One Shenandoah Winter (13 page)

“I'm sorry.” Even that came out like a bark. One that had been there for years, only now it sounded alien. Only here it felt all wrong.

Brian sighed. “The hillfolk call chest colds the old man's friend, on account of how it welcomes them into death.” He turned his gaze back to Nathan. “Thank you for the news, friend. I will have a word with Frank's family.”

Nathan sought for more to say, but could only start for the clinic, shamed by his own failings and scalpel-sharp edges.

“Nathan, wait.” When he turned around, Brian asked, “Back to what we were talking about earlier. Would you care to join me for study?”

He managed a nod. Inadequate a response as it was, the movement brought a flash of pure delight to the pastor's features. “That's wonderful, friend. How about tonight after dinner, say about seven?”

“Fine.” Nathan walked off, abashed at his paltry wealth of words.

Yet the thought which carried him back to the clinic was of a single word. One twice spoken by the pastor. One which lingered in the air like autumn light, warm and friendly and cool and fresh. He found the word as strange as the comforting silence that held this town, as refreshing as the constant melody the river sang to his approach. Even the rushing waters seemed to echo the thought, the word, the pastor's gift.

Friend
.

Thirteen

W
hen Nathan arrived back at the clinic, a lovely blonde woman was leaning over the receptionist desk, smiling and chatting with Hattie. But as soon as his shadow appeared in the doorway, the young lady straightened and the smiles disappeared. The action clawed at him.

“Oh, Doctor Reynolds. Your next patient is ready.” Hattie rose from her desk and ran a nervous hand down the front of her dress. “This is my daughter, Dawn.”

He could not completely hide his surprise. Hattie was handsome in a strong way, with hollows like windblown hillsides sharpening her face. Dawn was another thing entirely, a truly gorgeous blonde. But her eyes held the level hardness of one long angry. There in her gaze Nathan recognized every brusque word he had spoken to Hattie Campbell.

“The town is surely glad to have you around, Doctor Reynolds.” Dawn's voice held the flat quality of a confidence far beyond her years. “Just exactly how long do you aim on staying?”

There it was. The same question he had asked himself so often. All of the quiet chatter in his reception room halted instantly. The atmosphere condensed into silent waiting.

Nathan took a breath. And it was the breath that saved him. For there in the cramped reception room, filled by worry and illness, he did not smell the age of the house nor the antiseptic cleaner nor the medicines. Instead, he smelled the mountains. And he heard the river, and the mysteries that permeated down from the lake and the hilltop and the frosty winter sunrise to this little room, crowded with people and listening and need.

“I don't know.” There was no need for anything except the truth. And the first truth required a second. He turned to Hattie and went on, “I owe you an apology.”

His words sounded gruff in his ears. Gruff and holding to the anger that had seen him through so much. Even so, surprise at his words pushed both women back a half-step. “Doctor Reynolds—”

“I've brought a lot of battles up here with me.” Strange. Even though the mountain's mysteries remained locked in the realm beyond words and understanding, his own internal struggles were surging forth, forcing him to speak of what he had harbored as secrets for so long. As though the two could not exist within the same soul, the secrets he had brought and the secrets he had found here. “But none of them were with you. I should never have treated you like I have.”

“That's right,” Dawn said sharply. “You sure shouldn't have. My mama's a saint, and you ought to treat her like one.”

Nathan looked from mother to daughter, and for an instant stood at a distance from himself as well. He felt the anger surging, the desire to respond with a blast of his own. But he couldn't. There was a new power there, one which struggled with unseen reins and held him back. He replied, “All I can say is, I'll try to do better.”

The room seemed to breathe easier, as though something vital had been witnessed and accepted. The daughter remained unconvinced, her gaze cautious and constrained.

He started to turn away, knowing there was no answer he could give to her original question. Then he remembered and leaned over the desk. He said softly, “Poppa Joe is supposed to come in later.”

A hand flew to Hattie's throat. “Oh no. Is there—”

“Just bring him in as soon as he arrives, all right?” He straightened and gave an abrupt nod to the people waiting. There was a quiet murmur of response, the same reserved greeting he met in the town. Nathan opened the door to the back, and wondered how he could feel both enriched and saddened by such a soft little sound.

The day continued at a normal pace. Most of the ailments Nathan confronted were predictable and would heal with time.

He found himself enormously satisfied by this, which surprised him. There was little of the intellectual challenge he had known in the hospital, no sense of pushing forward the boundaries of medical knowledge. He had always considered himself a solid clinician with little ability to deal with patients personally. Yet these people responded to him with trust and almost pathetic appreciation. And addressing complaints which would improve was gratifying beyond words.

Nathan found himself learning from these simple folk, watching their reactions to his words as much as studying their ailments. He did not know exactly what he was seeking, yet found himself comforted to be searching at all. And he saw how most of these people held traces of the same quiet highland strength as Poppa Joe. Softened by life in a town, yet there all the same.

Which was perhaps why he was ready when he opened the door to the rear consulting room and found Poppa Joe seated in the chair by the window. The old man pushed himself erect and said, “Don't look like things is changed much since the last time I was here.”

“Medicine has changed enormously. This place is a museum.” He shook the coarsened palm, looked around for the file, picked it up, and saw that it was empty. “When was the last time you saw the doctor?”

“Oh, it weren't for me. That was back when my Mavis was feeling poorly.”

Nathan set down the empty folder. “How long ago was that?”

“Must be nigh on twenty years now.”

“And you've never seen a doctor since then?”

“Nary a time.”

Nathan pointed to the examining table. “Sit here on the edge, please. How are you feeling?”

“Not too bad. Few aches and pains. Bit off my feed of late.”

Nathan crossed his arms and tried hard to concentrate. Poppa Joe's hand gave palsied tremors as he held the windowsill and settled himself back down. It was a common trait of age, tied to muscle and nerve deterioration. Yet all the medical knowledge in the world could not erase his sudden ache at the thought of Poppa Joe joining the legions of the lost. “Then could you tell me why you think you're seriously ill?”

“I don't think, son. I know.” The old man was so out of place here, among the antiseptic smells and harsh clanging sounds and bright instruments. But his blue eyes held the same calm, distant stare. “I'm thinking you ain't a believer.”

The quiet statement seemed somehow correct here. “No.”

“Well, then. I don't know what I can tell you that you'll understand.”

Nathan nodded, aware of how bizarre this conversation would have sounded to his compatriots at the hospital. And yet how natural it sounded here. “Do you have any swellings or discolorations, any unusual pains?”

“Yep. Them I do. But I've had ‘em before, mind.”

“Well, would you show me what it is you have this time?”

“If'n you want.” The old man pushed himself erect and began the laborious process of undoing his shirt. “Ain't gonna do neither of us any good, though.”

Nathan resisted the urge to go over and help. “Why did you agree to come in this afternoon?”

“‘Cause it was a friend what did the asking.” Poppa Joe finished with the last button and pulled off his shirt. “I don't like saying no to a friend.”

But Nathan was no longer listening. Even before he had crossed the room, he knew. Before he was close enough to study the discoloration, before he palpitated the skin and noted the lack of normal tension, he was certain.

He eased himself upright, moving as slow as the old man now. Poppa Joe watched him with the calmness of one already aware of what was coming. “I was right, now, wasn't I?”

“I need to get you over to Charlottesville for some blood work and an X ray.” He started for the door. “Let me go give them a call and see if they'll fit us in tonight.”

“Son?”

But he did not stop. He did not want to answer that question or have his face inspected by those wise old eyes.

His ancient enemy had found him again.

Fourteen

M
rs. Wilkes? I'm Margaret Simmons.” The gray-haired woman approached with a professional smile and an outstretched hand.

“It's
Miss
Wilkes. Connie, actually.” Now that she was here, she was nervous. No less determined, but nervous. The woman facing her was impressive. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“You sounded very, well, obstinate.” The smile was quick but genuine. “I decided it was better to accept than risk losing an argument.”

“There are things I need to know,” Connie said doggedly. Standing there in the hospital lobby, however, she felt less positive. Everything here was so polished. The place reeked of money and power and knowledge and citified ways. Especially this woman. Margaret Simmons was perfectly dressed in muted tones of cream and ivory and coffee. Her gray hair was fashionably cut, her only jewelry was a watch and a brooch that together probably cost more than Connie's car. The woman stood impossibly erect, and spoke with quick, intelligent bursts. Connie wished she had taken the time to check her makeup. Or that she had not come at all. “We've got a right to know more than you've told us.”

“Yes, I see.” Margaret Simmons studied her a moment. “Perhaps I was wrong to insist you accept Nathan Reynolds with so little background information.”

“Doggone right.”

“But you sounded, well, desperate. And beggars cannot always be choosers.”

“We may be hard up, Mrs. Simmons. But we're still a town that holds fast to our values and our citizens. We need somebody we can trust.”

The gaze remained steady. “You don't find Nathan to be a competent physician?”

“No, it's not that.” Again there was the sense of having stepped off into a void. “He's a fine doctor. But he's, he's . . .”

“The most irascible, difficult, stubborn, domineering, extraordinarily infuriating individual you have ever met.”

Connie tried to repress the grin, but it managed to slip out of its own accord. “I guess we're talking about the same fellow after all.”

Margaret Simmons laughed, and shed both years and her professional barriers. “The first six months Nathan Reynolds worked here, I alternated between wanting to shoot him and wanting to pin a medal on him.”

“Which one won?”

“Oh, he was far too talented to shoot. So I just made do by trying to avoid him whenever possible.”

“Yeah, that sounds familiar.” Connie could not help it. She was finding herself not only outgunned, but actually liking this woman. “I hope it worked better for you than it has for me.”

“No, it didn't work at all.” She motioned with her hand for Connie to accompany her back through the front doors. “My guess is that a well-run hospital is like a small town in a lot of ways, Miss Wilkes.”

“Please, call me Connie.”

“And I'm Margaret. A hospital can become a home in and of itself for the dedicated doctor. And there has never been a doctor more dedicated than Nathan Reynolds. At least not one I have met.” She led Connie down around the side of the building, following a path which fronted a baffling array of departmental signs. “A good specialist can become so absolutely lost in his work that the outside world becomes a mere shadow. There is a risk in this. A terrible risk, especially if his specialization is one of the, well, one of the more critical ones.”

“Nathan's was one of these?”

“Yes,” she said, the word a sigh. “Yes, it was.”

Connie glanced over as they passed the emergency entrance, with a trio of gleaming ambulances parked alongside. “It takes almost two hours for the nearest ambulance to get to our town. For the past three years, since our old doctor died, folks with a real emergency got carted to Charlottesville in the back of the town hearse. We always said it was so they could get used to the ride.”