The Preacher's Bride Claim

Katrine shook her head. “Lars did not want to expose me to danger and hardship, so I stayed in the city to work,” she said, and then Elijah saw her duck her head.

Something had happened to Katrine while the siblings had been parted, Elijah thought. Something she did not want to talk about.

But Clint didn’t seem to notice. “What kind of job did you take, Miss Brinkerhoff?”

She looked away. “I minded the children of a prosperous businessman and his wife for a time,” she said, “but then I...left that and worked in some...ah, restaurants as a waitress...” Her voice trailed off as her eyes lost focus. “Then Lars returned from the Indians and told me of the Land Rush. We also thought it was a chance to make a fresh start, and—how do you say it?—wipe the slate clean. And here we are.

“I hope you have saved room for dessert, gentlemen,” Katrine said brightly then. “I have made ableskiver, which is a kind of doughnut.”

The brothers groaned when she uncovered a plateful of the Danish doughnuts, which were each topped with a dollop of blackberry jam. Elijah had thought his stomach couldn’t possibly hold anything more, but he found himself reaching for one just as his brothers did. Lars and Katrine each took one, too. In seconds there wasn’t so much as a crumb left.

The Brinkerhoffs answered their questions about life in Denmark, and Lars regaled them with tales of life among the Cheyenne until it grew dark. Then, full of good food and the pleasure of making congenial new friends, the Thornton brothers headed back to their tent. The sounds of the tent city settling in for the night were all around them—the faint tinkling of piano music from one of the many whiskey tents, the occasional nicker of a horse, the sleepy whine of a child who did not want to go to bed yet.

Elijah waited until they were back at their campfire, having a last cup of coffee, to discuss the unpleasant incident at the chapel this morning. He hadn’t wanted to end the evening on a sour note, but he thought he’d better warn his brothers about the Chaucers.

Gideon looked up from the embers of the fire he’d just stirred up. “The Chaucers are here?”

Elijah nodded. “Figured I’d better tell you both, in case you run into them around Boomer Town, as we likely will.”

Clint gave a disgusted snort. “Guess it was too much to hope that we’d left that problem back East. And they’re already vilifying the Thornton name in Boomer Town?”

Again Elijah nodded. “So it seems.”

“They better not be doing it when I’m in earshot,” Gideon grumbled. “I know you’ve got to ‘turn the other cheek’ and all that nonsense, Lije, but I’m no preacher.”

“Me neither,” Clint said. “They start acting high-and-mighty ’round me, they’ll wish they hadn’t.”

Elijah sighed. He couldn’t blame his brothers for their reactions. They’d left Virginia because of the Chaucers and their kind, knowing the Thorntons would never be accepted and welcome in their old home. Now the Chaucers had come to Oklahoma, too, and had apparently brought their old enmity with them.

“Look, we’ve just got to be civil and get along with folks until the twenty-second,” Elijah told them. “The Chaucers—and others like Horace LeMaster whose minds they have swayed—probably just want the same thing we want. Free land. Chances are, once the Land Rush is over, they’ll settle somewhere in the territory far away from us, and we won’t ever set eyes on them.”

Clint dug a groove in the dirt with the heel of his boot. “Hope you’re right, Lije. Sorry that happened to you this morning. Did the rest of the service go well? Did more people come?”

Elijah was just going to tell his brothers about Alice Hawthorne and his hope that she would lend her nursing skills as needed, when he heard the sound of running footsteps heading toward them.

A heartbeat later a wild-eyed man burst into the circle of firelight. “Preacher, you got t’ come! Deacon Gilbert’s hurt bad—he’s cut his leg and he’s bleedin’ somethin’ terrible! I’m afeared he’s gonna bleed t’ death! His missus sent me to fetch you!”

“How did it happen?” Elijah demanded, as he strove to control the dread that threatened to swamp him. What could he do in the face of a serious injury but pray and try to comfort? Was he about to lose the man who’d been the very first to step forward and support Elijah’s work?

“He cut hisself with his own ax—he was choppin’ firewood. I—I gotta get back there!” the distraught man cried, already turning to run in the direction he’d come. “Miz Gilbert, she’s carryin’ on somethin’ fierce!”

Elijah started to follow the messenger, but he had a sudden idea and turned back to his brothers. “I’ll go to the Gilberts’ and see what I can do for Keith. You two split up and see if you can find a Miss Alice Hawthorne in one of the tents. She came to chapel this morning, and she’s a nurse. She has dark red hair and blue eyes, and I’d reckon she’s in her mid-twenties. Ask if she’ll come help. Tell her to bring bandages, and whatever else she thinks is needful, and come with you to help Mr. Gilbert.”

Then he turned and ran toward the Gilberts’ campsite, sending up a silent prayer that one of his brothers would be able to find Miss Hawthorne quickly among the maze of wagons and tents, and that she would be willing to follow his brother and help save a life.

The Gilberts’ tent lay on the other side of Boomer Town, but it didn’t take long for Elijah to reach it at a dead run, even though he had to weave through campsites, and dodge wagons and picket lines to which the horses were tied. Even from a distance, he could hear the sound of a woman’s shrieks, and after hurdling the tongue of a freight wagon, he spotted the circle of men and women.

Half a dozen lanterns held by onlookers illuminated the scene, their lights bobbing and flickering. At the edge of the crowd, another woman held the wailing Mrs. Gilbert. Everyone was talking at once, some calling out advice to a kneeling man dabbing at the wound, others softly opining as to whether Keith Gilbert would bleed to death or die later of blood poisoning—assuming it was even possible to stop the bleeding. A handful of women joined the chorus of Mrs. Gilbert’s wails, wringing their hands.

“Let him through, fellers. He’s the preacher!” cried the man who had come for Elijah. “Don’t let Keith die without so much as a prayer said fer ’im!”

His words parted the crowd like a sword, and in the pale light of an upheld kerosene lantern, Elijah beheld Keith Gilbert, lying there pasty pale with wide, terrified eyes. Someone had rolled up a coat and put it under his head. A bloody-bladed ax lay amid an armload of kindling at his feet. But it was the crimson-stained left pants leg and the spreading pool of blood in the dirt that captured Elijah’s attention.

“P-please, Preacher, d-don’t let me die!” Keith Gilbert begged, panting and raising his arm in a feeble beckoning gesture. “It was my own fault—somethin’ d-distracted me just as I swung my ax—a fool thing, to take my eye off an ax I’d just sharpened...”

Dear Lord, spare this man, Elijah prayed silently as he went forward and knelt by Keith. Let Clint or Gideon find Miss Alice quickly, bring her here and give her the skill to save this man!

“You’re not going to die,” Elijah reassured his deacon, though he had no idea if he was telling the truth. The man had already lost a good deal of blood, and he was pale as a shroud. “I’ve sent for a nurse, and I’m sure she can stop your bleeding.” Someone had laid a towel over the wounded leg, and it was already saturated with blood.

Elijah aimed a look at Cassie Gilbert. Maybe giving her something to do would help her calm down. “Mrs. Gilbert, may I please have your apron?” he said. The apron was wrinkled and stained here and there, but it was better than nothing.

As he’d hoped, the deaconess untied it with shaking fingers and threw it to Elijah, who caught it and wadded it up. Elijah yanked off the blood-soaked towel, replaced it with the apron and leaned on the bleeding leg with all the force he could muster. When Alice got here—if his brothers could find her—he’d need to rip open the trouser leg so she could see the wound, but for now, trying to stop the bleeding was the first priority.

“Reverend,” rasped Gilbert. “I know I’m a sinner, but the preacher at home said, if I gave my heart to the Lord, He’d take me straight into Heaven. That’s right, isn’t it? I’m a Christian, so He’ll keep His promise, won’t He?”

“Of course He will,” Elijah assured him. “But we’re going to do our best to save you. The nurse I spoke of will be here any second now,” he said, and hoped it was true.

“Lord, in Jesus’s name, please help Your servant Keith Gilbert so he can go on doing Your will on earth,” Elijah prayed aloud. Please, Lord, let Miss Alice get here in time.

It seemed like an eternity that he leaned on the wound, not daring to let up on the pressure lest the scarlet stain spread farther on the trouser leg. Then he heard booted feet shifting in the circle of onlookers around him, and suddenly Gideon was leading Miss Hawthorne through the crowd.

Thank You, Lord.

* * *

Alice had barely been able to keep up with the big man who’d hastily identified himself as Elijah Thornton’s brother Gideon.

She didn’t want to do this. She knew if she tended to the wounded man, she would no longer pass unnoticed in the tent city. People would know her name and that she was a nurse, and the requests would never end.

And Maxwell Peterson might hear of it.

But how could she say no when a man’s life hung in the balance? It wouldn’t be right, even on a basic humanitarian level, and it certainly wouldn’t be a Christian thing to do.

So she’d hastily gathered up her supplies. The kit she’d put together before her journey contained sturdy darning thread—which she’d boiled, then wrapped in an ironed handkerchief—similarly wrapped boiled needles, bandaging lint and a stoppered bottle of disinfectant.

She had hoped she’d never need those supplies, but now here she was, panting from her run and staring down at a man whose ghastly pallor told her that he would die if she didn’t help him. Or maybe even if she did.

“Thanks for coming, Miss Hawthorne,” said Elijah Thornton, who was kneeling over the man, leaning on a blood-stained wad of cloth on the man’s left leg. “Mr. Gilbert accidentally gashed his leg with an ax. Obviously he’s lost a lot of blood,” he added, indicating the dark crimson puddle beneath the limb.

Alice took a deep breath, summoning the calm that had earned her a valued reputation with the doctors of Bellevue. She couldn’t help a victim if she succumbed to the vapors, after all. “Let me see the wound,” she said, carrying her bag over to the recumbent man.

“Very well, but I must warn you, each time I let up on the pressure, the blood starts flowing again,” Elijah cautioned her. Splotches of dark scarlet on his sleeves confirmed what he said.

She nodded and said, “Give me one minute, please, before you release the pressure.” She stared at the circle of gaping men and women around her. “Does anyone have a belt I can use? And a sturdy stick, or long-handled spoon, as well as a knife?”

Most of the men’s trousers were held up by suspenders, but finally a skinny man at the back of the circle made his way through the throng, one hand holding a belt, the other one holding up his trousers; another man furnished a wicked-looking knife from his boot. A woman—Alice recognized her as the deaconess who’d passed the collection sack this morning—stopped wailing and rummaged in a crate fastened to the nearby wagon, coming up with a long-handled spoon, which she held out to Alice.

Kneeling beside the man, Alice did her best to smile down at him. “Mr. Gilbert, I’m Miss Hawthorne, a nurse, and first we’re going to stop the bleeding with a tourniquet, so I can see your wound.”