Huckleberry Hill (19 page)

“Then you had better stay for dinner.”

It might as well have been the best day of Colleen’s life. She clapped her hands and threw her arms around Anna. “We would be delighted.”

David stepped closer to Moses and took a look at his leg.

“Can you do anything else for him that I haven’t thought of?” Lia said.

David studied the injury for a few seconds. “No, but he has nice teeth.”

“Are you a doctor?” Moses asked breathlessly.

Lia bit her bottom lip. Moses must be suffering terribly. She found his pain unbearable.

“Only about ten more minutes,” Lia said, readjusting the half-melted bag of ice sitting below Moses’s knee.

Moses lifted his head and gasped in pain before sinking back to the pillow. “What happened to your arm?”

Lia shoved her injured arm behind her back. Moses didn’t need one more thing to burden him. “It’s nothing.”

“She needs stitches,” David said.

Moses frowned and furrowed his brow. “Did you fall?”

“You know how clumsy I am.”

“You are not clumsy.”

David nodded in agreement. “Tall girls are so graceful. And you have those beautiful, long fingers. One of my sons has long fingers like that. He plays the piano.”

Moses grinned at Lia until she averted her eyes. Why, lying flat on his back, could he make her feel so giddy and shy?

“I keep telling her that, but she won’t believe me,” Moses said. He held out his hand, gesturing for her to come closer. She extended her wounded arm and let Moses take her hand. His fingers were ice cold, but warmth traveled up her arm at his touch. He turned her hand over in his palm so he could see her cut and pulled her closer so she had to kneel down next to him. “This looks almost as sore as my leg.”

“I’ve had worse.”

He turned her hand over again. The ugly, mottled scar covered the entire back of her hand. “I can see you have.”

Feeling as if someone had stolen her breath, she pulled away from his grasp, stood, and turned her back on him under the pretense of talking to Anna. She didn’t want him to see the hurt in her eyes. He hadn’t meant to humiliate her.

“Anna,” Lia said, unable to keep her voice from cracking, “where is Felty?”

Anna flicked a piece of hay from her sleeve. “Oh, he’s off trying to save the rattlesnake population of Wisconsin. Only through the good Lord’s intervention will he come back unharmed.”

Lia could not make heads or tails of this comment. Felty’s location was a mystery.

They heard the police car coming from the main road with its siren blaring. The noise got louder as it came up the lane.

“I think he can turn his siren off now,” Moses mumbled.

Lia ran out to meet the policeman, who turned out to be the sheriff who’d taken Saloma Miller to the hospital on Tuesday. He parked next to the formidable motor home and popped out of his car. “This isn’t another baby emergency, is it?”

Lia pointed inside the barn. “Moses has broken his leg. The bone is sticking through the skin. I am afraid he has lost a lot of blood.”

“Nasty,” said the sheriff. “You’ve seen a lot of blood this week.”

“Too much.”

“The ambulance should be right behind me. Let’s have a look.” He let Lia lead him to the barn. “How did things turn out with the pregnant lady? She could barely lift her head when we got her to the hospital, but she was alive. I heard she made it okay, but I didn’t know about the baby.”

“He is small, probably another three weeks in the hospital, but they are both well enough, thanks to you.”

The sheriff turned a dark shade of pink and hooked his thumbs into his belt. “Thanks to that midwife. She was very insistent. But I did get them there fast. Twelve minutes. A new record.”

The ambulance announced its approach before the sheriff had a chance to look at Moses. The bright white truck came into sight, spitting up dust and gravel as it raced up the hill.

Anna, Colleen, and David emerged from the barn, leaving Moses to fend for himself. Even Rachel made an appearance on the porch. She didn’t venture any closer to the gruesome sight in the barn, but she did telegraph her concern by blowing her nose loudly into her handkerchief.

Lia hurried into the barn and knelt beside Moses. “They’re here. Hopefully they can give you something for the pain.”

“At the moment, I’m sort of numb.”

Two paramedics rushed into the barn. Lia got out of their way. One carried a bulky plastic box and the other carried a black plastic board with Velcro straps. Probably a device to stabilize Moses’s leg before they moved him. One man opened the box, which held an impressive array of medical supplies, and each man snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. One paramedic asked Moses questions while shining a penlight into his eyes while the other recorded Moses’s pulse and took his blood pressure.

Anxious for Moses, Lia watched the beehive of activity. The paramedics spoke over their radio in some sort of code that Lia could not begin to understand. With the sheriff’s assistance, they had an IV in Moses’s arm, his leg covered with gauze and strapped to the board, and Moses on a stretcher in a matter of minutes.

Lia felt helpless to comfort Moses as his face grew paler with each tug or bump he endured. For a moment she thought he had lost consciousness until he opened his eyes and stopped them from wheeling him out to the ambulance. “Lia must come with us. She needs stitches in her arm.”

The short paramedic hesitated and turned to Lia. Reluctantly, she lifted her arm so he could see the gash. “Okay. You can ride with us.” His bright eyes shone with compassion. “Two for the price of one.”

Once they wheeled him out of the barn, Moses winced as the stretcher bounced along the dirt to the waiting ambulance. Lia caught up to him and grabbed his hand.

“I’m a big baby,” he said, panting and grimacing all the way.

Lia raised her eyebrows. “You should be bawling your eyes out. I saw the leg.”

“Oh, Moses!” Rachel called from the porch, before bursting into tears and ducking into the house.

Moses actually laughed. “Rachel can do my bawling for me. I am grateful she found me. If not for her, I’d still be lying in the barn yelling my lungs out.”

Lia didn’t welcome the pang of jealousy that attacked her. Of course Moses thought of Rachel at a time like this.

As Lia waited with Anna and the Tolleys, Felty, without a hat, trudged out of the woods using a rake as a walking stick and singing at the top of his lungs.
“Life is like a mountain railroad, and the snakes are crawling ’round.”
He waved at Anna and watched as the paramedics lifted Moses into the ambulance.

The corners of Anna’s mouth curled upward. “Well, he made it back alive.” Felty spread his arms wide, and Anna stepped into his embrace. “I sure hope that snake appreciates what you done for it.”

“It would have been a shame to kill such a handsome creature.”

“Where’s your hat?”

Felty arched his eyebrows in surprise and touched the top of his head. “Of all the crazy things, I lost my hat.” He shrugged his shoulders. “How’s Moses?”

“He should be all right, Lord willing. Lia is going with him to the hospital.”

David stepped forward and stuck out his hand. “I’m David Tolley, and this is my wife, Colleen.”

“Is this your contraption?” Felty asked, pointing to the motor home looming over his front yard.

“Yeah, we’ve driven this clear across the country.”

Anna patted Lia on the cheek. “Take care of Moses, and take care of yourself. I don’t want to see infection in that cut.”

Lia nodded and let one of the paramedics help her into the back of the ambulance. She watched Felty as he chatted with David Tolley. It appeared he would not worry himself to death over Moses.

Before they swung the ambulance doors closed, Lia saw Felty’s gaze roam over the motor home, and he smiled as if Anna had just given him a big kiss. “Utah! I don’t have a Utah.” The doors closed as he pulled his small notebook out of his pocket and cheerfully jotted his new discovery on the page.

 

 

Lia sat facing Moses as the ambulance backed up, found a place to turn around, and headed down the hill. She could tell that Moses fought to keep his eyes open. They must have given him something for the pain that made him drowsy.

With slow, deliberate movements, Moses found her hand and pressed it gently in his. Even though she didn’t pull away, she wished he wouldn’t do that. He was only looking for comfort, but to Lia, the touch of his hand meant much more. She savored his warmth even as she chastised herself for letting the feel of his hand upset her so.

He gave her a groggy smile and stroked his thumb across the lumpy back of her hand. “How did you get this burn?” She tried to pull away, but this time Moses held tight and wouldn’t let her. “I’ve sensed you’re self-conscious about it and I don’t want to embarrass you, but I’ve been wanting to ask about it for a long time. It looks like it must have been very traumatic.”

“Oh, yes, you don’t have to remind me how hideous it is.”

He opened his eyes wide enough to appear fully awake. “Hideous? I don’t think it looks hideous. It makes you look tough, like you’ve been through something really hard and come out unscathed.”

Lia laughed mirthlessly. “Unscathed.”

“I’m sorry you got burned like that. It must have been very painful.”

Lia looked down at her hand in his. “I was ten. My brother, Perry, and I were horsing around near the water heater. I fell against the kettle.” Lia flinched as she remembered the searing agony. “They gave me a skin graft. And then I had to wear this funny glove for a year to help the skin grow back smooth. But it didn’t. Then I started growing. By the time I reached fourteen, I was as tall as I am now.” That was about the time Dat shifted all his attention to Rachel because he’d almost lost her. Rachel wanted for nothing, while Lia’s charge was to watch out for her delicate younger sister. If Rachel didn’t know how to roll out a piecrust, it was Lia’s fault for neglecting to teach her. If Rachel felt unhappy, Dat blamed Rachel’s discontent on Lia.

“I like tall girls,” he said, letting his eyes close, as if he were unable to keep them open for one more second.

He might like tall girls, but he wouldn’t marry one.

Lia held her breath as a wave of pain washed over her. She loved Moses Zimmerman. She loved his kindness and his cheerful spirit, and yes, even though appearance shouldn’t matter, his handsome face and tall, strong figure. She couldn’t imagine ever wanting anyone but Moses. No one else would measure up—literally.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t want to marry her or that he favored her sister or even that Lia was too plain to dream of such a match. She loved him. Her heart broke even as she realized how completely it belonged to him.

She clenched her teeth and took a deep breath, but it was no use. The tears escaped from her eyes like a wall of water from a broken dam, impossible to hold back. In hopes that Moses would be too wrapped up in his own pain to notice, she smeared the tears off her face with her free hand.

He squeezed her fingers and spoke with slurred consonants. “I’m so sorry. Is the pain very bad?”

The empty space in her chest ached with longing. “What?”

“Does your arm hurt? It looks really sore.”

He’d just given her an excuse for the crying. “Jah, it is really starting to hurt now.”

He lifted her hand so he could see the cut. “We should have sent Rachel.”

Jah. Rachel wouldn’t have tripped over her short legs running recklessly down the hill. Graceful Rachel would have been able to stay on her feet. The tears came full force, and Lia clapped her free hand over her mouth to keep a sob from escaping her lips.

Moses inclined his head to the paramedic sitting behind Lia. “Can you give her something for the pain?”

“It’s better to wait till we get there. Only ten minutes.”

Moses frowned, his gaze riveted to Lia’s face, and looked as if he were about to argue. Lia sniffled and dabbed her handkerchief over her face. “I’m all right.”

Moses looked into her face until he must have been satisfied, then closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him.

But she wasn’t all right. Being near Moses would be pure torture, watching him fall further in love with her sister, knowing what she had lost.

Squaring her shoulders, Lia closed her eyes to block out the sight of Moses Zimmerman and set to building an iron box around her heart.

Chapter Sixteen

The haze of the painkillers wore off, and Moses’s leg throbbed enough to wake him up. Through his closed eyelids, he could sense the bright light of midday streaming through the big window. How long had he been asleep? Twelve hours? Three days?

Moses opened his eyes and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw Rachel standing over him, her face close to his. Was she checking to see if he was dead?

She smiled weakly and took a step back. “I was afraid you’d sleep forever. It’s almost ten o’clock.”

The unwelcome sight of Rachel in his—well, her—room made his leg ache intensely. He had a feeling recovery under Rachel’s care would be slow going. Even though he knew it was selfish, he found himself wishing for Lia. But he should be thoughtful enough to let her be for a few hours.

Moses sat up and stifled the moan that wanted to escape his lips. They had really done a job on his leg. It felt as if someone had tried to flatten it with a sledgehammer. He covered his eyes and hoped he wouldn’t be stuck with Rachel for the rest of the day. “Do you think you could bring me a painkiller?”

Rachel sidled backward until she reached the door. “I’ll be back.”

He watched her go, doubt playing inside his head like a fly buzzing in the corner of the room. Would Rachel know to bring water as well?

He slowly slipped the blanket off his injured leg. They had given him a pair of flimsy cotton pants at the hospital that easily fit over his thickly bandaged leg. His foot was slightly swollen and about six shades of purple, but he felt fortunate that he could feel his toes.

Gritting his teeth, he slid the pant leg past his knee and examined his wrappings. The doctor had bandaged the leg up good and tight and given Moses strict instructions to stay off it. In a few days, the doctor would take the stitches out and put Moses in a sturdy cast. It wasn’t ideal, but at least then Moses would be able to get around on his own.

He hoped Lia had been allowed to sleep in. She had spent a day and a half with him at the hospital, waiting with him until he went to surgery, staying glued to his side after they wheeled him to recovery, and consulting with the doctors about the care of his leg. He didn’t know when she got any sleep. Would Barbara have taken such good care of him? He’d never know. Barbara wasn’t here.

Lia had communicated with Mammi and Dawdi and Moses’s parents by calling David Tolley’s phone. The Tolleys ended up camping out on Huckleberry Hill and spending the day with his grandparents.

They decided that Moses would recuperate at Mammi and Dawdi’s house. His own parents lived more than an hour away, and he really wanted to be close to his cheese factory even if he couldn’t set foot inside the place for a couple of weeks.

Roy Polter had driven Moses and Lia to Huckleberry Hill last night where Anna and Lia helped him into Rachel’s bed, gave him a painkiller, and made him comfortable before he fell hard into sleep.

Rachel strolled back into the room empty-handed. Moses sighed inwardly. She was as useless as he had anticipated. Would he have to crawl to the kitchen himself and find his own medicine?

But his prayers were answered when Lia followed close behind with a tall glass of water and two baby-blue pills in her hand. She smiled at him, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She must have been bone-tired. He glanced at the bandage covering her forearm and remembered he wasn’t the only one who’d been injured.

“How is your arm?” he asked.

“Who cares about my arm when your toes look like you’ve been tiptoeing through the huckleberries?”

Again the halfhearted smile. Moses didn’t like it one bit.

“How is the pain?” she said.

“I am very grateful for the painkillers.”

“How many stitches did you get?” Rachel asked as she sat uncomfortably on the edge of her bed, her eyes glued to the thick bandages cocooning Moses’s leg.

Moses took the pills and the water and gave Lia a grateful smile, but she seemed very interested in looking at a spot on the wall about two feet above his head.

“Thirty-seven stitches,” Moses said, taking Lia’s hand under the pretense of looking at her bandages. “How many did you get, Lia?”

Lia glanced from Moses to Rachel and gently pulled her hand from his grasp. “Four. Not near so impressive.”

Moses kept the frustration off his face and let his hand drop to the bed.

“What did the doctor say?” Rachel asked, leaning toward him even as Lia stepped away.

“He told me not to smoke,” Moses said.

Lia let a wisp of a grin play at her lips. When had her smile become his favorite sight?

“And I’ll be in a cast for seven or eight weeks.”

Rachel looked truly sympathetic. “Don’t you worry. I am going to take good care of you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Moses saw Lia turn her face away.

He attempted to keep his attention on Rachel. “Once the cast is on, I shouldn’t need any help.” He raised his hands. “I’m blessed to have two good hands so I can still make cheese.”

To his annoyance, Rachel grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. Lia was already out the door. “I’ll get your breakfast,” she called over her shoulder.

Rachel frowned and spoke loudly to make sure Lia could hear her all the way to the kitchen. “Remember, we agreed I would bring Moses his food.”

Moses pulled his hand from Rachel’s grasp.

Rachel studied his face, smiled, and nodded as if she knew all his thoughts. He found the gesture annoying.

Pulling the blanket back over his leg, she said, “When I saw you lying there in the barn in a pool of blood, I almost fainted with fright.” She sighed in a long drawn-out breath that reminded Moses of the wind hissing through the slats of the barn. “I feel things so deeply where you are concerned, and I panicked you might die. Lia doesn’t care about you like I do, so she could abide the sight of your leg where I could not. She’s always been cold like that.”

Moses decided he’d had enough of such talk. “If it weren’t for Lia, I’d probably be dead.”

“I don’t think you’d be dead.”

“There would be few problems in this world if more people were as brave as Lia.” He pinned Rachel with a stern eye, hoping his look would inspire her to think better of criticizing her sister.

Rachel pursed her lips and looked away in confusion, probably formulating another strategy for winning his favor. Why wouldn’t she give up?

Dawdi ambled into the room to take a look at Moses. “You look no worse for the wear,” he declared, thumbing his suspenders. He pulled back the blanket Rachel had spread over Moses and examined his foot. “Mighty fine bruises.”

Beaming from ear to ear, Mammi bustled in with a beautiful bouquet of red roses in a tall vase. “These are from the Tolleys. Seventy-five dollars.”

Moses winced when he scooted his back against his pillow. “Are they here?”

“Jah, but they don’t want to disturb you. We’re going to Green Bay with them today. We hope you don’t mind. Lia will be here to care for you.”

Rachel blinked rapidly as if trying to remove some irritating dust from her eyes. “I’ll be here too. Lia isn’t the only one who knows how to care for the sick. I nursed my mamm for a whole week with the flu.”

Anna smiled patiently at Rachel. “Of course, dear.”

“Lia said you went to the auction with the Tolleys yesterday,” Moses said.

“They are such lovely people. They drove us all the way to Marion.” Mammi leaned toward Moses and her eyes danced. “In their motor home.”

“That’s a mighty fine contraption,” said Dawdi.

Mammi grinned as if sharing a big secret. “He used the bathroom in it twice.”

Moses couldn’t help laughing. “Did he?”

Dawdi nodded and slipped his hands into his pockets. “Fanciest thing I ever saw. And I got Nevada and South Carolina. It was a very gute day.”

Mammi set the vase on the windowsill and retrieved something from her apron pocket. She held up two furry, baby-blue knitted things. “I made you some slippers. So your feet will stay toasty.”

Moses looked out the window at the sunny August morning. The sun beating down through the trees made him feel sweaty already. “Denki, Mammi. I don’t want my toes to freeze.”

Mammi smiled in satisfaction and slid the slipper onto his good foot. He held his breath as she carefully eased the other slipper over his purple toes. The movement didn’t make the pain worse, but he felt like he had suddenly grown fluffy bunny feet. He didn’t fault Mammi. It might have been impossible to make a pair of slippers look manly.

Mammi pointed to the crutches propped against the wall. “You can walk around in the slippers if you need to.”

“The doctor says to stay off my feet except to go to the bathroom.”

Mammi smoothed his blanket over his legs.

He took her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you for letting me recuperate here for a few days.”

“I don’t mind sharing a room with Lia,” Rachel piped in. “I want you to be as comfortable as possible. We’ll manage fine for as long as you want to stay.”

Moses had seen that tiny room with the thin twin bed. He suspected that Rachel managed by insisting Lia sleep on the floor.

Mammi curled her lips and winked at Moses behind Rachel’s back. “The girls will take gute care of you. We’ll probably be back before supper.”

Dawdi patted his shirt pocket. “I’ve got my notebook ready. I plan on seeing a lot of new states today.”

Mammi laid a kiss on Moses’s forehead before walking out the door, hand in hand with Dawdi.

Rachel went to the door and watched them walk down the hall. When she turned to Moses, she looked like a cat with a mouthful of mouse. She sat back on the bed. “We’re going to have so much fun today being together.”

Was it too late to scream for his grandparents to come back?

Lia appeared at the threshold of his room with a steaming tray of food. Rachel leaped up with enthusiasm and took the tray from Lia. “Look what we made for breakfast,” Rachel said as Lia turned on her heels and disappeared from view. Moses should have called her back to tell her he knew who made the food, that he knew who worked her fingers to the bone, even as Rachel took the credit.

Rachel, with the smug look of someone who expected to be thanked, set the tray on his lap, and the heavenly aromas of blueberry pancakes and bacon made his mouth water.

“The pancakes are my recipe,” said Rachel.

Lia marched back into the room with a bottle of syrup and a tall glass of orange juice that she set on the small nightstand next to the bed.

What could he say to make her linger? The overwhelming desire to have her near him took him by surprise. When had she become this important to him? Or was it merely his wish to avoid Rachel that made him long for Lia’s company?

“Thank you for the breakfast, Lia. Don’t tell my mamm, but you are even a better cook than she is.”

His comment seemed to strike Lia as an unhappy thought. “It was Rachel’s idea to make pancakes.” Without another word, she glided out of the room, leaving Moses with a plate full of delectable food and at the mercy of Rachel Shetler, a girl who would never tire of talking about herself.

It was going to be a very long day.

 

 

Flustered at the sight of Moses hobbling down the hall, Lia pulled her soapy hands from the dishwater, propped her wet fists on her hips, and tried to look stern. “Moses, what are you doing out of bed? The doctor said—”

“The doctor said I should use the crutches in emergencies, and since I can’t get you to set foot near my bedside, I must come to you.”

Lia pulled a chair from under the table and commanded Moses to sit. “If you break your leg all over again, don’t come crying to me.”

Moses sat, panted with exertion, and rested the crutches against his shoulder. “I wouldn’t dare. Two weeks cooped up in that room, and I’m ready to pull my hair out.”

Lia wiped her hands dry and didn’t bother to correct Moses on his timing. It had been less than two weeks. Ten days, near time for the stitches to come out. Ten full days with Moses in the house only served to make Lia more miserable than ever. Rachel seldom left his side, unless he slept, and that was fine. Lia was more efficient with chores anyway.

Except when she administered medicine or checked his bandages, Lia studiously avoided Moses’s room. Her breathing stopped and her heart shattered every time she looked into those blue eyes, and she didn’t want the hourly torment. She had been perfectly content to bury her sorrows in the kitchen and let Rachel serve him his meals. For the first three days, Rachel disappeared into Moses’s room at mealtime with two plates of food, leaving Lia and Anna and Felty to enjoy eating in peace in the kitchen. Anna and Felty truly loved her, and Lia could pretend that there was no such person as Moses Zimmerman who didn’t care one whit about her private heartbreak.

But after three days, Moses hobbled to the kitchen on his crutches for meals, swearing he would go stir-crazy lying in that room.

Anna had insisted on making supper every night after that, using ideas from her new recipe book. They had eaten slimy kale soup that Moses had chosen to gulp down instead of chew, fried tofu patties that weren’t too bad smothered in soy sauce, and something called aspic that made Lia shudder as it slid down her throat. It puzzled her how Felty seemed to enjoy every dish set before him as if he were eating off the king’s table.

Rachel came tripping down the hall from Lia’s room and looked at Moses. “Shame on you,” she said, shaking a finger at him. “How are you ever going to heal if you keep disobeying the doctor’s orders?”

Moses pressed his lips together and let out a sigh. “I needed to talk to Lia.”

Rachel turned all her displeasure on Lia. “He shouldn’t have to come out here to talk to you. It wonders me that you are too busy to walk twenty feet down the hall.”