“Yes, I know you’re right,” Alice said. “It’s just so sad that he’s lost all his family.”
“He has the Gilberts,” he reminded her. “They’ll do their best to make up for the lack.”
“Assuming he doesn’t want to go back to his tribe. Elijah, when we reach Boomer Town, we need to warn the Gilberts about what we’ve learned so they can be prepared to comfort Dakota, and let Lars know that we’ll need him to translate when we tell Dakota.”
“I called on the Gilberts last evening to make sure he was settling in all right, and he seemed happy enough. He’s certainly become the apple of their eyes in a short time. He seemed to be soaking up their love and attention like a parched wildflower after a rain.”
She smiled at Elijah’s apt comparison. “The Gilberts are good people.” Alice felt a peace descending on her as Elijah finished speaking. She could believe things would turn out all right for Dakota. What a gift of encouragement Elijah had. She could not have imagined speaking to those soldiers without him at her side, a solid, comforting presence. With him there, she had felt brave as a lioness.
Why couldn’t she have met him before Maxwell Peterson had tarnished any idea she had about a man being an equal, trustworthy partner? Was it possible they weren’t all controlling tyrants like Peterson or womanizing scoundrels like the late Richard Lawson? Was Elijah a man who could see her as complementing his strengths, rather than someone to be subjugated?
She drew up the reins on those thoughts. It was too close to the Land Rush. She had to concentrate on securing a good claim and nothing else for the time being. She couldn’t contemplate anything about her personal future until after April 22.
In the meantime, though, she’d cherish the sense of teamwork she had whenever she was with Elijah, working toward a common goal.
The first raindrop took her by surprise, landing with a wet plop on her nose. She looked up in surprise, just as the rain started falling all around them.
“We’re still a good two miles away from Boomer Town!” Elijah shouted through the rain that had already become a torrent. “Can you ride hard?”
“Of course!” she called back. Just then lightning cracked out on the prairie, and Cheyenne needed no further spur to lunge into a gallop.
They raced neck and neck over the rolling prairie, past low trees being lashed this way and that by the wind. By the time they glimpsed the first tents and wagons of Boomer Town ahead, both of them were already drenched to the skin. By tacit agreement, they rode to Alice’s tent first, so she could dismount.
“I’ll bring over some soup!” she called through the sheets of rain, as Elijah, still mounted and leading Cheyenne, started to head down the row to the Thornton tent.
“Don’t worry about that. Get on some dry clothes before you catch a chill!” he called back, and then he was swallowed up in a curtain of water. “Drink something warm!”
Alice smiled as she ducked into her tent. Silly man. Did he really think she was going to remain in clothes that dripped on the ground a moment longer than necessary? But she knew he’d only said it out of concern for her.
She’d exchanged her wet riding clothes for a dry blouse and skirt, and hung them and the bonnet up to drip dry in one corner of the tent. It was still raining, and while she always kept some firewood dry inside the tent, the rain would have to stop before she could light a fire outside and brew hot tea, let alone heat soup to take to Elijah.
Alice lit the kerosene lamp within and undid her damp hair from its braid so it could dry. Then she settled down on her cot to read her Bible until the downpour stopped.
It was perhaps two hours later when she walked down the muddy row to the Thorntons’ tent. She wore her still-damp boots rather than her other shoes, because the dirt “street” had become a sea of mud that threatened to suck her boots off as she carried the small pot of soup.
* * *
“Hallo, the Thorntons’ tent!” Elijah heard her call. He dropped the blanket he’d had wrapped around him and laid aside the Bible that had been in his lap, but Clint was nearer the entrance and lifted the tent flap to let Alice in.
“Miss Alice, you’re as good as your word,” Elijah said, seeing the pot she held. “Clint made me some hot coffee soon as the rain stopped, but I’m sure that soup will taste bet—” he stopped as a sneeze seized him “—better. Thank you.”
“Sounds like you caught the chill you warned me against,” she said, as Clint took the pot from her and left the tent to set it over the fire.
“I’m fine.”
His eyes drank her in. She’d changed from her sodden blouse and divided skirt and was clad once more in a simple calico-print dress. Her hair was a riot of auburn curls held back with a narrow black ribbon. He’d never seen her hair down and figured she’d loosed it so it could dry. The sight of it was so beautiful he could only stare.
Gideon, whittling on a piece of wood in the far corner, looked up, greeted Alice and resumed gouging at the wood.
Alice’s color rose. “Uh...enjoy the soup. Perhaps we should postpone our talk with Dakota so you can get some rest?” She turned as if to leave.
He realized how long he’d been silently looking at her. “I’m sorry. Maybe that would be best, since I’m rather embarrassed to admit I’d forgotten tomorrow is Sunday. There’s been so much going on this week that I’d left my sermon preparation till this evening. A fine preacher, to have forgotten when the Sabbath is, eh?” Another sneeze erupted before he could catch it.
“God bless you,” she said with a smile. “Perhaps I should brew some of my willow bark tea for you.” A furrow of worry creased Alice’s forehead beneath the tendrils that curled damply over it.
He shook his head and waved away her concern. “Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll be fit as a fiddle after a good night’s rest. I’ll see you at chapel.”
“That was a long ride we took. I know I’m tired—and sore in muscles I didn’t even know I had.” She chuckled. “Yes, I’ll see you at chapel. We can talk then about when we want to speak with Dakota.”
“That sounds good. Good evening, Miss Alice. Thanks again for the soup.”
He was tired, he thought. Dog tired. How he was ever going to come up with something coherent to say to his congregation tomorrow, he didn’t know. Perhaps, after he had some of Alice’s soup, he’d be refreshed and able to pore over the passage on the Good Shepherd, who’d left his ninety-nine sheep and searched high and low for the one that was missing.
Later that evening, Elijah fell asleep with the lamp still burning, but before he did, he’d managed to cobble together what he considered a fairly good sermon for Sunday morning. With the Lord’s help, he hoped it would touch the hearts of his congregation.
As he drifted off, he thought of sheep and their wandering, foolish ways. Certainly Dakota’s father had followed a willful path to destruction. Gideon and Clint could be considered lost sheep, Elijah supposed, and he prayed the Lord would woo them back like the Good Shepherd He was. Ninety-eight sheep in the flock and at least two that’d gone wandering...
Had Dakota ever been exposed to the teaching of Christianity? he wondered. Now that it seemed the boy would be living among them, Elijah hoped he would be able to teach Dakota about Jesus and draw him into the Lord’s flock. One more lamb for You, Lord...
* * *
Elijah dressed for chapel that morning with a head and chest thick with congestion. His throat felt raw and scratchy with each swallow of coffee, and his bones ached. He wasn’t going to escape paying for the drenching he’d suffered the day before, unfortunately. He sneezed half a dozen times just while buttoning his shirt.
“Maybe you ought to beg off church this mornin’ and spend the day on your cot, brother,” Clint said after Elijah finished another paroxysm of sneezing. “I could take your sermon notes over to your deacon.”
/> “Church starts in half an hour,” Elijah said. “It’s just a head cold, though it’s awfully inconvenient that it chose today to plague me.”
He made sure he stuck a fresh handkerchief in his frock coat pocket before he left for the chapel, already wondering if their talk with Dakota—his and Alice’s—would have to be put off until another time.
But surely he’d feel better after conducting the Sunday service. It always energized him and raised his spirits.
* * *
Alice saw the patches of high color on each of Elijah’s cheeks as soon as she had seated herself in the tent chapel. Still tired from their ride, she’d slept later than she’d intended to and, as a consequence, hadn’t been able to speak to Elijah before the service. Now she sat with Dakota, while Keith and Cassie carried out their duties as deacon and deaconess, and was pleased to see for herself that the boy appeared to be thriving.
“Happee Sun-Day, Mees Alss,” he greeted her, his black eyes shining. “Church, yes? Sing-ging?”
“Yes, Dakota, there will be singing,” she agreed.
“Preechah ’Lijah talk, yes?”
“Yes.” His vocabulary was increasing at a wondrous pace, she thought. He wore a new shirt, probably fashioned by Cassie Gilbert out of the material from one of her husband’s old ones, along with his buckskin trousers.
“Preechah ’Lijah, haáahe!” the boy called out.
Alice turned her gaze away from the boy to see that Elijah had stepped up to his makeshift lectern.
“Hello, Dakota,” Elijah said, as others smiled and chuckled. “Don’t we love his enthusiasm, congregation? Did you know that the Lord longs for us to greet Him with that same childlike joy?”
“Amen!” Keith Gilbert cried, coming to the front to lead the singing.
Alice sang along with the rest, but she was hardly aware of the words. Elijah looked pale and tired, she thought. She’d have to insist he rest again today, and hoped he wouldn’t be a typical stubborn male and try to resist her advice. She’d seen right through his assertion that he was “fine” yesterday, and now she knew she should have left some willow bark tea with his brothers despite Elijah’s objection.
As the collection sack was being passed, she wondered why his brothers never came to chapel. Gideon and Clint Thornton were clearly good and decent men—surely they believed in God, didn’t they? How hard that must be for Elijah, not to have his brothers here. Did it make him feel as if he had failed in some way?
* * *
Elijah stepped forward again. “Before I start into my sermon today, about the shepherd with a hundred sheep,” he began, “I would ask your prayers for the Collins family. I was called to their campsite just at dawn for Mr. Collins’s elderly mother, who’d been suddenly taken with a heart seizure.”
Alice smothered a gasp. No wonder Elijah looked so worn. He hadn’t been well himself, but he’d been awakened to minister to one of his flock. She tried to remember if she had ever met the deceased woman.
“I would have sent for our nurse, Miss Alice, to see if she could provide any relief for the lady,” he went on with a glance at her, “but it was clear the elder Mrs. Collins had only moments left on this earth. As I sat at her bedside and prayed with her, she smiled and went Home to be with the Lord.”
Murmurs of shock and sorrow rose around Alice.
“Jerusha Collins had been eager to start a new life with her family on their homestead not long from now,” Elijah said. “Instead, she is starting a new life in eternity. In lieu of chapel tomorrow, I’ll be conducting her funeral service for those who would like to attend and support the Collins family in their grief.”
It had been like that when her father, also a believer, had died three months ago, Alice remembered. She’d arrived from New York City with only a few hours to spare before her father passed on. Though he had suffered greatly from the wasting illness that finally claimed his life, Hiram Hawthorne had smiled as he took his last breath.
Her attention returned to Elijah as she pictured the graveside service out on the prairie tomorrow. Again she noticed his pallor in contrast to his flushed cheeks. Lord, please restore Elijah to health so he can minister to others.
Elijah took a deep breath that was interrupted by a cough. “My sermon today...”
Just then Dakota tugged on her sleeve. “Preechah,” he said, pointing. Then he uttered several incomprehensible Cheyenne words.
Alice bent to listen. “What about Preacher?” she asked softly, but of course the boy didn’t have enough English words to tell her. As she watched, Elijah hesitated as if unsure of himself, then took a drink of water from a glass on his makeshift lectern. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, which he wiped away with a handkerchief he pulled out of his pocket.
Was she imagining it, or did he sway slightly?
But others had noticed, too. “You all right, Reverend?” she heard Keith Gilbert ask.
Elijah seemed dazed as he turned toward the sound of his deacon’s voice. “I think...think I’m ill... Sorry...”
Without conscious thought, Alice jumped up and ran to the front. She and Keith Gilbert reached Elijah as he collapsed in a heap in the sawdust.
Chapter Twelve
Elijah passed out somewhere between the chapel and the Thornton tent as he was carried there by four men from the congregation.
Gideon, stirring something over the fire, stood as the little cavalcade approached. “What the—? Lije?”
“He collapsed at chapel, Gideon,” Alice told him. “He’s very ill. Help us get him into bed.”
Clint appeared at the tent flap then and, staring, held it open as Alice ran ahead to pull down the coverlet on the cot. The men eased him onto it, and Alice stepped aside while Clint and Gideon helped remove their brother’s trousers and shirt and pulled a sheet over him.
“I knew he was sick when Mr. Collins came and woke him up at dawn this morning,” Clint muttered. “But of course Lije just went to do what he could.”
Cassie Gilbert and Dakota had been part of the procession, and now Alice was distantly aware of Cassie Gilbert gently pulling Dakota away, murmuring reassurances he probably didn’t understand. Keith remained, standing in a corner of the tent, his eyes closed—praying, Alice guessed.
Elijah’s breathing rasped in her ears as Alice bent over and felt his forehead, and flinched at the burning heat. “He’s spiking a fever,” she told them. “I need cool water to bathe him.” She couldn’t give him the willow bark tea when he was too insensible to swallow.
“I just fetched some from the spring before you came,” Gideon said. “I’ll bring in a basinful.”
Moments later, using a bit of towel Clint provided, she bathed Elijah’s forehead, then his shoulders, arms and chest. She watched him start to shiver.
“Blankets...he needs blankets,” Gideon said.
“Just one light one, please,” Alice instructed, when Gideon had grabbed up the blankets on both his and Clint’s cots. “Anything more and his fever will only go higher.”
* * *
“I’m going to call a prayer meeting,” Keith Gilbert said, as the afternoon faded into evening. “What shall I tell them?”
Alice looked up from her camp chair by the cot. Elijah was cooler now, but his breathing had an ominous moist sound to it that she didn’t like, as if he breathed through water—rales, the doctors at Bellevue had called it. She didn’t have to pull out her stethoscope from the medical bag she’d had Gideon fetch from her tent to know that there was congestion in his lungs.
“Tell them Reverend Thornton has pneumonia. Tell them to pray like they’ve never prayed before.” She kept her tone matter-of-fact, not wanting to frighten the deacon or Elijah’s brothers and reveal the fact she was afraid for Elijah. He had no medical care but what she could provide. It wasn’t the first
time she’d nursed someone so ill, of course, but it had always been with the guidance of a doctor and a head nurse.
Keith Gilbert closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ll tell them,” he said at last. “If the reverend comes around, you tell him that he’s not to worry—I’ll conduct that funeral service.”
Alice blinked. In the past few hours she’d forgotten all about old Mrs. Collins’s death. Dear Lord, don’t let Elijah die, too. Please spare him for all our sakes. Without Elijah, the new church and the community he envisioned around it would not happen. We need him—I need him, she prayed, and was stunned by what she’d just prayed and had never dared to completely admit to herself.
Despite all her determination, a bond had grown between Elijah and her, a bond forged while seeing to the spiritual and medical needs of Boomer Town, and in their mutual caring for the half-Indian orphan, Dakota. Elijah was the most honorable, caring man she had ever met. He served his fellow man because he loved God, and because she knew Elijah, she wanted to be a better person.
She’d come here wanting to hide, to pass unnoticed, to leave her nursing skills behind and just live on her land with no one but her mother. She’d been afraid to share her name. In getting to know him, she’d shed the fear that had ruled her life of late and had learned to want to share her nursing skills again. The Lord had called her to be a nurse, after all.
Please, Lord, save Elijah.
* * *
Searing heat, alternating with a cold that was the worst he’d ever experienced, colder even than that first winter in Pennsylvania—when he’d been locked in the woodshed by Obadiah for some boyish infraction of his cousin’s endless rules... Stabbing pain with each breath, like a dozen sharp needles sticking in his ribs...
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