These Healing Hills

by Ann H. Gabhart

  Nurse. It wasn’t the nurse on his mind. It was Francine. Maybe he should chase after her. If she didn’t favor that, she could tell him to get lost. At least then he’d know. She’d seemed friendly enough when they walked to the creek together.

  Ben blew out a breath. No weather for creek walking this day. More the weather for hunting up Homer Caudill. A man couldn’t completely ignore somebody shooting his little brother. He’d never read anything in the Bible about turning his brother’s other cheek. Better to think about that than Francine.

  The rain got colder and came down harder as he started out on Captain. A few snowflakes mixed in with the rain. As best he remembered, the Caudill house was some distance high in the hills on the other side of Beech Fork up from Possum Bend. He passed up his truck. Who knew what kind of roads there were around Possum Bend? Best depend on Captain’s sure steps on the muddy trail.

  He turned a bend in the trail and up ahead was a nurse. Even swallowed up by a dark cloak, he knew it was Francine just by the way she sat the horse.

  She was turning up a side trail and didn’t know Ben was there. That was the trouble with wrapping up against the rain. The rain hitting the rain slickers covered up other noises a person might need to hear. But Sarge stopped in front of her horse and barked.

  She reined in her horse and shifted in the saddle to look around. She waited until he rode closer before she said, “Mr. Locke.”

  “I’d count it a favor if you’d call me Ben.” He locked his eyes on her face and finished. “Francine.”

  She blinked and looked down at her hands on the reins. Then a smile eased up the corners of her lips as she raised her eyes back to his. “All right. Ben.”

  An answering smile worked its way across Ben’s face. He thought about reaching across to touch her hand, but maybe the names were enough for a start. They sat there on their horses without speaking anything more for a long moment until her horse grew restless.

  “Were you looking for me?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He might as well be honest. He hadn’t been going for her, but he was looking for her. All the time.

  “Is something wrong at your house?” Her smile disappeared to be replaced by worry. Rain dripped down her cloak. “Nurse Dawson said I wouldn’t need to visit Becca until next week. That she was doing fine.”

  “I shouldn’t have said yes. I wasn’t coming after you, even though Sadie does have a bad cough and Woody’s catching cold. Ma says no need to trouble you about them yet.”

  “I can stop by after I call on Granny Em.”

  “Is that where you’re headed on such a day?” A few more snowflakes mixed with the rain. “She send for you?”

  “Granny Em would never send for one of us nurses.” Francine stroked her horse’s neck to steady her. “Jasmine doesn’t like standing still.” She took a firmer hold on the reins. “But I haven’t seen Granny Em since I got back from the city. So I decided to ride up here. I thought I’d be more apt to find her at home on a day like this. Otherwise, she’d be who knows where on the mountain. I’m taking her something.” She pointed to a gunnysack hanging down from her saddle horn. The sack moved.

  “A dog?”

  Francine laughed. A sound that felt like sunshine in the midst of the cold rain. She touched the sack. “No, a hen. The fox got her best hen.”

  “It might get this one too.”

  “True, but perhaps this one will be harder to catch. I best be on my way before we both get soaked.” She turned her horse away.

  “Have you ever been up to Granny Em’s cabin?” Ben asked.

  “Not yet. I generally see her at the center or at your house. Why?” She looked back at him.

  “You’re going the wrong way.”

  “Are you sure? I studied the map.” She looked so crestfallen that Ben had to laugh.

  “I’ll ride up with you. Ma’s been after me to go see if the old woman needs anything before winter sets in.”

  Ben led the way up the steep narrow trail to Granny Em’s. In the years he’d been gone, the trees had almost taken over the small clearing around the old woman’s cabin. The whole place was smaller than he remembered. A barn past repair tumbled down to the side of the house, with a corral fashioned out of poles around it.

  “Are you sure she lives here?” Francine moved her horse up beside his. “The chinking is gone between some of the logs.”

  “I’m sure. There’s smoke coming out of her chimney.”

  “I suppose that means she’s here.” Francine slid off her horse and untied the gunnysack from her saddle horn. Then she grabbed her saddlebag.

  Ben dismounted and took the gunnysack from her. The hen let out a muffled squawk. “Guess we better go see if she’ll be glad to see us or chase us off. You never know with Granny Em.”

  35

  Rocks made steps up to the small stoop in front of the door. Rain dripped through the sagging roof onto Fran as she knocked on the plank door. The cabin was so dilapidated that Fran didn’t see how Granny Em or anybody could live there.

  “Come on in if you’re a mind to. Whoever you be.” Granny Em’s voice was low and hoarse. Her words were followed by a hacking cough.

  Fran stepped into the dimly lit cabin. No light except the glow of a flickering fire in the fireplace. The windows were boarded over and yellowed newspapers covered the walls. Granny Em sat in a rocker pulled up close to the hearth with a ragged quilt draped around her shoulders. After she finally stopped coughing, she spit into a can.

  “Granny Em, you’re sick.”

  “Well, I’d a never believed it if’n I hadn’t see’d it with my own eyes. You climbed all the way up here without going astray.” The old woman peered over at Fran. “Or did you?”

  “I would have gotten lost for sure, but I met Ben Locke on the hill and he led me up here.” Fran pointed behind her toward Ben, coming through the door carrying the gunnysack.

  When he set down the sack, Sarge sniffed it, then shook himself before he took up a guard post beside the hen. Fran peeled off her rain poncho and hung it on a hook next to the door. She was still wet and chilled. Ben had to be even wetter without any sort of rain gear.

  “Appears chance meetings is a fine thing for the two of you. But kinda odd for you to be hanging out on the trail on a day sech as this.” Granny Em stared at Ben.

  “I was heading somewhere else when Nurse Howard came along.” Ben took off his hat and ran his hand through his wet hair. “The other can wait.”

  “You ain’t still thinking revenge, is you, Benjamin Locke?” Granny Em shook her finger at Ben.

  “That’s nothing for you to pay any mind to.” Ben stepped over to poke the fire.

  Fran looked at him, but he kept his face turned away from her. She couldn’t worry about him now. Granny Em was the one who needed help. Fran pulled her stethoscope out of her saddlebag. “That sounds worse than a cold. You should have sent for me.”

  “Look around, girl.” Granny choked out after she stopped coughing. “Ain’t nobody here but me to send down the mountain.” She eyed Fran as she moved toward her with the stethoscope.

  “I just want to listen to your lungs.”

  “Ain’t the first need in that. I can tell you I done got the lung suffering.” She waved away Fran. “I get it from time to time, but ginger tea pulls me out of it.”

  “Do you have the tea now?” Fran looked around. She didn’t see a stove, but a teapot sat on the fireplace hearth.

  “I ain’t felt like going to the spring, so’s I’ve got a bucket out back to catch the runoff from the roof. Should be enough in it for the kettle now. Fire might not be hot enough to heat it up though.” The old woman’s voice sounded weak.

  “Do you have more wood?” Ben asked.

  “Not in here.”

  Ben picked up his hat and headed toward the door. “I’ll get some water and hunt up something for the fire.”

  After he went out, Fran stepped nearer Granny Em and touched her forehead. “Yo
u’re burning up.”

  “But feelin’ cold.”

  “Will you let me listen to your breathing? You know there’s a rhythm to that too. You remember telling me about the rhythm in most everything? I try to hear it now. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. But I always hear that breathing rhythm.”

  “I reckon, ’cept when breathing stops.” Granny Em coughed again. “But appears you ain’t gonna let me be till you take a listen. So go ahead.”

  Her lungs sounded even more congested than Fran had feared. “You need to be in the hospital.” She folded the stethoscope and put it back in her bag.

  “You might as well hush about that. Ain’t gonna go there. If’n it’s my time, I’ll meet my Maker on my own ground.”

  “You’re too sick to stay here by yourself.”

  “And you’re too young to tell me what to do.” Another fit of coughing seized her. She had to wait awhile to get her breath after she finished coughing. “Some ginger tea and I’ll be back up and going.”

  Fran put her hands on her hips and stared at Granny Em. The woman was right. She couldn’t make her go to the hospital. “Tell you what. I’ll make the tea for you if you tell me how, but you have to also take the medicine I give you.”

  “I can make my own tea.”

  “You can. But you can take the pills I give you too. You’ve got pneumonia. That’s not something to mess around with.”

  “I told you before. When it’s a body’s time, it’s their time. Naught you can do to change that.”

  “Except drink ginger tea and take these pills, because it just might not be your time right now.”

  “You’re as worrisome as a pesky mosquito buzzing in a body’s ear.” She swiped at her ear as if hearing that mosquito.

  “And I’m going to keep buzzing until you agree to take these pills.” Fran pulled out a packet of sulfapyridine pills from her saddlebag. If these didn’t help Granny Em in a few days, she’d try to get her hands on that new drug, penicillin, she’d heard worked wonders. They probably had some at the hospital.

  “All right. I’ll wash down your pills with my ginger tea and won’t neither of us know which thing to credit my healing to.” A scrambling noise from the gunnysack caught her attention. “What’s your dog got cornered over there in that sack? Have you brung me a snake?”

  Fran shivered. “Never.”

  “Rattlers make right good eating. Better’n possum by a right smart sight.”

  “You’ll have to catch your own rattlers for dinner.” Fran went over and undid the top of the gunny sack and opened it wide to let the hen out. “I brought you a hen.”

  The brown hen flopped its wings at Sarge, who backed away. Then it cocked its head back and forth and stared at Granny Em. The old woman’s laugh turned into a wheezing cough.

  When she could talk again, she called, “Here, chickie, chickie.” She pulled some crumbs out of a pocket somewhere under the quilt and held them out. The hen went straight over to eat out of her hand. Granny Em picked it up and stroked its feathers like it was a cat.

  “I can’t remember the last time anybody give me a hen. Coulda been way back when I was still catching babies ’fore you nurses came around.” She looked up at Fran. “You ain’t got a baby you need catching, now does you?”

  “Heavens no.” Fran could feel her cheeks warming.

  “Best not wait too many long years.”

  Ben came through the door with a bucket of water. “Too many long years for what?” he asked.

  Fran busied herself fastening her saddlebag. No way could she answer Ben.

  But Granny Em did. “For livin’. Ain’t good to piddle around doing naught but countin’ days. Ain’t smart to wait too long on some things a feller wants.”

  At least the old woman didn’t mention anything about babies. Fran straightened up and looked at the cabinet and table in the corner of the room that must pass as a kitchen. She opened the cabinet. A few dishes were on one shelf and some jars with various powders and herbs on another. The only food she saw was a few eggs in a bowl and a container of meal. She should have brought Granny Em some of those shucky beans. Fran hadn’t really acquired a taste for them, but she couldn’t deny they were filling.

  “Where’s the ginger for your tea?” she asked.

  “That’s just it.” Granny Em put the hen down and pulled the quilt a little closer around her. “I run out of it last week. Ain’t been up to going out to dig more roots.” The hen scooted under her chair.

  “I guess not.” Fran dipped the glass into the bucket of water Ben set down on the table. She looked over at Ben. “You don’t know where we could find ginger roots, do you?”

  “Ginger roots?” Ben frowned at her.

  “For Granny Em’s tea. We made a deal. She’d take my pills if I made her tea.” Fran took the water to Granny Em and shook a couple of pills out of the packet. “Here. You’ll have to go ahead and take these. Then drink the tea later.”

  “I reckon I can do that.” Granny Em reached a trembling hand out for the pills and put them in her mouth. She sipped at the water and made a terrible face. “I ain’t never figured out why them town doctors think a body can swaller a horse pill.” Granny Em handed the glass back to Fran.

  “Drink a little more.”

  “I’ll drink more when you make me that tea.” Granny Em clamped her lips together.

  Fran took the glass and turned back to Ben.

  “We’re not going out in this weather to hunt ginger roots.” There was no give in his face.

  “But I promised.”

  “Do you even know what ginger plants look like?” Ben said.

  “No. Don’t you?”

  “I might find some in the spring, but not now.”

  Granny Em shoved a corner of her quilt away. “I’ll jest have to go out and find them my own self.”

  Ben went over and put his hand on Granny Em’s shoulder to keep her from getting up. “You aren’t going root hunting. What you’re going to do is come to my house. Nothing but windfall branches out there that won’t do anything but sputter and put your fire out.”

  “You come home from the service awful bossy,” Granny Em said.

  “I did. But Ma would have my hide if I let you sit here and die in your stubborn spot.”

  Fran held her breath, expecting an explosion from Granny Em, but it didn’t come. Instead the old woman’s lips turned up a little.

  “Ruthena is a fine woman. Generous to a fault.” Granny Em had another coughing attack. When she was finished, she gave Fran a hard look. “Them pills ain’t done a bit of good.”

  “You have to take them twice a day for ten days.” Fran handed her the glass of water and got her to take another sip. “And drink lots of water. Or tea.”

  “And you could just let an old woman die in peace.”

  “You’ve never been the peaceful sort,” Ben said.

  “But I got this new chicken to keep away from the foxes and the cow to milk.” Granny Em shook her head.

  “I’ll come back up here and see to your cow or Woody will. And we’ll take that fetched hen with us, but Ma won’t let it in the house. I can tell you that.”

  “Plenty of folks do.” Granny Em peered up at him.

  “Not Ma.”

  “She always was picky about her house.” Granny Em let out a wheezy sigh. “But I reckon Silky can manage in your henhouse.”

  “Silky?” Fran said.

  “Ain’t you never stroked a chicken’s feathers, girl? Got a sweet, silky feel to them.” Granny Em looked at Fran and then back at Ben. “Tell you what. I’ll head on down to your ma’s soon as them pills the nurse girl give me make me feel up to it.”

  “That won’t do,” Ben said. “You’re going now. Along with that hen.”

  “Should I find some clothes to take with you?” Fran looked around. A trunk sat at the end of the bed in the corner of the room.

  “No need,” Ben said. “Ma will find her something to wear.”

&
nbsp; “I reckon we better do what Mr. Bossy says, girl.”

  “I guess you’re right.” Fran reached under the chair and grabbed the hen. It squawked, but Fran stuck its head under its wing to stop its fight. “Back in the sack with you.”

  She wrapped her slicker around Granny Em while Ben scattered out the fire in the hearth. The flames sputtered out.

  Granny Em watched him. “I ain’t let that fire go dead out for more’n a year.”

  “I’ll start it up for you again before you come back.”

  “If’n I ever come back.” The old woman sounded sad. “It’s a sorry time when a body can’t be the one to decide where and when she’s going.”

  “You’ll be better soon. We’ll figure out how to make that tea.” Fran touched the old woman’s shoulder.

  “No problem about that.” Ben stood up from the fireplace. “Ma was talking about making some up for Sadie before I came out today.”

  “The child got a cough?” Granny Em asked.

  “She does,” Ben said.

  “Then the ginger tea is jest what she needs.” Granny Em smiled. “Good your ma remembered that.”

  Fran helped Granny Em stand up, but when she swayed on her feet, Ben picked the old woman up like she was no heavier than Sadie. Outside the rain was turning to snow. Fran put her saddlebag on Jasmine and tied the gunnysack back to her saddle horn.

  Ben let Granny Em stand down beside Fran while he climbed on his horse. Then he reached and gently pulled the old woman up to cradle her in front of him on Captain. He looked at Fran without her slicker now. “I’d give you my coat, but it’s soaked through.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Fran fought against shivering.

  “You can dry out at the house.”

  Granny Em started coughing again, and Ben tightened his arms around her, as though to help her get through the coughs. The very sight brought tears to Fran’s eyes as she mounted Jasmine and followed Ben away from the cabin.

  At Ben’s house, the fire was warm and the air smelled deliciously of popped corn. Sadie and her pup ran to meet Fran, while Mrs. Locke fussed over Granny Em. Becca pulled Fran over to the fire. Sarge settled on a rug by the door to wait. When Sadie’s pup crept over to him, Sarge gave him a friendly sniff and then licked the pup’s face. Obviously he liked Buttons better than Bruiser.