“Wouldn’t hurt to keep our eye on these fellows,” Clint said. “Anyone who looks crosswise at our Miss Alice will have all of us to tangle with.”
“Agreed,” murmured Gideon as he blew out the lamp.
Elijah’s last waking thoughts were thankful ones. He was glad that his brothers were willing to help him watch out for Alice Hawthorne. He was blessed to have two solid, decent brothers who believed in protecting folks like Alice against those who would take advantage of them. Surely those character traits meant that, in time, they would return to the faith they’d been taught at their father’s knee.
Chapter Six
It seemed to Alice, sitting in chapel the next morning, that most of the prayer requests that day had to do with various illnesses and injuries. And something Elijah said in his prayer about using one’s talents in the Lord’s service had her wanting to speak to him afterward.
She waited until nearly everyone else had left, passing the time by chatting with the talkative Ferguson sisters—or rather, Alice murmured “Hmm” and “I see” while they chattered. Then she approached Elijah.
She smiled as she held up her hands. “All right, I surrender, Reverend Thornton,” she said, using his formal title since there were still a few others around. “You’re right. I can see there is a continuing need for someone with medical training here. I’ll do it until the Land Rush.”
Elijah’s smile lit up his serious face and warmed her inside. “Bless you, Miss Alice,” he said, and took her hand between both of his. “You will be rewarded in Heaven, I know.”
His hands felt so warm, as warm as the approval she saw in his eyes. “I’d be perfectly willing to have those who need care to come to my tent,” she went on, “but some of them might not feel up to it or might have trouble finding me. What do you suggest?”
“Why don’t we team up, Miss Alice? I’ve been visiting those I hear about who are ill or needing prayer, mostly in the evenings—unless they need me immediately, of course. Or if no one has made a request, I just walk around and talk to folks who are sitting by their tents or wagons. Why don’t we go together?”
“Like making rounds in the hospital,” she said, remembering the times she’d gone to the wards with the physicians, noting their orders for the patients.
“Exactly. I could pray with them while you treat them.”
Her heart lightened as she smiled up at him. She felt strong and full of purpose. Let’s go together, he’d said. Was it wrong that the words made her think of feelings she’d resolved to abandon in favor of independence?
“Shall we begin tonight, then?” he suggested. “I’ll meet you after supper at your tent.”
“Better yet, why don’t you and your brothers come for an early supper? I’d intended to make stew yesterday, before you so kindly treated me to supper at Mrs. Murphy’s. It’ll just be a simple meal, but you’re all more than welcome. Then we’ll make our rounds.”
* * *
The Thorntons brought more than their appetites when they came to supper. Gideon came leading a black horse whose rump was a blanket of white with black spots—an Appaloosa. When he placed the mare’s lead rope in Alice’s hand, he said, “I think she’ll suit your needs, come the twenty-second, Miss Alice. I’ve tried her, and she’s fast and agile. She can turn on a dime, and she has nice manners. I believe she’d be perfect for you for the Land Rush.”
Alice felt her jaw drop. “Oh, she’s beautiful!” she exclaimed, going to the mare and stroking her neck, and then her soft, velvety muzzle when the horse turned to snuffle her new mistress. “An Indian pony! Where did you get her? How much do I owe you? What’s her name?”
The Thornton brothers laughed at the spate of questions. “I got her from Lars Brinkerhoff, a Danish fellow we’ve met.”
“I’ve met him, too,” she told him. “He and his sister, Katrine, were at the chapel this morning. He didn’t mention the mare, though. He must not have wanted to spoil the surprise.”
Gideon gave her a half smile and went on. “Lars lived with the Cheyenne for a time, and this mare was one of the string of ponies the Indians gave him when he left. He said you could have her for fifty dollars, and that includes a saddle and bridle, but you don’t need to pay him until you decide she’s the right horse for you. And he said her name, but it’s some Cheyenne word, unpronounceable—at least to me—so I reckon you can give her a new name, Miss Alice.”
Still stroking the mare and appreciating the kindness in her eyes, Alice said, “Then I’ll call her Cheyenne. Thank you, Gideon.”
The mare nickered as if she approved.
“You can leave her with our horses until the Land Rush, if you like,” Elijah said. “Shall we ride out to the prairie tomorrow afternoon and try out her paces?”
She nodded, happy at the prospect of an afternoon of riding in Elijah’s company. He was probably just being gentlemanly in offering to accompany her, she told herself, since it wouldn’t be wise to go riding away from the tent city over unfamiliar ground on an untried horse. Keeping that in mind would help her to remember her own resolve, wouldn’t it?
* * *
Their first stop was at the campsite of a man who’d asked for prayer for his daughter, because she had become weak and listless on the journey from Vermont.
After introductions, Alice sat and examined Beth Lambert. She was wan and pallid, just as her father had described. Alice found the mucous membranes around Beth’s eyes and inside her mouth pale also, and her pulse was far too fast for a person at rest. Alice pulled her stethoscope—a gift from her mother when she had finished her training—out of her bag, then listened to the girl’s heart and lungs. The heart rhythm, though rapid, was the regular lub-dub she had hoped for, rather than one with an extra beat that made the rhythm sound more like Ken-tuck-y or Ten-nes-see, as it would be with a heart murmur. The lungs were clear, free of the wet sounds or crackles that might signal consumption.
Nevertheless, she asked Beth if she’d been having night sweats or coughing. The girl shook her head.
“Chest pains?”
Again Beth shook her head.
“What have you been eating, Beth?” Alice asked.
The girl wrinkled her nose. “Pretty much corn bread and biscuits, washed down with coffee, ever since we left the East. Don’t have nothin’ else.”
“I see.” Alice turned to the girl’s parents, who were hovering anxiously nearby. Now that she’d spoken to their daughter, she saw the same pallor in her mother and father.
“I think your daughter is anemic—that is, her blood isn’t carrying oxygen around as it should. She needs to eat more red meat, especially liver and eggs. In fact, I think those things would benefit all of you. Would you be able to get more of those in your diet?”
* * *
Thank You, Lord, for sending Alice to us, Elijah prayed. She was as tactful as she was skilled. She saw what needed to be done or said, and did and said it.
“Waal, I dunno,” the father mumbled, scuffing a small rock out of the dirt and pushing it with his toe. “Beef’s mighty costly.”
“We left the East with not much more than the clothes on our backs,” the mother said, and when the man next to her tried to shush her, she raised her voice more. “Jed, it’s true, and our Beth is sick because of it.” She turned back to Alice and Elijah. “By the time we bought the wagon and team, we didn’t have much left for food on the trip, so we had to think cheap. We all et better back home.”
While Alice hesitated, obviously trying to think of a solution, Elijah knew it was time to speak up. “The church has some money to help with such things,” he told the man. “I’m going to give you twenty-five dollars, and I want you to buy a side of beef with it, and some liver, eggs and beans. Be sure and boil the bones to make soup, too. This money is only for nourishing food, mind you, so please
use it wisely.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the money.
“Thank you, Reverend. Thank you, Nurse,” the man said, shaking Elijah’s hand, while the woman murmured, “God bless you folks for your kindness.”
When they took their leave, they intended to stop at the Gilberts’ campsite to check on the deacon’s wound, since it was nearby, when a young boy ran up to them, his face white, his eyes terrified.
“Preacher, is she the nurse?” he said, pointing to Alice. “My pa needs her powerful bad! We found him behind some tents, all beat up. C’mon, I’ll show you the way!”
They lost no time in following the boy and found the father, lying on a blanket by the wagon, just as the boy had said. One eye was swelling shut, his nose was bloodied and looked broken, and he had at least a dozen small cuts and as many scrapes.
“This is Miss Alice Hawthorne, and she’s a nurse,” Elijah told the man. “Miss Hawthorne, this is Abe McNally, and he attends our chapel meetings. Who attacked you?” Elijah inquired while Alice began to cleanse his wounds with a fresh cloth and some of that harsh-smelling disinfectant she’d used on Keith Gilbert’s leg.
“Three or four men, all in black bandannas and dark clothes,” McNally muttered, wincing as the carbolic acid stung a laceration on his hand. “I couldn’t tell who they were. They pistol-whipped me, then took my pocket watch and Nancy’s earbobs.”
A whimper escaped from the woman standing nearby. “They was just colored glass, those earbobs, but Abe’s pocket watch is gold. I told Abe he shouldn’t be flashin’ it around this camp. There’s too much riffraff around Boomer Town, too many people t’ keep in line.”
“I’m just glad young Tad was off playin’, or they might’ve hurt him, too,” the man said, then let out a groan. “Tarnation, Nurse. I appreciate what you’re doin’, but that stuff stings!”
“I’ll notify the Security Patrol about this incident,” Elijah said, hoping he could speak to someone besides the four who’d been ogling Alice yesterday. The Security Patrol was supposed to be watching out for the settlers to keep this sort of thing from happening, weren’t they? Elijah would have preferred to speak to someone from the army, but they were stretched too thin along the border at present, keeping settlers from entering too soon.
He was glad Clint planned to be the sheriff in the town they would found. He didn’t want their new home to be a lawless place like Boomer Town.
Looking up just then, he spotted a dapper-looking man in a derby hat watching Alice. The man held a small notepad and seemed to be sketching her as she tended the robbery victim.
What in the world? His hackles rose at the effrontery of what the man was doing and the avid, speculative look in his eyes as he watched Alice. “May I help you, sir?” he growled.
The man grinned and strode toward them, his air brisk and confident. “Robert Millard Henderson, of The New York Times. I was hoping to interview the lady everyone’s calling the ‘Florence Nightingale of the Oklahoma Territory.’” He grinned engagingly at Alice.
Alice, kneeling by the man who’d been beaten up, went as white as the anemic girl they’d just left. “No!” she cried, and there was an anguished note in her voice that made Elijah peer at her carefully.
She swallowed, regaining her composure. “That is, no, thank you, sir. I—I’d rather not. I’m not doing anything that anyone with an ounce of decency wouldn’t do, if they had the training.”
“Very modest and commendable, miss,” said the reporter. “However, our readers—and they include people throughout the whole country, you know—can’t get enough of human-interest stories about the Oklahoma Land Rush. I’ve been hearing all over Boomer Town about the nurse who saved the life of a man who was bleeding to death. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Elijah had never heard a man talk so fast. He was conscious of an urge to put himself between the reporter and Alice, and shove him all the way back to New York, if that was what Alice wanted.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Henderson. I’m busy here, and I don’t want to talk to you.” Alice went back to swabbing her patient’s abrasions and cuts.
“But my readers would be fascinated with your story, Miss...?” Henderson let his voice trail off, inviting Alice to supply her name.
She ignored the unspoken request. “I said, I don’t want to talk to you, sir. Please. Would you allow me to go on with what I’m doing, without your interference?”
“But, miss—” the reporter pleaded, coming a step closer.
Now Elijah did step between them. “You heard the lady,” he said firmly. “I’m Reverend Elijah Thornton, if you must have a name, and I’m asking you to respect this lady’s privacy and that of her patient. Take yourself off, please.”
Henderson scowled and drew himself up to his full height—which had to be almost a foot shorter than Elijah’s. “It’s a free country, Reverend Thornton,” he huffed, “and one, moreover, with a free press. It’s not against the law, as far as I know, for me to just move back a few paces and finish the sketch I was completing. That’ll be for Harper’s Weekly—I write articles for them, too, you see. I’ll get this put on the cover, and the public will eat it up, this portrait of a heroic, self-effacing nurse serving the public.”
Elijah felt his temper kindling at the man’s self-important pushiness and his fulsome compliments, but Robert Henderson was well within his rights. Elijah felt Alice’s urgent gaze on him, so he turned his back on the reporter and looked at her.
“Ignore him, Elijah,” she whispered. “Let me just finish up here, and we’ll move on.”
Her movements quick and efficient, she bandaged the man’s cuts and told him the signs of infection to watch for and advised cold compresses for his developing black eye. Then they left, heading for the Gilberts’ as they’d originally planned.
The reporter had been an obnoxious popinjay, but Elijah was conscious, as they walked away from him, of an overwhelming curiosity to know why Henderson’s request for her name had upset Alice so much. But now was not the time to ask her, not while she remained white-lipped and anxious. Her apprehensive expression, and the way she kept glancing over her shoulder until tents and wagons hid them from the reporter, made him ache with compassion for her and with that same desire to protect her that he had felt before.
Why was she so frightened? Was she hiding from someone? Had she committed a crime back East, so she was now running from the law? Or was she running from a husband?
It was best if the truth came from her. He had no right to demand it of her—that would make him no better than the pushy reporter. They were not courting sweethearts. Hadn’t he resolved to commit himself to the work of the Lord, and remain unmarried? But since he’d met Alice, he’d begun to wonder if that resolve had been born out of grief and not the Lord’s will.
* * *
Alice woke in a tangle of sheets in the middle of the night, knowing the scream that had awakened her had been her own. She sat up and lit the kerosene lantern, needing to banish the middle-of-night shadows within her tent.
She had been dreaming, she realized, as the warm light bathed the tent, illuminating the shape of her trunk and the camp chair on which she’d dropped her clothes last night after returning from her nursing rounds. Maxwell Peterson had been chasing her, his eyes red as burning embers, a ghastly smile curling his lips, revealing bright fangs for teeth. He waved a piece of paper written in blood, which she knew without seeing was her parents’ mortgage.
“I’ll tear it up!” he cried, his voice like the baying of a fantastical hound. “Just come to me, my pretty Alice, and I’ll tear it up! But if you don’t, you’ll have nothing! Nothing!” He bayed a maniacal laugh.
It didn’t take much thinking, even in her shaky post-nightmare condition, to realize that her encounter with the nosy reporter had precipitated the dream. She poured herself a cup of water from the pitc
her she kept on an upended crate by her cot.
It was silly to let the reporter’s question worry her. She hadn’t given the over-inquisitive fellow her name, so she had no reason to worry about Maxwell finding her here in the midst of the overcrowded tent city. He had no reason to suspect she’d even left New York, let alone come to this place in hopes of a homestead he couldn’t touch.
A glance at her watch showed her it was yet hours till dawn. It was best to get some more sleep. She’d need her energy for the new day. She lay back down on her cot, pulled up the covers and closed her eyes again.
She and Elijah were going riding soon, Alice reminded herself. She was to try out her new mare to see if she could run, but all that came to her mind were images of Elijah—Elijah preaching; Elijah favoring a worried member of the congregation with a kind smile; Elijah laughing with his brothers, humor crinkling the corners of his twinkling hazel eyes. After a while, she fell back into sleep, this time a dreamless one.
Chapter Seven
They couldn’t have picked a better afternoon to go riding, Alice thought. The sun beat down warmly on them, but the endless wind that seemed as much a part of central Oklahoma as its red soil prevented it from getting too hot.
The country was gently rolling, with flowers of every color dotted among the waving bluestem grasses. Alice recognized some of the flowers—wood sorrel, violets, fleabane, vetch—but others were unfamiliar to her. Trees—cottonwood, hickory and walnut—clustered near the occasional stream, along with clumps of blackberry bushes.
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