the scar to hurry. He’ll see no harm comes to you.”
As soon as the boy left, Adam pulled the covers back. “We’ve got work to do.” He looked up at the elderly nun, knowing she would help. “This woman’s fever is dangerously high.”
Wes was somewhere into the fog that comes in the bottom of a whiskey bottle. The waitress was starting to look slimmer and less moley. The banging on the piano had almost evolved into a tune when a dirt-covered kid stepped out of nowhere and yelled at him.
Wes shook his head and tried to understand the words as a bartender grabbed the boy up and swung him toward the door.
“Wait! What did you say, boy?” Wes hated it when people seemed to talk in some kind of code leaving out every other word. They tended to do it when he’d had a few too many drinks, but he refused to allow them to get by with it.
“He told me to tell the man with a scar to bring Adam’s medical bag.” The boy tried to wiggle from the hairy hand that held him captive.
Wes looked around as if expecting to see others with scars. When he turned back, his eyes had sobered slightly. “Let go of the kid,” he ordered as he stood and paid his bill. “I’ll get the bag. Take me to Adam, son.”
NINE
DAWN FINALLY FOUND its way to the alley and brightened the back windows of a building that had once been part of the original fort, Adam guessed, from the wide middle hallway and the square frame. Someone had taken the time a few years ago to add improvements, but now the place needed a fresh coat of paint and a bag of nails.
“Want another cup of coffee, Doctor?” asked the old nun, who’d helped him during the night, as she poured without waiting for a reply.
“Thanks.” Adam stretched back in his chair. “I think the boy’s mama might have a chance of making it.” He looked at the woman who’d been working by his side. “Thanks to you.”
She shook her head. “You were the blessing. I sent the boy to seek a doctor two days ago, but he said there was none to be found. I did what I could to help her. Which was a yard short of enough in this case.”
Adam watched her closely. She hadn’t had any sleep, but she looked the same as she had last night, spotless and efficient. She had a way of guessing what was needed a moment before he asked for it. “Are you with the mission here, Sister?”
She glanced away. “There is no mission near. I travel alone.” She straightened as if testifying before a judge. “I belong to a church no longer though I still hold the beliefs. I greatly dishonored my order. I’ve worn a habit for fifty years. I no longer belong in it, but this is all I have to wear.”
Adam clamped his jaw down to keep from asking the dozen questions that came to mind. How could this perfect image of a Sister of Mercy appear in the middle of nowhere and claim to have committed some great sin?
Before he could think of which question to ask first, she raised her head.
“Thank you for not demanding more of my story, for I can say nothing else.” The flavoring of a foreign accent added another unanswered question to his list.
“The boardinghouse belongs to Mrs. Jamison and her son, but I don’t know for how much longer.” The nun switched the conversation topic. “I’m told she and her husband managed to scrape out a living here before the war. With the war, there was no business. She told me he turned to outlawing.
“In ’63, he went to prison and died of a fever within a month. When they sent his clothes back to her, there was not a valuable among them.
“She tried to keep the boardinghouse going, but couldn’t. She’s not a strong woman and now without enough food or heat she grows sick.”
“How long have you been helping them?” Adam found it interesting that she could be so silent about her life, yet so talkative about Mrs. Jamison.
“Two weeks. I came to ask if I could stay a few days for I’d heard of the Jamisons and this house. When I saw how ill she was, I had to help. I’ve used up what little supplies I had. When the coffee’s gone, there will be nothing.”
The old nun crossed her hands in front of her and waited. It took Adam several seconds to realize, like a patient teacher, she was waiting for him to give her the answer.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any answers, Sister.” He stood and walked to the door. “I’m just passing through. The widow will need good food for weeks to get all her strength back.”
The nun didn’t move, she only waited.
Adam touched the doorknob. “I don’t even know where I’m headed.” He reached in his pocket. “I can leave enough-”
He stopped, realizing the little amount he could leave would only delay starvation, not prevent it.
“I’ll try to find someone.” Even as he said the words, he doubted there would be anyone to help. The entire country was full of widows and children without means.
“I’ll think about it,” he finally said, and managed to break the invisible hold this nun had on him. “I’ll be back later.”
He almost ran up the alley to the street. By the time he reached the hotel where he and Wes had taken a room, he was breathing hard and frustrated that he couldn’t do more to solve her problem.
When he opened the door to the room he’d rented, a bottle rolled out of the way and Wes’s snoring greeted him. Adam unstrapped his gun belt and pulled off his coat, telling himself he needed sleep. He’d worry about the nun’s problem in a few hours. Right now, all he wanted to do was relax in the first bed he’d seen in months.
As he pulled off his boots, he looked around the place they’d rented after dark. The room had two beds and an old dresser missing a third drawer. The washstand was grimy and the pitcher empty. Both windows had been nailed closed. It was hard to believe, but this operating hotel was dirtier than the abandoned one the boy’s mother lay dying in. Someone had yellowed the wallpaper in one corner to save going to the outhouse. Light, about bullet-hole size, shown through the walls in several places.
Adam closed his eyes in disgust. He didn’t like the idea of having to live in a place like this for months, maybe longer, while saving his money to open a practice. He hadn’t found a suitable location. Every town needed a doctor, so he guessed anywhere would do. Even Fort Worth.
As he crossed into dreams Nichole was by his side. Only she wasn’t sleeping next to him, but waiting for him to help the nun and the widow, and the boy. She seemed to expect it, as though that was the kind of man he was and nothing would change the fact.
Rolling awake, Adam stared at the empty space beside him. He remembered something his mother used to say about not looking for the right person to love, but
Three hours later Adam was standing in front of the boy again waiting to be admitted. The huge dog watched him from the corner of the porch, but didn’t bark.
“I’m not bringing charity,” Adam said for the third time. “I’m here to offer a deal to the man of the house, and I guess that’s you.”
The boy let the doorway open enough for Adam to enter with bundles dangling from his shoulders.
Adam nodded to the nun as he put the groceries down on the long kitchen table. “How’s our patient?”
“Resting, thanks to the medicine.” The nun watched him closely, only allowing her gaze to dart momentarily to the bags of supplies.
“I think I’ve found a solution.” Adam saw no hint of surprise in her eyes. He looked at the boy. “I’d like to rent the downstairs rooms of this place from you, sir. Besides this kitchen, I think I noticed four rooms, two small rooms on the side with the kitchen that I could use as living quarters and two larger rooms on the other side of the stairs and front foyer where I could set up a practice. The stairs, foyer, and kitchen would be common ground.”
The child started to shake his head.
