by T. R. Kelly
“That’s a deal. I pass everybody else on to you.”
A moment later, the screen door slammed.
**
When I got home, I headed straight for the sack, spewing clothes across the bedroom floor. In less than a minute, I could feel the weight of my eyelids and welcome notion that heavy slumber was just around the corner. The phone rang, jarring me upright.
“Hello,” I groaned.
No reply.
“Hello. Who is this?”
I heard two heavy breaths. Then the line went dead.
Chapter Twenty
10 a.m., Saturday, February 5, 1982
I blew off the early morning hoop game, figuring at least one of my friends would ask questions about Linn that I could not answer. The on-off feeling in my feet, heavy and listless, clicked back on. I didn’t want to run the risk of stumbling while cutting into the lane or falling behind on a fast break.
My night of sleep had been sliced into random anxious sections over the idea of discussing with Robert Oliver the possible consequences of Linn mixing his drugs and then exploring the role that drugs might have played in his son’s disappearance.
Cathy had made certain that the line on the off-white phone was long enough that she could pull it into the kitchen and talk with one of her girlfriends when I was studying a tape of an upcoming opponent in the den. She also constantly wiped and cleaned it, fearing the remote possibility that a visitor might speak into a dirty receiver. The phone now usually sits on the coffee table opposite the television, its uneven loops of extra line spilling out from underneath the narrow table and often catching my size thirteens. The receiver rarely is clean.
I settled the phone in my lap to make the call and flashed back to the countless times I’d seen Robert Oliver dash out of games, school plays, restaurants, weddings, and Sunday Mass, responding to the unexpected pleas from females of all ages who were experiencing the mind-boggling event that no man would ever truly understand. An obstetrician in a one-man shop, the only time Linn Oliver’s father was “off call” was during his two-week family vacation at Lake Wilhelmina. Even then, he treated patients who called with emergencies.
I vividly remembered how Dr. Oliver, by way of one incident that I witnessed, chose his hectic life over the family businesses of timber harvesting and railroad shipping. In the darkest hour of my life, he told me he had fully intended to stay in the forests. He believed it to be a healthy, challenging, and rewarding place to be. His older brother William, along with William’s wife Lucretia and their two sons, operated the MacTavish & Oliver Logging Company that their grandfather had started with Wallace MacTavish in 1882. Lucretia’s two brothers now handled the family’s Linnbert railroad business, which had been parceled out to several regional carriers.
Like his father, Robert not only married late in life but also chose a woman nearly twenty years younger. All four of their children worked for Uncle Bill in the family lumber business for extended periods during high school and college but, again like Dad, eventually pursued different careers.
During the summer of my sophomore year in high school, I escaped the Yakima heat and took a weekend shift as a brakeman on a logging train working the MacTavish & Oliver camps. The job came through my father, who contracted to move a lot of fruit on a partner line and who persuaded the powers that be that his six-foot-four son could pass as a company-required eighteen-year-old. One night while waiting for linemen to repair a rail at Camp Ten near Lake Wilhelmina, I saw Robert Oliver perform an emergency delivery of a premature baby. The long, harrowing night changed his life—and had a lasting impact on mine.
The evening began when the woman, Ellie Phillips, collapsed while restocking the dinner chow line. Ellie was young, broke, and single. The Olivers had gone out of their way to find her a safer job on the crew when she announced she was pregnant and her choker-setting boyfriend had disappeared from the logging camp. When Ellie passed out, I helped move her into the converted freight car used as the camp’s school to get her out of the heat and commotion of the cafeteria tent. Annette Zuliger, the camp nurse, soon arrived and announced that Ellie had gone into labor. The heated debate of whether or not to move her to a mulligan, hook it to the Shay engine, and power into North Fork without a log load was interrupted by my engineer, Tag Shurbart.
“We ain’t going nowhere until that stick of rail west of Brookens Gorge is fixed,” Shurbart said. “So everybody just keep your shirts on ’til we get word.”
“She shouldn’t be moved anyway,” Zuliger warned. “She should stay right here and give birth to this baby. Besides, Robert probably knows more about this than that old barber we got for a doc in town. If something isn’t done soon, we could lose them both.”
“What?!” Robert yelled, shaken by the possibilities. He’d earned degrees in Agriculture Science and Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University and then headed back west to consider his long-term options with the family business. “Now, I’ve delivered some fillies and calves, but this is entirely different. This woman needs professional care and ...”
“And you are a professional, in a related field,” Zuliger said. “You’re the best person around to do this, so get in there and deliver Ellie’s baby. Now!”
Shurbart held the most seniority within the group and made the final decision. We would ready the train and depart as soon as possible for the hospital in town with Ellie and a ragtag skeleton team of medical assistants led by Oliver and Zuliger. Shurbart told me he thought the repair would be completed by the time we got to Brookens Gorge. I helped Annette turn the school car room into a temporary infirmary, setting up a clean cot with fresh sheets and plenty of soft towels. She sterilized the camp’s best kitchen knives with alcohol and gently applied compresses to Ellie’s forehead. The young woman was frantic, in and out of consciousness, and unaware of her circumstances. Moments later, Shurbart quietly slipped through the door and whispered to Zuliger that the train was prepared to leave.
Shurbart bent down and spoke softly into Ellie’s ear. “Ellie, we are going get you to North Fork as soon as we can. You are going to have a baby tonight, and we want you to be as safe as possible.”
We lifted Ellie into the heated mulligan and fastened the bottom of the cot to the side rail of the freight car. I placed two small stools opposite the cot for Robert and Annette. Shurbart brought in a small rectangular table with a stack of white towels, a pitcher of warm water, knives, and several bandages, and returned to the engine.
The firebox of the Shay engine glowed the mesmerizing orange of a desert sunset. Primed and ready to roll, Shurbart kicked the iron lid shut, checked his pressure gauges and eased onto his stool. The three-car train determinedly chugged away from the camp in the dark, quickly gaining speed as it headed west. The mulligan click-clacked comfortably over the first rails, the lack of a heavy log load allowing the train to roll smoothly along the straight sections of track. Without a car coupled behind it to provide ballast, the rear of the mulligan twitched slightly coming out of the turns, shaking the contents on the table adjacent to Ellie’s cot. The flames of the two oil lanterns danced higher, shooting brief, jagged silhouettes up the rough-sawn cedar walls to the car’s ceiling.
As the train slowed approaching Brookens Gorge, I leaned out of the mulligan’s sliding door to see the locomotive’s spotlight pick up lanterns swung across the track by the Linnbert Railroad repair crew. When the engine hissed to a stop, I was instructed to swing down out of the car, jog quickly up the tracks, and inform the laborers of the emergency.
I stumbled twice in the dark trying to find my footing in the jagged track-side rip-rap until I entered the coverage of the train’s pie-shaped beam. When I reached the five-man team, all were obviously caught off guard. A stranger walking toward them from an unscheduled train was not something they saw every day.
“We got a gal onboard, and she’s about to ready to pop with a baby,” I said. “Don’t know how long this kid is gonna wait.”
/> The crew chief peeled off heavy gloves stained in creosote. He pulled a floppy rag from his hip pocket and wiped a combination of dirt and sweat from his cheeks and the side of his neck. “We’re in the middle of it here, son. Sure as hell didn’t expect anybody at this hour.”
“Things got bad in a hurry in camp,” I said. “Tag didn’t see another option. Wants to bust it down to headquarters.”
“Hell’s fire,” the crew chief murmured. He surveyed the mound of ties, rail, and spikes that had been spewed beside the track.
“How’s the mom doin’ in there?” one of the linemen asked, resting a sledge hammer against his thigh. “She gonna make it?”
“She’s one tough lady,” I said. “Guess you’d have to say she’s doing as well as could be expected.”
The chief winced briefly into the glare, gave a half-hearted wave, and spat at his feet.
“What the hell, boys. We can clear it up now and finish at daybreak. We’re camping here tonight anyway. That new rail should be strong enough for the Shay.”
His eyes darted to mine. I took it as a sign to return and relay the news.
“You got a doc on that train or somethin’?’’ the chief shouted.
“No sir,” I shot back over my shoulder, heading for the smoking engine. “We’re rollin’ with the camp nurse and a vet. One of the Oliver boys.”
I reported the results of the conversation to Shurbart, then checked in with the pensive passengers in the mulligan.
“Robert, this poor girl can’t get much hotter,” Zuliger snapped, one soothing hand on Ellie’s forehead, the other embracing her left palm. “Believe me, I’ve seen this many times before. It’s simply not going to come regular; you’re gonna have to take it.”
Oliver took a deep breath, unlatched the cot from the side railing and cautiously shimmied the portable bed to the middle of the car, allowing sufficient room on both sides of the cot. He stationed Annette on one side, instructed her to begin removing Ellie’s work shirt, then dragged a stool close to his first human patient.
“Go tell Tag we’re going to do this right here,” he said. “We all wished we had more time but we simply don’t have it. This baby needs to come out, and we’re not going to wait any longer.”
I bolted out the door, hopped down the three-step iron ladder welded to the car, and delivered Shurbart the message. I returned to find Oliver huddled silently over Ellie, his hands folded perfectly like a kid preparing for his First Communion. After a moment, he turned and pivoted toward the door and motioned to me to jiggle rubbing alcohol over his calloused palms.
“Everybody’s nervous, son,” Oliver said. “Including me. But this woman needs us right now. Take a deep breath and do the best you can.”
Oliver wrung them slowly, his fingers ultimately pointing toward the ceiling as the liquid dripped down his wrists before evaporating on his forearms. I yanked a pocketknife from my coat, poked a hole in the middle of a white towel, then ripped the white cloth down the center. I rolled it in half, wrapped it around Oliver’s sweating brow, and secured the ends in the thick brown hair on the back of his head.
“Damn it, Robert!” Annette screamed. “Would ya stop getting ready? There is no more time! You’re gonna need to cut her or she’ll rip herself apart.”
Oliver balanced a heavy silver knife in his left hand, gauging its weight and length and mulling the pressure he would need to apply. “Ernie, pin her legs to the cot and don’t let go,” he said.
Moving to the foot of the cot, I wrapped my fingers around her hot, slippery ankles, arched my back and pushed down, locking my wrists into a straight line with my forearms. “She’s going to try to turn on her side, so be ready.”
Looking down at the writhing young woman, Oliver performed each incision of the uterine layer with precision and found the uterus quickly with a minimal loss of blood. Ellie’s frantic shrieks turned to mumbled moans.
“Easy, now, Robert,” Annette said. “This ain’t no old mare who’s been down this road before.”
Oliver shifted his weight and shuffled his feet, solidifying his stance.
“Annette, move the lantern to the left. No, too far. There, right there. Ernie, now ease up on your grip. Just hold her in place.”
Making his final cut through the uterus, he reached through cloudy amniotic fluid into the pelvis, and lifted a wet and red baby girl from Ellie Phillips. Oliver snipped the umbilical cord and carefully laying the infant into Annette’s towel-covered arms. I stood behind Oliver’s right shoulder, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, tasting the tears running down my face.
“Robert, Robert, Robert,” sobbed Annette, gently swaying the baby before resting her in Ellie’s arms. “Those hands don’t belong in the forest.”
Oliver methodically collected the placenta, respectfully folding it into an extra blanket. Ellie beamed as her child wailed into the Skagit Valley night. Robert’s composure remained remarkable; his steady hands truly impressive. How could someone do that in a train car?! Exhausted, soaked with sweat yet still on task, he smiled at Annette and nodded at me, his silent gesture of thanks. Poised and confident, he retraced his steps with sutures.
Ellie Phillips completely altered Robert Oliver’s career plans. Three months later, he enrolled in two biology courses at the University of Washington and then applied for medical school the following term. After medical school, internships, and residency, he returned to the logging camps only to visit family and friends. He became quite comfortable delivering North Fork babies for the next thirty-one years.
**
When I accepted the coaching and teaching position at Washington High, I learned that Robert Oliver had set up shop in North Fork and become the most respected obstetrician in town. Years later, he was the easy choice when Cathy became pregnant with our first child.
Unlike Ellie Phillips, however, Cathy Creekmore never got off the table. She died of an ectopic pregnancy at the Skagit Valley Clinic after unknown hours of internal bleeding. She’d laughed at my jokes, put up with dumpy, moldy hotel rooms in tiny towns, and even scouted an upcoming opponent when I was stuck at a parent-teacher night. Her favorite line, delivered countless times to family and friends when a meaningless tournament kept me from a wedding, funeral, or reunion, carried equal parts of sarcasm and charisma. “I’m sure Ernie loves basketball more than me, but at least there’s a chance he loves me more than golf.” She was thirty-seven.
After she was gone, I still looked for her in the bleachers above our bench. She had this prolonged, sexy wink she flaunted during critical timeouts just to yank my chain when a game was on the line. I’d snort and shake my head. I could have used her magic in the state title game and her comfortable companionship for the rest of my life. Didn’t happen.
Robert Oliver said that he never forgave himself for not diagnosing Cathy’s condition sooner. Sympathy and grief cloaked his words and expressions every time we met. Always friendly, our past had pulled us closer, but we were never really comfortable together. His presence always brought that dreadful day to the present. For years, I thought I was making progress in moving on and meeting other women until I would bump into the good doctor after church or in a restaurant, spurring memories of my once-perfect partner. Now that he lived in Scottsdale, I felt I stood a better chance. Our next conversation, though, would hit closer to his home than mine.
I dialed the Cranberry Tree. The desk clerk confirmed Dr. Oliver had checked in just before the dinner hour. The ring up to his room brought no answer.
Chapter Twenty-One
9 a.m., Monday, September 25, 1923
Elizabeth Linnbert Oliver gathered her eight students into the mulligan car that served as a rolling schoolhouse at the MacTavish & Oliver Logging Company’s Camp Eight, a few miles southeast of North Fork near Finn Settlement and the original homestead of Anders Gustaffson and Mikko Kurri.
When a former dancehall flapper who had been hired as the primary school teacher missed the Sunday night train back to camp
too many times, Elizabeth assumed the role of full-time educator. Henry approved of the move, knowing how much his wife enjoyed her portable classroom, and teased her about the low percentage of time she spent in front of the chalkboard inside the stuffy train car.
“We will finish our math lesson today. After, I will need you all to help me pack up the books and secure the desks to the walls for our move,” Elizabeth said to the sons and daughters of the workers. “If all goes as planned, we will be looking down at a beautiful lake on our next class day.”
After years of successful cutting, limbing, and loading at Camp Eight, chief engineer Patrick O’Leary orchestrated the circus-like move to a relatively flat, generous plateau above the west end of Lake Wilhelmina with precision. As soon as the loader pulled his tongs from the last log of a fully packed skeleton car, the camp’s personnel turned from logging to folding and packing. By the time an empty train returned from the log dump near the headquarters at Conway, the bunkhouses, engineer’s house, foreman’s cottage, cook house, latrine canvases, mechanical sheds, and various storage shacks were folded and flanking the tracks. They were arranged to be placed in their assigned area of a specific train car. Enclosed cars resting on the camp’s sidetrack that had served as dormitories, offices, and workshops were coupled into a designated place on the train. Ropes, tent spikes, canvas covers, woodstoves, schoolhouse supplies, cooking sundries, bandages, heavy pots, dried food, and personal belongings all were stowed in predetermined spots. Clothing, shoes and personal items left behind by dismissed or runaway employees were tossed into a community basket for any camp resident. Tattered, torn, or oil-stained garments were burned in the outdoor pit along with old letters, individual employment contracts, and forgotten journals and diaries.
The new setting overlooked Lake Wilhelmina and its crescent sandspit, with Bailey Mountain looming like a fallen camel to the south and Glacier Peak in willowy clouds to the southeast. Elizabeth requested that the company’s brush cutters fashion a trail to the beach and the remains of the Madrona community. She led her students down the path that meandered gently from the new logging site, down a knoll covered with lofty cedars, through a sunny hollow, then alongside Minnie Creek to the mirror-like lake.