Sally doesn’t know what a kidney does, but she assumes it’s important. “That’s good?”
“Very,” says Mrs. Cowley as she begins to prod Mr. Scott’s arm and eventually his shoulder. “His shoulder’s dislocated. Not broken. Which is another lucky set of circumstances.”
She gives him a dose of laudanum, and the next thing Sally knows, the old woman has grabbed Mr. Scott’s wrist and extended his arm straight out in front of him. Mr. Scott screams in pain, but Mrs. Cowley is quick, and by the time Mr. Scott has opened his bleary eyes to get a good look at his assailant, Mrs. Cowley has given the arm a mighty wrench back into the socket, where it belongs.
Sally is speechless. Most of the physicians she’s encountered aren’t half so skilled as the woman who sits before her. “Where did you learn to do that?” she asks as she watches Mrs. Cowley inspect the burns on Mr. Scott’s face.
“My mother was a healer.”
The way she says healer, and not medicine woman, makes Sally sit up and take notice. It is the same word Lettie and Judith and Andy use for Mariah, who mixes cures for the other slaves at Red Hill.
Mrs. Cowley returns Mr. Scott’s arm to his chest, then calls for someone named Birdie, who turns out to be a dark-skinned girl of nine or ten years old. “Will you get us something to bind this with?” she asks her, then follows the request up with a “Please.”
Birdie runs off, and when she returns, she is carrying a silk scarf that looks far too dear to ruin. “This is all I could find,” she says.
“It’s fine,” says Mrs. Cowley, then directs Birdie and Sally to ease the scarf around Mr. Scott’s torso. As they prepare to tie it off, Mrs. Cowley tells them to wait. She disappears into the back of the house, returning with a bottle of brandy. Carefully, she pours the amber liquid onto the wound. “This will hold him for a little while, until we can get him seen to.”
After the scarf is tied tight, Sally’s thoughts return to Margaret. “Do you know how to set a bone?” she asks Mrs. Cowley.
The old woman sighs. “You’re talking about Mrs. Campbell’s leg?”
Sally nods.
“You don’t want me to set that bone.”
“I don’t?”
Mrs. Cowley shakes her head regretfully. “She needs that leg cut off at the knee.”
“Pardon?” says Sally, certain she’s heard her wrong.
“It’s the way the bone splintered,” explains Mrs. Cowley. “When that happens, the leg’s much more likely to become infected.”
“Howmuch more likely?”
Mrs. Cowley squints. “In at least half the cases I see, the leg becomes gangrenous anyway.”
Sally tries to comprehend what she is being told. “Would it not make sense to try to set the bone first? Then amputate if it gets infected?”
“By then it will be too late.”
Sally puts her head between her legs. That Margaret might die of a broken bone, after being spared a fiery end, is too much to contemplate.
Mrs. Cowley pats her on the shoulder.
Sally looks up at her. “Would it be you? Who operated?”
She purses her lips, as though she doesn’t like what she’s got to say. “She needs a surgeon.”
“Where do I find one?”
“I’ve got a neighbor out looking for one now.”
“How long will that take?” she asks.
“On a night like tonight, could be hours.”
“What do we do until then?” Sally’s voice wobbles ever so slightly in her throat.
