Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  Lynn loved the Christmas season. When the nights turned cold and the ground hard here in the upcountry, the twenty-fifth of December and the days around it provided a refuge of sorts, a warm stopover on the journey from autumn to spring. Since she’d been a little girl, when her parents had gathered the extended family together, she looked forward each year to sharing the holiday with loved ones.

  Tears formed in her eyes before she knew it. It had been a long time since her aunties and uncles and their families had come to Pepper’s Crossing for the winter celebration. Her grandparents had been gone for most of her life, and Pa for fifteen, almost sixteen, years now. Still, she and Mama had continued their traditions with just the two of them, and then with Phil when he’d come along. But now Mama had been called home too, and tonight would be Lynn’s first Christmas Eve without her.

  As Phil and Leonard pushed their way inside, Lynn reached up and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand, not wanting to spoil the mood of good cheer. She focused instead on the tree, the first she and Phil had ever had. In the ten years of their marriage, they’d always gone up to Pepper’s Crossing in late December. Knowing they would be home for Christmas this year, Phil had gone out earlier in the week and chopped down a Fraser fir for the house. Last night, the two of them had decorated the bushy, triangle-shaped tree using the glittering cotton, paper ornaments, dried pine cones, and candle holders that Mama had left to her. They also had a shiny silver star to top the tree, which Phil had bought down at Robinson’s General Store.

  “It’s about time, you two,” Lynn told Phil and Leonard as she started lighting the candles on the tree.

  “Len was just helping out Santa Claus,” Phil said. Lynn glanced over and saw that Leonard carried two packages in his hands, a smaller one atop a larger. Each had been wrapped in brown paper and adorned with a ribbon tied into a bow, one yellow, one blue.

  “Leonard,” she said, “you didn’t need to do that.”

  “I know I didn’t ‘need’ to,” he said, “but I wanted to.” He moved over to the tree, squatted down, and carefully placed his two presents beside the three already there. Standing back up, he said, “The tree looks lovely.”

  “Why, thank you,” Lynn said, pleased by the compliment. As she finished lighting the candles, she spied a flame a little too close to some of the cotton that passed for snow, and she moved the fluffy material to a lower branch. Finally, she stepped back and admired her handiwork. “It does look nice, doesn’t it?”

  Phil and Leonard agreed enthusiastically, but when she turned to face them, she saw that they both still wore their coats. “Well, come on, come on,” she playfully scolded them. “Get those coats off so we can open our presents.”

  “Presents?” Phil said. “Was I supposed to get you something, sugar?”

  “Oh,” Lynn said, waving away her husband’s teasing. She sat down on the davenport while Phil and Leonard got out of their coats and gloves, dropping them atop her coat on the tub chair. Leonard sat down in the other chair, while Phil crouched down in front of the tree. In the yellow glow of the lamps, Lynn saw that pine needles speckled the floor below it.

  “Why don’t you give Lynn the one from me?” Leonard said, and a thrill of excitement ran through her. She knew that Jesus had said that it was more blessed to give than to receive, and she believed that too, but she had to admit that she loved getting presents. “It’s the one with the yellow bow.”

  Phil reached down and plucked the package from beneath the tree, handed it to Lynn, and then sat down beside her. Almost a foot long, seven or eight inches wide, and an inch through, it felt stiff in her hands, and she knew at once that her friend had gotten her a book. As she admired the pretty bow, she saw writing on the brown-paper wrapping. “‘For Lynn,’” she read aloud, “‘with great appreciation and affection, Leonard.’”

  “Well, are you going to admire it or open it?” Leonard said.

  Lynn slid the yellow ribbon from her present, then carefully pulled out the edges of the paper from where they had been tucked together. Beneath, she did indeed find a book. “The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” she read, the black letters marching across the verdigris top of the jacket, “by Thornton Wilder.” Below the title, a colored drawing showed a bridge suspended from a mountaintop, and somebody who resembled a monk looking on. “I think I’ve heard of this,” she said.

  “I know you like to read, and that you often borrow books from Missus Slattery,” Leonard said, mentioning the town’s schoolteacher. “So I spoke with her to see what sorts of things you like and what you’ve read already. She said you like to read about faraway places, and so I thought you might like this one.”

  “It looks interesting,” Lynn said, intrigued not so much by the cover art as by the title. “Where is San Luis Rey?”

  “The story takes place in South America,” Leonard said. “In Peru.”

  “Ooh,” she said. “That does sound interesting. Thank you so much, Leonard.” She stood up and crossed over to him. She felt touched by his thoughtfulness, not just in giving her a gift, but in taking the time to find something he thought she would enjoy. Bending down, she hugged him and gave him a peck on the cheek. “You’re a sweetheart.”

  “Absolutely my pleasure, Lynn,” he said.

  “So who’s next?” she asked, sitting back down.

  “Here, let me give this to Phil,” Leonard said, and he went over to the tree and got the other, larger package he’d brought. Lifting it very gently, he handed it to Phil. “Now, be careful with this,” he said. “It’s fragile.”

  “All right,” Phil said, but as soon as he moved to read what Leonard had written on the paper, the package rattled. Phil looked startled for a moment, as though he might’ve broken whatever Leonard had given him, but then he seemed to realize something. He shook the package back and forth a few times, and Lynn recognized the sound herself: a jigsaw puzzle.

  “Well, I guess there goes the surprise,” Leonard said.

  “Hey, I’m surprised right now,” Phil said. He slipped the blue ribbon off and removed the paper, revealing a box covered with shapes of various colors. More than anything, it looked to Lynn like a stained-glass window, though it contained no picture that she could see.

  “It’s called Moonlit Waters,” Leonard said as Phil opened the box. “It’s a picture of a windmill on a bay, with a sailboat in the water.” Phil picked up a couple of the pieces and spread them out in his hand to look at them. Again, Lynn felt taken by Leonard’s wonderful thoughtfulness.

  “This is great, Len,” Phil said. “Thank you kindly.” He replaced the top on the box, placed it on the davenport, and turned to Lynn. “Should we give him our present?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, excited at the prospect. She got the small package from beneath the tree—she’d wrapped a green ribbon and a red ribbon around it, tying them into a two-colored bow—and handed it over to Leonard.

  “The wrapping is certainly very pretty,” Leonard said. From the paper, he read, “ ‘To Leonard, Merry Christmas from your friends, Lynn and Phil.’” He found the end of the two ribbons and pulled them, and the bow vanished. Lynn watched excitedly as he pulled the package free of the brown paper. She could feel her heart beating in her chest, and she hoped Leonard liked his gift as much as she and Phil thought he would.

  Dropping the ribbons and paper to the floor, Leonard placed the box on his knees. Square, about the size of his hands, the plain box had arrived with a label along one side, identifying the contents, but she’d stripped it off so Leonard wouldn’t know what it contained until he opened it. Carefully, he lifted the top off. “Oh my goodness,” he said, clearly surprised. “I can’t believe you two did this.” He reached in and pulled out the stethoscope.

  “Do you like it?” Lynn blurted, though she could see that he did.

  “Of course I like it,” Leonard said. “I’m…at a loss for words…”

  “It’s engraved too,” she said, getting up and going over to point o
ut where his initials had been etched into the device. “On the…oh, what did Doc Lyles call it?” she said, looking to Phil.

  “The diaphragm,” Phil said.

  “Right,” she said, as she tapped on the engraved L.M. “Now that you’re helping out the doctor, we thought you could use some things of your own.”

  Leonard stared at the instrument, then stood up and embraced her. “Thank you,” he said, his arms holding her tightly. “Thank you for everything.” He released her and padded over to the davenport, where Phil stood up and offered his hand. Leonard took it, but then pulled Phil in close and embraced him as well. “Thank you, Phil,” he said.

  Lynn felt tears pooling in her eyes again, but this time for a very different reason. She felt overwhelmed by Leonard’s reaction to their gift, moved by how deeply they had apparently touched him. It is more blessed to give than to receive, she thought.

  After that, she and Phil opened the presents they’d gotten for each other—a beautiful rose-colored hat for her, and a new pair of boots for him—which they both loved. But later, when the house had grown quiet and the two lay nestled together in bed, they both agreed that nothing had been better than Leonard’s reaction to the stethoscope. Phil had fibbed when he’d told people that Leonard was his second cousin, but in truth, the man from Atlanta who’d become their friend really did feel like family.

  McCoy walked past the Hayden First Baptist Church, his gloved hands buried in the pockets of his coat, the white mist of his breath drifting out before him. At the corner, he turned down Mill Road, heading to the boarding house from Lynn and Phil’s. The two had offered to drive him back, but living in New York City for two years, he’d gotten accustomed to walking just about everywhere. He enjoyed it, actually, utilizing his constitutionals not only to keep himself fit, but as a time for reflection. Tonight, on Christmas Eve, he did just that.

  McCoy hadn’t celebrated Christmas during his two winters in New York, not really. He’d helped Edith decorate the mission—and last year, the tree at the Rockefeller work site—and he’d served the men the 21st Street Mission’s version of Christmas supper, but he hadn’t participated in any personal way in the rituals associated with the holiday. Edith had inquired a couple of times about his faith, but despite his perception that she did not believe in any god or gods herself, he hadn’t wanted to risk alienating her.

  Tonight, though, Lynn and Phil had asked McCoy to Christmas services with them, and he’d accepted. Though not religious, he had taken to attending church here in Hayden, for the most part as a means of fitting in to the community, but also because Lynn had asked him to do so on several occasions. He had expected to find the services difficult to sit through, but that hadn’t been the case. Pastor Gallagher preached messages of love and inclusion, which had impressed McCoy. In his own experience, he’d seen religion divide people far more often than he’d seen it unite them. Here, though, the almost humanistic sermons appeared to have taken hold among the townspeople. Certainly they had accepted McCoy readily enough into their midst—although Phil’s fabrication about being his second cousin obviously hadn’t hurt matters either.

  Lynn and Phil had also invited McCoy to spend the evening with them after the service. Aware of the tradition of exchanging gifts at Christmas, he suspected that the couple had something for him. For his part, he’d used the holiday as an excuse to get something for each of them, small tokens of his appreciation for everything they’d done for him. He’d brought his gifts with him to church, hiding them in the back of Phil’s truck before going inside.

  As McCoy reached the end of the commons and turned left onto Main Street, his gloved hand closed around the stethoscope in his right pocket. He still could not believe the incredible thoughtfulness of the gift. It put him in mind of the Aesculapian staffs in a bottle that Joanna had once given him for his birthday, which perhaps had contributed to just how much Lynn and Phil’s gift touched him. For them even to have thought of getting a stethoscope for him, let alone going to the effort of speaking with Doctor Lyles about it, ordering it, having it engraved…he felt privileged to have found such wonderful friends.

  McCoy smiled in the darkness as he approached Mrs. Hartwell’s. He looked forward to the first opportunity he would have to use his new stethoscope. For the last month and a half or so, ever since the emergency tracheotomy he’d performed on Danny Johnson, he had been assisting Doctor Lyles. At first, it had been only a couple of days a week, but the doctor had soon begun calling on him to help out more and more often. And while Lyles had initially sworn that he would “still do the doctoring,” he’d actually allowed McCoy to do so too.

  At the same time, Mr. Duncan down at the mill had finally offered him a job as well—part-time, twenty-five hours per week—but McCoy had been reluctant to accept it given the time he’d been putting in with Dr. Lyles and down at the Seed and Feed. But Gregg Anderson had been happy to see McCoy take a job down at the mill, which paid better wages than he could. So now McCoy worked mornings at the mill and afternoons with Lyles.

  Arriving at the boarding house, McCoy bent to unlatch the gate in the picket fence that bordered Mrs. Hartwell’s yard. As he walked up the front walk, it occurred to him that, although he could not imagine what had happened to the future he once knew, he no longer felt marooned in the past. He’d accepted that this was his life now, and he had to admit, he liked it. He’d begun practicing medicine again, he had good friends, and he lived in a nice southern town.

  He was home.

  III

  The Far-off Interest of Tears

  But who shall so forecast the years

  And find in loss a gain to match?

  Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch

  The far-off interest of tears?

  Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d,

  Let darkness keep her raven gloss:

  Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,

  To dance with death, to beat the ground,

  Than that the victor Hours should scorn

  The long result of love, and boast,

  ‘Behold the man that loved and lost,

  But all he was is overworn.’

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson,

  In Memoriam A.H.H., I

  Twenty-Eight

  1934

  On his way to the truck, Phil stopped and peered out across its hood at the sun-drenched fields. In the heat of the afternoon, as he had so often this summer, he shook his head at the sight. Even after gazing out at the same barren view for months, he still had trouble accepting what he saw. At this time of year, in September, the cotton should have been ready for harvest. The neatness of the rows of the waist-high green plants, separated by the equally straight lines of soil between, should have been interrupted by scattershot clouds of white bursting forth from the bolls.

  Instead, Phil saw only an unbroken, colorless plain of dirt.

  Our situation could be worse, he told himself as he climbed into the cab of the Model A. He’d repeated that phrase, that thought, over and over again since February, when he and Lynn had not prepared the fields for planting. He also knew the truth of it, though that did not make the circumstances any easier for him.

  Phil started the truck and pulled out onto Tindal’s Lane, heading for town. Last year at this time, in the afternoon on a Friday, if he hadn’t been out in the fields picking cotton, he would’ve been at the mill, processing it. But life had changed in the last few years, and in this year especially. The stock market crash in 1929 had been the beginning of a different era in the United States, though the worst of its effects had taken some time to reach fully into the rural upcountry of South Carolina. But they had reached it now.

  It could be worse, Phil thought again. In Kansas and Oklahoma, in Colorado and New Mexico and Texas, across so many of the plains states, it had become impossible not only to farm, but to live. Phil read the Greenville newspaper delivered out to Hayden each week, and he knew about the dust storms and drought that had pla
gued the heart of the country since 1931. Land that had been plowed too much, land that had seen too much grazing, had combined with low rainfall and high temperatures to send black blizzards howling over what had once been fertile farmland.

  It would be bad enough to have crops wither and die, Phil thought, but to choke when you breathe…The “dust bowl,” they called it, and with good reason: more than a dozen dust storms two years ago, more than three dozen last year, and the worst drought ever in America this year. The winds of the Great Plains, unhindered on the vast, open plateau, would lift the dry soil, no longer held in place by crops or ground cover. Enormous, billowing clouds of dirt would darken the skies for miles and miles, and sometimes for days and days. Phil had seen pictures in the paper of dust heaped in drifts like snow. The news accounts said that no house could keep out the dust, not with wet sheets hung over the windows or towels stuffed beneath the doors. People couldn’t eat without the taste and grit of dirt in their mouths, and they sometimes breathed through damp cloths in an attempt to keep their mouths and lungs clear. And still people died of “dust pneumonia,” especially the very old and the very young.

  Already tens of thousands had fled, with more expected to follow. They went west, most of them, with as much of what they owned as they could carry. They sought only clear skies and a livable wage, a means of providing food for their families. But there were only so many jobs.

  “There but for the grace of God go I,” some folks around these parts said. Phil understood the sentiment, though he didn’t care much to think of God favoring some people over others. But he could not disagree that he and Lynn had been lucky. They had their home, and even though South Carolina’s rainfall had dropped considerably this year, he felt sure that they could have produced at least an adequate cotton crop—that is, if they’d actually planted one.

  His thoughts aswirl, Phil pulled into town, turning onto Carolina Street and driving along the commons. He saw a lot of people strolling about, including a number of people who, like him, normally would’ve been at the mill right now. With agricultural prices down across the country, though, mills and farmers had suffered alike. President Roosevelt had tried to keep prices high enough for textile mills to stay in business, and for workers to be able to make a living. That had worked some, but not enough. Here in Hayden, the mill had needed to cut its costs in order to remain open.