs had just straddled his torso while his lower leg was amputated?
Somehow within two days and two surgeries, the man's survival had become too important to both her and her son. Another death in the house was unacceptable.
Don't you die on me.
She'd whispered those same words to Daniel, had begged him to live with everything she had. But his body hadn't had the strength to honor her request.
She hoped to God this one did.