Wings of Healing (Guardians of the North Book #5) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Alan Morris

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

146 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Thrilling Historical Fiction Set in the Canadian RockiesInvisible, random, and deadly: the newest threat to the people of Fort Macleod might be the most dangerous enemy yet. Set amid the formation of the North-West Mounted Police and among the magnificent Canadian Rockies, Wings of Healing is your ticket to adventure, romance, and inspiration.When a flu epidemic strikes the town of Fort Macleod, the local doctor is one of the first to die. In a matter of days the epidemic has spread, threatening even the Blackfoot tribe where Reena O'Donnell serves as a missionary. After Hunter Stone arrests one of the Indian braves for horse thievery, the already volatile situation threatens to become worse. Despite the influenza epidemic, Reena refuses to leave her ministrations and Hunter must step in to keep in to keep the peace while at the same time dealing with Reena's fears and objections.

Sujets

Historical fiction

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 janvier 1999
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441263049
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0202€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Guardians of the North Book Five
Wings of Healing
Alan Morris
Copyright © 1999 by Alan Morris
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6304-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Cover illustration by Joe Nordstrom
Cover design by Dan Thornberg
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
G UARDIANS OF THE N ORTH
By Honor Bound
Heart of Valor
Bright Sword of Justice
Between Earth and Sky
Wings of Healing
This book could not have been written without the help and encouragement of my father.
Thanks for keepin’ the faith in me, Pop.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Guardians of the North
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Shadows
1. A New Dress
2. Acceptance
3. Ominous Absences
4. American Arrivals
5. On the Threshold
6. Voluntary Outcasts
7. Jaye
8. A Matter of Trust
9. Dr. Phillippe Simone
10. The Briggs
11. At the Bull’s Head
Part Two: The First Time
12. Taking Charge
13. “The Joy As It Flies”
14. Home
15. Reprimands and Threats
16. A Breakfast Gone Sour
17. Unwelcome News
18. Bonds
19. A Matter of the Heart
20. In the Court of Major Briggs
21. Downfall
22. The Union of Two Hearts
About the Author
Back Cover
Prologue
March 27, 1877
Fort Macleod community
Dr. James Burke rose as he usually did, made coffee, then sat on the front porch of his house rolling cigarettes and leisurely smoking for an hour. He mentally went over all he had to do for the day: the Williams woman should be giving birth this day he didn’t know how he knew, he just did, and was rarely wrong about these sorts of things; the Knox boy needed a follow-up on an infected throat; and Big Jack Benson needed some help castrating some colts. And those were just the things he knew about. As always, other situations would surely arise as the day aged.
Coughing heavily, Dr. Burke was about to rise, get his bag, and start his day when he was surprised to see a covered wagon headed directly toward his house. Strange , he thought. I’m pretty far out of the way here. Someone must have given them directions to me, or else they’re lost .
He greeted the excited young man who jumped from the wagon and began to babble about his wife being severely ill. After he calmed the man down, he then saw to the woman. Donovan, their name was, the young husband told him. Dr. Burke coughed and nodded. He could tell at once that Mrs. Donovan was pretty bad off. Though her skin was pale, she was burning up from a very high fever. Burke could hear her labored wheezing from the fluid in her lungs even before he climbed in the back of the wagon: pneumonia, he was sure of it.
“How long she been like this?” Dr. Burke asked Donovan as he took the woman’s feeble pulse.
“About a week now. She got sick right after we left Dufferin. We’re going to the mountains to live.”
Burke cocked an eye at the thin young man. He couldn’t have been more than twenty, with an oversized nose and a shock of brown hair falling down into his frightened eyes. He surely didn’t look like the type to tame the mighty Rockies. It was probably his wife’s idea.
The woman stirred at that moment and began babbling to someone named Missy, as if she were right there by her side.
“She’s been doing that the last couple of days. Just talks to her best friend back in Dufferin. What do you think, Doc? Will she be all right?”
Dr. Burke wanted badly to lie to the lad, but it never did any good to do that. Instead, he dodged the question. “The high fever’s real bad, son. I can see you’ve been forcing water down her, and that’s good for preventing dehydration, but she’s got a lot of fluid in her lungs. That ain’t good.”
Donovan swallowed with a click. “Will she…?”
“I’d be praying for a miracle, was I you. I’m sorry, Mr. Donovan.”
The poor man took the dire news fairly well. Dr. Burke could not turn them away, so he allowed them to stay at his place while he went on his visits. When he returned late that night, Dora Donovan was dead.
Though he didn’t know it, Dr. James Burke suffered from lung cancer that would normally have claimed his life in two years at the most. Instead, he contracted Mrs. Donovan’s early flu-like symptoms of chills, heavy sinus drainage, fever, and uncommonly inflamed throat. The fluid ran to his cancerous lungs as if summoned.
Four days later, Dr. Burke was dead.
Part One
Shadows
Chapter One
A New Dress
Reena O’Donnell breezed into the unfamiliar Pelham General Store, then promptly drew back in shock.
“Hep you, ma’am?” the man just inside the door asked.
The gift of speech completely deserted Reena for the moment. She looked around the interior of the store quickly, searching for someone else anyone else to help her. There was no one. The urge was strong to step back outside and look at the sign over the door to make sure she hadn’t wandered into the wrong store.
“Ma’am?” the person in front of her asked again, then grinned. He was a shambling hulk of a man, and his grin revealed the complete absence of any teeth. His gnarled, unkempt beard was spotted with what appeared to be tobacco juice and some sort of red crumbs that were most certainly the remains of cinnamon candy.
Reena realized that she was staring at him with open astonishment and fumbled for something to say. “I…um…”
The man’s friendly, open expression quickly faded away and turned to one of suspicion. “You an Indian? You speak English?” “An Indian…? Oh, the dress!” Reena wore a simple buckskin dress decorated with colorful beads, cowrie shells, and thimbles. She laughed, but it lasted just a bit too long and sounded hollow even to her. However, it gave her a few moments to gather her thoughts. He was the most disgusting-looking man she’d ever laid eyes on.
“Yep,” he drawled, the friendly look returning, “I kinda figured you fer an Indian while I watched you come down the street. But seein’ them beautiful blue eyes you got, I knowed I was wrong. That don’t happen much.”
As he talked, Reena heard the sloshing of liquid in his mouth and knew with horror what was coming next. She wanted to bolt out the door right then and never come back, but her feet seemed frozen in place.
The man snorted, hawked deeply, then turned and spat into a spittoon behind him.
Reena closed her eyes and somehow kept herself from turning and walking away. But this store was her last hope in town….
“You all right, lady? You look a little green.”
“I’m…I’m fine. I just…need to look at your dresses. If you have any.”
“Sure, we got plenty of dresses. Come thisaway. My name’s Pelham, by the way, just like on the sign outside, but most folks call me Hog.”
I can’t imagine why , Reena thought wryly. As she followed him to the back of the store, she found herself overwhelmed by his unpleasant odor. Mr. Hog Pelham had obviously been indulging himself in the whiskey and pickled onions, among other things she didn’t even want to contemplate. As he proudly prattled on about his new store, Reena turned her attention to the mounds of merchandise in disarray.
Every available inch had been utilized. A great variety of farming implements and other hardware lined the walls on nails and hooks. Kitchen supplies, such as butter churns and brooms, occupied one whole corner. Unopened crates and boxes were scattered everywhere on tables, amidst staple grocery items, saddles, harnesses, men’s hats, guns, and Reena even spotted a weather vane rooster. An old yellow dog was curled up on some denim pants on a table, sound asleep.
Reena almost ran into Pelham and realized that he’d stopped and asked her a question. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I said, will these here do ya?” He waved his arm expansively over a table covered with an assortment of dresses. “They ain’t in any particular order, as you can see. Hope to have ’em on racks by next week.” He looked around the cluttered store sheepishly. “Along with a few other things.”
“Is Mrs. H Pelham around?” She’d almost asked for Mrs. Hog, but that wouldn’t do. It was scary to think that Hog had a wife in the first place, she realized.
“Why? You wantin’ drawers?”
“Drawers?” Reena asked blankly, and at once she knew it was a mistake coming here.
Pelham leaned toward her, bringing his foul odor perilously close to Reena’s nose, and whispered, “Unmentionables.”
Reena had to take a step back. “No, no, I was just wondering ”
“‘Cause I got ’em, if’n you need ’em. Couldn’t help you much pickin’ ’em out, though.” His mud-colored, bloodshot eyes took on a different light. “That is, unless you’d maybe want a man’s opinion, if’n you catch my drift.”
The revulsion in Reena was almost too much to bear. She had to get away from this man. She also sensed that another disgusting spittoon episode was just around the corner. “No, thank you, catching your draft is enough, Mr. Pelham.”
He gave her a blank look. “Huh?”
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just look through your merchandise.”
“You betcha,” he said, then wandered off to sort through his myriad of crates.
None of the dresses were sorted according to size, so Reena had to look through every one of them. Surprisingly, they were not of poor quality. She even found a couple of good copies of Charles Worth’s famous de