Skip Rock Shallows (23 page)

Tern staggered out of the hole. His legs would barely hold him. He walked stiff-legged to where Billy kept watch.

“Hey, Joe,” Billy said, “how’s Elbows? You don’t need me back there, do you?”

“Maybe for just a little while. I’ve got to walk around; my legs are seizing up.”

Billy blanched. Tern hated to put the boy through this, but he would learn that a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And maybe because of this experience, he’d learn a trade and get as far away from the mines as his feet would take him.

“All right,” Billy said with resignation. “There’s coffee brewing in the pot.”

Outside, Tern grabbed a tin cup from a stack. At one time he would have wondered if it was clean but now he didn’t even pause before he took a swallow. The coffee was thick and tasted of scorch. It would probably eat the lining of his stomach.

The full gold moon looked like a hot air balloon rising over the tip-top of the mountain. The stars were so close, they blurred in silvery streaks. Would Elbows ever see such a beautiful sight again?

From where he stood, he could make out the outline of the aid station set up near a grove of trees. A lantern hanging on a tent pole revealed someone sitting in a chair just outside the tent. The front flap was closed. A pair of crutches leaned against the chair. It had to be Ned Tippen.

Someone had said that Ned and Lilly were cousins. He wondered if she was sleeping safely inside.

God,
he prayed,
please watch over her. Guard her as she sleeps.

Tern spooked himself. He had prayed without thinking it through, as easily as he would tie his shoes or button his shirt. Was it really that simple to talk to God? As if he’d asked an out-loud question, the melody of the song from this evening filled Tern’s soul as though the choir stood right before him.
“We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion—”

Falling to his knees, Tern closed his eyes, raised his arms heavenward, and let the spirit of the Holy Ghost fill him. All of a sudden, it was clear as a mountain stream why he was the one in the hole with Elbows, a man he had nearly despised. It was his chance to make it up to Isa Still. It was his offering of redeeming love to his father, who had died of tuberculosis without as much as a visit from him. God was giving him a second chance. Tern was wrenched inside out.

Lord, show me the way. Give me strength for whatever comes, for I don’t know what the next day holds. Let me be as forgiving to others as You have surely been to me. I pray this in the name of Christ Jesus. Amen.

His strength was restored. With God’s help he could handle whatever came.

Back inside, he approached the now-familiar cavern room that contained the opening to the tunnel. He heard the sound of retching. Man, if Elbows puked, he’d more than likely choke to death. But it wasn’t Elbows; it was Billy tossing his supper.

“I can’t go back in there. Don’t make me go in there.”

The boy had the wild-eyed look of a horse just before he jumps the fence. Tern took hold of his shoulders and shook him. “Go out and find Mr. James. Tell him to send someone else to take your place for a while.”

Nearly collapsing, Billy leaned his head against Tern’s chest. “I wanted to help him, Joe. I tried. I really did.”

Tern patted the boy’s back. He felt like he was burping a giant baby. “Billy, you’ve been great. We never would have made it without you.”

Billy swiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. “Really?”

“You’ve got battle fatigue, son. After you find Mr. James, go down to the first-aid station and get some rest.”

Billy straightened up to his full five foot five. He squared his nearly nonexistent shoulders. “Battle fatigue—that’s what soldiers get.”

“Yep, now go on. The sooner you rest up, the sooner you can come back.”

Tern could hear Elbows snoring without even sticking his head in the tunnel. He was thankful for a minute’s rest. Rummaging through a pile of things sent in by the ladies, he found a tattered quilt and laid it on the floor by the opening. It made a more comfortable seat. He stretched his legs in front of him, clasped his hands behind his head, and leaned against the wall.

He dropped into sleep fast as a fishing sinker plunges beneath the surface of a pond. He dreamed he was a boy again, piled up with his brothers in Grandma’s feather bed. The linens were soft as goose down against his cheek and smelled of summer rain.

“Save me, Lord; save me,” his brother’s voice cried out.

Tern awakened with a start, his heart thumping like a war drum. The house must be on fire. His feet tangled in the quilt. He nearly fell over before he righted himself, taking deep breaths, willing his heart to slow down.

A breakfast plate and a thermos of coffee sat on the ground by the hole in the wall. Billy must have brought it. Tern was ashamed. He had slept while the others worked.

Elbows was calling, his voice barely discernible. Tern strained to make out what he was saying.

“Please, buddy, please—can’t you find it in your heart to help me? I can’t die in here. I ain’t been saved. If I die, I’ll go to hell.”

By the time Tern got inside with the breakfast, Elbows’s pleas had given way to a whimper.

“I’m sorry,” Tern said, edging a collapsible cup, filled to the first rim with coffee, and the straw past Elbows’s beaked nose.

Somehow, Elbows managed to clamp Tern’s hand between his sharply jutting chin and his scrawny neck.

“Okay. All right,” Tern said, gently pulling his hand loose. “I get it. I’ll listen.”

“I ain’t gonna make it, Joe. I cain’t take this no more.”

Tern wanted to deny and placate as he always had. It made dealing with the man’s pain so much easier. Well, easier on himself, anyway.

“Whatever happens, I won’t leave you,” Tern said, resigned.

Elbows sighed. His breaths came out in little puffs, stirring the air like moth’s wings.

Incongruously, a light shone through a small hole in the barrier just beyond where Elbows lay. “Hey, we see the light,” Tern yelled at the top of his lungs.

They heard a jubilant shout from beyond the rubble. “Hold on. A couple more hours at best and we’ll get you out of there!”

Tern shook Elbows’s shoulder gently. “Did you hear? You’re the same as free.”

Elbows took three distinct breaths through his nose, like he was gathering up strength. “Baptize me,” he said.

Tern was flummoxed. Baptize? He couldn’t do that. He had no standing in the church. He didn’t even have water, just a bit of sludgy coffee. “Listen, I’ll get Turnip. He’s a deacon. He’ll know what to do.”

Elbows fell silent.

Tern slid his fingers across his skinny neck to try to feel a heartbeat. He couldn’t find anything but Elbows’s Adam’s apple and he knew not to press on that. That sharp chin clamped down on his hand again and then released. Elbows’s breathing got weird.
Ah
on the inhale,
ha
on the exhale—
ah ha, ah ha, ah ha,
in deep, measured gasps. Was this the death rattle Tern had always heard of? He needed to get someone to help, but how could he leave Elbows alone? If he was truly dying, he might have mere minutes.

Elbows rallied. He took normal breaths. That scared Tern worse than he already had been. Didn’t they always rally right before they died?

“I ain’t been saved, Joe. I’m scared I’ll die unsaved. You got to baptize me.”

“I don’t have water.”

“Use the coffee,” Elbows wheezed. “We’ll pretend like it’s water come from Swampy.”

“Do I just pour it on? Do I fling it around?”

“I always thought I’d be dipped—you know, like John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Do you reckon it’ll take if I ain’t dipped?”

“I reckon God will understand the circumstances,” Tern said.

“And sanctify the water,” Elbows said.

Picks and sledgehammers grated and banged on the far side of the rock fall. It was like Elbows was being baptized in the presence of a chain gang instead of a church choir.

“I don’t know what words to say,” Tern said, trying his best to remember what the preacher had said when he was saved.

“Lord, help me!” Elbows cried.

“Lord, help us,” Tern prayed. “I’m no John the Baptist.”

In the nick of time, Turnip Tippen stuck his head inside their end of the tunnel. “We’re about to punch through, Repp. I’ll need you to holler out when we do so we don’t accidentally disturb the rock that’s holding him in place.”

“Right—okay, but hold on a minute, Turnip,” Tern called over his shoulder. “He wants to be baptized before you go any further.”

“That right, Elbows?” Turnip shouted down the tunnel.

“I want to be saved, Turnip. Can you save me?”

“Only the blood of Jesus can save you, Elbows. Do you believe?”

“I always did; I just been kindly slow to respond.”

Tern lay as flat as he could, so he wouldn’t get in the way of Turnip’s important message.

“You’ve got to confess your sins and repent. You’ve got to mean it, Elbows, or your baptism won’t take.”

“I stole a horse and rode it all the way to Jackson.”

“Did you bring it back?” Turnip asked.

“No, I got drunk and forgot where I left it.” A fit of coughing interrupted his confession. “But I am sorry,” he wheezed and coughed again. “I was sorry the minute I put the saddle on.”

“Take a minute, Elbows, and talk to God.”

While Elbows was mumbling his confession, Tern quietly slid out to speak to Turnip. “You should go in.”

“Won’t fit.” Turnip demonstrated by measuring the width of the opening with his meaty hands. Then he ticked off the four steps on his fingers. “Confess. Believe. Repent. Baptism. He’s done the first three. Do the best you can, Repp. There ain’t a guarantee this thing won’t blow and take us all out any minute.”

Back inside, Tern slid the cup with its third refill of coffee to the middle of Elbows’s narrow forehead. He tipped the cup. “Leroy, I hereby baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Just as the last of the coffee flowed from the cup, the men on the other side of the impediment broke through. “You’re in,” Tern yelled as carbide lamps bathed Elbows with light. Elbows sighed raggedly. His head lolled to one side, like a baby bird with a broken neck. Tern could have left then, saved himself in case of trouble. But he stayed with the man whom God had used to turn his life around. He supposed that’s how it was meant to be.

Lilly started very early on her rounds. To save time and energy, she was driving the donkey. Ned had fashioned a bench for her at the front of the cart. In her white high-collared blouse and her navy-blue skirt, she was sure she was the most fashionable doctor in all of Kentucky. If she didn’t feel so burdened, she would have laughed at herself. She felt for Aunt Alice’s pearls. After she sent Timmy under the clinic to find them, Myrtie had restrung the necklace for her.

Three doors down from the Tippens, she checked on the newborn she’d delivered the night before, glad to see the baby was nursing well and the mother was recovering nicely. She nearly clapped her hands when she arrived at the Tippens’ to find Aunt Orie up in a chair.

“Reckon we can go home now,” Armina said, sliding plump pillows into fresh cases. “I can’t wait to get ever’body in one room again.”

Aunt Orie patted Lilly’s arm as she leaned over her with the blood pressure cuff. “Child, you saved my life.”

“I think we should reserve that honor for Dr. Hamilton,” Lilly said. Guilt sharp as the thorn of a faded rose pricked her conscience. She still hadn’t spoken to Paul, but when had she had the opportunity? Like everyone else in Skip Rock, she went about her duties hurriedly with one eye on the base of the mountain, where Number 4 beckoned ruthlessly.

Last evening, Mr. James had stopped by the first-aid station. He’d drawn a stick figure on the back of a prescription pad showing Lilly what he figured to be the injured man’s position in the mine. He asked Lilly’s opinion on the best way to handle Elbows when they freed him and told her to stand by. They’d have need of her sooner rather than later.

While she made rounds, Ned was manning the station. They’d put a note on the clinic door with an arrow pointing up the road, probably unnecessarily. It was no secret where she was.

“How do you feel about going home?” Lilly asked while noting that Orie had surely lost thirty pounds of fluid. Her lungs were clear. Her blood pressure was high, but that was to be expected. The improvement to her health wouldn’t last, of course. The illness that caused the ascites was ever present, but they’d borrowed a bit of time.

“I’m ready. I want to sit on the front porch with Bubby and Sissy in my lap and watch the goats playing and the chickens pecking around.”

“Them chickens better not come up on my clean porch,” Armina threatened.

“I’m with you, girl,” Tillie Tippen said. “The only thing nastier than a chicken is a goose.”

Lilly put her stethoscope in her doctor’s bag and snapped it shut. She kissed Aunt Orie on her powdery cheek. “You can go home tomorrow. Keep taking your medicine exactly as prescribed.”

“I’ll do it. Thank you, Doc.”

Armina walked Lilly to the door and out into the yard. “I want to tell you something,” she said, rewarding Lilly with a rare guileless smile.

“I’m all ears.”

“I’ve found the one.”

“I’m guessing it’s Ned,” Lilly said, nearly dancing with joy.

“I’m guessing you’re right. He’s got the biggest heart. And that other thing, you hardly notice after a while.”

“Are you in favor of him going to Boston to be fitted for a new prosthesis?”

“I ain’t looking for a man that needs a woman to tell him what to do. That’s a thing for him to decide. I told him I’d be waiting at the depot whenever he gets back.”

Lilly took a chance and hugged Armina. Standing stiff as a poker, Armina didn’t hug her back, but she didn’t step away.

“You couldn’t have found a better man. But don’t be hasty,” Lilly said. “You’re young. There’s plenty of time ahead.”

“Time plays terrible tricks,” Armina said in that straightforward way she had. “Just when you think you’ve caught it in the hollow of your hand, it disappears. I’m gonna be as forthright as a lightning bug and take a chance on now.”

“Am I invited to the wedding?”

Armina’s reply was drowned out by the blast of the whistle. The donkey’s ears turned toward the sound. A tan-and-black hound ran out from under the porch, howling like he’d just treed a possum. Screen doors slammed up and down the road as folks rushed outside. Tillie’s was no exception. All of one mind, they hurried up the road to the mine.

Lilly was at the portal of Number 4 when Elbows was brought out. They’d put him on the stretcher in the position in which he was found, using small canvas sandbags to anchor him as she had requested. He was bent sideways at the waist and one of his legs looked like a rag wrung out and left in the sun to dry. She kept a neutral face as she examined him. She could feel the eyes of his rescuers on her back.

“He’s alive, but barely,” she said. “Could someone show me exactly where the rock that impeded him struck?”

Bob placed a finger lightly just below the base of the spine. “It was just so.”

“What do you need us to do now, Doc?” Mr. James said.

“Send somebody ahead of us to the train station. Have them hold the next train to Lexington.” She touched Elbows’s wrist at the pulse point. “And someone should collect his mother and father. They’ll want to tell him good—” Lilly paused and rephrased. “They’ll want to see him before he leaves.”

“Let’s get him on down to the clinic,” Mr. James said. “It’ll be easier to load him there, and we don’t want his mother to have to come up here.”

Lilly scanned the men for a glimpse of Tern. Surely he would have followed the rescuers out. She took a few seconds straightening the sheet folded over the injured man’s lower body, to wait for Tern. If only she could look into his eyes and say without words,
I love you, only you.

Lilly followed the gurney down toward the clinic. She felt like Lot’s wife, for no matter how hard she tried not to look back, she did. Carelessly, she caught her toe on a rock and nearly tripped. After Mr. James took her elbow to steady her, she kept her eyes on the path ahead.

Everything fell into place in a timely manner. Within the hour, Billy was back from the depot. A train would be waiting. Ned would accompany Elbows. The injured man couldn’t be sent alone.

Grown men holding their caps in their hands wept openly when Elbows’s mother bent over her son and gently stroked his cheek. “Leroy, your mommy loves you,” she said.

The preacher prayed a long, slow prayer over the slim figure on the gurney. Lilly had to press her lips tightly together to keep from hurrying the reverend along. A woman Lilly had never seen before quoted Scripture as the steamy heat of the August sun bore down on the assembly. The woman began to dance in an odd, hop-skip fashion around the perimeter of the group before she fainted dead away. Lilly broke the neck of an ampoule of smelling salts and waved the bulb under the woman’s nose. Her eyes flew open as she gasped and knocked Lilly’s hand away.

Elbows’s father didn’t seem to understand what was happening. “Why are we going to church on a weekday?” he asked his wife. “Is it somebody’s funeral?” Lilly could see his eyes were clouded from cataracts.

“Lee,” Elbows’s mother said. “It’s Leroy. Come give him a kiss.”

“Leroy, you say?” The old man made a kissing noise in the general direction of his son’s face. “He was always a good boy.”

The wagon and team of horses were ready and waiting. Mr. James offered his hand to help Lilly aboard. She took her seat beside him. Ned got in the bed of the wagon with their patient.

Myrtie lifted a full basket covered with snow-white linen up to her husband. “This will tide Ned and Elbows over,” she said to Lilly.

Lilly tucked the hamper beneath her feet. She looked toward the mountain. Where was he? Where was Tern?

“Is everyone safely out?” she asked, afraid the pain in her voice would give her away. She couldn’t ask too many questions without causing suspicion.

Mr. James flicked the reins and the wagon wheels began to roll. “Don’t you worry; we won’t leave nary a soul behind, neither the known nor the unknown.”

His answer gave Lilly pause. Mr. James knew more than he let on. Did his knowing put Tern in even more danger? She didn’t think so. Mr. James was the most trustworthy man she knew, but his answer didn’t satisfy. “How will you know for sure?”

“We’ll count the tally markers. Remember, the men post one on the board in the office and pin the others on their person. If the tally’s not right at day’s end, we know someone was left behind.” He slapped the reins more sharply against the horses’ broad rumps. The wagon picked up speed.

Lilly did remember. She put her trust in the system and her faith in God as a silent prayer formed in her mind.
Please, Lord. Please keep my dear one safe.