"Oh..." Jonah had been listening to the others' suggestions, finding the input constructive, but when Josiah suggested applying for help, Jonah nearly choked on the wine he was sipping.
"Surely you..." He looked at Josiah, startled, but holding back because he didn't want to offend the older man. Certainly, Josiah knew better than he did, with his service in the Army and his years of experience. But...
"Excuse me, but isn't the Federal Government part of the problem? I mean, the problem? Services are available but not adequate or timely..." He hoped he didn't sound like he was objecting, but then, wasn't he? "And if we involve them, they can tell us what we can do, how we can do it, when we can..."
He shook his head. "I think we should just keep this local...just my opinion."
"local? Now there's a problem. It's going to take real money to keep this thing afloat. The kind that the territory can get, or already has to give to projects such as this." Josia pointed out. "Yes, the federal government is a real problem, but we should at least wire the Governor, who we know is in our corner. Don't you think?"
"Yes, we should leave no funding possibility untried. What's the worst that can happen? The Territory says no? Fine, we move on to the next one. But I believe that we have to exhaust every avenue." Leah said, "Men like Pike, or Wentworth at the bank, or Marshal Guyer, we can't depend solely on them to help through the rough patches we will surely experience. Investors are just that, they invest in the hospital in the hopes of sharing in our profits once we are making money, and I believe we will make money. Hopefully we all agree on that."
"Whatever we need to do to help veterans of the war," Jonah agreed, deferring to the others' knowledge in such matters. He still had his misgivings, and thought they had misunderstood his proposal, but any such endeavor was quite a long time off anyway, so there was plenty of time to work out the details.
"It will be some time before we have any sort of useful profit," he observed, then he chuckled. "We at least need enough to support ourselves on top of whatever the hospital needs to operate."
All this business business baffled Jonah, and he was more than happy to let someone else worry about it. He really didn't think he had an aptitude for it, and even if he did, he didn't much have an interest in it. He was more interested in the operations, with treating patients, balancing a clinic with a surgery and long-term accommodations...
"There's the orphanage to consider, too. That's more pressing." And again, something in the future. He just hoped they weren't taking on too much.
Leah smiled as Jonah spoke. Of course, he was making valid points, points that she had been contemplating almost since the beginning of this project. The idea of helping out the veterans of the late war was all but a given. "There are any number of men who were wounded, or otherwise injured during the conflict, here in this area. I would say that caring for these men is our duty. I know we had been discussing this matter, and I'm repeating what has been said, but I believe in this as much as I believe in building the hospital."
"Now Jonah, profits will come in due time." Josiah assured him, "And for a time we will operate at a loss, just as we do in private practice, that is why we need investors and any other funding options that are available, of which there are precious few."
"The orphanage is a ways off, as yet. Perhaps a year or more. There is still a pressing need for it, true, but we must concentrate on our hospital, first and foremost. We can be fully operational by fall, or even earlier." Leah explained, knowing that it was certainly a possibility to be open and running in that time frame, or even before. She needed to see Mister Aldridge and get his views on how quickly they could finish. And the surgeon, how soon would she arrive expecting to begin work? She still had more questions than answers.
"It's come a good way already," Jonah pointed out, "and against odds that we'd fail...and hopefully there won't be such opposition going forward. Unless I'm mistaken, we're past the majority of things we need approved by...officials." Not the word he was thinking, but that wasn't polite! And they'd have to start all that fuss again when they started building the orphanage, although hopefully, by that time, Leah's name wouldn't be cause for refusal.
He paused for a moment, then chuckled. "We really made it this far. The doors will open soon...it'll be a real hospital!"
So much had happened since he'd come to Kalispell, where he'd planned on laying low for a time, then moving on to bigger, 'more civilized' pastures, but fate had different plans for him.
"You dern right we made it this far!" The feisty Doc Boone stated. "But only because of this woman here who wouldn't give up on the need for a hospital. That's why we made it. Oh, there's a good number of folks that had a hand in it gettin' off the ground, but goldangit! Without Leah here, they'd'a killed it when Richard T. Orr was runnin' things around here, and then them crooks, him and Robertson, they'd'a built one themselves. We heard things up in Columbia Falls."
"Judge Robertson?" Elinor asked. "Now I knew Orr, the snake, but Robertson. I had no idea he was fighting you on this."
"Please, all of this is for another time and place. We're here to celebrate and have ourselves a good time. Enough of what's past for now." She wanted to vent about the past, and the fight to get as far as they were. But the fact they were so close to the finish line had her smiling instead.
"Look at who's here and what we've accomplished to this point. All of us in one way or another have been or will be, instrumental in our future as a regional hospital, and Jonah, that qualifies us for territorial support." She reached over and squeezed his hand. "And you, my good sir, have been in this since day one. I could not have done this, any of it, without your support."
Jonah chuckled, then shrugged. "You're enthusiasm is hard to resist. And once I got caught up in it, there was no going back. And," he observed, "you're right, a hospital here will go well toward promoting Kalispell as county seat." Of course, it helped to have Whitefish out of contention, and Oakdale was more of a borough than a town.
"It's really been an education, and I've dabbled in things I never would have considered." He smiled and sipped some champagne. "And I've found out that I'm capable of more than I would have imagined...even if those are things that aren't to my taste." And that things that had been his 'taste' before no longer held interest.
"I knew that about you, knew it early on." Leah said in agreement. "The things you've discovered about yourself have brought about a change in you. I saw that happen, and I'm so proud of you."
"I'd have to say that you're not the young man I knew fumbling along through his life. What I see now is a man of purpose. A man who has plans beyond the end of the day, and that is a welcome change. Believe me." Josiah pointed out, then added, "And to have gone out to the Evergreen? That is courage. That could well have been a trap, you know."
"Even I hadn't thought of that, but it is true. He's that devious to have done that. He would know that you and I are courting, somehow. And that may have been enough for him to, well, just about anything!" Leah admitted, Elinjor simply nodded in agreement.
"Going to Evergreen wasn't any more brave than not," Jonah chuckled, "because I have no doubt that, had I refused to go, I would have been shot right in my doorway!" While it sounded like a jest, Jonah was deadly serious...he really had thought that his chances were better going out to the ranch and tending to Steelegrave.
"As for changing...I'll admit you are right on that, but I'd be cautious about celebrating." He chuckled again, shaking his head. "This is much harder than the way things were before, when no one had any expectations of me, and I could just walk away."
For a moment, Jonah was silent, mulling his thoughts over. "I confess, all this responsibility can make a man have second thoughts!"
"Balderdash!" Josiah erupted. "Not about you goin' out there, tho I ain't real sure he'd have you shot. Of course, now, he might have. It's this change in him that worries me. The change in you? Natural progression. Seems to me you never had a reason to change before this."
Elinor smiled, "I wouldn't trust that man any further than you could toss that hospital, sitting down. He is as devious as they come. And you, Jonah, It took courage to go out there no doubt about that. And this change you see in yourself as some surprise, well Leah is my daughter, and she saw that as inevitable, I would stake my life on that. I knew way back there was far more to you than you knew. So it's no wonder that it's come to the surface."
"Not to change the subject, which I am about to do, but why are you here Mother? Why are you back in Kalispell? You've said nothing to this point." Leah wanted to know.
Elinor Steelgrave smiled.
