Klondike Medicine Woman

He passed out of sight.

She sat there a moment or two, waiting for her insides to calm, her reason to return. Then she pushed to her feet and headed down the trail to help with the clinic construction.

The three Tucker sisters were hard at work in the afternoon sun when she reached the clinic. Perhaps they no longer needed her help. She hung back to watch and wait.

“Burns,” Frankie called. “I could use a hand with this here board.” The boy hurriedly left his pup.

As Lucy waited for Burns to do Frankie’s bidding, she pulled out a pretty white hankie from her pocket and patted her brow. Both her sisters stared.

“What?” Lucy demanded.

“What good’s that little bit of cloth?” Frankie appointed herself spokeswoman. “Where’s your bandanna?”

“I gave it to Caleb.”

“Why?” Both her sisters looked her up and down like she had suddenly changed form before their eyes.

“Well, for goodness’ sake. Can’t a woman give her man a gift?” She jammed the hankie back in her pocket and picked up a hammer to drive a nail into a board with such fury that Teena flinched.

Burns stared wide-eyed. He glanced over his shoulder, as if wondering how to escape these rowdy women.

Margie and Frankie considered each other then shrugged, gave a sad shake to their heads and returned to work.

“You want to help me, Teena?” Margie gave Lucy a sideways look.

Teena worked alongside Margie for some time. “You remind me of a friend I used to have,” Teena said, after the tension had melted away.

Margie removed nails she held in her mouth to ask, “A good one, I hope?”

“Sarah McIntyre. Her father taught us about Jesus.” As they worked together, she told Margie about the white friend she’d had as a child.

“Sounds like she accepted you the way you are.”

Teena considered the words. “She never saw me as an Indian, but as a friend. I never saw her as white, but a friend.”

“That’s special. Not often we find such acceptance. I can tell you, not everyone sees past the rough exterior of the Tucker sisters to our hearts.” Margie shook her head. “I never figured any of us would marry. I don’t aim to give up my independence for the sake of a man.” She gave Lucy a sideways look, but Lucy either didn’t hear or decided to act as if she hadn’t. “How ’bout you, Frankie?”

“Not me either.” Frankie puffed out her lips and made a rumbling noise. “I got bigger aspirations.”

Teena wondered what those aspirations were, but she didn’t have the right to ask.

Apparently, Margie thought she did. “You still hankering for a man’s job?”

“Ain’t no man’s job I couldn’t do,” Frankie muttered, her shoulders rigid.

Lucy stopped work. “It’s not about proving you’re equal to a man. It’s about sharing—” She patted her chest then jerked her eyes downward and stopped speaking.

Teena waited, wanting to know what made Lucy smile like she had a special secret, but Lucy didn’t continue. Instead, she set her hammer on a stack of wood.

“I’m going home to make supper for Caleb.”

Frankie and Margie both stared after her departing figure. “Well, if that don’t beat all,” Frankie mumbled, then resumed work.

Teena and Margie did the same, the unnatural silence broken by hammer beats. For Teena’s part, she longed to ask Lucy if being married to Caleb brought that sweet smile to her lips.

“Anyone there,” one of the men in the tent called out.

“Guess he’s calling you,” Frankie said to Burns.

“I don’t know what to do for them.” The boy looked scared half to death.

Teena itched to step inside and offer her comfort, but she feared Jacob’s anger. Feared triggering it would end forever any hope of being allowed to learn from him. However, Burns’s discomfort was very real. “Just ask what he wants. Perhaps only a cup of water.”

Burns’s eyes were wide as he ducked into the tent. Teena listened from outside. If she was needed she would disregard Dr. Jacob’s order to stay away from his patients. Not even to please him would she ignore a person’s sufferings. Not even a white man’s.

Burns stepped out in a few minutes. “Donald wanted a drink just like you said.” He glanced at the trail. “I wish Jacob would get back. The other man opened his eyes and stared at me.” He shivered. “It gives me the creeps.”

Teena knew of a ground root that would ease the man’s worry as he recovered his mind, but she dared not give it to him. Perhaps she could make a tea using it, and ask Burns to get the man to sip it. She took a step toward her sack of remedies.

“Here comes Jacob,” Burns yelled. “Hurry up. That man is waking up.”

Teena slid back to Margie’s side and pretended an interest she didn’t feel at the position of a board.

Margie considered her. “You want to help, don’t you?”

“I want to learn.”

“He will come around. He’ll soon ’nough see that you can’t judge a person by the outside.”

Teena wished she could believe it was so.

She edged closer to the tent to listen to the conversation inside. She heard Dr. Jacob murmur to the patients but she could not tell what he did. She closed her eyes and imagined him touching the men’s wrists, pressing that little instrument to their chests. Why did he do those things? What did he learn about illness in doing so? What did he give Donald for pain? Did it work better than what she used? Why?

Margie and Frankie hammered away at the rising walls. The noise made it impossible for Teena to hear Dr. Jacob. God, the Creator, Mr. McIntyre said You would listen to me, even if I am a Tlingit. Hear my prayer. Let me learn from this man. Would He truly listen to a Tlingit woman—a superstitious healer, as Dr. Jacob described her?

“Burns,” the doctor called. “I need your help.”

Burns reluctantly ducked inside as Teena watched in longing frustration.

A few minutes later, the tent flap parted and Dr. Jacob and Burns shuffled out, the man who had lain without moving between them. He blinked in the sunshine and drew in a long breath, then murmured, “The sun feels good.”

Dr. Jacob settled him against a roll of canvas and handed him a cup of water. “Can you tell us your name?”

“Name’s Emery Adams.” He sounded weary, but at least he knew his name.

Teena slid a happy glance toward Jacob and caught her breath at the look he gave her. “It is good he knows his name,” she murmured.

“It is very good.” His gaze held hers, silently rejoicing. She couldn’t force her eyes away. Couldn’t think of anything but the shared gladness of this good news. At that precise moment, something happened she was at a loss to explain—a connection she’d never felt with anyone else, a spiritual experience almost as profound as when Mr. McIntyre told her about Jesus.