Faithful Heart (6 page)

For the rest of the day, Dr. Laird kept a close watch on Lenny, fearing that his time was short. As night fell, Lenny began to grow weaker.

After the evening preaching service, John and Breanna took a stroll around the inside perimeter of the fort’s stockade walls. The time spent together served to deepen their devotion to each
other and to mold their hearts in a stronger bond of love. Once again they prayed together, asking God to guide them in their decisions. They also thanked the Lord for the way He had worked in hearts that day, bringing so many to Himself. They prayed too for Lenny Pinder, asking the Lord to spare his life unless, in His wisdom, He had higher plans for him.

Before retiring for the night, they went to the infirmary and found Dr. Laird sitting beside Lenny, who was asleep and resting easy. Laird still had hope that Lenny would make it. If he lived till sunrise, he most likely would be over the hump.

Dawn was a gray hint on the eastern horizon when John Stranger awakened where he slept on the ground to the whisper of a voice calling his name. He blinked and sat up and saw that it was Dr. Laird. “Yes, Doctor?”

Laird hunkered down beside him and said in a choked voice, “Lenny didn’t make it, Mr. Stranger. He died ten minutes ago.”

Sadness washed over the tall man as he threw back the covers of his bedroll and sighed, “It was God’s will, Doctor. You did all you could.”

“That I did. There comes that point when we doctors can go no further. He’s in God’s hands now.”

“Yes,” John said, rising to his feet as Laird rose with him. “I’ll tell Breanna as soon as she gets up. Have you let Colonel Lynch know yet?”

“Not yet. I’m going to his quarters now. I wanted to advise you first.”

Stranger thanked him, and as the doctor moved away, he
called after him, “If the burial can be right away, I’ll be glad to conduct the funeral service.”

There was sadness in Fort Bridger over the loss of Corporal Lenny Pinder, but the Christians also rejoiced that the boyish young soldier was now with the Lord.

John Stranger conducted the funeral service at the graveside. He and Breanna, along with Rip Clayson, went to the officers’ quarters and told the Moores good-bye, then the wagon train rolled out of the fort with its cavalry escort.

A
FARM WAGON
threw up dust as it bounced and fishtailed at full speed northward toward San Francisco amid vineyards, orchards, and truck farms. The two horses pressed into the harness, running as fast as they could go. They seemed to know the trip was urgent. Foam flew from their open mouths, flecking their sweaty bodies as the young woman in the seat snapped the reins, shouting at the top of her voice to hasten them on.

In the seat on either side of her were her eight-year-old son and her six-year-old daughter. The boy’s head, which lay in her lap, was wrapped in a blood-stained towel. The girl crowded close to her mother, clinging to her slender waist for all she was worth.

The mother was near panic. She could not spare the horses. Her son’s life was possibly at stake.

Like many great cities of the world, San Francisco was built on a harbor which was part of a great bay extending forty-five miles inland and varying from three to thirteen miles in width. And like many boom and bust towns of the West in the early 1870s,
its main streets were lined with hotels, gambling casinos, dance halls, and saloons. In the area known as the “Big Bad” Square Plaza, banks and other financial institutions crowded together with shops of every description, restaurants, clothing stores, and the like.

San Francisco, with its sixty-five thousand residents, was larger than any town between the Pacific Coast and Kansas City, Missouri. It was a busy, bustling town of fog-blurred mornings and clear afternoons, the sun shining on a blue bay flecked with white caps and a brisk, clean wind whipping the sails of the ships that passed in and out of the harbor.

Always on the minds of San Francisco’s residents, and those who visited there, was the threat of earthquakes. From its earliest days (the town was founded in 1776 and named after explorer José Francisco Ortega), the area was frequently shaken by quakes. Most were minor, but some were major. The minor ones merely unnerved San Francisco’s residents. The major ones shattered windows, cracked walls, and often left small crevices in yards and streets.

On one thing the seismologists agreed—the quakes were going to become more serious, and they looked for a “big one” to come sometime around the turn of the century.

The formidable coast ranges shielded the inland valleys from the fogs and winds that plagued the town and bay. The flat lands immediately south of San Francisco and the valley east of the coast ranges produced healthy orchards, vineyards, and fields of fruits and vegetables.

The young mother who raced the family wagon into San Francisco with her children beside her was from a fruit and vegetable farm several miles south of town.

Dottie Harper’s wagon thundered into San Francisco on Third Street, racing northward, then threw dirt as she veered it onto Market Street and headed for Powell. The town’s two hospitals were only a block apart on Powell Street, but Dottie chose to go to City Hospital. It had more doctors than Smith Memorial, and her chances of getting immediate attention for James were better there.

At the corner of Market and Powell, she almost struck an elderly couple just starting across the intersection as she whipped the wagon around the corner and raced toward the hospital’s front doors. Dottie jerked on the reins and skidded the wagon to a halt, the horses blowing hard.

Her heart beat against her ribs like a caged bird bent on escape as she climbed down, catching her skirt momentarily on the brake handle. Her anxiety rose when the towel around her son’s head slipped down and she saw fresh blood flowing from his left ear.

“Here, Molly Kate,” she said, extending her arms to the girl. “Let Mommy help you down.” Molly Kate’s pallid face and widened eyes gave evidence of the fear she felt for her brother.

Dottie placed the girl on the ground, then leaned against the wagon’s side and gathered James into her arms. The air was cool, but sweat trickled down the side of her face. James was conscious, but had not spoken a word since they left the farm. His eyes were dull and his mouth hung open listlessly, shock shadowing his features.

Dottie cradled James in her arms and headed for the hospital entrance. Molly Kate hurried along behind her. Dottie was almost to the double doors when one of them swung open. A
young man with an arm in a sling started out, saw her coming, and held the door open.

The receptionist at the desk took one look at Dottie’s face and knew something was seriously wrong. When her glance fell on the bloody towel that encircled the boy’s head, she rose to her feet.

“We have an emergency here, ma’am,” Dottie gasped. “My son’s left ear is bleeding.”

The receptionist’s features stiffened when she looked at James and saw also the purple bruises on his face, the swollen left eye, and the split in his upper lip.

She glanced at Molly Kate, making sure she was untouched, then said, “Your name, ma’am?”

“Dottie Harper. My son’s name is James.” The receptionist picked up a pencil and scribbled quickly on a sheet of paper. “H-A-R-P-E-R, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“And your address?”

“General delivery, San Bruno. We have a truck farm and orchard near San Bruno.”

The receptionist wrote it down hastily, dropped the pencil, and said, “Come with me. You can bring the little girl, too.”

As they hurried down a long hall, the receptionist studied James and asked, “Same person who beat the boy put those bruises on
your
face?”

A cold knot formed in Dottie’s stomach. Her throat constricted, and she attempted to clear it.

“Sometimes in cases like these, we’re told that the child fell,” the receptionist said.

“No. No, he didn’t fall. He—”

“Right in here.” The woman stopped suddenly and pushed the door of the examining room open. “Lay him on the table. I’ll get a doctor right away.”

Molly Kate’s eyes were wide as she looked around the room. It smelled like medicine, and there were two large cabinets with shelves full of cans and bottles. Three straight-backed chairs stood against the back wall.

The receptionist paused at the door. “Somebody gave that little fellow an awful beating. And whoever it was got pretty rough with you too, didn’t he?”

Dottie bit her lip, but did not reply. The woman disappeared down the hall.

James was still conscious, but his eyes were dull. As Dottie made him as comfortable as possible, she said over her shoulder, “Molly Kate, honey, why don’t you sit down on one of those chairs?”

Molly Kate, who had the same blond hair and sky-blue eyes as her mother, asked, “Is James gonna be all right, Mommy?”

“Yes, honey. The doctor will be here in a minute. He’ll make James all right. You go sit down.”

Dottie studied her son, thinking that he looked more and more like his father. He had the same dark-red hair and hazel eyes as Jerrod, and the same prominent cheekbones, chin, and jaw line.

People intermittently passed by in the hall, moving slowly and speaking in low tones. Their soft sounds were suddenly overridden by rapid footsteps, and a slender man in his late forties rushed through the door. He wore a white smock over his regular clothes.

“Mrs. Harper,” he said, “I’m Dr. Glenn Olson. Mrs. Stratton—the receptionist—told me the boy had been beaten severely and that you had taken some abuse, too. Both are quite obvious.”

Dottie closed her eyes and nodded. Then opening them, she said, “I’m fine. James’s ear has been bleeding. You can see the towel is soaked with blood.”

Dr. Olson bent over the boy, removed the towel, and did a quick examination of the ear. He then studied the facial bruises, the cut lip, and looked into the dull eyes. “It’ll take me a while to assess the damage, Mrs. Harper. There’s a waiting room—”

He was interrupted by a white-clad nurse who came through the door, saying, “Sorry it took me so long to get here, Doctor. We had a small emergency in the ward, and I couldn’t leave right away.”

“I understand. Nurse Nola Warren, this is Mrs. Dottie Harper,” Olson said. “The boy, here, is James. I don’t know the pretty little lady’s name back there on the chair.”

“Molly Kate,” Dottie said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“As I was saying, Mrs. Harper, there’s a waiting room down the hall to your right. If you and Molly Kate will wait down there, I’ll come and talk to you as soon as I know what we’re dealing with here.”

“All right, Doctor. Thank you. Come, Molly.”

The little girl hurried to her mother and grasped the hand that was offered her. As they moved toward the door, Nurse Warren looked at Dottie’s facial bruises and the worry in her eyes, and said, “Doctor, wouldn’t it be all right if Mrs. Harper stayed while you examine James? I’m sure she’d appreciate being able to remain with him.”

Dottie smiled at the nurse and held tight to Molly Kate’s hand.

“Oh. Well, of course,” Olson said. “That would be better in this case anyhow. I need to ask her some questions.”

Molly Kate returned to her chair and Dottie moved up to the table and stood opposite the doctor. Olson told Nola that he needed to take some stitches in the boy’s cut lip even though the cut was scabbing and the bleeding had stopped. He then used a reflector to examine James’s ear. The boy winced when he touched it, but did not cry out.

“Sorry, son,” Olson said softly, “I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to see into your ear canal. Does it hurt real bad?”

James seemed only half-conscious. “Not real bad, sir,” he said.

“You’re just a brave young man. I think it must hurt quite a bit.”

James did not reply. He looked up at his mother, who was holding his hand.

Tears misted Dottie’s eyes. She managed a smile and said, “He truly is a brave young man, Doctor.”

Olson finished his examination and laid the reflector aside. “I don’t think there’s anything serious here, Mrs. Harper. The bleeding has nearly stopped. James took a sharp blow right on the ear, enough to break the wall of the canal near the opening. Anything to do with our ears usually bleeds more freely than most other parts of our bodies. He’ll be all right. I’ll put some salve in there that will help aid its healing. You can take some home and apply it a couple of times a day for the next week. There shouldn’t be any more problems with it.” He paused for effect, then added, “That is, unless he gets another beating like this one.”