She looked at him without responding, and he leaned over and kissed her on the lips, feeling her soft lips respond willingly.
“What’s all that noise over there?” Ari said suddenly, with the worst timing Alec could imagine. He jumped, startled by the voice. He had forgotten Ari was with them. He looked at Natalie, who smiled a demure smile.
“We’ll be quiet, Ari,” she said. She leaned over and kissed him warmly, then laid back and closed her eyes. “Good night, Alec,” she said softly.
He laid there thinking about the words and the kiss and the future for a long time, until he finally fell asleep.
Chapter 8 – Leah in Walnut Creek
The next morning Alec woke last and found himself alone in the loft. The carriage door was open and sunlight was streaming in. He lay on his pallet of straw, satisfied for a few moments to enjoy the lack of rocks beneath him and the roof over him, then concluded that he should see where the others had gone.
The stack of dishes from their supper had disappeared from inside the door. He entered the courtyard and saw the kitchen door open. Alec headed that way hoping to find breakfast and his friends.
Inside the kitchen he saw Ari and Natalie seated on the floor in the corner, enjoying a warm breakfast that smelled wonderful. “Hello sleepyhead,” Natalie said with a grin.
“Is that Alec?” came the question from down the hall and in strolled Suellen, smiling.
“You’re the best doctor I’ve seen in Walnut Creek!” she exclaimed as she walked over to the stove and heaped a plateful of food for his breakfast. “I haven’t felt this good in the morning in I-don’t-know-how-long. You may look too young to know what you’re doing, but you made something right in that salve! Did you learn that from a college or live with a medicine man all your life?”
“It’s just a blessing from the Lord that I want to share with others,” Alec temporized, but as he said it he knew it was truer than anything else he could have said.
“Well, it’s a blessing all right! Are you training to be a priest then?” Suellen continued.
“No, that’s not my plan. I just would like to help folks here and then move on to our next town,” he said as he started to take bites of the breakfast food, the best meal he’d had in untold days.
“When will folks start to enter the shop today, Suellen?” Ari asked.
“We’ll start to see them in another half an hour or so. Today’s the last day to load a shipment going down river, so several folks will come in to send their goods along. We should see some goods come down the river from Riverside any day now as well, so folks may come into town expecting to find some supplies they need from there,” she added.
Alec looked at Natalie with widened eyes at the mention of the destroyed town, but didn’t say anything out loud.
“Where should Alec set up to offer his treatments to folks?” Ari continued. “If there are going to be lots of folks about, maybe he should be out on the front walk or just inside the window so folks can see him and come over easily.”
Suellen paused in thought. “Let’s put him inside, and hang a shingle outside to let folks know there’s medicine here, so they’ll come into the store.”
A few minutes later, his belly full of good food, and his pack of plants and remedies on his back, Alec was setting up a small table and chair in a hastily cleared corner of the store. Ari was talking to him. “I’ll go about town trying to hear what folks are saying, and directing some business your way as well. You do three things this morning: take good care of folks, listen carefully to what they talk about in case you can pick up any news about the area and our concerns, and charge reasonable prices. I’ll be back at midday, especially since you’ve healed our hostess into providing her best cooking for us!”
“What’s a fair price to charge?” Alec asked. He had no way to know what to expect from people for healing. As a healthy boy and a foundling, he’d seldom been to a medicine man himself and never was asked to pay.
“I think Natalie will stay here with you to assist and organize, and she can probably judge the business well enough to know what to charge each customer, can’t you Natalie?” Ari asked with a squinted eye on the girl, who returned the look with a tight grin.
“Good. Now just let Natalie know if something is very serious, or if it uses up some remedy you don’t have much of, and she’ll take care of the rest. Remember girl, we have to share the profits with Suellen, so charge separately for the care and the remedy, and we’ll just split the fees from the care,” he said and then the ingenaire was off down towards the river piers.
“Natalie, why did Ari tell you to charge the prices?” Alec asked his partner as they organized his materials.
“Probably because you don’t know anything about business, and so that you can seem only interested in the medicine part of this,” she replied briskly. After a slight hesitation she added, “Maybe because I saw more of the business-side of the caravan than you did,” but her words sounded like an excuse that she knew didn’t convince anyone, because she quickly went out the door to hang out the red cross sign that Suellen had painted for them.
“Suellen, will you tell folks about how your knees feel to help us get some business?” Natalie asked the storekeeper as she returned.
“Lord, yes I’ll tell them. They’ve all heard me talk for years about how much I ache, so they’ll think about you if they’ve got any pains of their own,” Suellen responded.
The morning started slowly as the first shoppers in town strolled past Suellen’s towards Trenor’s store. A few filtered in, looking at Alec’s table with mild curiosity. Soon though folks began to wander over to see the young doctor, and by mid-morning he was talking to, looking at and listening to people non-stop, as a line began to form out the front door of Suellen’s.
Alec found it easier and easier to slip into his state of vision to see the ailments of the people who came to him. Most were strains, twisted joints, allergies and headaches. After several people had been given some remedy and sent on their way, an old woman came to Alec’s table.
“My back and hips are sore,” she complained. Alec looked at her, and saw no ailments. He looked again and still saw nothing.
“Tell me when they ache,” he temporized, uncertain of what to do.
“All the time, night and day, especially when the rain comes out of the south,” she replied.
Alec looked at her again, and still saw nothing.
“Excuse me for a moment while I check with my friend here,” he asked the woman. “Natalie, can I talk to you for a moment?” he asked with a pleading tone.
The two of them walked to the back of the building. “There’s nothing wrong with her,” Alec said, “and I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re sure it’s nothing?” Natalie asked. “Nothing in her legs that might cause pain elsewhere?”
“I looked her over top to tip, and she’s in better shape that many folks who haven’t come to me.”
“Maybe she’s just lonely, or maybe she just wants attention,” Natalie suggested. “Can you give her something harmless and we’ll send her on her way?”
Alec looked at the spice pots on the kitchen wall. He reached into the pepper and other herbs, then mixed some of the grease from the morning’s bacon. “I’ll give her this salve. Don’t charge her much for it, okay?”
Together they walked back to the woman. “Look at how she bends her knees,” Alec told Natalie in an authoritative voice. “Take this salve dear and rub it into your hips tonight before going to bed. You should have little pain tomorrow morning.”
The next patient was also a woman. “Can I talk to you in private?” she asked. Alec looked at her midsection and saw the glowing inner growth that meant she was pregnant, though not yet showing. He rose, and together they walked back to the kitchen again, Suellen raising an eyebrow as they went by her. The woman was attractive, in her prime years with a good figure and long dark hair around a pretty face.
In the
kitchen Alec began before the woman could talk, “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said.
“I missed my last two periods. I’m pregnant, and I don’t want to be,” she said and trailed off.
Alec let the silence grow after that statement. He didn’t know what to say.
The woman was unnerved by his silence. “Here, do you need to examine me?” she asked beginning to raise her skirts.
“The young doctor needs to have me in here with him when he examines a patient,” said Natalie from behind him as she entered the room.
The woman dropped her skirts. “I told him I’m pregnant, but I don’t want to be,” the woman repeated in a quiet, husky voice.
Natalie stared at Alec’s eyes, and saw his agreement that the woman was pregnant and his repulsion by the suggestion that the pregnancy be ended.
“Why don’t you want to be pregnant?” Natalie asked while still looking at Alec, not certain yet how to say no.
“My husband’s been up river for several months. He’s due back on the next Riverside boat, and when he gets back he’ll know the baby isn’t his. He’ll kill me or throw me out or something terrible,” the woman said, and covered her face in her hands, losing her composure as she stated her fears.
“I’ll not do anything today. Let me think about your case and we’ll talk again tomorrow,” Alec told the woman. “Natalie, you walk her back out and I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Can you see yourself out?” Natalie asked the woman, who dropped her hands from her face, nodded yes before she quietly left the kitchen.
“Alec, what are you going to do for her tomorrow? You won’t kill the baby will you?” Natalie asked, coming close to him, their faces nearly touching as they looked in each other’s eyes.
“No. I hope I won’t have to do anything. I won’t harm the baby. What I think is that maybe her husband won’t come back from Riverside, if he was there when it was attacked,” he said softly. “But how horrible is that to give her hope by telling her that her husband is probably dead?”
After that unnerving situation, the rest of the morning’s patients were routine, though seeing so many drained Alec’s energy. Finally he said to Natalie, “This is the last one for a while. Let’s stop for lunch and then see how many we can talk to this afternoon.” He felt thoroughly worn out, as though he’d been laboring furiously.
The crowd grew restive when Natalie announced the end of visits, but murmured their assent when she said they’d see more in the afternoon.
As they sat in the kitchen Natalie said, “My belt is full of coins Alec! Even after we give Suellen her share we’ll have a tidy amount to take us down river.”
Suellen was still busy out front serving customers in her crowded store, and hadn’t come back to prepare the mid-day meal for them.
“I’m almost out of a couple ingredients I need, like silverbottom fern and chokeberry leaves, and I use those a lot for the headaches. I’m also almost out of shine stone and a couple of other things I need. Why don’t we quit early this afternoon and go out to try to find some more supplies up in the mountains?” Alec suggested.
“That sounds fine to me,” Natalie responded. “When Ari gets back we’ll see what he has to say. Maybe while you go hunting I can do some shopping for things I need.”
“What do you need?” Alec asked with mild curiosity.
“Girl things,” said Natalie in a manner that stopped that conversation.
The kitchen door opened with Ari’s arrival a moment later. “Suellen said to just have some bread and slice some pieces off the ham in the larder. She’s too busy to stop to serve herself, let alone feed us,” he announced.
As they sat out in the sunny back courtyard eating, Ari described all he had found. “There’s no word here of anything unusual up at Riverside, nor even any inkling of trouble in the mountains, except that a few regular prospectors who know their way around haven’t shown up recently, and the supplies from Riverside are late. Suellen’s knees have been talked about around town, and Trenor’s scowling at the business she’s drawing away from him. As long as we’re only here a couple of days, and make that known, I don’t think he’ll get so upset he does anything.”
“How much money did we make so far?” Ari asked, looking at Natalie.
She casually passed her belt purse over to the ingenaire, watching his face for a reaction. His hand dropped as he took the unexpected weight.
“You’ve been awfully shrewd apparently, or you’ve cut a few purses when folks weren’t watching,” he said, impressed by the wealth she had bargained for.
She ignored his sarcasm when she replied. “Alec says he’s almost out of some things, so he wants to go back out into the mountains later this afternoon to renew his supplies. And I am going to do a little shopping myself,” the dancer firmly declared.
Ari replied, “Alec, heal a few more folks, then Natalie and I will go down to the dock to look into berths on a boat, and, ‘yes, dear,’” in an aside to Natalie, “some shopping along the way. Alec, you go find the things you need for your supplies. If we make enough this afternoon, and the boats turn out right, we may be able to leave here for Goldenfields tomorrow afternoon.”
“Is Goldenfields a large city?” Alec asked.
“It’s large enough to have a healthy trading house,” Ari looked at Natalie, “a very strong and powerful duke, and it has river access to the powers that we need to contact,” Ari replied, standing up as the lunch break ended. “It’s actually the strongest, and perhaps best governed area in the Dominion. But it is a long ways off, and there’re few, if any, settlements on the plain between these mountains and Goldenfields.”
Alec went back to his table and worked a little after lunch before he began to run out of too many supplies to help most people. He stood up finally and announced to groans that his work was done for the day.
Shortly afterward, with disappointed crowds leaving Suellen’s store, Alec took a loaf of bread to eat and his empty supply sack and headed southeast out of town, while Ari and Natalie turned west and walked down the street towards the docks. Natalie seemed so pleased by the prospect of shopping that she barely said goodbye to Alec.
Half an hour later Alec was alone up in the mountains. He slowly began to find some of the more common plants he needed, but his supplies were still far below what he had brought into town the day before. He felt slightly put out at being so casually dismissed by Ari and Natalie as they looked forward to shopping in the town. Still, he decided he didn’t mind being back out in the mountains on a warm day without so many people around. He had started to feel oppressed by the constant crowd that had hovered around the store at Suellen’s.
He wandered further south of town, hoping to find some new supplies. A bog in a creek bed provided several good roots for fighting infections, and a patch of mushrooms gave him some new pain relievers he’d not had before.
After an hour of searching, Alec began to feel an uneasy sense of being followed. Through the thick trees and in the rugged terrain of the mountainside there was no easy way to see any other person, but he felt convinced of another presence nonetheless. His route had taken him generally parallel to the river, striding along the facing mountains that hemmed in the valley. He decided to slowly bend his course down the slope and back towards the town, hopefully turning his route so that he gained the advantage on whoever was out there.
The sun had moved well beyond its zenith, but still had hours to go before nightfall, while Alec took his time and gradually worked his way so that he was below whomever he was sure was out there. Further below him he saw a well-defined path, nearly a road in width, which followed the river. Once on it, he was sure he could surprise his shadow with a sprint back to town and win the race.
As Alec descended to the road he began to pick up speed and when he came to the path he began to run hard towards town. He knew with smug self-satisfaction that he had managed to outfox the follower, and only needed to speed along for as long as he could.
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“Doctor, please wait,” a voice called. Looking over his right shoulder, Alec saw a woman on the mountainside above him and now behind him. He stopped. The one thing Alec hadn’t expected was a woman. Because he could fathom no reason a woman would follow him, let alone plan him harm, he waited for the gray-cloaked figure to join him on the road. As she approached him along the path, moving with a reluctant step, Alec recognized her; the dark-haired woman who had asked him to end her pregnancy that morning. He looked around the hill again and saw no one else approaching.
“I followed you all afternoon, but I wasn’t brave enough to call until I was about to lose you,” she said in a quiet, hesitant voice as she reached his spot on the path. Alec sat on a large tree trunk, facing up towards the woman. “Another baby, another time, I’d love to have,” she said with genuine sorrow on her lovely face as she sat beside him. “But I can’t keep this baby. There is a man in town who says he can help me, but I know you’re a real doctor and I’d feel safer if you helped me. I’ll do anything you ask, give you anything you want if you do this for me,” she said looking him straight in the eye.
Alec couldn’t break the eye contact with her as his mind whirled around, wondering how to answer. “The only reason you don’t want the baby is because you’re afraid your husband will do something terrible, is that right?” he asked at last. She nodded. “If I can assure you that he won’t harm you, you’ll keep the baby, is that fair to say?” he followed up. She hesitantly nodded again.
“Can you make him believe this is his baby?” she asked with doubt showing in her face. She sat down on the large trunk next to him, her knee touching his.
Before he could answer, Alec saw movement behind her, and reached out, grabbed the woman and pulled her with him to the ground behind the tree trunk. “Stay still,” he hissed. “Don’t make a sound, don’t move.” He placed his mouth on her ear and whispered, “There is a patrol of lacertii coming towards us on the trail. We’ve got to stay still and let them pass by us.”
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