A Time to Bloom (Leah's Garden #2)(18)

“You’d be right on that. It’s by God’s mercy she still has any bones in her body.”

“It seems like by your mercy and Josephine’s.” The retort came out sharper than RJ intended.

Anders cast him a quick glance.

“Just sayin’.” RJ jabbed the pitchfork into a nearby heap of fresh straw and began spreading it in the cleaned stall. “It appears God turned a blind eye to her suffering for a long time is all. Until you stepped in.” God turned a blind eye to plenty of suffering from where he stood.

Anders was silent a moment. “You saw terrible things in the war, I reckon. I know I did. Especially once I was taken prisoner.”

RJ flinched. He’d nearly forgotten his friend’s time in a Confederate prison camp. The horror stories he’d heard about those places made his skin crawl. Anders still limped occasionally from that terrible time. RJ had never heard the full reason why.

“But you still trust Him.” The words tore from his throat, part challenge, part plea. “Why?”

Anders leaned one hand against a barn post. “I suppose, like Simon Peter said when he realized following Jesus wouldn’t be easy, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.’”

Silence hung in the barn for a moment. Then Anders lifted the wheelbarrow handles. “We better finish up. Josephine will have supper on the table. We’ve got a lot to do, now that we’re leaving sooner than we thought.”

After a quick supper of ham, baked beans, and fresh garden vegetables, RJ joined the others outside in the garden. The summer evening twilight cooled around them, and Marcella kicked sleepily in her basket, gazing up at the pearly sky. Climie sat near, sorting seeds or something in her lap.

“What can I do?” RJ blinked back the pain trying to beat behind his eye sockets again.

Anders shoved a wooden bucket filled with loose loam toward him. “Help me get these cuttings rooted. We’re taking starts of raspberries, strawberries, roses, and also seedlings of sugar maple and oak.”

“What for?”

“Leah’s Garden, my sisters’ business. They asked me to bring as much as I could. They’ll plant some now, nurture others over the winter, and then plant and sell more in the spring.”

“Don’t forget the daylilies and irises. And the forsythia,” Josephine put in. Wearing work gloves, she handed RJ a raspberry cutting.

Anders had said something about this, but RJ hadn’t realized the quantity intended. He loosened the soil in the bucket and accepted the bare stems and fragile root balls, settling them carefully inside. “How are you going to get all this on the train?”

“Figured maybe Captain could share his cattle car.” Anders cocked a brow. “Or will you be keeping him company again?”

“Yes.” RJ’s sharp tone wiped the grin from his friend’s face. Softening his voice, RJ added, “But there should still be enough room.” He reached for another bucket of soil, but a sharp stab made him bend over and groan, clutching at his lost eye.

“You all right?”

The concern in Anders’s voice brought RJ upright again, smarting with embarrassment. He dragged his hand from the black patch, willing the pounding back. At least it wasn’t as blinding anymore. “Sorry. My . . . scar aches at times.” More like burned like fire, but he wouldn’t say that. “I’ll be all right.”

“That doesn’t seem all right.” Josephine frowned. “Anders, you should take him to see Dr. Bishop before you leave.”

RJ shook his head. “That’s really not necessary.”

But Anders was nodding, his face set in a resolve RJ was learning to recognize. “She’s right. I’m not taking you to the frontier, not with pain like that. Not until you are at least checked by a physician. No doctor, no trip west.”

RJ met his friend’s gaze for a moment, then sighed and reached again for the bucket. “Fine.”



The next day, RJ sat on the examining table in the office of Dr. Bishop, a fine-featured man with a neatly trimmed white beard and kind eyes behind his spectacles. Despite the doctor’s considerate manner, RJ had to breathe deeply through his nose to keep himself in his seat as the man examined his exposed scar.

“I see the entire eye was excised, though preserving most surrounding tissue. And signs of a knife wound, yes?”

“Yes.” RJ spoke without moving his head.

“Well, I see no evidence of infection.” Dr. Bishop stepped back and adjusted his spectacles. “But war-wound pain can’t always be explained. It could be some nerve was damaged or some small foreign matter remained behind the stitching. It may improve over time.”

“That’s what the army surgeon said.” RJ replaced his black patch, the tension in his chest easing as soon as it was in place. “Guess there was no reason for me to come here, then.” He shot a look at Anders, who sat on a stool in the corner of the room.

“Not necessarily.” Dr. Bishop held up a hand, searching through a wooden cabinet of various bottles, liquids, and powders. “We may not be able to determine the source of the pain, but that doesn’t mean we can do nothing about it.” He held out a small glass bottle stopped with a cork. “I can prescribe you these opium pills to take when the pain gets severe. They are safe and effective.”