Cowboy Creek Christmas: Mistletoe Reunion

Marlys had the education to remember and apply therapies for symptoms, but she’d never felt as humble or inadequate as she did at that moment. “Lord, You are the Great Physician. Help me understand how to treat this child. Touch her with Your hand of mercy, in Jesus’s name.” She glanced at the dividing blanket and called softly, “Sam.”

“I’m here.”

“Pray.”

Chapter Five (#u68f9dd3b-8a08-5054-847e-a9a9f8ae97d1)

At the unaccustomed qualm in Marlys’s voice, Sam experienced a thread of concern. She now understood the magnitude of coming here and claiming an ability to help these people. If her treatment didn’t help the Cheyenne girl, and she worsened—or even worse, died—the Cheyenne could perceive it as intended harm on Marlys’s part. Right now there were more lives than Little Deer’s at stake.

“I’m praying,” he answered. “I have every confidence in you, and confidence in God to guide you and to heal the girl.”

He prayed. Time passed slowly. He took his journal from his satchel and wrote for an hour or more. James’s and Marlys’s quiet voices blended with the sound of the other children and their mothers and the crackle of the fire, and he may have dozed.

Becoming aware that the log had burned down, he went out and found a pile of cut wood and put another log on the fire. Unaccustomed to a stranger in their tent, the Indian women watched him warily.

There was nothing to do but wait right now, and his body grew tense from inaction. With a dozen eyes on him he went to his horse and unsheathed an ax, walking toward a stand of trees, where he pulled brush and fallen limbs into a pile and chopped a log into pieces. Periodically he left the ax in a limb to check on Marlys and James. Marlys was methodically checking each child and their mother for signs of sickness. She was treating a small boy when he went back to his task.

Eventually, a woman brought a sling and piled all the wood he’d chopped. It was the women’s job to find and cut wood, so she probably found his actions curious. But she did not protest. She carried the sling filled with firewood back to their communal pile several times. On her return, she brought him a steaming wooden bowl and handed it to him.

He nodded, drank the hot broth, and returned the bowl.

She wiped it out with snow and walked away.

Sam glanced at the sun. It was late afternoon. If they stayed much longer, they would be traveling home in the dark. He trudged back to the lodge and entered. The children were seated at the fire eating savory-smelling roasted meat. His belly rumbled. That broth hadn’t been filling.

“Marlys, we need to think about eating and leaving. We can’t travel in the dark.”

“You must be hungry. Get the basket I packed and share it with James.” She came around the side of the draped blanket. “I’m not leaving.”

He swallowed the first words that sprang to his tongue and pursed his lips in frustration. “We can’t stay. I have to get back to August.”

“You go. I’ll stay.”

“I’m not leaving you alone here.”

“I am not leaving tonight.”

James was seated far enough away to give Marlys, her patient and the girl’s mother privacy, but close enough to interpret. He got to his feet and stretched his legs. “What if I go back, keep August with Hannah and me overnight and come back in the morning?”

“I’ve learned enough words to communicate well enough,” Marlys agreed.

Sam ran a hand through his hair. Short of throwing her over his shoulder, he wasn’t going to get her to go back until she was ready. He might have figured as much. He glanced at the other children in the lodge, at James and back to Marlys. He raised a hand in defeat. “All right.”

She hurried toward him. “Thank you.”

“You didn’t leave me much choice. Let James know if there’s anything you want him to bring tomorrow. James, I’m going to get the basket of food. You’ll eat with us before you leave.”

Once the basket was opened, the curious children crept from their places and sat close. Sam broke off pieces of rye bread and piled them into a woven bowl. He gave away all the hardtack, and James passed on it, as well. In the Army, he’d eaten enough of the tasteless unleavened biscuits to last him a lifetime. The Cheyenne youngsters got over their shyness to accept the food and join them. Marlys unwrapped smoked fish, and the aroma drew the women forward, too.

The Cheyenne women gave their guests wooden bowls of roasted game and tender cooked roots. Marlys cut a dried apple pie into a dozen slivers, so each child and mother had a tiny piece.

James made them a pot of coffee with a dented pot he carried in his saddlebags, emptied it and packed to leave. “I’ll bring more food in morning.”

Sam walked to the edge of the camp with him.

“Nothing else we could’ve done,” James said.

“She’s immovable when she has her mind made up. I’ll pay you double.”

“Once we got here it didn’t seem like a job,” James admitted. “After seeing those children, I was thankful she planned this.”

Sam couldn’t disagree. “Safe trip home. Please tell August I’m well, not to worry, and I will be home tomorrow.”

He watched James ride away, said a prayer for his safety and another for August to feel safe that night, and trudged back to the lodge.

After the meal was cleared away, Marlys continued her examinations of the other children. None were as sick as Little Deer, and some were only there with a sibling who suffered from symptoms. She Knows had settled onto a pallet of furs, her watchful gaze on Marlys, but had seemingly acknowledged the white woman was there to help.

Marlys and Blue Water bathed Little Deer one more time as night fell. The child roused this time and watched Marlys with uncertain black eyes. Her mother spoke softly, soothing her. They had her settled for the night when a brave entered the lodge and swiftly crossed to the child’s side. He knelt beside her and spoke to Blue Water. She replied, and the Indian’s eyes settled on Marlys, taking in her hair, her now-wrinkled apron and the array of her supplies.

He returned his attention to what Marlys now assumed was his daughter, and gently touched her face and hands. The girl’s temperature had cooled considerably, but she was still warm. After a few minutes he left.

After tending to the fire, the mothers settled their children down for the night and lay beside them.

Marlys gave Little Deer more water and another dose of the remedy she’d prepared. Blue Water unrolled two pallets and gestured to Marlys and Sam.

“Néá’ee,” Marlys thanked her.

She glanced at Sam.

“I’m not leaving you alone,” he said. “I’ll be right here.”

“Nor do I want you to go.”

He slid one of the pallets several feet away from hers, in plain sight of all the women, and stretched out on top of the comfortable furs.

He listened more than watched as Marlys washed her face and hands and used what looked like a porcupine tail that one of the women handed her on her hair. She was a curiosity. She didn’t conform to what their society would consider feminine fashion. Her hair was uncommonly short, and her clothing functional and undecorated. He’d never seen her wear jewelry or drench herself in perfume. Instead, she smelled always like lavender and hyssop and other natural scents. Her movements, her voice, everything about her was feminine, even without ornamentation or fripperies.

Back during their short engagement in Philadelphia, they had discussed literature and politics, and he’d learned she was intelligent. She’d never hidden her desire for education or her interest in medicine, so he’d understood her ambition. But he’d never seen her as she’d been today. Fearless. Impervious. Undeterred. Compassionate. Kind.

He reeled those thoughts in as soon as they’d slipped into his consciousness. This was the woman who had broken off their engagement because of her ambitions. She didn’t have time or patience for a relationship. She wasn’t inclined to set her career aside and focus on a marriage. It was plain that she was still as determined as ever to broaden her scope of understanding and knowledge, to discover as much of the world as was possible.

People were who they were. She couldn’t be expected to change for him. He hadn’t expected it then. He didn’t expect it now.

She had needed his help to travel here, to make this happen. Another protector would have done just as well. She didn’t specifically need Sam.

That fact reached a nearly forgotten, well-guarded portion of his heart and carved a fresh slice. He closed his eyes against the shimmer of her hair in the firelight. The interior of this lodge was surprisingly warm, the skins beneath him soft. He dozed and dreamed of summer during his childhood.

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