Skip Rock Shallows (21 page)

Day two of Elbows’s entrapment and Lilly was still shut out. She stood on the Jameses’ porch with her hands on her hips, looking toward the mine. This was exactly why it wouldn’t work out for her to practice in Skip Rock. She’d been here for weeks and thought she had allayed at least some of the prejudice she faced when she first came, but it seemed not as far as most of the miners went.

Oh, the people liked her. She was welcome in nearly every home, and at church all she saw was smiling faces. But this was a coal camp and she was its doctor. She wasn’t here just to deliver babies and untangle boys from cow rumps.

“Come in and eat,” Myrtie said from behind the screen door.

“Were you up all night, Myrtie?” Lilly asked, cutting into her eggs and sausages.

“No, I slept a little. A body can’t hardly rest thinking about what’s going on up there. I started a fire about four o’clock so’s I could get a hamper of food fixed to send to Stanley.”

“Who took it for you?”

“The neighbor’s boy; he was going anyway. Everybody’s being real nice through all this—first the storm and now that poor man.” She fed Sissy a bit of egg-soaked biscuit. Bubby was in a high chair, his face smeared with oatmeal. He dropped a piece of biscuit off the tray of his chair and laughed when the pup pounced on it.

“Do you want me to start some corn bread, Miz Myrtie?” Armina asked from the cookstove.

“Might as well while the stove’s hot.” Myrtie turned to Lilly. “That’s the hardest-working girl I ever did see. I think she’s practicing setting up housekeeping with some handsome young fellow.”

A blush colored Armina’s cheeks as she greased the bottom of a heavy twelve-inch cast-iron skillet. She was changing right before Lilly’s eyes, becoming a softer version of her hard-as-a-pine-knot self. Some good was coming from Aunt Orie’s illness.

“Do ye reckon your aunt would want to come over here today?” Myrtie asked. “You’ve been running your legs off taking care of everybody.”

“She’s doing all right,” Armina said, stirring buttermilk into a corn meal mixture. “Miz Tippen says taking care of Aunt Orie is keeping her from going crazy with worry over her husband.”

Myrtie wiped Bubby’s hands and face with a wet rag. “I understand that. I feel the same way about these two babies.”

“I’m kindly glad Ned ain’t able to go inside where the trapped man is,” Armina said.

Myrtie gave Lilly a told-you-so look.

“When were you going to tell me you and Ned are an item?” Lilly asked mischievously.

“Humph, I figured you could tell by looking, you being a doctor and all.” Armina opened the oven door using her apron as a potholder. She slid the skillet into the oven and shut the door with a soft bang.

Lilly had overstepped Armina’s mercurial bounds. She wondered how hard she would have closed the door if it had been her own oven.

The dog stood on his hind feet, stretching up on the high chair. Bubby banged Cleve on the head with his spoon.

Lilly stacked her plate and silverware before walking to the door.

“What do you reckon is going on over there?” Myrtie said, coming up behind her.

“I don’t know. I keep thinking there’s more I could be doing, though.”

“Old Doc used to take his tent up yonder whenever there was an incident in the mines.” Myrtie made a vague motion toward the mountain. “That way the men didn’t have to come all the way down here if they needed aid.”

“Why did no one tell me that?” Lilly said.

“I seen that tent in the back room when I was looking for them straws,” Armina said. “It’s mildewed.”

“There’s nothing stopping me from doing the same thing,” Lilly said. “It makes perfect sense. Armina, I’ll need your help.”

“Soon as that corn bread’s done, I’ll pass the word,” Myrtie said. “See if I can’t get some extra hands. Tillie will watch the young’uns.”

Armina went ahead to the clinic. Lilly stopped to check on Aunt Orie and on Mrs. Poor, the woman who had broken her arm during the storm. Aunt Orie was so much better; Lilly hardly recognized her without her puffy face. Mrs. Poor was staying with her in-laws. Lilly checked her cast and taught her mother-in-law how to adjust the sling around her neck. Stopping by the livery, she rented her sweet friend Slow Poke for the day. The donkey nuzzled her pocket for the sugar cubes she’d brought for a treat.

Armina had the tent canvas spread out in the sunshine when Lilly arrived. Several women were attacking it with brushes and brooms. The smell of borax wafted on soap bubbles around Lilly’s head. Within the hour more women showed up, along with any child old enough to walk. If the reason for using the tent hadn’t been so dire, it would have been an enjoyable event.

They loaded the tent and poles, the medical supplies, quilts and blankets, folding chairs, hammocks, orange crates, and other various items into the cart.

One little boy pulled on Lilly’s skirt. “I want to pack something,” he said. Lilly gave him the rescued canary in its cage. He clutched the wire handle to his chest importantly. Every time he took a step, the cage banged against his knees.

Timmy Blair fell in beside the boy. “Let me help,” he said, taking one part of the handle. “Boy, was I glad preacher called off Bible school today. Seems to me, church once a week is aplenty. That hard bench makes my backside tired when preacher gets to telling it like it is.”

“Timothy Blair,” his mother admonished.

“Well, you said always tell the truth,” he replied. “’Sides, the Bible says faith without works is dead.” He lifted the cage high, causing the smaller boy to stand on the tips of his toes. “This here is works.”

A smile chased a frown from Timmy’s mother’s face as she nodded in agreement.

“Well, I didn’t like it,” his sister said emphatically. “I love Bible school and we only have it once a year. Besides, I didn’t get to say my memory verse.”

“You can recite it for me, Jenny,” Lilly said. “I’d love to hear it.”

Jenny straightened her pigtails until each hung precisely over her shoulders. “It’s a good one.”

“Jenny—”

“Sorry, Mother,” Jenny said.

“She’s taken to calling me
Mother
,” Mrs. Blair said.

“Spit it out, Sis,” Timmy teased.

“‘Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.’ Don’t you just love the sound of that verse, Doc?” Jenny swung her shoulders in a satisfied way. “We’re studying Joel.”

“My favorite verse from Joel is where the bugs eat the worms,” Timmy said as he shifted his hand on the wire handle.

“Nobody in their right mind cares about worms,” Jenny said.

“You two, hush now,” Mrs. Blair said with a sigh.

Lilly thought Joel might be the appropriate book for Skip Rock at the moment, considering what was taking place inside the mountain.

It was quite the parade going up the road. Lilly led Slow Poke with the cart of supplies. A dozen ladies with assorted children and the usual entourage of dogs followed the cart.

The excited carnival atmosphere of the first night was replaced with grim resignation. None of the women thought the trapped miner would be brought out alive. They feared for the safety of the men who risked their lives trying to save the one. From what Lilly had learned, his mother and father were old and frail, unable to come to the site. The preacher had gone to the house to inform them of the accident. Lilly decided to visit with them as soon as she had the opportunity. The shock of hearing their son was in such terrible straits could affect their health.

They pitched the large tent on a broad terrace. In front of the tent, a long, flat rock served as a porch. The tent flap was lifted on poles and anchored just beyond the rock stoop, where a huge sugar maple spread a welcome shade. A natural spring burbled out of the ground a few dozen feet away. Just past the clearing, a grove of sturdy trees would provide a perfect place to string the hammocks.

Before they began to assemble the rest of the supplies, the women and children clasped hands and formed a prayer circle. Myrtie James led them in asking God to sanctify the area.

For Lilly it was an amazing experience. She felt sister-bound to each woman there and very grateful for their help.

“What are we gonna do with these?” Timmy asked, toeing one of the orange crates.

“We’ll use them like cabinets,” Lilly said. “They’ll keep things off the ground.”

Timmy carried two of them inside the tent. He stacked one on top of the other; then, unhappy with his design, he put them side by side. “I’ve an idea,” he said and tore outside.

“That boy always has as idea,” Mrs. Blair said. “I hope that head full of schemes gets him a job as far away from these mines as can possibly be.”

“Doc?”

Lilly heard the inquiry from outside the tent. She stepped through the opening to find a man with a deep cut on his upper arm. Blood dripped like raindrops onto the rock porch. “Can you fix this so I can get back to work?”

Her heart leaped with gratitude. She wasn’t even finished setting up and already she had a patient.

“You’re going to need stitches,” she said, pressing a wad of gauze to the wound to stanch the bleeding.

“Have at it,” he said.

“Armina, would you bring a chair, please?”

“I don’t need a chair,” the man said.

Lilly knew he didn’t want to appear weak in front of her. Sometimes a man’s strength was all he had. “I know, but it will make it easier for me.”

He took a seat on the chair Armina shoved behind his knees and stretched his arm atop another upended orange crate. Lilly filled a syringe with a weak solution of one part carbolic acid to sixty parts water, flushed the cut, aligned the separated flesh, and inserted a suture needle. With looping stitches she closed the wound and finished by forming a knot. After dressing the area with strips of lint covered with eucalyptus salve and rolled gauze, she pulled his shirtsleeve down and buttoned the cuff.

“I thank you,” he said.

“You shouldn’t be swinging a pick or lifting anything heavy until this heals.”

“My hurt is small compared to the plight of the man in there.”

“I appreciate that, but you won’t be of use if you pop those stitches.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll find something else that needs doing,” he said.

The women had gathered around, listening. “Can you give us any news?” Myrtie asked.

The man held his miner’s cap in his blood- and coal-stained hands. Lilly wished she could wash them for him. At the moment, he represented every man who had gone down the mines to provide lumps of black gold for the comfort of others. She wished she could wash his feet to show him how humbled she was in his presence.

“They was another collapse,” he said.

One of the women gasped. Others murmured fearfully.

“It wasn’t in the mine proper,” he hastened to add. “It was inside the narrow tunnel, but it set us back considerably.”

Tension drained from the women like dirty bathwater from a tub. Lilly had to admit she felt the same. It was unbearable to think she might lose Tern before she’d really found him. No matter the situation, the burden was easier to bear if it didn’t involve someone close to you—human nature, she supposed.

“Poor Elbows,” she heard one lady comment.

“Yes, poor fellow,” another replied.

After thanking Lilly again, the miner turned to leave.

“Let the others know I’m here,” she said.

“Oh, they know,” he said.

“You done a good job, honey,” one of the ladies said as Lilly put her supplies away.

Honey.
Lilly liked the endearment. She was plying her trade but also becoming one with the women. She felt a deep sense of satisfaction.

“Come and see, Miss Doctor,” Timmy said, his eyes beaming.

“Timmy, that’s very clever,” Lilly said when she saw how the boy had placed a thin board across two orange crates to make a rickety ledge. His sister Jenny was setting up shop on the shelf. “I hope you asked permission to take the board.”

“Yes’m, I did. I minded my manners.”

“That would be the first time,” Jenny said.

“Timmy, would you open the tent flaps on the side walls?” Lilly said. “It’s heating up in here.

Women came and went all afternoon, setting up housekeeping and having a grand time doing it. Staying busy and being close to their menfolk lifted their spirits. Every so often, Ned came by with news of the rescue effort. No one could believe Elbows was still trapped. It didn’t stand to reason.

Mrs. DeWitt had followed Lilly’s lead and moved her canteen within easy walking distance of the first-aid station. She and her hired girl had prepared enough food to feed Coxey’s army.

By suppertime, when the last of the women and children had departed for home, the station was complete, and Lilly had treated three more men, including Bob, who was resting in a hammock while Lilly watched him for signs of a concussion. A good-size rock had fallen from the ceiling, striking him on the back of his head and knocking him unconscious. Thankfully, he was alert now and could track the movement of her index finger with his eyes.

Lilly was satisfied with the day’s work. Taking on this task had brought the women together in a way Lilly had not seen before. She walked the perimeter of the terrace, stopping to admire someone’s ingenuity. A chicken coop was nailed to a tree. Through the slats of the coop, she could see a quart jar holding wildflowers. Only a woman would do this. It painted a pretty picture and gave the temporary station a touch of home.

Mrs. James had also thought to send Lilly’s traveling desk to the site. Lilly retrieved her Bible from the case and took it outside. She’d sit in one of the folding chairs to read. Her mind looped with emotion like a length of yarn unless she disciplined her thoughts. Thumbing through the Good Book would help her to do that. It never failed to soothe.

The Bible opened on the marker she’d placed in Job on the night of the storm. “Thine own right hand can save thee.” What could the verse mean? What was God revealing to her?

From where she sat, she could see some men queuing up for a late supper at the canteen. They were weary but not beaten by the mountain that savagely embraced one of their own. The last one in line was the man whose arm she’d stitched that afternoon. She saw him nudge the man in front of him and that one nudge another until all the men in line turned and tipped their miner’s caps to her.