Gold Rush Wedding, Page 4

"Bear! There's a bear just over that rise. We need to run him off!" Two miners raced down the hill, calling for help.

  "Lock yourself in the cabin and don't come out for anything." George pushed Lucinda into the cabin along with Tansy and Abigail. "Once we take down the bear, I'll let you know."

  Lucinda grabbed George's arms and pulled him close to her. "Come back safe," she whispered in his ear. She watched his jaw clench tight as he nodded. He caressed a lock of hair away from her face before turning and walking out.

  "Throw the bolt."

  Lucinda took his advice and placed the door bolt in the two wrought iron arms designed to hold it. She wondered if it would stop a bear. She'd seen grizzly bears prowling the camps around Diggers Flat when she was grubstaking. She'd seen the damage they could do to a campsite. There was no doubt a full grown male could tear the shutters right off the window of this cabin.

  Tansy leaned out the window toward the hill where the bear had been spotted.

  "Tansy, what are you doing?" Abigail pulled her sister back and closed and latched the shutters.

  "I just wanted to see them go after the bear."

  "You're acting foolish. Mama would have your hide for being so careless!"

  Tansy rolled her eyes. "Mama won't be here until tomorrow. Besides, George didn't see me. You won’t tell, will you?"

  "Abigail is right, Tansy. You don't want to take a bear sighting lightly. They've been known to kill a man with one blow of their paws." Lucinda lit the wick of a second candle with an already burning one in her hand. She placed them in two small jars on the table.

  "I hope it runs off into the woods where it came from. We don't need a bear hunt right before your wedding," Abigail said.

  "Well, I can't think of any good time for a bear hunt. Can you? They scare me," Tansy admitted. "Why the men insist on hunting them, I'll never understand."

  Lucinda shook her head. "California is a far different land from Missouri."

  Abigail pulled a small book from the shelf above the door. "Lucinda, why don't you read to us a bit while Tansy and I sort these flowers and tie up a few bouquets? It will be a good way to pass the time."

  Lucinda took the book, grateful for the diversion. They could be in here for quite a while, depending on how ardent the men were about tracking the bear.

  "Have you ever read this before?" Abigail asked. Lucinda looked at the title. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

  "I can't say that I have."

  "It's one of Abigail's favorites," Tansy said. "She's read it so many times, she practically has it memorized."

  "There's nothing more inspiring than the way he changed his life," Abigail said. "Frederick Douglass was a slave who taught himself to read and write. Then he shared his newfound freedom and knowledge with others to make the world a better place."

  Tansy nodded. "That's what I think about you, Lucinda. You're going to make a better world for women, by proving we can do anything. Once you have your medical degree, who knows what great things you'll accomplish?"

  Lucinda opened to the first page. "I don't know about accomplishing great things. I just want to help as many people as I can, in a way I couldn't help my parents."

  Abigail tied a ribbon on a bundle of lavender. "You know they would be very proud of you on this day."

  "They'll both be watching you from the heavens as you marry George tomorrow," Tansy added.

  Lucinda wiped the nervous dampness from her forehead and began to read. She concentrated on keeping her voice calm and steady. She hadn't finished the first chapter before they heard shouting outside, frantic, hurried, calling for help.

  She threw open the shutters. George and an older man staggered down the hill toward the cabin, dragging a younger man between them. He was a boy, hardly more than sixteen, his head lolling on George's shoulder. Lucinda saw the red stain of blood on the boy's shirt.

  "Tansy, open the door." Lucinda grabbed the blanket from the foot of the bed. She cleared off the table and laid the blanket over the wooden planks. "Abigail, make sure the water in the teakettle is boiling hot." Her calm and controlled orders kept the other two women from panicking.

  "Bring him on in," Lucinda called out the window. She placed her medical bag on the stool next to the wooden plank table.

  The three men squeezed in through the door. They laid the boy on the table. Lucinda began cutting away the cloth from his leather vest and linen shirt. A calm focus swept over her as it always did during an emergency.

  "I don't know how bad it is," George told her. "The bear swiped at him, knocked his rifle to the ground, and then it ran."

  Lucinda peeled the blood soaked cloth away from the wound, and dropped it a basin she had placed next to the table. She wet a clean rag and began wiping the blood away so she could see the depth of the injury.

  "Have you ever treated a bear attack?" The older man asked.

  "Not yet," she replied.

  The boy's eyes popped open and he tried to sit up. "Holy Mary, Mother of God! Am I going to die?"

  Lucinda gently pushed him back down onto the table. "Not yet." She noticed the beads of sweat on the fine hairs of his upper lip.

  "But I'm going to lose my arm, aren't I?"

  "Not yet."

  The boy began thrashing on the table and George held him down with his strong arms.

  "Do you have any whiskey to give this young man?" Lucinda gave a pointed stare at the lump in the older man's vest pocket. "Give him a swig. Make it two. And make them big. He needs to calm down."

  The older man uncorked the flask from his vest pocket and poured some into the boy's mouth. He coughed and sputtered, but George held him steady while the whiskey worked its magic.

  Lucinda wished there were a better anesthetic than hard liquor, which made patients sloppy and didn't do much to ease the pain, but that was the best they had.

  Lucinda grabbed the alum powder from her bag and mixed it with water to make a paste.

  “This might sting a little,” she warned before she spread it over the wounds. The boy howled like an angry cat.

  “What are you doing to him?” the older man asked.

  “I’m putting a styptic paste on his lacerations to stop the bleeding. It will help prevent infection, too.”

  Thankfully, her patient had dodged serious injury. The bear's slashing claws had done the most damage to his leather vest and linen shirt, leaving only surface wounds to his chest. It wouldn't even need stitching. However, it would leave a scar, giving him something to tell stories about. She was certain his stories would grow more dramatic with the passage of time, until the bear doubled in size, and his bravery reached godlike proportions. Nothing like what she saw before her today; a young man, whimpering in fear as she examined his lacerations.

  "You're going to be just fine. A few broad scars and you'll go down in history with your tales of surviving a bear attack."

  The boy blinked at her. "Truly?" he asked. "I'm not going to die?"

  "Like I said earlier, not yet. I have a wedding planned, and I will not allow anyone to mar that celebration with an incident such as dying from a bear wound."

  She wrapped a cloth around his chest, tight enough to compress the wound and stop the bleeding. "Do we have some extra strips of cloth for this man's arm?" Lucinda asked.

  Tansy lifted her skirt hem and tore a ruffle off her petticoat. She handed it to Lucinda, who smiled at her resourcefulness.

  "Oh, you poor, brave, man," Tansy told the patient. She held his hand, and he grinned a sloppy grin at her.

  "You're my angel." He dragged out the last word.

  Abigail coughed behind her hand.

  The old man groused, "Enough of the puppy dog eyes. If you're not dying then we need to get back to prospecting."

  "Are you prospecting near here, sir?" George asked.

  "We have a claim up over yonder. We'll just be getting back to it now," the old man answered.

  "Will I see you again," the boy asked Tansy. She s
lipped a small blanket over his shoulders.

  "I expect you will, when you bring this blanket back to the cabin."

  "Mind you that it's clean," added Abigail.

  George looked over his sister's head to meet Lucinda's eyes. Lucinda just smiled. There were so many men in California, Tansy could have her pick of any one of them. There was no explaining falling in love.