6 The Wedding

by Melanie Jackson

  “Alright. Let me hold up your dress while we cross the road.”

  I looked at Max.

  “I know you want to come but.…” The big eyes looked so sad. “Okay, you can come. But you have to promise to stay away from the food.”

  Max stood up and wagged his tail. He could sense my mood and was acting subdued.

  It took some doing to get my skirt through the door. As the Flowers tucked my layers under her arm, I had time to look around. There were a few fluffy clouds gracing the sky out of reach of even the strongest hawk. I noted this though I had no room in my heart to appreciate it.

  I was trying to think of something encouraging to say when there came a harsh cough, a sound very close to a human voice and yet not human at all. I looked up on the roof and there was a large crow on top of the community hall jeering down at us as we struggled with my gown.

  A crow. The hoodie craw. I took hold of my imagination and strangled it. It was superstition to believe that crows were the harbingers of death. Chuck was fine. The crow was just attracted by the people and the bright ribbons on the community hall door.

  Max didn’t think much of the crow either and snarled at it.

  With another harsh caw, it flapped away.

  The Flowers exhaled.

  “I don’t hate crows but.…” She stopped.

  Yeah. I don’t hate crows either but….

  I heard the music as we crossed the street and I thought that Thomas had never played so well. The door to the hall was open and people fell quiet when they saw I was coming. After a moment, Thomas also stopped playing.

  I knew I needed to say something but for a moment I was struck dumb. Our hall had never looked so beautiful. Everywhere there were orchids—cattleyas, cymbidiums, and phalaenopsis. And color! Surely the whole of the rain forests in all the wide world didn’t have this many colors in it. Tears gathered in my eyes and I turned to the Wings and blew him a kiss.

  I took it all in—the orange cake which looked surprisingly lovely and appropriate amid all the blooms, especially with the twinkle lights that circled the base. The tablecloths were works of art and I marveled at what the Braids had been able to do with some old sheets.

  No wedding anywhere, ever, had been so lovingly and beautifully prepared. I had to gulp back a sob.

  Later I would say a formal thank-you to everyone for what they had done but I know my heart was in my eyes and they knew I was touched beyond what mere words could express.

  “Thank you all for coming,” I managed. “Chuck has obviously been delayed so I think that we should change the order of things around a bit. We’ll start with cake, have some lunch, and then hold the ceremony at the end.”

  No one spoke, but I saw a mix of concern and pity in their dear faces.

  “Thomas, your fingers are going to get a workout today,” I said.

  “My pleasure,” Thomas assured me.

  “Please, everyone, give the ladies a moment to lay out the food. Perhaps some of the men could pull the tables out from the walls?”

  Everyone jumped to their feet and began working to transform the hall from chapel to dining room. I did my best to smile and look happy and confident that everything would be fine.

  Fiddling Thomas had played the first note of a reel when Big John, who was struggling with one of the tables, turned bright red and collapsed on the altar.

  “Dad!” The Flowers got to him first but I was close behind her.

  “Is it his heart?” I asked, dropping to my knees, my skirts billowing.

  “His appendix, I think,” the Flowers said. “The Bones has had him on antibiotics, but I don’t think it’s working.”

  I looked around frantically but the doctor and his wife were missing.

  “Where’s the doc?” I asked blankly.

  “Still at the rez,” Wendell said. His face was pale. “Maybe we can raise him on the radio.”

  “I’m on it,” the Braids said, rushing away.

  “Okay,” I said, a terrible calm descending. “Let’s get him to the store. We need to be near the radio. Sasha, Wendell, help him up. Madge, I need you. Horace, please look after Max and Ricky.”

  * * *

  “Doc?”

  The Bones looked up, annoyed at being interrupted during surgery.

  “What?”

  “We got the Gulch on the radio. Big John’s collapsed. They want to know what to do.”

  Doc looked down at his patient. He’d set the leg but there were some bad tears in the skin where the bone had come through that were bleeding more than he liked. Billy’s color was also somewhere between ghost white and concrete gray. He couldn’t leave him to Linda.

  “Get the radio in here,” he ordered and kept working.

  * * *

  I was calmer once I heard the Bones’ voice on the radio. Especially since his instructions were not being directed at me.

  “Madge, you know my office. Go get the topical pain killer, and some Scotch. Then go home and get your knives. They’re sterile?”

  “Yes.” And she was away.

  “We have whisky here,” the Braids said loudly.

  “Good, you’ll need it. You have some salt pork still?” the Bones asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Get it and cut it into strips about one inch wide. And we need some soda straws, or some kind of small rigid tubing.”

  The word knives made me feel a little ill. I don’t like them—don’t like butchering. Don’t like blood. Especially human blood. But Big John had been like a father to me and I would not leave the Flowers to face this crisis without my help.

  “Butterscotch?”

  I jumped.

  “Yes, Doc.”

  “I want you to pour out a small glass of whisky. You’ll need it to swab his skin unless the Braids has rubbing alcohol.”

  The Braids shook her head.

  “Okay.”

  Swab skin. I could do that. But first I had to get out of my dress.

  “Undo me,” I said to the Flowers. “This dress is in the way.”

  * * *

  The town was deserted and at first Chuck had the strangest impression that everyone had been carried off by the rapture, leaving him and Anatoli as the sole survivors.

  “Where…?” Anatoli asked uneasily.

  “The community hall,” Chuck said, looking at his watch and trying not to think of Soda Springs. “They must all be there for the wedding.”

  But it was late. Nearly three hours since the wedding was supposed to start.

  They walked down the middle of the street, again putting Chuck in mind of their doomed adventures in the outback, though he was actually more frightened now than he had been when facing booby traps.

  Eventually they did hear voices inside the hall, but they were hushed and there was crying. The sound reminded Chuck of nothing so much as a funeral. His breath caught. Had something happened while he was gone? Was it his father?

  Or was this about the wedding? Did they think he was dead? Or, maybe worse, that he had jilted Butterscotch?

  The Mountie stepped through the hall door first and was met with many pairs of frightened eyes.

  He was vaguely aware that the hall had been prepared for a wedding but was now in disarray. There was also a red-haired child sitting next to his father—who also had red hair—and Max.

  He didn’t see Butterscotch.

  “Chuck!” Horace gasped, and then hurried to embrace him. “Thank God! We’ve been frantic.”

  “Where’s Butterscotch?” the Mountie asked, his heart in his throat. “Where’s Big John and the Flowers?”

  “Big John collapsed,” Horace said. “They’ve got him down at the store. The doc is on the radio. He’s going to talk Butterscotch through it.”

  “Talk her through it?” the Mountie asked blankly.

  “I think Butterscotch is about to operate on Big John.”

  “Butterscotch operate?”

  “She’s the best choice,” Horace said. “
I can’t imagine asking the Flowers to do it and Sasha’s English isn’t good enough.”

  Asking nothing else, the Mountie hurried from the hall, and then began running flat out for the store.

  * * *

  “Butterscotch?”

  “Yes, Doc.” I was kneeling beside Big John in my slip. The store wasn’t cold but I was chilled to the bone. Big John looked really bad. I had never seen my mentor when he wasn’t strong and healthy, and his vulnerability shook me as nothing else ever had. Big John was the heart and soul of the Gulch. We would be lost without him. I would be lost. He just couldn’t die.

  “Give the whisky to Big John and have him drink it.”

  “How much?”

  “As much as he wants and then a little more.”

  “But—”

  “The topical anesthetic won’t help that much once you get inside. You need to knock him out and it is too dangerous for you to administer anesthetic.”

  “Gimme the whisky,” Big John gasped and the Flowers handed it over then helped lift his head. “I don’t want to be awake for this.”

  Madge arrived, red of face and breathless, but she had everything with her, including extra Scotch. I sighed with relief.

  “I got it all,” Madge gasped and the Braids passed this on.

  “Good. Get him undressed. Butterscotch.”

  “Yes, Doc.”

  “Girl, I need you to do something important now. Are you ready?”

  “Okay, yes. What should I do?”

  “You’ve the best eyes of the bunch and the steadiest hand next to the Flowers. You’re going to have to do this because we can’t ask her to work on her own father.”

  “Do this?” I said stupidly.

  “You’re going to have to be my hands. Just do as I say and everything will be fine. You have a soft touch.”

  “You want me to remove his appendix?” The horror I felt was reflected in my voice.

  “No.” I felt premature relief until he added, “But you are going to put in a drain to buy some time until I can get there.”

  I swallowed. A hundred protests arose in my head, but I didn’t utter them. I had to do this. Somehow.

  “Okay,” I managed to whisper. “Tell me what to do.”

  * * *

  “Good girl. With your eyes, draw a line from the belly button to the hip bone. Halfway down it is where the appendix is. It’s where things hurt most if you need confirmation,” the Bones added. He tied off the first suture and glanced at his patient’s face. Billy’s color and breathing were better now that they’d got some blood and saline in him.

  Linda, who had steadier hands, would usually have been assisting with closing but was working the radio. Doc was having to do the final sew-up himself.

  “Okay, got it.” Butterscotch’s voice was steady. The Bones was proud of her. She had obviously been shaken but was ready to do whatever was needed. Thank God she was level headed. Marge was competent but her eyes were going and her hands were none too steady anymore. Kind of like his.

  Doc pushed the thought away.

  “Have Madge give you her smallest knife and then she needs to be ready with salt pork and rolls of gauze.” The Doc added, “The salt will stop the bleeding.”

  Or so he hoped.

  “You are going to want to cut across the mental line you drew—not along it. Across it. Not too long a cut. No more than three inches. And not real deep on the first pass. You need to open him enough to get past the muscle and see inside and you will have to go through muscle wall. Go with the grain, don’t cut through it. You’ve helped butcher deer before?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll need to use about that much pressure. The insides aren’t that much different when you get past the skin.”

  He hoped that she could do it, pretend that Big John was a deer. The Bones still remembered his first body. It had been a cadaver, but cutting it open had been horrible, terrifying. He could only imagine what she was feeling.

  “You are looking for a thing that looks like a worm. When you find it, cut a small slit in it and insert the straw. Make damn sure it isn’t the intestine.”

  * * *

  “I did it,” I said hoarsely, sweat trickling down my back. “I put the straw in.”

  “Is there pus?”

  “Yes. Some. And a little blood.”

  “You need to suck out as much as you can and then pack the incision with salt pork. I’m going to sign off now. We are leaving immediately and I’ll be there in just a few hours.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, feeling dizzy and looking for the last bit of will that would allow me to put my lips to the blue straw.

  “Let me, I know how. I’ve done it with the dogs,” Madge said, pushing me gently aside. The Flowers had fainted a few minutes back and Sasha had laid her on the counter with her feet propped up on the old-fashioned cash register. “There’s someone here for you that might need you more.”

  “What?” I looked up from the red wound I had made in my mentor and it took a moment to see Chuck standing a few feet back from Big John’s body. He was covered in dirt from his hair to his boots, but he had never looked more perfect.

  “Chuck!” I cried, pushing to my feet though my legs had gone to sleep and didn’t want to hold me.

  “Butterscotch,” he whispered, taking me in his arms. I did my best to keep the blood on my hands from touching him, but only half succeeded.

  Chapter 8

  It took us a while to get down to the ceremony once we were back at the hall. Everyone wanted to know about Big John and what had happened to the Mountie and Anatoli that made them so late, and were relieved when all the stories were told and everything looked like it would work out after all.

  The Mountie and Anatoli had to talk around mouthfuls of food since they were starving, but no one minded the lapse in manners. Disaster had come close to us and it was no time for formalities.

  Since the Mountie was too filthy to put on his dress uniform and we didn’t want to wait for him to bathe before the wedding, I stayed in my slip and a borrowed sweater, which was mostly clean because the Braids had insisted I put on an apron before I began operating.

  Reverend McNab had the good sense not to wander off into any stories or to try telling pointless jokes between the Dearly beloved, we are gathered and the You may kiss the bride. This was a day for rejoicing and prayers of thanks, but not for levity. Father White was also on his best behavior and didn’t threaten anyone with blacklisting from bingo or eternal damnation.

  The specifics of the ceremony escape me to this day. The only moment that is clear in my mind was when Wendell rose to offer his prayer.

  Oh Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds

  and whose breath gives life to everyone,

  Hear me.

  I come to you as one of your many children;

  I am weak ... I am small ... I need your wisdom

  and your strength.

  Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever

  behold the red and purple sunsets.

  Make my hands respect the things you have made,

  and make my ears sharp so I may hear your voice.

  Make me wise, so that I may understand what you

  have taught my people and

  the lessons you have hidden in each leaf and each rock.

  I ask for wisdom and strength,

  not to be superior to my brothers, but to be able

  to fight my greatest enemy, myself.

  Make me ever ready to come before you

  with clean hands and a straight eye,

  so as life fades away as a fading sunset,

  my spirit may come to you without shame.

  I think most of us, even the crusty ministers who thought Wendell a godless heathen, were moved.

  The Bones, who must have broken every land-speed record and perhaps an axle, made it back in just over three hours and he was able to remove Big John’s appendix. He told me later that I had s
aved Big John’s life and for some reason that made me cry. Maybe because I was glad to have finally had the chance to repay the favor of his saving mine two decades ago.

  Though Fiddling Thomas had done his work and then some, he insisted that he had the energy to play one last song for the Mountie and me to dance to. The choice was an odd one for Thomas who liked Celtic music, but I couldn’t argue with “It’s a Wonderful World.” Because it was indeed a wonderful place.

  * * *

  Sasha and Horace had positioned themselves down near the lake in front of their fireworks display. Everything was ready and waiting, especially the two engineers who had brought this particular display to life. They were in walkie-talkie communications with the Kid who was in charge of orchestrating the whole affair. Horace had been skeptical when the Kid came to them in their forest lean-to and asked if he could somehow be involved in setting off the fireworks. Horace knew that the Flowers would skin them alive if she saw her stepson within one hundred yards of a functioning firework. It was Sasha who eventually relented and found a way to include him.

  “Ricky,” he said during the Kid’s last visit, “we have need of your help.”

  “Anything,” Ricky said joyously. “What can I do for you, Mr. Ivanovitch?”

  This was the first time that Horace had ever heard Sasha’s last name. Horace wondered if the Kid had heard the Butcher of Minsk part yet.

  “Ivanovitch-Jones,” he corrected. “Someone must lead couple to scenic view to watch fireworks display. Mr. Goodhead and I will be down by lake to launch fireworks display.” Sasha shrugged his shoulders to express the opinion that he could be no clearer.

  At first Ricky looked disappointed. Then his face took on a lighter expression as he considered the possibilities.

  “You mean, I get to show the fireworks display to Butterscotch and the Mountie?” Ricky thought out loud.

  “I think the term is Master of Ceremonies,” Horace added, winking at Sasha. “We’ll tell you exactly what to say.”