After Eli

by Terry Kay

  She nodded against his chest and the yes shot through his body like a shout. He could feel the hammering of his heart quicken in his upper chest and the sudden blood-rush filling his loins. He turned on the floor to touch his body lightly against her.

  “I know how you’re feelin’,” he said. “All the don’ts and all the wrongs and all the sins you’re tellin’ yourself. Especially now. Now, with that grand old lady dyin’—maybe dead this very second—and here you are miles away, bein’ held by a man who’s a stranger, and you given to another who’s been away all these long years. So many doors closin’ you in, lockin’ you up.”

  Her body stiffened. She lifted her head from his chest and pushed with her hands against his arms.

  “I—I’ve got to go in the house,” she said weakly.

  “No.” His voice was a command, and Rachel’s head recoiled as though slapped. She raised her elbows before her in the tight space separating them and began to pull away.

  “No,” Michael said again. He caught her arms and pinned them to her sides and forced her to face him. “Not now. Not this close to bein’ free.” His eyes flashed. A blue light danced across their pupils and his mouth closed forcibly over hers. She tried to turn her head but could not. And then he released her.

  He sat back on the floor and looked at her. His eyes softened and a mask of weariness fell over his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ve not the right, forcin’ you like that. It’s me who’s the weak one. Givin’ in to such needs.” He looked around the room and listened as the rain beat against the barn.

  “We all got needs,” she said quietly. “We all do.”

  “Some means more than others,” he replied. “Times like this—rainin’ times like this—my need is to be held.” He smiled faintly. “It’s a baby’s needs, I suppose, exceptin’ I’m no longer a baby and a man’s needs are not so easy to put to rest.”

  She reached for him and touched his face with her fingers.

  “I remember,” she said simply. “Eli—” She paused, expecting to regret having said his name, but there was no regret. “Eli always said it was a man’s way of goin’ back to the womb. I liked that.”

  Michael did not answer. An old fear pumped in his chest like a murmur. His breathing deepened and a cold crown of perspiration seeped from his hairline. He could feel her fingers on his face, purring with the softness of an even, searching stroke. There was another woman who had touched him, a bitch woman. A porcelain whore woman who had lived in a circle of mind-mirrors. Haughtily arrogant. Gifted with ready answers. Always right. Always. Lying with her ready answers, cooing “maybes” from the serene shadows of her righteousness, but flint-hard. A temper as brutal and unfeeling as an assassin’s. She had been a predator pecking at his flesh with her talk of giving. A killer. A goddamn killer. Holding her promises to his head like a cocked pistol, laughing secretly as he groveled and drooled and worshipped at her feet. But she had made a mistake. She had taken another man to a place that had been theirs and he had watched them fuse in love. And he had left them buried in the sand of an ocean.

  “Michael?”

  Her voice pulled him again to the room in the barn. He reached for her touching hand and turned it to his mouth and kissed her palm.

  “Michael.”

  * * *

  Afterward she lay beside him on the narrow bed. Her nipples, which had opened to him like the tips of a brown bloom, ached pleasantly from the drawing of his mouth and she could feel his quick spill drying on her skin. Her face was buried in the pillow of his chest and she waited for remorse to fall over her like a judgment. But there was no remorse. There was only the rain and the remote chill of the barn and the remembered tenderness of the man beside her.

  6

  GARNETT CANNON DROVE his car slowly, in low gear. It had stopped raining, but the soft dirt of the road had become a thick slush puddling in the narrow ruts of wagon wheels, and the Ford slithered dangerously between the deep gullies. Garnett cursed angrily and held tight with both hands to the top of the steering wheel.

  He cursed the weather. He cursed being a doctor. He cursed two days and two nights of no sleep. He cursed his hands and his mind that had not been able to save the leg of a farmer in Young Harris. Damned pitiful fool. Doctoring himself until gangrene ate into him like rot. Goddamned idiot. Gagging on the stench of his dead leg when five dollars could have saved it. Two dollars. But there were too many remedies free for the taking and the man’s family had scoured the woods for yellow-root and ginseng and red oak and pokeberry and God knows what else. Garnett twisted his shoulders to drive away his fatigue and anger. It was all a goddamn waste, he thought. Damned mountain voodoo. And if it didn’t work, they all happily died, blessed by the sure knowledge that it was the Time. God a-calling. Like a yodel across the valley. Come on, good son, sweet daughter. Says here in the Ledger it’s the Time. “Damn it all to hell,” Garnett muttered as the car slipped sideways and then righted itself. God had to love them. Nothing could kill them. Nothing. It had to be God’s doing, keeping them tucked away like moles, letting them grub for life day after day, like the Jews in Egypt making straw and mud bricks. But the Jews had Moses, for God’s sake, even if he was tongue-tied. God got the Jews out, didn’t he? Hell, Moses would get kicked out if he came into these hills. Nothing would make them leave. And God was keeping him there, a last-minute attendant with his pills and powders and sharp steel blades. He wondered why he stayed, why God would not crook his great finger and beckon him to some fine place where he would be embraced as an arbiter of life rather than a consultant to death.

  He looked out his car window at the wet green hills, waving in the storm’s after-wind. The great trees were shimmering with a waxed brilliance and the late afternoon sun shattered across the sea of leaves like a crystal dance. A deer ran free along a ridge above the ruins of a logging field.

  “Dammit,” he muttered.

  * * *

  He had been asleep when Floyd had knocked timidly at his door. Quaking Floyd Crider, standing inside himself, begging in a voice so quiet and afraid it was almost unintelligible. Like some grunting deaf-mute. Except the deaf-mute would smile and flash his fingers. But Floyd did not have to say anything. He could have pointed with his big toe and Garnett would have understood about Mama Ada.

  Garnett both feared and respected Mama Ada Crider. She was not like the other mountain healers. Whatever Mama Ada did contained mysteries greater than science and witchery. He had reluctantly, and secretly, sought her help to cure thrash in babies, and the mouth boils had disappeared without the single application of any of his grand medicines. He had examined her work in dozens of patients who seemed incurable, or who thought they were incurable. He had heard them tell of a sensation that rushed through them like a water that was not water. Yet it was not emotion or high-crying agonies syncopating with the cosmic winds of the universe. Mama Ada’s healing was done as calmly and as simply as removing a splinter from a hand, without any pledges to obey the rules and regulations of a prescribed hereafter. The patient walked away. That was all. There was no celebration, no preening, no worship.

  But Garnett knew he did not understand these people. He was not born among them. He had not inherited the right to belong.

  * * *

  He eased the car into the narrow mouth of the road leading to Rachel Pettit’s home and an odd energy—a curiosity—awoke in him. He had known Rachel for years. Rachel and Dora had been the only children of Harley Rice, the first patient he had treated after opening his office in Yale. Rachel was a girl then, just before her marriage to Eli. She had been beautifully tan, with rich chocolate eyes, and he had teased her about being Portuguese. She had laughed merrily at the strange word and made him repeat it in syllables. She would tell Eli, she had promised; it was a word Eli would like. Later, when Eli began to disappear and tales of his exploits filled Pullen’s Cafe with their folk-hero embellishments, Garnett saw less and less of Rachel. He knew she sold
quilts and worked miracles with a sewing machine, but her dark beauty had softened and the easy laughter had left her. She had waited many years for Eli to reappear like a valiant from war and that retreat had left her isolated and silent. She lived with Sarah and Dora and the legend of a buried treasure, and it was well known that the only person Rachel communicated with was Floyd. Until now, Garnett thought. In Yale, the people spoke of a man who was Eli’s cousin. An Irishman. He had been bitten by a rattlesnake and Mama Ada had saved his life and he had stayed to work at building a fence on the farm. To the doctor, the report was humorous. He knew the Pettit family. If the Irish strain was in their bloodline, it was older than the invasion of the Angles and Jutes and Saxons. But no matter. A man would be good for Rachel. It was a damned shame to have a full woman withering like a prune over some insane act of loyalty. Maybe she’s rolling in the grass with him five times a day, Garnett thought. If so, the Irishman was a lucky bastard.

  Garnett laughed sharply. His fatigue was leaving him.

  * * *

  Rachel sat with Michael on the front porch of her home and watched the Ford crawl up the mud road like a black turtle. She was tense. She wondered if her face or her voice would betray her and if the doctor would know without asking that she had made love to the man sitting beside her. The doctor was a wise man. Her hands tightened on the small cloth sack of herbs that she held in her lap.

  “You’re not to be worryin’,” Michael said quietly. “There’s no wrong in givin’. Remember that, Rachel.”

  She did not look at him.

  “Will you remember that, Rachel?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered shyly.

  “Then be for smilin’ for the good doctor,” he replied cheerfully.

  “I—I can’t,” she said. “I’m thinkin’ about Mama Ada.”

  “I know,” agreed Michael. “And I’m bein’ selfish.” He stood at the edge of the porch, above her, and waited as the car slipped into the yard.

  Garnett switched off the car’s motor and shoved the door open with his shoulder. He walked carefully across the yard, keeping his eyes on the ground.

  “What you’re seeing is one of God’s miracles, Rachel,” he said, stepping across a puddle of water. “A damn fool doctor and a broken-down Ford out in weather that would’ve grounded Noah.” He looked up. “How are you?” he asked sincerely.

  Rachel stood, holding the sack of herbs against her.

  “Fine,” she answered softly. Then she said, “This is Michael O’Rear.” She paused. “He’s Eli’s cousin, from over in Ireland,” she added.

  Garnett studied Michael’s face like a painting. He gave Michael an old, practiced nod, a doctor’s habit.

  “Irish?” he said. “I almost married an Irish girl once. She was a nurse. Prettiest thing I ever put eyes on. Tied up a bandage like a Christmas package. She loved ballet and made me take her every time one would be around, up in Boston. Then one day I got a letter from her, telling me to go jump in Swan Lake. I heard later she up and married a lawyer and had twenty or thirty children, and gave that poor fool fits.”

  Michael smiled broadly. He extended his hand to the doctor.

  “Likely he’ll be deservin’ a peaceful place in Heaven, if she’s the same as some of the scrappy ones I’ve known along the way,” he replied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doctor.”

  “Same,” Garnett said. “It’s good to hear the accent again. You a drinking man, Mr. O’Rear?”

  The surprise of the question rose in Michael’s face. He looked quickly to Rachel.

  “Don’t pay the question any dues, Mr. O’Rear,” Garnett continued. “It’s the way I am, and the reason I ask is because me and some of the gentlemen of this community get together occasionally at Pullen’s Cafe after the dinner crowd leaves. It’s a disgrace of a place at mealtimes, but at night it’s the best in the way of a tavern you’ll find anywhere around. In fact, it’s the only one. Thought maybe you’d come in and join us one night. Help me convince these damn stone-age minds around here that it’s nineteen thirty-nine and Hitler’s about to pull us all into a war.”

  “That’s kind of you,” replied Michael. “I’ll be doin’ that. One night soon, I’ll make my way in.”

  The doctor nodded. He said, “Good.” Then, “Come along, Rachel. Bring that sack of ground-up roots and stewed leaves and eel skins or whatever it is this time, and let’s get going. Believe it or not, I love that old woman. If there’s anything that real medicine can do, I’d like to say I did it.”

  Rachel followed Garnett. She did not speak to Michael.

  “I’ll be waitin’ to hear,” Michael said as Garnett opened the door to the Ford.

  “I’ll bring them back when I leave,” Garnett told him. “By the way,” he added, “the fence looks fine.”

  “It goes slow, but it goes,” replied Michael. “You’re a good man, Doctor. For doin’ all this, I mean.”

  Garnett looked across the yard to the barn. He saw the thin swirl of smoke coming from the stovepipe cut into the side of the barn room. He laughed easily.

  “It’s not being good, Mr. O’Rear,” he said. “It’s the nobility of the calling.” He slipped into the car and closed the door and drove away.

  * * *

  They did not return until the following morning. Michael watched from the field as the Ford circled the yard, stopped, then drove away. He waved at the car from his distance but did not know if the doctor saw him. Then he jabbed the posthole digger into the soft ground, still wet from the storm, and walked briskly toward the house.

  Dora was at the well, pouring water into an enamel bucket. She looked old and tired and Michael knew she had not slept. He wondered if she had questioned Rachel about their time alone together. No, he decided. No, she would not have. Not at the home of Floyd Crider. Not with the old woman dying.

  “Good mornin’, Miss Dora,” Michael said brightly. “It’s good to see you back. How’s Mama Ada?”

  Dora stared at him coldly. “No better,” she answered.

  “Ah, and it’s a pity, it is. And the doctor? What does he think?”

  “He never said. Went back to town for some more medicine.”

  “He’s a good man,” Michael remarked. “It’s easy to tell. He’ll do what he can.”

  Dora lifted the bucket from the wellbox.

  “I’ll carry that, Miss Dora,” offered Michael.

  “I can do it,” Dora answered evenly.

  Michael stepped away. Their eyes met and she saw the rage flutter in him, then quiet. He smiled gently.

  “I know the three of you must be tired to your very souls,” he said. “I’ll be workin’ in the field. The diggin’s easy after the rain. Tell Rachel and Sarah I’ll see them in the afternoon.”

  “The fence,” Dora said suddenly. “When’s that fence goin’ to be built?”

  The expression did not change in Michael’s face.

  “Soon, Miss Dora,” he answered softly. “Soon.”

  He watched as Dora crossed the yard and entered the house. He could see the vague outline of Rachel standing close to the screen of the window, staring out at him.

  * * *

  It was late in the day when Sarah found him resting in the woods beside his stack of blackgum posts. He was stretched across a soft bed of pine needles that he had raked together with his fingers, watching a bluejay darting through the limbs of a hickory. It fought for balance on a twig, flapped noisily, screamed, then dove away from the tree.

  “Mr. O’Rear?” Sarah said quietly.

  Michael rolled to his right and in one move was on his feet, leaning forward in a coil. He recognized Sarah and stood upright, laughing.

  “You ’most had a corpse on your hands, Sarah, girl,” he said. “Comin’ up on me, not makin’ a sound like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Them’s words I don’t like hearin’. Never be sorry, Sarah.”

  “But it scared you.”

  “And wel
l it should have, me daydreamin’ like I was when I should have been workin’. It’s water you’ve got, is it? And that was what I was thinkin’ about. Whether to go to the house or to the creek, and, lo, here it is.”

  Sarah handed him the jar of water and stood away from him as he drank.

  “It’s good,” he said. “Nothin’ better, and I’ve had my share of ale, bein’ around the circus. But nothin’s as good as good water.”

  “Mama said you’d be thirsty,” Sarah mumbled. “She started to bring it up, but she told me to.”

  Michael smiled. He knew what he could expect from Rachel—reserve, caution, withdrawal. She had violated her loyalty to Eli and it would need time to heal.

  “Your mother’s a carin’ person,” he said. The smile widened on his face. “And a givin’ one,” he added lightly. “Don’t know that I’ve ever met a better lady, in every way.”

  “Mama made Dora go to bed,” Sarah told him.

  Michael placed the jar on the ground and sat beside it, curling his feet beneath his legs.

  “It’s good she did,” he replied. “Miss Dora looked weary enough. She must’ve not slept.”

  “She tried doctorin’ Mama Ada with some herbs, but they didn’t work.”

  “Your Aunt Dora knows a lot about herbs, does she?”

  “Some. She makes me take some. Used to, when I was little.”

  “Well, you’re a woman now. Pretty as a flower.”

  Sarah smiled. She shook her head and turned to look across the field below the woods.

  “What’s that?” bellowed Michael. “You denyin’ you’re pretty as a flower?” He laughed easily. “Just goes to show you’re not lookin’ at yourself in the right mirror.”

  “A mirror’s a mirror,” she answered. “They all the same.”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong, Sarah. There’s all kinds of mirrors. Why, in the circus there’s a house of mirrors that can make you look fat or skinny, or wide or tall, or like you’ve got two heads instead of one. There’s all kinds of mirrors, but there’s only one that’s worth seein’, Sarah.”