These Healing Hills

by Ann H. Gabhart

“Shh. Lie down and stop talking.” Fran gently pushed him down. “Let me look at it.”

  “Is it bad, Nurse?”

  Ben stood up and stared at the men and boys circled around them. “Who did this?”

  Nobody claimed to know.

  Fran glanced up at Ben. “Let somebody else handle that. Help me with Woody.” If only she had her saddlebag. She peeled Woody’s shirt back. The bullet appeared to have missed Woody’s major organs, but he was losing blood fast. Already he looked paler than when she’d first knelt beside him. “Has anybody got something clean? A towel. An apron.”

  Mrs. Locke jerked off her underskirt and handed it to Fran. Her face was grim.

  “Stay with me, Woody,” Fran said. “You’re going to be all right.”

  “You bet, kid. Just be still.” Ben was on his knees beside Woody again. He ran his fingers across Woody’s cheek and then looked at Fran. “Is the bullet still there?”

  “I would guess so, but it would be better to let the doctor probe for it at the hospital.” Fran folded the material and pressed it over the wound. “We need to get him there as fast as possible.”

  “First, find the bleeder,” Ben said.

  “Bleeder,” Woody echoed weakly. “I don’t like how that sounds, brother.”

  “Army talk. That’s all.” Ben leaned close to Woody’s face. “Now be quiet for once in your life.”

  People murmured around them, but Fran focused completely on Woody and what Ben had said. He was bound to have more experience with gunshot wounds than she did.

  “Right.” Fran looked at her hands. They were far from clean, but Ben’s wouldn’t be any better. “Give me some moonshine.” She looked up at the men in the circle around them. A couple of them stepped back as if wary of her demand.

  Granny Em poked one of the men with her finger. “Give it to her.”

  When the man pulled out a flask, Ben grabbed it to pour the alcohol over Fran’s hand. She found the bleeder and put pressure on it. “I’ll hold it. Get your truck.”

  Ben touched Woody’s face again. “I’ll be right back. Do whatever Nurse Francine says.”

  “Francine?” Woody murmured.

  Fran ignored his question. Not a time to talk names. “We’re going to get you to the hospital and take care of this.”

  The men made a stretcher out of a tablecloth to carefully lift Woody into the bed of the truck. Fran crawled into the truck with him, still holding the pressure on the bleeder. She lost it for a moment and fresh blood spurted out. Then she had it again.

  Sarge jumped in before the men could close the tailgate to crouch in the corner of the truck bed behind Fran. Mrs. Locke climbed in on the other side of Woody while Becca and Sadie and Granny Em squeezed in with Ben.

  “This ain’t the way you’re supposed to ride in the back of a truck, Nurse Howard.” Woody gave her a wan smile.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.

  Woody turned his head toward his mother. “Are you praying, Ma?”

  “I’m praying, son.”

  “Reckon I should pray too. Ask forgiveness and all. Just in case.”

  “If you feel the need.” Mrs. Locke stroked Woody’s arm. “But you’re a good boy. The Lord knows that.”

  Ben drove fast, swerving to miss the worst bumps in the road. Fran put her knee against Woody’s shoulder to try to keep him from bouncing away from her. “Mrs. Locke, move as close to Woody as you can. We need to hold him steady.”

  “I feel funny, Nurse.” Woody’s voice was weak. “Is this how you feel when you die?”

  Fran kept her voice absolutely sure. “You’re not going to die.”

  “Everybody dies. Ain’t that right, Ma? Our days are numbered. Pa told me it says that in the Bible.”

  “The Bible does say that.” Mrs. Locke nodded.

  “But you haven’t run out of those numbered days. Not today,” Fran said. “The doctor will poke around inside you, get that bullet out, sew you up, and in a few weeks, you’ll be good as new.”

  “I hope so. I would sincerely regret not getting to marry Jeralene.” He groaned as they hit another bump. “I could write a song about Jeralene. She’s so lean. And sometimes mean.”

  “Maybe she’s the one who shot you. Singing a song like that.” Fran took his pulse with her free hand. Still strong. Her other hand was cramping, but she ignored the pain.

  “That might be.” Woody tried to laugh but it came out a groan. “They musta shot my laughing muscle.”

  “Could be you should think on praying and not laughin’ then.” His mother sounded stern, but she brushed the hair back off his face with a gentle hand.

  “Yes’m.” He shut his eyes, but if he prayed, it was a short one. The next moment his eyes popped back open as he stared up at Fran. “Has Ben sung you a song, Nurse? Francine he called you. Ain’t it funny that Francine and Jeralene rhyme, so guess he could say ‘mean’ and ‘lean’ for you too.”

  “Nobody has ever made up a song for me, but if they do, I hope they come up with something better than ‘mean.’ How about ‘keen’? ‘Or serene.’” Fran wished she had a better sense of the area so she could know how much farther to the hospital.

  “I bet nobody ever give you a dog before either,” Woody said.

  “No.” At least they were on a smoother road. That had to be a good sign.

  “Reckon I should give Jeralene a dog?”

  “I think you’d best be quiet awhile,” his mother said. “You’re not making much sense.”

  “Yes’m. But it’s hard to make sense when I’m floating up there with them treetops flying by. But I ain’t seen no angels yet. Oh wait. There might be one.”

  Mrs. Locke looked over at Fran. “What the Lord wills.”

  Fran checked Woody’s pulse. It wasn’t quite as strong, but it was steady. She leaned down close to the boy’s ear. “That’s your guardian angel, making sure you’re all right.”

  “I reckon as how it could be.” Woody smiled a little. “I give her a good chase now and again, don’t I, Ma?”

  At last, they sped through Hyden and headed up Thousandstick Mountain. Minutes from the hospital.

  Ben started blowing his horn as soon as the hospital was in sight. Nurses were waiting when they pulled up to the door. Fran sat back and let them take over as they rushed Woody into the hospital. Mrs. Locke, Ben, and the others hurried after him.

  Fran scooted out of the truck bed and sank down beside the truck’s back tire. Sarge rested his nose on her shoulder. She told herself to get up and go inside, but she just sat there.

  A simple prayer rose up inside her. “Please, Lord, not his time,” she whispered.

  The daylight faded and night crept over the mountain. She didn’t know how much time went by before Granny Em came out to find her.

  “I knowed you didn’t leave.” She squatted down beside Fran.

  “Is he all right?”

  “Life and death ain’t in your realm, child. It never was in mine neither. You can’t hide from death.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?”

  Fran studied Granny Em’s face in the light coming out of the hospital windows. “Tell me how he is.”

  “He’s gonna live.”

  “Did the doctor tell you that?”

  “He told Ruthena. But I knowed it already. ’Tweren’t the boy’s time.” She stood up and reached a hand down to Fran. “If’n it were, wouldn’t be nothin’ none of us could do. Even as much as we all might want to.”

  “Are they okay? Becca? Sadie?” Fran stood up and looked toward the hospital door.

  “Ben?” Granny Em peered up at her.

  “Ben.”

  “You coulda come in and been with them.”

  “I wasn’t sure I should. I’m not family.”

  “I reckon that’s so, but sometimes what’s in the heart matters more than what’s in the blood. If’n we’re not afeared of it.”

  Fran didn’t know what to say to that. Inste
ad she stared down at her hand with Woody’s blood crusted between her fingers. “I need to clean up.”

  “You’re a sight, sure enough.” Granny Em made a sound that might have been a chuckle. “And reek some of the ’shine. Could take the color right out of them britches you got on. Hobart stills it strong.”

  “Do you know who shot Woody?”

  “I got some supposings, but it ain’t always good to suppose.” Granny Em’s face changed, closed in on itself for a minute. Then she shook her head a bit. “Could have been naught but an accident. Folks get careless with firearms around here from time to time. Nothing you want to involve yourself in.”

  “You’re right. That was something I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Some things are better not talked about. I seem to recall Mary Breckinridge making some such rules ’bout that.”

  “No politics, religion, or moonshine talk. Just nursing.”

  “The woman knows. She may be city bred, but she learned about the mountains ’fore she brought in any nurses. Hunted up all us grannies when she first came to these parts. Made out like she really wanted to know what we was thinking.”

  “You don’t think she really wanted to know?”

  “I reckon as how she mighta. You’d have to ask her that. But her coming and bringing in all you others changed things. I ain’t caught a baby in years.” Granny Em blew out a long sigh. “Could be for the best. Hardly ever hear ’bout any birthing deaths these days.”

  “We have the hospital now if there are problems,” Fran said. “And better ways to get mothers here.”

  “Like that contraption there.” Granny Em pointed at Ben’s truck. “You gonna head on back to Beech Fork tonight?”

  “I better wait for daylight. Chances are I’d just get lost and wander around until dawn anyway.”

  “I could show you the way.”

  “You’re not walking home tonight, are you? I’m sure they can find you a place here at the hospital to sleep.”

  “I could lay right down here under that bush yonder and have me a nap if’n that was all I wanted, but I got an old cow and my hens to tend to.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t start fretting about me. Night’s the best time for traveling when a feller knows where she’s going. I know the way, daylight or dark.” Granny Em’s lips turned up in a smile. “The moon plays that music I told you ’bout sometime back. The rhythm of these here hills. But you ought not to go till you see the folks inside. They’s wondering where you went to.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I nearly always am, but tell you what. If’n you go speak your piece to them in there and then want to head home, I don’t walk so fast these days. A young thing like you could catch me ’fore I get to the bottom of the hill.”

  Fran wanted to tell her to stay, but she knew better than to argue with Granny Em. “Be careful.”

  Granny Em looked around at her. “Careful don’t get you nothing in this life. You remember that, girl.”

  Fran watched her out of sight, then told Sarge to stay while she went inside to find a sink to scrub her hands and face. She ran her hands through her hair and straightened her tie. She rubbed at the bloodstains on her clothes, but that would take soaking in cold water. After splashing more cold water on her face, she still looked like she’d been keeping watch with a new mother at a laying in for days.

  It didn’t matter how she looked. What mattered was that Woody was going to be all right. And suddenly she wanted to be with his family and let them know she cared. Betty might be right about keeping a professional nurse-to-patient distance. She was right, but Fran was breaking all the rules with the Locke family. She did care and as more than their nurse.

  29

  Ben didn’t realize how he was watching for Francine until he saw her coming down the hallway. But then she was there and he was glad.

  Without thinking whether he should or shouldn’t, he went to meet her. She had an outward look of calm as a nurse should, but her lips trembled when she pushed them up in a smile. She had washed her hands, but Woody’s blood still stained her clothes, as it did his and his mother’s.

  He wanted to ask where she’d been. Why she hadn’t come to wait with them. But he held back the words. He couldn’t be sure she had the same need to see him as he had to see her. But her eyes did seek his and not turn away. He let her speak first.

  “Granny Em says the doctor told you Woody was going to be all right.” It wasn’t a question, but she sounded as if she needed to be assured it was true.

  “The doctor talked with Ma a little while ago. Claimed Woody was lucky. An inch or two to the right and he’d have been gone. Said it was a wonder he didn’t bleed out.” Ben pulled in a breath that even now felt shaky when he thought about losing Woody. “We have you to thank for that.”

  “Or you.” She put her hand on Ben’s arm. “You knew what to do.”

  “Too well.” The gunshot echoed in his head. He’d wanted to leave those sounds behind forever. “But I didn’t want to need my medic training here. Not for my brother.”

  “Of course not.” She hesitated and then asked, “Are you all right?”

  He knew what she meant, but he didn’t know how to answer. The sound of that gunshot had brought back too many bad memories, but that wasn’t a burden he needed to thrust off on her.

  She seemed to sense his reluctance to answer and changed her question. “All of you? Becca and Sadie? Your mother?” She peered around him at them.

  He looked back too. Sadie leaned against his mother, her eyes wide and scared. Becca slouched in one of the wooden chairs, obviously exhausted. His mother, on the other hand, was the strong, steady rock she always was. She’d been through her own kind of wars and dealt with each new battle with a resigned endurance.

  “Go talk to them.” He stepped to the side to let her past him.

  She stooped to hug Sadie and then grasped his mother’s hand as Ma told her what the doctor said. Last she turned to Becca and offered to find her a place to lie down.

  Before Becca could answer, his mother spoke up. “No need in that. Ben can take you and Sadie to the house now that we know Woody is going to be all right.”

  “I’m fine.” Becca stood up and stretched her back. “I want to stay.”

  “What you want don’t matter right now. Somebody has to go home to see to things and that has to be you and Ben. Come morning, Ben can bring you back down if’n you feel the need to be here.” Ma settled her eyes on Becca a moment, then looked over at Ben. “I expect Nurse Howard could use a way back to the center and Granny Em back to the mountain.”

  “Granny Em left a bit ago,” Francine said. “Told me to catch up with her after I talked with you and she’d make sure I didn’t get lost on the way.”

  “No need in that.” Ma’s face was set. “Ben has that truck.”

  Becca looked ready to argue, but one look at Ma’s face and she merely nodded.

  “Let me find the nurse.” Francine looked from Becca to Ben. “Maybe you can see Woody before you leave.”

  A few minutes later, a nurse led Becca and Ben back a corridor to Woody’s room. Sadie, too young to visit, stayed with Ma. The nurse promised Ma she could sit with Woody through the night.

  The woman Francine introduced as Nurse Williams warned them Woody would be weak and still under the influence of the anesthesia. “Even if he’s awake, he may not respond with much sense.”

  Becca stopped and hung back at the door into the hospital room with beds divided by curtains.

  Ben put his arm around her and kept his voice low. “It will be okay.”

  “How do you know?” Becca blinked away tears. “Anything could still happen.”

  “In the army if the boys made it through the first round of treatment, they nearly always continued to get better.”

  “Nearly always.”

  “But some of those wounds were ten times worse than Woody’s. Come on. Smile in case he’s awake.” He urg
ed her through the door while making sure to hide the worry on his own face.

  Woody looked almost as pale as the sheet pulled up over him. His eyes were closed and that made him look so young. Like a child tucked in for a nap. Woody was never that still.

  The nurse checked his pulse. “He can probably hear you whether he can respond or not.”

  Becca blinked back tears and pasted on a smile. “Woodrow Locke, what in the world are you trying to do? Scare me to death? You know that’s not good for a woman in my condition.”

  A slight lift of the corners of Woody’s lips showed he did hear her. Ben took his hand and squeezed it. “You’ll be fine as long as you do what the nurses say.” Ben kept his voice light too.

  “You mean Nurse Francine?” Woody’s voice was barely above a whisper, but there was no denying the teasing sound in it or in his eyes when they flickered open.

  Ben could feel both Becca and Nurse Williams giving him curious looks, but he did his best to act like he didn’t know what Woody meant, even though he did. He had let Francine’s name slip out into the open. “Whichever nurse is trying to help you.”

  Woody’s lips curled up even more. “Francine ain’t mean. She’s a dream.”

  “I don’t know what they gave you, but it better wear off soon before you get in trouble.”

  Woody’s smile faded. “I reckon I’m already in trouble. Coy was a better shot, I’d be dead as a doornail.”

  “Coy? Who’s Coy?”

  Woody shifted uneasily as though the bed had suddenly gotten too hard. He groaned and shut his eyes. The nurse took hold of Ben’s arm and pulled him away from the bed. “Not now, Mr. Locke. Questions will have to wait.”

  Ben took a deep breath. “Yes, ma’am. I understand.”

  Nurse Williams gave him a stern look. “All right then. Two more minutes. Then you’ll have to leave.”

  “Where’s Ma?” Woody asked Becca.

  “She’s waitin’ out front with Sadie. She’ll come on back to sit with you when we leave. Ma says we have to go home to take care of things.”

  “Good. Bruiser’s probably half starved by now.”

  “I’ll feed him a few days, but then you best get on home and do it yourself. That pup is a trial and tribulation,” Becca said.