Cowboy Creek Christmas: Mistletoe Reunion. Cheryl St.John
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likely they are immune or have cures for the sicknesses common to them, but the ones that baffle them are those they’ve contracted from the whites.” Sam gave her an encouraging nod.
She stood. “Take me to her.”
After a brief interaction, one of the braves who had accompanied them to the chief helped the old woman stand and gestured for Marlys to join them. Sam got her coat, and he and James stood. “Bring those two crates and my bag,” she said, and they left the chief’s tipi.
The brave spoke to James, and James told them his name was Gray Cloud. They referred to the medicine woman as Hausisse.
“What does it mean?” Marlys asked.
James spoke to the woman. “She said to some it’s She Knows, to others it’s Old Woman.”
Marlys followed them, trudging through trampled-down snow to another lodge, this one painted with animals and figures of women and children. “I like She Knows.”
Inside, there were several children, three lying under fur robes near the fire in the center.
“Teke’ váótséva éháomóhtâhéotse,” She Knows said.
“This is Little Deer,” James interpreted. “She has been sick for many days. The fever doesn’t leave.”
“What have you given her?” Marlys asked.
After a discussion James replied with the remedies the old medicine woman had given the child. Marlys instructed Sam to open the crates. He did as she asked and then took a seat away from the patients.
Marlys asked for water and used it to wash her hands. The child’s mother gave her a concerned look. “I want to help Little Deer,” Marlys said.
James interpreted their conversation.
“I am Blue Water. My child is not strong. She does not eat.”
“May I uncover her and look at her?”
Blue Water nodded and pulled the fur robe away.
The child’s tongue was cracked. She was painfully thin, her skin hot and dry. Marlys examined her for rashes or cuts, even checked the bottom of her feet, which were peeling.
“Are her feet sick?”
“No. The fever causes her skin to peel. We need to cool her down. Sam, bring me water that isn’t too warm, please.” She got cloths from her a crate. “Let’s move her away from the fire.”
With a minimum of effort she relayed her desire to find a vessel large enough to hold the girl. Gray Cloud brought an enormous but surprisingly lightweight bowl-shaped tub carved from a wood she’d never seen before.
Marlys and Little Deer’s mother made a secluded spot away from the heat by draping a blanket from the lodge poles and bathed the child in the tepid mineral water. They carried her to her relocated bed, and Blue Water attempted to cover her. Marlys stopped her with a gentle touch on her arm. “Let’s allow her skin and body to cool.”
Blue Water settled back with a nod.
Marlys draped only a light covering over her torso and gave Little Deer spoonfuls of water. Roused by the cool bath, the girl swallowed thirstily.
Marlys dissolved fermented soybean and coriander into water, as well as a combination of honeysuckle and forsythia powders, and spoon-fed it to her. She Knows came and watched, asked to sniff and taste. Marlys explained the curative properties of the mixture. Although she didn’t understand the cause of Little Deer’s fever, she’d learned this restorative Chinese fever remedy as a last resort, and it seemed She Knows had already used her vast knowledge of medicines to try the more common options.
Marlys had the education to remember and apply therapies for symptoms, but she’d never felt as humble or inadequate as she did at that moment. “Lord, You are the Great Physician. Help me understand how to treat this child. Touch her with Your hand of mercy, in Jesus’s name.” She glanced at the dividing blanket and called softly, “Sam.”
“I’m here.”
“Pray.”
At the unaccustomed qualm in Marlys’s voice, Sam experienced a thread of concern. She now understood the magnitude of coming here and claiming an ability to help these people. If her treatment didn’t help the Cheyenne girl, and she worsened—or even worse, died—the Cheyenne could perceive it as intended harm on Marlys’s part. Right now there were more lives than Little Deer’s at stake.
“I’m praying,” he answered. “I have every confidence in you, and confidence in God to guide you and to heal the girl.”
He prayed. Time passed slowly. He took his journal from his satchel and wrote for an hour or more. James’s and Marlys’s quiet voices blended with the sound of the other children and their mothers and the crackle of the fire, and he may have dozed.
Becoming aware that the log had burned down, he went out and found a pile of cut wood and put another log on the fire. Unaccustomed to a stranger in their tent, the Indian women watched him warily.
There was nothing to do but wait right now, and his body grew tense from inaction. With a dozen eyes on him he went to his horse and unsheathed an ax, walking toward a stand of trees, where he pulled brush and fallen limbs into a pile and chopped a log into pieces. Periodically he left the ax in a limb to check on Marlys and James. Marlys was methodically checking each child and their mother for signs of sickness. She was treating a small boy when he went back to his task.
Eventually, a woman brought a sling and piled all the wood he’d chopped. It was the women’s job to find and cut wood, so she probably found his actions curious. But she did not protest. She carried the sling filled with firewood back to their communal pile several times. On her return, she brought him a steaming wooden bowl and handed it to him.
He nodded, drank the hot broth, and returned the bowl.
She wiped it out with snow and walked away.
Sam glanced at the sun. It was late afternoon. If they stayed much longer, they would be traveling home in the dark. He trudged back to the lodge and entered. The children were seated at the fire eating savory-smelling roasted meat. His belly rumbled. That broth hadn’t been filling.
“Marlys, we need to think about eating and leaving. We can’t travel in the dark.”
“You must be hungry. Get the basket I packed and share it with James.” She came around the side of the draped blanket. “I’m not leaving.”
He swallowed the first words that sprang to his tongue and pursed his lips in frustration. “We can’t stay. I have to get back to August.”
“You go. I’ll stay.”
“I’m not leaving you alone here.”
“I am not leaving tonight.”
James was seated far enough away to give Marlys, her patient and the girl’s mother privacy, but close enough to interpret. He got to his feet and stretched his legs. “What if I go back, keep August with Hannah and me overnight and come back in the morning?”
“I’ve learned enough words to communicate well enough,” Marlys agreed.
Sam ran a hand through his hair. Short of throwing her over his shoulder, he wasn’t going to get her to go back until she was ready. He might have figured as much. He glanced at the other children in the lodge, at James and back to Marlys. He raised a hand in defeat. “All right.”
She hurried toward him. “Thank you.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice. Let James know if there’s anything you want him to bring tomorrow. James, I’m going to get the basket of food. You’ll eat with us before you