The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries)

by Connie Shelton

  Roberto’s parents. Had they received word yet? He supposed so, with the miracle of the telegraph. Still, he should write to them, find some words of comfort if he could.

  “Good morning, Patrick,” the cheery nurse from yesterday said. “You look much better this morning.”

  She set a bowl of the porridge on the small table beside his bed and suddenly he felt hungry.

  “Can I take that for you? Put it out of the way?” She reached for the box.

  “Don’t take it away. I want it close.”

  “It will just be right here,” she said, showing him that she would place it on the shelf of his table.

  Patricio watched the box, still dark in color; it showed no reaction to the woman’s touch. “I had a strange dream last night. That box—” He couldn’t put it into words; the experience had been too peculiar.

  She waited with a little smile. “It’s fairly common. The drugs we give you to sleep. Some men have very outlandish experiences—all in their sleep.”

  That must be it, the reason for his perception of the glow and the colors. Easily explainable. He picked up the spoon beside the porridge bowl. He had nearly finished his breakfast when the doctor approached his bedside. The man studied Patricio’s face more intently than before.

  “Your injuries are healing quite nicely,” he commented, gently removing the forehead bandage. “Very good.”

  “The one on my arm itches, much more than yesterday.”

  “Don’t scratch it. That was a fairly deep gash and we don’t want to see it reopen.” He signaled for the nurse to return. “Check and redress this wound. Let me know if there is any sign of infection.”

  The doctor moved on to the next man’s bedside and the nurse went to work quickly. Unwinding the cotton wrapping, then lifting a strip of padding she revealed a four-inch line on his forearm, with a track of black stitches tied in somewhat bulky knots.

  “This doesn’t seem normal.” Her voice was very soft.

  Patricio stared at the wound. “Is it bad?”

  “No … no, it’s actually quite good. I’ve never seen one heal this quickly.”

  He felt a little rush of pride, as if he’d accomplished it through his own efforts. His eyes drifted toward the wooden box. No. Impossible. That had been a dream, just a dream.

  The nurse glanced toward the doctor, as if debating whether to call him back. He seemed busy with another patient three beds down. She shrugged and placed clean padding over Patricio’s wound and rewrapped it.

  “I’d like to write a letter,” he said.

  “I can send an orderly with paper and pen,” she said cheerfully. “It’s good to let the family know you are all right.”

  He had not even thought of his own family, but the woman was right. They might have received a telegram saying he was wounded and would not know his condition.

  “Bring enough for three letters.”

  By the time the orderly arrived much of Patricio’s earlier energy seemed to have drained away.

  “I can write them for you,” the young man offered, setting down a black pen, a bottle of ink and a few sheets of paper. “I do it for many of the soldiers.”

  “I’d rather do them myself, but thanks.” The letter to his own family would be the easy one, the reassuring one. For Roberto’s parents … he was not yet sure what or how much he should say. “You may leave the paper here. And could you hand me that box from the shelf?”

  He uncapped the pen and placed a sheet of the flimsy paper on the lapboard the orderly had left. What to say? Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Roberto died just before he was about to have his foot amputated because of the nasty conditions we endured in the trenches together …? The truth would be too brutal and far too soon after receipt of the dreaded telegram. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith, your son and I had become extremely close …? It would sound too much as if they were queer for each other. Impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t there that the bonds formed in wartime were nothing like that. It had been more like having a brother, perhaps even a twin brother, a relationship gestated together in the womb of that section of trench where one’s blood practically flowed interchangeably with the other’s.

  He capped the pen and put the top back on the ink bottle, staring at the blank page. Let out a deep sigh. Losing his best friend was still far too fresh.

  He opened the pen again and began: Dear Mamá and Papá, I am well. By now you have probably received word that I was wounded …

  The words filled a page and a half and he sealed them into an envelope and wrote the address on it without re-reading. He would be tempted to edit away half of it, and they deserved to know as much as he could bring himself to tell. He’d skimmed over the reality of trench life, gone into detail about the joy of that hot shower after the battle, mentioned the death of Roberto as only one of many comrades he’d lost in the past month, ended with a wish for a quick end to the Great War and the hope of seeing them soon. He drafted a similar message to Emelia, making light of his wounds, assuring her that none of them were life-threatening. It, too, went into an envelope without a second reading; he had a feeling it was too impersonal but he did not have it in him to write words of love and devotion right now.

  He rested for a few minutes then tried again to write a letter to the Smiths. It came out sounding too much like the one he’d written home—too centered on himself, too general. Roberto’s parents would want news of their own son, something profound about his final hours. Patricio wadded up the page. He would try again later.

  * * *

  Patricio limped to his desk. A month in the hospital outside Paris, another month in a convalescent home, and the damn leg still ached with the chill of autumn weather. Worse at some times than others; the doctors said he would have to live with it and made him feel somewhat guilty that he had a leg—many didn’t. His current post was an office job in Bapaume, a little town somewhere in France—he did not quite recall how he’d arrived there, except that it was by train and he’d carried a duffle with his few possessions on his lap during the grueling hours of the trip.

  Now, his duties included writing up supply orders for the commanders of troops still in the field. He thanked God every single day that he’d not been sent back to the front lines; as a relatively mobile soldier it was a possibility. He was quartered in a converted warehouse that housed fifty men in bunks. It was damp in the evenings and cold by morning but, unlike the trenches, it provided a roof and walls and since the German occupation had been overcome more than a month ago he did not have to listen to the sounds of shelling and gunfire. He actually slept, every fourth night or so, when exhaustion overtook him.

  He sat, keeping his sore leg outstretched under the desk. A stack of forms awaited his attention but his thoughts went to the other task on his mind, the unwritten letter to Roberto’s parents. While he rubberstamped and signed requisitions words ran through his head. Tonight he would write the letter and post it tomorrow. Be done with the obligation.

  “There’s rumor of an armistice,” the fellow at the next desk said to another corporal who sat at an identical desk facing him.

  “Can’t happen too soon for me,” replied the corporal.

  “Nice if it happened before another winter sets in, especially for those poor chaps in the mountains.”

  Patricio remembered the Italian he and Roberto had met on that fateful day in early July, how the guy told them of the misery of serving on that particular front.

  Yes, he would write to the Smiths tonight. Finish out his tour here, go home, put the whole sordid, bloody, smelly experience behind him and find happiness hoeing a row of corn on his father’s little plot of land in Taos County, with warm sunshine to bake away his aches.

  Later, he plodded back to the barracks, leaning heavily on the cane provided by the Army, his leg throbbing with each step. The pain constantly increased as each day went on, and falling into bed at night was always a welcome relief. One end of their warehouse-barracks served as a mess h
all but Patricio bypassed it. Might have gone there if he’d remembered to take the bottle of aspirin to work with him this morning, but he hadn’t and now all he wanted was a bit of relief from those little white pills.

  He rummaged in his duffle for them and came across recent letters from home. His mother wrote regularly, each communication expressing her relief at his recovery and gratitude that he was no longer caught up in the fighting. Emelia’s letters had become less frequent. Perhaps she was wary, wondering whether he would be the same or if his war injuries had caused irreparable damage. He had no idea how to answer that. Below the letters he found his writing supplies. He swallowed three of the bitter pain pills and lay back with his leg propped on a pillow.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I apologize for the lateness of this letter. I should have contacted you weeks ago …

  He went on to let them know what a good friend Roberto had been, embellishing a couple of amusing episodes, omitting any reference to the rampant infection of trench foot and the fact that their son would have returned home minus part of a limb. At this point they probably would have welcomed that, as opposed to his not returning at all.

  His gaze traveled to the wooden box; a corner of it showed down inside his duffle bag. Should he mention it to the mother who had sent it to her son filled with his favorite cookies? By rights he should offer to return it to the family. But perhaps it would serve only as a painful reminder of the events, of the fact that Roberto had died on the very day he received the gift. He ended the letter with Very sincerely yours and tucked it into an envelope. He stared at the envelope flap before sealing it.

  Was his true reason for not offering to return the wooden box because of the pain it would cause the Smiths? He suspected a more selfish motivation. The box had saved his life. And he still faced surviving this god-awful war for some unknown period of time. He could always contact them again once he was safely at home in New Mexico.

  * * *

  Dockside in New York Harbor thousands of people milled about—sailors, soldiers, weeping women and shrieking children. Jubilation rode at the surface of the greater anguish over all the war had cost, like the very thin skin over the pulp of an apple. A smile on a grieving face barely masked what was going on inside, and he saw those expressions everywhere. Patricio stood still in the middle of the moving human tide, staring at his surroundings, unsure what to do next. It wasn’t home but it sure felt American and better to him than anything he had encountered in the past seven months.

  With discharge papers in hand, he had no orders, no plan. Somehow he would get from the dock to a train station—he knew nothing about where to find it in the city. From there, west. A few days and he could be arriving near Santa Fe. All the logistics were attainable but at the moment his head swam with the prospect of putting it together, of finding his way around in the throng.

  A chant arose at one edge of the crowd, female voices shouting and waving placards on sticks that said “The Saloon Must Go!” above the heads of the crowd. A uniformed man nearby muttered something about ‘the damn temperance league’ and asked Patricio if he knew where the nearest bar was.

  “I don’t,” Patricio admitted, “but I think I would join you if you led the way.”

  He needed a few minutes respite from the unending noise. Maybe a glass of beer would settle his nerves. The man turned and extended his hand.

  “Franklin Hastings. Last duty station, Paris. Believe me, I can find us a bar.”

  Patricio followed as quickly as he was able, half wondering what he was getting himself into, the other half thankful that Hastings was leading him away from the thickest part of the huge crowd. One beer, he told himself, then directions to the train station and he would be on his way.

  “Ah, don’t settle for a beer,” Hastings said once they had settled themselves on stools inside a little neighborhood place that called itself, simply, O’Ryan’s. “Those preachy temperance women get their way we’ll soon be out of anything decent to drink. Have a whiskey.”

  He ordered from the bartender before Patricio could say a word. At the back of the bar a piano player launched into the song that summarized the ending of the war, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile.’

  “Fifteen states have ratified the stupid prohibition idea already,” Hastings was saying. “The rest have it coming up for a vote in the next few months.”

  Heavy glasses with golden brown liquid appeared before them.

  “Here’s to the rest of ’em seeing the light and defeating the damn thing,” Hastings said, raising his glass. A half-dozen others in the bar joined in.

  Patricio let the tepid liquid burn a path down his throat. He’d never had anything quite like it.

  “Where you from?” Hastings asked.

  “New Mexico. You?”

  “New Mexico—is that a state? Me, I come from Chicago. My family’s on the north shore there, father in real estate. Mother spends his money. One sister, my little dollface. I haven’t seen her in two years and she’s probably turned out to be a real beauty by now. Deborah is her name.”

  “I have a sister, too—”

  “Yeah, my father’s got a spot for me in the family business already. Can’t wait to get back and start raking in some of those post-war profits.” He raised his refilled glass and gave Patricio a stare that seemed intended to mean something.

  A light rain was falling when they left O’Ryan’s. Patricio turned up his collar, the overwhelming crowds and noise assaulting his senses once more.

  “Hey, you staying somewhere in town?” Franklin asked as they huddled under the bar’s narrow awning.

  “I had planned to catch the first train to Santa Fe.”

  “Well, there’s nothing direct from here. You want the Santa Fe DeLuxe out of Chicago. It’s a weekly and they treat you right. Tell you what—let’s catch the overnighter out of Grand Central, you stay over with me until Thursday and then we’ll have you on your way.”

  “That’s too much imposition—”

  “Nonsense! You’re a fellow doughboy. My parents are gonna love you. Nothing too good for my comrades. Besides, you’ll be going that way anyhow. Like I said, really no better way to do it.”

  Franklin Hastings obviously knew his way around and it seemed so much easier than trying to figure out all the logistics on his own. Patricio felt himself acquiescing.

  Franklin was scanning the traffic on the street, ignoring the horse-drawn hansoms, spotting a bright yellow motorcar. He stepped off the sidewalk and hailed it, swinging the door open; Patricio tried not to be obvious about the fact that this was his first experience with a taxi cab. Before he knew it, Franklin had whipped out some cash and paid for both the taxi and the train tickets at the ornate Grand Central Terminal. People stepped aside when they saw the two uniformed men and the railroad clerk upgraded their tickets to the first class coach at no extra cost. Patricio wanted to protest that he was no one special but Franklin reminded him of the time spent in the trenches and how he had sustained an injury.

  “Never sell yourself short,” he said as they took their seats. “Someone wants to do something nice for you, you accept it.”

  Patricio leaned into the padded seat, exhaustion suddenly enveloping him.

  * * *

  Chicago. Big. Dirty. Notorious. Patricio caught the bold headlines on the city’s three newspapers as he and Franklin Hastings exited the train station. Four murders overnight. The papers almost glorified them.

  “This way,” said Franklin. “We’ll grab a cab and surprise the family.”

  The building where they stopped towered above the crowded sidewalk with an ornate face of cool gray stone, polished marble floors in the lobby.

  “Hey, Harry!” Franklin greeted the elevator operator.

  “Mr. Hastings, sir. So good to see you home safe and sound.” The elderly man stood respectfully still, but Franklin wrapped his arms around him in a boisterous hug.

  At the sixteenth floor t
he polished brass door opened to a small lobby with a heavy, paneled door beyond.

  “This is us,” said Franklin. “Don’t have my keys so I guess we’ll ring.”

  A uniformed Negro maid opened the door, her large dark eyes rolling upward as she took in their uniforms.

  “My lord! Mr. Franklin!”

  Her shriek drew attention. A man, a forty-year-old version of Franklin, stepped into the foyer from a side room. His eyes widened as he rushed forward to clasp his son’s hand. The woman who followed him burst into tears when she saw them. Patricio took a step backward, feeling a little awkward; this should have been a private family moment. But Franklin turned toward him.

  “My new friend, Patricio Sanchez. He served at Belleau Wood.”

  “Oh, my,” said Mrs. Hastings. “We read about that one in the papers. Are you all right? You seem to be limping. Now come right inside and sit down. We were just having our morning coffee. Mattie—get more cups and saucers, please. You boys just drop your bags here for now.”

  The maid rushed away and Patricio realized that Mrs. Hastings wanted to take his arm so he extended his elbow. She subtly guided him to a room with high ceilings, large windows and velvet draperies that hung to the floor. A rug covered the marble floor, a richly patterned thing in shades of red and blue. A brisk fire in the marble-faced fireplace took the chill away and tall bookcases flanked both sides of it. Two sofas with richly embroidered red fabric faced each other and a silver coffee service sat on a table between them. He had never seen anyplace like it.

  Movement caught his attention and he stopped cold. Rising from the end of one sofa was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and she was regarding him quite frankly. Blonde hair that must have been borrowed from an angel, blue eyes whose irises were rimmed just faintly in a deep gray. He blushed when she stood. A woman’s ankles and clinging, filmy material were unfamiliar sights—how fashions had changed!