Deep in the Valley (22 page)

“Jessie? You want to help with the stitches?” she asked, discarding soiled gloves and washing her hands before donning new ones. She had never seen her clerk’s eyes shine more brightly. Jessica nodded and held up her own gloved hands. “Okay, first the anesthetic.” Jessica pointed to the lidocaine syringe that lay ready. “Well, you appear to be up to speed. Sam, you don’t mind a little on-the-job training, do you? It’s the least you deserve.” He nodded bravely.

June watched closely as Jessica, in an experienced manner, popped the top off the syringe with a thumb and began to inject tiny bubbles of anesthetic along the cut on Sam’s chin. When she finished and stood back, June regarded her with raised eyebrows. “Let me start, and if you’re very good, I’ll save you a couple.”

Jessica glowed.

While June stitched, she lectured. “I have a patient lying in a hospital bed, facing treatment for a disease that could kill her. She’s alone, afraid and has been betrayed, and the three of you are acting out your own anger and hurt pride.”

“You’d have your nose a little out of shape if—” Stan began.

“Shut up, Stan, you’re a little late,” she snapped. “If you wanted a say in that girl’s life you might have
started sooner. Maybe added a little something to her self-esteem with praise and affection instead of sticking her with all the chores and the family business. That girl lost her mother! And all you’re worried about is your pride!”

“Amen,” the pastor muttered.

“If I were you, Jonathan, I’d start at the beginning of that prayer, not the end, and include a little humble pie. I’m sure the number of people you should beg for forgiveness exceeds even my imagination, but you might start with Standard Roberts, the father of the girl you betrayed. Then you can move on to your wife and any other woman in Grace Valley you’ve offended.”

Sam couldn’t help but let out a satisfied whoop of laughter. “You tell ’em, Junie!”

“You’d better hold still or I might accidentally sew your mouth shut, which, now that I think about it, isn’t such a bad idea.” She stood back from her handiwork. “You want to try a couple, Jessie?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said, reaching anxiously for the hemostat and needle. June stood at Jessica’s shoulder and watched her make four absolutely perfect sutures. Again she lifted her eyebrows.

“Put a butterfly and gauze on that, Jessie.” She snapped off her gloves and took a seat in front of the three men. “Sam, I know you think you’re the one with the sterling motives, but look at you. I’m not saying you’re not a good catch, but the girl is twenty-six. And she has cancer. And she is, for the moment at least, refusing further reproductive surgery because she wants a baby. If she succeeds, and something happens to her, who’s going to raise that baby? You? Being
there for her, giving her love and affection and loyalty when she’s needy, is a wonderful gesture, as long as you’re sure you don’t compromise her at the same time. Her basic human need right now is health—health
first
—so she can live long enough to enjoy the rest.

“The three of you ought to think, just for a moment, about someone besides yourselves. It seems that you have either exploited her affection or withheld affection from her or misguided her—or all of the above. What Justine needs right now is support and
respect.
Stan, call her sisters home to see her. Sam, be absolutely sure you don’t mislead her. And Jonathan… Oh Jonathan, I don’t know about you. Maybe you’d better keep your distance from Justine and ask Clarice if she’ll ever forgive you.

“Now get out of here. And don’t you
dare
fight again.”

When they were gone, Jessica went about the business of cleaning up the treatment room. She put the instruments in the sink for sterilizing, disposed of the bloody rags and gloves, got out the mop and pail, all the while keeping her head bent down.

“Jessie, what’s all this about?” June asked.

The girl slowly raised her eyes, and in them there was a light. “June, I think I want to be a doctor,” she said.

“Is that so? Well, you might have to graduate from high school first.”

For Tom, everything came together once he saw his daughter’s bruised cheek. Suddenly, he knew what was
missing—besides Gus. He had sent Lee around to all the old haunts where a man like Gus might take a drink, but the man hadn’t been seen. He had called the sheriff’s departments in three counties, but the truck had not been spotted anywhere. They had searched the farm and woods nearby as well, to see if the old sot was staying close, biding his time and waiting to pounce again, but he was not found. And Leah, who had been surprised in the middle of the night by her wildly abusive husband, was leaving the younger children at home alone when she went to work. They were devastated, but unafraid. Tom had thought they seemed
resigned.

Then Tanya rode up on her bike, her face marred by yet more Craven rage, and something clicked.

The bike. How far could you ride a bike in a couple of hours, along country roads?

Tom went out to the Craven farm, drove up the drive and saw Leah in the rocking chair on the porch, the rifle on her knees. He stopped and asked if everything was all right, then he drove down the drive and went west, taking side roads when they came up. But he stopped and turned back when he reached fifteen miles. He then traveled east from the Craven farm, again going off on deserted side roads or abandoned logging roads, but always stopping and turning back before going farther than fifteen miles.

It was after eight o’clock and the sun was low when he drove slowly along a third road, which wound through a stand of redwoods. He was about twelve miles from the Craven farm. He parked, got out his flashlight and walked among the trees, directing the
beam. Though there was still light along the road, the huge trees blocked the sun. It was dark and eerie in the woods at that hour.

The flashlight bounced off a fender. It looked as though the truck had careened through the trees, over a berm and down a shallow ravine. The front of the truck was plunged headlong into a narrow, dry creekbed, and Gus was slumped over the wheel.

As Tom got closer the smell of whisky got stronger. There was little doubt alcohol would be found in his blood, but in the days he’d been missing the smell would have waned. Unless his clothing had been soaked in liquor.

He called the county coroner and the sheriff’s department crime lab. It took them two hours to set up, after which he left them. He drove out to Leah’s and knocked on the door. She came, holding her old chenille robe closed.

“We found him, Leah. And the truck.”

Her chin quivered. Tom thought she must be relieved it was over.

“Was it you? Or was it Frank?” he asked.

She lifted her chin somewhat defiantly. “What are you talking about?”

“My guess is it was you, while he was pummeling Frank. He was such a pompous little ass, he didn’t realize that in two short months you’d grown strong enough that he shouldn’t turn his back on you. And I’ll bet it was the shovel that you whacked him in the back of the head with. But I’d bet you really didn’t mean to kill him, even then. Why didn’t you just call me, Leah?”

“Because it was true, what I told you—that he pulled the phone out of the wall. And I guess we just got so scared. It seemed like where Gus was concerned, everything always came back and got us. Gus was the one always seemed to skate out of things, while the boys and me, we just walked around all bruised and tattered.”

“So you put the bike in the back of the truck, drove out a back road and pushed the truck into the ravine. Then rode the bike home. If you had been on foot you would have had to hide the truck too close to the farm, or if you drove it far, it would have taken you too long to walk home. And you both had to work in the morning.”

“Yes, I thought—”

“No, it wasn’t her. That was me.”

Tom turned and saw Frank coming from the kitchen. At any other time he would have had a piece of the youngster’s hide for hitting Tanya. But as he’d already told her, that matter was finished. It was time to move on.

“Frank, don’t say another word!”

“It’s all right, Mama. The whole family knows, Chief. Sooner or later you’d get Jeremy or Joe or maybe little Stan to tell you. Daddy couldn’t break up the house without the little ones getting it just as bad as Mama and me.” He took a step closer. “See, there just wasn’t anything anyone could do to stop him.”

“What’s going to happen now, Tom?” Leah asked.

“Well, I’m going to call Corsica and have her send someone from social services out here to pick up the children, and then I’m going to take you and Frank to the sheriff’s office to make a statement.”

S
am put a Scarlet Eagle fly on his line.

“You’d do better with a Nasty Cat in this stream. Fish are on the bottom here. It’s a little on the muddy side,” Stan said, casting out.

“I’ll take my chances,” Sam said, a competitive edge to his voice. Across the river a large trout jumped. “Not too close to the bottom, I reckon.”

“You just know everything, don’t you?”

“Not everything. Most things.” Then he laughed.

They fished in silence for a half hour. The morning sun was just making its mark on the valley, taking its time coming fully across the mountain range. It was Standard who spoke first. “Been so long, I hardly remember Peggy.”

“Forty-two years ago. She was twenty-eight.”

“I guess I forgot we had that in common. Both lost wives to cancer. Georgia was in her fifties, gave me five daughters before she died.”

“Georgia was a fine woman, don’t you think? She
put up with the likes of you for a long time. Never complained.”

“Oh, she complained plenty,” Stan said. “But since she’s been gone she gets more perfect by the day. They were different cancers though, weren’t they?”

“Whose?” Sam asked.

“Our wives’. And Justine’s.”

“Oh, yes. Peggy had blood cancer. Fought it since college. Once or twice we thought we had it licked. That’s the reason there weren’t kids for us.”

“You never married again after her,” Stan pointed out, as though Sam hadn’t noticed.

“Nope. Never came up.”

“Around here, there aren’t that many different people to marry.”

“Peggy herself came from San Diego. I was in the navy when we met.”

Sam hooked a large fish and played it for a while, so they fell silent. When he finally pulled it in, Standard netted it for him. “I might’ve been wrong about the Nasty Cat lure. Seems you know your business around a stream, after all.”

Sam smiled. “It takes a big man, Standard…”

“You think we were wrong to beat the tar out of Pastor Wickham?”

“Not in the least way!”

“Me neither.”

“But I think June’s right about Justine, that we should leave off vengeance and hurt pride and think about what Justine needs.”

Stan switched lures, going for one of his favorite reds. If it worked for Sam it might work for him.

“I don’t expect Justine will be inclined to take much goodwill from me,” Stan said. “After her mother died, I was just too closed up in myself to be any kind of father. The other girls, they married off and hardly even call.”

“You just be patient, Standard. She might come around, if she senses you’re sincere.”

“I’m never good with words, you see. Never have been. Her mother complained of that, too.”

Sam cast again. “Well, take her a nice big fish then. See if that doesn’t cheer her.”

“I just may!”

Sam whistled low. “Standard, you poor old bastard, you’re right. You’re just not so good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t take a twenty-six-year-old woman a fish!”

“Well, you said—”

“I was just pulling your chain!”

“Well, pull your own goddamn chain!”

Sam was about to give more back to him when a rustling caused them to turn and see Elmer Hudson standing behind them. “Good,” Sam said. “It’s not a bear.”

“If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes, I’d never believe it,” Elmer said.

“You think it’s strange to see two men fish?” Stan said, casting again.

“These two I do, but never mind that. I was looking for you. You won’t believe it—or maybe you will. They found Gus. Slumped over the steering wheel of that old truck, in a ravine, in a redwood reserve, dead as a doornail. Looks like Leah whacked him in the head.”

“Not soon enough,” Stan said. “I saw her in the café the other day and heard tell Gus had come back and knocked her and the boys around some.”

“She should’a whacked him about ten years ago. Would have saved her some bruises and the chief some gas for that Rover.”

“Well, on that we can all agree. But they’ve gone and arrested her just the same.”

“What for?” Stan and Sam asked in unison, and the looks on their faces suggested the question wholly sincere.

“For killing Gus!” Elmer nearly shouted.

Sam and Stan looked at each other and shook their heads. “Don’t some things just defy understanding?” Sam asked.

Birdie knew Judge was not ready to go back to work, but she couldn’t help that. It was seven in the morning and he sat in his favorite chair three feet in front of the television, sound blasting, wearing his neck brace, his toast and coffee on an old metal TV tray. Before the accident he’d have been gone to work by six, put in a twelve hour day, brought work home, taken a long walk after dinner, then read till eleven. Except on poker night, when he’d get home late and read till twelve.

Now he sat in his chair most of the day and dozed. He hardly read at all.

“Judge?” she said.

“Hmm?” He didn’t take his eyes off the television.

“Tom called. He found Gus Craven last night.” Judge turned his head and looked up at her. “Dead. In
his truck, nose down in a creekbed in the forest. Whacked on the head with something hard, like a shovel.” Judge turned in his chair as she spoke, and by the time she was finished, he was standing. “They arrested Leah.”

“Holy Jesus,” he said, pulling off his collar.

“She confessed,” Birdie said. “What are you doing?”

“Getting a shower. Lay out my suit, old woman. I have to get to work.”

“I don’t know that you’re going to be much help now,” she said, shaking her head.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not letting anyone else have that bench while one of my own is coming through. That’s how old Gus got out, if I recall.”

“But Judge, you haven’t been yourself. Your head still pains you. You nod off at the worst times.”

“I’ll get some drugs from the old doctor. He’s not as persnickety as his daughter.”

Charlie McNeil drove, Jerry Powell sat in the front seat and Clinton Mull sat in the back, his crutches leaning beside him. “Are you sure there’s no other way?” he asked the men in front.

“Absolutely sure. Are you ready?” Jerry asked.

“I’ll never be ready, but I’ll do my best.”

Charlie parked outside the Mull house in the woods, and Jerry helped Clinton to get out and upright on the crutches. By the time the car doors closed the whole family was standing outside, waiting. Jurea twisted her hands in front of her, anxious to be released from some inner bonds so that she could run to her son and
embrace him. Wanda yelled to him right away. “Clinton!” she called, dashing forward. He stopped when they faced each other and she bent at the waist to study his bandaged stump. “Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Not as much now. But I’m trying out fake feet—now that ain’t the easiest thing. Mama,” he said. She cautiously came to him and carefully embraced him, crutches and all. “Daddy,” he said, and Clarence nodded, crossed his arms over his chest and frowned suspiciously. “I can’t stay long. I have to go back to the hospital and keep trying to get a foot I can walk on. This kind of thing doesn’t happen quick,” he said. “So can we go inside and sit at the table awhile?”

“Clinton, I think you grew while you was away,” Jurea said. “Is that possible?”

“You were just missing him, Mama,” Wanda said. “She was missing you so much, Clinton, it was terrible. Every night at supper she wanted us to tell Clinton stories.”

“That so?” he asked.

“We had to entertain ourselves somehow,” Jurea said. “Usually you’re the one entertaining us all through evening till bed….”

Charlie and Jerry looked at each other. What they had learned in their visits to the Mull house over the past weeks was that this was a family that suffered, but loved each other deeply. They endured illness and poverty, but clung to each other to get by. In fact, to some degree the clinging was keeping them from resolving the other two problems.

“I have to tell you all something,” Clinton said right off. “Both Jerry and Charlie think it’s really important
that I tell you this truthful thing. Daddy, I tried to get various people to kidnap you for me. I met the wife of a judge, and she offered to help me, but she wasn’t enough. I asked the doctor—Dr. Hudson, you know—and I asked these two guys, Charlie and Jerry.” Clarence’s expression didn’t change at all. “No one would do it. But do you want to know why I tried to get someone to kidnap you?”

Clarence didn’t answer.

“I think you should tell us why, Clinton,” Jurea said.

“Because the only way I want to come back here to live is if I can have permission to leave the mountain sometimes. To go to school. I want to go to school and maybe play a sport, even with a missing leg. But I can’t get permission to leave the mountain while Daddy’s sick with his paranoia and war injuries. So I thought if…

“Daddy, do you know that in all the years since you been back from Vietnam, the drugs they have to treat sickness like yours have gotten to be so good, they’re like miracle drugs? It’s like you don’t even know you’re taking ’em—except you get to feeling normal.”

Clarence shook that off in disgust and turned his back.

“It’s true, Daddy. They have drugs for hallucinations, for anxiety, for compulsiveness, for phobia. All kinds of things they weren’t using before. And you could start taking medicine now, here at home, and see how it suits you. You don’t have to go to a hospital.”

“That so, honey?” Jurea asked.

Clinton turned his attention to his mother. “Mama, Jerry and Charlie think you can find some help for
your scars. They think it’s worth…Charlie, tell her. Please.”

“Jurea, there are a couple of foundations set up by the Veteran’s Hospital that help the dependants of veterans who don’t have other medical coverage, and there’s a plastic surgeon from southern California who visits up here twice a year. He’s got a team that does surgery all over the world, surgery as challenging as yours would be. He’s due here in a couple of weeks. You could see him. He could evaluate you. Tell you if there’s anything he can do.”

“I can’t think there’s any help for this,” she said, raising a hand to her face. “You ever in your life see anything as awful as this?”

Charlie reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a picture, passing it to Jurea. Wanda jumped up and looked over her mother’s shoulder at the face of a woman without a nose. Jurea’s hands went directly to her own, touching it tentatively as if to be sure it was still there. He then produced a picture of the same woman with a perfect nose, and Jurea almost gasped in shock. “It’s pretty complicated,” Charlie said. “Took several surgeries and the doctor had to build a nose out of flesh and muscle and even plastics. But the result is there.”

Clarence, arms still crossed over his chest, turned back to the group and looked suspiciously over his wife’s shoulder at the pictures. They lay on the table—the noseless woman on the left, the perfect nose on the right. Before and after. He reached a hand down and reversed the pictures so that it looked as though the woman had been photographed after her nose was cut off.

“No, Daddy, that ain’t how it was. Besides, no one even knows if Mama’s face can be fixed, even a little bit. And no one
will
know unless she goes to the hospital when the plastic surgeon is in Eureka.”

“We should let them think,” Jerry said.

“Yeah,” Clinton agreed. “That’s what you should do—Mama, Daddy. Talk it over and think about it. Daddy, Dr. Hudson, that nice lady doctor, she’d come out here and give you a physical and try you out on some drugs that would help you feel less scared all the time. And Mama, you should think about seeing that doctor in Eureka. Because wouldn’t it be nice if Wanda could go to school in town? And maybe go to a football game, like you did when you were a boy, Daddy?”

Wanda shrunk back a little, looking at her parents with pity. “I don’t need to go to no football game, Clinton,” she said quietly.

“But wouldn’t it be nice if you could?”

Much later that same day, Jurea touched her husband’s hard shoulder with a gentle hand and said, “I always wanted more for them kids than I wanted for myself.”

“What about your face?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I want it to be fixed, but more for them than for me. And for you.”

“This is a great way to spend a Friday night,” June groused, leaning over a cup of coffee.

“My wife would agree with you,” Tom said.

Tom and June sat in a booth near the window in Fuller’s Café while, at the counter, a bunch of people
gathered and George cut pie. There was an occasional outburst from one old man or another.

“They’re going to make trouble,” June predicted. “My father has notified everyone in three counties that the prosecutor is determined to bring Leah to trial on murder charges. I honestly don’t know if they’re planning to protest or bust her out.”

“I think they’re focused on bail for the moment,” Tom said. “June, there are two things I’ve been meaning to tell you. First, I looked at the wreckage of your Jeep. It appears the metal was rent at the driver’s door by a sharp object. If the Jeep rolled, a sharp rock could have done the damage. If it didn’t roll, it was probably an ax.”

“I knew it! I knew he was there! He was real!”

“Have you traced the type and age of that cloth?” he asked.

“It’ll take weeks, but it doesn’t matter,” she said, giving her head a shake. “We have an angel at Angel’s Pass, and he saved my life.”

“We may indeed have an angel, June, but the man who saved your life left his ax in the woods, twenty yards from the road. The blade was badly dulled by its work against the metal of your Jeep.”

“But—”

“I don’t know what his business was in that part of the forest, so near Grace Valley farms and orchards. Might be he had a truck nearby. Might be he had reason to leave the scene…. But whatever the circumstances, he was a flesh-and-blood angel with a Black & Decker ax.”

“Jesus…”

“I’m sure when you get the report back on that cloth, it will prove to be no older than what a man carries in his pocket nowadays to blow his nose on.”