Shane was the only passenger to debark. He stood on the platform for a moment, looking around for her.
“I’m here, Shane,” she said softly, stepping from the shelter of a doorway. She took three small steps and ran into his arms. It was the first time he had encountered the fact that her mother’s Southern roots had made her an impulsive hugger. He returned her embrace.
“I’m so glad the Board of Inquiry cleared you,” she said.
“That’s only the lesser half of it. Look.” He slid his parka down and turned his right arm toward her. The four chevrons of a Staff Sergeant were gone and in their place was a crown.
“Oh, my! You’ve been promoted! You’re an officer now! Inspector, isn’t it? I’m so happy for you! You’ve worked so hard. I know this is well deserved.”
“The promotion came way early, too, just like my last one did. But it’s partly that I’m a barrister, and I’m probably going to go into administration eventually. You see, the Northwest Mounted will someday have jurisdiction over all of Canada, and I hope I can rise in the ranks as it does.” She looked up at his face, noticing that his cheeks were pink with excitement.
“You’ll do it if you want to. I know you’ll be successful. You’re intelligent and educated, and you’re too good a police officer not to.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “Now it’s my turn to say thank you for your faith in me.”
“It’s not mere blind faith. I know you well enough by now.”
“Within the year they’ll assign two more officers to Elk Gap. I’ll be glad to have them here. I won’t have so many reports to do, so I’ll have more time to spend with you.”
“As I said before, one of your ancestors must have kissed the Blarney Stone,” she teased.
“Does it work on you?”
She reddened furiously, but she was determined not to let him have the last word. “That remains to be seen. Keep trying.”
“You’re such a flirt,” he accused softly, releasing her shoulders. He led her down from the station platform and untied the horses’ reins. “I’m surprised you brought Midnight.”
“I had trouble getting Josh to let me have him. I’m beginning to understand why you’re not fond of that man.”
“Well, there’s more to it than the fact that he can be unpleasant. He’s dishonest. Don’t ever buy anything from him. That’s why Richard asked me to go to Thomas to get you a saddle horse.” Jenny mounted, and Shane followed her a fraction of a second later.
“Shane, Uncle Richard has invited you to dinner. He wanted to have a quiet celebration to congratulate you on your good news.”
“I’d be honored,” he replied, pressing Midnight’s reins. It was beginning to seem natural to ride toward home next to him.
“Tonight’s not much of a party, just a special dinner, but we’re so happy for you. And it was such a surprise to hear from you yesterday. Whatever possessed you to telephone me?”
“I promised to let you know about the Board of Inquiry as soon as I knew anything. I certainly took some teasing from Bob about it, too. And of course he had to tell Marie, and then I was in for a real interrogation. She thinks it’s terribly sad that I’m still single, especially since I get on so well with their girls.”
“How many children do they have, then?”
“Elise is eleven, Frances is eight, and Jacqueline is just five now, I think. I try to keep track of birthdays, but it’s difficult. I’ve known them since I started here, when Elise was quite young and Frances hardly more than a baby.”
“You’re fond of them, aren’t you?”
Shane smiled quietly. “Truth be known, any of the three can wind me around her little finger. Elise is quite the little lady, Jacqueline is the born sympathizer, and Frances is the tomboy of the bunch. I don’t know how many times I’ve climbed trees after her, and this morning she was on the roof of the porte cochère. She’s a redhead, too.”
“Oh, dear! Redhead temperament! My, they sound absolutely precious. I’d love to meet them sometime.”
“You will. I’ll take you to River Bend, perhaps the next time there’s something good at the Opera House.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she replied, smiling. “I’m not certain I’d know how to act in the big city, though.”
“You? You grew up in the upper crust of New York society! I’m the one who’s strictly a hick. To me, River Bend is the big time!”
Chapter Ten
The days drifted easily into one another. Jenny saw patients, delivered two babies, including Edith Mattson’s strong, hungry daughter, whom they named Laura Anne, and basked in the heaven of an actual medical practice. She worked with Toby, who had proven surprisingly easy to teach, since he still had the rudiments of reading from his early schooling. They were both delighted when the door to the rest of the world suddenly opened for him.
Another delight was that Jimmy Richardson had adjusted beautifully to his prosthesis, and on Saturdays, when she accompanied Shane to North Village, he was walking and running with only a trace of a limp. He was terribly proud of the caulk boots she had managed to find in his size. While most of the young people of North Village went about in old-fashioned moccasins, he wore logging boots, the mark of a man.
Those idyllic days were to be short-lived, however. One windy morning when she was turning out of Richard’s lane on her way to town, a slight figure on a scrubby bay horse galloped full tilt down the road and pulled to a stop next to her. She turned around and recognized Jimmy.
“Stone Dreaming Woman!” he began excitedly. Jenny held up her hand.
“Slowly, Jimmy. In English. Ou en Français. I speak no Iroquois,” she said. He took a breath and bit his lower lip, groping for words.
“My brother, much fever. You come?” It was plain that Jimmy had not applied himself to the English lessons he received in the mission school.
“I will come. Mais, venez-vous avec moi un moment, s’il vous plaît,” she said in very slow French, hoping he would have less trouble with that. She beckoned to him, then turned and cantered back down the lane. She led them up to the back porch and dismounted. Jimmy followed, clearly terrified.
“Un moment,” she repeated, gesturing to him to sit on the steps. Suspicious of Indians, Toby put down his hoe and came across the yard, his hands outspread, questioning. She took the notepaper and pencil he carried in the breast pocket of his shirt.
“His brother is ill. I am going to North Village,” she printed. Ball-and-stick letters were still easier for Toby than her idiosyncratic handwriting, though he had no trouble with Richard’s clearer copperplate script. Toby nodded and touched his temple to show he understood. Then she went into the house, where she ran up the stairs two at a time and grabbed her medical bag from beneath her bed. The contents received a cursory inspection before she crossed the small landing and tapped on her uncle’s door.
“Yes?” he called from within. She poked her head inside.
“Jimmy Richardson came from North Village. He says his brother is ill with a fever. I’m going up there. Can you do me a favor and telephone Angus and tell him where I’ve gone? I don’t really feel I can take the time.”
“All right. Be sure and tell Mavis.”
“Mavis went out to the garden, and I’m really in a hurry. But you can tell Shane where I am if he comes out here or calls. I really don’t want him up there, though, until I figure out if there’s something serious going around.”
“All right. Be careful.”
“I will, Uncle Richard, but don’t wait up for me. I could be a while.” She pulled the door closed, careful to make no noise. Richard had a great aversion to slamming doors.
Her arms loaded, she skipped down the stairs. She tied her medical bag and her jacket behind the cantle of the saddle. Jimmy was already mounted, and as soon as she had tucked her toes into the stirrups, he lashed the poor bay into a gallop. She had no choice but to follow.
Their breakneck pace did not slacken until the horses
began to climb. Clearly he was anxious, because he kept glancing back at her to make certain she followed.
When they reached the clearing around which North Village clustered, she felt the usual pang of shame and regret that people had to live in such a fashion. Winter had left the ramshackle houses that much sadder and wearier. Porches leaned farther, walls stood a little more crooked, and more and more tarpaper had been added everywhere. Jimmy bounced down, and she noticed with satisfaction that he took as much of the shock on his stump as on his good leg. Exceptional healing, she thought, giving herself a mental pat on the back. Then hard on its heels came the thought that the young heal well given half the chance. She paused to tether Fleur to a hitching rail and unfasten her medical bag, and Jimmy led her into his own house.
Unlike Madame LaPorte’s log cabin, this was a box-framed board-and-batten shack with a leaning porch. Two children, a boy of about eight years and a girl somewhat younger, retreated to a corner when Jimmy opened the door. Jenny smiled at them as Jimmy said something in Iroquois. The girl looked at Jenny for an instant, but the boy, his eyes fixed on his older brother, gestured toward a door in the back wall.
This house, too, was a two-room shotgun, somewhat better than the run of shacks in North Village in which an entire family lived in one featureless room. She heard voices in the back, and then the door opened and Jimmy’s parents exited, followed by the thin, wizened priest she remembered as Father André from Our Lady of the Angels. The priest looked at her as though seeing an apparition.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in his very Parisian French.
“I am a doctor, Father André. If you remember, I treated Jimmy when he injured his leg in the trap. He came for me, saying that his brother is ill.”
“A doctor?” the priest echoed. Jenny felt herself becoming impatient and took a deep breath.
“Yes. I’ve been practicing with Dr. MacBride for the last few months.” Father André looked hard at her for a moment, then shook his head slowly.
“The Good Lord never ceases to surprise us, does He? I doubt there is much you can do for Johnny. He received a valid Last Sacrament, but…” He broke off with a sigh and a helpless gesture of spread hands and shook his head again. “I’ll come with you as interpreter if you’d like me to.”
“Thank you, Father. I’m learning Iroquois, but I haven’t come too far yet.”
He gave her a sad smile full of wrinkles and weariness, ushered her into the miniscule back room, and turned away, leaving her with her patient.
She swallowed against a lump in her throat when she saw the boy, a thin, slightly taller version of Jimmy, lying unconscious and hyperpyrexic on a pallet of hides and worn blankets. His dark face was flushed hotly save that there was a pale margin around his lips, and as she watched, she noted his erratic breathing. She shook her head. Why had these people waited so long to call her? With a nod to Madame LaPorte, who sat on her knees a few feet away, she opened her medical bag, produced a thermometer, and tucked it into the boy’s armpit. But the bright red, sandpapery rash across his chest sounded a more grave alarm within her. Scarlet fever—deadly, and very contagious. And in the next room, three innocent children were defenseless against it. She said a silent prayer that the killer would go no further than this room, but in all probability the streptococcus already had done its ugly work. She plucked the thermometer from Johnny’s armpit and read it: 105.8. And the axillary temperature usually ran at least a degree lower than the actual body core temperature. The hideous fire had already wrought irreparable harm, and even as she read the strip of mercury, Johnny’s breathing failed for several seconds and resumed with a lurching gasp. Cheyne-Stokes Respiration. It indicated irreversible and terminal neurological damage to the respiratory center in the brain. At that moment Father André entered again, as quietly as a cat. His faded blue eyes questioned her.
“Father, I’m sorry. He’s too far gone. It’s a matter of time now, probably within the hour. All we can do is wait out the end. Madame, I’m very sorry.” Renee LaPorte translated for Helen Richardson, whose face registered no change of expression. Jenny listened with her stethoscope as Johnny’s heart stopped. Then she drew the blanket over his face and tried her best not to cry. Once outside the shotgun shack, she turned on Father André.
“Why did they wait? He must have been ill for days!”
“He was, but Doctor MacBride is old and frail, and these people have their own ways of treating things.”
“Ways that lead to this!” Jenny retorted, softly but nonetheless vehemently. “If I’d been summoned earlier, he might have had a chance!”
“All is as God wills it, my child,” Father André murmured, and she wanted nothing more than the luxury of flying at him. However, she knew the futility of arguing. She had been caught out by this attitude before.
“Be that as it may, we can help keep the disease from spreading. It’s scarlet fever. The early symptoms are sore throat, headache, rash, fever, chills. The schoolhouse will be ideal for an isolation ward. Please go among the people and have any who have experienced these symptoms, especially children, come to me there. If we can isolate the sick ones, it’ll minimize the risk of contagion, and scarlet fever is one of the worst for spreading. Can you get them to cooperate, Father? And I’ll need a few people to help me, but be certain they know they’ve had the disease. One episode of infection confers lifetime immunity.” He continued to look down at her with timeless patience.
“Every adult here has had the disease. It’ll strike only children, like all diseases do in North Village.”
“Then can you get the parents to help? I’ll check the children for sore throats, but it’s imperative that all who have any symptoms whatsoever be isolated. And get some of the men to barricade the trail so that no one will accidentally come up here.” Father André nodded, and it struck her that she did not have to give him directions. He had doubtless seen enough epidemics that he would know exactly what had to be done. After a long, sorrowful look toward the mean little house of mourning, he left, and she was alone in the muddy village square. She turned toward Madame LaPorte, who had followed her out of the Richardsons’ shack.
“I will help you,” the Indian woman murmured in very provincial French.
“Merci, Madame,” Jenny responded.
By afternoon Jenny had five children in the schoolhouse infirmary. The North Village children reminded her of little squirrels, all dark eyes and furtiveness. Raised in the woods, they were silent, woodsy little things themselves, and it took a lot of cozening on her part to overcome their fear of a white woman. She dispensed aspirin for fever and sprayed throats, though she did not know how much good it would do. Once the disease took hold, it could only be allowed to run its course, and the most she could do was provide good supportive care. The ones who were actually ill were isolated and bundled onto pallets on the floor, attended by five Indian women, among them Madame LaPorte and her sister, who held her deep, maternal grief behind expressionless black eyes.
Just before dusk Jenny checked into the progress in barricading the trail. Four men had dragged a large log across the path just below the village, and after some digging in the schoolhouse, she found a sheet of paper and a charcoal crayon, printed a large sign reading QUARANTINE—SCARLET FEVER, and affixed it to the log. She had no more than finished her task when a voice called up to them and she stepped over the log to see Shane riding up the trail. She moved out to warn him off.
“Don’t come any closer. There’s scarlet fever here. We’ve had six cases and one death already.” She backed up a step as he pulled Midnight to a stop a little closer than she would have liked.
“Jenny…” he began, but she silenced him with a shake of her head. “No,” he insisted. “I’m in this now, so I may as well stay. You’re going to need help.”
“I have all the help I need. The only thing I need from you is a burial permit. Johnny Richardson died about four hours ago. They’d waited so long to call me that he w
as comatose when I got here, and there was nothing to be done by then.”
His eyes flickered downward. “That’s too bad. I’ve known Johnny a long time. He was a good boy. But how about the other children? We have to work with the ones we can save.”
“Not we. Me. Don’t come in.” She moved as though to block his path, but he heeled Midnight over the log and she was forced to step out of the way of the big warmblood. “Why did you do that?” she demanded as he swung down from Midnight’s back.
“As I said before, you’ll need help.”
“There’s plenty of help here. Father André is with us, and Madame LaPorte. We have enough French to communicate nicely. You have had scarlet fever, I hope?” He nodded, his face tense.
“A long time ago. I don’t specifically remember, but I must have had it. I had everything else. There’s an outbreak around here every few years.”
“Well, as long as you’re here, please make out a permit so the body can be buried as soon as possible. That’s one small thing we can do to help prevent contagion.”
“As soon as I put Midnight up. Jenny, this is a brave thing you’re doing.”
“I’m a doctor; it’s no more than my duty. Would you have told Doctor MacBride he was doing a brave thing?”
“Perhaps I take Angus too much for granted,” he replied cryptically.
Later, as she went from child to child in the schoolhouse, changing cool compresses and administering aspirin, she had to admit to herself that Shane’s presence was comforting. She had never known anyone so strong and so quietly competent. She could not imagine a situation he could not handle. Then she realized she had begun to feel a deep fondness for him, and in her life that was very much an unknown quantity.
In the half-dark of the schoolhouse she meditated on that for a few minutes. She had never had a regular beau, though her father was staunchly in favor of Phillip Hildebrand. However, she and Phillip, thrown together by parental agreement, had never developed any sort of attraction for each other, and deep inside Jenny suspected the Hildebrands’ motives. After all, the Westons had a great deal of money, and she could reasonably be expected to inherit it all. Idly she wondered if it would matter to Shane whether she inherited money or not. Her first impulse was to doubt it absolutely.
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