These Healing Hills

by Ann H. Gabhart

  He peered into her basket filled with dandelion leaves and some bark. “Find anything good today?”

  “Pickings was kinda slim, but I beat the squirrels to a few hickory nuts. They’s down in the bottom there ’neath those greens.” She lifted both the pups up into her lap. “Looks like your pickings was some better.”

  “Took this one dog off Shorty Johnson’s hands so he threw in the pups too.” That was sort of the way of it.

  “Shorty’s not generally so giving.” Granny Em’s eyes narrowed a bit. “I’ll fix you up a dose to get rid of the worms. Coming from Shorty, these’n is bound to have worms.” She looked out the rear window toward the truck bed. “What happened to the other critter? He jump out the window?”

  “I gave him away already.” Too late he realized it might have been better to not mention the collie dog. “To somebody who needed a dog.”

  “I used to have a dog. Long time back. Went ev’rywhere with me. Even learned how to sniff out ginseng root. Mighty handy that way. That old dog was fine company.”

  “How come you never got another dog?” Ben glanced over at her. Both the pups were lying peaceful as anything in her lap.

  “Too much trouble feedin’ ’em. Dogs ain’t good ’bout eatin’ greens and the like.”

  “I guess not.” He hit a rock that bounced Granny Em up off the seat. She kept her hands over the pups.

  “I hear tell these contraptions can be a body’s death.” She didn’t sound worried. “One way to go’s as good as another, I reckon.”

  Ben laughed. “I’ll pay more mind to the road and try to miss the bumps.”

  “They ain’t no road out there to pay mind to. I can’t see no way you can git this thing up to your house.”

  “Not yet. But I’ll work on that.”

  “Roads’ll ruin these hills. Cuttin’ the trees and all. Trees is what holds it all in place.”

  “You could be right.” Ben twisted the wheel to spin around one of those trees and head up the hill.

  “Ain’t no could be about it.”

  Ben didn’t argue with her. The roads would come whether they wanted them to or not. That was just the way things were. When the trees got too thick, he pulled the truck between two of them and turned off the key. The truck shuddered to a stop.

  “Guess we’ll have to shanks’ mare it from here.” He got out and went around to open the door for her. She handed him the pups and he set them down on the ground while he helped her out. The woman didn’t feel like she weighed much more than Sadie. “Why don’t you come on up the path with me? Ma was cooking apples and green beans. She might even have fried apple pies.”

  “That’s right temptin’.” She reached for her basket. “But I reckon I’ll go on in and fix up that dose for them there pups ’fore they give Sadie the worms too and have her punying around agin. If I get it done ’fore night falls, I might come on back down the hill. It ain’t a far step.”

  “That’d be kindly of you.” Ben picked up the little pup before it could run under the truck to hide. He stuck it inside his shirt.

  She looped her basket on her arm and started up the hill toward her house. Then she looked back at him. “Reckon I better make three doses so’s you can give one of them to that nurse girl. In case they don’t have nothing for dog worms in their medicine chest.” When Ben just looked at her without saying anything, she went on. “Did the girl like the dog?”

  “How’d you know I gave it to her?”

  “Some things ain’t hard to figure out.” She gave a little laugh as she turned back up the path toward her house. “No indeedy. Not hard at all.”

  24

  She had to have lost her mind. Letting Ben Locke leave this dog here. The collie leaned against her leg and looked up at her with trusting brown eyes. He hadn’t made the first move to run after Ben’s truck. Just stayed right beside her, his tail sweeping the ground behind him whenever she touched his head.

  “All right, Sarge.” Fran leaned down to look the dog straight in the eyes. “We’ll figure out something, but I’m warning you. There’s going to be a storm when I take you inside. You better be on your best behavior.”

  A cocklebur embedded in his fur stuck her finger when she stroked his side. With care, she worked the hair away from the burr, one strand at a time. The dog stood still, as though he knew she was getting rid of this thing that had been sticking him. She finally worked it free.

  “Wonder how a currycomb works on a dog. Could be we should go find out before we introduce you to Nurse Betty. Make you as handsome as possible.” And maybe she’d just stay outside until dark and then sneak the dog into the house.

  She smiled, thinking about him sleeping on the rug beside her bed. How had Ben Locke known she wanted a dog? Thinking about Ben brought up the other reason she had to have lost her mind. Saying she’d go to the sorghum stir-off with him. Not with him. With his family. A great deal of difference there. A great deal. It was best if she didn’t let herself get swept away by those blue eyes. And that he’d brought her a dog.

  She’d never had a dog. Ever. Even though she’d begged for one for years when she was a girl. That and a horse. At least until she turned twelve and faced the fact that no way in the world would her mother let her have either one. When she went crying about that truth to her father, he shrugged and told her she’d have to claim her grandmother’s old hound dog and pony as hers.

  But Fran did better than that. She hadn’t gotten the dog, but that next year she found a job at a nearby stable where rich girls boarded their jumping ponies. The pay wasn’t much, but along with mucking out stalls, she got to exercise the ponies.

  Now she had a dog. A smart one too that did seem to almost read her mind. She talked to him as she combed through his fur and worked out more cockleburs and beggar lice. The dog’s ears drooped a bit now and again, and he whined once when she accidentally yanked his hair, but he never tried to get away.

  “We can’t count on Betty seeing how smart you are, Sarge. I can’t believe he named you Sarge! That man won’t ever let me forget telling him to call me Sergeant.” She couldn’t keep from laughing a little. Sarge showed his teeth in his funny dog grin as if laughing along with her.

  “We could change your name. How about Prince?” She sat back and gave him a once-over. He was small for a collie. Probably mixed with something else, but hard to tell what. Shepherd maybe. The tip of his left ear bent over a little, while the other ear stood up tall. Now that she’d smoothed down his fur, she could see his ribs showing. She needed to search him out some biscuits or cornbread. “How do you like that name? Prince?”

  The dog gave a full body shake. She knew it was only because she’d quit brushing him and he was settling his hair back down the way he liked it. Even so, she had to smile. “Okay. Not Prince. Sarge, it is.”

  She liked keeping the name Ben had given the dog. She liked knowing why he’d given the dog that name. But she wasn’t about to tell anybody else that. Not even Ben Locke.

  First things first. She had to figure out a way to get the dog past Betty. She remembered the notice she’d seen on the bulletin board at the hospital that had made her go to the meeting about the Frontier Nursing Service:

  ATTENTION! NURSE GRADUATES WITH A SENSE OF ADVENTURE! YOUR OWN HORSE, YOUR OWN DOG, AND A THOUSAND MILES OF KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS TO SERVE. JOIN THE FRONTIER NURSES BRIGADE AND HELP SAVE CHILDREN’S LIVES.

  “That’s what I’ll tell her. I got the horse. I got the adventure and the thousand miles to get lost in. But I was promised a dog too, and now I have one. A dog named Sarge.”

  Since she was at the barn, she fed and watered the horses. Jasmine did a little dance at the sight of the dog, but then leaned down to touch her nose against Sarge. The dog didn’t seem a bit bothered. Moses had no interest in anything but his feed.

  Fran went to get water on the way to the house. Sarge lapped the water in the pool below the spring as if it had been too long since he’d had a drink. Fran thought
about maybe using some of the water to give the dog a bath, but he didn’t smell bad and he looked good now that he was brushed. She was the one who needed the bath. What he needed was something to eat.

  “Come on, Sarge. We can’t put it off forever. Let’s go introduce you to Betty. Just don’t get bothered if she gets bothered.” Fran picked up the bucket and headed for the house. She rehearsed the part about how nurses were promised a dog. Somehow she doubted that was going to sway Betty. Could be she’d have to go to a higher power to get permission for Sarge to stay. Mrs. B had made the horse and dog promises.

  When she came around the garden, Betty was standing on the back porch, her fists propped on her hips. The thunder was about to commence.

  “I guess there are all different kinds of adventure.” Fran touched Sarge’s head. “We’re about to have one of the kind that aren’t all that fun. Like falling off your horse into a blackberry patch. But I did that and survived.” She squared her shoulders and kept walking. The dog stayed right on her heels.

  “Where did that come from?” Betty pointed at the dog.

  “Somebody dropped it by here.” Fran thought it better not to say exactly who. “Said the poor thing needed a home. Its owner was going to shoot him.” Fran hoped to tap into Betty’s sympathetic side.

  But it didn’t appear she had even a smidgen of sympathy when it came to dogs. “You give that animal right back. You know I don’t want a dog around here.”

  “But I do.” She stopped where she was with her hand on Sarge’s head. She didn’t like butting heads with Betty, but she intended to keep Sarge. “I’ll take care of him. He won’t be a bother to you at all.”

  “The mangy thing bothers me just being here. It will stink and bring in fleas and no telling what else. We run a clinic here. We don’t need dog hair in our medicines.” Betty’s frown grew fierce as she threw out her hands.

  “Mrs. B has a dog.” Fran kept her voice even but firm. “And now I do. His name is Sarge.”

  “This is my center. What I say goes. If you want a dog, you’ll have to go somewhere else.” Betty’s voice rose.

  Fran’s heart sank as she thought about being moved out of this district. She wouldn’t get to deliver Becca’s baby or see Lurene’s son grow bigger. But she didn’t back down. This seemed to have become more than about the dog. “If Mrs. B says so.”

  Fran’s measured response seemed to upset Betty even more. She practically screeched at Fran now. “It’s my say-so that matters on this.”

  All at once a low rumbling growl started up in Sarge. Fran grabbed at his ruff, but he jerked free and streaked straight for Betty.

  “Sarge,” Fran yelled, not able to believe her eyes. If he attacked Betty, there would be no way she could keep him. At any of the centers.

  Betty screamed and then stood frozen as if unsure which way to escape.

  “Stop, Sarge.” Fran set down the bucket of water and chased after him. She couldn’t let him hurt Betty.

  The dog slid to a stop at the steps and pounced on something. A snake crawling out from under the porch. Sarge grabbed it in his mouth and shook it furiously. Fran backpedaled and Betty jumped back toward the door, her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide.

  Sarge held the snake in his mouth and wagged his tail as he looked at Fran and then Betty. He dropped it on the step. It was very dead.

  “A copperhead,” Betty breathed out the word.

  Fran was a little breathless too. “I hadn’t had a chance to tell you he’s a snake dog.”

  “Well.” Betty appeared to be searching for words. “You should have told me that first thing.”

  Fran looked from the snake to the dirt under the porch. “You know what they say up here in the mountains. If you see one snake, another is close by.”

  “If only they stopped at two. There are snakes everywhere around here.” Betty stepped back into the house and then looked over her shoulder at Fran. “A snake dog might earn his keep. He can stay, but he’s completely your responsibility. And carry off that snake.” She slammed the door behind her.

  Sarge pranced over to Fran, his ears perked up and tail wagging, obviously very proud of himself.

  Fran leaned down to scratch his chest. “Good dog. You didn’t happen to herd that snake under there while I wasn’t looking just so you could play hero dog at the exact right moment, did you?”

  Again the doggie grin.

  “Wait until Ben Locke hears this.”

  The thought pulled her up short. She wasn’t going to be talking to Ben Locke. At least not unless she really did go to that sorghum cooking with him.

  “Not with him,” she muttered aloud. “With his family. I need to keep that straight, Sarge. Very straight. Now we better get rid of this snake carcass. I don’t guess you bury them as well as kill them.”

  The dog just looked at her. She sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

  She hooked the snake over a stick to carry it off into the woods where some scavenger could make a meal of it. She was glad Sarge followed her, his eyes peeled on the path ready to clear it of any other unsavory creatures. Indeed, he might earn his keep.

  Back at the house, she found some biscuits and a sausage left over from breakfast in the stove’s warming oven for Sarge. Since neither she nor Betty had cooked anything for their supper, they made do with bread and cheese. That made Jeralene even more welcome when she showed up with an applesauce cake.

  They carried chairs out to the shade where Ben had set the bucket of beans and started snapping off the bean ends.

  Jeralene was young, but she was right at home working on the beans. “I’ve been stringing beans as long as I can remember. Ma didn’t let me put them on the string till I was nigh on seven. But since then, I’ve strung up most all we’ve had. We got shucky beans hanging ev’rywhere. Up in the attic. Round on the porch. Looks something like the way folks in some places string up Christmas pretties, but the beans ain’t for pretty. It takes plenty to feed our bunch.”

  She pitched a handful of beans in the dishpan. She said it was best to get several ready before they started threading them on the string. She was a pretty girl with brown hair falling down her back and eyes brown as hazelnuts. At fourteen, she already had a woman’s figure. It was no wonder Woody was struck on her.

  “I see you got a dog.” Jeralene nodded toward Sarge stretched out beside Fran’s chair. “Who brung it to you? Woody?”

  Betty spoke up and saved Fran from answering. “Sounds like the boy. He’s always coming around here with something.”

  “Usually something good to eat, so we’re the better off for it.” Fran looked at Jeralene as she picked up another handful of beans. “I hear Woody has his eyes on you.”

  Jeralene flushed a little. “He hangs around some. Ma don’t mind. He takes the young’uns fishing or entertains us with stories. Pa says he’s a talker.”

  “He is that,” Betty muttered.

  Jeralene laughed. “He tells me his brother calls him a jaybird he jabbers so much. Says when he has a boy of his own, he might just name him Jay. Woodrow Jay.”

  Fran remembered her promise to Ben to have a talk with Jeralene and this seemed the perfect time. “He’d be better off waiting awhile for that.”

  “You ain’t got no reason to concern yourself about that with me.” Jeralene looked straight over at Fran. No flush heated up her cheeks now. “Seeing as how I’ve got six younger than me at the house, it ain’t no mystery to me how babies happen and I ain’t about to have it happen to me. Leastways not for a good long spell.”

  “Sensible of you,” Betty said.

  “Good,” Fran added. “You will have time to go to school if you want.”

  “Not sure about that.” Jeralene threaded a large needle and knotted the string. “I don’t know that I’d want to end up a nurse like you with no babies at all.” She picked up a bean from the dishpan, stuck the needle through the middle of the pod, and pulled it down to the end of the string. “Didn’t neither on
e of you never want to marry and have your own young’uns?”

  Silence followed her question as both Betty and Fran kept working with the beans. The girl didn’t mean to be rude. While plenty of new babies were born to women as old or years older than even Betty, first-time mothers here in the mountains were generally much younger.

  Jeralene must have realized she had asked something she shouldn’t have. “Oh, don’t pay my nosiness no mind. I let my curious side get the better of me. Ma would give me a good slap over letting my tongue wag without thinking.”

  “That’s all right,” Betty said. “I’m not ashamed of being a single woman. Never met a man I wanted to marry. Not that I’m so old I might not still find a good man and have a family. I’m only thirty-two. Old to you, Jeralene, but not completely over the hill yet.” Betty actually laughed. “And Nurse Howard here is even younger. What are you, Nurse Howard? Twenty-two?”

  “Twenty-three,” Fran said.

  Betty looked at Jeralene threading the beans on the string. “See. Young enough to marry and have a houseful of children.” Betty switched her gaze from Jeralene to Fran. “Pretty like you are, I’m sure you’ve had your chances. Me, I’ve never been accused of beauty.”

  “I’m not pretty.” Fran wasn’t sure why she let that out. Maybe because Betty’s words surprised her so.

  “Come now.” Betty dropped her hands into her lap. “False modesty is not attractive.”

  Fran shook her head. “I’ve always been awkward. Too tall. My smile too toothy and eyes that don’t know whether to be green or tan and with hair that won’t curl. My mother never knew what to do with me. She said everything about me was too big. Even my feet.”

  “Sturdy feet are a plus here in the mountains.” Betty picked up a bean and broke off the ends. “And a good height makes everything easier. Although frontier nurses come in every size. I can’t help what your mother told you, but if you don’t think you’re pretty, then your mirror must be broken.” Betty stated it all very matter-of-factly as she pitched the bean into the dishpan.