Behind in My Work

It began as just another day at the clinic. I work for Dr. Rebecca Buchanan at the Virginia City Hospital. Oh, my Lord. I get paid to work with the best boss in the world. Can you imagine, she’s a proper doctor, and she knows more than any of the previous doctors in the town? I’ve never learned so much or had more fun than working with this woman. She trained Back East and worked on the front lines in the Civil War. She mentioned she even performed amputations in the field tents. Nothing got to her—she was a rock.

My husband went to fight for the North. When it was over, he wanted to head west. We came from below the Mason Dixon line, and our choice of sides in the war made us unpopular with our neighbors. Our boys were raised and gone, and I’m not one to sit around.

It was maybe the 1869 plague, when a wagon train came through town on the way to California. Dr. Buchanan hired me as the hospital matron. I run a tight ship, and I take my job seriously. Well, there was one incident…

Our afternoon was interrupted when one of my husband’s acquaintances showed up looking for a doctor—a male doctor. Harold McManus had on a long coat, and I could see he was in pain.

“Sorry, the only doc in town today is Dr. Buchanan. I’m not expecting the others back for another day or two. Can it wait?”

I watched as Mr. McManus shifted back and forth and finally admitted, “I suppose not.” He scanned the waiting room and saw a woman and a boy sitting on the bench outside of the examination room.

“Have a seat, Harold. It’ll only be a few minutes.” I pointed to the bench across the hall.

“I might just run an errand?”

“Go run your errand—just one beer. You know what I mean.” I knew his errand involved the Bucket O’ Blood. He wasn’t the first person to medicate prior to seeing one of our doctors. Judging from what I observed, he probably had a carbuncle on his backside.

Harold McManus left and when the last patient was finished, I spied Harold crossing the road toward the hospital. I called out to Becky, who was gathering her shawl. “We have one more patient to see.” I knew she was tired, and I hated keeping her, but that’s our mission in life—to help the sick and injured.

“Kill me now, Mrs. Clayton. I need some time off.” Becky was exhausted.

“I think it’ll be quick. Harold McManus has a sore behind. I’m guessing it’s a rising boil.”

“Oh, good. Nothing like a zit popper to end the day.” Becky washed her hands in preparation.

“Zit? What’s a zit? You have the most unusual medical terms. Is that from your work in the East?”

She looked perplexed and then smiled. “Yeah, something like that.” Her face reddened like she’d been caught in a lie. There was something strange about my boss. I kind of guessed she had a secret life before she moved here and married the patriarch of the Cattle Creek Ranch. Oh, mercy, what a catch.

Well, back to business. Dr. Buchanan asked Harold to step into her examination room, as I cleaned and swept the foyer. I wanted to get home before my husband returned from the mines. I had leftover stew from last night’s chicken and all I had to do was heat it.

“Mrs. Clayton, can you come in and assist? I’ll need a surgical pack and some linen drapes.” Harold’s backside was full of buckshot. I glanced at Becky, who was trying to keep a professional demeanor.

“You okay, Dr. Buchanan?” I rarely spoke to her informally.

“Oh, never better. I’m going to warn you we need to be discreet. This can’t leave the clinic. I have your word?”

“Of course.” I raced to the supply room and retrieved the instruments and towels. I returned to the surgical room and there was Harold McManus, propped over several pillows with his pants down to his ankles and his backside covered with a towel.

Becky placed a large bowl of water and soap on a table next to the prone man. “Mr. McManus, how did you shoot yourself in the backside?”

A gunshot? Why didn’t he tell me in the first place? I placed several strips of cloth in the bowl of water with disinfectant while Dr. Buchanan cleaned the area.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, that stings.” He may have broken wind. I mouth breathed to avoid the stench, but Dr. Buchanan was a pro. She pretended nothing had happened.

“It’s kind of embarrassing. I didn’t shoot myself. My dog shot me. It wasn’t his fault.” As he went onto explain, Dr. Buchanan cleaned his backside where we saw multiple buckshot holes.

“Wow!” I tried to impress my boss by mimicking her. My boss had unusual sayings. She said they came from her life in the East. I’ve met others from the East, and I was raised in Virginia, and I’d never heard these expressions.

“Double wow. You raise sheep, don’t you?”

“Yes Doc, that’s why I have a sheepdog.”

“And you say your dog shot you? How did that happen? Do we need to have a sheepdog trial? After all, he shot you in the back.” The boss closed her eyes, trying to contain herself. Her shoulders heaved and jerked.

“Well, Doc, I guess I was lucky that’s where I done got shot. Any place else and I might a been a goner. Thank God I got such a big sitter.”

The boss was failing, which infected me. “More than ample, Mr. McManus.”

Harold sighed. “You know it’s a full moon tonight. I should have been more careful.”

We dare not look at one another. She was heaving while trying to maintain her composure. “Excuse me. I need something from my supply room.”

I knew she was outside the room laughing. I stepped out, and Dr. Buchanan was bent over, leaning against the wall. Tears were leaking from her eyes, and she held up her hand in a stop motion.

I asked what was so funny about a sheepdog trial and she stood up and I could see the wheels turning.

“I guess you haven’t heard. It’s kind of new, but they have competitions where dogs round up sheep, and they call them trials—sheepdog trials.”

“And do they try dogs for killing their masters? I would have thought they just shoot ’em dead. I guess you have to give them the benefit of the doubt?”

This took my boss to a new level of laughter. She was doubled over and raised her arm. “No more Mrs. Clayton. I’m losing it.”

I was confused. Losing what? I think she meant control. “Okay, I’m right behind you. You can count on me.” This made her laugh even more, and now she was holding her side.

Dr. Buchanan stood straight and then clenched her fists. As I reached for the door handle, I looked her straight in the eye. “I won’t laugh if you won’t. Can I get your word that you’ll go back into the room and act in a professional manner?” She’d used that term when speaking to the nurses we occasionally employed. It sounded so important.

Dr. Buchanan replied through gritted teeth. “Nope, I’ve got no hope,” and she laughed until she cried. This didn’t help me, and eventually we returned with more linen once we regained our composures.

One or both of us had to “get supplies” frequently as Harold explained how the gun was resting on a hay bale when the dog jumped on the bale and knocked the gun, triggering the shot. “Bullseye, doc. I need to enter him in a sharpshooting contest.” Even Harold laughed.

I tried to maintain the professional demeanor. “So, Harold, is it safe to say you won’t be pressing charges?”

“I was gonna press my boot into him, but then I realized I was in no position to lift my leg, and hearing the gunshot, he took off. I guess the fault is mine, not poor Shep’s.” Harold was in more pain and the boss let him occasionally swear as she went after a few deep pellets.

I knew I was treading on quicksand. “So, in the end, you’ll keep him?”

“Are you two laughing at me?” Harold McManus wasn’t known for his sense of humor.

“No! No way. Never. Excuse me, I need to get a doohickey.” Dr. Harper left the room, leaving me to respond.

“Harold, I think you know the answer to that question.” And I left it at that. I’d atone for that small falsehood later.

We finally removed all the pellets we could find. I dressed his wounds, and we gave him a pair of dungarees that belonged to one of the male doctors to wear home.

After he left, Dr. Buchanan and I had a nip of the medicinal port that was kept for such occasions. “Mrs. Clayton, I think it’s time to acknowledge our relationship as more than a doctor and matron. Please call me Rebecca or Becky. May I do the same?”

“Well, you may call me Becky, but my name is Maggie. I would be honored, Becky. Now I’m so behind in my work, I must end this frivolity.” I tipped my glass and drained it. “Bottoms up. Becky.”

Becky grinned. “It was a good ending to the day, wasn’t it?”

Epilogue:

Dr. Rebecca Harper time-traveled to the 1800s where she met and married Sam Buchanan of the famous television series "Comstock."

No one except her husband knew she was from the 20th century.