Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  But how would he get there?

  He regretted being glad earlier that Rachel had not been watching for him at the window. No one would even know that he was on Huckleberry Hill. Leaning back on his hands, he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Help! Lia? Anybody, help!”

  He strained his ears for any sound from outside, but all he heard were the two horses in the barn still fussing about something. He yelled again. No response.

  Could he hop to the house?

  Impossible. He couldn’t even stand up.

  Maybe if he pushed backward with his good leg, he could drag himself outside where Lia would find him. Or Rachel. Maybe Rachel, with her incessant eagerness, would come to his rescue.

  Bracing himself for the pain, he scooted himself two inches backward and almost lost consciousness. An agonizing jolt of electricity shot up his leg. He groaned involuntarily as he held his head in his hands to stop the spinning.

  He wouldn’t be stuck here forever. Dawdi would be in to milk in another four hours. Moses pretended this was a happy thought. Only four more hours to go.

  Light flooded the barn as someone behind him opened the door. He strained to see who had come in, but he couldn’t rotate his head that far, and turning his body around was out of the question. “Help me,” was all he could say.

  He had never been so happy to see Rachel. Ever.

  She walked slowly into his peripheral vision. “Rachel, I’ve hurt my leg. Go get Lia.”

  Rachel inched closer to him and her eyes grew round as saucers as she caught sight of the blood. She clapped her hands over her mouth. This muffled her screaming but did not stop it. For a few seconds, she squealed hysterically behind her hands and then let them drop to her sides so she could scream louder. Her neck seemed to bloom with hives that traveled up her cheeks and overspread her face.

  “Rachel, it’s okay. I’m okay. Get Lia. Please.”

  The screaming deteriorated to incoherent sentences and babylike whimpers. “I don’t . . . I what . . . you shouldn’t,” Rachel whined as she disappeared from Moses’s line of sight. He was pretty sure she ran out of the barn because the blubbering grew softer, but he couldn’t be certain she would deliver the message. She might have run into the woods to hide from the horror of Moses’s injury.

  Well, Dawdi would be here in four hours to milk the cows. Only four hours to go.

  To his relief, Moses heard footsteps approaching not three minutes later, and Lia stood mercifully at his side. Dawdi and Mammi followed close behind, but Rachel did not return. It was turning out to be a gute day after all.

  “Moses, dear, are you hurt?” Mammi said, nudging Lia forward and taking Dawdi’s hand.

  “I see blood,” said Dawdi.

  Distress darkened Lia’s expression as she knelt beside Moses and pressed a soft, cool hand to his cheek. “What happened?”

  Moses’s relief at seeing her was as palpable as the pain. “Red got spooked and kicked me hard. My leg is broken.”

  “Are you sure?” she said, in the calm voice that she probably used with her most hopeless patients.

  “Jah, I’m sure.”

  Lia gently pushed his pant leg up past his knee. Not wanting to see the horrible sight again, Moses kept his gaze glued to Lia’s face. She blanched and held her breath.

  “Pretty bad?” Moses said, wanting Lia’s reassurance.

  She flashed a weak half smile. “I’ve seen worse.”

  Despite his pain, he gave her a quirky grin. “Really? When?”

  She began unlacing his boot. “During the great Bonduel earthquake of two thousand eleven.”

  He hissed as she cautiously pulled his boot from his foot. “Hey! There was no Bonduel earthquake of two thousand eleven.”

  “We must stop the bleeding.” Lia sounded like the determined physician now, the professional who never revealed how bad a patient really was. She looked at Mammi. “Will you bring the milking stool? Felty, can you bend well enough to help me?”

  “Jah, sure,” said Dawdi. “I’m as chipper as a seventy-year-old.”

  “Okay, come over here.” Lia pointed to where she wanted Dawdi to stand and then stroked Moses’s hand with her silky fingers. “This is going to hurt something wonderful, but it will help slow the bleeding.”

  Moses swallowed hard and nodded. He wouldn’t complain. Lia would see he could be at least as tough as any mother in labor, even if it killed him.

  “Anna, we are going to lift Moses’s leg. You need to slip the stool under it as soon as we get it high enough. If we elevate the leg, it might stop the bleeding. If not . . .”

  “If not?” prompted Moses.

  Lia gave him a reassuring nod. “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Dawdi, on the other side of Moses’s leg from Lia, patted Moses’s hand. “Don’t worry. We won’t let her amputate.”

  We won’t let her amputate? That was Dawdi’s attempt at reassuring him? Moses was definitely going to pass out.

  Lia glanced at Moses. “It’s okay. You will be fine. Felty, put one hand under his ankle and the other under his knee.”

  The simple act of both of them sliding their flat hands under his leg was excruciating. Moses panted for control.

  Mammi stood at his feet with the stool in hand.

  “Ready, Anna?”

  “Ready.”

  Lia locked eyes with Dawdi. “We lift on three. One, two, three.”

  All thoughts of impressing Lia with his bravery vanished. Moses cried out in agony as they lifted his leg a mere foot and a half off the ground. Mammi must have deftly placed the stool because in less than ten seconds the ordeal was over. His leg rested uncomfortably on the stool as Lia tied his ankle loosely to it with some yarn from Mammi’s pocket. He could tell by her trembling fingers that Lia was trying to maintain her composure.

  “This yarn should keep your leg on the stool in case it jerks suddenly.”

  “I’m not moving an inch.”

  “How is the pain?” she asked.

  He didn’t want to upset her, but he might as well be honest. “Bad.”

  “Oh, Moses, I am so sorry, but we had to do it. I think the bleeding is slowing.”

  He tried to smile. He managed a wince. “I am glad you are here.”

  “We need to get you to the hospital.”

  “I can’t move,” Moses said.

  “We’ll have to call an ambulance.”

  The pain made him dizzy again. “This is why you need a phone, Dawdi.”

  “You said I needed a phone if I had an emergency. Not if you had one.”

  “Where is the nearest phone?” Lia asked.

  Moses covered his eyes with his hand and tried to breathe normally. The pain would not let up. “Van deGraffs’. You know, where I broke their screen.”

  Lia looked at Mammi and then Dawdi. “I’ll saddle the horse and ride down there.”

  Mammi shook her head. “Have Rachel go. You must look after Moses.”

  “Rachel’s hysterical,” Lia said. “She’s curled up in a ball on the sofa and can’t even form a complete sentence. I’ll go.”

  “The horses are acting funny,” Moses said. “It’s too dangerous to take one of them.”

  Lia gazed out the open barn door, considering her options. “Then I’ll run,” she said, taking another look at his leg.

  “It’s pretty far,” Moses said.

  Her eyes twinkled despite the worry on her face. “But you’re always reminding me what long legs I have.”

  “Then go,” Dawdi said. “We’ll take care of Moses. I’ll sing to him.”

  “Anna, if you got a bag of ice and laid it below his knee, I think that would help the bleeding.” Lia reached down and laid a light hand on Moses’s arm. “The bleeding has slowed quite a bit. I’ll hurry. Nothing to eat or drink while I’m gone.”

  He didn’t want her to go. Even though the pain made him queasy, he’d have to be dead not to be touched by her beauty. She made him feel better just being
there.

  The pain intensified when she left the barn. “Be careful,” he called after her, too late for her to hear.

  Mammi bent over as far as she could but she couldn’t reach Moses. She settled for kissing her index finger and pointing it at his cheek. “I’ll go fetch a pillow and a blanket. And some ice.”

  Moses held perfectly still. It was the only way to avoid aggravating the pain. “And a cold lemonade?”

  Mammi walked out of his view, but Moses could still hear her voice floating with the dust motes in the air. “Lia said no.”

  Dawdi shuffled toward Red. The crazy horse stood innocently at the far wall of the barn. “I should get your horse in the stall so he doesn’t step on you.”

  “No, Dawdi. He’s spooked.”

  Dawdi knitted his brows and thumbed his suspenders. “I better have a look around, then.” He sniffed the air and studied his own horse, still restless in the stall. “Maybe a tornado’s coming.”

  Moses lay with his arm spread over his eyes and tried to concentrate on Dawdi instead of his leg throbbing torturously.

  Dawdi casually stepped over Moses as he went to the door and looked to the sky. “Not a cloud.” He shuffled to Moses, looked down, and shrugged in puzzlement.

  Just a normal conversation about the weather, except Moses could barely lift his head and his leg was bent at an awkward angle.

  Dawdi didn’t seem to notice. He walked to the stall that kept his horse, again stepping over Moses’s prostrate body. Moses held his breath and braced for Dawdi to come tumbling over onto him. Dawdi was not so sure on his feet as Mammi.

  “Animals can sense an earthquake,” Dawdi said, patting his horse on the nose.

  “In Wisconsin?”

  Dawdi nodded, seemingly unconcerned that his grandson lay on the ground racked with pain. “Nineteen seventy-two an earthquake in Illinois cracked plaster in Kewaskum. My uncle Joe was there.”

  Dawdi fiddled with his beard before retrieving a rake hanging from the sturdy hook on the wall. He walked into the empty stall, and from the rustle of hay, he must have been stirring it around.

  The barn brightened as Mammi marched in with her arms full of supplies. “Now, Felty, this is not the time to be mucking out. Moses is in very serious condition.” She helped Moses raise his head and slipped a fluffy pillow underneath him. Much better than the cement floor. Then she unfolded a thick blanket knitted from lime green yarn. “Green is a healing color,” she said as she laid it over the top of him. The blanket felt stifling in the heat of August, but Moses didn’t complain. Mammi was doing all she could to make him comfortable. She carefully laid a small bag of ice below his knee near the wound. The cold burned his skin, but he didn’t argue. Lia was concerned about the bleeding.

  “Oh!” Dawdi yelled, and it sounded as if he were doing a wild dance in the stall. Mammi jumped out of her skin, and Moses sat straight up only to groan and sink back to his pillow as the pain shot up his leg.

  To Moses’s great relief, Mammi stepped around instead of over him to get to the stall where Dawdi made such a fuss. “Felty, what in the world are you doing?”

  “Step back, Annie. Stay back.” The stall door swung open slowly, and Dawdi stepped out with a chocolate brown and white snake dangling from his rake. A big chocolate brown and white snake. Had to be at least three feet long. And it was alive. Its tail made a sickening hiss.

  Mammi plastered herself against the door of the opposite stall where Dawdi’s horse squealed out a warning. Red stayed put but shuffled his feet and whinnied nervously.

  “Kill it, Felty,” Mammi said.

  To Moses’s great distress, Dawdi slowly walked toward him, keeping his eye firmly on the snake entangled in his rake. Moses held his breath and prayed desperately that the snake would not escape and use him to soften its landing.

  Without looking down, Dawdi tiptoed carefully over Moses, who thought he would die of a heart attack, and plodded cautiously to the door.

  “Dawdi, what are you doing?” Moses said through clenched teeth. It was a miracle he could speak at all.

  “I ain’t never seen a massasauga this far north. They’re endangered.”

  “Now, Felty,” Mammi said. “What do you think you are going to do with it?”

  “Open the door for me, Banannie.”

  “I’m not coming near that thing.”

  Without taking his gaze from the hissing head of the frightening snake, Dawdi reached out slowly and opened the door. “I’m going to hike over to the rocky side and release him.”

  “Dawdi, this is reckless. You could get bitten.”

  Dawdi shook his head slightly. “I know how to handle a snake.”

  “That’s a two-mile walk, Felty,” Mammi scolded, propping her hands on her hips. “What am I to do if you fall over, break a hip, and get bitten by a snake?”

  “I won’t be long.”

  “What about Moses?”

  “Take care, Moses. We’ll come see you in the hospital.”

  Dawdi didn’t shut the door as he concentrated on his balancing act and disappeared from Moses’s sight.

  Moses furrowed his brow. “Maybe you should send Rachel to follow him.”

  Mammi waved away his concerns. “Oh, Felty will be all right. I can’t imagine he’d do better with Rachel chasing after him.” She grunted and with some effort, knelt down next to Moses. “How is the pain?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  “Don’t you worry. Lia is bound to be back before your horse tramples you or you bleed to death.”

  Moses forced a smile and squeezed Mammi’s hand. Dear Mammi.

  He felt worse already.

  Lia ran down the lane as fast as her feet would take her without losing control and falling on her face. She’d never seen anything as gruesome as Moses’s leg before. She had to go faster. Moses might lose too much blood or go into shock before an ambulance could reach him.

  A steep shortcut through the trees and bushes would get her there faster. She hopped off the lane and dodged low branches and fallen logs as she made a beeline for the main road. As she plowed through the underbrush, she felt like a clumsy cow trampling wildflowers and ripping leaves off bushes.

  A thick root protruding from the ground proved to be her downfall. She caught her toe and went tumbling like a sack of flour. Her right forearm took the brunt of the fall as it slid into a very sharp rock. She yelled out, more in frustration than pain, although the pain was real enough. She did not have time to fall. Moses needed her.

  Only after she stood and brushed the dried leaves off her dress did she take a second to examine her stinging forearm. A nasty gash, three inches long, traveled up the back of her arm. Blood already soaked her sleeve. Lia groaned. She’d seen enough blood that week to last a lifetime. The cut was deep but not unmanageable, and she would probably need a tetanus shot.

  Cradling her arm in her other hand, she continued her trek through the trees to the road, saying a silent prayer for haste. She ignored the pain, didn’t have time to give it any attention. She had to get to a phone.

  Once she reached the paved country road, she ran in the direction of the Van deGraffs’ with all her might. It was still a four-mile journey. She wished she could have brought a horse. Soon every muscle ached and her lungs burned painfully, not to mention how badly her arm throbbed.

  She heard the rumble of a car behind her. A car! Surely the driver would have a cell phone. It would save her at least three miles and several minutes. She turned and frantically waved her injured arm at a gigantic white motor home lumbering up the road. The driver slowed his vehicle and finally stopped a hundred feet past her.

  A woman with disorderly gray curls and round glasses much like Anna’s stuck her head out the window and beamed at Lia. “Look, David, a real Amish person. She’s hurt.”

  Lia tried to catch her breath.

  A thin man with a full head of salt-and-pepper gray hair joined the woman at the window. “Come on, honey. We’ve got a first aid kit
in the back.”

  “Do you have a cell phone?” Lia panted. “Someone up the hill is hurt worse, and I need to call an ambulance.”

  “Oh my,” said the woman, gesturing to the man. “Yes, we have one.”

  The man disappeared, Lia hoped, so he could retrieve a cell phone.

  “You poor girl. Come in and we’ll get you fixed up.”

  “After we call an ambulance,” Lia said.

  The woman looked over her right shoulder to check on the man’s progress. “Our son gave us the phone to use on the trip in case we had trouble, but I don’t know the phone number for the police in this area. I’m Colleen, by the way. And that is my husband, David.”

  “I’m Lia.”

  Lia heard the side door close, and David hobbled around the back of the motor home supported by a cane, the sturdy kind with four little legs each covered with a rubber tip. The rumble of the engine died, and Colleen soon followed David onto the road.

  David held a thin, black phone in his fist. “Here it is. We couldn’t get any bars a few miles back.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so very much.” Lia tried to decipher how to use the phone, a newfangled contraption, Felty would say. Rachel had a cell phone two years ago before she got baptized, but this one was completely foreign to Lia. It had no buttons to push. “Do you know how to dial?”

  David took the phone and squinted at the screen. “I can usually figure it out. My son calls this a smartphone, but it seems pretty dumb to me.”

  Colleen put her hands on her hips and leaned in to get a better look at the phone. “I don’t need any of the fancy gadgets, I just want to be able to call my kids once in a while.”

  David touched the screen a few times and it lit up like a television set. “Do I dial nine-one-one?”

  “Jah, that’s right.”

  He dialed slowly, even though it was only three numbers, and Lia tried not to lose her patience. These nice people had saved her a good thirty minutes of running.

  Lia heard a faint voice on the other end of the line, and David’s face lit up. “Hello, yes, this is David Tolley. I am calling from northern Wisconsin. Can you connect me to northern Wisconsin? Oh, I am already there?” He covered the receiver with his palm. “They already know where I am. This is a smartphone.” He listened to the voice on the other end. “Hello. This is David Tolley. We are out here near—” He put his hand over the receiver end of the phone. “Where are we?”