Where Heaven Begins (23 page)

Dawson, September 19, 1898

E
lizabeth awoke to voices. She turned on her back, staring at the log ceiling and trying to remember where she was, and as she stretched, enjoying the glorious softness of the feather mattress, she remembered the previous day’s events.

Getting out of bed and retying the robe that Summer had thoughtfully left for her, she walked over to peek through the curtain and saw Clint, sitting up in a rocker!

“Clint!” She walked through the curtain. He was washed and shaved…and looked far more handsome than she’d remembered. “Clint, you look wonderful! How do you feel?”

He looked her over appreciatively, and she pulled her hair
behind her shoulders, suddenly self-conscious, wishing now that she’d brushed it before exiting the bedroom.

“Your brother tells me I’ll live,” he answered with a grin, followed by a siege of coughing.

“He has a long way to go to get his strength back,” Peter told her. He and Summer sat at a homemade kitchen table.

“Well, I guess you and Clint have made your own introductions,” she told Peter.

“Oh, yes.” Peter grinned teasingly. “I even know you’ve slept in the same tent with this man for the past month.”

Elizabeth reddened. “It wasn’t—”

“Don’t worry,” Clint told her. “He understands. He made the trip up here himself, you know. He knows what it’s like.”

Peter sobered. “And I’m eternally grateful to Clint for helping you get here safely. We’ve been talking about a lot of things.”

Elizabeth looked back at Clint. “Oh? Like what?”

Clint rested his head against the back of the rocker, closing his eyes. “Like Jen and Ethan…and you and…everything.”

Elizabeth looked at Peter again. “When did you do all this talking?”

“All morning.”

“All morning?”

Peter looked up at a clock on the fireplace mantel. “Well, you’ve been sleeping just about eighteen hours now.”

“What!”

“The sun is about to set, dear sister. You got here about five o’clock last night and it is now one o’clock in the afternoon of the next day.”

Elizabeth covered her mouth. “Oh, my! I’m so sorry! I should have been helping—”

“No. You should have been
sleeping,
” Peter interrupted. “It’s the best thing for you. Besides, it gave me and Clint time to talk about all the things you would have told me anyway. If you’re going to marry this man, I want to know everything about him. And I also want to be sure he’s right with God. We’ve been talking and praying. He knows he’s lucky to be alive, and that there has to be a reason for that, which is his love for you. But there is one more matter to be cleared up first.”

Feeling confused, Elizabeth sat down at the table, looking over at Clint.

“Roland Fisher is here in Dawson, Liz,” he told her. “Peter knows who he is, but he didn’t know he was a wanted man.” He coughed again and pulled a quilt closer around his shoulders.

Elizabeth glanced at Clint’s gun belt and six-gun, which hung on a hook on the wall near the fireplace. One of his repeating rifles was propped against the same wall underneath the six-gun. She looked back at Clint. “And?”

“And I’m going to go find him.”

Her stomach tightened. “And?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. God has something in mind, I’m sure. The only way I’ll find that out is to find the man and talk to him.”

“What if he realizes who you are? Misunderstands? What if he shoots at you?”

Clint glanced at Peter, then back to Elizabeth. “Then I won’t have any choice but to shoot back. I’m hoping that
won’t happen, but at least I won’t be going there to shoot him first for bounty. I don’t want to do that anymore, Liz. At least I don’t think I do. I have to see the man first. I have to find out if I can look another murderer in the eyes and not want to kill him. It’s just something I have to do before we can get married. I’ve told you that all along. That hasn’t changed.”

Elizabeth looked down, toying with a tie on the front of her quilted robe. “I see.”

“It’s time to put all this in God’s hands, Elizabeth,” Peter told her. “You’ve got to trust Him, and you’ve got to trust Clint that this is something very personal to him. This is a battle he has to fight alone. You can’t help him.”

Elizabeth felt like crying. Why had she thought that once they arrived here Clint would just drop his past and they would marry and live happily ever after, even if Roland Fisher was in the same town? “I know,” she answered. She looked at Clint as a tear slipped down her cheek. “You won’t go right away, will you? I mean, you’re far from well, Clint. You need to be well and strong before you face that man.”

He nodded. “I know. In the meantime I don’t want anyone saying anything to Fisher about me being here and why. Don’t go trying to warn the man, thinking he’ll go away and that will solve everything. It won’t, Liz. I’ll just go after him. Besides that, we have no idea how dangerous he is. Peter says he has a wife and kids and seems to be a perfectly normal family man, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. So don’t go do something stupid. Will you promise me that?”

Elizabeth slowly nodded. “I promise.”

“Good.” Clint gave her a smile. “Now, come over here and sit on my lap. I don’t think Peter will care.”

Peter chuckled. “Just watch yourself. She’s still my sister and not your wife yet.”

Elizabeth was never more sure that she wanted to be Clint’s wife. She walked over to him and gladly sat down and curled up in his lap, resting her head on his shoulder. “I love you,” she told him. “And I’m scared for you.”

He moved his arms around her and kissed her forehead. “Don’t be. You know darn well I can take care of myself, and besides, you’re the one who’s always said to trust God, aren’t you?”

He was talking about God as though he truly believed again! How she loved her brother. She’d known all along Peter would know the right things to say to Clint, and Clint was apparently seeking God’s love and forgiveness. Surely nothing could change this, not even Roland Fisher.

She snuggled closer, relishing the safety of his arms, breathing deeply of his scent, feeling no fear of allowing Clint Brady to make her his own.

T
he next three weeks were the most joyous, pleasant days Elizabeth had ever known, even though, compared to San Francisco, life here was about as rugged as a person could experience. It was enough to be warm and to have hot food, even though often it was no more than broth and biscuits because of a need to be as sparing as possible. No one could tell what kind of winter lay ahead, how deep the snows would become, how difficult it might turn out to be to find game, which had been extremely thinned out because of so many prospectors shooting everything in sight for food.

Summer’s clothes were simple but clean and nicely starched and pressed. It felt so good to wear slips and
dresses again that Elizabeth felt beautiful in anything she wore. Peter had promised that by next year more supplies would arrive and Elizabeth would be able to find cloth to make more clothes for herself. Clint slept in an unfinished loft, and he’d bought a cot for Elizabeth to sleep on in the main room. Clint’s healing time was spent in long talks with Peter, sometimes about what might happen to Dawson, since yet another strike had been discovered farther west and men who’d had no luck here were already planning to leave Dawson in the spring.

To Elizabeth’s delight, Clint attended church services with her. Even Collette came a few times, something that warmed Elizabeth’s heart. It seemed things had come full circle. She was leading a more normal life again. And she felt so much more complete now that she’d learned about a different way of looking at people like Collette and the Chinese and the Eskimos and even the prospectors who seemed to care about nothing but finding gold. All were God’s children, and all needed to hear His word.

It was midmorning, and she sat at the kitchen table writing in her diary while Summer stirred a rabbit stew in a pot hanging in the fireplace.

“I think the baby is coming!”

Elizabeth quickly put down her pen at the words, closing the diary and rushing to put her arm around Summer, who looked ready to fall. The woman bent over in pain, and Peter came to take Elizabeth’s place, helping Summer to the bedroom as he ordered Elizabeth to get some towels and extra blankets ready. “And make sure the hot water kettle is full!”

Elizabeth obeyed, grabbing more towels from a cupboard in the main room and rushing into the bedroom to retrieve more blankets from a chest while Peter helped Summer undress. She hurried over to the bed and aided Peter in getting a flannel nightgown on Summer, who then curled up on her side in pain.

“What should I do now?” Elizabeth asked Peter.

“I don’t know. Wait, I guess…and pray.” He looked at Elizabeth, terror in his eyes. “I don’t know a thing about delivering babies, and there’s no doctor in this town.”

“I don’t know anything, either!” Elizabeth answered. She reached across the bed and Peter took her hands. They prayed for a safe delivery and for Summer’s health.

It was the beginning of five more hours of screams and waiting and praying and wiping perspiration from Summer’s brow. Elizabeth wanted to cry over Summer’s agony, but felt helpless to do anything about it.
The pain is just a natural part of childbirth,
she remembered her mother telling her once, but Summer’s groans and screams were unnerving.

Through it all Clint stayed in the main room. Elizabeth wondered what was going through his mind as he’d been awfully quiet throughout the ordeal, just sitting in a rocker staring at the fire in the hearth.

Finally Summer insisted the baby was coming, and, scared to death she’d do something wrong that could hurt the mother or baby, Elizabeth ran out into the main room.

“I don’t know a thing about delivering babies! Not a thing!” she told Clint, as she wrapped a towel around the handle of the hot water kettle that hung on an iron hook over the fire. “Do you?” She faced him, noticing an odd look of sorrow in his eyes. “Clint?”

He met her gaze. “I helped deliver Ethan.”

“Then you can help with this!”

He closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the rocker. “She’s not my wife. It wouldn’t be right.”

“There is no doctor in this town, Clint, and Peter and I don’t know a thing about this! And you and I owe a lot to Peter and Summer. Don’t tell me it’s because she’s not your wife. Surely having a baby is very different from…I mean…” She felt herself blushing. “Having a baby is surely a beautiful thing. Besides, I don’t think that’s your problem. It’s the
memory
of Ethan that’s bothering you, isn’t it?”

His eyes shot open, and for an instant she caught a
glimpse of the Clint Brady she’d met on the docks, angry, full of vengeance. He looked away then, saying nothing.

“Clint, we might need you. You decide whether or not to help Summer. I can’t make you do it.” She hurried into the bedroom, where Summer sat partially sitting, grasping her belly and groaning.

“It is coming fast…and now!” she lamented. “I can tell!”

Peter looked at Elizabeth with a pleading look. “I don’t know what to do!”

“Neither do I, but Clint said he helped deliver his son.”

Peter glanced at the doorway, then back to Elizabeth. “This could be very hard on him, Elizabeth. It’s the loss of his son that has been the hardest for him to deal with. Anything that reminds him of it—”

“I know. It’s his decision. I’ve told him so. Let’s just do what we can to keep Summer comfortable for now.”

The next several minutes were agony, physically for Summer and emotionally for Peter and Elizabeth, who put aside her modesty for the more important job of trying to help deliver her precious niece or nephew while hoping both mother and child would be all right.

God, why do You keep giving me such challenges?
she secretly asked.
Help me know what to do. Please make Clint get in here and help us!

“Clint, the baby is coming!” she yelled then when she was sure she could see a head emerging.

Summer screamed with the pain, and her whole body was drenched with sweat.

Another push. The head came out, but the baby’s face was purple.

“Clint!” Elizabeth yelled. “Something’s wrong!”

“Clint, please!” Peter yelled. “Something is wrapped around its neck!”

In the next second Clint was in the room. He walked around the other side of the bed and leaned closer. “Looks like the feeding cord! I saw a foal delivered this way once. It choked to death. Get a knife!”

Peter ran out of the room, returning in seconds with a carving knife. Clint grabbed it and ordered Elizabeth to hold the lantern closer. He moved two fingers between the cord and the baby’s neck, then carefully slid the knife under the cord.

Elizabeth held her breath as Clint deftly cut the cord and pulled it away from the baby. “Once the baby is out we have to cut the cord near the baby’s belly and tie it off with something. Get some sewing thread,” he ordered Elizabeth.

To Elizabeth and Peter’s relief, the blue began to drain from the baby’s head, replaced by a pink hue.

“Thank you, Clint,” Peter said, tears in his eyes.

Elizabeth grabbed some thread from a sewing box, and in moments the baby was fully delivered. Clint cut the cord, and Elizabeth quickly tied thread around what was left of the cord still attached to the baby’s belly.

“You just leave it attached and after a couple of weeks it falls off by itself,” Clint explained.

If not for the seriousness of the situation, Elizabeth would have laughed over the clumsy efforts of the three of them. If she was lucky, she’d be delivering her own baby in another year or so…Clint’s baby. She could think of nothing more wonderful in spite of the pain she’d seen Summer suffer.

The woman lay quieter now. “What is it?” she asked.

Elizabeth quickly and instinctively dug membrane away from the baby’s nose and mouth and laid the child on a towel at the end of the bed. She looked up at Clint. “It’s a boy!” she said.

“Make it cry,” Clint said.

“What?”

“He’s not breathing.” He picked the baby up by its feet and began lightly smacking his back. The baby spat and coughed and broke into a loud, healthy wail.

Peter and Elizabeth both laughed and hugged each other.

“It’s a boy!” Peter told Summer. “Sweet Jesus, it’s a boy!” He kissed Summer. “Thank you, darling! You’re the most beautiful woman in the whole world!”

Clint laid the crying child on Summer’s chest and put the towel over him. He looked at Peter. “Massage her stomach and get the afterbirth. You’ll be able to tell when she’s rid of it. The doctor who tended to Jen after Ethan was born told me a woman could die of infection if you don’t get out all the afterbirth.” He turned to wash his hands with some of the hot water, then congratulated Peter. “I think it’s time I left the room. And by the way, your son won’t stop that howling until he’s had his first real food.”

“Thank you, Clint! Thank you!”

“Looks like a fine, healthy baby,” Clint replied. He glanced at Elizabeth, and she saw the pain in his eyes. And there was something else there—the memory of what he’d lost because of men like Roland Fisher. “It’s time,” he told her.

“Time for what?”

“You know what.” He headed for the door.

“Clint?”

“I know where the man lives,” he said as he left the room. “I’m going to get this over with.”

Panic filled Elizabeth as she looked at her brother for help.

“Wash your hands and go with him,” Peter told her. “I can’t leave now!”

Elizabeth quickly washed her hands and dashed out of the room.

“Be careful!” Peter called out to her.

Clint already had his gun strapped on and was reaching for his wolf-skin coat.

“I’m going with you!” Elizabeth told him.

“No, you’re not! It’s too dangerous!”

“You can’t stop me!” she nearly screamed at him. She grabbed a long, woolen cape that belonged to Summer as Clint stormed out the door. Elizabeth hurried after him.