The edges of her lips quivered and she hiccoughed. “You promise?”
Mia slowly nodded and made the sign of a cross over her heart. “I promise.”
“You have a way with children, my dear.”
The deep, rumbling male voice startled them both, but more than that, it sent a shaft of fear through Mia’s chest as if she had been stabbed with a real knife. The pain was so intense, she actually reached up with her hand and covered the area and pressed, thinking there was an open wound, and it took everything for her to slowly turn around.
“Mia, this is the doctor summoned to take care of our little Amanda,” Madam Wigg said and wrapped her graceful fingers around Mia’s arm, pulling her from the chair so he could sit.
“Well now, let’s see what we have here. Fell out of bed, did you? I’ve treated lots of little ones who have done that very thing, and they’re now juggling and dancing and doing all sorts of things. Healed up right nice, they did, and so will you.”
Mia took a few steps back and watched as the doctor continued his examination of Amanda’s arm. Her concern grew when he never mentioned the location on her arm where the break occurred, but he was the doctor and she was not. He, himself, had stated seeing many such broken arms, so maybe they had jumped to the wrong conclusion and Amanda had, indeed, fallen off the bed at an awkward angle.
She couldn’t help but notice the doctor’s slightly slurred speech and every now and then, she smelled a faint whiff of liquor, but he didn’t seem to be inebriated and Madam Wigg hadn’t shown any concern, so Mia stayed silent, fighting the strange urge she felt to run from the room. It was the man’s voice that made her skin crawl. The longer she stood there, her fear became a living, breathing entity. She closed her eyes and didn’t realize anything was wrong until Madam Wigg nudged her.
“Mia,” Madam Wigg whispered. “Whatever is the matter with you? I have never seen you so upset. You are practically colorless—and you were whimpering, my dear.” She tugged on Mia’s arm just as the doctor stood, wiping his plaster-caked hands on a rag.
“There. Good as new. The cast will need to dry for about six hours. She must lie here, unmoving, for the rest of the night. Someone should stay with her to make sure the arm remains immobile.” He turned and, looking fully at Mia for the first time, his mouth dropped open. “Rebecca?” His face flushed red and he took a step toward them.
Mia’s eyes widened as Madam Wigg stepped between them. “I’m sorry, sir, you must be mistaken. This is one of my teachers and her name is not Rebecca…”
Mia didn’t stay to hear the rest and raced from the room, terror nipping at her heels, although she had no idea why. All she knew was that she had to get away from that man.
Eufaula, Indian Territory
Josiah West tossed his line into the river one last time. His ability to catch supper was running parallel to his ability to do most things lately. It wasn’t happening.
Like his youth, his life plans hadn’t worked out either. He had left the Jefferson farm, his home for the last eighteen years, with plans of having his own church and being a good Methodist preacher. Instead, he had nothing, just like when Clay Jefferson and his wife Sophia had taken him into their home. He had been a lost ten-year-old boy whom they had treated as their own son after his parents had been massacred in a Kiowa attack. It had taken almost a year after that, but Josiah slowly began participating in life again, although he never felt as if he truly fit in. He still didn’t.
As his father’s cousin, Clay had tried everything, even raising him in the Choctaw tradition, but it hadn’t been the same as having a father. Clay had done an admirable job, at least, as much as Josiah had let him, but it hadn’t been easy. Even though Josiah had grown up experiencing his Choctaw heritage, he’d missed out knowing his mother’s people and learning his Creek lineage. It was for that reason he’d come to Eufaula, to learn about the Creeks and find out if he still had any living relatives among his mother’s people.
Now he questioned that decision. As a Methodist preacher, humility and patience had been a given. He had taken to his profession as a fish to water. Clay and Sophia had questioned the wisdom of his decision, but he’d won them over. He lifted the limp line from the water and smiled. Well, he amended, as a fish would take to water if there were fishinthe water, which there didn’t seem to be in this river today.
He leaned back against the sturdy trunk of an old oak tree and stared across the glistening sheen of the water and waited. For what, he had no idea. This land settled him, he knew that.
“Ho, Josiah!”
Josiah turned his head as his only friend made his way toward him, fishing stick in hand, the silver badge fastened to his vest catching the sun’s light and almost blinding him. Harjo was a few years older than he and a member of the Creek Tribal police. Working as a lighthorseman was a worthy profession and one he himself would have been interested in had he been qualified for it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. Nor, it seemed, was he qualified to be a preacher in Eufaula either. Truthfully, he wasn’t qualified to be much of anything in the Creek’s eyes.
Harjo sat and tossed his line into the water. “You have no word yet?”
“No. There will not be a church opening for me here, so that door has been closed. I thought I knew what I was supposed to do with my life and now I have nothing.”
Harjo shook his head and pulled his line from the water, a fish dangling from the end. “That is not true, my friend. When you arrived in Eufaula, you had nothing but the shirt on your back. Thanks to your grandfather’s sister, Onawa, you now have a home with land. Maybe not quite a place within the clan, but once you take a bride, you will be part of the Creek clan.”
“Easy for you to say, Harjo. You have a wife and children. You grew up here and have been part of this clan since birth.”
“And, if my wife tires of me tomorrow, I would have nothing just like you. Creek women control the family, the children, the homes, and the food. The men hunt and do everything else. If my wife decided she didn’t like how I provided for our family and wanted a divorce,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that, I would be divorced.”
“Your wife loves you and would never divorce you,” Josiah said, and rolled his eyes as Harjo pulled another fish from the river. “And why are the fish lining up to impale themselves on your fishing line and mine remains empty?”
Harjo shrugged. “It’s all in the wrist?”
Josiah chuckled. “Sure, it is. You probably have a secret Creek fish food you rub on the end of your line.”
Harjo’s black brows rose. “Not a bad idea. I might have to sell that to the white men who come in on the train and make some money. “You haven’t heard anything back on your bride letter either?”
Josiah slumped down, the thick tree bark lightly digging into his back. “No. I’m beginning to think no one wants to put up with me. Maybe I should have added something in the letter about being an Indian.”