"It doesn't bode well," warned Ruth's grandmother as they stood at the door of Mrs. Norris' home. "She's had the ague and it's turned into the old man's friend. You know as well as I do that there's a good reason it's called that. Not that it's good for a young person either, but when a lady well into her 60s gets to this point, she's in the Lord's hands."
Ruth gave a nod of agreement. "Which is a good place to be."
As Ruth opened the door to the one room cabin, the strong smell of onions assaulted their noses. Her grandmother often used them to try and draw the infection out.
A bowl of steam, used to help Mrs. Norris breathe, set across on a tray her grandfather had carved for her grandmother's patients, so there would be a handy place to set items for a bedridden patient.
Kid hung back while Ruth and her grandmother approached the woman's bed.
"Fiona," said the woman weakly with dry, cracked lips as if she were surprised Ruth's grandmother had returned or maybe she was just surprised she had lived long enough to see her return.
"I told you I was coming back with my granddaughter." She dipped a cloth into the water and wet the woman's dry mouth.
"So you did." Her breathing sounded labored, short and rapid breaths.
Ruth reached out to smooth the woman's damp, stringy hair from her face. Her skin burned with fever. She began to cough hard and Ruth and Fiona both took a side and raised her over the bowl of steam to ease her breathing, not a hard task as she felt as light as a scarecrow and just as thin.
When the coughing spell eased up, Mrs. Norris asked, "Who's the tall, lanky lad hanging in the corner all dressed in black. Is he the angel of death?"
Ruth motioned for him to join them. "No, ma'am. This is Kid Cole, my husband."
"Ah. I don't know if that's a relief or not," the woman said in a tone that said she had all but given up. "But I'm happy to see you married, Ruth."
"Do you know the Lord, Mrs. Norris?" Ruth asked.
"I've known the Lord longer than you've been alive," the woman returned.
Ruth smiled, knowing she hadn't meant it in a snippy way. "Do you believe in His power to heal you?"
Doubt came into her eyes with that question. "I don't know that I do, lass." A shorter fit of coughing hit then she continued, "Certainly I suppose He could heal me, but what would He want with a dried up bag of bones like me? All my family's gone home. Maybe it's about time I was going there as well."
"You have family here, family in Christ, and the Lord uses men and women of all ages. Was David too young to slay a giant? Was Moses too old to lead the people of Israel? 'They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; To shew that the Lord is upright.' Would you deny the Word of the Lord?"
A smile turned her lips upward. "I guess I can't, can I?"
"It could be, Mrs. Norris, that He's ready for you. It could also be that He's waiting for you to have enough faith to trust Him to be the Physician of not just your soul, but your body."
Mrs. Norris reached out and Ruth took her hand and used the other hand to place on her forehead while Ruth's grandmother took Mrs. Norris' other hand.
"We pray, Lord, for Your healing touch on our sister," Fiona prayed.
"Let her feel Your power in her," Ruth added and then opened her eyes. "Do you believe He can heal you, sister?"
Her eyes began to shimmer with tears. "I do."
Mrs. Norris' skin began to cool to the touch. "Praise God," Ruth said.
"Will you read to me the psalm your verse was in? It was from Psalms, wasn't it?"
"It is," Ruth answered. She sat down on a stool by the bedside and opened her Bible and began to read the passage.
Fiona inclined her head for Kid to follow her to the fireplace. "Likely she'll soon be ready to take some tea. Might as well make ourselves useful. Mind building the fire up?"
Kid picked up the poker and shifted the burning wood around before adding another log and blowing with the bellows. "I've seen Ruth heal before, but it never fails to amaze me."
"Ruth doesn't have a magic power. She simply has the ability to help people believe in the Lord's promises and get them fired up for God again."
"She does that," Kid agreed.
"You seemed like you was having some difficulty with your in-laws when I come in," she commented as she hung a pot of water on the hook over the fireplace.
"Well, not all of them," he said with a wry smile. "Namely you."
She nodded knowingly. "I figured as much. James isn't a hard man. He just loves his little girl. He and Ruth have always been close, closer than he has been with his other children, not that he doesn't love the others just as much, but sometimes a parent and child click for whatever reason. She was his shadow when she was younger like another son really and anything crazy 'daddy' did whether it was shooting a gun or floating a rickety boat down the Holston, why Ruth had to do it too. And them two loved their practical jokes."
He raised an interested eyebrow. That was something else he didn't know about Ruth.
"You ain't never seen a funnier sight then when she and James released a piglet in the parlor. They shaved its hair off beforehand, making it as smooth as a baby's bottom and about the ugliest looking piglet you ever seen in your life, and it come running and squealing right through the parlor were Laura and her young man were courting."
Kid smiled, picturing the mischievous, tomboyish girl that Ruth had been.
"Oh, Laura, pitiable girl, about died of embarrassment, and Mary gave James and Ruth a tongue lashing that they ain't seen the like of since, especially because it got mud all over her best rug." The old lady giggled. "It was funny though. They both got that sense of humor in them, but more than that James was protecting his little girl, you understand. Letting that suitor of hers know he kept a close eye on them and testing his staying power. You'd have to love the girl to want to get hitched up to a crazy family like this one. Well, that chance to look over the man that wanted to marry his daughter was missed with you. It couldn't be helped, mind, with you being on the other side of the continent, but there it is. So you'll have a harder time with him than Douglas had even if you have a perfect, squeaky clean past."
"So I have to find some way to let him know that I'm a man of character, a man he can entrust his daughter to, if I ever want to make friends with him."
"You do, indeed. And the Lord be with you, cause I don't have the first idea how you can go about that, but if you can win that son of mine over likely the others will follow suit with their approval. And who knows, maybe you'll win Mary to your side first and she can help your cause. She'd be a strong one to have in your corner."
"I think I'm pretty lucky to have you in my corner, Mrs. McKenzie."