One Shenandoah Winter (4 page)

Connie found herself stiffening as the doctor bent over the crib. But the touch he used in lifting the little baby was as gentle as his manner was rough. “I'd like to see her eat, please.”

“She'll get it all over you.”

“That's all right.”

Brian offered, “I'll go warm up the bottle.”

Nathan Reynolds asked Sadie, “Are you trying to hold to any sort of schedule?”

“How can I?” She brushed at a wisp of hair with the manner of a woman twice her age. “She's up and crying every hour or so. I feed her as much as she'll take, she holds it in for about ten minutes, then throws it all back up again.”

“All right, here's what I want us to do.” Somehow his hands and his voice seemed untouched by the fussing baby. Not only that, but they seemed to be calming the mother. “Take one of these boxes here and mix the powder with one-half cup of water.”

Hesitantly Sadie accepted the box, read the label, “Maalox?”

“It's a new drug they've developed for ulcers in adults. Setting standards in hospital trials. We've seen some good results in treating babies with pyloric stenosis.”

“Here, I'll do that,” Connie offered, and slipped the box from Sadie's hand.

As she moved to the kitchen she heard the tired woman say, “What was that you just said?”

“Pyloric stenosis. Typical cause of infant spasm after eating.” The doctor's tone was as softly gentle now as it had been angry before. Willing the woman to calm, to strengthen, to hope. “Naming a problem is not solving it, but as I've said, Maalox has shown good results in some cases.”

When Connie returned, he accepted the glass without raising his eyes from the baby. “All right. Let's start with a dosage of two milligrams. Bring me a teaspoon.”

“But the doctor said—”

“What the doctor told you is not working, is it?” When his words quietened Sadie Blackstone, he went back to examining the baby. Long supple fingers touched and probed, but in ways that did not seem to fret the baby any more than she already was. Which was remarkable, as the child normally did not like to be touched by anyone but her mother. Not even Brian.

“I also want to put her on antibiotic drops for her ears.” His gaze rose to Connie, but this time there was no animosity. “Is there a pharmacy in town?”

“Yes.”

“Call them and see if they stock tetracycline drops. If not, ask them for a substitute.”

Brian announced from the kitchen, “The formula is ready.”

“Fine.” Nathan dropped his eyes back to the baby. “Why don't we give her the first dosage now before she eats.”

The room seemed quietly galvanized. Sadie moved to the cupboard, Connie to the phone. She dialed the pharmacy number from memory and listened to it ring as Brian brought in the bottle.

A languid voice said, “Sedrick's.”

“Phil, it's Connie Wilkes.”

“Hey, gal. That doctor fellow showed up yet?”

“Yes.” Phil Sedrick sat on the town council with her. He was a slow-moving mountain man who had inherited the pharmacy and his mother's easy manner but not his father's intelligence. Connie asked, “Is the pharmacist on duty?”

“Naw, she's gone to lunch. It's just me holding down the fort. What can I do you for?”

She spelled out the drops. “See if you have them or an equivalent in stock. Call me back at Brian's as soon as you know.”

“Suppose I could give a look-see down back. But say—”

“I have to go. Do it fast, please. Immediately.” She hung up before he could start on one of his rambling conversations.

Connie stood there at the back of the room, watching the doctor speak in soothing tones as he forced the baby to take what clearly was a very unappetizing medicine. He did not flinch as she blew the first mouthful back into his face. Nor did he mind as she cried and fretted after swallowing the second try, or when she threw up half the bottle of formula down his shirt front. He simply held her and observed. His intensity of concentration was almost frightening.

When the baby started to fall asleep, the doctor surprised them all by shaking the little girl back awake. “Let's try it again now.”

“But won't—”

“Let me have the bottle again.” Though the tone was mild for the baby's sake, the imperious manner was still there in full force. “Now.”

Doubtfully Sadie Blackstone handed it back, and watched as he inserted the nipple and kept gently shaking the baby, forcing her to waken and suckle. To everyone's astonishment, she did so without apparent discomfort.

Even the baby's eyes opened in surprise. Two little fists came up to curl around the bottle.

Nathan Reynolds stopped shaking her, and sat there holding her and allowing her to take as much as she wanted. “Maalox has a very sticky consistency, specifically meant to keep it from being thrown back up. Her tummy is coated now, so this batch ought to stay down.”

Sadie bent over, ran a finger down the side of her baby's face. “This is a miracle.”

“We'll have to monitor her closely. Her weight should begin to pick up, and when it does, her dosage will need to be adjusted. I'll need to weigh her every few days for the next three to four weeks. Can you bring her by the clinic?”

“Of course.” A single tear coursed down the side of Sadie's face. She swallowed the shakiness in her voice and said, “What time?”

“I have no idea. Let's just play this by ear until I get settled.”

He handed over the baby, used the washcloth Brian offered to wipe the worst of the formula from his shirt, then started for the door. “Until tomorrow.”

Nathan Reynolds was out the door so fast the only mark of Sadie's gratitude was an unseen hand raised to the space he had just left behind.

Brian hastened after him, and Connie followed. The doctor was halfway across the yard toward his car before the scampering pastor caught up. “Doctor Reynolds!”

Reluctantly the man turned back, the hostile chill clear in his eyes.

In his quiet manner, Brian asked, “If you hadn't been here, could my baby have died?”

“It depends on her constitution. Babies are stronger than they look.” Clearly he knew where this conversation was headed. Even so, he reluctantly agreed. “But yes, it is a distinct possibility.”

Brian nodded slowly, hollowed by the news and how close they had come to another nightmare. All he said was, “Then you see our town's desperate need.”

Nathan Reynolds seemed exasperated by the discussion. He opened his mouth, snapped it shut, and searched the yard with angry eyes. Then his gaze fastened upon Connie's truck. He swiveled back to glare at her and assert, “Allowing a vehicle like that to deteriorate is an absolute crime. But having seen the state of your clinic, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.”

Before she could recover and form the words boiling up with her ire, he had stomped to his car. Nathan Reynolds departed in a cloud of angry dust and scattered gravel.

Sadie Blackstone stepped up beside her, and said quietly, “A miracle.”

Four

W
hen Connie pulled up in front of the grocery that afternoon, she found Dawn waiting with her mother. Hattie Campbell opened the door and asked, “Mind if I come along?”

“Hop on in.”

“I haven't seen Poppa Joe in weeks.” Hattie lifted three big sacks of groceries into the back, then climbed in after her daughter and demanded, “So how's the new fellow?”

“He's a doctor to his bones.” Connie had already decided that a diplomatic approach was required for such queries. Let the town find out for themselves. If he stayed around. “A one hundred percent, pure-bred, citified doctor.”

“That bad, huh?” But Hattie was smiling. And her smile was what she shared most with her daughter. That and their love of life. “I heard there was a little set-to in the clinic this morning.”

Connie had to slow the truck and stare. Dawn let go with a giggle.

“Not to mention a little miracle-working over at Reverend Blackstone's place,” Hattie went on.

“I am constantly amazed,” Connie declared. “Not even light can travel as fast as a rumor in this town.”

Hattie settled back, satisfied. Her reddish brown hair was two shades darker than Connie's and cut very short, making her jawline appear even sharper than it was. Her nose was narrow and long, her lips a quick red slit pressed constantly into a half-formed smile. Her brown eyes had the penetrating stare of one amply bestowed with common sense.

She could not have looked any more different from her daughter. Hattie Campbell had the high cheekbones and warm skin tones that suggested a touch of Indian blood. When Hattie was growing up, this had been a mark of shame. The unmistakable taint had deepened her already quiet nature. Hattie was a reserved woman with all save those she knew and trusted. With friends, however, her quick wit and happy nature bubbled forth. Connie had considered Hattie Campbell a treasure since early childhood. One so precious that not even having Hattie land her man could shatter their closeness.

Dawn asked, “Is he really going to make that Blackstone baby stop wailing?”

“He might,” Connie allowed. “He might at that.”

“So he's a good doctor and a bad person,” Hattie offered from her side of truck.

“He's got all the charm of a skunk,” Connie agreed.

“A skunk with a bellyache. Somebody who smells bad and acts worse,” Dawn chimed in. “That's what Poppa Joe would say.”

“Now there's a thought,” Hattie said. “Maybe you ought to bring those two together.”

“Not a chance,” Connie replied. But in truth she was caught by the idea, for reasons she could not fathom. “It took almost three years to get us a doctor. I don't want to lose him the first afternoon.”

Conversation was cut off by their leaving the rural road for the long rutted track leading up to Wilkes Mountain.

That was its real name, though it wasn't much in the way of a real mountain. There had once been a time when the early Wilkes settlers had held claim to much of the valley. They had been among the first pioneers to track this far down the Shenandoah Valley and had set claim to a long stretch of river-bottom farmland and as much of the surrounding hills as they could walk in three days. But hard times and spendthrift generations had reduced the holdings to scrubland and hillside that was of little use to anyone else.

The track rose like a country roller coaster, growing steadily steeper until they were pressed as much back as down into the old squeaking seats. Connie ground into first gear and floored the accelerator. The motor roared in welcome to its home for nigh on a quarter of a century. The truck had climbed this mile-long track in every kind of weather, and seemed to find its own way over the dips and ruts and rain-washed stones.

They swooped over a ridge invisible from the road below and entered an eighty-acre saddle-back. At the far end, nestled among the aspen and highland firs, stood a log cabin. Three tumbledown corrals sectioned off much of this highland meadow, evidence of a time when Poppa Joe used to herd some cattle. A finger of smoke rose from a chimney made of creek-bed stones. It was the same welcome-home signal Connie had known since her parents had died in a traffic accident two days before her sixteenth birthday.

But the tall mountain man did not appear on the porch to greet them. Poppa Joe Wilkes liked to say that he could hear somebody coming a good ten minutes before he saw them, and this from a man who could shoot a flipped coin from the air at thirty paces. Connie had seen him do it.

“Maybe he's asleep,” Dawn said doubtfully.

“Poppa Joe lie down while the sun's up?” Hattie squinted through the front windshield. “Not unless he's laid out by the man in black.”

“Momma, hush your talk.” But Dawn was worried too. “You think maybe he's off fishing?”

“Not with a fire going. Maybe . . .” Connie was silenced by man stepping out of the porch shadows. He wore a brown uniform and a broad brown hat.

Hattie moaned. “Oh, no. Not again.”

But Dawn was delighted. “Oh, I hope it's turkey. I was thinking about roasted wild turkey all morning.”

Connie said nothing. She pressed down harder on the accelerator. The old truck scooted and jounced over the roughshod track, tossing them around. Connie did not slow until they entered the dusty front yard. She scattered gravel and chickens as she came to a shuddering halt. The motor coughed and rattled and died, satisfied to be back where it belonged.

Double page spread of
Poppa Joe's cabin

Double page spread of
Poppa Joe's cabin

Then all three spotted the second thread of smoke, this one rising from the half-buried little house set up inside the first line of trees.

“Oh, Poppa Joe, don't tell me,” Connie moaned.

“Come on, Dawn, let's go inside the cabin, honey,” Hattie said, climbing from the truck.

For once her daughter did not respond with sass. They slipped by the officer as he descended the sagging front steps, and disappeared into the shadows.

Slowly Connie approached the ranger. The man was unknown to her, which made it even worse. “Afternoon, officer.”

“Ma'am.” He touched the tip of his hat. “Are you a relation of Mr. Joseph Wilkes?”

“It's pronounced
Wilkies
,” she corrected. “We've held to the old English way. Call it mule-headed stubbornness.” She offered a tentative smile. When the young ranger remained stony-faced, she gave an inward sigh. She knew this kind of forest ranger all too well. “Yessir. Poppa Joe is my uncle.”

“Ma'am, your uncle has been hunting deer out of season.”

She crossed her arms in self-defense. “I take it you didn't actually see him shoot the animal.”

The tough tone caught him off guard. “Ma'am?”