Dr. Morganstein covered Elizabeth’s hand with her other and, nodding, looked deep into her eyes. “Yes, yes.”
The slight sibilance on the s made Elizabeth think English was not this woman’s native tongue.
“Sit down, my dears, please sit. I have half an hour before I must be in surgery, and I want to know all about you.”
“Know about me?” Elizabeth’s voice squeaked on the last word.
“Yes, and then I shall have my head nurse, Mrs. Korsheski, show you around. I was hoping for more time together, but this case that came in is close to an emergency.”
At the end of the half hour Elizabeth felt as if she’d been interrogated rather than interviewed, but in a pleasing way.
“She’ll do.” Dr. Morganstein tapped her knuckles on a stack of papers on her chart-buried desk and rose to leave the room. “Thank you, dear Issy, for finding her for us.”
“Th-thank you for the time.” Elizabeth stood and shook the doctor’s hand again. How she would love to turn that desk into the same kind of order she had done for Dr. Gaskin and for her father. Perhaps she could work here next summer. The thought darted through like a swallow on a bug hunt.
The tour, led by a tiny human dynamo, led her upstairs and down, through wards and nurseries, surgeries and storage. By the time she returned to Mrs. Josephson, who had remained in the doctor’s office bringing some order to the chaotic desk, Elizabeth felt as though she’d been racing. She thanked her guide, who rushed off when someone called her, and turned to Mrs. Josephson, shaking her head. “I cannot believe this place.”
“It is amazing, is it not, and what you don’t realize is how much is accomplished here with minimal funds. Althea is a wonder. That is for sure. Come now, we will have tea at the hotel. If your mother would like to join us . . .”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Thank you beyond words. I will ask her if she would like to.”
Looking back a few days later as the train chugged westward, Elizabeth thought the visit to the hospital to be far beyond her wildest hopes. It was more like a turning point in her life, if that were possible. While she’d gone to Chicago hoping to meet the doctor, she was returning home with two new friends, and from what she could gather, friends in high places.
Would getting into medical school really be as easy as Mrs. Josephson had said?
CHAPTER TWENTY-Three
Blessing, North Dakota
August 1893
“Manda, I’ll be leaving in the mornin’,” said Zeb MacCallister, leaning against the fence.
“I want to come along.” Manda kept her gaze on the horse she had trotting around the corral on the end of a long light rope. She clucked and flicked the rope to signal an increase in speed.
“No. I’m sorry, but Montana is no place for a young woman.”
“You say your ranch is so beautiful. Who keeps your ranch house for you, cooks and cleans while you do the chores?”
“No one. My ranch house, as you call it, is nothing more than a log shack. I have a half-breed Sioux who helps me with the horses. Besides, we’re not at the homestead much. We travel with the herd to find grazin’.”
Manda tugged on the rope, and the horse turned willingly toward her. “The ones you brought weren’t even broken, least not all of them. I could do that for you there, well as here.” She kept her concentration on the horse, her body loose but for chewing on her lower lip.
Zeb leaned his chin on his arms crossed on the top rail of the corral. “I know you could. But what about Deborah? She’d be heartbroken if you left. She’s had too many people leave her already.”
“She’d understand. She has Thomas and Johnny now. She likes being the big sister.” She looked to the man she’d learned to call Pa. “I don’t belong here. She does.”
“What do you mean? You . . .” He stopped when she gestured to her pants and boots. “Skirts, pants, has nothin’ to do with who you are.”
Manda leveled him a look that clearly said she believed otherwise. “I live a rough life.”
“And our dugout wasn’t?”
“Manda, Zeb, breakfast.” Mary Martha waved to them from the long front porch of the house. While others in the valley had built two-story houses, this one hugged the ground, growing out sideways as they needed more room. The porch that used to front the entire house was now bracketed by rooms at either end like arms wide open in welcome.
“Be right there.” Manda took the rope under the horse’s chin and rubbed his ears. “Good horse.” She untied the knot and let the gelding go, then coiled her rope and left it hanging on a corral post before she and Zeb strode on up to the house.
As soon as they washed up and sat down at the table, Deborah filled her father’s cup with coffee. “You want some?” she asked Manda, then tongue between her compressed lips, she carefully poured that one too.
“Thank you very kindly,” Zeb said with a smile. “You’re growin’ up faster than pokeweed.”
“What’s pokeweed?” Deborah took the chair beside him.
“Down south where I come from, pokeweed is one of the first spring greens. Grows so fast that if you blink, it’s taller’n you.” He looked up to see Manda studying his face. “We called it poke, is all.”
“I’m growing fast as pokeweed too.” Johnny pointed at his bare chest, earning a smile from his uncle.
“Pa-a-a.” But Deborah looked at him out of the corner of her eye, as if not sure if he was teasing.
Manda snorted. “Pigweed grows just as fast.” I’m going to Montana with you or trailing behind you, but I’m going.
Mary Martha set a platter of pancakes in the center of the table. “Let’s have grace. Manda, would you please?”
Manda swallowed a huff. “Dear Lord, bless this food and us. Amen.”
“My, that was short and sweet.” Mary Martha set a platter of sliced ham on Zeb’s right. “Please start the passin’.” When she returned with another platter of fried eggs all sunny-side up, she took her seat with a sigh. “I thought that cloud cover from last night might cool us off, but don’t reckon it will.”
“How long since it rained?” Zeb dished up an egg for Thomas sitting on a box on a chair to his left.
“First of May. Drought was real bad for two years before last. How was it in Montana?”
“Dry, but we had some rain.”
Manda filled her plate and refilled her mouth as fast as she could chew and swallow. The conversation swirled around her, but all she could think was that he’d turned her down. Her pa didn’t want her along. All this time she’d been planning and dreaming of moving to Montana. Even thought about just heading west to see if she could find him. Some father. If he hadn’t wanted them, why’d he go and adopt them both?
But she knew the answer as well as she knew her horses. Everything had changed when Katy died. She raised her eyes to glare at the man across from her who laughed with Deborah like he had all of a lifetime to spend with them. Instead, he was leaving.
As if feeling Manda’s anger, he looked up, puzzlement wrinkling his forehead.
She stared down at her now empty plate. “May I be excused, please?”
“Of course.” Mary Martha looked from Manda to Zeb and back again, her mouth pursing as her head nodded slightly.
“Ma?” Thomas held up his empty plate. “More?”
In the break of attention, Manda slipped from the table and out the door more quietly than any wild thing. Once outside, she dogtrotted to the small pasture where her horse, Cheyenne, grazed. She whistled, a three-tone whistle she used only for Cheyenne. The filly trotted over to the fence and blew in Manda’s face, a soft whuffle that combined both nicker and snort. Manda slipped her latigo around the bright sorrel neck and flipped a loop over the animal’s nose. Leading her out of the gate, Manda pulled the bars back in place and swung aboard without even grasping the mane. She kept the high-stepping horse to a jog until they were far enough from the house that they couldn’t be heard, then she leaned forward and
tightened her legs. The filly leveled out in a mane-whipping gallop, her hooves staccato against the hard dirt road.
Manda rode south to bypass the Bjorklund farms, then north along the river. Baptiste had said he would be fishing today since Metiz wanted to dry fish for the winter. Knowing where most of his favorite fishing holes were, she only slowed to make sure he wasn’t sitting on the bank with a pole or setting his trotlines. When she saw him, she dismounted and tied the filly to a willow branch.
“You’re in a hurry.” He turned to watch her approach, reading her face as only he knew how. “What’s wrong?”
Manda plunked down beside him. “Zeb is leaving in the morning.”
“Alone?”
She nodded. “I tried to talk him into taking me along, but he said no.”
Baptiste watched a leaf drift by on a slow swirl. “You think Montana is better than here?”
“I think in Montana we could be together.” There, she’d said it—the words that had been drumming at her waking and sleeping. She knew he’d never be more than her friend if they stayed here. But Montana . . .
Baptiste nodded.
Manda pulled a stem of grass and nibbled on the tender end. At least here along the riverbank grass still grew.
“I would have to leave Grand-mère.”
What could she say? The truth of it could not be argued.
“We cannot go without marriage.”
Manda sent him a sideways glance. And who would marry us? He’d said the word. Marry. Her insides turned to mush, mush cooking on a slow stove. The warmth spread to her fingertips. He really had been thinking some of the same things as she.
Manda settled back on her elbows, the woods’ duff an aromatic cushion. Her horse stamped, tail swatting the flies. A black fly settled on her arm and bit. No wonder horses and cows swished at flies. She smacked her arm so fast the fly had no chance. She flicked it off her skin with one finger and returned to studying the river.
“Flies make good bait.”
“Sorry.”
He turned and his shoulder brushed hers. Shocks ran clear to her toes. “I want to go to Montana, but I must talk with Grand-mère first.”
“She will tell you to go.”
“I know.” His sigh matched her own.
“Ingeborg and Haakan will take care of her.”
“Does she let anyone take care of her?” He shook his head, his long braid dividing his back. “Not even me.”
The urge to touch his braid, his back, brought Manda’s hand up in the air, only to drop to her thigh again—unrequited.
Baptiste returned to his fishing, jerking the rod when the tip twitched. A fat perch flew through the air and landed splat behind them. Hands grasping the string, he pulled the flopping fish toward him.
Manda watched his hands. Long fingers, sinews taut on the backs, sunbaked to a deep copper. Deftly he removed the hook from the fish’s lip, threaded a forked stick through gill and mouth, and poked it like the others back in the river mud. This way the fish would stay cool in the water. With a worm from the oldest part of the manure pile at the back of the Bjorklund barn wrapped back on the hook, he tossed the string, weighted by a small rock, out into the current.
“Not biting much today?” His hands, how would they feel on hers? Her face grew hot at the thought.
“Should have set trotlines instead.”
With mosquitoes zinging around their heads for background music, Manda returned to her propped-elbow position. She needed to get home. They’d be missing her and wondering where she went. Not that her taking off was an unusual occurrence. She rode the horses she trained for miles, getting them used to all kinds of terrain until they became fluid in obeying her commands. The horses she trained to harness, she drove instead of riding. Anyone who bought a horse from Manda MacCallister knew the animal would be dependable.
She slapped a mosquito and wiped away the spot of blood. Had he sucked hers and Baptiste’s? The thought of their blood mingling, even inside a mosquito, re-ignited the warmth within. “I need to be going.”
Baptiste leaned forward and jerked the line of fish from the river. He handed her the stick. “Tell your Ma this is from me.”
Manda nodded. She knew he would catch more for Metiz, but the generosity of this man always caught her unawares. She who tended to hoard was learning through him to give. She stood, the desire to touch him making her shake.
“I’ll come by tonight.”
“All right.” She trailed her hand along his shoulder. He bent his head to trap it with his cheek. A moment only, but one her fingers, let alone her heart, would always remember.
“Good thing you knew the way home,” she murmured to the filly as she slid off at the corral gate. Had they galloped? Loped? Her horse wasn’t blowing, so they must have taken it easy. How could she have been so lost in her head that she’d not paid attention? She propped the fish stick against the corral post, slid back the bars, and led her horse into the field bordering the corral. She wouldn’t be needing her again today. She had others to work.
“Manda, where did you go? Pa has been looking for you.” Deborah came walking toward her as she neared the house.
“Baptiste sent us fish for supper.” She hoisted the stick for Deborah to see, as if that had been the point of the ride.
“You could’ve taken me to play with Astrid.” Deborah plunked herself down on the steps to the porch.
“I didn’t go see Astrid.”
“I know. You went to see Baptiste.”
Manda sat down beside her sister. Deborah laid her cheek on her calico-clad knees, facing away.
“I wasn’t gone that long.”
“Yes, you were. I looked all over for you, but then when I saw Cheyenne was gone, I knew.”
“Sorry. I should have told you, but I was in a hurry.”
“You’re going to Montana, ain’t you?”
“Don’t say ain’t.” Manda jiggled the fish stick. “I got to get these in water. What did you want?”
“Nothin’.”
Manda felt like groaning. Instead, she laid a hand on her sister’s head. “Look at me.” When Deborah turned tear-filled blue eyes her direction, Manda fought a lump in her throat. How could she leave this little sister, the only true relation she had in the whole world? And yet she couldn’t take her along either. “Why are you crying?”
“I ain’t.” Deborah used her skirt hem to wipe her eyes. “Got smoke in my eyes. That’s all.”
“Don’t say ain’t.” Manda sighed and sat up straight, her hands dangling between her knees. If she told anyone what she was thinking, they’d tell her no. If she didn’t tell them, she was being a cheat. Nothing she hated worse than a liar and a cheat. Lying came by not telling, much as by telling. She thought back to when their pa never returned from getting supplies. One moment she feared he’d left them, the next she knew he hadn’t. Something had happened to him.
She shook her head and stood. “I got to take care of the fish. You want to help me or keep on playing guessing games?”
Deborah peeked up. “Can I scale ’em?”
“Sure, why not?” Manda tugged on her sister’s braid instead of hugging her close as she wanted to.
“You all right?” Mary Martha looked up from the bread she was kneading as the girls came into the kitchen. She swiped a wisp of hair from her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a floury trail on her forehead.
Manda held up the fish. “Baptiste sent us these.”
“Oh, fish for supper. How nice.” Mary Martha studied Manda before returning to her dough. “Anytime you figure on needing to talk, I’m here.”
“Yes’m. I know.”
“I can’t just cut and run. I can’t sneak out and not tell anyone. I just can’t.” Manda used the horse she was training for a sounding board.
The gelding flicked his ears and kept to the even lope she demanded.
They circled back toward the barn, but when he tried to pick up speed, she tightened t
he reins. Even pace, minding the rider, that’s all she demanded from the horses. And got.
She dismounted at the gate and, unlacing the cinch strap, pulled the saddle off with both hands. Turning, she slipped the headstall over the horse’s ears and let him loose. This was the last one of the day.
“We have buyers comin’ tomorrow.”
She jerked around at the sound of Zeb’s voice. “Why’d you sneak up on a body like that? Scared me half to death.”
“Sorry, I thought you saw me comin’.” Zeb slipped through the bars and picked up the saddle, then slung it up onto the top rail. “I’ll give them all a good brushin’ in the mornin’. Should get top dollar.”
“Not with the drought here. Be lucky to get half.”
“You watch. Got some fellows comin’ up from Grand Forks. They want two teams and some riding horses.”
“Umm.” Manda looped the braided reins over her arm. “You best ask for gold. Paper money might not be good in Montana.”
“It’s not the end of the world, you know. It became a state in ’89, just like North Dakota.”
“But you’re still homesteading.”
“Manda, you can still homestead in western North Dakota, though it’s nothing like this rich valley.”
“If it’s so rich, why don’t you stay here?”
“I can’t.”
She watched him shaking his head, shoulders curving in as if fending off a blow.
“We—Deborah and me and all the others—loved her too, and we had to stay here.” The words tripped over each other in their haste to be heard.
“You’re too young to understand. That’s all.” He spun away and headed for the far corral.
“That’s right. Run away. Runnin’s always easier than stayin’.” Her mutter carried no farther than the fence. Hoisting her saddle off the rail, she took it into the barn to hang on its tree. Now he’ll probably never speak to me again. Manda MacCallister, when your mouth gets to goin’, you sure don’t have no way of stoppin’ it.
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