again.
The sound irritated Lon. “I don’t know what’s funny about this. You should be taken seriously. How much did the town pay you?”
Mercy sighed, handing him the envelope. “Human nature is what’s funny. Even when confronted by the truth about the cause of the epidemic, the average male and most females refuse to believe a woman would know more than a man would.”
They’d paid her less than five dollars. He voiced his disgust by saying, “But your idea about the cause of cholera is based on what male doctors have discovered, isn’t it?”
She nodded, tucking the envelope into the small leather purse in her skirt pocket. “But I could have gotten it wrong. I am, after all, just a poor, inferior, weak female who must always defer to men who always know better than women do.”
Her words grated against his nerves like sandpaper on sensitive skin. Why? Was he guilty of thinking this, too? He found himself moving toward this woman. He shut his mouth. He didn’t want to know more about Dr. Mercy Gabriel. He didn’t want to walk toward her, but she drew him. He offered her his hand to cover how disgruntled and confused he felt by his reaction to her.
She smiled and shook it. “I thank thee, Lon Mackey. Thee didn’t balk very much at following a woman’s directions.”
He didn’t know what to say to this. Was she teasing him or scolding him? Or being genuine? He merely smiled and turned away. The saloon was open again and he had to win some money to pay for his keep.
He would be staying in the saloon almost round the clock for the next few days—he’d seen the men of the town coming back full force. How had he come this far from the life he’d been born to? The answer was the war, of course.
He walked toward the saloon, hearing voices there louder and rowdier than usual. No doubt watching the wagons carrying people to the cemetery made men want to forget the harsh realities of life with lively conversation and laughter. Nearly seventy people had succumbed to cholera. How many would they have lost if Dr. Mercy Gabriel hadn’t shown up? Was he the only one who wondered this?
And why wouldn’t the Quaker woman leave his mind?
Images of Mercy over the past few hectic days popped into his mind over and over again. Mercy kneeling beside a patient and then rising to go to the next, often with a loud, burdened sigh. Mercy speaking softly to a weeping relative. Mercy staggering to a chair and closing her eyes for a short nap and then rising again. He passed a hand over his forehead as if he could wipe away the past week, banish Mercy Gabriel from his mind. But she wasn’t the kind of woman a man could forget easily. But I must.
Chapter Three
The morning after the final patient had recovered, Mercy decided it was time to find both a place to live and a place to start her medical practice. She wondered if she should ask Lon Mackey for help.
As she stood looking down the main street of the town, Indigo said, “Aunt Mercy?”
Mercy looked into Indigo’s large brown eyes. Indigo had always called her Aunt Mercy—the title of “mother” had never seemed right to either of them. “Yes?”
“Are we going to stand here all day?” Indigo grinned.
Mercy leaned her head to the side. “I’m sorry. I was lost in thought.” She didn’t reveal that the thoughts had been about Lon Mackey. He had vanished several days ago, returning to the largest saloon on the town’s one muddy street. His abrupt departure from their daily life left her hollow, blank, somehow weakened.
Indigo nodded as if she had understood both Mercy’s thoughts and gaze.
Mercy drew in a deep breath and hoped it would revive her. This was the place she had been called to. Only time would reveal if it would become home. “Let’s pull the trunk along. There must be some rooming houses in a town this size.” The two of them moved to the drier edge of the muddy track through town.
Mercy’s heart stuttered as she contemplated once again facing a town unsympathetic to a female doctor and a black nurse. Lon Mackey’s withdrawal from her sphere also blunted her mood. As she strode up the unpaved street, she tried to center herself, calm herself. God is a very present help in time of trouble. Lon Mackey helped me and accepted me for what I am—there will surely be others, won’t there?
A large greenwood building with big hand-painted letters announcing “General Store” loomed before her. Mercy left the trunk on the street with Indigo and entered. Her heart was now skipping beats.
“Good day!” she greeted a man wearing a white apron standing behind the rough wood-slab counter. “I’m new in town and looking for lodging. Can thee recommend a boardinghouse here?”
The man squinted at her. “You’re that female doctor, aren’t you?”
Mercy offered her hand. “Yes, I am Dr. Mercy Gabriel. And I’m ready to set up practice here.”
He didn’t take her hand.
She cleared her throat, which was tightening under his intense scrutiny.
“I’m Jacob Tarver, proprietor. I never met a female doctor before. But I hear you helped out nursing the cholera patients.”
“I doctored the patients as a qualified physician,” Mercy replied, masking her irritation. Then she had to suffer through the usual catechism of how she’d become a doctor, along with the usual response that no one would go to a female doctor except maybe for midwifing. She could have spoken both parts and he could have remained silent. People were so predictable in their prejudices.
Finally, she was able to go back to her question about lodging. “Where does thee suggest we find lodging, Jacob Tarver?”
He gave her an unhappy look. “That girl out there with you?”
Mercy had also been ready for this. Again, she kept her bubbling irritation hidden. If one chose to walk a path much different than the average, then one must put up with this sort of aggravation—even when one’s spirit rebelled against it. “Yes, Indigo is my adopted daughter and my trained nursing assistant.”
The proprietor looked at her as if she’d lost her mind but replied, “I don’t know if she’ll take you in, but go on down the street to Ma Bailey’s. She might have space for you in her place.”
Mercy nodded and thanked him. Outside, she motioned to Indigo and off they went to Ma Bailey’s. Mercy’s feet felt like blocks of wood. A peculiar kind of gloom was beginning to take hold of her. She saw the boardinghouse sign not too far down the street, but the walk seemed long. Once again, Mercy knocked on the door, leaving Indigo waiting with the red trunk.
A buxom woman in a faded brown dress and a soiled apron opened the door. “I’m Ma Bailey. What can I do for you?”
Feeling vulnerable, Mercy prayed God would soften this woman’s heart. “We’re looking for a place to board.”
The interrogation began and ended as usual with Ma Bailey saying, “I don’t take in people who ain’t white, and I don’t think doctorin’ is a job for womenfolk.”
Mercy’s patience slipped, a spark igniting. “Then why is it the mother who always tends to sick children
