Nina looked surprised. “I’ve lived with Lee all my life. He wins. He always wins. If he decides to play baseball, his team will win. If he enters a fencing tournament, he’ll win. Dad says he’s even forced dying patients to live. So, of course, I knew he’d win in this competition, whether the prize wanted to be won or not. But anyway”—she ignored Blair’s look of astonishment—“I knew how Alan felt, and we started commiserating with one another, comparing examples of Lee’s domineering ways. Then Dad came home, and I introduced Alan and we sat up late talking about medicine and life in Chandler compared to life in the Northeast. It was a very pleasant evening.”
Nina paused a moment. “After that, Alan began to seek me out whenever Lee did something especially devious, like pushing Alan out of the operating room, making Alan look like an incompetent. He’s going to be a very good doctor; he just has a lot of training to do yet.”
“I think he will, too,” Blair said softly. “So you and Alan fell in love.”
“I did. I think he did, too, but he wasn’t aware of it. I don’t mean any disrespect, but I think that after Alan saw you here, he was a little afraid of you. He said that in Pennsylvania the two of you had had a very sedate courtship, holding hands in the park, studying together, but when he came here…” Nina’s eyes brightened. “Really, Blair, jumping on and off horses like a circus performer, blithely pulling a man’s intestines out onto a table so you could reach something underneath, beating him at tennis—no wonder he turned to someone else.”
“Lee didn’t turn away,” Blair said defensively.
“Exactly my point! You and Lee are just alike, always tearing from one thing to another. You exhaust us mere mortals. Anyway, I don’t think it occurred to Alan that you and he shouldn’t get married. After he told you to meet him at the train, he came to me and told me what he’d done. By then, I knew I was in love with him and I didn’t think you were, but you were too stubborn to admit that you weren’t, or maybe all of you were too obsessed with winning your nasty little competition to look at the issues.”
Nina took a deep breath. “So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I thought that if my brother could play some devious tricks to get what he wanted, I could, too. At three thirty, before he was to meet the four o’clock train, I asked Alan to come to the kitchen with me. I heated some molasses, not hot, but just so it was warm and runny; then, while he sat there playing with those blasted train tickets, I ‘tripped’ and spilled about a quart of it all over him. I must admit I did a good job. I managed to get it in his hair and all the way down to his shoes.”
Blair couldn’t speak for a moment. “But I stayed at the station for hours,” she managed to whisper.
“I…ah…” Nina stood. “Blair, if my mother were alive, I’d never be able to face her again.” She looked back at Blair, her pretty face flaming red, squared her shoulders defiantly and said in one breath, “He went to the bathroom, handed his clothes out to me, but I dropped his watch, it rolled inside the bathroom, I ran after it, the door slammed behind me and the outer key fell out.”
Blair thought about this a moment, then began to smile. “You locked yourself inside the bathroom with a naked man?”
Nina set her jaw, put her chin in the air and gave a curt nod.
Blair didn’t say a word but went to a side cabinet and withdrew a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. She poured an ounce in each glass and handed one to Nina. “To The Sisterhood,” she said and downed the whiskey.
Nina, with a big grin, downed hers also. “You really aren’t angry? I mean, you don’t mind being married to Lee?”
“I think I might be able to stand the torture. Now, sit down and tell me what your plans are and how is Alan? Are you happy with him?”
Once Nina started, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t like Pennsylvania much and she said she’d almost persuaded Alan to return to Chandler when he finished interning. “I’m afraid his feelings for you and Lee aren’t the friendliest, but I have hopes of working on him. I came back to see if I could persuade you to forgive me and to bear Dad and Lee’s wrath.”
“I don’t think Lee—,” Blair began, but Nina cut her off.
“Oh, yes, he will. Wait until you’ve known him as long as I have. He’s a lamb when he’s pleased, but when one of the women under his care does something he doesn’t approve of, then look out! And Blair,” she toyed with her parasol, “I need someone to take over the miners’ pamphlets.”
Blair’s senses were immediately alert. “You mean the paper that may incite the miners to riot, to go on strike?”
“It’s merely to inform them of their rights, to point out that if the miners united, they could accomplish a great deal. Houston and the others who drive the huckster wagons are taking them to the mines where they deliver vegetables, but that’s only four mines. There are thirteen others. We need someone who has access to all the mines.”
“You know those places are locked up. Even Leander’s buggy is checked—. Nina! you can’t think of trying to get Lee to deliver the papers?”
“Not on your life! If he even knew I was aware that there were coal mines, he’d lock me away. But I did think that, with you being a doctor and having the Westfield name, you could maybe see some of the women of the camps.”
“Me?” Blair gasped, then stood. This bore thinking about. If she were caught with those papers in her carriage, she’d be shot immediately. But then she thought of the poverty of the mine camps, the way the people had to forfeit all American rights in order to earn a living.
“Nina, I don’t know,” she whispered. “This is a serious decision.”
“It’s a serious problem. And Blair, you’re home again. You aren’t just another body in a big city anymore. You’re a part of Chandler, Colorado.” She stood. “You think about it. I’m going home to see Dad now, and maybe Lee and you can come over later for supper. I have only two weeks before I have to return to Alan. I wouldn’t have asked you, but I don’t know anyone else who has access to the mines. Just let me know what you decide soon.”
“All right, I will,” Blair said absently, her mind completely taken with the idea of delivering seditious news into a camp guarded by men with guns.
All afternoon, as she wandered about the empty clinic, and as she tried to read a medical journal Lee had lent her, she considered the possibilities of what she was being asked to do. Nina had hit on something about Blair: she didn’t really consider herself a part of Chandler. When she’d left the town, in her mind she’d left for good. She’d never planned to return, but now she had to face it: she was either a part of the community or she wasn’t. She could stay in her clean clinic and occasionally patch broken bodies, or she could help prevent bodies from being broken.
And what if her own body were broken?
Her thoughts went round and round, and she never seemed able to reach a conclusion.
She and Lee ate dinner with his father and sister, and when Nina pulled her aside to question her, Blair said she hadn’t decided yet. Nina smiled and said she understood—which made Blair feel even worse.
The next morning, Blair’s head ached. The empty infirmary echoed with her steps, and Mrs. Krebbs said she had some shopping to do and left. At nine o’clock, the doorbell jangled and Blair hurried to what she hoped was a patient.