These Healing Hills

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “You done been staring down that empty path a long while, Benjamin.” Somebody spoke up behind him. Not Becca or his mother.

  Granny Em leaned against the side of the porch watching him. He had no idea how long she’d been there.

  “Here you ain’t been home but a week and yo’r feet done wanting to go wandering.”

  He wasn’t surprised to see her there. Granny Em had a way of appearing out of nowhere ever since he could remember. His mother, she with the generous heart the nurse had spoken about, had claimed the old woman kin even without any blood ties. His father had been a bit warier of the woman’s ways. Ben tried to remember why, but nothing came to mind other than her way of coming up on him unawares. That had always irritated his father.

  “My feet are right here at home.” Ben stepped back toward the porch.

  “Then it must be that girl what was drawing your eyes.”

  “She was here to see Becca. Seems a fair nurse.”

  Granny Em’s eyes crinkled up in a smile. “For a brought-in girl, she ain’t bad. Did Becca tell her about the dogwood bark?”

  “Dogwood bark?”

  “Good to settle the upheavals in a body’s stomach that a baby comin’ can cause.”

  “You’ll have to ask Becca about that. I was up on the roof when the nurse went inside. Trying to stop it leaking before the next rain.”

  “Climbed down pretty quick then, I’m thinking.” The old woman raised one eyebrow at him.

  “We got finished.”

  She stepped back and peered up at the roof. “Appears you did. But you should have used tar. That shiny paint won’t be no help.”

  “It’s what Pa always used.”

  “And always had leaks.” She headed toward the steps. “I reckon I better go see what Becca told the girl. See if them nurses are ready to run me off the mountain.”

  “I don’t think anything could do that, could it?”

  “That other nurse, the one that weren’t here today, would like to, but this’n that was here, she’ll stop and talk to a feller.” Granny Em shot him another smile. “Appears she’s more than ready to stop and talk to some fellers.”

  “She likes Woody.”

  “Most ev’rybody does that. The boy ain’t never met no strangers. But I’m thinking that ain’t the only feller that girl is ready to spend some words on. It ain’t all nursing with her. Times is she even pays some mind to what I has to say to her.” The old woman grabbed hold of the rail next to the steps and pulled herself up. She looked back at Ben. “And she ain’t particularly hard on the eyes neither.”

  With a cackle something like a hen that just laid an egg, she went on into the house. Ben didn’t follow her inside. He’d had enough of women for a while. Instead he walked off down the hill to find somebody with a horse to sell. His ma wouldn’t worry about him. She’d know he’d be back.

  But it could be the next time Nurse Howard came to see Becca, he’d be better served to find something to keep him busy out in the field or woods. Hard on the eyes or not.

  20

  As soon as Fran was out of sight of the Locke house, she slowed Jasmine to a walk. The day was hot and the way across the mountain long. Riding from patient to patient gave a person plenty of time to dwell on words misspoken and mistakes made. At least Betty wasn’t with her to point out every wrong.

  Not that Fran could see any problem with singing with Becca and Sadie. A harmless bit of fun. Ben Locke was who complicated things. He was different from the other mountain men she’d met. Different from any man she’d met, with those dark blue eyes that had a way of seeing through her. Past her polite exterior. Down to the quick.

  And calling her Sarge. That made Fran shake her head, even as a smile tugged at her lips. Sarge Howard. It might be nice to be a sergeant for a while. To order things done and watch them happen.

  She had always been the one taking orders. From her mother, who had continually needed something. Fran wondered if her mother’s new husband tried as hard to keep her happy as Fran’s father had. Her father was such a dear man, working two jobs so that he could give Fran’s mother her every desire.

  Then he had died without warning. Left for work one morning the same as any other day but never came home. A heart attack at his desk. Sudden. Final. Leaving Fran and her mother alone, with Fran the one to try to please her mother. Something she was never able to do.

  She’d grown too tall too soon. As tall as her mother at age nine, and a head taller than her by the time she was twelve. Her mother hadn’t quite known what to do with such an awkward, overgrown daughter, when what she wanted was a feminine replica of her. Someone who could wear lace and ruffles. Not someone who liked riding pants and horses.

  Her father told her she was pretty, but all fathers said that. Grandma Howard told her pretty on the outside didn’t particularly matter. Pretty on the inside is what mattered to the good Lord.

  Fran tried to remember if Seth had ever told her she was pretty. He might have at that high school dance where she wore a red chiffon dress with a swinging skirt. She had felt almost pretty that night, in spite of her mother saying the dress was a disaster. Fran had bought it at a secondhand shop without getting her mother’s approval.

  “Why did you pick out something so bright? You should have looked for a neutral color or pastel. In that red, you’re going to stand out like a sore thumb. You’re more of a beige kind of girl.”

  A beige kind of girl. Even now Fran could hear those words just as her mother had said them. Fran had almost called Seth and claimed some sudden illness to keep from going to the dance. But instead she’d wiped away tears and stared at herself in her dresser mirror. Her dark brown hair curled softly around her shoulders. The result of hours in curlers. Her lipstick and fingernail polish exactly matched the dress.

  She didn’t feel a bit like a sore thumb. Tall and too slim. Feet entirely too big. Knees knobby but out of sight under the swishy skirt. When she heard the doorbell ring that meant Seth was there, she pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin. Even a beige kind of girl could wear red sometimes.

  Fran had turned away from her dresser mirror a different person than when she’d first looked into the mirror with tears in her eyes. She might not be the prettiest girl at the dance, but she was going to be a girl at that dance. She wasn’t going to hide in her room and be invisible in front of the beige walls.

  That night, Seth had first mentioned getting married someday. It seemed like an affirmation of Fran’s decision about the dress. They were only seniors. They had many years to go before actually standing up in front of a preacher, but the promise was there. Somebody did love her. Her future was set. She was going to be Mrs. Seth Miller and the best wife and mother ever. Nothing like her own mother.

  The war changed all that. Seth changed all that by falling out of love with her.

  Fran waved away a horsefly buzzing Jasmine’s ears. Who knew? Maybe he had never really been in love with her. They’d made promises as kids. Neither of them were kids now. He’d gone through a war and found a new love. And look at her. Here riding a horse across a mountain to a house where she had delivered a baby.

  She remembered what Willie had often told her while she was training at the hospital. No one comes here by accident.

  That sounded like something Grandma Howard would tell her. The Lord has his mighty hand on your shoulder, child. Trust him to guide you to the paths you need to walk.

  “But does the Lord know how easy I get lost?” Fran spoke the words out loud as if her grandmother could hear her.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine her grandmother’s answer to that. You might be confused on how to get to some place, but with the good Lord beside you, you’re never lost. He’ll hold a light to your path, just like the Bible says.

  She stopped at the spring to fill up her water bottle and let Jasmine get a drink. She tried not to think about being there with Ben Locke. But somehow he kept pushing into her thoughts. She needed to push him
right out again. Better to think about the bluebird flying by or the woodpecker knocking against a tree. And to be thankful that so far the snakes were staying out of sight.

  Jasmine was climbing the last hill to the Nolans’ when Fran saw Ira riding his mule toward her. Her heart sank when she saw how he was kicking his mule to make it go faster. Something must be wrong.

  “Nurse Howard,” the young man called. “I knowed you were aiming to come today, but Stella told me to find you fast as I could to hurry you on up. It’s Lurene.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Stella says she ain’t doing right.”

  Fran kicked Jasmine to a trot. What if she’d done something wrong or not done something right when the baby was born? But Betty had been there looking over her shoulder. She slid off Jasmine at the doorstep. A man, perhaps Lurene’s brother, looked way too grave as he took Jasmine’s reins. “I’ll see to your horse, Nurse. You best see to Lurene.”

  Inside, the newborn’s mewling cry and the sister-in-law’s toddler’s wail greeted Fran. Stella looked around at Fran and then turned back to the girl in the bed. “Hold on there, Lurene baby. The nurse is here.”

  Lurene’s face was white against the pillow. Fran washed her hands as fast as she could and laid her hand on the girl’s face. “What’s happening?”

  “I been bleeding some.” The girl’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “How long?” Fran pulled back the cover. The sheet was stained a fresh red. She’d examined the placenta after the birth. It had looked entire, but obviously something was wrong.

  “It weren’t so bad till a little while ago.” Lurene licked her lips. “I maybe done too much.”

  Stella spoke up. “The girl was mopping the floor. I reckon she didn’t know no better.”

  “I didn’t see what it would hurt,” Lurene whispered. “Can you bring Lenny to me? I can’t abide him crying like that.”

  “Don’t you be worrying about him, sweetie.” Stella folded a damp washcloth and laid it on the girl’s forehead. “I’ll nurse him and my Cassie too.”

  Fran reached out to stop the woman. “First, get a clean towel or two for me.” Then she turned to Ira, who had followed her in. “Find something to prop up the end of the bed. Some wood chunks or rocks. Anything, but hurry.”

  The man didn’t move as he stared at the blood on the bed. When he began to wobble on his feet, Fran shoved a chair under him and dug smelling salts out of her saddlebag. She waved it under his nose and he jerked back.

  Fran leaned down right in his face. “You pull yourself together, Ira Nolan. Lurene needs your help.”

  Stella brought two iron pots from the kitchen. “Will these do, Nurse?”

  Fran pulled the cover back over the young mother’s legs and looked at Ira. “Help me lift the bed.”

  Once the foot of the bed was elevated, the bleeding slowed. Ira stepped out on the porch while Fran massaged Lurene’s abdomen to get the girl’s uterus to contract. She looked over at Stella, nursing the newborn while her little girl sat on her lap. “Does anybody close by have a vehicle? We need to get Lurene to the hospital.”

  “Joseph Brown down the way has a truck, but he can’t get it up here.”

  “Then we’ll have to get Lurene to it.”

  “If that’s what needs to happen, I best get my man to gather the help. Ira is next to useless right now and little wonder, I reckon.”

  The woman set the little girl out of her lap and carried the baby with her to the door where she hollered at her husband.

  As Fran kept up the massage, she hoped she was making the right decision to transport the girl to the hospital. She had no doubt that was where Lurene needed to be, but would the trip down the mountain be too much for her?

  The girl was quiet now, her eyes closed, but then her eyes popped open as she looked straight at Fran. “I don’t want to die, Nurse Howard, and leave my little boy motherless the way I was. He’d not have the first memory of me. I’d be like a wisp of morning fog forgot soon’s the sun comes up.”

  “The bleeding is better, Lurene. We’re going to get you to the hospital where the doctor can take care of you.”

  “I don’t want to leave my baby.”

  “He will go right along with you so that you can keep nursing him.”

  “Will you fetch him there in your saddlebag?” A ghost of a smile settled on Lurene’s lips. “That’s how I used to think babies came. In them saddlebags.”

  “He’d fit easy enough.” Fran smiled at the girl. “But this time he can ride along with you when we carry you out.”

  “I reckon it might be better if you take him. I ain’t got the strength to raise my hand to scratch my nose. What if I let him slide off in the bushes?” A tear slid out of the corner of her eye and down her cheek. She didn’t rub it away. “Could be he oughta stay here with Stella. I might not have nothin’ for the poor babe.”

  Fran looked across the room at Stella, who had come back inside. She held the now-sleeping baby, while her own little girl clutched her mother’s apron.

  Stella nodded a little. “I kin take that on if need be.”

  Fran examined Lurene’s breasts. She had milk, but would she have the energy to nurse the baby? But the girl needed the baby with her. Else she might just fade away.

  Fran took the baby from Stella and laid him beside Lurene. “No, he wants his mother.”

  When Lurene lifted her hand to cradle the baby’s face, he turned to nuzzle her side. The young mother blinked away tears. “But I don’t want to risk his breathing.”

  “Nor do I. We’ll take him with us and ask the doctor what’s best. If he says Lenny would be better off with Stella here, I’ll bring him back up the mountain.”

  “You wouldn’t get lost with him, would you?” The girl’s lips turned up in a smile, but there was a spot of worry in her eyes.

  Fran laughed. “I tell you. A person gets confused on a trail a couple of times and everybody in Leslie County hears about it.”

  “That’s the mountain grapevine for you.” Stella smiled at Fran and then leaned over Lurene. “Don’t be worryin’ yo’r head about it, Lurene sweetie. Hal will go on down the hill with you so’s he can bring back news and little Lenny if’n the doctor thinks that’s best.”

  The men carried a cot over from Stella’s house. Lurene was so slight that it was no problem using the child’s bed. Ira picked Lurene up like he was handling a butterfly and carried her out to the cot. Fran and Stella had helped Lurene into a clean nightgown and wrapped her in a quilt. A couple of pillows kept the girl’s legs elevated.

  Ira, Lurene’s brother, and two neighbor men picked up the corners of the bed and started down the trail. Two other men trailed along behind them. One of them carried Fran’s saddlebag while Fran kept a constant eye on the baby beside his mother. She’d wrapped a sling around the baby and looped it around Lurene’s neck to be safe. Even so, she wanted to be ready if one of those carrying the bed stumbled and perhaps jostled the baby out of Lurene’s arms.

  Jasmine nickered in the lot behind her, but Stella’s husband promised to bring the horse back to the center. Nobody said much as they made their way down the path. After they went a ways, the two extra men traded out with two who were carrying the bed, but Ira wouldn’t trade out. He stayed at his corner closest to Lurene’s head.

  “She ain’t heavy,” he said.

  A dark cloud seemed to hover over them all. The girl was so slight. The journey to the hospital might be too much for her. Fran second-guessed herself with every step. What if she had done something wrong when she delivered her baby? What if Lurene couldn’t handle the trip to the hospital?

  Lurene must have felt the sorrow trailing along with them. With typical mountain woman spirit, she whispered to Ira. “Sing for little Lenny. I reckon I don’t have the strength right now, but I want fun in his ears.”

  “What you want me to sing, li’l darling?”

  “How about that elephant song?”r />
  One of the other men chuckled. “I know that one.” He started singing.

  “If you should meet an elephant on a summer’s day,

  What would you do? What would you say?”

  Ira picked up the tune.

  “I’d say, ‘Good morning, Elephant, how do you do?

  I’m glad to meet you, Elephant, I’d like to dance with you.’”

  “Do the skunk.” Lurene was smiling.

  Then they were all singing to the girl as they went down the mountain. One of the men looked around at Fran. “Join right in, Nurse. It’ll make the walk go faster.”

  She didn’t know how long it had been since she sang a song along with others except for hymns in church, but for the second time in the day, she started singing and it felt right. Songs belonged here in the mountains.

  “If you should meet a stinky skunk on an autumn day,

  What would you do? What would you say?

  I’d say, ‘Good morning, Stinky Skunk, how do you do?

  I’m glad to meet you, Stinky Skunk, I’d like to dance with you.’”

  They came up with all sorts of animals and kept Lurene smiling until they got to the truck. There they loaded the bed into the back of the truck. Lurene’s brother crawled in the front and Ira and Fran in the truck bed, one on either side to steady the cot. Ira leaned down close to Lurene and sang a song right into her ear.

  Fran caught enough of the words to know it must be a love song he’d come up with especially for Lurene. Her heart ached for the young couple, and she closed her eyes as an old church song came to mind about the Great Physician. She prayed he was near for Lurene and would hold his healing hand over her.

  At the hospital, they rushed Lurene into the examining room ahead of all the others waiting there. Willie came out a little later to let Fran know Lurene was going to be all right but would need to stay at the hospital a few days to build up her strength.

  “You look a mess.” Willie stared down at Fran’s bloody apron that she hadn’t thought to take off.

  Fran slipped it over her head and folded it. “I guess I do.”