A Measure of Mercy (19 page)

“No, he’s worked on the farms, but he’s never cared much for farming. He apprenticed as a blacksmith, Mor said, in New York City before he came west. He likes to work with new inventions, new ideas, things like that.” Trygve nodded over his shoulder. “Like the windmills. He had an automobile for a while but said that was more for those living in bigger towns. We didn’t have gas to run it nor roads to run it on.”

Joshua tucked all the information away for future thinking. He’d had a feeling from the first that he and Hjelmer had a lot in common. He had a couple of ideas of his own that he’d tried talking over with his brother Frank, but he was too hardheaded or just plain proud to use an idea from a younger brother, especially one who let his mouth get away at times. Perhaps what Pastor Solberg spoke on was true for him too. That God put people in places at certain times for certain things. What was it he’d said? Joshua lifted his hat and scratched his head. The words danced in, darted out, and brought others with them.
For such a time as this.
He’d been talking about Queen Esther from the Old Testament.

But he’d applied it to each of those sitting in the congregation, fanning themselves in the heat. Something else he’d said. Words did the same, only this time they played ornery and refused to join up. Something about a plan. But how did that fit with Astrid so far away? Or was that his own plan and not God’s?

They trotted up to the livery and handed the team and wagon over to young Solberg, who’d been hired on to take care of the animals since Mr. Sam had all he could do with the blacksmith shop.

Trygve waved as he and Gilbert jogged off across the fields toward home. They’d leave again before sunrise. He should have stayed in town. Ah, to have the energy of the young. Joshua snorted at himself. Here he was, not even thirty yet and thinking Trygve, at nearly eighteen, was so much younger. He set off for the boardinghouse whistling. Perhaps there would be a letter from Astrid. Now, that was something to pick up his pace for.

“You have a letter. I put it in your room,” Miss Christopherson answered his greeting with the news, accompanied by a smile.

“Thank you.” Joshua took the stairs two at a time. Surely it was from Astrid. In his haste he fumbled with the knob and nearly burst through the door. He could tell from across the room that the handwriting was not Astrid’s. He flung his hat toward the coat tree and crossed the room.

Only Frank wielded a pencil like he was drilling a well. With foreboding weighing his shoulders, Joshua sat down on the edge of the bed to read. Of the family only his mother wrote to him.

Dear Joshua,

I write this with a heavy heart and sadness. Our mother went to be with our Lord last week, Monday. She was fine in the morning, but when Pa went to the house for dinner, she was lying on the floor. It must have been her heart, although none of us knew anything about a bad heart. I don’t think she did either.

We buried her in the churchyard the next day.

Rage ripped through him.
No one called or even sent a telegram.
They could have given me a chance to make it back.
He could have caught the train. What felt like a scream came out as only a moan, thanks to his clamping his teeth so tight his jaw cramped. He forced himself to return to the letter.

With the heat and all, there just wasn’t time for you to get here, so we decided to not go into town to call but write. I told Pa I would do this for him.

Joshua laid the letter aside and went to stand at the window. His mother was gone. She wasn’t that old, not even fifty. He counted out the years. Forty-eight. Her birthday in June made her forty-eight. His father was ten years older, and they’d always assumed he’d go first, since he had trouble sometimes with his breathing. His mother had said she would come visit him as soon as he had a house. He’d told her she needed to come for the wedding, when the time came.

The moisture in his eyes leaked halos around the gaslights that dotted Main Street, something else new that had come to Blessing while he’d been gone those three years.

“Gone. Lord, I can’t believe it.” He blew his nose. A tap at the door caught his attention. “Yes?”

“Will you be coming down for your supper?” Miss Christopherson’s gentle voice questioned.

“Ah yes. I’ll wash and be right down. Th-thank you.” He left the letter lying on the bed and, taking towel and washcloth from the bar on the side of the washstand that now did duty as a nightstand since the running water had come in, walked down the hall to the washroom. What he really wanted was a bath, but that would wait until after he ate. They were so good to keep a meal hot for him as it was. He washed hands and face, ignoring the wounded eyes that caught one glance before he thought to shield them.

He heard several men laughing in the cardroom, where they often suggested that a bar would be advantageous. But Mrs. Wiste stood firm. They could play cards, and there were plenty of spittoons throughout the room, but she would not sell liquor nor could they drink in her establishment. Also, if they smoked, it had to be outside on the porch. If they wanted to stay here, they had to abide by the rules.

He made his way between the tables to the one that had become his. A basket of rolls with a pat of butter sat waiting for him, along with a glass and pitcher of iced tea.

“Your supper will be right there,” Miss Christopherson said from the door to the kitchen. “It is almost warm enough.”

He nodded his thanks and pulled out the chair. How his mother would have loved this room with starched white tablecloths and napkins the same. A small blue vase held a single rose bloom, and all the food tasted as good as hers, including the pickles.

“Ah, Ma, I wish I’d insisted you come to visit. You could have enjoyed a few days without taking care of anyone.” He wasn’t sure he’d said it aloud, but he felt someone beside him and looked up.

“Your letter was bad news?” Miss Christopherson held his plate in both hands.

He nodded. How did she figure that out? He heaved a sigh and motioned for her to set the plate down in front of him like she always did. “My mother died last week.” There. The words were out, somehow making the news a reality.

“Oh, I am so sorry.” She laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No thank you. I guess I thought my mother would live forever.”

“This was sudden, then?”

He told her the gist of the letter. “And it’s all over. Life goes on.” He’d only glanced at the remainder of the letter. Looked to be other family news. Things his mother usually wrote, always ending with
and one day, I hope you’ ll come home again, at least for a visit, and
bring your bride with you.
One time he’d told her about Astrid and how he thought on her so often. She’d said she’d pray for them, and he knew she had.

Who would pray for him, for there to be a
them
now? And was it even possible? Astrid had barely spoken to him when she’d told him she was leaving for six months. No warmth, no tears, just basic facts. He’d wanted so much to ask if she really wanted to go, but it seemed like she was holding herself together with twine. After all this time he could wait another six months. Not that he had much choice if he loved Astrid.

15

S
EPTEMBER
1903
C
HICAGO
, I
LLINOIS

P
assing the tests when she first arrived soon became the least of her worries. Now that the term had officially started, the subtle animosity coming from the other students was something else. And dreaming of Blessing. No matter how often she reminded herself that her banishment was only for six months, something inside refused to believe it. Add to that the insidious nagging thought—would Joshua really still be there when she finally did get home? She pushed his face to the back of her thoughts before tears came again. She paused outside the door to the lab, where she’d been assigned a cadaver with Dr. Red Hawk. The name didn’t surprise her. She had been told he was half Sioux and half white. What bothered her was his barely suitable civility. She’d heard that Indians didn’t like to talk a lot, but still he could be polite. He wasn’t uneducated, since he’d been accepted into the program here.

If only she could dissect her half of the body when he wasn’t there. But they were supposed to help each other. She’d heard other students laughing and sometimes telling macabre jokes in the cadaver lab. But most of the other students were female. She knew her mother would say that God had a purpose in all that was happening to her. And she should keep her eyes on Him instead of the situation.

Easier said than done. She clasped the handle and turned. The smell of formaldehyde made her eyes burn as soon as she pulled open the door.

“Glad you could make it,” Red Hawk said with one raised eyebrow.

“I’m not late.”

“Oh, pardon me. Guess I got here early.”

Shocked that he had spoken that many words in a row, she ignored him, opened her kit, and laid out her tools: scalpels, forceps, paper, sharpened pencils to take notes with, and most importantly, the textbook that contained all they needed to know. She and Dr. Hawk were still working on the legs.

Two other female students tried to stifle their chuckles when they came through the door but didn’t quite make it. The instructor glared at them from the front of the room.

“Thank you for bringing him out.” Astrid knew her voice sounded as stiff as she felt. The first one to arrive always went into the cold room and wheeled out the gurney that held their cadaver. Since she had rounds with Dr. Franck just before this class, she was never the first one here. Dr. Franck was another reason for her hesitation. He’d made his opinion quite clear. She should not have been given the privilege of the six-month surgical rotation without having been in a classroom situation the same amount of time as the others.

With the mistakes she was making, he was probably right, not to mention those she had made on the entry examinations. She had known the answers, but she couldn’t bring them to mind on command. All she’d wanted to do was vomit and run back to the first train heading west. There would be no joy in telling Elizabeth her scores, but at least she had passed.

She closed her eyes for a moment against the burning and opened them to find Red Hawk staring at her across the sheet-draped corpse. If he made one more disparaging comment, she would . . . she would . . . She had no idea what she would do other than what she did. Squaring her shoulders, she slipped the apron over her head, tied it, and picked up her scalpel. Today she would be working on the muscles and nerves surrounding the knee.

Several minutes of cutting and writing notes had passed when she said, “There is something on this one that you might want to see.” She caught herself in surprise. Why on earth had she said that? Because that was the way they were supposed to act whether he chose to cooperate or not.

“Thank you.” He came around the end of the gurney to where she was pointing.

“Scar tissue?”

“A lot. He was severely injured at one time, and it looks like it healed without any medical assistance. I can’t see how he walked on it.”

“Maybe that is why the muscles are so much more developed in the other leg.” They had puzzled on that the day before, but Red Hawk had stopped her from summoning the instructor. “We had a brave in our tribe who dragged one leg after a horse fell on him. The boys teased him.”

His stark comment forced her to look at him. Thick dark hair flopped on his wide forehead. Were he home on the reservation, she was fairly sure his hair would have been long and worn in plaits. Not that she really knew that much about the Sioux tribe, other than what she’d learned years ago from their friend Metiz, but long hair on the men seemed pretty standard. His square face and what appeared as sunburned skin set him apart from the others. This was the first comment he’d made about anyone back home. Maybe there was hope after all.

Together they excised to the bones, which looked nothing like the pictures they’d ever seen of a knee. Calcification made the components nearly unidentifiable. They looked at each other and nodded. She raised her hand to catch the instructor’s attention.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You might want to look at this knee.”

He made his way between the gurneys. “Excellent.” He clapped his hands. “Gather around here. We have an abnormality.”

Abnormality? Astrid mentally shrugged. In her mind an abnormality was something the patient was born with. She quickly jotted the word down to research later and stepped back to let their instructor take her place.

“What do you see here?”

“A knee that was injured severely,” Red Hawk answered promptly, “and the body built calcium around it to compensate.”

“Good. What had you seen on the body prior to this?” He looked to Astrid.

“Scar tissue on and under the epidermis.”

“Anything else?”

“Had I seen him walking, I’m sure he either favored or dragged this leg. Perhaps used a crutch or cane.”