Chapter Text
I looked around the empty doctor’s office. Still full of furniture and artwork, but empty of patients. I thought I should feel a pang of remorse at seeing it so, knowing that once I stepped out the door I’d never return, but I was surprised to find that I felt nothing.
Though I’d lived in Boston for the majority of my life, it wasn’t home. Not any longer.
I’d been born to an affluent family in Oxfordshire, England, likely destined for a life of embroidery, idle gossip, lavish parties, and eventually a convenient match with a rich bachelor.
That life had been irrevocably upturned when both of my parents were killed in a carriage accident when I was six years old.
Though I mourned them, I mostly mourned the loss of a relationship I never had with them.
I was plucked out of boarding school by my uncle, Lambert Beauchamp, a doctor in Boston, Massachusetts, and my only living relative.
At first I was irate, thinking this uncle I’d only ever met on holidays was going to simply dump me in another boarding school in America where I’d have to start all over, and as a foreigner to boot. Wait until I was old enough to claim my inheritance so he could take his due.
And, perhaps school had been what the childless bachelor had had in mind, but by the time we reached America it was wordlessly decided that I would go home with him.
He tried his best not to skimp on my formal education; I had the best tutors, and well-meaning nannies, but more often than not I simply tagged along with Uncle Lamb to his office, to watch him at work.
It was in his office that I watched him stitch a severed finger back onto a young man’s hand. And it was seeing this gruesome display that decided it right then and there.
I wanted to be a doctor.
Uncle Lamb never once laughed at me, or attempted to discourage me. Instead he offered me the chance of more active participation, and I was allowed to assist him with female patients and children like a nurse. I think most adults figured a nurse was what I was preparing to be, and paid me no mind other than to smile at the way my uncle indulged me.
But when I turned seventeen, I was admitted into one of the only medical schools for women in the world, and afterward Uncle Lamb proudly hung up a shingle bearing my name up next to his own.
Claire E. Beauchamp, M.D.
Though I’d worked alongside my uncle for years as a doctor, though I’d treated multiple patients all on my own, they all vanished once Uncle Lamb was gone.
The cancer that took him was fast acting, and no amount of medical knowledge I or anyone else had could treat it. In a matter of months I was an orphan all over again.
With no patients, it was pointless to stay in Boston. I had few friends; life as a woman doctor didn’t exactly make one terribly popular, and no family left.
It was purely by chance that I came across an advertisement in the Boston Globe looking for a doctor in a small town in the Colorado territory. It felt like fate. I sent a telegram, detailing my experience, and in less than a week I was offered the position.
It was the Frontier; a place where people made new beginnings. A place where my services would be needed, where my skills would be appreciated. Where I would finally be truly accepted as a doctor.
So I took up the last of my inheritance from my parents and Uncle Lamb, and boarded a train to Colorado. I watched from the window as the landscape I was familiar with transformed into something wider and wilder.
The railroad didn’t even reach the town of Colorado Springs, so it was a long carriage ride, bumping across vast territory, civilization receding behind me, slipping away with each turn of the wagon wheels.
Uncle Lamb had taught me that different customs, language, or color of skin were not causes for prejudice or hostility…if ever there were a cause for it. But as I looked out that carriage window and saw real Indians for the first time, I could not reason with the knots in my stomach.
When I’d imagined Colorado Springs, I’d had in mind a picturesque little village like the ones in storybooks, where people were friendly and everyone knew everyone else. The idea of such a close-knit community couldn’t help but appeal to one such as me who had never belonged to any sort of family outside the one Uncle Lamb and I made for ourselves, and, briefly, one other.
When I first arrived in town, my first thought was that it wasn’t nearly so picturesque as I’d thought. My first thought, was…dirt.
As the daughter first of a wealthy family, then of a doctor, I’d been raised since infancy to know the virtues of cleanliness. And Uncle Lamb was a particular stickler, whereas many doctors still hadn’t come ‘round to the idea that a sterile environment could mean the difference between a healed patient and a dead one.
My kid-skinned boots, one of my last gifts from Uncle Lamb for my birthday, sank three inches into the mud the moment I stepped out of the carriage. I couldn’t stop my nose from wrinkling in disgust, but forced myself to assume a nature of nonchalance when I realized there were eyes on me.
“Pardon me,” I spoke to a gentleman who wasn’t even bothering to hide the fact that he was looking me up and down. “Could you tell me where to find Reverend Wakefield?”
The man raised one eyebrow, but jerked his head to the right. “Down at the church,” he drawled, as if it were obvious, which, I supposed it was.
“Thank you,” I replied politely. “Do…do you think it would be alright if I left my luggage here?” I indicated the suitcases currently sitting where the porter had left them, in front of what I presumed was this gentleman’s shop.
“Y’mean, do I think anybody will take them if you do?” the man said, eyes narrowing.
“Oh! No! I only meant…would they be in anyone’s way?” I finished lamely.
The man simply shook his head, so I decided to make my exit as gracefully as I could.
Uncle Lamb had warned me time and time again that my hot temper and penchant for speaking before thinking were poor qualities in a doctor, and now more than ever I needed to make people like me. To put on an image of a mature, respectable doctor.
My graceful exit was made significantly less graceful when I nearly tripped over a loose board, much to the amusement of the man, and a second man who’d come out of his barbershop to see what was about.
The town was very small, so it was easy work to find the church, sitting a little apart from the main part of town.
It was a pretty little thing, much more like the storybook I’d imagined. All neat a tidy with a cross atop it.
My parents had been devout Catholics, but Uncle Lamb’s faith had been nominal at best. He took me to mass only on Christmas, instead offering me books and ideas far outside the scope of the church.
I still believed in God, in an abstract sort of way, but was not so stoutly Catholic that I couldn’t appreciate the loveliness of this little Presbyterian church.
“Hello,” I called to a gentleman who was painting the side of the church. Judging by his clothing, I suspected that he was indeed the Reverend. “Are you Reverend Wakefield?”
The man who turned around was surprisingly young, with jet-black hair, and friendly-looking green eyes. I warmed to him immediately.
“Yes, ma’am, Roger Wakefield. Is there anything I can help you with?”
I smiled and stuck out my hand. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Reverend. I’m Claire Beauchamp, the new doctor.”
The Reverend stared blankly at me for several moments, before looking over my shoulder as if waiting for someone else to appear.
“I’m terribly sorry, Miss, did you say, doctor?”
I let my hand fall awkwardly back to my side. “Erm, yes. I answered the advertisement you posted…about the town doctor?”
He shook his head in confusion. “Yes…but…I hired a doctor by the name of Lambert Beauchamp.”
The warmth I felt from the Reverend was dissipating quickly, being replaced by something cold and unfortunately very familiar. “Lambert was my uncle. I shared his practice in Boston. But he…he’s no longer with us.”
“My condolences,” The Reverend murmured automatically. “Could you…come with me, please?”
Biting my tongue and fighting the urge to stick out my chin, I followed the young Reverend back into town, and toward what I presumed was the telegraph office.
“Denny!” The Reverend shouted up at a man on the roof of the telegraph office, making some sort of repair.
“Oh, hello there, Reverend!” Denny called back cheerfully. “Nice day, is it not?”
“Um, yes. Listen, Denny, do you remember that telegraph we got about the doctor?”
“Of course I do!”
The Reverend looked back at me awkwardly. “Well…you didn’t make any…erm…changes to it, did you?”
Denny stared down at him over his round spectacles. “Of course not!” he snapped indignantly. “It came from the office of Doctor Lambert Beauchamp.”
“That’s where it came from,” I piped up. I’d foolishly used Uncle Lamb’s name in effort to boost my own. “Did it mention anyone else’s name?”
“Only a…Claire, that’s it,” Denny said. “Figured she was the daughter, or secretary.”
I cocked an eyebrow at Reverend Wakefield, who was blushing crimson. “Thank you, Denny,” he called.
“Any time, Reverend!”
The Reverend gently took my elbow, and I turned to follow him back the way we came. As we went, my eyes were drawn inexorably to a group of Indians having some sort of conversation with a group of American soldiers.
What caught my attention even more than that, however, was a man who towered over all of them, dressed in Indian garb but in possession of the most remarkable mass of curling red hair I’d ever seen.
He was quite obviously white, but his skin was deeply tanned by the sun. He stood staring down the soldier with crossed arms and an air of calm hostility, and seemed to be leading the Indians’ side of the conversation.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Union Colonel Chivington and Cheyanne Chief, Black Kettle,” he replied distractedly. “Army’s negotiating with the Indians for all the land north of Sand Creek.”
I was so absorbed in the sight I almost missed what the Reverend was saying.
“I’m so terribly sorry for the misunderstanding,” he rambled on. “Of course we’ll pay for your travel back to Boston…”
“That won’t be necessary,” I interrupted, giving in to the urge to stick up my chin and my nose. When he appeared to take that to mean I’d leave without his help, I hastened to continue. “This town is in need of a doctor, and I am a doctor.”
“B…but the townsfolk will never accept a lady doctor!” The Reverend protested in a mild panic. I shrugged, as if it were of no consequence. “And the boarding house doesn’t allow single women!”
I caught sight of the sign that said Boarding House just as he spoke, and made my way straight there.
I glanced back at the soldiers and Indians, feeling a jolt when I locked eyes with the tall redheaded man. The surprise caught me off balance, and I tripped over something in the mud, sending me flying face-first into it.
My cheeks burned with shame as the Reverend rushed to assist me, muttering reassurances and insistences that the roads needed to be better maintained.
My dress was ruined, and I could feel the grit of dirt and mud all over my face. I swiped impatiently at it, biting back tears, but realized at once that I would only make it worse. As much as I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help myself, and looked back over toward the men, expecting riotous laughter.
Only a couple of the soldiers had noticed, and they were chuckling, though with attempted discreetness. The redheaded man and the Indians did not laugh, though the man who I thought must be Chief Black Kettle leaned toward the redheaded man and asked him something. The redheaded man replied, nodding in my direction, and I wondered uncomfortably what they were saying about me.
I reached the boarding house and knocked. The door swung open to reveal an attractive older woman, flanked by two children.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
“My name is Doctor Claire Beauchamp,” I introduced formally, when it seemed like Reverend Wakefield wouldn’t.
“You’re the new doctor?” the woman asked incredulously.
“Yes,” I replied at the same time the Reverend said, “No.”
“I erm, told Miss Beauchamp that you don’t accept female boarders,” he said, smiling as if that settled the matter.
“I don’t have a rule against it,” the woman sniffed before turning a friendly smile upon me. “I’m Charlotte Cooper. These are my children…William,”
I glanced down at the little boy half hiding behind her skirts, but realized she was indicating an older boy who’d appeared behind me. He was a handsome young man of about fifteen or sixteen, with dark hair and the promise of height and strong features.
“This is Brianna,” Charlotte continued, beaming proudly at the girl standing at her left. This child looked around twelve and was nearly an exact copy of her older brother, only with far softer, more feminine features and ruddy red hair.
“And this little one is my Fergus,” Charlotte patted the little boy’s head, who grinned up at me impishly.
“Hello,” I greeted him with what I hoped was an approachable smile. I’d never been very good with children, unless I was stitching their forehead.
“Your dress is very dirty,” Fergus said simply, but I was struck more by his surprising accent than the blunt comment.
“Fergus! Manners!” Charlotte scolded, but lightly. “You come on in dear, and we’ll see you settled. William, run along and help the Reverend with the doctor’s luggage.”
“Yes ma’am,” William replied at once, bounding off to do as told, leaving the Reverend to follow, gaping helplessly.
“You’re a real doctor?” Brianna asked me, eyes wide in amazement. “You mean you went to college and everything?”
I smiled, leaning to speak conspiratorially to her. “And everything!”
Charlotte led me to a small, but blessedly clean bedroom, informing me with a bit of warning in her voice that she also had several soldiers currently boarding.
Once she left me alone, I let my confident façade fall, and nearly sank onto in the bed before I remembered how filthy I was. I looked down at my ruined dress and shoes, whimpering slightly, and trying to tell myself it was stupid to worry about clothes.
I opened my suitcase and pulled out the photograph I had of Uncle Lamb, tracing his beloved features with the tip of my finger. I’d only just got there and I already felt like I was failing him.
No one in this town was going to take me seriously. Their minds were just as closed as those in Boston.
Placing Uncle Lamb’s picture on the mantle, I took a deep breath, and heard his voice in my head,
“Don’t you ever let anyone treat you like you’re less because you’re a woman. You’re smarter and more capable than just about any man I know.”
He’d said that to me when I was thirteen years old, and I’d had to go to him, face aflame, to inform him that I’d begun my menses for the first time. Doctor that he was, he hadn’t batted an eye, and we’d had an in-depth and detailed discussion on female biology. But it had morphed somehow into a lecture on making sure I’m treated the way I deserved to be treated. Both as a woman, and as a person.
Though I’d never possessed the supposed “natural” desire to have children of my own, I often wished that more parents couldn’t teach their children the way Uncle Lamb taught me.
“I’m not giving up,” I whispered to his photograph.
Other things Uncle Lamb had taught me were that anything worth having required work, and that the best things in life often took you by surprise. I hadn’t quite figured out the meaning to that second part yet, but I knew that if I wanted to be a doctor in this town it was going to take work.
A lot of work.