These Healing Hills Page 16

  “You want to get a shower and stay here tonight?”

  The thought of a shower was tempting, but Fran shook her head. “No, I better not. Mr. Brown, who brought us in his truck, says he’ll give me a ride most of the way back to the center. Betty won’t know what happened to me.”

  “She’d survive. Probably be glad for the time alone.”

  “Not if she has to milk the cow.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt her.”

  Fran smiled. “I’ve got a ride. I’d better take it. Tomorrow I might have to walk the whole way.”

  “Whatever you think best.”

  “You will send me word about Lurene? Did I do right having the baby come too? She had a sister-in-law there on the mountain who offered to be a wet nurse for him.”

  “The baby needs to be with his mama. We’ll take care of them. Don’t you worry.” Willie gave her a hug. “You know we love the babies as much as their mamas do. Somebody will be rocking that little fellow all night long.”

  Fran looked back at the hospital as she rode away in the neighbor’s truck. It might be easier to take care of the mothers and babies there, but she liked being out at the center. She looked over at the silent man with his eyes on the road. Lurene’s brother had crawled in the back of the truck. For a crazy moment, Fran thought about asking Mr. Brown if he knew the song about Froggie going courting. But instead she looked out at what passed for a road as they wound their way around curves and through creeks back to the center.

  When she saw the roof of the center and heard Bella mooing, she felt at home.

  21

  September 20, 1945

  “The pups are ’round back in the shed. Not much count for huntin’ but you might teach ’em to herd cows. A mix of shepherd and collie, best I can figure.” The man led Ben around his house that was mostly log with an extra room tacked on with plank siding.

  Shorty Johnson’s yard was full of rusty plows and other farm tools. When the man noticed Ben looking at the piled up offerings, he said, “If’n you need something for yo’r farm, I’m getting rid of all this stuff. Cheap. Motor vehicles is the coming thing. Like that there truck you just bought off’n me. This other stuff you could practically steal from under my nose.” He waved his hand over at the plows. “Nothin’ wrong with ’em ’cepting some surface rust that’d come right off when you commenced to plowing next spring.”

  “I’ll keep you in mind if I hear of anybody needing one,” Ben said.

  “You do that. Just tell ’em to come see Shorty whatever they need, and if I don’t have it, I can get it.” The man stopped in front of Ben and yanked a red bandanna out of his pocket to wipe his face. “It’s a scorcher today for September.”

  Shorty was a big man, as tall as Ben and twice as wide. How he came up with the name Shorty was a mystery, but one Ben wasn’t interested enough to hear. The man’s shirt was crusty with sweat rings that made Ben just as glad they were doing their dealing out in the open air.

  He hadn’t come looking for a pup, but when the man mentioned he had some, it seemed a good time to follow through on the idea of getting Woody a dog. Rufus, poor old fellow, just wanted to be left alone to live out his final days.

  Last week Ben had brought home a horse. A five-year-old gelding with some snap to his step. Ben and Woody had ridden Captain down the hill this morning. Then Woody had hoofed it over to the nurses’ center to take them some pickles while Ben came on to Shorty’s. He hadn’t seen Nurse Howard since he’d made that lame apology to her. Better that way.

  Ben told Woody not to tarry and get on over to Shorty’s a few miles on down the creek to ride Captain home in case Ben made a deal with Shorty for a truck. And he had. Not a new truck. Those were few and far between, since the factories had just started up making cars and trucks again after making tanks and planes during the war.

  But it looked rugged enough. A 1940 Chevrolet that sat high off the ground. He wouldn’t be able to drive it all the way up to the house without clearing out some trees, and come a washout, not at all. But a spot down at the bottom of their property would make a good place to leave the truck.

  If he headed back to college, he could use the transportation. With the GI Bill dangling out there, it seemed next to foolish not to grab it and try to make something of himself. The trouble was, he wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to make.

  A teacher? He wasn’t overloaded with patience for youngsters. He had no feeling for being one of the lawyers about town or a banker all dressed up in a suit, strangled with a tie and shut up inside an office all the livelong day. He had his medic training. But what good was that except in the army? The nurses around here were all female. And it took a lot of years to make a doctor. Maybe he should just be a trader like Shorty. A better-smelling trader.

  The tan-and-white pups tumbled out of the shed when Shorty opened the door. One of the fuzzy balls of fur ran straight to jump up on Ben’s leg. The pup’s brown eyes were bright and his tail whipped back and forth at lightning speed. The very thing for Woody.

  Ben picked up the pup. It didn’t smell too good either after being shut up in the shed with what looked like five or six more pups. But the pup wriggled with excitement and tried to lick his chin. Ben couldn’t keep from laughing.

  “Appears that one likes you.” Shorty peered over at him, his trader face on. “But you might best take two. Dogs is some like people. They need company.”

  The pup made a high-pitched whine and a yellow-and-white dog sitting off to the side yipped. Ben had noticed the collie lurking close the whole time he and Shorty haggled over the truck price. Never close enough to be touched, but always in sight.

  Now Ben nodded toward the collie. “Is that the mother?”

  “That?” Shorty gave the dog a look and spat on the ground. “Naw. That’s one from last year’s bunch. He’s nigh on useless. I’d a done got rid of him ’cept he’s a right fair snake dog. But snakes ain’t so much trouble. They keep the mice in line. That one. He just eats.” He nodded toward the dog. “I’d shoot him, but he ain’t worth the bullet.”

  The dog’s ears drooped a little as if he understood the man’s words.

  Ben stepped toward the dog and squatted down to hold out his hand. The dog slunk toward him, his tail between his legs.

  “Look at that.” Shorty whistled. “That dog ain’t never come to nobody. He’s commonly a standoffish critter. Half wild.”

  Ben put the pup down and stroked the dog’s head. The dog eased closer to him and lifted up his paw to touch Ben’s arm. “How much you want for him and the pup?”

  “You take that dog off’n my hands, I’ll throw in the pup for nothing. I’ll throw in two pups for nothing.”

  Ben thought of Sadie. Why not? Ma might kill him, but two pups couldn’t be much more trouble than one. This other one, the sweet dog looking at him with dark yearning eyes, he didn’t intend to keep. He knew the perfect person for him. Somebody who needed a snake dog while she was traversing all over these hills.

  Could be she’d turn it down. But how could she refuse a dog that appeared to know your every thought? Francine wouldn’t. Her given name slipped right into his thoughts.

  “Has he got a name?” Ben asked.

  “Naw. I jest call him ‘Dog.’”

  The dog shied a little at the man’s voice, almost as if he expected a kick to follow. Ben stood up and the dog scooted around behind him.

  Shorty pulled a length of rope out of the shed and made a loop in it. “You’d better slip this on his neck to keep him from running off.”

  Ben didn’t think he would, but he stroked the dog and murmured to him as he looped the rope over his head. The dog sat down, not bothered at all.

  “So what other pup you want?” the man asked.

  Ben peered through the door of the shed. “That littlest one there.” He pointed.

  “The runt. I figured it’d end up like that ’un there with nobody wantin’ him.” Shorty reached in and grabbed the little pup by the
scruff of the neck. “But here he is.”

  Ben stuffed the littlest pup down inside his shirt and carried the other one. The dog trotted along beside Ben, not even pulling against the rope.

  When they went back around to the front of the house, Woody was waiting beside Captain. That was a relief. Ben hadn’t wanted to leave the horse there. He didn’t trust Shorty not to trade him off.

  “Wow! Is that yours?” Woody’s eyes were big on the truck. They got bigger when he saw the pup and the dog. “And you got dogs too? Two of them?”

  “More like two and half.” Shorty laughed behind Ben. “How you doin’, Woody? Ain’t seen you around for a spell.”

  “Been busy ’round home,” Woody said. “Didn’t have nothing to trade nohow.”

  Ben frowned over at Woody. What could the boy be trading with Shorty? But that wasn’t a question he’d ask in front of the man. Instead, he opened the truck door and fished the runt pup out of his shirt to stick him on the floorboard with the other pup. He snapped his fingers at the dog and he jumped right in. The dog settled on the seat while Ben pushed back the pups to climb in behind the wheel.

  “You know how to drive that, Ben?” Woody asked.

  “I know how to drive it.” Ben slammed the door shut. “You bring Captain.”

  Woody mounted the horse and turned to look in the truck window. “You getting a dog for Becca too?”

  Ben almost smiled. “Becca doesn’t appear interested in pups. Sadie can pick first and you can have what’s left.”

  “The big one’s yours then?” Woody said.

  “Nope. I’ve got somebody else in mind for it.” He looked at the trader. “Thanks for the dogs, Shorty.”

  “I’m obliged to you fer carrying them off. You let me know when the boy here is ready for some wheels.”

  “A horse will have to do him for a while.”

  “Well, I got bridles and sech too. Out in the barn. You name it. Shorty sells it.”

  Ben motioned Woody to get on the road and then shoved the floorboard gearshift into reverse to turn around and follow him. That rascal pup came over under his clutch. He grabbed the dog’s tail and pitched him out of the way. The pup yelped and started scrambling back over the gear shift to get under Ben’s feet again.

  It looked to be a long ride back to the house. With a sigh, he jerked the pup away from his feet and back on the other side. The pup was about to come back again when the older dog put his nose in front of the pup with a low growl. The pup retreated to settle down by the little runt scrunched up against the door.

  “Good dog.” Ben rubbed the dog’s head. The dog sat up straighter in the seat and panted happily. Ben’s imagination might be working overtime, but he thought the dog smiled. For certain, Ben was smiling as he looked back out at the road. “Wonder what she’ll name you.”

  The dog closed his mouth as if considering an answer.

  “Maybe I’ll just tell her your name’s Sarge. How do you like that, Sarge?”

  The dog started panting again. Maybe the name fit. Sarge and Francine. That would bring that smile to her lips Ben liked seeing. Wasn’t anything wrong with liking to see somebody smile.

  He was going to be bringing smiles all around with this truckload of canines. Sadie’s face would light up for certain when she saw the pups. She’d pick the runt. That was just Sadie. Feeling for the lesser thing. The frisky pup would suit Woody best anyway.

  “You think you’ll suit her, Sarge?”

  The dog stuck his head out the window to let the wind brush his fur back. A person didn’t have to be mountain to appreciate a mountain dog. Ben tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and began humming. It took a minute for him to realize what he was humming. That silly song he’d heard her singing with Becca and Sadie. Froggie went a-courting.

  He shook his head. He wasn’t a frog and he wasn’t going courting. He was just giving this dog that needed a home to somebody who needed a dog. Besides, he remembered that song from when his grandmother sang it to him. That courting frog got eaten by a duck.

  22

  Fran straightened up to stare down the row of late beans and wished she hadn’t planted this extra row when she first moved into the center with Betty. The early beans had already been picked then and it had seemed reasonable to replant the row for a fall crop. At the time, it was something of a lark to plant beans. Now it was just one more chore on her long list, and she was tired.

  Nothing in the Frontier Nursing brochure had said a thing about breaking her back picking beans. Or milking cows. Or carrying water from the spring. A nice long hot shower sounded like heaven right then, but the only shower she’d get here was standing out in the rain or pouring a bucket of water over her head.

  A breeze blew against her face, as fresh as the mountain trees it had just swept through. Here and there, a few of those trees were sporting red and yellow leaves. Fall was not just coming anymore. It was here. With winter ready to chase in behind it. Betty warned her of that every day.

  “Just wait until the snow starts falling and you have to break the ice in the water bucket. Then these mountains might not seem so pretty to you,” she’d told her just that morning when they rode their horses through a particularly colorful stretch of trees on the way back from ushering the Tipton baby into the world. A pretty little girl to join her two sisters and three brothers. But everybody—mother, father, and siblings—seemed entranced by the new addition to their family.

  Children were a poor man’s riches. Mrs. Breckinridge had told Fran that when she stopped by to visit the center last week. She’d come to give Fran the details about her trip to Lexington to take her final exam to be a fully qualified midwife. Then she’d talked to Fran about her future with the frontier nurses. It seemed Betty was anxious for an extended vacation to visit her family in New York.

  “You know the people here in this district now,” Mrs. B said. “You could continue their care without the upheaval of them having to get used to a different nurse. Betty tells me you have excellent nursing skills.”

  Fran had been surprised to hear that kind of praise from Betty. But when she thought about it, Betty rarely complained about her nursing abilities. Instead, she harped on Fran being too interested in the mountain culture and continually warned her not to listen to their different ways and superstitious cures.

  Fran had to admit some of the cures went past odd to bizarre. One father insisted the drop of his toddler’s blood on a grain of corn he fed to a black hen had cured the boy’s lingering cough. As long as the mother dosed the child with the medication Fran prescribed, it hardly mattered what the father fed the hen or what color that hen might be.

  The boy being well was what mattered most. As long as the people allowed her to treat them, she could abide their folk cures, agree that some had merit and ignore the ones that didn’t but were harmless. Betty, on the other hand, was ready to lock horns with the people if they mentioned any mountain cure.

  Mrs. Breckinridge had a rule for her nurses not to talk politics, religion, or moonshine. Mountain cures might be added on to that, except as nurses they had to know what doses their patients had tried before they were called in. While it was easy enough to dismiss the black hen cure or putting hair clippings under a rock to keep away headaches, other cures like peppermint tea for an upset stomach had merit.

  Fran would be ready to try that one herself. Or Granny Em’s dogwood bark remedy for heartburn. It seemed to work for Becca. Last week when she and Betty went to the Lockes’, they’d found Becca up in a tree picking apples.

  Betty lectured the girl. “Falling out of trees is not advised for expectant mothers.” Betty had given Becca a stern look. “You do have brothers who can pick those apples for you.”

  “Those boys are never around when you need them, and I’ve got a hankering for one of Ma’s pies.” Becca slid down out of the tree and landed on her feet light as a cat. She flashed Fran a big smile. “Have you seen Ben lately?”

  “Not since t
he last time I was here.” Fran pulled her saddlebag off Jasmine and followed Becca up the porch steps.

  “Yeah. That day we give you the speckled butter beans. Did you like the brown things?”

  “They were good. Thank you.” Fran looked over at Betty as she dismounted. “You remember the purple-speckled beans I cooked for us.”

  “Oh yes. They made a substantial meal with cornbread,” Betty said. “Your mother is kind to share her garden produce with us.”

  “Ma says what’s the use of having a sass patch if a body can’t share the plenty of it. But I weren’t sure Ben actually give you the beans that day.” Becca gave Fran a sideways look. “He seemed a mite perturbed after you rode off. Can’t imagine what his problem was, can you?”

  “You’d have to ask him that, but he did give me the beans.” Fran could feel Betty watching her as they went inside.

  Sadie looked up from helping her mother roll out pie dough with a smile that turned shy when she saw Betty behind Fran.

  In the bedroom, Fran stuck the ends of her stethoscope in her ears and told Becca to take some deep breaths while she listened to her chest. She hoped that would get Becca to switch to talk about the baby and not Ben Locke. Fran was relieved he wasn’t there. At least that was what she told herself, even as her grandmother’s warning slipped through her head that the worst person to lie to was yourself.

  Becca waited until Fran had listened to her heart and was ready to listen for the baby’s heartbeat. “We didn’t know where he’d got off to that day. But then he brung home a horse.”

  “I’m sure that made Woody happy.”

  “Oh, we all were.” She shot Betty a smile. “I reckon if Mary the mother of Jesus could ride a donkey all the way to Bethlehem, there ain’t no reason I can’t ride a horse, is there, Nurse?”

  “If the horse is gentle.” Betty didn’t smile. “And you don’t do something foolish like fall off.”

  Becca cradled her growing abdomen with her hands. “Don’t worry, Nurse. I aim to do ev’rything I can to be a good mother to this little fellow.”