Pathways (9780307822208) (20 page)

“Hello?” she asked softly, entering. She didn’t want to call undue attention back to them from Harmon. “Ma’am? I’m Dr. Bailey, from Housecalls. You needed some assistance?”

A whimper sounded from the corner, and Bryn whipped her head around. A dog? It sounded like a dog. There it was again. After coming in from under the high mountain sunshine, her eyes were taking their time adjusting. Then she saw the huddled form in the corner.

“Oh,” Bryn cried, and hurried over to her. “Mrs. Harmon?”

The small woman was rolled into a ball, as if sheltering herself, sobbing. “I call for help. Did not know if anyone … would come.”

“I’m here. I’m here,” Bryn repeated soothingly. How long did they have until Harmon came back to see what they were doing? A sense of urgency overcame her. “Ma’am, what can I do for you?”

The small woman raised her face slowly, reminding Bryn of a child wanting to say something but too frightened to speak, as if words might bring her more punishment. Bryn gasped. The woman’s face had been pummeled. Her right eye was swollen shut, and there was a cut to the left of her mouth where it had been split open.

She reached for her bag and quickly unzipped it. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Katarina.”

Bryn’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “A Russian name?” Gently, she helped the tiny, round woman up and to the rumpled, unmade bed that smelled of sweat and grime.

“Yes. I am from Nome.”

“What happened to you, Katarina?”

“I fell.”

Bryn concentrated on looking for the Betadine, the butterfly bandages, and some Tylenol. “Must’ve been a nasty fall,” she said innocuously.

“Yes. It was.”

Bryn turned back and began tending to the facial wounds. “You have a dislocated shoulder?”

“Harmon wanted to put it back in place. That’s why he was angry. Says he can do for me anything you can do.”

“That’s okay,” Bryn said soothingly. “I’ll make you a sling to rest it for a few weeks. It’s best to keep it immobilized. Cold packs are good too. First things first though. I think you’ll need a shot of Valium to relax these constricted muscles. It’ll allow me to put the shoulder back in its socket.” Bryn looked to her bag to prepare for the intramuscular injection, conscious that Harmon could return any moment. She moved quickly, giving Katarina a shot, and then another. Then, as the medicine began to work, she checked out her swollen eye, gently palpating the bones around the nose and eye looking for points of tenderness.

“You’re lucky. It seems your eye socket is intact. Does this hurt?”

“Nah. Just swollen. It’s this shoulder.”

Bryn let her eyes drift down the woman’s neck, noticed the fat, black bruises that looked like fingerprints on Katarina’s brown skin.
“While I’m here, Katarina, why don’t I check your lungs and listen to your heart?” She flashed the young woman a smile. “Basic checkup stuff.”

Katarina shifted away, gave her head a shake. “No. I’m okay.”

“Please. Gotta do it for headquarters. You know the drill. If I can’t fill out all the paperwork, I get the riot act from my boss.” She moved to pull her stethoscope from the bag, as well as a blood pressure cuff. “Standard procedure,” she added smoothly. “I’ll just start back here with a listen to your lungs and heart.” Quietly she lifted the bottom of Katarina’s shirt. “Deep breath.”

The woman did as directed, and Bryn raised the shirt a bit more, moving her stethoscope a little higher. “Another,” she managed to say, not really listening to the lungs at all. They were perfectly clear, but as suspected, her back was covered with contusions and scars from previous injuries. The sound of men’s voices approached outside. Bryn quickly placed herself in front of the woman and stared into her eyes. “Katarina, is your husband abusing you?” Bryn whispered.

A flash of fear passed through Katarina’s dark eyes. “No.” She pulled down her shirt as if in defense.

“Did you radio Housecalls because you need help in leaving here?”

“No!” she whispered hoarsely.

“We can help you, Katarina. Eli and I will help you. Right now. If you want to leave. Just say the word.”

“I can’t leave! I love him! This is my home.”

“I know. I know you must love him. But he has no right. No right to hurt you like this. This is not love. Not love like it is supposed to be.”

Katarina sat up a bit straighter. “This is the love I know,” she whispered, just as Harmon pulled the door open.

“You ’bout done?” he asked gruffly.

“Yes,” Bryn said. “The muscles should be fully relaxed now. Let me just pop this shoulder back into place and get the sling, then I’ll be out of your hair. I’m going to leave some pain medication—for her shoulder—and tend to the cuts she got from her fall.” Bryn kept working, not daring to look at the man, knowing her hatred for his actions would show on her face. She could feel his gaze on her back until Eli asked him another question and they stepped back outside.

“You did not say anything,” Katarina whispered.

“You want me to? I will.”

“No.”

“No, I didn’t think so. Here, let me take care of that shoulder. This is a bit awkward, but to get a good grip, I need you to lie back on the bed. And, well, I’m going to have to be pretty much on top of you. I’ll need my knee for leverage.” When Katarina did as she directed, Bryn straddled the woman to get a feel for the socket and with a quick movement popped the shoulder back into place. She climbed off, helped Katarina sit up, and gently set her arm into a sling. Bryn finished applying the butterfly bandages that would knit the facial wound almost as neatly as stitches.

Finally she looked into Katarina’s eyes. “This is always a painful, messy situation. But you have to want to leave. If … 
when
you want us to come back for you, tell him you have female problems.” She cast Katarina a sorrowful smile. “A man will always back away from
female
problems. He’ll let you call. And we’ll come, take you someplace where you’ll be safe.”

Katarina looked to the window, her black eyes full of fear. “He’d kill me. You too. And I love him. I know it’s crazy, but I do.”

“Look at me, Katarina.” Bryn waited until the woman’s eyes met hers, then covered her small hand with her own. “God loves you in a way that can heal every hurt inside you. He can even heal the hole in your heart that leaving here might create. And I promise you, I would stand beside you until I knew you were safe. We’d bring the police. There are—”

“Gotta get to chores,” Harmon said, returning. “Night’s comin’ on afore we know it.”

Bryn stifled a deriding
huff
—it was maybe three o’clock—and packed her bag. “I think your wife’s going to be as right as rain. Thanks for letting me tend to her. That shoulder should heal up without a problem.” She rose and pushed herself to smile at the man. “How do you know how to pop a shoulder back in place?”

He shrugged, his expression lightening in the face of her praise and smile. “Learn things, out here.”

“You do,” she agreed, suddenly anxious to take a deep breath of the outside air. “You do. Still, popping a shoulder without meds is monstrously painful. I’m glad I could come and help.” She walked past Eli and, feeling a bit safer, turned back and waved. “Give us a call if you have any more mishaps, Katarina.” But Harmon was already shutting the door.

“What was going on back there?” Eli asked quietly as they strode away. “Will she be all right?”

“If she can get away from her husband. Why do people live like that? Why do they call it love?”

“She has to be the one to call it quits,” Eli said gently.

“That’s what I told her.”

Eli nodded and then took her hand to help her into the plane. “You gave her some sort of code? Something to tell you she wants an escape route? We’d have to come with reinforcements. Harmon’s not going to welcome another visit.”

“I did,” she said sadly. “Not that I think she’ll ever call. I could see it in her eyes. She just doesn’t know that there’s anything else out there, Eli.”

He sat down in the cockpit beside her, silently staring. Then, “No. Some people never do.”

T
he next couple of weeks passed by in a blur of Housecalls visits—attending a mother giving birth, delivering asthma prescriptions, giving immunizations—and gradually Bryn found herself awed by the incredible places people chose to live and the tough stuff they were made of that allowed them to make it in the bush. When she could, she made short visits to Summit.

She waved aside a giant Fern Lake mosquito and went to light the citronella candles. More and more, she was appreciating the rustic grace of Alaska and its hearty, down-to-earth people. If Bryn’s last summer in the high country had opened her eyes to eternal, celestial things, this summer was awakening her to the beauty present right here around her. She found herself longing for that sense of connection to the Great Land that everyone else seemed to have. And, with a start, realized she already had it.

More than anywhere else, this was home. It didn’t matter that her father was gone, off with a new little family, having forgotten Alaska and the draw it had for him, too. He would return one day. It seemed inevitable, just as it had been for Bryn. Maybe then she and her father could find their way again, reconnect. And a part of her wondered why she could no longer be friends with Eli, reconnect with him, even if he was seeing someone else. But to see him and not be with him was pure torture.

She stared at a boulder ten feet out in the river, where water
tumbled down on either side. Eli was like that rock, with Sara on one side and Bryn on the other. Between the two of them, the pressure threatened to rock him from his foundations, create chaos.

Her eyes moved to the high white mountains in the distance, showing a bit more of the blue crevasses and brown rock as the summer sun wore on. They were partially shrouded in clouds of pink in the morning light. A thick bank of silver clouds rushed over Rainy Pass. She wouldn’t be heading to Summit Lake today, regardless of whether or not Housecalls summoned her.

Bryn looked at her calendar watch. Sunday. She smiled in surprise. She was in town on a Sunday. There was only one thing to do. Go to church! Galvanized by her mission, she rose to shower and eat a quick bowl of oatmeal—sprinkled with raisins, walnuts, and brown sugar, her favorite—before heading out. With any luck, Eli would be out flying with a client before the weather turned sour. This morning, she wanted to concentrate on her Creator, give him thanks for bringing her back here, back home. If only for another summer before returning to Boston.

Eli flew a group of tourists over Chandalar Lake, tipping his wings at Mike, who with his wife ran a small lodge for tourists, fishermen, and hunters. He and his family were so kind, so together. Eli ached for that kind of family connection. Not just with his parents. With a loving wife at his side, a couple of kids running about.

He missed Sara. But now he knew letting her go had been right. The last two weeks had brought it home to him, again and again. In acknowledging the ache he felt for Bryn, he had finally understood
what had been missing between him and Sara.
Why, Lord?
he pleaded, as he did every night.
I thought when she first came to know you that it was the answer to my prayers, but then she just forgot about me once she was back in Boston. And now these old feelings are back. Why give me this love for a woman who will just take off again come autumn?

Maybe he was destined for a life of solitude. If that was what his God called him to, so be it. He took a deep breath, trying to honestly consider the idea. He could be happy single. He’d met lots of men in Alaska who had found peace and full lives alone. Eli shook his head. Why wouldn’t his heart concede?

His thoughts returned to Bryn. He knew she was confused by his avoidance of her. But Eli had needed time to accept the fact that Sara was gone. He didn’t know why he hadn’t told Bryn about the breakup. After seeing her excitement over her job offer in Boston, perhaps he was just trying to protect his heart.

He knew he needed to tell her, even if there was no chance for them to be together. The fact that he was drawn to Bryn, longed for her, had doomed his union with Sara from the start. It wasn’t fair to Sara to go on that way. And it wasn’t fair to Bryn to keep the truth from her. He loved her. His heart would just have to take the chance.

He thought back to the couple outside Donner, the abused wife. He had no doubt that Bryn would have tried to fight off the huge man herself had his wife wanted to come out. She was a courageous woman. When they had talked about it on the flight home, she had grasped his hand to pray for both Harmon and Katarina as if it was the most natural thing in the world. And when that happened, Eli glimpsed the faith that had grown in Bryn’s heart since the last time they met. He’d wanted to kiss her right then.

“Calling Beaver-four-two-six-Alpha-Bravo,” Talkeetna radio called over his headset, interrupting his reverie. “Calling Beaver-four-two-six-Alpha-Bravo.”

“This is Beaver-four-two-six-Alpha-Bravo,” Eli returned, pressing the intercom switch.