He took hold of her upper arms, his fingers digging in. “You know no one else is going to take a second look at you. You’re strapped with a boy no one will want. And you ain’t the purty gal you once was.”
A violent shiver stabbed through her center. Close like this, she could smell the liquor on his breath. “Get away from me, Carl! You been drinking again.”
A muscle in his jaw worked. “Maybe I just don’t want to see that doctor comin’ round no more. I see that, and maybe something bad will happen to your Tommy.”
Her heart nearly stopped. She pushed him away. “Don’t you threaten me! Don’t you ever do that! Your brother would beat you bloody if you hurt a hair on Tommy.”
She stepped back and tripped over the milking stool, falling to the ground. Carl stood over her staring at her as if he wasn’t sure what to do with her. Finally, he reached down, grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet.
“Thomas ain’t around anymore, Sylvie. You need to quit living like he’ll walk through that door again, ’cause he won’t. And I don’t aim to hurt little Tommy. He’s my kin after all. All I’d need to do is take him somewhere where you can’t find him. Then maybe you will be the one coming to me for a change. All I want is for you to ask me if you need a man. Not some stranger who don’t know you like I do. All I’m asking is that you remember that.”
He stepped through the doorway and out into the yard. There was a muffled sound and then his footsteps faded away.
She stumbled to the door, knocking the pail of milk over in her haste, and raced to her soddy to check on Tommy.
“Who was that, Ma? I heard voices.”
Relief hit her in waves. She shook uncontrollably as it flowed through her. For all his threats, Carl hadn’t entered the cabin. She dropped to her knees and hugged Tommy.
“What is it, Ma?”
“I’m just grateful is all,” she whispered, too choked up to find her voice. She pulled back and held him at arm’s length. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say we had a guardian angel looking out for us tonight.”
She let go and turned to start supper. As she picked up the heavy iron stew pot, her arm ached. She rubbed where Carl had grabbed on to her. It would hurt worse tomorrow. Carl would be bound to treat her better—more like a sister—if Thomas had married her.
She stared at Tommy. Her boy. Her beautiful boy so much like his father. Why hadn’t Thomas taken the time to wed her proper and give his son a last name? Tommy deserved that. She deserved that too.
It was a thought she’d held quiet inside for some time, afraid that to admit it would mean she’d be a traitor to the man she had loved. Now something compelled her to whisper it out loud. “Thomas? You wronged the two you said you cared for the most. You wronged me and Tommy. And I can’t ever forgive you for that.”
Chapter Eleven
Enough was enough. Two bride assessments were all Nelson could stomach for one week. It shouldn’t be so incredibly taxing looking for a woman who would make a good wife and nurse! Between his other patients and Mrs. Blackwell’s frequent false labor symptoms, he simply didn’t have the time to give to the endeavor.
The one bright spot had been Miss Marks’s freshly baked bread and honey. He wondered what day of the week she usually did her baking. Perhaps if he timed things well, he could check on Tommy on a day that she might offer more of the heavenly stuff.
Friday, he finished the last of her loaf.
On Saturday, he felt the first tug of craving for the bread—a new sensation for him. To satisfy it, he walked over to the restaurant and ordered a plate of Sadie’s special with an extra helping of sourdough bread. It wasn’t the same.
Sunday morning broke sunny and clear, with a few white puffy clouds on the horizon. Connor Flaherty gave a soul-stirring sermon about the unconditional love extended to all believers. Nelson listened and thought it sounded real nice, but he had difficulty believing it. Not once growing up had he experienced anything close to unconditional love. Any mistakes he’d made, his parents had been sure to punish him. There were consequences, good or bad, to every move he made. Reverend Flaherty could drone on all he wanted, but Nelson wasn’t going to jump on that wagon.
After the service, Mara Vandersohn and Miss O’Rourke were escorted by two men from town to a waiting buggy. With the large basket in the boot, it must be a picnic that was planned. Miss Pratt, Miss Weber and Miss Simcock were surrounded by others from the congregation, both neighbors and interested bachelors.
It made more sense to Nelson to wait until the men were back to work during the week and try then. Mayor Melbourne had refined the contracts of the women to stipulate that they had to converse for at least an hour with each of the bachelors who had paid to the Oak Grove Betterment Committee fund. That money had paid for the costs of their journey and hotel. Because of that, Nelson knew he still had time to meet the other brides. He only hoped he had better luck with one of them than he had with the first two.
“Doc! Doc! Hold up!” Josiah, the mayor, strode up to him. “I can’t make it for our game today. I’m meeting with the new schoolteacher about a play area at the school.”
“Then you forfeit?”
“Absolutely not!” he blustered.
Nelson chuckled. Josiah hated to lose anything. He wouldn’t want to accept a loss of their weekly chess game. “Then what do you propose?”
“How about an early supper at the hotel and then our game? Say...four o’clock?”
“Sounds fine.” He raised his hand in a quick wave and headed to his house.
At his door, he hesitated with his hand on the knob. Nothing and no one waited for him inside. With the spring sun shining warm and comfortable on his shoulders, it didn’t make sense to sit in his study on a day like today.
He was restless. It wouldn’t be long and his parents would arrive. That had him on edge. Or maybe it was the sudden freedom of the day when he was used to working constantly. All he knew was that he was at odds with himself today. He walked back down the steps and headed out of town.
Following the worn path made by the deer, he came to the river. The water level was higher than last week and the current swifter, likely due to melting snow from farther upstream.
He walked along the bank. The ripples and eddies flowed beside him faster than his stride. Now and again the song of a meadowlark called to him. On the opposite bank, young cottonwoods sent branches out low over the water. Before he knew it, he was standing at the ferry and contemplating the far shore.
And thinking of Miss Marks...and her son...and her bread.
He needed to see how Tommy was doing. Sunday was not a conventional day to check in on his patients, but then Sylvia Marks was not a conventional woman. And it had been an entire week. It was past time that he checked for himself to see that Tommy’s healing was coming along properly.
And he wouldn’t mind a taste of her bread if she happened to have any. The thought made him smile.
He stepped onto the raft and untied the tether line with a quick snap. Then grasping the rope alongside the ferry, he tugged the raft along, hand over hand, until he landed on the opposite bank amid the tall grass and the cottonwood trees. He wound his way through the prairie grass, down a small dip in the land, and came to the Markses’ house.
The soddy looked smaller and dingier than he remembered and the yard messier. The shed’s door hung crooked on one hinge, with the other hinge long rusted and broken. A goat, tied to a clothesline, munched contentedly on a crop of weeds.
At fifty paces from the cabin, he called out.
The goat bleated in answer.
He strode up to the door and was about to knock, when laughter from inside the cabin stayed his hand. He stood there, undecided about barging in on their day.
Suddenly, it was quiet.
Then a rifle jutted out from the window. “Who is out there?”
“Dr. Graham. I came to see how your son is getting along.”
“Oh.” Miss Marks pulled the rifle back inside the soddy. A moment later she opened the door.
Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. She wore a coarse brown skirt and cream-colored blouse. Her dark brown hair was tied back from her face in a single thick braid.
“Well...come on inside and see for yourself.” She braced the door open with a hand-sized rock.
He ducked through the entryway as light streamed into the one room. In the daylight, he could see that the walls had been plastered inside with mud, giving them a smooth appearance and a soft gray color. The only wood in the room was the door and the mantel, and five beams to help hold up the roof.
The hearth had been swept clean. As a matter of fact, the entire place looked orderly and clean. Miss Marks rested the rifle on two iron pegs high across the mantel. Tommy sat at the table with a Bible open in front of him.
“How are you feeling, Tommy?”
“All right.”
“Any headaches? Visual disturbances?”
Miss Marks chuckled. “You have to use simpler words with a seven-year-old. Tommy is smart, but he still is learning.”
She turned to her son. “The doc wants to know if things look fuzzy or blurry. Like—” She backed out through the door and halfway to the shed, then held up three fingers. “How many of my fingers can you see?”
“Three.”
The boy didn’t even squint. A good sign. “And no pain in your head?” Nelson asked. “Dizziness?”
Tommy shook his head—somewhat carefully, Nelson thought.
His mother walked back inside. “He gets dizzy, but each day it’s less. Other than that, he is acting normal, Doc.”
“May I check the lump you had back there?” Nelson asked. When Tommy didn’t refuse, Nelson ruffled through the boy’s hair at the back of his head and touched the cut. No further oozing. And the lump was gone. Satisfied, he took a seat at the table. “What about your leg? May I take a look at it?”
At Tommy’s nod, Nelson lifted the boy’s injured leg.
Tommy gasped, tensing his muscles, and gripped Nelson’s forearm, his fingers digging deep.
Nelson hesitated, then lowered the leg. “This won’t work.”
Miss Marks hurried to her son’s side. “How about you sit on the table?” She boosted her son up and then gently raised his foot to rest on Nelson’s knee.
Mimicking her slower movements, Nelson rolled up Tommy’s pant leg and carefully unwrapped the cloth bandage. When he pulled the wad of cotton material away, he noticed a sticky substance coating the entire area of the wound. “I thought I told you to keep this clean. What do you have here?” He sniffed his fingers to identify the odor.
“Honey,” Miss Marks said. She stood with her arms crossed in front of her—a challenge for him to say anything against her work.
He tossed the bandage aside and leaned closer to examine the wound. Reddened, puffy edges had formed along the line of the skin break. But it looked like new skin forming rather than inflamed skin. He pressed gently against the edges. No pus. And no evidence of any forgotten sutures. Miss Marks had gotten them all out.
“It’s healing well,” he said with a grunt. “Which comes as a surprise, considering how dirty that shed roof must be. Stop using the honey on it. I told you before that honey will just draw bugs and who knows what else.” It was a miracle that infection hadn’t set in.
“But it helps—”
“Nothing was said about honey in medical school.”
“My granny in Virginia used honey for everything. It’s good for all sorts of things. Just like cider vinegar...”
He shook his head. “Have you noticed a foul odor? Any discharge?”
She frowned. “Like I told you at your office, it’s healing fine.”
Gently, Nelson moved Tommy’s foot this way and that, making sure he had good movement in his ankle. That was his main concern now. “Have you put any weight on it?”
“It hurts,” Tommy said.
“I expect it does...and will for a time to come.”
“He kind of hops around on his good leg, favorin’ the other,” Miss Marks said.
Nelson rewrapped Tommy’s ankle and then lowered his leg gently to the floor. Seven days was enough for the skin to mesh together. “You have to start using the leg, even though it hurts.”
“You said he had to rest.” There was an edge to her voice. “So I’ve been making him rest. Do you know how hard that is for a boy his age?”
“I only meant for two or three days.”
Her brown eyes hardened. “Then you should have said so.”
She paced the short length of the room, her stride short and fretful.
He frowned. “If you remember, I was the one being held at gunpoint.”
She stopped moving and glared at him, her hands clamped into fists. Then a moment later her lower lip trembled. “I did the best I knew how and you are telling me I did something wrong?” The sheen of tears came to her eyes. “Doc Graham—have I crippled him for good?”
He suddenly realized his mistake. He remembered saying something about the need for the wound to heal correctly when he’d been here before. She was frightened for her son, frightened that something she’d done or not done had done permanent damage. He had handled it roughly. He hadn’t meant to strike fear in her or Tommy.
He stood and took her hands. They were small against his larger palms. “Miss Marks... Sylvia,” he said, hoping to calm her. A tingle of awareness rushed up his arms.
Unexpected. Startling. His pulse jumped.
Immediately, he let go, yet the sensation lingered.
Her eyes widened. “Doc...” She stepped back.
“I—uh—don’t want you to think that,” he said, gathering his thoughts. “You’ve done a fine job with Tommy. You’re a good mother, Sylvia, but from now on, he must use his leg so the new tissue will get used to stretching. How about we give it a try?” he said, turning from her to her son. “Boys heal real fast. Did you know that? Faster than grown-ups do.”
His words didn’t have the effect he’d hoped they would. Tommy hung on every word, but his mother was still obviously frightened and believing the worst.
Then a determined look came over her face. “Come on, son. We’ve got to start right now.” Sylvia hooked her arm under Tommy’s armpit. “Doc? You want to take his other side? That way he will feel stronger by our caring on each side of him.”
He liked the way she’d put it—as though by sheer strength of will, her love would somehow communicate itself through to Tommy and give him strength. He’d certainly never felt anything like that from his own parents.
He matched her position on Tommy’s opposite side. The boy weighed hardly more than Nelson’s microscope. He held up the bulk of Tommy’s weight so that the boy’s first step wouldn’t hurt too much. Being bigger and stronger than Sylvia, he also wanted to lighten her load.
“Go slow!” Tommy said.
“Slow as a sunrise,” Sylvia said softly.
Nelson looked over the top of Tommy’s head, trying to figure out what she meant by that. She was calming down now that she had a new purpose. She watched her son’s movements intently, every now and then biting her lower lip. Wisps of dark hair framed her face. She fascinated him although he didn’t know why. There was always something new and different about her every time they were together. Something that made his life richer.
“Now lean into it a bit,” Nelson said, returning his attention to Tommy. “With your full weight, each and every time. No skimping.”
“Ah!” Sylvia wilted suddenly, her face contorting with pain. She rubbed her upper arm.
Nelson straightened. “Miss Marks?”
She took three deep, fast breaths.
; “Sylvia?”
She glanced up, her eyes glistening with tears she held in. “Sorry. Got a bruise there a few days back.” She repositioned Tommy’s hold on her. “Let’s try again.”
The way she explained it bothered him, but he returned his attention to her son. “Get going, Tommy.”
Tommy slowly took another four steps.
“Very good,” Nelson said. “Rest a minute and then one more time.”
Tommy took a shaky breath and then nodded. They repeated the moves and then helped Tommy sit back down. He beamed up at them. “I did good, didn’t I?”
“You sure did,” Sylvia said, a soft, proud smile on her face.
It transformed her. And it dazzled him.
She glanced over. “Why, Doc Graham! Is that a grin on your face that I’m seeing?”
Immediately, he relaxed his face. “Are you having visual disturbances, Miss Marks?”
Her smile widened, and a dimple appeared in her left cheek. “Well, I must be.”
She turned back to her son. In that moment, with the sunlight streaming in the window behind her, he figured it out. It wasn’t that she was a striking beauty, although she was quite comely. It was the love on the inside that shone out and brightened everything and everyone around her. That was what called to him.
He tore his gaze away and back to Tommy. “Keep practicing. Add two more steps each time you get up. You’ll do that for me?”
Tommy jutted out his chin, the motion reminiscent of one Nelson had seen in Sylvia. “If you stay and help.”
“Uh...” Nelson stumbled with his thoughts. He’d like to stay and help. He liked being here. But there was a difference between a visit as a doctor to check on the boy’s health and a visit as a friend. That was an invisible line that he usually didn’t cross. “You are in very good hands. Your mother makes an excellent nurse.”
He paused, shaken by his words. He’d said that to bolster Tommy. He’d wanted the boy to look to his mother for direction, but that made the words no less true. Sylvia Marks had done well with her boy. She had done very well with Wally and Miss Vandersohn too.
The Prairie Doctor's Bride Page 9
