Saints Among Us

by Anne Marie Rodgers

  “It breaks my heart to think about how all the animals must feel, wondering where their families have gone. Imagine how afraid they must be.”

  June reached up to turn out the lantern as Alice crawled onto her air mattress. “I know. But think of the ones we helped tonight. In a few days they’ll be feeling better, and perhaps some of them can be reunited with their families.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jane was raking leaves onto a sheet of plastic in the yard Wednesday morning. She already had had a busy day, rising early to get a six thirty breakfast on the table for a pair of sisters who were traveling home to Maine for Thanksgiving. The women had stayed only the one night, but they were delightfully enthusiastic about the inn and expressed a desire to return one day. Jane silently congratulated herself on her menu, whole-wheat French toast stuffed with cream cheese and pecans, coated with cinnamon-butter sauce and topped with a light dusting of powdered sugar.

  She was just about to drag off her leaves to the back when Lloyd Tynan came driving by. In the passenger seat, Jane could see her aunt. Lloyd turned into the driveway as Jane waved and leaned on her rake. The car continued on to the parking area at the back of the house, and by the time Jane walked to meet them, Lloyd had turned around and dropped off Ethel. She and Jane met outside the back door, and both waved good-bye to Lloyd.

  “Hello, Aunt Ethel. Please come in. Would you like some coffee or tea? And I just made banana cream pie this morning. You’ll have to let me know if it tastes all right.”

  Ethel followed Jane into the kitchen, stopping to remove her coat and hang it on a hook near the door. “Thank you, dear. I would love a cup of tea. I’m sure your banana cream pie does not need my seal of approval, but I’ll be happy to give it anyway.”

  Jane chuckled. “Thank you.” She busied herself preparing the snack.

  “I stopped to tell you about last night’s board meeting,” Ethel announced.

  “Oh, I forgot there was a meeting. I’ll have to remember this so I can tell Alice about it when she calls.”

  “Tell her I am remembering her in my prayers and that I expect her to be very careful down there.”

  “I will.” Jane brought tea and pie to the table and sank into a seat at an angle to her aunt’s. “So what happened at the board meeting?” She propped her chin on her hand and prepared for one of Ethel’s lengthy stories.

  She wasn’t disappointed.

  “Well.” Ethel took a dainty sip of her drink. “Alice wasn’t there, of course, or June. So our attendance was down. Lloyd and me, Fred, Pastor Henry and Patsy, Cyril and…who am I forgetting? Rev. Thompson had another meeting. Oh, Sylvia. And Florence.” She sniffed. “I believe she thinks that there won’t be any decent crafts to sell except for those she personally oversees.”

  Jane choked back a laugh. Diplomatically, she said, “We’ll have plenty of lovely things from your Seniors Social Circle. They have planned a surprising number of donations. Although I am grateful for the way Florence has embraced the project.”

  “Yes. Well, maybe next year she’ll be a little more supportive from the get-go. It’s always easier to jump on the bandwagon once it’s underway.”

  “So what else have you decided to do?” Jane knew from experience that the only thing to do when her aunt got on the topic of her differences with Florence Simpson was to distract Ethel.

  “I had another idea.” Ethel sat forward. “We had intended to use the Assembly Room, but I want to put up a canopy or tent outside.”

  “A canopy?” Jane remembered Louise saying something about Ethel’s plan to move the entire crafts fair outside. “For what?”

  “Some of the crafters with weatherproof items can have booth space out there. It’ll give us more revenue. And I thought it might be nice to have hot chocolate and cider for sale, maybe some demonstrations of traditional crafts and equipment.”

  Jane couldn’t think of anything that fit into that category offhand. “Such as?”

  “A cider press,” Ethel said. “A spinning wheel. Or even sheep shearing. Things like that.”

  Jane raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like fun, if you can get all that organized in’” She glanced at the calendar. “Three and a half weeks.”

  “Oh, I’ve already made some calls. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been doing?”

  Jane stretched across the table for the list she had been working with earlier that morning. She reeled off the names of people who had agreed to make crafts to benefit the church. Next, she listed the vendors who had committed to purchase space at the fair.

  “Goodness!” Ethel was beaming. “You’ve been a busy woman, Jane. Have you’”

  “Jane, I can’t find the’” Louise came walking briskly into the kitchen. When she saw Ethel, she stopped.

  Ethel seemed just as taken aback. Then, right before Jane’s eyes, her aunt set down her teacup and rose. “Well, Jane, I must be getting on my way. I really only stopped to tell you about the board meeting and get an update.” She rose and majestically sailed out the door, gathering up her coat on the way.

  Jane was too shocked to speak. Their aunt was just…just impossible sometimes.

  “Did you see that? How unreasonable can a person be? She didn’t even acknowledge my presence.” Louise’s tone underscored her disappointment.

  “Oh, Louise, I’m sure Aunt Ethel didn’t mean’”

  “Yes, she did. That was a direct cut. Just the way those women in Atlanta treated Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.”

  Scarlett O’Hara? Jane could not picture Louise relating to the heroine of a romantic fiction epic like Margaret Mitchell’s beloved story. “She doesn’t know what to say to you,” she told her. “I suspect she feels guilty.”

  “Well, she need not bother.” Louise raised her chin in a manner that Jane thought absolutely defined her eldest sister’s personality. “I do not intend to let it matter. And I hope you will convey to her that it didn’t.”

  “Ho now! Don’t put me in the middle of this.” Jane got up and walked to the counter. “How about a piece of banana cream pie? It’s guaranteed to make you feel better.” She decided not to mention that Ethel also had enjoyed it.

  Wednesday afternoon, Alice was in the CCU checking on the four-legged patients. Many of the dogs who had come in were gone already, either taken by a rescue group or moved to the outside runs as their health improved. She stroked the head of the sweet rottweiler. They would not move her anywhere in her advanced state of pregnancy. Some of the volunteers had started a pool on when and how many pups would be born.

  Then she checked on the dog about whom she was most concerned, a German shepherd that had been brought in last night. According to Darrell and Oren, the dog had been found lying on a broken board beneath a collapsed house. They only found it because a window of the house bore a sticker that said, “In case of fire, there are x number of pets inside.” Oren demanded Darrell stop so he could take a quick look. The dog, a large male, did not protest at all when they moved him. Mark put in an intravenous line to rehydrate the dog and balance its electrolytes, but the animal had yet to take a drink or eat a single thing. Alice stayed with him awhile, stroking his fur and talking softly to him.

  Finally, she took her cocker spaniel outside. The little girl quickly had made a place in Alice’s heart for herself. Despite the large tumor attached to her belly, she trotted happily to the grassy area, then walked nicely at Alice’s side until it was time to return her.

  Walking through the carport with its rows of kennels stacked on each side, Alice opened the door and entered the cool, calm environment of the CCU. She opened the kennel door and bent to slip off the lead she had placed around the dog’s neck.

  “Don’t put yourself in a position for that dog to bite you in the face,” Dr. Spade ordered from the far side of the room.

  Alice had not seen him because he was hidden by a bank of kennels. She pressed her lips together and urged the little dog back into her kennel gently. It was
not in Alice’s nature to respond sharply, but she was tempted during this unpleasant encounter.

  The man had no social skills whatsoever. Already this morning, he had made one volunteer cry and ordered another one out of the CCU after the young man accidentally fed a dog the wrong kind of food. Alice was pretty sure the dog would not expire from eating one meal of a different type. Dr. Spade certainly hadn’t needed to be so harsh.

  Knowing that her further assistance would be rejected by the curt veterinarian, she left the CCU. Outside, there was a huge backlog of dog bowls to be washed, so she took a seat on a folding chair beneath one canopy. “Would you like some help?” she asked Edith. Edith was the oldest volunteer who had arrived to date. She claimed to be seventy-eight, although she was nearly as agile as Alice herself.

  “I’d love it. Seems like every dog dish in the place is in that pile over there.” Edith pointed to a nearby table. “Better put on some gloves. That bleach will take the skin off your hands.”

  Alice chatted with Edith as they placed bowls in the baby pool filled with bleach, then scrubbed them and dropped them into a second pool of rinse water, where another helper fished them out and laid them in the sun to dry. Miranda, Alice’s seventeen-year-old neighbor from the tents, ran back and forth delivering clean bowls and returning with more to be washed.

  Alice and Edith were contentedly scrubbing away when a piercing scream tore through the air. Alice flinched, her eyes going to the source of the scream. It came from a young woman standing near the house. She was looking up and pointing. Alice took it in during one frozen split second. Her gaze lifted to the roof—just in time to see someone slide over the edge and fall to the ground.

  Alice leaped to her feet. It seemed as if the entire camp was converging on the scene, but as she neared, several people cleared the way for her as they remembered she had medical training.

  The person had fallen into a sizable, overgrown shrub and could not be seen. Alice dropped to her stomach and began to wiggle beneath the low-hanging branches when she felt a hand grab her ankle, preventing her from moving any farther.

  “Just wait a minute there. Do not touch that person!” Alice recognized the voice of Dr. Spade.

  Then she heard another voice. “Please take your hands off that woman. She is our acting medical professional.” That was Joe. Still, the vise around her ankle didn’t yield.

  “Dr. Spade.” The voice belonged to Mark. “Alice is a nurse. Please release her. Now!”

  Alice had never in her entire life heard Mark sound so stern. He was one of the most even-tempered, gentle, kind people she had ever met. Those were some of the things that had attracted her to him so many years ago.

  The pressure on her ankle disappeared. Alice began to squirm forward again. She could see a glimpse of blue T-shirt. Her heart sank as she saw how still the person lay.

  “Hello,” she said. “It’s Alice, the nurse. Can you tell me what hurts?”

  There was no response. As she neared, she realized the person was Riley, the tough-looking, tattooed young man in charge of supplies she had met when she first arrived. Since then, she had noticed how lively and cheerful Riley was. He seemed to be the self-appointed morale officer for the whole camp.

  “Riley,” she said as she reached him. “Can you hear me?” She took his wrist in her fingers, relieved to feel a strong, steady pulse. She leaned over him to check his pupils and started in surprise as he opened his eyes.

  “Aw, man,” he said slowly. “I hurt.”

  “I imagine you do. Can you tell me your full name?”

  “Richard Rochester Riley III.”

  Alice took a moment to absorb the folly of parents who would give a child a name like that.

  “Good, Riley. Where does it hurt?”

  “Everywhere.” He attempted a grin. “Tell me I was graceful. At least tell me I fell off that stupid roof like I knew what I was doing.”

  “I certainly hope you didn’t.” Alice couldn’t help laughing at his comical words. “Now, what hurts the worst?”

  “My head. My arm—ow!”

  It was easy to see why he had yelled. Riley’s forearm lay splayed at an awkward angle. “Don’t move,” she said. “Let me look you over. Where else does it hurt?”

  She checked around his head but did not see any blood, and she was encouraged by how alert he seemed. There was no blood visible anywhere else either, although she would not know until he was moved.

  “I think my arm is the only bad thing,” Riley informed her. “I can feel my toes wiggling and my legs move. My back hurts a little, but I guess that’s what happens when you take a header off a roof.”

  “I saw you fall,” Alice said, “and it’s lucky that you didn’t really take a header. You just slid right off the edge on your back. The bush cushioned your fall somewhat. Stay still for a moment while I tell the others, all right?”

  “Will do.” Riley made an effort to smile, although she could see that he was in pain.

  Alice backed out from beneath the bush as fast as she could. She didn’t even want to think about what she looked like with her bottom in the air in front of an entire crowd of people, but it couldn’t be helped. She was barely clear of the branches when she felt large hands at her waist.

  Mark hauled her upright, and a crowd of anxious faces surrounded her immediately. “He’s conscious and lucid,” she reported. “One arm is broken. He doesn’t have any other obvious injuries, but we need to get him to a trauma center as soon as possible. He could have closed-head or spinal injuries we can’t see.”

  “A couple of you guys help me with this bush.” Shel, the camp’s handyman, came rushing around the side of the house with a power saw and his ever-present tool kit in his grip. He fired up the saw.

  Over the roar of the motor, Mark yelled, “Wait!”

  As Shel cut the power, Alice said, “We need towels.”

  “Here you go.” Royce held up a stack of clean towels. “I figured you might need these.”

  “Good thinking,” Alice said, smiling at the boy. She selected two of the largest and crawled beneath the bush again. “I’m going to cover you with these,” she told Riley, “because we have to cut away the bush to get you out. It’s going to sound hideous but I promise we won’t hurt you.”

  “Okay. Man, Shel’s gotta love this. He’s been after Joe to let him cut down this stupid bush since one of the dogs got loose and hid out in here. No wonder it took us so long to catch it.”

  “It’s a real jungle specimen,” Alice agreed. She gently tucked the towels around Riley, making sure his head and face were well covered and yet allowed him plenty of space to breathe. “I’ll be with you as soon as they move this bush, all right?”

  “See you in five.”

  Once again, Alice crawled from beneath the shrubbery and once again, Mark assisted her to her feet. “Stand back here, Alice,” he said, placing a hand at her back. “How’s he doing?”

  “Shocky, but doing okay, all things considered. We need to get him to a medical center though. That arm needs to be X-rayed.”

  Mark stepped forward with several other people as Shel revved up the saw and began to slice branches away. They had fetched safety glasses from somewhere and most of them wore gloves, a common sight throughout camp despite the heat. As Shel cut, his helpers held the branches so that nothing would fall on Riley. As quickly as he moved, they pulled away the brush.

  Little by little, the shrub was denuded and Riley’s shape could be seen beneath the towels. As soon as a space was opened, Alice knelt beside Riley again, disregarding the sawdust and the woodchips that bit into her knees. Quickly, she slipped a small board beneath the injured arm and bound it in the position it lay so that it could not be disturbed during transport.

  Joe came along his other side. “Someone had a collapsible backboard so we’re going to get you on it, buddy,” he told Riley.

  People surrounded them, and, on Joe’s count, moved Riley carefully onto the backboard Joe had l
aid on the ground beside him, jostling him as little as possible. By now, Riley’s face was so white that his spiky dyed hair looked neon yellow by contrast. Miranda brought Alice the first-aid kit, and she efficiently used bandages to immobilize his head against the board. She was relieved to see that there was no blood on the ground where he had lain.

  One of the other volunteers backed a large SUV up to the site, and Royce, Mark and four other men lifted Riley into the back. Alice and Joe climbed in.

  “Do you want the medical kit?” Miranda asked.

  “No, you might need it here,” Alice replied. She looked at all her new friends gathered around. “Nobody else can get hurt until I get back, okay?”

  “You got it.” Ellen closed the doors of the truck and they began to move.

  “Are we going to a hospital?” Alice asked.

  Joe shook his head. “The nearest one is almost an hour away. They’ve set up a trauma site just down the road, so we’ll go there first.”

  “Just down the road” was nearly twenty minutes, Alice discovered. Thankfully, there was a doctor on site. Riley was examined and appeared to have sustained no injuries other than those found by Alice. An X-ray of the arm showed bones snapped cleanly in two.

  During the X-ray exam, Alice noticed a young woman speaking on the public telephone nearby. Then the significance sank in. A public telephone!

  “Look,” she said to Joe. “I’m going to try to call home.”

  She walked to the phone as the young woman moved away. Thank heavens Jane had made her memorize her calling card information; she had rushed off without even taking her wallet. When she lifted the receiver, she rapidly punched in her sequences of numbers, following the prompts until at last she heard ringing.

  “Grace Chapel Inn, Jane speaking. May I help you?”