The man's eyes were squeezed tight as he opened his mouth and nodded.
Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, the doctor shook out some pills from the other bottle. "Bell, you give him two of these with each meal, startin' tomorrow. They'll help with his pain for the next couple days. Don't let him out of that bed, though."
"Yes, sir." Bell's skin was a soft reddish brown, a few shades lighter than her husband's. "I'll let my middle child, she's seven; she can keep an eye on him while we is all in the field."
"I'll pass your situation on to Pastor Morgan. I'm sure he'll be around to check on you all and get the word out. In Grover Town, we try to make a habit of helping our neighbors." With a hand on her shoulder, he added, "There'll be hands to help out you and the children."
Bell sniffed and brushed away a stray tear as she rose from the low bed. "We sho' do 'preciate all you've done."
"Think nothin' of it." Martin retrieved his hat from the table and headed with bag in hand toward the door.
Once he was on the porch, three sets of eyes turned and stared at him. "Your pa will be all right. He'll just need a few days to rest."
"Doc Clarkston."
At his horse, Martin turned and glanced back. Bell was rushing toward him with a wrapped bundle in her hand. "Hot water cornbread. I made it fresh the morning. It ain't much. But once we get the harvest done, Reggie'll make sure your paid."
He smiled and took the small bundle. It wasn't the first time he was paid in baked goods. He'd also gotten more chickens and eggs than a single man could ever have use for. Money didn't dictate who he helped in town. "Oh, this will do just fine. I don't get much in the way of home cookin' so it's payment enough."
The large smile on her face at hearing his words lit the woman's brown eyes, and he could see how Reggie had fallen for her. With a nod, he mounted his horse and headed on his way.
Pulling out a piece of the fried, flat meal bread, he lifted it to his mouth and quickly took a bite. It was the first time he'd tried it. People in these parts didn't cook anything like it. The crispiness of the edge complimented the savory flavor of the cooked batter and brought a grin to his face.
Soon, his wife would arrive, and from her letters, she was a decent cook. He was excited to get someone fixing meals for him like Reggie and all the other husbands in town got on their table. He was looking forward to not taking all his meals at the Drummonds' or Manny's Saloon.
Lifting a second piece, he made mental plans to introduce his wife to Bell and see if she could teach her to make the hot water cornbread, as she'd called it.
Yes, soon, life for him would be good. He'd get the support he needed, a warm body to warm his bed, and someone to make his house a home. He could have picked one of the nice young ladies from Grover, but since the town's population had started to grow, he barely had time to relax, let alone court. He'd been away from town at medical school down in Texas while his friends were at barn dances, summer picnics, and other town social gatherings makin' eyes at the few young women in town, even of an age to marry.
Sending a letter to the address on the flier at the postal service office and telling the mail order service what he'd like in a wife seemed the most efficient way for him to get things done.
There hadn't been a letter from Beth in almost a month. She'd written and told him she was leaving Boston and would see him soon. With her traveling by train, he'd expected the trip to take about three weeks, but it had been a little more than a month. He had made it a daily habit to be at the new train depot after lunch to see if she'd arrived, but there had been no sight of her yet.
He wasn't worried, because he knew there were parts of her travel where she'd have to take a stagecoach between towns to catch one train or another. In another week, he'd send word to the agency requesting either a new bride or the return of the money he'd sent for her passage.
Being the only doctor in town, it didn't allow him to travel to the east and accompany her out, like a honeymoon trip. The only thing he could hope was that something hadn't happened to her.
Elizabeth sat in the chair across the small room of the boarding house, as she stared at the second dead body before her in not even six weeks. This death was just as much at her hands as the last one. The only difference was she'd wielded an object that had killed him, and this time it was her inexperience that had done it.
Tears rushed down her face and her stomach ached from how many times she'd emptied it into the bucket. The room smelled like waste, bile, and death, both the humidity and scent suffocating her. She couldn't take being around someone who was so sick. They had only made it as far as Kansas City, Missouri before Bethany had been so ill, she couldn't go on.
Her companion had been ordered from the train lest she get other passengers sick. The woman had clutched at Elizabeth and begged her not to leave her. Elizabeth may have been inept in some things, but she wasn't heartless. It had taken all of Elizabeth's money to get the room for the week.
Bethany's remaining funds had covered the bland soup they had both eaten and the medicine to keep her friend out of pain. The local doctor had said there wasn't anything that he could do. Bethany's appendix had ruptured, and by the time they'd gotten off the train, the bacteria had already tainted her blood. Bethany's body was already septic. He'd left a large bottle of laudanum before walking out.
"Make her comfortable," had been his last words.
That had been five days ago. Five hellacious days of Bethany writhing and groaning in pain when she wasn't unconscious from the medication.
There was a knock at the door as someone called out, "Your soup, ma'am."
Wiping at her own mouth and nose, Elizabeth rose then moved to the door on unsteady legs. Turning the handle, she opened the door and stared at the boarding house owner's thirteen-year-old daughter. The girl, Mary, usually delivered the soup, bread, and fresh water for Elizabeth to tend to Bethany.
"I need the undertaker." Elizabeth tried to keep her voice steady, but she could hear the wavering in her own ears.
Mary's gaze shifted from Elizabeth to the bed beyond her shoulder. Sadness filled the girl's blue eyes as she pushed the tray toward Elizabeth then walked away.
Balancing the tray, Elizabeth used her foot to kick the door closed. She moved to the table and set her burden down. Staring at the food and the pitcher of water, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. The woman going cold on the bed behind her had become a friend of sorts during their travel. Elizabeth felt horrible that someone so young had lost her life.
Glancing over her shoulder at the ashen woman, she thought about all of Bethany's hopes and dreams. She'd talked nonstop for weeks about her proxy husband and the new life she would have in Grover Town. Once she'd gotten sick and they had settled into the room, Bethany had made her read the letters from the doctor out loud.
Most of the letters described what he did on a regular basis in caring for the sick and broken. None of it did Elizabeth find appealing to hear or read. The man described his home and the changes to the clinic and what was going on in the town with all the new people moving in since the train had set up there.
"Now, she will never have the life she'd hoped for." Elizabeth poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher. She drank it, not because she was thirsty, but she used it to rinse down the bitter taste of bile from her mouth.
She couldn't think about how her companion's life had ended, without thinking about how her own life was empty. If either of them had to die, it probably would have been better for it to have been Elizabeth. "No one would have missed me."
Her parents were dead and her relationship with her only close relative was distant at best. One day, she'd gone out into the town and had asked around about a tanner named Eileen and she'd gotten more than a few strange looks. When her brother had come home for their parents' funeral, she'd sworn he'd told her that he'd