The morning after Danny's accident, Miller's Gulch discovered a new subject to gossip about.
Me.
By breakfast, three people had knocked on our door.
The first was Mrs. Pike.
Danny had slept.
His fingers remained warm.
Pain was manageable.
The second visitor was Earl Hutchins, who claimed he was only checking on the sheriff but somehow spent fifteen minutes asking whether I had really helped deliver babies in Pennsylvania.
The third was Lavinia Peton.
Abel answered the door.
He didn't invite her inside.
I heard every word from the kitchen.
"I came to speak with Harriet."
"She's eating."
"This is important."
"So is breakfast."
"Abel."
"Lavinia."
A pause.
Then she lowered her voice as if volume had been the problem with her behavior.
"People are concerned."
"Which people?"
"The community."
"Names."
"What?"
"Give me names."
Another pause.
"That isn't necessary."
"Then don't use 'the community' when you mean yourself."
I covered my mouth to hide a smile.
Lavinia attempted another strategy.
"A woman treating injuries without proper qualifications could create serious difficulty."
"If Danny Pike had waited two days for Mercer, he might have lost the arm."
"You can't know that."
"Neither can you."
"Abel—"
"My wife didn't claim to be a doctor. She helped a boy because nobody else could."
Lavinia's voice sharpened.
"And what happens when someone dies?"
The smile left my face.
That question found the exact wound she'd never known I carried.
I stepped into the hall.
"Then I live with it."
Lavinia looked past Abel.
"Harriet."
"Come in."
Abel glanced at me.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
Lavinia entered.
I poured coffee.
Nobody drank it.
"You asked what happens when somebody dies," I said.
"I wasn't trying to be cruel."
"Perhaps not. But I know the answer."
I sat across from her.
"The patient who died in Pennsylvania was named Eleanor Barnes."
I had not spoken her name aloud since leaving home.
Even Abel had not heard it.
"She was thirty-one. Mother of three."
The kitchen seemed to shrink around us.
"Father had been sick for several weeks by then. His heart was failing, though he refused to admit how badly. Eleanor's husband came to our house late one night. She was in labor. Something was wrong."
Lavinia's expression changed.
I continued.
"Father couldn't get out of bed. There was another physician eleven miles away, but flooding had taken out the bridge."
Abel sat beside me.
I stared into the untouched coffee.
"I had assisted Father through dozens of births. I knew what to do. At least I thought I did."
My throat tightened.
"The baby survived."
"And Eleanor?" Abel asked softly.
"She began bleeding."
I could still see it.
Blood soaking sheets.
Her husband's face.
The newborn crying.
My own hands pressing cloth desperately against a disaster I couldn't stop.
"I tried everything Father had taught me. It wasn't enough."
Lavinia no longer looked smug.
"Did anyone blame you?"
"Her husband did."
"Was he right?"
I looked directly at her.
"I asked myself that every night for almost two years."
Abel's hand closed around mine.
"Father died six weeks later. After that, I stopped helping people. I packed his instruments away."
Lavinia glanced toward the hallway, as if imagining the case upstairs.
"Then Abel's letter arrived."
"Yes."
"And you came here to forget?"
"I came here to become something besides the woman who couldn't save Eleanor Barnes."
For once, Lavinia did not have an answer.
She stood.
At the door, she paused.
"I still believe Mercer should examine Danny."
"So do I."
That surprised her.
"I told Mrs. Pike the same."
Lavinia nodded.
Then left.
I expected relief.
Instead I felt exposed.
Abel watched me.
"Why didn't you tell me her name last night?"
"Because saying it makes her real again."
"She was always real."
"I know."
He sat.
"You didn't kill her."
"You don't know that."
"Neither do you."
I looked at him.
He continued.
"Yet you've spent two years sentencing yourself without a trial."
"Sheriff talking?"
"Husband."
That word settled between us.
Husband.
Not rescuer.
Not judge.
Husband.
Three days later, Dr. Mercer returned.
He rode directly from the train station to Danny Pike's house because apparently half of Miller's Gulch had spent two days waiting to tell him what Sheriff Renfrew's strange wife had done.
I went with Abel.
Mercer was fifty-four, bald on top, perpetually irritated, and more skilled than his bedside manner suggested.
He removed Danny's wrappings slowly.
I stood near the wall.
Mercer examined the forearm.
Nobody breathed.
Then he looked at me.
"You reduce this?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"No. Several people held him."
"Not what I asked."
"Then yes."
He returned to Danny's arm.
Checked circulation.
Finger movement.
Alignment.
Finally he grunted.
Mrs. Pike nearly collapsed from anxiety.
"What does that mean?"
"It means whoever set it knew what she was doing."
Everyone looked at me.
Mercer rewrapped the arm.
Then he stood.
"Where'd you learn?"
"My father. Dr. Samuel Stroud."
Mercer's expression changed.
"Samuel Stroud?"
"You knew him?"
"Knew of him."
My heart jumped.
"He trained in Philadelphia?"
"Yes."
"Worked near Scranton?"
"Outside it."
Mercer stared.
"I attended a lecture of his in '72."
I nearly forgot how to breathe.
Father had traveled to Philadelphia that year.
He had returned complaining about hotel food and praising a surgeon named Halstead whose techniques he found interesting.
Mercer folded his arms.
"Samuel Stroud had a reputation for teaching practical medicine to anybody willing to learn."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"Apparently he meant anybody."
I wasn't sure whether to be offended.
Then Mercer added, "Danny's lucky you were here."
Something loosened inside me.
Not everything.
But something.
Word spread.
By Sunday, people who once looked at my hands with amusement now found reasons to show me theirs.
A rancher asked about an infected cut.
A mother wanted advice about her child's cough.
An elderly man asked whether his swollen ankle was broken.
I refused anything beyond my knowledge.
Every time someone needed genuine medical treatment, I sent them to Mercer.
Instead of resenting that, Mercer seemed increasingly entertained.
"Half this town has been avoiding my office for years because they don't want to pay me," he complained one afternoon. "Now they bother you for free and you send them straight back."
"You're welcome."
He snorted.
A strange partnership began.
I helped him with bandages.
He lent me newer medical texts.
When he learned how many births I had attended, he asked me to assist with a difficult delivery outside town.
I almost refused.
The memory of Eleanor Barnes rose like a wall.
Mercer saw it.
"You don't have to."
"I know."
"But you want to."
I hated him for recognizing that.
The woman was named Ruth Bell.
Twenty-nine.
Her labor had gone on too long.
When I entered the bedroom, I smelled sweat, blood, fear, and remembered everything.
My hands began trembling.
Mercer noticed.
"Harriet."
"I can't."
"Yes, you can."
"Eleanor—"
"Isn't here."
He kept his voice quiet.
"This is Ruth Bell. Different woman. Different birth. Different day."
I stared at Ruth.
She reached for me.
"Please."
That ended the argument.
I stayed.
Five hours later, Ruth delivered a healthy girl.
She named the child Grace.
I walked outside after sunrise and cried behind the barn.
Abel found me there.
I don't know who had told him where I was.
Perhaps Mercer.
Perhaps everyone in town.
Abel put his coat around my shoulders.
"Baby?"
"Fine."
"Mother?"
"Fine."
"Then why are you crying?"
"Because this one lived."
He didn't tell me not to cry.
He simply held me.
For several minutes, that was enough.
Then I noticed something.
"You came all the way out here?"
"Seven miles."
"In the snow?"
"Six and a half."
"Abel."
He smiled against my hair.
"I wanted to bring you home."
That was when I realized I loved him.
Not because he defended me.
Not because he admired what I could do.
Because he kept giving me somewhere safe to return.
I almost told him.
Then gunshots sounded in the distance.
Three.
Rapid.
Abel instantly released me.
His expression changed from husband to sheriff.
Another shot followed.
Then a rider appeared on the road, galloping hard.
"Renfrew!"
Abel stepped forward.
The rider pulled up.
"It's the Red Creek mine."
"What happened?"
"Support beam collapsed."
My stomach dropped.
"How many?"
"Don't know. Maybe twelve underground. Three already pulled out."
The man looked at me.
"Mercer's needed."
Abel turned toward the house.
Then back toward me.
"We'll get you home."
"No."
He understood immediately.
"Harriet."
"Mercer will need help."
"This isn't a broken arm."
"I know."
"Mine injuries get bad."
"I know that too."
His eyes hardened.
"You don't owe this town anything."
"No."
I looked toward the road leading into the mountains.
"But I think I owe myself something."
"What?"
I remembered Eleanor Barnes.
I remembered closing Father's case.
I remembered two years spent pretending a part of me had died because I had failed once.
"The chance to stop running."
Mercer emerged behind us carrying his bag.
He had heard.
He looked from me to Abel.
"Coming?"
I nodded.
Abel closed his eyes briefly.
Then he drew his coat tighter.
"Fine."
He looked at both of us.
"But I'm going too."
We headed for Red Creek.
And none of us yet knew that before the next sunrise, Miller's Gulch would discover whether I truly had the courage to become the woman my father had trained me to be.
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