Why his office should matter at a time like this, Sally has no idea. “And?”
“I met him at a party the other night,” says the doctor, who wastes notime unwrapping Mr. Scott’s makeshift dressing. “Looks just like his father.”
Sally wonders if his father might be someone she could call on for help. “Is he alive?” she asks.
“The patient?”
“No,” says Sally. “His father.”
Dr. Foushee shakes his head. “James Scott has been dead for years. He fought in the Revolution and died shortly thereafter.”
Sally wonders if her father knew him. It’s likely he did. She turns thefausse montreover in her pocket. “Do you know if Mr. Scott is married?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t,” he says as he inspects the wound.
She watches the doctor carefully, curious if he’ll conduct an examination half as thorough as Mrs. Cowley’s. He doesn’t seem inclined.
“Mrs. Cowley says he’s lucky his kidneys are intact,” says Sally, but she can’t get the doctor to commit to much.
“Is that so?”
“She seems very knowledgeable.”
“I find no fault with her cures,” Dr. Foushee says, “but she must be careful not to overstep.”
“How so?”
“I think you know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” she says indignantly, although she wonders if it has anything to do with what those men who carried Margaret to Mrs. Cowley’s were saying about her not being Native.
Dr. Foushee’s knees crack when he goes to stand. “Mrs. Cowley can stitch this up. I’ll leave her some catgut if she doesn’t have any.”
Sally acknowledges that they could probably use some.
“And as for the burns, keep bathing them in vinegar. In another few hours, make a poultice of bread and milk, with a little sweet oil or butter to hold the mixture together. Lay the poultice on the sore for maybe six or eight hours, and then at that point, switch to chalk.”
“Chalk?”
“If you don’t have any, the apothecary should. It’ll help dry everything out.”
She leads him into the parlor, where people are sprawled from one sideof the room to the other. He begins to count the victims. “Four, five, six, seven. Is there anyone else?”
“Three more upstairs,” she says, but she is already guiding him to the spot where Margaret lies beneath the parlor window. “This is the woman Mrs. Cowley wanted you to see after. She’s my sister-in-law.”
As soon as his eyes come to rest on Margaret’s face, which is unduly pale and glistening with sweat, he sucks his teeth. “Not Mrs. Campbell.”
“You know her?”
“A bit. I know her husband quite well,” he says as he kneels down beside her. “Did he make it out?”
It’s a simple question, but Sally doesn’t know how to answer it. One minute she was trying to convince Archie to turn back and look for Margaret, the next the stairs collapsed. She has a hard time believing he made it out, but explaining the circumstances of his probable demise feels a little like speaking ill of the dead, so finally she just says, “I don’t know.”
Dr. Foushee kneels down beside Margaret, and Sally crouches next to him. “Margaret,” she says in a loud voice, “Dr. Foushee is here, and he’s going to examine you.” She gets no response.
When the doctor lifts the quilt that covers Margaret’s legs, he scowls.
“She jumped out of a third-floor window,” Sally offers.
