One Shenandoah Winter

by Davis Bunn

  One Shenandoah

  Winter

  A Novel

  T. Davis Bunn

  © 1998 by T. Davis Bunn

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bunn, T. Davis, 1952–

  One Shenandoah Winter: a novel / T. Davis Bunn.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-595554-831-3

  I. Title.

  PS3552.U4718056 1998

  813’.54—dc21

  98-19987

  CIP

  Printed in the United States of America.

  08 09 10 11 LSI 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated to

  JANETTE OKE

  Whose friendship remains a brilliant beacon.

  So teach us to number our days,

  that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

  Psalm 90:12 KJV

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Autumn 1961

  One

  The first thing Connie saw when she rounded the final rise was Dawn waiting out in front of the house, her golden hair shining in the sun like a crown. The sight was enough to hollow out Connie’s chest. How beautiful the girl was, and how full of life. But that was not what saddened Connie. The evening before, the first time they had seen one another in two long months, they had quarreled. And of all the topics Connie could have argued over, she had chosen to criticize Dawn’s boyfriend. As though Connie’s lonely life granted her any right whatsoever to give advice about men.

  Dawn waved like she had since she was six, when Connie had started picking her up on the way into town. As usual, Dawn’s parents had left two hours earlier. Hattie and Chad Campbell ran Hillsboro’s only grocery, and a life of longer hours Connie had yet to find. Dawn waved with her hand high over her head and used her entire body to put emphasis behind the greeting. The straight yellow hair swayed back and forth, and rippled like water pouring down a golden waterfall.

  Connie Wilkes slowed to grant herself time to swallow the gouging sadness. Such silliness was not permitted on a beautiful early-October morning. Especially when there was absolutely nothing to be done about anything. Dawn had been spending time with Duke Langdon for almost a year now, and it was her choice. Life was just that way.

  The brakes on her uncle’s old pickup shuddered as Connie stopped. Most young people would have called the heap an absolute embarrassment and refused to be seen dead inside. But Dawn opened her door and smiled her way into the seat, then took a deep breath and declared, “Still smells like Poppa Joe. Wet dogs and strong tobacco and gun oil.”

  “I think that’s why I keep it,” Connie agreed. Poppa Joe was her uncle, a cantakerous mountain man who had bought the truck in Connie’s fourteenth year. “It reminds me of how happy I was ‘way back when.’”

  “Me too.” Dawn Campbell bounced up and down on the seat, making the old springs squeak a tired welcome. She used both hands to crank down the window, the motions coming easy with years of practice. “I like to remember times with Poppa Joe when things get me down.”

  “Honey, you’re too young to have a past and too pretty for bad memories.” Connie searched the empty road ahead and behind, then was caught by the look Dawn gave her. It was far too ancient to be coming from such a vibrant face. “What?”

  “Nothing, Aunt Connie. The road’s clear.” But the look held on, telling Connie that the young girl beside her was growing up a lot faster than Connie might have liked.

  Connie grasped the gearshift lever and yanked it up into first. The truck was twenty-five years old and had done a hundred-fifty-five thousand miles, most of them over hills and gravel tracks. The engine had been rebored six times, the shocks and brakes replaced more often than Connie cared to think. The radio and the passenger windshield wiper didn’t work, the lights jounced and jiggled with every bump, and the paint had long been scraped off by passing branches and shrubs. The hood was rounded and a mile long, and she needed a thick cushion to protect her back from the springs sticking through the old seat covers. But the truck was a part of almost every good memory she held, and many of those not so good. As long as she could, Connie was going to keep the old heap on the road.

  Dawn was twenty and the daughter of Connie’s oldest friend. She had grown from an angel of a little girl into the darling of Hillsboro, Virginia, and everyone who knew her wished there were some way to keep her from spreading her wings and flying away, Connie most of all.

  Dawn gave her a smile that twisted her heart and said, “Today’s the big day!”

  Connie nodded, knowing she should be happy finally to have landed a doctor for her town, yet surprised to find her earlier sadness still present. The unwanted emotion remained stationed right there between them. But the idea of an older man like Duke Langdon making time with her darling Dawn rankled so much it felt as if she had eaten a jar of pickles with her breakfast coffee.

  True, Duke was only twenty-nine, but he had an air about him that made him seem much older. He was far too handsome for his own good. He was also as rich as anyone could be in a small Shenandoah Valley town. Connie had long suspected that behind those sparkling eyes and cleft chin resided a very large vacuum. She could just see him now, smug in his knowledge that he could have any girl he wanted, only to brush her aside whenever the magic faded.

  Her worry and her anger fueled the look she gave Dawn then. A look meant to find something to criticize. And Connie did not have to look very far. The year of 1961 was more than halfway over, and already this strange new decade threatened to change everything and everybody, whether they wanted change or not. The lowland papers were full of what they called the rock-and-roll era. Pictures showed boys in ducktails and stovepipe jeans jiving with girls in bobby socks, ponytails, and petticoats. And lipstick as red as Dawn’s. “Does your mother mind you laying the makeup on like a woman twice your age?”

  Dawn gave her hair an irritated tug. “Don’t you start.”

  “I take it that means yes.”

  “I’ll tell you the same thing I told her. Get used to it. My makeup is just fine, thank you.”

  There was something new in her voice. After a moment of dragging the truck around a hairpin curve, Connie realized what it was. Dawn sounded exactly like Connie did when she was angry. The person beside her was no longer a child, but an irritated woman. Grown and aware and certain of herself. Connie said quietly, “Yes, you’re right. It’s just fine.”

  “Be glad it’s not jewelry I c
an only wear when I’ve got holes in my ears,” Dawn huffed.

  “You can stop arguing with your mother now,” Connie said.

  “You started it.”

  “And I’m sorry.” But the tension remained in the air between them. “I was still mad when you got in. I apologize.”

  The words surprised them both. It was the first time she had ever spoken to Dawn as an adult. The knowledge occupied Connie’s mind and heart as they descended the hillside toward town. Not even last night, when they had quarreled over her keeping company with Duke Langdon, had Connie seen this person beside her as a woman. It jolted her to think this was what the row might really have been about.

  Dawn had been attending Mountainview Junior College for two years now. The Jonestown campus was twenty-five miles away as the crow flew, but only if the crow could crest the highland ridges that separated the two valleys. For the earthbound traveler it was a ninety-minute drive along winding Appalachian roads. This summer Dawn had gone straight from Jonestown to Richmond, where she had attended four months of classes at the business college. After acing every course, she had returned home the previous weekend and announced she was going to stop with college entirely. Attending the more distant university was out.

  Which was what had started the argument. Connie was certain Dawn had decided against attending university because she wanted to be close to Duke Langdon. Connie’s loudly stated opinion that no man was worth such a sacrifice, most especially Duke, had not exactly gone over well.

  Dawn gave her a sideways look, not certain that things really had progressed beyond her makeup. “Does this mean we’re through with what we started on last night, Aunt Connie?”

  “I won’t talk about it any more,” Connie agreed, though admitting defeat was hard. She had never been good at losing anything, especially an argument.

  Dawn nodded, turned back to the road, and said to the windshield, “I prayed last night and again this morning that things would be right between us. I don’t like it when we quarrel. It makes my whole world feel out of joint.”

  “Mine too.” But Connie was held by the news of having been prayed over. The words had come so easily to Dawn. Connie tried to think of the last time she had actually turned a problem over to God, but she could not remember. It left her unable to run from an honest reply. “I think I’ve been partly arguing with myself and not with you. For everything that isn’t right in my life.”

  “Like what, Aunt Connie?”

  She gave Hattie Campbell’s daughter as much of a smile as she could manage. “I think it’s time you started calling me Connie. To have an adult call me aunt makes me feel ancient.”

  Dawn accepted the statement with a thoughtful nod, but only said, “What’s the matter with your life?” When Connie did not respond, she went on, “I’ve always thought I’d like to turn out just like you.”

  Connie shot a glance at herself in the rearview mirror, for her reply was to be shared only with herself. On a good day she would have called herself attractive, but today was not that kind. She accepted the copper-blonde hair and the clear green eyes and the strong chin and the warm-toned complexion with a sort of commonplace satisfaction. What caused her to turn back to the road was the sadness she saw layered over it all.

  The road lifted up and over the last hill, and the valley of Hillsboro opened up before them. The narrow lowlands contained a cluster of buildings, most of them dating back to the early decades of the century. Back in the teens and twenties, their local stone was considered as fine a construction material as marble. Many of the Richmond government buildings were finished with polished slabs of Hillsboro granite. The resulting flush of money had spurred a building spree, when every structure from the local courthouse to Langdon’s Emporium had competed for small-town grandeur.

  Then the Great Depression had struck, and the demand for Hillsboro granite dried up. Afterward, when the rest of the world began to accelerate once again, Hillsboro had remained locked in the same destitute gap that trapped it today. Going nowhere fast.

  But today was one of those special moments in the Appalachians, when hardship had no place. The air was scrubbed a fine china blue, and the hillsides were a thousand hues of green. Down the center of the valley flowed a sparkling silver ribbon, known to all as the Shenandoah River.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard.” Connie’s slow reply hung heavy with all that she could not put into words. Not ever. Especially not to Dawn. “Thank you very much for the compliment, but I wouldn’t wish my own state on anyone, much less you.”

  “But why?” Dawn’s consternation was genuine. “You’re, gosh, you’re great. Successful, independent, respected by almost everybody in town.”

  For years now, Connie had been paid by the state but employed by the county and the town, an extremely Virginian kind of arrangement. She looked out for the town’s interests at the state level, and monitored state funds sent to help lift the town from the rut of poverty.

  “Too independent by half,” Connie said ruefully. “And success doesn’t make you happy.”

  But Dawn wasn’t through. “And now that you’re assistant mayor, Momma says there’s going to be some great things getting done.”

  “I got appointed because nobody else wanted the job.”

  “That’s not true and you know it. You’ve already gotten a doctor to come to town. Isn’t that a great start?”

  Connie pulled up in front of Campbell’s Grocery. She found it harder to let the child go on some days than others. Today it was like getting taffy off her teeth. “Is Duke bringing you home?”

  “No, he’s got some big meeting at the store.”

  “I have to go see Poppa Joe this afternoon. Mind coming with me?”

  The young lady showed genuine delight. “Are you kidding?”

  “I’m sorry about what I said, Dawn. I don’t know what’s kept me so riled.”

  “I do.” She slid from the car, then said through the open door, “Momma always says I’m nine parts angel and one part migraine.”

  Connie drove off, waving at people she could hardly see for the sheen growing before her eyes. It was an old ache, one she had thought was long gone. But the sorrow held her still, murmuring right alongside the grumbling engine. There was too much truth in the old truck for her to refuse to see how much she wished Dawn had been her own child.

  Two

  Connie drove from the grocery straight to the church. Before she could climb from the truck, Pastor Brian Blackstone came bounding down the stairs. Connie had known Brian since grade school, and the man looked as worried as she had ever seen him. When he opened the door to the truck, she greeted him with, “How is the baby?”

  “Exactly the same.” Hill country wisdom held that the best pastor was one who had suffered, so he could talk from experience when dealing with his flock. Brian Blackstone certainly fit that bill. “Don’t tell me the doctor’s decided not to come.”

  “Not as far as I know,” Connie replied. “Why, have you heard something?”

  “No, nothing. It’s just that . . .” The pastor cast a worried glance around him. “I’m not certain this truck is the proper first impression we want to give our new doctor.”

  “Listen to you. ‘Not certain we’re giving a proper impression.’” She ground the clutch and levered the old truck into first. “You’d think you did your schooling at Harvard and not some Ozark college for hillbilly preachers.”

  “I attended seminary in Louisville, as you well know,” Brian said stiffly. He glanced at his watch. “Are we late?”

  “Calm down, Brian.” Reverend Blackstone was from a Hillsboro family as old and set in Shenandoah country as her own. But somewhere along the way Brian had picked up a very proper way of talking. It hadn’t come from seminary— Brian had spoken like this ever since grade school. It was only the fact that his big brother would have walloped anyone who made fun of Brian that had saved him from early torment. “We don’t even know whe
n he’s arriving. All Fuller asked was for us to drop by the clinic and say our howdies.”

  “Then don’t start just yet. Let’s have a moment of prayer together.” When she hesitated before cutting the motor, he insisted. “Connie, this new doctor could be absolutely crucial, to Sadie and to me and to the entire town.”

  “I know that.” Still, she felt defensive. For the second time in one day someone had mentioned turning a problem over to the Lord. Connie cut off the engine and bowed her head. She listened as the pastor asked for success with their hopes of the day, and found herself growing increasingly nervous. Not over what lay ahead, but rather from what lay within. As soon as Brian announced the amen, she started the motor and pulled onto the road.

  Brian gripped the dashboard as she took the corner onto Main. The front left suspension was going again, and the truck had a tendency to buck on curves. He asked, “How is Poppa Joe doing?”

  DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

  OF CHURCH

  DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

  OF CHURCH

  “Still ornery over how they took away his driver’s license.” Connie’s uncle was fast approaching his eighty-third birthday, and he tended to treat every road he met as his own. The last time the sheriff had stopped him, it was for mowing down a stop sign and carrying it until his busted radiator had given up the ghost. “Only way I knew to keep him from getting behind the wheel was to take the truck home with me.”

  “But why drive it today?”

  “We’re going out to see him this afternoon, Dawn and I.” She drove down to where the street joined with the nicest bridge in town, one fashioned from granite so polished it reflected the morning sun like a water-born jewel. She took an easy right onto River Road and continued, “Driving his truck over reassures him that I’m keeping it up.”

  “I still think . . .” Brian’s voice trailed off as she pulled into the weed-choked lot. Beneath the mass of greenery should have been a gravel parking area. “I thought they were going to regrade this.”