Flaming Tree

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Some of her inner soreness and aching had lessened a little. It would still come in stabs for a long time, but it was a distraction to become so deeply involved in Jody’s plight. This was something she could throw herself into with all her heart and strength. Mark was gone, but Jody was alive. Even though the probability of failure was immense, and might be very hard for her to deal with, she knew she had to try. A debt might be paid. Then a little of her own useless guilt could be lifted.

  She walked along, enjoying the fairytale aspects of the village. One of Carmel’s charms was that it had remained small. Since plots of land were limited in size, individual shops were often tiny, and they all bore that touch of imagination that distinguished Carmel from more prosaic towns. It might be theatrical, but it was fun. Everywhere trees abounded. There were so many that one couldn’t see the mountains from village streets, and as Denis had said, they had the right of way. A tree might grow out of the middle of a sidewalk, its roots tilting bricks or cement, or branches might poke through a wooden fence built to accommodate its eccentricities.

  Wandering along a street of art galleries, she paused before a window display of small sculptured heads that reminded her of the photograph she’d seen at Marisa Marsh’s today—Jody working on his portrait head of Ruth. Tomorrow she must ask Tyler if the clay head was still around. She might have a use for it.

  When she returned to the cottage, her aunt was still away, but Denis sat outside on a bench under the twisted branches of an oak tree, waiting for her.

  “I’d like to talk with you for a minute,” he said. “I couldn’t bring this up in front of Elaine.”

  “Of course.” Kelsey led the way into the cottage and sat in a rocking chair while Denis paced the small sitting room restlessly. Finally he paused before a window, looking out absently as he spoke.

  “I know you need to concentrate on Jody, but please try to see Ruth when Tyler isn’t there. I must help her, too, and to do that I must know how she really is, and why she’s being forced to say she doesn’t want to see me.”

  “I can’t promise,” Kelsey told him. “It will depend on whether an opportunity offers itself. Your sister isn’t yet convinced that I can help Jody—I don’t even know that I can myself. She just gave up, gave in, because she was too weak to fight. More than anything, she seemed apathetic. Perhaps no one’s shutting you out deliberately. Right now I don’t think your sister cares about anything.”

  “Well, I care about seeing her get well—even more than Jody. Jody’s already lost. But how can I help Ruth, if I’m shut out?”

  “You shouldn’t even think that. Besides, Tyler told me the doctors say Ruth can walk again if she really wants to. After lying in bed all this time, she’s probably very weak, and the way back will be hard for her.”

  Denis looked disturbed. “No one’s told me that. I thought her spine was permanently injured. That’s what they suspected at first. If it isn’t, and she’s giving up, not trying, someone has to make her want to live again.”

  “Don’t count on me, Denis. Ruth isn’t my patient and she doesn’t want to be. Though Ginnie said something that I’ve wondered about. She spoke of some old trouble that happened a long time ago. Do you know what she meant? Could it have anything to do with the present?”

  Denis turned from the window and sat down abruptly—sat very still. “What else did Ginnie say?”

  “That was all. Is this anything I need to know? If it has nothing to do with Jody, then I’d rather not hear about it. La Casa de la Sombra is already haunted enough without adding anything more.”

  Denis made a gesture of dismissal. “Don’t worry. Ginnie’s right—it’s history best forgotten. Kelsey, I’ve been thinking about something. Wouldn’t it help if you could move in up there? Live in the house for a while? Then you’d be in a better position to help Jody, and you could see Ruth as well.”

  “That’s the last thing I want!” Kelsey cried. “This case is going to be pretty intense, and I want to see Tyler Hammond as little as possible. My living there would be too hard on everyone.”

  “This case!” Denis said bitterly.

  “I’m sorry. You should know by now that Jody’s already a lot more to me than a case. Maybe you can tell me something. I’ve been thinking about that photograph I saw at Marisa Marsh’s today. The one of Jody and the clay head he was making of his mother. Do you suppose it’s still around?”

  “I wouldn’t know. What does it matter?”

  “Everything matters. Anything that might stir a memory in Jody can matter. We don’t know what’s going on inside his head, or how much can be brought back—how much he’s able to remember. No one had even talked to him about the accident! But from what has happened today, I know there’s something going on in him. Don’t you care, Denis?”

  He looked shocked, and she knew she had hurt him. “Of course I care. But my main concern right now is still for my sister.”

  “Perhaps whether she can get well or not is going to depend a lot on what happens to Jody. Denis, at first you didn’t want me to go to see Jody at all. Why did you change your mind?”

  “Maybe I was wrong. When I talked to my mother she said Ruth had seemed to come to life for a few moments while you were there. In that house she needs a friend.”

  “Her husband isn’t a friend? He seems to care about her.”

  Denis looked depressed, and Kelsey sighed. Ginnie had said there were three sick people in that house. Now she wondered if Denis made a fourth. The “walking wounded”!

  They were both quiet for a time, thinking their own none-too-cheerful thoughts, when the ringing phone startled them.

  Denis went to answer. “Mother … yes, I’m here with Kelsey Stewart. Elaine is out.… Sure, of course you can. Shall I pick you up?… All right, we’ll wait for you here.”

  He set the phone down, looking puzzled. “Dora was calling from the village. She wants to see me and she’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “Then I’ll go up to my room,” Kelsey said. “You’ll want to see her alone.”

  “No—she wants to talk to you as well, so do stay.”

  At the sound of a car outside, Denis went to the door to meet Dora Langford as she came up the walk. She seemed upset as she came into the sitting room. Her small, plump hands had a tendency to clasp each other tensely, and she looked uncertainly from Denis to Kelsey, as though she didn’t know how to begin. The mass of curly white hair about her face looked windblown, giving her all the more an appearance of distress.

  Denis brought her to the sofa and sat down beside her. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No—nothing.” Dora made an effort to keep her fingers still. “Things are growing worse all the time. I know Ruth is deathly afraid of Tyler, though I don’t know why. She won’t talk to me at all. She lies there pretending not to care about anything, and all the while she’s terrified. She’d rather die than go on living like this—and she’s already tried to die.”

  “Not very hard,” Kelsey put in gently. “I think what she did was probably a call for help. That’s not to discount the danger of suicide. What do you think can be done?”

  “Denis, we need to get her away from that house, away from Tyler. What I’d like is to take her with me back to the desert. I could take care of her there and help her to get well. She’ll never recover where she is. Then, if Jody can be helped, she could return later when everything is better. That is, if she ever wants to return.”

  “How will you persuade Tyler to let her go?” Denis asked.

  “That’s the problem! I think he wants to keep her there—in her prison. He wants something from her that she can’t give, and I don’t even know what it is. Denis, can’t you talk to him, persuade him to let her go?”

  Denis stared at her despairingly. “You’re pretty desperate to suggest that. You know he won’t even let me see her right now. Does she ask for me—say anything about me?”

  Dora didn’t answer, but looked uncertainly at Kelsey
. “Something has to be done. Tyler has allowed you to do more than he has anyone else. Could you talk to him?… perhaps …” Her words trailed off helplessly.

  “I wish I could,” Kelsey said gently. “But Jody’s father isn’t likely to listen to me. I’m only being allowed to work with Jody for a few days, and I can’t interfere anywhere else.”

  “What happened to bring you here now?” Denis asked his mother.

  “Well—there’s what Ruth tried to do last night. If it was a cry for help, what are we to do about it? There’s no one to hear except Tyler, and that’s like asking the—the hangman to save your life.”

  “What else?” Denis urged. “It isn’t only that, is it?”

  “No—it’s something Ginnie told me this afternoon. Something I didn’t know until now. On the morning of the accident, Ruth and Tyler had some sort of furious argument. Jody was there at the time. Of course I was still at the Springs, but Ginnie was in a nearby room, and she heard the raised voices, though she didn’t catch the words. Ruth came out of Tyler’s study looking terribly upset, and Jody was hysterical. Ruth told Ginnie she would have to get Jody quieted, and she would take him out to Point Lobos for a picnic. You know the rest.”

  “But what has that to do with now?” Denis asked. “Ruth and Tyler had fights enough in the past, God knows.”

  “Ginnie thinks whatever happened is part of what’s making Ruth give up. If I could just get her away from the house—from Tyler. Even for just a little while.”

  Denis raised his hands and let them drop.

  Kelsey felt sorry for Dora Langford, who seemed caught on the horns of the whole tragedy. “Maybe we can leave everything open,” she suggested. “There’s no telling what may happen in the next few days, and if there’s any sort of opening that would give me a chance to talk to Ruth, I’ll try. But I can’t promise.”

  Dora began to cry quietly, and Denis put an arm about her. “Something will happen, Mother. Kelsey’s our rescuing angel.”

  “Don’t put that on me! A rescuing angel I’m not!” Kelsey felt exasperated. She was getting tired of all these enervating emotions swirling around Jody’s hapless head.

  Denis spoke to his mother. “Do you want me to come back to the house now and try to talk to Ruth?”

  “No, dear.” She patted his hand and smiled through her tears at Kelsey. “Thanks for listening. I feel a little better just for talking about this. There’s so little I can do except take care of Ruth’s physical needs.”

  She seemed to pull herself together as she spoke. Perhaps her years with the General had taught her to accomplish in roundabout ways what couldn’t be done head-on. What it was she really wanted, Kelsey still wasn’t sure. Nor could she forget the way Dora had watched her from a window of the house.

  When Denis went out to the car with his mother, Kelsey returned to her room, feeling that she’d had enough of nearly everyone here right now. No “case” was simple, and often there were tugs-of-war going on around the bed of some small patient, but this seemed grimmer and more desperate than most. As if they all lay under some dark shadow in the past. And she hadn’t a glimmer yet of what the real trouble was all about.

  In the morning, when she arrived at the Hammond house a little before ten, Hana met her at the door, and she had no glimpse of Tyler on her way to Jody’s room.

  Ginnie seemed glad to see her. “I’ve been telling him you were coming. What would you like to try first?”

  “Do you ever get Jody dressed?” she asked.

  “I wanted to do that when he first came home from the hospital, but Tyler didn’t think it was worthwhile to disturb him.”

  “Then let’s start right now. Do you have any of his clothes here?”

  While Ginnie brought jeans, a shirt, socks, and shoes from a closet, Kelsey spoke soothingly to Jody, telling him what they meant to do.

  “Dressing every day is part of getting well, Jody. We know it won’t be comfortable in the beginning, but you can try to help in any way you can.”

  Jody’s eyes seemed to focus on her face—again a hopeful sign. He stiffened as they started to dress him, and made sounds of complaint, so that the process was a struggle. In the end, they got everything on, and all his tubes adjusted. When he was dressed, they lifted him into the same chair where he’d sat for a while yesterday, and strapped him into it. Kelsey repeated her stroking down one arm and then the other, coaxing him to relax until his fingers could be more easily moved. Ginnie joined in praise for the slightest success.

  Next Kelsey showed him pictures in the animal book, and talked about the bears and tigers, and the lion that wasn’t an elephant. She tried by various means to get him to say “no” again, but Jody was silent and unresponsive. Though not, she felt, uninterested. At least something less boring was happening in his dreadfully restricted world.

  She worked on an “m” sound—which would lead to “Ma”—pressing her lips together, putting her face close to his, and trying to get him to imitate the movement of her lips. Jody’s mouth twitched slightly—and since anything at all was encouraging, she praised him again, and went on to other exercises. Range of motion, which Ginnie did with him twice a day, helped, but he needed still more, not all of it physical.

  Such children, as she knew all too well, required a lot of simple affection—gestures of love readily given. This wasn’t hard for Kelsey. Jody’s silent appeal was so great that she could easily pour out her own child-starved love to him. She looked down at his stiff, unmoving body and thought of Mark as she’d last seen him in the stillness of death. At least Jody’s heart was beating.

  “We’ll let you rest now,” she told him after another effort. “Then I may have a surprise for you. I’ll bet you like surprises. Ginnie, where can I find Mr. Hammond?”

  “He could be anywhere. I don’t think he works regularly anymore, but he’s often in his study. You might look for him there.”

  Kelsey patted Jody’s arm. “I’ll be back soon, and I hope I’ll have something to show you.”

  She found her way around the jog in the corridor and saw that the door of the room that looked out over pine trees stood open. Tyler sat at his desk writing a letter, and when she tapped on the door he looked up.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hammond. May I speak to you for a moment?”

  He gestured toward a chair, unwelcoming, but resigned. He wore jeans this morning, and a pullover white sweater with a crew neck. His dark hair, still damp from a shower, had been combed indifferently with his fingers.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Kelsey said. “Perhaps you could set a time for me every day so I could talk with you about what I’m doing with Jody. We’ve dressed him this morning—just getting dressed puts a better front on the way he meets the day. And we’ve done some exercises with him.”

  She hesitated, since she needed to move into tricky territory, and when he didn’t comment, she went on.

  “One of the things every sick child needs most is love. I’m a stranger, and he needs it from his family. Ginnie gives it in everything she does for him, but he must want it from you and from his mother. Just because he can’t give anything back doesn’t mean that you can’t pour it into him, once you understand his need. Was Jody close to his mother?”

  “Of course.” Tyler spoke curtly. “As any small boy would be.”

  “And to you?”

  He stared at her bleakly, his guard up, and she knew her words must have wounded him. He could remember the old Jody very well, yet be unable to relate to the changeling at the end of the corridor. Often she felt indignant with parents who were afraid to search for what might be there—afraid of more hurt. She must be patient with this father, as well as with the son.

  “Jody can’t do much of anything yet, but you can, Mr. Hammond. You need to talk to him cheerfully every day. You need to make him believe that you think he can get well. It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not—you need to show him affection, encouragement.”

  He seemed
to be considering this thoughtfully. “What else do you need to have done?” he asked.

  “Have you decided where we might take him this afternoon?”

  “There is a place.…” he said grudgingly. “You’ll have lunch here with Ginnie, of course, and then we’ll see. Now, if you’ll excuse me.…”

  She could excuse him for very little, but once more she spoke carefully, remembering his own suffering. “There’s one other thing. When I visited Mrs. Marsh’s house yesterday, I saw a photograph she made of Jody when he was modeling a head of his mother. Do you still have that head?”

  He was so still that for a moment she thought he might not answer. Then he rose from his desk and said, “Come along and we’ll see.”

  There were stairs nearby dropping to a lower level that followed the hillside, and she went down with him to a large, pine-paneled workroom. There was a sawhorse, a workbench, various power tools, as well as tools for hand carving. A chair seemed to be in the making and she recognized the style.

  “You do beautiful work. I saw the set you must have made for Mrs. Marsh.”

  “Sometimes it helps to work with my hands,” he said indifferently.

  “I know,” she said, understanding very well. “It always helps to think about something else.”

  “Or not to think at all,” he countered. “That was Jody’s worktable over there. Sometimes we did things down here together. His interest recently was in clay, and he made some rather good pieces. His mother has a bowl upstairs that I had fired … unless she’s had it taken out of her room.”

  A strange thing to say, and Kelsey risked a question. “Why doesn’t she want to be reminded of her son?”

  “Why should she—the way he is now? Don’t you think it’s killing her? She must learn to let him go and save herself.”

  “At Jody’s expense? Do you think any mother would want that?”

  Tyler gave her a dark look and picked up a clay dove from Jody’s table. The piece hadn’t been fired, and it crumbled in his fingers. For a moment he stood looking at the bits, and then threw them into a trash bin at the end of the table.