Walk on Earth a Stranger

The Major groans in the wagon, and I realize Jasper has been distracting me from the unpleasant task at hand.

“We must work quickly,” Jasper says. “Dr. Liston can amputate a leg in two and a half minutes. I won’t be that swift, but speed is of the essence. The faster we cut, the better his chances.”

It’s a good thing I didn’t stop for a bite of breakfast.

Henry returns with his best shirt. At Jasper’s instruction, I lift up my arms, and Henry pulls it on over my head, so I don’t have to touch it. Henry is much taller than I am, and his shirt hangs on me like a dress.

He steps back to check me over, and his eyebrows go up. Jasper is also studying me; a tiny grin quirks the edges of his mouth.

My heart is suddenly pounding like a herd of buffalo. I resist the urge to check whether Mama’s shawl wrapped around my chest has come loose. “Um . . . into the wagon now, right?” I say.

“Yes, of course.” Jasper climbs inside, with me on his heels. Tom helps us up by the elbows, so we don’t have to touch anything. There’s hardly room for the three of us, not with the Major stretched out.

“Stay on my right, near the Major’s head,” Jasper says. “I’ve got all my tools laid out. Knife, saw, towels, needle. Hand me whatever I ask for, but don’t touch anything I don’t tell you to. If the Major tries to jump up, you hold him down.”

“Ain’t gonna jump,” the Major slurs. His voice is less pained, thanks to the laudanum. I hope that’s a good sign.

“First, we tie down his wrists,” Jasper says, looping a rope around the Major’s wrist and tying it to a bolt in the floor. He indicates that I should do the same on the other side.

“How tight?” I ask.

“Loose enough that he still has blood flow, tight enough that he doesn’t punch me in the nose when I’m cutting through the bone. Sure wish we had leather buckles. His wrists are going to be a mite sore afterward.”

I do as Jasper asks, while he quickly ties down the Major’s good leg. He props the broken one up on a wooden box. My heart is racing, like I’m the one who’s going to be cut.

“Bite down on this,” Jasper says, reaching a leather-wrapped bit toward the Major’s mouth.

Craven turns away his head. “Just be careful how high you cut,” he says. “I might want to use some of those parts later.”

“I won’t cut any higher than your knee,” Jasper says. He fits the bit into the Major’s mouth. “I’m tying a tourniquet around your leg. This is going to pinch, but it’s got to be tight.”

The Major nods.

Jasper works quickly and efficiently. “Are you ready?”

The Major squeezes his eyes shut and nods again.

“God be with you—with us all,” Jasper says. “Knife.”

I hand him the hunting knife, handle first, then I concentrate on the Major’s face, so I don’t have to see what else is going on. I’ve butchered deer, sure, but the Major is a man, and alive.

I wince at the sound of the blade biting into flesh. The Major clamps down on the bit and grunts. His shoulders curl, and he starts to rise up.

“Hold him!” Jasper snaps.

I press his shoulders back down until he stills.

“Saw,” Jasper says, and puts the handle of the bloody knife in his mouth, between his teeth. I hand him the hacksaw. The scrape of metal on bone makes the hair on my neck stand on end.

The Major’s nostrils flare as he pants through his nose. Tears leak from the corners of squeezed-shut eyes. “You’re doing fine,” I tell him, though I have no idea if it’s true.

The sawing goes on and on, and bone dust fills the wagon, making the air smell like a wet dog. The Major shakes his head back and forth. He cries through the bit, jerking his bad leg.

Jasper spits out the knife. “Hold it down,” he says. “Hold it down so I can finish!”

I grab the Major’s thigh with both hands and press hard. Jasper goes at it again with the saw. I turn my head away as a strange squealing leaks from the Major’s lungs. Jasper picks up the knife to make a few last cuts, but I refuse to watch. With a heavy thump, the leg falls off the box and onto the bed.

“Needle,” he says. I hold the leg down with one hand, even though the Major isn’t kicking anymore, and grab the needle. It’s already threaded with gut. “Be ready to cut the thread when I tell you.”

I pick up the shears and wait while he sews. The tiny wagon smells of fresh blood now, which is a vast improvement on bone dust and sour flesh. The Major is as still as death. I peer close and am relieved to see his chest rise with a breath.

“Cut,” Jasper says.

I snip where he indicates.

“Towels.”

I hand him the clean towels, which he packs at the base of the Major’s stump. He wipes his hand on the last clean towel, and he pulls the bit from the Major’s mouth and checks his pulse.

“Well, he’s alive for now,” Jasper says. “You did good work.”

“Thanks.” I hardly did anything. Just held the man down and tried not to be sick.

We climb from the wagon to find Henry offering another pot of clean water. Tom stands beside him with a stopwatch. “Five minutes, twenty-seven seconds,” he says. “Nowhere near Liston’s record.”

Henry’s smile is squeamish. “But not bad for your first time.”

“Your first time?” I say. “I thought you said you were a doctor!”

“I said I want to be a doctor.” Jasper scrubs his hands again. Triumph fills his face. A man lies near death in his wagon, but Jasper is grinning from ear to ear. “That’s the exciting thing about California—we can all go there and be whatever we want to be.”

I peel off the white shirt and toss it back to Henry. “Well, if he lives, then I guess you really are a doctor.”

“What do you want to be, Lee?” Jasper says. His face is euphoric enough to make me wonder if he snuck some laudanum, but the look he’s giving me is pointed and strange, like he’s searching for a specific answer, one I’m not ready to give voice to.

“Right now? I want to be asleep.”

All three laugh at that. Jasper says, “You know, you helped save two lives today.”

“And if I don’t lie down right now, I’m going to die.”