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“What are you staring at?”
She didn’t take her attention from the scene before her as she spoke to her brother, Jimmy. “Him.” She pointed. “Dr. Jacob Calloway. He’s going to start a white man’s place for healing.” They had automatically fallen into their native language.
“More white men. Just what our land needs.”
“We must accept the changes. Learn how to work with them.”
“Who says?”
“We see what happens if we stick to our old ways.”
“If they hadn’t come, our people wouldn’t have died of strange diseases.”
“But they did come. Our people did get sick.” She shuddered at the memory of one after another of her clan dying, their skin marred by the dreaded pox. “We need their medicine to cure their diseases.”
Jimmy didn’t answer. They disagreed on so many things, but he had no argument for this. “I wish they had never come.”
“We cannot push the sun back one hour, let alone the days and weeks it would require to go back to who we were before the white man came.”
“They have brought us a curse.”
She studied him, her face happy with a smile. “They brought us the news that we can know the Creator. We have always known about Him but feared His anger. We did not know He had sent His Son to open up the way for us to lift our hearts to Him.”
Jimmy’s face darkened. “Sometimes I think He is angry at us for being so bold. That is why we are punished with diseases we can’t conquer, and the swarm of people seeking gold, who care not about the land.”
Side by side they stared at the mud and confusion around them.
Teena had her share of doubts, too, but she wasn’t about to confess them to Jimmy. So many times, she wondered if God loved her people as much as He did the whites. “I asked for a chance to learn their healing way. I believe Dr. Calloway is what I need.”
“He will teach you?”
She sighed inwardly, not wanting Jimmy to know what Jacob had said. “God has sent him. He will teach me.”
“Let us hope you can learn what our people need.”
“Let us so pray.”
“I have to get back to work. There’s no end of people willing to pay for someone to take their goods up the mountain.” Jimmy’s voice grew strong with pride. Day after day, he packed a hundred-pound burden up the trail in return for gold.
“I notice you don’t mind taking the white man’s gold.”
“It is in our land. It is our gold.”
“Can you eat it? Can you wear it to keep you warm? Can it cure a dying child?”
Jimmy took a few steps away, then turned to face her. “Trading with the white man takes gold. Did you not say we have to change?” He strode toward the waterfront, found the man he sought amidst the confusion and shouldered a heavy pack.
Yes, they had to change. Learn new ways.
She turned her attention back to Jacob. He stood on the boardwalk and stared around him.
She saw his careful assessment. Then his gaze rested on her. Again she felt a quickening of her heart. As if the future held a thousand unspoken promises. As if she had set foot on a bridge over a deep valley—a bridge between two worlds. As if God had heard and answered her prayer, just like Mr. McIntyre had said He would.
Jacob continued to study her.
Her skin grew warm and prickly. Perhaps now was not the best time to try to explain why she must learn his ways. Let him get used to the idea first. She turned and retraced her steps to the edge of town. She passed the dwelling place of Viola Goddard and paused to consider how anyone could abandon an infant. It was unthinkable. Her people protected their young, knowing the future lay with them. Yet someone had simply left a baby on Miss Goddard’s doorstep, with some gold nuggets to provide for her care. As if gold could make up for family, a clan. How strange these people were. Yet learning some of their ways was essential for her people to survive.
She resumed her journey, following the trail through the trees to her village.
Jimmy came home later in the day. “I thought you would be with the doctor. They brought a man down from the mountain who almost cut his foot off with an axe.”
Teena sprang to her feet. This was her opportunity to help, to watch and learn. “I will go now.”
Her father coughed. Did the white man have a cure for this troubling affliction of her father’s? He’d once been so strong and proud. He was still proud and strong in his mind, but his skin hung on his body and he moved like an old man. “Teena, daughter, do not think you can become white.”
She stopped and slowly turned. “Father, I only want to learn what we need to survive.”
“Perhaps you are right.” He waved her away, coughing with the effort.
She scurried from the winter house. Normally, they would have all moved to the fishing camps, but this year only a handful had gone. Only a handful were well enough. Jimmy stayed to work for the gold hunters. Father had survived the pox, but it had left him too weak to hunt or fish. Teena remained behind to care for him and learn the white ways, so she would know how to help him get better. She trotted noiselessly to Treasure Creek. A crowd gathered on the walk before the place where she had last seen Dr. Calloway, and she guessed they had a reason to be hanging about.
She pushed through them to observe.
A miner held a mask over the man’s nose and dripped some sort of liquid to it. Not only was his foot torn, his stomach was ripped deeply.
She groaned inwardly. A man did not survive that kind of injury.
But Jacob sewed the layers back together. The man didn’t move, though she couldn’t imagine the depth of his pain.
Teena edged closer, but, at a warning glance from the doctor, went no farther. She could see from where she stood. What had Jacob used to render the man so motionless? If not for the way his chest rose and fell, Teena might have thought him dead. The white doctor had a powerful medicine for pain.
Her eyes followed his every movement. He was so intent on what he did. So sure. His fingers steady. Healing hands. She could barely take her gaze from them, but spared a quick glance at his face. His expression led her to think he was both concerned about the man and determined to fix him. Teena understood the feeling of wanting to overcome injury and illness. She also knew the frustration of failing.
Jacob finished and put on a spotless white piece of cloth, then turned his attention to stitching the man’s foot. An axe, they had said, but the foot was torn badly and looked more like the man had caught his foot in something powerful. Besides, how would he accidentally cut his stomach with an ax? It made her wonder if he’d been in a fight with another man brandishing a weapon of some sort. She’d often enough noted how the white man could turn on his friends and try to destroy them. This man looked as if someone had tried to tear him apart.
Dr. Calloway finished and straightened. “He’ll live and likely walk again.”
The crowd cheered.
At the doctor’s signal, the man stopped letting the liquid drop to the mask.
“Did I hear there was a doctor here?” A voice called from the back, and a burly man pushed forward. “You a doctor?”
“I am.”
“My wife is in poor shape. Come and help her.”
Dr. Jacob glanced around the crowd. “I need someone to stay with him until he comes out of the anesthesia. Who will help?”
Anesthesia. Teena had never heard of it. Was that what he did to make the man sleep through being sewn together?
The crowd melted away amidst murmurs of having work to do. Soon there was only the impatient man who sought Jacob’s help, Teena, Jacob and Wiley, a wizened old man who had spent too much time lost on the mountain and now rambled nonsense. Someone had brought him down the trail a little while ago. Mack’s kindness kept him alive.
“I can help,” Teena murmured.
Jacob acted as if he hadn’t heard. “You, mister, can you watch this man?”
“His name is Wiley,” Teena offered. “He left his mind on the mountain.”
Jacob gave her a quick glance, then shifted his attention back to Wiley. “Wiley, can you help?”
Wiley looked far away, as if seeing his many days lost and alone. “It’s cold. The wind fair tears at a man’s soul.” Wiley shuddered. He brought his gaze back to Dr. Jacob. “It stole mine. It did.” He turned and shuffled away, mumbling about finding his lost soul.
“Doc, hurry. My wife needs you now.”
“I will stay with him.” Teena stepped forward. “Or I could go with—” She indicated the pacing man.
Jacob looked as if he would about as soon cut off his own foot. He glanced at the sleeping man. “I don’t seem to have much choice. He will likely vomit when he comes to. Make sure he doesn’t choke.” He bent to plant his face a few inches from Teena’s. “You are not to give him any of your stuff.” He indicated the bag slung over her back. “Do you understand me?” His words were quiet, meant only for her ears.
“I am not deaf,” she muttered.
“None of your superstitious rituals, you hear?”
Teena turned her back and squatted by the injured man. She would not agree to anything she didn’t want to, and this was one of those things. He might know about his kind of medicine, but she knew about her kind.
“I would not let him suffer if I could help.”
Jacob squatted at her side. “Listen to me. I expect you are only following the practices that have been handed down through generations, but they are outdated. There are better, safer ways of treating the sick and injured.”
“Then teach me them.”
“You must first be willing to abandon your old ways.”
She considered the options and shook her head. “How can I, when I know they work?”
“Doc? Come on.”
Jacob made a rough sound of exasperation and followed the man.
Jacob Calloway returned to the rough wooden sidewalk and stomped the mud from his boots. This place was a disaster. In the few days he’d been here, he’d seen nothing but mud and ignorance. The woman he’d visited needed a better diet to relieve some of the symptoms responsible for her pain. He guessed her biggest problem was she really wanted to go home.
His boots thudded on the plank sidewalk fronting the row of businesses, though from all appearances, one would conclude most of the transactions were conducted on the rowdy beach. Which is where Burns Morgan had disappeared. The boy had attached himself to Jacob on the ship, and seemed in no hurry to join the climb over the mountain toward Dawson City and the gold fields. Only sixteen years old, he doubtless liked the idea of adventure more than the reality of it. Jacob didn’t mind in the least, providing a bit of guidance and protection to the boy.
Jacob could have used him to watch the patient he’d sewn together a short time ago. Instead, he’d been forced to accept the only volunteer. That Indian woman.
She was not what he expected at all. A dusky-skinned beauty with big, dark eyes that seemed to delve into the deep recesses of one’s mind. Her flawless skin reminded him of silk and satin. No—something warmer. Alive. He shook his head to stop his foolish thoughts, but they immediately returned to recounting each detail of that moment on the trail.
She had twin braids which seemed to be traditional. Every native woman he’d seen wore her hair in exactly the same fashion. Only, on her it looked vibrant. He’d been surprised by the warmth and weight of them.
His steps slowed. Why was he giving her so much thought?
He intended to discourage further contact. If only someone had intervened when his brother was injured… forbidden the native to treat him… It was too late to save Aaron, but he intended to do his best to save others from the same fate—death by ignorance and superstitious ritual.
Despite his insistence Teena only watch the patient, he had no assurance she wouldn’t do some little dance, wave a rattle over him and sprinkle him with ashes and blood as soon as Jacob turned his back. He picked up his pace. His patient would be in need of pain medication by now. And nauseated from the ether.
He had come to fulfill a promise to his dying mother. Not that she would know if he kept his word or not. But he would know, and his conscience would give him no peace until he got on a boat from Seattle to Alaska. He intended to set up a medical clinic, train a nurse or two to care for patients and advertise for a doctor to take his place. Many doctors had left their practices to chase after Klondike gold. Surely, one would be wanting to return to medicine. When he accomplished all this, he would return to his practice in Seattle.
Jacob was close enough now to see the patient and the woman. She was taking something from her pack. Or was she putting something back? He broke into a run. “Stop. Get away.”
She turned, a smile beaming from her.
He almost stumbled. A giant invisible fist slammed into his solar plexus. What would it be like to have such a smile greet him every day? He scrubbed the back of his hand across his forehead, forced his senses into order and closed the remaining twenty feet between them. He glowered down at her, but couldn’t remember what he meant to say.
Good grief. He was thirty-two years old and acting like Burns, simply because a woman—a very young woman—had smiled at him. Why, she couldn’t be much older than Burns.
His insides churned at his stupidity.
“I told you not to give him any of your superstitious concoctions.” His frustration made him speak more harshly then he meant to. He dropped to his knees, flipped open his bag and reached for the laudanum to provide the man pain relief. Then he realized his patient rested quietly. No complaint of pain. No retching. “What did you give him?” He checked the man’s pulse and reactions, but apart from being comfortable, he detected nothing amiss.
His patient opened his eyes and focused on Jacob. “Hi, you must be the doctor. Teena here told me how you sewed me up without me feeling a thing.”
Teena. For some reason, the name suited her. She seemed keenly interested in medicine. If only she would agree to abandon her old-fashioned ways, based on superstition and tradition rather than science, he might consider training her as a nurse. But she’d been very clear she didn’t intend to. He did his best to ignore her, and instead spoke to his patient. “What’s your name?”
“Donald Freed. Thanks for fixing me up, Doc.”
“Did this woman give you something?”
Donald’s smile was mellow to say the least. “Whatever it was, it took away the pain.”
Anger roared through Jacob like a raging storm, destroying everything in its path. His brother had died not far from here, with a native caring for him. If Aaron had received proper medical care he would likely still be alive. Instead he’d been deprived of modern medicine, and worse, poisoned. He jolted to his feet and grabbed the young woman by the arm. “What did you give him?”
Her eyes widened but she showed no fear. Perhaps it was compassion filling her expression with such warmth.
Ashamed of his behavior, he dropped her arm and stepped back. “Tell me what it is so I can know how to counteract it.” He feared the ignorant cures of these people would poison Donald as it had Aaron. “Tell me before it makes him sick.”
Teena smiled, gentle and reproving. “It is only all-heal root. It will not make him sick. It will make him comfortable. Happy.”
“Doc, I feel great. Happy, like she says.”
Who knew what Teena had fed the man? Or the consequence. Frustration twisted with Jacob’s anger. How was he to combat ignorance if men like this encouraged it? His only hope was to insist Teena stay away from the clinic. He leaned closer to Teena, making sure she heard and understood every word. “I want you to stay away from the sick people. I will treat them.”
She didn’t move an inch. Her eyes didn’t so much as flicker. “You need my help. I need yours. I have prayed for a chance to learn the white man’s ways of healing. You will help me and I will help you.”
“Not in this lifetime,” he vowed.
She smiled and calmly walked away. “We will see each other again.”
He groaned. Was this some kind of punishment for an unknown omission of his? Was God testing him to see if he would falter?
