LITMIR.BIZ

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6

      6

      Mid-January 1838

      Miss Hopkins! Slow down, I beg you.”

      Sarah Jane swiveled in the saddle. She peered over her shoulder at Pierce who clutched his hat atop his head with one hand and held the reins in a death grip with the other.

      Clicking her tongue against her teeth, she eased the mare to a gentler pace, allowing Pierce time to catch up. “Papa said to hurry. The children seemed sure their mother was in a desperate way.”

      He blew out a breath, which hung like fog in the crisp winter air. “Most improper it is, I fear, Miss Hopkins, for us to be out riding unchaperoned.” He fell in alongside Sarah.

      She leaned over and plucked an errant pine needle from the curls at his ear. “Things are different here, Pierce. It’s not New England. Same rules don’t apply. We do what we have to do. And Papa already had his hands full with Mrs. Corn Tassel’s baby on the way, too.”

      At the word, “baby,” he flushed as scarlet as the cardinal cheer-cheer-ing over their heads on a branch of a tulip poplar. “Again, Miss Hopkins, most irregular and inappropriate for a young lady such as yourself . . .”

      He swallowed. “A maiden lady to witness, much less participate—” The red patches on his windblown cheeks deepened.

      She tried not to laugh as he realized his own unfortunate choice of words.

      He floundered. “I mean, assist in such a delicate matter as—”

      “Cows and horses.”

      She dug her heels into the mare’s side and motioned him to follow.

      “I beg your pardon, Miss Hopkins?”

      One look at his dear, befuddled face, and she surrendered to the impulse to laugh this time. “In these parts, my papa’s often called upon to tend livestock as well.”

      “But-but he’s a medical practitioner. Of humans.”

      She rocked in rhythm with her horse, glad she’d worn her serviceable if ratty jacket over her striped, wool homespun on this brisk ride into the hills. “He does whatever it takes to get his foot in the cabin door. If he manages to bring their only source of milk unscathed through the birthing process—”

      His eyebrows ascended almost to his hairline. “Miss Hopkins.”

      “The Cherokee will often bestow a measure of trust on him the next time one of their family members needs medical attention.”

      “But to involve his own daughter . . .”

      She gave him a sidelong glance. His concern for her sensibilities was real, if unwarranted. “Things are different here,” she reiterated for the thousandth time. “Society’s rules don’t apply. We do what we must. The women feel more comfortable with me present. And Papa needs my help since Mam died.”

      Reaching over the gap between their two horses as they picked their way across the mountain meadow, she took his hand in her gloved one. He appeared startled at first, but he wove his fingers into hers.

      A shiver of something delicious warmed her.

      He squeezed her hand. “I’m just concerned for your well-being, Sarah Jane.” His earnest blue eyes stared into hers.

      A gaze, she reckoned, in which she could lose herself forever. Like in the expanse of a blue sky.

      She swallowed past the lump forming in her throat. “It’ll be all right, Pierce. Like the apostle instructed, we must try to be all we can to all the people we can while we have the opportunity.”

      He favored her with a sweet smile. “Your faith and courage shame me at times, Sarah Jane Hopkins. I fear I have more to learn than I realized, and not only Cherokee words or herbs.”

      A beam of light from high over the forest haloed the manes of their horses. Kind of like how her heart felt, full of light these past weeks. Sighing, she noticed he hadn’t let go of her hand as their mounts plodded side-by-side down the well-beaten hunting trail.

      “The Cherokee believe they have a great responsibility to the earth and to each other. They’re committed to caring for their elders as well as their youth. They’re actually quite humorous—”

      He snorted at that, his horse whuffling in response.

      “No, really. I’ll grant you, it’s a dry humor. But they often employ it to diffuse a potential conflict with each other and to preserve harmony.”

      “You talk of pagan people with such admiration, Miss Hopkins.”

      “They possess many admirable qualities, Pierce. Not the least of which is how they regard each day as a gift unto itself.”

      “And the converts in the services.” He shook his head as if to erase inner doubts. “It’s so foreign to how we worship.”

      “They love the songs. And when they speak, they speak long in prayer.” She shrugged. “Not so different from us.”

      His brow creased. “But the dances, Sarah Jane?”

      “They dance to honor the Creator. Not our way, but flowing out of as sincere a heart toward God as any believer you’ll ever meet, I promise you.”

      Fear he’d always feel out of place lanced her insides. Fear niggled that one day he’d pack up and leave the mountains, the Cherokee. And her.

      “I’ll be right there with you, Pierce. I’ll help you any way I can. Oh,” She reluctantly extracted her hand from his. “Looks as if we’ve arrived.”

      She swept aside an evergreen branch to reveal the crude, little cabin nestled in the mountain hollow up and over the creek from her father’s surgery. Smoke billowed from the stone chimney over the top of the wood shake roof. Chickens squawked and pecked at the frozen ground. At the clip-clop sound of the horses, two children, who summoned her papa this morning at the break of dawn, scampered around the corner of the house.

      Low moans issued from the interior.

      He threw her a sardonic look. “From the sounds of it, Miss Hopkins, I’d say so.”

      A man, she’d seen him once at the Mercantile, emerged onto the sagging wooden porch. A Mr. Kingfisher Jameson. He twisted a cloth in his hands.

      She held up her hand and called a traditional Cherokee greeting. “Osiyo! Hallo to the house.”

      At the porch railing, Sarah Jane dismounted. She heaved off her saddlebag, bulging with items she might need during this medical emergency. Pierce joined her on the porch beside Mr. Jameson. The children grabbed the horses’ reins and led them to the barn.

      “Oh-say-oh,” Pierce intoned.

      Mr. Jameson flicked a glance her way and motioned them within.

      “Well done,” she mouthed. Pierce flushed with pleasure at her approval.

      Say what you would about Pierce and his big city ways, but when he committed himself to a venture—like learning the difficult Cherokee—he committed all the way.

      Hanks of spun cotton hung from the rafters inside the log home. A spinning wheel and loom rested upon a packed, dirt floor. The fireplace of wood and clay dominated another wall. Mr. Jameson, speaking a broken mixture of English and Cherokee, communicated his wife had never suffered through childbirth like this before, and he’d grown tired of the potions of the shaman, which made his wife retch and did little to alleviate her pain.

      Sarah noted with pride she only had to interpret for Pierce in

       two instances during Pierce’s examination of the bedrid-

       den woman. And per Papa’s precise protocol, Pierce directed the children, hovering in the doorway, to fetch a basin of water for his hands before he began the exam.

      “Breech.”

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