Sweet Everlasting (3 page)

She shook her head again; it was out of the question.
But thank you,
she tried to say with her smile.

“Okay, don’t.” He dropped the leather and stepped back. “I don’t give a damn, it doesn’t mean shit to me.” He slapped Petey’s rump hard, and the wagon jerked forward. The reins slipped off Carrie’s lap, and she had to make a fast grab for them before they could slide over the footboard. “Go on home to your daddy,” he called after her. She twisted around in the seat, but he was striding away, big arms swinging, and he wouldn’t look back. Why, why was it always like this between them? He could never stay nice for long so why didn’t he just leave her alone? She blew out a frosty, discontented sigh, and turned the mule toward Dreamy Mountain.

“It’s beautiful there,” Dr. Wilkes had said. She’d known he was a good man before that, but if he thought Dreamy was beautiful, that meant he was also smart. People who lived in town or on farms in the valley liked to make fun of those who lived on High Dreamer, calling them backward and stupid and no account. There were pockets of shiftlessness and ignorance on the mountain, no doubt about that, but if she had a choice she wouldn’t pick anywhere else to live. It was the prettiest place in the world, and except for Artemis’s bad times it was always peaceful. Nobody bothered her because, if you didn’t count the Haights, nobody lived nearby. Best of all, she had her wildlings to take care of, which meant she was never lonesome. Well … sometimes, maybe. But it never lasted long, for there was always work to be done; she didn’t have
time
to be lonely.

She was only halfway home when it grew too dark to see the road. She didn’t bother lighting the lantern, though, because Petey could see in the dark, even if she couldn’t. He was old but he was surefooted, and he knew there were oats waiting for him at home.

Still, if she hadn’t been late, she’d have lit the lantern anyway so she could see the woods filling up with snow. It was just a dusting now; the leathery brown oak leaves’ edges would be crinkling out of the thin white covering, and everything would be quiet except for the soft whisper of snowflakes hitting the bare tree limbs. There was a mist over everything, and the trees would look like ghosts gliding by. She loved the way her insides felt when she was alone in the woods on the mountain—breathless and sharp, but calm and peaceful, too. It sounded peculiar, but sometimes she felt that same way in the Wayne’s Crossing Lending Library, just thinking about all the books around her, free for the taking. But the snowy woods were even better because there she was alone, and when she was alone she was safe.

She knew when Petey passed the narrow, bumpy turning to the Haights’ house, even though the snow and the mist were too thick now to see through. She couldn’t see the pale yellow firelight in the front window of her own house until she drove all the way into the yard. The silent yard—no Shadow to bark with lazy, stiff-legged joy because she was back. She unhitched Petey and fed him his oats in the dark, then gave his indifferent nose a kiss and closed the rickety lean-to door.

She approached the cabin warily. When she smelled wood smoke, she relaxed a trifle. If Artemis had a fire going, at least he wasn’t blind drunk anymore. But if he was still mean drunk, she’d sleep in the shed with Petey tonight no matter how bitter cold it got.

As soon as she opened the door, she knew from the smell, sour-sweet and stale, that he wasn’t drunk anymore. He’d come to the next stage, the sick, surly, silent stage, when you were safe from his violence but not his temper, and you’d better keep your distance.

He sat hunched in front of the fireplace, his shotgun on his lap, oil can and cleaning rags beside him on the settle. “Where’ve you been?” He didn’t even turn around to snarl the question. “I had to heat up my own supper.”

Carrie shook snow from her shawl and hung it on the hook by the door. She was freezing; she wanted to go close to the fire and thaw her stinging hands. Instead she picked up the slate from the table and wrote on it with chalk, “Town.” He looked around. She held the slate up so he could read it, but didn’t go any nearer.

“What for?”

She looked at him, careful to keep anger or accusation out of her face. Even sick, his brutish body frightened her, the arms too long and the legs too short. He had hair everywhere except for the top of his head, and sometimes she thought he resembled an animal more than a man. She rubbed out “Town” and wrote “Shadow.”

He looked at the word and then back at her. His black eyes burned with some vacant kind of fire, but they didn’t give anything away.
Are you sorry at all?
she longed to ask.
Do you even remember what you did?
He turned away without saying a word, and went back to cleaning his gun.

Broom had told Dr. Wilkes this afternoon that Artemis was her pa. She wished now she’d corrected him. He wasn’t her father, he was her stepfather, no blood kin at all. And she was getting scared of him again because his drinking was worse. In the four and a half years since they’d moved to the mountain, he’d always made sure that he got drunk away from the house—in town at the Duck, or on a friend’s front porch, or all by himself in the woods. Until today. Today he’d come home from the mill early with a half-empty jar of whiskey, and instead of falling into bed and sleeping it off like he usually did, he’d kept on drinking. After a while he’d gotten up and stumbled toward the door, to go outside and use the privy. Shadow was deaf and she didn’t hear him, she didn’t get out of his way in time. He tripped over her and almost fell. And then, in a rage, he kicked her all the way across the room.

He leaned his gun against the wall. The butt striking the floor made a sharp thud, and Carrie jumped. Nervous tonight. She sat at the table eating cold potato soup while Artemis took down his Bible and began to read. She washed her bowl and spoon and put them away, then swept the floor and tidied up around the cabin. It was quiet without Shadow. Snow fluttering past the window in the lamplight made her feel shivery cold and scared inside, not joyful.

The minute the mantel clock struck nine, Artemis snapped his Bible shut, went into his room, and closed the door. Without a word, of course. Every great once in a while, she felt so lonesome she almost wished he would talk to her. But he hardly ever did, except to complain about something she hadn’t done. Right now he was kneeling on his frayed rug in his underwear, saying his prayers. In ten minutes, he’d get in bed and immediately start to snore.

She went to the cupboard and took down a small bag of hazelnuts, and another of raisins and dried apples. Next she sliced three pieces of bread and spread butter on them half an inch thick. Throwing her wet shawl over her head, she opened the door without a sound and slipped outside.

The air smelled fresh and piney, and the only sound was the high, icy fall of snowflakes on dry leaves. Under the big spruce tree she cleared a place in the snow, which was more than an inch deep now and coming down fast, and spread out her food. It was too cold to wait, but in a minute she knew the gray fox would come, so graceful with his flowing bushy tail and his pointed nose. Then the two skunks she’d decided were married, who were coming every night now as winter dragged on and they got closer and closer to starvation. Last would come the forlorn old possum who lived under the woodshed, blundering and clumsy, surely the stupidest animal God ever made. She loved him dearly, and feared for him all the time, because he was just too dumb to survive.

Back inside the cabin, she blew out the lamp and put on her flannel nightgown in the dark, leaving on her woolen stockings because of the cold. She pulled back the sheet that curtained the padded bench she slept on from the main room and, with cold-stiff fingers, carefully lit a candle. By its flickering light, she fed crumbs to the motherless family of white-footed mice she was keeping in a box on a shelf over the bed. They reminded her of a child’s toys with their long whiskers and big, veiny ears, so delicate you could almost see through them. If Artemis knew they were here, he’d kill them. How much longer, she wondered, yawning, before she could open up her hospital this year? That’s what she called her secret place in the woods where she took care of the animals she found on Dreamy who were wounded, sick, or orphaned. April at least, she reckoned; otherwise the cold would kill them. She could hardly wait, and not only because her wildlings needed her. The hospital was
her
refuge too, a place where she could go and Artemis couldn’t follow, and she could be as free as any creature on the mountain.

She blew out the candle and got in bed, thinking of Shadow. Was she in pain right now? Carrie didn’t want to start crying again; she thought of other things, happy times, when Shadow was young and they’d gone everywhere together. Mama had found her under the steps of the house they’d been living in in Raleigh. Someone had just thrown her away, half-grown and starving. She’d followed Carrie everywhere at first—so naturally they’d named her Shadow. Right from the start she wasn’t like other dogs; she was gentle and sweet, and she never bothered any of Carrie’s animal patients, never even chased a bird. Now that she was old, she slept on the floor in the cabin until Artemis went to bed; then she slept at Carrie’s feet on the bench. She was her best friend, even more than Eppy or Doc Stoneman, because she was always there and she didn’t care if Carrie could talk or not.

Carrie dried her eyes on the pillow and turned onto her side.
Please God, help the new doctor make Shadow well,
she prayed. If anybody could, he could. “She won’t suffer, I’ll make sure of it,” he’d promised, and Carrie knew what that meant. She fell asleep thinking about Dr. Wilkes’s kind blue eyes and his strong, gentle hands.

… A
SSURE YOU
I
’VE NO
wish to nag you incessantly, Tyler; if I weren’t so proud of you, if I didn’t know so well the greatness of which you’re capable, I would save my time and write of other things—this wretched Philadelphia winter, Abbey’s coming-out ball, the importunities of dreadful Colonel Simonton, who declares he loves me but is really much more interested in the Morrell Shipping fortune. But I’m your mother, a fact neither of us can escape—though I’m certain you would frequently like to—and therefore it’s my duty to advise you with all the care, intelligence, and foresight I can summon.

In my own mind, I feel I’ve been patient with you. Naturally I was disappointed when you chose to study medicine, and doubly so when you insisted on that radical, unknown school in Baltimore instead of Harvard, your father’s and your grandfather’s alma mater. But I said little, even though I could not help but feel misled (I won’t say
deceived)
because for at least twenty years I had assumed, along with everyone else, that you would step into your father’s shoes and take over the family’s business. But I forbore; I endured my disappointment in virtual silence. (You’re smiling, I know, thinking what a large world “virtual” can encompass. Smile away; I still say I forbore.)

Again I bit back disappointment, and this time even reproach, when you shunned the medical partnership I flatter myself I was helpful in arranging. It’s been three years now. I can’t help pointing out that if you’d joined Feller & Mayne, you would be an established fixture by now in one of the most prestigious practices in the city. But you chose not to follow that road.

You’ve tried to explain it to me. Perhaps I’m obtuse, but your next folly continues to baffle me, and in all candor I expect it always will. You joined the army—not as an officer, not even as a doctor, but as a private! A
trooper
!! And all for that
opera bouffe
of a war in Cuba which has accomplished nothing as far as I can see except to further the political ambitions of that dangerous opportunist, Mr. Roosevelt.

As incomprehensible as that decision was to me, though, it seems positively Jamesian in logic and practicality compared to your latest one. I understand that you were ill last fall, that your mental state was black and moody. Nevertheless, what you’ve done now is
tragic
in my mind, Tyler, because you’re throwing away such a precious opportunity. You’ve come home a hero; the world, or at any rate Philadelphia, lies at your feet. You know of my hopes for you in the political realm—once I thought you shared them. It saddens me to think of you wasting away in that backwoods hamlet, of which no one in my acquaintance has even
heard …

Dr. Wilkes threw his mother’s letter down on the kitchen table and groaned, automatically beginning to massage the ache in his leg. A note in a different hand at the bottom of the last page caught his eye, and his pained expression immediately softened.

“She’s at it again, I see,” he read. “Poor Ty, don’t pay her any mind. And count your blessings—you’re safe in your ‘backwoods hamlet,’ but here I am at home, getting an improving lecture every day! I love you and I miss you, and I’ll write you a real letter soon, I promise! Love and kisses, Abbey.”

Chuckling, Tyler got up to pour himself a cup of coffee. His mother dominated his sister as much as she tried to dominate him, but for some reason Abbey had never chafed under Carolivia’s authoritarianism the way he had. She’d kept her sense of humor, rarely confronted their mother head-on, and consequently managed to get her own way and a tranquil house much more often than he had when he’d been her age—twenty. For him the solution had been to defy his mother at every opportunity. He’d known no other way to stay whole—the alternative would have been to let her swallow him up like a minnow. Or so it had seemed to him then, in his rash youth; now that he was a man, he hoped he’d stopped making major life decisions by calculating the opposite of what his mother wanted him to do.

He hoped—but sometimes he wondered. He couldn’t deny that enlisting in the First United States Volunteer Cavalry as a private had appealed to him
in part
because he’d known it would drive his mother wild. But that hadn’t been the only reason. Like everyone else, he’d gotten caught up in the jingoistic ardor of the moment, and it had been easy to see himself as a dashing hero, off to save the Cuban peasants and drive the Spanish out of
our
hemisphere once and for all. In the Rough Riders he’d been one of Roosevelt’s “gentleman rankers,” Ivy League enlistees in Brooks Brothers uniforms, recruited to give the regiment the proper “tone.” No one had earned his commission without merit, though, and the Yale and Princeton Knickerbockers had ridden and fought side by side with leathery, foulmouthed cowboys and Indian scouts. It had been a glorious little war: short, decisive, and satisfying—to anyone who hadn’t fought in it. The last thing young, healthy, idealistic Tyler Wilkes had expected from it was a crippling wound and a long, devastating illness in its aftermath.