Jeff walked over and unhooked Siwash’s bridle from the limb where it hung. “Would you take Si into his stall, Philip, please? He knows he’s not supposed to be out here when you’re around.”
“Oh!” For the first time Philip realized the horse was loose and that he had patted the big beast, even walked between those enormous feet to take the puppy away. “Jeff!” he cried, “Jeff! I’m not scared of him! Look!” And he stepped closer once more, reached up his hand to stroke Siwash’s neck, patting him, telling the horse he was sorry about all the time Si had spent locked up like a prisoner.
Jeff lifted the puppy from Philip’s arms and set it on the back of the horse. “Let’s give Casey a ride,” he suggested easily, as if puppies rode horseback every day of the week.
“Oh, no! He’ll fall off!” Philip cried in a panic. “He’s too squirmy.”
“Then maybe you should sit up there with him and hold on to him,” Jeff suggested offhandedly as if it didn’t matter a bit to him whether or not Philip deprived Casey of the pleasure of a ride. “Do you want a saddle would you rather go bareback like the Indian braves?”
Philip shook with a mixture of terror and excitement, but he raised his head to look with steady eyes at Jeff’s quiet, relaxed face, then back at the puppy still held in position by Jeff’s big hand. Casey looked awfully small way up there, and awfully alone, too, but he didn’t look one bit scared. He was grinning his puppy kind of grin, wagging his black brush of a tail.
“I’ll go bareback,” he said firmly.
Jeff lifted him up and, placing steadying hands tight around his waist, instructed calmly, “Lean forward, and hold Casey between your elbows. Put your fingers deep into Si’s mane. Go on, hold tight. You won’t hurt him. Pull your knees up just a little bit. Squeeze them against Si’s sides, okay?”
Tremulously, Philip said “O-okay…”
“Good,” Jeff said cheerfully. “You look great. Now let’s take Casey for a little walk around the clearing.” Jeff led the horse out at a slow and steady pace with Philip clinging to the mane so tight his arms trembled. Once, twice, three times around the clearing they went, and the horse, seemingly aware of the importance of his mission, stepped with care over and around each obstacle on the rough ground.
“Okay, that’s all,” Jeff said, leading Siwash to his stable. “Come on, give me Casey, then you get down by putting your foot on the top of the door.” He took the pup and set him on the ground. “Or,” he added casually, “do you want to go around once more by yourself?”
“With-without you holding the reins?” Philip’s eyes were round and frightened. “I think I’ll get down now.” He slid to the top of the lower section of the Dutch door and dropped to the ground.
“That’s the way.” Jeff smiled. “Put Siwash in his stall, please, Phil.” Without waiting to see that Philip complied with his request he walked off toward the cabin, the puppy romping at his heels.
A few minutes later when a triumphant Philip joined Jeff at the side of the cabin, he looked up to see that the roof was nearly completed. “Can we finish it up now?” he begged.
They worked for an hour and when the last shakes had been firmly nailed to the ridge pole Jeff said, “How about something to replace that lunch you lost?”
Once more during the afternoon Jeff got the boy on the back of the horse, and once more Philip rejected the idea that he should try to take the horse alone. “Maybe tomorrow,” he said. “Today I don’t want to.”
But Sunday was the same. He made many circuits of the clearing with Jeff leading Siwash, even began to sit straighter instead of leaning down in a petrified crouch. Late Sunday afternoon Jeff said, “That’s it for today, son. I’m going to Vancouver and I’ll be there all day tomorrow. Think you could come and give Si his oats?”
“Sure. How come you have to go away, Jeff?”
“I have to see someone, son. It’s important or I wouldn’t leave, but I should be back late in the evening after you’re in bed. I’ll see you on Tuesday after school, right?”
“Right.”
“How’s your mom, really? You didn’t say when I asked you this morning.”
“She says she’s all right, but she was lying down on the couch when I got home for lunch and she let me make my own sandwich. I had honey and Casey had dog food. Mom sure can cough, Jeff! She coughs better than anybody! She sounds like the dogs the game warden brought in to hunt down a cougar last winter.” Philip was definitely impressed by his mother’s ability to imitate the hounds. Jeff, however, was not.
“Are Kathy and Bill home farm?,” he asked frowning. He knew Kathy was going to have “Two little, bitty babies” and they wouldn’t be big enough to play with Philip for a “long, long time.”
“Yup. They don’t go out much now, Kathy says because they’re waiting for their babies. I guess they have to stay home the way my mom does when she’s waiting for a FedEx parcel.” Philip gave Jeff a conspiratorial look. “I hope she’s still coughing like that tomorrow so she can’t go ask the judge to say my father’s dead. Won’t that make Grant mad?”
Jeff made his face look stern. “I thought we agreed that if we could, we’d help your mom be happy by treating Grant a little nicer. So we can have summers together.”
“Oh… Yeah. I forgot. I hope she feels a little better tomorrow. See you, Jeff.”
~ * ~
On Monday morning Eleanor staggered around, got her son off to school before she crawled back into bed. There she remained until the hammering on her door brought her out of a restless feverish sleep. It was Bill.
“Kathy…” He panted. “The baby… babies…”
“Oh, Bill,” said Eleanor through her nose, “that’s great.” She tried to inject enthusiasm into her voice. “Thanks for letting me know. Come back and tell me when it’s all over.” She swayed caught the doorframe and forced a smile.
Bill frowned. “You okay, Ell? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine. Don’t you worry about me.”
“Okay. I’ve been in touch with Ralph Exley and he’ll send a man over to supervise the milking and rest of it. The boys will just put in their normal hours, so you’ll be alone here for the night. I wish you’d get a phone down here! But anyway, you have keys to the house. Call on Ralph if you need anything.”
“Fine, Bill. Now scoot back to Kathy and drive carefully. The stork’s never in a furious rush for first babies.”
Bill took off at a sprint up the slope and as she climbed shivering back into her bed, Eleanor heard the gravel spray into the stone wall at the top end of the driveway. Bill, ignoring her admonition, was driving like a maniac… Or a man whose wife was about to give birth.
How wonderful it must be to have an anxious husband drive you to the hospital when your child is about to be born, she thought, and wiped a tear of self-pity from her face. She huddled deeper into her bed. All I had was an old father, hovering hopefully, praying that I give him a grandson to take over the farm.
Philip came home sometime after that and Eleanor called out to him that he could have a couple of cookies, some milk or juice. “Don’t forget to feed Casey before you go out to play,” she told him, adding that she would get up and fix his dinner at five-thirty, so be on time.
Philip did as he was told, quietly for once, and she heard the screen door squeak then slam shut, heard his bike, with its loose back fender rattling as he pedaled along the path, headed for the creek and ultimately, the woods.
Eleanor dozed, woke and reached for a glass of water. It fell over as she tried to pick it up and she was aware of the sound of water trickling onto the floor. She struggled to sit up, to reach for something with which to mop up and the trickling of water became a hollow rushing roar, which thundered in her ears, flooded over her, black and deep, washing her away, taking her off to some other, far place, drowning… Black… Deep…
~ * ~
Philip came home after feeding Siwash and tried to wake his mother. She moaned a little but wouldn’t talk to h
im. Shrugging, he wandered into the kitchen, not yet worried, just a little peeved that she should be so sleepy when he was so hungry.
He fed Casey half a can of dog food, even though he had given him bread and milk not two hours before, and when he was looking in the fridge for that, he found some of the casserole Grant had made on Saturday. It didn’t taste very good cold, but Philip didn’t quite know how to make it warm, not even in the microwave, so he ate it anyway. He didn’t think it had tasted very good warm, either. He finished off his meal with a few peaches out of a bottle Kathy had sent down a couple of days before.
After he ate, Philip played with Casey, but the silence from his mother’s room disturbed him. Holding the puppy in his arms he went and sat on the end of her bed and watched her sleep. She sure was rolling around a lot, he thought, and making funny noises. He tried again to wake her up and make her talk to him and when she wouldn’t he decided to go and talk to Kathy and Bill. Maybe Mommy would wake up for them.
Kathy and Bill were gone away. The two big boys who helped Bill, Curtis and Mike, had gone home because all the milking had been done and there was fresh fodder in the feed bins. Bill had finished all his chores before he went out. Maybe they wouldn’t be back until late, so he better go home and see if Mommy… No! Mommy was for babies!… See if Mom would talk to him now. He didn’t like the farm to be so quiet, to see Bill’s car gone and no lights in the big house. It was like there was no one home at him and Casey.
As he opened the screen door Philip could hear his own heart thundering in his ears and he smashed the door shut, just to hear the noise it made. It made the silence deeper because Mommy didn’t even say “Don’t slam the door!”
He turned on the TV and the sound of rifle fire ricocheting through sandstone hills was too loud. He turned it off and watched pinpoint of light die out in the center of the screen, then looked out the windows.
It was getting dark and he was tired. Maybe if he went to bed all by himself like a big boy, Mommy… Mom would be better in the morning and would talk to him.
Philip took a slice of bread, clumsily spread with peanut butter, poured himself a glass of milk, only slopping a little. He idly watched two tiny black ants swimming in the peach juice he’d dribbled on the table at dinnertime, put Casey in his basket on the back porch, then, munching on his bread, he went to look at his mother again.
Her face was all funny looking. It seemed little somehow, and white. She made an odd noise in her throat and was still rolling around in her bed. Philip stared hard at her, put his glass on her dresser and went across the hall to his own room.
He put on his pajamas and crawled into bed. Much later he woke to find it very, very dark and a noise, which scared him and made him want to cry, came from somewhere. He jumped out of bed, crying, “Mommy! Mommy!” and ran across the hall to her room. “Mommy, there’s a bad noi—” He stopped. The bad noise was coming from his mother’s bed… She was making it! He went to her, touched her and jumped back. She sure did feel hot, and that noise she was making hurt his head, made his ears ring, sort of like Casey when he thought he wasn’t going to get fed, only this went on and on!
“Mommy, do you want a drink of water?” She said this to him sometimes at night. No answer, only the noise. “Mommy, do you want me to get Bill and Kathy?” And suddenly his seven-year-old mind told him he better not hang around here asking questions, waiting for answers which would not be given. He better get Kathy and Bill or someone, and fast.
He grabbed the flashlight his mother always kept in her bedside table and ran outside with its beam bobbing up and down as he pelted up the slope to the big house.
Bill’s car was still not back. Jeff! I’ll get Jeff. He’ll know what to do.
The small pajama clad figure with his flashlight dashed off across the meadow and disappeared into the forest. His feet followed the dark path through the trees. He let out a shriek when he passed the lean-to and Siwash whinnied gently, startling him. Philip stopped, froze for an instant, then remembered that the horse was his friend. He carried on to the place where the camper was always parked.
It was gone!
And then Philip remembered. Jeff wouldn’t be back until late but wasn’t it late now? It was dark. And Mommy was sick and he had to get a big person to help! He sobbed once, thinking of the long walk along the highway to the Exley house. Then, he recalled Siwash’s whinnied greeting…
As the little boy led the big horse out of the darkness of the path, the moon came sailing up from behind the mountain, lighting the forestry road, making the shadows blacker. Philip shivered as much with fear as with cold, but he led the horse to a point near a large stump, and talking to Siwash the way he had heard Jeff do, he climbed from the stump onto the horse’s back. His fingers clung to the coarse hairs of the mane, and his knees clung to the warm flanks. He leaned forward and said, “Go, boy!” but the horse stood still. Oh, how did Jeff make him go? Then the reins hanging down where he had left them after leading Si here caught his eye. The child struggled to reach the leather strap and finally managed to capture it without dismounting. He caught the reins tightly in his small hands and as he pulled up on them the horse raised his head and slowly walked forward down the forestry road toward the highway.
Philip was nearly at the turn-off, wondering desperately what he would do to make Si go in the right direction when they got there, when the twin beams of headlights swept across him, blinding him. Siwash stepped carefully to the edge of the track as the camper screeched to a stop, its rear end slewing in the loose dirt as it pulled up on the other side of the road.
“Philip!” Jeff cried. “What are you doing?”
“Mommy… My mom’s making funny noises, she sick and she’s making noises! Bill and Kathy are gone away and you are gone too so me and Si was going to get Mr. and Mrs. Exley!” Philip was shivering, his teeth were chattering, but Jeff could make sense out of what the child said. Before the last word was out of the trembling lips, the truck had been shut down, lights off and Jeff had swung up behind Philip on the back of the horse. He stripped off his jacket and wrapped it round Philip even as he used his knees to turn the horse.
“All right, son. I’ll take care of your mom for you. That was a brave thing you did, sport, riding Siwash all by yourself when you’ve never done it before.”
Philip felt the tempo of hoofbeats quicken under him as Jeff urged Siwash out of a trot and into a gallop. He felt warm, suddenly, no longer afraid, and the horse was carrying him… Cathumpity, cathumpity, cathumpity, along with Jeff… Cathumpity, cathumpity, cathumpity, back to his mom. He felt like laughing! Riding fast was fun! “Hey, Jeff! Aren’t you going to call the sheriff ’cause I rustled your horse?”
Jeff made a sound deep in his chest. “No!” he called back over the noise of the horse. Philip didn’t know the word jubilation, but he recognize the sound of it in Jeff’s voice. “I’m proud of you, my son!”
When they arrived in the yard in front of the small house Jeff flung himself off the horse, and with Philip tucked under his arm, ran to the house. He dumped Philip in his bed, bundled blankets tight around him for warmth and bent to kiss his forehead. “I’m going to look after your mom, Phil. When you’re warm again, you can come in and see her.”
Philip smiled sleepily in the dark. “I knew you’d come and help, Jeff,” he said, but got no answer beyond the sound Jeff’s voice across the hall. He wondered for a moment why Jeff was saying that, but he was too warm and sleepy and contented to wonder long. Seemed right somehow for Jeff to be saying, “Eleanor, Eleanor, sweetheart, for God’s sake tell me what’s wrong. Oh Eleanor…”
Chapter Seven
As David’s hands touched Eleanor, his lost, beloved wife, he could feel the terrible heat burning under her skin, which was dry and taut. She moaned, tossed restlessly, muttered mostly incomprehensible things between clenched teeth.
“All right, Eleanor,” he said his most gentle voice, a voice which he thought with a tinge of amazemen
t, sounded as if it should not be working at all. “All right, my sweet, I’m here and I’m going to help you. Lie still, darling. I have to leave you for a minute or two but I’ll come back to you.” Was he getting through to her at all? She seemed less agitated, the moans had grown quieter, hadn’t they, as if she was listening to him? The wild thrashing had diminished, if nothing else. He placed his cool hands around her face tenderly, kissed her burning forehead and loped from the room.
Into the living room he dashed, turning on lights as he went. He scanned every surface rapidly, then ran to the kitchen, his eyes seeking, raking the hall as he crossed it, and still he couldn’t find it, not even in the kitchen. Where was the phone? Dammit! He needed a phone! He needed a doctor for Eleanor and he needed one now.
There was no phone. What do I do now? he asked himself, standing still, trying not to panic. In her purse? Did she have a cell phone? No, he answered himself silently. Even if she did, he knew there was no cell service here. At least there wasn’t where his camper was parked, and this place was even lower. Still, he dug through her purse, but found no phone. He tried to collect his thoughts. I don’t dare leave her to find help, and that fever has got to be brought down. The fever, that’s the big thing right now. Whatever else ails her, if I can just get that fever down half the battle will be won. Think, man, think! Remember!
He bolted unerringly for the bathroom and wrenched open the medicine cabinet. Rubbing alcohol. The memory of a sweet faced nun who had cared for him stood in the forefront of his mind, now. It was as if her hands guided his, her voice spoke to him calmly as he found a basin, mixed alcohol with water, put a cloth in it, took a large towel from the linen closet, and filled a hot water bottle. Ice. He remembered ice at the back of his neck, the hot water bottle at his feet.
He wrapped a bag of peas from the freezer in a towel and returned, laden, to Eleanor. She lay thrashing wildly once more, calling, “David… David… Come back… David…” So his voice had broken through the wall of her fever! His presence had been what made her calm.
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