Chapter 1.5 - All

Looking at the taper on the metal fragment and the fact that it has finished edges he doesn't believe that it goes much beyond an inch into her. Nathaniel scrambles through his mental notes on anatomy and he can't recall there being anything terribly important at that depth in this location. It doesn't appear to have perforated her lung, the blood would be bubbling if it had. He'd still like very much to get a closer look at the wound prior to just doing anything drastic like yanking the fragment out.

"I have some small scissors and an embroidery needle with some silk thread if that helps m'lord," the woman dressed like a maid says quietly behind Nathaniel. "You really do want to be careful with that corset though sir."

"That I was," the large man says quietly, "sometimes in order to catch a very bad man you have to do morally ambiguous things. I'm a bounty hunter and Helen is my partner."

Helen nods, "Technically Buford you're my partner look it's all rather confusing, we were hunting for Darius McFadden he leads that group of ruffians and you really really do want to be careful of that thing."

"Helen, you're not helping," the large man says quietly, "I can get at the side laces over here, start cutting, loosen it off if you think that'd be best mister."

Helen and Buford both glance over at Donovan as he lets the hammer down on his pistol, "Probably best if we don't start nothing stupid in here, got enough troubles as it is." Buford says.

"Wait wait," the maid / Ruby says, "I have a small light, doesn't last long. It might be useful."

"Just push ze front together and undo ze fermoir, the clasps," the French woman says slowly, "'ave none of you ever taken one of zese off?"

"M'ladies laces up in the back," Ruby says fishing through a small bag and eventually producing a small cylinder with a glass globe on one end. "So yes."

"Très traditionnel, vous devriez la convaincre d'essayer ce style, d'accès beaucoup plus facile." The Frenchwoman smiles weakly and chuckles before reaching up and pushing her breasts together. The Frenchwoman inhales sharply when she does so, "Just undo ze clasps ma chérie."

"You probably do not need to know what she just said," Ruby says blushing as she reaches in to undo the top couple clips.

"I could stand a French lesson or two," Buford says.

Ruby helps with the clips, it gets harder to undo them when they're closer to the wound as compressing the corset becomes more and more painful. Under the corset the Frenchwoman is wearing a white blouse that's soaked in blood and sticks to her skin leaving very little to the imagination.

"We could cut that open, there's really no other way m'lord." Ruby says handing Nathaniel her scissors. They're small, delicate and very expensive looking.

While the corset is still attached to her via the metal fragment he can lift it up enough to get a look under it. She gasps and starts to squirm as he peers beneath the corset and blouse at the wound. Buford grabs her shoulders and holds them down.

"Helen, sit on her legs so she doesn't wriggle about so much." Buford says quietly, "She'll do more harm to herself than good trying to get away from the pain. Wish we had some ether."

Nathaniel's second appraisal is pretty much like his first, the fragment went in at an angle that allowed it to get wedged on her ribs stopping it from going in to deeply. It's still bleeding but not to much, with something clean he might be able to staunch the bleeding long enough to allow him to sew the wound shut. He's got alcohol, not pure enough for proper sterilization but beggars can't be choosers.

The Frenchwoman sucks air in through her clenched teeth and whimpers, tears streaming down her face as he completes his second examination. Nathaniel looks over and notices that Ruby is holding one of her hand and Helen is holding the other.

The Frenchwoman nods Nathaniel grabs the shard and with a small wiggle he manages to pull it pretty much straight out. She jerks arching her back at the pain and gasps but doesn't make hardly a noise. He drops the shard, still impaled through her corset and goes to work on the wound, cleaning it as best he can, flushing it with as much of his gin as he dares use before going to work sewing the wound shut. There's very clearly a notch in both of her ribs from the fragment but the damage seems to limited to the intercostal muscles and the pleura seems intact.

As he's finishing sewing her up the bombardment outside suddenly comes to a halt.

Ruby stands up and turns around hiking up her skirt and pulling vigorously at something and you can hear cloth ripping, a few moments later she has a large white piece of petticoat, "We should cover you up mum, Ce n'est pas approprié avec tous ces messieurs ici." She looks at Helen, "Can you help me sit her up ma'am, so we can get the rest of that off her and salvage some of her dignity?"

Helen nods and they help the French woman sit up so they can peel the remains of her blood soaked blouse off.

"Oh dear," Ruby says in a hushed voice as they begin to wrap the petticoat around her.

"What?" Helen asks helping with the cloth, "Oh... Oh my goodness."

There's a scrabbling noise the comes from the passage back out to the canyon.

Buford pulls a pistol out of a holster on his belt and points it towards the passage, he positions himself between the women and the opening.

***

In the canyon Napoleon finds a thin almost invisible from some angles fissure in the canyon wall, he can see a couple boot prints in a small pile of sand below the opening. Erasing the tracks as best he can he heads up into the fissure.

Looking about Napoleon sees a handful of men, Donovan, Harris, Nathaniel and a very large man, Buford, who looks suspiciously like one of the bandits from the train as well as three women (Ruby, Helen, and the Frenchwoman) one of whom is laying down and looks badly wounded. In fact she's only partially dressed and appears quite bloody.

There's an opening in the roof of this chamber, which is about 20 feet across and another opening in the wall that seems to lead back along a natural fissure in the rock. This whole place has been worn smooth by flowing water.

The Frenchwoman looks at Harris adjusting the petticoat top she’s wearing so she doesn’t accidentally pop out of it, "Mariette," she says running a hand cautiously over the bandage. "Merci beaucoup docteur, gentil monsieur, mesdames. Je te dois ma vie."

Ruby takes off her white apron and lays it across Mariette’s chest. "You just relax Miss, you need your strength."

Donovan slowly releases the hammer on his pistol but doesn’t put it away, "You think they may have snatched Lady Fortinall? Bastards!" He looks at the women, "Apologies ladies."

"Running might not be wise," Buford remarks looking up through the hole in the ceiling, "they got an advantage of elevation on us, I mean I’m game but I ain’t pleased about the thought of running into artillery fire, not again, not at my age."