One Shenandoah Winter

by Davis Bunn

  Nathan found his arm gripped by a hand as tight as an iron vise. “You mind letting—”

  “It’s my wife, Doc. She ain’t breathing right.”

  He found himself running through the standard ops list as the man marched him toward the truck. “She have a history of asthma?”

  “Naw, she’s allus been right healthy.”

  “Chest infections? Sudden pains?”

  The man pulled him around the side. Suddenly a sound of choking became audible. “You can ask her yourself, Doc. I done flung a mattress in the back and carted her down.”

  Seven

  Friday Connie drove to the clinic in a foul mood. Word had come down from Richmond of new budget cuts. Small mountain towns were the first to be hit when times got hard, since they lacked the political clout to protect themselves. Connie had spent five hours pleading and cajoling to keep their meager city-works budget intact, and still felt uncertain as to meeting their future needs.

  To make matters worse, over Thanksgiving dinner Poppa Joe had again pestered her to bring the doctor up for a visit. In his quiet, stubborn way he had finally worn her down. As much as she despised having anything further to do with the doctor, she had agreed to extend Nathan Reynolds one final invitation.

  Ever since the doctor’s arrival six weeks earlier, she had been hearing reports. Her own two visits had been brief and explosive, his reaction to her earlier invitations acerbic. She thus took quiet satisfaction from how the townspeople used Nathan Reynolds but otherwise steered clear of his cantankerous ways. All but Hattie; for some unexplained reason, she had continued with the duties of receptionist. Hattie claimed it was because they needed the money. But Connie felt her oldest friend was telling only half the truth, and she could not understand why.

  As Connie pulled up in front of the clinic, she spotted a familiar face. Will Green dropped the box he was carrying in the back of his truck and waved in her direction. The Greens’ homestead was one of the valley’s fringe farmlands. Connie waved back at Will and recalled hearing how the doctor had recently saved his wife’s life with an emergency operation. Something about her breathing.

  Connie climbed from her car and walked over, but she did not offer her hand. Many of the traditional mountain folk didn’t take to shaking a single woman’s hand, unless it was on a hoedown floor. “How are you, Will?”

  “Howdy, Miss Connie. Doing just fine, thankee.”

  “And your wife?”

  “She’s makin’ steady progress, thanks to the Lord and Doc Reynolds.” He tossed a glance over his shoulder. “You heard anything ’bout whether the doc’ll be staying?”

  “Not yet.” She studied his truck, which was crammed full of boxes and strange metal apparatus. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, me and some of the boys, we said we’d help him with—”

  “Will!” The clinic’s door slammed back on its hinges. “I thought I told you to get those boxes and the rest of that junk out of the front two rooms!”

  “Just gettin’ on it, Doc.”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like it to me!” Nathan Reynolds stomped down the three concrete steps. “The place is still packed to the gills, and you’re standing around here yapping! And what about those friends of yours?”

  Will Green was the kind of man who had never made a passing acquaintance with fury. Connie knew a number of such strong gentle men from hillside families, and it rankled mightily to watch the farmer peel the hat from his head and begin spinning it nervously with work-scarred hands. “They’ll be here directly, Doc. They promised soon as they were done up to—”

  “Soon is not good enough,” the man raged. He turned at the sound of footsteps scraping over the newly regraded gravel parking area. Hattie scurried over and gave him a decidedly nervous smile. He lashed out, “And you are twenty minutes late!”

  She cringed under his blazing ire. “Sorry, Doctor Reynolds, we had a late delivery at the store and Chad—”

  “I don’t want excuses, I want some discipline around this place! We’ve got a full waiting room and I’m in there by myself!” He wheeled back to the cowed farmer and shouted, “You and your lazy good-for-nothing—”

  Connie felt something snap in her head. “Now you just hold off that man!”

  In the sudden silence she stomped over to stand directly between Nathan Reynolds and his two victims. “Who do you think you are, laying into Will Green like that?”

  Nathan Reynolds had no choice but to take a single step away from the woman. “But he said—”

  “I know what he’s saying, and I know what he’s doing. He’s working hard for a man who’s never learned the value of a simple thank you kindly!”

  Will called over, “That’s all right, Miss Connie. I don’t mind.”

  “Well, you should, Will Green. You most certainly should!”

  Clearly the doctor was not used to being addressed in such a fashion. “I . . . He . . . You . . .”

  “Hmph. That’s the best you can do with all your citified ways?” She squinted at the doctor. “Now if I recollect correctly, you are supposed to be doctoring. Which I suggest you do with a lot less yelling around here for all our sakes.”

  Nathan Reynolds stared at her in utter confusion. “You’re the mayor’s assistant.”

  “Assistant mayor, if you please!” A movement caught her attention, and she wheeled about to glare at the people clustered in the clinic doorway, watching the fireworks. “What do you folks think you’re watching, a show?” When that did not have them moving fast enough, she finished with, “If you’re sick you shouldn’t be standing, and if you ain’t you shouldn’t be here!”

  Their retreat was made in total silence. But the doctor was made of sterner stuff. “I remember now.” He gave one of his sharp little nods. “You’re the one who ruined that thirty-four Terraplane pickup.”

  That focused Connie’s rage back on the doctor. She waved a furious hand in an arc that started an inch in front of his nose and stopped so it was pointing back at Hattie. “You listen up real good, now. The next time you address this angel of a receptionist, I’d strongly advise you to begin with a simple how-do!”

  The doctor looked from one woman to the other, clearly baffled. “How-do?”

  “Well, that’s a start. A small one, but a start.” She snorted her derision. “And that truck happens to be a nineteen thirty-six, for your information.”

  The eyes began to narrow. “I told you they—”

  Connie took a single menacing step toward him. “I came here full of friendliness and light. But if you don’t stop with your nonsense right here and right now, we’re gonna see the sparks fly!”

  When Nathan Reynolds clenched his jaw shut, she gave a nod. “That’s better. Now then. We’ll all just start over here.” She took as much of a breath as her anger allowed. “My uncle is a man of some renown in these parts. And he’s the second most ornery man I’ve ever met in all my born days. Poppa Joe has got it into his head that you need to come up and meet him, don’t ask me why. I’d just as soon hand him a live copperhead. But Poppa Joe don’t bend easy and he lets go of ideas even harder. And I am fed up to my back teeth coming over here and giving you further chances to act nasty!”

  She planted fists on her hips. “So this is what’s gonna happen, sir. Tomorrow morning I’m picking you up and I’m taking you to Wilkes Mountain.”

  Nathan was absolutely astonished by the pronouncement. “Come again?”

  “You need your ears cleaned out? I said . . .” Connie was halted by a gentle hand on her arm.

  Hattie came up beside them, smiled Connie to silence, and spoke to Nathan in her quiet soothing way. “Poppa Joe Wilkes is famous in these parts. He guards his privacy too. An invitation to go see the old man is a genuine honor.”

  “Amen to that,” Will Green called over. “I ain’t been up Wilkes Mountain more’n two, three times my whole life. Give anything to go see the old man again. He’s something, Poppa Joe is.”
/>   “You really should go meet Poppa Joe,” Hattie said, giving her soft smile to both combatants.

  Connie found her anger fading, her shoulders slumping in tired resignation. “I’m sorry I got cross,” she muttered to the ground at her feet. “But Poppa Joe has been after me for weeks. I’d be grateful if you’d come.”

  There was a moment of silence before Nathan Reynolds snapped out in his customary harsh voice, “Make it midafternoon. I’ve got some things to see to in the morning.” He turned on his heel and started for the clinic, shouting at Will as he walked. “And you get back to work!”

  When the clinic door had slammed closed, Connie sighed and said, “Somebody’s gonna shoot that man. And I hope they do it real slow.”

  “I suppose I’ve heard a less pleasing invitation than the one you just gave Doc Reynolds,” Hattie said quietly. “But right now I can’t seem to remember when.”

  Now that it was over, Connie felt very tired. “Every time I’ve met that man, I declare he’s gotten me so riled I could grind riverbottom rock with my bare teeth.”

  Will Green called over, “I ain’t sure you oughtta gone and said what you did back there, Miss Connie.”

  “Being the town’s only doctor doesn’t give him the right to make hearth rugs out of the rest of us, Will.”

  “But Miss Connie—”

  Hattie said, “Not now, Will. Please.” She grasped Connie’s arm and pulled her across the street. “We need to talk.”

  Connie walked alongside her friend and said, “I can’t for the life of me understand what’s keeping you here with this man.”

  “Because I don’t want him to go out and hire some sweet young thing who lets him stomp all over her and crush her spirit, that’s why.”

  “Now tell me the real reason.”

  Hattie guided them over to the riverbank before quietly replying, “I’ve had the strongest feeling that God wants me here.”

  Connie stared at the woman with strong-boned features and quiet country ways. “Girl, have you gone all soft in your mind?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t understand, that’s why I didn’t tell you before. But that’s how it’s felt. Ever since the moment I heard Ida May had quit, I felt like the Lord was asking me to come help out.”

  The power of Hattie’s quiet words left her shaken. Connie found herself recalling weeks back, on the first drive into town after Dawn’s return. Just as when the young girl had said she had prayed for Connie, she sensed a silent challenge. When Connie did not respond, Hattie went on. “You shouldn’t let him get you so riled.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got myself a couple of other pots simmering on the stove today.” Connie let her other worries show. “There’s a big money fight brewing over Richmond way. Looks like I’m going to have to spend my Sunday trying to find people at home and twisting their arms while their guards are down.”

  “It’s a shame, you having to work on a Sabbath.”

  “If I don’t, the battle will be lost before the meeting starts Monday morning.” Connie stared down at the water for a time, wondering why giving into anger always left her feeling lonely afterward. “I missed Dawn this morning. Stopped by the house to pick her up, but there wasn’t anybody around.”

  “That was my fault. It didn’t hit me until we were into town that neither of us thought to give you a call.” It was Hattie’s turn to sigh and shake her head. “I drove her so we could get in some more quality arguing.”

  Connie looked at her oldest friend. Hattie’s smile lines were pinched into crow’s-feet, the eyes dark with worry. “What’s the matter with Dawn?”

  “You need to talk with that girl. She’s got it in her head to marry Duke Langdon.”

  Once more Connie felt the world lurch beneath her feet. “Oh, Hattie, no. Tell me it’s not true.”

  “I wish I could.” Hattie wound her fingers through the colored beads around her neck. “I should never have let her start seeing that man in the first place.”

  “But Dawn is just a baby.”

  Hattie turned toward her, the motion like that of a nervous bird. “Honey, you been looking through the wrong end of your glasses.”

  “I don’t wear spectacles and never have.”

  “You know exactly what I am talking about. Dawn is twenty. She’ll be twenty-one in less than two months. Twenty is how old I was when I married Chad.”

  For some reason, the mention of his name brought out all the old aches and pains, like an illness that had not fully healed. Not even after two decades. “But that was then.”

  “Yeah, well, that argument don’t carry as much weight as it should around our house.”

  “What does Chad say?”

  “That he loves his daughter, and he hopes she knows her own heart and mind.” Hattie sighed and shook her head. “I never thought the day would come when I’d be wishing my man wasn’t so all-fired agreeable.”

  Her man. Strange how the words seemed to rock Connie so this day. Hattie’s man. Hattie’s daughter. And now Connie was to lose what little connection she had to the lovely girl she wished with all her heart was her own. Lose her to a man she detested.

  Duke Langdon was a picture-perfect mountain man, tall and slender with sky-blue eyes that seemed most comfortable searching the nearest horizon. He had been the local football star, quarterbacking the tiny high school to the state playoffs three years running. He had then played in Charlottesville for a year, captaining the university freshman squad and playing the occasional endgame with the varsity team. Then, without reason or discussion, Duke Langdon had come home.

  Some people said it was because the slow-talking man simply could not cut the mustard with the school’s tough scholastic requirements. Others said it was because he didn’t really have what it took to play big-league ball. Still others said the man preferred the easy mountain life, working in his daddy’s store and spending his weekends fishing and hunting the local hills. Whatever the reason, one thing most people agreed on was that Duke Langdon was a nice fellow. Simple and a little slow and probably too well off and too handsome for his own good. But nice.

  Connie said, “That man can’t be playing with a full deck.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Hattie sounded resigned. “He’s probably got all his cards. He just deals them out a little slow.”

  “Not to mention the fact that he’s a cradle robber. How old is he? Twenty-eight?”

  “Twenty-nine. And that dog won’t hunt either. You’re forgetting Chad is six years older than I am.”

  “Hattie, you’re just gonna have to stop stomping on all my best arguments.”

  She turned desperate eyes toward Connie. “What on earth are we gonna do?”

  “If it didn’t work talking to Dawn, maybe somebody should try shaming Duke to his senses.” Connie started back toward her car. “I’ll talk to him when I get back from Richmond. And don’t you worry. I’m sure we can bring Dawn around to our way of thinking.”

  Eight

  Nathan Reynolds carried his second cup of coffee out on the front porch and sat listening to the same sound that had lulled him to sleep the night before. Here it was the last week in November, and the night’s frost melted swiftly with the dawn. The river’s quiet whispers had lulled him to sleep, and been there to wake him up as well. And like almost all of his mornings in this strange little town, his awakening had been free of the haunting cries that had so scarred his past two years.

  He had never needed much rest. Living on five hours of sleep was a knack most medical students forced themselves to acquire, but for Nathan it had been as natural as breathing. Since his attack, however, he had slept even less. Two hours some nights, four others, and these came only after long and sweaty battles. But here in Hillsboro he found himself sleeping six, seven, even eight hours on occasion. And he was waking up more easily than he had in two long years.

  After his collapse, waking had become as awful as sleeping. He fought against rising from slumber as hard as he did against sle
eping in the first place. He went to bed dreading not just the nightmares. Those had been with him since the early days of his residency. No. He feared most the cries that continued long after sleep left, like ghosts who gained entry into his mind and heart while he was defenseless.

  They had hung on longer and longer, those ghosts, until they took over his waking hours as well. An attack, the doctors had called it. Truer words had never been uttered. He hated the way his mornings had become battlegrounds, waking to the cries of unseen foes, feeling helpless to do anything but rage against the world.

  But not now, not here. Nathan sipped his coffee and sat through the early chill. Dawn came slow to this valley. The fan of light streaming off the eastern peaks grew in strength, slowly dispelling the shadows down below. Birds flitted about the feeder at the house next door. Nathan was separated from his neighbors by a border of roses and magnolias, and more lawn than he had seen in years.

  There was a road between him and the river, but it belonged mostly to the local kids and their bikes. Any cars that dared enter this lane threaded their way carefully around strollers and kickball games and jump ropes.

  After his lonely dinners, he had taken to standing there on the porch and listening to the chatter and the laughter and the kids singing their little chanted songs. He was eating very well here, especially since Thanksgiving. When he had made it clear he was not interested in accepting invitations, people brought the celebration to him. His refrigerator and kitchen table remained filled to overflowing with casserole dishes and salad bowls and pie plates, all compliments of townsfolk who rushed in and shook his hand and wished him well and left, their movements slow and quick at the same time.

  Nothing in his eleven years of medicine had prepared him for such a welcome. He caught sight of desperation in some of the faces. He felt it in the way they had grasped his hand and not wanted to let go. He heard it in the unspoken pleas, and the way they apologized for the state of the clinic. Everybody who stopped by said something to that effect, what a shame it was that he had found it in such a terrible state. Terrible. But they hoped he would be happy here. All of them. Their quiet fervor made it seem as though they took his happiness as a personal concern.