Page 45 of These Immortal Truths
The sound of hoofbeats alerts her that someone’s coming. Anna frowns, knowing she’s far enough from the roads to prevent someone stumbling upon her makeshift camp. She glances at the small fire, the rabbit she caught fresh on the spit. They must have followed the smoke.
They’re almost certain to have no good intentions.
Anna stands, grabbing the knife she used to prepare her dinner, and goes behind one of the larger trees. There’s only one set of hooves and it’s at a pace no foot soldier could keep up with—a scout, perhaps. Whichever side they’re on, Anna doesn’t want to find herself weaponless and alone.
She presses her back flush against the trunk, bark digging into her skin through her shirt, and keeps the blade ready. The hoofbeats slow to a stop, and Anna catches the distinct sound of its passenger dismounting. Releasing a slow breath, she tips her head to peek through the leaves of a low hanging branch.
The man investigating her camp isn’t in military red, but there’s a musket strapped across his chest and a long brown coat over a hunting shirt. A soldier from the Continental Army, then. Anna shifts, wondering how long she has before he expands his search, when a twig snaps beneath her foot.
She flinches, the following silence as damning as a gunshot.Bringing her knife up, pulse drumming in her ears, she waits for the inevitable.
A rustling step, another beat of silence, and then, “Eliza?”
The name, the one she chose for herself, leaves him hesitantly. A question with a breath of hope. Anna recognizes his voice, but it isn’t until she steps around the tree and sees his face that she lowers the knife. “Dr. Thompson?”
His sigh is so deep, his shoulders and chest fall with the weight of his relief. “You insufferable woman. I’ve been searching for you every spare moment since you left. What were you thinking?”
Anna eyes him curiously. “You dismissed me.”
“I didn’t intend for you to actuallyleave. What kind of fool runs off into the woods alone in the middle of a war?” His gaze falls to the knife in her hands, her grip still tight on its handle. “You weren’t actually planning on using that, surely?”
“If I had to.”
Frederick looks even more perturbed by her admittance. “You’re not a killer, Eliza.”
He’s right, of course, but it does her little good to admit it. She shakes her head. “Why are you here?”
“Ah, well.” He has the decency to look uncomfortable. “I suppose I was worried. A woman out here all alone, in the middle of a war? I couldn’t sleep with that on my conscience.”
“Thank you,” Anna says, gesturing to the fire and her waiting meal. “But as you can see, I’m perfectly fine on my own.”
Dr. Thompson shifts, his hands fidgeting at his sides anxiously before reaching up and removing his hat. His dark blonde hair, damp from sweat and travel, is more unkempt than she’s ever seen it. “Yes, well, I also owe you an apology. And your job, if you’d be so gracious as to take it.”
Anna blinks, his meaning slow to sink in. “You left them? The maggots?”
He nods, his fingers fiddling with the rim of his hat. “It was just as you said. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was … well, it was disgusting, really. Completely unorthodox. But itworked.” A breathof laughter, and he shakes his head. “It worked, and I … I was humbled.”
He looks up, catching her gaze. Anna can see the sincerity in his eyes as surely as the humility relaxing the proud line of his shoulders. “I’d like to hear what else you know.” The smile he gives is sheepish, tinged with hope and seeping in embarrassment. “If you’d be willing to share?”
Frederick is not the man Anna believed him to be.
She expects him to second guess every bit of knowledge she offers—to counter with his own teachings whenever she offers a remedy he finds uncomfortable. Anna still catches an occasional grimace, but he no longer dismisses her the way he once did. The embarrassment of being proven wrong seems to have stilled his tongue from voicing his doubts. The success he has in lowering infection in his patients after making as simple a change as cleaning his blades in boiling water, helps too.
Rumors have been spreading through the camp that they’re lovers. Anna supposes it’s a more convenient excuse for the amount of time they spend together. Far more believable than the truth—that a mere scrap of a woman is teaching an educated mananything, let alone medicine.
The rumors don’t bother her, but she can tell Frederick is irritated by them. She doesn’t understand why until she overhears Dr. Prewitt telling his colleagues over dinner that he’d be buried face down before taking medical advice from a whore. Anna’s not sure if it’s his age or misogyny that fails to lower his voice, but she can tell by the glances in her direction that plenty of others also heard the grizzly old man’s declaration. Judging by the thin line of his lips and the deepening flush spreading over his ears, she’s certain Frederick did as well.
In accepting her knowledge, he has discreditedhimself.
Funny how a new idea from the mind of man is innovation, but the observations of a woman are written off as fanciful wonderings of a girl made too idle. The older Anna becomes, the more she resents the idiocy of it all. It is only Frederick’s unfailing dedication to learning that soothes the sting of bitterness—the reminder that if one mind can change, there remains hope that others may someday follow.
Summer bleeds into fall, fall wastes away to winter. The already meager rations dwindle. Some of the men make fire cakes—a tasteless concoction of flour and water baked into a flat, dense mockery of bread. Some days it’s still more appealing than the rations of salty lard they receive in place of meat. Influenza takes the place of battle wounds in the infirmary. Supplies are so low, rations so slim, Anna knows they lose more that winter than they should.
By spring, she’s relieved despite knowing the melting of snow will guarantee battle. Warmth means more medicine to harvest from the meadows and less sick. It is the difference between treating the ill and being left with nothing but hopes and prayers.
Anna has long since lost any faith in relying on the latter.
Behind her, Frederick huffs. “What are we doing here, again?”
