Skip Rock Shallows (18 page)

Tern wished he could paddle away too. Instead, he lifted his arms in supplication. “Would you give me a chance to explain myself? Do you remember me with any favor?”

She shook her head as if denying something she didn’t want to hear. “It was all so long ago. I thought I’d put it behind me. Then I came here and the nightmares and strange fears started up again. Now I know why.”

“The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you, Lilly. I should have left here after I saw you that first time in the mine.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He raised his shoulders and let them drop. “I needed to be near you. You hold me in your sway. You wanted to forget the past, but I wanted to live in those memories of you. I’ve loved you for the longest time.”

Two perfect tears spilled from her eyes. He’d have given anything to wipe them away; instead he dared to take a seat beside her on the fallen tree, careful to leave a space between them.

“I had my life all planned,” she said. “And now . . .”

He leaned forward so that he could see her face. “I can’t tell you why I’m in this particular place and working in these mines. But I’ll be finished soon. I promise you I’ll leave then. I’ll go and never bother you again. All I need is to know you’re happy.” He tapped his knee with his fist, willing himself to be strong. “Well, that’s not entirely true, but I’ll make it work. You’ll see.”

She placed her hands on the rough bark of the fallen tree. He thought she was going to rise and walk away from him. He wouldn’t blame her if she did.

“I hope you don’t hate me,” he said.

Lilly gathered her trembling hands in her lap and clasped them tightly. She took a deep breath and held it. Tern could feel the exhale pass his face, soft as a feather in the wind.

“I used to write your name on the covers of my Big Chief paper tablets,” she said. “It drove my mother batty.”

“I never said your name aloud. I didn’t think I deserved to.”

“I’ve often wondered about your family. I prayed no harm would come to any of you—or to your father.”

“Ah, Lilly, how can you be so kind?”

She didn’t answer for a minute, letting a certain peace settle over them. Finally she said, “I remember a boy who was very kind to me. Don’t you remember that boy, Tern?”

He stood and walked to the water’s edge. He couldn’t bear her seeing the tears in his eyes. Selecting a small, flat rock, he skipped it across the surface of the river. It sank halfway home.

She came up beside him. The rock she flung leaped lightly through the water, leaving perfect ring after perfect ring all the way to the far bank.

“Man,” he said, “you always were a challenge.”

They both laughed then, but the laughter held a touch of sadness.

“Why do you use a false name?” she asked. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“I don’t have any right to ask you this, Lilly, but would you trust me? Would you let me be just plain Joe Repp for a little while longer?”

She looked at him so guilelessly, so sweetly. He felt absolved.

“When we were children and I was captive in that little house high up in the trees, you rescued me. I trusted you then with my very life. I guess I can trust you now.”

They stood so close he could have easily pulled her into an embrace. But he held back. He was not going to ask anything of her she wasn’t ready or willing to give. He meant what he’d said—the only thing that mattered to him was her happiness.

The crack of a rifle broke the tenuous connection between them. The first shot was followed by a second and then a third. Faintly, they could hear the warning whistle.

“What could be happening?” Lilly asked. “I thought the mines were closed today.”

“Yeah, they were supposed to be. Listen, you take Apache and ride back. That’ll be quicker for you. Nobody will notice if you leave him tethered in that grove of trees by Mr. James’s office. I’ll fetch him later.”

Tern was right,
Lilly thought as she looped Apache’s reins over a low tree branch as close to the office as she could get without being seen. No one was looking her way. They were all rushing toward the portal of Number 4. The whistle continued to shriek like a banshee.

She saw Ned at the edge of the gathering, rifle in hand. Heat rose to her face. Had he seen her at the shallows and then shot the gun to save her from embarrassment? Well, it mattered little now. Why had the whistle gone off? Who might be inside the mine? She tucked her hair up and smoothed her skirts.

“Ned,” she said, touching his elbow to get his attention. “What has happened?”

“Oh, you’re here. I hoped you’d hear the gun. I didn’t know how far you might have wandered along the river.” The emergency supply kit from the clinic was on the ground at his feet. “We’d better hurry on up there.”

Ned pushed through the crowd. “Give way!” he shouted. “The doc’s here.”

Lilly was relieved to see Mr. James on this side of the portal. He waved her over. Dozens of miners milled around the site. The mine opening belched dust like a smoke signal.

“Somebody’s in there,” Mr. James said. “We don’t know who—nor why. I need you and Ned to stand by.”

He turned back to the men. “Everybody cue up in teams and see if we can figure out who’s missing. Has anybody seen Joe Repp? More’n likely it’s someone from his crew.”

“I’m here, Stanley.”

Lilly’s heart skipped a beat. Her world was upside down, but now was not the time to think about it. Inside the mine a man could be dead or gravely injured.

“Did you send anybody in there, Repp?” Mr. James said.

“No, sir, my guys had the day off like everybody else.”

“I should have never tried to reopen this widow maker,” Mr. James said. “I knew this was likely to happen.”

Lilly watched as several men gathered around Tern. His team, she surmised. “It looked good to go, Mr. James,” one said. “We were being careful.”

Others agreed.

“So who’s missing?” Tern said. “Did we get a count?”

“It’s Elbows,” a guy said. “He’s the onliest one not accounted for.”

Lilly went to the clinic to wait for Mr. James’s directions. It could be hours yet, or it could be days before they knew if anyone was indeed trapped inside the mine. And Lilly had other patients to care for in the meanwhile.

Aunt Orie was sitting up in bed, eating scrambled eggs, when Lilly checked on her. Armina was washing windows.

“Did Dr. Hamilton get off okay?” Orie asked. “I feel I owe that man my life.”

“His train pulled out right on time,” Lilly said, searching for a way to change the subject. She wasn’t ready to think about Paul. “Where are the babies?”

“Mrs. James insisted on keeping them at her house,” Armina said. “I told her it was too much on her, but she wouldn’t hear of me packing them away.” She doused her rag in soapy water and rubbed at a fly speck. “Poor woman, now she’s got them two plus that dog you drug in.”

Gracious,
Lilly thought,
don’t spare my feelings.
“Mr. James is taken with Cleve. I’m sure he’s not too much trouble.”

“I’m just saying your timing was a little off.”

Lilly left Armina to her scrubbing and Aunt Orie to her eggs. In the front room, she pulled out her desk chair and sat down. Armina had hit the nail on the head. Her timing was off—way off. But what she had felt with Tern this morning was like nothing she had ever felt before.

She looked at the ring on her finger, thinking of the life she and Paul had so carefully planned. It had been her desire to work in a big city hospital. Her hope had been to practice for a few years until they had children. And even then, Paul had said, they’d get a nanny and Lilly could do research, another strong desire.

Something irritated her neck. She swatted an ant to the floor, then unclasped her necklace, feeling around for another bug. She stretched the cream-colored pearls across the desktop, bumping her finger slowly over each small hump. The life she was supposed to lead was like that string of graduated pearls—each step leading to the next in an orderly fashion. There was much comfort in the thought.

She took a square of soft flannel from a desk drawer and began to polish her pearls. If only she could find a quiet place to think, but outside her door the warning whistle blasted off and on, and inside Armina clanked the bucket. Lilly lingered at the center pearl. Then, as if she’d snapped it on purpose, the necklace broke. Pearls bounced like hailstones across the floor.

Lilly gasped and fell to her knees, gathering precious beads one at a time. Dismayed, she watched as two pearls rolled like marbles across the slanted floor, pinging off chair legs and the wastebasket before disappearing down a knothole by the baseboard. Scrabbling to the corner, she stuck her fingers into the hole. If a mouse bit her, she would wring its neck. But no use; she couldn’t find the pearls.

She laid the ones she did find in a line across the desk, searching for the most important and largest pearl. It was missing, but at least she still had the silver clasp.

She slumped back in her chair. Aunt Alice had been so pleased the day she presented that string to Lilly. They’d climbed the stairs at her aunt’s house in Lexington together. Lilly had followed Aunt Alice into her bedroom and watched as she lifted the heavy, velvet-lined jewelry casket from its place of honor on the polished cherry dresser.

“Now sit,” Aunt Alice said, indicating the bench in front of the mirror. She swept Lilly’s hair away from her shoulders and fastened the lovely gift around her neck. Lilly remembered the reflection of her aunt’s face, proud and happy, in the looking glass.

She would be so disappointed if Lilly didn’t go to Boston.

Lilly’s mind was awhirl with competing emotions. How could one moment change her life so completely? Were years of study all for naught? Yes, she could practice anywhere, but it seemed God had led her here to Skip Rock. And it seemed He meant for her to stay despite her well-laid plans. Medicine practiced here would be rudimentary at best, just like Paul had pointed out. And what of Paul? He wouldn’t leave Boston even for her, but her feelings for Tern had cheapened all they had meant to each other. She had been sure Paul was exactly what she wanted in a husband.

She gathered the pearls, the clasp, and the broken string and put them in an envelope. When things had settled down, she’d get someone to search under the building for the missing pieces. Aunt Alice could have them restrung.

With a tug, she removed the engagement ring from her finger and added it to the envelope. It was a family heirloom. She would return it via Ned when he went to Boston for his treatment. Lilly knew he would go just as she knew Paul would treat him with courtesy. Paul was nothing if not a gentleman and a man of his word.

Lilly’s emotions flipped like a fish on the line. Someone was going to get hurt—Paul for sure and more than likely Lilly herself. How could she do this to the man who loved and trusted her? The moments with Tern had seemed so right, but she still couldn’t believe she had put herself in such an awkward position. If she’d learned anything in medical school, it was the danger of letting emotion overrule common sense. She needed to see him again, but she needed to be careful—careful of his feelings and of her own.

Opening the desk drawer, she laid the jewelry-laden envelope inside, then closed the drawer with a decisive slam. “I can only hope Paul will forgive me,” she said.

“Are you talking to me?” Armina asked, coming from the back room and whipping a feather duster around the corners of the ceiling. “When can Aunt Orie go home?”

“Before he left this morning, Dr. Hamilton left instructions to watch her for the rest of the week.” Lilly rattled round white pills in an amber-colored bottle. “We’ll start her on these diuretics this evening and see what happens.”

“Dyer-whats?”

“They’ll help her lose some fluid—keep her busy . . . and you too, Armina.”

“Well, that’s all right. I like busy.”

Lilly went to the door and looked out toward the mines. “I’m going to walk up and see what’s going on. Surely they know something by now. I don’t know whether to wear my overalls or not.”

“Put them on. If ye don’t, you’ll need them certain sure.”

Myrtie James and one of the church ladies came walking in, arms full of food and babies and the puppy. Bubby and Sissy clambered over everything. The puppy, a red bandanna around his neck, sniffed and knocked over a wicker basket full of papers. It was a welcome diversion.

“Have you heard anything?” Myrtie asked. “We’ve been having a prayer session—praying God’s mercy over whoever’s trapped in there.”

“I’m just going to walk over. Do you want to come along?”

“Go on, Myrtie,” the other lady said. “We’ll be fine here.”

Lilly saw Armina start to puff up with righteous indignation at the very thought she needed help. Lilly caught her eye and Armina backed down. “Yes,” she said, “you all go along. We’ll find something to keep us busy.”

Many more folks had gathered at the mine’s opening. A stocky gray mule pulled a cart loaded with supplies up the road.

Mr. James approached. “It’s Elbows. He’s in a pickle for sure.”

Myrtie put her hand over her heart. “Don’t give up hope, Stanley. God is in the miracle-making business.”

The sun beat down. Mud puddles, lingering since the storm, steamed like watched pots in the rutted road. Dust drifted by in sheets of grit. The jarring sound of pickaxes and shovels waging war against the fallen rock just inside the portal grated like fingernails across a blackboard. On the sidelines, under the trees, women murmured and children played.

“You ain’t going in this time, are you, Stanley?” Myrtie’s face pursed with anxiety.

Lilly was touched when she saw Mr. James squeeze his wife’s arm. She rarely witnessed overt expressions of affection between the two.

“Go on back to the house now, Myrtie. Bake me up a chocolate pie for supper.”

“He’s always like that,” Myrtie said, watching her husband’s retreating back. “But I always worry just the same.”

Lilly understood. She didn’t want to think of Tern being in there either. It didn’t help that she had been back in the dungeon during a cave-in herself. The miners were truly brave to face such peril each working day.

“The worst I ever heard tell,” Myrtie was saying, “happened over to Lynch. One poor widow woman lost ever one of her sons in one day. Can you imagine six coffins in a line and each one holding a piece of your heart? She surely felt as bad as Job’s wife that day.”

“No, I can’t imagine such sorrow,” Lilly said.

Lilly could tell Myrtie was twisting her hands under cover of her apron. “I don’t know what’s kept Stanley alive. He’s always the first one called on. I pray the Lord will keep him safely in the palm of His almighty hand.”

“You should go roll out a piecrust, Myrtie. It will be suppertime before you know it.”

“Yes, you watch. Long about three o’clock you’ll see the women yonder start to fade away. They’ll head home to start supper, and if their men don’t come home to eat, they’ll bring vittles over here.”

“The waiting is a hard thing for the families,” Lilly said.

“A rescue squad will have to go in there. That’s several more men in danger. One roof fall often leads to another.” Myrtie rolled her arms in the apron like a window shade. “That Repp fellow will go first—it’s his outfit, Stanley said. He’ll check the forewarning bird to see if the air is poisoned. If it ain’t, then they can go ahead clearing the way. You know what I hope?”

“What, Myrtie?”

“I hope he ain’t stuck so bad they can’t get to him, and if he is, I hope he’s already dead.”

Lilly put her hand to her heart. What a terrible wish.

“Why don’t you stop by the clinic on your way and see if Armina will let you take the children with you?”

“I will do just that,” Myrtie said, brightening. “I’ve got to fetch Cleve anyway. You made Stanley’s day with that dog.”

“I’m glad you didn’t mind, Myrtie. I should have asked permission first.”

After a while of waiting on the sidelines with the other women, Lilly checked the watch pinned by a fob to the bib of the overalls Myrtie James had tailored to fit her. Two o’clock. If she had an apron to hide under, she would have wrung her hands as Myrtie did.

As time dragged by with no news, tension sparked like live wires from person to person. Rumors flew about like frightened doves. One person whispered that thirty men were trapped inside, that the company was keeping it quiet. Another said it was a trysting couple caught unawares as the roof caved in upon their love nest.

Lilly had to shake her head at the last one. As far as she was concerned, the least romantic place on earth had to be the inside of a mine. And as for thirty men, she knew better, but she kept her own counsel.

Finally Ned came for her. “Mr. James is asking for you.”

A hush fell over the crowd. Everyone listened intently; even the children ceased their games.

“Who’s going in, do you know, Ned?” Tillie Tippen asked. “Have you seen your uncle Turnip?”

“Sorry, Aunt Tillie,” Ned said. “I ain’t at liberty to say the crew that’s scouting inside.”

Ned escorted Lilly to the site. Her mouth was dry as the grit that blew around their heads, and her stomach clinched painfully.

“Doc,” Mr. James said, “the men are in. It might be an hour; it might be three days. You should go and wait it out at the clinic. I’ll send Ned for you when the need is nigh.”

Lilly acquiesced, although it would be harder to wait away from the scene. At least here she had a sense of being useful. Was Tern inside? Words formed into complete sentences on the tip of her tongue only to be discarded unspoken. She couldn’t ask without raising suspicion, and he had begged her trust. Of course he was inside. The man, Elbows, was part of his crew.

With a nod, Mr. James walked away. It hurt Lilly to see how his shoulders slumped under the weight of the day.

She rested her hand in the crook of Ned’s elbow. “Let’s wait a little while, Ned. I can’t bear to leave just yet.”

They moved out of the way, and Lilly sat on the tailgate of an empty wagon. Ned stood alongside.

A short stump of a man carrying a slatted-wood birdcage approached Mr. James. Lilly couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she saw Mr. James take the cage.

“He’s brought a new bird,” Ned said.

Lilly’s heart thumped. “But that must mean the air is poisoned; else why replace the other one?”

“Dust has probably got to him,” Ned said. “Are you thirsty? I’m going to fetch some water.”

“Yes, I could do with a drink.” She was thirsty and maybe hungry. It was hard to pinpoint what she was feeling. And it was becoming increasingly hard to retain a professional detachment from the chaos that surrounded her. Of course, she cared about all the miners and their families, but it was fear for Tern that made her palms sweat and her stomach hurt. She might as well admit it, if only to herself.