A Lady Bought with Rifles by Jeanne Williams Page B

I knew my name. It was a strange sensation. Following his example, I sipped the brew. Pungent, spicy, slightly acrid, it was amazingly refreshing.
    Cruz unwound the bandage. Putrescent ooze showed in the dim light. The smell was sickening. Cruz spoke gently to Sewa. Her eyes seemed to grow even more huge. She drank her tea to the end, set down the bowl, and picked up the flute. Trace asked something. Cruz nodded.
    Muscles stood out like steel cords in Trace’s jaw.
    He spoke again, almost pleadingly. Cruz’s answer was terse. To me, in English, Trace said, “He says the foot is gangrenous. It must come off or the girl will die.”
    â€œOff? Her foot? You mean—cut it off? ”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œNo!” My voice started to rise. I choked it down, swallowed, looked from Cruz to Sewa to Trace again. It couldn’t be. A child that young to lose her foot, hobble all her life? She was watching me, big eyes grave but not fearful. “Does—does she know?” I asked.
    Trace nodded.
    â€œIt really is gangrene?”
    â€œYes, Miranda. The infection has cut off the blood supply. What it amounts to is that the foot is dead, rotting. And if it isn’t removed, the gangrene will spread and kill her.”
    I wet my lips, sicker by the minute. “How will Cruz do it?”
    â€œHe has a little saw.” Cruz was putting it in the kettle of boiling water.
    â€œIs there anything to dull the pain?”
    â€œCruz put a narcotic in her tea. Jimsonweed. It can kill, but used with Cruz’s knowledge it will help. And he has a sort of hypnotic power.” Trace smiled thinly at my anxious scrutiny of the hut. “She’ll fare better than in most hospitals, I promise you that. Will you go outside or can you help?”
    How I cravenly wanted to stay out of sight and sound. But Sewa couldn’t leave. And she must live with the results for the rest of her life.
    â€œWhat shall I do?” I asked in Spanish.
    Cruz told me to sit by the girl and talk to her, hold her if necessary. I sat on the mat beside her, trying not to wince as Cruz put a poker in the fire. A saw—red-hot iron. Instruments of torture. And this would be torture, though done with merciful intent. Trace knelt beside us, took the flute, and after a little testing made bird sounds from it. Sewa laughed and reached for it, trying to imitate his notes. He showed her which holes to finger.
    Soon she was making sounds like some of the birds we’d heard that evening, soft and plaintive or brisk and chatty. Cruz had been making another potion and handed it to me. “She should drink it slowly,” he cautioned.
    So Sewa drank and played and sipped and fingered the flute, but her motions grew uncoordinated. Her eyes were brilliant, widely dilated. Cruz washed her leg with an astringent-smelling liquid, then placed it on a scrubbed board.
    She did not seem aware of what he was doing. He talked quietly to her. Her body relaxed even more. I moved closer and she settled into my arms, still clutching the flute, though she no longer seemed able to hold it to her lips.
    Trace stepped to where he could hold her leg and also block our view, for which I was grateful. He spoke to Sewa, who opened her mouth and let him slip a piece of wood between her teeth. He wrapped his doubled scarf a few inches above Sewa’s ankle, knotted it, put a stick through it, and twisted it tight as Cruz came over with the little saw.
    The tourniquet stick between his teeth, Trace gripped the child’s leg so she couldn’t move, clamping down the other leg with one of his. She twitched. I knew the blade had started; I cradled her against me and spoke in her ear, English, Spanish, anything I could think of, just kept talking while clammy sweat rose on both of us, her teeth clamped on the wood with a grinding sound, and her heart pounded against mine, wavered, faltered, seemed to stop for those hideous moments while the saw