Free Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) by Gretchen Craig Page B

morning sun. They were each
chained around the neck. They didn’t seem very dangerous at the moment, but
Gabriel knew they were never to be trusted again after what they’d done to
little Sylvie. Adam would surely have them destroyed.
    Marianne stopped just out of the dogs’ reach and simply
stared at them. Gabriel saw her shoulders tremble. Is it fear or fury she’s
feeling? He offered his arm to support her, but she shook her head. “I’m quite
all right, Dr. Chamard.  Thank you.” No, I don’t imagine this young woman is
afraid of much.
    They found Peter awake and propped up in his cot. His
grandmother Lena still sat by his bed. Gabriel introduced himself and then
asked to examine Peter’s wounds. Thoroughly and gently, he unwound the bandages
and tested for morbidity. He palpated and sniffed, noting the color and
firmness of the flesh around each wound.
    “You’ve an excellent constitution, young man,” he said to
Peter. “And you’ve been most fortunate in your nurse.”
    Peter glanced at his mistress, shy in her presence. “Yessir.
I be lucky.”
    “Miss Marianne a angel,” Lena added.
    Marianne smiled, and Gabriel winked at the old woman. “You
may be right, Mammy,” he said. “She may be an angel on earth.”
    He turned back to Marianne. “Do you have slippery elm?” She
shook her head no. “Well, then, continue with the witch hazel solution and the
comfrey poultices. Watch the wounds do not become blackened around the edges.
You must send for me at once if that happens. Otherwise, you have done all that
needs to be done. He’s very fortunate to have come through the fever with no
more corruption than you’ve described.”
    “Praise the Lawd,” Lena interjected.
    “I’ll look in again before I leave,” Gabriel promised. He
followed Marianne out and walked alongside her on the way to Sylvie’s cabin.
    “You’re to be congratulated, Miss Johnston. Those were
ferocious bites that young man sustained.”
    “He’s going to live, isn’t he?”
    Gabriel nodded. “I believe he will recover very well, except
for walking. That tearing of the left Achilles tendon will never heal properly.
Add to that the toe missing on his right, his gait will be awkward in the
extreme.” They walked a few steps. “His hands will be badly scarred, but he should
have adequate use of them.”
    “I’ll have to find a task he can do,” Marianne thought
aloud.
    Gabriel glanced at her. Many plantations sold off anyone who
didn’t carry his weight. “Yes, he needs to be useful.”
    They came again to where the dogs were chained. One of them
stood, then growled and bared its teeth at them. The other dog joined in, both
of them snarling and straining against their chains.
    “They were not to have been on the place,” Marianne said,
her voice husky, broken. “I’d already told the overseer. And now…”
    “Yes.”
    They moved on toward the cabin where Sylvie lay, and then
Gabriel stopped. “Miss Johnston, what I propose to do with Sylvie will be most
unpleasant. You need not assist if you prefer not to.”
    “I will do whatever you require.”
    He studied her a moment. No evidence of hysterical heroics,
no hesitation. Here was a woman to be reckoned with. She might have made a
doctor, had she been born male.
    Sylvie was deeply asleep from the draught of laudanum.
Gabriel asked everyone but the mother to leave the cabin. To her, he gave the
task of holding Sylvie still should she rouse or twist in her sleep.
    He began by bathing the child’s abdomen with witch hazel.
From his bag he retrieved the scalpel he kept sharper than any razor he’d ever
used for shaving. The sun coming in through the window glinted on it, and
Gabriel noticed Irene’s eyes fix on the blade.
    “Perhaps you had better look only at Sylvie’s face,” he
advised her. “Or out the window.”
    He checked that Marianne had at hand the absorbent cloths
and the witch hazel to cleanse the wound once he’d drained it. “Ready?”