Page 4 of Inventions of the Heart

Michelle had Todd’s bullet wounds wiped clean. She dug in the bag and found a long, stiff wire.

“I need to find out if the bullet went through. I didn’t see his back well enough to be sure.”

Bo, one of the steadiest cowhands, came in. “I didn’t see any blood on his back. I’m thinking the bullets are still in there.”

Michelle’s stomach twisted. She was about to operate on a man who had no chance, or maybe just almost no chance. She had to try to help him. And that began with removing the bullets.

Carefully probing the wounds, Michelle felt the wire scrape against something metal almost immediately. She felt a surge of hope. “Not that far in. The bullets may have been spent when they hit him. Maybe they didn’t hit anything vital.”

Michelle looked up at Zane, who was bouncing little Caroline with surprising skill. “I could use a hand. Unless you’ve done this enough to want to take over.”

“Nope, you’re doing fine. How can I help?”

Michelle wondered what people saw when they looked at her. She must appear to be capable and confident. In truth, the sight of those wounds, the smell of the blood, the ashen face of the unconscious man, it all shook her deeply, and she was fighting to keep her hands from trembling.

Shoving her fear aside as best she could, she dug in the bag and was relieved to see long, narrow tweezers. “I need hot water to sterilize these tweezers.”

Zane hurried to the stove and dipped water out of the wells into a basin and brought it to Michelle’s side. She dropped the tweezers, and a needle in, then stared, wondering how long to leave them.

Or should she hold them over a fire? She’d read about Joseph Lister’s sterile operating methods and knew cleaning her tools made everything safer.

Yes, she’d read about it, but she’d never come close to actually doing any of this kind of medical treatment. All she knew was, find the bullet and get it out. Sew the wound shut. If things were damaged inside, as they almost certainly were, she could do nothing. Her minimal knowledge of medicine, which she’d read and studied as part of her science courses, told her no one could do much.

Michelle prayed as Zane eased Annie closer to Todd’s head. He stood across from Michelle. Michelle’s eyes shifted to the little girl, then to Zane.

Zane seemed to read her mind. “Shad.”

Zane’s foreman was there before Zane quit uttering his name. He thrust Caroline into Shad’s arms.

Shad, a man to keep a cool head, shifted his grip and said quietly, “Do you want a cookie?” He walked away with the little girl, bouncing her, easing her terrible weeping.

Shad left the room, and there was silence.

Michelle pulled the tweezers out of the water and probed. She listened to the sickening sound of a metal tool digging in flesh. The bullet wasn’t deep, and the path it’d torn in Todd’s body was straight. The tweezers pinched onto the bullet and slipped off. Breathing in and out to calm herself and steady her hands, Michelle tried again. She got hold of the bullet on the third try and pulled firmly. The bullet came out. Shad, toddler still in hand, was somehow back in the room and standing there with a plate.

Michelle hadn’t asked for the plate and hadn’t thought of what to do with the bullet. Just getting it out was as faras she’d planned. She dropped the bullet on the plate with a dull click of metal on glass.

And went back for the second.

Michelle glanced at Zane. “Get a cloth and put pressure on the wound I’ve finished with.”

The second bullet wasn’t as easy to find. A surge of sickness almost stopped her from working when the wire went deep before it clicked against the bullet.

Michelle looked up. Zane was staring at the wire, then his gaze came up and met hers. It was all there in his eyes. In the bleak expression on his face. He knew exactly what happened when a man was gutshot.

Turning back to her surgery, she pressed the tweezers in through blood that nearly boiled out of the wound.

It was too long before she got a solid hold on the bullet and got it out.

“Pressure on this one, too, Zane.” Michelle retrieved the needle from the bottom of the basin, then found the thread. She’d never done such a thing as sew someone up before. She’d never seen it done. And she knew ... without really knowing at all ... that there were things inside Zane’s brother-in-law that needed sewing up, too, and she couldn’t begin to handle that.

Remembering whom she was working with, a tough cowboy who lived a long way from a doctor, she asked Zane, “Can you set stitches?”

“I have. Shad’s better.”

Such a deep sigh of relief came over her that she gasped for air and only then realized she’d quit breathing.

Shad was there. He took over. Michelle got handed the baby. She backed away and realized she had blood on herhands. She went to wash as best she could without dropping little Caroline. Once her hands were clean and with the toddler distracting her from her panic, Michelle turned to Annie.

---