Healing Hearts

by Sarah M. Eden

  She set the eggs on the table. “How does the town feel about someone who sketches?”

  “Is that what your leather notebook is for?” He’d noticed it on the sideboard. She’d kept it with her the day before as well. It was the only thing she’d carried with her to the church the day of their aborted wedding.

  She sat. “I like to draw. I do it often. But if the town will think it a peculiarity in me, I’ll be circumspect.”

  He set a spoonful of eggs on her plate. “I don’t know what their opinion is of drawing. I can’t think of anyone in town with that interest.”

  “And what they might embrace in someone else, the town is likely to consider a failing in me.” She smiled at him, but not with amusement. “They must like you a great deal to have decided to hate me so quickly and so entirely.”

  Oh, the guilt of that all-too-accurate observation. “You’ll win them over. I’m certain of it.”

  “How?” She poked at her eggs with her fork, but showed no sign of intending to eat. “And I’m not being petulant. I will be of no help to you or this town if they think the worst of me.”

  He swallowed a bite of eggs. “I’ve been giving that some thought. Yesterday, you were a silent observer.” He’d insisted on it, like a peevish toddler. “Beginning today, you will be a nurse, involved in treatments and discussions. They’ll see that I want you to be part of this practice and that you’re competent.” He shot her a theatrically concerned look. “You are competent, aren’t you?”

  “It seems the Western Women’s Bureau didn’t provide you with quite enough information,” she said lightly.

  “Of the two of us,” he said, “I don’t think I am the one most likely to lodge that complaint.”

  She held back a smile, but her eyes lit with it. What a fascinating change in her. The moment of humor between them was promising. He’d far prefer to spend his days with someone he could laugh with now and then. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be a complete disaster after all.

  “I have a patient coming in today who broke his leg a while back,” Gideon said. “As much as I’d like to believe he’ll be co­operative, he has the unfortunate tendency to be a very wiggly, very wary six-year-old boy.”

  “Have you plaster bandaged it or taken the more traditional splint-and-bandage approach?” she asked.

  It took a moment for the shock of her question to settle. Not many people within the medical community were familiar with plaster bandaging; it was a relatively new approach to broken limbs and one not seen much outside of battlefield medicine.

  “Where did you learn about plaster bandaging?” he asked. “You can’t be old enough to have been a nurse during the War between the States.”

  “I worked in a hospital where the doctors were eager to learn and to try to improve their methods.” Her enthusiasm for that was tempered by wariness. “Which approach did you use on the boy’s leg?”

  “Splint and bandage,” he answered.

  She nodded in what looked like approval. “What would you like me to do?”

  “I’ll need your help if I’m to have any chance of getting a good look at the little terror’s leg. He isn’t a bad sort. He simply needs some reassurance and distraction. So, if you could prepare a song and dance, perhaps a dramatic recitation, that would be helpful.”

  “I don’t sing.” Her voice was calm as ever, but adamant.

  “You’re that terrible?” Somehow Gideon doubted it. “Or do you simply prefer not to?”

  “My voice could likely be considered a weapon.”

  He’d finished his breakfast. “So if you are ever invited to sing a solo in a town musicale, I should—”

  “Run, Doctor. Run for your very life.”

  This was his first real conversation with her and, he admitted, he was enjoying himself. She was sharp and witty. Her humor was subtle and well-hidden, but it was real just the same.

  A few minutes after Gideon and Miriam had finished their breakfast and set up the parlor for the day’s patients, Mrs. Fletcher, with little Rupert clutching her hand, arrived. The poor boy’s large eyes shimmered with unshed tears. His last visit had been a painful one, despite Gideon’s best efforts.

  “Mrs. Fletcher, Rupert, this is Miriam Bricks. She is a nurse and has come to work here.”

  Rupert eyed Miriam with blatant curiosity. “I saw you at the schoolhouse when you were running away.”

  The faint pink on Miriam’s cheeks turned to a deep, burning red, nearly matching her copper curls.

  “Hush, Rupert,” Mrs. Fletcher whispered.

  Gideon jumped in before Miriam could be further embarrassed. “Mrs. Fletcher, if you would please help Rupert up onto the table.” He turned to face his young patient. “And you, young man, give Nurse Bricks your best ‘howdy’ while I go wash my hands. She’s here to help, and you would do well to make yourself her friend.”

  Rupert turned slowly once more toward Miriam. Gideon watched the exchange surreptitiously as he moved toward the washbasin. He was interested to see how she dealt with frightened children.

  “Howdy.” Rupert’s greeting was very nearly a question.

  “Howdy to you as well,” she said.

  Rupert pointed at his bandaged leg. “I broke my bones.”

  “Dr. MacNamara told me that.”

  Mrs. Fletcher lifted her young son onto the table, all the while keeping a decidedly suspicious eye on Miriam.

  “Did you ever break your bones?” Rupert asked Miriam.

  “I once dislocated my shoulder.”

  The boy’s brow pulled low. “Is that like breaking it?”

  Miriam moved to the examination table, her demeanor as calm as ever. It seemed like such a contradiction: a redhead with so little fire. “It is more a matter of the bones pulling too far apart.”

  Rupert’s face twisted with disgust. “Did your arm fall off?”

  “Not all the way, but it hung wobbly at my side as if it had come off inside but not outside.”

  Slowly, inch by inch, Rupert’s expression transformed into interest, even excitement. “Did it blow around in the wind?”

  Miriam shook her head. “The doctor who fixed it put my arm in a sling before the wind could do anything. I suppose it might have waved about otherwise.”

  Rupert made a sound of absolute awe.

  Gideon breathed a sigh of relief. Miriam had expertly seized Rupert’s attention. She would do fine in this job. He dried off his hands and turned to the examination table.

  “Lay back, young man,” he instructed.

  “Did Nurse Bricks’s bones come apart inside?” Rupert asked the moment his head hit the small pillow.

  “Not completely.” Gideon had seen enough dislocations to know exactly what would have happened. “They pull away from each other like the stretchy part of a slingshot.”

  “Do they pop back together like a slingshot?” Rupert asked earnestly.

  “With a little help from a doctor,” Miriam said.

  Gideon carefully lifted Rupert’s splinted leg from the table. Rupert’s lip began to quiver. Mrs. Fletcher hurried closer, but Gideon waved her back. He met Miriam’s eyes and gave a subtle nod, hoping she would know what he wanted her to do.

  She set her hand on Rupert’s. The boy wrapped his fingers around hers. Gideon slowly unwound the bandaging on Rupert’s leg.

  Rupert kept his eyes on Miriam. “Did blood come out when your bones pulled apart?” What a sordid bit of questioning, but so perfectly appropriate for a boy his age.

  “Yes, but not because of the bones.”

  “Why, then?” Rupert’s eyes were trained on her, fascinated.

  Gideon quickly worked at the bandaging. The task was best done while the child was distracted.

  “I hurt my shoulder in a fall. That fall also cut my head. The blood poured out everywhere from t
hat wound. Down my face. All over my hair.”

  Mrs. Fletcher gasped quietly, pressing a hand to her heart. It was likely more graphic than she would have preferred, but Miriam had taken Rupert’s measure straight off. The boy enjoyed hearing the ghastly details, provided they didn’t apply to him personally.

  “Were you scared?” His little voice broke. No doubt it was no longer only her injury he was thinking of.

  Miriam kept her focus on him. “A little. Falling can be a frightening thing.”

  “I bet I wasn’t as scared as you,” Rupert said.

  Gideon quickly covered a laugh with a cough, but didn’t manage to smother his grin.

  “You must be very courageous,” Miriam said to Rupert, “because I was quite scared.”

  Rupert’s brow drew in. “Well, I didn’t have blood coming out of my face. Maybe that’s why you were so scared.”

  “You may be right.”

  A bit of the bandaging stuck, and Gideon had to tug harder than before. Rupert’s brow wrinkled with concern and what looked like a bit of pain. Perhaps the limb was still more tender than Gideon had expected.

  Miriam squeezed Rupert’s hand. “You are being very brave, young man. I fussed and fussed when the doctor put my bones back.”

  Rupert didn’t answer. Very real worry clouded every inch of his face.

  Gideon pulled back the last layer of bandaging. The smell was unmistakable: gangrene. What in heaven’s name had happened?

  Rupert held tight to Miriam’s hand. “Are my bones pulled out?” he whispered anxiously.

  “Nothing appears to be missing or dangling about,” she said. “What is your expert opinion, Doctor?”

  He wasn’t about to tell the boy his leg was rotting. “At first glance, I would say Rupert was good about staying off his leg as he was told.”

  “I’m no blockhead,” the boy insisted.

  “I have a feeling, Rupert, you are smarter than all of us,” Miriam said.

  Rupert grinned up at her, hardly even noticing that Gideon was holding his leg, feeling the bones. The break appeared to have healed, which was reassuring. The gangrenous sore, though, was worrisome.

  “How did you break your leg?” Miriam asked.

  “I falled out of a tree,” he answered. “I like to climb trees. I’m almost as good as Andrew.”

  Gideon leaned closer to Rupert’s leg.

  “Is there anything in particular that makes a tree good for climbing?” Miriam asked Rupert.

  “Oh, sure.”

  Rupert launched into a very detailed account of climbing trees, pausing now and then with a wince when Gideon’s prodding drew close to the sore. Miriam nodded at all the right moments in the boy’s account, but much of her attention was on his leg.

  “How long ago did the sheep’s wool come out of the splinting?” Gideon asked Mrs. Fletcher in a low whisper.

  “I don’t remember exactly,” she said with a shrug. “Everything else seemed to stay in place, so we didn’t fret over it.”

  “I did tell you that it needed to be there, did I not?” He knew he had. He was certain of it. This was precisely the reason he’d been specific with his instructions.

  “Is something wrong, Doctor?” Mrs. Fletcher’s voice wavered. She wrung her hands, her mouth pulled in a tight line.

  Something was most decidedly wrong. He needed to help Rupert, but Mrs. Fletcher wouldn’t do well if she had to watch.

  “I need you to go across the street and ask Mrs. Wilhite for a length of her puce ribbon.”

  Rupert was still rattling off information about trees. Miriam was likely the only one paying him any heed, and even she wasn’t listening closely.

  “I must insist, Mrs. Fletcher,” Gideon added in a firm tone. “Give your boy a hug first, though. I think he’d appreciate it.”

  As Mrs. Fletcher stood by her son and whispered something to him, Miriam moved to stand by Gideon, a step removed from their small patient.

  “I know that smell,” she said.

  He pushed out a tight breath. He’d assumed the hardest part of today’s visit would have been keeping Rupert still. Things were far more complicated than that.

  “The splinting rubbed against the side of his leg. Without the wool to act as buffer, it left a sore. That sore stayed warm and moist because of the wrapping, and was continually rubbed open by the splinting.”

  “How extensive is the rot?”

  “It doesn’t appear to be widespread, which is a relief.”

  “And the puce ribbon?”

  “Anytime I send someone to Mrs. Wilhite asking for puce ribbon, she knows to keep him or her there until I send word.” The system worked brilliantly. “In this case, a distraught mother who will likely fall to pieces when I start cleaning out the wound in her son’s leg.”

  “A wise decision,” she said. “How much tissue will you have to remove?”

  “I won’t know for certain until I begin cleaning.” He took a deep, slow breath. He couldn’t allow his worry to cloud his judgment. “Have you assisted in surgeries?”

  “I have.” Miriam looked back at the little boy. “You do intend to use ether, don’t you? I have seen too many patients endure excruciating operations without any effort to relieve their suffering.”

  She’d worked for a doctor who made no efforts at pain relief during surgery? Gideon felt ill at the thought. “I will do everything possible to ensure his comfort.”

  She nodded with palpable relief. “I’d best wash up. I know that is a requirement of yours.”

  “Perhaps we’ll get along better than everyone is predicting.” The moment he said it, he realized how unintentionally accusatory it sounded. Her suddenly closed-off expression told him she had heard the complaint hidden in his words. “Miriam—”

  “We should get to work.” She turned back to Rupert, effectively ending Gideon’s attempts to explain that he’d been attempting humor.

  Mrs. Fletcher left as requested. Rupert’s pale features indicated that he knew something was wrong. Gideon did his best to appear reassuring, while still working to get the information he needed.

  “Has your leg been hurting up by your knee? Now, no fibs, young man.”

  “Uh-huh,” Rupert admitted.

  Gideon leaned his elbows on the examination table, his hands clasped. The posture put him more on level with his small patient, something he hoped would ease the boy’s worries. “Why didn’t you tell me or your ma or pa that it’d begun hurting?”

  “I didn’t want you moving my bones again.” Tears started from his eyes.

  “Listen, son.” Gideon took hold of the boy’s hands. “You and I are going to be acquainted for a lot of years. I need you to tell me if you’re ever hurt, ill, curious about something, or afraid.” He met and held Rupert’s gaze. “I give you my word that I will never cause you pain if I can at all help it. My solemn vow, Rupert. Have I ever given you reason not to believe my solemn vow?”

  Rupert gave it very real thought. “No, Doc.”

  “I know visiting with me isn’t always a pleasant experience, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I can’t help you if you don’t come see me.”

  “I will.”

  “Even if you’re scared?” Gideon pressed.

  “Even if I’m scared.”

  “And if I’m not here, will you talk to Nurse Bricks?”

  “I will.”

  Miriam returned to her stool, hands newly washed. “I am ready when you are, Dr. MacNamara.”

  “Make yourself comfortable, Rupert,” Gideon said. “You are going to take a nap.”

  “I don’t like naps,” Rupert muttered.

  “Well, I don’t like toast, but I ate some this morning,” Miriam said, “because the doctor said I should.”

  “I think Nurse Bricks is a troublemaker,
” Gideon said. “What do you think, Rupert?”

  He smiled shyly. “I like her.”

  “And I like you, Rupert,” Miriam said.

  The boy’s expression turned earnest. “Promise not to leave while I’m sleeping?” he pleaded with her.

  “You are not the first person to ask me that, Rupert. And I will tell you this, I never left any of them. Not a single one.”

  Chapter 6

  Miriam scrubbed at the examination table for all she was worth. Though she wasn’t convinced that Gideon’s strict adherence to the theoretical belief that cleaning hands and linens and surfaces to within an inch of their lives would truly prevent infection, if there was any truth to those theories, it was worth the effort. Still, her arms and back ached, and she wasn’t at all sure she’d recover from the eye-wateringly strong odor of his chosen soap.

  The morning had already gone better for her than the entire previous day had. Little Rupert had declared that he liked her. She had shown herself competent and capable. And Gideon was sticking to his intention to show the town that he trusted her and wished her to be there. She wasn’t certain he actually felt that way, but he was doing a fine job of giving that impression.

  The front door squeaked open. Gideon’s practice was a busy one.

  The steps that entered the parlor were soft, but not hesitant. Before Miriam could sneak even the briefest glimpse, the new arrival spoke, a woman, one whose voice she didn’t recognize.

  “You are Miriam Bricks?”

  “I am.” She looked up, and anything else she might have said died on her lips.

  The new arrival, likely not much older than she was, wore a badge pinned to her flower-print dress and a gun slung low on her hips. Her gun belt boasted a seemingly endless supply of bullets.

  “I had expected you to be Miriam MacNamara by the time I met you.” She eyed Miriam with unmistakable disdain.

  Her lack of a name change was a sore spot for the entire town. She had spent too many years being punished for things that weren’t her fault, so it somehow seemed fitting that the pattern was going to continue.

  “I hadn’t expected my name to be anything other than what it is.” Miriam spoke firmly. “But Gideon has hired me as a nurse, so what can I do for you? You don’t appear ill or injured.”