One Shenandoah Winter (8 page)

He set down his empty cup, and wondered if there had ever been a patient back in the city who had wondered about his being happy.

Nathan Reynolds stayed where he was and watched the sun clear the hills and warm the valley. Such quiet inactivity did not come naturally. There had been days back in the dark times when medication had kept him immobile. But not from desire. Not until now. He did not understand what kept him sitting there, watching the other houses come alive and the children fill the street before his house. But the world moved more slowly here. There were new mysteries confronting him, things he could only understand through such quiet moments of reflective inspection.

It was almost noon before he went back inside. The house itself was another amazement, two-story and brick with granite corners and stone borders around tall sash windows. Even the pillared porch was floored in rough-hewn granite. The old doctor had left it to the town, with instructions to give it to whoever took his place. His first few nights Nathan had walked through the old place, taking in the sixteen-foot-high ceilings, the crown moldings, the lead-paned windows, the sprung oak floors, the light fixtures which most likely had originally been fired by gas. The locals had even polished the kitchen floor for him, and put in a stove and refrigerator so new the tags were still in place. Still now, six weeks since his arrival, the house smelled of beeswax and fresh paint.

Shadows made dusty by the doctor's old furniture were there to greet him as he entered. He stopped in the doorway to the living room and pushed the light button. He had never seen anything like these light switches, one button for on and another for off. He pressed the on button and blinked as the room's two chandeliers and six wall fixtures and four corner lamps all flashed on. Somebody had come through and polished all the little crystal baubles and changed all the bulbs. The effect was like a perpetual camera flash.

After a solitary lunch he went back into the living room and picked up the house's only telephone. It was round and black Bakelite and had a circular dial set in the front. The cord was covered by black woven cloth. He gave the long-distance operator a number from memory.

When the familiar voice answered, Nathan said, “Hope I'm not disturbing your Saturday routine.”

“Are you kidding? I've been growing worried, Nathan. You should have called me weeks ago.” Margaret Simmons was both senior hospital administrator and dear friend. One of the few who had stood by him through the dark days. “How are you settling in?”

“Time warp doesn't even begin to describe this place.”

“Oh, come on. It can't be that bad.”

“I'm holding a phone that could have been a prop in a Ronald Coleman movie.” He swung in a slow circle, the telephone cord wrapping itself around his feet. “Their clinic is equipped with stuff that went out with top hats and horse-drawn carriages.”

Margaret was in her early sixties, at the top of her field, and had the ability to make every one of her four hundred staff members feel a vital part of the team. “They need you, then.”

“I saw a baby right after I got here. Typical pyloric stenosis. The parents were driving forty miles over country roads to a doctor who had never heard of Maalox.”

“I'll have to take your word for all of that.” A pause, then, “How are you, Nathan?”

“Too early to tell.” He took a breath. “I've been sleeping pretty well, though.”

“That's something.”

“And I wake up feeling okay.”

“Even better.” Another hesitation. “I take it you're not interested in things around here.”

Even the sudden yearning was not enough to draw him back. The wounds were still too raw. “Not yet. I'm still busy handling this one day at a time.”

“Good boy.” A muffled voice in the background, then, “Hubby Matt says to give you his best.”

“Thanks. Listen, you think any of that hospital equipment you pass on to the medical schools could be rerouted to me?”

“Things are really that bad?”

“Margaret, I've got to crank-start the autoclave.”

“A joke. Good. That's very good. What do you need?”

“A complete theater for minor ops, emergency room gear, lighting, cabinets, cardiograph monitor, the works.” He ran a hand through his hair. “If I had a real emergency I'd be better off using a gun.”

“Okay, tell you what.” Margaret stopped and thought awhile. “Anything to do with our equipment has to go through proper channels. Even the castoffs. It'll take me, oh, maybe three months to get the paperwork in order and have the board okay—”

“Three months, Margaret, come on, I was hoping for something like three days.”

“Nathan, I can't just toss our stuff in the back of a station wagon and send it off, not even for you. But if you think you'll hold out that long, I'll go to the trouble. For you.”

He found the commitment fiercely threatening, but even so found himself replying, “I'll try.”

“Good man. From the sounds of things, they need you. And I'll get off a few boxes of emergency supplies to you as soon as I possibly can. Things I can sweep under the administrative rug.”

“Thanks, Margaret. You're a pal.”

“You take care of yourself down there. Stay away from pythons and piranhas.”

“I think you've got the wrong continent, but I get the message.”

Nathan hung up the phone, energized by the tiny connection to the outside world.

Then he recognized the woman getting out of the car in his drive, and the energy seeped away with his exasperated sigh. He went to grab a coat.

Nine

T
he road leading out of Hillsboro rose at a deceptive angle. It was only when the trees opened for a moment to reveal the rapidly descending valley floor that Nathan realized how high they were climbing. Connie handled the big car and the curves with practiced ease. The Oldsmobile was relatively new, yet it bore scars similar to those he had seen on her truck.

He had no idea what he was doing, going for a drive with this strange woman. But something drew him to her. Which was bizarre, given that they had absolutely nothing in common. Not to mention the fact that every time they had met, they had argued fiercely.

But it was not just Connie Wilkes who perplexed Nathan. All these hillfolk baffled him utterly. Nothing in his past had prepared him for such a place. It was as though time simply did not matter here. Nor the outside world.

And the way this woman had yelled at him the day before. Nathan had grown so accustomed to respect and subservience around the hospital that he felt as though someone had shaken him awake. He had stood there waiting for his own anger to rise up and confront her. But nothing had happened. He had felt stripped bare.

Nathan found himself glancing over to her from time to time, observing her as she drove. Her face held to angular lines and far too much strength ever to be called beautiful. More like handsome in a countrified way. The little makeup she wore had been applied with impatient haste. Her hair was mostly darkish blond, but there were streaks of a deeper russet color, almost like the surrounding autumn-flecked trees.

Connie cleared her throat, displaying a touch of nerves in the formal way she said, “I have to thank you for coming out like this.”

“I'm the one who should be grateful.” He found himself adopting the same stiffness. “I haven't been past the city limits since I arrived.”

“You have to watch that. A valley town like ours can begin to close in on you. Time in the hills or time in the city, everybody needs one or the other.”

The road took a sharper curve, and for an instant the valley spread out below him. Harvest colors swept down the steep-sided slopes, as though great autumn hands cradled the little town. The river caught the afternoon light and waved at him. “It certainly is beautiful here.”

“Yes.” It was her turn to cast a nervous glance. “Have you made any decision about how long you'll be staying?”

“Right now I'm just taking it one day at a time.” He wanted to say more, to try and explain how that was the rule for all his life. The desire to speak was the strangest part of a very strange day. But he held his tongue.

She accepted the news with a glum little nod. “We sure need you.”

Nathan opened his mouth to continue, but his old fears instantly resurfaced. The banked-up apprehension that had colored so much of his life these past two years rose like a beast in the car there between them. And he responded with the only weapon he had left. His anger.

He groused, “The state's Department of Health does a lousy job of seeing to your needs. Either that or you people haven't taken the time to apply correctly for a replacement doctor.”

Connie's mouth tightened into a thin line. “I've spent months pleading with every official I could get to hold still. County and state both.”

He didn't like the acid tone he had brought out, but he didn't know what to do about it. And his own anger was still there, fighting back the whispering ghostly tendrils. “Maybe you didn't do it right.”

A flush rose from the collar of her blouse. “It's my business to handle outside officialdom. I did
everything
right.”

“I can well imagine,” he muttered. “Considering how you handled yourself at the clinic yesterday, you probably raised the hackles of everybody involved. Now the town's had to pay.”

“That's just not true,” she cried angrily. “The simple fact is, there aren't enough doctors willing to go out and serve in small isolated postings like our town.” She shot a bitter glance his way. “Doctors these days are a lot more interested in making big bucks than serving needy people.”

“So you say,” he grumbled. But he knew there was truth in her words. Every medical journal was filled with ads pleading for doctors to serve in backwater towns and regions.

“You just hang on,” Connie snapped back, then gunned the motor and spun the wheel. The big car roared in response, as though it had been waiting for this all along.

Nathan flinched. He could not help it. A branch leaped out and slapped the windshield right in front of his face. There was a groaning creak as a tree brushed down Connie's side of the car. The automobile bucked like a horse as it passed over a rain-washed gully. And the track grew continually steeper.

The path was two rocky furrows, and still it rose higher. The angle increased until Nathan was pressed back hard into his seat, and he seemed pointed straight toward the sky.

Connie kept the accelerator down hard and handled the wheel with steady ease. The trees continued to slap and scratch at the car. The tires slipped and grabbed and bucked and bounced. They rose ever higher.

Suddenly they popped up above the first line of trees, and he risked a glance behind him. The world was stretched out in all its glory, the valley lost beneath a soft afternoon haze.

In a flash his anger was gone. Which was very strange, because rarely did it ever release him so easily. Nathan had come to expect that once he found the day's rage, it remained a part of him until nightfall. Yet here he was, racing up a steep hill, his anger spent. He felt so free he had to speak, to share the unexpected freedom. He turned back in time to meet the next rise, and said, “I'd hate to think what this is like in snow.”

“Don't try it without four-wheel drive.” Her clipped tone still carried the ire he had ignited. “Come to think of it, don't try it alone at all for a while.”

“Where are we headed?”

“I told you yesterday. Poppa Joe's. Almost there.”

They crested a second ledge with a bouncing roar that popped the front tires into the air. Then they were down and racing through a broad meadow, one turned golden by the light and the season.

Nathan found himself caught by a desire to laugh out loud. He could not explain why. There was absolutely no reason for the sensation. Yet there he was, watching the high grass blur to either side, seeing a bevy of doves take flight in startled fear at their passage, feeling as though he had left the earth and all his cares behind, and for one brief instant was again a person who could laugh with the simple joy of living.

Too soon Connie pulled up in front of a ramshackle log cabin. The feeling passed as she cut the motor and muttered, “What on earth is
he
doing here?”

In the place of momentary joy rose a more familiar sadness. A wishing he could recapture whatever it was that had been there in that brief sweet instant. He followed her angry glare and saw a brand new Chevy pickup parked to one side of the cabin. “Who is it?”

“Never mind.” Her tone was terse, her movements very controlled as she opened her door and climbed from the car. “Come on.”

She walked over to where an old man was looking down at a metal washtub, his hands on his knees. A young boy knelt by his feet, and a tall handsome man stood alongside. They all were laughing. Only Connie's face was tight. As Nathan followed her toward the group, he knew an instant's regret for having provoked such a mood on such a pretty day.