The Prairie Doctor's Bride
Henry hoisted a sack under each arm and carried them out to the wagon, and she followed with the second case of jars.
Her conscience pricked her. Maybe she had been a bit testy with the doc. After all, he had been a big help with Carl.
“Go on and get in the wagon,” she told Tommy. She waited while Tommy clambered up onto the wagon seat. She always had the impulse to help him, after all, he was only seven years old, but she resisted the urge. Her son liked to climb. Seeing that he was settled, she turned back toward the doctor.
He stood in the doorway, looking comfortable and relaxed and infuriatingly confident, with a half smile on his face. She’d like to ask him what was so amusing but didn’t figure she’d care for his answer. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Doc Graham.”
“Same here. Except I still don’t know your name.”
She had plumb forgot about that. Still, she hesitated, hating to reveal yet again to another person her marital state. He’d learn of it eventually. Carl had made sure of that years ago and the Gallaghers liked to gossip—at least Mable did. “It’s Marks. Miss Sylvia Marks.”
She hurried outside, deposited the box she held in the back of the wagon and climbed up next to her son. She didn’t care to gauge the doc’s reaction on learning who she was. She unwrapped the reins from the brake lever and called out softly to her mule. “Giddup.”
She couldn’t leave town fast enough. Nothin’ but trouble in town. Nothin’ but trouble.
* * *
After watching the wagon pull away, Nelson Graham turned back to the counter. He considered it his duty as the town doctor to know who lived in the area. Miss Marks was as backwoods as he’d ever seen and an interesting mix of spunk and pride. Not bad-looking either, and despite her small frame, not easily overlooked. He would have remembered her, had he met her before.
“Interesting woman,” he said when Henry returned from the storage room. He carried the two heavy medical books that Nelson had ordered a month ago.
Henry snorted. “Always seems to bring trouble with her when she comes into town.”
“As I saw it, she didn’t have much choice.”
“I don’t involve myself in the squabbles between folks. If I take sides, my sales go down.”
Nelson had been told nearly the same thing in medical school. “Don’t involve yourself in the politics or prejudices of your patients. Your job is to heal. You won’t always agree with your patient, but you’ve given an oath as a doctor to care for everyone.” Trouble with that was, in Nelson’s mind, he was a man first before he was a doctor.
The fact remained that Carl Caulder was twice as big as Miss Marks and a bully. Nelson couldn’t abide bullies. “I thought I met everyone in these parts when I first arrived.”
“Miss Marks stays to herself. And if you happen by and surprise her, you might get a load of buckshot in you.”
Nelson stifled a smile at the image of the small-framed woman with a big rifle in her hands. “Doesn’t encourage me to visit her anytime soon. Where’s the boy’s father?”
“I heard he took off a few months before the boy was born and never came back. Carl says he died, but knowing Carl, that’s not necessarily true.”
Nelson absorbed that bit of information, feeling more and more like he was prying instead of gathering facts that might help him provide better medical care for the pair. He withdrew a few bills from his inside vest pocket. “Well, what do I owe you here?” Once he’d paid, he picked up his books and headed for the door.
Henry followed him outside to the boardwalk. “This came for you too.” He handed him a letter.
Nelson glanced at the return address. Boston. His parents. A weight dropped in his stomach. What could they possibly want?
He tucked the letter inside his vest pocket. “Thanks, Henry.”
“The train is due in tomorrow from Bridgeport. More women wanting to marry are arriving. Are you going to the station to look them over?”
“I didn’t fare so well the first time.” By the time he’d made up his mind which bride he wanted from the first train, he was too late. Mary McCary would have been a suitable fit. She knew how to cook and she had displayed a caring attitude toward the injured cook out at Putnam’s ranch. It was too bad that spending all that time with Steve Putnam had turned her head toward the rancher. They seemed satisfied with each other. More than satisfied. He was happy for them. It was just that he was left high and dry.
He nodded a goodbye to Henry and started for his house.
Although he had sworn off matrimony after his short-lived engagement, he figured in a small town it was the only course to take. People here tended to trust a married family man more than they would a bachelor and he also needed the help in his medical practice.
What he really wanted was a nurse—not necessarily a wife. Yet he couldn’t very well advertise for one. Any woman would cringe at the thought of traveling so far from her home for a mere nursing position. And no marriageable woman of good character would agree to spend constant time at his side without a ring on her finger. Tongues would wag in this little town where there were so few women. Even if he did find one to employ as his nurse without making her a missus, it wouldn’t be two months before another man would woo, marry and whisk her away.
His only other option was to hire a widow twice his age. He’d been on the lookout for just such a woman. Unfortunately, in the two years he’d lived here, even the older women quickly became brides again or left Oak Grove.
No. His only choice was marriage—preferably to a woman who could look after herself and not throw a fit if he missed supper now and then. Doctoring was more than a job to him, more than a profession. It had become his passion, a calling as much as any parson’s call to the cloth was a calling, and it took as many or more hours in a day. He needed a wife who would understand and be of help to him. Someone practical.
He stepped up on the porch and entered his office. Passing through the front room that served as his parlor and waiting room, he strode back to his office and set the journals and the letter on his desk. He wanted to delve right into the journals, but the letter was another matter. Word from home was seldom happy. He wished he could leave it for another day.
The address was written in his mother’s script. Nothing unusual about that. His father had never written to him. He heard from his mother only when there was something important to pass on—once a year at the most. He broke the fancy seal and unfolded the letter, then paced the length of the small room while he read.
And came to a standstill.
His parents were coming to visit.
Stunned, he reread the letter. Not once before had they visited him. Once they had stuck him in boarding school, it was he who did the traveling to see them, not the other way around. Not even when he graduated from medical school did they make the effort. This was unprecedented. They would arrive in two weeks. He turned the letter over once more, inanely hoping he’d find more written somewhere else on the page. He wished he could read between the lines.
What was really going on?
Chapter Two
“But it hurts!” Wiley Austin mumbled to his older brother, Kade. His eyes started to tear again as Nelson probed the boy’s thumb with the end of a needle. The large splinter had embedded itself under several layers of skin.
“Toughen up,” Kade said as he looked on. “Quit your slobberin’.”
“I ain’t slobberin’.”
“Are too.”
“Ain’t neither!” Wiley wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand.
“You’re doing fine,” Nelson murmured, concentrating on the splinter.
“Ouch!” Wiley jerked away.
Nelson straightened and stretched his back. “Shake it out and we’ll try again in a minute.” The grandfather clock in the hotel lobby chimed three times, reminding him that the train carrying the brides would be arriving at any moment. After a busy morning in the office, he’d finally made up his mind to be there...until Wiley’s splinter happened. “Ready to tackle this again?”
The boy wiped his nose again and stepped closer, holding out his hand. It shook slightly.
“I’m almost there.” Nelson pressed against the far edge of the splinter with his thumb, picked up his tweezers and eased the splinter out. He held it up. “That’s a big one. You were brave. Not every six-year-old could handle such a big operation.”
Wiley let out a huge sigh of relief.
Nelson dabbed at the drop of blood with his handkerchief and then slathered a small bit of unguent on the nearly invisible exit hole.
The train whistle blew once more and with it came the last chug and wheeze as the wheels slowed to a stop. Shouts sounded from the street as men headed toward the station.
“Thank you, Dr. Graham,” Sadie Austin said as she descended the steps from the second floor. “I just had to get the last of the rooms ready for the women and Wiley wouldn’t stand still for me to help him.”
“Not a problem, Mrs. Austin. Glad to help out.”
“Ma! Can me and Wiley go meet the train?”
Mrs. Austin hesitated a moment and then nodded. “We’ll go together. I can’t have you two anywhere near the tracks or the train’s wheels. Your father would have a fit. Now, you take hold of your brother’s hand, Kade.”
“Aw!” Wiley whined.
“I mean it!” she said.
Nelson settled his Stetson on his head. For a woman who had never had children of her own, Mrs. Austin was doing a fine job of mothering the two boys. “Going there myself, ma’am. I’ll walk with you.”
She grabbed her shawl from the table in the entryway as they headed out the front door of the hotel. “I’m glad to see you still here in Oak Grove.”
“Still here,” he said. People here had worried he would pull stakes and head back East when things didn’t work out with the first set of brides that rolled into town nearly a year ago. What they didn’t know was that the words he’d had with his father before leaving home for good had left a gaping chasm in their relationship—one not easily bridged. The only way he would consider going back to Boston would be if he received a heartfelt “I’m sorry” from his father. Unless their visit had something to do with that argument, he didn’t expect an apology to happen anytime soon.
“I like the town and the people. And with the new brides there will be more people to doctor in a few years.”
With Kade and Wiley jumping and yelling between him and Mrs. Austin, Nelson strode down the main street of town to the train station. A number of cowboys had come from outlying ranches for the excitement and they spilled out of the Whistle Stop Saloon ahead of him, lining up, shoulder to shoulder and bowleg to bowleg. As the women descended from the train, their long dresses pressed against their legs from the strong wind. Nelson tugged his hat farther down on his head, so as not to lose it to the blustery spring day.
“Gentlemen! Back up! Give the women some breathing room,” the mayor said in his booming voice from where he stood on the train steps. He had already been inside the train to welcome them in his official capacity. “The train must keep to its schedule, so you men help unload the trunks and get their belongings up to the hotel. The ladies will appreciate that more than having you jabber at them as their things ride on to Denver. We’ll have a welcome party tomorrow, once they’ve had a chance to rest and freshen up.”
Nelson pulled Kade and Wiley back to keep them out from underfoot as a few men surged forward and responded to the mayor’s instructions. Then the line of remaining cowboys parted and the mayor strode through the opening with the women—five of them—following.
Nelson quickly removed his hat, as did every other man there at the station, and watched the parade of women walk past, their long dresses swishing in time with the twitch of their bustles and the bob of their heads. It was quite a sight for Oak Grove.
Leading the group was a dark-haired, rather stern-faced woman in a black skirt with thin white stripes and a black shirtwaist. She took long, no-nonsense strides that could match any man’s. When she came near, he realized with something of shock that she was as tall as he was, which meant she had to be nearly six feet without the heels on those shoes of hers.
The next two women walked arm in arm and were close enough in appearance that he wondered if they were sisters with their nondescript brown hair confined in buns, brown felt hats with flowers and dark brown wool coats that covered them from head to toe. One looked about the town and men with open curiosity in her intelligent expression as she walked, while the other had a severe case of nerves and kept covering her lower face and giggling into her gloved hands.
The next two women walked single file, surrounded by the last of the cowboys from the saloon, who hid them so much that he couldn’t get much of a look at them. One looked to be quite attractive with pretty chestnut-colored hair, dark eyes and a wine-red hat that matched her cloak. The other appeared to be a blonde with wide cornflower blue eyes. She was a bit older by the small lines near her eyes. She might do—someone with experience in life could be an asset.
Mrs. Austin, with her young charges in hand, took off with the entourage toward the hotel. It would fall to her to help the young ladies get settled into their rooms. Left to himself, Nelson considered the notes he’d made earlier that day and withdrew the paper from his vest pocket. It was a “wish list” of sorts. Likely, no woman would meet all his expectations, but perhaps it would help him stay on course as he considered each of them.
Amiable.
Biddable.
Able to take constructive criticism.
Skilled in domestic chores: cooking, laundry, cleaning, sewing and gardening.
Willing to work by his side as his nurse.
Quiet. He didn’t want a woman who disrupted his research or his daily habits.
Willing to put another’s needs ahead of her own.
He’d added the last as a cautionary point, remembering his fiancée. He’d thought they were compatible in all things, but then suddenly she had broken off the engagement, unable to accept the numerous times he’d been called away to help someone who was ailing.
He wouldn’t let that happen again. What he needed was a practical woman as his wife. She didn’t need to be a raging beauty, but like any man, he wouldn’t mind if she was pleasant to look upon.
He tucked the paper back into his pocket and headed to his office. Now all he had to do was interview the ladies, one at a time, and see which one came closest to fulfilling his wish list.
Who knew? With his parents arriving in two weeks, perhaps they would find themselves attending his wedding.
He stopped before his two-story home that doubled as his office and surveyed it critically. Prior to residing in Oak Grove, he’d worked as the physician for the railroad company. The job entailed constant travel—something he’d had enough of after two years. This was his first office, the first place he’d ever been able to “hang his own shingle” and be in business for himself. He hoped his parents would be impressed with it when they arrived. It wasn’t up to Boston standards, but it was a start for him.
A wedding might be just what was needed to bring them all closer together. A wedding, after all, meant children would come next. The idea fascinated him. He was an only child, and a large family would be wonderful. But would his parents welcome grandchildren when they hadn’t ever made him feel welcomed? Likely, all his dreams were just that—dreams and nothing more.
Chapter Three
Sylvia threw the last of the wet clothes into her basket and traipsed back to the house from the creek. The day was uncommonly warm this early in spring, and she figured she’d better not misuse it. With her washing done, and soon to be spread on the line, she and Tommy might have time to hunt for mushrooms. Her mouth watered at the thought of them fried up in butter and piled high on a chunk of hearty bread.
“Tommy! Fetch a pail from the lean-to and let’s take a walk down the road,” she called out.
“Not till you find me!”
That boy! He was full of vinegar! She couldn’t blame him, not one bit. The warm sun shining down beckoned her to put work aside and have a day of fun. “Can you give me a hint?”
“Nope!”
He must be behind the shed. She set her basket down and ducked under the clothesline. She couldn’t believe the shed still stood after the winter they’d had, but Thomas had been good with his hands and smart when it came to making things.
“I’m coming!”
“Won’t get me!” her son cried out.
The happy sound filled her heart with gladness. She peeked behind the shed, ready to catch him if he raced by.
“You ain’t even warm yet!”
“Then where are you?” She tiptoed over to the stand of brush that edged the expanse of prairie and buffalo wallows beyond. The line of brush hid their place from prying eyes and made their small cabin feel cozy and protected. “I give up.”
A giggle escaped Tommy. “Right here!”
She spun around. Her son’s voice had come from above her. A flash of blue caught her eyes and she finally spied him. He’d managed to climb atop the shed and now lay sprawled across the slanted roof on his belly.
“How’d you climb way up there? Come on down now.”
He grinned. “All right, Ma.”
He stood and took a step, the old wood and tarp cracking and then giving beneath his foot. He flailed his arms out and his eyes widened.
“Tommy!” She moved closer. “Careful!”
But the fear in his big brown eyes clutched at her heart. “Ma... Ma!” Suddenly, he pitched forward, scraping against the edge of the roof and crying out in pain as he fell.
“No! Tommy!” she screamed and scrambled toward him.
He landed hard on a patch of weeds and lay still.
She knelt at his side, afraid at first to touch him. Hoping...hoping...that he would open his eyes or squirm or even jump up and laugh at her for being worried.
He didn’t.
“You all right?” she asked gently, her chest tight with worry. Of course, he wasn’t all right. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t even hearing her. “Tommy! Wake up! I’m here! I’m here...” She barely got the words out before her sobs choked them off. Her gut coiled into a hard lump. She reached for him. He was her baby—the only thing she cared for in this life. Oh, why...why...had he been born with the overpowering urge to climb things?
Maybe he’d just had the wind knocked out of him. Maybe she just needed to give him a moment.
Trembling, she took hold of his small hand. His face was deathly pale.
“Tommy, please wake up...”
His chest moved and then he gasped, pulling in air in a short burst, and then in a longer, slower drag as his lungs started working again.
“Oh, my stars! Tommy, are you all right?”
He rolled farther onto his back and took another breath. A deep one this time. “I don’t feel right.”
“You fell from the shed, baby. Where does it hurt?”
“Everywheres.”
“I don’t doubt that. Can you move?”
At that, he clenched his hands into fists, then tried to use his arms to sit up. Immediately, he fell back to the ground, breathing hard. “My head. My leg.”
“Let me look at you.” Gently, she turned his head to the side and smoothed her fingers through his hair. She felt something sticky and wet. There—a lump the size of a black walnut swelled up. He winced.
She turned to his legs. The one closest to her moved just fine. When she tested his far leg—his left leg—Tommy yelled.
“All right, all right...” she said. She had barely moved the leg and he’d had pain. What was she to do?
“Ma...I hurt all over.”
She swallowed. She couldn’t leave him out in the weather like this. The ground hadn’t given up the cold of winter yet.
“I gotta git you warm, son. I’m gonna get the quilt from the house to cover you. Then I’ll figure this out. You just rest. I’ll be right back.” She squeezed his hand firmly and then scrambled to her feet.
She raced to the house. Yanking the quilt from her son’s straw pallet, she rushed back out to him. He was deathly pale. His eyes were half-closed.
“This ain’t going to feel good, son,” she said as she snugged the quilt over him and tucked it around his little body, especially tight around his legs. “But you be brave. I’ll get you fixed up.”
Sneaking her arm under his knees and her other behind his back, she lifted him up and carried him to the house. If it was possible, his face paled even more when she laid him on his pallet by the hearth. Beads of sweat glistened on his upper lip and forehead.
“All done moving.” She used her apron to wipe his forehead, then raked his long shock of dark blond hair away from his face. “You were as brave as brave could be.”
“I don’t feel so good.” His usually boisterous voice was thin and weak.
She took his hand. It was cold and moist. Fear as she’d never known it before gripped her. “You hang on. I’ll get you—” His brown eyes drifted closed and his hand fell limply from hers. “Tommy!”
His chest rose and fell with each shallow breath.
Grabbing the fire iron, she stirred up the ashes in the hearth and then tossed on a cow chip.
She had best look at that leg. Carefully, she unwrapped the quilt from Tommy, then took a knife from the cupboard drawer and cut away his trousers.
And sat back, staring at the ugly wound on his leg. Her gut tightened. It looked bad. Real bad. A flap of skin had been scraped back in a wide swath along the side near the ankle. The skin was swollen and purple. Could she fix it?
Then another thought took hold. Had he broken his ankle too? It had all happened so fast. Maybe she couldn’t fix either of his ailments.
She took a closer look at his head, wincing at the size of the lump that had formed. He’d bled through the coarse cotton covering of the pallet, but she’d heard that head wounds always bled a lot. The flow of blood seemed to be slowing, congealing now. She couldn’t do anything for a head injury. It would have to heal itself. She felt so helpless.
She got to her feet, grabbed the soap and the bowl and the pitcher from the table, and came back to him. “I sure hope you don’t wake up and feel this, son, ’cause it will break my heart if I’m a-hurtin’ you.”
With that, she set to work rinsing out the dirt and splinters of the old roof and cleaning out the wound. Then she slathered a layer of honey over it and wrapped it in a clean cloth.
She wished that someone at the DuBois farm was home. Adele would know what to do, but just yesterday the family had stopped by to tell her they were on their way to Salina to purchase a new ox.
Sylvia pulled Tommy’s pallet closer to the fire. Not knowing what else to do, she sat down in her rocking chair and watched him for signs of rousing.
She took comfort in the fact that he was breathing. The steady rise and fall of his chest was sweeter to her than a meadowlark’s song. Surely he’d wake up soon. Surely the Lord wouldn’t take Tommy from her too.
But the next hour brought no change. Her confidence in Tommy’s recovery slowly eroded. It seemed that a child should bounce back quick and this wasn’t quick. She gave him a little jiggle, pushing on his shoulder. Then put a cold cloth to his face. He didn’t stir.
Pale sunlight streamed through a small window and slanted across the dirt floor. It would be dark in another hour.
She wasn’t used to sitting. Wasn’t used to letting life happen to her. She preferred to go out and meet it. For seven years, she’d worked hard to make a life for the two of them. She wasn’t about to see that stop, not if there was an ounce of strength left in her body.
Chapter Four
The sun cast a pink glow over the entire town when Nelson left his office and walked toward the Oak Grove Town Hall. Since the evenings still carried the chill of winter, the shindig was taking place inside the building that Jackson Miller had just completed. From the street, he could hear the muffled sounds of conversation and laughter through the tall windows.