The Frenchwoman Healer

By Doreen Milstead

The Frenchwoman Healer - A widowed French woman is on the long road west, along the Oregon Trail. She learns that she has a gift for healing, and later, for love. Both help her as she learns to survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Hart
• Release date: Feb 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463976302

Book preview

The Frenchwoman Healer

by

Doreen Milstead

Copyright 2020 Susan Hart

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Epilogue

Chapter One

Synopsis: The Frenchwoman Healer - A widowed French woman is on the long road west, along the Oregon Trail. She learns that she has a gift for healing, and later, for love. Both help her as she learns to survive.

Thunder rumbled outside the wagon, warning of a storm to come.

Isabelle Benoit sighed and opened her eyes. She had been having the nightmare again, that terrible dream. She had dreamed that she was a bird, looking down through the bars of her tiny cage. There was a hungry cat on the floor below, staring up at her with its yellow eyes. She had battered the top of the cage with her wings, but there was no escape. She was trapped, and sooner or later the cat would catch and kill her.

It was a relief to wake, even if she did have to wake to this miserable wagon train.

But as her senses slowly sharpened, her relief faded. Something in the darkness didn’t feel right. There was a strange scent in the covered wagon, something alien. Isabelle cast a frightened glance toward the opening at the back of the wagon. To her terror, her nightmare had somehow come to life. The blanket that she had pinned across the opening had been yanked aside, and a man was standing there in the darkness -- just staring at her -- like the cat with the hungry yellow eyes.

He didn’t say a word.

Isabelle stiffened in terror. The stench of whiskey and stale sweat was like a smothering hand over her mouth. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

The patter of raindrops began to strike the canvas of her wagon like fingers on a drum. One, two, five, twelve.

She didn’t move a muscle, praying that the rain would make the intruder go away.

The thunder crashed, and lightning snapped somewhere close by. For an instant she could see the man’s hulking silhouette, framed by the opening. Then he listed to the right, swayed, and staggered off.

Isabelle fell back onto her pillow, trembling. After she was sure that he’d gone, she jumped up to pin the blanket back over the opening – this time, tight.

Then she reached under her pillow and pulled out her husband’s pistol.

The long prairie night crawled past. The sudden torrent of rain made the drenched oxen hang their heads and low softly. Isabelle looked down at the pistol she clutched in her hand, wondering how she had ever come to this.

René’s pistol reminded her of him. It