Good Medicine (10 page)

T
HAT AFTERNOON
, Silas was busy at the computer when he heard a tap at his door. He opened it and smiled at the girl standing there.

“Hi, Mary.” Mary John was about seventeen. Her long, thick hair and wide dark eyes set off a pretty heart-shaped face.

Silas knew her the way he knew most of the villagers. He also knew she'd been dating his brother Patwin, and that she'd quit school before her final year and now helped run the guest house, which catered to overnight visitors to Ahousaht. Usually vivacious and good-natured, today she looked pale and tired.

“Silas, will you help me?” As was customary, she made the request formally and held out an offering that would count as a consultation fee. It was a small handmade willow basket, beautifully woven and filled with tiny, jewel-like wild strawberries, the seaside strawberries prized by the Nuu-chah-nulth.

Silas ceremoniously accepted the offering and thanked her. Accepting the initial gift sealed a contract between them. It meant that Silas would ask the spirit
for help not in curing Mary, but in healing her in a much broader sense.

“Come in. Would you like some tea?” Silas gestured to the couch, as he stirred up the fire and heated water. When the tea was ready, he handed her a cup and took a seat across from her in a straight-backed chair. He waited silently for her to speak.

A couple of tears slipped down her cheeks. She hung her head. Finally, Silas said gently, “Tell me what's making you unhappy, Mary.”

“Patwin dumped me yesterday,” she whispered. “He said we were getting too serious.” She mopped at her cheeks with her sleeve like a child, and Silas handed her tissues.

“How do you want me to help?” Mention of his brother made Silas uneasy. Patwin had a well-earned reputation as a stud among the girls. He was the proverbial bad boy, and he could have his pick of companions. But this wasn't about Patwin. It was about Mary.

“I'm so tired all the time,” she sighed. Voice trembling, she stammered, “I'm s-sick every m-morning.”

“How long have you felt this way?” Silas was
sensing
her as they talked, getting a feeling for the psychological and spiritual components to her illness as well as the physical ones. Even though he had a good idea, he said, “Do you know what's wrong?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Mary gulped and started to cry. “I think I'm pregnant. With—with—Patwin's baby. And I'm scared the drugs will hurt the baby.”

“What drugs?”

“The ones Patwin took. Before. I heard they can make the baby deformed.”

Silas kept his expression neutral, but his heart sank. Patwin was seventeen, unreliable as hell, with a history of running away and drug use. Definitely not good father material. Mary was hardly more than a child herself. And from what he knew of Mary's family, they wouldn't be much help. At least he knew the Crows would do everything they could.

“Do you know for sure you're pregnant?”

Mary shrugged. “I'm pretty sure, yeah. My period's late and I'm sick in the morning.”

“Have you gone to the doctor for tests?”

Mary shook her head. The tears were now running freely down her cheeks.

“Have you said anything to your mother? Or to Patwin?”

Mary shook her head again. “I was scared to tell Patwin, and now he doesn't want to see me anymore.”

“If you are pregnant, do you want to keep this baby, Mary?”

She didn't hesitate. “Yeah, I do. Patwin's gonna be really mad at me, though. He's gonna say it was all my fault.”

“It takes two people to start a baby, Mary. Patwin's just as responsible as you are.” Another thought struck him. “Are you scared of Patwin, Mary? Are you afraid he'll hurt you?”

Silas hated having to ask that question about his
brother, but youth detention centers weren't gentle places.

Mary shook her head. “He wouldn't hit me or anything. But he might go away again when he finds out, back to Vancouver. There's lots of drugs and bad people there, he'd get into trouble again. I—I really love Patwin, Silas.”

“You need to think of yourself. And the baby.”

“I guess.” Mary's pretty face was a mask of misery. “You remember my brother, Adam?”

Silas nodded. Adam had died in a boating accident two years before. He was fourteen. Mary's father had started drinking heavily and finally left the family— Silas didn't think Mary's mother, Josephine, was coping well at all.

“I want to have this baby so my mom will have something to cheer her up. She still cries every day about Adam.”

Mary's words were heart-wrenching. Silas wanted to tell her that having a baby for someone else's benefit wasn't smart. Instead, he searched for more positive advice.

“It should have been me that died. Dad wouldn't have left if it had been me.”

Silas felt such sympathy for the girl. “Why do you say that?”

“It's what my mother thinks.”

“Has she said that?”

Mary shook her head. “I just know it.”

Silas struggled to keep his personal feelings at bay.
They wouldn't help Mary, and that was what he wanted to do.

“Do you know your totem spirit, Mary?” Silas had caught a glimpse of it in her eyes.

He gave her time, and after a while she said hesitantly, “Maybe a mule deer? There was one that used to come right up to me. I'd feed it lettuce from my hand.”

“A deer symbolizes flexibility and inner beauty,” Silas explained. “Part of your spirit left for the afterlife when Adam died because of your belief that your mother didn't value you. The deer moves between the ordinary and spiritual realities. She represents the power you have lost. We must ask her to help you reclaim it.”

Silas got the deer hide someone had tanned for him and made into a throw. He asked Mary to lie on it, to honor and invoke her spirit helper. He lit tapers and smudged with sage and cedar, purifying his patient and himself to create an atmosphere that invited healing energies.

He prayed and sang a deer honoring song. Then he sang two healing songs, and visualized the lost parts of her soul returning to her body. When the ceremony was over, he taught Mary the songs and told her to keep the image of her deer helper in her mind and to express gratitude to it every day. He asked her to keep track of her dreams, to write them down whenever she awakened in the night. He gave her a small container of juice made from herbs he'd gathered, and told her to mix it
with a little water and drink some every day until it was gone. “It will help the sickness, and strengthen your body so the baby has a safe place to grow.”

Mary thanked him. “Should I come back for another healing?”

“Ask your mother if she would come with you.”

Mary hesitated and then nodded. “I'll ask. But I don't think she'll do it, though.”

“She must decide that for herself. And if you want to come on your own, that's okay.”

“Thank you, Silas.” She put twenty dollars on the table, but Silas shook his head and tucked it back into her hand. Normally he accepted whatever fee the patient offered, but this was a special case, a family matter.

“Before you come back, I want you to go to Doctor Burke. If she confirms your pregnancy, you must talk to Patwin. This is his responsibility as much as yours. He has to know. Then, if you want to, come back and see me.”

When she was gone, Silas meditated, asking for the best outcome for everyone. By the time he opened his eyes again, it was dusk outside. The healing had taken all afternoon. He was always surprised at the passage of time when he was involved in a ceremony; hours passed like minutes.

He smudged the house, clearing it of negative energy. Hungry, he decided to walk to the medical center to see if Jordan needed something to eat. It was tourist season, and Mabel's would be open for dinner. Next to his mother, Mabel Smith was the best cook he knew.

He washed and put on a fresh checked shirt and clean jeans, trying to put the disturbing meeting with Mary out of his mind.

It was hard not to be furious with Patwin. The boy seemed to create heartbreak at every turn, and now there would be an innocent child as a result of his carelessness. Patwin wasn't able to care for himself, never mind take on the responsibility of a child. Financially and emotionally, it would be the Crow family who shouldered the burden.

Over the past several years, Silas had run the gamut of frustration and anger and impatience with his young half brother. He'd done his best to help Patwin in every way he could devise. But as always, the only person who could change Patwin was Patwin. And so far, there was no sign that the boy wanted to change.

In the meantime, this powerful energy drew Silas toward Jordan Burke. And he knew that resisting energy was fruitless.

S
ITTING ACROSS FROM
J
ORDAN
at Mabel's half an hour later, he watched her study the hand-lettered menu and wondered what those full lips would taste like. He could smell her perfume, light and woodsy.

“What's bannock?”

“Indian bread. Flour, water and baking powder. It's how it's cooked that makes a difference in how it tastes. It's best made on a sandy beach. You build a fire and put the dough under the sand. When it's cooked, you take it out, brush off the sand and break it into pieces. It's good.”

“Sand, huh?” She wrinkled her nose. “What are you having?”

“Baked salmon.” It wasn't much of a decision. The only real choices were between the salmon and shepherd's pie. There were burgers, of course, but Mabel kept things simple with dinner menus.

“It comes with greens and bannock,” he explained. “And dessert, whatever Mabel felt like making today.”

“Okay, I'll have the same.”

Silas gave the order to Mabel's daughter, Grace, and their meals arrived almost immediately.

Mabel made her own dark basting sauce, and Silas had to smile as Jordan took a tiny, suspicious forkful of the salmon. She looked across at him with a surprised look on her face. “Wow, this is absolutely great.”

He figured that the simple café with its mismatched tables and chairs wasn't exactly the sort of place Jordan was used to going on a date.

“Mabel used to cook at logging camps,” he explained. “You have to be exceptional to get hired, loggers are really fussy about their food.”

“It's such a relief to know there's somewhere I can come for a decent dinner. After working all day, lighting that stove and making something seems overwhelming. Don't tell Rose Marie I said that, either. She's been busting her butt teaching me the basics. And thanks for the kindling and the wood, by the way. Eli and Michael brought two wagonloads over this afternoon. I gave them each three dollars—I hope that was enough?”

“You weren't supposed to pay them anything.”

“Nonsense, the poor little kids were sweating by the time they got it all unloaded.”

“Those poor little kids have you pegged as a soft touch. If you must pay them, fifty cents a wagonload is more than enough. And what's this about them selling you bread and berries?”

“Michael's mother, Wanda, sent a loaf over and it was so good I asked him if she'd supply me with one every couple days. Eli's been bringing me those lovely little strawberries, he deserves a good tip for going to all the work of picking them.”

“I buy them from him, too. The going rate is a quarter per pint.”

“Really?”

He could see from her guilty expression she'd been handing over considerably more.

“Your nephew has a promising future as an entrepreneur, Silas.”

“More likely a gossip columnist.”

Jordan laughed. He loved to see it. She had a sadness about her that disappeared when she laughed. “All the news that's fit to print, and some that isn't.”

“True. Getting back to school will be good for those little gossipmongers.”

“I'll miss them.”

“Me, too.”

“By the way, I drank some of that tea you gave me. I can't believe how well it worked. The pain hasn't been nearly as bad. It's got pharmacy painkillers beat all to heck.”

“Good.” He concentrated on the food for a few moments, noticing that she hadn't tasted the bannock. He broke off a chunk, smeared it with butter, and held it out.

She leaned forward and took it from his hand. The fleeting contact of her fingers on his sent heat coursing through him.

“Yum.” She swallowed, and gave him a slow smile. “You can't even taste the sand, can you?”

“I think Mabel uses an oven.”

“It's delicious.”

He nodded agreement. “Were you busy today?”

“It was quiet in the morning. But this afternoon we were immunizing babies, so it was a little hectic. Fun, though. The babies are so cute, even though they hate me for sticking them. How did you spend your day?”

“Writing. One article is overdue, there are several others I'd like to finish.”

“I've always wondered what it would be like to be a writer.”

“Tedious. You sit at a keyboard until blood comes out your fingers.”

After a dessert of bread pudding with thimbleberries, they walked home—slowly, because of Jordan's crutches. “I saw a patient today who told me you'd been treating her for chronic fatigue syndrome,” Jordan said casually.

“That would be Zweena Watts.”

“Yes. Chronic fatigue syndrome is a difficult condition to treat, and she's so young to have developed it. Have you treated anyone else for it?”

Silas hesitated. He suspected this was going to lead to controversy.

“Probably, but I don't label illness the same way you do,” he said after a moment. “Our healing teaches that it's best not to give a condition a name, because by naming it we are inviting its presence, making it more real than it already is. So we deal with symptoms, with energy patterns and avoid saying yes, you have this or that.”