Erin Fisher - That Tiny Life

The sawbones squats, his satchel by his knees, his back to the cart and the mules and their feedbags. He runs his forefinger along the tourniquet above Roys knee, rubs the pus between his fingertips and thumb, sniffs the lot, and says hes taking Roys leg.

Like shit you are, I say. Whats he left with it gone?

The sawbones pushes his specs up his disjointed nose and says that if he leaves the leg attached, Royll be gone. Roys girl, just three, explores her mouth with her fingers. Her eyes big and gold as coins. She squats in the dirt in front of some thorny shrubs, a whelp in piss-stained trousers, the night growing fathomless above the hills behind her.

Girls new with us. I guess it was three years ago Roy and I passed through the settlement her mother lived at with Roy on the lookout for comfort. I hope he found it, cause now were hampered with the product of said comfort Roy fetched the girl from the mother less than a week back. Dont know why he accepted the child, since, one, he knew the childs age from the letter, and two, he already had that crushed toe sending stripes up his foot.

The sawbones specs shine flat-lensed in the light from the firepit. I suspect they dont so much alter his vision as give him a look. He bends over Roy, whos laid flaccid under the cactus. Roys hair and skin and clothes are tacky with basin dust. The firelight blinks over his silhouette, pretties his discoloured leg and cracked lips. His cocky flip of curls thrown back from his ridged nose and cheeks and spread over the dirt. His eyes closed. Been passed out a while. I grab his good foot and jostle and release.

Might go anyway, I say.

The sawbones rocks on his haunches, eyeing the mule I promised him for the trip. One of a pair. Sorrel, sturdy three hands short of draft and recently acquired, though Roy and I have been hauling supplies through Arizona and the Southern Californian deserts good on seven years. Thats seven years of spiny fruit and sunburn while carting basics to men batshit enough to have settled this particular desolation. Brutes searching a vein of gold-quartz, coal, oil midst the saltbush and boulders. The work gives Roy and me a nice, healthful pay, but only because not many want the job. Heats hard on the mules and water takes up half the wagon.

The girl pulls her fingers from her mouth and wipes them across her shirt. Sawbones removes his specs, holds the lenses to the light, then plucks his hanky from his coat and polishes. His kerchiefs done up old-style stitched around the trim with cream dashes same era as the jacket, which has buttons top to bottom, but hangs wide open. Plush fabric, carpet-like, worn thin down the back. Like hes spent his life sitting. He settles his specs back on that crooked nose and loops the wires around his ears.

Roy, flat-out, chest hardly lifting each breath. I put a hand on my lips and jaw. All the grit there, in the lines and loose skin the valley sucks away fat. Roy and I, we seem to have aged twenty years though its only been those seven, and we were both young men when we acquired the route. He and I been partners too long now to know who owes who though I suspect at this moment its him who owes me. We have a friendship. Which is why I said nothing when Roy kept the girl.

I recline against the wagon and set a knuckle to the forehead of the nearest mule, and the mule leans into it. Soft-nosed beast. Take the leg then, I say.

Sawbones opens his satchel and reaches out a pan, a leather roll, and a hard-cased cautery set. Kicks the logs and exposes the coals and balances the pan. Unsnaps the cautery case and sets the long-handled irons into the fire.

Water, he says.

I uncap a jug and fill the pan. The sawbones fiddles with the knot and unrolls the leather wrap. Tools inside flash blade to spine: tongs, scissors, various knives. He thumbs the clasp on a worn medical bag. Vials strapped to the underside of the lid. The interiors full of glass flasks and spools of silk and gauze. He tips a vial of iodine into the pan, then opens a jar of alcohol. Wipes down each blade with a soaked bit of cotton and sets the equipment ready on top the leather sheath.

Sawbones removes and folds his coat and lays it on the bow of the wagon. He steps to Roys side and snips the torn pant leg. Twice the normal size below the knee, and two of the black toes sport open sores.

Lift. Sawbones waves at the foot. I lift. Higher. I lift the whole leg off the ground. He slides a sheet of oilskin under the thigh. Down. He and I loop rope around Roys wrists and good ankle, then tie the rope onto stakes and pound the stakes into the dirt. Sawbones pulls a big wad of cotton from the bag and wipes Roys thigh a good half-foot above the tourniquet.

That high, I say. Christ almighty.

Sit on him. Sawbones tests the tourniquet already in place. I take my spot kneeling on Roys shoulders, and the girl comes up beside me. Kids already kicked off and lost her shoes and stands barefoot in the cooling sand.

Turn round, I say, and when she wont, I grab her. Press her face into my chest.

Thing is, Roy thought hed be fetching a son. The mother played on that, had the kids hair cropped. Boys trousers and shirt. Course he didnt see it. So little difference between sexes at the childs age the ability to piss off the back of a cart is about it. Which was how we discovered it was a girl she wet herself. Roy should have left her when he realized. Tiny tot, good for nothing but cuteness, and what use is that? Wouldnt even grow into use.

A half-week out of town with the child, Roys foot could no longer abide the wagon ride. We camped. He panted in the dirt and I helped him unwind his bandage. Hot red streaks up his calf. I tied the tourniquet.

Evening arrived. Roy went feverish, mumbling, tossing under the cactus. The girl, at least a quiet child, stared into the coral stain of clouds as the sun struck off. And then she stared at nothing. No, not nothing. I followed her look up the dust and barbs of the cactus trunk to thick white flowers, petals the size of fingers.

Morning, the flowers were gone, and the red poison ran as high as Roys knee. I saddled a mule and rode to the nearest settlement. Left the girl with water for Roy. By the time I returned to the wagon with the sawbones, Roys leg was pusing and hot to the touch from something internal. Pit ash blew over him and clung. The girl sat with her face against her knees in the twilight. The water looked untapped.

Roy and I are partners, I tell the sawbones. Why, I dont know. I suppose I mean to remind myself. The sawbones straddles Roy so his back is to where Im kneeling on Roys shoulders, the girl still in my chest. Her breath against the thread of my shirt.

Fellows, I say, although Roy hadnt shown a degree of consideration after he received that letter and demanded we go out of our way and fetch the kid. The child would only slow us, but he was so fixated on it that when I objected, he jumped from the cart to walk off his anger and let the wheel lurch over his foot. Time we reached the mother, we knew the damage was bad. After wed already taken the kid and discovered it was a girl, he said, I owe you. I owe you, but if you leave me then youll owe me too, and you take her. You repay me by taking her.

He made me look to his face and give my word. Hed an inward stare that said pain, and the whites of his eyes gone yellow. A child and a girl at that. Thats what he broke himself going back for, what he refused to leave behind. That girl might be, I figure, the very first thing he doesnt want to leave behind.