These Healing Hills

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Francine.” He seemed ready to say more, but his mother called to him from inside. The moment was lost.

  Fran shivered, more from being so near to him than the chill, but she didn’t deny it when he said she must be cold. He slipped off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. It carried his warmth.

  For just an instant his hands rested on her shoulders, but then he pulled his hands away. “Ma’s ready to go back up the hill. Carl’s staying. I’ll come down tomorrow to see if Becca can come to the house.”

  “All right.”

  A little frown creased Mrs. Locke’s forehead when Ben followed Fran inside. The frown lines went a little deeper when Fran handed Ben his coat. She rubbed her hand across her forehead and replaced the frown with a smile. “We’re beholding to you, Nurse Howard, for gettin’ little Carlene here in trying circumstances.”

  “It could be we should have stayed at your house,” Fran said. “Out of the cold.”

  “That could be, but some things is hard to see on down the road. It turned out right. That’s what matters.” She shifted her eyes to Ben. “Things turning out right.”

  “And they did.” Ben met his mother’s steady gaze.

  After they left, Fran checked on Becca. She was dozing, her arm wrapped around the baby swaddled in a blanket with only her little round face showing. She too was sleeping peacefully. Carl sat on a pallet Jeralene must have fixed for him beside the bed, his gaze fastened on Becca.

  “I love her, you know.” He looked up at Fran. “That might not appear to be the truth of it, with me being gone so long, but I weren’t never happy up there in Ohio without her. I don’t intend to part from her again. I aim to be somebody she’ll want to call her man.”

  “That’s good to hear, Carl.” She lightly touched Becca’s forehead and observed her regular breathing and that of the baby. She peeked under the blanket. All was as it should be. “Call for me if Becca needs anything.”

  In her bedroom, she kicked off her boots and stripped off her soiled uniform. She put on a clean shirt and trousers to sleep in, since she’d be checking on the new mother and baby in a couple of hours. After she lay down, the silence of the house settled around her. Fran missed Sarge on the rug beside her bed. No sooner did she think that than she heard scratching on the front door.

  She opened the door and Sarge slipped inside, as though he had just done his nightly turn around the yard instead of coming down the hill from the Lockes’ house.

  “Good dog.” She dried off his paws with an old towel. “Did Ben let you out and tell you to come home?”

  He gave her his doggie grin and danced his paws up and down, his toenails clicking on the wood floor.

  Fran almost laughed. “You’re too proud of yourself. Come on before you wake everybody up.”

  With Sarge on his rug as he should be, Fran lay back down, but she couldn’t go to sleep. She kept seeing the look on Carl’s face as he watched his wife and child. The same kind of look she’d seen on other men’s faces after a baby was born. Would anyone ever look at her that way, or would she always be only an observer of that special kind of love?

  She pushed away the thought and grabbed at sleep. She didn’t have time for that kind of thinking. She was Nurse Howard.

  39

  December 20, 1945

  Sun sneaking in through the window the next morning woke Fran. No more time for sleeping. Fran pulled the spread up over her bed. Outside, the eaves dripped as the snow melted. Weather could change quickly in Kentucky.

  Becca was in the chair rocking her baby while Carl slept in the bed. “I told him he could, Nurse. He was plumb tuckered out from the walk home in that snowstorm yesterday.” She smiled at the sleeping man. “Weren’t it something him showin’ up in time for the baby to come?” Becca shook her head a little. “Ma says that’s how things work sometimes. God’s doing. Fixing it so’s folks show up when you ’specially need ’em to.”

  “He loves you.” Fran looked over at Carl. “He told me so last night while you were sleeping.”

  “I ain’t never doubted that for a minute.” Becca’s smile slipped away. “What I been ponderin’ is whether he can be a passable husband and a daddy. Do for us, you know. A girl can jump off in love without a second thought, but a mother has to consider other things.”

  Fran had no answer for that. “I’ll bring you breakfast after I take care of the horses. Well, horse, since Jasmine is still up in your barn.”

  “Ben will see to her. He’s a man who does what needs doing.” Becca looked up at Fran. “You like him, don’t you?”

  “I like all of you.” Fran sidestepped her question. “You’ve been so good to me.”

  “There’s all kinds of ways of liking.” Becca smiled down at her baby. “And loving. I’m finding out one of them ways right now with baby Carlene.”

  You like him, don’t you? Becca’s question followed Fran around all morning, but she kept avoiding an answer, even in her own thoughts.

  Instead she busied herself checking on Becca, peeling potatoes for soup, and writing up notes for her records. Outside the snow melted almost as fast as it had fallen the day before.

  Jeralene stared out the window and warned the creeks would be rising. “Tides don’t generally happen this time of the year, but then it don’t generally snow a foot in December. Getting anywheres is apt to be hard for a spell.” Jeralene looked around at Fran. “You got any new babies near to coming?”

  “Not for a while, but something’s always happening.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  As if to prove their point, Sarge stood up and barked as somebody knocked. Fran rushed to open the door, expecting to see Ben coming for Becca. But it wasn’t Ben.

  “Seth.” Fran blinked. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. “What in the world are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to take you home.”

  “What?” Fran was too surprised to see him standing there to make sense of his words.

  “It’s almost Christmas. You need to come home.”

  “Is something wrong with Mother?” An uneasy worry awakened inside her. What else could bring Seth all the way to the mountains?

  “No, no. She’s fine.” Seth laid her worries to rest. “Other than missing her only daughter.” He shivered a little. “I’m about froze. Are you going to let me come inside?”

  He did look cold in spite of his heavy coat, but he didn’t have a hat or boots. His shoes were soaked.

  “Of course. I’m sorry. It’s just that I can hardly believe you’re actually here.” When she pulled the door open wider, Sarge barked again. Fran touched the dog’s head. “He’s all right, Sarge.”

  “Sarge?” Seth frowned at the dog. “Odd name for a dog.”

  “He likes it.” Fran kept her hand on Sarge. “Come over to the fire and take those wet shoes off.” She scooted a chair closer to the fireplace in the front room. He had to have a reason to come all this way, but she couldn’t imagine what it could be. Maybe something her mother cooked up to get Fran back to Cincinnati. Could her mother have paid him to come get her?

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold. Not even in the army.” He sat down without taking off his coat and leaned down to untie his shoes.

  “Did you walk all the way here?”

  “How else can you get to this godforsaken place?” Seth slipped off his shoe.

  She wanted to tell him there was nothing godforsaken about it, but she bit back the words. He was obviously miserably cold. That could make a man cross. “So you came on the bus to Hyden?” She could still hardly believe he was sitting there in front of her eyes.

  “No, I didn’t come on the bus.” He glared at her. “I came in my car. Got to what passes for a town in the middle of a snowstorm. Took my life in my hands driving that road up to the hospital and then you weren’t there. Some short little nurse tells me you’re out here in the hinterlands, a place I’d never be able to find in the dark. I’d end up ki
lled or worse.” Seth jerked off his wet sock. “Wasn’t sure then what could be worse than killed, but that was before I spent the night shivering in my car.”

  Fran thought of her own night. Delivering a baby in the back of a truck. And of Becca having that baby. She caught the faint cry of the newborn from the clinic and wanted to leave Seth by the fire to check on her. Instead, even though she wanted to tell him nobody had asked him to come, she summoned up a sympathetic look. “Sounds like you had a hard time.”

  “A hard time doesn’t begin to describe it.” He stared at his toes. “I think I have frostbite.”

  Fran doubted it, but if he did, he might need treatment. She leaned over to examine his foot. “No frostbite.” She rubbed his toes to warm them.

  He yanked off his other sock and poked that foot up toward her. “You better check this one too.”

  She didn’t particularly like the way he grinned at her, as though she were touching his foot in a more personal way than simply as a nurse. This time she turned loose of his foot after examining it without trying to warm his toes.

  “Nothing wrong that dry socks won’t cure.” She stepped back from him.

  He kept his foot up in the air for a second. “You have good hands.”

  “A good thing for a nurse-midwife.” She picked up his socks and spread them on the hearth near the fire. “Do you have other clothes with you?”

  “Yeah, in my car maybe a mile from here. It’s stuck in a ditch.” His scowl was back. “There’s probably not a wrecker to be found for miles.”

  “The men around here will help you.”

  “Are you sure they won’t just shoot me and take my car? I hear they don’t like outsiders.”

  “As long as they don’t think you’re a revenuer, you should be fine.” Fran kept her face solemn.

  “Should be?” Seth shook his head. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  Fran did smile then. “They’ll help you if I tell them you’re a friend.”

  “Are we friends, Fran?” His expression changed. “Like we used to be?”

  Fran’s smile disappeared. “What about Cecelia?”

  “She’s gone. Back to England. For good.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fran said.

  “Don’t be. The parting was mutual. She wasn’t the same Cecelia once she was here. Nothing like she was over in England. She didn’t like my family. She didn’t like Cincinnati. Wanted me to go to California.” Seth frowned as he rubbed his toes. “What would I do in California?”

  “I don’t know. They say it’s warm out there.”

  “That part would be good.” He scooted nearer to the fire. “Can you put some more coal on the fire? Warm it up in here.”

  Fran dropped a chunk from the coal bucket beside the hearth onto the fire. The coal already glowing red in the fire broke apart and sent up sparks. She turned back to Seth. “Why are you here, Seth?”

  “I told you. To take you home. Before Christmas. Your mother says you won’t pay any attention to her letters. That I needed to come get you.” He stood up and stepped closer to her. “We, the two of us, can start over. See if we have as much fun together now as we used to before the war and everything.” He reached and took her hand. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? What you wrote about in all your letters to me.”

  It had been what she wanted. Or thought she did. She pulled her hand free and stepped back. “That was then. Things have changed.”

  “They don’t have to be changed. We can make it work again.” He followed her away from the fire. “All you have to do is come home with me.”

  “I can’t do that. I have patients here who depend on me.”

  “They can put somebody else here. That nurse at the hospital said so. Said you could go home if you wanted to.” When Fran didn’t say anything, he went on. “Don’t you want to have your own babies, our own babies, instead of merely helping others have babies?” He caught her hand again and raised it up to touch her fingers to his cheek.

  He was right. She had been ready to marry him. Perhaps the feeling was still there inside her, but then why did she not like the way he kept grabbing her hand? She eased her hand free again. “I’m not going with you. At least not now.”

  A smile settled on his face. “But you will give it some consideration? I know I was a bum, but I’ve wanted to come after you ever since I saw you at church that day. Even before Cecelia left.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  A knock sounded on the door, but this time Sarge didn’t bark. Instead he ran toward the door with his tail flapping happily. She knew before she opened the door that Ben would be standing there, and she wished Seth anywhere but beside her fire.

  40

  Ben pulled the truck as close to the center’s door as he dared. He didn’t want to get stuck. This driving in snow was tricky, but the way the temperature was rising, the snow wouldn’t last long. In fact, the clouds gathering in the west looked more like rain than snow. Guess he’d find out then how his truck did in mud. Once he got Becca and her baby home, he’d just park the truck till time to go to Richmond to school. The chance of him actually getting to do that looked more promising with Carl back.

  Until then, Ben wanted to see more of Francine. Lots more. Find out if there was any place for him in her heart. As much as he’d fought it, she’d already found a spot in his heart and mind.

  When he noticed footprints through the snow to the porch, he hoped Francine hadn’t been called out somewhere. With the way the creek was rising, he couldn’t tarry here. He had to get his truck back across the water. He stared up at the clouds and hoped he was wrong about rain coming.

  After he knocked on the door, he smiled at the sound of toenails on the floor. That meant Sarge found his way home. Even better, Sarge in the house meant Francine was surely there too.

  Her smile was all wrong when she opened the door. “Mr. Locke. I guess you’ve come for Becca.”

  Ben’s own smile faded. He started to say he thought they’d gotten past the Mr. Locke and Nurse Howard stage, but then he saw the man by her fire. Barefoot.

  “If she’s well enough for the ride, Nurse Howard.” He followed her formal lead. “Ma’s anxious to get hold of that baby again.” He kept his eyes away from the man. “And the way the creek’s rising, we might ought to go soon.” With that man whoever he was there, he’d have no time for visiting Francine anyway. He wanted to think the man was a patient, but he looked like an outsider. Very much like one.

  “Right.” Francine stepped back from the door.

  The man leaned forward to peer out the door. “Is that your truck?” When Ben nodded, the man said, “Then you could pull my car out of the ditch. It’s down the road a little way.”

  “I don’t think I know you.” A man should wait until names were exchanged before he asked for favors.

  “I’m Seth Miller. Francine and I are old friends. Practically engaged, weren’t we, Frannie?” He grinned over at Francine.

  “Before the war.” Color spread across Francine’s cheeks. “Seth, this is Ben Locke. He was in the service too.”

  “Good to meet you.” The man stayed by the stove and didn’t offer to shake Ben’s hand. “So is that your baby I hear squalling back there?”

  “My sister’s.” Ben turned to Francine. “Is the baby all right?”

  “She’s fine. A beautiful baby.” Francine’s voice softened and her smile came back. “I’ll go help Becca get ready.” She started toward the clinic.

  “But what about my car?” The man pulled a couple of bills from his pocket to hold out toward Ben. “I’m willing to pay. I need my car to get back to civilization. Soon as I talk some sense into Francine, I’m ready to leave this place behind.”

  Francine turned back to Ben. “If you could help get Seth’s car out of the ditch, I’d be grateful.”

  Ben hoped that meant so the man could be gone. He desperately also hoped she wasn’t planning to pack up and go with him. He wanted to as
k her that, but instead he spoke to the stranger. “You’ll have to put on your boots and show me where it is.”

  “He just has shoes.” She looked at the man. “Wait, I’ll find you some socks.”

  Silence fell over the room after Francine left. Ben rubbed Sarge and ignored the man, but he knew the man was studying him.

  After Francine came back and handed the socks to the man, she asked, “What about Jasmine? I might need her if somebody comes after me.”

  That sounded encouraging to Ben’s ears. At least she wasn’t ready to hop in this man’s car and head back to Cincinnati today. She wanted her mare.

  “Woody’s bringing her down. He should be here anytime now if he doesn’t dawdle.”

  “He won’t dawdle. He’ll want to see Jeralene.”

  “Jasmine? Jeralene?” the man asked. “How many people are in this place?”

  Francine laughed. “Jasmine is my horse and Jeralene helps me with the cooking and chores. She’s peeked out at you from the kitchen a few times already. Probably worried about whether the potato soup is going to be enough to go around.”

  “I don’t like potato soup,” the man said.

  “Good. Then we’ll have plenty. And you can find something better suited to your taste when you get back to civilization.” Francine was smiling, but she didn’t look particularly happy.

  That had Ben feeling more like smiling as he looked directly at the man. “If you’re anxious to get back to the city, you might want to get started as soon as you can. Those clouds out there look heavy with rain. The creeks get up, you might need a boat to get out of here unless you want to swim.” Ben piled it on. The man didn’t look like somebody who’d want to swim a creek and leave his car behind.

  “Then maybe I’ll just stick around here until traveling is easier.” The man smiled at Francine. “Give Fran and me time to hash over old times.”

  Francine looked uneasy again. “Of course, you can stay if you want to wait for better weather, Seth, but not here. I have to consider appearances and what Mrs. Breckinridge would think.”

  “Who is this Mrs. Breckinridge?” the man asked.