by DiAnn Mills
Black eyes twinkled in the walnut-shell face. “Nurse, you kin talk the birds outta the trees.” She cocked her head to one side and grinned. “No wonder that feller of yours wouldn’t let you outta his sight. I’ll dance at your weddin’, if you don’t wait too long to get hitched.”
Shana laughed and felt color rise from the neck of her cotton gown. She patted the wrinkled hand, promised to drop by again when she could, and escaped.
Now a familiar ache replaced Shana’s smile. Every day she saw less of Wyatt. He had taken to his lessons like an otter takes to the sea. He whooped with delight when he learned Emmeline would be studying along with him. After the first week he confessed, “I never saw the like of our new student nurse. She gobbles up Dr. Aldrich’s medical books so fast it’s all I can do to keep ahead of her, in spite of studying last winter and this spring.”
His frank approval sent Shana’s heart to her toes, but she had to be fair. “When Emmeline works with me, I seldom have to show her anything twice.”
“I’d like to see her spend some time in a training hospital after you and Dr. Aldrich teach her what you can here,” Wyatt commented. “The Hollow offers almost everything she will need to know, but not all. We haven’t faced them all yet, but according to Dr. Aldrich, the Hollow never lacks for variety when it comes to ailments.” He ticked off on his fingers. “Influenza. Broken bones. Measles, mumps, chickenpox, consumption, rheumatism, croup, scarlet fever. Gunshot wounds, some accidental, some questionable—” He sighed. “It’s really not that much different from Alaska. I remember a few wounded trappers and Indians being packed into Tarnigan under mysterious circumstances.”
Shana nodded, then watched Wyatt’s blue eyes darken as he changed the subject. “About Emmeline. Think she’d go?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t we wait and see?” Shana’s treacherous heart beat fast with hope. In the short time since she reached the Hollow, she had learned to love Emmeline as the sister she never had. Yet sharing Wyatt’s time and attention with the other girl made the prospect of Emmeline’s absence loom promising and attractive.
Dog in the manger, she scolded herself. You turned Wyatt down. You told him to count on nothing. Now when he shows interest in Emmeline, you want to snatch him back. You’re jealous of one of the sweetest, most Christlike girls you’ve ever known.
“I am not!” she protested aloud. Wyatt raised his brows at her in surprise, and Shana flushed and turned away. It’s just that I never thought Wyatt would turn out to be so fickle, she told herself. A few weeks ago he was swearing undying love for me. Now… She couldn’t finish the thought. What if Wyatt gave up on a girl who had taken his friendship, even his love, for granted? What if the protective nature she knew so well reached out to the mountain girl who fiercely longed to be someone and was willing to do whatever necessary to make it happen?
“I don’t think I could stand it,” she whispered to herself later that night when she was alone in her room. With a lightning flash of illumination she realized the truth. She loved Wyatt. Not with the childish adoration carried through the years into girlhood. She loved him with every beat of her heart, with the love she had so often seen in her mother’s and Inga’s eyes when they looked at their husbands.
The realization kept her tossing and turning all night long. At last, as morning’s light brightened the windows, she sat up in bed and put her hands to her aching head. “God, why did it take me so long to know?” she cried into the stillness of her cabin. “Why did I have to come half a world away from Tarnigan to realize I can never marry anyone but Wyatt? I want to be his wife, to bear his children. Have I put him off too many times? Is it too late?”
Self-loathing brought Shana out of bed. In all the novels she had read, she had despised heroines who awakened to the preciousness of a fine man’s love only when another woman came onto the scene. Shallow, she had called them. Now she understood. Her blind eyes had remained closed until a catastrophic shock shook her very foundations. She quickly dressed, scorned breakfast, and braided her hair into two fat braids. Honest to the core, she knew she must tell Wyatt of her stupendous discovery.
A merry laugh outside her cabin sent her to the door. She flung it wide and stepped outside. At the other end of the dogtrot, Wyatt stood smiling down at Emmeline. Gideon leaned against Wyatt’s leg, arms wrapped around it. Shana bit her lip, undecided whether to call a greeting or go back inside.
Shana shifted her weight. A board creaked under her foot. Wyatt looked up. “Morning. Ready to go to the clinic? We’ll drop this young man off on the way.” He picked up Gideon, set the child on his sturdy shoulder, and said, “Ow! Stop that, you rascal,” when Gideon buried his chubby hands in Wyatt’s golden curls and hung on for dear life.
The completeness of man, woman, and child shut Shana out and drove a splinter of pain into her heart. She mustered her poise and smiled at Emmeline, dewy fresh in her simple cotton dress with its white collar and cuffs. “I’ll be along in a little while. I haven’t had breakfast.”
“All right. Coming, Emmeline?” They went off together like three children happy just to be together.
The day’s beauty turned clouded and gray. Shana waited the length of time it would normally take to eat breakfast, then slowly walked the dusty road leading to the clinic at the other end of the clearing. She passed the mercantile, too dispirited to smile at its incongruous sign. Now that her childhood playmate obviously admired Emmeline so much, how could Shana tell him her feelings had changed? It wouldn’t be fair to hold him to a promise that his heart could no longer keep.
Pounding footsteps raced toward her and broke into her misery. Her heart lurched. In all their years of acquaintance, she had never seen Wyatt so distraught. The gray-faced man reached her, grabbed her arm, and gasped, “Hurry. It’s Emmeline.” He dragged Shana toward the clinic at full run.
Shana couldn’t speak, only feel. What had happened to bring agony to Wyatt’s eyes, agony that sounded a death knell to the love Shana had not recognized until it was too late?
Chapter 8
Shana and Wyatt burst into the Hollow Clinic. Emmeline lay on the examining table, white-faced and silent. Blood stained her left hand and the white forearm where Dr. Aldrich pressed a heavy pad, obviously torn from a petticoat. He ignored his nurse’s frantic, “What happened?” and barked, “Get the suture tray. She may need stitching.”
His tone of command freed Shana from her daze. She ran for the tray of sterilized instruments and supplies always kept ready for emergencies. Sewing up gashes in patients was a common need in a community that worked with ax and saw, plow and hoe, guns and knives.
Wyatt stood to one side. Shana wondered why he looked so ill. His short term of study with the Tarnigan doctors had exposed him to far worse sights than a wounded arm. A moment later, Dr. Aldrich uncovered the wound and Shana understood Wyatt’s concern. No jagged gash marred the rounded arm, but deep punctures. Tooth marks. Shocked, Shana asked again, “What happened?”
Wyatt passed an unsteady hand over his face. “We left Gideon at Granny King’s. I suggested taking a shortcut through the woods to the clinic. Halfway here, the bushes rustled. A wild dog sprang toward me from the side of the trail.” He swallowed and huskily added, “Emmeline leaped in front of me. When she lifted her arm to ward off the attack, the dog sank his teeth into her.”
Emmeline’s eyes looked enormous, but she whispered, “Wyatt grabbed a downed tree branch and killed the dog. If he hadn’t been there…” Her whole body shook as with a chill.
“If I hadn’t been there, you would never have taken the shortcut,” Wyatt fiercely flailed himself.
“No use crying over spilt milk,” Dr. Aldrich told them. His heavy eyebrows knit into a shaggy line across his furrowed forehead and he warned Emmeline, “This is going to hurt.” He drowned the wounds with antiseptic, let them bleed freely, and poured more antiseptic over them. He finished off with a generous dose of evil-smelling carbolic acid and a mixture of herbs Shana
didn’t recognize. “Local medicine.” He grunted. “Draws the poison out.”
Shana barely heard him. Fear brushed its wings against her, then clutched with both claws. What if the wild dog were rabid? If not, why would he attack? Her fear increased. She thought of the Indian who had staggered into Tarnigan after being bitten by a rabid wolf, and the horrible death that followed. Dear God, please don’t let that happen to Emmeline, she silently screamed. Save her. She loves You and longs to serve. Please, God.
Shana looked at Wyatt’s bowed head and knew he was praying for the girl who had risked her life to save his. She felt comforted. Had not Jesus promised in Matthew 18:20 that where two or three gathered in His name, He would be in the midst of them? Surely God would spare one so pure and willing to serve as Emmeline! Thank You for hearing and answering our prayers, Shana’s heart cried.
God did hear and answer their prayers.
“The dog wasn’t rabid,” Dr. Aldrich told Shana and Wyatt the next day. “I examined him, and I couldn’t see any signs of sickness. One of the men recognized the animal. Says the dog was a mean stray that had been beaten until he hated every human he encountered.”
Shana breathed a sigh of relief and tried not to notice the look of joy on Wyatt’s face. When Emmeline had faced death for Wyatt, how could Shana begrudge her his love? She blinked away tears of gratitude and pain.
Emmeline’s wound didn’t even infect, thanks to the quick medical attention. As the torn flesh healed, Shana tried to open her wounded heart to God’s healing grace. Eventually only small scars remained on Emmeline’s arm, and she was able to resume her studies and training. But Shana’s heart still felt as torn as ever.
One sunny afternoon when business was mercifully slow, Dr. Aldrich called a meeting of his “staff,” as he designated his nurse and two helpers. His thick white hair waved wildly above his keen black eyes. He didn’t shilly-shally but went straight to the point. “Wyatt, Emmeline, how would you like to spend the next six months in Charlotte, working harder than you ever have or ever will?” Shana felt her heart leap to her throat. Wyatt cocked his head to one side. An eyebrow lifted and a wary look came to his face.
Emmeline finally said, “Charlotte?” The mountain girl’s eyes turned round as the silver moon that sailed above the Hollow. “That’s better than a hundred miles from here, and it’s got more folks than grass blades in a meadow!”
“I know. It also has a topnotch hospital run by one of the finest surgeons I know.” Dr. Aldrich fitted the tips of his fingers together. “I’d like to put you two under his tutelage until Christmas.”
Emmeline twisted her fingers until they shone white. “I—I thought you’d be teachin’ us everythin’ we needed in order to help folks.”
“You’ll learn a heap more during your six months in Charlotte than I can show you here in years,” Dr. Aldrich told her. “When you come back, you’ll be far more valuable to me and to our people.”
Shana felt the blood drain from her face. A lifetime ago, she had wanted Emmeline to get training away from the Hollow. After the other girl’s courageous act, Shana bitterly regretted her selfishness. Now with a quirk of fate, not only Emmeline but Wyatt would be gone for six endless months.
“What about Shana?” the young man demanded.
Surprise filled Dr. Aldrich’s face. “She will stay here and help me of course. I’ve already arranged for her to take exams in Asheville and get her nursing certificate.” He considered for a moment. “Emmeline, do you think Granny King would mind moving into your cabin while you’re gone? Gideon’s used to it.”
“I’m to leave my baby?” Emmeline paled and put her hands in front of her.
“Only for six months. Child, you once told me you would do anything in the world to get a better life for him than what most of our mountain folk have.” The doctor’s face wrinkled in sympathy. “Perhaps it’s too much to ask, but if you will go, stick it out, and learn, it will be the finest sacrifice you ever make.”
Shana thought Emmeline aged ten years in the next ten seconds. She bowed her head. When she raised it again, she quietly said, “I’ll go. For him.” Without another word, she rose and started for the door. Dr. Aldrich’s voice stopped her with one hand raised to open the screen.
“Wyatt? How about you?”
He stared at the doctor. He looked at Emmeline. Last of all, he turned to Shana in wordless appeal. An eternity later, he asked, “Well?”
Could a heart ache this much and not shatter into tiny pieces? Shana wondered. Desolation rose within her. Long, lonely months stretched ahead should he choose Charlotte. Yet how could she protest? Ever since the accident, Wyatt had treated Emmeline more tenderly than ever, as if she were a delicate piece of porcelain that suddenly showed previously unsuspected depths of strength. Longing to beg him to stay, Shana said in a colorless voice, “You have to do what you feel is right.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and the eyes she knew so well were unreadable. “If Dr. Aldrich believes we can learn faster, I have no choice.” Now that the die had been cast, Wyatt reverted to his usual, laughing self. “Emmeline, we can keep each other company in our banishment to Charlotte. Right?” He grinned.
Shana barely heard the murmured reply. Pride inherited from both her father and mother sustained her. If Emmeline could forsake her child for six long months in order to ensure a better future for him, then Shana Clifton must ignore her aching heart and give her best to those in the Hollow.
That pride carried her through the parting with Emmeline and Wyatt. She took care not to be alone with him and tossed her head when he looked deep into her eyes. Yet his questioning gaze remained in her mind long after the chug-chug of Dr. Aldrich’s old car faded on the other side of the hogback.
The same pride also sharpened Shana’s mind when she took the tests for her certificate. She did well on both written and oral exams and thrilled when she received a letter of commendation from the board of examiners.
Summer passed, the hard work broken only by brief letters from Charlotte and longer ones from Tarnigan. Sickness ravaged the community until Shana had little time to think beyond its forested borders. She traveled into the mountains on foot and on muleback, tending the sick, fighting the belief fever patients should be bundled and made to sweat in a room devoid of the slightest bit of fresh air. Nights found her too tired to do more than tumble into bed until roused to a new day, new worries over the people she had come to love.
Autumn lived up to Dr. Aldrich’s predictions. Shana reveled in the gold and red, the orange and russet tones of leaves that drifted onto forest trails and paths. The mornings grew colder. Frost sparkled on twig and branch. Granny King said her “rheumatiz” told her they’d have a hard winter. “Bet you can’t wait for Em’line and your feller to come back,” she teased.
Shana didn’t reply. Time enough at their return for folks in the Hollow to learn Wyatt no longer cared. Emmeline’s last letter had been straight from the heart.
Did Wyatt tell you what’s happened? she wrote. I never thought I’d love another man, and I’ll be beholden to God for the rest of my life. It’s so wonderful. He wants to be a good pa to Gideon, too. Don’t tell Dr. Aldrich (we want to surprise him) but we plan to spend the rest of our lives in the Hollow. Nurse Shana, none of this would have happened if God hadn’t led you to North Carolina. We aim to wait and get married in the Hollow. Will you stand up with us?
Even though Shana had feared such a thing, the reality rocked her senses. Her first thought was to flee, to return to Tarnigan and forget North Carolina, the Hollow, and the false-hearted Wyatt Baldwin. She shook her head. No. God had called her here. Until He directed otherwise, here she must stay—even though it meant watching Wyatt and Emmeline’s happiness at the expense of her own. Would they live in the cabin at the other end of the dogtrot? The thought was unbearable.
Chastened by prayer and the determination never to let anyone but God know the extent of her wounds, Shana relied more heavily
on her heavenly Father than ever before. The last leaves of autumn lay buried under winter’s first snow. A skiff of ice in her water bucket reminded her that Christmas and the return of the happy couple lurked just ahead. Shana threw herself into caring for the sick, studying her Bible, and making certain passages her own. The Psalms came alive to her as never before. She relied heavily on those that promised a shield, protection, strength, memorizing them and repeating them whenever she thought of the future. From disbelief and anger, through acceptance, Shana worked her way to a fragile peace.
Now the days raced along. A week before Christmas. Six days. Five. Four. Three. Wyatt and Emmeline were due on the twenty-third. Fortunately, nothing beyond the usual drip of colds and hack of sore throats plagued the community. Dr. Aldrich went to Asheville, leaving Shana in charge of the clinic. A few hours later, snow began to fall. When darkness came, Shana wearily trudged home. Snow crunched beneath her feet. Never had she felt so defeated. Even telling herself Christmas was for celebrating Christ’s birth, not wondering how she could live through the holidays without betraying her feelings, didn’t help.
Dr. Aldrich, Emmeline, and Wyatt didn’t come that night. Granny King looked wise. “Don’t fret yourself, child. They’ll be here for Christmas, no matter what. What Doc says, Doc does.”
Christmas Eve dawned clear and bright. Inches of white laid their gentle hand over the Hollow, softening its rough edges, beautifying the unlovely buildings. Wreaths made of wire covered with cedar boughs and red calico bows hung on her door and Shana’s. A large package from Alaska rested beneath a tiny tree the girl had forced herself to decorate with carefully strung popcorn and cranberries.
Gideon raced down the dogtrot on chubby legs. “Momma come today?”
“I hope so.” The sooner she faced meeting Wyatt and Emmeline, the sooner she could begin to fade into the background. She hugged the child, sent him back to Granny, and nerved herself for the ordeal.