One Shenandoah Winter (5 page)

“If you had, we wouldn't be standing here talking, now, would we? What happened is, you were patrolling the parkland border, and you smelled his smokehouse.”

The young man was blond and strong jawed and had the accent of somebody born a thousand miles from these hills. “Ma'am, there are fresh deer haunches dressed and hanging in that smokehouse.”

And venison sausages too, if she knew Poppa Joe. But Connie chose not to say that. “Officer . . . What's your name, please?”

“Harding.”

“Officer Harding, I've talked to the old man until I'm blue in the face. If you want him to stop hunting out of season, you're just going to have to do it yourself.”

Again there was the sense of not hearing what he had expected. “Ma'am, your uncle tells me he's never carried a hunting license. Hunting out of season and not having a license both carry thousand-dollar fines.”

Connie knew this type. The Shenandoah National Forest, one of the country's poorest parklands, was used as a testing ground for too many young rangers. Men and women alike, they arrived fresh-faced and full of ideals instilled at universities in Boulder or Boston or Seattle. Big-city college graduates, who sat in classrooms and learned about a perfect world, and spent their weekends hiking places like Yellowstone or Yosemite or the Appalachian Trail. Nothing in their books and lessons ever brought them close to somebody like Poppa Joe Wilkes.

This particular young ranger was caught up in having treed his first two-legged prey. He held to his stern, straighteyed line and went on, “Not only that, ma'am, but there's every evidence that he shot that deer on national parkland. That's a felony, punishable by a year in prison.”

“Now you look here!” Connie uncrossed her arms and took a menacing step toward the ranger. The fire was burning in her now. The same fire that had been started by the doctor that morning and never given a chance to flare. “If you don't stop with this nonsense, I'm going inside for Poppa Joe's gun and end your career before it gets started!”

He took a half-step away from her. “Ma'am—”

“One glance at that peach fuzz on your chin is enough to tell me this is your first assignment,” she snapped. “When did you get out of school, last May?”

Connie's anger was legendary. It had been born from the rage and frustration of losing her parents too early, and fueled by feeling her life had never returned to its proper track. She used it on lazy road crews and recalcitrant state finance officers and everybody in between. The townsfolk called her Surefire Wilkes behind her back, took pride in how she got things done, and made it a point to stay out of her way when her eyes were flashing fire.

Like now. “I never did understand why the Park Service figured on us having to give you boys the decent education you should've gotten in school.”

“Now wait—”

“You just hush up and listen.” She turned and swung her arm in a broad arc. “Our property abuts the park right along that ridgeline to the southern border. You hear what I'm saying?”

Connie watched that bit of news register on his unlined face. He risked a single glance back toward the ramshackle cabin. “You're telling me that man in there—”

“Owns nigh on seventeen hundred acres. It's mostly rock and scrub and land too steep for anybody but mountain goats and deer. But it's
our land
. Anybody who's spent ten
days
in these hills knows Poppa Joe would never cross into national parkland after a deer. Why? Because he doesn't need to.”

She knew her accent was thickening and couldn't have cared less. “This land's been in our family since before the Revolutionary War. Is this getting through that thick wad of cotton wool you're wearing under your hat? We were here a hundred years before they ever even
thought
of making a park service so's to give you wide-eyed innocents something to do with our tax dollars.”

It cost him, she could see it in his eyes, but he managed to hold his ground. “Ma'am, if your uncle doesn't stop hunting out of season, I'm going to have to arrest him.”

As swiftly as the anger had risen, it evaporated. It often happened that way, and when it left her, it left her empty. Connie said, “Poppa Joe Wilkes is the last of a dying breed. He's forgotten more about these hills than you'll ever learn.”

“Even so—”

“Look here. Before you do something rash, why don't you go talk to some of the people down in Hillsboro. Or better still, see if you can find a ranger who's been around a while. Ask them how you'll seem, trying to lock this old man up.”

She could see him falter, realizing he had opened a can of worms, and she felt awash in shame for her own anger. “I buy a hunting license for Poppa Joe every year. He just refuses to carry it.” Again there was no reaction from the young man, but she pressed on. “Tell you what. Why don't you step inside, talk to my uncle about the hills. You'd be amazed what you can learn from him. His great-granddaddy even hunted these parts with Daniel Boone, did you know that?”

“No, ma'am.” He remained stiff and unbending. “I didn't, and it doesn't matter.”

“Better still, come have a plate with us.” She tried for a smile. “Bet you've never had smoked venison with grits and collards.”

“I'll be going now, ma'am.” He touched the rim of his hat a second time. “Somebody'll be coming by with a truck this evening to collect the evidence.”

She stood and watched him march back into the woods. There was a ranger trail about a quarter-mile further up the ridge where he'd probably parked his truck. And a well-worn path down to Poppa Joe's. Some rangers came to arrest him, others came to learn. But sooner or later, they all came. She had a feeling about this one, though. He would go back and make his report and feel shamed by the older officers laughing at him. And he would never come back, leaving both him and the old man poorer from his absence. All because she could not hold fast to her temper.

When the ranger had vanished inside the trees and their lengthening shadows, Connie sighed herself around and started toward the cabin.

Five

C
onnie climbed the front steps, crossed the porch, and pushed open the door on its creaky leather hinges. She stared at the tall old man in the far corner and declared, “I just went and wasted a perfectly good mad on that poor boy, when I should have come in here and used it on you.”

“Had me a hankering for deer.” But Poppa Joe's familiar bluster wasn't there. “Not a thing in the world the matter with wanting some fresh game.”

“There is too and you know it.” Connie watched as he carried his metal plate over to the deep granite sink. The old man's movements had become so shaky that the fork and knife clattered on the edge. The sound was a chattering worry to her heart. “They're gonna put you in jail if you don't stop.”

“Every single thing I shoot I eat. That oughtta count for something in this mixed-up world.” His hand shook so hard he had to brush his fingers across the pump handle before getting a grip and beginning to heave up and down. Water spouted and poured into the sink. “Any of you ladies like a cup of cold well-water?”

“I would, Poppa Joe.” Dawn walked over and took a metal cup off its hook on the wall. With her other hand she offered him a slender package. “I brought you something.”

“Girl, you shouldn't oughtta done that.” He filled her cup, stopped pumping, and accepted the packet of five cigars. “White Owls. Nice how you remember them's my favorites.”

“But a deer, Poppa Joe.” Connie's protest grew feebler as she watched him cross the cabin in hesitant steps. “You know how these new rangers are about deer out of season.”

“All I know is, the foals is dropped, the antlers is high, and the weather's turning. That makes it deer season in my book.”

Poppa Joe stepped onto the porch, unwrapped one of the cigars and said to Dawn, “Light me a taper, honey.”

“Here.” Hattie Campbell entered the golden light of dusk carrying a twig lit from the stove. “Connie's right, you know. They really will put you in jail.”

He took his time getting the cigar lit and drawing well, then lowered himself into the rocker. “I just wanted me one last deer. And that's all the truth there is to tell.”

Connie eased herself down on the top step and leaned against the railing. The words left her heart chilled, as though they contained a warning she was not yet ready to decipher.

Sunsets were much longer affairs than in the valley below. The saddle-back faced a low-slung pass, one which caught and nestled the sun for hours on hot summer evenings. The cabin was built up snug to the saddle-back's steep northern rise, protected from stiff winter winds. The meadow stretched out before her like a soft golden sea.

The last of autumn thistle floated in the breathless air, and the smell of late wildflowers and honeysuckle and sweet untilled earth filled Connie's senses. Seated on the top step and leaning on the railing had been her favorite spot since she was little. Connie sat and listened as Hattie and Dawn talked about the new doctor, and felt overwhelmed with worry about a world without Poppa Joe.

She was finally drawn around by her uncle leaning down and saying, “I don't hold with folks ignoring me on my front porch, daughter.”

“And I don't hold with having to bail you out of trouble every time I come up here.” But the response lacked the snap to work through his thick skin.

“I was telling you to invite the doctor up here for a visit.”

“I'm not sure that's a good idea.”

“Look here, daughter. You want the doctor fellow to stay, now, don't you?”

“Yes, and that's exactly—”

“Well, it ain't gonna be the town that'll keep him here.” Poppa Joe sat and puffed on his cigar, the cigar smoke ringing his head like a gray wreath. “Now you just think on that for a country minute.”

Six

T
he Reverend Brian Blackstone found it hard to climb the clinic steps. Which was strange, seeing as how he and his wife had done so every third day for the previous six weeks. But this visit was different. This time he was coming as a pastor and not as a patient. And he found himself fearing the man inside.

Doctor Nathan Reynolds was gaining himself quite a reputation. First of all, he refused all social contact. Entirely. He had not even attended the Elks banquet held in his honor. The previous week, when the mayor had tried to have him sit at the podium table so the town could publicly thank him on Founder's Day, Nathan Reynolds had refused point-blank. When the embarrassed mayor had tried to insist, the doctor had threatened to pack up and depart.

He had also succeeded in driving off Ida May, his nurse and receptionist, after just one morning of working together. He would have been utterly alone in the clinic, had Hattie Campbell not offered to help out. Hattie had trained as a nurse but never worked as one, having joined her husband in the grocery right after school. According to patients who had spoken about it to Brian, Hattie's lack of experience was a constant source of outbursts.

According to rumor, Connie Wilkes had also come by twice to extend an invitation to visit Poppa Joe up on Wilkes Mountain, a proposal that would have had anybody else in the valley jumping for their hat. But Nathan Reynolds had blasted Connie out the door both times.

He refused to say how long he was staying. If he met a patient on the street, he simply turned away.

Nathan Reynolds was rude and sharp and perpetually angry. He viewed the world through a bitter squint. He was acrid in his tone and nasty in his speech. He did everything possible to push people away. No doubt about it, Doctor Nathan Reynolds was one severely cantankerous individual.

As Brian Blackstone entered the clinic's waiting room, he reflected that he had never seen the makings of a more lonely man.

Hattie smiled as he pushed through the door. “Brian, hello, don't tell me the baby's acting up again.”

“The baby's fine.” He nodded to the people crowding the room's tattered furniture. The place had a musty, faded air. The only bright spot was the smile on Hattie's face. Brian seated himself on the little chair by her desk and asked quietly, “How are you holding out?”

“All right.” But the smile was forced, the tone quieter. The other people pretended not to listen. “Since it's you who's asking, I'll admit to the fact that the man in there scares me silly.”

“Should we try to find somebody to replace you?”

“No, no, it'd probably be some near child who's never had to deal with an angry customer. At least that's one lesson I've gotten down pat.” She cast a swift glance back toward the closed door. “Ten minutes with him on a bad day, and you'd be out looking for another assistant.”

“I suppose that's true.”

“Besides, you know how quiet it is around the grocery this time of year. We could use the extra income.”