by Brian Hodge
Ellen made a mental note never to tangle with this woman.
“You might as well go ahead and move this equipment out,” the young geologist said.
Brian Kelly roared. “No you won’t! You sure as hell will not!”
Bob looked at him. “I can’t get a budget for it if the expert says there’s nobody in there.”
“What expert? He was a failure when he was at Ludlum, and he’s a failure now. That’s why he works for the state!”
“How dare you!”
“Hey, Brian, come on. He’s still my official expert. He’s the guy I’ve gotta rely on.”
Kelly went up to West, face-to-face. “Somebody’s dying in there!”
“Brian, I don’t have enough evidence. And what about the judge—he’s already been after us to get out of here. I continue this dig without good cause. I’ve got a lawsuit on my hands.”
“If there turns out to be a story here,” Ellen said to West, “could you please give me a call?” She started off down the mound.
“Take care,” Brian Kelly called after her.
She waved, and was soon negotiating the dark with the dubious old penlight she kept in the bottom of her purse.
She was past the halfway point when she felt a sort of lurch. A distinct vibration began pulsing up from the ground. It stopped her dead. “Jesus,” she heard herself say.
It hurt her bones in a way she’d never felt before, as if the marrow itself was vibrating. She imagined a crazed dentist boring into her jaw with a bone-burning drill. The vibration was accompanied by a metallic shrieking noise, like a very large buzz saw going berserk in the distance.
Lights flashed, the sound hummed off into the sky. She turned around to see the floodlights swinging on their poles. Shadows darted as men jumped to hold them steady.
She heard a new sound, painfully loud, like the squeal of a desperate child. Ellen turned toward the group she’d just left in time to see Loi Kelly stagger backward clutching her belly.
2
The buzzing sensation was so intense that Brian slapped his hand to his jaw, instinctively going for the pain that was screeching through his head. But Loi’s agonized shriek made him forget himself, gather her in his arms. “Baby,” he said, “oh, baby!”
She felt the fire of a bayonet plunging into her womb, a thing she had seen done. She wanted to scream, but fought against it. Best to maintain a serene appearance.
Before anybody could react further there was a faint, tremendous clang, as if a door the size of a mountain had been slammed shut.
Bob threw himself down, listening. “Hey,” he shouted at the ground, “hey, lady!” Then he crouched. “Nothing.”
Loi felt a tickle along her inner thigh. She turned away into the dark, bent over and reached her hand up under her loose outfit. Yes, the worst. She straightened abruptly.
“Loi?”
She hated to reveal weakness, but she had no choice. This was urgent. “Brian, there is no cause for alarm, but I would like to be taken to see the doctor now.”
“Is the baby—?”
“No, Brian, he is not coming. But we must go at once, please.” Always in the back of her mind was the fear that Brian would reject her if she lost his son. Love was wonderful, but even American men surely had their practical considerations.
Brian fought down the churning acid in his own stomach. He must not let Loi see how frightened he was.
Ellen Maas reappeared in the swaying pool of light. He was startled by what it did to her face, making it appear alternately hard and soft. It struck him that she was an unusually beautiful woman.
“We go now,” Loi said. Eight months was much too late for blood.
“I can take her,” Ellen announced. She was fluttering her long hands at Loi, communicating concern. But Brian sensed something a little predatory in the gesture. A reporter always wanted something from you.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
His arm around Loi’s shoulder, Brian guided her down the slope. He should have taken her back to the truck the minute she reappeared, not let her stay like this.
As they left, Brian heard the geologist telling Bob that the earth movement theory had just been confirmed.
Brian didn’t believe it for a moment. But Danny wouldn’t have been the first scientist who wanted to dismiss a mystery rather than explore it.
To both him and Loi it seemed a long, long time before the dark shape of the truck came into view. He helped her up, belted her in, then got in himself. He started the engine and began driving carefully toward the road, avoiding ruts and bumps as best he could. “Call Dr. Gidumal’s office, hon, tell ’em we’re on our way.” He started the phone for her, trying to control his shaking hand.
When they finally reached the relative smoothness of Mound Road, he floored the accelerator and the truck jumped forward, tires squalling. They went racing through the dark and out onto Route 303, then down toward Ludlum and the hospital.
He shifted in his seat. She reached over, squeezed his hand. She was very scared, but she wanted him to be reassured, to think well of her. “I am a strong woman, I have a good womb.” Was it true, after all the abortions, some of them done by casual midwives, others by well-intentioned friends? At the Blue Moon Bar they used to abort each other with a long instrument provided by the management. She had no idea of the condition of her womb.
He looked over at her. She was sitting with her head pressed far back into the seat, one hand on his. He reached the hand to his lips, kissed it. Her hand was as soft as a little bird. She seemed so brave and so vulnerable. He was terrified: he could smell his own sweat.
She finished the call to the hospital and put down the phone. “I am very healthy, Brian. I will give many sons!” She could feel the blood coming out steadily now. Baby Brian was jumping a little, as if he was beginning to become distressed. Sometimes she thought she could feel his beautiful young soul lying within her, like a golden shaft of light in her womb. He must not die, not now.
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes, honey.”
The ache was growing, becoming touched by what felt like heat down at the bottom of her belly. She forced back an urge to moan. The heat began to spread into her thighs, up her back. She sat as still as stone to stifle what she knew could quickly become agonized squirming. She turned to him and gave him a smile. “I am admiring your skillful driving. Please hurry.”
That brittle, terrible smile told him that she was in agony. His own breath began coming hard and tight. It would have been easier for him, he thought, if she had not been so composed.
Her mind drifted on long waves of pain. The birds called softly in the garden of the Emperor of Jade Pagoda in Saigon, while little Qui Thanh Nguyen crouched in a secret place, a small girl in a white boo dai.
She’d changed her name to Loi because the white-eyes couldn’t pronounce the “Q” sound correctly. She loved her white-eyes husband, though, no matter how he spoke.
The pain dug at her. Touching herself, she brought up blood on her fingertips. In the light of the dashboard they gleamed as if darkened by wet paint. She snatched the evidence out of sight, wiped it away under her blouse. The smile remained fixed on her face.
Although Brian knew every twist and turn, the trip seemed to last forever.
When they finally saw the lights of the hospital, the big red sign that said emergency, Loi was drifting into soft blackness. She came back, feeling the pain like a saw grinding between her legs.
Brian raced into the ambulance bay honking his horn.
Nurses came running out, followed by Dr. Gidumal.
“Help us,” Brian said. “Please help us.”
3
A couple of minutes later she was in an examining room in stirrups, and Dr. Gidumal had a speculum poised as delicately as a wand in his gloved hand. The pain was now slamming up from her gut in great, red waves. She could no longer maintain even a fixed, rigid smile. But Dr. Gidumal was a stranger, and before a stranger one mu
st be composed. She was breathing too hard. She tried to be more quiet.
“We went on a picnic,” Brian said. “We heard someone screaming, called the state police. Loi is very gentle. She got upset.”
The doctor stroked her forehead. “You experienced a sudden pain before you noticed the blood?”
She was silent. To speak of the pain would be to let it capture her. Now her womb felt like a great balloon filled with boiling blood, compressed, packed, being penetrated by white-hot needles.
“She is like the women of my country; she prefers not to reveal pain.” The doctor looked at Brian. “You must tell me.”
Brian looked into his wife’s face, seeking an answer to the doctor’s question. Her sweated skin gleamed in the hard fluorescent light. “I am going to have such a healthy boy,” she said. “You will be very pleased with him!” Her voice was a harsh whisper. Her face was something carved.
An American woman would have been howling, Brian thought. He reached out his hand, and she pressed a clammy cheek into his big, rough palm. “She’s suffering terribly,” he told the doctor.
It was awful, like fire within! Brian Ky Kelly was jumping, also. She could feel his distress now! “A happy baby,” she managed to whisper.
The doctor examined her. “There are no signs of labor. This baby is not going to be born today.” He plunged his gloved hand into the bloody passage of life. It took only a moment. “As I thought, there is a tear,” he said. “We may be able to repair it with fast work.”
Barking orders to nurses, he went quickly away. Moments later Loi felt her stretcher begin to roll, saw the ceiling sweeping past. The suddenness of it all caused her composure to fail her. “Brian,” she shrieked.
“I’m here, baby.” He was trotting along beside the stretcher. They went up an elevator, then down another hall that ended in two huge and familiar double doors. The old, awful smells assailed him, the iron reek of iodine and the fuzzy aroma of alcohol. He remembered the burnt-meat tang of his own skin on the morning they’d brought him in.
Another doctor hurried through the doors, leaving them swinging back in Brian’s face. He peered into OR-2. She lay on her back draped in rough green sheets.
“Good luck, baby.”
Loi’s voice came back, thin and high, “All will be well!”
When they closed the inner doors he went to the waiting area, all bright colors and cheer, equipped with coffee machine, Coke machine and plenty of magazines. Four years ago his father had waited for him here, bearing the knowledge that Mary and Kate were gone. Yellow curtains or not, blue chairs or not, you could smell the fear in this place.
Brian waited, feeling like a dog left out in the rain. For a time he stared blindly at an old copy of McCall’s magazine. He was counting the tiles on the floor when a shadow appeared. His heart jumped, but it wasn’t the doctor. Instead, he found himself looking into the beautiful face of one of the very last people he would have chosen to see.
“Hello, Dr. Kelly.”
“This isn’t going in the paper.”
“Shouldn’t that be my decision?”
“I’d appreciate being left alone.”
She pulled a chair up in front of him and plopped herself down. “What happened out there?”
“She was injured.”
“Yeah, I noticed. But what did it? What was that noise, for God’s sake? It went through me like a knife.”
“Look,” he said, “I don’t want to be rude—”
“Then don’t be.”
“I want to be alone, Miss Maas.”
“Ellen, if you prefer. It’s just that I don’t understand—”
He had no reserves of politeness left. “Leave me alone!”
“Do you know what the noise was?”
“My wife might be in there losing our baby and I want my privacy!”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Kelly, really I am.”
He shook his head wearily. Then he walked to the window, stared into the black glass. Behind him, he could see the reflection of her arm reach out, hesitate, then drop.
She waited for a full minute. Finally her reflection turned away and went off down the hall. Her head was bowed and her shoulders were stooped, and he found himself feeling a little sorry for her.
But she was gone, and it was a relief.
Over two hours passed before the doors to OR-2 finally opened and Dr. Gidumal came out. Brian, who had been resting on three chairs pulled together, clambered noisily to his feet. Flecks of Loi’s blood stained the doctor’s green hospital gown, and for a moment Brian had a horrible thought.
“She’s fine and so is your son,” the doctor said in one quick breath. Brian sagged. Suddenly he felt absolutely exhausted. The doctor guided him to a chair. “But I want to know what happened to her, Brian. This is a violent injury. There ought to be a police report.”
“She—I guess she got upset. All the excitement.”
“No, this is wounding of the uterine wall. She has lesions. We have repaired all we could, but this is caused by one thing—concussion. Hitting.”
“That’s impossible. She didn’t fall, and she certainly wasn’t hit.”
The doctor nodded, his face screwed into a deep frown. “This injury is the result of a concussive force against the womb. An explosion, a blow. Nothing else could account for it.”
“Nothing exploded,” Brian said. He heard a high note in his own voice. “There was a little… tremble in the ground, I guess. But nothing exploded.”
The doctor folded his arms. “That wouldn’t do it. Was she— well, to be frank, Brian—was she beaten?”
Brian knew that his hair was wild, his face stubbled. He probably looked very much the part of someone who would strike his wife. “I’d never hurt her.”
“Of course not. I meant if there had been an assault. A stranger, of course. It’s just that I don’t understand this injury. You say no explosion. You say no blow. So I say, something is funny here.”
“Wait a minute, there was more than just a little tremble. It was a strong vibration coming up from the ground.”
“There are houses down, trees uprooted? No, Brian, you would see this if she had been in a terrorist bombing, or gotten a kick in the belly.”
Brian made an effort to keep his voice level. “Nothing like that happened,” he said. “I want to see my wife.”
“Yes of course. She will wake up soon, I expect.”
Brian followed the doctor into the recovery room. And there she lay, a pitiful, delicate vision. “Loi,” he said.
“Oh…”
Suddenly Dr. Gidumal pushed Brian aside, leaned into Loi’s face. “Did anybody hit you, Loi?”
“No… it was the humming… the humming that hurt me…” She closed her eyes, suddenly asleep.
Dr. Gidumal straightened up. “Certainly this was not caused by any humming.” As he had when he first saw her, he laid his hand on Loi’s forehead. Brian saw the tenderness and understood at once. Both of them were far from home, both were Asian, both must have known the acute hurt generated by all the small, silent acts of prejudice in a self-involved little community like the Three Counties. Dr. Gidumal obviously felt protective toward his fellow emigrant, and worried that she was being abused. “She will doze for a little time more. When she awakens fully, you must be present. There must be no upsets to her. She is in a delicate state. There are many micro lesions. Any one of them could open up, with the right sort of stimulus.” Here he paused, gazed at her. When he looked up, it was with a frank plea in his eyes. “A delicate condition. We will keep her in hospital for two days’ observation. Then she can go home. But you must be careful, careful, careful.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Dr. Gidumal gave him another long look, then took his hand. “We will not fail,” he said.
Brian wished that he hadn’t said that, it sounded awfully ominous.
He stayed with Loi until eleven, when the nurses convinced him to go home and try to get some sleep.
Chapter 3
1
Ellen drove along Route 303, returning from the hospital in Ludlum to her little cabin in Oscola. The uneasy ratcheting of her Duster clattered in her ears. Getting stuck out here alone would mean a long, dark walk, and probably a wet one too: lightning was flickering against the horizon, thunder guttering off in the mountains.
Oscola was hidden deep in a wild country. The woods were not friendly. More than one small plane had crashed into these mountains and never been found. Every summer campers and hikers went out and never came back.
Much of the region—which fifty years ago had been a thriving community of foresters, apple farmers and dairymen—was now abandoned. Orchards so ancient that the trees appeared to be deformed clung to the few arable valleys. Abandoned houses, their windows covered with plywood, their interiors gutted, were all that remained of families who had made their livings here for ten generations.
It was a beautiful country, though, with sun-dappled valleys and laughing streams the locals called kills, using the old Dutch word. Its dangers were known—the isolation, the size of the forest, the tracklessness of the mountains. Getting hurt in the woods, getting lost—those were the things you worried about around here.
No matter what the state police had decided, she wasn’t going to drop the matter of the woman in the mound. Even if it was as empty as their smarmy geologist claimed, there was still a story in that agonizing sound. Loi Kelly was lying in the hospital. Ellen could still feel an ache in her bones.
Now, what on earth had done that? Certainly not any of the equipment they’d had up there. It had come right up out of the ground.
There were brighter flashes of lightning. Thunder boomed back and forth, a deep and savage argument. She turned down Mound Road and passed the judge’s place, a stone house with a gambrel roof and narrow second-story windows. The first floor was more graceful, as if the old Dutch patroons had attempted to recapture in a small way some of the elegance of the world they had left behind in Holland. But the effect of the tall windows and imposing front door was to make the house look crudely unbalanced. At this hour the place was dark and silent, the mound behind it a great, curving shadow, black against the tumbling clouds. A few moments later she was approaching her own place. From the road there was virtually no indication that her cabin even existed. Even the dirt track twisting off under the trees was hard to notice.