by Jan Watson
“Timmy?”
“See, Doc, me and the fellows was just going over to check out Mr. Griggs’s watermelon patch—”
“Stupid, you ain’t supposed to tell that part,” a boy said, giving Timmy’s head a thump with his middle knuckle.
“You’re stupider,” Timmy said. “Mommy gave me a nickel to pay.”
“The cowcatcher caught the gandy dancer!” the bigger boy said.
“Dibs!” Timmy’s eyes blazed. “You broke dibs.”
“You can’t have dibs on words,” the big boy argued.
“Timmy, you may show me the way,” Lilly said.
Social order restored, Timmy conceded. He grabbed Lilly’s hand and tugged her forward. “Come on, fellows. Time’s a-wasting.”
They walked alongside the stalled train. The air was thick with the smell of hot ash and grease. Cinders flew about like lightning bugs. Lilly shielded her eyes.
“Look,” Timmy said, pointing to a rimmed metal wheel lying amid some broken boards in the weeds beside the tracks. “There should be three more.”
“They might be t’other side,” the big boy said.
“Yeah, right,” Timmy said. “I wonder, did the gandy dancer live?”
Up ahead, Lilly could see the sheriff motioning gawkers to back away. Several men in striped coveralls milled around. A woman was lying on the ground a few feet from the front of the engine, with a man kneeling beside her. Lilly started toward them.
“Leave her,” Chanis Clay said. “She only fainted. Her husband’s tending to her.” He motioned toward a sheet-covered mound on the other side of the tracks. “You’ll want to pronounce him.”
“Send the boys away,” Lilly said.
“They’ve already seen,” Chanis said. “This’ll make men of them.” The sheriff took her elbow. “Careful; the tracks are slippery.”
She knelt beside the still form and raised a corner of the sheet. The railroad men removed their soft-billed caps. “Does anyone recognize him?” she asked.
“It’s Dewey Clover,” a man replied hoarsely. “He was a section crewman checking the tracks from the hand truck. I don’t know why he got caught out here. Surely he knew the train was coming.”
“Strange things happen,” another said. “You get so used to the noise and the hubbub.”
Lilly lifted the watch that was attached to her blouse by a fob and noted the time. “It’s 12:15 p.m.,” she said.
“What’d you boys see?” Chanis asked, taking his notepad from his pocket.
“He come a-flying up from yonder way,” the big boy said, pointing up the track. “He was pumping the handle of the handcart for all it was worth. That can of axle grease on the cart—it fell off and crude splattered everywhere. Good thing it weren’t turpentine. We’d all be blowed to kingdom come.”
“There weren’t nothing to be done,” Timmy said. “We all commenced jumping and screaming and waving our arms when we saw the train a-coming round the bend. He looked back when the first whistle sounded, but it was too late.”
“The cowcatcher caught him from behind,” the big boy said.
Timmy blinked back tears and ground a grubby fist into his eyes. “Dewey Clover won’t never dance the tracks no more.”
Lilly made sure all the children walked back to town with her. They had seen quite enough.
The boys fell silent until they were nearly to the clinic. “I don’t know why God would let the railroad man die thataway,” one finally said. “It makes me sore at Him.”
Lilly searched her mind for the right words to say. The child needed reassurance.
“It ain’t God’s fault he was on the tracks,” Timmy said, picking at the sling on his arm. “My daddy says a body will pay a high price for being foolhardy. I reckon God would have liked for the gandy dancer to jump free and leave the handcart to fend for itself.”
“That cart was first-rate, though.”
“Yeah,” Timmy said.
“I’ve got a bellyache,” the smallest boy said.
“You boys go over to the commissary,” Lilly said, wiping a smear of grease from Timmy’s cheek with her thumb. “Tell the clerk to give you each an iced root beer soda. Timmy, tell her to put them on my tab.”
“Should I bring you one, Doc? I can pay,” Timmy said, holding forth the aforementioned nickel.
“No, but come by later and I’ll put a clean sling on your arm.”
“Did I tell you how I broke this here arm?” Timmy asked as the boys headed off.
“That ain’t nothing,” the big boy scoffed. “I once fell out of the hayloft. I almost wound up like the gandy dancer.”
“Did not,” Timmy said.
“Did too!”
“Last one in’s a rotten egg,” Timmy shouted, starting a stampede of barefooted boys.
Lilly watched them go. She had a bellyache herself that soda pop wouldn’t help. She’d borne witness to sudden deaths, lingering deaths, accidental deaths, and once death by a person’s own hand. By now, you’d think she would be used to it, but she wasn’t. When she’d uncovered the section worker’s body, she’d fought an urge to gather him in her arms and sing him into that long sleep with a lullaby. But of course, she didn’t. He was already gone, and besides, doctors didn’t do such things. What she needed was a moment alone with her Bible.
Last winter, she had attended to a young girl who’d suffered terrible burns. According to the parents, the child had been wearing a too-long, hand-me-down nightdress. It was a bitter cold night. Sleet tapped at the windows with icy fingers like a witch demanding entrance. The girl’s father held a long-handled, wire-mesh corn popper over the fireplace coals. The girl danced with delight when the first kernel popped. The mother mixed cocoa and sugar together. A pan of milk steamed on a burner of the cookstove. All of this the family remembered and repeated over and over again like a mantra of recrimination.
Lilly remembered the charred smell of the child’s flesh mingling with the scorched milk forgotten on the stove. The girl lingered through the night and into the next morning. Lilly plied her with morphine and salve of aloe. The morphine took the edge off her pain. The aloe cooled her skin and gave hope to her mother.
Finally, despite the icy roads, the preacher came. He was a burly man with an air of authority, dressed all in black and carrying a large black Bible. The Bible’s leather cover was worn and cracked with use. Lilly was never so glad to see anyone. He bore solace more powerful than all the medicines in her doctor’s kit.
The preacher spoke to the parents each in turn and heard the oft-repeated sequence of events. By now there were others present in the room: worried grandparents, stunned neighbors, a few children shocked into silence. He offered up no false reassurance, no self-indulgent words of understanding.
The preacher went to the bed on which the child lay and spoke to her with great tenderness. “Gillian, remember last summer when I baptized you into the Lord?” With the pad of his thumb, he stroked the only part of the child not burned, her sweet right hand. “You’re going to that selfsame place tonight. First you’ll go down into the deep—remember the dark water? Remember you were afraid? But just like on your baptismal day, you’ll come up again into the light and it will be more beauteous than anything you’ve ever seen. The Lord Jesus has gone before you. He has prepared a place for you.”
He had the parents kneel, one on either side of the bed, and joined their hands, making a bridge across the girl with their arms. Then the preacher lifted his big black Bible. He didn’t have to search for the Scripture he wanted. He just palmed the open book and held it aloft.
“Hear the truth of the Word as it is spoken in Isaiah,” he said. “‘The Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve.’”
The preacher closed his Bible and spoke directly to the girl. “Godspeed, child of God.”
That very day, Lilly had marked Isaiah 14:3 in her own Bible. It never failed to give comfort.
Chapter 11
Mazy was busily chatting into the telephone as Lilly stepped into the office. She held up one finger in a wait-a-minute sign. Lilly was surprised and pleased to see how quickly her sister had acclimated to the new device. They’d had a freestanding phone put in this room. It had a long enough cord to provide privacy if needed.
“Thank you very much,” Mazy said, replacing the receiver. “Can you believe I’m up to the Js? Jessup, Ronald, to be exact. See? The last name of the person you’re calling is printed first and the first name last.”
“Why were you calling Ronald Jessup?”
“I’m on a mission to place a call to every letter in the alphabet, namewise and countywise. Mr. Jessup from Jessamine County wasn’t home, but his wife answered.” She checked off the name. “That should count, don’t you think?”
Mazy took three yellow pencils from a blue mug, stuck one into the metal sharpener fixed to the desk, and turned the handle. “The most fun one was David Doolittle from Daviess County.” She gave the detachable shavings retainer a quick rap against the inside of the trash can. Curls of brown and yellow spilled out along with the rich smell of wood. “I would never have imagined a person has a name such as Doolittle. He was nice, though.”
Lilly rubbed her forehead against the beginning of a headache. “Mazy. There’s a long-distance charge for calling any number outside the county. Besides, this is a business phone. It’s not for entertaining yourself.”
Mazy laid the directory precisely in the middle of the waiting room desk, then smoothed its cover with both hands. “Well,” she said with a pout, “you don’t have to be so mean about it. I was all alone after everybody ran off. I didn’t have anything else to do.”
Lilly found she had not one bit of patience left. If she said anything now, it would be more pointed than she meant. “We’ll discuss this later. In the meantime . . .”
“I know, I know—no fun allowed.” Mazy twirled the desk chair around until her back was to Lilly. “I don’t think I like this job anymore.”
Lilly went straight to her private lavatory and filled a glass with water. She didn’t like to take anything, but this day called for an aspirin—or two. The death of the gandy dancer was enough to spark a migraine and then to find Mazy wasting time and money . . . Well, no wonder her head began to throb in earnest. She caught the reflection of her down-turned mouth and knit brow in the mirror. Leaning closer, she pushed her lips into a smile with her index fingers. “Don’t be such a grump,” she chided, adding a second aspirin to the dose.
A sudden wave of nausea took her to her knees. She hated to vomit worse than anything—she’d rather have shingles. But she leaned over the pristine toilet bowl and lost her long-ago breakfast.
“Sister,” Mazy said, pushing through the door. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“Just a little headache—sometimes this helps, for whatever reason.” Shaken, Lilly sat with her back against the wall. She reached up to pull the chain that would empty the water closet.
Mazy ran water into the sink. She dampened a washcloth, folded it in thirds, and placed it on Lilly’s forehead. “This is what Mama would do.”
A sob escaped Lilly’s lips as tears sprang to her eyes and flowed down her cheeks. How she missed her mama.
Mazy sank down beside her and wrapped Lilly in a hug. “I’m sorry, Lilly. Really I am. I’ll do better, I promise.”
“Sweetheart, it’s not you. I just get out of sorts sometimes.”
“I know. I know you do.” Mazy patted Lilly’s back in a soothing fashion. “I forgive you.”
Lilly rested her head in the crook of Mazy’s shoulder. “I’m glad Mama sent you to help me, Mazy.”
“Good gravy, it smells of throw up in here,” Mazy said, pinching her nose. “Where’s that candle you keep for moments such as this?”
Lilly waved her hand in the general direction of the linen cupboard.
“Oops,” Mazy said, “I remember now. I took it and a box of matches to the privy. I thought it would give a welcoming ambience to the outhouse. Isn’t that a lovely word? Ambience? It means the mood of a place or something like that. I looked it up in your pocket dictionary. I’m committed to learning one new word a day—or maybe one a week. Depends on how busy I am.”
Mazy offered her hands to pull Lilly up, but Lilly couldn’t move. She was trying so hard not to laugh that her belly hurt for a different reason. But just the thought of someone setting the wooden privy on fire with the ambience candle was too much. “Mazy,” she said. “Mazy, Mazy, Mazy. You are too precious for words.”
“I hope that is a compliment,” Mazy said as she hauled Lilly off the floor.
Lilly splashed cold water on her face and rinsed her mouth. “I’ve an idea. Let’s close the office for an hour. You and I could use a walk.”
“Good idea, as long as the walk is to the diner. I’m famished.”
“So what happened with the train?” Mazy asked after finishing her half of a pimento cheese sandwich.
“A man was hit and killed.”
Mazy gasped. “Oh, how awful. How could such a thing happen?”
“It was an accident.” Lilly hoped Mazy didn’t ask for details. “Finish your chips, Mazy.”
Mazy covered her plate with her napkin. “I couldn’t eat another bite. Think of his poor family. I’ll bet his mother is crying her eyes out.”
“I expect you’re right.”
Mazy picked at a loose thread on the napkin. “You didn’t have to look at him—did you?”
“Only for a minute; it’s part of my job.”
“Well, good thing I decided I didn’t want to be a doctor. I don’t like dead bodies. Or an undertaker—I don’t want to be an undertaker, either. Can you even imagine what they do all day? Gives me the willies.”
She turned her gaze to the long window beside their booth. “Look, Lilly, there’s a duck on the porch. He’s probably looking for a cheese sandwich. Do you think I could take him the rest of my chips?”
“I don’t see why not. Just don’t make a mess.”
Mazy laughed. “Sister, that’s up to the duck. That’s why Daddy wouldn’t let us keep one. Or a goose—they’re way messier than ducks.”
Lilly sat a minute and watched her sister through the window. Mazy stooped down and opened the palm of her hand. The duck backed up. Mazy put one chip on the porch floor right in front of her feet. In no time, the duck was eating from her hand.
That is so like Mazy, Lilly thought. Her sweet demeanor drew everyone and, obviously, everything in. Maybe her sister was flighty, but she was charming. And Mama said she was sensitive like her brother, Lilly and Mazy’s uncle Daniel. He was an artist who owned a gallery in Philadelphia. He had paintings in galleries and museums all over, even in Europe.
Speaking of being drawn in—Chanis Clay was now on the porch with Mazy and her duck friend. Mazy looked up from her crouched position and gave him a smile of pure sunshine. Lilly laid a dime tip beside her plate and picked up her check. She’d better get out there before the sheriff was eating from Mazy’s hand.
Mazy was coming in as Lilly was going out. “The sheriff wants to speak with you,” she said. “I’m going to run in and borrow a napkin. My hands are all greasy from the potato chips. Yuck.”
Lilly found Chanis in the yard wiping the sole of his boot on a patch of grass. “Doggone duck,” he said. “Good thing it wasn’t a goose. Say, we took the body over to Cox’s Shady Lawn. I’ll walk back to the clinic with you if you like. I can pick up the death certificate and take it over to Mr. Cox. Save you a trip.”
“Thank you, Chanis. That would be nice.”
“Have you seen that
fellow that stabbed himself again?”
“Not yet. He should have come in to have his wound packing changed.”
“I asked around, but nobody recalls a man of that description, nor was there any report of bar fights or such. Everything’s been quiet around here until Dewey got himself run over by a train.”
“So you’ve heard nothing about a missing baby, either?”
He hooked his thumbs on the edges of his pants pockets. “Nary a word. Are you making any progress with Miz Armina?”
“Some, yes. She’s recalling bits and pieces.”
“It would help a right smart if you could find out the general vicinity of where she was on Monday. I’ve been up just about every holler you can speak of asking around. Somebody said there was a new family moved in up Tattler’s Branch Road, but I haven’t had the chance to get up there yet.”
Lilly shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun. “At least the baby’s getting good care. I can’t help worrying about the mother, though. How could she not even come looking for her daughter?”
“You can’t figure people, Doc.”
Lilly watched his face light up when Mazy came their way holding a small brown-paper sack.
“I bought a piece of chocolate cake to share three ways,” she said, swinging her skirts like a schoolgirl. “Don’t you just love chocolate, Sheriff?”
“I’ll leave the cake to you ladies—sweets to the sweetest.”
Mazy batted her eyelashes. “Oh, Sheriff. You flatter a girl.”
Lilly was taken aback. It was a little too soon for Mazy to be so forward, and as for Chanis, she wouldn’t have thought he had a flirtatious bone in his body. It wasn’t that she didn’t approve of them enjoying each other’s company, but she expected decorum to be demonstrated.
“Sheriff Clay, perhaps you can stop later in the day to attend to the matter we discussed?”
Chanis tore his gaze from Mazy. Lilly was rewarded to see his face flush with embarrassment. “Yes, ma’am, Dr. Still. Sorry, I forgot my manners there for a minute.”
Mazy, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue. “Sure you don’t want this cake?” she said, flashing her dimples.
