Lucky Bride

Her sister looked unconcerned at the tone of rebuff. Her eyes were worried. “He’s gone feverish, Molly. Smokey says it’s the chilblains.”

Molly finally looked at their guest’s face. He was awake and making an attempt to smile, but his eyes were red and his cheeks were flushed. Among the tendrils of hair she could see his swollen ears. They were a mottled dark purple.

“We’ll need some glycerine,” she said at once, forgetting about Susannah’s unseemly position on the bed. “And a feather to apply it.” She looked back at Smokey. “And we’ll need more blankets.”

At her commanding tone Susannah dropped Parker’s hand and slid off the side of the bed, Smokey disappeared down the hall and Parker himself sat up, weaving a little as he did so. “I’m sorry to be putting you all to such trouble,” he said.

Molly walked over to him and bent for a closer look. Both ears were monstrous, the right a little worse than the left. She should have checked them last night. Heat radiated from his skin. “It’ll be more trouble if you die on us, mister,” she told him. “So just lie back down there and let us try to get you better.”

He moved down under the covers once again and closed his eyes. “I don’t intend to die on you, Miss Hanks,” he said weakly.

“Now, that’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard you say, Mr. Prescott.” She turned to her sister. “Susannah, go make some hot plasters for his chest. We’ve got to sweat out this fever.”

They worked on him straight through the supper hour. His fever rose as they piled on the coverings and by eight o’clock he was out of his head and ranting. He seemed concerned about his horse’s leg and then asked for his sister. And finally, with anguish, he called for someone named Claire.

Molly had taken over the position next to him on the bed. She supposed she didn’t look any more decorous than Susannah had earlier, but it didn’t seem to make much difference now. She gnawed at her fingernails, trying to decide what to do. She’d known of cases where a finger or a toe had gone bad and had had to be cut off. But an ear? The mere thought made her shudder.

Neither Smokey nor her sisters were of much help. Smokey sat in a chair on the other side of the bed and looked mournful. “Nice-looking young feller,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s a low-down shame.”

“He’s not going to die, is he, Molly?” Mary Beth asked for what must have been the twentieth time in two days.

Molly resisted making an angry comment. Mary Beth was the baby of the family and approached life with a bit more trepidation than her two sisters. “We won’t let him die, Mary Beth,” she answered her sister resignedly, hoping that she was telling the truth. They’d built the fire up to a blaze and shut the hall door, so it was steaming hot in the room. Their patient was drenched in sweat. Molly walked over and wiped his forehead. He snapped his head back and forth underneath the wet cloth.

“I’m not giving you up, Claire,” he said almost lucidly. Then he reached up, grasped Molly’s wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and moaned, “Noooo.”

Was Claire a former sweetheart? she wondered.. Or a current one who was awaiting him in California? He had said that he had no schedule, which didn’t sound like a man on his way to be reunited with a lover. Either way, it was of no concern to her, Molly told herself.

Smokey got up from his chair and walked over to the bed. “I hate to say this, Miss Molly, but I think we better cut the danged things off.”

“Cut what off?” Mary Beth asked, her eyes wide.

“Them ears.”

All three girls looked at the sick man with horror.

“Have you ever seen it done, Smokey?” Molly asked.

The cook shook his head. “Heard of it, though. And I’ve seen ‘em chop off plenty of fingers and toes. If we don’t do it, the pizen could go right to his head.”

“Blood poisoning, you mean.”

“Yup. Right to his brain.”

He waited, looking at Molly. Susannah and Mary Beth were looking at her, too. Why did it always have to be her decision? “Would you know how to do it, Smokey?” she asked.

“Cut ‘em off, stitch ‘em up, I reckon.”

Smokey’s surgical technique obviously left something to be desired. But what if they waited and the pizen, as Smokey had said, did travel into his brain? A man could live without ears, she supposed, but she was curiously reluctant to maim the handsome stranger.

“No. We’ll wait,” she said finally.

Smokey shook his head gravely but didn’t say anything. After a few moments he returned to his seat near the door. Another quarter of an hour passed. No one spoke, but Molly knew they all were thinking about her decision, wondering if it would cost Parker Prescott his life.

She wiped sweat from her forehead and felt it under her arms. “It’s so hot in here he’s like to suffocate,” she said irritably.

“But he’s got the fever. We’ve got to keep him warm,” Mary Beth protested.

Susannah was dozing in the rocking chair by the fire. She opened her eyes and said sleepily, “Just ‘cause he’s got himself frostbit doesn’t mean we should roast him to death, if you ask me.”

Molly straightened from the bed and made another decision. “Open the door, Smokey, and let’s get some of these blankets off him.”

Smokey looked doubtful. “He could take a fatal chill.”

“Well, his skin’s hot as a branding iron right now, and he’s delirious. I have a feeling he’d feel better if we cooled him down a little.”

Smokey opened the door, and a chilly whoosh of air blew into the room. They pulled the stack of covers off him, leaving only the quilt and one blanket. Almost immediately his tossing and moaning subsided. As the room cooled, Molly felt calmer. She put another coat of glycerine over the swollen ears and wiped his face again with the cool cloth. His breathing grew deeper, more even.

After several minutes Molly said in a soft voice, “I think he’s fallen asleep.” She looked around the room. “Why don’t you all go to your rooms and get some rest? I’ll sit with him.”

“You were up with him last night, Miss Molly,” Smokey protested. “I’ll stay by him tonight.”

Molly shook her head. “I’m not tired. If I need you during the night, I’ll knock on your door.”

“You can knock on mine, too, Molly,” Susannah said in a subdued voice.

Molly looked up at her sharply. Even when their father had been so sick, Susannah had not been willing to allow her beauty sleep to be disturbed.

“I’d not mind sitting up with him,” Susannah added. Her eyes regarded the sick man with concern and something more.

“He’s breathing easier now,” Molly said, motioning toward the bed. “I think I’ll be all right with him.”

With final glances at the sleeping man, her sisters and Smokey left the room. Molly pulled the rocker close to the bed and sat down. She hoped she’d done the right thing by cooling down the room, she thought groggily as she pushed the chair back and forth. She hoped the fever would break overnight. The old rocker creaked rhythmically…. She hoped she wouldn’t have to cut off her patient’s ears…. Her head lolled against the chair cushion…. She hoped she had misread the look in Susannah’s eyes….

Parker’s mouth tasted as if he’d eaten a dead squirrel. His head pounded, and his ears felt as if someone had stuffed them full of cotton. He was still in the bedroom of the Hanks’s deceased father, even though the sunshine through the slats of the window meant that the storm had long since ended. He must have been so plumb tired that the fierce Miss Hanks had decided to extend her charity a few more hours. For some reason, he could remember little of the previous day, other than the fact that Molly Hanks had threatened to turn him into buzzard meat if he touched her sisters. He smiled. She had a right tender way about her, that one.

After a moment of debate he decided he would have to move his head. The prospect did not please him, but he had to move some part of his body, and he might as well just start right in where it hurt. Nausea hit him as he turned to one side, but he controlled it as he focused on the woman in the chair beside him. Not the termagant older sister, but Susannah, looking pretty as spring in a bright yellow dress with flounces of lace from the high neck to just above where the tightly fitted bodice showed off her full… Parker blinked twice. He was in a strange place, coming out of some kind of delirium, weak and disoriented, yet he could feel his body reacting to Susannah’s female perfection. Perhaps her sister had been right. Perhaps he should be left for buzzard meat.

“You’re awake,” Susannah exclaimed.

“Have I…” Parker stopped to swallow down the fuzz in his mouth. “Have I slept long?”

“You were out of your head yesterday afternoon and into the night. We didn’t know if you were going to make it. Smokey wanted to cut off your ears, but Molly wouldn’t let him.”

She had jumped up and come to the side of the bed, speaking excitedly. Parker’s head throbbed. “Cut off my ears?” he asked, not certain he had heard correctly.

“They’re frozen,” Susannah said with a frown, her excitement decreasing.

He raised a hand to the side of his head and encountered a large, sticky mass that seemed to have no relation to the rest of his body. He looked up at Susannah in dismay.