In all the long years, how many miles had they traveled together? Countless number. North and east in the spring and summer, south and west in the fall and winter. Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas . . . maybe all the states and territories there were. Civilization and wilderness frontier. Ranches, farms, settlements. Towns that had no druggist, towns that had druggists with short supplies or too little understanding of their craft. Cities, now and then, to replenish medicines that could not be gotten elsewhere. Saint Louis and . . . Chicago? Yes, Chicago. Oh, she could scarce remember them all.
And everywhere they went, the people came. The needy people with their aches and pains, ills and ailments, troubles and sorrows. First to marvel at her skill with mortar and pestle and her vast pharmacopoeial knowledge; at the cabinets and tight-fitted shelves Elias had built to hold the myriad glass bottles filled with liquids in all the colors of the rainbow, and below the shelves the rows upon rows of drawers containing ground and powdered drugs, herbs and barks, pastilles and pills. And then to buy what they needed: cough syrups, liniments, worm cures, liver medicines, stomach bitters, blood purifiers. And so much more: two-grain quinine tablets, Bateman's drops, castor oil, Epsom salts and Rochelle salts and Seidlitz powders, paregorics and rheumatism tonics, bottles of Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound and Ford's Laxative Compound and Dr. Williams's Pink Pills for Pale People. And, too, in private, with their hands and eyes nervous and their voices low, embarrassed, sometimes ashamed: potency elixirs and aphrodisiacs, emmenagogues and contraceptives, Apiol Compound for suppressed and painful menstruation, fluid extract of kava-kava or emulsion of copaiba for gonorrhea, blue ointment for crab lice.
Mostly they came during the daylight hours, but now and then someone would come rapping on the wagon's door after nightfall. And once in a long while, in the deep dark lonesome night—
"Oh, Miss Mercy, I need help. Can you find it in your heart to help me?"
"What is your trouble, my dear?"
"I've been a fool, such a fool. A man . . . I was too friendly with him and now I'm caught."
"You're certain you're with child?"
"Oh yes. There's no mistake."
"He won't marry you?"
"He can't. He's already married. Oh, I'm such a fool. Please, will you help me?"
"There, now, you mustn't cry. I'll help you."
"You'll give me something? Truly?"
"Truly."
"Apiol Compound? I've heard that it's rich enough in mucilage to bring on—"
"No, not that. Something more certain."
"Oh, Miss Mercy, you're true to your name. You're an angel of mercy."
And again, as always, she and Elias would be back on roads good and bad, empty and well traveled. Another town, another state—here, there, no pattern to their travels, going wherever the roads took them. Never lingering anywhere for more than a day or two, except when storm or flood or accident (and once, an Indian attack) stranded them. And as always the people would come, first to marvel and then to buy: morphine, digitalis, belladonna in carefully measured doses, Dover's powder, petroleum jelly, spirits of camphor and spirits of ammonia, bone liniment and witch hazel, citrate of magnesia, blackberry balsam, oil of sassafras, throat lozenges and eye demulcents, pile remedies and asthma cures, compounds for ailments of kidney and bladder and digestive tract.
And then again, in one of their stopping places, in the deep dark lonesome night—
"Miss Mercy, you don't know what your kindness means to me."
"I do know, child. I do."
"Such a burden, such an awful burden—"
"Yes, but yours will soon be lifted."
"Just one bottle of this liquid will see to that?"
"Just one. Then you'll have no more to fear."
"It smells so sweet. What does it contain?"
"Dried sclerotia of ergot, bark of slippery elm, apiol, and gum arabic?"
"Will it taste bad?"
"No, my dear. I've mixed it with syrup."
"And I'm to take the whole bottle at once?"
"Yes. But only at the time of month I tell you. And then you must immediately dispose of the bottle where no one can ever find it. Will you promise?"
"Yes, Miss Mercy. Oh yes."
"And you must tell no one I helped you. Not even your dearest friend. Will you promise?"
"I promise. I'll never tell a soul, not a living soul."
And again, as always, she and Elias would be away at the break of dawn, when dew lay soft on the grasses and mist coated the land. And sitting beside him on the high seat, remembering the poor girl who had come in the night, she would ask herself once more, as she had so many times, what Father would have said if he'd known of the mixture of ergot and slippery elm, apiol and gum arabic. Would he still think of her as an angel of mercy? Or would he hate her for betraying a sacred trust? And the answer would be as it always was: No, he could never hate her; she must have no real doubt of that. He would understand that her only aim was to bring peace to those poor foolish girls. Peace and succor in their time of need. He would understand.
And she would stop fretting then, reassured of Father's absent pride, and soon that day would end and a new one would be born. And there would be new roads, new settlements and towns, new needs to serve—so many needs to serve.
And one day she saw that it was fall again, the leaves turning crimson and gold—time to turn south and west. But first there was another town, a little town with a name like many others, in a state that might have been Kansas or perhaps Nebraska. And late that night, as Miss Mercy sat weary but strong at her mixing table, her hands busy with mortar and pestle while the lamplight flickered bright, a rapping came soft and urgent on the wagon's door.
Her name was Verity.
Names and faces meant little to Miss Mercy; there were too many to remember even for a minute. But this girl was different somehow. The name lingered, and so she knew would the face. Thin, not pretty, pale hair peeking out from under her bonnet—older than most of the ones who came alone in the night. Older, sadder, but no wiser.
Miss Mercy invited her in, invited her to sit. Verity perched primly on the stool, hands together in her lap, mouth tight-pinched at the corners. She showed no nervousness, no fear or embarrassment. Determined was the word that came to Miss Mercy's mind.
Without preamble Verity said, "I understand you're willing to help girls in trouble."
"What sort of trouble, my dear?"
"The sort that comes to foolish and unmarried girls."
"You're with child?"
Verity nodded. "I come from Riverbrook, Iowa. Do you recall the town, Miss Mercy?"
"Riverbrook? Iowa? There are so many places . . ."
"You were there four months ago. In June. The second week of June."
"The second week of June. Well. If you say I was, my dear, then of course I was."
"A girl named Grace came to see you then. Grace Potter. Do you remember her?"
"So many come to me," Miss Mercy said. "My memory isn't what it once was . . ."
"So many girls in trouble, you mean?"
"Sometimes. In the night, as you've come."
"And as Grace came."
"If you say so. As Grace came."
"You gave her something to abort her fetus. I'd like you to give me the same . . . medicine."