The Outsider by Ann H. Gabhart

fear he may try to lead you away from us.”
    “Then ye have no reason to fear, for he could never do that.” Gabrielle smiled at the strangeness of the thought of leaving the Believers. Sister Mercy smiled back at her, letting a little of the sternness slip away from her face for a moment.
    As they turned to walk on to the schoolroom, Gabrielle thought about the doctor. She had to admit she did have a great curiosity about him and the world he came from, but she had no thought of becoming part of his world. She was one with the Believers, and here she would stay. Her path was clear.

5
    Brice stayed with Nathan for four days. Each day the boy improved and his will strengthened. On the fifth morning Nathan pulled himself to a sitting position on the side of the bed. The boy bit his lip to keep back the groans when the pain hit him. His face went ashen except for the red of the burn on his cheek. But he didn’t quit. He grabbed hold of the straight chair Brice sat in front of him and stood up.
    “Give yourself a minute to let your head settle,” Brice told him.
    “My head is spinning a mite,” Nathan said as he gripped the chair. “Too much time on my back, I’m thinking.”
    “That and the pain. It’s no shame to admitting to feeling pain, boy. Go ahead and holler. It might help.”
    “Can’t see how.” The boy bit his lip again and slowly pushed the chair in front of him as he took a step. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.
    The boy kept moving. He made it all the way across the room and back to the bed without Brice having to help him. When the boy was sitting down on the bed again and some of the color had come back into his face, Brice told him, “I’ll be going along home this morning. You don’t need a roundthe-clock nursemaid anymore.”
    “You’re leaving?” The boy wiped the sweat off his face with a corner of the bed cover.
    Brice dipped a cloth in the basin beside the bed, wrung it out, and put it on the back of the boy’s neck. “Sure, Bates. You don’t think you’re the only fellow who needs doctoring in this country. Anyway, that walk you made just now was pretty good. It won’t be long until you’re up and going again.”
    “I hope so, Dr. Scott.”
    “You’ll need to keep pushing yourself. Keep moving your legs. You can’t let them stiffen up on you no matter how bad it hurts. If the pain gets to be more than you can bear, put a pinch of these powders in a glass of water.” Brice placed a tin of medicine on the table by the bed before he started packing up his things. “Elder Caleb will be here with some of the men to move you over to a different house where they’ll take care of you till you’re stronger.”
    Nathan watched him a minute before he said, “You’re not leaving because you’ve given up on me, are you, Doc? I mean, you still think I’m going to be able to walk.”
    “You’re walking now, Bates.”
    “I mean without pushing that confounded chair in front of me and wanting to scream each step.”
    Brice turned to look at the boy. He no longer had any doubt at all Nathan would get well if some sort of fever didn’t set in. “You’re already doing better than I thought you would, Bates. In a month you’ll probably be walking wherever you want to go, and in another month, who knows? You might even be running. But it could be you’ll want to scream for a long while after that.”
    The boy looked down at his legs and made a face. “I can live with that. I wasn’t planning on leaving here till spring anyhow.”
    “You’d best be thinking of staying longer than that. It might be a good while before you’re able to follow a plow to earn your living. At least here you’re sure of eating till your legs heal.”
    The boy didn’t say anything, just stared at Brice.
    Brice shook his head and finished his packing up. “I’ll be back every day or so to see about you until you get a little better at pushing that chair around. Then you’ll have to come