Rocky Mountain Dawn (Rocky Mountain Bride Series Book 1) (7 page)

Esther put her hand on the oldest boy's shoulders. "Do you have any extra blankets?"

Nodding, he went back to the only bedroom that now housed the sick child and returned with a few woolen coverlets. Esther directed the children to lie down in the front room.

"You need your rest. You can't help your sister by staying up all night."

The father came in. "Doctor wants you."

She pulled out a chair for the exhausted man, and left him slumped against the table.

"Johnathan?" She pushed open the door. Her husband turned towards her, looking ten years older.

"Her fever's bad. Normally I'd let it burn out, but I don't think she'll last the night."

She went to her side and put her hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Her appendix is inflamed." His hand covered hers. "There's a procedure but it is risky, and I hesitate to do it in this environment."

"Her mother said that she's been like this for days. Why wasn't a doctor called sooner?"

"There isn't one. Not on this side of town. Only a barber-surgeon, and the family paid all they had for him to come and do nothing."

Esther watched the little girl labor for breath, then took her husband's hand. "Johnathan, you can help her. I know you can."

"I must." He squeezed her hand, then grew brisk. "Get the parents. I will explain what must be done."

They moved the kitchen table into the bedroom, the scene of the surgery. At the first incision, the father, who was holding the girl, grew faint, and Esther sent him out and took his place. The mother slept in the corner while Johnathan worked with Esther at his side into the wee hours.

Dawn broke before Johnathan lay his bloody implements aside. Esther woke the mother and sent her for more water, cleaning up her husband and the area the best she could before he went to address the family.

"She's alive. The surgery went well, and I have hopes that she will pull through. The next hours are critical. She must lie undisturbed." She heard him say, and continued to clean up the child, making sure there was no sign of the surgery that had taken place.

Wrinkling her nose at the thick smell of blood, she removed the cloth over the only window, and opened the shutters to let the light and air in.

"It's a fine morning," Esther told the sleeping child. "But there will be plenty more for you to see. My husband will make sure of it."

She heard her husband in the doorway and went to help him into a chair she'd brought in from the kitchen.

"Now we wait," he told her.

Kneeling beside him, she leaned against his leg, glancing up from time to time. Her husband's face was drawn and lined with care, but to her he looked like angel.

He caught her admiring glance and gave her a tired smile. "I admit, though I wish to be a man of God, I have spent years studying the flesh. My talents as a doctor are greatly needed, maybe more than my preaching."

"You were wonderful." Taking his hand, Esther pressed a kiss to it.

"Darling wife." He put his hand on her golden hair as she laid her head on his knee, but said no more, too worn out to speak.

Esther shut her eyes for a moment. If all went well, her husband had saved a young girl's life. He would go on to minister to people's bodies and souls alike.

Anything she did couldn't compare. What help was she? How could she make a difference?

The fever broke around noon, and Johnathan finally stood. Esther tucking herself into his side so he could lean on her.

"It's in God's hands now," he told the parents.

"Thank you," the mother said. The father could barely speak, but he nodded, tears in his eyes.

Esther helped her husband all the way to their room, and their bed. By the time he reached it, he was so tired. She slipped her arms around his shoulders and bid him drink some water, then let him sink back into the pillows. Drawing off his boots and socks, she went to help him remove his shirt and trousers, but he was already fast asleep.

Restless, Esther tidied the room, then took a rag and washed and buffed her husband's boots.

He was a hero, she decided. Perhaps her only role was to be his helper. If so, she would do her best for him. Watching him sleep, the lines of his face softened, she wished she could ease him further. Her small actions didn't seem enough to serve him.

Finally, she crept into bed and curled up beside him.

*****

He woke a few hours later, and she opened her eyes when he swung his legs out of the bed.

"Husband?"

"I must check on the child."

Esther rose, her hair tumbling down her back. "I sent a boy to the family, and he returned saying all is well."

"I must see her." He frowned. "Where are my boots?"

"Here." Esther came and knelt before him, putting on his socks and lacing up his now gleaming boots. She felt very small beside him, and honored to help him in any small way.

"Dearest." He drew her up and kissed her. "Stay in bed. I will return soon."

But she could not sleep. She paced in the room, and at last sent for a meal, laying the trays on the small table squeezed next to the only chair.

When Johnathan re-entered, she couldn't keep the question off her face.

"All is well." He closed the door carefully, and leaned against it until she came to help him. "She's sleeping normally."

"No more leaving," she said, guiding him to the chair. Bending over him, she fed him soup, coaxing him until he finally took the spoon from her.

"You're the best nurse I've ever had." He smiled at her. "The prettiest too."

"I only wish I could do more."

An hour later, a knock on the door sent her scurrying to give the intruder a piece of her mind. Johnathan pulled her back and took her place. Biting her lip, she hoped it wasn't another patient to draw her tired husband into the night.

The father of the sick girl stood outside the door, hat in hand.

"Doctor," he greeted Johnathan with a rough voice. "Kirsty is up and asking for her meal."

"Nothing but broth for a day," Johnathan said. "And plenty of water. She should recover enough to eat bread tomorrow, and be running about in no time."

"The missus and I thank you," the man said gruffly, and handed over a burlap bag stuffed full with something.

"You're welcome." Johnathan waited until the man was down the hall before shutting the door and checking the bag.

"What is it?" Esther came closer.

"My payment," Johnathan said with a grin. "Dried venison. Exactly the provision we'll need on our journey."

*****

After a week on the trail West, Esther hated the sight, smell and taste of venison jerky, though her hungry stomach didn't complain. By day they rode for miles in a long, dusty caravan. By night, Johnathan worked throughout the wagon train, checking blisters, giving medicine for aches and pains, even delivering a baby. The patients often paid in jerky. Esther was grateful when their supplies ran out, and dinner was more often a rabbit or a quail one of the men had trapped.

Esther was one of the few women on the trail, and when the family with the new babe stopped to stay with family in Kansas, she lost all her female friends.

"I don't mind taking women along, as long as they know their place," the trail master told her. "Men to the right, women to the left, I always say. Of course, a woman as pretty as you is welcome anywhere she goes."

Esther thanked him, privately rolling her eyes.

"It's as if he wished women lived like the djinn, waiting in a lamp for a man to summon her," she told her husband later, when they cuddled together under the stars. "On and on about women knowing their place."

Johnathan chuckled, his fingers sifting through her golden hair. "I'll tell him the truth of it: correct a woman as needed, but otherwise treat her like a queen, and then she will grant you every wish."

Rolling onto her husband's long body, Esther did just that.

The next morning, happy, but still wanting to give the driver a piece of her mind, Esther wandered around the wagon and saw the driver. Approaching, she realized his partner was standing facing away from the wagon, with an arc of golden liquid splashing on the ground.

"Mrs. Shepherd," the driver sputtered, and the standing man automatically started to turn, his breeches still undone.

"Oh, forgive me." She whirled, and hurried to "her" side of the wagon.

When she imparted this story to Johnathan later, he covered his face with his hand.

"I suppose that's what he meant when he said 'women on the left of the wagon.' I thought there were some special goings on the men were keeping me from, as a joke. But no, it was only for privacy."

She glanced at her husband, whose shoulders were shaking.

"Are you all right?"

A second hand covered her husband's face.

"Johnathan. Are you laughing at me?"

"I can't...Esther," Johnathan gasped. "Will you never stop getting into scrapes?"

"No," she said cheerfully. "It is my way. My mother always said my husband would beat it out of me."

"Never, dear cheek, never." He pulled her into his arms. "You are always to keep your silly ways."

*****

But as they neared the second half of Kansas and the end of their journey, Esther wondered more and more what her role on the frontier would be. Was she destined only to be the pretty minister's wife, no more useful than a trophy in a case? What use were all her studies and wide-eyed dreams?

She tried hard to be a good nurse to her husband, but even there her skills were limited. This came home one day when a horse, spooked by a jackrabbit, threw its rider. The man lay moaning as Johnathan examined him. "There's a break in the skin from the bone. We must set it quickly."

Esther offered laudanum to the patient, but the man waved her away.

"He wants whiskey," the wagon master crouched to put a flask to the rider's lips.

Before Esther could argue, her husband drew her up. "Let them be. These men have their own remedies for pain. Besides, we're low on supplies." He looked down at the man groaning on the ground. "We must straighten the leg."

"I'll help." Esther started forward.

"No, Esther. You're not strong enough." Her husband set her aside, and motioned to the wagon master.

Dismissed, Esther hurried away, wincing at the screams of the man behind her.

"You gonna faint?" one of the men asked, seeing her pale face.

Shaking her head, she found a quiet place by the stream, and hid. It would be better if Johnathan had come without her. All she did was wear on his precious stores of food and patience. Here, in a camp full of men, she had as much use as a three-legged mule—less so. At least, with a mule, you can shoot it.

Picking up a rock, she threw it into the pool, and watched the ripples spread.

"I want my life to matter," she whispered.

That night, she woke to pain stabbing her, over and over again just below her stomach. Doubling over, she tried to stifle her moans. Johnathan slept beside her, exhausted from a long day on the trail, and then the work of setting the man's leg.

After a long hour of gritting her teeth, she crawled out of the bedroll and walked, bent over, back to the stream. Her gut was a solid stone of pain, more intense than anything she'd felt before. Even her time of the month wasn't this bad. A week ago, she'd thought she was pregnant, but a few days later sharp cramps and a few spots of blood in her drawers heralded the return of her menses. Other than the spotting, her bleeding hadn't started, but she'd forgotten about it.

Until now.

Forcing herself to drink some water, then walk up and down, she breathed hard against the pain, hoping it would end before dawn came up and her husband found her. Their medicines were low; she did not want to waste them, and knew Johnathan would insist on relieving her pain.

Finally she lay down on a rock, to try to sleep. Her husband found her just after dawn. The cramps still wracked her body, the pain now a growing fire in her belly.

"Esther. Darling, what's wrong?"

Fitful moans escaped her lips, but she couldn't speak.

"Stop the wagons," she heard him cry. "My wife is ill."

"We cannot linger here. Injuns use this water. We've stayed far too long as it is."

Licking her lips, Esther tried to tell her husband to leave her, but her voice came out a wheeze.

"Hang on, Esther," Johnathan said to her. Her dress ripped under his knife, and then his hands moved over her bare skin, checking her body. "You have a fever."

"Hurts. Here."

His hands touched her stomach and the pain nearly drove her off the ground. Johnathan took off his jacket to prop under her head.

"How long?" he asked, face grim.

"Last night."

"Darling, why didn't you wake me?"

Her vision swam, and she forgot to answer. As she shut her eyes, her husband shouted for his medicine bag. She heard men come closer and leave again, and then their shouts above the unmistakable sound of wagons creaking down the trail.

Her husband settled beside her and she grabbed his hand.

"You must go," she croaked.

"I'm not leaving you here, Esther." Frowning, he bent his head to his work.

Pain shot through her, and she cried out, gripping his hand harder.

"Breathe," Johnathan said calmly, though he looked frantic, hair standing up on end.

"You must go on," she said, when the fierce cramp passed. "Your work is too important. I am a burden."

"Esther, how can you think that?"

She shook her head against the pain. "I have nothing to give."

"Not a day has passed that you haven't given everything of yourself. Your love, your passion, your beauty. You give to everyone you meet. You have given everything to me."

A giant cramp shook her, and she felt him lift her into his arms and cradle her.

No,
she wanted to say.
Leave me.
But the fire in her belly roared and everything faded to black.

*****

When she woke again, the pain was gone, shut away behind a wall. She felt it lurking, though, ready to take her. Above her, stars sparkled in a rich night sky.