Forever by Your Side (Willamette Brides #3) - Tracie Peterson Page 0,55

in love with Tom either—that they were just friends—it might only encourage his affections. Connie just kept walking. She wondered if she should tell Tom about the encounter but decided against it. The last thing she needed was Tom being angry at Clint and Clint being jealous of Tom.

Lord, I need some direction on this. I don’t know how to handle what’s going on. I thought I would always love Clint—at least I did when I was fifteen. Now that I’m grown, I can see our differences would never have allowed us to have a good marriage.

She thought for a moment, searching her heart in case there was some motive in her for revenge. Was she just rejecting Clint because he had rejected her? No. She didn’t feel anything toward him at all. No desire for revenge or reckoning. No need for him to be hurt because he’d hurt her. She didn’t even completely blame him for what was happening on the reservation. After all, the Catholic Church and the army also played roles in the past and present. Not to mention the government as a whole.

She changed her mind about going home and decided instead to visit Rosy. Maybe she could help Connie figure out a solution to put a stop to the grave robbing.

She knocked on the door and waited for an answer. Nobody came. Connie waited a moment and was about to leave when she heard moaning and the barely audible words, “Help me.”

Connie tried the door and found it unlocked. She opened it and called out. “Rosy?”

“Help.”

Spurred on by the frail sound, Connie entered the house and saw Rosy lying on the floor near the table in her kitchen.

“Rosy, what happened?”

“I’m sick.”

Connie felt her head. It didn’t feel feverish. She couldn’t see any reason for the ailment. “Let me help you up. I’ll get you into your bed and then fetch Mama. She’ll know what to do.”

The old woman couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, but it was still difficult for Connie to get her off the floor. Thankfully they only needed to go a few feet. Once she had Rosy in bed, Connie rushed for her parents’ house.

“Mama! Mama!” she called before even stepping through the door.

“What is all the ruckus?” her mother asked, descending the steps.

Connie stopped to catch her breath. “It’s Rosy. I found her collapsed. She’s sick.”

Her mother nodded and went to the kitchen for what Connie called her healing bag. Mama and her two sisters, as well as Faith, all had them.

“Does she show any symptoms?” her mother asked.

“I found her on the floor. She’s terribly weak and told me she was sick.”

“Come on. Let’s see what’s going on.”

Together they hurried back to Rosy’s place.

“So many have been sick,” her mother said. “They’re convinced the flour was poisoned. I don’t know that I believe that. I think perhaps it’s something else. Bad meat, maybe. The heat makes it spoil so quickly. Your father and I rarely eat meat in the summer unless it’s freshly killed chicken or fish.”

They entered Rosy’s house, and Mama immediately went to her bed. “Rosy, what seems to be wrong? Connie, bring me a chair, please.”

Connie brought a wooden chair for her mother to sit on. Her mother began to check Rosy’s eyes and ears and mouth. She felt Rosy’s forehead and then checked her neck and arms for rash or any sign of injury.

“What have you had to eat?”

“Bread and fish.” Rosy closed her eyes, but a strange smile appeared on her lips. “And cake. The cake Connie brought.”

“That’s odd. None of us got sick from the cake,” Connie’s mother told Rosy as she continued her examination. “Perhaps it was the bread, though I would more easily believe there’s been bad meat shared around. Did you have any meat?”

Rosy said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “Fish stew. Adela brought it yesterday.”

Mama turned to Connie. “Go see if Adela and her family are ill.”

Connie nodded and headed out, only to run full-speed into Tom.

He steadied her. “What’s going on? I saw you and your mom practically running here.”

“Rosy’s sick, and Mama is trying to figure out what’s wrong. Come with me. We need to do a little investigating.”

Tom went with Connie to the house of Adela and Howard Riggs, nearly a mile away. Connie seemed relieved to find them all healthy and thriving. Adela gave Connie a detailed list of what had gone into her soup, as well as her certainty that it couldn’t possibly