Later that Evening
Mrs. Burke returned with her daughter shortly after 11 o’clock that night. After a short examination to which Mrs. Burke was a witness, Alcorn found that Cora was past the point of no return, not much, but still too far gone to safely remove the fetus from her uterus. Far past the time that the herbs he had learned about from a local Chinese healer would do the trick.
“Miss Burke, I am sorry you have found yourself in this predicament. I am aware that members of my sex can be truly evil when it comes to carnal sins, telling young women whatever they think they want to hear in order to accomplish what they believe to be a coup. On behalf of my kind I apologize. I regret to tell you that you have progressed too far in the gestation of this fetus to safely terminate the pregnancy.”
“But doctor,” Mrs. Burke immediately protested,”How can that possibly be the case? I had heard you were able to help a young woman from the camp with her problem and surely Cora has only missed one cycle. How can that be?” She very clearly was terrified.
“I do apologize and I am sympathetic to your daughter’s plight, but I would guess that your daughter has missed at least three cycles if not four,” he turned to Cora, “Isn’t that right, Miss Burke?”
Cora Burke just stared at her toes as they dangled over the side of the table, her shift waving a little with the breeze created by her mother’s rapid fanning. She nodded.
“I might suggest tracking down the young man responsible for your condition, Miss Burke. I trust you know something about him other than his name?”
Miss Burke did not answer.
R.J. hoped the girl did. He had seen a great many young ladies in this condition in these first years of his medical practice. He knew the best this girl could hope for is a wedding day. And very soon. And she might want to move to another town anyway.
As if she could hear R.J.’s thoughts, Mrs. Burke fell to pieces in the middle of the examination room floor, her frail body wracked with sobs as Cora Burke stared straight ahead.
No tears, barely an expression at all. Her dark brown eyes suddenly closed and she said without changing her expression in the slightest: “The man responsible for this is not a man I would or could want to marry, the way I became to be in the family way had nothing to do with love or what family should be made of. It was violence, doctor. Please, sir, I beg of you - what exactly is the risk? You ask me to carry a child that was given to me by the acts of a violent man.”
“My dear, I am truly sorry that I can not help you, more so now that you have revealed the author of your unfortuitous situation.” R.J. heard it only when there was no time to undo it. This was so often the case with his mouth.
“UNFORTUITOUS??” Mrs. Burke suddenly sprang back to life and was all business, on her feet with her chest held out as if she was ready for a fight.
“I do apologize, ma’am and madame. I realize that my choice of words was clumsy at best and heartless at worst.” R.J. wasn’t the kind of man to be offended by a woman expressing her strength - and, as was mentioned, he had heard it and regretted it as he had said it. He was always willing to admit when he was wrong - how, in fact, could one be a scientist of any worth at all if one is not willing to admit one’s mistakes?
The women seemed satisfied with R.J. 's offering of atonement, having made the emotional transference from outrage to humility in a breath.
“Thank you for seeing me, doctor.” Cora said steadily as she gathered herself to leave.
“I only hope the best outcome for you and your child, Ms. Burke. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to be of assistance, anything at all.” R.J. said, dropping any pretense of Cora being a child.
The two women departed Doctor Alcorn’s office by the back entrance and hurried to the same cab that brought them, paid to wait as long as needed and longer.
But this as far as his involvement with Miss Burke would go. He must try to put her predicament out of his mind, the ability to keep his rather big heart out of things was his biggest challenge as a physician.
He bid the two women goodnight, closed up his office and strolled down main street to the saloon on the other end of town for his supper and perhaps a game of cards, who knew what the night would bring? He was a bachelor for the time being. His beautiful, smart wife in St. Joseph Missouri, just months away from becoming a doctor herself. She had just departed for the fall term with their son, Argie, who would be watched by the kind woman from which Cora rented her rooms while she attended seminars.
They were truly lucky, he thought to himself, for so many things, not least of which the people they came across together. They’d been married almost 7-years and he never regretted it for a moment, though many doubted the strength of their union. They had met at a teachers conference in Lewiston, Montana. Cora, just 23 years old, living with her sister in Butte and hoping to obtain a teaching position through her attendance at the conference that spring. Their meeting had been filled with the kind of love at first sight magic Cora said she had read about in dime store novels. They were married just 3-months later, a whirlwind of sapiosexual rapture.
R.J. sighed to himself as he entered though the saloon's swinging doors and left the sweet spring air for the smell of smoke and humans. It would be a lonely few months without Cora and Argie, who was beginning to be such a grand, if not a slightly insane, little person. Three year old humans sure are something. Argie’s ability to reason was nowhere to be found, but his ability to charm the pants off of anyone he met was way above average, R.J. suspected. And such a handsome little chap, he mused as he took his seat at a table.
The barkeep was a young German man who had recently made his way across the country from Baltimore, Christof Reinekei. A cheerful young man, always whistling a familiar, chipper tune R.J. could never place but enjoyed nonetheless. Christof greeted R.J. with a tip of his hat and walked over to his table,
“Guten abend, Doktor,” Christof placed a napkin on the doctor's lap for him, doing his best to earn the tip that were his only wages at this job, that and room and board he felt quite lucky to have. It gave him time to work his small quartz claim by day, a gamble he had invested all his Baltimore family’s savings into.
“Can I get you a steak and a nice drink of something brown in color?” Christof joked, knowing the doctor was a teetotaling vegetarian.
“That you can, Herr Reineke, just milk and a piece of that pie if there’s still any left.”
“Coming right up, Herr Alcorn!”
“Doktor!” R.J. retorted with a chuckle.