“My heart belongs to God,” Teena said.
Jacob pressed his hand to his chest as Teena had done. “Mine, too.”
They studied each other openly, frankly, for the first time. A sense of something he could only explain as unity wrapped about them, though he could not say if she felt the same. Only that her eyes held his, dark and bottomless, opening to him with trust. He vowed he would treat her fairly from here on. No more judging her with the same anger he judged the shaman who killed Aaron.
Life was more complicated in his world. However, he considered himself a fair man, and there was one more thing he must do to be fair.
“I would like you to help me at the clinic,” he told her. The words were easier to say than he anticipated.
ALASKAN BRIDES:
Women of the Gold Rush
find that love is the greatest treasure of all.
Klondike Medicine Woman—Linda Ford, May 2011
LINDA FORD
shares her life with her rancher husband, a grown son, a live-in client she provides care for and a yappy parrot. She and her husband raised a family of fourteen children, ten adopted, providing her with plenty of opportunity to experience God’s love and faithfulness. They’ve had their share of adventures, as well. Taking twelve kids in a motor home on a three-thousand-mile road trip would be high on the list. They live in Alberta, Canada, close enough to the Rockies to admire them every day. She enjoys writing stories that reveal God’s wondrous love through the lives of her characters.
Linda enjoys hearing from readers. Contact her at [email protected] or check out her website at www.lindaford.org, where you can also catch her blog, which often carries glimpses of both her writing activities and family life.
Klondike Medicine Woman
Linda Ford
MILLS & BOON
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But God commendeth his love toward us, in that,
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
—Romans 5:8
To Tom, Yvonne, Jordyn and Chris
for sharing our trip to Alaska and Yukon.
You made it a memorable event. Thank you.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Letter to Reader
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
July 1898, Treasure Creek, Alaska
These people were set on destroying not only the land but themselves, as well.
Teena Crow bent over the injured man. Blood pooled under his leg, a fresh stream joining the black patch in the grass. If she didn’t stop the bleeding soon, he would die beside the Chilkoot Trail like so many others had. She took in his pain-filled eyes, the way the color seeped from his cheeks. Shrugging out of her fur shawl, she wrapped it around him then took out the reindeer moss, the plant known as mare’s tail and other healing remedies she always carried with her. She carefully packed the wound. The blood flow stopped immediately. She watched it a moment then returned her gaze to the man, wondering if he would say with his eyes or mouth, or both, what he thought of a native tending him. Many she’d helped showed no appreciation nor spared their hatred of the people who were here first.
The man’s eyes were already losing their fear-filled pain and he showed nothing but gratitude.
She smiled. “How long have you been here?”
“Since first light,” he croaked.
Light came early in July. That meant he had been there up to twelve hours. Teena held her canteen of water to his lips and he drank heartily. She sat back on her haunches and looked about.
All winter, they had come in boats of every sort in a mad race for the gold fields. They had flung themselves into the water, headed for land like fish thrown up at the knees of the newly formed town of Treasure Creek, Alaska, founded by Mack Tanner. They brought with them a mountain of goods that soon lay scattered across the beach. They clawed their way up the Chilkoot toward the lake and onward. They paid Tlingit Indians like her brother to pack their belongings over the pass where the Canadian Mounties waited to make sure they had the required amount of supplies. All for the glittering gold.
She shook her head. She would never understand the white man. But she had vowed to learn their ways of curing their diseases.
This was not the first one of their kind to be ignored at the side of the trail, as hundreds passed by without once pausing to help. Last winter her brother, Jimmy, had tossed his pack aside and left the path to pick up a man with a broken leg who had lain there all day without anyone helping. Jimmy brought him down the mountain to Teena. He had lived, though he might never walk as well as he once had.
There were many who got help too late.
She checked the man’s wound. No longer bleeding.
He sucked in air in a way that said his pain had let up.
“You will need to rest a few days—” she began.
“Step aside,” a firm voice ordered, interrupting her suggestion that the man should rest until his wound healed.
Teena didn’t move except to turn to stare at the man who spoke. A white man, of course. She’d known that immediately. Over time, she had gotten used to the strange appearance of these people. But this one was different. Eyes brown as spring soil, a little furrow they called a dimple in his chin. A strong face. No head covering, so she got a good look at his close-cropped, dark hair.
As she studied him from under her lowered lashes, something inside her uncurled like a flower opening to the brilliant sun.
He edged her aside and spoke gently to the man. “I’m Dr. Jacob Calloway—a medical doctor. You’re in good hands now.”
Teena dismissed the way he said the words—as if the injured man was in danger of dying before