The Doctor's Lady (12 page)

“We
will
observe it, Henry.” Eli’s voice was tight. “On board the
Diana.
Tomorrow.”

Squire touched the cheek of the Indian woman with a gentleness that startled Priscilla. The woman didn’t smile, but she said something to him in her language. His reply was soft, and he patted the head of the baby in the cradleboard.

“I’d feel much better if we obeyed the Lord,” Henry insisted. “If we trust Him, don’t you think He’ll get us where we need to go in His timing?”

Squire started toward the door. “If you’re not there, we’ll leave without you.” He shoved open the door and stepped outside.

“We’ll be ready,” Eli called.

The Indian woman pattered after Squire. The small baby in the case on her back bounced with each step. Every part of his little body was swaddled except his chubby face. His wide black eyes peered out and somehow seemed to find Priscilla.

Her heart twisted with sudden longing. When his lips lifted into a tiny smile made especially for her, she couldn’t resist giving him one in return.

And as he disappeared through the door, he took her smile with him. Longing fell into its place. Would it ever get easier to look at a baby without wishing she could have one for herself?

Missouri River

I
t seems to me now that we are on the very border of civilization.
Priscilla read over the words she’d scrawled in the letter to her family and then glanced to the chaos of the St. Louis levee.

In the early morning, the waterfront was already awake. There were more natives than she’d ever seen and foreigners shouting to one another in languages she couldn’t understand but guessed to be German and French. Her eyes widened at the sight of the black slaves and young Spanish Creoles from New Orleans. Mostly, however, the levee swarmed with too many of the hunters and backwoodsmen she’d already encountered.

After her brush with danger the previous evening, she’d taken Eli’s rebuke as justly deserved and stayed locked in her stateroom until he’d come for her.

“I need to mail my letter.” She folded it and pressed the seal. “Can we stop by the office?”

Eli knocked his hat back and peered up and down the waterfront. “First, we’re finding the
Diana
and loading up.”

She nodded and swallowed the lump that pushed its way up every time she thought about the fact that none of her dear family or friends had written to her. She was glad Mabel had received a letter. But there’d been nothing for her. Not one word.

Eli’s eyes narrowed. “You see them, Henry?”

Henry stretched to see over the heads of those around them, and John and Richard joined in the search.

The fog had finally rolled away and left an unblemished blue sky in its place. The whistles blew clear, and no two boats sounded alike. Some made chords, others a succession of notes—long blasts, followed by short toots. The various whistles had become almost like music to her.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Eli said. “Wait here, and I’ll see what’s going on.”

He jogged toward the office.

“Please take my letter,” she called after him. But he didn’t turn around.

“I take.” Richard held out his hand.

She managed a smile. “Thank you, Richard. You and John are always so helpful. What would I do without the two of you?”

The boy took the letter and bolted after Eli.

Henry turned his back to her at the pretense of searching the boats again.

“The Indian boys like you.” Mabel held a handkerchief to her nose. She took a gulp of air and then blanched.

The dampness of molding wood and the mustiness of rotten fish permeated the air. The stench in the clear morning was as overpowering as it had been the night before.

“Richard and John are eager students. I’ve already taught them to write their English names, and I’ve had them memorize the Ten Commandments.” Priscilla watched the young lad and thought of the Indian baby that had smiled at her. “They’ll be of great service to the mission.”

“They won’t return to their families?” Mabel’s brows shifted up.

“After becoming civilized, I’m not sure they’ll have any desire to return to their savage ways. What do you think?”

Mabel opened her mouth to speak but could only utter a cry of alarm. She doubled over and retched, nearly spilling the acrid stream onto Priscilla’s boots.

The splatter against the muddy ground and the bitter odor sent a wave of nausea through Priscilla and made her stomach lurch.

The foul air of the waterfront was enough to make even the strongest stomach churn. It was even worse for poor Mabel, suffering the discomforts of pregnancy.

Priscilla took several deep breaths through her mouth, swallowing her bile. She fumbled at her pocket to retrieve her handkerchief for Mabel but then stopped. It was stained with Eli’s blood.

Henry murmured to Mabel in a soft, soothing voice.

“They’re gone!” Eli shouted from the doorway of the office. He trotted toward them, his eyes crackling with bursts of fire. “They snuck out of here in the middle of the night.”

Henry didn’t say anything, but Priscilla could see the relief in his face. She’d heard the two men exchange words several times already that morning about traveling on the Sabbath.

Eli stopped in front of them, yanked off his hat, and scanned the river as if he could make the American Fur Company trappers appear if he looked hard enough.

“I know you were determined to leave with them,” Henry said slowly. “But perhaps God has a better plan for us.”

Eli’s jaw worked up and down. “You know as well as I do the reason they left without us is that Black Squire doesn’t want us taking the women.”

Very few of the people they’d met during their travels supported their undertaking. Too many had raised their eyebrows and questioned whether a woman could endure the grueling experience day after day. Some had even called it an “unheard-of journey for females.”

And although she knew Eli agreed with them, he’d made every effort to stand up for her and Mabel, explaining that he was taking wagons, and whenever she and Mabel grew weary of riding horseback, they could ride in one of the wagons.

“Maybe there’s someone else we could ride with,” Priscilla offered. Since her encounter with Squire, she’d dreaded the thought of spending the next few months traveling with him. If they could locate another group to travel with . . .

Eli shook his head, his frustration pulling the scar on his face taut. “Believe me, I’ve already thought about it, and there isn’t anyone else. The American Fur Company caravan is our only chance for safe escort.”

They would need the guidance and protection of the trappers for most of the journey, at least until they crossed the Continental Divide and reached the annual Rendezvous on the Green River. From there, Eli was counting on Parker, his explorer friend, to guide them for the last distance of their journey and help them make it over the Blue Mountain Range before the mountainous weather turned too treacherous for travel.

Until then, they would have to rely upon the trappers.

“I don’t understand why they’re so opposed to us.” Mabel wiped her handkerchief across her mouth. “We won’t be a bother.”

“They’re just stubborn,” Henry said. “Once they see that we’ll take care of ourselves, they’ll be fine.”

Eli turned his attention to the line of steamboats. “It’s more complicated than that. They don’t want any of us going. They know if we make it to the West, others will be more willing to try it. And they don’t want any interference with their hunting and trapping.”

“They don’t have to worry about that,” Henry said. “Beaver hats are going out of fashion, and that will force down the price of beaver skins. The changing style will put them out of business long before any of us missionaries do.”

Eli heaved a long breath. “I’ll go see if we can find another steamboat, a fast one that can take us to Liberty.” He spun and started back toward the office.

Priscilla stared after Eli. Tension radiated in each step he took, and it reflected her own heart. What would happen if they missed their chance to go west? What would become of her partnership with Eli then?

The earliest any other boat was leaving for Liberty was the next day. They boarded the
Chariton
, a much smaller steamboat. Priscilla’s hopes for a safe and comfortable vessel were left behind in St. Louis. The
Chariton
, with its peeling paint and rotting boards, deserved to hit a snag and be put out of its dilapidated misery. But she prayed the boat would wait to die its long overdue death until they reached Liberty.

A crowd of rough frontiersmen had also boarded the boat, and they spent all their time gambling and passing around whiskey. As day turned into night, the burly men grew increasingly loud and crude, and Eli had ordered Priscilla and Mabel to stay in the boat’s only private cabin, which was barely big enough for both of them.

At a burst of raucous laughter outside the door, Priscilla stiffened in the narrow bed she shared with Mabel.

Under the tattered and much-too-dirty blanket, Mabel’s trembling fingers found hers.

“You’re still awake?” Priscilla whispered.

“They’ve gotten louder with each passing hour, haven’t they?”

Priscilla shivered. “Too loud.”

“Thank the Lord for our brave husbands watching over us.”

Eli and Henry had taken to bedding down on the other side of the flimsy door, on the open deck, with no shelter but their own thin blankets.

“They’re good men.” Priscilla’s heart warmed at the picture of Eli’s tired blue eyes holding fast to hers, silently questioning her, making sure she was all right, before he’d closed the door of the cabin for the night.

The shattering of glass on the other side of the thin wall made her jump.

Mabel’s fingers tightened around hers.

“I do hope everyone is all right.” Priscilla’s insides quavered. “Do you think this trip is too dangerous for us?”

For a long moment, Mabel didn’t say anything. The nausea and tiredness caused by the pregnancy were taking their toll upon her already travel-weary body.

The drunken laughter of the frontiersmen swelled around them, almost as if they were in the same room.

Mabel finally sighed. “I’ve never experienced anything this hard in my life.”

“Surely it can’t get much worse, can it?”

“I don’t know.” Mabel’s hand squeezed hers. “But, my dear, is there ever anything safe about serving the Lord with one’s whole heart?”

Priscilla stared through the blackness of the night, the question ricocheting around and through her.

Mabel shifted and the bed bumped against the wall. “I try to remind myself that without sacrifice and discomfort, I won’t be following in the footsteps of my Lord.”

“You’re right.” Priscilla closed her eyes and reminded herself that she was willing to sacrifice everything, even her own life, if necessary. Wasn’t she?

By midweek, Eli was tempted to get behind the boat and push it along to make it go faster. Instead, he leaned against the rail and held in a breath of frustration. The rocky shore of the Missouri River drew closer, and the stacks of four-foot logs beckoned the hungry boat.

Even though the
Chariton
was smaller than the other steamboat they’d traveled on, he’d discovered it was also the laziest he’d ever ridden. The pilot stopped the boat every chance he could. Of course, all steamboats needed to restock the supply of wood that fueled the boilers, but the
Chariton
made a holiday out of every landing.

“I must go ashore,” Priscilla murmured. Her face was pale, and dark circles under her eyes testified to the sleepless nights of late.

He had to give her credit. She hadn’t complained about the less than desirable conditions.

“I’ll have to go with you,” he said, following her to the landing stage. She wouldn’t be safe anywhere alone, not with a boatload of drunken men ogling her whenever she made an appearance.

She didn’t offer any resistance. When their feet finally touched land, she stopped and gulped in a breath of the crisp spring air.

All along the river, the tangled branches were sprouting light green. The reflection of the sun on the buds colored them almost yellow.

He turned to the lanky farm boy sitting on top of the stacked wood. A rough sign dangled from one of the logs. Scrawled letters read:
Notice to all persons takin wood from this landin, please leave a ticket payable to the subscriber, for $1.75 a cord.

The young boy was likely a son of the farmer selling the wood, sent to make sure the steamboats were paying their fair share.

“How long since the American Fur Company’s boat,
Diana
, passed through?” Eli asked.

“The
Diana
? Ooo-wee!” The boy slapped his knee. “Ain’t you heard? The
Diana
, she got herself into a heap o’ trouble up a ways. Hit a snag.”

Eli’s heart lurched. “What happened?”

“She sunk.”

For a long moment, he couldn’t move. Even his thoughts came to a crashing halt.

“But don’t worry none,” the boy went on. “Heard the water was shallow. Ain’t nobody lost their lives.”

“You’re sure about that?”

The boy nodded. “Every boat going east been talkin’ about it.”

“What else have you heard?”

“They been sayin’ she’ll have to lay up for repairs and dry her freight ’fore she can continue on.”