Skip Rock Shallows (11 page)

“Eeek!” she screamed, then laughed at herself. She’d wrestled with a four-hundred-pound heifer today and now she was screaming at a mouse? “Lord, You sure do keep me humble.”

Laughter turned to aggravation when she saw what the mouse had been gnawing on. The envelope from Paul’s letter had a jagged tear across the top, and his letter was a pile of bits and pieces. Scrambling under the bed, she saved as much of his missive as she was able. Maybe she could piece it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

She stuck all the pieces in what was left of the envelope and laid it on top of her portable desk. Her eyes grew heavy with sleep. The letter would have to wait until morning. Just before she turned out the light, she cracked the door to get a bit of air. She stood for a moment as an errant gust swirled the hem of her long cotton nightdress, caressing her ankles. She propped the door with the brick provided for the job—Mrs. James had knit a cover for it—and turned to see the envelope fly off the desk. Confetti, copious enough for any mouse-size celebration, scattered riotously across the floor.

She was certain she could hear the mice strike up a band as she climbed into bed.
They’d better have fun tonight,
she thought as she drifted off to sleep,
for tomorrow I’m setting a trap.

Tern pinched a corner of the corn bread sandwich from his lunch bucket between two fingers. He was so sick at heart he could barely choke it down.

Yesterday, at the Blairs’ cow pasture, he’d blown his chance to have some sort of connection, if only in passing, with Lilly Gray. “Never thought about it”—that’s all he could come up with when she asked if he liked adventure! She probably thought he was as dull as a butter knife.

He jerked his head to see if his headlamp would stop sputtering. Had he neglected to put fresh carbide in the bottom this morning? And did he remember to fill the water chamber? What was happening to his mind?

Lilly was happening, of course. Thoughts of her tortured his brain with a sick craving. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat. He was getting careless.

A lump of dry bread stuck in his craw, and a day-old beard rasped when he stroked upward on his throat. He pitched what was left of the sandwich down a hole—let the rats take it. After a long swallow of stale water, he closed the lid on his lunch bucket, stood, and stretched. Man, he was going to have to pull up some grit from somewhere.

“You should have said if you weren’t hungry,” Elbows said from his seat on a ledge rock. “I would have et it.”

“I didn’t take you to raise,” Tern said as he turned away.

“You’re winking and blinking like Wee Willie,” Elbows called to his back. “Better fix your lamp before you get lost back in there.”

Stupid,
Tern thought. He took a deep breath and blew it out though pursed lips. He didn’t know why he let the man get under his skin. If he couldn’t handle Elbows’s mouth, he shouldn’t have picked him for his team. But aggravating as he was, Elbows worked hard as a beaver building a dam. He was small built but wiry and could swing a pick in close quarters better than anyone else, including Tern. It was nothing for his tally of coal to reach eighteen tons a shift. The man never seemed to tire.

Tern walked deeper into the pit head. The reopening of Number 4 was going well so far. His headlamp wavered and then went black. He reached up to the side of the lamp lens to the flint striker and got a flare, but it wouldn’t sustain. Along with what was left of his mind, he’d left his carbide flask at the boardinghouse; now he’d have to borrow some from one of his men.

As comfortable as he now was in the black depths of the hole, he still didn’t trust leaving his supplies to be tended to at the lamp house like the other miners did. Years ago, when he’d first gone down the mine, learning a trade to support his brothers and his shiftless father, he’d been tricked. He was only sixteen at the time and not expecting to meet up with tomfoolery in such a dangerous place. The fellow who was showing him the ropes, Short Jump—seemed like everybody in there had a nickname—said Tern’s headlamp needed to be replaced. Short Jump thought it best if he swapped gear with Tern. He’d said for Tern to keep picking whilst he went to the front and got a different lamp.

Tern never suspected it was just a snipe hunt. Soon as Short Jump was out of sight, Tern’s light went out, plunging him into darkness deep as a well on a moonless night. He still remembered the panic that overtook him that day. Like the fool he was, he’d run straight into a wall and coldcocked himself. He woke up to guffaws and knee slapping and a nickname of his own: Goose Egg. Now here he was dumb as a goose egg again, letting his lamp run out of fuel.

Tern leaned against the cool rock wall behind him. If he didn’t get a minute’s peace, he was liable to hurt somebody. Suddenly he was tired of being both Joe Repp and Tern Still. He wasn’t sure which was real anymore.

He flicked the striker again. The light sputtered, then caught, casting puny shadows on the rock face. Before him, Lilly danced at the edge of the darkness. Without thinking, he reached for her with no completion. He swallowed hard against the disappointment rising like bile in his throat. Would Lilly never be more than a form without substance to him? He couldn’t bear the notion.

Tern took off his short-brimmed miner’s hat and shook the attached lamp. The shadows skittered away like frightened children. A few lumps of carbide clattered thinly in the chamber. He could buy a little time while his men were still eating lunch. He let his mind wander where it would—a dangerous proposition.

It was not really dark that night—the night he’d rescued Lilly. She was just a slip of a girl, and he was not yet a man, but she’d made him feel like one. Even now, all these years later, he remembered the butterfly quickness of her cool lips against his smooth-faced cheek.

It had all started over a dog. A beagle dam, as he recalled. A series of circumstances had led Lilly Corbett from her stepfather’s place to his family’s farm that day—the day Isa Still went to the pond with a sack full of unwanted puppies.

Isa Still, his father—although Tern had stopped calling him that years before he died in a sanitarium. The man was just a loss—a not-very-smart, degenerate loss. If it hadn’t been for their grandmother, no telling what would have happened to Tern’s younger brothers when their mother died. An ache squeezed his heart; he didn’t like to think about his mother.

He was never exactly sure what killed her. Isa had acted like he was the only one affected by her death, and Grandma put on her stoic face and shushed Tern whenever he brought it up. “Don’t be stirring things up” was all she’d have to say. It seemed like the little kids forgot their mother right away, maybe because the family moved so soon after her death. And of course, the baby never even knew her.

Her name was Adie. Adie Dolores. Her maiden name was Blanton. In the summer she grew sunflowers and marigolds, and in the fall she liked to roast the sunflower seeds on the hearth. Adie—his mother—wanted Tern to go to school, but Isa wouldn’t allow it, so she taught him to read from the Bible, and she taught him to cipher with pebbles picked up from the creek. His quickness delighted her, and behind his father’s back, she borrowed a set of encyclopedias, one volume at a time, from the school when it was not in session.

She stowed any book she had borrowed for him in the pantry behind a lard bucket. She kept a little coal-oil lamp in there too so Tern could read at night after everyone else had gone to bed. His father never caught on.

His mother didn’t speak against Isa, and she waited on him hand and foot. She said he made her laugh, and she liked to laugh. His bullying was with words and with seclusion. He had no truck with the outside world, and he hated the government with a singular passion.

That last summer, when she was pregnant with Lorne Lee, his mother seemed to just fade away. Grandma moved in and then Adie went to stay at the Pelfreys, where Lilly’s mother had a place for sick people. Tern guessed Mrs. Pelfrey was a doctor or a nurse, but he didn’t know for sure. And he didn’t know what went on there, but his mother came back in a box. Grandma carried baby Lorne Lee home in the same wagon that carried the coffin.

Isa went nuts that summer. He was like a mad dog off his leash, plotting retribution against “all them people what minds other people’s business.” Tern thought it would blow over once hunting season started; Isa liked to hunt better than he liked to eat. But then Isa kidnapped Lilly.

As Tern’s father told it, he’d barely pitched the squirming burlap sack full of puppies in the water when Lilly Corbett butted in. “Little smart aleck,” Isa had said, “trying to run my business—tell me what I can do with my own animals! Huh—well, I showed her.”

He’d shown her all right. Showed her the inside of the defunct still house, where Tern’s papaw used to make whiskey. Showed her good by keeping her confined there for three days. Showed her so good that Tern’s family had to flee their home for fear of the law, leaving Lilly locked away and alone.

That night was when Tern started making his own decisions. He’d loved his father despite the contrary way he did things. Isa had never used the belt on Tern or the others and he kept them fed; it seemed like love at the time. But leaving the girl unattended while they skedaddled to Tennessee was Tern’s breaking point.

They’d traveled several miles that evening, Grandma berating Isa all the way, the little boys thinking it was fun, and the baby mewling for a bottle. Tern’s insides were torn up like he’d swallowed razor blades. Soon as they stopped to make camp and his father stretched out by the fire, Tern had slipped away.

It was going on 3 a.m. when he’d sprung the lock and freed Lilly from her prison. He remembered she wouldn’t leave the dog or the one puppy she had managed to rescue from the pond. He’d walked her home in the moonlight. She’d tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. He thought she’d be mad at him; he was Isa Still’s son, after all. But he didn’t recall any anger, just the feel of her next to him, the smell of her—honeysuckle and wild roses—the way her voice pattered as welcome as rain in August to his ear, the way his heart swelled when she surprised him with a kiss.

In the years that followed, he had put the lust for learning his mother had nurtured in him to good use. His father took ill in Tennessee—heartsick, his grandma said, but Tern doubted that. Regardless, the sickness mellowed his father, and once they moved closer to Grandma’s kin, he didn’t kick up a fuss when Tern attended high school.

Tern took advantage of every opportunity. Mornings he studied; afternoons he chunked coal. He made just enough to feed and house Isa, Grandma, and the kids. Less than a year after the move to West Virginia, Isa rallied from his melancholy. He married a childless widow woman and moved his lot, including Grandma, into the widow’s comfortable house. And just like that Tern was free. He left with his thumb in the air, hitchhiking as far north as his ride would take him. He thought he’d never swing a pick again.

So much for plans,
he thought now as his headlamp sighed and breathed its last. A short burst of a laugh tasted bitter as green persimmons in his mouth.

“What’s so funny?” Elbows called from just around a bend in the pit head.

Tern pushed himself away from the coal face and braced to deal with his crew. They would think he was foolish to let himself run out of light. And he was—foolish. He was right back where he’d started from, swinging a pick in a mine and longing for a girl who could never be his.
Man,
he thought as the light from the other men’s lamps pierced the darkness,
I’ve spent my life getting back to her.

His team was joshing and laughing among themselves like they did every day. He could hear Elbows start one of his long-winded tales. One of the men was sixty-eight and so stooped and bent, Tern couldn’t discern how tall he was. Another was a youngish man with five little children. He was already coughing his lungs out; Tern didn’t see how he could last the year. Tern thought they were the bravest men on the face of the earth. Even soldiers in combat could see an end to a skirmish, but the mines never rested.

Tern felt ashamed of his cowardice concerning Lilly. He felt certain she would keep his identity secret. As he dropped some borrowed rocks of carbide into the lamp’s chamber, he resolved to make himself known to her at the very next opportunity. Joe Repp could take his chances.

Lilly furled her long-handled yellow parasol and stuck it in the umbrella stand just inside the sanctuary door. It sat as alone as an old maid on a Saturday night. The ladies in the community favored black bonnets for church, but Lilly liked to wear a hat and carry the parasol Aunt Alice had given her to protect against the sun. So far, her face was as fair as her aunt’s and she hoped to keep it that way. Her plain straw skimmer had been ruined on the trip to the Eldridges’, and so today, she wore a cloche festooned with purple ribbon and gold and white feathers. She knew the hat was out of place, but sometimes a girl just had to feel pretty. Besides, she was tiring of trying to fit in.

Beside her, Myrtie James fussed like a mother hen on a rainy day. She always made a show of escorting Lilly to sit with her in her favorite pew. There were no pew doors bearing nameplates like the ones in Aunt Alice’s church, but folks still sat in the same place every Sunday. As Lilly braced for the usual stares and glares that accompanied their short trip down the aisle, she felt sad for Myrtie; it was obvious she was being snubbed because she was with Lilly. Would these hardheaded people never give in? She had thought Darrell’s continuing progress—he had taken his first steps just a couple of days ago—would change some minds, but it didn’t appear to make any difference.

When Myrtie stood back, Lilly entered first. Myrtie preferred to sit next to the aisle. Lilly thought it was so she could keep an eye out for Mr. James, but he never came to church. Most of the seats on the men’s side remained empty every Sunday, but still the women kept their place.

The backless bench they sat on was hard and unforgiving. Each time she shifted position, Lilly was reminded of her hapless dash through the woods astride the runaway horse. Would it be unchristian to pray the sermon was short today? She bowed her head.

Myrtie nudged her gently. Lilly’s eyes flew open. The preacher began lining the words to one of her favorite songs, and the congregation’s singsong voices followed. Myrtie had an excellent voice, and Lilly found herself harmonizing as they sang about the harvest and the time of weeping. Lilly discovered she liked the pure, dulcet sound of voices unaccompanied by a piano or an organ.

The sermon was not short—far from it. Lilly would have to get out the liniment when she got home. She followed Myrtie to the door, where they paused to greet the preacher. He gave Lilly’s hand a little squeeze as if in extra blessing. The slight act of sympathy unnerved her. Her eyes shimmered with tears. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped out into the heat of the day.

Every single person in the churchyard looked her way. Smiling mouths turned into frowns or were quickly hidden behind pasteboard fans.
Sticks and stones,
Lilly thought, but the old saying didn’t help. Maybe she would write Dr. Coldiron this afternoon and plead with him to hasten his search for her replacement. She was sure the inhabitants of Skip Rock would be happy to see the back of her.

A tug on her skirt caught her attention.

“You forgot your umbrella,” Jenny Blair said as she swatted at her brother. “Stop it, Timmy! I’m the one who found it.”

Timmy danced away from his sister’s quick hand. “Can I unroll that there boomerang, Doc? Huh? Can I?”

“Timmy, you’re dumb as a head of cabbage,” Jenny said. “This ain’t no boomerang. Fling it and see what happens.”

“Why would I pitch it?” Timmy said. “It wouldn’t be no good in the rain if it was broke, now would it?”

Jenny shook her head and sighed. She showed Timmy the latch that released the umbrella. “See, Timmy, this here’s an umbrella. A boomerang is like a weapon. You pitch it and it comes back. I think warriors use it to knock each other out.”

“Oh yeah,” Timmy said. “I always get them words mixed up.” He jabbed the air with the pointed end of the parasol. “This could be a weapon too. You could poke somebody in the gut with this.”

Mrs. Blair hurried over. “Children! You put me to shame. Timmy, I’ve a mind to wear you out,” she said with a swat to Timmy’s behind.

“I’m sorry, Ma,” Timmy said. “Jenny started it.”

“Please don’t fret, Mrs. Blair,” Lilly said. “I so enjoy your children. Timmy reminds me of my brother Jack.”

“Then I feel sorrow for your mother,” Mrs. Blair tee-heed. “I was hoping to get a word with you. I was wondering if you might make a call on Bossy. She ain’t healing up just right.”

“Of course. Let me go get my bag—”

“You got to eat first,” Myrtie interrupted. “You can’t go traipsing around with nothing in your stomach. Mrs. Blair, why don’t you and the young’uns come by for lunch? You can walk Dr. Corbett to your place after.”

Timmy bounced up and down. Excitement flashed in his eyes. Jenny seemed to be holding her breath as she waited for her mother’s reply. Lilly thought going to Mrs. James’s home would be a rare treat for them.

“I wouldn’t want to put you out none, Mrs. James. You see how these kids of mine can be.”

“It would be a right pleasure to have you,” Mrs. James said, “and they ain’t nothing wrong with children being children.”

Mrs. Blair hesitated. “I should go on home and tend to Landis’s dinner.”

“We’ll fix him a plate. You all come on now.”

Lilly walked slowly back toward town. It was good to be alone for a while. It seemed like she’d been surrounded by people ever since she left her childhood home to go to university. Even the spot halfway up the mountain where she did her early morning devotionals had been breached by others’ needs. She missed the solitary walks she once took along Troublesome Creek. The shallows she and Ned had crossed on their horses were nearby. Although the day was quickly waning, her heart yearned for the peace she would find there. It was only five minutes out of her way; she could already hear the rush of water and feel the cooling shade of the many trees that overhung the river.

As soon as she saw the water rippling in the fading sunlight, she could feel tension draining from her shoulders. There was not a soul in sight, so she unlaced her shoes and removed her lisle stockings. She folded the stockings neatly and laid them atop the shoes before she lifted her skirts and walked out into the stream.

“Whoo,” she gasped as cold water lapped her ankles and then the back of her knees. Oh, it felt so good. The water was fast-flowing and so pure, she could see sunfish darting away. She wished for the red gabardine bathing costume that was tucked away in a bureau at Aunt Alice’s house. Paired with red stockings and black high-topped bathing slippers, it was the most freeing thing she’d ever worn. And cute—it was ever so cute. If she had it on now, she could sit right down in the water. But splashing with her feet would have to suffice. Sprays arced and danced before her as she kicked.

The water made her feel clean after her turn in Bossy’s stall. It had been easy to see the source of the cow’s distress. The poor thing had a boil, red and overripe as a slop-bucket tomato, at the very tip of the suture site. When Lilly prodded the wound with a lancet, Bossy bucked like a rodeo bull and kicked a hole in the stall door. Pus shot out of the wound, spattering a wall and the front of Lilly’s long white lab coat. The smell was horrendous. As Lilly left the farm, Mrs. Blair had been scrubbing the coat on a washboard, and the children were feeding mash to Bossy. If the cow didn’t recover soon, she’d be big as a fattening hog.

Now, standing in the water, Lilly let it all go: the lack of privacy, the shunning treatment of many of the townsfolk, her homesickness, the never-ending concern for patients like Orie Eldridge. She pretended her worries had no more weight than paper boats floating away in the swift current.

Shadows were stealing the sunlight from the water as she turned back toward the bank. She should hurry; she didn’t want to be caught out alone after dark. She shuddered as old fears overtook her much as they had that day in the hardwood forest.

It had taken her years to deal with what she had endured as a child; she rarely even thought about it anymore. But something she couldn’t put her finger on was dredging up old memories that were as perilous to her well-being as a circus bear on a broken chain. She glanced about in the gathering darkness. The very trees had sprouted eyes. As if she were a child again, she could feel a hand clamp over her mouth. She had to get out of the water and back to town. There was safety there.

In her fear and haste, her bare foot slid on a moss-covered stone and she fell. Finally she was doing what she wanted to do all along—sit on her bottom in the riverbed. Her skirts billowed around her, and when she tried to stand, the same slick rock cast her back down. The shock of the fall snapped her to her senses. She couldn’t help but laugh at her predicament.

Then something big crashed through the underbrush. Was a black bear coming to finish her off? Did he think she was a huge trout thrashing in the stream? More likely, it was a Skip Rock resident who was going to catch her in an embarrassing situation. As she tried to right herself, a man she recognized plunged into the water, swept her up in his arms, and carried her to the safety of the riverside.

“Well, Mr. Repp,” she said, “we meet again.”

“Are you all right?” he said. “Is anything broken?”

She could feel the tautness of his muscles and the steady beat of his heart against her upper arm. Suddenly she was filled with the desire to stay where she was. It was all she could do to not relax against that strong chest. Goodness, she was turning into a simpering girl full of fear and longing.

“I’m fine. You can put me down now, Mr. Repp.”

Even in the waning light she could see the heat rise to his face. “I’m sorry. . . . Of course . . . I was just—”

“Watching from the forest? Waiting to rescue a damsel in distress?” Instantly, she regretted the patronizing tone in her voice.

“No, no,” he said as he gently lowered her until her feet touched the ground. “I was . . . Well, I’ve been reading, if you want to know the truth. I was just walking Apache back to the trail when I heard a commotion in the river. I thought someone had been thrown from their horse. I’m sorry if I offended you in any way.”

Lilly shook her head and breathed an exasperated sigh. She was making a muddle of the moment. “Mr. Repp, forgive me, and thank you. I thought you were a black bear.”

“I’ve been thought worse of,” he said and then both of them were laughing. Lilly couldn’t stop. It was if she were a schoolgirl again, giggling over a bit of foolishness with a classmate. She laughed until tears streamed down her face.

He pulled a dripping wet handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to her.

She shook the soggy kerchief. “Goodness, what shall I do with this?”

He reached down and handed her the only dry thing in sight, one of her own stockings.

“Turn your back,” Lilly said while mopping her face. Regaining her composure, she sat on the bank, pulled on her hose, and laced her shoes. When she looked his way, he was standing with his hands clasped behind his back.

Gathering her wet skirts, she stood. “I can’t help but wonder what you were reading. Do you carry a book everywhere?”

“I like to keep something at hand,” he said, turning to her. “I probably shouldn’t let on that I like a bit of verse. You might think I’m getting above my raising.”

“More likely I would think you are an educated man.” She narrowed her eyes. “If I had to guess, I’d say Thoreau.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Henry David himself.”

Her eyes followed his and took in the last rays of the sun casting diamonds across the river.

“He’d like it here,” Mr. Repp said. “It’s so peaceful.”

“Hmmm,” she sighed. “It’s been a long time since I had time to read anything not medicine related. I’d quite forgotten how much I enjoy poetry.”

“All work and no play . . .”

“Makes me a very dull girl,” Lilly finished.

“Hardly,” he replied.

He studied her like she’d studied him, and Lilly could barely bring herself to turn her face away. To break the spell, she started up the slippery slope, but her foot caught in her raggedy skirt tail and she lost her balance. As he steadied her, a tug as strong as a river’s tide willed her closer. She looked into his steel-blue eyes and a tiny spark of recognition flared within her. It seemed a strangely familiar gesture when he leaned his head toward hers. She fought a sudden desire to let him kiss her. Instead, she straightened and took a step away, fussing with her hair.

“My, it’s nearly dark,” she said, hoping the shakiness of her voice didn’t give her away. “I’d best be getting back. Mrs. James will be rounding up a search party.”

“Do you want to ride?” he asked. “I’ll lead Apache.”

She was relieved to think he didn’t expect her to share a saddle or, worse yet, a lap. She was surely imagining his romantic interest. The man barely knew her. She’d had a weak moment, that was all. A moment’s homesickness. A moment’s yearning for someone who knew her and loved her.

“I’m not much of a horsewoman, Mr. Repp. I’ll walk. Maybe I’ll dry out.”