These Healing Hills

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Then could be you should try to convince Nurse Howard she don’t need to head back to Ohio. Tell her the mountains are a fine place to find a feller.”

  “I’m not telling her any such thing and I better not hear you saying anything like that to her either.”

  He’d called Woody silly, but he was the one who was silly. Forgetting to guard his heart the way Granny Em said he should. But he didn’t have time to worry about that now. He had to figure out what to do about Woody. It didn’t seem right to let somebody get away with shooting the boy. Not right at all. Mountain code or not. What about law and order? Maybe Woody was right. Maybe he had been gone too long.

  That night his mother followed him out to the cornfield where Ben was picking corn by the full moon.

  “Your pa always liked picking corn by the harvest moon. Said the leaves weren’t near so scratchy. I helped him some before you children came along. And I reckon you recall spending some nights picking with him too.”

  “I do.” He pitched an ear into the barrel on the sled hooked to their mule. “Good times.”

  “Your pa prayed for you ev’ry morning and ev’ry night whilst you were over there till the day he died.” Ma pulled off an ear of corn and shucked it. “He was proud of you.”

  “I sometimes wondered if I’d make it home, but I never thought about him not being here if I did.” Ben moved down the row. His father always said steady was the best way to work.

  “Things happen as the Lord wills.” She pitched the corn in the barrel. “Ain’t no use fighting agin what’s meant to be. You were meant to come home and Woodrow was meant to go on to meet the Lord.”

  Ben stopped and looked at his mother. “Do you believe everything that happens is meant to be?”

  She shucked another ear of corn and ran her fingers over the kernels as if she were counting them before she threw it in the barrel. At last she looked up at Ben. The moonlight softened her wrinkles, and it wasn’t hard for him to imagine what she looked like back in her newlywed days as she and his pa worked together.

  “You’re thinkin’ ’bout Woody.”

  “Him and others.” He had too many images of wounded and dying boys in his head. He couldn’t imagine the war as part of God’s plan. Or Woody getting shot either.

  His mother let her arms drop down by her side without reaching for another ear of corn as she stared down the row away from Ben. Finally she pulled in a breath and turned back to Ben. “Your pa was better at knowing answers from the Scripture. Me, I can’t answer for the Lord. I learnt a long time back to accept whatever comes my way. Best savor the good and bear up under the bad. There ain’t no changin’ none of it.”

  “But we ought to try to change the bad. We fought a war to change the bad.”

  He could see his mother’s smile in the moonlight. “True enough, but it’s time for peace now.”

  “Are you saying I shouldn’t do anything about what happened to Woody?”

  “I’m sayin’ let the sheriff handle it. If’n any handlin’ needs doing. Your pa never believed in takin’ the law into his own hands.” She looked over toward the sled where Ben had laid the pistol. “No need to go hunting the bad.”

  Ben grabbed another ear of corn off the stalk. “Turn the other cheek. Is that what you’re saying? What about an eye for an eye? The Bible says that too.”

  “So it does. The Lord also says vengeance is mine. And a man reaps what he sows.” She stepped across the row and put her hand on his arm. “Just give it some time, son. Woody is gonna be all right.”

  “He could have died. If Nurse Howard hadn’t been there, he might have.”

  “If you hadn’t been there, he might have. But he didn’t.” She reached and got another ear of corn. She looked over at him as she pulled it free of the shucks. “That Nurse Howard is a pretty woman.”

  “She is.”

  His mother pitched the corn in the barrel and then studied him without saying anything.

  He stopped and looked at her. “If you’ve got something to say, best go on and say it.”

  “She ain’t mountain.”

  “No, ma’am, she’s not.” He turned away from his mother then to pull more ears off the cornstalks, working faster up the row. After a couple of minutes, she turned and walked back toward the house.

  31

  October 23, 1945

  Each morning when Fran walked outside, the hills around the center were even more beautiful with the red oaks and golden maples clinging to their leaves amid the pines. Sometimes the air was so crisp and fresh, she knew if she were to walk up to the top of the hill she could see forever.

  Other times fog sat heavy in the hollows and she could barely see Bella out by the fence, waiting to be milked. She didn’t know how anybody could find their way on the mountains then, but whenever that familiar halloo called them out in the early morning fog, the one who came to fetch them never strayed off trail.

  Late in October, they made their way to Mrs. Wyatt’s confinement over on Robin’s Branch with fog rising up around them before the sun came over the horizon. At the Wyatt house, Betty stood back to let Fran care for Mrs. Wyatt. Said she’d be on her own soon after she took her exam in a few days. Betty had already made arrangements to go to New York for an extended visit.

  When Fran asked what would happen if she didn’t pass the exam, Betty waved away her concerns. “You’ll do fine. You better, because I’m going home for a while. Maybe till the New Year. Been a while since I’ve been home for Christmas.” Betty peered at Fran. “But that means you’ll have to stay here. Becca Hayden could have a Christmas baby.”

  Fran’s mother might not be happy about that, but Christmas in the mountains didn’t sound bad at all. She did want to be here to help Becca’s baby come into the world. Besides, nothing was the way it had been last year. Her mother had moved on with her life with her new husband. Fran had moved on too.

  She rarely thought about home and the life she had once hoped to have, except when her mother’s letters came in the mail. Her mother refused to believe Fran could be happy in the mountains and always mentioned Seth and how he had yet to marry his English girl. The woman was still in America considering his proposal, but as Fran’s mother underlined in her last letter, they had not found a preacher to say the words.

  Fran faithfully answered the letters without mentioning Seth or his English bride-to-be. She told her mother about the fall colors, the crisp apples their neighbors gave them, the stack cake Jeralene’s mother made with caramel icing, and the babies she caught. With each baby, Fran felt more blessed to be using her hands in such a way. Perhaps it had all been the Lord’s plan anyway. That would be what Grandma Howard would say.

  She took over care for Woody after he came home from the hospital. The boy endured the healing process with impatient good humor. He didn’t seem at all angry about getting shot. Things happen, he said. The sheriff must have agreed with him, since he decided it had to be an accidental shot. Only Ben seemed unable to accept that.

  Not that he talked to Fran about what he thought, but she noted he generally had a gun with him on the rare occasions she did see him. He was busy, Becca told her. Getting ready for winter and without Woody to help, he had to work twice as hard. Fran didn’t doubt that was true, but at the same time, it was plain Ben Locke was taking pains to avoid her.

  That was surely for the best. While she couldn’t deny how her eyes sought him out every time she climbed the hill to the Locke house, some things were better nipped in the bud. Everybody would tell her that was so if she were to ask them. Betty. Her mother, whether she knew Ben or not. Even Ben’s mother, who did know Fran.

  Ben’s mother and sister welcomed her into their house as a nurse. That was what Betty kept telling her. Only as a nurse-midwife.

  That was good. That was what she wanted to be. She had time to think about the future as she sat with Mrs. Wyatt through the long morning, waiting for the baby. It was Mrs. Wyatt’s thir
d child, but Fran worried about how big she was this time. She had suggested Mrs. Wyatt go to the hospital for the birth, but the mother didn’t want to be away from her children. Then Betty, who had delivered Mrs. Wyatt’s other babies with no problems, agreed that a home birth would be fine. So there was nothing for it except to wait for the woman’s labor to advance and hope for another easy delivery.

  Mrs. Wyatt’s mother rocked back and forth in front of the fire, and each time her daughter groaned, she gripped the chair arms a little harder. A neighbor came after the other children, a girl of five who kept looking back at her mother as she went out the door and a toddler boy barely walking. The grandmother had food on the table with a white cotton cloth spread over it. Apples and winter squash. Cornbread and butter. Biscuits and sorghum. She told them to grab something to eat if they felt a hunger pang, since nobody knew when the baby would decide to make an entrance. The grandmother hoped it would be soon.

  So did Fran. The water was hot and Fran had her instruments ready. She was relieved no chickens had the run of the house the way they did in some of the cabins. It didn’t seem right to have to shoo hens away from her instruments, but as Betty said, the mountain folk could make pets of anything. Even groundhogs.

  This house was fairly calm with the father keeping his post on the front porch with his hound dogs. Nobody seemed to mind about Sarge trailing along with Fran and opened the door to him the same as to her and Betty. Even now, Sarge was settled out of the way in the far corner, eating the biscuit the grandmother had pitched his way.

  At noon the woman’s contractions got stronger fast. But the baby wasn’t coming. Fran checked Mrs. Wyatt’s pulse and blood pressure. High but not unreasonable with the pain. Then she listened to the baby’s heartbeat and position.

  Fran looked over at Betty, who had been the last to visit Mrs. Wyatt. She kept her voice low. “Two heartbeats.”

  “Are you sure?” Betty took the stethoscope and listened. “Guess one of these little fellows has been hiding out for a while.”

  “Twins. I knowed it.” The grandmother was up from her chair, peering at Fran and Betty. “Is they fighting over who comes out first? If that’s so, them rascals’ll never get along. Be like Jacob and Esau in the Bible.”

  Fran hoped they would have the chance to squabble with one another. That would mean they both made it out into the world as healthy babies.

  “Twins?” Mrs. Wyatt breathed out the word before another contraction grabbed her.

  Fran held her legs to give her some support until the pain passed. “Looks like you’re going to be blessed with two babies.” She kept her voice cheerful. No need worrying the mother about possible complications that might have been better handled at the hospital.

  “I can’t have two babies at once.” Tears slid out of the woman’s eyes and down her cheeks. “I can’t.”

  The grandmother stepped over to her daughter. “Now, you stop carrying on like that right now, Delora. If’n the Lord gives you two young’uns, he’ll supply you the ability to take care of them.”

  “But I’m jest so tired, Ma. I don’t think I can.” She grimaced and grabbed her mother’s hand as another pain began.

  “Whatever you have to do, you can.” The grandmother held her hand and leaned down close to the woman. “I give you my strength right here, right now.”

  “Your mother’s right, Mrs. Wyatt. You’re doing fine.” Betty stepped up beside her too. “Think about your breathing to help the pain. You can do this. In and out.” Betty glanced down at Fran. “Do we need to call in help to take her to the hospital?”

  “I don’t think we have time.” Fran ducked under the sheet draped across Mrs. Wyatt’s legs. Very gently she pushed on the woman’s belly to see if she could move one baby back. The first baby’s head was crowning already. At least it wasn’t a breech birth.

  Fran kept her eyes open as she silently prayed. Lord, help my hands to safely guide this babe and the next one too through the rigors of birth, and give this mother strength and these babies love.

  Betty was still telling the mother to breathe and Fran realized she had been holding her breath along with the mother. She pulled in a deep breath and let it out. The first baby’s head emerged along with a foot. Not his foot. Fran gently pushed it back and shifted the baby’s shoulders a bit to let him slide on out. Not him at all.

  “You have a sweet girl,” Fran told Mrs. Wyatt as she wiped out the baby’s mouth. The baby’s first warbling cry was a joy to hear. She clipped the cord and handed the baby to Betty.

  “Where’s the other one?” the grandmother asked. “Or was you wrong about that?”

  “Patience,” Betty said. “Give her time.”

  “Patience. I’ll call her that.” The mother raised her head to look toward the baby girl.

  “Don’t be worryin’ over names.” The grandmother shook the mother’s hand a little. “You got more birthing to do.”

  A few tense seconds went by. The mother was so exhausted that Fran wasn’t sure she could push out the second baby, but she should have known better. Birthing takes over a woman’s body and doesn’t turn it loose until it’s done.

  A new contraction seized the mother and then she was pushing. Feet showed up first and then seemed to stall. Fran carefully slid her hand inside the birth canal to ease the baby’s arms into a better birthing position. She guided the baby out as quickly as possible.

  “A boy.” Fran cleaned his mouth and patted his back. The first baby was still wailing, but this little fellow was silent with his skin looking blue. “Breathe, baby, breathe.” Fran barely whispered the words as she massaged the baby’s chest and then shifted him in her hands and thumped his back again with a bit more pressure. In desperation, she blew into the baby’s face, as if she could give him her own breath.

  Joy flooded through her as the baby’s mouth opened and his chest moved. The newborn cry from his trembling lips was the sweetest sound. She closed her eyes for an instant as a thankful prayer rose up inside her.

  “He’s breathing.” She wanted to laugh and dance around the room with the crying baby. But instead she handed him off to Betty, who was smiling almost as much as Fran. The mother had fallen back against the pillow with a cry of relief, and the grandmother clapped her hands together, looked up at the ceiling, and praised the Lord.

  Later after the mother was settled with the babies, the father fetched home the other children. The oldest stared at the two babies with wide eyes. Then she turned to her little brother. “See, this is why them nurses have saddlebags. To bring the babies.”

  On the way back to the center, Betty waited until they were able to ride side by side in one of the creeks before she said, “You handled that well, Fran. We could have lost that baby boy. Might not have been a big tragedy.” Betty looked over at Fran. “Not that I wanted that to happen. I never want to lose a baby, but that poor woman has more than she can handle.”

  “Her mother will help her.”

  “And the older sister. They learn early to step up to chores here in the mountains, but even with these double babies, we’ll be back up there with Mrs. Wyatt with more babies on the way before many months go by. These mountain people are fertile.”

  “You make them sound like a field.” Fran frowned.

  “Fertile simply means capable of producing a fruitful crop, and Mrs. Wyatt is well on the way to that.” Betty sounded matter-of-fact. “She has no issue with fecundity. That seems to be a mountain trait.”

  “Do they never think about limiting pregnancies? There are methods of birth control.”

  “That we are not allowed to offer to them. Mrs. B says how many children to have is not a decision we can make for them. If they ask about prevention, we can advise. Otherwise, we are simply there to help the mothers through the birthing experience and to make sure the baby gets the best start possible under the conditions.”

  “We didn’t help her by missing that she was carrying twins.”

  “Unusual t
hat we missed that, but it happens.” Betty let Moses stop in the creek and take a long drink. Sarge sat down to wait.

  When they started moving again, Betty gave a warning. “You won’t be able to save them all, Fran. You have to accept that. Even with a million prayers, some babies don’t take that first breath.”

  “I’m thankful this one did.”

  “As am I, but there will come a time when the outcome may be different. Keep that in mind.”

  32

  October 24, 1945

  Ben stepped up on the porch of the Beech Fork Center and knocked on the door. He should have sent Woody. Not come himself. He’d been staying away from Francine since Woody got shot. It was better that way. His mother had said it all. Francine wasn’t mountain, and he was. Even if he left the mountains behind and lived in the biggest city in the country, he’d still be mountain. And no doubt, miserable.

  Inside he heard Sarge bark, but just once. Then Fran called that she’d get the door. That was good. Better to not see Nurse Dawson’s frown if she opened the door to see him standing there.

  Nurse Dawson’s voice came from farther back in the house. “Tell whoever it is we’re closed.”

  Francine laughed. “But we’re never closed.”

  That was true. The nurses were always ready to help. But he hadn’t come for help. He wasn’t sure why he’d come. Not really. He had a reason to tell her. He was going to offer to keep her dog. Becca told him Francine was going to the city.

  That might be why he’d come. She was leaving the mountains. Supposedly only for a few days, but who knew if she’d come back? Mountain life was hard. And that was why he was standing there on her porch with his hands sweaty, waiting for her to open the door. He didn’t like to think about her perhaps not coming back. Not that there was anything he could do about it. But he couldn’t let her leave without seeing her one more time.

  She was still smiling when she opened the door, but her smile faded. “Mr. Locke. Is something wrong with Woody or Becca? We were just up there.”