by Jan Watson
Lilly caught her sister’s eye, and Mazy gave her a thumbs-up. Dressed in a coffee-colored linen blouse and coordinating glen-plaid skirt, she was cute as a bug.
“Everything going okay out there?” Lilly asked.
Mazy’s hand strayed to plump her hair, but she jerked it back as if she’d been caught admiring herself in a mirror. “Yes, thank you, Doctor. Nurse says I’m a fast learner.”
“It’s not so well with me,” Mrs. Hill said with a huff. “I’ve been waiting since eight.”
Behind the patient’s back, Mazy rolled her eyes. Lilly wished she could roll hers. The office didn’t even open until nine. There was not a single solitary thing wrong with Mrs. Hill. But she showed up every Wednesday morning like clockwork—always the first patient of the day.
“What seems to be the problem, Mrs. Hill?”
And so the day progressed. By lunchtime, Lilly had seen a slew of patients, and now a dozen metal-backed charts were stacked at her elbow. Most doctors charted as they went, but Lilly kept notes that she later transferred. She liked her logs and graphs to be neat and precise and always in navy-blue ink. Thankfully, Wednesdays were half days.
“Whew,” Mazy said as she plopped into the empty chair. “You never told me it would be so busy.”
Lilly leaned back in her chair, taking a minute for her sister. “What do you think? Did you enjoy your morning?”
“I did. This was almost fun—except for the sick people. All that sneezing and snorting. I didn’t like that so much. You know the best part?”
“No, what was the best part?”
Mazy straightened her shoulders. “For once in my life I got to tell people what to do.”
“The first time ever? Surely not,” Lilly teased.
“Oh, Lilly, you don’t know what it’s like to be the second-in-line twin. Molly was born superior.”
“Well, Nurse said you did very well. I hope you’ll take the job.”
“Do I get paid?”
Lilly opened a chart. “Yes, I think a stipend is in order.”
“I’d rather have money,” Mazy said, her face as guileless as a two-year-old’s. She jumped up and went into the washroom, leaving the door open. “I’ll bet you didn’t know there’s a beauty parlor here in Skip Rock,” she shouted as water splashed into the basin of the sink. “When I get paid, I’m going to get an appointment.” Drying her hands, she leaned around the doorframe. “Getting this mess of hair straightened will be money well spent.”
Lilly uncapped her fountain pen, but she didn’t say a word. There were some things a girl had to learn on her own.
Mazy smoothed lotion on her hands, releasing the scent of almonds and cherries into the room. “This smells just like Mama.”
Lilly looked up from the line she’d just penned. “I think that every time I twist the top off the bottle.”
Caught in a beam of sunlight streaming in through the window, Mazy’s golden curls framed her face like a halo. “Do you have any other jobs for me?”
A fissure of disquiet fractured Lilly’s concentration. Her sister was so lovely in her innocence—still so unmarred by the vicissitudes of life. Sometimes Lilly wanted to put her in a box and store her on the top shelf of a closet like a fine piece of china too precious for everyday use.
“Would you like to get us some lunch from the diner? Their chicken salad is really good.”
Mazy’s eyes lit up. “Oooh, yes, how fun. Mama would never pay for lunch. Do you want an iced tea? And oh, they have that machine that makes potato chips while you watch. I want some of those. We could share.”
“Sounds good,” Lilly said, fishing a bill from her wallet. “And, Mazy, stop by the sheriff’s office on your way. It’s two doors up from the diner. Tell Sheriff Clay I need to speak to him.”
“The sheriff’s office? Really? Are we in the midst of a crime spree?”
“Hardly. Now just ring the bell and wait until he comes to the door. Don’t go inside. Understand?”
“Well, yes, but why?”
“It’s an unbecoming place for a young lady. Sheriff Clay won’t mind taking a quick message.”
“All right.” Mazy patted her hair. “Be right back.”
“This cold sweet tea is so good, Mazy,” Lilly said after a long sip through a soda straw. “Don’t forget to rinse the thermos.”
“Mmm, okay.” Mazy wiped a bit of mayonnaise from the corner of her mouth.
“Did you see Sheriff Clay?”
Mazy laid her half sandwich on the linen napkin she had spread on the desk. “I did, Sister.”
“And?”
“He’s dreamy, just dreamy.”
“Forevermore, Mazy, you’ve seen Chanis in church every Lord’s Day since the first of summer. Why, you’re even in the same Sunday school class.”
“But he looked so different today. On Sundays he’s just a regular fellow.”
“Did you tell him I needed to see him or did you stand on the sidewalk blinded by the light?”
“I told him, and I’m not leaving this office until he comes by.”
“It’s the uniform.”
“And the star on his chest.” Mazy fanned her face. “Did you see stars when you first met Tern?”
“Well, not literally,” Lilly laughed. “I was only eleven. I was more interested in the beagle dog he had with him than I was in Tern.”
“But eventually you saw stars, right?”
Lilly twisted the gold band on her left ring finger. Just mentioning Tern spread warmth from her toes to the top of her head. “Yes, indeed I did. But if you want my advice, don’t let the stars sway you.”
Mazy shook her head, making her honey-colored curls jounce like bedsprings. “I’m not marrying him, Lilly. I just want to look at him.” Her eyes widened and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Speaking of the devil,” she whispered.
Chanis Clay stood just beyond the partially open door. The screen squeaked when Lilly motioned him in.
“Ma’am,” he said, removing his hat and tucking it under his arm. “You needed to see me?”
He stood by her desk at full attention as if he were a soldier in a dress parade. The crease in his khaki pants was so sharp it was a wonder he didn’t cut himself pulling them on. His calf-high boots were polished to a high shine; the dark-brown leather matched his gun belt and the holster on his right hip. His dark, brilliantined hair was swept back from his brow and parted in the middle. The only thing marring his perfection was a small shaving nick on his chin.
“Yes, thank you, Sheriff. Mazy, perhaps you’d like to finish your lunch on the front porch?”
Mazy wrapped what was left of her sandwich in her napkin and stood. With two fingers she snagged the potato chip bag and tucked it under her chin so that she would have a hand to carry her sweet tea.
“Let me help,” Sheriff Clay said. Reaching to take the chips, his hand brushed Mazy’s cheek.
Mazy’s face pinked like apple blossoms. Her sandwich dropped, still wrapped, to the desktop. “I’m so clumsy,” she said.
Somehow, the sheriff wound up with Mazy’s sandwich and her chips, while Mazy carried her drink. Lilly heard the front door open and close before Chanis Clay backed into her office. He stood staring down the hallway for several seconds before he turned around.
Lilly thought she could detect a trace of sorrow in his clear blue eyes as he took the seat Mazy had vacated. It hadn’t been that long since his father was killed—shot in the chest by an intruder at the mine office. Chanis’s father, the first Sheriff Clay, had been forty-eight, a good and honorable man by all accounts. He left his wife and thirteen children; as the oldest at twenty-one, Chanis had big boots to fill.
“Something beyond strange has occurred,” Lilly said, leaning forward in her chair. “I seem to have acquired an abandoned baby.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the sheriff said, retrieving a small spiral-bound notebook from his breast pocket. “You seem to, or you did?”
Lilly took her time
relaying all that had happened since Monday evening when Armina had become ill. Chanis listened intently, taking notes with the stub of a yellow pencil. Every now and then he’d stick the pencil in his mouth to moisten the lead.
“Do you reckon it fell off a hay wagon?” he asked when she had finished.
“A hay wagon?” Lilly said, puzzled.
“Sorry,” he said with the trace of a grin. “My daddy used to tease that there were so many young’uns in our family, some of us must have fell off the back of a hay wagon and rolled up in his yard.”
Lilly smiled, glad to see some humor in such a serious young man. “I thought the mother would come looking for the baby by now. I’m very concerned that something untoward has happened to her.”
“The baby is defective, you say?”
“She has anomalies, yes.”
“Most likely somebody pitched the poor little thing.”
Lilly put her hand to her heart. “I wouldn’t like to think so, but I’ve heard of such cases. Usually, though, the mother leaves the baby on someone’s porch or in a church where it can be easily found.”
“We don’t know but what Miz Armina found it in some such place. She can’t remember, you say?”
“Not yet, but I haven’t pushed it. I have to think of her health too.”
The sheriff stood, his holster creaking like saddle leather, and put the pad and pencil back in his pocket. “I’ll keep an eye out, Doc.”
“One more thing: a patient came in yesterday with stab wounds. He said he injured himself while cleaning fish. I found that highly unlikely.”
“Probably a brawl of some sort. I’ll bet he’s laying low until he can sneak out of town. I see too many drifters just hanging around the mines, hoping to get a week or two of work before they blow away. My opinion, they cause more trouble than they’re worth.”
Lilly stood and shook his hand. “Thank you, Chanis. I’ll keep you posted on the baby.”
“You’re right to keep it quiet for the time being. Something will shake out—it always does.” He started for the back door, then stopped. “Say, you mind if I go out through the front?”
Chapter 8
Armina lay in her bed, feeling as stunned as a foundered cow. Her mind swirled with blurry half-formed images, but she couldn’t seem to pull them together.
“Concentrate,” she told herself. “Concentrate.”
The bed was hard. The room was small. There was one window. Craning her neck, she could make out a sliver of light sneaking in through a gap in the tightly closed curtains. So—it was daytime.
She held her hand in front of her face. It felt as heavy as a rock. Best she could tell, she had four fingers and a thumb. That seemed right. One finger wore a slim gold band. She was married. Strange—shouldn’t she remember that?
It must be suppertime. She had to get up. There were hungry mouths to feed: Aunt Orie and the kids—her niece and nephew—and evidently a husband, though she couldn’t picture him.
Summoning her will, she rose up on her elbows. The room whirled like the carousel ride at the fair Ned had taken her to last summer.
Ned. There. That was something solid to hold on to. Maybe your mind worked better if you didn’t think so hard. She fell back against the pillow and closed her eyes. The carousel slowed, then stopped. Always the gentleman, Ned helped her down from the white horse with the yellow mane.
The hot, syrupy smell of melting sugar filled the air. Cotton candy. She wanted a cone of that cotton candy. Ned laughed when some of the airy pink confection stuck to her nose. She was aggravated when he pulled her behind a barker’s stand and kissed it off. She wasn’t much given to displays of affection.
Ned. Her husband. He’d brought her down from the mountain and married her at the church in Skip Rock. She could never figure why. She was plain as pig tracks with a figure like a sled runner. But her husband acted like she was spun gold—like he could never get enough of her. The way she couldn’t get enough of that cotton candy once she’d tasted it.
At first she thought it was because he was marred, that he picked her because nobody would pick him. He had no lack of looks or personality but he was missing a leg. It had taken her some time to get over that particular thing. But she got over it quicker when she saw two girls flirting with him at a fish fry. That was before they’d even started going out, but still it got her dander up.
Her own rusty bark of a laugh in the hushed room startled her. There was no looking back once she’d set her heart on him. But where was he? Where was Ned? Ah, she should get up—go and search for her one-legged man—but this thinking was wearying her. Just for a minute she’d close her eyes.
Something baleful snuck into her carousel of memory—the dark horse she would never choose to ride. Aunt Orie was dead. Oh, oh. Did she have to grieve that all over again?
She’d met Doc Lilly because of Aunt Orie. They’d tried everything to save her aunt—all that modern medicine had to offer. But in the end, she’d died anyway. You couldn’t deny death, that cold reaper, his due for any length of time. She lifted her hand to cover her eyes. That was done. Dead and buried, she didn’t have to go there again. So . . . if that was past, and the carousel was past, where was she now?
“You’re awake,” a woman said. “Do you want to try a bite of supper? I’ve made milk toast.”
The woman set a bowl and spoon on the bedside table. Before Armina could think how to answer, the woman hauled her up and stuffed pillows behind her back. Did she have no say-so in the matter?
“Who’re you?” Armina asked.
“I’m Hannah, your nurse,” she said like she had a right to be hauling Armina around, like she did this all the time.
Nurse? So she was in the old folks’ home. Or purgatory—they were both the same. How old was she anyway? She held her hand up again, this time checking for liver spots. The nurse slipped a spoon into it.
Armina flung the spoon across the room. She wasn’t eating milk toast. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. She had teeth, so she wasn’t that old. She wanted corn bread and maybe some fried chicken and then blackberry cobbler.
Her mind snatched her backward to a dark place—dark and green and whirling, like the sky before a bad storm. Blackberry fronds snagged her legs and trapped her arms in a thorny vise. Rabbits, as big as hound dogs, hopped among the briars. “Run,” one said, its mouth twitching fearfully. “Run, rabbit, run.”
Her struggle was to no avail as the vines tightened around her ankles and wrists. She was trapped.
“Armina, dear,” the biggest rabbit crooned in a familiar voice. “Lie still.”
A clink of metal against her teeth and the rabbit said, “Here, this will make you feel better.”
Bitter-tasting medicine flowed from a spoon. Armina turned her head. The rabbit pinched her nose. She had to swallow.
Tension flowed from her body like bathwater down a drain. The rabbits munched blossoms of white clover. The blackberry vines offered up their fruit. Her sycamore walking stick felt good and sturdy in her hand. Down by the bridge, two women talked quietly.
“Loose the bonds in fifteen minutes,” one said. “She’ll be placid for a while.”
“I will. I’m sorry, Doctor. There’s milk toast everywhere. I thought she was better.”
“I’ll help you clean up.”
“No, please. I’ll get it. You have better things to do.”
Better things to do—better things to do. Armina had better things to do. With fitful blasts of tinny calliope music, the carousel jerked to life behind her. In a rush she mounted the white horse with the yellow mane. Her steed rose and fell gracefully. Pink cotton candy melted on her tongue. This was a good place. She’d stay here for a while.
Supper was on the kitchen table when Lilly crossed the road from Armina’s house. Sandwiches, thick with cheddar cheese and ham on Tillie Tippen’s sourdough bread, graced white ironstone plates.
“There are bread-and-butter pickles to go with,�
� Mazy said, popping one of the treats into her mouth. “Crunchy and sweet. Yum.”
Kip sat expectantly in Lilly’s chair. He hadn’t dared to breach her plate, though a thin bit of drool trickled down his chin.
Lilly snapped her fingers, then pointed to the floor. “Kipper!”
The little terrier turned mournful eyes on her before he jumped down. Lilly took a saucer from a stack reserved for Kip, cut a corner from her sandwich, and put it on the floor.
“We should get Kip a high chair,” Mazy said when they had finished saying grace.
“And some bibs,” Lilly replied. “He could definitely use some of those.”
Mazy rolled her eyes. “I draw the line at diapers.”
“Remember my dog Steady? Remember how after she got old and deaf, if you asked her to do something she didn’t want to do, she’d just turn her eyes away? Like if she couldn’t see you, she didn’t have to mind.”
“I remember you spent a whole summer teaching her sign language. I was what—six or seven?” With busy fingers, Mazy signed sit and stay. “I still remember most of it.”
A terrible jangling sound made Kip’s fur stand on end. Abandoning his saucer, he ran to the door, barking furiously.
“What in the world?” Mazy said.
“Goodness, it’s the telephone.” Lilly rushed to the wooden box installed on the wall by the door. “Kip. Shush!” She lifted the receiver and shouted into the mouthpiece, “Hello!”
Mazy held Kip to quiet him. They stood in a tight bunch. Kip licked first Lilly’s face and then Mazy’s. “Hello,” Lilly said again.
“How’s my sweet wife?” came like a miracle through the wires along with a fair amount of background noise.
“Tern?” Lilly sagged against the wall. Her knees felt like jelly. Thoughtfully, Mazy took Kip outside, closing the door behind her.
“It’s me, angel. I’ve got some news.”
“Are you okay?” She couldn’t help but pose the question every miner’s wife dreaded having to ask. “Are you hurt?”
“No, honey, no. Please don’t worry about me. You know I’m careful as can be. But listen, Lilly; I’m not coming home next week like we’d planned—”
