Chapter 2

Doc stared down at the girl on his table. He was beginning to be concerned. She'd been out for a long time. She was very pale, and that didn't bode well. He picked up the needle he'd used to stitch up her wound and began prodding various places on her body, looking for reaction. He got normal pain reflexes from her body, suggesting the nerves were working, but she didn't wake up.

Next he pressed his ear to her chest, listening to her heart. It was strong, but seemed slower than normal. She was clearly in shock. He began reviewing ways he could increase her heart rate to move her blood faster through her body, which would get more blood to her brain, too. Almost all of them required the patient to be awake and helping.

Something popped into his mind. It had been part of an argument several of his teachers had engaged in, back when he was training for the war. That argument hadn't been about wounded men. Rather, it had been about a way to invigorate the spirit of a woman. It had been entertaining then, listening to the older men proposing that stimulating a woman's sexual parts could have medicinal value, but now it suddenly seemed preposterous. Still ... she was naked, and good looking under her injuries, so rationalizing it was easy.

He thought about it now. His gut instinct was that it was clearly wrong. It bordered on rape. On the other hand, she might die unless he got her blood flowing. The shock could kill her otherwise. And while the theory of it all was something to be argued, the results - if it worked - were clearly what she needed right now.

Doc looked around to make sure he hadn't missed closing off all the ways people could see into his surgery. When he was satisfied he was alone, and that there were no witnesses, he began to stroke the woman's skin, massaging her. He knew this was causing pain where his hands moved over her injuries, but if that pain woke her up, all the better.

Her breasts had not been injured. He felt a bit peculiar molding his hands around them, moving them around on her chest. They were firm. He had seen no stretch marks, and the tight density of her breasts under his hands convinced him she'd never given birth, or suckled a baby.

This was causing feelings in him that weren't welcome. It had been a long time for Doc, since he'd had a woman. And he'd never had one who was young and pretty like this one. Not that he intended on doing anything past getting her heart beating harder, but it still seemed like rape - that's what it would be in his mind, with her unconscious like this. Without conscious intent, his hands took on a more languid motion as they moved from massaging her breasts, to playing with them. It was still part of a massage, so he felt only the discomfort brought on by the guilt of enjoying it. The nipples, which had been flat, almost non-existent before, now showed signs of life. They rose from the pale areolas, until he could pinch them between thumb and forefinger. When he rolled them they became stiff and turgid. He felt the amazement a physician always feels when he could observe how the body worked, even if he didn't understand all the processes.

He realized he was stiff in his pants. He looked at the patient. She was still white as a sheet. He thought of the rest of it, as it had been described by an older doctor, back when they took a break from receiving hurried semi-formal instruction, before being sent off to the battlefield. There were arguments, for and against, in his mind. What decided him was the fact that if she never woke up, there'd be no possibility she'd find out, and therefore no hurt or embarrassment. And if she did wake up ... well as long as she didn't do it while he was actually engaged in things ... it was still unlikely she'd ever know what he'd done.

He wet the first and middle fingers on his right hand in his mouth, and slid them to the woman's vulval vestibule. He had to stop and spread her legs so he could get better access, then returned his fingers to her sex. He felt for the clitoral bulge and massaged it gently, rubbing his fingers in a small circle.

While he did this, he watched her face. He rubbed for two or three minutes, and was about to give up, feeling shamed, when he began to sense moisture seeping from her vaginal canal. Another couple of minutes passed and she was obviously wet. The slippery nature of that wetness made his motions much smoother. Almost suddenly he saw color coming back into her cheeks. Her breathing deepened too and her breasts rose higher. Her nipples were now turgid and hard. He kept rubbing until there was a significant increase in moisture between her legs.

Well, that part of her body was working fine, and he was pretty sure that was more than just nerves reacting to stimulus. That reaction involved the brain, and his feelings of guilt vanished as he decided it had been the right thing to do, from a medical point of view.

He didn't like this at all. Actually, the reality of it was that he liked it entirely too much. That was the real problem. He felt like some kind of animal for thinking that if she lived, and couldn't pay for her care, then perhaps some arrangement could be worked out. But only if she were amenable, of course.

Something struck him and he stopped his clitoral massage. He went to her feet and spread her legs more, pushing her feet up beside her buttocks. That opened up her crotch to him obscenely, but got her in the position she needed to be in for what he wanted to find out. With opposing fingers he pried her sexual lips open and peered at the bottom of her vagina. The thin, translucent membrane was easily seen.

She was a virgin!

Doc was puzzled. A girl this old anywhere west of Kansas City would have a baby by now, maybe even two. She came off the train, but whoever was accompanying her had not showed up. True, once the train had left, her husband ... or chaperone ... would have to get it stopped and then walk back, unless he ... or she ... had a horse in the baggage cars. But they should have heard something by now, even if it was just a telegraph message. She'd been missing from that train for hours.

He looked back up at her face. Her cheeks were pink now, though her breathing had slowed since he stopped stroking her clitoris. He moved up to her shoulder and, stared at her. Yes, her color was much better now. He had done enough. He started, intentionally, to turn aside but, unable to resist the temptation, bent over to suck one of her nipples into his mouth. He nursed on it, feeling its rubbery length in his mouth, and playing with it with his tongue. He pulled off and was amazed to see it had extended even further, maybe half an inch. The baby that suckled these nipples was going to be a happy, happy baby. He did the other one and slid his hand back to her groin.

She moved! Then she moaned. He stopped his manipulations of her immediately and got his smelling salts. He waved them under her nose and she frowned. Then her eyes popped open. He saw terror in those eyes and wondered what was going through her mind.

"There there," he said soothingly. "You're all right now. You don't need to be afraid. Everything is fine now." He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently to reassure her.

Her eyes focused on his. They were blue, brilliant blue, a blue so bright and deep it was like looking into a deep pool of water. "Where am I?" she asked faintly. "Who are you?" Her eyes filled with something he recognized immediately. "It hurts! Everything hurts!"

"My name is Doctor Fisk. You were injured in an ... accident. You're in my surgery. What's your name, miss?"

"I'm ... I'm..." her eyes went out of focus, as if she were concentrating on something inside her head. "I don't know who I am!" There was a weak, but rising tone of panic in her voice.

"There there," he murmured again, patting her shoulder. "Let's not worry about that right now. You've had a bump to the head, and you'll probably remember everything in a little while. Don't worry about it for now, all right?"

Her chin lowered as she looked at the hand patting her shoulder.

"I'm naked," she said, as if she were pointing out that she sometimes wore her hair down, instead of piled up on her head.

"Your clothing was torn to shreds and I had to take it off of you to treat your wounds," he explained.

"Oh," she said. Clearly she was still not able to understand everything. "I have other clothes. Don't I?" her question confirmed that she wasn't sure about that. She tried to sit up.

"Owwwww," she cried and collapsed back on the table. She began moaning piteously.

"You must try not to move," cautioned Doc. "I had to sew up one of your injuries. You're going to have to stay here for a little while, to recuperate. You just lie there and I'll go and find something to cover you with."

Those astonishingly innocent and deep blue eyes traversed the ceiling and fixed on his face. He felt movement in his groin and realized he was still erect. Just this woman's eyes were enough to make him think about...

He pushed those thoughts out of his head. He turned and went to a cupboard where he knew there was a horse blanket a cowboy had paid him with for sewing up a nasty gash where he had been gored by a longhorn. He pulled it out. He hadn't had any use for it until now, since he had an old buggy that he'd been given for delivering a baby and saving the mother's life when the delivery got ugly. That was pulled by a swaybacked horse that had to be sixteen years old if it was a day, which was his payment for taking off old Joe Miller's left leg after it went gangrenous because of infection in a compound fracture. As he unfolded the blanket he could tell it wouldn't do. It was much too rough, and there were horsehairs all over it. Besides, it smelled terrible. He kept looking, but there was nothing in his surgery that could double as either clothing or suitable covering for his patient.

Doc went to the door and opened it, peering outside. Boots was napping on the porch, her hat down over her eyes and one foot cocked up.

"Boots!" he barked.

She put one finger to her hat brim and pushed it up, looking up at him. "Ya don't haf'ta yell Doc," she said.

"She's awake. I need some clothes for her, or a sheet or something to cover her up with. Clothes. She's going to have to have clothes. See if they'll give you something at the general store. And if they demand payment, remind them that I pulled their oldest boy's tooth when it was giving him fits and they never paid me for it."

You never could tell how Boots would react to a given situation. She went from napping and complaining to instant explosive activity. She jumped up and took off running like a scalded cat, causing several people to dive for cover, since when Boots was moving like that, gunplay usually erupted soon after.

While she was gone, Doc interrogated his patient.

He didn't learn much, because she couldn't remember much. Each time she tried and failed, she grew a little more frantic and he had to calm her. He had no idea how long this amnesia might last, but he tried to calm her as much as he could. He decided that if she had a name that might help. Her pain was stronger than she was used to dealing with too, which caused delays as she tried to cope with it. He offered her whiskey and was not at all surprised when she snapped that she didn't drink. He'd already decided this girl had breeding. And all that did was make it even stranger that no one had inquired about her.