Tattler's Branch (6 page)

Lilly thought she could detect a trace of sorrow in his clear blue eyes as he took the seat Mazy had vacated. It hadn’t been that long since his father was killed
 
—shot in the chest by an intruder at the mine office. Chanis’s father, the first Sheriff Clay, had been forty-eight, a good and honorable man by all accounts. He left his wife and thirteen children; as the oldest at twenty-one, Chanis had big boots to fill.

“Something beyond strange has occurred,” Lilly said, leaning forward in her chair. “I seem to have acquired an abandoned baby.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the sheriff said, retrieving a small spiral-bound notebook from his breast pocket. “You seem to, or you did?”

Lilly took her time relaying all that had happened since Monday evening when Armina had become ill. Chanis listened intently, taking notes with the stub of a yellow pencil.
Every now and then he’d stick the pencil in his mouth to moisten the lead.

“Do you reckon it fell off a hay wagon?” he asked when she had finished.

“A hay wagon?” Lilly said, puzzled.

“Sorry,” he said with the trace of a grin. “My daddy used to tease that there were so many young’uns in our family, some of us must have fell off the back of a hay wagon and rolled up in his yard.”

Lilly smiled, glad to see some humor in such a serious young man. “I thought the mother would come looking for the baby by now. I’m very concerned that something untoward has happened to her.”

“The baby is defective, you say?”

“She has anomalies, yes.”

“Most likely somebody pitched the poor little thing.”

Lilly put her hand to her heart. “I wouldn’t like to think so, but I’ve heard of such cases. Usually, though, the mother leaves the baby on someone’s porch or in a church where it can be easily found.”

“We don’t know but what Miz Armina found it in some such place. She can’t remember, you say?”

“Not yet, but I haven’t pushed it. I have to think of her health too.”

The sheriff stood, his holster creaking like saddle leather, and put the pad and pencil back in his pocket. “I’ll keep an eye out, Doc.”

“One more thing: a patient came in yesterday with stab
wounds. He said he injured himself while cleaning fish. I found that highly unlikely.”

“Probably a brawl of some sort. I’ll bet he’s laying low until he can sneak out of town. I see too many drifters just hanging around the mines, hoping to get a week or two of work before they blow away. My opinion, they cause more trouble than they’re worth.”

Lilly stood and shook his hand. “Thank you, Chanis. I’ll keep you posted on the baby.”

“You’re right to keep it quiet for the time being. Something will shake out
 
—it always does.” He started for the back door, then stopped. “Say, you mind if I go out through the front?”

Armina lay
in her bed, feeling as stunned as a foundered cow. Her mind swirled with blurry half-formed images, but she couldn’t seem to pull them together.

“Concentrate,” she told herself. “Concentrate.”

The bed was hard. The room was small. There was one window. Craning her neck, she could make out a sliver of light sneaking in through a gap in the tightly closed curtains. So
 
—it was daytime.

She held her hand in front of her face. It felt as heavy as a rock. Best she could tell, she had four fingers and a thumb. That seemed right. One finger wore a slim gold band. She was married. Strange
 
—shouldn’t she remember that?

It must be suppertime. She had to get up. There were hungry mouths to feed: Aunt Orie and the kids
 
—her niece and nephew
 
—and evidently a husband, though she couldn’t picture him.

Summoning her will, she rose up on her elbows. The room whirled like the carousel ride at the fair Ned had taken her to last summer.

Ned. There. That was something solid to hold on to. Maybe your mind worked better if you didn’t think so hard. She fell back against the pillow and closed her eyes. The carousel slowed, then stopped. Always the gentleman, Ned helped her down from the white horse with the yellow mane.

The hot, syrupy smell of melting sugar filled the air. Cotton candy. She wanted a cone of that cotton candy. Ned laughed when some of the airy pink confection stuck to her nose. She was aggravated when he pulled her behind a barker’s stand and kissed it off. She wasn’t much given to displays of affection.

Ned. Her husband. He’d brought her down from the mountain and married her at the church in Skip Rock. She could never figure why. She was plain as pig tracks with a figure like a sled runner. But her husband acted like she was spun gold
 
—like he could never get enough of her. The way she couldn’t get enough of that cotton candy once she’d tasted it.

At first she thought it was because he was marred, that he picked her because nobody would pick him. He had no lack of looks or personality but he was missing a leg. It had taken
her some time to get over that particular thing. But she got over it quicker when she saw two girls flirting with him at a fish fry. That was before they’d even started going out, but still it got her dander up.

Her own rusty bark of a laugh in the hushed room startled her. There was no looking back once she’d set her heart on him. But where was he? Where was Ned? Ah, she should get up
 
—go and search for her one-legged man
 
—but this thinking was wearying her. Just for a minute she’d close her eyes.

Something baleful snuck into her carousel of memory
 
—the dark horse she would never choose to ride. Aunt Orie was dead. Oh, oh. Did she have to grieve that all over again?

She’d met Doc Lilly because of Aunt Orie. They’d tried everything to save her aunt
 
—all that modern medicine had to offer. But in the end, she’d died anyway. You couldn’t deny death, that cold reaper, his due for any length of time. She lifted her hand to cover her eyes. That was done. Dead and buried, she didn’t have to go there again. So . . . if that was past, and the carousel was past, where was she now?

“You’re awake,” a woman said. “Do you want to try a bite of supper? I’ve made milk toast.”

The woman set a bowl and spoon on the bedside table. Before Armina could think how to answer, the woman hauled her up and stuffed pillows behind her back. Did she have no say-so in the matter?

“Who’re you?” Armina asked.

“I’m Hannah, your nurse,” she said like she had a right to be hauling Armina around, like she did this all the time.

Nurse?
So she was in the old folks’ home. Or purgatory
 
—they were both the same. How old was she anyway? She held her hand up again, this time checking for liver spots. The nurse slipped a spoon into it.

Armina flung the spoon across the room. She wasn’t eating milk toast. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. She had teeth, so she wasn’t that old. She wanted corn bread and maybe some fried chicken and then blackberry cobbler.

Her mind snatched her backward to a dark place
 
—dark and green and whirling, like the sky before a bad storm. Blackberry fronds snagged her legs and trapped her arms in a thorny vise. Rabbits, as big as hound dogs, hopped among the briars. “Run,” one said, its mouth twitching fearfully. “Run, rabbit, run.”

Her struggle was to no avail as the vines tightened around her ankles and wrists. She was trapped.

“Armina, dear,” the biggest rabbit crooned in a familiar voice. “Lie still.”

A clink of metal against her teeth and the rabbit said, “Here, this will make you feel better.”

Bitter-tasting medicine flowed from a spoon. Armina turned her head. The rabbit pinched her nose. She had to swallow.

Tension flowed from her body like bathwater down a drain. The rabbits munched blossoms of white clover. The blackberry vines offered up their fruit. Her sycamore walking stick felt good and sturdy in her hand. Down by the bridge, two women talked quietly.

“Loose the bonds in fifteen minutes,” one said. “She’ll be placid for a while.”

“I will. I’m sorry, Doctor. There’s milk toast everywhere. I thought she was better.”

“I’ll help you clean up.”

“No, please. I’ll get it. You have better things to do.”

Better things to do
 
—better things to do. Armina had better things to do. With fitful blasts of tinny calliope music, the carousel jerked to life behind her. In a rush she mounted the white horse with the yellow mane. Her steed rose and fell gracefully. Pink cotton candy melted on her tongue. This was a good place. She’d stay here for a while.

Supper was on the kitchen table when Lilly crossed the road from Armina’s house. Sandwiches, thick with cheddar cheese and ham on Tillie Tippen’s sourdough bread, graced white ironstone plates.

“There are bread-and-butter pickles to go with,” Mazy said, popping one of the treats into her mouth. “Crunchy and sweet. Yum.”

Kip sat expectantly in Lilly’s chair. He hadn’t dared to breach her plate, though a thin bit of drool trickled down his chin.

Lilly snapped her fingers, then pointed to the floor. “Kipper!”

The little terrier turned mournful eyes on her before he
jumped down. Lilly took a saucer from a stack reserved for Kip, cut a corner from her sandwich, and put it on the floor.

“We should get Kip a high chair,” Mazy said when they had finished saying grace.

“And some bibs,” Lilly replied. “He could definitely use some of those.”

Mazy rolled her eyes. “I draw the line at diapers.”

“Remember my dog Steady? Remember how after she got old and deaf, if you asked her to do something she didn’t want to do, she’d just turn her eyes away? Like if she couldn’t see you, she didn’t have to mind.”

“I remember you spent a whole summer teaching her sign language. I was what
 
—six or seven?” With busy fingers, Mazy signed
sit
and
stay
. “I still remember most of it.”

A terrible jangling sound made Kip’s fur stand on end. Abandoning his saucer, he ran to the door, barking furiously.

“What in the world?” Mazy said.

“Goodness, it’s the telephone.” Lilly rushed to the wooden box installed on the wall by the door. “Kip. Shush!” She lifted the receiver and shouted into the mouthpiece, “Hello!”

Mazy held Kip to quiet him. They stood in a tight bunch. Kip licked first Lilly’s face and then Mazy’s. “Hello,” Lilly said again.

“How’s my sweet wife?” came like a miracle through the wires along with a fair amount of background noise.

“Tern?” Lilly sagged against the wall. Her knees felt like jelly. Thoughtfully, Mazy took Kip outside, closing the door behind her.

“It’s me, angel. I’ve got some news.”

“Are you okay?” She couldn’t help but pose the question every miner’s wife dreaded having to ask. “Are you hurt?”

“No, honey, no. Please don’t worry about me. You know I’m careful as can be. But listen, Lilly; I’m not coming home next week like we’d planned
 
—”

“Oh, Tern, you’ve been gone for weeks.”

“I know, but there’s been an explosion and a cave-in at a mine in Canada. A dozen men are trapped miles underground. Washington offered our help. I’m on the way there now. I’m calling from the train station.”

Her eyes filled with hot tears. What exquisite torture, hearing his dear voice but not being in his presence, not being able to feel his arms around her, not hearing the beat of his strong heart against her cheek. She stifled a sob.

“I love you, honey. You’re not crying, are you? Please don’t cry. I’ll be home soon enough.”

Lilly dug her thumbnail into her index finger to redirect the pain in her heart. No sense making this more difficult for him. “I love you too, dearest. Just be careful. Promise?”

“This is the best, hearing your voice. I’m glad this thing works.”

“Yes, me too. Tern? I’ve got something to tell you also.”

“I’m all ears.”

She took a breath and forced a broad smile
 
—she wanted to savor the moment she gave her husband such wonderful news, and her voice would be lighter with a smile. “Are you ready to be a father?” she teased.

A blast of static followed by dead silence rewarded her question. She tapped the receiver against the wall as if that would clear the line. It was still dead as could be. Frustrated, she replaced the earpiece, cranked the phone, and picked up the receiver again.

“Operator
 
—number, please,” eked out in a feminine voice.

“I was speaking with my husband. We’ve been disconnected.”

“Number, please.” The woman drew out her words. It sounded to Lilly like she was forcing a smile too.

“I don’t have a number.”

“Please hold.”

Inside Lilly’s ear, the phone rang distantly. “Directory assistance. What city, please?”

“I don’t know what city.”

“Hold, please.”

The telephone clicked and hissed. “Number, please.”

“I was disconnected
 
—”

The buzzing of a dozen bees replaced the operator’s voice. Lilly hung up. Her ear throbbed from being pressed so tightly to the receiver. “Stupid thing,” she said to the telephone, which offered no reply. She was of a good mind to jerk the whole shebang off the wall and pitch it through the kitchen window. Progress! Who needed it?

After refilling her tea glass and Mazy’s, she stepped outside to join her sister at the small picnic table under the apple tree in the side yard. Tiny green apples had replaced the
pretty white blossoms that graced the tree during the spring. Kip jumped up to sit in her lap.

“Oh, Sister,” Mazy said. “That was so exciting. It defies logic, capturing a person’s voice and flinging it down the road that way. Did he sound the same?”

“He did. Of course, we’ve talked on a telephone before.” Lilly let a bit of ice from her drink melt on her tongue. Her mouth felt numb from unsaid words.

“Isn’t God good, Lilly, to let us have such a thing?”

Lilly let the warm night air wash over her. Her yard was newly mown, the grass releasing the lush, fertile scent evocative of summer. She stroked Kip’s back. His fur was silky smooth beneath her fingers. And inside her womb, her baby grew safe and sound, no less real for being unspoken. “Yes, Mazy, God is very good.”

“You know what else would be a miracle?”

“No, what else would be a miracle?” Lilly asked.

Mazy twisted a curl around her finger. “Me having someone to talk to on that thing.”

From across the table, Lilly squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “That will happen soon enough. Come inside and I’ll give you a lesson on phone etiquette. You can be in charge of answering the clinic phone.”

“Wait, wait. I have to practice.” She lowered her voice. “Hello. Hello. Does that sound businessy? Or should I be friendlier? Hellooo.
Hellooo.
”

“Your regular voice is just fine, Mazy. I’m sure you’ll sound like a person in charge when you connect.”

“Really?” Mazy stood and retrieved their glasses. “I’ve always wanted to be in charge of something.” She looked surprised. “We have a visitor.”

Chanis Clay tipped his hat as he approached. “Evening, ladies. I just stopped by to . . . well . . . I needed to ask . . .” His eyes lit on Kip. “Maybe the dog needs walking or something.”

Mazy’s eyes pleaded,
Say yes, Lilly. Say yes.

“I’m sure Kip would love a ten-minute walk, but I don’t want him chasing after squirrels this late in the day. I’ll get his leash.”

“I’ll get it,” Mazy said, setting Lilly’s half-full glass on the table. “You finish your tea.”

As the screen door slapped shut behind Mazy, Lilly gave Chanis a questioning look.

He dropped his gaze, kicking a pebble around with the toe of his polished boot. “I was hoping you’d let me come calling on your sister.”

“Hmm,” Lilly said, noting the blush that crept up his neck. “Have you ever called on a young lady before?”