“Can I give him a hug?”
Clarissa had to smile, then. “After I fix his leg, okay?”
“Okay.” Sophie grabbed Lena’s hand and the two girls ran up the narrow, enclosed stairway to Lena’s room upstairs, closing the stairwell door behind them.
For the next few moments no one spoke as Clarissa peeled off the bandages. She could see Dawson’s calf muscle tighten and knew the leg was hurting him, but he made no sound. “Set a bucket under his leg, Michael, will you? I have to wash this off and water and blood will drip.”
“Sure thing,” Michael answered, hurrying to the kitchen.
Clarissa looked up at Dawson. “Bullet wound?” she asked.
“Shrapnel.”
Michael returned with a bucket, and Clarissa began washing the blood off Dawson’s leg. “You said you’re retired from the army?”
“My time was up just a few days after I was wounded, during Grant’s campaign to free up the Mississippi to Union control. After sixteen years of fighting Indians and then seeing the horrific things I’ve seen in this war, I decided not to re-up. I’m doubting that decision, since the army is all I’ve ever known since I was thirteen years old.”
“Thirteen!” Michael had drawn up a chair beside Clarissa to see if there was anything he could do to help. Carolyn sat down across the table from them. “You’ve been in the army since you were thirteen years old?”
Dawson grinned, then suddenly winced and grunted when Clarissa got close to the still-festered wound. “They thought I was sixteen.”
Michael chuckled. “Well, considering your size, I can understand that.”
“I’m going to have to douse this with whiskey, Mr. Clements,” Clarissa told him.
“So be it.”
Clarissa uncorked the small bottle Carolyn handed to her and took a deep breath before splashing some into the wound. Dawson grunted and jerked his leg, then cursed.
“I’ll not have such language in my house, Mr. Clements, although I can understand why you want to use it,” Michael told him. “This is a Christian home.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Harvey.” He grunted again with another douse of whiskey. “But maybe if I’d been allowed to drink some of that liquor before Mrs. Graham here poured it on my wound, I wouldn’t have felt it quite so much.”
“We don’t allow drinking in our home, either,” Carolyn told him.
“Well, then, by the time this nice lady is through cleaning up this wound, I’ll have to be leaving,” Dawson answered. “Right now a good, stiff drink sounds pretty good.”
Clarissa inspected the wound. “You’re lucky, Mr. Clements. It’s slightly festered, but if you keep whiskey on it and keep the bandages changed, I don’t think it will be that bad. We have caught this in time to keep it from getting worse.” She looked up at him. “I’ll wrap it for you and give you clean bandages to take with you. Please promise me that you will change them at least every other day, and that you’ll pour whiskey on the wound as often. Just buy extra when you’re sitting in a saloon drinking,” she added in a tone of chastisement.
Dawson actually chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”
Their gazes held, and again Clarissa was struck by the handsome man she could see behind the scrubby beard and long hair. For one quick moment she thought he might have read her thoughts, and she quickly looked away and began wrapping fresh bandages around his leg. “So, what will you do now, Mr. Clements?” she asked, anxious to get a conversation going again. “You said something about visiting the camps of the homeless.”
“I was thinking about heading back out west,” he answered. “I served in the west most of my army years. It’s beautiful country. Figured maybe I could make a little money by guiding some of those displaced folks who’ve decided to also head west under the Homestead Act. The West and Indians are things I’m familiar with, so I figure I could do a pretty good job of it. Once I get there, I’ll probably look for gold. Or maybe I can work for one of the mines as a guard or something.”
“We’re headed west, too!” Michael told him. “Me and the wife and Clarissa here.”
“That so? You’ve no husband, Mrs. Graham?”
Clarissa glanced at Carolyn before answering. “No,” she said, adding no explanation.
“Killed in the war?”
Clarissa wrapped his leg quietly for a few seconds. “No,” she said again. “Nothing quite that honorable, Mr. Clements. And I don’t wish to talk further about it with a stranger.”
The room hung silent for several awkward seconds. “Fine with me,” Dawson finally answered. “Mind if I ask if you work at City Hospital? I don’t remember seeing you there.”
“I did work there, but I…I quit in order to get ready for our trip west,” she lied. How could she tell him she was fired because she was a divorced woman? “We’ll be leaving in a month or less. In fact, I just today received my very own deed to one-hundred-sixty acres in Montana.” She tied off the gauze and looked up at him, putting on a brighter look. “That’s why I was coming from the courthouse when this accident happened.”
“I see.” Dawson leaned over and checked out the dressing. “Nice job. I’m sure your services would be needed more than once on a trip west. All kinds of things can happen. Men who seldom use guns end up buying them and then shooting themselves in the foot. People get sick, a lot of them die. There’s snakebites, bad food, sometimes bad water, Indian attacks, women having babies, kids getting hurt, toothaches, blistered feet, sunburn, you name it—it will happen on a trip west, mark my word. I hope you folks are truly prepared for what you’re about to do.”
“We’re ready,” Carolyn answered. “This is a dream for us. My husband has lost his job and we’re about to lose this house, too. Thank goodness we had a fine piano and some good horses to sell, as well as some genuine silverware my grandmother gave me and a real fine buggy. And all our furniture was paid for, so we’re selling that, too. And the parishioners from my husband’s church actually collected some money and gave it to us. That was so kind of them.”
Clarissa was surprised at the sudden scowl on Dawson Clements’s face at the mention of church. He looked at Michael.
“You’re a preacher?”
“Yes, I am. Started my own church a few months ago. We meet right here at the house. I intend to start another parish when we reach Montana.”
Dawson looked him over with an odd air of mistrust. He straightened then and put his leg down, pulling down his pant leg.
“Do you have something against preachers, Mr. Clements?” Clarissa asked.
“You might say so,” he answered, still looking down. He finally looked at Michael. “Just those who don’t really practice what they preach. I suspect you do, so take no offense, Mr. Harvey. I just don’t have much use for preachers or God or any of those things. Neither one ever did me any good.”
Carolyn actually gasped. “Mr. Clements! You’re coming close to blasphemy!”
He waved her off. “Sorry I mentioned it. And I don’t know any of you well enough to go into all the reasons, nor do we have the time. I will take myself off your hands now, and I do thank you for your hospitality.” Dawson picked up his hat from the kitchen table and put it back on, nodding to all of them. “Good luck on your trip. Maybe we’ll meet along the way, or you can ask around about me if you’re wanting a good guide for your journey. I’ll be at Independence in about two weeks. I won’t be able to leave for another couple of weeks after that. The ground would be too soft and the rivers too high. At any rate, look me up if you’ve a mind to.”