Radclyffe - Promising Hearts

It was an exercise that she had discovered would bring some temporary respite from her memories, if not slumber.

Sleep stole unsuspectingly through her consciousness, and she found herself once again at Appomattox Court House, sweating in the cold morning mist of fear and smoke. The rough wooden table was awash with blood. No matter how fast she worked, every time she looked up there were more wounded. Her arms were crimson to the elbows, and still they came, the ruined and the broken, crying her name.

Milton stood beside her, repeating over and over, no more time, no more time, no more time . She ignored the panic in his voice, the terror in his eyes, and just kept cutting. Her chest ached. Her lungs burned.

She reached for the amputation knife. Just one more. Just one more.

Just one more. The ground heaved, fire erupted at her feet, and red-hot pain seared her flesh. She looked down and saw herself writhing on the table, a faceless man poised above her with a saw in his hand.

Vance jolted upright, screaming. Quickly, she wrapped her arm around her bent knees and pressed her face against the rough wool of her trousers. She stifled her sobs as she fought for breath, her shirt soaked with the sweat of night terrors. When the clutch of the nightmare began to recede, she turned her face to the window and rested her cheek against the top of her knee. It hadn't been this bad in a long time. For a second, as her own harsh breath filled the room to overflowing, she thought she heard the sound of the fife and drum. As her heart stopped thundering in her ears, she realized it was a piano.

She stood, her legs still a little shaky, and walked to the window.

Across the street, the saloon and some of the rooms on the upper floors were ablaze. Every few seconds a figure would go in or out through the swinging doors. In a lighted second-floor window she saw a man and a woman locked in an embrace, her dress lifted up to her hips as his hands roamed beneath it. Vance didn't immediately look away, taken with the urgent sense of life that surrounded the couple, thinking of what Caleb had said about the girls who lived there. She wondered if the woman who bent beneath the weight of the cowboy's passion welcomed his touch or was merely an indifferent player in an oft-repeated drama.

She tried to imagine desire and couldn't. Her pocket watch read a few minutes past one. Turning away, she walked to the dresser and found, to her surprise, that the pitcher was full. She poured a few inches of tepid water into the tin basin and splashed her face before stripping off the sour shirt. Then she soaked the tail of her shirt and rubbed it over her chest and shoulders before tossing it aside and pulling another from her valise. She also retrieved her holster and Colt .45, the same weapon she had worn throughout the war, and strapped it on.

Silas looked up at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. "Couldn't sleep?"

Vance regarded him impassively. "No. I could."

She walked out, unaware that he stared after her with a mixture of curiosity and unease.

The saloon was still half full, mostly with men drinking at the bar or tables, a few apparently asleep with their heads on their folded arms, and the remainder playing cards. In the far corner a scantily clad woman sat in a man's lap with her head on his shoulder while he fondled her breasts. Vance walked to the bar.

"Help you?" asked a middle-aged man with full sideburns, a barrel chest, and dark eyes that had seen all there was to see.

"Whiskey."

The bartender poured a shot and then set the bottle down next to Vance's right hand. "I'm Frank."

She pushed several coins toward his side of the bar. "Thanks."

"If you want everybody in town to know who you are, you can tell me now and be done with it." Frank shrugged. "If you don't, it might take a little longer, but sooner or later the same thing will happen."

"If I stay here more than a week, word will get around anyhow."

Vance tossed back the shot and poured another one. "And if I don't, it won't matter." She held out her hand. "Vance Phelps. One-time surgeon and, now, Dr. Melbourne's new assistant."

"From back East." He said it as if it were a statement, not a question.

"More or less." Vance sensed someone move up beside her and glanced sideways. A woman with deep green eyes, golden hair, and the purest skin she'd ever seen stood beside her in a deep indigo dress with a low-cut, tight bodice that cradled her breasts like a lover's hands.

Sparkling blue stones set in gold swung lightly from her earlobes, brushing her neck with a mesmerizing caress. Despite the whiskey she'd just drunk, Vance's throat was dry and her mind blank of everything except the tantalizing scent of perfume and the pale perfection of the woman's face. Frank, the other men in the saloon, even the remnants of her dream, vanished.

"Frank talked your ear off yet?" Mae asked, her voice low and sultry.

"Not yet," Vance managed. She downed her whiskey, her nerves jangling. "You must be Mae."

"Now why would you say that?" Mae nodded when Frank held up a bottle of brandy questioningly. She took the glass from him, but did not drink as she studied Vance. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and deeper ones within. She'd seen her come in, a stranger in a well-cut suit who seemed not to care that a woman, even one whose dress and carriage indicated she gave no credence to the opinions of others, might draw unwanted attention in a place like this. Attention that Mae was not certain that a woman with one arm could turn aside.

"Caleb Melbourne said you were the finest-looking thing west of the Mississippi." Vance spoke quietly with neither sarcasm nor insinuation. "He was right."

Mae threw back her head and laughed. "It would appear that both the town's doctors are sweet-talkers, then."

Vance frantically searched for something to say just to hear this woman's full, vibrant voice a little longer. After the cold, dark embrace of her dreams, she found herself inexplicably craving the vitality and warmth that surrounded Mae. "Since I'm speechless, I beg to differ."

"Well," Mae said, sipping her brandy. "Why don't you start with your name."

"Something tells me you might already know that and more."

Mae smiled. "Smart, too. But I imagine a woman wanting to be a doctor would have to be."

"Or stubborn."

"Both, I'll wager." Mae watched Vance pour another shot, saw her hand tremble. "I can't say that I'm not curious. Since I know you're no fool, you have to know folks will want to know your story."

Vance tilted her chin toward the room and the men--drifters, gamblers, trail hands, and businessmen. All had one thing in common.

They were all here in the middle of the night staving off loneliness or simply trying to fill the hours until the habit of their day began again.

One thing was certain, they all had stories. "I'd have thought you'd have heard enough of those by now."

"I expect yours is different."

"Why?" Vance finished her whiskey, contemplated the bottle, and pushed her glass aside. While the temptation to slide inside the bottle was strong, Mae's presence was stronger.

"You're not a man." Mae watched a bitter smile flicker across Vance's face. Even in men's clothing, in a place no decent woman would be seen, drinking whiskey in the middle of a lonely night, no one would ever take her for a man. Her face was strong, with a tightness along her jaw that suggested she wouldn't yield easily to trouble when it came her way. But there was a fineness to her skin, as if it were silk, and a delicate beauty in the elegant curve of her brow and the length of her dark lashes. It was easy to see the woman in her, which made the thinly veiled anger and pain that rode just beneath the surface all the more compelling.