The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,256

him happy. His tail was still wagging when she started out of the room, dragging the trunk with their belongings. She paused in the hall, glanced at the room next door and increased her stride, anxious to be rid of this place and all its memories.

Angus Warren was a big man with a thick head of hair, although in deference to Mildred’s preference, he maintained a clean shave. He’d seen a lot of bad things in his life since he’d hung out his shingle, but none of them worse than the shape Alice Mellin was in. He ached for her grief, and was doing what he could to help her make arrangements for the baby’s funeral. He’d learned the baby’s name had been Mary—Mary Elizabeth Mellin. He’d had her spell it out for him so he could give it to the man who was building the coffin—get him to make a grave marker too, and carve her name into the wood.

Angus knew he was going to have to get down on his knees and pray for forgiveness for what he wanted to do to George. It was difficult being a doctor in a land where the gun ruled, and fair was an adjective for weather, rather than a metaphor for life.

He paused in the act of mixing a tincture for his latest patient, a little girl named Charity Talmadge, who’d been brought in with a bad case of eye infection. They were swollen and raw, and the infection was so bad that, as it dried, it stuck her eyes shut. According to her parents, Charity had been unable to see for the past three days.

Charity was four, but she had the fortitude of a woman of forty as she sat with her jaw clenched, and her hands doubled into fists while Angus and Mildred worked at softening the crust on her eyes with wet cloths. Every now and then she would whimper, but it was the only sign she had given that she was in pain.

It had taken both him and Mildred over an hour to get the crusted infection cleaned from her eyes so that they would open, and another thirty minutes to convince her father, Homer Talmadge, that unless and until they practiced better bodily hygiene, she might get well, but she wouldn’t stay that way.

Finally, he’d escaped into his office to compound a medicine for Charity’s eyes. The sound of the mortar and pestle with which he was working was a comforting sound. To Angus, it signified healing. He glanced at Alice, who was asleep on a cot in the next room. If only he could concoct a salve that could heal a broken heart.

A knock on the door distracted his thoughts. He looked up as Mildred came into the room.

“Angus, are you finished?”

“Almost,” he said.

Mildred glanced over her shoulder and whispered.

“Please hurry. I don’t think I can bear the smell of that family any longer.”

He grimaced.

“Sorry,” he said, and quickly finished the preparations, then followed her back into the examining room.

“Mrs. Talmadge, watch how I apply this to your daughter’s eyes. You will need to do this three times a day until the salve is all gone. If Charity has a recurrence of the infection, bring her back in immediately.”

Vera Talmadge glanced nervously at her husband, and then ducked her head.

“Reckon this’ll cure her right up. We cain’t afford no doctorin’ bills.”

Angus glared at both Vera and her husband. “I have yet to charge you a penny, so don’t use that excuse on me again. Your daughter’s disease and suffering is a direct result of living in filth. I’m assuming you have access to water.”

His sarcasm was unusual, but he’d seen his share of children’s suffering today, and was in no mood to mince words.

“Well, yes sir, we live right next to Cherry Creek and—”

“Then use that water for something besides drinking and panning. Bathe, woman. Clean this child’s body and clean her eyes. Apply the salve as I’ve shown you, or as sure as I’m standing here before you, she’ll go blind. Then one day you’ll be saddled with a grown woman, who will not only be unable to take care of herself, but will most likely never marry. You’ll be stuck with her for the rest of your lives.”

Homer Talmadge’s mouth gaped. He stared at his little girl as if she’d just grown horns.

Mildred hid a giggle. It was obvious that Angus had struck a nerve.

“We’ll see to her bathin’,” Vera promised.

Angus handed her