Where Heaven Begins

by Rosanne Bittner

  He rubbed his forehead, then ran a hand through thinning hair. “Well, my own wife would be real upset if I sent you back into the streets without shelter.” He leaned closer. “Don’t tell anybody, but I can let you stay in a storeroom in the back. I can set up a cot in there, and there’s a wash bowl and pitcher, and a privy just outside the back door. It’s the best I can do. I’d have to charge you fifty cents.”

  Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. “That will do fine!” It was a relief to actually find a kind man who was truly concerned about her well-being. His smile was warm and genuine. Yes, God was looking out for her after all!

  She dug into her handbag for some of the loose change and smaller bills she kept in it and dug out the required fee. “As far as I know it will only be one night, but is it all right if I let you know tomorrow if I find I need a second night’s stay?”

  “Sure thing. Fact is, by then one of my roomers might leave and you can have his room.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  The clerk turned the registration book around so she could sign it. “Awfully wild and raw place for a nice lady like yourself,” he told her as she dipped the pen into an inkwell and signed her name.

  “A person just does what she has to do sometimes, Mr.—Oh, what is your name?”

  “Michael Wheeler, ma’am. Wife and I came here last summer from Seattle—figured we’d make more money putting people up than looking for gold, so we sold everything and came here to build this hotel. Don’t serve any food, I’m afraid. You’ll have to go out for that. I can bring you an extra pitcher of water for drinking, though.”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  Wheeler closed the book and signaled for her to follow him. He led her to a room behind his office, where stacks of blankets and pillows and towels were stored, as well as a few brooms, crates of soap bars, several oil lamps, a box of ink jars, several books and ledgers and a few extra bowls and pitchers.

  “The wife and I live in an apartment in back of the second-floor rooms,” the man told her. “Right now we only have ten rooms, but we plan to add on a third floor and expand the first two.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re doing so well,” Elizabeth told him.

  “There’s a bolt lock right here on your side of the doorway, and the back door there, it has one, too, so once you’re down for the night, just slip both locks closed and you’ll be plenty safe. Me or the wife might end up knocking on the door to get something, but that almost never happens once everybody is bedded down for the night. Trouble is, this is a town that never sleeps, if you know what I mean, so you’re better off back here anyway. You won’t hear the noise from the streets near as bad back here.”

  “Thank you so much. You’re very kind. Perhaps in the morning you can advise me on what things I’ll need to journey to Dawson.”

  The man’s smile faded. “Dawson? You’re headed for Dawson?” He spoke the words as though she was insane.

  “Yes.” She remembered the story she’d told him about her brother. “As soon as my brother arrives, we’ll go together. I just thought I’d get a head start on supplies.”

  Wheeler shook his head. “Ma’am, brother or not, I wouldn’t advise you to head for Dawson till next spring. I mean, I know a lot of the new arrivals here are headed that way, but they’re men and they’re determined to find gold. Most of them are going to regret leaving this late in the year. But…I mean…men can take care of themselves, you know? And maybe your brother can, too, but he ought not to take you along. You should wait and leave next spring. It’s a rough trip, miss, a real rough trip. A lot of the men headed there will never make it.”

  His words dashed the excitement and affirmation she’d allowed to build within her spirit. Her chest tightened with trepidation. “Nevertheless,” she replied, “it’s important that I…I mean we…go this year. But thank you for the warning. I’m sure we’ll be all right. God is with us, Mr. Wheeler.”

  He shook his head. “Well, I sure hope so, ma’am. I sure hope so.” He shook his head again. “I’ll go rummage up a cot for you. There’s an extra one in one of the rooms.”

  Wheeler nodded to her and left, closing the door behind him. Elizabeth drew a deep breath against the sudden urge to cry. She sat down in a wooden chair and put her head in her hands. “Dear Lord, help me to be strong,” she prayed. “Show me the way.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:…I was sick, and ye visited me.

  —St. Matthew 25:35 & 36

  Mr. Wheeler was right. Skagway never slept. Even though Elizabeth was at the back of the hotel, she could still hear talking and laughing, sometimes a scream, even gunfire a time or two. More conversation with the hotel’s owner enlightened her to the fact that the crowds of men in town were a grand mixture of those planning to head for Dawson and many more who had started the journey and turned back because of the hardships. There were also those who had already been to Dawson and been disappointed to find most good claims had already been laid. And many, like Mr. Wheeler himself, had come to Skagway with the intention of staying put and making their money off the other groups of people. These included the men who owned the saloons and other business establishments, and those who owned the steamers that brought men here and would take many of those same men, and the gold, back to the States.

  Tired as she was, Elizabeth lay awake wondering if indeed she should wait until spring to make for Dawson. But what in the world would she do over the winter to survive? Perhaps she could find some kind of work here in Skagway, but this was such a wild town, and she was already tired of being so alone and unsure.

  She finally fell into a fitful sleep filled with crazy dreams, the purgatory between asleep and awake. She dreamed that the whole town of Skagway was under water, and she was trying to swim to the top of the hotel. Her mother stood near the chimney, smiling at her. Then Peter floated by in a rowboat that had smokestacks on it, but he didn’t stop to pick her up. Collette and her friends sat on the roof of a nearby building laughing at her. One man swam past her and stole her hat. She tried to swim after him, but he was too fast for her. Reverend Selby threw a Bible at her, and she clung to it to stay afloat.

  Finally she floated past some steps where a man stood. It was Clint Brady. He smiled and reached for her, and she grabbed his strong arms. He pulled her up, but then he started sneezing and dropped her. Then both of them began coughing, and she began drowning. She cried out for help. Help. Help.

  “Help,” she murmured in her sleep. In the dream she was screaming the word. She jumped awake, only half aware at first that she’d been trying to cry out in her sleep. She sat up and shook her head, deciding that if she went right back to sleep her brain would return to the silly but stressful dream. Even awake she could swear she still heard Clint coughing.

  She stood up, running a hand through her hair and shaking it out, realizing only then that she was hearing a man cough. It was a terrible, deep cough, and it came from not far outside her door. Then came the sneezing. It all sounded familiar.

  “Clint?” she said softly. It couldn’t be. She went to the door that divided the store room from the lobby, then slid the bolt, cracking the door open slightly to peek out. If someone was out there, she didn’t want them to see her in her flannel nightgown.

  There came the coughing again. A man lay in a bedroll behind the clerk’s desk, apparently having been allowed to sleep there for the night. The hotel did not yet have electricity, and by the soft light of a lantern Elizabeth could see he was a big man. Was it Clint? Whoever it was, he sounded very sick. Surely the Lord would want her to see if there was anything she could do for him. He shouldn’t be sleeping on a hard, drafty floor.

  She quickly turned and pulled on a flannel robe, tying it tightly. She walked into the lobby, looking around to see that no one was there but the sick man. She walked noiselessly over to him and leaned closer.
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  “Clint!” she said in a half whisper. His breathing was horribly rattled.

  “Liz…beth?” he murmured. Immediately he started coughing again, a cough that made him sit up and lean over. He held his chest and gasped for breath.

  Elizabeth dared to reach out and touch his face. “Dear Lord, you’re burning up! Clint, you’re a terribly sick man! Come into the back room and lie down on my cot. You shouldn’t be out here on the floor.”

  “No…rooms…” he choked out.

  “I know. That’s why I’m in the storeroom. Please, Clint, let me help you back there. I’ll try to find a doctor for you.”

  “Be…okay…” He coughed again, and his whole body trembled. “Don’t want to…put you out.”

  “After what you did for me? And I wasn’t even sick! You will not lie out here like this! Please, Clint, come to the back room. It’s warmer in there. There is a little wood-burning stove in there that Mr. Wheeler let me use. I’ll see if I can find a teakettle back there and heat some water on it. And I’ll wake up Mr. Wheeler and see if his wife can lend me some tea. Maybe Mr. Wheeler can send for a doctor.”

  “No. I can’t…let you…” He coughed again. “Never…felt like this…in my life.”

  “And you are going to let me help you, whether you like it or not! If you don’t come lie down on my cot I’ll find some men to come and drag you in there! I swear it!”

  Clint groaned again, clinging to his chest as he managed to reach up with his other hand and grab hold of the desk top to pull himself up. Elizabeth put her arm about his waist and let him lean on her. She led him into the back room and ordered him onto her cot, which he seemed to take gladly. She helped him remove his boots and jacket, and he then curled onto the cot, the raspy, deep cough consuming him again as she threw her blankets over him, even though he was still fully dressed.

  “Don’t you get up from here,” she ordered, tucking blankets around his neck. “I’m going for that tea and a doctor!” His condition frightened her. She’d never seen anyone so sick, other than when her mother had died of the ugly cancer. This was different. She knew that sometimes people died from pneumonia, and surely that’s what poor Clint suffered from.

  That’s when it struck her that she’d be absolutely devastated if he did die. She still hardly knew the man, and yet the thought of him being dead tore at her heart. She blinked back tears of distress, not really sure what to do to help him, not sure whether there was a decent doctor in Skagway…realizing that if Clint died, she would have failed to help him find God again before his death. He would die so terribly lonely, and an unsaved man!

  Chapter Fourteen

  Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distresses.

  —Psalms 107:19

  Elizabeth managed to dress quickly behind a shelf of supplies so Clint could not see her, although he seemed in no shape even to be aware of what was happening around him. She’d managed to wake the Wheelers in their upstairs apartment. Mrs. Wheeler loaned her some tea and a strainer, and Mr. Wheeler promised to find a doctor. However, it was now dawn, and still no doctor had arrived.

  She finished buttoning her dress, leaving off most of her slips. Quickly she pulled her hair back and twisted it into a bun, shoving hairpins into it. On stockinged feet she searched for her shoes. Before she could find them, someone knocked at the back door. She walked closer. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Michael Wheeler. I found a doctor,” came the reply.

  Elizabeth unbolted the door and Wheeler walked in with another man who appeared to be in his fifties, with thinning hair that needed cutting, a scraggly gray beard and a mustache badly in need of a trim. He’d pulled on a woolen jacket and pants, but he wore no shirt. Rather, the top half of his long johns showed under his jacket. Elizabeth was relieved to see that he’d apparently realized the seriousness of Clint’s situation and had hurriedly dressed, however, he certainly did not fit her idea of an educated physician.

  “Doc Williams,” the man mumbled as he hurried over to kneel beside the cot, where Clint still lay curled up.

  “He coughed so hard that he threw up blood,” Elizabeth told the man. She suspected Clint was not even aware of it. “I’m afraid I soiled one of your towels cleaning things up,” she explained to Wheeler. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the man replied.

  Again Elizabeth silently thanked God that she’d found at least one person with a bit of compassion in this wild town.

  “I tried to get him to drink some tea,” she told the doctor, “but he’s so far gone I couldn’t even get him awake enough to take any. He’s burning up, Doctor Williams, and when he threw up blood like that—”

  The doctor waved her off, pulling back the covers and forcing Clint onto his back. Clint flopped over as though half dead. Doctor Williams ripped open his shirt and the top half of his long johns without even stopping to unbutton anything first, then placed a stethoscope to Clint’s chest. He moved it to his ribs, then managed to roll him forward so he could move the stethoscope to Clint’s back. After a moment he pulled the stethoscope from his ears and took Clint’s pulse. Then he sighed and rose, facing Elizabeth and Wheeler.

  “It’s pneumonia, all right.”

  Elizabeth gasped with dread. “What can we do?”

  Williams shook his head. “Not much, really. I’ve got some horse liniment you can heat up and rub on his chest, and if you keep a cool towel on his head—”

  “Horse liniment?” Elizabeth interrupted.

  “Yes, ma’am. Generally what works for a horse with pneumonia will work for a man with pneumonia, if it’s God’s will that he lives.”

  Elizabeth looked at Wheeler with a frown. Wheeler rubbed at the back of his neck. “He, uh, he’s a horse doctor. Best thing I could find under the circumstances. Most doctors who come through here are on their way to Dawson. A real doctor is supposed to be on his way here to stay, but he hasn’t made it yet.”

  Elizabeth looked back at the doctor, confused as to whether she should be grateful or angry. “A horse doctor?” she repeated.

  “Ma’am, I’ve took care of humans lots of times. I’ve pulled teeth and delivered babies and even took out bullets a time or two. A horse has a heart and lungs and organs and blood and guts same as a man. Like I said, what works for pneumonia on a critter can sometimes work for a man, too.” He reached inside his black bag and took out a fair-sized brown bottle. “This here stuff smells mostly like lemon, but it has a stink to it, too. Fact is, it’s just possible the smell alone will rouse him and make him want to get better just so he can wash the stuff off. I guarantee it’ll sink through and break up all that congestion inside of him so he can get rid of it, but he’ll do a lot more coughin’ first. This stuff will help bring down the fever, too. That’s the most important thing.”

  Elizabeth was still trying to deal with the fact that a horse doctor was treating a man who was close to death.

  “You take this here liniment and warm the bottle in hot water, then rub it all over his chest and a little on his back if you can manage to do that. Then keep him covered good and keep cold wet towels on his forehead to help bring down the fever. If God’s of a mind to let him live, then he should be feelin’ a lot better within about twenty-four hours.”

  Elizabeth blinked. Rub the liniment on his bare chest? “I…I wouldn’t feel right touching his chest. Can’t you do it?”

  Williams frowned. “Well, he’s your husband, ain’t he?”

  Elizabeth hesitated. She didn’t want to lie, but she also realized how bad it might look if she didn’t. She glanced at Wheeler. “Mr. Wheeler, I met this man on the ship coming here. He’s just a friend because he helped me out a couple of times. I only brought him in here because I could see how sick he was and I felt responsible. I fell off the ship and he dived in after me. I fear his condition is worse because of going into that cold water to help me. I found him out in the lobby and gave him my cot to get him
off the drafty floor. I can’t…I mean, I shouldn’t stay in here alone nursing him. How would it look? Isn’t there someone who could help?”

  Wheeler looked at Williams, who shook his head. “You’re lucky I came over here at all,” the doctor told her. “I’m leavin’ in an hour or so for Dawson myself, so don’t count on me.” He walked up to Elizabeth and handed her the liniment. “Lady, if the man saved you from drownin’, then the least you can do is rub some liniment on his chest and do whatever else you need to do to help him live.” He headed for the back door. “Oh, and keep him a bit elevated,” he added, “else his lungs could fill up and drown him.”

  “But—”

  Williams turned to face her with a look that told her he’d done all he could do.

  “How much do I owe you?” she asked.

  “Nothin’.”

  The man turned and left, and Elizabeth faced Mr. Wheeler with questioning eyes.

  Wheeler sighed and glanced at Clint, then back to Elizabeth. “Ma’am, most folks in this town are either coming back from somewhere or going somewhere or running businesses. I wouldn’t know who to tell you to go to for help, and I kind of hate to have my wife help on account of she tends to take chest colds easy anyway and at her age—”

  “I understand,” Elizabeth told him. “I guess I’ll just…do what I have to do.”

  Clint fell into another round of pitiful coughing and groaning, and Wheeler looked anxious to leave. “I’d help you myself, but if I get too close I could maybe somehow take something home to the wife, you know?”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes, hiding her exasperation. “I understand. Thank you so much for going out in the dark and trying to find a doctor. That was very kind of you. I hope you don’t mind letting me…us…use the room for however long it takes for Mr. Brady to feel better.”