Vivid (25 page)

She slapped the reins down onto Michigan's
rump and Nate stepped out of the way to let the wagon pass.

After she and Mr. Farley finished their
business, he asked if she would go up the road a piece and look in on a young
woman who'd just given birth. Vivid agreed.

By remembering the points on the map he'd
drawn for her in the dirt, Vivid took only three-quarters of an hour to find
the house he'd mentioned. She'd gotten lost only twice and despaired of ever
finding her way around the Grove like the folks who'd lived here most of their
lives. People kept telling her to be patient, that she'd learn her way around,
but she found it all very frustrating, and it made her feel incompetent.

Vivid hopped down from the wagon, secured
the reins to a nearby sapling, then reached in and got her bag. The cabin
looked tired. One entire side of the structure sagged, appearing as if it were
trying to separate itself from the whole. There were holes in the roof, weeds,
mud, and rusting skeletons of wagons in the yard. There was no cleared walkway,
so Vivid picked the least muddy path and made her way to the door.

Her knock on the rotting wood door
summoned a young, pock-faced dark man who stared at her suspiciously. He slowly
looked her up and down, then, as if he didn't like what he saw, spit a stream
of tobacco onto the ground beside her feet.

"Who're you?" he finally asked.

"Dr. Lancaster. Mr. Farley sent me to
check on the baby."

"Farley needs to mind his own damned
business," he said unpleasantly, but to Vivid's surprise he stepped back
and let her enter. She almost wished he hadn't when she saw the interior. It
was dark, hot, and smelled of rot and sweat. The little bit of light stroking
the room came from the holes in the dilapidated roof overhead.

As her eyes worked to adjust to the murky
interior, she stepped forward and almost tumbled over something in the dimness.
She grabbed out blindly to keep herself erect and came into contact with the
warm skin of a small child. "Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart." She looked
down and saw a very dirty, naked little boy of about three years old. He stared
up at her with the saddest eyes she'd ever seen, then took off at a toddler's
run to a far corner of the room. He huddled down beside a woman lying on a
dirty cot. In her arms she cradled a tiny child swaddled in a filthy blanket

"Are you the doctor?" the woman
asked in a reed-thin voice.

Vivid wanted to rail against the poverty
and filth of the family's living conditions but she held her tongue.
"Yes," she replied softly, "I'm the doctor. What's your
name?" Vivid crossed the room and knelt next to the pallet.

The stench coming from the woman made
Vivid's stomach churn.

"My name's Sara James. That's my
husband, Quentin."

Vivid fought the urge to retch. "How
long have you been ill, Sara?"

Vivid glanced at the child in Sara's arms
and went stock-still. The baby in the woman's arms looked dead. The stench was
coming from the dead child, Vivid realized. She closed her eyes to gather
strength, then fought to concentrate on Sara's reply.

"I've been feeling poorly since right
after little Willie here was born. He's such a sweet, sweet baby, isn't
he?" She kissed his forehead tenderly.

Vivid looked to the husband for some type
of explanation, but his surly manner had not changed. He offered no help, so
she turned back and asked gently, "How long ago was little Willie born?"

Vivid wanted to take the gray lifeless
bundle from Sara's arms but had no idea what she would do or how she would
respond.

A concerned Vivid waited as Sara seemed to
ponder the question about the birth, but the girl did not offer an answer.
Instead, she began to sing a lullaby. The frail voice was hauntingly beautiful.
Its purity filled the cabin, banishing the filthy surroundings and fouled air
until all that remained was a young woman singing softly to her infant. Vivid
waited until the last clean note faded into the dimness, then said softly,
"Sara, I'm going to go outside for a moment and talk to your
husband."

Once she and Quentin were outside she
stated, "You know the baby is dead."

He nodded, then spit.

"When was the child born?"

"Don't know. She'd already whelped
when I got back from fishing a week ago. It was dead then."

Vivid had to take a deep breath to control
the trembling that began deep inside her. "The baby needs to be buried.
Have you tried to talk to her?"

"Hell, it's dead, let her keep it.
Ain't mine no way."

Vivid stared as he added, "Look, in a
couple days I'm heading out for the Little Muskegon. They say it's a man's
world up there. Do what you want with her."

He walked off toward the small tumbledown
shed in back of the place and never said another word.

Back inside the cabin, Sara lay still
cuddling the dead child. The naked toddler sat silent in the corner. Vivid had
never handled a situation such as this before but knew the truth had to be made
clear, no matter how much pain she caused. "Sara?"

Vivid knelt down beside the cot once more.

Sara looked up. Not even the dimness could
mask the pain in her brown eyes. "Quentin's leaving, isn't he?"

Vivid solemnly shook her head.

"I didn't mean to go back on my vows.
I was lonely. He doesn't understand how lonely it gets out here when he's away
months at a time, especially in the winter. My baby's been dead for going on
two weeks," she whispered in a tear-thickened voice. "I...thought if
I pretended to be sick and pretended Willie was still alive, Quentin would
claim him as his and wouldn't leave me."

Sara cried then, loud wrenching tears that
tore at Vivid's heart. Vivid put an arm around her and held her close until she
quieted.

Afterward, Vivid found a shovel in the
shack behind the house but saw no sign of Quentin. It took her the better part
of an hour to dig a hole deep enough in the hard-packed earth to shelter the
baby Willie's remains. When it was done, she reentered the cabin and told Sara
it was time. Silently the young woman, still holding the baby, followed Vivid
outside.

Sara lovingly placed him in the ground,
wrapped in the filthy blanket he'd died in, because she had nothing else. Vivid
said a prayer, then with Sara's permission began to gently shovel the dirt back
atop the baby's still body. Sara began to sing "Steal Away" in a slow
clear voice so filled with grief and mourning, chills ran up and down Vivid's
arms as she worked.

At the end of the solemn task, Vivid
loaded Sara and the toddler in the wagon, took the reins, and headed the mule
toward home.

"I couldn't leave them there,"
Vivid explained to Abigail once Sara and the toddler Quentin were settled into
one of the vacant bedrooms of the Grayson home. Mother and child had been
bathed, clothed, and fed.

"You did the right thing,
Viveca," Abigail assured her over the pot of tea they were sharing.
"Once we get word to Kate Pierce, she'll send for them. Sara's a distant
niece if I remember correctly, but family is family to Kate. She wouldn't want
Sara and the little one living under those distressing conditions. And the
husband said he was going off to the Little Muskegon?''

Vivid nodded in confirmation.

Abigail shook her head with disgust.
"Let's hope he never returns."

Just as Abigail predicted, Kate Pierce
showed up the next afternoon to retrieve Sara and the toddler. Sara refused to
go at first, saying she didn't want to bring her shame into Kate's home, but
Kate would hear none of it. Less than an hour after her arrival, Kate's wagon
was pulling away from the Grayson home with Sara and her son Quentin atop the
seat, waving goodbye to Vivid and Abigail.

B
y mid-June, Vivid had been a resident of the Grove for over a
month, and because of the high standards she set for herself, she worked from
sunup to sundown. She visited families to take medical histories; saw patients
in town at her new office; established a clinic at the church so she could see
the babies once a week. She traveled from one end of the Grove to the other
introducing herself to those she hadn't met and administering to the sick, both
young and old. Some nights when she was too far from home to travel back, she
slept on whatever accommodations her patients provided.

By the end of June, the residents of the
Grove had become accustomed to seeing Vivid and her mule, Michigan, traveling
up and down the roads, and everywhere she went they greeted her with neighborly
waves and smiles. When she wasn't doctoring she was helping folks plant
vegetables or sitting with young ones while the mothers went into town, or
giving lectures at the church on every subject from measles to healthier
eating.

Nate no longer worried when she was away
overnight. Enough people knew her and liked her for him to feel confident that
they'd look out for her welfare. She still had a penchant for getting lost, or
so he'd been told by some of the townsfolk. But that had to be expected, they
all stated in her defense; after all, the Grove covered quite a bit of
territory. They assured him she would soon know the area as well as anyone.

For the most part, Nate had to admit Dr.
Lancaster had so far proven to be every bit the doctor she'd claimed. He'd no
idea how she'd accomplished it, but she made a supporter out of the
pride-filled Garret Turner. Turner said he stopped selling off the majority of
his vegetables and milk cream when she explained the children's health would
benefit more from the vegetables and cream being on the table instead of it all
going to market. She'd also made him see the importance of accepting help from
his neighbors for the sake of his children. Nate hoped Turner would now let go
of a bit more pride and take the Men's Association up on their offer to help
him repair his ramshackle cabin and barn.

Vivid had even gotten Aaron Patterson to
let her remove the rotten tooth he'd been so reluctant to have her examine. The
procedure had drawn quite a crowd. Aaron fainted dead away before she'd barely
begun, and so missed the cheers when she smilingly held up the offending molar
for all to see.

However, in spite of all the favorable
reports from the community, and Nate's own burgeoning desire for her, he
continued to harbor reservations. Would she still be there next year this time?
How would his people react to her leaving if she were tendered another offer
for more money in a larger town at the end of her contract? In the short time
she'd been there, she'd gained trust, faced down barriers, and held her own
against men like Aaron Patterson, Adam Crowley, and, hell, him. The people
liked her, listened to her, and seemed to be taking her advice to heart. Once
Edna let it be known that Dr. Lancaster frowned on the so-called benefits of
calomel, many area residents stopped ingesting it, especially after being made
aware of the havoc it played with the teeth and gums. Nate had been raised by
his father to always put the town's welfare above his own, and so, because of
his lingering uncertainties, he had. To provide the Grove an alternative should
she indeed decide to move on to greener pastures, he'd posted a cache of
letters soliciting another physician, a male this time, just in case. His
illogical side, the part of him that could still call up the taste of her
kisses, was decidedly unhappy with this decision because she would undoubtedly
be hurt and upset by his lack of confidence should the plan ever be revealed.
It would also kill any future attempts to explore Viveca Lancaster, the woman.
However, his logical side knew that further intimacies with her would only lead
to disaster, and he had no qualms about staying the course for the benefit of
the Grove. Finding another doctor made sense—just in case.

His logic worked only when Vivid was out
of his sight. The trousers she wore most of the time played havoc with his
discipline. He'd avoided her as much as possible since the last time he'd
kissed her, opting to spend his time with the books in his study, or out in the
Grove helping with the spring planting and harvesting, but on the few occasions
they had crossed paths, Lancaster and her trousers were all he could see. When
she showed up wearing them that first day at his office he'd nearly scalded
himself with the coffee he was pouring. It was how he felt every time he saw
her: scalded. The sight of her trousered hips as she stepped up into the wagon,
the sight of her walking away from him across the field to her cabin, were only
two of the more heated memories he had of the vivid Dr. Lancaster. Each and
every time he saw her, his whole being centered on one idea—easing the
denim down her hips and filling his hands with the lush sweet fullness of her
bottom.

When she came walking into the barn as he
pitched fresh straw into the stalls, he felt his manhood quicken. He raised his
eyes to her face and paused upon seeing the tired circles around her eyes. The
urge to soothe her rose and swelled, much in the same way it had the day she'd
shown him her red, chapped hands.

He asked, "Do you need
something?"

"Just a few moments of your
time." Vivid had spent the last few weeks trying to forget her attraction
to him. She had a modicum of success as long as she didn't see him. “Abigail
and I would like permission to take Magic on a trip to Detroit."