Texas Twilight by Caroline Fyffe Page B

time.
    “Doc, we’re here,” the boy called loudly.
    John followed through the messy kitchen where
he’d been earlier this morning. Turning into a door he hadn’t seen
before he stopped short at the bright and clean examining room. The
countertops were neat and tidy, and it looked completely organized.
A frightened young girl was lying on the examination table, and her
teary-eyed mother held her hand with a tight grip.
    “Ohoo,” the girl cried between loud gasps of
breath. Her blue calico dress hung over each side of the
examination table and her worn brown boots protruded from beneath
her hem, each toe pointing to an opposite wall. Her other hand was
pressed on the lower right side of her abdomen.
    Dr. Bixby looked up. “Glad you found him,
boy.”
    John came forward and put his hand on the
girl’s forehead. She was hot. He cautiously palpated her torso not
wanting to cause more discomfort. Every time he came even remotely
close to her midsection, she’d scream out in pain and double
forward. It looked like a classic case of appendicitis. He’d done
the surgery in Boston, but always assisted by his teacher.
“Appendix?”
    “That’s my guess.”
    Does Bixby want me to assist – or to do the actual
surgery? John couldn’t
tell by the look in the old-timer’s eyes.
    The boy hustled into the room carrying a deep
basin of water clutched with his one hand and pressed to his body.
Bixby took a smaller bowl and scooped some of the steaming water
out and started scrubbing his hands. “Get her undressed, Martha,
but leave her in her petticoat.”
    The girl was now crying uncontrollably.
    “It’s gunna be okay, honey.” Dr. Bixby said
as he prepared the operation room. “Tucker’ll put you to sleep and
you won’t feel a thing.”
    The patient began begging her mother to take
her home, saying it didn’t hurt anymore at all. The poor woman’s
face was white as a sheet. “Go on, do as I said, Martha.” Bixby set
out a canister of ether and a scalpel onto a clean piece of white
cotton.
    John took a newly laundered apron and looped
it over his head. He rolled up the white sleeves of his shirt, then
went to the water, and with a bar of lye soap, scrubbed his arms
and hands vigorously.
    The boy picked up the canister and shook a
little of its contents onto a cotton handkerchief and waited for a
signal from Dr. Bixby.
     
    ***
     
    Lily tapped on John’s door for the third time
and pressed her ear against the varnished wood to see if she could
hear him moving around inside. Still nothing. Only the piano music
from the saloon next door. She’d tried ten minutes before with the
same results and knew she couldn’t wait any longer. When they’d
returned from the bank this morning, and after he’d gotten a room,
John insisted on going back to the bank with her at two o’clock. At
one thirty Lily had freshened up, put the lease agreement into her
satchel, then snuck out without waking Tante Harriett. She’d found
his room as empty then as it was now.
    She’d have to handle this matter on her own.
Setting her resolve, she hurried downstairs and stepped out into
the harsh afternoon sun, looking down the two blocks to the bank.
She needed to hurry. It was almost two o’clock and she didn’t want
to start off on the wrong foot by being tardy. She picked up the
hem of her dress and crossed the dusty street.
    She arrived with four minutes to spare. When
she approached the counter, the same teller who’d been there before
met her with a smile now that John was nowhere to be seen.
    “You’re back.”
    “For my two o’clock appointment with Mr.
Shellston.”
    His forehead crinkled. “That’s right.
Actually, he’s not back from lunch yet. Do you want to check back
in say, half hour?”
    Lily felt her face heat. In Germany people
were respectful of appointment times. “He is expecting me?” she
asked, trying to keep her annoyance from showing. She wasn’t going
to leave and come back. She needed to get this