by Merry Farmer
His grin vanished. She’d left because her daughter had fallen ill. It wasn’t right for him to let his imagination run wild when Rebecca had such a thing on her mind. He reached for the brush on the bureau and ran it through his damp hair, frowning. He hated the thought of sick children. Their lives were too precious to waste one moment with illness. Just as Rebecca’s life should not be wasted in the worry anyone with eyes could see consumed her.
He finished with the brush and buttoned his shirt, tucking it into his clean, dry pants. There was just enough time before supper for him to stop by the house where she and the children lived with her parents to take a look at Lorraine. He would start by reassuring Rebecca that her daughter would recover, then he would work on convincing her that she would be just fine as well.
He checked himself in the mirror of the small bedroom in the apartment above West’s General Store one last time before taking his jacket and heading down the hall. Etiquette said he should put the jacket on, should tie his hair back before appearing in public, but with the heat as intense as it was, he hoped the people of Cold Springs wouldn’t notice.
“This is preposterous!” Dr. Greene was already standing at the counter harassing Mrs. Charlotte West as Thomas stepped from the store’s back room into the busy sales floor. “I need to speak to your husband right now!”
“I can see that, Dr. Greene.” Charlie did her best to keep calm. She noticed Thomas and greeted him with, “Good afternoon, Dr. Smith. You’re looking well today.”
Thomas stopped. Charlie West had called him by his given name almost from the day they’d met. Something was wrong.
“Thank you, Mrs. West,” he played along, flickering a glance to a red-faced Dr. Greene. “And how is young Michael, Jr. today?” He stepped around the counter to stand beside Dr. Greene and to greet the gurgling baby in a bassinet on the counter.
“He’s happy as long as he’s in the store, just like his father,” Charlie answered as Thomas tickled little Mike.
“Enough of this nonsense!” Dr. Greene burst with exasperation. “I demand to speak to Mr. West at once!”
“Michael is in Helena,” Charlie informed him. She shared a mischievous glance with Thomas. “He’s overseeing the outfitting of our new store, and he won’t be back until Thursday.”
Dr. Greene hissed in irritation. “Then I’ll have a town council meeting called without him.”
“A town council meeting?” Charlie blinked.
“Yes,” Dr. Greene snapped. “To discuss shutting down Sobel’s Pond.”
Thomas glanced up from the bassinet. “Why shut down Sobel’s Pond?”
A light of triumph shone in Dr. Greene’s eyes. “It’s contaminated. The whole lot of it.”
“Contaminated?” Charlie fixed him with an incredulous look.
“Yes. This afternoon I have been summoned to examine no fewer than a dozen children who had been swimming there earlier today. They’re all sick, poisoned by tainted water.”
Dr. Greene had Thomas’s full attention now.
“I was at the pond earlier,” he said. “I even went swimming. There was nothing wrong with the water that I could tell.”
Dr. Greene sniffed. “I wouldn’t expect a puffed-up Indian to know contaminated water if he drank a gallon of it! You probably poisoned it in the first place.”
“Dr. Greene!” Charlie scolded.
Thomas held up a hand to still her. He was used to the insults.
“What symptoms do these children have? What makes you sure it’s the water and not, say, gastroenteritis?”
“Not that I have any obligation to tell you,” Dr. Greene fidgeted, “each of the children fell ill at the same time with stomach symptoms.”
“Then it could be gastroenteritis,” Thomas argued.
“It could not! It’s the pond. It’s contaminated and should be shut down right now!” He turned and delivered his mini speech to the shoppers who were inching closer to eavesdrop on the conversation.
“There is nothing wrong with Sobel’s Pond,” Thomas addressed the gathering shoppers as well.
“But Dr. Greene says the water is contaminated,” an older woman said, nodding to Dr. Greene.
Another woman shook her head and said, “Well if it is, Nathan Sobel should do something about it! It’s his pond, after all.”
The first woman scoffed. “Nathan Sobel is an old coot whose mind has gone soft. He probably forgets he owns that pond. I believe Dr. Greene. The town council should do something right away before any more children get sick.”
“Michael is in Helena,” Charlie said again, her frustration making her curt. “The pond could have turned to blood, but no one is doing anything about it until he gets back on Thursday!”
“Well!” Dr. Greene snapped. He leaned toward the counter as if he would launch into another tirade, but stopped when the bell over the shop door rang.
Thomas turned as Dr. Greene did to see a man with a large moustache enter the store. He was familiar, but Thomas couldn’t place him.
“Ah! Mr. Summerall! So good to see you!” Dr. Greene leapt way from the counter, rushing to intercept the man before he had made it more than a few steps into the store. “Let’s take our business elsewhere, shall we? It’s too noisy here.”
“Well…I…that is….”
Dr. Greene swept the poor man out the door before he could stand his ground.
“But the pond!” one of the older women called after him. “Shouldn’t something more be done?”
She received no answer. Dr. Greene was long gone.
“I can assure you, ma’am, there is nothing wrong with Sobel’s Pond,” Thomas told her with a smile.
The old woman sniffed at him, turned up her nose, and continued shopping.
Charlie huffed behind the counter. “It’s all a bunch of nonsense,” she said.
“It is,” Thomas agreed cautiously, “except that there are sick children involved.”
“Oh.” Charlie dropped her shoulders with a guilty look. “I suppose there are.”
Thomas smiled to reassure her. “Keep an eye on little Mike here and on your darling Eloise. I’m going to see if I can get to the bottom of this.”
“You do that.” Charlie perked up. The fight was back in her eyes. “Prove him wrong.”
There was no need to ask who “him” was.
He left the store, taking a deep breath of oppressive air as he stepped out onto Main Street and headed up to Silver Avenue and around the corner. His initial mission hadn’t changed. He still planned to visit Rebecca at her parent’s house. Now, however, his curiosity went far beyond checking on Lorraine and seeing if he could make Rebecca smile.
Rebecca’s parents, Angus and Sadie McGee, lived right in the heart of town. Their house bordered the general store in the back, but a proper visit required him to walk all the way up Main Street and all the way back down Second Street instead of cutting across the yard that separated the buildings. He stepped up onto the porch, then slipped his jacket on and knocked on the front door.
“Oh!” Angus McGee greeted him with a look of surprise. “Dr. Smith. I suppose you’re here about the children.”
Thomas’s expectant excitement dropped. “Children?” he asked. “Is it more than just Lorraine?”
Angus heaved a sign and nodded. He stood back and invited Thomas in with an outstretched arm.
“Rachel came home from the pond about half an hour ago feeling poorly. Rebecca’s got the two of them tucked in bed upstairs. This way.”
Angus climbed the stairs slowly. Thomas watched his movements with a critical eye. As far as he knew, Angus didn’t have the usual joint problems that came with age. The man’s skin was pale in spite of it being summer and his face held exhaustion.
“Mr. McGee, are you sure you’re well?” he asked with a concerned frown.
“It’s nothing.” He waved Thomas off. “I must have just eaten some bad sardines.”
Thomas’s curiosity bubbled as they reached the s
econd floor. Angus shuffled to a doorway halfway down the hall. He led Thomas into a modest bedroom with two narrow beds, currently occupied by two pale, writhing girls.
Rebecca sat on a chair between the two beds, looking as sun-touched and fresh as she had at the pond, although considerably worried. She hadn’t changed clothes, her soft brown hair was escaping from its knot at the back of her neck, and her bare feet peeked out from under her skirt. At the sight of Thomas she gasped and stood from where she had been mopping Rachel’s head with a wet cloth.
“Thomas!” Her eyes darted to her father. “I mean, Dr. Smith.”
A split-second of purely visceral reaction to the beautiful, vulnerable woman in front of him was all Thomas allowed himself. There would be time for more when the children were well.
“Hello, Rebecca. I hear that Rachel is feeling ill now, too.”
He noted in the back of his mind that Angus sank heavily into one of the room’s chairs as he approached the beds to have a look at the girls. Angus was next on his list to examine.
“She was fine when I left the pond,” Rebecca explained, twisting the damp washcloth nervously in her hands. “You saw her. But when Grover brought her home a little while ago, she was hot and shaking and nearly doubled up with stomach pain.”
Thomas frowned and sat on the side of the girl’s bed to examine her. Rebecca resumed her seat and leaned close to Rachel as he did. She was close enough for him to touch, close enough to smell the salt of her skin, but he needed to stay focused.
He felt Rachael’s forehead, the glands around her neck, checked her pupils and the color of her eyes. The urge, like a ticking clock, to find the answer and make both children feel better, to make their mother feel better, pushed him on.
“It’s not a germ,” he concluded with a frown. He shifted to the other bed to examine Lorraine again. “If it was a fever or contagion there would be more glandular activity, more swelling.”
“Are they going to be all right?”
Thomas glanced up at the unexpectedly anxious tone in Rebecca’s voice. She had been so strong, so certain of a good outcome until his diagnosis. Now she was losing her own color and panic only mothers could feel shone in her eyes.
He reached out and took her hands. A flush joined the worry on her face.
“They will be fine,” he promised her. He would make sure of it.
“They’re…they’re all I have,” she whispered.
His heart turned over in his chest. He inched closer to her and squeezed her hands tighter. They were so small and hot in his hands that he wanted to place them on his chest over his heart and hold her close.
“Have they eaten anything unusual lately?” he asked instead, cooling his head with business. “Your father may not be far off by saying it was bad sardines. These kind of symptoms are in line with poisoning of some sort.”
“Poisoning!” Rebecca gasped. “Who would want to poison children?”
“Food poisoning,” he corrected her, working to soothe her with his voice. “Something they all ate. Something that all of the sick children ate in common. Did you have snacks for them at the pond? Something that could have been left in the sun to spoil?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Just give them a peppermint and let them sleep it off,” Angus spoke from his seat in the corner. He popped a peppermint in his mouth to prove his point.
Thomas shifted, letting go of Rebecca’s hands, to face the man. “If it’s bad enough, they may need more than a simple home remedy.”
“What do they need? Tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” Rebecca said.
“Rest,” Thomas answered. “Plenty of fresh water. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” He stood and walked over to Angus. “You don’t look well either, sir. May I examine you?”
Angus eyed him warily for a moment. He glanced to his daughter and must have seen something encouraging there. He sighed and nodded.
Thomas ran through the same checks that he had performed on the girls. Angus too had a fever but no swollen glands.
“Your stomach has been bothering you?” he asked.
“Just a touch,” Angus answered. “I’ve had worse.”
“Have you been anywhere near the pond?” It was only fair to keep Dr. Greene’s theory in consideration.
“Nope,” Angus said.
“Have you eaten anything unusual lately? Changed your habits at all?”
“No. Well, Rebecca’s been cooking since she and the kids moved in. She’s a mighty fine cook though. You want a peppermint?”
Angus produced a small bag of sweets from his pocket and offered one.
“Thanks.” Thomas took one of the small red and white treats and turned it over in his hand before putting it in his pocket. “I’ll save it for later. Right now I have to see if I can visit some of the other children who are ill, although if they’re Dr. Greene’s patients, I’m not so sure I’ll be allowed in.”
Rebecca stood. “I…I could come with you.” She bit her lip and looked down at her two children, worry etched in her brow. “Papa, could you stay with them?”
“Certainly, my dear. And your mother will be home soon.” Angus smiled at her with deep affection and a hint of sympathy.
“If I come with you to the Frye’s place, at least, then maybe they’ll let you check on Claire,” she explained as she crossed the room to him, wringing her hands. “Millie Frye and I are friends.”
“Thank you.” Thomas smiled to put her at ease. “I’m sure that will help.”
“I’ll be back soon,” she told Angus and the sleeping girls before leading him out of the room and down the stairs.
The late afternoon sun filled the streets of Cold Springs with warm colors and long shadows. Thomas offered his arm to Rebecca once they had stepped away from the McGee’s front door. She looked at his arm, glanced up into his eyes with a storm of emotions, and said, “I…I couldn’t.”
“No?” Her refusal shot disappointment through him and he lowered his arm.
She winced and avoided his gaze as they started up the street. “People would think we were courting,” she murmured.
“And you wouldn’t want that?” he asked softly. It wasn’t a half bad idea, as far as he was concerned.
She bit her lip and dragged her eyes up to meet his. “I’m a divorced woman, Thomas.”
A lash of bitter sweetness struck his heart. “I’m an Indian doctor. Neither of us are what you might call the pride of Cold Springs.”
His assessment had the opposite effect than he’d hoped.
“No, I mean, I’ve…I’ve just gotten my life back after fifteen years of prison,” she whispered as though it was something to be ashamed of. “I’m not ready to have people staring and gossiping and lumping me together with anyone other than my children. My children are my first priority.”
She didn’t sound as happy about it as her words would suggest. In fact, a gloomy pall settled over her. Everything within Thomas wanted to lift her out of that pall—her and her children—but for now that door was closed.
He cleared his throat and accepted what was in front of him.
“I need to speak to the parents of all of the children who have fallen ill,” he made conversation to prevent a silence he didn’t want between them. “Once we find the connecting factor, it will be easier to make a definitive diagnosis.”
Rebecca nodded. She didn’t add anything else. Worry still covered her.
Thomas tried another tactic. “When I was at school, there was an outbreak of influenza in the dormitories. Dozens of us were sick, so many that the staff could hardly do anything about it.”
“Oh?” she asked, her voice shaking.
He nodded. “I remember lying in bed feeling as if I might die. The boy in the bed next to mine did die.”
“Oh dear! That’s…that’s horrifying!” There was genuine emotion in her voice, concern for a child she had never met, gone long ago, mingled with panic for her own children. His chest was
tight with fondness for her.
“I was eight,” he went on to soothe her fears. “I had been pulled away from my family and my tribe two years before that. I couldn’t think of anything but finding Singing Bird—that is, Lily, my sister. They had already given me my name, Seeks For Her. But as I lay there, I spoke to Death. I told him that I was brave, I would not fear him. I told him that I would fight him, but if I lost, I would follow him willingly with my head held high.”
Rebecca watched him with wide eyes as they turned the corner into a row of older houses. “What did Death say to that?”
He grinned and stood a little straighter. “Death said that he wasn’t ready to face me. He said I was too strong, too brave, and that he would have to wait until I was old and feeble to take me away.”
“Death actually said that to you?”
He couldn’t tell if she believed his words or not.
“Yes.” He nodded. “Death also told me that I had magic.”
“Oh?” A flush played across her skin.
“He said that I would have been a good healer if I had stayed with my people because of this magic, but because I was with the white man I could learn their healing and be a great doctor. He said that he would have so much trouble taking away the people I touched with my healing that it wouldn’t be worth his time to come for them.”
He turned to Rebecca, watching the fascination that melted her worry and lit her eyes. She was beautiful in the warm summer sunlight with flecks of gold in her hair.
“Death will stay far away from your girls. I will make certain of it.”
She paused and stared at him. “You know, I do believe you’re right.” A cautious smile touched her lips.
With the late sun bathing her in gold, he wanted to touch her lips as well. He stopped walking, glancing for a moment at the houses lining the street before facing her. She watched him with a thousand thoughts trapped behind her eyes. He would have run to the ends of the earth to know what those thoughts were. Her silence was a riddle he needed to solve, her sweetness was a flavor he needed to taste. If he could only convince her that he meant her no harm, had no wish to imprison her for another fifteen years, but to fill her life with joy….
