Holy Terror in the Hebrides

by Jeanne M. Dams

  I sighed and wished I had a drink in my hand. My patience had to work overtime to keep up with Teresa.

  “My dear girl, if I thought for a moment that Stan was foolish enough to let himself get caught out in a hurricane, I’d be extremely worried about him. He’s a nice, friendly cat, and I love cats, as I said. But he’s also a tough, intelligent animal. I haven’t the slightest doubt that he’ll turn up, warm and dry, when he feels like it.”

  Or at least, if I had doubts, I intended to keep them to myself. Given any encouragement at all, Teresa would bolt.

  “Tell me about yourself, Teresa. You got your master’s in—sociology, was it?”

  “Social work,” she corrected sulkily. “From Loyola.”

  “And what did you intend to do with it? You weren’t a nun at that point.”

  She looked at me sharply. “How did you know that?”

  “You said so. When you were arguing with Hattie Mae the other night. Or at least you implied it.”

  “Okay. I thought—well, anyway, no, I wasn’t. I wanted to get into work with women, a shelter for battered women, something like that. And then I got to know a couple of other students, and found out they were nuns in this really liberal order. I mean, I thought nuns still wore veils and lived behind walls and all that, like when I was a kid in grade school.”

  All that long time ago, I thought, hiding a smile. At least ten or fifteen years. She must have gone to a very conservative school, if that was the kind of nun she knew best. Even I had known a few sisters, back in Hillsburg, and they wore blouses and skirts and seemed bound by few really archaic rules. None of them, however, had prepared me for Teresa.

  “. . . So anyway, Nancy and Sue both want to be priests eventually. That’s why they joined the Congregation of St. Hortense. It’s really small, and liberal, like I said, and they encourage the women to seek their own destiny, and work for change. I mean, the Catholic Church is about fifteen hundred years out of date, isn’t it?”

  I murmured something encouraging. I wasn’t sure I agreed with her, but she’d talked herself into a better mood, and I didn’t want to stem the flow. Besides, I was vitally interested in her background.

  “So for a while I thought about the priesthood, too, but let’s face it. Nothing’s going to happen in the Vatican for years and years, and I can’t wait that long. So I decided to be a nun, to be in on the action, and I wangled this assignment I told you about, working with AIDS mothers and helping find homes for their babies.”

  “It sounds heartrending. I admire you for being able to face up to that kind of tragedy.”

  “It isn’t as bad as you might think. They’re just people; they have good days and bad days. We’re not allowed to get too involved with them; they switch us around so we only work with one mother for a little while, and then somebody else takes over. I hate most rules, and it hurts, sometimes, but even I can see it’s for the best. The babies—well, not all of them are HIV positive, you know. The healthy ones aren’t hard to place. The sick ones—yeah, the sick ones, and the addicted ones—they break your heart.”

  Time to change the subject. “And how did you get to know Bob Williams?”

  She looked away. “I didn’t really know him very well. And what I did know I didn’t like much.” She studied the hands in her lap.

  “My dear child,” I said gently, “don’t feel so guilty about it. We can’t like everybody who’s going to die suddenly! I should have said, how did you come into contact with him?”

  “He worked with kids a lot.” Her eyes were still downcast.

  Find another subject. “What do you do in your time off? Any hobbies?”

  She stood up, her face set and the fire back in her eyes. “I volunteer at the Humane Society. Excuse me.”

  She had spoken loudly enough to be heard by the whole room, even over the everlasting roar of the wind. Andrew, who was putting logs on the fire, rose to his full, imposing height, his jaw set. “I’ll remind you, miss—”

  I don’t know for sure who would have won that contest of two formidable wills if a diversion hadn’t occurred.

  Stan, yawning, wandered into the lounge, stretched, and then sat looking intently at the small table where the empty dessert bowls were stacked.

  14

  I NOBLY REFRAINED from saying “I told you so.” The cat was greeted with cries of delight by everyone except Janet, who glanced at him with active dislike, but made no comment. Teresa confronted him.

  “And just where have you been, cat? You’ve had us worried sick!”

  Stan’s only response was another meaningful stare at the dessert bowls. Teresa put one on the floor and poured in a little extra cream. Stan advanced and dealt with it, his rusty purr at full volume, while Teresa looked on with the fond, foolish look that only a true animal lover, or a new mother, can produce.

  Well, that settled her down for the time being. That volatile personality was apt to produce more little dramas before the storm was over, but for the meantime she was occupied. That meant I could approach Hattie Mae about my concert project.

  She was less difficult about it than I had expected, perhaps because I managed to hit upon a diplomatic approach. She was sitting by herself on one of the couches, eyes closed and lips moving silently as the wind increased in intensity, and I suppose I shouldn’t have interrupted her prayers, but I had the feeling I could have waited all night. I plumped down beside her and her eyes opened.

  “I’m sorry, Hattie Mae, but I wanted to talk to you. I’ve had an idea. Another way for you to praise the Lord.”

  I thought that was rather clever of me, actually. Hattie Mae looked a little startled, perhaps at that particular idea coming from me (whom she obviously regarded as the next thing to a heathen), but she listened, anyway.

  “You see, I have the feeling that we need something to cheer us up, take our minds off—oh, everything, the storm, and Bob’s tragic end, and your interrupted travel plans. I thought some entertainment might do it, and as long as we have a good piano and two fine musicians among us—what do you think?”

  “With him?” She jerked her head in Chris’s direction, and her lower lip began to jut out.

  I chose to misunderstand. “Oh, I’m sure he isn’t as good as you are. Who is? But I’d think he’d be quite competent to do backup.

  I wasn’t sure I had the term right, but it was the very best honey. I held my breath.

  “Well . . .”

  “Wonderful!” I had to shout over a sudden scream of the wind. “Why don’t the two of you work out what you want to do, and—”

  The crash was like the end of the world.

  It took us all a shocked moment or two to collect our wits and realize what had happened, and then we moved fast.

  A sizable part of a tree had broken through the house. Wall, shutters, window, all had fallen before the force of the wind-driven limb, fallen onto the chair where Teresa, with Stan on her lap, had been sitting. There was no sound from either of them.

  I hope someday I will forget the nightmare struggle to get the thing off them. With the demon force of the wind coming through the broken window, the piece of tree fought us like a living thing, shards of glass cutting the men as they tried to lift it, smaller branches reaching out like arms to claw them with sharp twigs. The limb was enormously heavy, with its mass of wood and storm-drenched leaves, but the men finally managed to raise it enough that we women could drag the chair, Teresa and all, out from under it. The sight that met us was appalling.

  Blood was everywhere. Teresa had been badly cut, by both the tree and the window. She had a lump on her head that was swelling rapidly; her eyes were closed.

  Stan, too, was covered in blood, though whether his own or Teresa’s it was impossible to say. Andrew, recklessly disregarding broken glass, lifted him away gently while the rest of us stood, shocked into immobility.

  Grace was the first one to recover.

  “She can’t stay here. Have you a stretcher?”
/>   Hester shook her head, her face white.

  “Then blankets will have to do. She must be laid flat and carried to a safe place. Your parlor will be best; it’s in the center of the house, and the upstairs rooms are out of the question; the roof might go. You, Chris, take one of the couches to the parlor. Get Jake to help you. Move out everything else if you have to. Janet, get blankets—show her where, Hester. Hattie, you and Dorothy get cold water and towels, and Hester, when you get back downstairs, we’ll need antiseptic and bandages. And I’ll need a lot of help carrying her.”

  We accepted Grace’s generalship; she obviously knew what she was doing. I did take a moment, while they were moving Teresa carefully onto the blankets spread on the floor, to ask Andrew about Stan.

  He shook his head. “He’s breathing, but knocked out. I’ve put him in the kitchen, by the stove where it’s warm. I don’t think he’s bleeding, but he’ll have to fend for himself till we’ve the lass looked after.”

  “Andrew, I—maybe I have no right to butt in, but Teresa was ready, a while back, to risk her life for Stan. I think she’d want you to make sure he’s okay. There are plenty of us to take care of her.”

  I looked at him anxiously, and after a moment he nodded his head, slowly.

  “Aye, maybe you’re right at that. I’ll look to him, then.”

  Chris and Jake had made a comfortable bed in the tiny parlor. It occupied most of the room, but we managed to maneuver the makeshift stretcher in and get Teresa situated without jostling her too much. Then Hattie and I stood duty as nurses, wringing out towels in basins of cold water while Grace gingerly removed slivers of glass and tried to stanch the flow of blood.

  It was a frightening business. None of the cuts looked deep, and there were no major blood vessels involved, so far as I could tell, but Teresa was so white, and there was no response from her at all. From time to time Chris leaned over to bathe the huge lump on her head.

  At last Grace stopped her grisly operations.

  “That’s all I can do. There’s more glass, but it’s in pieces too tiny to get out. I’ll clean her up and put on bandages, but she needs a doctor, and fast. She’s lost a good deal of blood, and I don’t like the look of her head. She could have a skull fracture.”

  “There’s no doctor on Iona,” said Hester soberly. “We’ve a visiting doctor, but her surgery is in Bunessen.”

  I remembered the schedule I’d seen on the village bulletin board. It seemed like a hundred years ago. Bunessen wasn’t far away, only a few miles from the west side of Mull. Right now it might as well have been on the other side of the moon.

  “Then we’ll have to take turns watching her. I’d be happier if she’d wake up, but perhaps it’s better for her that she doesn’t, for a while. She’s going to hurt like hell when she comes to.”

  So a strange sort of rhythm established itself. Grace took first watch, herself, for an hour, while the rest of us tried to rest. The lounge doors had been shut and barricaded with furniture from the parlor. There was no point in trying to repair the hole in the wall now; we could only try to keep the rain and wind from invading the rest of the house. The braver souls, Jake and Chris and Janet, went up to their rooms to try to sleep until their watch came round. The rest of us settled in odd corners wherever we could find a space.

  I doubt I could have slept, even in a more comfortable spot than the small chair in front of the lounge door. As the gusts of wind came, the doors and the chair rattled and shook. Every time I opened my eyes, nervously, I checked my watch, afraid I’d oversleep for my five o’clock stint, but there was more on my mind than the duty roster.

  I was afraid, of course. Afraid of the storm, afraid for Teresa, afraid for poor little Stan. Andrew had cleaned him up as best he could, and found no open wounds, but there was a nasty lump on his head, too, poor kitty, and he was still unconscious.

  But worse than my concrete fears were the vague ones that kept resurfacing. Every time sleep came near, my treacherous mind replayed the tape of Bob’s fall. And every time, I saw the wet rocks, and wondered why they were wet. Accident, said a panicky little voice. Yeah, sure, replied a cynical one. I wish I could talk to Alan was my last thought before I finally did drift off into an uneasy doze.

  I must have genuinely slept for an hour or two, though, because when I felt a hand on my shoulder and opened my eyes, I thought the wind sounded less fierce.

  “Jake, the storm! Is it . . . ?”

  “Yeah, it’s maybe dying down a little. Listen, could you come? It isn’t five yet, but I don’t like the sound of Teresa’s breathing.”

  I staggered to my feet and followed Jake to the parlor.

  Teresa lay where we had put her, eyes still shut, but she was moving uneasily. There was a bluish look around her lips that I didn’t like at all, and her breathing did indeed seem labored.

  “Jake, go get Grace! I don’t know which is her room, or if she went upstairs at all, but you’ll have to find her. She’s the only one of us who has any medical knowledge, and this looks serious.”

  When Jake was gone, I stood there in anxious uncertainty, trying to think what to do. Teresa was obviously in bad shape. I tried to bathe the lump on her forehead, but she turned away, fretfully, and I wanted her to move as little as possible, so I stopped.

  “Teresa! Can you hear me? You must try not to move. You’re badly hurt, but you’re going to be fine. Just try to lie still. You’ll be fine.”

  I repeated the phrase almost as a prayer. She needed more help than we could give her if she was going to be fine.

  She opened her eyes, startling me. They were unfocused, and one pupil seemed bigger than the other. That, I thought I remembered, was a bad sign, indicating possible brain damage.

  She moaned and thrashed about feebly.

  “Yes, you’ve been badly cut, and it must hurt terribly, but there’s still glass in you, and it’s better if you don’t move. Can I do anything for you?”

  Her lips moved in something like words. I leaned closer to her face.

  “Water.” At least it sounded like that. I knew better than to try to give her water, but surely there would be some ice somewhere. I didn’t dare leave her to find it, though. Where on earth was Jake?

  “Yes, dear, I’ll get you some in a moment. I wish I could make you feel better!”

  She moaned again, moved her arms, and shrieked.

  “Oh, love, do try to keep still,” I said in despair. “It’ll be better, really.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I looked up to see Chris in the doorway. His blond hair was sticking up on one side like a sleepy child’s.

  “I heard a scream. What’s happening?”

  “Teresa’s conscious, or almost, and hurting a lot. She wants some water, but I think I remember you’re not supposed to give it to someone with a head injury. Can you find some cracked ice, do you think?”

  “No.” The faint sound came from Teresa’s lips. “Not ice. Water.”

  Chris sighed and went in search of ice, and Grace appeared, looking twenty years older without her careful makeup and impeccable grooming.

  I brought her up to date, briefly, and she gave the patient a sharp once-over.

  “Yes, you’re right. Definitely some injury to the brain, and she’s not breathing properly. We have to get her some oxygen, and we have to get her to a doctor. Surely there’s some emergency equipment somewhere on this damned island! I’ll watch her while you wake the Campbells.”

  Chris came in then with some crushed ice in a glass, and I watched for a moment while Grace tried to give Teresa a spoonful. She turned her head away and moaned, and I went to find Hester and Andrew.

  It took Andrew only a moment to grasp the situation. “Aye, they’ve oxygen at the Abbey; I’ll rouse them.”

  “And I need the front-door key.”

  He pointed to the dresser and didn’t ask why, bless the man. I got the key and hastened back to the parlor.

  “How is she?”
<
br />   “No change,” said Grace. “She won’t take the ice.”

  I shook my head at that. “I guess she’s still not quite with it. Oxygen’s coming; Andrew’s taking care of it. And I’m going down to ask David MacPherson if he can use his radio to get us some help.”

  “You’re going out in the storm?” said Chris.

  “It’s not quite as bad as it was, and I have to.” I looked pointedly at Teresa, quieter now, but still blue and gasping.

  “I’ll come with you, then.”

  Wordlessly we slipped down the hall, unlocked the front door, wrestled it open, and manhandled it shut again after us.

  15

  “SHOULDN’T WE TAKE Andrew’s car?” Chris shouted over the wind. The storm, though possibly waning, was appalling. We were soaked with rain the minute we stepped outside the door.

  “It wouldn’t do us much good,” I shouted back. “There’ll be trees down in the road. Anyway, he’ll have to try to get the car to the Abbey; oxygen tanks are heavy. But we need a flashlight.”

  There was no light anywhere in the world; we might have been inside a flooded, blustery cave. Living in town, one forgets the full, horrific force of the word “dark.” There’s always a streetlight somewhere, or headlights, or the friendly lamp in somebody’s window. But Iona in the middle of a storm—I put my hand in front of my face, just to check. I actually couldn’t see it.

  “I’ve got a light, wait a minute,” Chris screamed, and after a moment a strong beam showed us rain, if little else.

  “Okay, then, let’s go. We need to hurry as much as we can!”

  We tried, but every few yards something was in the road, trees or slates or flowerpots or fence wire, and once, sickeningly, a dead sheep that we stumbled over before we saw it. Hazards were probably still flying through the air; I hoped we didn’t find out for sure. The footpath would have saved time if we could have found it, but Chris’s flashlight was barely enough to show us the road. So we struggled along as best we could, and I appreciated Chris’s steadying arm.

  All tribulations come to an end eventually. With the wind screaming in from the west, we were sheltered slightly from the worst of it once we got to the village. I had no trouble spotting David’s house, and Chris hammered on the door until Fiona opened it.