I’ll find some men to come and drag you in there! I swear it!”
Clint groaned again, clinging to his chest as he managed to reach up with his other hand and grab hold of the desk top to pull himself up. Elizabeth put her arm about his waist and let him lean on her. She led him into the back room and ordered him onto her cot, which he seemed to take gladly. She helped him remove his boots and jacket, and he then curled onto the cot, the raspy, deep cough consuming him again as she threw her blankets over him, even though he was still fully dressed.
“Don’t you get up from here,” she ordered, tucking blankets around his neck. “I’m going for that tea and a doctor!” His condition frightened her. She’d never seen anyone so sick, other than when her mother had died of the ugly cancer. This was different. She knew that sometimes people died from pneumonia, and surely that’s what poor Clint suffered from.
That’s when it struck her that she’d be absolutely devastated if he did die. She still hardly knew the man, and yet the thought of him being dead tore at her heart. She blinked back tears of distress, not really sure what to do to help him, not sure whether there was a decent doctor in Skagway…realizing that if Clint died, she would have failed to help him find God again before his death. He would die so terribly lonely, and an unsaved man!
Chapter Fourteen
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He saveth them out of their distresses.
—Psalms 107:19
Elizabeth managed to dress quickly behind a shelf of supplies so Clint could not see her, although he seemed in no shape even to be aware of what was happening around him. She’d managed to wake the Wheelers in their upstairs apartment. Mrs. Wheeler loaned her some tea and a strainer, and Mr. Wheeler promised to find a doctor. However, it was now dawn, and still no doctor had arrived.
She finished buttoning her dress, leaving off most of her slips. Quickly she pulled her hair back and twisted it into a bun, shoving hairpins into it. On stockinged feet she searched for her shoes. Before she could find them, someone knocked at the back door. She walked closer. “Who is it?”
“It’s Michael Wheeler. I found a doctor,” came the reply.
Elizabeth unbolted the door and Wheeler walked in with another man who appeared to be in his fifties, with thinning hair that needed cutting, a scraggly gray beard and a mustache badly in need of a trim. He’d pulled on a woolen jacket and pants, but he wore no shirt. Rather, the top half of his long johns showed under his jacket. Elizabeth was relieved to see that he’d apparently realized the seriousness of Clint’s situation and had hurriedly dressed, however, he certainly did not fit her idea of an educated physician.
“Doc Williams,” the man mumbled as he hurried over to kneel beside the cot, where Clint still lay curled up.
“He coughed so hard that he threw up blood,” Elizabeth told the man. She suspected Clint was not even aware of it. “I’m afraid I soiled one of your towels cleaning things up,” she explained to Wheeler. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” the man replied.
Again Elizabeth silently thanked God that she’d found at least one person with a bit of compassion in this wild town.
“I tried to get him to drink some tea,” she told the doctor, “but he’s so far gone I couldn’t even get him awake enough to take any. He’s burning up, Doctor Williams, and when he threw up blood like that—”
The doctor waved her off, pulling back the covers and forcing Clint onto his back. Clint flopped over as though half dead. Doctor Williams ripped open his shirt and the top half of his long johns without even stopping to unbutton anything first, then placed a stethoscope to Clint’s chest. He moved it to his ribs, then managed to roll him forward so he could move the stethoscope to Clint’s back. After a moment he pulled the stethoscope from his ears and took Clint’s pulse. Then he sighed and rose, facing Elizabeth and Wheeler.
“It’s pneumonia, all right.”
Elizabeth gasped with dread. “What can we do?”
Williams shook his head. “Not much, really. I’ve got some horse liniment you can heat up and rub on his chest, and if you keep a cool towel on his head—”