Chapter 27

Gideon sat in the hallway, his back pressed against the wall outside the bedroom where the sickest of the children were being tended. Miriam slumped against him, deeply asleep. Hawk sat opposite them, leaning against the spindled bannister surrounding the staircase.

“We should have been burying children today,” Gideon said. “As sick as they were when I arrived last night, I was certain they wouldn’t all survive. I don’t know how they pulled through.”

“The answer to that question is asleep on your shoulder.” Hawk motioned with his chin. “Ran herself to tatters, rushing from one child to the next, between this house and the jailhouse, seeing to patients. I think this is the first time she’s truly slept in days.”

Gideon gazed down at her. Dark circles of exhaustion marred the skin under her eyes. “I should have come back sooner. She’s still recovering herself.”

Hawk tugged his hat lower, covering his eyes. “I don’t know many people who would pull their arm out of a sling and endure the kind of pain she did all to help another person. She has grit—there’s no denying that.”

“You’re fond of grit, if I’m not mistaken.”

Beneath the brim of his hat, Hawk grinned. “We’ve a friendship between us, but nothing beyond. She’d tell you the same.”

“Let’s not wake her up to ask. We might yet have more children pass through the crisis phase. She’ll need her strength to endure another night like last night.”

Someone was coming up the stairs.

“What are the chances that’s good news?” Hawk wondered out loud.

“I’d say about zero.”

Cade stopped a few stairs short of the landing and talked to them over the bannister. “The stage let down two passengers.”

“Did you warn them we have scarlet fever in town?” Gideon asked.

Cade nodded. “One of them’s a doctor. You have an offer of help.”

Hawk sat up straighter and tipped his hat back, eyeing Gideon. “Good news, after all.”

“Where is this doctor now?” he asked Cade.

“Over at the jailhouse, looking in on the patients there. He said he’d come over this way if all was well with them.”

This was a bit of desperately needed good news. Miriam would at last get some real sleep, and Gideon would have the medical help he required.

“Send him over right away. I’m going to see to it Miriam lies down.”

He adjusted his position, slipping an arm behind her. When he jostled her injured arm, she groaned in her sleep, her features turning in pain. He’d need to slip her arm back in its sling before she lay down. She didn’t awaken enough to stay upright.

“Best carry her, Doc,” Hawk said. “She’s dead on her feet.”

He managed, with Hawk’s help, to get her in his arms and safely situated. He carried her into his room. She winced with every step he took.

He laid her down on the bed. She didn’t even wake as he slipped a sling around her neck and tucked her arm into it. He re-tied the bandage holding her arm against her side. If her arm kept still, it wouldn’t hurt her as much, and she’d sleep better.

He pulled the blanket over her. “You can rest now, dear. We have help.”

Her health concerns could not be hidden forever; eventually the people of Savage Wells would become aware of the full situation. But after this past week, they had reason to trust her, to have faith in her ability to help them. She had saved their children. He knew it, and he would make absolutely certain the town knew it. They needed her. And so did he.

He pulled the door closed. Hawk had disappeared, no doubt checking on a patient or heading back to his office. He’d been helpful during the crisis, but he still had a territory to protect.

Gideon peeked into the room where the Clark children and Rupert slept. They were still not truly well and wouldn’t be for some time yet. Father sat beside the bed, watching over them.

“Are you in need of anything?” Gideon asked.

He shook his head. “But fevers are climbing in the room above us.”

Gideon moved swiftly down the stairs and out onto the porch. As always, someone was watching. Reverend Endecott arrived almost immediately, ready to help.

“We need ice.” Gideon was careful to sound calm. There was no immediate, looming crisis. He didn’t mean to keep the worried parents in a constant state of terror.

The preacher turned and waved Mr. Abbott in the direction of the ice cellar before returning his attention to Gideon. “How are the children?”

“Some are on the mend, thanks to Nurse Bricks. We have a few who are still in difficult straits, but they’ve been expertly tended, which gives them a far better chance than they would have had otherwise.”

“Thank heaven for Miss Bricks,” the preacher said. “What would we have done without her?”

“If I can be frank, Reverend: without her, you would be overseeing funerals today, not gathering ice.”

Mr. Abbott, who had three children in quarantine, arrived in that moment with ice. He paled at the bold pronouncement but didn’t speak. He set the ice block on the porch and took a step back.

“Will you thank her for us?” he said after a moment. “We’ll be forever grateful to her.”

“I will,” Gideon promised.

He took up the ice, wrapped in burlap to protect his hands, and lugged it to the kitchen. Andrew was inside, finishing a sandwich.

“I can chip that,” he offered, nodding to the ice.

Gideon hadn’t needed to issue instructions since returning. Everyone knew what to do; Miriam had seen to that.

He returned to the entryway just as a man came through the front door.

Gideon stepped closer. “You’re the doctor who has just arrived in town?”

The man nodded and hung his bowler hat on the hatstand near the door. “I am at your disposal, Dr.—”

“MacNamara.” Gideon held out a hand in greeting.

“A pleasure to meet you. I am Dr. Blackburn.”