The Outsider (3 page)

“Then you needn’t see him again. That way his worldliness cannot trouble you more.”

“But I must go see Brother Nathan again,” Gabrielle said and then held up her bandaged hand. “And the doctor said I should go to him in the morning to let him treat my hand again. It seems I suffered a slight burn when I helped smother the flames on Brother Nathan’s legs.”

Sister Mercy was deep in thought for a long time before she finally said, “Very well. Your hand needs to be treated for the good of all. I shall go with you in the morning to shield you from his worldliness. He has not the proper respect for our beliefs.”

“Yea,” Gabrielle said quietly.

Sister Mercy reached over and touched Gabrielle’s hands again. “You see, my child, the Believers have joined together in a family as a separate society from the world where all reasons for sin are removed from our lives. Everyone works for the good of all and without the strife of the individual marriage and family. But when someone comes among us from the world he brings evil thoughts and ideas with him. That evil can touch and disturb our inner calm. But it is just a momentary thing. Nothing a true Believer needs worry about. The stranger will soon go back to the world and his disrupting influence will leave with him.”

Gabrielle lowered her eyes and said, “Yea, it will surely be so.”

“It will,” Sister Mercy said. “Now let us pray quickly before the morning duties begin.”

“What shall I pray, Sister Mercy?”

“That the doctor’s worldliness has left no stain upon you.”

“And for Brother Nathan’s recovery? Surely that is a proper prayer this morning.”

“Yea. For Brother Nathan’s recovery and for his true acceptance of the Believers’ way.”

Later as she listened to her youngsters reciting their spelling lessons, Gabrielle felt shame for not praying as Sister Mercy had directed her. Gabrielle didn’t want this Dr. Scott to go away. Not yet. She had a great curiosity about him. She wanted to know what made him speak as he did and why he used cures others disdained. She wanted to understand the sad look that had crept into his eyes as he had looked at her the night before. And perhaps her largest reason for shame, she wanted to know more about the world he’d come from.

For more than five years she’d not thought much of the world at all. It was there beyond the border of their village, but she never thought to have any part of it again. But the doctor had pushed a new feeling into her mind. A feeling that would have to be fought.

She tightened her mouth and straightened her shoulders as she pushed all such whimsical thoughts of the world out of her mind. There would be no questions for Dr. Scott. She had put things of the world behind her, and it was best if she remembered that. The Believers’ life was her life, and it was a good life.

Yet as her eyes fell on her bandaged hand, she couldn’t deny the tingle of excitement that pushed through her at the thought of the doctor touching her hand again. His hands held a sort of magic. They looked big and strong like the hands of one who worked the earth, but at the same time they were gentle and soft to the wounded.

Her face warmed at the thought and then once again she felt shame. Such thoughts were surely a sin. Yet another sin she would be unable to confess to Sister Mercy.

She curled her fingers into a fist and was glad for the pain that took her mind away from the doctor.

3

Brice Scott sat by the boy all through the day, sometimes dozing in his chair but always rousing at once to dose the boy with more of the sleeping medicine whenever he moved or cried out. Then he would replace the compresses on the boy’s burns. The ones on his arms and face would amount to little. In time the red might even fade from his skin. The burns on the boy’s legs were different. He’d always carry the scars of them and perhaps even the pain. Still, Brice had hopes the boy might regain the use of his legs if he had a strong enough will. It would take courage for him to stand on his feet and walk again.

At least he’d live to have the chance. Not all who were burned so badly could hope for that. Brice frowned. He didn’t want to think about little Amy Sue, but the sight of the boy’s charred skin kept bringing up her memory. She’d been four when she’d caught her dress tail on fire, and she was the only one of his stepbrothers or sisters that Brice had any feelings for. Maybe that was because she was yet a baby when they brought him back from the Indians.

Brice hadn’t been at the cabin the day she had been playing too near the fire while her mother washed their clothes. By that time he’d been plenty old enough to hire out to a neighbor. But they said she ran, and the flames wrapped her in a shroud of death before anyone could catch her to put them out. He got to her before she died, but there’d been many times when he wished he hadn’t. He never forgot her face twisted in pain as she tried to reach for him to hold her.

He didn’t stay for the burying. He walked out of the cabin and away. His father had died the year before, and his stepmother was ready to marry again. He had no reason to stay.

Being on his own had been hard at first, but Brice knew if he just kept pushing forward, doing whatever had to be done, the world would make room for him. His years with the Indians had taught him that. He’d lived with them for almost five years before a group of hunters had come into the Indian village and traded for him when he was twelve.

In the end, it had been the fever that had decided his future. He’d never been sick in his life, but suddenly one morning the grippe shook him with chills and burning flashes that threatened to eliminate all his problems of how he was going to live.

A settler was kind enough to take him in and send for the local doctor. As soon as Dr. Andrew Feeley walked through the door, Brice knew what he wanted to do with his life if he survived the fever. There was such an air of assurance and confidence about the little man as he put a cooling hand on Brice’s brow and proceeded to bleed him quickly and capably. His very presence seemed as good as his treatment, and Brice wanted to be able to walk into a sickroom and make the air more hopeful just because he was there. He wanted to be able to do something besides watch when something happened as it had to little Amy Sue.

The boy on the bed moaned and brought Brice back to the Shakers’ log cabin. The sleeping tonic was wearing off and the boy was trying to open his eyes. It was time to see if he was ready to face his future. Brice held a glass to the boy’s lips to let the cold water trickle into his mouth.

The boy sputtered and coughed, but the water brought him fully awake. For a moment, confusion filled his eyes, but then his eyes touched Brice briefly as he searched the room.

Brice said gently, “She was here all through the night, son, but with the morning she had to leave.”

Suspicion filled the boy’s brown eyes as he spoke slowly and carefully. “Why do you think I was seeking someone?”

Brice smiled. “And you weren’t?”

Again the boy looked around the room. “Are we alone?”

“We are,” Brice said. “Elder Caleb was here, but he said he had work to do. Something about plans for a new barn.”

A look of horror twisted the boy’s face. “The fire. I didn’t think I’d ever see another sunrise.” He looked at Brice again. “Who are you?”

“Brice Scott. Dr. Brice Scott. And you’re Nathan, but they didn’t tell me your last name. Or do any of you people in this place have last names?”

Nathan’s mouth turned up in a half smile. “Oh, we all have last names. We just don’t use them much. Mine’s Bates. Nathan Bates.”

Brice sat back in his chair and studied the boy. “Well, Bates, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Nathan stared back at the doctor as if puzzled by his question. Then instead of answering, he asked his own question. “Am I bad burnt?”

“You want to see?” Brice didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled off the covering he’d laid over the boy’s legs and helped him raise up to look.

Nathan sucked in a quick breath, but he didn’t flinch away from the sight of the burns. After a moment, he said, “I guess it’s no wonder I’m hurting some.”

Brice was heartened by the boy’s calm acceptance of the angry, oozing skin on his legs. “I’ll give you another dose for the pain in a little bit,” he told him.

“That’s okay, Doc. It’s not so bad I can’t handle it.” Nathan lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling for a long time before he spoke again. “You think I’ll be able to do much walking anymore?”

“I’ll be honest with you, Bates. It’ll just be according to how much you want to.”

“I’ll want to. A lot. A Shaker that can’t work doesn’t make much of a Shaker.” Nathan frowned. “Not that I plan to be a Shaker all that much longer.”

“What do you plan to do?”

Nathan looked quickly around the room again before he lowered his voice. “I wouldn’t want the others to know. At least not yet. But I’m not aiming to stay here much longer. I’ve been planning on leaving ever since my pa brought us over here and said we had to start being Shakers. I knew that very day this couldn’t be no kind of place when they made me give up Jack.”

“Jack?”

“My dog. Best hunting dog you’d ever want to see, but then the Shakers don’t hold much with dogs or hunting. Believe in growing what you need.”

“Then why haven’t you left already if that’s what you want to do? You look old enough. What are you? Nineteen? Twenty?”

“I’m twenty, and I’ll be leaving soon. I’d have left already except for Gabrielle.” Nathan looked at the doctor quickly as if he’d told more than he intended on telling.

“Gabrielle?” Brice said. “That’s the young sister who was here last night.”

“So she really was here. I thought I saw her a time or two, but then I wasn’t sure I might not be dreaming. Or just wishing I saw her.”

“She was here.” The boy’s face lit up at Brice’s words. “She has a beauty about her.”

“She is beauty,” Nathan said simply. “I’m going to marry her.”

Brice kept his eyes on the boy. “I’ve heard Shakers don’t hold with marriage.”

“They don’t hold with a lot of things.”

“The young sister seems a devout Believer.”

Nathan waved off Brice’s words. “I’ll make her see that it’s better to be part of the world than here among the living dead.”

“The living dead? I don’t know that I’d call them that. They seem good enough people. Kind, gentle, industrious.”

“But dead,” Nathan insisted. “They even say they’re dead to the world, and I aim to be part of the world.”

Brice couldn’t argue with him on that. A person couldn’t shut out the problems of the world just by turning his back on it. He ought to know. He’d tried doing just that a time or two himself. He mixed some powders in a glass and held the boy’s head while he drank it down. “You’d best be resting. The days ahead will be hard, Bates, and if you plan to walk you’ll need to build up your strength.”

Nathan swallowed the bitter liquid without complaint. “I’ll walk, Dr. Scott. You don’t need to worry about that,” he said after Brice took away the cup.

The boy slowly relaxed as the medicine eased his pain. If Brice could keep the fever away, he’d make the boy get up tomorrow. Else his legs might tighten up too much to move. Even so, although it would be difficult, Brice didn’t doubt the boy would do as he said and walk. His youth left little room for fear or he wouldn’t have been in the burning barn to begin with.

“Gabrielle.” Nathan called out the young sister’s name in his sleep.

Brice frowned. He’d taken a liking to the boy while they talked. Now he couldn’t keep from feeling a bit of pity for him, because in spite of the boy’s cocky sureness, Brice doubted the young sister would go with him when he left the Shakers.

Brice stood up and went to look out the window. Not that the boy wouldn’t go on living even without the girl. A man didn’t die of a broken heart. Life had a way of edging on through the pain, and it would for the boy the same as it had for Brice.

Why today were all these things he’d put out of his mind coming back to haunt him? He hadn’t thought about little Amy Sue for years, and he practiced not thinking about Jemma. At first not thinking of Jemma had been survival after he’d once again walked away from his life.

He should have said something to Dr. Feeley after all the man had done for him. He not only took Brice in and apprenticed him to learn medicine; he let Brice wed his only daughter. A smile touched Brice’s lips as he remembered those months of happiness with Jemma that lit up his life like sunlight reaching into a dark cave.

Jemma was special. If as the boy said, the young sister was beauty, then Jemma was joy. Everything was bright and fresh to her, and laughter lived in her sun-specked green eyes. Their love had been young and innocent, and Brice had thought it would never end. But a fever had crept up on Jemma. Each day her father had treated her, bleeding her to let out the sickness. Each day Brice had watched her grow weaker until the joy was gone from her eyes and face and nothing remained but a shell of the beautiful girl he loved.

He was beside her when she pulled in her last breath. He wanted to force his own breath into her, make her come back to him, but death kept its hold on her. After her hand grew stiff in his, he kissed her cold lips one last time and left without a word to Dr. or Mrs. Feeley. It wasn’t right, but he couldn’t bear seeing them put Jemma below the ground.

For a year he’d wandered without purpose except to keep going away from his grief. Then one day he found himself in Philadelphia in front of a school of medicine and knew the desire to be a doctor had not left him.

With a quick shake of his head, Brice turned away from the winter’s early twilight and his thoughts. It did no good to dwell on the past. It couldn’t be changed no matter how many times a man wished it differently.

He stood over the boy and listened to his steady breathing. Brice would do as he’d done since he started back on the road to being a doctor. He’d take on his patient’s pains and push away his own. And this boy would have plenty enough to share.

Brice yawned and stretched back his arms. He hadn’t been out of the room all day, and he felt confined. He was used to walking in the woods around his cabin every evening to gather roots and let the air clear his mind.

With a quick look at the boy, Brice stepped out into the cool air. He waited on the step when he saw Elder Caleb and another man approaching the cabin.

“We’ve brought your evening meal, Dr. Scott,” Elder Caleb said.

The thought of food made Brice’s stomach growl, but he needed to stretch his legs more. “Thank you, Elder. I’ll eat it later, but now I wonder if you or one of the others here could sit with the boy while I work up a little appetite with a walk.”

Elder Caleb’s eyes were understanding. “Of course. I should have sent someone over to relieve you hours ago, but there were so few hands and so much to do.”

“That’s all right. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave the boy before now anyway. But he seems a bit better this evening. When he wakes again, he’ll need some thin gruel to eat to begin building his strength.”

“Very well. I’ll send Brother Matthias to see to it at once.” Brice started to move away, but the elder’s voice stopped him. “I must ask you to remember that you are a visitor in our village, Dr. Scott. You are not to disturb any of the sisters or brothers. We have rules of behavior that we expect you to respect as long as you’re here.”

Brice turned around. In spite of the elder’s soft, even tone, Brice heard the warning in his voice. “What do you mean?” he asked. Brice had never liked to talk in circles. Whatever the man was trying to tell him, Brice wanted it straight out and clear before him.

The elder continued calmly. “We ask not that ye believe as we do. Only that you not defame us while you are among us.”

Brice remembered comparing the Shakers’ dances with the Indians’ the night before. He held back a smile as he said, “I apologize if I upset Sister Helen with my words.”

“Your words and behavior were disturbing to Sister Helen.” Elder Caleb watched him for a long moment before adding, “And to young Sister Gabrielle. Sister Helen tells me you were alone with Sister Gabrielle.”

“No harm came to her from me.” Irritation rose inside Brice. The man was chastising him as if he were a child.

“That may be. Even so, I must ask you not to let this happen again, or I will have to insist you leave our community and not return.”

Brice clamped down on his irritation. “As you say, Elder. But I won’t leave my patient until I know he’s going to be all right. Only then will I go.”

Elder Caleb inclined his head in a nod. “I think we understand one another, Dr. Scott. I trust you to be an honorable man.” He turned away from Brice and went into the cabin.

Brice walked briskly away through the cluster of buildings. He passed several people as they went along the paths quietly with their eyes averted from his. What an odd bunch they all were with the men in their plain dark suits and the women so alike in their blue or brown dresses with the large white scarves crossed over their bosoms. All the women wore long winter capes and some sort of cap on their heads. It was funny how the covering of their hair took away the beauty of so many of the women.

Then to remove themselves from the world as if they thought that would keep them from sin. Brice shook his head. Sin would surely be harder to get away from than that.

Brice had heard all manner of stories about the Shakers since he’d settled in Mercer County a little over a year ago. Some swore they worshiped the devil in sexual orgies, and another man had told him a wild story about the Shakers killing babies. But the Shakers endured the ridicule and faced down the unfounded rumors with a quiet strength that had earned Brice’s respect. He’d made it plain to his patients he’d listen to no more tales about the Shakers.