by Lyn Cote
She chuckled again. “I know thee is the kind of man who doesn’t want anyone fussing over him. I will not fuss, but someone must see that thee has liquid and nourishment often. Who else is there to do this, friend?”
He had no answer for her. He had made certain that he developed no friendships here. Now he wished he had befriended someone, anyone. Having this gentle, gracious woman nearby awoke so many memories from the past—his mother, sister and Janette… No, not Janette. His mind wouldn’t let his memories of her intrude. He crushed them now without mercy. Janette had nothing in common with this caring doctor, save their gender.
Without Mercy. He must find a way to get better quickly and go back to gambling without this woman who made him long for the life he’d once known.
He tried not to think that this fever might best him yet. Had he survived four years of carnage only to be felled by a knife in a barroom brawl?
Later, Mercy glanced once more over her shoulder as she stepped from the back room of the saloon into the alley. Indigo was sitting beside Lon Mackey, who was sleeping again. Still a little drowsy herself from the interrupted night’s sleep, Mercy walked around the front of the saloon and stood looking up and down the street, trying to decide how to find living quarters and an office. Then a thought occurred to her. Maybe what she was looking for wasn’t on Main Street. She began to walk the long alleys on both sides of Main Street.
Her thoughts strayed back to Lon Mackey. Was his crankiness just because he felt weak? Men didn’t like to feel weak, especially not men like Lon. Or was he angry with her for some reason? The name Janette came to mind. Lon had uttered this name more than once in his delirious moments.
She shied away from thoughts of Lon Mackey’s personal life—and the feelings those thoughts raised—and recalled last night’s delivery. She looked toward the Chinese quarter. Out in the fresh air, men were working—boiling clothing in large washtubs over fires, hanging sheets on clotheslines. Some were ironing. She had never seen a man do laundry. She had never seen loose cotton clothes like the ones they were wearing. The sight fascinated her. Why had they come to live here in this place so far from home?
Of course, that was what she had done, too. Was a female doctor any more welcome here than a person of Chinese descent? She couldn’t even rent a place to live.
The early autumn twilight was coloring the sky as she turned back and walked to the general store, where she had met Jacob Tarver. “Jacob Tarver,” she greeted him, “I see that thee has a storeroom behind thy store.”
He looked startled, then said, “Ah, yes.”
“Have thee thought of renting it out?” she asked with a bright smile.
“I don’t understand.” He eyed her as if she’d just dropped from the sky.
Mercy explained to him that she wanted to rent the storeroom for her medical practice. She talked on, overcoming his objection that he needed the storage space with the suggestion that he build a larger warehouse at the edge of town to stock his supplies, thereby increasing his income even more. He could rent her the rear storeroom for her medical practice and then rent out part of his new warehouse to other merchants.
And before she was done, she left him with the comfortable belief that this was what he had been intending to do all along. He promised to have the storeroom cleaned out and ready for her in a day or two.
Mercy would have felt guilty about this friendly persuasion except that it benefited Jacob Tarver as well. As she left the store, she heard a woman call her name. She recognized the pretty dark-haired mother of Missy.
“Miss Gabriel, I mean Dr. Gabriel,” the young woman stammered, “I’m Mrs. James Dunfield, Ellen Dunfield. I have been so busy helping my husband and daughter regain their strength after the cholera and taking care of my infant son that I didn’t realize that you had been sleeping in the mining office. Please, you must come and stay in our vacant cabin. My husband did so well in panning for gold that he built us a regular house. But the cabin is in good repair and will be a snug home for you this winter.”
Joy lifted Mercy. “God bless thee, Ellen Dunfield. Yes, Indigo and I are still looking for a place to stay.”
“Well, my Jim and I talked it over, and we don’t care what anybody says about mixing races. You and that Indigo saved our family, and we don’t give bad for good. And having an able midwife in town is good news for all us wives.”
Concentrating on the positive sentiment behind Ellen Dunfield’s words, Mercy asked for directions to the cabin and told Ellen that Indigo would bring their things soon and thanked the woman again. Mercy walked back toward the saloon. Why did I give in to despair? God is in this place, too.
Three nights later, Mercy supervised while Lon was moved to the new office, where a bed had been set up for him. The storeroom was large enough for an office, a treating room with an examining table and a bed for patients who needed nursing but had no family to provide it.
A stout black stove had been added to the storeroom. Everything was new, clean and neat. Though pleased with her first formal office, Mercy had no time to admire her surroundings. She turned her thoughts to Lon. His fever wouldn’t let go. If she couldn’t break his fever…
Lon mumbled. He was somewhere between waking and sleeping. Mercy wished this move had not been necessary on such a chilly night, when he was still so vulnerable. But autumn was progressing and there was no holding it back. And this quiet place would be better for him. The loud nights in the back room of the saloon had been a trial.
“Thank thee, friends. Thank thee much,” Mercy said to the volunteers.
“Our pleasure, Doc,” one of the older men said. Then he hurried out the door as if this kind act were a form of mischief he might be caught doing.
She shook her head and then shivered sharply. November had come today, and the crisp air was penetrating. She added another log to the stove and then sat down in a rocking chair she’d purchased the day before. She wet a cloth with wood alcohol and bathed Lon’s face with it. The heat from his skin warmed her hand.
This fever could kill him. The thought opened a deep abyss within her. She prayed aloud, “Father, I know this fever always comes with surgery. How can I break this good man’s fever?”
She bathed his neck and wrists with the alcohol. Lon, keep fighting. Don’t give in.
“Janette,” Lon mumbled, “Janette.”
That woman’s name again. Mercy froze in place, hand on his arm. He mumbled the name a few more times and then spoke with agitation. Mercy only heard, “Wait…heart…Thomas…fickle.”
Inside her came an explosion of feelings. Her heart pounded. Her breath became shallow and short. A startling realization she couldn’t ignore pierced her. I care for this man, this gambler. No, she couldn’t let this be true. No.
“Mercy,” Lon interrupted her. His eyes had opened.
His voice shocked her as much as the unexpected feelings that had welled up because he had said the name of another woman. Clamping down on the riot inside her, she braced herself and assured him, “I am here, Lon Mackey. Thee is in my new office.”
“Thirsty.”
She lifted his head and helped him drink a full glass of water. Tendrils of unwanted feelings made the act torturous. “Can thee drink more?”
“Tea?”
She busied herself at the stove where a castiron kettle sat. She made a pot of sweet tea and sat down. Lon drank the cup of tea eagerly. She stopped her unruly fingers from smoothing back his tousled hair.
“You shouldn’t have to take care of me like this,” he said in a harsh tone. His eyelids slid down. She touched his hot forehead with her wrist. He was awake enough to turn his head from her touch. She tried not to take offense at his rudeness. But it was hard not to, especially now when she sensed that she felt more than friendship for him.
What had caused this overwhelming cloudburst of feeling? Could she be feeling jealousy?
Mercy’s innate honesty forced her to look at her reaction without equivocatio
n. Did she have a right to feel jealous over Lon? Of course not.
But she did. Mercy sat back in her rocker and closed her eyes. Where had this come from? Why hadn’t she realized the direction her emotions were taking? And how could she stop this imprudence before it went any further?
Over two weeks later, as the local café was just brewing its first morning coffee, Lon knocked on the door of Mercy’s office. Dr. Gabriel’s office. Not Mercy’s. Thinking of her as “the Quaker” might be a better, more aloof way to think of her. He stepped inside.
The Quaker looked up from her desk and smiled. Recovered from his fever, he had taken pains to present himself freshly shaved and sheared, dressed in his brushed and ironed gambler’s clothing.
He would pay his bill for this doctor’s service and make sure that she didn’t think of him as anything except an acquaintance, a former patient. And then he’d go back to his life in the saloon. “You look as if you’ve been up all night,” he said gruffly. He immediately regretted it, since it revealed his concern for her.
“The Dunfield baby had a fever last night. His parents have been so good to let us rent their cabin, I could not but help them. I just stopped here to leave a note that anyone needing the doctor should come to our cabin. Thee is looking well,” she added, her blue eyes glowing with warmth.
He turned on the spot, as if showing off the suit to a prospective customer. “So glad you noticed, Miss Gabriel.” Why had he called her that, as if she were some young lady he was interested in? “I mean, Dr. Gabriel.”
She tilted her head to one side, studying him.
Before she could speak, he said, “I’ve come to pay my bill.” Some of the men who’d witnessed his stabbing had picked up his winnings and held them for him. It was nice to know a few decent men still walked the earth. A few.
She turned back to her desk and lifted out a paper, which she handed to him. He was slightly surprised that she had the bill ready. This must have shown on his face.
“I must earn a living, too, Lon Mackey. And I don’t think I would make a very good gambler.”
He wished she wouldn’t look him in the eye, as she always did. It was unnerving. Young women just didn’t look into a man’s eyes. They had special ways of… How did a woman like this grow up without the slightest idea of how to entice a man? Why am I thinking that?
He pulled out his wallet and counted out her fee. She took the money from him, wrote “Paid in Full” and the date on the bill, and returned it to him, saying nothing. She just looked into his eyes.
Her blue eyes were her most attractive feature. He gazed into them as if discerning afresh the innocence of her soul. Janette had blue eyes, too. This snapped him back to the present. “I’ll bid you—”
“Are thee certain thee wants to return to the saloon?” she asked.
Her question ignited his irritation. Of course Dr.
Mercy Gabriel would want to “save” him. “I like gambling,” he retorted. “It’s an easy life. No work.
Nobody counting on me. I do what I like.”
“An easy life as long as no one shoves a knife into thee again.” Her tone was desert-dry.
“I don’t expect you to understand me—”
“But I do understand thee,” she interrupted him. “Were thee a major or a colonel?”
“A colonel.” He gripped his walking stick, angry at his slip. “What has that got to do with anything?”
“I was in the war, too, thee recalls.” She gazed up at him. “It isn’t hard for me to see that thee…thee possesses the ability and habit of command. Thee took charge in the epidemic here and helped bring it to an end. I’m a doctor. I hold the lives of my patients in my hands. I understand the wish not to be responsible—”
Lon burned, and disliked the reaction. How could this woman understand him better than he did himself? He didn’t want anybody’s sympathy, much less that of this woman who wouldn’t leave him alone—even when she wasn’t in front of him. Why couldn’t he banish his concern for her? His awareness of her?
“You understand nothing.” He turned and left.
Mercy rose and walked to the door Lon Mackey had slammed behind him. She walked out into the alley and glimpsed his back as he turned toward Main Street. The conversation had been brief in the extreme, but much had been revealed. The war had left its mark on their generation. Not just in the countless lives lost, but in all the shattered bodies, shattered dreams and shattered lives. And would the nightmares ever completely stop? Sometimes she still woke with her heart pounding, her ears ringing with cannon fire and a barrage of rifle fire. The sound of drums and the Rebel yell echoed in her mind. Yet I didn’t have to face battle and dread death, as Lon had. All I had to do was stand helplessly by and watch men die… Mercy swallowed a moan of remembrance. No wonder Lon shied away from any connection to her or anyone else. No wonder.
Lon Mackey deserved a home, a loving wife and healthy children. When would the long, bitter fingers of the war release them all?
Down the alley, she glimpsed Indigo talking to that same man she had previously seen her with. Mercy stepped back into the doorway but was still able to observe them. She heard Indigo laugh. Evidently, love was in the fall air here in the Idaho Territory. Soon, Mercy would have to steel herself to speak to Indigo, to find out about this man who was making Indigo smile even when he wasn’t near.
Suddenly, Jacob Tarver came around the corner of the building. “Miss Gabriel, I’m sorry! I hate that this has happened!”
“What has happened?” she gasped.
“Come on! It’s all over the front window. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Picking up her skirts to run, Mercy followed the agitated man around to his storefront. All over his large front windows someone had used soap to print the words Kick out the female doctor. Or else. Scrawled under this was a string of curses.
Mercy stared at the words, stunned. “I never thought anything like this would happen here,” Jacob Tarver said.
Anger flashed through Mercy. “Coward!” she shouted.
Jacob Tarver jumped and stared at her.
“Not thee, Jacob Tarver. I’m not holding thee responsible,” Mercy declared. She gestured angrily at the soap message. “Only a coward tries to frighten women!”
She swung around to glare at the crowd of people gathering in the street to gawk at the hot news of the day. “Does any of thee know who wrote this vile message? Does thee?”
Her mind sifted through all the people she’d met who had objected to her profession. She couldn’t pinpoint one who stood out from the rest. Would this event lead to worse? Perhaps violence against her or against Indigo?
No one replied. Most looked worried. But a few looked pleased. Was it one of them? How could she find the culprit?
Chapter Six
Yesterday’s ugly words had been scrubbed from the general store’s front window, but not from Mercy’s tender mind and heart. The same melancholy that had plagued her after the cholera epidemic was creeping over her, trying to imprison her again.
Mercy sat at the table in the snug log cabin. By the window’s faint, gloomy light, Indigo was washing the breakfast dishes. Lon had recovered, which was good. But the shadow remained over her heart. What am I to do? Why do I keep hearing Lon say, “You understand nothing”?
“I know you’re disheartened, Aunt Mercy,” Indigo said, drying her hands on a dish towel and glancing over at Mercy.
Mercy smiled even as tears stung her eyes.
Indigo had taken a job as a waitress in one of the cafés in town to make extra money. Now she was leaving for work. Soon, Mercy was all alone in the cabin. Lifelong habit made her pick up her Bible. She turned to the Beatitudes, which her father had taught her was the best place to start when faced with a challenge. In the dim, lonely cabin, she read aloud, hearing her father’s calm, measured voice in her mind.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’s sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you…
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Mercy stroked the well-worn, black leather binding of the Bible. Words could be deeply loving, as her father’s had always been to her and her sisters. Or they could be cruel because of the hate and fear behind them.
She thought she had become inured to the general objections to her joining what was deemed a “male” profession. Sometimes she even tried to be amused by the repeated litany of protests. But yesterday’s offensive act took opposition against her to a new level of hostility.
Would the words on Jacob Tarver’s window keep sick people away from her when they needed doctoring?
“No,” she said aloud. Yet she still did not want to go to her office. In fact, she felt as if bands were holding her back. She rose and carried the open Bible to the window. “I follow this unusual path because I was chosen to do this work. When the circumstances get desperate enough, they will come for my help.”
This reminder triggered a new flow of confidence. She continued, “They needed me when the cholera was killing people. Lon Mackey needed me when he was stabbed. Chen An needed me to deliver her baby. How do I get them to come to me before the need is dire, Father?”
She looked down and her gaze fell on the verse, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
She glanced around her. Except for the faint light from the cabin’s two windows and the glow of the low fire on the hearth, there was no light here.
Lon Mackey came to mind. But he always came to mind whenever she felt under stress. Could he help her here? Persuade others that since he’d fully recovered that she was a good doctor? That was tempting, but she didn’t want to have to beg for help or involve Lon. He’d been through enough battles. She needed to face this one alone—or at least, without human help. God had never forsaken her. And hadn’t now, either.