Mankillers

There was no mistaking what had happened. Semi-conscious and moaning in pain, Rex was suspended from the stirrup, his crippled foot at an u

Buck catapulted from the porch to the horse, which was still skittish. Rastus grabbed the stallion’s upper lip in a vice-like grip, stilling the animal. Carefully Buck removed the boot from the high stirrup and eased the leg to the ground. Nearly breathless, Rex’s upper body was writhing in pain.

One of the black men separated himself from the group and drew closer, curious to see what was happening. Buck looked up. “Benson, get my saddle bag off Gypsy. Hurry.”

“Yessir.”

“Rex, I’m going to have to cut your boot off. I’m sorry,” he said, referring not to the boot but to the added pain he was about to inflict.

“That’s . . . all right,” Rex said haltingly. “I don’t think . . . I’ll be needing it . . . anymore.”

Benson placed the saddle bag on the ground beside Buck.

Reverend Christian appeared behind him. “Tell us what else you need, doctor.”

“A board to use as a splint and something to tie the leg in place. Anybody have a sharp knife?”

One of the gravediggers stepped forward, pulled a large, wicked-looking blade from a leather scabbard and handed it to him.

“Somebody hold his shoulders and his left thigh down,” Buck instructed. “This is going to hurt.”

“Just do it,” Rex muttered between clenched teeth.

Another gravedigger offered him a stick to bite on, then pressed down on his shoulders. A gurgling grunt erupted from Rex’s throat as Buck proceeded to slit the fine leather boot from top to heel and slowly eased it off. Already the ankle and foot had turned a sickening purple and blood was oozing from the site where a spicule of bone had lacerated the skin above the joint. Buck knew what had to be done, but he kept his counsel for the present.

Digging into the saddle bag, he removed a flask of laudanum, gently raised Rex’s head and told him to sip. “It’ll take a minute, but then this’ll ease your pain.” He looked up at the clergyman. “Where can we take him?”

“To the vicarage. We’ll have to use the hearse though.”

The people around them grew round eyed with shock at the unconventional use of the long, glass enclosed vehicle, but it was clearly the best suited of the conveyances available, all of which were smaller and afforded no room for anyone to lie down. The hearse’s driver brought it alongside the injured man.

By the time a weathered board and old harness straps had been brought, the laudanum had taken effect. Rex moaned softly but no longer seemed in distress. Buck proceeded to secure the mangled limb to the board.

“What will you need at the vicarage?” Reverend Christian asked. Buck had no doubt the man knew what was coming.

“A table large enough to lay him on. Lash two together if necessary. Then place my instruments and sutures in a pot of boiling water and leave them there until I arrive. I’ll also need a white napkin, a tea strainer and plenty of clean bandages.”

Within minutes the logistics had been worked out. Buck and Sarah would accompany Rex in the hearse, while Gus would go ahead with the others. Ruth and Miriam volunteered to cut up sheets for bandages. Gypsy and Scamp were tied to the rear of the carriage.

Inside the narrow glass-encased compartment, aware of the woman across from him, Buck ruminated as he crouched beside his patient. He’d sworn he’d never perform another amputation, and now he was about to cut off the lower half of his friend’s leg.

#

It amazed Sarah that the preparation took longer than the operation. Buck instructed her in meticulous detail on her duties as his anesthetist. After administering a generous dose of laudanum to make Rex sleepy, she’d placed a napkin over the tea strainer and held it an inch above his nose and mouth. At Buck’s direction she dripped chloroform slowly onto the cloth and watched Rex’s eyes. If his pupils started to dilate she was to slow the rate.

“Reverend,” Buck said, “I’m going to need you to hold his leg steady while I cut.”

“But you’re using chloroform.” Clearly the minister wasn’t eager to be part of the surgical team.

“He won’t feel anything, but his body doesn’t know that,” Buck explained. “He’ll jerk as if he did.”

Christian held Rex’s injured leg in a firm grip between the knee and the tourniquet below it. Sarah could see only some of what was going on. She was astounded how fast the amputation went. What disturbed her most was the sound of the bone saw and the sight of Buck lowering the severed foot to the floor. Within minutes he had sutured the skin flaps and dressed the wound.

“You can both ease up now,” he said, as he mopped his brow. “It’s all over.”

#

Buck finished washing his hands of Rex’s blood, stretched his spine and strolled out onto the porch of the vicarage. It was late afternoon now. There was barely enough time left for Gus and the ladies to reach Columbia before darkness overcame them. He’d already discussed sleeping arrangements with the minister. Buck would stay on the settee in the parlor with Rex, Sarah would sleep upstairs in the guestroom, and Jeffcoat’s men could sleep in the loft of the barn. They would set off for Columbia in the morning, provided Rex got through the night without complications.

Miriam was sitting in one of the porch rockers when Buck stepped outside.

“How is he?”

“Everything went well. Medically. How he recovers from what happened—”

“Is up to him,” she said, finishing his thought. “You did what you had to do and saved his life.”

“His life was never in real danger.”

“Because you were here. The Lord Provides, blessed be His name.”

Buck sagged into the other rocker. Exhausted.

“Gus is getting things ready, then we’ll be leaving,” Miriam said after a minute of silence. “Before we go, may I ask you a question?”

He nodded.

“Why did you want that horseshoe?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” he answered honestly. “It’s been there as long as I can remember, but every once in a while I’d catch Emma staring at it, and she’d get a fu

“Did you ever ask her about it?”

“Once, when I was a kid. She just smiled and said the horse it belonged to was going to carry her to bliss. I must have been pretty young, because I remember asking her where bliss was, on the other side of Columbia? She’d howled with laughter until I thought she was going to cry, then reminded me to always hang a horseshoe with the ends pointing up, otherwise all the good luck would fall out.”

Miriam smiled. “Even the unlucky need luck.”

Buck gazed over at her, at the melancholy expression in her brown eyes. “Is there more to this than it being just a common good-luck charm?”

She bowed her head, then continued. “We got to be friends in the weeks after she came to live with us. She and I had something in common, a long heritage as a people striving against oppression. She knew her days were numbered. Awareness didn’t make her sad. On the contrary, it allowed her to unburden herself about things she hadn’t shared with anyone in decades. I was happy to listen.”

Like the rabbi had been happy to listen to Asa pour out his soul. There was something special and cathartic, Buck was begi

“What did she tell you?”

Miriam grew pensive for a long moment as she peered into space, then she went on.

“His name was Marcellus Deeds. He was a free black from somewhere down around Sava